[Fic] Three Sentence Ficathon 2021 fills, part ten
Batch the tenth. :)
All prompts drawn from the 2021 iteration of the Three Sentence Ficathon (post one and post two), hosted by the wonderful
rthstewart. The ficathon is now closed to new prompts tonight, but you can continue filling prompts and commenting on other people's fills for as long as you like!
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55. For
runespoor: Naruto, Hinata, challenge, written 3/2/21
Serenity, Courage, Wisdom (495 words)
Fandom = Naruto. Have another Summer Camp & Politics installment. :)
-----
"The question is, do you want to run for reelection?" Sakura said, kicking her heels against the back of Hinata's desk. The solid wood made a satisfying clunk-boom sound with each impact, halfway between windchimes and a drum. It reminded Hinata of the water features in Father's garden, but in an oddly comforting way, not the choking, smothering weight that memory often carried.
"All of us will help with whatever you choose," Sakura continued, "but you should make sure you decide based on what you want to do, not just what you think you ought to do, or what might inconvenience your father -- and while we'd love to have you in the Assembly as a member of Great Bridge, I've never had the feeling you actually enjoy the work."
Hinata gnawed her lip as Sakura gave her space to think, glanced down at the papers and tablet on her desk, glanced out the window toward the opposite wing of the Capitol where the Assembly chamber stood in all its elegant, intimidating glory, and sighed, because Sakura was both right and wrong. She hadn't enjoyed her work at all, when her work was to serve as Father's mouthpiece, and she suspected she'd never enjoy confrontation -- but while the half-year remaining in her term wasn't enough to decide if she would enjoy actually serving Fire Country as she thought best, she wanted to try.
"I think," she said eventually, "that I won't know if the work and I will suit each other unless I try. I would, however, like the opportunity to find out, and if that means standing against Father, I know I won't face the challenge alone."
Sakura smiled. "That's fair. Do you want a hug?"
Hinata shook her head. "Maybe later. For now, I want to know what you and the others have been plotting in the campaign strategy meetings you think I don't know about."
"How--" Sakura started, then grinned ruefully and shook her own head. "Right, we should have known better than to try hiding from Hyuga eyes."
Or hiding from someone who had spent the majority of her life controlled by other people, and therefore had a vested interest in uncovering any secrets relating to her. Hinata knew Sakura was perfectly well aware of that aspect -- she couldn't decide if it was more kind or annoying that Sakura tended to avoid mentioning it.
Someday she might want to confront that issue. But not today. One challenge at a time was more than enough.
"Yes, you should," Hinata said in her best imitation of Hanabi's serene self-confidence. "But I'm sure you won't make the same mistake again."
"Neither of us would have made it this far if we were in the habit of repeating mistakes," Sakura said wryly. "But enough reminiscing. Let's look toward the future."
She drew a tablet from the briefcase sitting beside her on Hinata's desk and leaned back to show Hinata the latest polling data from Byakugan Province.
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56. For
rthstewart: Doctor Who, Martha, This is me walking away, written 3/2/21
Not To Play (180 words)
-----
Martha learned young that sometimes, the only way to win is to walk away: if your opponent controls the field on which you have to fight, makes the rules that define victory, and is determined to make you lose (and look foolish or presumptuous for struggling), you can't get anywhere running through maze with all its exits locked; instead, you have to step back, climb over the walls, and walk away to a place, a perspective, where you can show people how the game is rigged.
The Doctor learned that same lesson somewhere in his endless past, and he's very good at finding the place from which to see the strings and change the terms.
He's less good at understanding that it's possible for him to be the one running a rigged game (on Martha and on himself; at least he's an equal opportunity dispenser of social awkwardness and angst), but Martha thinks, as she walks away, that maybe she's finally found the right move to make him see.
She walks away. She loses. And that's how they both win.
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57. For
elementalraven: The Hunger games, prim & rue, what if rue had won the hunger games, written 3/2/21
Greater Love Hath No Woman (230 words)
-----
"Thank you for trying to save Katniss," says the pale girl, Rue's own age, with crack-skinned, dirt-nailed fingers and the air of a transplanted seedling struggling to survive.
"You were lucky to have her as your sister," Rue says, extending her manicured hands and offering the fragile, glass-shard smile she's worn since Haymitch and her own sponsor told her the Capitol was growing tired of her grief, that it was good to be a little forlorn (a childhood tragedy always goes down well) but better to seem bright and hopeful, to gloss over the truth that she was merely the latest in a long line of child slaves and sacrifices -- and, sore-hearted and sore-boned, facing the other girl Katniss died to save, blurts out despite the need to watch her tongue, "I wished she could have been mine, too."
"You can be mine instead," says the pale girl -- Prim, Katniss said her name was; whispered it in the night, too soft for cameras or microphones to catch, as if to give the Capitol her name might somehow give them more power over her than they already had -- and as she pulls Rue into a hug (the first unfaked, unconditional human touch Rue's felt since Katniss died), Rue thinks to herself, Katniss died so we could live; I will die so no one will ever have to make her choice again.
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58. For
galadryels: any, any, I didn't say that (your choice of where emphasis is laid), written 3/2/21
Word and Deed (165 words)
Fandom = The Magnus Archives
-----
"I didn't say I thought your love was some kind of-- of manipulation or mistake!" Martin shouted, waving his hands through the bitter exhaust fumes that clung and insinuated their way through every permeable inch of this domain. "I may have thought it, but intrusive thoughts are a thing, and anyway, it's what we choose to do and say that really matters, much more than a passing blip of neurons that was probably born as much of my own trauma -- and-- and see, you've got me admitting that I have trauma! out loud! where any passerby could overhear! -- and if that kind of trust doesn't tell you how much I know you care, regardless of what may or may not pass through my brain now and then, I don't know what possibly could."
Jon hugged him, both because Martin was right that actions mattered, and because it was easier than trying to translate his jumbled maelstrom of guilt and apology and love into coherent words.
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59. For anonymous: Any, any, and the briars became red roses and the woodbine became white roses, written 3/3/21
Thorns and Honeysuckle (210 words)
Fandom = original
-----
The end of the story always puzzled Dina -- "The briars became red roses and the woodbine became white roses, and they cast petals and perfume upon the air as the castle woke from sleep," her grandmother would say, with a firm nod of her head and a callused finger pointed toward the castle walls, so thickly covered in leaves and flowers that they seemed more like a hill grown soft and natural from the ground than anything humans built on purpose -- because the point of the briars and woodbine was to fence people out with thorns and interwoven vines; the curse's end should have softened those defenses, but the royal roses still had plenty of thorns.
Come to that, woodbine was just a fancy name people used for honeysuckle when they didn't want to tiptoe that half-inch too close to nursing livestock and other bodily functions -- and nobody ever said honeysuckle wasn't pretty or smelled anything but sweet, so there was no need to look elsewhere for perfume either.
These days, Dina peered at the thick tangle of greenery and thorns every time she hauled firewood through the castle gates, and smiled to herself to see the quiet gold of honeysuckle still twining amidst the roses and their blood-tipped thorns.
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60. For
elementalraven: The Hunger games/any, any, a crossover, written 3/5/21
Hunger, Sated (225 words)
Fandom = The Hunger Games/The Magnus Archives
-----
The Games are a rich feast for all the powers: the Eye, for the knowledge that the entire world is watching, judging your every action and word; the Web for the loss of agency that snares each Tribute in their own personal tangle of inevitability; the Hunt, the Slaughter, the Desolation, the End -- so obvious as to need no elaboration.
The Vast and the Buried claim their tithe in the various obstacles wrought by the Gamemakers, the Corruption and the Flesh in the twisted mockeries of natural creatures set upon the Tributes, the Stranger in the swoop and betrayal of alliances and the Capitol's blithe denial of the Tributes' humanity, the Spiral in the boiling, itching knowledge that this entire system is mad and makes no sense and yet the Capitol can't see the injustice (to say nothing of the casual way geography is rearranged at whim).
The Lonely seeps into each Tribute's heart in turn, twines around their ankles and weighs them down with the stark knowledge that even if they survive, not even other Victors will truly be able to share in their pain... and the Dark? The Dark is both savior and most perilous of all, for just as it shelters the dying children from their tormentors' eyes, each close of the curtains brings new horrors forth to glut upon their fear.
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---------------------------------------------
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Okay, time for some sleep, because I have a Large Number Of Tasks to complete at work 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 2021 iteration of the Three Sentence Ficathon (post one and post two), hosted by the wonderful
rthstewart. The ficathon is now closed to new prompts tonight, but you can continue filling prompts and commenting on other people's fills for as long as you like!
---------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------
55. For
runespoor: Naruto, Hinata, challenge, written 3/2/21
Serenity, Courage, Wisdom (495 words)
Fandom = Naruto. Have another Summer Camp & Politics installment. :)
-----
"The question is, do you want to run for reelection?" Sakura said, kicking her heels against the back of Hinata's desk. The solid wood made a satisfying clunk-boom sound with each impact, halfway between windchimes and a drum. It reminded Hinata of the water features in Father's garden, but in an oddly comforting way, not the choking, smothering weight that memory often carried.
"All of us will help with whatever you choose," Sakura continued, "but you should make sure you decide based on what you want to do, not just what you think you ought to do, or what might inconvenience your father -- and while we'd love to have you in the Assembly as a member of Great Bridge, I've never had the feeling you actually enjoy the work."
Hinata gnawed her lip as Sakura gave her space to think, glanced down at the papers and tablet on her desk, glanced out the window toward the opposite wing of the Capitol where the Assembly chamber stood in all its elegant, intimidating glory, and sighed, because Sakura was both right and wrong. She hadn't enjoyed her work at all, when her work was to serve as Father's mouthpiece, and she suspected she'd never enjoy confrontation -- but while the half-year remaining in her term wasn't enough to decide if she would enjoy actually serving Fire Country as she thought best, she wanted to try.
"I think," she said eventually, "that I won't know if the work and I will suit each other unless I try. I would, however, like the opportunity to find out, and if that means standing against Father, I know I won't face the challenge alone."
Sakura smiled. "That's fair. Do you want a hug?"
Hinata shook her head. "Maybe later. For now, I want to know what you and the others have been plotting in the campaign strategy meetings you think I don't know about."
"How--" Sakura started, then grinned ruefully and shook her own head. "Right, we should have known better than to try hiding from Hyuga eyes."
Or hiding from someone who had spent the majority of her life controlled by other people, and therefore had a vested interest in uncovering any secrets relating to her. Hinata knew Sakura was perfectly well aware of that aspect -- she couldn't decide if it was more kind or annoying that Sakura tended to avoid mentioning it.
Someday she might want to confront that issue. But not today. One challenge at a time was more than enough.
"Yes, you should," Hinata said in her best imitation of Hanabi's serene self-confidence. "But I'm sure you won't make the same mistake again."
"Neither of us would have made it this far if we were in the habit of repeating mistakes," Sakura said wryly. "But enough reminiscing. Let's look toward the future."
She drew a tablet from the briefcase sitting beside her on Hinata's desk and leaned back to show Hinata the latest polling data from Byakugan Province.
---------------
---------------
56. For
rthstewart: Doctor Who, Martha, This is me walking away, written 3/2/21
Not To Play (180 words)
-----
Martha learned young that sometimes, the only way to win is to walk away: if your opponent controls the field on which you have to fight, makes the rules that define victory, and is determined to make you lose (and look foolish or presumptuous for struggling), you can't get anywhere running through maze with all its exits locked; instead, you have to step back, climb over the walls, and walk away to a place, a perspective, where you can show people how the game is rigged.
The Doctor learned that same lesson somewhere in his endless past, and he's very good at finding the place from which to see the strings and change the terms.
He's less good at understanding that it's possible for him to be the one running a rigged game (on Martha and on himself; at least he's an equal opportunity dispenser of social awkwardness and angst), but Martha thinks, as she walks away, that maybe she's finally found the right move to make him see.
She walks away. She loses. And that's how they both win.
---------------
---------------
57. For
elementalraven: The Hunger games, prim & rue, what if rue had won the hunger games, written 3/2/21
Greater Love Hath No Woman (230 words)
-----
"Thank you for trying to save Katniss," says the pale girl, Rue's own age, with crack-skinned, dirt-nailed fingers and the air of a transplanted seedling struggling to survive.
"You were lucky to have her as your sister," Rue says, extending her manicured hands and offering the fragile, glass-shard smile she's worn since Haymitch and her own sponsor told her the Capitol was growing tired of her grief, that it was good to be a little forlorn (a childhood tragedy always goes down well) but better to seem bright and hopeful, to gloss over the truth that she was merely the latest in a long line of child slaves and sacrifices -- and, sore-hearted and sore-boned, facing the other girl Katniss died to save, blurts out despite the need to watch her tongue, "I wished she could have been mine, too."
"You can be mine instead," says the pale girl -- Prim, Katniss said her name was; whispered it in the night, too soft for cameras or microphones to catch, as if to give the Capitol her name might somehow give them more power over her than they already had -- and as she pulls Rue into a hug (the first unfaked, unconditional human touch Rue's felt since Katniss died), Rue thinks to herself, Katniss died so we could live; I will die so no one will ever have to make her choice again.
---------------
---------------
58. For
galadryels: any, any, I didn't say that (your choice of where emphasis is laid), written 3/2/21
Word and Deed (165 words)
Fandom = The Magnus Archives
-----
"I didn't say I thought your love was some kind of-- of manipulation or mistake!" Martin shouted, waving his hands through the bitter exhaust fumes that clung and insinuated their way through every permeable inch of this domain. "I may have thought it, but intrusive thoughts are a thing, and anyway, it's what we choose to do and say that really matters, much more than a passing blip of neurons that was probably born as much of my own trauma -- and-- and see, you've got me admitting that I have trauma! out loud! where any passerby could overhear! -- and if that kind of trust doesn't tell you how much I know you care, regardless of what may or may not pass through my brain now and then, I don't know what possibly could."
Jon hugged him, both because Martin was right that actions mattered, and because it was easier than trying to translate his jumbled maelstrom of guilt and apology and love into coherent words.
---------------
---------------
59. For anonymous: Any, any, and the briars became red roses and the woodbine became white roses, written 3/3/21
Thorns and Honeysuckle (210 words)
Fandom = original
-----
The end of the story always puzzled Dina -- "The briars became red roses and the woodbine became white roses, and they cast petals and perfume upon the air as the castle woke from sleep," her grandmother would say, with a firm nod of her head and a callused finger pointed toward the castle walls, so thickly covered in leaves and flowers that they seemed more like a hill grown soft and natural from the ground than anything humans built on purpose -- because the point of the briars and woodbine was to fence people out with thorns and interwoven vines; the curse's end should have softened those defenses, but the royal roses still had plenty of thorns.
Come to that, woodbine was just a fancy name people used for honeysuckle when they didn't want to tiptoe that half-inch too close to nursing livestock and other bodily functions -- and nobody ever said honeysuckle wasn't pretty or smelled anything but sweet, so there was no need to look elsewhere for perfume either.
These days, Dina peered at the thick tangle of greenery and thorns every time she hauled firewood through the castle gates, and smiled to herself to see the quiet gold of honeysuckle still twining amidst the roses and their blood-tipped thorns.
---------------
---------------
60. For
elementalraven: The Hunger games/any, any, a crossover, written 3/5/21
Hunger, Sated (225 words)
Fandom = The Hunger Games/The Magnus Archives
-----
The Games are a rich feast for all the powers: the Eye, for the knowledge that the entire world is watching, judging your every action and word; the Web for the loss of agency that snares each Tribute in their own personal tangle of inevitability; the Hunt, the Slaughter, the Desolation, the End -- so obvious as to need no elaboration.
The Vast and the Buried claim their tithe in the various obstacles wrought by the Gamemakers, the Corruption and the Flesh in the twisted mockeries of natural creatures set upon the Tributes, the Stranger in the swoop and betrayal of alliances and the Capitol's blithe denial of the Tributes' humanity, the Spiral in the boiling, itching knowledge that this entire system is mad and makes no sense and yet the Capitol can't see the injustice (to say nothing of the casual way geography is rearranged at whim).
The Lonely seeps into each Tribute's heart in turn, twines around their ankles and weighs them down with the stark knowledge that even if they survive, not even other Victors will truly be able to share in their pain... and the Dark? The Dark is both savior and most perilous of all, for just as it shelters the dying children from their tormentors' eyes, each close of the curtains brings new horrors forth to glut upon their fear.
---------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------
Okay, time for some sleep, because I have a Large Number Of Tasks to complete at work tomorrow. If you want to comment on this post, you can do so over here on Dreamwidth, where there are currently (
comments)