Gambits

[darrin]

Okay, I have mentioned in my first couple of posts how new I am to KS -- I only heard about the game on another forum at the end of May, and only got around to downloading it in early June. And I am even newer to these forums; I had been playing a week or two before I got around to signing up and poking around in here. So, believe it or not I had most of the following in my head long before I came here and saw what others were doing (especially this pretty piece by vermithrx. But of course I have no way of proving that, so feel free to criticize on that (ie overlap) or any other aspect. I have a couple more chunks of about the same size still in my head; whether I should bother with them will depend on how badly this one sucked... Anyway.

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It's been two weeks since the festival, and during that time one thing has become painfully clear to me: Hanako was totally going easy on me when we played chess that day. We've played here in the tea room nearly every day since then; she's almost always beaten me handily, except for those rare times when I've managed to notice some minor error of hers, throw everything I had at it, and barely squeak by with a draw.

Not that I mind. My skill at chess may not be improving, but my skill at drawing out that gorgeous smile of hers is growing by leaps and bounds, and that's the project I'm getting the most enjoyment out of recently. So as Hanako gleefully scoops up my last piece, the lone rook on which all my desperate hopes were hanging, I go for the only win I'm ever really going for when I play with her.

"GAAHH! Not AGAIN! You... you vicious, bloodthirsty, heartless..." I lean back, shaking upraised clenched fists at the classroom ceiling. I think I'm in good form today; my volume isn't really much above speaking level, my gestures noticeably slower than if I were actually angry about anything. It's the result of two weeks of carefully gauging Hanako's reaction to my jokes; of my feigned outbursts becoming more and more elaborate, yet exaggerated enough to make it clear that they're just jokes. And of constantly watching her eyes, searching for telltale signs of panic or confusion, any signs that I've been misunderstood.

It's effort well spent, negligible in comparison with its reward: Hanako isn't just smiling, she's giggling out loud. I'm almost paralyzed by the sudden beauty of it; part of me wants to stop my game and just listen to that lovely delicate sound forever. But I can't stop in the middle of an attack, not while I have the material and temporal advantage.

"Go on..." Hanako says, her giggling subsiding a bit, dangling my poor rook by its neck between her index and middle finger, waggling it mockingly, a last humiliated nobleman left to rot in a forgotten gibbet on the outskirts of the country he failed to defend. "I can't wait to hear the n-noun at the end of that list." Good lord, does she know how amazing her eyes are?

"Um... bloodthirsty..." It's a bit risky, giving up the temporal advantage in hopes of a greater gain in material.

"You s-said bloodth... thirsty already," she says, giggling again. My risky move has indeed paid off.

"Pah, technicalities," I snap. "It's always technicalities with you." If there's one thing I've learned from Kenji, it's how to make my "insults" completely nonsensical and meaningless, and thus completely harmless. "The point is, it's not enough for you to just win. You're never satisfied until you brutally and completely crush your enemies beneath your feet, and scatter their remains before you." She laughs even harder, until...

Oh my God. She... no, I imagined it, surely? No, she did it again! She snorted! I didn't make her laugh, I made Hanako snort like a half ton farm hog! And she doesn't seem to have noticed! CHECKMATE!

"Yes, sweep them away!" Suiting the action to her words, she makes a sweeping gesture with her right arm, still holding my dead rook by the neck. Its base nicks the crown of my long-since captured queen, which in turn skitters to the edge of the table and spins off into the void.

We both snort at this, but I manage to remember my manners anyway. I slip out of my chair, lever myself around the corner of the table, and drop down on one knee, reaching out for the fallen queen. My hand closes on something soft instead; Hanako has already leaned over in her chair, her slender hand reaching the queen a moment before I grasp the former instead of the latter. Our eyes meet, and we both start to laugh again when I realize something an instant before Hanako does. Her long hair, normally covering the right side of her face, is cascading straight down, and for the first time I am looking at her face. Her whole face.

The sensation is thrilling. In a way, I've been trying to see this for some time now. Ever since I met Hanako, I've been thinking about her more and more frequently, more and more intensely, and I've been doing everything I can to build her trust, to ease away the layers under which she hides her soul and her face. And now it's happened. There's a fluttering sensation in my stomach that quickly spreads to a warmth in my legs and chest. Not revulsion, far from it. I imagine it's something like what lovers feel when they first see each other undressed.

I feel all this in a fraction of a second, and I'm sure I'm still smiling, but Hanako isn't. I watch her eyes as the fear in them gives way to panic which gives way to terror. I can guess what's coming next, but it's far too late to stop it.

Hanako yanks her hand from mine and drops the queen, as if they were both made of hot metal. As she tries to leap straight to her feet from this awkward leaning position, her feet get tangled in the legs of the chair, but she pirouettes around, managing to stay on her feet in a half-crouch while sending the chair flying off behind her. Before I can move she is sprinting for the door.

"Hanako..." I say, desperate for some way to stop her, frantic at the knowledge that there isn't any. If I try to get up and chase after her, it'll just panic her more. If I tell her to stop, she'll just keep running; she never hears words when she gets like this, she'll just hear a guy yelling at her. If I sit still and wait for her to calm down, she'll calm down all right, but it won't be here, and it won't be with me. She's almost at the door when I try the only way I can think of to reach her.

"Hanako, please wait! Listen!" I'm almost yelling, but I'm also pitching my voice much higher than normal, a girlish, almost cartoonish squeak. Not a masculine sound by any stretch, but I'm far from caring.

With a great effort of will I force myself not to gasp with relief as once again a desperate move of mine is rewarded. Hanako stands just in front of the door; she is still hunched over, her whole body shuddering piteously, her hands claw-like and shaking as if she were stopped in the act of ripping her way straight through the door. But at least she has stopped.

"Hanako, listen... please..." I'm barely above a whisper now; finding the right pitch and volume isn't the hard part. The problem is I have no idea what to say, and I know I won't be able to stall for long.

"Listen, let... let me..." My mouth is moving on its own now, apparently thinking it can go for a draw when my brain has already resigned. Stupid mouth. "Let me go, you stay here. I... I'm sorry, I should be the one to go, this is the one place you definitely shouldn't have to run away from." Umm, what? Where's my mouth going with this? How does that help, if... well, maybe it doesn't help me, but if it would help Hanako, then that might...

"I c-c.. I c-can't... m-make you... That would be r-rude of... of me..." She is still shuddering, but her hands have clenched into fists. I'm hoping that that's better than having them locked in those claw-like positions, but I'm not really capable of dealing with nuances right now.

"Well, no, 'cause you wouldn't be making me, I'd be offering. And even if it were rude, it would be more rude of me to stay here while you have to run away. I mean, this is your room, you're safe here..." Uh oh, am I babbling?

"It... it's y-your... room, t-too..." I almost lose it at this; even in the midst of what must be a physically painful panic attack, she's thinking something like this about me. I have the opposite problem; I should be focused entirely on her, and what to say to her, but part of me is wondering how my heart is doing, checking for skipped beats, counting my pulse against the clock on the wall. Calming exercises. Deep, slow breaths. Easy. Gotta take it easy.

"Hanako, that's very sweet of you to say, and I'm very grateful to you and Lilly for making me feel welcome here, and for your friendship." I'm still kneeling on the floor, my hands lying non-threateningly in my lap, so it doesn't feel very unnatural to bow a little in Hanako's direction. "But it's okay, really. If you need a break, that's totally okay, let me go, I don't mind, really."

Hanako turns her head slightly, not nearly enough to face me, just a tiny bit to the side. "You... you'd go if... if I asked you t-to?" she asks.

"Yes, absolutely," I reply, keeping my voice as calm as I can manage.

"You... you w-want... to g-go?" she asks, her head bending down now almost imperceptibly.

"Well, no, of course I want to stay here with you," I say languidly. Stay calm, nothing exciting going on, just talking about homework or something. "But if that's not going to work right now, I don't particularly need to stay here. I mean, it's not the room I care about..." Oh crap, what was that? Not now, you dumbass.

But Hanako either doesn't notice this, or decides not to react to it, so I press on. "Really, it's not a big deal. Say the word, and I am out of here." When she flinches at this, I realize how harsh it might sound.

"I mean, you know, for as long as you need. Then when you're feeling better we can... I mean if you're up to it tomorrow, we could have lunch together or something." It's all I can do to keep from slapping myself at the inanities I am spewing at this point. But at least it gets a response from Hanako.

"I d-d... I d-don't w-want to g-go," she says, "But... I c-can't... stop... mysss...Ahh!" She shrieks suddenly, and it's my turn to flinch. "Why am I like this? Why can't I c-control... rrr!" She grasps her temples with a groan of frustration.

"Hey, I know, I mean, I understand... I understand what it's like to want to do something, but your body won't let you." One day the week after the festival, I jogged most of the way to our chess session so as not to be later than I already was. Hanako noticed how long it took my breathing to get back to normal, and it seemed as good a time as any to tell her about my situation. I really hate bringing this up; it feels like I'm playing it for sympathy, but it seems to have some good effect. She's not trembling as much any more, at least. So I keep talking.

"But it'll be okay, I promise. We'll just... we'll keep working on getting stronger when we can, and not push ourselves too hard when we can't." She slumps against the door, one hand covering her face, the other resting on the doorknob.

As much as I want her to stay, I don't want to be the one pushing her too hard. "Okay, look, I'm gonna go over here and sit by the window for a little bit. If you can stay, that's great, but if you can't... don't go too far, okay? Just make a little loop and come back, and I'll straighten up a little and be gone before you get back here." I get slowly to my feet, making sure I'm not feeling any hints of dizziness, and then move over to the window. I try to enjoy the colors of the sunset, but I guess I'm not aware of just how high my hopes have been raised by the silence in the room, until the sound of a door opening and then clicking shut brings them crashing down.

"Ah, damn," I whisper aloud. I raise my fist, wanting to pound something, but I end up just rubbing my palm against the window frame. I guess I've gotten in the habit of not making a lot of unnecessary noise around Hanako, and of not making a lot of unnecessary physical or emotional exertions around... my heart. Actually, I think wryly to myself, Hanako's been very good for me in that sense. Here my heart should be pounding from excitement and emotional stress, but nope, nice steady beat, nice calm breathing, physically we're in complete control. Keeping myself outwardly calm and placid around her no matter what (except for my teasing rants during chess, but again, those are deliberately exaggerated gags without any emotional vigor) has done that much. Yay me.

It occurs to me how selfish this thought is, and I'm reminded of Hanako telling me this was "my room too" even in the midst of her panic attack. What the hell, man. She's going through pain you can't really imagine at all, and all you can think about is whether you got to spend more time with her or not. And claiming to understand her problem, that was pretty much bullshit too, wasn't it? I mean, just which burning desires have you really had thwarted by your arrhythmia? Big plans for becoming a sports legend? You can't possibly compare occasionally reminding yourself not to run up the stairs too fast with being physically compelled to leave a room you might otherwise want to stay in, or with being unable to enjoy simple conversations with classmates, to hang out with a group of friends.

But then, should I really be surprised? Being selfish has been my pattern since the beginning of this, hasn't it? Making sure my parents knew, with my sullen silence and glares, just how resentful I was of my condition, of being sent here. Refusing to say anything on the subject, daring them to bring it up first, to start an argument they couldn't possibly win. Blaming them for not trying harder to do the impossible, to force medical science to deliver a cure that doesn't exist, to risk the life of their son over something as trivial and stupid as finishing out a year at one particular school or another.

I shut my eyes and press my knuckles against my eyelids, but I can't press hard enough to squeeze away the frozen image of my mother's face, my father sitting slumped in the background, as I turn on my heel for the latest time, slam my bedroom door for the latest time. I'm better at reading subtleties of expression now, thanks to Hanako, but I shouldn't have needed any special training to recognize the cold glassiness in my mother's eyes, and the grayness of my father's face, for what they were. Fear. Panic. Terror.

As the tears slide down my cheeks, I curse at myself that I haven't even bothered to call them, to tell them that I don't feel that way anymore. Hey, as long as I'm coming to grips with my problem, and adjusting to my situation, no need to share that with them, right? No need to apologize for acting like an asshole the weeks before coming here. No need to tell them anything about my life, things I could have told them the first week I was here. Hey, it turns out there's a festival coming up this Sunday, you guys should come check it out. I helped two cute girls decorate one of the stalls, and I helped this other cute girl with a mural she was working on for the festival, and I helped these other two cute girls collect some supplies they needed, and I've basically been treated really well by a lot of really nice people, and if God forbid something does happen to me they are better equipped to take care of it here than pretty much anywhere else I could be, and I owe it all to you, but of course I'm not going to bother telling you any of that, because why should I waste five minutes on a phone call when I can spend that time grumbling about having to take a few stupid pills twice a day.

I'm leaning against the window now, the tears flowing freely at this point, when I hear the door open again. Only now do I remember that Lilly had said she would try to meet us for dinner, if she could finish dealing with whatever latest bit of nonsense the student council was demanding of her. Well, it's not like she can see me. I just have to hope my voice is reasonably steady.

"Hey Lilly," I say, still covering my eyes. "The... uh... the chess set's still out on the table, I was about to clean it up." As the door closes I wonder what to say about Hanako's absence, and I think how unlike Lilly it is for her not to have said anything yet.

"Hisao... it... it's me..." I spin around at the sound of Hanako's voice, nearly slipping off the windowsill. She doesn't look at me, but walks over to the table, and sets down the cans she is carrying. Without letting go of them, or looking up at me, she continues talking.

"I... I t-tricked myself," she says, with a strange little laugh. "I let my b-body run away, but I said to m-myself, I'll just stop for a drink f-first. By the time I b-bought them, I was feeling... better. Then I c-came back as soon as I could, I d-didn't want you to leave before I could get b-back. And it... it worked..." She finally looks up at me, and her victorious smile is the most beautiful thing I've seen, which only adds to my shock when it suddenly disappears.

Oh. Right. The blubbering like a baby thing. Rats.

"Hisao!" she shrieks, running towards me now. I barely have time to wipe away the tears before she reaches me.

"Oh, hey, this... this isn't..." I start mumbling, but she's already reached me, one trembling hand centimeters from my face.

"Hisao, I m-made you c-cry... I'm... I'm so sorry..." she whispers.

"No, it's not like that," I say, waving my hands in front of me, a bit tricky given the narrow space between our bodies. "It's not you... uh, I mean, yeah, I was sad when you left, but... then I just got to thinking about things, and... uh, I guess it just occurred to me how badly I've been treating my parents ever since my... since I went to the hospital. You know, like I was blaming them or something, even though of course it's not their fault. You know?" I don't think I'm making much sense at this point, but Hanako nods, her lower lip trembling slightly.

"Anyway... ah, crap," I mutter, wiping my face again. "Bad enough I can't do stuff like regular guys, I mean, sports, showing off for the girls, stuff like that, and here I go..." Before I can finish my sentence, Hanako leans forward and kisses my right cheek, just where a tear is trickling down.

"Uh... Hanako?" Her hands are resting lightly on my shoulders now. I'm almost afraid to move, but before I can think of anything to say she leans in again, kissing my left cheekbone, at the wetness just under my eye. It's not as quick as the first kiss; she lingers a bit, her lips brushing softly down and across my cheek as she pulls back out. I want to wrap my arms around her and hold her as tightly as I can, but I am still afraid of scaring her off, so I settle for gently cupping her elbows in my hands.

"Okay, um, while we are on the subject of not being able to control our bodies, I am about to try to kiss you." I can feel the redness rushing to my face, as if burnt by the radiance of her eyes. "So, if you, uh, don't want that, you might want to back away, or hide behind the table, or..." I barely have time to note with satisfaction that she is smiling at this, when she lunges in and kisses me in earnest.

She wraps her arms tightly around my neck, her left hand stroking the hair on the back of my head. The whole length of her body is pressed tightly against mine, so I am no longer afraid to hold her in turn. Her blouse certainly isn't silk, it's just as synthetic and mildly uncomfortable as one would expect from a school uniform, but it's soft enough that I can feel all the contours of her back, the lovely shape of her shoulder blades, the...what? My hand hesitates as it brushes across a roughness, some other texture under the coarseness of the blouse.

The roughness on the right side of her back. I resist the urge to pull my hand away, but I'm afraid to continue stroking her back as firmly as I have been.

Hanako stops kissing me and leans her head against my shoulder, breathing heavily.

"It's okay..." she whispers. "It... it doesn't hurt..."

"Sorry, I..." I'm unsure what to say. "It... doesn't?"

"No," she says. "I... I have to use a lot of skin cream, to keep it from... c-cracking..." She glances up at me briefly, then looks back down again, nuzzling against me. The sensation is as electrifying as her kissing me was. "It's bad if it gets too d-dry, but it... doesn't really hurt..." She runs her hand down my arm, from shoulder to elbow, tugging gently, as if encouraging me to go back to what I was doing. I am very glad to oblige. With my other hand I begin stroking her long hair, or as much of it as I can reach without going past the border where her blouse meets her skirt.

Hanako sighs deeply, and I can feel the warmth of her breath across my chest. "I was... scared... to... that you were just being nice to me, and didn't... wouldn't want..." She looks up at me, her eyes sparkling, flashing that same triumpant smile again. "I was scared but I didn't... run away... this time..." She traces slow, small circles on my chest.

"No, I do... I mean..." I stammer. "I've been trying to figure out how to tell you... how I feel, for a while now... I just..."

"You were afraid I would run away..." she whispers.

"Well, I..." I smile down at her, "I'm really glad you didn't, this time." She looks very faintly troubled at this. "And hey, about before..." I hesitate, breathing deeply before continuing. "Look, I don't want to push you or... or 'see' anything you don't want to show me, but..." I look away, unsure if I'm doing the right thing. "I mean, you can trust me, you know? I won't... I... Nothing you can show me is going to change how I feel about you," I blurt. "Or how much I... like you..."

As she pulls away from me, I'm afraid for a moment that I have indeed screwed up. But no, the lower half of her body is still pressed firmly against mine; she's just pulling back a bit to look me directly in the face. Her eyes are downcast for a moment, but suddenly she looks up at me, almost defiantly, and reaches up to yank away the hair from the right side of her face, pulling it back into a rough ponytail behind her ear.

"I believe you, but..." She closes her eyes, breathing deeply before looking at me again. "It's... h-horrible... isn't it?"

"Yes," I say firmly, deliberately, and as her eyes widen in shock I move before she can react in any other way, grabbing her right hand, firmly enough to keep her from covering her face again, but gently enough that I can caress that hand, stroking the right side of her face with my thumb. "It looks like something horrible happened to you. And yes, there are some stupid people that will avoid you or treat you like shit because of it. But a lot of people, most people I bet, will see that you made it through something horrible, and survived, and they will figure out that you must have something very strong inside you. And they'll see that you've suffered horribly, and so they'll want to... protect you, or comfort you, and... I dunno, some day you'll have kids, and to them you'll be the most beautiful woman in the world, and when they're old enough to understand, they'll just be glad you survivied, they won't care about..." I break off as she abruptly bursts into tears.

Dammit, how did I screw up this time, I ask myself, as she pulls her right hand out of my grasp and covers her eyes. But she's not pulling away from me, and her left hand is clutching at my shirt even more tightly than before.

"Hanako, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..." I start to say, but she shakes her head fiercely, forcing her words out between sobs.

"No no, it's not you... it's... my fff..." She chokes at this, then gasps deeply before leaning her head against my shoulder again. But she's not sobbing as heavily now. Her breathing is soon under control, and without looking up at me, she says, "My father... didn't survive..."

"Oh my God..." I say, my shoulders slumping. "Hanako, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry, I didn't know. God..."

"I know, it's okay, it's not your fault..." she whispers. She sighs lightly. "I'll go for months without crying, and then something will remind me, and..."

I don't know what to say, so I just go on holding her and stroking her hair. We're both quiet for a while, and only the occasional sniffle tells me Hanako hasn't fallen asleep in my arms. Eventually I break the silence.

"Hanako, this may sound selfish, but I'm very grateful to you for telling me this. Here I was all worked up about how badly I've treated my parents since my heart attack, and now I'm realizing that I wasn't even aware of the worst part of that. I mean, I could have died... and now I'm finally starting to understand what that would have done to them, and how that must have been all they've been thinking about all these months." She pats my chest gently, but doesn't say anything, her tears steadily soaking into my shirt as I stroke her hand. "And hey, this may not help now, but I know your kids will be really grateful to have someone to tell them about their grandfather."

She laughs softly at this, through the tears. "He was a g-great guy... you would have l-liked him, I think. He had a c-crazy sense of humor... he was always telling me j-jokes, and playing p-pranks on Mom... silly stuff, she would p-pretend to be mad at him, but she kept winking at me, I knew she was... enjoying it too..."

She falls silent again. I'm not sure how long we've been standing there, crying and holding one another, when Lilly walks in.

[Ozymil]

While I can see that you've got the potential for both this piece of fiction and your writing prowess, I must be quite frank (excuse my douchebaggery/self-loving ego) and say that the two could stand to see some improvement. Most, if not all, of the dialogue suffered from being either contrived or over the top, while the overall narrative often times progressed confusingly, dully, awkwardly, or any combination of the three. I apologize if I'm being a tad blunt and vague here, but lack of sleep has caused my descriptive and empathetic processors to cease from functioning properly.

On the positive side, your characterization of the pair was done quite well; from seeing the laughing, chess-playing pair, to the solitary, sulking Hisao, you took what little we knew of our beloved couple and managed to mold their respective personalities into something believable (even if their dialogues weren't... I kid, I kid!) beyond Act 1. [Edit: I guess I shouldn't have read this at three in the morning if I had wanted the review that I previously wrote to be coherent] On my second read-through, I have to say that Hisao struck me as the stereotypical "Mr. Right." If it's really been only two weeks, I don't think he could have gotten so perfect that he can, forgive the metaphor, get into Hanako's "pants" without a hitch.

Nothing more I can (or should) say except to keep at it, and that I definitely look forward to seeing what more you may have to write for the good folks on the KS forums.

[Bara]

Nit picking here, but your characterization of Hisao is showing someone with an inordinate ammount of perception, empathy and insight; far beyond what my experience tells me an 18 year old male can contain. Unless of course, Hisao is not a human 18 year old male but an alien from the planet Metrosexual.
But still entertaining and worth the time to read.

[SirMax]

I actually really liked it. It was better paced than most fanfiction I've read, and really quite touching. I'm not too sure what I think of characterizing Hanako's fear of social contact as more of subconscious compulsion than a conscious fear, but it worked for the story, at any rate.

[Synoptic]

"Hisao!" she shrieks,

lol?
She a banshee?

PS: Not bad.
Not bad at all. :]

[Deimos]

Quite good.

There are some minor things concerning grammar and very few spelling mistakes but all that is easily dismissable.

Nit picking here, but your characterization of Hisao is showing someone with an inordinate ammount of perception, empathy and insight; far beyond what my experience tells me an 18 year old male can contain.

Now the characterizations strikes me as a little bit off. Hisao who is having a hard time with expressing his thoughts (verbally) within the first week of Act 1 is really talkative about his innermost feelings in your work.
Well, I really liked the way Hisao went on with his thoughts to his parents and his wrongdoings concerning his mother and father. However for telling Hanako all that (and more) the buildup was a little bit too undramatic.

Same with Hanako, I saw little point with her mentioning her father while she is worried about Hisao. Even to people we humans hold dear we are not always voicing our aching secrets - especially not in a very emotional moment.

Other than that: You placed the time around two weeks after the school festival and in the beginning showed us the level of trust that has already been established between them. And in the end you wrote them somehow confessing their love for each other.
I won't argue that two weeks seem like a very rushed time but my main point is that I had no indication from the beginning that Hisao was already in love with Hanako - allude it to me being dense but I really could not find proof of Hisao already being in love with Hanako in the exposition of your story.


That being said - I like your story and if you continue with writing serious fanfiction in this forum I would be very happy to read it.

[K_Amelia]

Wow... That was quite a nice read. I look forward to reading more of your stories.

I ignore overlap. To me, reading fanfics is like taking a trip to a parallel universe.

[vermithrx]

I enjoyed this and really like some of what you did with Hisao and Hanako, particularly his theatrics at the begining and how you treat her fear as more of a compulsion and have her "trick herself" into returning. (The latter was so cute! ^_^ )

The biggest problem I have with it is Hisao never makes a mistake and always finds the right things to say even when he says far too much. (and a lot of what he says is really clichéd. Has he been reading a lot of romance novels lately or what?) He's too perfect and selfless to be realistic. Also, if Hanako's fear is so compulsive at the start that she can't keep herself from running away, how does she suddenly have the self control to voluntarily expose her face to Hisao later? Her characterization is somewhat inconsistant.

I also enjoyed the mini-conversation they have about her scars, that she has to keep them moisturized, and how you have her indicate to him that she wants to be touched there. I thought that was really well done.

P.S. Where's the overlap? The only real similarity I see between this and Golden Room is the setting. I think we're going for very different themes.

[Zealot]

Keep writing, there really needs to be more of this.

[griffon8]

Keep writing, there really needs to be more of this.

While this is a nice piece for a story written before the full release, I don't think you can expect more from a thread nearly three years dead.