Sydney Manga & Anime Show!

Prompt: If you remember me, then I don’t care if everyone else forgets – Haruki Murakami

Fandom/series: Anohana: the flower we saw that day

Word count: 1805

Disclaimer: I do not, in any way, profit from the story and all creative rights to the characters belong to their original creator(s).

Summary: Menma has a wish to grant but she cannot remember it. And it’s only until the very end that she stops lying to herself and everyone and finally says that she wants to stay.

Menma Remembers

Menma remembers her death.

   She remembers the way she died. The yank of gravity as she lost her balance, rolling down the steep slope, barely aware of anything other than the spinning world around her. The harsh SMACK against the so small rock that ultimately stopped her life. The water that filled her lungs, her body, her life, drowning her.

   She remembers how it didn’t matter that she had somewhere to go, someone to see. How no matter how much she screamed for them, for anyone, in her mind, no one would hear. How no matter how much she wanted to move, to swim because she knew how, her small body did not listen. How no matter how much she still had to do, the years still to live, she was taken away.

   She remembers her last thoughts as blackness trickled in. Slowly at first, creeping around the edges of her vision, then in short bursts of darkness. She remembers her last words that couldn’t be spoken. Her last feelings that couldn’t be expressed. Her last breaths that couldn’t be taken.

   She remembers all of that day; her last day. Her last day with her friends; everyone; anyone. Her last day with the Super Peace Busters.

   Menma remembers.

--

Menma doesn’t remember what happens next. She doesn’t remember being awake, or conscious, or anywhere. All she knows is that for the years that followed, she wasn’t there. She doesn’t remember what happened to her; whether she was in the afterlife, or roaming, or lost. She doesn’t remember watching the Super Peace Busters drift apart, like stray fishing rods in a lake. She doesn’t remember watching Jintan grow shut inside; watching Poppo travel the world; watching Anaru smile with her new friends; watching Tsuruko and Yukiatsu study hard at their school.

   She doesn’t remember her friends’ hurting when she’d left. Doesn’t remember the misery and grief they went through. The pain.

   She doesn’t remember any of it because she wasn’t there. She never was. She never will be.

   But she’s here now. She’s here now and she has a purpose. She knows it in her heart; it’s a tug that leads her somewhere, to someone.

   That’s how Menma finds Jintan.

--

Menma knows she is dead. She knows but she can’t help the words that escape her. Words that no one hears amidst their laughter. But she is fine with that. She is fine with that because seeing them together makes her happy. They smile the same way as when they were children. Back when they were really just Jintan, Anaru, and Poppo.

   This happiness makes her forget. Even if it’s for seconds, it makes her forget that she is dead. Makes her forget that no one sees her smiles, hears her laughs, or feels her hugs.

   They make her forget, maybe because they themselves are forgetting; they are forgetting the pain that they box in a corner of their hearts, closed but always leaking out. They are forgetting the wedge between them, the clear division that cuts them off from their childhood.

   They are forgetting because for those precious moments, they return to their childhood. Happy, free, careless. Uncaring about school, or appearances, or guilt. Only for this mundane afternoon; playing Nokemon in Anaru’s room.

   And watching them, Menma wonders if that is her wish. To have them happy like this.

   But it can’t be. She knows it can’t be because they are not complete. Not yet. It’s not enough because Tsuruko and Yukiatsu aren’t here. They aren’t the Super Peace Busters without them.

   It is almost like a flower without all the parts; the petals are there to cover up the fact that the roots and stem are not.

   It is beautiful, but incomplete.

--

Menma hates this.

   She hates this helplessness. She hates this invisibility. She hates being dead.

   Most of all, Menma hates being the reason of her friends’ pain. She always has, and she always will.

   She can only watch as they argue, hurling stabbing words that make her breath hitch because she it does hurt, but it hurts them too. The knives that come out of Yukiatsu’s mouth, filled with anger, so so much anger.

   It reminds her of those days so many years ago, when they were children with high tempers and silly ideas. But this time, they are older, they know how to hurt with words, they know pain, they know what they are doing is wrong.

   A small part of her cries at that, but a bigger part knows that it is all said in anger, in grief and pain. She knows she is reason of all of this. She knows but cannot do anything.

   Anything but this.

   Blocking out Jintan and Yukiatsu, Menma walks to the fireworks. It reminds her of her childish naivety; thinking such a simple object could reach the heavens. She takes a firework out, hands shaking ever so subtly. It reminds her of that long-ago day; a day of content and love. She ignites the firework. It reminds her of the light she saw every time she was with her friends; their lives so weightless and free.

   And then Menma paints the night sky with the infinity symbol.

   Their symbol.

   And she wonders. What do they see? If Anaru, if Poppo, if Tsuruko and Yukiatsu and Jintan see anything. Do they see a reminder of their friendship, of a bond bound by lives near forgotten? Do they see that long-ago day of content and love?

   Do they see her?

--

Menma’s wish had been granted.

   The floor sways under her feet. She feels a weight push down on her, bringing her backwards. She’s tired, exhausted, but it’s not sleep or hunger. No, this is something different.

   She can tell because she sees her body fading. It’s a strange sight; to see her own body dimming, the wooden floor peering through her arms. It’s strange and bittersweet, because she knows that this means she has fulfilled her promise to Auntie but that this also means she’s leaving. That her time with her friends is ending.

   Menma’s had fun with them all; with Anaru, Poppo, Tsuruko, and Yukiatsu. With Jintan.

   Deep inside, Menma always held that tiny piece of sadness at bay. Only because she was a lot happier. She had so much fun, knowing it wouldn’t last, knowing they weren’t the Super Peace Busters if they weren’t all together.

   And they weren’t. At least not truly.

   Not yet.

   But despite it all, Menma cannot leave it. She can’t because she still hasn’t said goodbye. She still hasn’t told them of her feelings; those feelings that she couldn’t express on that day.

   She grips her right wrist, trembling as she struggles to write what she needs to. Her handwriting is shaky, but she pushes through, her weakening fingers slipping on the pen. This time she feels her eyes flutter, threatening to close. But she knows that once they do, she may not have the strength to open them.

   So Menma forces them open. Forces them for her sake and for everyone’s sake.

   Because this way, this way she will be able to tell them of her feelings. Tell all of them. And this way, they won’t forget. They won’t forget that she wants them to be happy, to remember her as someone who brought them closer, not as someone who broke them apart.

   Because Menma only hopes that they remember her.

--

Menma had made it.

   They’re out of breath and worry streaks their faces. She notices Jintan’s feet are bruised and bleeding from running outside all night and her heart aches at that. At his almost mad search for her. The worry she caused him. The others are looking to him for guidance, looking to him like a leader again. Just like when they were kids.

   Anaru sees her letters.

   Menma had laid them out like a flower in front of the tree she’d been resting against. She was barely able to keep herself upright anymore.

   With a fond smile, she watches them read her letters. They were too short for her liking but this time, she was able to properly say goodbye. She had so much to tell them. But she knew that it was the quickest and easiest way to express her feelings. She never was a writer, her diary proved that.

   She watches the tears that fall, their bodies shaking from their emotions.

   And then Jintan shouts.

--

That’s right. They were playing hide-and-seek. They were still playing a game. Menma still had a game to finish.

   The rest of the Super Peace Busters join in Jintan’s chant. It’s becomes too much and she quickly has to duck her head, tears forming, because even though she knows they can’t see her, she hates crying in front of them.

   “I’m ready!”

   They fall silent.

   Had they…had they heard her?

   Anaru cries out her name.

   Menma looks up. She’s almost scared too. She’s hoping too much. But when she does, she finds that they are all looking at her. Really looking at her.

   And she’s so glad.

   It’s really a proper goodbye then.

   She struggles to her feet, hand braced against the tree to support her as the other wipes her tears away. Because she doesn’t want this to be a sad goodbye, as much as she knows it will be. She doesn’t want to make it sadder than it already is.

   “Menma’s bad at hide-and-seek, isn’t she?”

   “Hey, Jintan, say it properly. The game is over now, right?”

   She knows the sun is streaming through her. She can see it below her eyes. She’s close. But it’s not over yet.

   Poppo calls out first, saying I love you too. It initiates the rest of them, when Tsuruko follows, then Anaru and Yukiatsu.

   And finally, Jintan. “I love you Menma.”

   All of it is enough to set her crying again, her earlier attempt failing just as quickly.

   For a second, she sees a glimpse of the past again. When they were young, when Jintan had made her cry, when the rest of them had chided and teased him. For a second, she sees them all like they once were.

   For a second, Menma sees her past, and also her future.

   Because, “Menma wants to be with everyone more! She wants to play with everyone more! That’s why, Menma wants to be reincarnated! That’s why…” That’s why they need to say farewell, so that she can come back quickly. That’s why.

   As one, the Super Peace Busters, Jintan, Anaru, Poppo, Tsuruko, Yukiatsu, all shout. “Menma! We found you!”

   And even as she feels herself lighten until she is weightless, even as she feels herself disappear, even as she feels herself leave, Menma knows it’s alright now. It’s alright now because…

   Menma got found.

Title: 'in the silence'
Rating: G
Prompt: #5 - If you remember me, then I don't care if everyone else forgets. (Haruki Murakami)
Series: Fate Series (Fate/Grand Order)
Word Count: 1,383
Disclaimer: I do not, in any way, profit from this story and all creative rights to the characters belong to their original creators.
Summary: In a room that is no longer occupied, a phone rings. There is nobody to answer.

'in the silence'

Hi! You've reached the voicemail of Romani Archaman. I'm probably busy doing important Chal- wait, I mean, I'm not supposed to say that! Important work! That's right, important work! I'm busy saving the world right now, so please leave a message after the bee- huh? It's too long?! Wai-

(unread voicemails: 1)

(Silence, then the softest sob. A girl's tears splash onto hollow tile; the soft rustling of tissues. A set of footsteps heading closer, then-)

Mashu? Hey, are you okay? Mas-

(unread voicemails: 2)

Doctor...

I can't believe Senpai walked in on me crying yesterday. I know it's only been three days since Da Vinci got us back from the Time Temple...

It's so weird to not have you around. We've been celebrating saving the world, but...things don't feel normal, you know? It's...it's...

It feels weird because...you're not here.

(unread voicemails: 3)

Somehow, I keep coming back to this phone. I know it's only the work phone the Director gave us all, and there's nothing but basic functions...

Hearing your voice makes me feel at ease. Like normal.

...I don't know any more.

(unread voicemails: 5)

We've been celebrating the return from the Time Temple for a week. Everyone's really happy that we managed to save the world, and even Da Vinci joined in the party...

It feels like I'm the only one stuck in the past. Maybe it's because I've known you the longest, Doctor, that it feels so lonely here. Like there isn't anyone to mess up or cause a huge fuss about little things...we got used to you doing all those silly things that Chaldea isn't Chaldea without Doctor.

Even though Senpai is always looking out for me, Senpai has to look after the Servants we've summoned as well.

I should be stronger so I don't need to depend on Senpai, but...

(unread voicemails: 8)

It's...a little difficult, but we're moving on. There's nothing to do except to move on, but...

I don't want to forget.

(unread voicemails: 10)

Doctor?

It feels like Chaldea is getting lively again. Did everyone forget about you already? Da Vinci and Senpai are making preparations for Rayshifting again. Everyone...seems to have gone back to normal.

We used to make jokes that Doctor was always the guy who everyone missed because he was so normal. You remember too, right? Senpai couldn't stop laughing. But it's true. It was so refreshing to have a normal person to talk to. Even if...you were hiding the truth from us, it was fun.

It was...really fun.

(unread voicemails: 17)

Senpai's been hanging around in the Command Room lately with a weird expression.

...Senpai has always had that burden of responsibility on their shoulders. And now, the only sane person around here is Senpai.

I should check up on Senpai, but...

It feels like I'm the only person who still holds onto this. Being erased from human existence...

That's really cruel, Doctor.

(unread voicemails: 23)

Hey, Doctor...

I don't want to say that it's hard. But...it really is. It hurts so much to remember everything that happened, and...sometimes, I really don't want to think about it.

I wish there was something you could do.

(unread voicemails: 38)

I don't know what I should do, Doctor.

I just...wanted to listen to your voice again.

(unread voicemails: 43)

Doctor...?

Sorry for not being here in a while. Senpai just came back from Shinjuku in Japan. It's a little disappointing that I couldn't meet the new Servants, but...

...Actually, Senpai came across a few Servants we'd met before, too. I know you've always wanted Sherlock Holmes' autograph...

I suppose I got Senpai to get it for you. Even though it was on some extra fast food wrapping left over by Moriarty...

Look, Doctor! You've always wanted it. I know Senpai shouldn't have brought this back because it belongs there, and it'll eventually disappear when the place returns to normal, but...

For now, I'll keep it safe for you.

(unread voicemails: 46)

It really does feel like...either everyone's putting on a strong face, or everyone's forgotten about you already.

Chaldea is so busy now that there's almost no room to think about the past. There's so much going on...

Well, even at night, the Servants are always lively and cheerful. Senpai is always surrounded by smiling Servants, and sometimes I see them Rayshifting off for a bit...

Senpai really has it tough. Chaldea's last Master...

Oh, that's right. You promised to tell me about the time when you were eating cake in Senpai's room, before...everything started. But...with the Grand Order finished...

There's no helping it, I guess.

(unread voicemails: 67)

(Soft sobbing, the rustling of fabric. A blown nose. A clink, then a muffled noise-)

(unread voicemails: 73)

(Silence.)

(Then, finally, a gentle snore. Another, then another.)

(The line cuts.)

(unread voicemails: 74)

I...I fell asleep...

I'm glad nobody came in to see me with the phone like that. Even though I trust Senpai...

Senpai knows what happened to me in the past, but only the basics. Our everyday life is still something we've never really talked about. Because we've always been so busy saving the world...thinking about that 'every day' makes...me nostalgic.

Remember...when you used to read books with me in Chaldea's library? It used to be little things like fairy tales, when I was little. You read out The Little Mermaid once. Ah, and then when we summoned Andersen, he complained about it...

He kept on saying that he thought it was trash.

But then I remembered how Doctor once read it out to me...it's still my favourite.

I wish we could have those times again.

(unread voicemails: 81)

It's already been...four months. Doctor...you've been gone for four months.

It's weird.

...It's weird!

I'm still not used to Chaldea without you.

...I wish you could come back.

(unread voicemails: 86)

Chaldea's been such a mess recently. I've been so busy that I keep crashing into bed after coming back from the Command Room...

I know Da Vinci is trying her best to get everything in order, but she has so much to do. I took over the Command Room when you left, but she still has to act as everyone's leader. Senpai and I try to help out, but...with the time Senpai spends out Rayshifting, we can't do much at all...

It's ironic that we didn't realise how much we needed a normal person to keep us okay.

...Well, Da Vinci is a Servant. Even if Chaldea has infinite mana, she has feelings too...

I wonder what I can do.

(unread voicemails: 90)

Good morning, Doctor.

It's a bright and sunny day today! Senpai's going to be Rayshifting out into a place Da Vinci called Agartha. We're kind of excited...!

But it means I'll be busy monitoring. There won't be time to comfort myself here.

I have to be strong for Senpai.

Even if you're not here, you're always here in our memories. That's what Senpai said once. That even though the Singularities are erased, something still remains.

That...something is our memories of meeting people. Our bonds that we formed, however strong, however weak...they all live on within us.

That's why you live on within us, Doctor.

(unread voicemails: 94)

Senpai is back, Doctor!

Agartha was interesting. We-

Beep.

This device has run out of storage. Please clear space on this device.

Beep.

This device has run out of sto

This device ha

This

Th

This d

This devic

T

Thi

Th

T

This device has run out of storage. Please clear space on this device.

Beep.

This device has run out of storage. Please clear space on this device.

Beep.

This device has run out of storage. Please clear space on this device.

Beep.

Hi! You have reached the voicemail of Romani Archa

Mashu?! What's wrong? I heard something crash from my roo-

-man. I'm probably doing important Chal- wait, I mean, I'm not supposed to say that! Impo

Mashu...? Why are you crying? Hey, it's- wait.

Is that...?

-rtant work! That's right, important work! I'm bus

Is that...Doctor? Mashu, please, it's okay. Please stop crying...

-y right now, so please leave a message after the bee- huh? It's too long? Wai-

I'll never forget you.

This device has run out of storage. Please clear storage on this device.

Beep.

Review Here!

Title: Exodus

Rating: PG

Prompt: “I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.” – Michael Jordan 
Fandom/Series: Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Word Count: 2,746 words

Disclaimer: I do not, in any way, profit from the story and all creative rights to the characters belong to their original creator(s).

Summary: The Princess knows she can depend on the other Champions, but she does not trust them like she trusts Urbosa.

Exodus

It is one of the last nights.

Already the other Champions are with their Divine Beasts, ready to face Calamity Ganon.

They wait for the word that is yet to fall from Zelda’s lips.

She cares for Daruk, Revali, and Mipha – she knows Link cares for them too, especially the Zora. They’re all very close friends, each with the own strengths, concerns, quirks and wonders; the group picture on the Sheikah Slate is more valuable than the metal mountains in Father’s treasury.

But Zelda cannot bear to send Urbosa away into what could be her grave.

Link patrols the area. He kindly keeps a significant and respectful distance away from them, to allow the two friends some private time in the dwindling hours of the darkness before dawn. Zelda’s grateful for his forethought, and knows he is alert enough to keep an eye out for any foes that dare disturb them. She is safe with him, she knows this.

Zelda stares up at Urbosa in wonder. The great protector. What words can be said now?

The silence chokes her, fills her lungs with weights that she can’t breathe out, like Link tried to teach her weeks ago. She looks downward as Urbosa remains motionless, as still as the Gerudo sands underneath their feet. The chill of the desert’s fading night hovers around them, clinging to them like regrets and bad luck.

Zelda swallows, looking back up at her friend, “Well, where should we begin?”

Urbosa’s silent. The distance has captured her gaze, well past Vah Naboris’ neck. She inhales and exhales deeply, as though she is deliberately taking in the smells of the desert. Zelda follows her line of vision carefully, through the empty spaces and weakening darkness. On the horizon she sees small, twinkling lights – too low to be stars, too bright and unmoving to be people approaching with torches.

Gerudo Town.

“You will see it again, I know you will,” Zelda remarks, hands behind her back. She steps forward, standing beside the Gerudo Chief – not quite shoulder-to-shoulder given their height difference, but the intent is there. “They will welcome you back from your journey with open arms, and with love greater in amount than the sand grains we stand on.”

She does not look at Zelda, despite her words. The Hylian Princess knows how much Urbosa does for her people, how hard she tries – the depth of love for her home. She knows how desperate Urbosa feels to succeed for them – after all, she feels the same desperation carved deep into her own bones.

Clearing her throat, Zelda tries again, linking an arm around one of Urbosa’s, hoping that the act is comforting and warm, “I’m very thankful that you wanted to help. I couldn’t have gotten this far without you – not even from the beginning, before the Divine Beasts. I… owe you so much, Urbosa. More than I can describe.”

Urbosa would not look at her.

Swallowing, Zelda lets go of her arm and walks hurriedly to stand before her. Urbosa turns her head slightly to the side, looking at another part of the desert instead – anywhere but her face, she finds. Judging from this direction, Zelda surmises Kara Kara Bazaar is in the distance. More of her people that Urbosa longs to defend – to save.

The silence unnerves her. Zelda wearily huffs, folding her arms tightly across her chest. Out of the corner of her eye she spots Link still pacing and keeping away, which she is appreciative of. Summoning all the power she has to settle her nerves, Zelda asks, “Do you have nothing to say, or am I bothering you? Are you alright?”

And still Urbosa would not look at her.

As they stand among the Gerudo sands, the quiet between them fills her unpleasantly, like the memory of her Mother’s unwavering belief in her incapable daughter. The quiet feels so haunting that not even the wind itself dared to breathe and shatter the stillness.

“Wilting courage,” Urbosa replies at last, the corner of her lips failing to rise into a smile.

Zelda studies her under the slow beginnings of sunlight that crawl above the horizon. Red hair gradually glittering under the coming rays, a body as strong as stone, and timeless features. But her face, with brown markings around her eyes and blue marring her lips like ornamental war paint, tells more about the Gerudo Chief than what words ever could.

She will not say Urbosa looks afraid. She will not say Urbosa looks defeated. She will not even say Urbosa looks tired. It is something else, something foreign burrowing out of the confidence and cracking through the surface. Something Zelda has never seen cross her face before, in all the years she has ever known her. Not even in her childhood memories.

Something she can’t quite name.

“What is this hesitance?” Zelda inquires, fighting to keep the fire from her voice. She’s not mad – she’s frightened, because the most unshakable woman in the world is… is… different. In a time of great need, where the pillars of Zelda’s world needed to stay constant, Urbosa is different. “Is this too much, now? On the precipice?”

She had gone out of her way to place more burden upon Urbosa’s steady shoulders, feeling that they would not shudder or crack or break; as reliable as the stone cliffs that guarded the desert from outsiders. But her friend, the leader of an entire people, was already under great strain – Zelda feels foolish to have asked for her help, or to have so easily expected it.

The Princess knows she can depend on the other Champions, but she does not trust them like she trusts Urbosa.

Urbosa stares back, forest green into sea blue, both foreign in the landscape they stand within. In all of Zelda’s memories of her, Urbosa always had something to say. A supportive smile and calm demeanour in the moments where Zelda’s anxiety swallowed her. Grit and strength in Zelda’s weak moments. A warm embrace in moments where Zelda felt as though she were going to shatter like ice. And now the Gerudo has no words.

Urbosa does not meet her gaze. Instead, she looks behind Zelda, staring at the mechanical being she is soon to call her home. Zelda watches Urbosa’s eyes as she takes in the shape of Vah Naboris – the long neck, mechanical body, the emotionless face of a being so lifelike and tall. Zelda wonders how the others mentally prepared themselves for the great task they faced. If they were truly ready, and had a chance at success.

Was success always so stressful? Was saying goodbye always this difficult?

Tensely, Zelda runs her fingers through her golden hair, and then internally winces at the knot she finds at the end. She repurposes her fingers into brushing through the locks, trying to ease out the knot and her anxiety within. If fearless Urbosa feels this way now, before the plunge, then what chance does she have against such an unspeakable evil?

And the silence – does Urbosa actually dislike her? Resent her? Does Urbosa wish that she grew up to be half the woman her Mother, the Queen, had been? Did Urbosa ever have true, genuine confidence in her abilities? Or is she just an annoying shadow of a greater woman, who nips at dark heels?

Zelda loudly exhales, trying to control her anxiety. She wishes she were calmer like Link, like how he tames horses with such ease. She hears Urbosa’s feet shift in the sand, moving away from her. Zelda fights hard to bite down on the frustrated wave bubbling in her gut, as it threatens to erupt from her mouth. She feels, though, that some of it still leaks out, “You feel insignificant, is that it? Is that why you’re being like this? Your people look to you for your wonderful leadership. They love you more than I can articulate, and you see it daily. How could you feel so… worthless?”

“I have never questioned my worth,” Urbosa snaps at last, her voice whipping through the air like the lightning she lovingly wields. She glares down at the short Hylian, her eyes glaring thunderously; until something unnameable overcomes her. Urbosa’s voice loses its edge, “Only if I am enough.”

A last, the word forms in her mind.

“Doubt?” Zelda questions, blinking owlishly. “That’s… unlike you.” She winces as Urbosa twitches. “I wish that came out better. I don’t intend to offend. I just mean… You’re such a sure person. Always so confident in your choices, so wonderfully bold; so unlike me. It is odd watching you tread down the same path as I.”

“Even the strongest wolves doubt their steps in thick snowfall, little bird,” Urbosa replies with warmth that gently soothes the Princess’ fears. “You should know that most of all.”

The silence surfaces again, but this time it is a comfortable one. An old-style one, where she does not doubt the supportive love of the other beside her; and where she hopes the Gerudo doesn’t doubt the same supportive love Zelda has for her.

Urbosa sighs, resting the palm of her hand on the end of her sword. She softly traces each dip and rise in the hilt’s patterning, trying to calm herself down. She speaks, “I can’t help but wonder… We’ve had such little time to prepare for this battle compared to the Calamity’s ten thousand years. I have to wonder if what we have done is enough. If my beautiful city will continue to thrive; if its daughters will grow into wives… If I will be enough for you.

“Or will our work be for nothing? If I will fail to uphold my duty, and fail the people that would otherwise thrive, the daughters that would otherwise grow, because I didn’t prepare enough,” Urbosa continues, swallowing the thick lump in her throat. Her voice grows stronger with each passing word, more reminiscent of the Urbosa that Zelda has known for over a decade. “If I fail, my legacy is a dying people, a doomed world, and a dead Princess. A shadow of the Gerudo pride that fostered me. I would be… nothing.”

Zelda stares at her friend carefully. Her hair surrounds her face like a red halo. Zelda’s voice is firm when she speaks, “No, you are far from that. I don’t doubt your talents, your kindness, your morals – you are the picture of strength to me! Unyielding like the storms above. You are what every leader should be… and what I hope to become.”

“This isn’t a pack of hungry wolves beating down on our door, little bird,” Urbosa grunts, staring again into the distance, where Gerudo Town is. “This is a fable that’s returned as a fact. The stuff of nightmares coming back into the waking world. That’s unsettling.”

Urbosa’s eyes snap back to Zelda when she speaks again, “Believe me, I understand. I know what is at stake – I have spent the last ten years trying to prepare for this! Hours upon hours of training, trying to unlock these powers; and even in the end, I cannot summon them! But I’m not backing down, because you never let me back down. You always pushed me forward, and I wish the same for you. For us to face this together. I believe in you, I always have! Even if you doubt yourself, I do not doubt you.”

“I cannot fail, Zelda,” Urbosa growls, eyes alight upon her Princess, furrowing her brow. “I know you understand the weights we carry. I cannot fail my people, or myself, and most certainly not you. My failure creates your failure, and dooms this world to Ganon. I-I… refuse…” She trails off, the hanging words rapidly retreating back into her throat like ants from the underground.

Zelda waits with baited breath, tilting her head slightly. She waits for Urbosa to release the last, nagging thought on her mind, one that seems to have persistently bothered her for many days. She waits for the walls to come down.

“I refuse to put you in such a world where I failed you,” Urbosa announces, the emotion leaking slowly at the passing of every word.

The cold, still air nips slowly at Zelda’s throat, spreading across her white skin and to every available surface. Her eyes don’t leave Urbosa’s, not for one second, because each second is now more precious, more valuable, and more important. Zelda raises a hand and lifts Urbosa’s chin, her fingers ghosting the woman’s strong jaw. Zelda says softly, “I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.”

Urbosa stares, fighting the welling emotion inside of her. And then it passes with the deliberate closing of her eyes, the steadying of her shoulders, and the long, quiet, purposeful exhale that exits her. Zelda releases her hold on the Gerudo, allowing her hand to fall limply between them. The sun, fully breaking past the horizon, shines around them both.

The Gerudo Chief finally comes back into herself. The easy smile that slides across her face, the tilt of her hips – much of the rigid posture of before having left her with her previously exhaled breath. Her painted-blue lips part, “Well now, they always did say the littlest bird has the biggest voice.”

Zelda releases a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. Seeing Urbosa finally relax calms her down too. Her shoulders slump a little, and her eyes open a little wider, though she still feels very tired, “I’m glad you’re alright again, and relieved that you’ll now speak to me.”

“It was a moment of weakness, nothing more.”

“We’re all allowed moments of weakness, Urbosa. If this was yours, then I am glad to have been with you through it,” Zelda remarks, rubbing her eyes. She looks up at her friend, finding that Urbosa’s watching her closely. The tilt in her hips grows with every passing moment, and her posture continues to relax; even when Zelda chokes, “I cannot bear the thought of you alone.”

Urbosa tries to smile a little. She wraps an arm around the smaller girl’s shoulders, holding her tightly, and squeezing her fingers around the blue-clad upper arm. “I’m never alone. I have all the love I could want in this world – from my people, from my friends, from those that have moved into the next life, and from you. There’s nothing more I need to keep me afloat in these times.”

Zelda nods, reeling in the emotions before they spill forth. She looks up at her friend, smiling widely, teeth showing. She clasps her hand over Urbosa’s, squeezing, “Please Urbosa, please be well, stay safe, and stay strong – that is an order!”

“I’ll fight hard, too,” Urbosa replies, without missing a beat.

It is their last night. Time to say goodbye.

Zelda’s hand ascends Urbosa’s muscled arm, until she grasps her shoulder in return and pulls them in together for a brief hug. Her closest friend and confidante, Zelda doesn’t know what she will do if something ever happened to Urbosa; nor what she will do when this is all over. When they succeed, alive, breathe the free air and continue building this beautiful world together.

She so badly wants all Champions to pull through, to lead Hyrule into an age of light, together, so they can all live with joy. An exodus from darkness.

“I already lost Mother,” Zelda abruptly mumbles into Urbosa’s side. “I can’t lose you too.”

Urbosa pulls back and fights to keep the sadness from her growing smile. She tucks some loose blonde strands behind Zelda’s pointed ear and taps her cheek once, “Promise me you’ll fly high, little bird – we’ll never see an end under your steadfast wings.”

Link rejoins the Princess. He nods once, a firm, slow, deliberate act to Urbosa, who smiles in the same way in return. The Master Sword hums against his back.

The pair watch as Urbosa walks to Vah Naboris. She looks over her shoulder, shooting them one last electric smile, before ascending into the belly of the beast, swallowed by metal. Shortly after, Vah Naboris slowly begins moving away, shrinking against the sun.

Zelda at last cannot help the sobbing that follows. And as unfaltering as ever, Link wraps an arm around her shoulders and steadily holds her, turning her away to leave.

They watch the shadow of the Divine Beast on the sand moving away as they part. 

Review Here!

Title: Warmth, a divine intervention
Rating: i.e. G
Prompt:  “If you remember me, then I don’t care if everyone else forgets.”
Fandom/Series: Violet Evergarden
Word Count: 4102
Disclaimer: I do not, in any way, profit from the story and all creative rights to the characters belong to their original creator(s).
Summary: Violet's first Yule, with the CH Postal Company.

Warmth, a divine intervention
 

To Violet, her first Yule in Leiden was much like her first Thanksgiving in Machtig.

That is, to say, it was another city’s tradition, not hers to celebrate, and it meant little to nothing by way of a calendar event, until President Hodgins closed the CH Postal Company early on Friday afternoon and declared that they would have their first company Yule party.

“Oh, only a month late,” Iris muttered beside Violet. The Auto Memory Dolls had been charged with assembling the wassailing booklets for the company workers, which Cattleya confided was actually a test run of next Yule’s corporate gifts (in the hope that the company would expand significantly to participate in seasonal gift giving at all).

Violet flipped through the dates mentally, and agreed with Iris that, yes, it was precisely four weeks to the day Yule was scheduled on the standard calendar.

“And,” Iris continued, “we’re scribes, not book binders!”

 “Hole punching and some ribbon is hardly book binding,” Erica pointed out. A good length of red ribbon they were using to bind the booklets together had found its way into her hair, and Erica looked very pleased with the new look – or she was looking very happy as she carefully penned Benedict Blue on the cover of the wassailing booklet she was finishing.

“It is not what we were paid to do as Auto Memory Dolls here.”

“The reception staff are putting up wreaths,” Violet said from the typewriter. “Surely that was not in their administrative duties?”

Cattleya had decided that Violet could type the wassailing songs and everyone else with more flexible fingers could assemble the booklets. There had been protest from Violet (who said her new prosthetic joints were as good as her previous set, and it was not lacking in the dexterity needed to use hole punches, tie ribbon or assemble booklets) and Iris (who insisted that typing, compared to binding, was at least a task worthy of an Auto Memory Doll), and finally President Hodgins who was sick of the hubbub, assigned everyone a role, and then pulled Cattleya out of the room to manage catering.

“Reception staff keep a neat front-of-house,” Iris said with a sniff. “So I’d say putting up Yule decorations in the front-of-house certainly counts as part of their work.”

“Let’s call this a team effort and try to make a late Yule a good Yule.” Erica said. She finished Cattleya Baudelaire with a clean flourish. And then, looking at Violet quizzically, added, “You haven’t celebrated Yule, have you? You didn’t know about the new year air show here after all.”

“I had no opportunity to observe Yule,” Violet said, and she thought of Mastig’s Thanksgiving night, and the emerald brooch that blazed like the fire of the Major’s eyes, and wondered if she could match that feeling with a Leiden Yule night.

The Major had said the two of them would do so once the war was over, in a proper house, perhaps the Bougainvillea family home with his mother, instead of a field camp or battlefield. Once it was rumoured that homesick Northern and Southern soldiers broke rank and fraternised during the Yule season, and that had been incomprehensible to Violet, that their soldiers could share food and peace with the enemy one day, and to kill or be killed by them the next. The Major considered those events as nothing but a falsified military report, and Violet agreed. A mutual day of peace between weeks of war sounded impossible then.

Somewhere, in the back of her mind, Hodgins whispered, you’re burning, and Captain Dietfried Bougainvillea scowled, those hands of yours that ended so many lives, and Violet told them both, if I burn, it has been a long winter, and I must keep these hands that are typing out wassailing songs warm.

“Violet? You’ve gotten that far-off look on your face again.”

She had stopped typing and had wrapped a hand around her brooch received in that Mastigian Thanksgiving. Once, she had believed the Major had gifted her with that because she had been so instrumental in the liberation of Bociaccia. Now, she wondered if the Major hadn’t talked about his gratitude for her military service and meant I love you that whole time.

“I was thinking,” Violet said firmly, her face turned to the ceiling, “about how glad I am to observe Yule with everyone, even if it is a month to the day on when Yule is characteristically celebrated.”

Iris brushed it aside with a dismissive flap of her hand, “Ah well, we know why it was put off, and I can’t fault the president for it. No point throwing a company party when company employees were running off to Ctrigall or sailing off to peace talks.”

Erica kicked Iris from under the table.

“Ow, ow, ow—hey! What was that for? It was true!”

“What a thing to bring up! If Cattleya said that ordeal wasn’t fit for the newspapers, how is it any more suitable for the office!”

“Say what? That was our postal workers out there, of course we can talk about it!”

Violet turned to them and said, “President Hodgins put off a Yule party for me?”

“And Cattleya and Benedict, they were away as well,” Erica added, righting her glasses after Iris batted at them in retaliation. “But I mean—of course we couldn’t have a Yule party without you. Until that pilot telegrammed us with your whereabouts after your adventure north, we were worried sick. Imagine trying to celebrate Yule in that mood.”

“You were worried that I wouldn’t return?”

She tested the syllables in her mouth, the way the words rolled off her tongue, and felt it very foreign. She was the soldier maiden of Leidenschaftlich once, and the Auto Memory Doll of CH Postal Company now, and striding into the battlefield was as necessary as traversing the continent to meet a client. Equally important was returning to base, ahead of or beside the Major. She had never spent many thoughts on who would be waiting for her at the postal company, besides the President as her employer.

“Of course,” they chorused.

“You’re our co-worker,” Iris said.

“And an important part of the Auto Memory Dolls team,” Erica said.

Violet opened her mouth, ready to return the sentiment of unity and teamwork, when Benedict burst in the room, crowing about how long the receptionists had taken to finally decorate the first floor, and who wanted spice cake and mulled wine because Cattleya was back, and he couldn’t wait to inaugurate the first Yule celebration of CH Postal Company by getting the president well and truly drunk until he might resign from embarrassment.

---

The receptionists had decked the halls – that was Cattleya’s term for it, even though there was only one room and Violet would hardly call it a hall. There was a great wide trestle table on the open space of the first floor, and on it, the end of the seasonal holly and handfuls of sweet-smelling pine needles strewn over its surface. The fresh wreathes from the florists were long out of stock, but Nerine and Lillian fashioned a few rustic wreathes from pine branches and pine cones, and Erica tied the last of her booklet-binding ribbons into wide looping bows to add colour.

“Looks good,” Benedict said as he hefted a box of taper candles into the hall. “Matches the one in your…”

He gestured at her ear.

Erica turned the colour of her ribbon.

Iris looked ready to gleefully interject when Cattleya swooped in and dragged them off to help with unpacking the food.

“Give the kids some space,” Cattleya crowed as Iris protested, “But did you see her face? She lit up like fireworks!”

Violet, still trying to process Erica’s flustering as she was suddenly given plenty of space alone with Benedict, said nothing.

“I don’t understand,” Violet said finally. She heaved a crate of bottled drinks in her arms while Iris and Cattleya picked through the paper bags of Yule foods.

“Say what now?”

“We’ve given Erica an opportune moment to share her happiness with Benedict, so why was it that she looked so panicked?”

Cattleya laughed and whapped her on the shoulder. “My dear Violet, you’ve never seen a confession of love have you?”

She had, and Gilbert had been dying all the while. But that was hardly something she wanted to voice aloud to Cattleya.

Thinking on it, when she had memorised young Aiden Field’s final words and formalised Princess Charlotte’s public letters, it was love that had already been known and declared.

She glanced at Iris, who looked rightfully disheartened. Doubtless, she was thinking of the confession that had soured Violet’s first trip with her to Kazaly.

Where Violet had stood in the shadow of ignorance and wondered what the Major had meant as he ordered her to live and be free, Erica stood in uncertainty. It might have been fear on her face as Violet, Iris and Cattleya left her behind – but fear was a necessary thing. It was fear that lined her teeth before a battle and compelled her to charge in and charge back to Gilbert, and fear again that spurred her along on her trek back to Intense in search of him. A bright burst of fear, before the decision was made.

She set her crate of drinks down.

“We should give them more time,” she decided. “And stay here, so Erica maintains her space.”

Iris shrugged and returned her armful of parcels to their box. “Fine by me. Do we just stand in the cold doing nothing the whole time?”

Violet had years of experience standing in the cold doing nothing beside wait for the key moment to charge into battle. She supposed it was a little unfair to expect her co-workers to be happy to do the same.

“We could have some of the spice cake and mulled wine Benedict promised us,” she suggested after a pause.

“The little weasel!” Cattleya exclaimed, “Claudia and I were keeping that grocery list secret so that it would be a surprise!”

She seemed so put off by Benedict’s slip of tongue that Violet felt reassurance was in order. “It is no matter,” she said as she picked out three bottles from her crate, “I have yet to celebrate Yule. Everything in your Yule grocery list will be a surprise to me.”

“I suppose that can’t be helped. Did you never celebrate Yule, truly?” Cattleya fished out apples from paper bags and passed one to Iris. “No spice cake until we’re back inside. It hasn’t been sliced yet. But we can have these apples for Yule.” She tossed one up like a spinning red ball, quick-handed like a street juggler, and bounced it to Violet. “For your information, Violet, these represent the sun for Yule celebrations.”

Violet accepted the offered apple. “The sun,” she repeated.

“And this is an apple fortune telling trick,” Cattleya continued. She twisted the apple stem and counted down the letters of the alphabet with each twist, until it stopped at the snapping of the stem.

“Well, ‘G’,” she said wryly. “Only one off.”

Iris peered dubiously at the apple and its snapped stem. “How is that fortune telling?”

Cattleya crunched into her apple with a shrug. “A hometown tradition. We used to believe that the letter the stem snaps off on will be a letter of the initials of the one you love.”

While Iris frantically commenced stem twisting, Violet asked, “Why is the sun important?” In her mind, she already knew why the sun was important, but how it was important to Yule, which her co-workers were taking great pains to introduce to her, seemed necessarily if she had festive letters to write in future.

Cattleya pondered long and hard. Beside them, Iris’ apple stem snapped off at ‘S’ and she let out a wail of despair.

“There, there,” Violet said while Iris, sobbing, buried her face in her hands. “I’m sure it doesn’t stand for ‘Snow’.”

“Can we go back inside now?” she wailed, “How long does Erica need to take to cosy up to him?!”

---

As it turned out, no one knew how long Erica needed to confess to Benedict, because as three-quarters of the CH Postal Company’s Auto Memory Dolls team heaved groceries inside, she had done nothing beyond switching the ribbon to the other side of her hair.

“Please tell me you know some fortune telling about that?” Iris said in a stage-whisper, as the four of them unpacked and plated a small feast onto the pine needle-strewn table.

“Spiced cake and ginger bread for the end of the harvest season,” Cattleya explained to Violet, who was listening attentively, “and sharing mulled wine and apple cider with others to celebrate a community. Sliced pork and turkey because… actually, I’m not sure. Who doesn’t enjoy sliced pork or turkey though?”

“Cattleya!”

“I’m busy!”

“Explaining Yule traditions? She can pick them up as we go along!”

“This is important!”

“So’s this!” Iris made a cutting gesture at Erica, who was humming to herself.

“Oh, me?” Erica said, her mouth curled in a smile. She touched the ribbon in her hair reverently. “Benedict said it framed my face better if I switched the bow to the other side. What do you think?”

“That’s—that’s all… all you talked about—”

“The ribbon is very becoming on you,” Violet said over Iris’ splutters. “Did you have sufficient space to discuss other matters?”

“Of course,” Erica continued. She divided the spice cake into neat geometrical slices. “We talked about our favourite wassailing songs, and then he joked about drinking the president under the table…”

To Violet, President Hodgins’ upcoming inebriation did not seem like a joke.

“Benedict can certainly try,” the president said, looming ominously behind them. “Sadly for him, I’ve lost my fondness for the stuff.”

While Erica bowed profusely and apologised with as many delicately crafted phrases her training as an Auto Memory Doll had bestowed on her, the CH Postal Company staff gathered around the festive trestle table for the inaugural company Yule night. There were the receptionists whom Violet knew very little of, and the postal workers who armed the sorting shelves and postal carts, including Mr Roland who delivered Violet’s very first letter to her and now gave her a friendly familiar nod, and the Auto Memory Dolls, and the president himself, standing at the head of the table like an army general ready to make a speech.

“My friends,” he said, “we celebrate Yule later than intended, but we celebrate it with every worker of the CH Postal Company present with us. We celebrate the end of the longest night, and the knowledge that there will be light after it. This first year of the CH Postal Company has not been easy, and I thank you all for sharing it with me. The four year war, for many of us, seemed like the longest, hardest night, but with the signing of the peace treaty between Leidenschaftlich and the Galdarik Empire, which members of our own company were party to, we will sing up the dawn.”

Claudia raised his bottle of apple cider.

“My friends. To the dawn of Leiden and the dawn of the CH Postal Company.”

Violet mimicked the raising of the bottles of wine and cider and drank solemnly.

And with that done, Claudia clapped his hands together. “Right then! I was promised that if we printed wassailing books for everyone, there would be wassailing! Where are the booklet—oh, thank you Iris dear, yes, yes, hand them out—Benedict, come back here. All together now!”

---

“You… can’t sing,” President Hodgins said, what seemed to be a few hours later.

Violet had difficulty keeping track of the time – but there had been no need to, in a toasty warm room where the only thing holding her attention were the wassailing booklets, and the dinner, and the many apples Cattleya had put in her hands and insisted she twist the stems off of. There was no wonder the Major had wanted Yule to be a properly done thing, once the war was over, with a proper meal in a proper house, instead of tins of corned beef and hardtack in the lull between fighting.

“I’ve never needed to sing before,” Violet explained. The mulled wine left her pleasantly warm. She was holding a lighted red candle in her adamant silver hands, and humming the tune to The Wassail Bowl. It was, Iris had gently suggested, the best thing she could be doing, because they all heavily discouraged her from singing. “Given the opportunity to practice, I am certain I could excel and make you proud of it, President Hodgins.”

“No! No, no, it’s quite alright,” Claudia said, with the air of fretting that reminded her of the day he had retrieved her from the military hospital, shoved three toys in her face and ordered her to pick out one. “I’m more surprised to know that there are things you do not excel at.”

Violet remembered cooking cabonara for a playwright. It was good enough for a first attempt, he had said, but his face said that it was not good enough to encourage nourishment if she were assigned to cooking daily.

“Please!” Claudia continued dramatically, “Please, do not burden your work as an Auto Memory Doll with learning to sing on the side. I don’t think we’ll need that, no, unless singing telegrams becomes a trend in Leiden again.”

“You demonstrate an excellent entrepreneurial spirit, president. If it puts you at ease, I also do not excel at cooking.”

“Say, what?”

Violet relayed her first day of work with Oscar Webster in detail, omitting nothing on how he was inebriated, working in a living space where there were more books off the bookshelf than on it, and requesting her services in cooking dinner on that first night. Claudia took it in very solemnly and at the end of it, buried his face in his hands.

“We need to charge clients more if they think an Auto Memory Doll can be hired for that.”

“I finished the play I was employed to scribe, and with my support, he exhibited creativity to develop crucial scenes. I consider this a great success.”

Claudia chuckled. “And so, she excels at playing a muse too.”

“President Hodgins?”

He patted her arm paternally. “Forgive me, Violet dear. I might be becoming maudlin, so late in the evening.”

“I don’t understand,” Violet said. It was a good evening, as far as she understood it. How it compared to other properly timed Yule parties, she did not know, but she enjoyed the apple spells, and the aged spice cake, and to sing The Morning Star is Risen with the receptionists, and, in Cattleya’s words, to hum and hold her lighted red candle like a praying maiden in a cathedral.

“I expect you knew little about Yule because it is an old tradition, and Leiden is one of the few old cities that keep to it. Mastig have their Thanksgiving, Eustitia celebrates their festivals on changing star charts and lunar calendars, and the northern countries prefer the new year instead of the end of the old. That, and Gilbert would not have found space for Yule in the middle of the war. Am I correct?”

“Yes, president.”

“Did you understand why we celebrate Yule then?” Claudia raised his bottle in a toast to the ceiling. “I wanted to put a chandelier up there, you know, in the old Leiden traditions. Imagine how that’d look to bring for this year’s Yule.”

“We sing up the dawn,” Violet repeated solemnly. They were good words, and shouted before a battle, they would have made a rousing speech.

“And other reasons. Yule falls around the time of the winter solstice, and after that, the days become longer and the nights become shorter. In the old practices of Leidenschaftlich, they call it the shedding off the darker half of the year for the brighter half. Don’t tell that to my parents though, they’d never believe it, the bankers,” he added with a shudder.

It was a statement with humour. Violet understood that at this time, she was expected to laugh, but could not.

“With the official ending of the war, I felt that we have finally put away some long dark nights of our lives. With Yule, you celebrate the end of the dark and the start of the light with friends.”

And abruptly, Violet understood.

“You’re thinking of the Major.”

The Major was always in her own mind, because he had never left it. It was the Major’s  further orders that kept her hope up for a hundred and twelve days in the military hospital at Enciel, and the knowledge that he was alive against the naysaying of President Hodgins and Naval Captain Bougainvillea that fed that hope. There would be a season where they would meet again, and Violet hoped that season would be soon.

Winter, even, she thought, for Yule or Thanksgiving or Leiden’s new year air show.

“I talked about giving him a job after the war, you know,” President Hodgins continued. “Well, of course you know. You were there when I offered it to him,” although she had been little more than a background prop there, Major Bougainvillea’s silent shadow and bodyguard.

“You offered me a new occupation then too,” Violet said. In Enciel, she had remembered it too, and it had been congruent with what Claudia said was the Major’s orders. It had ensured her compliance.

“I thought…” Claudia murmured against the mouth of his bottle, which seemed more like to be mulled wine than apple cider now, “I thought Gilbert would be here. Celebrating Yule. Writing a letter in the new year air show. With us, in the CH Postal Company. Not a chapter to be remembered about in Leiden’s military history, not yet. It feels like the world has forgotten him already, when he should be here still.”

They were silent.

Finally, Violet said, “He’s not gone. President Hodgins. The Major—he’s not gone.”

President Hodgins had long given up arguing that with her, so she went on, “I understand you feel sure that he is lost, but there was no body at Intense. When I think of the Major, I feel he must be out there, somewhere, making his way back to Leiden. The Major may be slow in his journey, but he must be making it.”

“You think so?”

He drained his bottle and set it down, eyes fixed to ground.

“I know it to be so.” Violet declared. “It is in my instincts as a soldier,” and she blew her candle out, “and I know it as well as an Auto Memory Doll knows the ways of the heart,” and fixed her hands around her emerald-green brooch, “and I feel it, as certain as the dawn will be sang up every year at Yule. If we remember Major Gilbert Bougainvillea, it won’t matter if he is late in celebrating this year’s Yule or next year’s Yule with us.”

She placed her hand on his shoulder.

Claudia looked up at her. Slowly, his mouth picked up in a tired smile.

“Is that so? As certain as the dawn – you might excel at poetry someday, Violet dear.”

“I will study it, if that is your wish, president,” she vowed.

He set his hand over hers, and patted it reassuringly.

“To our new days then,” Claudia said, and then whisking out a new bottle of cider, gathered the CH Postal Company into a last song of the night.

---

Writing notes:

Since the Violet Evergarden universe is very German, I’m surprised there was an out of left field air show, and no Christmas or Yule at the end of the season, especially because there’s an emphasis on the new year and Cattleya and Benedict are being ferried out to the peace talks in the middle of the snow. This is a seasonal fluff fic to remedy that – inspired in part by Lillirith’s Season of Grace. As with her, Vienna Teng’s The Atheist Christmas Carol has always dug my heart out with a blunt knife.

Since Violet Evergarden is set in a quasi-WWI period, Gilbert is referring to the 1914 Christmas truces that happened at the Western Front (also, the subject of the film, Joyeux Noel)

Review Here!