Week Five: Big Bang Writing Prompt

[just_a_dram]

Beta sign ups will begin on Wednesday (a little earlier than planned).  If you don't have a beta yet, please be on the look out for the beta post.

I hope the writing is going swimmingly, but in case it is not, we have our weekly prompt to help get things going.  If you are so inclined, share the results in the comments or link to your journal.

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Unworthy [Rated M for dark themes]

[manniness]

Title: Unworthy

Author: Manniness (I almost don't want to admit to this one, actually.)

Character(s): Mirana of Marmoreal, Iracebeth of Crims

Rating: M

Warnings: Desecration of the dead and other dark stuff

Summary: Mirana remembers the moment when it became Too Late to save her sister.

Notes: I can't say this belongs to one of my Big Bang entries for certain, as Iracebeth and her fate is never mentioned in either of my solo entries ("The Champion's Hatter" and "Choosing the Path"), but if I had to choose I'd say this fits best with Mirana as she's portrayed in "The Champion's Hatter" as it explains her fear of making the wrong decision, her quandary of Action vs. Inaction. (Sorry - it'll make more sense when you read the fic.) And, thanks to Wanderamaranth, this little bunny sunk his teeth in and Would Not Let Go.

[Posted in two parts.]

Mirana is simply Mirana Here. Now. She is not a queen. No, not here. Here, with these implements in her hands, she is not even a fully grown woman. She takes a deep breath, inhaling the scent of freshly tilled earth and midnight and the coming mist and rain. She listens to the sound of eternal peace, of rest and redemption. She closes her eyes and...

"Please, Racie! This is interesting! And far more useful than that Dominion nonsense you're studying."

Across the table, her older sister listlessly flicked her perfectly manicured nails against the various jars and flasks and pots that make up every alchemist's apprentice's table. Including Mirana's.

She gave a disdainful sniff at a pot of Wishful Thinking and drawled, "Useful is it? I highly doubt that anything you could brew would expose the truth, reveal a betrayer, or conquer an enemy like a decent threat of beheading can!"

"Beheading..." Mirana echoed, her hand pressing against her stomach as if the mild pressure might stop it from rolling. She swallowed back her disgust and disquiet with audible effort.

Iracebeth glanced up through her painted brows - Why had their parents allowed her to start wearing rogue and kohl so soon? Why, Racie just turned sixteen last month! Surely, she was still too young for such things! - and smiled That smile. The smile that Mirana had grown increasingly wary of. Probably because something very... unpleasant almost always followed that particular smile.

"You can get anything you want with a good threat of beheading," Iracebeth lectured in an off-handed tone. "You needn't actually behead them, of course. It's just a threat."

"But... suppose the... victim was of a... martyr-ish bent and didn't mind... the, er..."

"Oh," Iracebeth replied, looking quite irked. "Well, in that case I suppose you would have to follow through. Otherwise what would everyone think? They'd say you'd gone soft. And then they'd never confess another secret, another guilty pleasure, another sin." She huffed, "Still. It would be his own fault for being so unreasonable!"

"Racie... please." Dear jars of jubilance and flasks of foresight, what was the Mock Turtle teaching her sister? "Change your subject of study. Should not the healing arts be just as worthy - if not more so! - as Dominion-ing?"

[Part 2 is below]