wintersday (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
wintersday) wrote2022-04-24 10:37 pm
wintersday) wrote2022-04-24 10:37 pm
Fic: Beast of a Burden
Title: Beast of a Burden
Fandom: Homestuck
Major Characters/Pairings: Aradia/Equius
Wordcount: 413
Rating: PG
POV: Third person
Summary: She hates him almost as much as she should, but less than she has a right to.
Notes: Quadrant: It's Complicated.
In Equius’s hive, before all their hives were destroyed, there was a statue of a musclebeast shouldering a globe.
It was huge and made of marble, with power worked into every straining line, and she liked it mainly for its antiquity. She had touched the chiseled flank without thinking, on the first night she visited, back when she was young enough that she didn’t know how dangerous not thinking could be. He didn’t stop her. He stammered for a bit, with his eyes fixed off behind her shoulder, then said, “You like it?”
“It’s old,” she told him, flush with knowledge. “Mid-Classical, maybe. At least 1000 sweeps Before Condescension!”
He nodded solemnly, and placed his hand beside hers, but not close enough to risk touching her. Tiny cracks opened in the stone beneath his claws, and he winced, until she gave him an encouraging smile.
“Duty is given to those with the strength to bear it,” he said in a quiet voice, like he was quoting something. She could tell he wanted to say more, but he didn’t look like he knew how, and what he managed, still looking away, was, “I – I think you must have a noble soul.”
She has her own soul. It isn’t dead. She’s kept it hidden away in the heart of a dark moon for safekeeping. What he’s given her is only a husk, and now it’s heartless too – but not pitiless.
He taught himself the things he couldn’t force into her with code: how to bow, and bear the weight, and believe it right to serve like that. She hates him almost as much as she should for the claim he tried to lay on her, but she still lets him clean Vriska’s blue blood from the gaps in her chassis. His hands are careful. They don’t wander where she doesn’t want them. He’s lost in the professionalism of the work, and the peace of it – his head bowed, his neck bent, his back strong. There will be a universe for him to shoulder, if all goes right, but she already knows it won’t.
She touches the back of his hand, and feels something, when he looks up like a startled antlerbeast, that isn’t dead and isn’t rage. She remembers how he looked at her when they were kids, like there was something impossible in her that he had no right to, and she wishes she could save him from what he’s made his body know.
Fandom: Homestuck
Major Characters/Pairings: Aradia/Equius
Wordcount: 413
Rating: PG
POV: Third person
Summary: She hates him almost as much as she should, but less than she has a right to.
Notes: Quadrant: It's Complicated.
In Equius’s hive, before all their hives were destroyed, there was a statue of a musclebeast shouldering a globe.
It was huge and made of marble, with power worked into every straining line, and she liked it mainly for its antiquity. She had touched the chiseled flank without thinking, on the first night she visited, back when she was young enough that she didn’t know how dangerous not thinking could be. He didn’t stop her. He stammered for a bit, with his eyes fixed off behind her shoulder, then said, “You like it?”
“It’s old,” she told him, flush with knowledge. “Mid-Classical, maybe. At least 1000 sweeps Before Condescension!”
He nodded solemnly, and placed his hand beside hers, but not close enough to risk touching her. Tiny cracks opened in the stone beneath his claws, and he winced, until she gave him an encouraging smile.
“Duty is given to those with the strength to bear it,” he said in a quiet voice, like he was quoting something. She could tell he wanted to say more, but he didn’t look like he knew how, and what he managed, still looking away, was, “I – I think you must have a noble soul.”
She has her own soul. It isn’t dead. She’s kept it hidden away in the heart of a dark moon for safekeeping. What he’s given her is only a husk, and now it’s heartless too – but not pitiless.
He taught himself the things he couldn’t force into her with code: how to bow, and bear the weight, and believe it right to serve like that. She hates him almost as much as she should for the claim he tried to lay on her, but she still lets him clean Vriska’s blue blood from the gaps in her chassis. His hands are careful. They don’t wander where she doesn’t want them. He’s lost in the professionalism of the work, and the peace of it – his head bowed, his neck bent, his back strong. There will be a universe for him to shoulder, if all goes right, but she already knows it won’t.
She touches the back of his hand, and feels something, when he looks up like a startled antlerbeast, that isn’t dead and isn’t rage. She remembers how he looked at her when they were kids, like there was something impossible in her that he had no right to, and she wishes she could save him from what he’s made his body know.