comment_fic 381-385: Little Mermaid, SN, Mag7, Losers, Star Trek reboot
Title: a king's boon
Fandom: Disney's Little Mermaid
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: post-movie; ignores sequel
Pairings: Eric/Ariel
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 420
Point of view: third
Prompt: Ariel/Eric, Ariel convinces Triton to turn Eric into a merman temporarily so they can make an official visit.
Eric has watched his wife stare longingly at the sea for nearly a year now, and he's tired of it. She has embraced life on land, has listened to the courtiers with their innuendoes and barely-hidden barbs, has studied the history of his people, hasn't even seen her father or sisters since the wedding.
It is not fair. She's hurting, and that he will not abide.
So early one morning, while Ariel reads in the library, Eric takes out a small boat. Over the open water, he calls for King Triton, Lord of the Ocean, Emperor of the Deep. His father-in-law.
No one replies until the sun is high in the sky, and then Triton is there, powerful and intimidating, looming above the fragile dinghy.
"What do you want, human?" Triton demands. "Where is my daughter?"
"She misses you," Eric says, shoving aside his fear, allowing only the loving husband to speak. "I've come to ask a boon of you, your majesty."
Triton subsides, face gentling. "Ask."
Eric takes a deep breath. "You turned your daughter into a human woman because that was her greatest wish. I want her to be happy, so I request that you change us both into merfolk for a time. So that she may show me her home, as I've shown her mine."
"And if she chooses to stay with us, King Eric?" Triton leans in close, and Eric hears hurricanes in his voice. "What will you do then?"
"I cannot stay with her beneath the waves," Eric admits. "I have a duty to my people, my kingdom. But if returning to you, to the ocean, is what makes her happy, I will willingly leave her."
Triton nods, smiling. "Then return to your castle and your bride," he says. "Tell her to swim out with you tomorrow at dawn. I will leave the choice of visiting her home to her." He dives, without a single ripple to show his passing, and Eric begins the long trip back to shore.
It takes less time than expected because a wave pushes him most of the way. Grimsby meets him at the dock, frown firmly in place, but Eric simply laughs at him and hurries past.
He must find Ariel and tell her that he wants to see her home, to see her dance and fly in the water, to know her true self, that wild and passionate daughter of the sea. And if she chooses to stay there, he will understand. He will.
But he fervently hopes she won't.
Title: almost
Fandom: Supernatural
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: either AU during season 5 or future!fic
Pairings: pre-Dean/Castiel
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 105
Point of view: third
Prompt: Dean/Castiel, in the nick of time
Later, much later, after everything is calm and his heart isn't thundering, his hands aren't shaking, his chest isn't heaving, he'll realize how little chance he actually had of succeeding. He'll torture himself with might-have-been and almost-was, with how very very close he came.
Later, much later, he'll watch a sleeping once-angel and think, I nearly lost this.
Later, much later, he'll think, I nearly lost you before-
And later, much later, Castiel will open his newly-human eyes, will blink at the sudden sharpness of light, and he will say, with a roughened voice, "We both are here."
And Dean will think, But you almost weren't.
o
Title: bloody wings and sharpened fangs
Fandom: The Magnificent Seven fantasy AU
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: fantasy AU, mentions of genocide
Pairings: pre-Chris/Vin
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 825
Point of view: third
Prompt: Magnificent Seven (TV series), Chris/Vin, painful memories start to fade over time
They fade over time, his memories. Never completely, but they dull, the ache lessens, and sometimes he actually almost sleeps the whole night through. Doesn't see a ghost circling across the sky, splashing in the water, or waiting on the next hill, glinting bright silver beneath the burning sun.
He knows those men did what they thought was right. No dragons had ever raised a man before, not for anything but food. And he'd forgotten the language of men, those years the dragons had him.
But he wasn't kept for food. He wasn't a prisoner or a slave. He was beloved, the dragons' own. Their manchild. A dragonling in the shape of a boy.
But he's a man now. Taken and forced to live like a man. And the kings, all of them, the continent over, want his expertise to hunt the dragons. All those years they had him, he learned almost everything there was to know. He'd be a great asset in the quest to destroy the dragons.
But he sees Neresa everywhere, the queen-mother, the great silver dragon who ruled his territory. The one who carried him in her own claws, bleeding from a dozen wounds inflicted by men. The one who nursed him to health, who patiently taught him Draconic, who sang him lullabies no human had ever heard before. She protected him, she raised him, she loved him. Her little dragonling born of man.
And now the human kings want him to hunt dragons. They even gave him a guard, soldiers meant to watch him, make sure he does as ordered. He will be killed if he even gives a single hint of trying to sabotage the mission.
Neresa told him of honor, and justice. Of blood-debts and blood-demands, and the God of Blood, Vincezika. The men who killed his family and took him to be civilized wanted something to call him. He never answered, so they called him Boy.
When the guards ask his name, he bares his teeth and says, "Vin."
o0o
Neresa named him Tanuhi, after the great dragon hero, the first dragon, born of the Northern Star. He grew wrestling with adolescent dragons, so a human is easy to kill. He leaves the bodies broken, ribs cracked open and hearts staked out on a barren hill.
Let the kings hunt the dragons themselves. He has his own quest.
The great queen-mother, Neresa Silverwing, raised him as her own, her beloved dragonling. And an army of men killed her and half her nest. Those who survived fled into the sky. He knows where they went.
A war is coming. He has yet to choose a side. But either way, he must speak to Neresa's heir.
o0o
In his memories, dragons fly, swim, roll in the grass laughing. He stretches along a silver neck and listens to stories of times so ancient that men have no words to describe them.
In his memories, dragons scream and men shout. It took an army to kill seven dragons, among them his mother, his queen.
Neresa could have escaped, but she turned back for him, her Tanuhi.
Tanuhi died with Neresa. Vin will find a way to avenge her.
o0o
In a forgotten Cyren town far from any law, Vin meets a man in black. Angry drunkards try to lynch a half-trained healing mage; Vin and the man in black save him. An elf and a fae bearing the Cyren mark of slavery ask them for help against marauders. No one would defend an elf or a slave from anything.
But Vin had once been Tanuhi, named for a hero, a human raised by dragons. An impossibility. An abomination.
The man in black says he'll help. The mage agrees. Vin smiles because allies are a great thing to have, and Neresa would've liked them.
o0o
After the marauders are defeated, Vin has six powerful beings on his side. Chris, the man in black, used to be an assassin, until an enemy killed his wife and child. The healing mage, Nathan, will be good enough to kill without touching when he's finished training. Ezra, a 'shifter they pick up along the way, can fool people into believing whatever he wants. Josiah was a wandering priest who exorcised demons and can control the weather in small doses. JD is a stubborn kid looking for adventure, but he has the making of greatness. And Buck has a touch of elf blood, enough for charm; he also has some history with Chris that Vin isn't yet privy to.
But being around Chris is a balm to Vin's soul. Something in him is like Neresa was, and it's enough to soften the biting edges of Vin's memories. Around Chris, a part of Tanuhi peeks through.
Neresa really would've liked Chris, Vin thinks. And this group, they will help him with his quest, whichever side of the conflict he chooses.
Neresa will be avenged, and Vincezika will drink his fill of men's blood.
Title: tomorrow, after the war
Fandom: The Losers movieverse
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: implied child abuse
Pairings: pre-Cougar/Jensen
Rating: PG
Wordcount:240
Point of view: third
Prompt: Jensen, Coaching the Petunias
When he thinks about the future, actually pauses and hopes and dreams and thinks, after this, after Max, when everything is done and I'm free, he goes home to Jess and Jilly, and he turns the guestroom into his own Batcave, and he barbecues on the weekend and he picks up Jilly from school, and he mows the grass for Jess.
And, best of all, besides watching and mocking TV with Jess next to him and Jilly curled up in his arms, the brightest of all stars, is coaching the Petunias.
When he's their coach, they'll kick everyone's ass. It'll be such a better ending than he's ever hoped for. Better than anything he dreamed in his childhood, cowering with Jess beneath her bed, waiting for the monster to fall asleep down the hall. Better than in highschool, when he was too smart and too damned cocky, angry and bitter. Better than in basic, or when he got pulled aside for black-ops.
Better than anything he's ever thought about, even in his most hopeful moments imagined could happen.
And after this thing with Max, he'll go home to Jess and Jilly, and maybe Cougar will come with him. Cougar would love Jilly, and she'd adore him just as much as Jake does.
It'll happen. Him and Cougar and Jess and Jilly, his family. Together, with barbecues and soccer. Soon, after this thing with Max, it'll happen.
Really, it will.
Title: sonnets and feathers
Fandom: Star Trek reboot
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: AU
Pairings: pre-Pike/Jim
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 410
Point of view: third
Prompt: Pike/Jim, Wing kink.
When he was in his more-poetic youth, Chris had written a few sonnets dedicated to the beauty of George Kirk. His wings may or may not have had something to do with it.
George was completely in love with Winona, so Chris never shared his fantasies or poems; he was just the best friend, always in the dust while George swept Winona into the stars.
George's son, though-well. George's son.
Chris goes searching through twenty-two years worth of junk until he finds those old notebooks (because his childhood unrequited love needed actual pen and paper) and rereads his crappy sonnets. He was a terrible writer back then.
And Jim Kirk, unlike his father, actually watches Chris watch him. The kid is everything his father was, and more. And when he invites Chris to join him for a dawn run through one of San Francisco's lesser-known parks, Chris goes.
George's wings had been a dark brown, almost black. The only people he'd ever shown them to, Chris is almost certain, were Winona and himself. His parents knew, of course, but they died in a freak shuttle crash five years before the Kelvin.
Jim's wings are light brown, almost golden, and when he stretches them beneath the sun, Chris can hardly breathe.
"Well?" Jim asks, trying for cocky and missing. Chris can tell he's the first person Jim's ever let see his wings.
"I think," Chris says, "that the sky is calling your name."
Jim smiles at him; for a moment, Chris is back thirty-five years ago, to George and a nervous confession that he wasn't exactly normal. But only for a moment, because then Jim Kirk is in the sky, laughing loud enough to wake the world, and Chris whoops at his incandescent joy.
Chris never had a chance with George. And maybe he should keep his distance from George's son, but he can't. The kid is just too beautiful, too bright.
He needs to have a talk with that McCoy fellow Jim spends most of his time with. There's a few things the man should know, if he's the only doctor Jim trusts.
"Come on down, Kirk!" Chris calls. They need to have a talk, too.
Jim's grinning when he lands, eyes bluer than the sky he just claimed, and Chris knows he's completely lost this time.
He just hopes whatever poetry he scribbles down tonight is better than all the odes he wrote to George's wingspan.