There are white lotuses blooming when they die. The battlefield is spilled with blood, the mud caking flesh and metal alike but in sporadic patches across the valley, there are beautiful white lotuses blooming in the sun. Yuri sighs and thinks that there could be worse last sights.
She shifts in her armor, feels the wood dig into her ribcage as the spear that’s got her through the heart tears against her chest. She lets out a hiss of pain as she tries to claw at it.
There are no medics to find her on this field–they won’t come for a fortnight at least–and even if there were, she doesn’t need a doctor to tell her that she’s broken beyond repair. The last of the Emperor’s Guard, slain in an ambush like this. Outnumbered ten to one, but at least they fought valiantly before they died. At least they fought tooth and nail, scraped the bottom of their souls for resolve until they had nothing left to give and hopefully that’ll earn them a line in a two-thousand line sonnet and a seat at the golden table of heaven.
The last of the Emperor’s Guard–unless. Yuri turns on her side, gnaws through her tongue to dull the pain to find her.
Ah. Yuri doesn’t know if it’s relief or guilt that crushes her chest when she turns to see Kitty speared right through the neck. Still hacking wheezy breaths out of her chest–but the breaths of a dying man, not a living one.
They’ve always been together, attached at the hip by more than just sworn loyalty to the Emperor and it seems only fitting that they go out together. At least Kitty won’t have to continue on without her. At least Yuri won’t have to live without her. (She wouldn’t see the point in that.)
“Kitty,” she says, gripping her hand in hers. Kitty’s gaze is loose and languid as it tracks her face. Her blade is shattered on her knee, the tip impaled in a skull next to them. “Kitty, look at me.”
“I,” Kitty swallows, a line of blood trailing down her face. Yuri wipes it away with her thumb and licks it clean. “I guess I shouldn’t have skipped so much training, huh?”
Yuri laughs, her nose in the petals. Kitty makes her shredded heart feel light in her chest.
“You were a shitty lieutenant,” she spits out. It’s all spilling out of her–sincerity mixing with the blood that dribbles down her mouth. “But you’re not bad company to go out with.”
Kitty licks her lips and scowls, defiant even in death.
“Partner,” she insists stubbornly. They’re toying with the semantics even on the brink of death.
Yuri laughs and concedes because it’s Kitty–it’s always Kitty and she’s never been able to say no to a face like hers.
“Partner,” she echoes quietly and her arms buckle under her as she lands with her chin on the dirt.
She wonders if in a hundred years, they will remember the sorry excuse of a battle fought here. She wonders if in a thousand years, the Empire will still stand. She wonders if in ten thousand, there will still be people to walk the path of her graveyard.
She wonders if she will become fertilizer for the next batch of white lotuses, witness to another pair of star-crossed lovers meeting their untimely end.
She closes her eyes. Beside her, Kitty’s chest has gone still in her armor and her fingers have gone cold. Yuri stops wondering after that.
There is a girl standing alone at the entrance ceremony, looking like a child abandoned on their first day of daycare. Yuri raises one arm in a greeting.
“Hi!” she yells across the field. “You lost?”
The girl turns and there’s something heavy in the weight of her expression. She’s drawn in bold, brash lines against the outline of the crowd, like she’s done in charcoal on a watercolor painting.
They’ve never met before but something like recognition crosses her face when she spots Yuri. She raises one hand and waves back, a smile pressed onto her face.
There’s something glinting in the sun and Yuri squints to make it out.
Pinned to her breast pocket is a small white lotus.
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FILL: Team Kittyuri
Date: 2024-06-25 12:34 am (UTC)Word Count: 711
did i hear someone say reincarnation yuri??? i also combined it with doomed yuri which kind of goes hand-in-hand
CONTENT WARNING: blood and graphic depictions of violence because it is women with swords & also major character death but there's reincarnation
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There are white lotuses blooming when they die. The battlefield is spilled with blood, the mud caking flesh and metal alike but in sporadic patches across the valley, there are beautiful white lotuses blooming in the sun. Yuri sighs and thinks that there could be worse last sights.
She shifts in her armor, feels the wood dig into her ribcage as the spear that’s got her through the heart tears against her chest. She lets out a hiss of pain as she tries to claw at it.
There are no medics to find her on this field–they won’t come for a fortnight at least–and even if there were, she doesn’t need a doctor to tell her that she’s broken beyond repair. The last of the Emperor’s Guard, slain in an ambush like this. Outnumbered ten to one, but at least they fought valiantly before they died. At least they fought tooth and nail, scraped the bottom of their souls for resolve until they had nothing left to give and hopefully that’ll earn them a line in a two-thousand line sonnet and a seat at the golden table of heaven.
The last of the Emperor’s Guard–unless. Yuri turns on her side, gnaws through her tongue to dull the pain to find her.
Ah. Yuri doesn’t know if it’s relief or guilt that crushes her chest when she turns to see Kitty speared right through the neck. Still hacking wheezy breaths out of her chest–but the breaths of a dying man, not a living one.
They’ve always been together, attached at the hip by more than just sworn loyalty to the Emperor and it seems only fitting that they go out together. At least Kitty won’t have to continue on without her. At least Yuri won’t have to live without her. (She wouldn’t see the point in that.)
“Kitty,” she says, gripping her hand in hers. Kitty’s gaze is loose and languid as it tracks her face. Her blade is shattered on her knee, the tip impaled in a skull next to them. “Kitty, look at me.”
“I,” Kitty swallows, a line of blood trailing down her face. Yuri wipes it away with her thumb and licks it clean. “I guess I shouldn’t have skipped so much training, huh?”
Yuri laughs, her nose in the petals. Kitty makes her shredded heart feel light in her chest.
“You were a shitty lieutenant,” she spits out. It’s all spilling out of her–sincerity mixing with the blood that dribbles down her mouth. “But you’re not bad company to go out with.”
Kitty licks her lips and scowls, defiant even in death.
“Partner,” she insists stubbornly. They’re toying with the semantics even on the brink of death.
Yuri laughs and concedes because it’s Kitty–it’s always Kitty and she’s never been able to say no to a face like hers.
“Partner,” she echoes quietly and her arms buckle under her as she lands with her chin on the dirt.
She wonders if in a hundred years, they will remember the sorry excuse of a battle fought here. She wonders if in a thousand years, the Empire will still stand. She wonders if in ten thousand, there will still be people to walk the path of her graveyard.
She wonders if she will become fertilizer for the next batch of white lotuses, witness to another pair of star-crossed lovers meeting their untimely end.
She closes her eyes. Beside her, Kitty’s chest has gone still in her armor and her fingers have gone cold. Yuri stops wondering after that.
------------------------------------------------------------
There is a girl standing alone at the entrance ceremony, looking like a child abandoned on their first day of daycare. Yuri raises one arm in a greeting.
“Hi!” she yells across the field. “You lost?”
The girl turns and there’s something heavy in the weight of her expression. She’s drawn in bold, brash lines against the outline of the crowd, like she’s done in charcoal on a watercolor painting.
They’ve never met before but something like recognition crosses her face when she spots Yuri. She raises one hand and waves back, a smile pressed onto her face.
There’s something glinting in the sun and Yuri squints to make it out.
Pinned to her breast pocket is a small white lotus.