Glitterburn || 閃耀小溪

Fic: The Claws of the Wind [Onmyouji]

Mon, 06 Jun 2022 19:37:47 GMT

Title: The Claws of the Wind
Fandom: Onmyouji
Pairing: Seimei/Hiromasa
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 7052
Blurb: Hiromasa thinks he’s convinced Seimei to take a holiday to Lake Biwa—no demons, no curses, and no work for a couple of weeks. He’s wrong.
Note: Written for ozsaur’s prompt ‘bell’ in smallfandomfest, and inspired by this Weatherwatch article in The Guardian.

The Claws of the Wind

“Well, Seimei. This is pleasant.” Hiromasa held back the patterned silk curtains of the ox-cart, the better to appreciate the view opening around them. “Finally, an escape from the sweltering confines of the capital! Much as I love the city, in the summer it is simply unbearable.”

“Mm.” Seimei refused to glance up, preferring to continue the work he’d embarked upon as soon as they’d climbed inside the vehicle. He sat opposite Hiromasa, his back to the direction of their travel, and had a wooden desk on legs arranged across his lap. Upon this lay an assortment of tiny scrolls, a tattered codex written very closely in an ancient script, and a selection of loose sheets of finest Korean paper.

At the start of their journey, Hiromasa had watched him prepare ink of the deepest black. How Seimei managed, despite the rocking of the cart, not to spill any over the pristine white of his hunting-costume or to spider blots across the text he was writing, Hiromasa didn’t know. Well, he did know—it was magic. But even so.

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Fic: Mandarin Ducks [Onmyouji]

Thu, 04 Nov 2021 14:47:07 GMT

Title: Mandarin Ducks
Fandom: Onmyouji
Pairing: Seimei/Hiromasa
Rating: PG13
Wordcount:4096 words
Blurb: Hiromasa is delighted when a pair of mandarin ducks take up residence on his pond.
Note: For my Russian friends Hono_cho and Northern Fox :)

Mandarin Ducks

Autumn had taken hold of the garden. Frost encased the grasses at the edge of the pond and rimed the leaves still clinging to the trees. A delicate patterning of ice had spread itself like the finest gloss silk over the veranda, and now it glittered beneath the melting touch of the morning sun.

Hiromasa lay wrapped in padded robes beside a brazier. The heat warmed a circle around him, and he had turned back his sleeves so as to compose a poem or two on the beauty of the autumnal scene before him. A thin curl of smoke trailed the Darkening Night incense, a blend of Seimei’s own devising. It had failed to win plaudits at the Empress’s incense contest, being described both as too overpowering and too subtle, but to Hiromasa’s nose, it smelled perfect—like spilled ink and persimmon, the musk of loving and the sweet-tartness of candied crab apples.

He dipped his brush and wrote a few practice lines on a sheet of Michinoku paper. Hiromasa had to admit his calligraphy was far more graceful than his turn of phrase, but all the same, there was something enjoyable about the effort of composition. He set the end of the brush between his lips and considered the frost. How fleeting was its beauty, and how cold, and yet if he touched it, his fingertips burned...

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Fic: Arrange Your Face [Onmyouji]

Thu, 19 Nov 2020 08:34:11 GMT

Title: Arrange Your Face
Fandom: Onmyouji
Pairing: Seimei/Hiromasa
Rating: PG13
Wordcount:15,039 words (updated September 24, 2022 with text added in order for Higitsune's team to enter the Fandom Battle)
Blurb: One of Seimei's colleagues is missing. One of Hiromasa's friends is killed. Clearly it's the work of a demon--but which one?
Note: Written for Estelraca for Fic In A Box 2020.

Arrange Your Face

There was an art to the delivery of a morning-after letter. The correct sort of paper should be chosen, and the calligraphy matched to the mood one wished to invoke, not to mention the necessity for just the right flower or sprig of greenery with which to bind the letter. And, of course, there was the requirement that the bearer of the letter was every bit as attractive and charming as the recipient.

The morning-after letter Hiromasa carried tucked against his heart succeeded in meeting one of those conditions. The paper was exquisite, pale yellow fading to white. As for everything else… He squared his shoulders and made an irritated sound. Everything else would have been perfect, had it not been for the summons from the Board of Censors at the palace. Because of that, his calligraphy was slapdash, the flower he’d grabbed from the perfectly manicured garden on his way out of his house had inadvertently been beheaded by his clumsy fingers, and, well, he was delivering his own letter, and what could be more gauche than that?

Never mind that Seimei wouldn’t care about any of it. It was the principle of the thing.

At least he was content with his poem. Hiromasa turned his face up to the touch of the sunlight as he strolled out of the Board of Censors, past the Ministry of War, and made his way to the left of the palace. White gravel crunched beneath his boots. Distantly, from beyond the high walls, a cuckoo sounded its call. Hiromasa beamed at friends and acquaintances, bowing to some, complimenting others on their colour combinations or their victories in the latest shell-matching game.

He turned a corner and headed for the comparatively ramshackle building adjacent to the Ministry for Central Affairs. The tiles on the swooping roof of the Bureau of Divination were a faded blue-green crazed with cracks, and though the pillars were painted with a fresh coat of vermilion every year and green bamboo blinds hung at the windows, and the veranda was swept and polished each morning, the building still contrived to look a little bit sinister.

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Fic: Hold Back The Rain [Onmyouji]

Mon, 26 Oct 2020 09:52:51 GMT

Title: Hold Back The Rain
Fandom: Onmyouji
Pairing: Seimei/Hiromasa
Rating: PG13
Wordcount: 7460 words
Blurb: It hasn't rained for almost two months. Seimei and Hiromasa are about to find out why.
Note: Written for Spook Me 2020; the prompt was ‘demon’. Read it on AO3.
Dedication: For Honocho and Northern Fox, in thanks for their work in translating my Onmyouji fics into Russian and for illustrating them so beautifully.

Hold Back The Rain

The Seventh Month had passed without rain, and as the Eighth Month reached its midpoint without any sign of clouds on the horizon, people started to mutter about a curse. Offerings piled up at the temples and shrines, and the Emperor ordered the Bureau of Divination to bend all its skills towards a solution.

The flow of the Kamo River dwindled until it became the norm to see commoners and wading birds alike picking through the mudflats in search of sustenance. The Katsura River, meanwhile, became blocked when part of the city wall collapsed into it, forcing the water to seek a different route. The south-west quarter became even more insalubrious, with curtains of buzzing insects and stinking marsh-gases blotting the atmosphere.

No such troubles blighted Seimei’s garden. Apart from the palace, it was the only place in the capital that seemed untouched by the drought.

Hiromasa was proud of his own garden, a beautiful, tranquil space modelled after the Chinese fashion, the product of many decades of devoted work by his maternal grandfather and his grandfather’s grandfather before him. But even his collection of mosses and ornamental grasses, flowering shrubs and landscaped lawns, had turned an unappealing yellowish-brown as the summer wore on without the relief of even a drop of rain.

Seimei’s garden, by contrast, was a lush paradise, with so many shades of green that Hiromasa couldn’t number them all. Fragrant herbs and flowers turned their faces to the sun and stretched their roots deep into the moist, loamy earth. Grasses grew tall and whispered as a warm breeze stirred through them. And the fruit trees—why, they were magnificent.

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Fic: Home [Onmyouji]

Mon, 26 Oct 2020 09:37:56 GMT

Title: Home
Fandom: Onmyouji
Pairing: Seimei/Hiromasa
Rating: PG13
Wordcount: 19,494 words
Blurb: Ordered to investigate the horrible case of a corpse-eating ghost, Seimei and Hiromasa uncover not one haunting, but two...
Note: Written for Spook Me 2020; the prompt was ‘ghost’. Read it on AO3.

Home

It wasn’t necessary, after a relationship had been established, for a lover to compose morning-after letters to his beloved, but Hiromasa liked to do it nonetheless. Dawn was the perfect moment for tender thoughts, especially at this time of year when a heavy dew lay upon the grass and the first delicate traceries of frost touched russet-tinged leaves. The sun came up muted at first, like affection itself, then burned through the swaddling mists and showed itself in splendour.

Yes, this was the perfect moment, the perfect morning, for poetry; and yet Hiromasa found himself huddled inside loosely-laced robes beside a brazier, paper untouched in front of him and a brush as yet undipped in the deep black ink he’d ground and mixed with such care.

In the safety of his mind he chased words into phrases, discarding some, polishing others, all the while keeping his gaze fastened on Seimei.

Long black hair unbound and loosened by sleep, spread over a pillow. Sharp features softened, mouth curved in a smile more generous than he would permit awake. Elegant hands tucked within robes of violet and white figured silk. The sense of comfort and contentment…

Hiromasa’s heart swelled with emotion. He brought the sheet of paper closer and dipped the rabbit-fur brush in the ink. The poem was within reach. He closed his eyes, focused, a crystallisation of feeling and—

An almighty crash split the silence.

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Fic: Serpentine [Onmyouji]

Tue, 22 Oct 2019 09:29:02 GMT

Title: Serpentine
Fandom: Onmyouji
Pairing: Seimei/Hiromasa
Rating: PG13
Wordcount: 19,603 words
Blurb: When Hiromasa insists on visiting a distant cousin in the province of Hitachi, he and Seimei uncover a tangled nest of trouble...
Note: Written for Spook Me 2019; the prompt was ‘snake’. Read it on AO3

Serpentine

The track from the shrine was pockmarked with loose stones. Their horses, sleek and well-fed from weeks of good stabling, pecked and snorted in complaint. The air thrummed with the sound of insects, and the early morning haze that habitually lay across the lake had started to lift, giving glimpses of blue-green water ringed with a reedy marshland. On the breeze came the briny tang of salt, bringing freshness to the day.

“Well, Seimei. Here we are, on the road again.”

Hiromasa imbued his words with all the buoyancy he could manage, given the lack of sleep and somewhat bizarre happenings of the last few weeks. If he’d known in advance that the request from the abbot of the Katori shrine would have led to such trouble, he’d have burned the letter.

Not that it was good form to burn letters addressed to other people. Really, he shouldn’t have even read the letter, since it was addressed to Seimei. But Seimei rarely bothered with correspondence, and on the afternoon Hiromasa had come calling, it was looking all untidy, lying there in a heap. And, well, Seimei had been busy doing something magical in the garden, and Hiromasa was bored—there are only so many grilled sardines a man can eat—so naturally he’d taken it into his head to play the secretary and bring some order to the jumble of Seimei’s unopened letters.

Yes, if he’d known such an act of kindness would lead to months of travelling through the wilderness, he’d have sat on his hands. Or eaten another sardine. Instead, he’d read the anguished cry for help from the elderly reverend abbot and, touched with compassion, had immediately flung himself into the tangle of weeds and out-of-season blooms in search of Seimei.

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Fic: How Does Your Garden Grow [Onmyouji]

Mon, 15 Oct 2018 11:51:50 GMT

Title: How Does Your Garden Grow
Fandom: Onmyouji
Pairing: Seimei/Hiromasa
Rating: PG13
Wordcount: 11,422 words
Blurb: When Hiromasa catches a man-eating plant in the act, he asks Seimei for help in destroying it. But Seimei is more interested in what lies behind the vine’s attack—and in discovering the identity of its other victims…
Note: Written for Spook Me 2018. Read it on AO3

How Does Your Garden Grow

Dawn was just touching the world with colour when Lord Umehara came hurrying into the Divine Spring Gardens. He held a letter close to his chest, a message from the beautiful youth he’d dismissed from his bed only a few days ago.

Kaoru was as perfect as a just-ripe peach, but he’d been demanding, asking all the time for fidelity. Umehara had grown bored with the boy’s prating, but this letter, begging for one last meeting, had found him agreeable. The lad really was succulent, and much more pliant than his sister, Lady Kose, whom Umehara had been pursuing for months without breaching an inch of her defences.

He paused to glance over the letter again. The dew on the manicured lawns soaked into the hem of his cloak. Birds began to sing in the tall, stately pines, and the sharp, fresh tang of their scent came to him on the breeze that lifted the wisps of mist from the lake.

Two morning glories, the blooms still half-closed, had been attached to the letter. Written on pale green paper with an elegantly affecting Grass script, the note resembled more a morning-after letter than a request for a meeting. The boy had some strange notions. Perhaps his sister Lady Kose did, too.
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Wed, 16 Mar 2016 11:28:08 GMT

Porn Battle is back! Go prompt! https://pbam.dreamwidth.org/2998.html

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Kink Bingo fill: recs list

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 10:14:10 GMT

( 10 recs for situational humiliation )

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Recs list: Enemas [multifandom]

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 08:49:43 GMT

The 'enema' square on my kink_bingo card was always going to be a challenge, since enemas are absolutely one of my squicks. Of course I should've asked the mods to pick me a card avoiding that kink, but these things are supposed to be a challenge, right?!

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Art: Kurofune [Axis Powers Hetalia]

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 18:07:48 GMT

Fandom: Axis Powers Hetalia
Characters: America/Japan
Rating: PG - vaguely implied dub con
Summary: America dresses up as Commodore Perry to open Japan with his black ships.
Notes: For hideincarnate, drawn for the kink_bingo prompt 'historical roleplay'.

( a mere four boats are enough/to make us lose sleep at night )

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It's that time of year again...

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 18:50:55 GMT

Yes, two posts in a row. Not like me at all, but the topics aren't exactly conducive to being put together in one post.

It's time for kink_bingo again!

( Behold the bingo card of PORN )
So... if there's any kink on there that tickles your fancy, let me know with your pairing of choice (within reason, i.e. I've written in the fandom before *g*) and I'll see what I can do. Not promising anything, mind! I've earmarked a few already but go on, the more the merrier :D

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End of an era

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 18:38:32 GMT

Ever since I moved up here in 2002, I've looked forward to the weekly local rag and the very random letters to the editor written by Mr E Firth of Western Road. He wrote every week and often on totally unrelated topics that were spliced together without logic or sense. It was always a dull week without one of his letters, and sometimes a few weeks would pass without hearing from him and later a letter would appear thanking the staff of the local hospital, and we'd know it was business as usual.

The paper just got shoved through the door so I went downstairs, ready to turn to the letters page. Instead on the front was a picture of a smiley old gent and the headline 'Farewell to Letter Writer and War Vet'. My heart sank. Mr E Firth died last Wednesday. He was 87.

Here's a sample of one of his letters. I was never sure if they were edited down but they were always very pithy. This is from March 19:

WHATEVER next? Tax on chocolate.
I don't pay direct tax but I think more people like a bit of chocolate.
A lot of motorists can eat a bit of chocolate so that seems more tax for them to pay.
Recession, I wonder?
It didn't look like it at Cheltenham races last week when millions of pounds seemed to be spent.
Red Nose day got a lot more money than last year.
Mr E Firth
Western Road

'Whatever next?' was his catchphrase. Sometimes he would get into letter-fights with Paul Thompson of Milton Street. Those were epic.

The funeral is on Tuesday. Unfortunately we're away from tomorrow until Tuesday, otherwise we would have gone. Mr E Firth was an absolute legend. We will really miss his letters to the paper.

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Art: Fox Spirit [Otogizoushi]

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 08:04:12 GMT

by glitterburn

Title: Fox Spirit
Rating: PG
Pairing: Mansairaku (Abe no Seimei)/Minamoto no Raiko
Kinks: animal play

( Fox Spirit )

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