Fandoms 13-15
Title: Phoenix
Fandom: Vlad Taltos - Steven Brust/Westmark - Lloyd Alexander
Characters: Mickle, Theo, Zerika, Laszlo the Warlock
Word Count: 129
Rating: G
Summary: A pair of foreigners visit Dragaera.
Zerika hardly believes the woman used to be a queen. Mickle - "or Augusta, but I never got used to that" - dresses like a prosperous Teckla, and so does her husband Theo. (Zerika dresses like a noblewoman, for while she's no longer Empress she's the representative of the House of the Phoenix and thus obliged to appear at court.)
But this is a private dinner, only herself, Laszlo, Mickle, and Theo. They speak of court and ruling, wars and barricades. The foreigners are astonished that Dragaera sometimes has a temporary republic.
After klava, which they claim they've neither tasted nor heard of, Theo takes his drawing-box to the balcony. "I want to sketch your sky," he says. "And if I'm really lucky I'll get to see a phoenix."
Title: At the Opera
Fandom: Pink Carnation series - Lauren Willig
Characters: Arabella Dempsey/Turnip Fitzhugh
Word Count: 196
Rating: G
Summary: Arabella was not of the ton.
Reginald "Turnip" Fitzhugh was not a man who enjoyed the opera. He was fond of opera singers in his youth, but onstage they sang in languages he didn't understand. Lady Henrietta had once explained to him that the music expressed more than the words did, but he wasn't able to wrap his mind around the concept. Funny expression, that. You couldn't wrap a mind around a thing.
Mrs. Arabella Fitzhugh, however, and not of the ton, and had never been to the opera before. And if his lady wanted to try it, to the opera Turnip went.
Arabella confessed she was surprised by how many people paid little or no attention to the performance. "But then they have seen it before," she said. Turnip didn't mind the custom of making conversation, since without it he was in danger of falling asleep. Being quick-minded, she realized he was bored and told him that if she returned to the opera, she was happy to go alone.
What demmed fine luck fate had crossed their paths! No, fate had made their paths cross. Ah, who cared about phrasing, when you lived in bliss with a clever and beautiful wife.
Title: Wonder
Fandom: The Winning of Lucinda - L. M. Montgomery
Characters: Lucinda Romney, OFC
Word Count: 148
Rating: G
Summary: Miranda finally asks her mother the big question.
Miranda Romney grows up hearing the story of her parents' courtship. How they were nearly about to make a match of it when they quarreled and then didn't speak to each other for fifteen years. What caused them to reconcile, her older cousins say, has never been revealed.
As a little girl she makes up different stories to amuse herself. In some of them Mama decides to apologize, her heart inspired by Alice Penhallow's wedding. In some of them it's an accident, caused by a stubbed toe or a bumped elbow.
It's only when her mother is a widow past seventy, still full of the dignity that led her to keep her word at the expense of her own happiness, that Miranda dares to ask, and Lucinda dares to tell.
"No wonder you never said," giggles Miranda. "Women didn't swear back then."
"Oh, you'd be surprised," Lucinda replies.
Fandom: Vlad Taltos - Steven Brust/Westmark - Lloyd Alexander
Characters: Mickle, Theo, Zerika, Laszlo the Warlock
Word Count: 129
Rating: G
Summary: A pair of foreigners visit Dragaera.
Zerika hardly believes the woman used to be a queen. Mickle - "or Augusta, but I never got used to that" - dresses like a prosperous Teckla, and so does her husband Theo. (Zerika dresses like a noblewoman, for while she's no longer Empress she's the representative of the House of the Phoenix and thus obliged to appear at court.)
But this is a private dinner, only herself, Laszlo, Mickle, and Theo. They speak of court and ruling, wars and barricades. The foreigners are astonished that Dragaera sometimes has a temporary republic.
After klava, which they claim they've neither tasted nor heard of, Theo takes his drawing-box to the balcony. "I want to sketch your sky," he says. "And if I'm really lucky I'll get to see a phoenix."
Title: At the Opera
Fandom: Pink Carnation series - Lauren Willig
Characters: Arabella Dempsey/Turnip Fitzhugh
Word Count: 196
Rating: G
Summary: Arabella was not of the ton.
Reginald "Turnip" Fitzhugh was not a man who enjoyed the opera. He was fond of opera singers in his youth, but onstage they sang in languages he didn't understand. Lady Henrietta had once explained to him that the music expressed more than the words did, but he wasn't able to wrap his mind around the concept. Funny expression, that. You couldn't wrap a mind around a thing.
Mrs. Arabella Fitzhugh, however, and not of the ton, and had never been to the opera before. And if his lady wanted to try it, to the opera Turnip went.
Arabella confessed she was surprised by how many people paid little or no attention to the performance. "But then they have seen it before," she said. Turnip didn't mind the custom of making conversation, since without it he was in danger of falling asleep. Being quick-minded, she realized he was bored and told him that if she returned to the opera, she was happy to go alone.
What demmed fine luck fate had crossed their paths! No, fate had made their paths cross. Ah, who cared about phrasing, when you lived in bliss with a clever and beautiful wife.
Title: Wonder
Fandom: The Winning of Lucinda - L. M. Montgomery
Characters: Lucinda Romney, OFC
Word Count: 148
Rating: G
Summary: Miranda finally asks her mother the big question.
Miranda Romney grows up hearing the story of her parents' courtship. How they were nearly about to make a match of it when they quarreled and then didn't speak to each other for fifteen years. What caused them to reconcile, her older cousins say, has never been revealed.
As a little girl she makes up different stories to amuse herself. In some of them Mama decides to apologize, her heart inspired by Alice Penhallow's wedding. In some of them it's an accident, caused by a stubbed toe or a bumped elbow.
It's only when her mother is a widow past seventy, still full of the dignity that led her to keep her word at the expense of her own happiness, that Miranda dares to ask, and Lucinda dares to tell.
"No wonder you never said," giggles Miranda. "Women didn't swear back then."
"Oh, you'd be surprised," Lucinda replies.