But a Breath | Rose of Versailles

[farina]

Title: But a Breath
Fandom: Rose of Versailles
Words: 301
Summary: The End.
Pairing/Character: Oscar/André
Extra Info: This was originally posted in March 2009. It’s been rewritten and reformatted! 
Rating: G, honestly.
Genre: Peace. Poetry?

Notes:

I’m not sure what kind of ‘story’ this is, really. Poetry? Prose-poetry?

Anyway, this was a “farewell to the fandom” ‘fic because I was suffering major burnout at the time. I did come back in 2010 to write one final short story, but it’s not worth mentioning, and by then most of my audience had moved on to other things. I think I’ll always feel like this story was my “swan song” for RoV. 

Upon re-reading the original, I was surprised to find how...solid it actually was? You’d think because of the burnout that this story would have been...I don’t know, a pathetic sloppy mess or something? But it wasn’t. There were lines I didn’t like anymore, and I had fresh ideas to add, but the general structure was still...pretty good.

Similar to my rewrite of Graves (a Fire Emblem: Awakening ‘fic), I was pretty conflicted over...formatting.

With But a Breath I tried to mimic the mirrored aspect of the writing in the visual appearance of the text. It’s meant to be read on a desktop, and was specifically formatted to look good on my own screen, so it should indent to the midpoint of the story and then lose the indention for the second half—almost like the build-up of tension and then the release of it. Like drawing in and releasing (you guessed it!) a breath.