[Fic] Three Sentence Ficathon 2021 fills, part eight
Batch the eighth. :)
All prompts drawn from the current iteration of the Three Sentence Ficathon (post one and post two), hosted by the wonderful
rthstewart. Come join the fun!
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43. For
syrena_of_the_lake: Enchanted Forest Chronicles, any, unlikely ways to win someone’s heart, written 2/16/21
Faint Heart Never Won (290 words)
-----
"It's not my fault Prince Norrery was foolish enough to make the wager without considering I might be speaking literally, that I might have some prior experience at poker, or that the niece of a Wicked Uncle known for poisoning anyone who gets in his way would have to lack all common sense to not develop a tolerance to most common intoxicants and poisons, alcohol included," Clepsydra told the King and Queen of the Enchanted Forest, trying her best to sound unafraid despite the enchanted rope around her wrists, and the havoc this delay might wreak in her carefully timed plans; she was not worried about Norrery in the slightest, no matter what her fairy godmother kept implying.
"I won his heart fair and square, and then I won his blood, his breath, his bones, and his pain the same way when he refused to back down; it's entirely within my rights to cut out his heart and sell it on the rare potion ingredients market, and I don't think holding that fact over his head to make him help me reclaim the throne of Horologica is cause for his family to sue, let alone to claim punitive damages for emotional distress."
"Unfortunately, Princess Clepsydra, you forgot to win Prince Norrery's flesh," the King of the Enchanted Forest said, "which does present an obstacle to carving out his heart; on the other hand, he's refusing to support his family's suit and has offered to play another hand of poker with his flesh as the stakes, which suggests that you may have won his heart by more traditional definitions as well."
Clepsydra's fairy godmother was never going to let her live down the sudden leap of hope in her own heart.
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44. For anonymous: any, any, non-traditional gender roles, written 2/17/21
Hunt and Gather (130 words)
Fandom = Chronicles of Narnia. Jill's family being from Jamaica is a bit of headcanon I picked up from
rthstewart.
-----
"It makes perfect sense -- girls hunt dinner and boys cook it," Lucy told Jill; "I'm good with snares and nobody's ever matched Susan with a bow, but managing a kitchen isn't at all the same as actually being able to cook, and Peter and Ed insisted they get to do something useful after setting camp and starting the fire. You should try with Eustace sometime -- he wasn't very good with meats when he started out, but he's excellent at foraging for salads and by the time we reached the Uttermost East he'd got decent with roasts and downright skilled at stews."
"Yes, but that's all English cookery; I need a Jamaican-style meal to impress my mother," Jill said; "Be honest: would he know the first thing to do with plantains?"
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45. For
cofax7: Digger (webcomic/graphic novel), Digger, square poop, written 2/18/21
Stranger and Stranger (165 words)
-----
She's dealt with far more bodily fluids and waste than she particularly cares to think about -- even more since poor Midwife Mimsy died and left her as Rath's only available hag -- but this, Hagitha thinks, staring at the bedpan laid on her examination table, is not something she has any experience with. The furred stranger who the Veiled consigned to her care (her keeping, more like; you don't keep a patient unconscious with poppy milk, but some folk might treat a prisoner with that kind of disregard) breathes and bleeds and pisses like any other person, but her poop is shaped into neat, dry cubes.
Still, whether the square poop is a curse or something natural to the stranger's people makes no real difference -- she's never heard of a demon that needs a bedpan at all, and maybe the next time she explains that to the Veiled, she'll pull together a good enough imitation of Midwife Mimsy's authority that one of them will finally listen.
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46. For anonymous: DC, Cassandra Cain, sign language, written 2/20/21
Kinesics, Haptics, Proxemics (140 words)
-----
In some ways the signs are easier -- Cass knows how to use her body, has perfect control of every motion, unlike her rusty, unfamiliar vocal cords -- but in other ways, they're an unexpected challenge. She expects sounds to be arbitrary, but it didn't occur to Barbara or to Cass that signs are equally so -- they have to be, to convey all the abstract concepts that make a them a language rather than the pure emotion of subliminal movement, the nuance of touch and stance, or the crude pantomime of gesture ("me" "them" "kick" and the like) -- and that learning a new way to read bodies might interfere with her hard-earned skills.
Still, it's nice to have a way to make her report and ask for snacks when controlling her voice is one task too many after a long, full night.
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47. For
elementalraven: Narnia, the Pevensies, au where when the Four tumble back through the wardrobe they find themselves somewhere/somewhen else entirely than back where they came from, written 2/23/21
An Unexpected Detour (240 words)
The other world in question is original, but if you're curious I have previously used it as the setting for Of Stone and of Sky, a Homestuck AU fic.
-----
The wardrobe stood solid and undeniable behind them, doors still spread open to reveal a thicket of coats and scarves and various other garments that smelt strongly of mothballs, and yet they were clearly neither in Narnia's western forest nor in the Professor's attic (the memory of which had flooded in like the tide as they stumbled through the dark space between worlds); instead, Edmund sprawled on rock and sand heated by a heavy midday sun and his siblings stood around him in confusion, gazing at the mountains that ringed this circular, barren valley.
After a moment Susan shook herself, said, "Can we get back?" and suiting deed to word plunged into the wardrobe only to jam her outstretched fingers into the back panel -- no magic passage remained, no hint of how or why they had come to this unfamiliar place -- whereupon she turned back with brows drawn and jaw set and announced, "It might almost make sense to return us to England, but I don't care how good and wise Aslan is; there can't possibly be any justification for tearing us away from Narnia, turning us back into children, and dropping us into a desert wilderness."
"We have more immediate problems than theology," Edmund said before Lucy or Peter could protest, and, still flat on his back, pointed upward toward a shadow spiraling ever lower; "This world has dragons, and I think one has decided we look like lunch."
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48. For
notapaladin: any, any, dandelions, written 2/23/21
A Deep Breath (105 words)
Fandom = original. This may be related to Equivalent Exchange, a fill from last year's Three Sentence Ficathon.
-----
"It's a lovely dream," she told the shadow-spinner, concentrating on its kind eyes and not on the claws, the spikes, or the bloody footprints it left in the sun-drenched field, "and I thank you for letting me have this respite. But I can't avoid my quest for much longer, not when I've finally started to relearn why I came here."
She plucked a dandelion from the greenery at her feet, raised it in a fencer's salute, then drew it close -- little silver-white tufts brushing soft as silk across her lips, gentle as shadows on the border between sleep and morning -- and blew the dream away.
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In other news, this morning I had my pre-surgery anesthesia interview (via phone); this afternoon, in and around work at Not the IRS, I spent a significant amount of time editing a Board statement about our minister's impending resignation and also answering emails from congregation members; and this evening I called Mom to plan out her visit/my surgery.
I went to Target after work because apparently pullover-style shirts are a bad mix with a surgery that immobilizes one arm for a few days, and I have not owned any button-down shirts since I was... maybe ten or eleven? Well over twenty years, anyway. But I own two button-downs now (one short-sleeve, one long-sleeve), I washed them in my kitchen sink, and they are drying on some chair backs so they'll be wearable on Friday. If I'm feeling very fancy, I may iron them Wednesday night.
I also bought some body wash (because lathering bar soap with one hand is logistically awkward), a bottle of liquid hand soap (same lathering issue), and a scrubby pouf on a stick for washing my back (tricky with only one hand). My current solution for shampoo and conditioner is to measure dollops out ahead of time in small plastic cups and dump them on my head at the appropriate times.
...
It has been a very full day. 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 (post one and post two), hosted by the wonderful
rthstewart. Come join the fun!
---------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------
43. For
syrena_of_the_lake: Enchanted Forest Chronicles, any, unlikely ways to win someone’s heart, written 2/16/21
Faint Heart Never Won (290 words)
-----
"It's not my fault Prince Norrery was foolish enough to make the wager without considering I might be speaking literally, that I might have some prior experience at poker, or that the niece of a Wicked Uncle known for poisoning anyone who gets in his way would have to lack all common sense to not develop a tolerance to most common intoxicants and poisons, alcohol included," Clepsydra told the King and Queen of the Enchanted Forest, trying her best to sound unafraid despite the enchanted rope around her wrists, and the havoc this delay might wreak in her carefully timed plans; she was not worried about Norrery in the slightest, no matter what her fairy godmother kept implying.
"I won his heart fair and square, and then I won his blood, his breath, his bones, and his pain the same way when he refused to back down; it's entirely within my rights to cut out his heart and sell it on the rare potion ingredients market, and I don't think holding that fact over his head to make him help me reclaim the throne of Horologica is cause for his family to sue, let alone to claim punitive damages for emotional distress."
"Unfortunately, Princess Clepsydra, you forgot to win Prince Norrery's flesh," the King of the Enchanted Forest said, "which does present an obstacle to carving out his heart; on the other hand, he's refusing to support his family's suit and has offered to play another hand of poker with his flesh as the stakes, which suggests that you may have won his heart by more traditional definitions as well."
Clepsydra's fairy godmother was never going to let her live down the sudden leap of hope in her own heart.
---------------
---------------
44. For anonymous: any, any, non-traditional gender roles, written 2/17/21
Hunt and Gather (130 words)
Fandom = Chronicles of Narnia. Jill's family being from Jamaica is a bit of headcanon I picked up from
rthstewart.
-----
"It makes perfect sense -- girls hunt dinner and boys cook it," Lucy told Jill; "I'm good with snares and nobody's ever matched Susan with a bow, but managing a kitchen isn't at all the same as actually being able to cook, and Peter and Ed insisted they get to do something useful after setting camp and starting the fire. You should try with Eustace sometime -- he wasn't very good with meats when he started out, but he's excellent at foraging for salads and by the time we reached the Uttermost East he'd got decent with roasts and downright skilled at stews."
"Yes, but that's all English cookery; I need a Jamaican-style meal to impress my mother," Jill said; "Be honest: would he know the first thing to do with plantains?"
---------------
---------------
45. For
cofax7: Digger (webcomic/graphic novel), Digger, square poop, written 2/18/21
Stranger and Stranger (165 words)
-----
She's dealt with far more bodily fluids and waste than she particularly cares to think about -- even more since poor Midwife Mimsy died and left her as Rath's only available hag -- but this, Hagitha thinks, staring at the bedpan laid on her examination table, is not something she has any experience with. The furred stranger who the Veiled consigned to her care (her keeping, more like; you don't keep a patient unconscious with poppy milk, but some folk might treat a prisoner with that kind of disregard) breathes and bleeds and pisses like any other person, but her poop is shaped into neat, dry cubes.
Still, whether the square poop is a curse or something natural to the stranger's people makes no real difference -- she's never heard of a demon that needs a bedpan at all, and maybe the next time she explains that to the Veiled, she'll pull together a good enough imitation of Midwife Mimsy's authority that one of them will finally listen.
---------------
---------------
46. For anonymous: DC, Cassandra Cain, sign language, written 2/20/21
Kinesics, Haptics, Proxemics (140 words)
-----
In some ways the signs are easier -- Cass knows how to use her body, has perfect control of every motion, unlike her rusty, unfamiliar vocal cords -- but in other ways, they're an unexpected challenge. She expects sounds to be arbitrary, but it didn't occur to Barbara or to Cass that signs are equally so -- they have to be, to convey all the abstract concepts that make a them a language rather than the pure emotion of subliminal movement, the nuance of touch and stance, or the crude pantomime of gesture ("me" "them" "kick" and the like) -- and that learning a new way to read bodies might interfere with her hard-earned skills.
Still, it's nice to have a way to make her report and ask for snacks when controlling her voice is one task too many after a long, full night.
---------------
---------------
47. For
elementalraven: Narnia, the Pevensies, au where when the Four tumble back through the wardrobe they find themselves somewhere/somewhen else entirely than back where they came from, written 2/23/21
An Unexpected Detour (240 words)
The other world in question is original, but if you're curious I have previously used it as the setting for Of Stone and of Sky, a Homestuck AU fic.
-----
The wardrobe stood solid and undeniable behind them, doors still spread open to reveal a thicket of coats and scarves and various other garments that smelt strongly of mothballs, and yet they were clearly neither in Narnia's western forest nor in the Professor's attic (the memory of which had flooded in like the tide as they stumbled through the dark space between worlds); instead, Edmund sprawled on rock and sand heated by a heavy midday sun and his siblings stood around him in confusion, gazing at the mountains that ringed this circular, barren valley.
After a moment Susan shook herself, said, "Can we get back?" and suiting deed to word plunged into the wardrobe only to jam her outstretched fingers into the back panel -- no magic passage remained, no hint of how or why they had come to this unfamiliar place -- whereupon she turned back with brows drawn and jaw set and announced, "It might almost make sense to return us to England, but I don't care how good and wise Aslan is; there can't possibly be any justification for tearing us away from Narnia, turning us back into children, and dropping us into a desert wilderness."
"We have more immediate problems than theology," Edmund said before Lucy or Peter could protest, and, still flat on his back, pointed upward toward a shadow spiraling ever lower; "This world has dragons, and I think one has decided we look like lunch."
---------------
---------------
48. For
notapaladin: any, any, dandelions, written 2/23/21
A Deep Breath (105 words)
Fandom = original. This may be related to Equivalent Exchange, a fill from last year's Three Sentence Ficathon.
-----
"It's a lovely dream," she told the shadow-spinner, concentrating on its kind eyes and not on the claws, the spikes, or the bloody footprints it left in the sun-drenched field, "and I thank you for letting me have this respite. But I can't avoid my quest for much longer, not when I've finally started to relearn why I came here."
She plucked a dandelion from the greenery at her feet, raised it in a fencer's salute, then drew it close -- little silver-white tufts brushing soft as silk across her lips, gentle as shadows on the border between sleep and morning -- and blew the dream away.
---------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------
In other news, this morning I had my pre-surgery anesthesia interview (via phone); this afternoon, in and around work at Not the IRS, I spent a significant amount of time editing a Board statement about our minister's impending resignation and also answering emails from congregation members; and this evening I called Mom to plan out her visit/my surgery.
I went to Target after work because apparently pullover-style shirts are a bad mix with a surgery that immobilizes one arm for a few days, and I have not owned any button-down shirts since I was... maybe ten or eleven? Well over twenty years, anyway. But I own two button-downs now (one short-sleeve, one long-sleeve), I washed them in my kitchen sink, and they are drying on some chair backs so they'll be wearable on Friday. If I'm feeling very fancy, I may iron them Wednesday night.
I also bought some body wash (because lathering bar soap with one hand is logistically awkward), a bottle of liquid hand soap (same lathering issue), and a scrubby pouf on a stick for washing my back (tricky with only one hand). My current solution for shampoo and conditioner is to measure dollops out ahead of time in small plastic cups and dump them on my head at the appropriate times.
...
It has been a very full day. If you want to comment on this post, you can do so over here on Dreamwidth, where there are currently (
comments)