comment_fic 1102 - 1106: Merlin, BtVS, original, HL
Title: I cannot love but one
Fandom: Merlin (BBC)
Disclaimer: only Arthur and Merlin aren’t mine; title from Lord Byron
Warnings: references to bad things happening to children
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Point of view: third
Wordcount: WIP
Prompts: Merlin, Arthur Pendragon/Merlin, We were like gods at the dawning of the world, and our joy was so bright we could see nothing else but the other. ; any, any/any, there's death, rebirth and another meeting ; Merlin (BBC), Arthur/Merlin, the man who has the loyalty of a hurricane
He'd thought that Arthur, when he returned, would be as vibrant, as glorious, that figure of legend even he believes in now, a thousand years after he sent his king to the water.
Title: take time to catch your breath and choose your moment
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Dido
Warnings: AU during season 1; references to violence and canon character death
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 800
Point of view: third
Prompts: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy Summers, after the Battle of Sunnydale she was given the doubble-edged gift of sending her mind back to any point in her past, with all her memories and current powers intact. ; Prompt: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy Summers+Any, Psychological Warfare (Burn Notice)
She coughs herself awake, wet and with aching ribs. Xander's crouched next to her, looking younger than she can remember, and Angel is lurking behind him.
It worked, then. She slowly sits up, while Xander babbles and Angel stares at her. She wonders if she smells different, if her heartbeat has changed.
She had been so scared, so angry, when this happened the first time. She died and came back, and it had been terrible.
Worse things have happened now. Sunnydale is rubble, Mom is dead, Dawnie is lost in the future and doesn't exist at the same time, and so many mistakes...
"Buffy?" Xander says. "Are... are you okay?"
The Master is waiting. Somewhere, Kendra just got Called.
There's so much she doesn't remember, but she's almost certain she cannot make anything worse than what actually happened, so she takes a deep breath and then breathes out before smiling at Xander. "We have to get to the Master," she says, and she thinks she almost sounds like that girl she hasn't been since the first time she died.
…
Buffy comes back from LA just a little... off. She's quieter. She sometimes hangs with Xander and Willow like normal, and sometimes she pushes them away. She spends hours with Giles in the library, studying lore she'd always complained about before. She makes time to eat dinner with her mom every night.
At some point, without telling anyone until Giles hears it from a contact, she destroys the Master's bones. She stakes the Anointed One and all of his followers. She's stronger and faster, a far better fighter than can possibly be explained by keeping up with her training while with her dad.
But none of them mention it to her. Because she's also happier. She laughs at the silliest things, and she talks to people in the halls, and even when they're scrambling to stop Frankenstein wannabes or ancient mummies, it's like Buffy is just so happy to be alive, and none of them can blame her for that.
After the ill-fated Parent-Teacher Night, Buffy drags Giles to her house and they tell her mother everything. It doesn't go as terribly as it could have, and while her mother doesn't really understand, she knows she can't stop it.
Xander is happy when Buffy doesn't resume her relationship with Angel (and so is Giles), and while Spike takes over the Master's position, Giles tries to convince Buffy to stake him. Angel argues for and against it, depending on the day.
Not even Willow gets why Buffy will stake any of Spike's minions she finds, but won't go after him or Drusilla.
So little about Buffy makes sense these days; she just stares at Snyder when he's his usual horrible self with a tiny smile, and she fights her way through so many demons and vampires while leaving other demons alone (sometimes she explains that they're not the kind that hurt people, but what other kind of demon is there?), and she has a notebook she fills with some kind of shorthand no one else knows, and any time she leaves her mom or Willow or Xander or Giles, she'll say, "I love you."
("You don't belong here," Drusilla tells her, when Drusilla follows her on patrol one night. "I tried tellin' Spike we shouldn't come here."
"He just wants to get you well again," Buffy says. "He loves you."
"Like he'll one day love you?" Drusilla asks. She knows without trying that her usual tricks won't work on this Slayer.
"Probably not now," Buffy says. "I've changed too much."
They stare at each other, and Drusilla reads so much in her eyes. "Will you still know what to do, with so much changed?" she muses, tilting her head to better hear the stars.
Buffy shrugs, laughing slightly. "I should be able to figure it out."
So much went wrong, for both the people she loves and the world-and she hears the First Slayer in her dreams, and this is her chance to change it all.
"If you don't ignore Spike in favor of Angel," Buffy says as she turns to continue her patrol, "he probably won't become fixated on me."
Drusilla watches her go, swaying in the moonlight, until Spike comes for her. "What are you doin' out here, pet?" he asks softly, gentle as he only ever is for her.
She wonders how he became the wretched creature in the Slayer's mind, who found the courage somehow to sacrifice himself. Did he love the Slayer more than he loved her?
It matters not, she decides, nibbling at Spike's neck as he guides her back to their home. Some of what came to pass will not now, and some will. She gleaned much, and she'll have to follow the threads.)
Title: Names Dripping with Blood
Written: March 15, 2015
Prompt: any, any, they used to shout my name, now they whisper it.
Once, there was a princess
beloved
by all who knew her.
Her name?
We do not speak it now.
But I can tell you
of the court she commanded,
of the besotted knights
and the charming princes
battling for her the honor
of kissing her hand,
for scraps of her attention,
for a kiss and a dance.
I can tell you
of the far-flung kingdoms
and the nobles of the land
who offered fortunes and favors
simply for the chance
of marrying the most beautiful princess
the world had ever seen.
Was she?
Debatable, but not where anyone can hear.
Once, there was a princess.
No, she was not cursed.
She was the curse.
She wed on a bright spring day
to the second son of the king’s greatest ally.
Their union was a blessing for both kingdoms -
or so it seemed, at first.
His name?
Long forgotten.
It was never important, nor he,
that sad, sorry prince.
The beloved princess’s father died
the autumn after the wedding.
She was crowned queen in mourning black.
Her husband died the following spring,
while she grew plump with his child.
Oh, how the kingdom mourned them both!
And none cried so beautifully as the beloved queen.
She birthed a son in the summer.
His name…
Well, it is one you know.
Tell me, do you know of the witch
who lives far beyond the mountains,
past that haunted forest,
down near the frozen shore?
Yes?
And do you know of the warlord
whose reach stretches from ocean to ocean,
who gobbles up realms and spits out the bones?
Of course you do.
The beloved princess who
became the beloved queen
was not cursed, no.
She was the curse, you see.
Who cast it?
No one knows.
Why?
Lips as red as the blood shed
when a prince was sacrificed
by the light of the moon.
Hair as black as the moonless night
a queen recited words in a language
long lost to time.
Skin as white as the bones that
litter battlefields across
a continent.
We are cursed, you see.
Her name?
We do not say it,
though once it rang out in cheers,
echoing off the stone streets.
His name?
There are some who whisper it.
You would know it if you heard.
Mine?
Oh, that is unimportant, I promise you.
You shouldn’t wonder such things, you know.
It matters not how I remember.
Best get on home, now.
Don’t stray from the path.
We are cursed, you see.
Our beloved princess became
the terrible witch
who rules the world from the seashore.
Her beloved son became
the horrible warlord
who commands the world from a throne of bones.
It was centuries ago, now.
Don’t ask me how I remember.
I promise, you don’t want to know.
Title: I cross so many brooks in the world
Fandom: Highlander
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Denise Levertov
Warnings: none
Rating: PG
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Point of view: third
Wordcount: 405
Prompt: Highlander, Duncan and Methos and Joe, old is a comparative term
Remix pov of this
"I've gotten old," Joe groans as he slowly stands. He's felt old since he first began wearing the prostheses, since he lost his legs.
Mac’s on a crusade somewhere; Joe can’t follow him anymore. He’s retired from the field altogether, but he’s been given half a dozen young Watcher recruits to train up proper, and he doesn’t feel useless all that often.
“Old,” Methos chuckles, glancing up from his beer, atop his usual stool at the bar, “is all relative.”
Adam Pierson, according to his Chronicle, is barely 40 years old. He died while working on the Methos Chronicle, and Duncan MacLeod took him on as a student. He died at 25, falling off a ladder as he searched through hardcopy files that date back nearly a thousand years. He spent his first decade as Mac’s student, neither the best nor worst. Most Watchers who know about him don’t think he’ll last that long.
“What do you know about it, Pierson?” Tom laughs, and he doesn’t notice the glance Methos gives him. Joe does, though, and when Methos meets his eyes, he shrugs.
Joe is honestly shocked that he’s made it to 65. He is old, as humans go, and he can get maybe twenty or thirty more years. Duncan’s almost 500, now. Amanda’s a thousand.
“You’ve got plenty of time left, Joe,” Adam Pierson tells him, before being dragged into an argument about the Marvel movie craze with Joe’s students, and Joe listens, trying to follow the tangents as best he can. Before long, he’s hopelessly lost, puttering behind the bar as he straightens everything up.
He goes to lift a barrel but it’s pulled out of his grasp. “I’ve got this,” Methos says softly. “Go sit down and rest.”
Joe’s whole body is aching, the gift from Vietnam that never stops giving. “I’ve got it,” he says stubbornly, wanting nothing more than to sit and maybe work on some of his songs.
“Joe,” Methos says. It’s an inflection that Adam Pierson hasn’t had enough time to earn, that Mac still stumbles over sometimes. It could give him away, if any of the more intuitive Watchers hear it.
With a grumble, Joe trudges to one of the more comfortable chairs, grabbing his current notebook on the way. The kids are still arguing while Adam Pierson takes over the bartending duties, and Joe loses himself in music.
Joe’s old, yeah, but he’s got time left.
Title: pretense
Fandom: Highlander
Disclaimer: only Methos isn’t mine
Warnings: violence
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 265
Point of view: third
Prompt: any, any, goddamn right, you should be scared of me
Remix pov of this
When the men burst in shouting, waving guns around, Taylor lunged for Mikey and dragged him to the floor with her. The clerk disappeared and the old lady looking at the 'for sale' shelf turned, gasping and bringing her hand to her mouth, and the college guy muttered something, but Taylor kept most of her attention on Mikey, because he was struggling against her until one of the gunmen fired at-
Taylor wasn't sure who he fired at, or why, but it made Mikey shriek and then cry. Taylor tried to shush him because the men probably didn't have much patience with crying kids but Mikey wasn't much more than a baby, and coming to Aunt Maggie's bookshop was supposed to keep them out of trouble today.
Once she had Mikey mostly calmed, Taylor focused on the gunmen. Dad had taught her to shoot, some, before he ran off, and Mama and Aunt Maggie's retired Marine beau (she never called him husband or boyfriend or lover, just beau) Cal made sure Taylor could take care of herself, and if she can take these guys by surprise-
Mikey's hiccuping through his sobs now, winding down, and the two guys are yelling at each other, and thee old lady is murmuring what sounds like a prayer. The college guy catches Taylor's eye. He can't be that much older than her, looks scrawny and tired, and she'll still sound disbelieving hours later, after she's repeated the story a dozen times, but when he moves, it's nearly too fast to be seen.
She never does catch his name.
Fandom: Merlin (BBC)
Disclaimer: only Arthur and Merlin aren’t mine; title from Lord Byron
Warnings: references to bad things happening to children
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Point of view: third
Wordcount: WIP
Prompts: Merlin, Arthur Pendragon/Merlin, We were like gods at the dawning of the world, and our joy was so bright we could see nothing else but the other. ; any, any/any, there's death, rebirth and another meeting ; Merlin (BBC), Arthur/Merlin, the man who has the loyalty of a hurricane
He'd thought that Arthur, when he returned, would be as vibrant, as glorious, that figure of legend even he believes in now, a thousand years after he sent his king to the water.
Title: take time to catch your breath and choose your moment
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Dido
Warnings: AU during season 1; references to violence and canon character death
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 800
Point of view: third
Prompts: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy Summers, after the Battle of Sunnydale she was given the doubble-edged gift of sending her mind back to any point in her past, with all her memories and current powers intact. ; Prompt: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy Summers+Any, Psychological Warfare (Burn Notice)
She coughs herself awake, wet and with aching ribs. Xander's crouched next to her, looking younger than she can remember, and Angel is lurking behind him.
It worked, then. She slowly sits up, while Xander babbles and Angel stares at her. She wonders if she smells different, if her heartbeat has changed.
She had been so scared, so angry, when this happened the first time. She died and came back, and it had been terrible.
Worse things have happened now. Sunnydale is rubble, Mom is dead, Dawnie is lost in the future and doesn't exist at the same time, and so many mistakes...
"Buffy?" Xander says. "Are... are you okay?"
The Master is waiting. Somewhere, Kendra just got Called.
There's so much she doesn't remember, but she's almost certain she cannot make anything worse than what actually happened, so she takes a deep breath and then breathes out before smiling at Xander. "We have to get to the Master," she says, and she thinks she almost sounds like that girl she hasn't been since the first time she died.
…
Buffy comes back from LA just a little... off. She's quieter. She sometimes hangs with Xander and Willow like normal, and sometimes she pushes them away. She spends hours with Giles in the library, studying lore she'd always complained about before. She makes time to eat dinner with her mom every night.
At some point, without telling anyone until Giles hears it from a contact, she destroys the Master's bones. She stakes the Anointed One and all of his followers. She's stronger and faster, a far better fighter than can possibly be explained by keeping up with her training while with her dad.
But none of them mention it to her. Because she's also happier. She laughs at the silliest things, and she talks to people in the halls, and even when they're scrambling to stop Frankenstein wannabes or ancient mummies, it's like Buffy is just so happy to be alive, and none of them can blame her for that.
After the ill-fated Parent-Teacher Night, Buffy drags Giles to her house and they tell her mother everything. It doesn't go as terribly as it could have, and while her mother doesn't really understand, she knows she can't stop it.
Xander is happy when Buffy doesn't resume her relationship with Angel (and so is Giles), and while Spike takes over the Master's position, Giles tries to convince Buffy to stake him. Angel argues for and against it, depending on the day.
Not even Willow gets why Buffy will stake any of Spike's minions she finds, but won't go after him or Drusilla.
So little about Buffy makes sense these days; she just stares at Snyder when he's his usual horrible self with a tiny smile, and she fights her way through so many demons and vampires while leaving other demons alone (sometimes she explains that they're not the kind that hurt people, but what other kind of demon is there?), and she has a notebook she fills with some kind of shorthand no one else knows, and any time she leaves her mom or Willow or Xander or Giles, she'll say, "I love you."
("You don't belong here," Drusilla tells her, when Drusilla follows her on patrol one night. "I tried tellin' Spike we shouldn't come here."
"He just wants to get you well again," Buffy says. "He loves you."
"Like he'll one day love you?" Drusilla asks. She knows without trying that her usual tricks won't work on this Slayer.
"Probably not now," Buffy says. "I've changed too much."
They stare at each other, and Drusilla reads so much in her eyes. "Will you still know what to do, with so much changed?" she muses, tilting her head to better hear the stars.
Buffy shrugs, laughing slightly. "I should be able to figure it out."
So much went wrong, for both the people she loves and the world-and she hears the First Slayer in her dreams, and this is her chance to change it all.
"If you don't ignore Spike in favor of Angel," Buffy says as she turns to continue her patrol, "he probably won't become fixated on me."
Drusilla watches her go, swaying in the moonlight, until Spike comes for her. "What are you doin' out here, pet?" he asks softly, gentle as he only ever is for her.
She wonders how he became the wretched creature in the Slayer's mind, who found the courage somehow to sacrifice himself. Did he love the Slayer more than he loved her?
It matters not, she decides, nibbling at Spike's neck as he guides her back to their home. Some of what came to pass will not now, and some will. She gleaned much, and she'll have to follow the threads.)
Title: Names Dripping with Blood
Written: March 15, 2015
Prompt: any, any, they used to shout my name, now they whisper it.
Once, there was a princess
beloved
by all who knew her.
Her name?
We do not speak it now.
But I can tell you
of the court she commanded,
of the besotted knights
and the charming princes
battling for her the honor
of kissing her hand,
for scraps of her attention,
for a kiss and a dance.
I can tell you
of the far-flung kingdoms
and the nobles of the land
who offered fortunes and favors
simply for the chance
of marrying the most beautiful princess
the world had ever seen.
Was she?
Debatable, but not where anyone can hear.
Once, there was a princess.
No, she was not cursed.
She was the curse.
She wed on a bright spring day
to the second son of the king’s greatest ally.
Their union was a blessing for both kingdoms -
or so it seemed, at first.
His name?
Long forgotten.
It was never important, nor he,
that sad, sorry prince.
The beloved princess’s father died
the autumn after the wedding.
She was crowned queen in mourning black.
Her husband died the following spring,
while she grew plump with his child.
Oh, how the kingdom mourned them both!
And none cried so beautifully as the beloved queen.
She birthed a son in the summer.
His name…
Well, it is one you know.
Tell me, do you know of the witch
who lives far beyond the mountains,
past that haunted forest,
down near the frozen shore?
Yes?
And do you know of the warlord
whose reach stretches from ocean to ocean,
who gobbles up realms and spits out the bones?
Of course you do.
The beloved princess who
became the beloved queen
was not cursed, no.
She was the curse, you see.
Who cast it?
No one knows.
Why?
Lips as red as the blood shed
when a prince was sacrificed
by the light of the moon.
Hair as black as the moonless night
a queen recited words in a language
long lost to time.
Skin as white as the bones that
litter battlefields across
a continent.
We are cursed, you see.
Her name?
We do not say it,
though once it rang out in cheers,
echoing off the stone streets.
His name?
There are some who whisper it.
You would know it if you heard.
Mine?
Oh, that is unimportant, I promise you.
You shouldn’t wonder such things, you know.
It matters not how I remember.
Best get on home, now.
Don’t stray from the path.
We are cursed, you see.
Our beloved princess became
the terrible witch
who rules the world from the seashore.
Her beloved son became
the horrible warlord
who commands the world from a throne of bones.
It was centuries ago, now.
Don’t ask me how I remember.
I promise, you don’t want to know.
Title: I cross so many brooks in the world
Fandom: Highlander
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Denise Levertov
Warnings: none
Rating: PG
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Point of view: third
Wordcount: 405
Prompt: Highlander, Duncan and Methos and Joe, old is a comparative term
Remix pov of this
"I've gotten old," Joe groans as he slowly stands. He's felt old since he first began wearing the prostheses, since he lost his legs.
Mac’s on a crusade somewhere; Joe can’t follow him anymore. He’s retired from the field altogether, but he’s been given half a dozen young Watcher recruits to train up proper, and he doesn’t feel useless all that often.
“Old,” Methos chuckles, glancing up from his beer, atop his usual stool at the bar, “is all relative.”
Adam Pierson, according to his Chronicle, is barely 40 years old. He died while working on the Methos Chronicle, and Duncan MacLeod took him on as a student. He died at 25, falling off a ladder as he searched through hardcopy files that date back nearly a thousand years. He spent his first decade as Mac’s student, neither the best nor worst. Most Watchers who know about him don’t think he’ll last that long.
“What do you know about it, Pierson?” Tom laughs, and he doesn’t notice the glance Methos gives him. Joe does, though, and when Methos meets his eyes, he shrugs.
Joe is honestly shocked that he’s made it to 65. He is old, as humans go, and he can get maybe twenty or thirty more years. Duncan’s almost 500, now. Amanda’s a thousand.
“You’ve got plenty of time left, Joe,” Adam Pierson tells him, before being dragged into an argument about the Marvel movie craze with Joe’s students, and Joe listens, trying to follow the tangents as best he can. Before long, he’s hopelessly lost, puttering behind the bar as he straightens everything up.
He goes to lift a barrel but it’s pulled out of his grasp. “I’ve got this,” Methos says softly. “Go sit down and rest.”
Joe’s whole body is aching, the gift from Vietnam that never stops giving. “I’ve got it,” he says stubbornly, wanting nothing more than to sit and maybe work on some of his songs.
“Joe,” Methos says. It’s an inflection that Adam Pierson hasn’t had enough time to earn, that Mac still stumbles over sometimes. It could give him away, if any of the more intuitive Watchers hear it.
With a grumble, Joe trudges to one of the more comfortable chairs, grabbing his current notebook on the way. The kids are still arguing while Adam Pierson takes over the bartending duties, and Joe loses himself in music.
Joe’s old, yeah, but he’s got time left.
Title: pretense
Fandom: Highlander
Disclaimer: only Methos isn’t mine
Warnings: violence
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 265
Point of view: third
Prompt: any, any, goddamn right, you should be scared of me
Remix pov of this
When the men burst in shouting, waving guns around, Taylor lunged for Mikey and dragged him to the floor with her. The clerk disappeared and the old lady looking at the 'for sale' shelf turned, gasping and bringing her hand to her mouth, and the college guy muttered something, but Taylor kept most of her attention on Mikey, because he was struggling against her until one of the gunmen fired at-
Taylor wasn't sure who he fired at, or why, but it made Mikey shriek and then cry. Taylor tried to shush him because the men probably didn't have much patience with crying kids but Mikey wasn't much more than a baby, and coming to Aunt Maggie's bookshop was supposed to keep them out of trouble today.
Once she had Mikey mostly calmed, Taylor focused on the gunmen. Dad had taught her to shoot, some, before he ran off, and Mama and Aunt Maggie's retired Marine beau (she never called him husband or boyfriend or lover, just beau) Cal made sure Taylor could take care of herself, and if she can take these guys by surprise-
Mikey's hiccuping through his sobs now, winding down, and the two guys are yelling at each other, and thee old lady is murmuring what sounds like a prayer. The college guy catches Taylor's eye. He can't be that much older than her, looks scrawny and tired, and she'll still sound disbelieving hours later, after she's repeated the story a dozen times, but when he moves, it's nearly too fast to be seen.
She never does catch his name.