fandoms 17 and 18
I thought I'd use the prompts :)
17.
Title: La Vie en Rose
Fandom: Dark Savior
Rating: K+
Word Count: 600
Summary: The blue rose in Garian's handbook brought back so many memories... mostly of things that haven't happened yet.
There shouldn't even have been a blue rose in Garian's handbook but its fragrance brought back so many memories.
A girl's perfume. A beautiful girl with golden blonde hair and sky-blue eyes. Her blue dress shifts in the light as she runs, twirls in a deadly dance, fighting for her life against things with scales, claws and glowing red eyes. She's trapped underground in ancient ruins where a calm voice speaks out loud the history of a civilisation lost to a terrible evil of their own making. Its hideous form is frozen on murals, mid-carnage, about to ascend the peak of a snow-capped mountain, in a battle that lasted days upon end with a legendary knight. A tall, wiry figure chases her, his hand replaced by a cruel claw-like weapon that spits lightning, and Garian somehow remembers how evil this man is, despite never seeing him before, just as he remembers that the man is the Warden of the prison he hasn't visited yet, where he is dreading the events that he somehow knows will happen once he sets foot on that bleak, storm-tossed rock.
He shouldn't know this much just from a flower's scent.
The rose only blooms in Lavian, somewhere he hasn't been, isn't even allowed to have contact with in the interests of national security. The ruins are Lavian's legacy, the dire warning to its people. The island is Lavian's stolen property waiting for an opportunity to punish its thief. The girl, too, is Lavian's treasure, one of the nation's most elite ninjas. Her powers are unique to her - only those with some kind of exceptional gift can hope to reach such a high rank in the secretive ninja cadre. He definitely shouldn't know that, just as he shouldn't have ever met such a girl. Yet he feels as if he's known her all his life. (Can it really be called a 'life' when it feels like the same day lived over and over, when the details are constantly shifting, branching and merging again, hazy as a dream?)
He feels desperate to see her again, watches his own arm move forwards without him willing it, but just as she turns to look at him, she falls into a shimmering pool of emerald, her face contorting into a scream. He blinks, shakes his head, tries again to remember what she looks like, but then all he can see is flames. He yells something, hopes that it will carry over the inferno's roar, something about seeing each other again in their dreams...
A flutter of blue feathers and a racuous, squawking voice drag him back to the present moment. Jack, his avian colleague, is yelling a warning to him, something about the boat being under attack. The flames are real, as are the blaring alarms and the dying screams he can hear outside the door. He instantly understands: Bilan has escaped. Jack is cursing the rickety old boat and its sub-standard cages but Garian knows it was always inevitable from the start.
"Just like in my dream," he mutters. The snakebird turns to stare at him.
"What did you say, Garian?" Jack demands.
"Nothing," the bounty hunter insists. He knows he's going to be in trouble if he randomly admits to knowing Lavian national secrets.
"Are you sure? Because I've been experiencing weird phenomena ever since we got on this boat and if there's anything useful you can tell me..."
"Just keep flying and don't get us killed."
"How about you don't get us killed? You're slower than me!" snapped the bird.
Garian grabbed his notebook and ran.
18.
Title: When in Ivalice
Fandom: Final Fantasy series
Rating: K+
Word Count: 814
Summary: Relm goes world-hopping to try and find a less dangerous form of blue magic for her grandfather.
"Do you know that your powers work in the least efficient way they possibly could?"
Strago looked up at his granddaughter, annoyed at having read the same sentence four times in the large tome on his lap. He carefully replaced the bookmark and closed the covers, aware that he wouldn't get any peace of mind with Relm about to go off on one of her lectures.
She had spent the day painting a picture of Interceptor while the enormous dog lay curled up quite happily on the floor next to her, chewing a bone that looked as though it had once belonged to a Behemoth. Every now and then, she bent down and gave the dog a reasurring scratch between his ears, causing Interceptor to look up, give her hand an inquisitive sniff, occasionally licking her, then returning his attention to the satisfyingly sized treat. This was just a mundane portrait, not one of her notorious special paintings - she would never have risked the life of her 'adorable puppy friend' experimenting with such techniques on him (she had no such reservations about using it on her grandfather). She had already drawn the dog in several poses, having not only persuaded him to refrain from eating her, but also to stand still and follow commands such as 'look fierce' and 'look cute' that Strago didn't even realise dogs understood. Nobody else could even get close to the assassin's trained attack dog without getting their arm snapped off but for some reason - much to his owner's irritation - the oversized alsatian had taken a particular liking to the girl. Strago had always known that his granddaughter had a way with animals and a slightly twisted sense of which animals were and were not cute but this was the most extreme case he had ever seen of her gift. He wondered if she was developing some secondary power other than the strong magical affinity that she channeled through her paintings.
"What would you know about blue magic?" he demanded.
"I know that a technique that relies on you deliberately getting hit by the enemy's magic is, well, frankly, dumb," she said, "And it doesn't work like that for all blue mages. Did you know that there's a world where they have this marsh full of weird-looking fat people that eat frogs, and they have a form of blue magic where you cook and eat your enemy?"
"Relm, that's disgusting. Have you actually read up on the personal hygiene habits of the monsters in this area? Personally, I'd rather be hit by their spells."
"That's why you're supposed to wash your food carefully and grill it all the way through. Although, come to think of it, you suck at cooking, so forget it," she sighed, "There's this other world with really advanced machines, where blue magic works by collecting bits of your enemies and refining them into..."
"So now you want me to collect random bits of dead things? Some of which occasionally come back from death?"
"I have to do that anyway when I'm studying anatomy for my paintings," she pointed out, "You're just too squeamish, that's your problem."
"Having to get hit by an attack every now and then is no more dangerous than having to stand there and draw your enemy's portrait in the middle of battle," he pointed out.
"I can draw really fast," she reminded him, demonstrating by turning over to the next page on her easel and vigorously attacking it with a paintbrush. Somehow, when the clouds of paint had cleared, a rough but still perfectly accurate picture of Interceptor appeared on the canvas. The dog looked up at her, let out a confused whine, barked several times at the painting, then turned over and nudged the bone over to the other side of him so he could protect it from the inexplicable, vaguely defined air of weirdness.
"Well... you're going to get hit anyway, might as well make it count for something."
"The point is not to get hit, gramps, we're supposed to take the enemy down first. We aren't big, buff heroes like Cyan and Sabin," she said, "I worry about you every time you step out of the door, you know. I wish you'd at least read the books I borrowed about other forms of blue magic."
"And I worry about your new hobby of world-hopping," he said, "You never know what you might find out there, so be careful, okay?"
"Only if you read my book."
"Well... it does sound interesting."
"And stop looking at the puppy like that, you're upsetting him."
"I apologise for being absolutely terrified of you," he told Interceptor. The dog let out a low growl and gave him a look of utter disdain. The little girl smiled, glad that the two were at least communicating, and went back to her portrait.
17.
Title: La Vie en Rose
Fandom: Dark Savior
Rating: K+
Word Count: 600
Summary: The blue rose in Garian's handbook brought back so many memories... mostly of things that haven't happened yet.
There shouldn't even have been a blue rose in Garian's handbook but its fragrance brought back so many memories.
A girl's perfume. A beautiful girl with golden blonde hair and sky-blue eyes. Her blue dress shifts in the light as she runs, twirls in a deadly dance, fighting for her life against things with scales, claws and glowing red eyes. She's trapped underground in ancient ruins where a calm voice speaks out loud the history of a civilisation lost to a terrible evil of their own making. Its hideous form is frozen on murals, mid-carnage, about to ascend the peak of a snow-capped mountain, in a battle that lasted days upon end with a legendary knight. A tall, wiry figure chases her, his hand replaced by a cruel claw-like weapon that spits lightning, and Garian somehow remembers how evil this man is, despite never seeing him before, just as he remembers that the man is the Warden of the prison he hasn't visited yet, where he is dreading the events that he somehow knows will happen once he sets foot on that bleak, storm-tossed rock.
He shouldn't know this much just from a flower's scent.
The rose only blooms in Lavian, somewhere he hasn't been, isn't even allowed to have contact with in the interests of national security. The ruins are Lavian's legacy, the dire warning to its people. The island is Lavian's stolen property waiting for an opportunity to punish its thief. The girl, too, is Lavian's treasure, one of the nation's most elite ninjas. Her powers are unique to her - only those with some kind of exceptional gift can hope to reach such a high rank in the secretive ninja cadre. He definitely shouldn't know that, just as he shouldn't have ever met such a girl. Yet he feels as if he's known her all his life. (Can it really be called a 'life' when it feels like the same day lived over and over, when the details are constantly shifting, branching and merging again, hazy as a dream?)
He feels desperate to see her again, watches his own arm move forwards without him willing it, but just as she turns to look at him, she falls into a shimmering pool of emerald, her face contorting into a scream. He blinks, shakes his head, tries again to remember what she looks like, but then all he can see is flames. He yells something, hopes that it will carry over the inferno's roar, something about seeing each other again in their dreams...
A flutter of blue feathers and a racuous, squawking voice drag him back to the present moment. Jack, his avian colleague, is yelling a warning to him, something about the boat being under attack. The flames are real, as are the blaring alarms and the dying screams he can hear outside the door. He instantly understands: Bilan has escaped. Jack is cursing the rickety old boat and its sub-standard cages but Garian knows it was always inevitable from the start.
"Just like in my dream," he mutters. The snakebird turns to stare at him.
"What did you say, Garian?" Jack demands.
"Nothing," the bounty hunter insists. He knows he's going to be in trouble if he randomly admits to knowing Lavian national secrets.
"Are you sure? Because I've been experiencing weird phenomena ever since we got on this boat and if there's anything useful you can tell me..."
"Just keep flying and don't get us killed."
"How about you don't get us killed? You're slower than me!" snapped the bird.
Garian grabbed his notebook and ran.
18.
Title: When in Ivalice
Fandom: Final Fantasy series
Rating: K+
Word Count: 814
Summary: Relm goes world-hopping to try and find a less dangerous form of blue magic for her grandfather.
"Do you know that your powers work in the least efficient way they possibly could?"
Strago looked up at his granddaughter, annoyed at having read the same sentence four times in the large tome on his lap. He carefully replaced the bookmark and closed the covers, aware that he wouldn't get any peace of mind with Relm about to go off on one of her lectures.
She had spent the day painting a picture of Interceptor while the enormous dog lay curled up quite happily on the floor next to her, chewing a bone that looked as though it had once belonged to a Behemoth. Every now and then, she bent down and gave the dog a reasurring scratch between his ears, causing Interceptor to look up, give her hand an inquisitive sniff, occasionally licking her, then returning his attention to the satisfyingly sized treat. This was just a mundane portrait, not one of her notorious special paintings - she would never have risked the life of her 'adorable puppy friend' experimenting with such techniques on him (she had no such reservations about using it on her grandfather). She had already drawn the dog in several poses, having not only persuaded him to refrain from eating her, but also to stand still and follow commands such as 'look fierce' and 'look cute' that Strago didn't even realise dogs understood. Nobody else could even get close to the assassin's trained attack dog without getting their arm snapped off but for some reason - much to his owner's irritation - the oversized alsatian had taken a particular liking to the girl. Strago had always known that his granddaughter had a way with animals and a slightly twisted sense of which animals were and were not cute but this was the most extreme case he had ever seen of her gift. He wondered if she was developing some secondary power other than the strong magical affinity that she channeled through her paintings.
"What would you know about blue magic?" he demanded.
"I know that a technique that relies on you deliberately getting hit by the enemy's magic is, well, frankly, dumb," she said, "And it doesn't work like that for all blue mages. Did you know that there's a world where they have this marsh full of weird-looking fat people that eat frogs, and they have a form of blue magic where you cook and eat your enemy?"
"Relm, that's disgusting. Have you actually read up on the personal hygiene habits of the monsters in this area? Personally, I'd rather be hit by their spells."
"That's why you're supposed to wash your food carefully and grill it all the way through. Although, come to think of it, you suck at cooking, so forget it," she sighed, "There's this other world with really advanced machines, where blue magic works by collecting bits of your enemies and refining them into..."
"So now you want me to collect random bits of dead things? Some of which occasionally come back from death?"
"I have to do that anyway when I'm studying anatomy for my paintings," she pointed out, "You're just too squeamish, that's your problem."
"Having to get hit by an attack every now and then is no more dangerous than having to stand there and draw your enemy's portrait in the middle of battle," he pointed out.
"I can draw really fast," she reminded him, demonstrating by turning over to the next page on her easel and vigorously attacking it with a paintbrush. Somehow, when the clouds of paint had cleared, a rough but still perfectly accurate picture of Interceptor appeared on the canvas. The dog looked up at her, let out a confused whine, barked several times at the painting, then turned over and nudged the bone over to the other side of him so he could protect it from the inexplicable, vaguely defined air of weirdness.
"Well... you're going to get hit anyway, might as well make it count for something."
"The point is not to get hit, gramps, we're supposed to take the enemy down first. We aren't big, buff heroes like Cyan and Sabin," she said, "I worry about you every time you step out of the door, you know. I wish you'd at least read the books I borrowed about other forms of blue magic."
"And I worry about your new hobby of world-hopping," he said, "You never know what you might find out there, so be careful, okay?"
"Only if you read my book."
"Well... it does sound interesting."
"And stop looking at the puppy like that, you're upsetting him."
"I apologise for being absolutely terrified of you," he told Interceptor. The dog let out a low growl and gave him a look of utter disdain. The little girl smiled, glad that the two were at least communicating, and went back to her portrait.