![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Gen shower ficlet written for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
daegaer. :)
Title: Seasoning
Fandom: Good Omens
Characters: War, Pollution
Summary: Humans were fun enough, but sometimes it was nice to talk to someone *real*.
The pale boy sat cross-legged in the middle of the field, staring expectantly at the clouds roiling across the sky. The battle had mostly (soon to be entirely) died down by now, but he didn't seem to mind having missed the carnage.
She'd seen him before, glimpses in the shadows of a hollowed, burned-out village or a squalid city street. He was obviously gaining strength, solid enough now that what sunlight there was yielded against him, leaving a shapeless pool of shadow... but he was still a shallow, emphereal thing; an idea just beginning to coalesce.
She stepped away from the man attempting with his three remaining fingers to pull the blade pinning him to the ground. Humans were fun enough, but sometimes it was nice to talk to someone *real*.
"Hey," she said.
He looked up at her. "Hello."
"So," she said, "what do you do?"
He spread his arms to the sky. "Watch."
The clouds cracked above, and the field she stood on was suddenly pounded with wave after wave of rain.
"Isn't it lovely?"
She didn't think so. Nothing quenched battle-lust as quickly as trudging through acres of muddy ground, turned longing from glorious victory to a strong roof and a warm hearth. The wet ruined knives and damped muskets, felled ill-prepared soldiers as surely as steel.
Wars had been called on account of rain.
"Never had much use for it," she said. "Rain's more Pestilence's thing, if you're looking to impress someone."
The boy looked up at her with wide, filmy eyes. "Ah. I'm sorry you don't appreciate the subtlety."
"Never had much use for that, either," she said.
He nodded once, slowly. "Still." He stretched an open hand towards a sword resting nearby on a tangle of human intestines. The raindrops pinged off the metal like hail. "Please. Look closer."
She bent down and slid her fingers around the hilt of the sword. It was an old, inexpertly made weapon, and it fit into her palm like an extension of her purpose. Where the raindrops touched it, the metal pocked and corroded, almost imperceptibly. But if you left it long enough, there would be nothing left.
She swung the sword experimentally through the air. Then she angled it with two hands, as though considering slicing through the boy's neck. "You destroy weapons?"
"Oh, I'm not picky," he said, unconcerned. "And this is just a beginning." His lips oozed into a satisfied smile. "Someday, I'll destroy the entire world."
She couldn't see the future, not like some beings who could peer through the angles of the fourth dimension and tell you what they'd be having for breakfast three centuries next Sunday. But history was gaining speed around her now, echoes of her potential rolling back to her present with the momentum of a cannonball dropped onto the Earth with laser pinpointed accuracy and a nuclear payload.
"Nah," she said, grin like a polished knife. "Not if I get to it first."
daegaer. :)Title: Seasoning
Fandom: Good Omens
Characters: War, Pollution
Summary: Humans were fun enough, but sometimes it was nice to talk to someone *real*.
The pale boy sat cross-legged in the middle of the field, staring expectantly at the clouds roiling across the sky. The battle had mostly (soon to be entirely) died down by now, but he didn't seem to mind having missed the carnage.
She'd seen him before, glimpses in the shadows of a hollowed, burned-out village or a squalid city street. He was obviously gaining strength, solid enough now that what sunlight there was yielded against him, leaving a shapeless pool of shadow... but he was still a shallow, emphereal thing; an idea just beginning to coalesce.
She stepped away from the man attempting with his three remaining fingers to pull the blade pinning him to the ground. Humans were fun enough, but sometimes it was nice to talk to someone *real*.
"Hey," she said.
He looked up at her. "Hello."
"So," she said, "what do you do?"
He spread his arms to the sky. "Watch."
The clouds cracked above, and the field she stood on was suddenly pounded with wave after wave of rain.
"Isn't it lovely?"
She didn't think so. Nothing quenched battle-lust as quickly as trudging through acres of muddy ground, turned longing from glorious victory to a strong roof and a warm hearth. The wet ruined knives and damped muskets, felled ill-prepared soldiers as surely as steel.
Wars had been called on account of rain.
"Never had much use for it," she said. "Rain's more Pestilence's thing, if you're looking to impress someone."
The boy looked up at her with wide, filmy eyes. "Ah. I'm sorry you don't appreciate the subtlety."
"Never had much use for that, either," she said.
He nodded once, slowly. "Still." He stretched an open hand towards a sword resting nearby on a tangle of human intestines. The raindrops pinged off the metal like hail. "Please. Look closer."
She bent down and slid her fingers around the hilt of the sword. It was an old, inexpertly made weapon, and it fit into her palm like an extension of her purpose. Where the raindrops touched it, the metal pocked and corroded, almost imperceptibly. But if you left it long enough, there would be nothing left.
She swung the sword experimentally through the air. Then she angled it with two hands, as though considering slicing through the boy's neck. "You destroy weapons?"
"Oh, I'm not picky," he said, unconcerned. "And this is just a beginning." His lips oozed into a satisfied smile. "Someday, I'll destroy the entire world."
She couldn't see the future, not like some beings who could peer through the angles of the fourth dimension and tell you what they'd be having for breakfast three centuries next Sunday. But history was gaining speed around her now, echoes of her potential rolling back to her present with the momentum of a cannonball dropped onto the Earth with laser pinpointed accuracy and a nuclear payload.
"Nah," she said, grin like a polished knife. "Not if I get to it first."
Tags:
From:
no subject
implicit competition, War and Pollution competing to destroy the world.
It seems like this is a fair summary of the news for the past while ;)