comment_fic: 867-871: original, TW, mythology
Untitled
Original, 600 words
PG, gen
Prompt: Any, any, the first ___ is also the last
They call her Maya, when they find her, bloody on the side of the road. She’s sitting on the scant grass, head tilted back to catch the first rays of light as the sun rises.
They call her Maya, when they realize she either can’t or won’t talk, and take her the hospital.
.
She’s bloody, but there aren’t any wounds. She’s wearing rags and no shoes. Her hair is dark, and her skin, and her eyes. She smiles with teeth so perfect a dentist would weep, and she’s healthy. She’s perfectly healthy.
She doesn’t talk or sign; she can clearly hear, though, and she answers to the name they gave her.
The hospital hands her off to the cops and puts her in the records as Maya Doe.
.
No one is missing a woman of her description. Her fingerprints aren’t in the database, or her dental records. They call up people who reported a young black girl missing, going back twenty-five years, their best guestimate of her age. Everything comes back no dice.
Whoever she is, no one’s looking.
She can’t read, write, or tie her shoes. But she learns quickly, and by the end of the day (the third since she was found, smiling at the sky), she can write enough to let them know she doesn’t remember a thing.
They don’t want to put her in a cell, so the chief calls up his daughter to ask if she’d be willing to have a roommate for the night.
.
Katarina takes Maya home, feeds her spaghetti for dinner, and lets her sleep on the couch.
In the morning, Katarina brings Maya back to the station and goes to class.
Maya settles in with a social worker named Emily and they try to build her a life. At lunch, she eats with Emily, and at the end of the day, Katarina comes back for her.
For three weeks, Maya has the same schedule. She learns to read and to write, but she still never makes a sound.
.
By the fourth week, Maya’s story is known worldwide. Famous scientists and doctors come to examine her, though Chief Daniels and Emily try to protect her.
Maya smiles at everyone and answers any questions given to her in a childish scribble.
.
On the thirty-second day since she was found, Maya gets up before dawn. She folds her blanket, writes a thank-you note, and leaves Katarina’s apartment. The door locks behind her and she walks.
When she reaches the second block, a man falls into step with her, pale everywhere she is dark. By the third, a woman is next to the man, and at the fourth block, another man.
As the first ray of sunlight hits her, Maya says, “They have passed the test.”
The first man glares at her, his teeth dirty and broken; the second smiles, even more beautiful than she. The woman doesn’t react at all.
“Then let us move on to the next world,” the beautiful man says. That very moment, he is gone. After Famine, War leaves with a nod to Maya, and then only Pestilence stands with her on the street corner.
“This world is your pet,” he hisses, spit flying at her.
Maya merely looks at him. After a few more seconds, he, too, vanishes. She stays there for but another heartbeat, smiling at the sun, and then with one more glance at the first world she ever held in her hand, she follows her siblings. She will return on the last of all days, and she hopes that day is far in the future.
Title: we dance the best we know (4)
Fandom: Teen Wolf (TV)
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Kate Seredy
Warnings: Goes AU during Letharia Vulpina, and AUish for everything that came before. Mentions of violence/death
Pairings: Some pre-Sterek feels
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 495
Point of view: third
Prompt: author's choice, any, like something out of a Edgar Allan Poe story
Previously
Something's been wrong with Stiles since the nogitsune. Well, of course, it'd be weird if Stiles hadn't been slightly off because someone took his body for a ride without his permission, and hurt people, and killed people - Derek knows what killing can do to a person. But that's not it.
Stiles was quiet, after, and kept mostly to himself for a few weeks. Then he shook the melancholy off and went back to being himself - though still just a bit quieter. A bit smaller.
And his scent… it changed. Just enough for Derek to notice, but no one else did, not Isaac or Peter or even Scott. Scott not noticing made Derek doubt himself for a while. But then that alpha intruded, after Peter, and Stiles -
Derek doesn't know what kind of ash that was Stiles used, but Peter did. Peter was afraid of it. Derek left him there, trapped in that circle, and then Peter was gone the next morning. And no one looked at Stiles differently than they already had since the nogitsune left him, but Derek just - something's wrong.
Just slightly off. Enough to notice, but not enough to figure out what it is. Deaton and Kira and Mrs. Yukimura and the oni themselves declared him free and clear. No more demon fox, no more dark spirit. Just Stiles.
Just Stiles, who thought it'd be fun to find a body, who took a bat to the twins, who apparently turned down Peter, who drove a jeep into a kanima. Stiles who smells like dark earth and smiles like a moonless night.
Peter's gone, so Derek's the oldest werewolf left in the pack (not that Peter ever really was in Scott's pack). Derek's down one more family member (again) and he doesn't trust the twins at all (most days, he imagines digging his claws into their ribcages and pulling) and he can't relax if either of the surviving Argents are present. So why did he come back? Why is he staying?
"Hey, Derek," Stiles calls, throwing his booksack onto the floor as he sinks down onto the couch. "Guess we're early, huh?"
Scott and Isaac are at lacrosse practice; Stiles quit the team after the nogitsune left. The twins, Allison, and Lydia are watching the practice; so is Kira, Derek's pretty sure. Argent's wherever he goes and doing whatever he does, while the sheriff and Melissa are at work.
So it's just Derek, slouched down in the recliner, and Stiles, laid out on the couch, at Scott's house. "We have about an hour," Stiles announces. "Why don't you just ask what you've been wanting to ask for months?"
Derek takes a deep breath and watches Stiles' chest rise and fall. His heartbeat is steady. His heartbeat is always steady now. Like he's finally settled into his skin. He's calmer now, after the demon fox, than he'd ever been before.
He never smells like fear anymore.
Derek exhales and doesn't ask.
Title: we dance the best we know (5)
Fandom: Teen Wolf (TV)
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Kate Seredy
Warnings: Goes AU during Letharia Vulpina, and AUish for everything that came before. The beginnings of a panic attack. Mentions of violence/death.
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 560
Point of view: third
Prompt: any, any, waking up and discovering you've misplaced something important
He wakes up alone in his head. He blinks up at the sky because he's not on his bed; he's on - he pauses to think, digs his fingers down into dirt and leaves.
Shit. He's outside, shivering, alone in his head. What the fuck happened last night?
Wait. Is he awake? He brings up his fingers to count them; he's only got ten. So he's awake. Right?
Hello? he thinks, biting down sharply on his tongue to control the panic before it gets to be too much. Fox?
It's been three months since they melded, him and the fox, and he can't be alone in his head anymore. Fox promised. Never alone, never again. Never left behind.
But he's alone. His head is empty.
He rolls over to his hands and knees and then rises slowly, unsteadily. It's been their body and now it's his, and it doesn't feel right at all. Not a bit. And he can't go to anyone for help because nobody knows the fox never really left. They won't help him get it back.
Glancing around, he realizes he knows where he is: the nemeton. Fucking stump.
The sun is rising. He stumbles to the stump and collapses down on it, legs splayed out, tilts his head back to watch the light spread.
… wait. He twists to look at the stump, at the bits of shadow spread over it. He reaches out to touch them; sparks flare on his fingers. "Fox?" he whispers. "What are you doing there?"
The shadows speed toward him, bouncing up over his hands and arms; more sparks flare, but not as a threat. "How do I put you back?" he asks.
He doesn't want to be a he anymore, singular. He wants to be a they again. He wraps his arms around his middle and dives down into his mind, back to that room where he and the fox really met the first time. Where they promised.
The room is empty, the door sealed shut. He goes to it, gathers up all the spark, and blasts the door as hard as he can. Again and again and the fourth time, it finally splinters, shadows streaming in around the shards, through the cracks.
He waits as the shadows manifest into the fox. "There's a witch," the fox says.
"Of course there is," he replies.
At the same moment, they lunge to each other, wrapping in and around and through and out, and then they open their eyes.
"Let's go hunting," they say. They remember now - a curse cast on the pack, separating everyone into multiple pieces. All of the werewolves are now wolf and human, two parts away from each other.
A curse to separate the fox and Stiles. Did the witch know? Did she tell?
Hunting, they think. And then an execution. After the witch is dead, they'll also have to find all of the wolves to reunite with the human.
They stretch out their senses, to the edge of their territory and back, and there. A straight shot to the east there is an outsider with magic.
Was the intention harmful or mischievous? It doesn't matter. Strife is only fun when they cause it, and the witch hurt them, made them be alone again. She hurt the pack, which is theirs.
Pain tastes like fire, and she'll feel the burn.
Title: to the fairest
Fandom: Greek mythology
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: spoilers for Greek mythology; a bit of implied dub-con due to a meddlesome goddess
Pairings: Paris/Helen, Menelaus/Helen
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 150
Point of view: third
Prompt: Greek mythology, Helen, love is a ruthless game unless you play it good and right
Fair Helen, the goddess says, smiling, daughter of Zeus.
Helen stares at her, knowing her for who she is at a glance. Milady, she replies, inclining her head.
Aphrodite's smile only widens. A prince is coming to your shores. He will love you, and you will love him.
Helen lifts her chin. I have a husband, she says, and he is already a king.
Aphrodite raises an eyebrow. You belong to Paris, little sister, she says, the words ringing absolutely. I have commanded and you shall obey.
She's gone, leaving Helen alone in the room - but then Helen wakes up to birds calling and bright sunlight. She wants to believe it was just a dream. She knows it wasn't.
Weeks pass before the foreign princes arrive, honorable Hector and beautiful Paris. And Helen loves him from the first time she hears his name.
She smiles at him, wanting to cry.
Title: dragon’s breath
Original, 440 words
PG, gen
Prompt: Any, any +/ any, "Dragonslaying's a great sport. If you survive."
Note: In the dragon’s breath verse.
In school, there are classes about the dragons. The classes are taught before lunch because sometimes they get gory. (Once upon a time, there was no peace. People studied dragons and dragons studied people, and a lot on both sides died. Many died to bring us this information is said at the end of every lesson, and the kids nod solemnly.) There are four kinds of dragons - flame drakes, dirt drakes, wind drakes, ice drakes. All of them can fly, though the wind drakes are best at it. Sometimes, dirt drakes cause the very ground to shake. The ice drakes are only seen in winter, and that hasn’t happened in centuries. But the fire drakes… they’re the ones to fear, because they’re the ones who choose when to fight and all the others follow.
…
1500 years ago
His name is Ionza and he’s about to die. His family has tended to water for longer than anyone can remember, and Mama called him gifted with it, but what good is that when an ice drake awakens right in front of your eyes?
The ice drake blinks at him as it rises out of the frozen lake, wings spreading as it stretches. His bow is broken, splintered when he fell; both his knives were lost in the battle with the brigands. The sword has never been his weapon, really, but it’s all he has left, along with three arrows that are useless without the bow.
The war party had brought him along because they were meant to face a flame or dirt drake, and water is some use against those. But an ice drake?
The drake settles back into the lake, leaving only its head out. Which means that this lake is deeper than anyone believed, and probably connects back to the mountains, somewhere.
“Why have you approached my lake?” the drake rumbles, an icy wind buffeting against Ionza. “I feel you, little thing. How many summers have you?”
“Eight-eighteen,” Ionza manages, fingers clenching around the hilt of his sword. “I, I am Ionza and I have come to slay the beast! For, for glory and righteousness, and, and - ”
“Silence,” the drake says and Ionza swallows down the rest of his speech, written by Elias at the start of their quest. Elias is dead now, of course, along with all the rest - nine warriors who had yet to reach their tendency, and three who tended to air. And Ionza, who still isn’t sure why he survived.
“I am Tiaden’s daughter, Arindo,” the drake says, “and I’ll not be dying today, little thing.” She laughs, the sound chilling Ionza all the way to his bones. “However, because you are nearly kin to me, I shall let you leave with your life.”
Ionza cannot return without slaying the dragon. His companions all died to reach this point. To go home without honoring their sacrifice - no. They weren’t meant to face an ice drake; they’d been sent for one of the dirt drakes plaguing the outer rings. So little is known about ice drakes.
“I am Ionza,” he says, standing as straight as he can and hefting the sword, “son of Yvonna and Calamorn, descendant of water, and I have come to slay the beast.”
Arindo lunges out of the lake in a great surge of ice and water, roaring, “So be it.”
His name is Ionza and he dies battling a dragon.
Original, 600 words
PG, gen
Prompt: Any, any, the first ___ is also the last
They call her Maya, when they find her, bloody on the side of the road. She’s sitting on the scant grass, head tilted back to catch the first rays of light as the sun rises.
They call her Maya, when they realize she either can’t or won’t talk, and take her the hospital.
.
She’s bloody, but there aren’t any wounds. She’s wearing rags and no shoes. Her hair is dark, and her skin, and her eyes. She smiles with teeth so perfect a dentist would weep, and she’s healthy. She’s perfectly healthy.
She doesn’t talk or sign; she can clearly hear, though, and she answers to the name they gave her.
The hospital hands her off to the cops and puts her in the records as Maya Doe.
.
No one is missing a woman of her description. Her fingerprints aren’t in the database, or her dental records. They call up people who reported a young black girl missing, going back twenty-five years, their best guestimate of her age. Everything comes back no dice.
Whoever she is, no one’s looking.
She can’t read, write, or tie her shoes. But she learns quickly, and by the end of the day (the third since she was found, smiling at the sky), she can write enough to let them know she doesn’t remember a thing.
They don’t want to put her in a cell, so the chief calls up his daughter to ask if she’d be willing to have a roommate for the night.
.
Katarina takes Maya home, feeds her spaghetti for dinner, and lets her sleep on the couch.
In the morning, Katarina brings Maya back to the station and goes to class.
Maya settles in with a social worker named Emily and they try to build her a life. At lunch, she eats with Emily, and at the end of the day, Katarina comes back for her.
For three weeks, Maya has the same schedule. She learns to read and to write, but she still never makes a sound.
.
By the fourth week, Maya’s story is known worldwide. Famous scientists and doctors come to examine her, though Chief Daniels and Emily try to protect her.
Maya smiles at everyone and answers any questions given to her in a childish scribble.
.
On the thirty-second day since she was found, Maya gets up before dawn. She folds her blanket, writes a thank-you note, and leaves Katarina’s apartment. The door locks behind her and she walks.
When she reaches the second block, a man falls into step with her, pale everywhere she is dark. By the third, a woman is next to the man, and at the fourth block, another man.
As the first ray of sunlight hits her, Maya says, “They have passed the test.”
The first man glares at her, his teeth dirty and broken; the second smiles, even more beautiful than she. The woman doesn’t react at all.
“Then let us move on to the next world,” the beautiful man says. That very moment, he is gone. After Famine, War leaves with a nod to Maya, and then only Pestilence stands with her on the street corner.
“This world is your pet,” he hisses, spit flying at her.
Maya merely looks at him. After a few more seconds, he, too, vanishes. She stays there for but another heartbeat, smiling at the sun, and then with one more glance at the first world she ever held in her hand, she follows her siblings. She will return on the last of all days, and she hopes that day is far in the future.
Title: we dance the best we know (4)
Fandom: Teen Wolf (TV)
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Kate Seredy
Warnings: Goes AU during Letharia Vulpina, and AUish for everything that came before. Mentions of violence/death
Pairings: Some pre-Sterek feels
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 495
Point of view: third
Prompt: author's choice, any, like something out of a Edgar Allan Poe story
Previously
Something's been wrong with Stiles since the nogitsune. Well, of course, it'd be weird if Stiles hadn't been slightly off because someone took his body for a ride without his permission, and hurt people, and killed people - Derek knows what killing can do to a person. But that's not it.
Stiles was quiet, after, and kept mostly to himself for a few weeks. Then he shook the melancholy off and went back to being himself - though still just a bit quieter. A bit smaller.
And his scent… it changed. Just enough for Derek to notice, but no one else did, not Isaac or Peter or even Scott. Scott not noticing made Derek doubt himself for a while. But then that alpha intruded, after Peter, and Stiles -
Derek doesn't know what kind of ash that was Stiles used, but Peter did. Peter was afraid of it. Derek left him there, trapped in that circle, and then Peter was gone the next morning. And no one looked at Stiles differently than they already had since the nogitsune left him, but Derek just - something's wrong.
Just slightly off. Enough to notice, but not enough to figure out what it is. Deaton and Kira and Mrs. Yukimura and the oni themselves declared him free and clear. No more demon fox, no more dark spirit. Just Stiles.
Just Stiles, who thought it'd be fun to find a body, who took a bat to the twins, who apparently turned down Peter, who drove a jeep into a kanima. Stiles who smells like dark earth and smiles like a moonless night.
Peter's gone, so Derek's the oldest werewolf left in the pack (not that Peter ever really was in Scott's pack). Derek's down one more family member (again) and he doesn't trust the twins at all (most days, he imagines digging his claws into their ribcages and pulling) and he can't relax if either of the surviving Argents are present. So why did he come back? Why is he staying?
"Hey, Derek," Stiles calls, throwing his booksack onto the floor as he sinks down onto the couch. "Guess we're early, huh?"
Scott and Isaac are at lacrosse practice; Stiles quit the team after the nogitsune left. The twins, Allison, and Lydia are watching the practice; so is Kira, Derek's pretty sure. Argent's wherever he goes and doing whatever he does, while the sheriff and Melissa are at work.
So it's just Derek, slouched down in the recliner, and Stiles, laid out on the couch, at Scott's house. "We have about an hour," Stiles announces. "Why don't you just ask what you've been wanting to ask for months?"
Derek takes a deep breath and watches Stiles' chest rise and fall. His heartbeat is steady. His heartbeat is always steady now. Like he's finally settled into his skin. He's calmer now, after the demon fox, than he'd ever been before.
He never smells like fear anymore.
Derek exhales and doesn't ask.
Title: we dance the best we know (5)
Fandom: Teen Wolf (TV)
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Kate Seredy
Warnings: Goes AU during Letharia Vulpina, and AUish for everything that came before. The beginnings of a panic attack. Mentions of violence/death.
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 560
Point of view: third
Prompt: any, any, waking up and discovering you've misplaced something important
He wakes up alone in his head. He blinks up at the sky because he's not on his bed; he's on - he pauses to think, digs his fingers down into dirt and leaves.
Shit. He's outside, shivering, alone in his head. What the fuck happened last night?
Wait. Is he awake? He brings up his fingers to count them; he's only got ten. So he's awake. Right?
Hello? he thinks, biting down sharply on his tongue to control the panic before it gets to be too much. Fox?
It's been three months since they melded, him and the fox, and he can't be alone in his head anymore. Fox promised. Never alone, never again. Never left behind.
But he's alone. His head is empty.
He rolls over to his hands and knees and then rises slowly, unsteadily. It's been their body and now it's his, and it doesn't feel right at all. Not a bit. And he can't go to anyone for help because nobody knows the fox never really left. They won't help him get it back.
Glancing around, he realizes he knows where he is: the nemeton. Fucking stump.
The sun is rising. He stumbles to the stump and collapses down on it, legs splayed out, tilts his head back to watch the light spread.
… wait. He twists to look at the stump, at the bits of shadow spread over it. He reaches out to touch them; sparks flare on his fingers. "Fox?" he whispers. "What are you doing there?"
The shadows speed toward him, bouncing up over his hands and arms; more sparks flare, but not as a threat. "How do I put you back?" he asks.
He doesn't want to be a he anymore, singular. He wants to be a they again. He wraps his arms around his middle and dives down into his mind, back to that room where he and the fox really met the first time. Where they promised.
The room is empty, the door sealed shut. He goes to it, gathers up all the spark, and blasts the door as hard as he can. Again and again and the fourth time, it finally splinters, shadows streaming in around the shards, through the cracks.
He waits as the shadows manifest into the fox. "There's a witch," the fox says.
"Of course there is," he replies.
At the same moment, they lunge to each other, wrapping in and around and through and out, and then they open their eyes.
"Let's go hunting," they say. They remember now - a curse cast on the pack, separating everyone into multiple pieces. All of the werewolves are now wolf and human, two parts away from each other.
A curse to separate the fox and Stiles. Did the witch know? Did she tell?
Hunting, they think. And then an execution. After the witch is dead, they'll also have to find all of the wolves to reunite with the human.
They stretch out their senses, to the edge of their territory and back, and there. A straight shot to the east there is an outsider with magic.
Was the intention harmful or mischievous? It doesn't matter. Strife is only fun when they cause it, and the witch hurt them, made them be alone again. She hurt the pack, which is theirs.
Pain tastes like fire, and she'll feel the burn.
Title: to the fairest
Fandom: Greek mythology
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: spoilers for Greek mythology; a bit of implied dub-con due to a meddlesome goddess
Pairings: Paris/Helen, Menelaus/Helen
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 150
Point of view: third
Prompt: Greek mythology, Helen, love is a ruthless game unless you play it good and right
Fair Helen, the goddess says, smiling, daughter of Zeus.
Helen stares at her, knowing her for who she is at a glance. Milady, she replies, inclining her head.
Aphrodite's smile only widens. A prince is coming to your shores. He will love you, and you will love him.
Helen lifts her chin. I have a husband, she says, and he is already a king.
Aphrodite raises an eyebrow. You belong to Paris, little sister, she says, the words ringing absolutely. I have commanded and you shall obey.
She's gone, leaving Helen alone in the room - but then Helen wakes up to birds calling and bright sunlight. She wants to believe it was just a dream. She knows it wasn't.
Weeks pass before the foreign princes arrive, honorable Hector and beautiful Paris. And Helen loves him from the first time she hears his name.
She smiles at him, wanting to cry.
Title: dragon’s breath
Original, 440 words
PG, gen
Prompt: Any, any +/ any, "Dragonslaying's a great sport. If you survive."
Note: In the dragon’s breath verse.
In school, there are classes about the dragons. The classes are taught before lunch because sometimes they get gory. (Once upon a time, there was no peace. People studied dragons and dragons studied people, and a lot on both sides died. Many died to bring us this information is said at the end of every lesson, and the kids nod solemnly.) There are four kinds of dragons - flame drakes, dirt drakes, wind drakes, ice drakes. All of them can fly, though the wind drakes are best at it. Sometimes, dirt drakes cause the very ground to shake. The ice drakes are only seen in winter, and that hasn’t happened in centuries. But the fire drakes… they’re the ones to fear, because they’re the ones who choose when to fight and all the others follow.
…
1500 years ago
His name is Ionza and he’s about to die. His family has tended to water for longer than anyone can remember, and Mama called him gifted with it, but what good is that when an ice drake awakens right in front of your eyes?
The ice drake blinks at him as it rises out of the frozen lake, wings spreading as it stretches. His bow is broken, splintered when he fell; both his knives were lost in the battle with the brigands. The sword has never been his weapon, really, but it’s all he has left, along with three arrows that are useless without the bow.
The war party had brought him along because they were meant to face a flame or dirt drake, and water is some use against those. But an ice drake?
The drake settles back into the lake, leaving only its head out. Which means that this lake is deeper than anyone believed, and probably connects back to the mountains, somewhere.
“Why have you approached my lake?” the drake rumbles, an icy wind buffeting against Ionza. “I feel you, little thing. How many summers have you?”
“Eight-eighteen,” Ionza manages, fingers clenching around the hilt of his sword. “I, I am Ionza and I have come to slay the beast! For, for glory and righteousness, and, and - ”
“Silence,” the drake says and Ionza swallows down the rest of his speech, written by Elias at the start of their quest. Elias is dead now, of course, along with all the rest - nine warriors who had yet to reach their tendency, and three who tended to air. And Ionza, who still isn’t sure why he survived.
“I am Tiaden’s daughter, Arindo,” the drake says, “and I’ll not be dying today, little thing.” She laughs, the sound chilling Ionza all the way to his bones. “However, because you are nearly kin to me, I shall let you leave with your life.”
Ionza cannot return without slaying the dragon. His companions all died to reach this point. To go home without honoring their sacrifice - no. They weren’t meant to face an ice drake; they’d been sent for one of the dirt drakes plaguing the outer rings. So little is known about ice drakes.
“I am Ionza,” he says, standing as straight as he can and hefting the sword, “son of Yvonna and Calamorn, descendant of water, and I have come to slay the beast.”
Arindo lunges out of the lake in a great surge of ice and water, roaring, “So be it.”
His name is Ionza and he dies battling a dragon.