Drabble Challenge ~ Shelinda

[auronlu]

Hmmm. I'm not quite satisfied with this, and muggy_mountain did say "Shelinda's perspective on the party".

I'll try again, but here's a wee one.


What does an acolyte know? Crusaders used Machina, and two Maesters gave the orders. I saw, Lady Yuna, how you tended the living and the dead when it was over. Now they call you traitor. Oh, it would have been a fine wedding! And yet... Seymour watched Sin engulf them. Lord Seymour, I mean. Well, I'm sure there's been some mistake. If you're willing to face Sin after that, good luck, Lady Yuna! Good luck to both of us!

Comments

[mneme-forgets.livejournal.com]

I really liked this actually. It somehow seems you have pinned down Shelinda's voice, although I might not be able to articulate how that is. I like the sense to this that it's a sort of desperate address to Yuna. At one point I thought it might be a letter, but I think I like it better as Shelinda's frustrated thoughts in the midst of the chaos of Bevelle.

I love the way she can still be wistful about the wedding even though she has seen Seyour's cruelty firsthand and marvelled at it. I like the way she forgets Seymour's honorific. That would mean a lot to someone like Shelinda and the fact that she has neglected to use it betrays both her ambivalence towards him and her confusion at events.

I love the desperate way she wishes Lady Yuna and herself good luck at the end. It sounds like Shelinda unravelling and I like that thought, given that Yevon is unravelling and it must have her all in a tizzy.

[auronlu.livejournal.com]

Right. I'm thinking this was Shelinda's thoughts somewhere between Yuna's escape from Macalania Temple and the fake wedding in Bevelle.

Shelinda was such a good-hearted and sunny person, obviously. I can't imagine what went through her mind when she discovered her campaign to convince the Crusaders not to use forbidden machina was being overridden by two Maesters. Then she let herself be carried away by the wedding, possibly because she needed some good news to comfort her after a traumatic experience. But bad news just kept coming: Shelinda was in Macalania temple with the priests when Lord Jyscal's sphere was discovered. She was probably back in Bevelle for Seymour's aborted wedding, and serving Mika. She had to realize some of what the temples were saying wasn't adding up. But bless her heart, somehow she was clinging to her faith in Yevon and not letting herself see what it all added up to, because she was only an acolyte-- what did she know?

At least that's how I read the character. I sometimes wanted to stick a pie in her face, but she just seemed like a nice person who was having trouble processing all the idiocy and outright lies around her.

[mneme-forgets.livejournal.com]

She drives me nuts too which is somehow why I am interested in her as well. She's one of the normal sorts of people in the game - not excessively heroic or brave, just going with the flow like most of us do.

[muggy-mountain.livejournal.com]

Oh, Shelinda, you lovable timid brown-noser.

I should have not been as broad...one can barely name the entire party in 100 words, let alone portray them from a minor NPC's standpoint.

Still, bravo. I like that she attributes it to a mistake, rather than a fundamental flaw in the system. She clings to that sinking ship like rats in the cargo. Thank you. :)