Fivecount - Fudge Ripple, Chocolate Chip Mint, Cookies 'N Cream, Chocolate
Theme of the week is apparently "flangst/angst/more angst."
Author: Thai
Challenge: Fudge Ripple #6 - betrayal, Chocolate Chip Mint #27 - dangerous
Rating: G
Story: blood princess
Word Count: 118
She wore a sapphire on her left hand, this golden-haired human girl, and even without looking at it she knew it was Astor's.
Everything about this girl screamed of him. She wore his woven rope around her neck, her eyes wandered the room looking for him. His touch was practically all over her, Asma could feel without even nearing her. She moved with the grace of a dancer.
She was so beautiful, for a human, and Asma hated her.
But when the golden-haired human girl turned green eyes on her, smiling shyly, and asked who she was - "Astor's told me that he's a friend of the princess Asma - are you her?"
Asma hated Astor even more.
Author: Thai
Challenge: Fudge Ripple #21 - guilt, Chocolate #14 - vengeance, Chocolate Chip Mint #15 - distant
Rating: PG
Story: blood princess
Word Count: 289
She never meant to kill Oriana.
No one believed her, of course. Her mother was so proud - so proud of her killer daughter, who'd finally broken out of her affectionate shell. She'd even had a fucking feast arranged in her honor.
Because everyone needs to celebrate my failure, Asma thought, watching sharp beaks and claws tear apart things that had once been living. Because everyone needs to recognize how oblivious I was. Because everyone needs to eat in honor of my failed fairytale ending.
It had been an accident. But no one would believe her - if she screamed in their ears a thousand times, they would never believe her.
She hadn't meant to kill Oriana. That had only been something she'd thought, a hyperbole. You never really kill someone you say you will.
Her mother was so proud. So proud that her daughter had behaved exactly as she should - destroyed what was keeping her from what she wanted.
Strangely, it wasn't the way that the light had gone out of Oriana that continued to stay in her mind - it was the way that the light had gone out of Astor's eyes. They'd suddenly become flat and dark, and when she tried to talk to him he simply stared at her. It was like he was the one who was dead, and not Oriana.
But don't you see, she tried to say, I only did it for you.
He'd only looked at her, a cool and indifferent stare. No more laughing, no more dancing - nothing to even prove that he knew her.
Not even enough to acknowledge that it was all his fault.
Asma got up and left the table. No one came after her.
Author: Thai
Challenge: Fudge Ripple #4 - despair, Chocolate Chip Mint #10 - luminous
Rating: PG-13 - an overly dramatic princess and attempted suicide
Story: blood princess
Word Count: 424
It was dark and cool and calm under the water, and Asma imagined this was what heaven might be like. She'd never thought of heaven much - heaven was really reserved for humans, never her kind - but she'd always heard it to be soothing. Peaceful. A place of no troubles.
It was a little like flying. She was weightless, drifting down into darkness, a place of newness and undiscovery. There weren't any stars in the darkness as there were in the night, but perhaps there'd be stars down there.
Perhaps if she sank far enough there would be light.
Her lungs were beginning to burn, and Asma let go of her nose, having been afraid somehow for water to climb up into her skull. She was still afraid down here, no matter how lovely it was. She was still going to sink in this water; she was still going to die.
Spots, first black and then all manner of glowing colors, danced around the corners of her vision as she descended. It really hurt, not breathing, and finally Asma opened her mouth and inhaled a lungful of water.
And that hurt more than holding her breath had, so suddenly she was coughing and water was not only going up her nose but down her throat and into her stomach so she was full of water, and now that she knew how painful drowning was she began to think that maybe she shouldn't have jumped into the lake after all -
But strong arms suddenly hooked around her waist, and at the thought of her life - what was left of it - being brought back to her Asma struggled, weakly, though the corners of her vision were going very black indeed - don't bring me back to that world, I would much rather stay here.
She was dumped unceremoniously on the shore of the lake, and came to with two pairs of deep blue eyes staring at her. Haytham instantly opened his mouth to lecture her, but Janan placed a hand on his shoulder. No.
"What were you doing, Asma?" she asked, almost plaintively. "You know you can't swim. You could have died, princess."
That was the general idea, Asma thought, still vomiting water up onto the shore. And if Haytham hadn't decided to finally step back in when he was needed - well, no one would have to deal with me anymore.
"Don't be ridiculous," she gasped, when she could finally talk. "I was seeing how long I could hold my breath."
Author: Thai
Challenge: Chocolate Chip Mint #17 - familiar, Fudge Ripple #17 - playfulness
Rating: G
Story: blood princess
Word Count: 220
When she was growing, caught in that indecisive tear between childhood and adulthood, she bothered him incessantly. Astor would be practicing piano or perhaps reading a book, in the strange language he'd brought with him - from England, Asma remembered, although she always said it wrong, An-glend - and she, small and dark and curious, would leap at him. The first few times he was always surprised, and not very amused, and yet when she smiled at him in a certain way he always smiled back.
Then he started catching her. It became almost a game for them - Astor would pretend to be busy, Asma would pretend not to notice he was there, and then suddenly her feet would leave the floor and she would be in his arms.
And yet -
And yet there came a time when she wanted to leap for him though he was not busy; though she was not playing. Her mother was cold and her caretakers were occupied and she was just a little slip of a princess who couldn't don her feathers and who was better off dead.
The tile was cold on her feet when she sought him out that night, but his arms around her were warm, and the feathers that brushed her face were soft as words of love.
Author: Thai
Challenge: Cookies 'N Cream #28 - cry, Fudge Ripple #18 - sacrifice
Rating: R - bloody violence, character death
Story: blood princess
Word Count: 216
She listened while her mother died.
She could not see, of course - her wrists chafed from the ropes around them, her eyes covered with a strip of thick cloth - but even as she struggled in the man's grasp she could hear the noises. The predatory shriek of terror and rage; the hissing, ugly noise of claws in skin. The way her mother's wings beat, stirring wind about the great chamber, now spattered with blue and red. The metal clanging of swords against beak.
She could only listen to the sharp hiss of the arrow, the thunk of point against wing. The despairing, angry cry from her mother. The cool, almost clinical laughter of the men who had traveled so far - so far, so far, just to kill them.
She could only listen to the crack of bone. The all-too-human whimper of pain. Yet it was so quiet, so quiet that were she not Roc, she would not have heard it. If she had not had her predator's ears, her mother's moment of weakness would have gone unheard. If she had not been her mother's daughter, she would not have been able to hear --
"Asma," her mother whispered. "My daughter."
She listened while her mother died. And all she could do was cry.
blood princess is also archived here.