Fic: 50 Sentences, Deltora Quest
Title: Dreamers Often Lie (50 Sentences Lief and Kirsten Did Dream True)
Fandom: Deltora Quest
Word Count: 2713
done for 1sentence, theme set Beta
1. walking
Lief gets to his feet and leaves, step by step, balanced unsteadily on his friends' arms; behind him, Kirsten's charred bones sink into the earth, screaming.
2. waltz
She would have been happier, he thinks, living in his father's era, in his father's castle; that was her world, sweeping balls, pretty prose, and shimmering, simpering nobles begging for her arm; she deserved an entire nation at her feet, but here she is, queen of this card castle, and it takes days for the dust to settle after it falls.
3. wishes
When Kirsten had carved her castle out of a cliff with lightning, she made it with the plan that within these walls, there would be a wedding, there would be a family, there would be music; thirteen years later, Mariette leans across her bouquet to steal a kiss from Bede, Lief is humming something he picked up in Happy Vale and Zerry is creeping up behind him with a mouse cupped between his palms, and Kirsten realized she got exactly what she wanted.
4. wonder
When little Josef asks him, many years later, what were the seven greatest sights he saw on his journey, Kirsten's magic floating castle is mentioned third.
5. worry
One shrewd ambassador eyes them both and when he asks, "But what of the Shadow Lord?" Lief slips an arm around Kirsten's waist and says, lips curving just enough to show his canines, "We are allies."
6. whimsy
She never asks him to, but he takes her into the chapel anyway; she likes it there, with the slanting stained glass windows and the incense wafting their way and the way all noises are muffled reverently, but when he gets on his knees in front of Endon's statue and bows his head, she hangs back, suddenly stiff and awkward.
7. wasteland
Later, when it is all over, Lief goes back to that mountain, and the girl that he almost but not quite killed is waiting for him outside a rough, ramshackle house, and she tucks her hands around her hips and says quietly, "There is nothing here; nothing to build a farm on, nothing to make a living off of; I have nothing to offer you," and he replies, "You stayed; that is enough for me."
8. whiskey and rum
He follows her into the kitchen, Bede's music following him and clinging to his familiar clothes, and she says, scattered with the way his eyes smolder at her with suspicion, "Would you like a drink; I was planning on killing you and earning powers beyond my wildest dreams, but that can wait."
9. war
The world is dying, and it does not leave much time for romance, but neither does the truth; he is the king of Deltora, and she is the Shadow Lord's most loyal servant.
10. weddings
Lief freezes up when a pale, desolate wraith of a girl answers the Shadowgate door, because he has seen her before in a vision granted to him by the opal, laughing atop the palace hill, her golden hair strewn with flowers.
11. birthday
Kirsten gives birth to a baby girl; they name her Faith, and the bitter irony is lost on no one.
12. blessing
"Tells me about your parents," she goes, tossing her yellow braid over one shoulder and lazily drawing circles on his chest, and he chuckles and waves her off, "Everyone knows who my parents are, I want to hear about yours," and Kirsten sits up and shrugs in that aloof, indifferent manner of someone who never bothered to pay any particular attention to their parents before, "They would like you, I am sure."
13. bias
Lief is like Bede; she has spent her entire life working her way to him, and in a heartbeat, a single breath or word or stanza, her entire world shifts its axis to revolve around him, and he is the only one with the power to bring her to her knees.
14. burning
At the same time, Lief is nothing like Bede; he is all slender scars and hard, tan lines that ripple and change when she touches them; he murmurs musical nothings in her ear and does not see her reaching for the red-hot iron out of the fireplace; when he explodes inside of her, she brings the Shadow Lord's brand down upon his back; her toes curl with pleasure at his mutilated shriek resounds off the cobblestones.
15. breathing
She hit the wall, his hands at her throat, and fell against him; time held still; she exhaled, suddenly understanding (she has failed, they know Kirsten is evil, I am her prisoner), air whispering warm against his cheek, stomach moving hard against his; he forgot to inhale again.
16. breaking
Kirsten fashions him a mask almost as impressive as his first one; and wears her own -- slim, silver, with the perfect slit eyes of a viper -- and he leaves the Belt behind in the rubble of her castle, and the first time she calls him Bede by mistake, he is afraid his chest (his heart) will crack down the middle.
17. belief
She admires him for his singing; she could care less about anything else about him, and somewhere deep inside of him, Lief will admit it is nice to be liked for something other than being a hero, being the king; it is nice to be just a normal man with an extraordinary voice.
18. balloon
The entire night they play their parts, wayward traveler and shy, trembling captive, but the way they bumble around each other, eyes holding for a flicker and darting off, hands rubbing at throats and backs of necks, the swelling, nervous energy that always comes with the faintest hint of attraction; that cannot be faked.
19. balcony
They flee up the tower steps -- her Bede, the kingling, his shrew, and the giant ox -- and Kirsten stands outside her room and she sings, spreading the arms of her cloak wide so that all the creatures of the darkness slide easily into its folds; they come, all the shrieking, slithering, disgusting creatures of the highest mountain, because she controls all, even them, and it is time somebody recognized that.
20. bane
Lief of Del and Kirsten of Shadowgate are not in love -- of course not, since neither of them have the capacity; she hates all and he must love all equally and they cannot afford to be personal -- but she can admire him for his quick wit and his courage and the adept way he handles a country, as adept as he handles her, and he only wants her because she looks pretty by his side, but she is all right with that -- of course she is.
21. quiet
Mariette scarcely thinks of the locket now; she wears it to the king's wedding, where it hangs at the hollow of her throat, nothing more than a dead girl's trinket.
22. quirks
Each morning he calls her a different name, one of the silly little diddlies Laughing Jack thought up to warn Fern about her wrath -- Kate Mend-Shoe, Mad Keeth Nose -- and he dances around her and she laughs and shoves at his hip and begs him to stop, she has a real name, please, and he swoops down and says, "Kirsten" before stealing her breath in a kiss.
23. question
"Do you ask me to break my oath to my Master and destroy my mistress, my Sister, who has given me all my wealth and power?" her eyes glitter, and, "Yes," he tells her, "I do."
24. quarrel
His sword flashes silver at her, his face flashes red with rage, white with fear, "So Bede deserved to die for not loving you, for choosing your sister over you; but I have done nothing of the sort and yet you have killed my friends and now plan to kill me; what hurt have I ever caused you, Kirsten of Shadowgate?!"
25. quitting
This was their greatest downfall; neither of them knew where to give up.
26. jump
When spring comes and the snows melt down the sides of the mountain, Mariette makes a leap of faith and flees Shadowgate with the bundle of her sister's child pressed close to her chest, the child that looks at her with eyes blinking emerald and mouth cooing ballads, and she has no way of knowing the infant is not Bede's.
27. jester
Kirsten, Lief notices, falls in love with fools; she is easily impressed by a pretty mask, a fancy trick, the feint of wrist; she is everything Jasmine is not.
28. jousting
"You are where you belong now, Lief of Del," spits Kirsten, "in the pit with the snakes, and even they cannot stand touching you," and amid the writhing mass of panicking snakes, Lief slaps his hand to his heart, as if cupping the wound of a lance, slid right through him, but his eyes flash, tougher than diamond, and Kirsten feels a chill run right down her spine.
29. jewel
She had dreamed, ever since she was little, that she would escape the banality of Shadowgate, of pretending to be polite, well-mannered, as if she really cared that Ingrid had a new waistcoat; here she is, the queen of Deltora, and nothing has really changed at all; is that a new shawl, Zeean; it's gorgeous.
30. just
He had made a mistake in marrying, he saw that now; he had to ensure that Kirsten never ruled Deltora and so, he banishes them both to a little cottage somewhere northwest of Del, and forget saving the world twice and freeing an entire nation from slavery, passing the Belt to Marilen was the hardest thing he had ever done.
31. smirk
Kirsten reaches out and snatches his belt -- not his hand or his shirt, his belt, the thing that holds up his pants (and keeps the entire country from falling apart) -- and when her fingers brush the emerald, it goes as dull as a stone; his eyes snap to hers, hooded and knowing.
32. sorrow
They bury their firstborn across from where Bede and Mariette rest with each other forever now, and the earth is hard and dry and they dig the grave together, shoulder to shoulder, not saying anything, just digging, handful after handful of grit, rocks, and the leftover rubble of a grand castle.
33. stupidity
"Marilen has taken my place on the throne," he tells her, taking her hands between his, seemingly oblivious to the way her face just shuttered because this was not in her plans, "I gave up the Belt of Deltora -- Kirsten, what is wrong?"
34. serenade
He sings to her as she dies in his arms, her mask cracked between her palms and the ruby blood red at his waist, and her eyes drift close and her breath stops up but still she can hear him, Scurry mouse, into your house, lift the lid, be glad you did.. and she wonders if it is important to him.
35. sarcasm
"You like me, you really like me!" Kirsten laughed, high and shrill like a bird call, and Barda and Lief backed her into a corner of the hall at swordpoint and Jasmine deftly picked at the chains holding Bede down.
36. sordid
Of course the Lady Sharn had been such a lovely woman, and so loyal to her country -- always pestering her son and his unsavory bride to do better -- and was it not such a shame when she fell down all those stairs outside the queen's study like that?
37. soliloquy
By the time the letter reaches Aniah of Shadowgate, it's bent at the corners and looks like blood, not human, has splattered across it, but she can still make out, To the mother of Kirsten, so she opens it and lets the single slip of notebook paper fall into her hands, and reads, She lived a love that you only live once a lifetime -- Lief, King of Del.
38. sojourn
He falls asleep one night, a good fifty years after he became king, and does not wake up; when he opens his eyes, he sees Dain and Paff and Kirsten, and the mistress of Shadowgate smiles with undead lips and calls him a murderer and says, "It has been awhile, your majesty."
39. share
His hands smooth down the lily-white expanse of her back and she shifts her body so that her hips fit perfectly into the cradle of his pelvis, and ("is this all you needed?" he asks, teeth tugging at the rose-red swell of her bottom lip) as she leisurely wraps her legs around his waist, the noises of Bede conversing hurriedly with Jasmine and Barda drift through to them ("this is what we both needed," she replies, and laughingly lifts her face to be kissed.)
40. solitary
"I cannot marry you," he says, and she hears the weight of the world in his voice, "I need the trust of my people."
41. nowhere
Lief would have rather his children had gardens and a whole Forest as their playground, but he watches his eldest daughter, thirteen, scold the younger six as she hefts a tome over their mud-slinging antics, watches Kirsten draw a heart on the babe's dusty cheek with a reassuring coo, and listens to the laughs and the shrieks and the arguments and decides that they have made the most of it; they have carved a home out of the most unyielding stone.
42. neutral
There is no place for them in the territory of emerald, territory of fierce honor, fierce pride, and no place for them in the territory of the topaz, territory of faith, forgiveness, so they find a place of their own, in Jaliad, territory of the diamond, territory of strength, love.
43. nuance
She keeps him chained to the same cushions Bede had, and while he sings, she sits at the vanity, embroidering, and he watches her foot tap in rhythm to every note he hits.
44. near
It does not matter that she is the most powerful sorceress of the Shadow Lord in the entire western half of Deltora; the moment she sees the dark-haired, dark-skinned man wearing the glittering blue mask of a bird -- Leven? Lewin? -- she is nothing but a girl again, silly and in love.
45. natural
Within five days, Kirsten is so used to the presence of Lief in her, around her, his hands on her body at the oddest moments, a soul-numbingly intense kiss when she's in the middle of peeling potatoes, so used to two teacups in the sink and socks too big for her winding up in her drawers that she accepts it, and when she does, she and Lief cease to be two separate people.
46. horizon
They stagger through the maze of cliffs, searching for the Sister of the North; there is a moment where Lief thinks he sees a castle through the storm, far away, but then he blinks and it is gone; he shakes his head and keeps walking.
47. valiant
He catches her when she slides limply down the side of the pit, snake venom hot and screaming in her veins, and his face swims in her eyes and she cannot speak, but he holds on to her, tighter than she has ever been held before, because he knows she is scared of dying, and perhaps admitting it is the bravest thing she has ever done.
48. virtuous
Kirsten kisses him underneath the crossed swords of his best friends; the tips of her fingers hover over the red handprint burned onto his collarbone, and something like regret flashes deep in her face; Lief kisses her with fingers buried in her hair, and tells her there is no going back.
49. victory
The word reaches them that the royal family has been blessed with a little girl, and they called her Anna, but Kirsten knows where the Belt will look first for its heir; she cradles her dark-skinned infant to her chest, kissing tiny fingers and soft, peanut feet, and bides her time.
50. defeat
He never did try to save her life.
Fandom: Deltora Quest
Word Count: 2713
done for 1sentence, theme set Beta
1. walking
Lief gets to his feet and leaves, step by step, balanced unsteadily on his friends' arms; behind him, Kirsten's charred bones sink into the earth, screaming.
2. waltz
She would have been happier, he thinks, living in his father's era, in his father's castle; that was her world, sweeping balls, pretty prose, and shimmering, simpering nobles begging for her arm; she deserved an entire nation at her feet, but here she is, queen of this card castle, and it takes days for the dust to settle after it falls.
3. wishes
When Kirsten had carved her castle out of a cliff with lightning, she made it with the plan that within these walls, there would be a wedding, there would be a family, there would be music; thirteen years later, Mariette leans across her bouquet to steal a kiss from Bede, Lief is humming something he picked up in Happy Vale and Zerry is creeping up behind him with a mouse cupped between his palms, and Kirsten realized she got exactly what she wanted.
4. wonder
When little Josef asks him, many years later, what were the seven greatest sights he saw on his journey, Kirsten's magic floating castle is mentioned third.
5. worry
One shrewd ambassador eyes them both and when he asks, "But what of the Shadow Lord?" Lief slips an arm around Kirsten's waist and says, lips curving just enough to show his canines, "We are allies."
6. whimsy
She never asks him to, but he takes her into the chapel anyway; she likes it there, with the slanting stained glass windows and the incense wafting their way and the way all noises are muffled reverently, but when he gets on his knees in front of Endon's statue and bows his head, she hangs back, suddenly stiff and awkward.
7. wasteland
Later, when it is all over, Lief goes back to that mountain, and the girl that he almost but not quite killed is waiting for him outside a rough, ramshackle house, and she tucks her hands around her hips and says quietly, "There is nothing here; nothing to build a farm on, nothing to make a living off of; I have nothing to offer you," and he replies, "You stayed; that is enough for me."
8. whiskey and rum
He follows her into the kitchen, Bede's music following him and clinging to his familiar clothes, and she says, scattered with the way his eyes smolder at her with suspicion, "Would you like a drink; I was planning on killing you and earning powers beyond my wildest dreams, but that can wait."
9. war
The world is dying, and it does not leave much time for romance, but neither does the truth; he is the king of Deltora, and she is the Shadow Lord's most loyal servant.
10. weddings
Lief freezes up when a pale, desolate wraith of a girl answers the Shadowgate door, because he has seen her before in a vision granted to him by the opal, laughing atop the palace hill, her golden hair strewn with flowers.
11. birthday
Kirsten gives birth to a baby girl; they name her Faith, and the bitter irony is lost on no one.
12. blessing
"Tells me about your parents," she goes, tossing her yellow braid over one shoulder and lazily drawing circles on his chest, and he chuckles and waves her off, "Everyone knows who my parents are, I want to hear about yours," and Kirsten sits up and shrugs in that aloof, indifferent manner of someone who never bothered to pay any particular attention to their parents before, "They would like you, I am sure."
13. bias
Lief is like Bede; she has spent her entire life working her way to him, and in a heartbeat, a single breath or word or stanza, her entire world shifts its axis to revolve around him, and he is the only one with the power to bring her to her knees.
14. burning
At the same time, Lief is nothing like Bede; he is all slender scars and hard, tan lines that ripple and change when she touches them; he murmurs musical nothings in her ear and does not see her reaching for the red-hot iron out of the fireplace; when he explodes inside of her, she brings the Shadow Lord's brand down upon his back; her toes curl with pleasure at his mutilated shriek resounds off the cobblestones.
15. breathing
She hit the wall, his hands at her throat, and fell against him; time held still; she exhaled, suddenly understanding (she has failed, they know Kirsten is evil, I am her prisoner), air whispering warm against his cheek, stomach moving hard against his; he forgot to inhale again.
16. breaking
Kirsten fashions him a mask almost as impressive as his first one; and wears her own -- slim, silver, with the perfect slit eyes of a viper -- and he leaves the Belt behind in the rubble of her castle, and the first time she calls him Bede by mistake, he is afraid his chest (his heart) will crack down the middle.
17. belief
She admires him for his singing; she could care less about anything else about him, and somewhere deep inside of him, Lief will admit it is nice to be liked for something other than being a hero, being the king; it is nice to be just a normal man with an extraordinary voice.
18. balloon
The entire night they play their parts, wayward traveler and shy, trembling captive, but the way they bumble around each other, eyes holding for a flicker and darting off, hands rubbing at throats and backs of necks, the swelling, nervous energy that always comes with the faintest hint of attraction; that cannot be faked.
19. balcony
They flee up the tower steps -- her Bede, the kingling, his shrew, and the giant ox -- and Kirsten stands outside her room and she sings, spreading the arms of her cloak wide so that all the creatures of the darkness slide easily into its folds; they come, all the shrieking, slithering, disgusting creatures of the highest mountain, because she controls all, even them, and it is time somebody recognized that.
20. bane
Lief of Del and Kirsten of Shadowgate are not in love -- of course not, since neither of them have the capacity; she hates all and he must love all equally and they cannot afford to be personal -- but she can admire him for his quick wit and his courage and the adept way he handles a country, as adept as he handles her, and he only wants her because she looks pretty by his side, but she is all right with that -- of course she is.
21. quiet
Mariette scarcely thinks of the locket now; she wears it to the king's wedding, where it hangs at the hollow of her throat, nothing more than a dead girl's trinket.
22. quirks
Each morning he calls her a different name, one of the silly little diddlies Laughing Jack thought up to warn Fern about her wrath -- Kate Mend-Shoe, Mad Keeth Nose -- and he dances around her and she laughs and shoves at his hip and begs him to stop, she has a real name, please, and he swoops down and says, "Kirsten" before stealing her breath in a kiss.
23. question
"Do you ask me to break my oath to my Master and destroy my mistress, my Sister, who has given me all my wealth and power?" her eyes glitter, and, "Yes," he tells her, "I do."
24. quarrel
His sword flashes silver at her, his face flashes red with rage, white with fear, "So Bede deserved to die for not loving you, for choosing your sister over you; but I have done nothing of the sort and yet you have killed my friends and now plan to kill me; what hurt have I ever caused you, Kirsten of Shadowgate?!"
25. quitting
This was their greatest downfall; neither of them knew where to give up.
26. jump
When spring comes and the snows melt down the sides of the mountain, Mariette makes a leap of faith and flees Shadowgate with the bundle of her sister's child pressed close to her chest, the child that looks at her with eyes blinking emerald and mouth cooing ballads, and she has no way of knowing the infant is not Bede's.
27. jester
Kirsten, Lief notices, falls in love with fools; she is easily impressed by a pretty mask, a fancy trick, the feint of wrist; she is everything Jasmine is not.
28. jousting
"You are where you belong now, Lief of Del," spits Kirsten, "in the pit with the snakes, and even they cannot stand touching you," and amid the writhing mass of panicking snakes, Lief slaps his hand to his heart, as if cupping the wound of a lance, slid right through him, but his eyes flash, tougher than diamond, and Kirsten feels a chill run right down her spine.
29. jewel
She had dreamed, ever since she was little, that she would escape the banality of Shadowgate, of pretending to be polite, well-mannered, as if she really cared that Ingrid had a new waistcoat; here she is, the queen of Deltora, and nothing has really changed at all; is that a new shawl, Zeean; it's gorgeous.
30. just
He had made a mistake in marrying, he saw that now; he had to ensure that Kirsten never ruled Deltora and so, he banishes them both to a little cottage somewhere northwest of Del, and forget saving the world twice and freeing an entire nation from slavery, passing the Belt to Marilen was the hardest thing he had ever done.
31. smirk
Kirsten reaches out and snatches his belt -- not his hand or his shirt, his belt, the thing that holds up his pants (and keeps the entire country from falling apart) -- and when her fingers brush the emerald, it goes as dull as a stone; his eyes snap to hers, hooded and knowing.
32. sorrow
They bury their firstborn across from where Bede and Mariette rest with each other forever now, and the earth is hard and dry and they dig the grave together, shoulder to shoulder, not saying anything, just digging, handful after handful of grit, rocks, and the leftover rubble of a grand castle.
33. stupidity
"Marilen has taken my place on the throne," he tells her, taking her hands between his, seemingly oblivious to the way her face just shuttered because this was not in her plans, "I gave up the Belt of Deltora -- Kirsten, what is wrong?"
34. serenade
He sings to her as she dies in his arms, her mask cracked between her palms and the ruby blood red at his waist, and her eyes drift close and her breath stops up but still she can hear him, Scurry mouse, into your house, lift the lid, be glad you did.. and she wonders if it is important to him.
35. sarcasm
"You like me, you really like me!" Kirsten laughed, high and shrill like a bird call, and Barda and Lief backed her into a corner of the hall at swordpoint and Jasmine deftly picked at the chains holding Bede down.
36. sordid
Of course the Lady Sharn had been such a lovely woman, and so loyal to her country -- always pestering her son and his unsavory bride to do better -- and was it not such a shame when she fell down all those stairs outside the queen's study like that?
37. soliloquy
By the time the letter reaches Aniah of Shadowgate, it's bent at the corners and looks like blood, not human, has splattered across it, but she can still make out, To the mother of Kirsten, so she opens it and lets the single slip of notebook paper fall into her hands, and reads, She lived a love that you only live once a lifetime -- Lief, King of Del.
38. sojourn
He falls asleep one night, a good fifty years after he became king, and does not wake up; when he opens his eyes, he sees Dain and Paff and Kirsten, and the mistress of Shadowgate smiles with undead lips and calls him a murderer and says, "It has been awhile, your majesty."
39. share
His hands smooth down the lily-white expanse of her back and she shifts her body so that her hips fit perfectly into the cradle of his pelvis, and ("is this all you needed?" he asks, teeth tugging at the rose-red swell of her bottom lip) as she leisurely wraps her legs around his waist, the noises of Bede conversing hurriedly with Jasmine and Barda drift through to them ("this is what we both needed," she replies, and laughingly lifts her face to be kissed.)
40. solitary
"I cannot marry you," he says, and she hears the weight of the world in his voice, "I need the trust of my people."
41. nowhere
Lief would have rather his children had gardens and a whole Forest as their playground, but he watches his eldest daughter, thirteen, scold the younger six as she hefts a tome over their mud-slinging antics, watches Kirsten draw a heart on the babe's dusty cheek with a reassuring coo, and listens to the laughs and the shrieks and the arguments and decides that they have made the most of it; they have carved a home out of the most unyielding stone.
42. neutral
There is no place for them in the territory of emerald, territory of fierce honor, fierce pride, and no place for them in the territory of the topaz, territory of faith, forgiveness, so they find a place of their own, in Jaliad, territory of the diamond, territory of strength, love.
43. nuance
She keeps him chained to the same cushions Bede had, and while he sings, she sits at the vanity, embroidering, and he watches her foot tap in rhythm to every note he hits.
44. near
It does not matter that she is the most powerful sorceress of the Shadow Lord in the entire western half of Deltora; the moment she sees the dark-haired, dark-skinned man wearing the glittering blue mask of a bird -- Leven? Lewin? -- she is nothing but a girl again, silly and in love.
45. natural
Within five days, Kirsten is so used to the presence of Lief in her, around her, his hands on her body at the oddest moments, a soul-numbingly intense kiss when she's in the middle of peeling potatoes, so used to two teacups in the sink and socks too big for her winding up in her drawers that she accepts it, and when she does, she and Lief cease to be two separate people.
46. horizon
They stagger through the maze of cliffs, searching for the Sister of the North; there is a moment where Lief thinks he sees a castle through the storm, far away, but then he blinks and it is gone; he shakes his head and keeps walking.
47. valiant
He catches her when she slides limply down the side of the pit, snake venom hot and screaming in her veins, and his face swims in her eyes and she cannot speak, but he holds on to her, tighter than she has ever been held before, because he knows she is scared of dying, and perhaps admitting it is the bravest thing she has ever done.
48. virtuous
Kirsten kisses him underneath the crossed swords of his best friends; the tips of her fingers hover over the red handprint burned onto his collarbone, and something like regret flashes deep in her face; Lief kisses her with fingers buried in her hair, and tells her there is no going back.
49. victory
The word reaches them that the royal family has been blessed with a little girl, and they called her Anna, but Kirsten knows where the Belt will look first for its heir; she cradles her dark-skinned infant to her chest, kissing tiny fingers and soft, peanut feet, and bides her time.
50. defeat
He never did try to save her life.