More music-related writing meme action
1. Pick a character, pairing, or fandom you like.
2. Turn on your music player and put it on random/shuffle.
3. Write a drabble related to each song that plays. You only have the time frame of the song to finish the drabble; you start when the song starts, and stop when it's over. No lingering afterwards!
4. Do ten of these, then post them.
LET'S DO THIS AGAIN, SHALL WE? God, I'm just such a masochist. Plus, I'm afraid of what I'll find when I look at all the AcaDeca stuff. I'm pretty sure I've forgotten everything I know. T_T
This time the fandom will be Assassin's Creed.
Whispers in the Dark - Skillet [3:20]
Of course, the novices had to learn how to kill. Not just the mechanics of it, the thrust of a blade up through flesh, the location of the kidneys, the way someone stabbed in the belly would linger for hours in agony. They had to learn how to do it.
The instructors did their best. Malik remembered one lesson they'd had in hand-to-hand combat, where the students were partnered off and given two lumps of clay. One partner was instructed to place the clay over his eyes; the other was told to attempt to put his thumbs through the clay while the partner shrieked and thrashed and tried to throw him off.
"That was awkward," one of the students had said afterward with a nervous laugh, raking his fingers through close-cropped hair. The others laughed too, the sound of their voices strangely loud. No-one else spoke after that, and dinner that evening was subdued.
Altaïr said very little, as was normal for him; but Malik, and doubtless all of their classmates, remembered how effortlessly he had pressed holes in the clay over his partner's eyes whilst tucking his legs over the other's shoulders to keep him from struggling. It was that, Malik suspected, which made Altaïr different, rather than any major difference in skill.
Danny Boy - Charlotte Church [2:46]
"Hand me back that Apple," Robert de Sable had warned Malik, pressing his knife against Kadar's throat, "Or he will wish himself dead before the end."
But Malik, crouched like a wounded animal beside the entrance to the cave, dimly feeling the trickle of warm blood dripping from his arm to his boots, the weight of his mission tucked snug in a pouch beside his throwing knives, did not. Obeying his orders, he turned and ran, and though the Templar bellowed orders to his men to catch him, no soldier in plate armor would ever be able to keep up with an assassin of Masyaf.
It was only once he was safely astride a stolen horse, galloping pell-mell for Masyaf that he began to weep--and wracking sobs they were, all great fat tears dripping into his horse's mane. Fucking sons of bitches, he could have killed them. Fucking hell, there was no reason for this to happen, and now he'd abandoned his own brother to their mercies--stupid, he could have thrown one of his knives and killed Kadar right then and there--so fucking stupid...
Pressure - Billy Joel [4:37]
"I dare you to try stealing one of Altaïr's apples."
"A-Altaïr ibn La-Ahad?" The novice glanced around with wide eyes, as though the fabled master assassin might just hop out of a nearby haystack brandishing a morningstar. "I don't think that's a good idea."
"Come on," the older student persisted, grinning from ear to ear, "You want to be one of us, don't you? Just do it. One piddly apple! He probably won't even miss it."
"I think you must have something to do with this," Altaïr snarled to Malik in an undertone, shifting uncomfortably within the haystack. "You think it's hilarious, don't you."
"Not in the slightest," Malik replied flippantly. "I would never do such a thing to them. They deserve to live a bit longer than that."
All the Things She Said - t.A.T.u [3:43]
"Good evening--" said Kadar as he pulled himself over the edge of the roof, and saw Altaïr nearly jump out of skin. "It's a nice night, isn't it?"
The assassin only grunted in response, jerkily settling back down and turning pointedly away from him.
"Are you waiting for my brother?"
"What?" Altaïr snapped, whipping around and nearly falling off the roof. Kadar saw, with some satisfaction, that the color had drained from his face.
"I know you are. I know you've gotten my brother into... into some kind of perversion." The younger assassin balked at using the name. "And I just wanted to let you know that you had damn well better stop, or I'm going to report you."
"You are an idiot," Altaïr spat, vicious and scornful; but his hands were shaking. "And you insult your brother with such talk. Go back to bed, child."
Kadar went, but he glared meaningfully at the elder assassin as he passed.
OOC Kadar for the lose! In canon, the kid hero-worships Altaïr, but I didn't remember that until midway through the song, so I just kept going.
Down By the Salley Gardens - Maura O'Connell [3:41]
"Congratulations on your marriage," Malik told Altaïr stiffly. "I just heard."
"It was necessary," the man replied, but he looked away.
There was silence.
"You are the head of our order, you know." Malik sat down heavily on the windowsill, pressing a hand over his face. "Al Mualim never married."
"But people talk. They already talk. Not about you, they like you. But me? It wasn't that long ago that half the order was screaming for my head--"
"--Fine."
"What?"
"Don't worry about it." Malik got up to leave. "You have made your decision. I only wish I might have heard something of it earlier."
"I..."
"Come down to the storehouses in about an hour, if you please. A shipment should be coming in, and you ought to see the new weapons."
"Malik--"
Oh my good lord...
I Wanna Be a Rockette - Kicks! The Showgirl Musical [2:23]
"Master?!" Altaïr choked, staring owlishly at the vibrant vision in silks and damasks before him.
"Ah, Altaïr." Al Mualim got up and swept around his desk in a single motion, dress swirling out behind him. "I wasn't expecting you to be back this early!"
"The target fell in the harbor at Acre... he, ah, he couldn't swim. So I just left." Altaïr caught sight of greying strands of chest hair poking out from beneath the master's obscenely low-cut neckline; his eyes traveled up in horrified fascination until he locked gazes with the master, whose eyes glittered black at him as though daring Altaïr to say a single word.
"Excellent work," the master told him approvingly, clapping him on the shoulder. He felt the lace edge of a billowing sleeve brush his upper arm, remembered the way just such a sleeve of Adha's had felt when she grabbed his arm, and suddenly felt the urge to run away. Very fast.
Marsch der Priester - Mozart [2:23]
"I can understand why these assassins are choosing to disguise themselves as priests, assuming the rumors are true," city guard Siraj groused to his best friend and partner, Hadi. "Seriously, they all look the same."
Standing atop a gate overlooking the daily route of a number of the holy men, they had been charged with ensuring that no non-priests slipped into Dimashq with the actual priests. Unfortunately, it was seeming more and more likely that their mission was a futile one.
"They don't all look the same," Hadi pointed out, tugging on his lip. "Look, that one has a beard. And that one doesn't. And that one has an enormous sword strapped to his--HEY! YOU! SHIT! GET BACK HERE!"
Jeux D'eau - Cirque du Soleil [4:18]
"Come on, Altaïr," Malik cajoled, "The water's not that bad."
"Yes, it is." Altaïr shot him a look of extreme skepticism. "Doesn't the lavatory empty into here?"
"I've never heard of that," the other student frowned.
"Well, it does."
"I think you're full of shit, and you just don't want to get over your excessive fear of water."
"No, I'm serious. It's dumped in here to keep it from smelling--things don't smell underwater. If they used a pit it'd make everything smell like the lavatory. Rather like you will after you get out."
FOOTNOTE: THIS IS EXACTLY HOW MEDIEVAL WASTE DISPOSAL WORKED.
"Shit..." Malik eyed the words that had traced themselves on the sky with trepidation. "Getting out now."
Fantine's Arrest - Les Miserables [3:53]
"Come here, girlie," the drunken knight from Acre crooned, attempting to drape himself over the form of the young woman standing in the doorway.
"I'll fucking cut your testicles off, fill them with porcupine's quills, and feed them to you," she snarled in Arabic. "Go harass one of your own harlots."
"Sho pretty," the knight continued, oblivious.
"I will," the girl warned, pulling an enormous pin from the sash at her waist.
"I think we should recruit her," Malik's breath hissed in Altaïr's ear.
The Device Has Been Modified - Victims of Science [2:42]
The Apple of Eden was broken, Malik decided. It had to be.
"HELLO. AND WELCOME TO THE ENRICHMENT CENTER. YOUR SPECIMEN HAS BEEN PROCESSED."
"Has it now," he grumbled at the golden sphere, which rotated in place as if turning to regard him like an enormous eye.
"WELL YOU'VE FOUND ME. CONGRATULATIONS. WAS IT WORTH IT."
"I'm not so sure about that--"
"THE ONLY THING YOU'VE MANAGED TO BREAK SO FAR... IS MY HEART."
"Well. How on earth will you ever forgive me?"
"WEIGHTED STORAGE CUBE DESTROY."
"What?"
"What the hell--it talks?" Altaïr demanded, entering the room through the window. The sphere whipped around--Malik could have sworn it was sizing him up.
"THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATING IN THIS APERTURE SCIENCE COMPUTER AIDED ENRICHMENT ACTIVITY. GOODBYE."
2. Turn on your music player and put it on random/shuffle.
3. Write a drabble related to each song that plays. You only have the time frame of the song to finish the drabble; you start when the song starts, and stop when it's over. No lingering afterwards!
4. Do ten of these, then post them.
LET'S DO THIS AGAIN, SHALL WE? God, I'm just such a masochist. Plus, I'm afraid of what I'll find when I look at all the AcaDeca stuff. I'm pretty sure I've forgotten everything I know. T_T
This time the fandom will be Assassin's Creed.
Whispers in the Dark - Skillet [3:20]
Of course, the novices had to learn how to kill. Not just the mechanics of it, the thrust of a blade up through flesh, the location of the kidneys, the way someone stabbed in the belly would linger for hours in agony. They had to learn how to do it.
The instructors did their best. Malik remembered one lesson they'd had in hand-to-hand combat, where the students were partnered off and given two lumps of clay. One partner was instructed to place the clay over his eyes; the other was told to attempt to put his thumbs through the clay while the partner shrieked and thrashed and tried to throw him off.
"That was awkward," one of the students had said afterward with a nervous laugh, raking his fingers through close-cropped hair. The others laughed too, the sound of their voices strangely loud. No-one else spoke after that, and dinner that evening was subdued.
Altaïr said very little, as was normal for him; but Malik, and doubtless all of their classmates, remembered how effortlessly he had pressed holes in the clay over his partner's eyes whilst tucking his legs over the other's shoulders to keep him from struggling. It was that, Malik suspected, which made Altaïr different, rather than any major difference in skill.
Danny Boy - Charlotte Church [2:46]
"Hand me back that Apple," Robert de Sable had warned Malik, pressing his knife against Kadar's throat, "Or he will wish himself dead before the end."
But Malik, crouched like a wounded animal beside the entrance to the cave, dimly feeling the trickle of warm blood dripping from his arm to his boots, the weight of his mission tucked snug in a pouch beside his throwing knives, did not. Obeying his orders, he turned and ran, and though the Templar bellowed orders to his men to catch him, no soldier in plate armor would ever be able to keep up with an assassin of Masyaf.
It was only once he was safely astride a stolen horse, galloping pell-mell for Masyaf that he began to weep--and wracking sobs they were, all great fat tears dripping into his horse's mane. Fucking sons of bitches, he could have killed them. Fucking hell, there was no reason for this to happen, and now he'd abandoned his own brother to their mercies--stupid, he could have thrown one of his knives and killed Kadar right then and there--so fucking stupid...
Pressure - Billy Joel [4:37]
"I dare you to try stealing one of Altaïr's apples."
"A-Altaïr ibn La-Ahad?" The novice glanced around with wide eyes, as though the fabled master assassin might just hop out of a nearby haystack brandishing a morningstar. "I don't think that's a good idea."
"Come on," the older student persisted, grinning from ear to ear, "You want to be one of us, don't you? Just do it. One piddly apple! He probably won't even miss it."
"I think you must have something to do with this," Altaïr snarled to Malik in an undertone, shifting uncomfortably within the haystack. "You think it's hilarious, don't you."
"Not in the slightest," Malik replied flippantly. "I would never do such a thing to them. They deserve to live a bit longer than that."
All the Things She Said - t.A.T.u [3:43]
"Good evening--" said Kadar as he pulled himself over the edge of the roof, and saw Altaïr nearly jump out of skin. "It's a nice night, isn't it?"
The assassin only grunted in response, jerkily settling back down and turning pointedly away from him.
"Are you waiting for my brother?"
"What?" Altaïr snapped, whipping around and nearly falling off the roof. Kadar saw, with some satisfaction, that the color had drained from his face.
"I know you are. I know you've gotten my brother into... into some kind of perversion." The younger assassin balked at using the name. "And I just wanted to let you know that you had damn well better stop, or I'm going to report you."
"You are an idiot," Altaïr spat, vicious and scornful; but his hands were shaking. "And you insult your brother with such talk. Go back to bed, child."
Kadar went, but he glared meaningfully at the elder assassin as he passed.
OOC Kadar for the lose! In canon, the kid hero-worships Altaïr, but I didn't remember that until midway through the song, so I just kept going.
Down By the Salley Gardens - Maura O'Connell [3:41]
"Congratulations on your marriage," Malik told Altaïr stiffly. "I just heard."
"It was necessary," the man replied, but he looked away.
There was silence.
"You are the head of our order, you know." Malik sat down heavily on the windowsill, pressing a hand over his face. "Al Mualim never married."
"But people talk. They already talk. Not about you, they like you. But me? It wasn't that long ago that half the order was screaming for my head--"
"--Fine."
"What?"
"Don't worry about it." Malik got up to leave. "You have made your decision. I only wish I might have heard something of it earlier."
"I..."
"Come down to the storehouses in about an hour, if you please. A shipment should be coming in, and you ought to see the new weapons."
"Malik--"
Oh my good lord...
I Wanna Be a Rockette - Kicks! The Showgirl Musical [2:23]
"Master?!" Altaïr choked, staring owlishly at the vibrant vision in silks and damasks before him.
"Ah, Altaïr." Al Mualim got up and swept around his desk in a single motion, dress swirling out behind him. "I wasn't expecting you to be back this early!"
"The target fell in the harbor at Acre... he, ah, he couldn't swim. So I just left." Altaïr caught sight of greying strands of chest hair poking out from beneath the master's obscenely low-cut neckline; his eyes traveled up in horrified fascination until he locked gazes with the master, whose eyes glittered black at him as though daring Altaïr to say a single word.
"Excellent work," the master told him approvingly, clapping him on the shoulder. He felt the lace edge of a billowing sleeve brush his upper arm, remembered the way just such a sleeve of Adha's had felt when she grabbed his arm, and suddenly felt the urge to run away. Very fast.
Marsch der Priester - Mozart [2:23]
"I can understand why these assassins are choosing to disguise themselves as priests, assuming the rumors are true," city guard Siraj groused to his best friend and partner, Hadi. "Seriously, they all look the same."
Standing atop a gate overlooking the daily route of a number of the holy men, they had been charged with ensuring that no non-priests slipped into Dimashq with the actual priests. Unfortunately, it was seeming more and more likely that their mission was a futile one.
"They don't all look the same," Hadi pointed out, tugging on his lip. "Look, that one has a beard. And that one doesn't. And that one has an enormous sword strapped to his--HEY! YOU! SHIT! GET BACK HERE!"
Jeux D'eau - Cirque du Soleil [4:18]
"Come on, Altaïr," Malik cajoled, "The water's not that bad."
"Yes, it is." Altaïr shot him a look of extreme skepticism. "Doesn't the lavatory empty into here?"
"I've never heard of that," the other student frowned.
"Well, it does."
"I think you're full of shit, and you just don't want to get over your excessive fear of water."
"No, I'm serious. It's dumped in here to keep it from smelling--things don't smell underwater. If they used a pit it'd make everything smell like the lavatory. Rather like you will after you get out."
FOOTNOTE: THIS IS EXACTLY HOW MEDIEVAL WASTE DISPOSAL WORKED.
"Shit..." Malik eyed the words that had traced themselves on the sky with trepidation. "Getting out now."
Fantine's Arrest - Les Miserables [3:53]
"Come here, girlie," the drunken knight from Acre crooned, attempting to drape himself over the form of the young woman standing in the doorway.
"I'll fucking cut your testicles off, fill them with porcupine's quills, and feed them to you," she snarled in Arabic. "Go harass one of your own harlots."
"Sho pretty," the knight continued, oblivious.
"I will," the girl warned, pulling an enormous pin from the sash at her waist.
"I think we should recruit her," Malik's breath hissed in Altaïr's ear.
The Device Has Been Modified - Victims of Science [2:42]
The Apple of Eden was broken, Malik decided. It had to be.
"HELLO. AND WELCOME TO THE ENRICHMENT CENTER. YOUR SPECIMEN HAS BEEN PROCESSED."
"Has it now," he grumbled at the golden sphere, which rotated in place as if turning to regard him like an enormous eye.
"WELL YOU'VE FOUND ME. CONGRATULATIONS. WAS IT WORTH IT."
"I'm not so sure about that--"
"THE ONLY THING YOU'VE MANAGED TO BREAK SO FAR... IS MY HEART."
"Well. How on earth will you ever forgive me?"
"WEIGHTED STORAGE CUBE DESTROY."
"What?"
"What the hell--it talks?" Altaïr demanded, entering the room through the window. The sphere whipped around--Malik could have sworn it was sizing him up.
"THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATING IN THIS APERTURE SCIENCE COMPUTER AIDED ENRICHMENT ACTIVITY. GOODBYE."