New Year's Delight
Happy New Year, everybody!
This year for Christmas, I wrote my brother Dave a flash-fic based on the starting phrase "The Turkish Gambit". It turned out to be the first fan-fic I've ever written - and it was so much fun to do.
I'm posting it here in hopes that some of you guys might enjoy it too. And I'm pretty sure that 100% of you will figure out exactly what I'm fan-ficcing within the first two paragraphs (if the title itself doesn't give it away first)... ;)
Always Winter
by Stephanie Burgis
The Turkish gambit has never failed. But even so, as I see the sulky--and really quite unattractive--boy’s eyes glaze over with longing, I have to heave an inward sigh.
Is it really necessary to go through this every single time? I am the Queen of Winter. Look at my wolves, my sleigh, my magnificence! You can come live in my enchanted palace and be my prince forever!
...or, all right, fine, if all that’s not enough for you, Mr. Ever-so-Special, then how about this sugary little treat as an incentive, instead?
Really. I have always understood that humans are shallow, but Turkish delight costs less than fivepence apiece. Is it really more persuasive than an entire castle made of ice?
I suppose I ought to be grateful that so many parents worry about their children’s teeth, nowadays. If candy weren’t a forbidden pleasure, I would never have any chance at all.
My wolves flick nervous glances at me, sensing the downward shift in my mood as my new prince climbs onto my sleigh. My prince, of course, hasn’t noticed a thing. He’s too busy tearing into the box of candy, slobbering all over his ugly, brown-and-gray school uniform. I avert my gaze with a shudder.
This is worthwhile, isn’t it?
Of course it is, I tell myself, and I crack the whip extra-hard to emphasize the point. My horses rear, white as snow and gleaming like ice. They run as smoothly as the streams I no longer allow to flow through my cold, cold land. My wolves are a lethal blur of beauty beside us.
To keep this pure, crystalline perfection, I need my princes by my side--and I will never let my ex come back and ruin my country again. Not ever. No matter how many boring boys I have to live with in the meantime. Because without him, I am power, I am strength, I am--
“I’m finished with this,” my newest prince announces. He smears a finger across the empty box to pick up the last scattering of sugar. “Don’t you have any more? I thought you were s’posed to be rich, like. I’m not trying to be funny, right, but this is pathetic.”
For a moment, I think one of my wolves is growling. Then I realize it’s me.
I force my teeth into a rictus-grin. “There’s more at the castle. Did I tell you about the castle? It’s five thousand feet high, and in the sunlight it sparkles like--”
“There’d better be a lot more,” says my prince, “because in my House at school, they call me the human rubbish bin. I can eat everything, that’s me.”
“How charming,” I mutter through gritted teeth. “I’ll make sure to include your nickname on the royal coins.”
“Whatever.” He sprawls back in his seat, contemptuous gaze dismissing the perfect winter landscape around us. “But I hope we get there soon, yeah, because I’m, like, totally bored.”
For a moment, I have the oddest feeling that my ex can see me, even though I banished him centuries ago. I always secretly wished that he could see me now, of course. I wanted him to burn with his loss and cringe at the sight of my power.
But somehow, at this moment, it doesn’t quite work the way I had imagined.
When he looks at me, he doesn’t notice my diamond crown or the steel-tipped whip in my hand. He doesn’t moan with awe and terror at the sight of his streams and rivers seized by ice, his palaces buried under mountains of snow.
Instead, he looks from me to the boy beside me…and he’s laughing.
Damn it.
I really, really hate it when he’s right.
-END-
This year for Christmas, I wrote my brother Dave a flash-fic based on the starting phrase "The Turkish Gambit". It turned out to be the first fan-fic I've ever written - and it was so much fun to do.
I'm posting it here in hopes that some of you guys might enjoy it too. And I'm pretty sure that 100% of you will figure out exactly what I'm fan-ficcing within the first two paragraphs (if the title itself doesn't give it away first)... ;)
Always Winter
by Stephanie Burgis
The Turkish gambit has never failed. But even so, as I see the sulky--and really quite unattractive--boy’s eyes glaze over with longing, I have to heave an inward sigh.
Is it really necessary to go through this every single time? I am the Queen of Winter. Look at my wolves, my sleigh, my magnificence! You can come live in my enchanted palace and be my prince forever!
...or, all right, fine, if all that’s not enough for you, Mr. Ever-so-Special, then how about this sugary little treat as an incentive, instead?
Really. I have always understood that humans are shallow, but Turkish delight costs less than fivepence apiece. Is it really more persuasive than an entire castle made of ice?
I suppose I ought to be grateful that so many parents worry about their children’s teeth, nowadays. If candy weren’t a forbidden pleasure, I would never have any chance at all.
My wolves flick nervous glances at me, sensing the downward shift in my mood as my new prince climbs onto my sleigh. My prince, of course, hasn’t noticed a thing. He’s too busy tearing into the box of candy, slobbering all over his ugly, brown-and-gray school uniform. I avert my gaze with a shudder.
This is worthwhile, isn’t it?
Of course it is, I tell myself, and I crack the whip extra-hard to emphasize the point. My horses rear, white as snow and gleaming like ice. They run as smoothly as the streams I no longer allow to flow through my cold, cold land. My wolves are a lethal blur of beauty beside us.
To keep this pure, crystalline perfection, I need my princes by my side--and I will never let my ex come back and ruin my country again. Not ever. No matter how many boring boys I have to live with in the meantime. Because without him, I am power, I am strength, I am--
“I’m finished with this,” my newest prince announces. He smears a finger across the empty box to pick up the last scattering of sugar. “Don’t you have any more? I thought you were s’posed to be rich, like. I’m not trying to be funny, right, but this is pathetic.”
For a moment, I think one of my wolves is growling. Then I realize it’s me.
I force my teeth into a rictus-grin. “There’s more at the castle. Did I tell you about the castle? It’s five thousand feet high, and in the sunlight it sparkles like--”
“There’d better be a lot more,” says my prince, “because in my House at school, they call me the human rubbish bin. I can eat everything, that’s me.”
“How charming,” I mutter through gritted teeth. “I’ll make sure to include your nickname on the royal coins.”
“Whatever.” He sprawls back in his seat, contemptuous gaze dismissing the perfect winter landscape around us. “But I hope we get there soon, yeah, because I’m, like, totally bored.”
For a moment, I have the oddest feeling that my ex can see me, even though I banished him centuries ago. I always secretly wished that he could see me now, of course. I wanted him to burn with his loss and cringe at the sight of my power.
But somehow, at this moment, it doesn’t quite work the way I had imagined.
When he looks at me, he doesn’t notice my diamond crown or the steel-tipped whip in my hand. He doesn’t moan with awe and terror at the sight of his streams and rivers seized by ice, his palaces buried under mountains of snow.
Instead, he looks from me to the boy beside me…and he’s laughing.
Damn it.
I really, really hate it when he’s right.
-END-