[Fic] Three Sentence Ficathon fills, part six
Collection post #6. :)
All prompts drawn from the current iteration of the Three Sentence Ficathon, hosted by the wonderful
rthstewart. Post One is now closed for prompts (though still open for fills and comments); Post Two is open for new prompts.
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31. For
rthstewart: Temeraire, any, dragons discovering suffrage is not universal, based on this response, written 2/10/20
Nine Tenths of the Law (185 words)
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"And I tell you, when I learned that not only do humans bar all women from voting, they also bar a shameful percentage of men, I entertained half a thought of defecting to France!" said Gloriana, the Regal Copper currently recuperating at Loch Laggan from a badly sprained left wing.
"What, really?" asked Sharl, who had heard earful upon earful about duty, sacrifice, and other apparently vital concepts ever since she'd ventured down from the Highlands into the Loch Laggan covert (at the promise of regular meals and the chance to stockpile shinies in return for the easy work of flying messages back and forth to London), and was thoroughly annoyed at being looked down upon for her lack of true patriotic spirit.
"No, of course not," said Gloriana; "England has its share of problems, but it's my country and one doesn't toss aside possessions the moment they get scratched; one has them repaired or refurbished until they look better than before, and I'll be damned if I let those bloody French dragons have any excuse to claim they have a better country than ours."
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32. For
syrena_of_the_lake: Narnia, any, tiger with a gold fang, written 2/10/20
Greatly Exaggerated (160 words)
Link to the relevant news article
-----
There were dozens of stories in circulation about how Sergeant Cara of the Narnian Coastal Guard had lost her upper right fang and acquired a gold replacement: the least alarming was that she'd cracked the tooth on an unlucky smuggler's thighbone during a daring raid in the dead of night, and they only grew more bloodthirsty and implausible from there, until drunken sailors and longshoremen had her ripping down entire mainmasts with her teeth alone.
Cara, who had a keen sense for the worth of a theatrical first impression, and who quite enjoyed the cries of "Oh shit, it's the Gold Fang, now we're in for it!" that tended to greet her when she rose dripping from the coastal surf or the Shribble delta shallows, laughed at each new tale and refused to confirm or deny any of them.
After all, there was no intimidation value in admitting she'd cracked the fang while putting away her eldest cub's chew toys.
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33. For
chomiji: Murderbot, Murderbot(+any), friendship is magic, written 2/10/20
Look At It, It's Got Anxiety (180 words)
Obviously more than three sentences. *headdesk*
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"I understand it as a narrative trope, and I've seen it operate on my own decisions, but I still think the entire concept of 'friendship is magic' is annoyingly illogical," I said to Gurathin as we waited for Dr. Mensah to get out of her latest meeting and let us know whether her latest archaeological project had been approved.
"If you're looking for an argument, I'm the wrong person," Gurathin said. "Obviously it's illogical; that's an inherent outcome of humanity's general lack of logic. There's an old saying to that effect -- 'Humans aren't rational animals; humans are rationalizing animals,' -- and I've rarely seen anything to disprove that."
"I wonder if emotions are an inherent outcome of any sufficiently complex system?" I said. "I blame them for my most irrational choices, and I've met robots who understood friendship better than most humans."
"You may have a point," Gurathin said. "And to think humans used imagine robots as heartless beings of pure logic who'd crush us under their mechanical heels."
"Thankfully, that kind of idiocy does seem restricted to humans," I said.
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34. For
wintersday: Homestuck, Sollux/Feferi/Aradia, I still believe in the futures unwritten, written 2/11/20
Stealing Life (250 words)
Structural restrictions, what structural restrictions?
-----
"What if we found a Life player who's still alive -- or even just enough Life-aspect ghosts; the infinite series adds up to one, so mathematically speaking, infinite ghosts should add up to one living person -- and revived you?" Sollux said idly as he and Feferi sat in the rigging of Vriska and Meenah's ridiculous pirate ship, and Aradia hung upside-down in the air in front of them.
"Then I'd be alive again, but we'd still have no idea what we shoald be doing," Feferi said, nestling a little closer against Sollux's side. "I seappose if I weren't a ghost we'd at least have the option of leaving the dreambubbles and finding an active game session. I don't think there are any acshoal rules against helping other players and tagging along into their new universe."
Aradia swooped close to press a kiss against Feferi's nose. "That sounds amazingly chaotic! Sneaking into somebody else's game session might also let you two slip out of Lord English's alpha timeline predestination hoofbeastshit -- and even if it all goes horribly wrong, why not die trying something interesting?"
"Because interesting deaths are painful?" Sollux said. "Which you should know from your own experience." Feferi nodded in agreement and squeezed his fingers between her own.
"True, but look at everything that can happen afterwards. Lighten up and live a little!" Aradia said, and pressed a kiss to his nose in turn.
"We're all doomed," Sollux said, but he was smiling as Feferi hauled him off the spar.
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35. For
chomiji: Books of the Raksura, Moon+any babies, all the stars in the sky, written 2/11/20
Dream Big (250 words)
Six sentences.
-----
"How high are the stars?" asked Mist as she balanced awkwardly on Moon's shoulders and clung to the bark of the upper branches with the small, needle-sharp claws on her left hand; "Can you carry me there?"
"The stars are higher than any Aeriat can fly," Moon told his Arbora daughter with Bramble (who was twice as curious and prone to escaping the nursery as her two warrior sisters), "but groundlings can't fly at all and they build flying ships to make up for that, so maybe one day someone will build a ship that can reach the stars."
"I'm going to invent one!" Mist said, stretching up onto her tiptoes until Moon wrapped his hand around her ankle just in case; "I'm going to invent one, and then me and Dew and Drop will fly to every star in the whole sky, and the sun, and the moon, and-- and I'll see everything and learn everything and come back to tell Indigo Cloud all about it."
"You will," Moon agreed, "but not right now; tonight you're coming back inside the tree and going to sleep."
Mist sighed; "Fine," she said, and let herself drop into Moon's arms, "but tomorrow morning I'm going to start learning everything about ships."
"You can read anything you find to me," Moon murmured into his daughter's ears as she shifted into her groundling form and her soft, dark hair feathered across his scales like silk on stone; "We'll learn about ships and stars together."
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36. For anonymous: Any, Any, sometimes you want to go for a walk in nature and sometimes nature wants to go for a walk in you, written 2/12/20
Greening the City (175 words)
Fandom = The Magnus Archives. Contains body horror and loss of self.
-----
There's something wrong with her, of course there is; it's not right for mushrooms and lichens and moss to grow in healthy flesh, not natural for decomposition to set up shop without an obvious entry point like an infected cut or an oozing pimple or--
Honoria picks again at her slowly greening forearms and wonders idly how long until she's sprouting proper seedlings, how long until her new ecology turns her body into proper, nurturing soil.
She only wanted to take a walk in the woods last week, to clear her mind and ease her heart after her latest disastrous breakup, only touched the rotting log to move it off the path; she didn't ask for this, didn't ask to be infested, to be-- to be embraced, to be reminded that all life is part of the great cycle, to bask in the truth that all life is ultimately the same; but bringing the forest back to the city is a much more long-term solution, and maybe she can help others remember their place too.
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And now to bed. :)
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. Post One is now closed for prompts (though still open for fills and comments); Post Two is open for new prompts.
---------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------
31. For
rthstewart: Temeraire, any, dragons discovering suffrage is not universal, based on this response, written 2/10/20
Nine Tenths of the Law (185 words)
-----
"And I tell you, when I learned that not only do humans bar all women from voting, they also bar a shameful percentage of men, I entertained half a thought of defecting to France!" said Gloriana, the Regal Copper currently recuperating at Loch Laggan from a badly sprained left wing.
"What, really?" asked Sharl, who had heard earful upon earful about duty, sacrifice, and other apparently vital concepts ever since she'd ventured down from the Highlands into the Loch Laggan covert (at the promise of regular meals and the chance to stockpile shinies in return for the easy work of flying messages back and forth to London), and was thoroughly annoyed at being looked down upon for her lack of true patriotic spirit.
"No, of course not," said Gloriana; "England has its share of problems, but it's my country and one doesn't toss aside possessions the moment they get scratched; one has them repaired or refurbished until they look better than before, and I'll be damned if I let those bloody French dragons have any excuse to claim they have a better country than ours."
---------------
---------------
32. For
syrena_of_the_lake: Narnia, any, tiger with a gold fang, written 2/10/20
Greatly Exaggerated (160 words)
Link to the relevant news article
-----
There were dozens of stories in circulation about how Sergeant Cara of the Narnian Coastal Guard had lost her upper right fang and acquired a gold replacement: the least alarming was that she'd cracked the tooth on an unlucky smuggler's thighbone during a daring raid in the dead of night, and they only grew more bloodthirsty and implausible from there, until drunken sailors and longshoremen had her ripping down entire mainmasts with her teeth alone.
Cara, who had a keen sense for the worth of a theatrical first impression, and who quite enjoyed the cries of "Oh shit, it's the Gold Fang, now we're in for it!" that tended to greet her when she rose dripping from the coastal surf or the Shribble delta shallows, laughed at each new tale and refused to confirm or deny any of them.
After all, there was no intimidation value in admitting she'd cracked the fang while putting away her eldest cub's chew toys.
---------------
---------------
33. For
chomiji: Murderbot, Murderbot(+any), friendship is magic, written 2/10/20
Look At It, It's Got Anxiety (180 words)
Obviously more than three sentences. *headdesk*
-----
"I understand it as a narrative trope, and I've seen it operate on my own decisions, but I still think the entire concept of 'friendship is magic' is annoyingly illogical," I said to Gurathin as we waited for Dr. Mensah to get out of her latest meeting and let us know whether her latest archaeological project had been approved.
"If you're looking for an argument, I'm the wrong person," Gurathin said. "Obviously it's illogical; that's an inherent outcome of humanity's general lack of logic. There's an old saying to that effect -- 'Humans aren't rational animals; humans are rationalizing animals,' -- and I've rarely seen anything to disprove that."
"I wonder if emotions are an inherent outcome of any sufficiently complex system?" I said. "I blame them for my most irrational choices, and I've met robots who understood friendship better than most humans."
"You may have a point," Gurathin said. "And to think humans used imagine robots as heartless beings of pure logic who'd crush us under their mechanical heels."
"Thankfully, that kind of idiocy does seem restricted to humans," I said.
---------------
---------------
34. For
wintersday: Homestuck, Sollux/Feferi/Aradia, I still believe in the futures unwritten, written 2/11/20
Stealing Life (250 words)
Structural restrictions, what structural restrictions?
-----
"What if we found a Life player who's still alive -- or even just enough Life-aspect ghosts; the infinite series adds up to one, so mathematically speaking, infinite ghosts should add up to one living person -- and revived you?" Sollux said idly as he and Feferi sat in the rigging of Vriska and Meenah's ridiculous pirate ship, and Aradia hung upside-down in the air in front of them.
"Then I'd be alive again, but we'd still have no idea what we shoald be doing," Feferi said, nestling a little closer against Sollux's side. "I seappose if I weren't a ghost we'd at least have the option of leaving the dreambubbles and finding an active game session. I don't think there are any acshoal rules against helping other players and tagging along into their new universe."
Aradia swooped close to press a kiss against Feferi's nose. "That sounds amazingly chaotic! Sneaking into somebody else's game session might also let you two slip out of Lord English's alpha timeline predestination hoofbeastshit -- and even if it all goes horribly wrong, why not die trying something interesting?"
"Because interesting deaths are painful?" Sollux said. "Which you should know from your own experience." Feferi nodded in agreement and squeezed his fingers between her own.
"True, but look at everything that can happen afterwards. Lighten up and live a little!" Aradia said, and pressed a kiss to his nose in turn.
"We're all doomed," Sollux said, but he was smiling as Feferi hauled him off the spar.
---------------
---------------
35. For
chomiji: Books of the Raksura, Moon+any babies, all the stars in the sky, written 2/11/20
Dream Big (250 words)
Six sentences.
-----
"How high are the stars?" asked Mist as she balanced awkwardly on Moon's shoulders and clung to the bark of the upper branches with the small, needle-sharp claws on her left hand; "Can you carry me there?"
"The stars are higher than any Aeriat can fly," Moon told his Arbora daughter with Bramble (who was twice as curious and prone to escaping the nursery as her two warrior sisters), "but groundlings can't fly at all and they build flying ships to make up for that, so maybe one day someone will build a ship that can reach the stars."
"I'm going to invent one!" Mist said, stretching up onto her tiptoes until Moon wrapped his hand around her ankle just in case; "I'm going to invent one, and then me and Dew and Drop will fly to every star in the whole sky, and the sun, and the moon, and-- and I'll see everything and learn everything and come back to tell Indigo Cloud all about it."
"You will," Moon agreed, "but not right now; tonight you're coming back inside the tree and going to sleep."
Mist sighed; "Fine," she said, and let herself drop into Moon's arms, "but tomorrow morning I'm going to start learning everything about ships."
"You can read anything you find to me," Moon murmured into his daughter's ears as she shifted into her groundling form and her soft, dark hair feathered across his scales like silk on stone; "We'll learn about ships and stars together."
---------------
---------------
36. For anonymous: Any, Any, sometimes you want to go for a walk in nature and sometimes nature wants to go for a walk in you, written 2/12/20
Greening the City (175 words)
Fandom = The Magnus Archives. Contains body horror and loss of self.
-----
There's something wrong with her, of course there is; it's not right for mushrooms and lichens and moss to grow in healthy flesh, not natural for decomposition to set up shop without an obvious entry point like an infected cut or an oozing pimple or--
Honoria picks again at her slowly greening forearms and wonders idly how long until she's sprouting proper seedlings, how long until her new ecology turns her body into proper, nurturing soil.
She only wanted to take a walk in the woods last week, to clear her mind and ease her heart after her latest disastrous breakup, only touched the rotting log to move it off the path; she didn't ask for this, didn't ask to be infested, to be-- to be embraced, to be reminded that all life is part of the great cycle, to bask in the truth that all life is ultimately the same; but bringing the forest back to the city is a much more long-term solution, and maybe she can help others remember their place too.
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---------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------
And now to bed. :)
If you want to comment on this post, you can do so over here on Dreamwidth, where there are currently (
comments)