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[L5r RPS Ficathon] Ko
I never thought I could hate writing this much. Is this strain? Is this trauma? I can't see a single word, nevertheless string sentences. I want to burn the stories except they're in txt files in the computer.
I've only experienced this rage before, and what I ended up with was a roomful of torn drawings. I spared nothing then, and was left to taste regret as I tried to piece together those I regarded as precious accomplishments from high school, like Amaya, or a drawing of the Kurokawa twins, old Snape and Lupin, Lucien, among others. All because of rage and a feeling of helplessness. Why can't I match what I see in my mind with what I want to do? Why can't I even reach and touch what I can see in my mind?
Title: Ko
Word count: 904 words
Status: Drafty-ish but I have to submit it already
Warnings: Incredibly mixed metaphors, horrible characterization, mangled purply prose.
Summary: The story seed sums it up beautifully - Two lovers find themselves at opposite sides of a battle.
There was no one in this world besides the two of them.
She struck first. Her attack was swift and merciless, attempting to sweep past his defense. But he parried her in fluid moves. Her headlong rush will be her downfall. He could see through her and her weaknesses. Her form had many openings he could exploit, at a time of his choosing.
Desperate, she swung wildly, opening her right side to attack. Her carelessness was too much. Now, he thought, now. He struck, a flurry of blows, backing her into a corner. She stumbled, fell, and he had her in his mercy.
She breathed out, aware. The threat hung above her neck, but then he took a few steps away, backing off. The warning was enough, was too late. She scrambled to correct her mistake, but the battle was now lost.
The world expanded, freed of the alternating white and black, unbound by the black lines on a wooden board. Awareness of their surroundings came in a rush. The too-pretty face of a child he loved like his own, the rise and fall of conversation and occasional snatches of music, the sweat causing his hair to cling to his nape. And above the board, her peerless eyes filled with helpless amusement at her position. She was caught in her own trap.
Atari, he said, picking off the black piece from the board. It had been a costly ko fight, and one he had thought through since the beginning. At this point of ko, at eternity, they return endlessly to how they were. He was master, she was student, unequal, needing each other to fulfill their roles. There was always a point in which she tried to make him reveal himself, and always he refused.
What had started as a friendly game deteriorated to this struggle for territory despite his best efforts. He played gently, reproachfully, asking, Why do you fight against me?
And she answered, glancing a blow to his left, Because this is a fight. One must always win, one must always lose. That is the nature of the game.
Is that the nature of the game? And yet we can achieve a drawn game, he replied, refusing to get involved in another difficult ko fight by playing towards the center. Why don't you play the game along with me?
Play along? she asked, as if the thought had never occurred to her.
To see where our game will lead. And he almost told her, let's see where we will lead.
The board was more than halfway full with their stones. They were at the beginning of the endgame and she stood to lose, while he stood to gain. Her shape was disrupted, he had forced her to defend, to take stock of her options, but he never regarded winning as important. Opportunities to see her were rare, and the chances to play a game of go were rarer still.
Her hands, used to the making of maya and other artisan's skills, searched moves to even their game. She hesitated, considering the mundane, the ordinary answers to his plays. The game was not yet at its end, but if she read it completely she would know there was little she could do.
What do you see? he asked.
I see myself in trouble matching you, she replied, playing lightly against him.
You will never have trouble matching me, if you will let yourself play as you really want. And he was speaking the truth. He remembered that on their first game they ended the game with a triple ko. She thought it was a mark of good fortune, but he felt the weight of it heavily. Triple ko boded ill for the players involved. He had been more entranced by his opponent rather than the game.
Will you ever get tired of playing? she inquired, catching him unawares by her play. But in her eyes he read, will you ever get tired of being with me, with this board and stones between us, making silent conversation with our hands?
And yet he couldn't answer with complete truthfulness, that at times it took all he had to reach from the game to her, to ask her things that could not be said with stones on the board, during the silence of their games. He wanted to tell her that at night he dreamt of fire, and the flames that caressed the curve of her lips, and during the day he could hear the fall of the stones against the board no longer, all he did was strain his ears to catch her light footsteps on the singing floorboards.
There were reasons why he remained silent, when his eyes lit on her fascinated child watching their game, a child with the fine features and cold blue eyes of his father. The father that was his comrade in arms, and who trusted him enough to let them play together. It was this trust that kept him here, loving, knowing that if he would dare he was loved in return.
All he said was, It would be much easier to say that I will come back in autumn, when the wars are over. The board will always be waiting for me.
And for me too? Will this game wait for me too?
There will always be a point of ko for those who exist like us.
I've only experienced this rage before, and what I ended up with was a roomful of torn drawings. I spared nothing then, and was left to taste regret as I tried to piece together those I regarded as precious accomplishments from high school, like Amaya, or a drawing of the Kurokawa twins, old Snape and Lupin, Lucien, among others. All because of rage and a feeling of helplessness. Why can't I match what I see in my mind with what I want to do? Why can't I even reach and touch what I can see in my mind?
Title: Ko
Word count: 904 words
Status: Drafty-ish but I have to submit it already
Warnings: Incredibly mixed metaphors, horrible characterization, mangled purply prose.
Summary: The story seed sums it up beautifully - Two lovers find themselves at opposite sides of a battle.
There was no one in this world besides the two of them.
She struck first. Her attack was swift and merciless, attempting to sweep past his defense. But he parried her in fluid moves. Her headlong rush will be her downfall. He could see through her and her weaknesses. Her form had many openings he could exploit, at a time of his choosing.
Desperate, she swung wildly, opening her right side to attack. Her carelessness was too much. Now, he thought, now. He struck, a flurry of blows, backing her into a corner. She stumbled, fell, and he had her in his mercy.
She breathed out, aware. The threat hung above her neck, but then he took a few steps away, backing off. The warning was enough, was too late. She scrambled to correct her mistake, but the battle was now lost.
The world expanded, freed of the alternating white and black, unbound by the black lines on a wooden board. Awareness of their surroundings came in a rush. The too-pretty face of a child he loved like his own, the rise and fall of conversation and occasional snatches of music, the sweat causing his hair to cling to his nape. And above the board, her peerless eyes filled with helpless amusement at her position. She was caught in her own trap.
Atari, he said, picking off the black piece from the board. It had been a costly ko fight, and one he had thought through since the beginning. At this point of ko, at eternity, they return endlessly to how they were. He was master, she was student, unequal, needing each other to fulfill their roles. There was always a point in which she tried to make him reveal himself, and always he refused.
What had started as a friendly game deteriorated to this struggle for territory despite his best efforts. He played gently, reproachfully, asking, Why do you fight against me?
And she answered, glancing a blow to his left, Because this is a fight. One must always win, one must always lose. That is the nature of the game.
Is that the nature of the game? And yet we can achieve a drawn game, he replied, refusing to get involved in another difficult ko fight by playing towards the center. Why don't you play the game along with me?
Play along? she asked, as if the thought had never occurred to her.
To see where our game will lead. And he almost told her, let's see where we will lead.
The board was more than halfway full with their stones. They were at the beginning of the endgame and she stood to lose, while he stood to gain. Her shape was disrupted, he had forced her to defend, to take stock of her options, but he never regarded winning as important. Opportunities to see her were rare, and the chances to play a game of go were rarer still.
Her hands, used to the making of maya and other artisan's skills, searched moves to even their game. She hesitated, considering the mundane, the ordinary answers to his plays. The game was not yet at its end, but if she read it completely she would know there was little she could do.
What do you see? he asked.
I see myself in trouble matching you, she replied, playing lightly against him.
You will never have trouble matching me, if you will let yourself play as you really want. And he was speaking the truth. He remembered that on their first game they ended the game with a triple ko. She thought it was a mark of good fortune, but he felt the weight of it heavily. Triple ko boded ill for the players involved. He had been more entranced by his opponent rather than the game.
Will you ever get tired of playing? she inquired, catching him unawares by her play. But in her eyes he read, will you ever get tired of being with me, with this board and stones between us, making silent conversation with our hands?
And yet he couldn't answer with complete truthfulness, that at times it took all he had to reach from the game to her, to ask her things that could not be said with stones on the board, during the silence of their games. He wanted to tell her that at night he dreamt of fire, and the flames that caressed the curve of her lips, and during the day he could hear the fall of the stones against the board no longer, all he did was strain his ears to catch her light footsteps on the singing floorboards.
There were reasons why he remained silent, when his eyes lit on her fascinated child watching their game, a child with the fine features and cold blue eyes of his father. The father that was his comrade in arms, and who trusted him enough to let them play together. It was this trust that kept him here, loving, knowing that if he would dare he was loved in return.
All he said was, It would be much easier to say that I will come back in autumn, when the wars are over. The board will always be waiting for me.
And for me too? Will this game wait for me too?
There will always be a point of ko for those who exist like us.
no subject
Transition from one scene to the other is quite confusing, maybe because you put both scenes (present and [start of] the flashback) in a single paragraph.
A real draft (for me) is the time when you download all the thoughts in your head into the PC. This piece strikes me as an edited (2nd draft, or a "polish") version of the story.
The heart of the story. This should be emphasized more at the end.
no subject
Actually, I've been considering chopping off the first scene altogether, or at least rewriting it. Though it does have the right feel I want (that she did not understand what he meant by playing the game with him until then) I think the description of the duel is flat. *sighs* More reading for me!
Status: Drafty-ish but I have to submit it already
I'm serious! This is the draft, because I haven't even done any editing on it at all. If you'd notice, there are too many sentences with commas - a sign I haven't been thinking again except for the sound of the sentence.
The heart of the story. This should be emphasized more at the end.
I've had a few misgivings about the end - I muddled through it with no definite thought of what their status at the ending 'should' be. By the time I did get there, I was too drained to do anything more than hit the save button (no excuse! says the beta reader in my head)
It's a refreshing change from beta reader to being beta-read, since I'm cruel to myself most of the time. Your comments are refreshing, and gave me the points I should try to look over. Thanks! ^_^
someone said "murder your darlings"...
When I read King's On Writing, my blind eyes were opened. He suggested about writing everything down--no nitpicks allowed--then letting it 'rise like dough' (storing the manuscript somewhere where you won't see it) in the meantime (approx. 6 weeks, but he's a damned novelist, so he can take that much time). THEN you let your beta-readers read it while you do the 2nd draft. Usually, it is in the 2nd draft that symbolism (and its ilk, i.e., theme) are used: the symbol is actually buried in the first draft--you "bring" it out fully in the next rewrites.
It is clear that 'ko' is the heart, the main symbol.
Re: someone said "murder your darlings"...
I really must get a copy of 'On Writing.' Not only does it sound like an interesting read, but it'll probably keep me thinking over certain bad habits for a bit. Do you know where I can buy a copy? (While I still have the money?)
Re: someone said "murder your darlings"...