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lodessaTitle: Fallen
Fandom: His Dark Materials
Characters/Pairings: Marisa Coulter (Marisa/Asriel)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 534
Spoilers: only for The Golden Compass
Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
roguebelle. She said to suprise her when I asked what she'd like me to write about for her (spiritual) birthday so I looked over her interests and suddenly I just knew I had to write about Marisa and Asriel. My copies of the books have been at hobviously's for ages and I haven't re-read since my initial reading years ago so I hope that this works.
Well meaning pious people always ask her how she can do it; doesn't the thought of the little zombies keep her up at night? She always replies that she is doing God's work and her conscience is too clean for any doubt.
The blank faces of the children don't haunt her; his image keeps them out. Half memory and half invention, it cuts sharper than the splitting they do here, and nowhere near as cleanly.
Marisa brushes her hair with a gilded comb and sets it up in pins. Back then she'd worn it down, flowing and free. There was a lightness in her step, a naive innocence that did not recognize the implications of her flushed cheeks. She was pretty, young, and well off. She knew it too. Marisa danced every dance for an entire season of grand parties, until she met him, and suddenly it was as if the music evaporated.
Marisa remembers how cool air caressed her burning skin, exposed by her fashionable and becoming attire, but she cannot remember a thing Asriel said in that first evening, the first few weeks even.
She didn't understand it then, didn't question it. Everything in this world seemed inviting and wholesome then. Marisa is certain that if her current self were to look at the tableau they presented then, she would literally be able to see the Dust swirling around them, thick and heavy with warning. She knew nothing of it then, however. She was Eve before the fall, reaching for the fruit that would lead to her damnation.
No more, she thinks, taking down notations and weighing the feasibility of different implementations. Their faces do not bother her because she sees him instead and remembers the brush of his fingertips, the fine linen of hotels, the ring of laughter on her lips.
They see nothing, remember nothing, and suffer from nothing.
His touch is constant in its absence. The tears were cried years ago, the vases broken, and the reality set in. Marisa knows what Dust brings.
His mysterious smile and his warm lips, Satan was the most beautiful of all the angels, so beloved.
Marisa is a very attractive woman. She knows it more surely than she knew even that she was a lovely girl. Not a crease where there shouldn't be, not a bulge out of place.
The thing inside her had definitely been out of place. She'd known even as she looked at Asriel's face while the words to explain had come out of her mouth. That was after the arguments had already started… the broken plans.
Leah begged God to grant her a child. God thought that sons would heal the distance between Rachel and Jacob, make a wholeness where there were only crack. Leah died in childbirth. The strife brought by God's gift to Rachel ended in slavery and exile.
Marisa did not die in labor; more's the pity.
Dust clings to her, and she can never get clean. Rumor has it that Asriel is somewhere on the borders of civilization. She brushes her hair, a hundred even strokes, and neatly puts it up in perfect symmetry. The children’s faces are not the ones that come to mind.
juushika and assimbya I owe you both birthday ficlets so speak up about what you'd like.
Fandom: His Dark Materials
Characters/Pairings: Marisa Coulter (Marisa/Asriel)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 534
Spoilers: only for The Golden Compass
Written for
roguebelle. She said to suprise her when I asked what she'd like me to write about for her (spiritual) birthday so I looked over her interests and suddenly I just knew I had to write about Marisa and Asriel. My copies of the books have been at hobviously's for ages and I haven't re-read since my initial reading years ago so I hope that this works.Well meaning pious people always ask her how she can do it; doesn't the thought of the little zombies keep her up at night? She always replies that she is doing God's work and her conscience is too clean for any doubt.
The blank faces of the children don't haunt her; his image keeps them out. Half memory and half invention, it cuts sharper than the splitting they do here, and nowhere near as cleanly.
Marisa brushes her hair with a gilded comb and sets it up in pins. Back then she'd worn it down, flowing and free. There was a lightness in her step, a naive innocence that did not recognize the implications of her flushed cheeks. She was pretty, young, and well off. She knew it too. Marisa danced every dance for an entire season of grand parties, until she met him, and suddenly it was as if the music evaporated.
Marisa remembers how cool air caressed her burning skin, exposed by her fashionable and becoming attire, but she cannot remember a thing Asriel said in that first evening, the first few weeks even.
She didn't understand it then, didn't question it. Everything in this world seemed inviting and wholesome then. Marisa is certain that if her current self were to look at the tableau they presented then, she would literally be able to see the Dust swirling around them, thick and heavy with warning. She knew nothing of it then, however. She was Eve before the fall, reaching for the fruit that would lead to her damnation.
No more, she thinks, taking down notations and weighing the feasibility of different implementations. Their faces do not bother her because she sees him instead and remembers the brush of his fingertips, the fine linen of hotels, the ring of laughter on her lips.
They see nothing, remember nothing, and suffer from nothing.
His touch is constant in its absence. The tears were cried years ago, the vases broken, and the reality set in. Marisa knows what Dust brings.
His mysterious smile and his warm lips, Satan was the most beautiful of all the angels, so beloved.
Marisa is a very attractive woman. She knows it more surely than she knew even that she was a lovely girl. Not a crease where there shouldn't be, not a bulge out of place.
The thing inside her had definitely been out of place. She'd known even as she looked at Asriel's face while the words to explain had come out of her mouth. That was after the arguments had already started… the broken plans.
Leah begged God to grant her a child. God thought that sons would heal the distance between Rachel and Jacob, make a wholeness where there were only crack. Leah died in childbirth. The strife brought by God's gift to Rachel ended in slavery and exile.
Marisa did not die in labor; more's the pity.
Dust clings to her, and she can never get clean. Rumor has it that Asriel is somewhere on the borders of civilization. She brushes her hair, a hundred even strokes, and neatly puts it up in perfect symmetry. The children’s faces are not the ones that come to mind.
juushika and assimbya I owe you both birthday ficlets so speak up about what you'd like.
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no subject
Date: 2006-08-26 01:20 am (UTC)wow.
... are there more in the works? it's been forever since i've read any of the series, but the love is there!
no subject
Date: 2006-08-27 07:26 pm (UTC)I seriously think this is one of the best pairings ever. It's canon and yet totally not exhaustively explored or mundane. It's the great passion but it's not fluffy or clean or selfless. Plus... they are both severely hot.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-26 01:30 am (UTC)I totally love the insight into Marisa's mindset here. I love the evidence of past passion and how you can see what happened to her when it soured. Wonderful. Thank you so much!
no subject
Date: 2006-08-27 07:34 pm (UTC)Marisa/Asriel is honestly an amzing pairing. It's epic but messy and human and nothing aproximating the usual. It's something that left a distinct emotional impression on me over the years since I read HDM.
That's the problem with small fandoms... no one writes anything but the main pairing and/or mary sue fic. And much as I wanted Will and Lyra to get together in the books it's sort of boring and I'm more interested in adult flawed characters with epic ambition.
I'm glad it worked for you. My main goal in this was to trace the militant puritanical goals she has in TGC to the fallout of her affair with Asriel and I'm glad that came through in a way that was believable to you.
Honestly writing this got me freshly excited about fic writing and made me want to write more of HDM fic.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-26 04:16 am (UTC)I wish there were more HDM fic out there. This pairing is so ficcable. :)
no subject
Date: 2006-08-27 07:41 pm (UTC)There should be more HDM fic out there. It's an incredibly ficcable text in general because so much is implied and there's so much space for expansion and exploration. I could probably spend the next six months wirting M/A fic alone.
I'm so glad you enjoyed my ficlet .
no subject
Date: 2006-08-26 03:31 pm (UTC)i am too scared to attempt HDM fanfiction. I could never do the characters justice. This, however, is very good indeed. I had never thought about Marisa's conscience re: the children. This is an interesting take.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-27 07:44 pm (UTC)You shouldn't let fear keep you from writing if you want to. The only way you are going to get more comfortable is with familiarity. Besides... we could very much use more HDM fic in the world as there is a scarcity of it.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-12 10:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-12 10:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-27 07:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-27 04:55 pm (UTC)