Chapter 9: What Hearts Are Made Of
Summary: Hina, Ankh, Rei, and all the others make their final stand to save Shingo and Eiji and prove what's stronger than fear.


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Took a while, but I finally got this posted.

Title: Pieces of Me
Rated: T
Summary: In the aftermath of "Kings and Vagabonds," Eiji tries to recover from the physical and mental turmoil he went through in the past. But with old wounds aggravated by new, he has a hard time finding his way back to himself. And asking others to help carry a burden he knows is heavy may be harder than trying to shoulder it himself.

This was an intensely personal fic to write, which is why it took me so long to do it. I know it may not seem like it, since I was posting "Vagabonds" throughout November and December, but keep in mind that I completed "Vagabonds" on Halloween. I've spent the past few months working on this fic, trying to work out my own emotions while working out Eiji's.

A few months ago, a friend of mine went through a really terrible time, and she's still working her way through it. With that in my mind, I couldn't just jump from the end of "Vagabonds" into "Snow, Flowers, Flame" without some degree of recovery and aftermath. This was kind of part of the healing process--hopefully for her, as well as for me. To show that no matter how hard things get, happy endings are possible and not always too far out of reach. And it's not on one person alone. And maybe it took a dozen rewrites and getting upset and having to overhaul the entire second half of the fic, but if it does good, then that's good.

( Bibliography )

New compilation of info and things to help me as I write.

Medical
Common Injuries and How to Treat Them
Burns: University of Maryland Medical Center
How Long Does it Take for Broken Bones/Fractures to Heal
How to Poison your Fictional Characters

Symbolism
The Language of Flowers

Martial Arts
Lehigh Valley Taekwondo

Fandom
Interview about Rayforce (shelved Korean toku)

I know, I'm overresearching things again, but given Kobayashi's penchant for physics in her shows, I had to go looking for Brian Greene's PBS report on quantum entanglement, or "spooky action at a distance." I was actually looking for the video (since I caught it on The Fabric of the Universe one day), but the article is still pretty easy to understand because Greene does a damn good job making it accessible. I think I may one day wind up writing Ryuki fics based off his stuff.