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Fire Emblem 9 - Coin in Palm
Coin in Palm (Fire Emblem 9)
Genre: Does social realism count?
Word Count: ~400
PG for unhappy things and unsettling implications.
Summary: Elincia learns that charity and kindness can be complicated indeed.
Notes: An idea I'd had for awhile. The execution came to me all at once tonight. The point is very understated -- I'm thinking it might have to be in order to avoid being heavy-handed. FFN mirror here.
A child of three or four – girl or boy, it was impossible to tell, dusty unkempt features telling nothing – stood at the corner with an empty bowl. Princess Elincia stopped her sightseeing procession, the splendors of ancient architecture lost on her the moment she spotted the child.
“Please, wait one moment,” she told her guards. They stopped for her as she dismounted from the carriage.
Elincia looked up and down the streets, at the peasants milling about who at most spared a glance for the princess walking along the dirtied road, never for the child. At once she felt indignant, taking a handful of gold coins from her satchel and sprinkling them into the empty bowl, tinkling jewels against the harsh ring of old pink clay. The child, wide-eyed, watched each one fall.
“How old are you?” Elincia asked.
“Seven,” in a nervous scratchy voice, a strong commoner's accent.
Seven years, head risen to the princess's hip and waist the width of her thigh. Elincia looked up and down the streets, searching for any kind of reaction from the crowd apathetic to this child, this one little spot of suffering in the common square of Sienne. How could they ignore? What could kindle humanity in these people?
Some distance away, a worn middle-aged woman looked back. She was not inspired as Elincia had hoped – perhaps dumbfounded, perhaps a little envious. She took her own child with her as she turned away, a little boy with rough cheeks and toes sticking through the ends of his shoes.
In a moment, Elincia's reproaches fell from her heart and died in her stomach. Unsettled, she turned to the child with a reassuring smile she did not feel. The child was staring at some point beyond her shoulder. She glanced back in time only to see a flicker of movement that might have been nothing in the crowd.
The moment passed. She said in parting, “Please take care.”
After she had boarded the carriage, she looked out the window to the corner. The child had already vanished. She thought about that child for the rest of that trip, and drowned her wave of uncertainty with the hope that she had saved that life from misery.
Genre: Does social realism count?
Word Count: ~400
PG for unhappy things and unsettling implications.
Summary: Elincia learns that charity and kindness can be complicated indeed.
Notes: An idea I'd had for awhile. The execution came to me all at once tonight. The point is very understated -- I'm thinking it might have to be in order to avoid being heavy-handed. FFN mirror here.
A child of three or four – girl or boy, it was impossible to tell, dusty unkempt features telling nothing – stood at the corner with an empty bowl. Princess Elincia stopped her sightseeing procession, the splendors of ancient architecture lost on her the moment she spotted the child.
“Please, wait one moment,” she told her guards. They stopped for her as she dismounted from the carriage.
Elincia looked up and down the streets, at the peasants milling about who at most spared a glance for the princess walking along the dirtied road, never for the child. At once she felt indignant, taking a handful of gold coins from her satchel and sprinkling them into the empty bowl, tinkling jewels against the harsh ring of old pink clay. The child, wide-eyed, watched each one fall.
“How old are you?” Elincia asked.
“Seven,” in a nervous scratchy voice, a strong commoner's accent.
Seven years, head risen to the princess's hip and waist the width of her thigh. Elincia looked up and down the streets, searching for any kind of reaction from the crowd apathetic to this child, this one little spot of suffering in the common square of Sienne. How could they ignore? What could kindle humanity in these people?
Some distance away, a worn middle-aged woman looked back. She was not inspired as Elincia had hoped – perhaps dumbfounded, perhaps a little envious. She took her own child with her as she turned away, a little boy with rough cheeks and toes sticking through the ends of his shoes.
In a moment, Elincia's reproaches fell from her heart and died in her stomach. Unsettled, she turned to the child with a reassuring smile she did not feel. The child was staring at some point beyond her shoulder. She glanced back in time only to see a flicker of movement that might have been nothing in the crowd.
The moment passed. She said in parting, “Please take care.”
After she had boarded the carriage, she looked out the window to the corner. The child had already vanished. She thought about that child for the rest of that trip, and drowned her wave of uncertainty with the hope that she had saved that life from misery.