[Meme] WIPs by 7s
1. Go to page 77 (or 7, or just hit pagedown 7 times) of your current manuscript.
2. Go to line 7
3. Copy down the next 7 lines - sentences or paragraphs - and post them as they’re written.
4. Tag 7 other authors. (um... consider yourself tagged if you want to play?)
Hmm. Well, I don't know how 'current' all of these are, but they are the fics that I still have at least vague intentions of finishing which are also long enough for this meme to apply. So.
-----
The Light in Your Eyes
"We haven't walked the Lands End trail in several weeks." She slid her hands down to clasp his upper arms. "Or we could eat here. I just... I can't face the mess hall. Gaila asked me to sit with her, but I can't. Too many people are gone."
Involuntarily, Spock's breath caught in his throat.
-----
Intervention
Nico shrugged. Zhi-ren snorted. Elakwa raised her eyebrows. Kath favored her with a pitying look.
Jayavanti growled. "Okay, stop making fun of the rookie. What am I missing?"
Captain Inez Castaño leaned back in her command chair and rubbed her eyes before answering. "Simplicity is a utopian religious colony founded by a fundamentalist Christian sect known as Cordites. Their founder, Nathaniel Cord, wanted to escape the complexities of modern technology and a multi-species society. They're trying to recreate a fantasy of a golden age."
"And...?" said Jayavanti, when the rest of the explanation wasn't immediately forthcoming. Sometimes the captain thought she'd given enough information for people to follow her thoughts to their logical conclusion, but Jayavanti didn't have two decades of deep space experience to help her connect the dots. She still needed the steps filled in.
The captain touched the crucifix around her neck and sighed. "And for the first generation, that's fine. If consenting adults want to go off and deny reality, it's nobody else's business. The trouble with utopian experiments generally starts in the second or third generation, when some of the children begin to ask questions. If the colony doesn't have a way to accommodate dissenters, the resulting social tangles can range from suppression and shunning up to imprisonment or exile, or even outright slaughter and civil war in a few particularly nasty cases."
"So we were called unofficially," said Jayavanti.
"Possibly by an organized faction, but more likely by one or two lone dissidents," Inez agreed. "We're legally bound to answer whether the colony government wants us here or not. Once we're on the ground, we are obligated to offer treatment to all the colonists."
-----
Aspects of Immortality
(aka "the Dave<>Aradia fantasy AU thing that came to me in a dream" -- no really, it did)
Dave blinks. He's never seen anyone fast enough to touch Bro when he doesn't want to be touched. Either this lady is that good, or Bro doesn't mind her messing with his hat. Both of which are the next best thing to impossible.
"Mr. Strider?" the teacher asks, still holding the chalk in her hand like she thinks it might work as a weapon. She hasn't even gone for her stun-gun. So lame. "What-- how-- is there a family reason you need to speak with Dave?"
"You could say that," says Bro. "Hey, kiddos. Listen up -- you get a quick history lesson before you get back to math. This is the year of the Scratch, when one cycle gives way to the next. It's time for the Aspects to hand over the reins to our heirs."
"It has been one thousand twenty-five circuits of the sun since my counterpart and I took up our roles," the troll lady continues. "Now we lay them down. Aradia Megido."
"Dave Strider," says Bro.
"Come learn who you were born to be," they say in chorus, one voice high, one voice low, blurring into one.
Dave blinks. When he turns to look at Aradia, he can see she's as surprised as he is. Okay, so he knew they were weird, and he knew his bro was too cool to be normal either, but... is Bro saying he's one of the Aspects? Non-ironically?
-----
A Question of Familiarity
Telemain was still protesting. "--so I hope you realize that honest curiosity and the spirit of magical research... wait, there are variants of the summoning spell?"
"Is he an idiot?" the battered gray tomcat asked.
"Yes," said Morwen.
"I beg your pardon?" said Telemain at the same moment.
Morwen blinked. Telemain had understood the cat?
-----
To Every Thing There Is a Season
"Have you named her yet?" Corradin asked, nearly startling Ilgamuth into wheeling his horse around to face the unexpected threat. But he had not grown up in the heart of Calavar's horse country for nothing. He controlled himself and the mare before they could disrupt the column.
Corradin was laughing at him nonetheless.
Ilvari simply shook his head and sighed. "It is said that taking a nameless steed into battle brings misfortune on her rider and his companions," he said. "You must give her a self so the gods can see her."
"'They run like wind, like lightning, like a storm-tossed sea on dry land; who can count their number, any more than drops of rain or grains of sand? But beware, O man, before you think to steal a single hoof; their master knows them all,'" Ilgamuth quoted.
Corradin laughed harder.
"Just because Sokda knows every horse in the world doesn't mean Tash or Achadith do. You have to bring them to the right gods' attention," Ilvari said patiently. "What is the mare's name?"
In Calavar, horses were not named until they were known, so the word would not interpose itself between beast and master. Ilgamuth had not yet learned all the moods and habits of his new mare, nor had she grown accustomed to him and able to respond to his slightest shift of attention. But she did remind him of a folktale his elder sister Hunariyyah was fond of: the sullen girl who sat by the oven all day and would never help her family with any of their chores, nor offer the fresh bread to any guests, until one of those guests revealed himself as a prince in disguise and bought her for his slave because he found her sharp tongue amusing.
-----
Secrets, ch. 15
Ginny stopped by the common room in case Colin was hanging around and needed help with his remedial work, but everyone seemed to be out for the afternoon. She probably ought to find Xanthe or Colin or somebody to practice being a friend, but she was tired of acting like everything was fine. So she headed to the greenhouses and spent the afternoon working on a list of minor jobs Professor Sprout had given her on Tuesday.
"You've been wonderful to have in class this year. Again, if there's anything I can do to help..." Professor Sprout said as she escorted Ginny back to the castle for dinner.
"You already are," Ginny assured her. Then she slowed, twisting a bit of hair around her finger. "Er, are there any projects I could do over the summer for extra credit?"
Professor Sprout looked pleased. "I don't have any ready-made projects aimed at a second-year level, but I can certainly plan a few. Tell me what you have at home by way of a garden and supplies, and I'll avoid anything that requires special equipment."
Describing Mum's garden carried them safely to the Great Hall, past the handful of people who still looked at Ginny with annoyance or pity. "Your home sounds lovely," said Professor Sprout, pushing the doors open. "I'll owl you with some ideas next week."
"Thanks," said Ginny, and hurried over to the Gryffindor table, where Colin waved her into an empty seat across from Apple. Ginny pulled up her most convincing smile and prepared to ask about their days.
---------------
Friday was the last day of classes, and even Professor McGonagall unbent enough to hand out shortbread biscuits to everyone and teach them how to disguise biscuit tins so they looked like miniature chests for delicate Potions ingredients. "Do not try to fool Professor Snape with this trick next year," she said as she finished the lesson. "He's been known to insist on students using smuggled snacks to make potions, and to assign detention or deduct house points for the resulting failures."
-----
Friends and Neighbors
Naruto pressed closer to Yukiko's legs. Shinnin scowled and grabbed hold of Sakura's arm, tugging the other girl away from her mother. "She wouldn't be alone! She'd be with us! And it's not better for her to be around the other kids when Haruka hates her and makes them all pick on her until she cries. If you don't like Naruto, just say so -- don't pretend and talk around him like he isn't here."
Haruno-san flushed. "Watch your mouth, young lady!"
Shinnin lunged forward, clearly preparing to kick Haruno-san's legs. Before Haruno-san or Sakura could react, Iruka swooped down and picked Shinnin up, one arm wrapped around her shoulders and the other sweeping up to catch the backs of her knees and remove her leverage. "Shinnin, please try to remember your manners," he said calmly. "We don't use taijutsu on civilians. It's unfair to them."
Haruno-san gaped in shock. "What?" Her hand groped helplessly toward Sakura's shoulder.
Sakura sidestepped neatly. "This is why you use the lock, Mom," she said. "It keeps the door between you and anyone you want to argue with." She looked back at Shinnin and frowned. "And don't hit my mom! Only jerks do stuff like that."
Shinnin, cradled in Iruka's arms like a worn-out toddler, turned bright red and mumbled an apology.
Behind Yukiko's legs, Naruto giggled.
-----
The Transient and the Eternal: Stop that
He pulled his hand away. "Yeah," Setsuna said.
Sara tilted her head in a considering pose. "I want... I want to go to an arcade and play shooter games. I've always wanted to try that, but Mother says they're undignified for a young lady. Then I want to go to a nightclub and dance and get drunk."
"Sara!" Setsuna protested.
-----
The Transient and the Eternal: If it wasn't you...
Setsuna growled. "Stop trying to goad me into things like I'm still fifteen, you jerk. I came here to see Sara -- or Jibril -- so that's what I'm going to do." He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, "Hey! Raphael! What's a person have to do to get a decent welcome around here, you bastard?"
A clatter and the muffled pounding of bare feet echoed from the house, and then a blue-haired figure stared from one of the open windows. "Alexiel? But you sound like-- didn't you-- oh, what in the world have you done to yourself, Setsuna?" Without waiting for an answer, she catapulted herself over the windowsill and charged across the garden.
Setsuna caught her as she hurled herself into his embrace, and felt a stupid smile breaking across his face. "We didn't do anything; that's kind of the problem." Jibril's body, Jibril's kinesthetic knowledge of how to fit against Alexiel, but Sara's reckless attitude, and instinctive recognition of him... "Um. Which one are--"
She tipped her head back and laughed. "I'm me, of course. Both of me, only me, whatever. It's all me. Jibril is Sara is Jibril. It took some time to reconcile the differences in perspective -- to be honest, I'm still working on that -- but it seems counterproductive to pretend that both lives aren't the same soul. Don't you agree?" she said, turning in the circle of Setsuna's arms to cast an amused glance at Lucifer.
"No comment," he said, with a faint, wry quirk to his mouth.
"Bastard," someone grumbled from inside the house, and then Michael and Raphael strode out into the sunlit garden. "Hey," Michael continued, pointing at Setsuna, "are you going to be as nuts as Jibril, or what? 'Cause if you wanna fight..."
"Not in my house!" Jibril said, ducking out of Setsuna's grasp to wave her finger in Michael's face. The gesture and the intonation were so perfectly Sara that if Setsuna hadn't been looking down at her blue hair, he would have thought she was still human and still his. But she wasn't. Now she was half someone else, someone he didn't know -- someone Alexiel knew.
-----
Ephemera, ch. 2
"Naturally not, and none taken," said Umabel, "though I'd watch my mouth if I were you, thorny. Not everybody's madness is as freewheeling as ours." He stripped off his gloves and flicked powdery fingers through Belial's hair. "It's a slow day. Take the afternoon off and have some fun."
"Sir, yes, sir!" Belial tossed the sodden paper towels into the trash bin and darted out the door, grinning fit to split her face.
-----
Five Things That Never Happened to Rex and Ana Lewis
(The actual 7th line on page 7 happens to overlap exactly with the text of an excerpt I previously posted, so instead, this is from page 7 of section two.)
Six weeks into the training, Ana is allowed to apply for use of a cell phone. She thinks about the pros and cons for one day and night, and then texts Ripcord: I have cell phone privileges now. Mission Punch continues, slowly. How are you and scarface? --Baby Girl
That should make sense to him and not give her away to Duke.
Ripcord calls back that evening, during personal time. "Ana, my best girl, how's it hanging? I see you're going into the dragon soldiers -- very cool, very cool. What's Missouri like in the winter? I've only been there in the summer, just a quick flyby, but man, it was hotter than hell that week." He's talking too fast and upbeat, almost a caricature of himself.
"What's wrong?" Ana asks, interrupting the rapid-fire stream of words.
Silence. Then, "Duke's AWOL," Ripcord says.
"What?"
"We got home to Fort Meade two weeks back, after something you ain't got clearance to hear about, and he went back to the same damn thing he's been doing since spring. Drinks and bar fights, like clockwork." Ripcord makes a frustrated noise. "I dragged him home to his apartment last Friday night, figured I'd let him sleep off the hangover. Then he didn't answer his damn phone Saturday. Actually, his number didn't work -- the system didn't recognize it anymore."
-----
...I have way too many WIPs. :-(
You can also read this entry on Dreamwidth, where there are currently (
comments)
2. Go to line 7
3. Copy down the next 7 lines - sentences or paragraphs - and post them as they’re written.
4. Tag 7 other authors. (um... consider yourself tagged if you want to play?)
Hmm. Well, I don't know how 'current' all of these are, but they are the fics that I still have at least vague intentions of finishing which are also long enough for this meme to apply. So.
-----
The Light in Your Eyes
"We haven't walked the Lands End trail in several weeks." She slid her hands down to clasp his upper arms. "Or we could eat here. I just... I can't face the mess hall. Gaila asked me to sit with her, but I can't. Too many people are gone."
Involuntarily, Spock's breath caught in his throat.
-----
Intervention
Nico shrugged. Zhi-ren snorted. Elakwa raised her eyebrows. Kath favored her with a pitying look.
Jayavanti growled. "Okay, stop making fun of the rookie. What am I missing?"
Captain Inez Castaño leaned back in her command chair and rubbed her eyes before answering. "Simplicity is a utopian religious colony founded by a fundamentalist Christian sect known as Cordites. Their founder, Nathaniel Cord, wanted to escape the complexities of modern technology and a multi-species society. They're trying to recreate a fantasy of a golden age."
"And...?" said Jayavanti, when the rest of the explanation wasn't immediately forthcoming. Sometimes the captain thought she'd given enough information for people to follow her thoughts to their logical conclusion, but Jayavanti didn't have two decades of deep space experience to help her connect the dots. She still needed the steps filled in.
The captain touched the crucifix around her neck and sighed. "And for the first generation, that's fine. If consenting adults want to go off and deny reality, it's nobody else's business. The trouble with utopian experiments generally starts in the second or third generation, when some of the children begin to ask questions. If the colony doesn't have a way to accommodate dissenters, the resulting social tangles can range from suppression and shunning up to imprisonment or exile, or even outright slaughter and civil war in a few particularly nasty cases."
"So we were called unofficially," said Jayavanti.
"Possibly by an organized faction, but more likely by one or two lone dissidents," Inez agreed. "We're legally bound to answer whether the colony government wants us here or not. Once we're on the ground, we are obligated to offer treatment to all the colonists."
-----
Aspects of Immortality
(aka "the Dave<>Aradia fantasy AU thing that came to me in a dream" -- no really, it did)
Dave blinks. He's never seen anyone fast enough to touch Bro when he doesn't want to be touched. Either this lady is that good, or Bro doesn't mind her messing with his hat. Both of which are the next best thing to impossible.
"Mr. Strider?" the teacher asks, still holding the chalk in her hand like she thinks it might work as a weapon. She hasn't even gone for her stun-gun. So lame. "What-- how-- is there a family reason you need to speak with Dave?"
"You could say that," says Bro. "Hey, kiddos. Listen up -- you get a quick history lesson before you get back to math. This is the year of the Scratch, when one cycle gives way to the next. It's time for the Aspects to hand over the reins to our heirs."
"It has been one thousand twenty-five circuits of the sun since my counterpart and I took up our roles," the troll lady continues. "Now we lay them down. Aradia Megido."
"Dave Strider," says Bro.
"Come learn who you were born to be," they say in chorus, one voice high, one voice low, blurring into one.
Dave blinks. When he turns to look at Aradia, he can see she's as surprised as he is. Okay, so he knew they were weird, and he knew his bro was too cool to be normal either, but... is Bro saying he's one of the Aspects? Non-ironically?
-----
A Question of Familiarity
Telemain was still protesting. "--so I hope you realize that honest curiosity and the spirit of magical research... wait, there are variants of the summoning spell?"
"Is he an idiot?" the battered gray tomcat asked.
"Yes," said Morwen.
"I beg your pardon?" said Telemain at the same moment.
Morwen blinked. Telemain had understood the cat?
-----
To Every Thing There Is a Season
"Have you named her yet?" Corradin asked, nearly startling Ilgamuth into wheeling his horse around to face the unexpected threat. But he had not grown up in the heart of Calavar's horse country for nothing. He controlled himself and the mare before they could disrupt the column.
Corradin was laughing at him nonetheless.
Ilvari simply shook his head and sighed. "It is said that taking a nameless steed into battle brings misfortune on her rider and his companions," he said. "You must give her a self so the gods can see her."
"'They run like wind, like lightning, like a storm-tossed sea on dry land; who can count their number, any more than drops of rain or grains of sand? But beware, O man, before you think to steal a single hoof; their master knows them all,'" Ilgamuth quoted.
Corradin laughed harder.
"Just because Sokda knows every horse in the world doesn't mean Tash or Achadith do. You have to bring them to the right gods' attention," Ilvari said patiently. "What is the mare's name?"
In Calavar, horses were not named until they were known, so the word would not interpose itself between beast and master. Ilgamuth had not yet learned all the moods and habits of his new mare, nor had she grown accustomed to him and able to respond to his slightest shift of attention. But she did remind him of a folktale his elder sister Hunariyyah was fond of: the sullen girl who sat by the oven all day and would never help her family with any of their chores, nor offer the fresh bread to any guests, until one of those guests revealed himself as a prince in disguise and bought her for his slave because he found her sharp tongue amusing.
-----
Secrets, ch. 15
Ginny stopped by the common room in case Colin was hanging around and needed help with his remedial work, but everyone seemed to be out for the afternoon. She probably ought to find Xanthe or Colin or somebody to practice being a friend, but she was tired of acting like everything was fine. So she headed to the greenhouses and spent the afternoon working on a list of minor jobs Professor Sprout had given her on Tuesday.
"You've been wonderful to have in class this year. Again, if there's anything I can do to help..." Professor Sprout said as she escorted Ginny back to the castle for dinner.
"You already are," Ginny assured her. Then she slowed, twisting a bit of hair around her finger. "Er, are there any projects I could do over the summer for extra credit?"
Professor Sprout looked pleased. "I don't have any ready-made projects aimed at a second-year level, but I can certainly plan a few. Tell me what you have at home by way of a garden and supplies, and I'll avoid anything that requires special equipment."
Describing Mum's garden carried them safely to the Great Hall, past the handful of people who still looked at Ginny with annoyance or pity. "Your home sounds lovely," said Professor Sprout, pushing the doors open. "I'll owl you with some ideas next week."
"Thanks," said Ginny, and hurried over to the Gryffindor table, where Colin waved her into an empty seat across from Apple. Ginny pulled up her most convincing smile and prepared to ask about their days.
---------------
Friday was the last day of classes, and even Professor McGonagall unbent enough to hand out shortbread biscuits to everyone and teach them how to disguise biscuit tins so they looked like miniature chests for delicate Potions ingredients. "Do not try to fool Professor Snape with this trick next year," she said as she finished the lesson. "He's been known to insist on students using smuggled snacks to make potions, and to assign detention or deduct house points for the resulting failures."
-----
Friends and Neighbors
Naruto pressed closer to Yukiko's legs. Shinnin scowled and grabbed hold of Sakura's arm, tugging the other girl away from her mother. "She wouldn't be alone! She'd be with us! And it's not better for her to be around the other kids when Haruka hates her and makes them all pick on her until she cries. If you don't like Naruto, just say so -- don't pretend and talk around him like he isn't here."
Haruno-san flushed. "Watch your mouth, young lady!"
Shinnin lunged forward, clearly preparing to kick Haruno-san's legs. Before Haruno-san or Sakura could react, Iruka swooped down and picked Shinnin up, one arm wrapped around her shoulders and the other sweeping up to catch the backs of her knees and remove her leverage. "Shinnin, please try to remember your manners," he said calmly. "We don't use taijutsu on civilians. It's unfair to them."
Haruno-san gaped in shock. "What?" Her hand groped helplessly toward Sakura's shoulder.
Sakura sidestepped neatly. "This is why you use the lock, Mom," she said. "It keeps the door between you and anyone you want to argue with." She looked back at Shinnin and frowned. "And don't hit my mom! Only jerks do stuff like that."
Shinnin, cradled in Iruka's arms like a worn-out toddler, turned bright red and mumbled an apology.
Behind Yukiko's legs, Naruto giggled.
-----
The Transient and the Eternal: Stop that
He pulled his hand away. "Yeah," Setsuna said.
Sara tilted her head in a considering pose. "I want... I want to go to an arcade and play shooter games. I've always wanted to try that, but Mother says they're undignified for a young lady. Then I want to go to a nightclub and dance and get drunk."
"Sara!" Setsuna protested.
-----
The Transient and the Eternal: If it wasn't you...
Setsuna growled. "Stop trying to goad me into things like I'm still fifteen, you jerk. I came here to see Sara -- or Jibril -- so that's what I'm going to do." He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, "Hey! Raphael! What's a person have to do to get a decent welcome around here, you bastard?"
A clatter and the muffled pounding of bare feet echoed from the house, and then a blue-haired figure stared from one of the open windows. "Alexiel? But you sound like-- didn't you-- oh, what in the world have you done to yourself, Setsuna?" Without waiting for an answer, she catapulted herself over the windowsill and charged across the garden.
Setsuna caught her as she hurled herself into his embrace, and felt a stupid smile breaking across his face. "We didn't do anything; that's kind of the problem." Jibril's body, Jibril's kinesthetic knowledge of how to fit against Alexiel, but Sara's reckless attitude, and instinctive recognition of him... "Um. Which one are--"
She tipped her head back and laughed. "I'm me, of course. Both of me, only me, whatever. It's all me. Jibril is Sara is Jibril. It took some time to reconcile the differences in perspective -- to be honest, I'm still working on that -- but it seems counterproductive to pretend that both lives aren't the same soul. Don't you agree?" she said, turning in the circle of Setsuna's arms to cast an amused glance at Lucifer.
"No comment," he said, with a faint, wry quirk to his mouth.
"Bastard," someone grumbled from inside the house, and then Michael and Raphael strode out into the sunlit garden. "Hey," Michael continued, pointing at Setsuna, "are you going to be as nuts as Jibril, or what? 'Cause if you wanna fight..."
"Not in my house!" Jibril said, ducking out of Setsuna's grasp to wave her finger in Michael's face. The gesture and the intonation were so perfectly Sara that if Setsuna hadn't been looking down at her blue hair, he would have thought she was still human and still his. But she wasn't. Now she was half someone else, someone he didn't know -- someone Alexiel knew.
-----
Ephemera, ch. 2
"Naturally not, and none taken," said Umabel, "though I'd watch my mouth if I were you, thorny. Not everybody's madness is as freewheeling as ours." He stripped off his gloves and flicked powdery fingers through Belial's hair. "It's a slow day. Take the afternoon off and have some fun."
"Sir, yes, sir!" Belial tossed the sodden paper towels into the trash bin and darted out the door, grinning fit to split her face.
-----
Five Things That Never Happened to Rex and Ana Lewis
(The actual 7th line on page 7 happens to overlap exactly with the text of an excerpt I previously posted, so instead, this is from page 7 of section two.)
Six weeks into the training, Ana is allowed to apply for use of a cell phone. She thinks about the pros and cons for one day and night, and then texts Ripcord: I have cell phone privileges now. Mission Punch continues, slowly. How are you and scarface? --Baby Girl
That should make sense to him and not give her away to Duke.
Ripcord calls back that evening, during personal time. "Ana, my best girl, how's it hanging? I see you're going into the dragon soldiers -- very cool, very cool. What's Missouri like in the winter? I've only been there in the summer, just a quick flyby, but man, it was hotter than hell that week." He's talking too fast and upbeat, almost a caricature of himself.
"What's wrong?" Ana asks, interrupting the rapid-fire stream of words.
Silence. Then, "Duke's AWOL," Ripcord says.
"What?"
"We got home to Fort Meade two weeks back, after something you ain't got clearance to hear about, and he went back to the same damn thing he's been doing since spring. Drinks and bar fights, like clockwork." Ripcord makes a frustrated noise. "I dragged him home to his apartment last Friday night, figured I'd let him sleep off the hangover. Then he didn't answer his damn phone Saturday. Actually, his number didn't work -- the system didn't recognize it anymore."
-----
...I have way too many WIPs. :-(
You can also read this entry on Dreamwidth, where there are currently (
comments)