[Fic] Three Sentence Ficathon fills, part one
I've gotten in the habit of posting my fills in sets of six, and there's no reason to fix what isn't broken. :)
All prompts drawn from the current iteration of the Three Sentence Ficathon, hosted by the wonderful
rthstewart. Come join the fun!
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1. For
rthstewart: Any, any, reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated, written 2/1/20
We Make Our Own Second Chances (150 words)
Fandom = The Magnus Archives.
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Her replacement yanked open the door to the Archives before Gertrude could knock with the more functional of her rebuilt hands, and exclaimed, in a shocked and slightly offended tone, "I saw your corpse; I was a suspect for your murder; how on earth--!"
"One fascinating thing about having one's face and voice used by the Stranger in the heart of the Unknowing is that when reality becomes utterly malleable, a determined person can wrangle that sliver of near-existence into something more solid once things settle back into place," Gertrude said as she pushed past him and cataloged the changes to her old haunts, and then added, "Admittedly it took longer than I expected, and I'm not entirely certain I got all the pieces in the right order, but the important parts are clear enough. Now, will you help me kill Jonah Magnus or must I continue doing everything myself?"
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2. For
wingedflight: Queen's Thief, Eugenides, what do you mean "kings can't steal"??, written 2/1/20
How You Frame the Question (70 words)
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"Kings do nothing but steal; theft is the very essence of government. Taxes steal money, wars steal land and lives, laws steal freedom, to name simply the most obvious examples -- shall I go on?"
Helen sighed, and kicked her cousin's ankle, and said in the driest tone she could muster, "It was practical advice, not an invitation to philosophy; please stop being so very much yourself before I've eaten breakfast."
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3. For
kalira: Naruto, any ninja, chakra tricks, written 2/1/20
Unorthodox Uses (85 words)
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1. Why clutter your tea ceremony by fussing with a kettle when you can pour a stream of perfectly heated water from thin air into your cup?
2. It's not technically illegal to have a side-job using earth jutsu in the civilian construction industry, and it's not like you undercharge the village by that much, right, so really you're just doing your part to keep the economy turning.
3. Interior design is overrated; just buy cheap secondhand furniture and cast an exciting new genjutsu whenever you have visitors!
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4. For
syrena_of_the_lake: Harry Potter; Professor Kettleburn; occupational hazards, written 2/1/20
Duty of Care (75 words)
-----
The animals aren't the problem. Oh, certainly they're dangerous if you don't respect them and take sensible precautions, but Kettleburn is an old hand at that game; he knows perfectly well how to keep himself safe in any reasonably foreseeable circumstance (and several unreasonable ones too).
The problem is the students, and their improbable ability to manufacture new deadly accidents waiting to happen, and the damnable need to keep them safe from their own stupidity.
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5. For
shinon: Any, any, back to the drawing board, written 2/2/20
A Change of Perspective (225 words)
Fandom = The Magnus Archives. Text slightly edited from the version on the Ficathon page.
-----
There is an art book in Artefact Storage, titled Scraps from the Drawing Board and marked with Jurgen Leitner's bookplate, which is not only locked in a safe (as per standard containment protocol) but also wrapped in several layers of very thick and opaque paper, so as to prevent even the most casual glimpse of its cover: nobody is entirely certain who managed to wrap and glue the paper so neatly, or what became of them afterwards, but the rumors surrounding the book's acquisition suggest nothing good.
The story goes that it belonged to an artist obsessed with fractals, Escher, and trompe l'oeil , who became convinced that if she drew the exact right combination of impossible patterns and perspectives that she could walk straight out of the universe; every painting in the book is one of her failed attempts, bound together by her students after she vanished (successful at last? eaten horribly by the Spiral? is there even any difference between those possibilities?), and at best those who flip through all the pages become mangled, screaming impossibilities whose warped bodies cannot long survive once the book is closed and the rational laws of physics reassert themselves.
The worst are those who remain outwardly human, but who nod calmly, close the book, and then head to the nearest art store to buy supplies of their own.
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6. For
ernest: Narnia, girl!Edmund, smoke and blades, written 2/2/20
Pay It Forward (200 words)
For anyone wondering, yes, this is part of As the Morning and the Night continuity.
-----
The end of a siege is bitter, filthy work, no matter how hard one tries to hold to honor and treat one's enemies with respect -- and Edith tries, both to stop Mary and Stephen from watching her with the shadow of old alienation behind their eyes, and to keep the soldiers under her command from needing to look back on their actions either with horror, or, worse, with rationalizations that will twist their hearts to stone as sure as Jadis once petrified their bodies.
She leads her company through the wreckage of the crude wooden fort, a torn strip of gold and scarlet surcoat wrapped around her face to filter out smoke and sparks from the fires, until she spots a spruce dryad in the colors of the White Army lying crumpled in the ashes; while her squire stands guard, Edith kneels to run her sword through the still-breathing ruin of the dryad's chest, then lifts the new-sprouted seedling from between her wooden ribs to carry away and plant in more auspicious soil.
Edith can't conjure miraculous redemption from before the dawn of time, but mercy, at least, is within her power; and so she grants it where she can.
---------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------
More to come, hopefully tomorrow! :)
If you want to comment on this post, you can do so over here on Dreamwidth, where there are currently (
comments)
All prompts drawn from the current iteration of the Three Sentence Ficathon, hosted by the wonderful
rthstewart. Come join the fun!
---------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------
1. For
rthstewart: Any, any, reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated, written 2/1/20
We Make Our Own Second Chances (150 words)
Fandom = The Magnus Archives.
-----
Her replacement yanked open the door to the Archives before Gertrude could knock with the more functional of her rebuilt hands, and exclaimed, in a shocked and slightly offended tone, "I saw your corpse; I was a suspect for your murder; how on earth--!"
"One fascinating thing about having one's face and voice used by the Stranger in the heart of the Unknowing is that when reality becomes utterly malleable, a determined person can wrangle that sliver of near-existence into something more solid once things settle back into place," Gertrude said as she pushed past him and cataloged the changes to her old haunts, and then added, "Admittedly it took longer than I expected, and I'm not entirely certain I got all the pieces in the right order, but the important parts are clear enough. Now, will you help me kill Jonah Magnus or must I continue doing everything myself?"
---------------
---------------
2. For
wingedflight: Queen's Thief, Eugenides, what do you mean "kings can't steal"??, written 2/1/20
How You Frame the Question (70 words)
-----
"Kings do nothing but steal; theft is the very essence of government. Taxes steal money, wars steal land and lives, laws steal freedom, to name simply the most obvious examples -- shall I go on?"
Helen sighed, and kicked her cousin's ankle, and said in the driest tone she could muster, "It was practical advice, not an invitation to philosophy; please stop being so very much yourself before I've eaten breakfast."
---------------
---------------
3. For
kalira: Naruto, any ninja, chakra tricks, written 2/1/20
Unorthodox Uses (85 words)
-----
1. Why clutter your tea ceremony by fussing with a kettle when you can pour a stream of perfectly heated water from thin air into your cup?
2. It's not technically illegal to have a side-job using earth jutsu in the civilian construction industry, and it's not like you undercharge the village by that much, right, so really you're just doing your part to keep the economy turning.
3. Interior design is overrated; just buy cheap secondhand furniture and cast an exciting new genjutsu whenever you have visitors!
---------------
---------------
4. For
syrena_of_the_lake: Harry Potter; Professor Kettleburn; occupational hazards, written 2/1/20
Duty of Care (75 words)
-----
The animals aren't the problem. Oh, certainly they're dangerous if you don't respect them and take sensible precautions, but Kettleburn is an old hand at that game; he knows perfectly well how to keep himself safe in any reasonably foreseeable circumstance (and several unreasonable ones too).
The problem is the students, and their improbable ability to manufacture new deadly accidents waiting to happen, and the damnable need to keep them safe from their own stupidity.
---------------
---------------
5. For
shinon: Any, any, back to the drawing board, written 2/2/20
A Change of Perspective (225 words)
Fandom = The Magnus Archives. Text slightly edited from the version on the Ficathon page.
-----
There is an art book in Artefact Storage, titled Scraps from the Drawing Board and marked with Jurgen Leitner's bookplate, which is not only locked in a safe (as per standard containment protocol) but also wrapped in several layers of very thick and opaque paper, so as to prevent even the most casual glimpse of its cover: nobody is entirely certain who managed to wrap and glue the paper so neatly, or what became of them afterwards, but the rumors surrounding the book's acquisition suggest nothing good.
The story goes that it belonged to an artist obsessed with fractals, Escher, and trompe l'oeil , who became convinced that if she drew the exact right combination of impossible patterns and perspectives that she could walk straight out of the universe; every painting in the book is one of her failed attempts, bound together by her students after she vanished (successful at last? eaten horribly by the Spiral? is there even any difference between those possibilities?), and at best those who flip through all the pages become mangled, screaming impossibilities whose warped bodies cannot long survive once the book is closed and the rational laws of physics reassert themselves.
The worst are those who remain outwardly human, but who nod calmly, close the book, and then head to the nearest art store to buy supplies of their own.
---------------
---------------
6. For
ernest: Narnia, girl!Edmund, smoke and blades, written 2/2/20
Pay It Forward (200 words)
For anyone wondering, yes, this is part of As the Morning and the Night continuity.
-----
The end of a siege is bitter, filthy work, no matter how hard one tries to hold to honor and treat one's enemies with respect -- and Edith tries, both to stop Mary and Stephen from watching her with the shadow of old alienation behind their eyes, and to keep the soldiers under her command from needing to look back on their actions either with horror, or, worse, with rationalizations that will twist their hearts to stone as sure as Jadis once petrified their bodies.
She leads her company through the wreckage of the crude wooden fort, a torn strip of gold and scarlet surcoat wrapped around her face to filter out smoke and sparks from the fires, until she spots a spruce dryad in the colors of the White Army lying crumpled in the ashes; while her squire stands guard, Edith kneels to run her sword through the still-breathing ruin of the dryad's chest, then lifts the new-sprouted seedling from between her wooden ribs to carry away and plant in more auspicious soil.
Edith can't conjure miraculous redemption from before the dawn of time, but mercy, at least, is within her power; and so she grants it where she can.
---------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------
More to come, hopefully tomorrow! :)
If you want to comment on this post, you can do so over here on Dreamwidth, where there are currently (
comments)