Service Auction \o/

My congregation's first online Service Auction is ending in just over half an hour. I currently have high bids on... let me see... a breads and spreads thingy, a seat at a socially distanced wine-and-cheese picnic in August, a homemade pie of my choice, two loaves of sourdough bread (I will probably get outbid on that shortly and am not married to it in any case), and an astrological reading I am attempting to buy for my brother because he's into that and technically this is all for charity anyway.

I have also kicked up the bids on a number of items that I liked but not enough to outbid the current prices, such as a homemade shepherd's pie, some homemade breakfast breads, and a reading list/inspiration basket from our minister.

I feel I am doing my part. :)

(I considered starting bids on some items that currently have no bids, but I don't actually have any use for them and would prefer not to get stuck with them, so alas, they continue to languish unloved.)

...

Anyway, I'm going to run back to the laundromat and unload the dryers now, after which I will perch at my computer and track my bids like an owl. :D

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ETA, 9:01pm: I got outbid on the pie, but weirdly not on the sourdough. I also had to kick up my bid on the picnic once, but apparently that was enough to chase off the other contender. Victory (and a lot of bread!) is mine. \o/

[Fic] Three Sentence Ficathon 2021 fills, part six

Batch the sixth. :)

All prompts drawn from the current iteration of the Three Sentence Ficathon (post one and post two), hosted by the wonderful rthstewart. Come join the fun!

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( 31. )

For anonymous: Any, any, grieving for the living, written 2/12/21

Last Rites (95 words)

Fandom = The Magnus Archives. SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 194!

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( cut for spoilers )

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( 32. )

For undeadrobins: Any, any, waking up to the alarm, written 2/13/21

Home Front (885 words)

Fandom = The Magnus Archives. This turned into a season 5-style statement fic. It's mostly a Slaughter domain, though there are some elements of the Eye, the Desolation, the Vast, and the Lonely floating around the edges.

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( cut for length )

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( 33. )

For thetransintransgenic: Oz/any set on Earth, any, queer visitors from Oz, written 2/13/21

Rainbow's End (175 words)

I realized after I posted this that thetransintransgenic probably meant queer in the modern sense while I was thinking of queer = odd due to the time period when Oz was written. Also, this is not a crossover. *headdesk*

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"And this is my friend Polychrome, she's the Rainbow's Daughter and helped me come visit you even though Philadelphia isn't a fairy country," Saladin said, swinging his left hand forward, his fingers (still a bit pudgy with youth, as if he hadn't aged a day since he vanished) twined with the slender, almost ethereal digits of a strangely ageless girl in multicolored scraps of a fabric that wasn't quite gauze, wasn't quite silk, and looked as if it would cost a hundred dollars an inch for an untattered bolt.

Richard glanced at Eleanor, whose speaking look conveyed quite clearly, 'Your ancestor owned a magic umbrella, mine once killed a dragon, and our son reappeared on the roof after a storm; who's to say he hasn't befriended a fairy?' -- and that was an excellent point, so Richard turned back to Saladin and said, "A pleasure to meet you, Miss Polychrome; any friend of our Button-Bright is always welcome in our home."

"As you are welcome in mine," Polychrome said, and curtsied fit to greet a queen.

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( 34. )

For thetransintransgenic: Oz/any set on Earth, any, queer visitors from Oz, written 2/13/21

Natural History (250 words)

So I wrote a second fill. Crossover = Oz/Chronicles of Narnia. The Field Museum really does have two separate exhibits of human-eating lions (though one is from 1990, and therefore beyond the scope of this ficlet).

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"Dorothy Gale," says the blonde girl with the light of other worlds in her eyes, as she shakes Susan's hand, her left arm tucked firmly around her black-haired companion's waist; "I was born in Kansas, oh, ages ago, but there's not much to see there besides farms and sky so I thought I'd bring Ozma to Chicago and show her a real modern city, and so far it's been awfully good fun, especially the trains and the skyscrapers -- how about you?"

"My father is here for work, and he and my mother thought it would be educational for me to see some of the world beyond England," Susan says; "While I can't say I'm terribly fond of railways, I do agree that skyscrapers are fascinating -- and speaking of fascinating things, I was planning to visit the Field Museum, which I'm told has many intriguing exhibits, including the stuffed remains of two man-eating lions; may I invite you to accompany me?"

Dorothy glances at Ozma who smiles and says, "We must never tell the Cowardly Lion about his cousins' taste or their fates," (Susan, who has her own history with lions, tucks this away to decipher later) which seems to signal agreement since Dorothy plants an enthusiastic kiss on the other girl's cheek before turning back to Susan and chirping their agreement.

Susan never does unearth their story, but that's all right; she's learned to respect other people's privacy, and it would be a shame to spoil such a lovely day.

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( 35. )

For anonymous: Oz books (L. Frank Baum), Ozma, poppies, written 2/14/21

If I Should Change Before I Wake (445 words)

A nine-sentence fill, because reasons.

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Ozma only learned about the poppy field by accident, overhearing the Scarecrow and Nick Chopper reminisce about their journey with Dorothy and wonder idly if the flowers are still there; that struck her as a question worth answering, but not important enough to assemble a Royal Progress, so she rode out to look at the poppy field accompanied only by the Sawhorse which, of course, could not be affected by their sleep-inducing scent.

Death was rare in Oz, so rare as to be nearly impossible, and the poppies' lure of repose was nigh overpowering, yet as Ozma and the Sawhorse wandered through the brilliant expanse of red blossoms, they found no slumbering bodies under the swaying stems and leaves -- either the poppies' victims had sunk into the earth entire, or someone with magical protection (or no need to breathe) had been collecting them.

"Which do you suppose is more likely, old friend?" Ozma asked the Sawhorse, one hand resting lightly on her Magic Belt.

"I have no knowledge on which to base a guess," the Sawhorse said, pawing idly at the base of a poppy stalk with one wooden leg, "but I can stay and keep watch; sooner or later someone will fall asleep and then we'll know what happens."

Ozma considered this, then nodded: "It's my royal duty to remove my enchantments and let the poppies' power affect me," she said; "I cannot let any of my subjects risk this danger unaware, and if we return to the Emerald City to ask for a volunteer, who knows what might occur while we are gone?"

"Royal duty sounds terribly unpleasant," the Sawhorse said, but it agreed to Ozma's plan so long as she used her Magic Belt to send a message to the Scarecrow before she fell asleep.

As she removed her enchantments and lay on the soft ground between and beneath the swaying poppies, Ozma wondered how long their perfume would need to take effect, not to mention how long before whatever fate befell the other sleepers would claim her in its turn.

The poppies' scent was heavy and warm, rich without cloying, and Ozma stared upward at the red petals bobbing, the green leaves fluttering, the blue sky and white clouds beyond, all melding into a strangely familiar swirl of color and scent and that echoed behind her slowly closing eyes.

As her mind unmoored from the tethers of the waking world, she realized this swooning, dizzy whirl felt almost exactly like Mombi's spell that had changed her from Tip to Ozma, and had one moment to wonder what body she would wake in before she drifted into the unmapped sea of sleep.

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( 36. )

For rthstewart: Doctor Who, Donna Noble, That's where all the weird stuff's happening. In the paperwork., written 2/14/21

Worthy of Her Hire (195 words)

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Not that it's any of Donna's business, or that she's been looking in particular, but if you want to know how the marketing director spends his holiday bonus (very posh tastes, that man, in the best fucking-the-pig tradition) or where the hired lorries took the old office furniture after the big switcharound (not, shall we say, any of the usual places one takes old furniture, and she might do a spot of digging to satisfy her own curiosity on that point), she can tell you; she can tell you everything.

She files all the paperwork, after all, and scans and files the digital versions, too -- it takes a bit to learn what's normal, what's normal-weird, and what's proper weird for any company, but she has practice; she can pick that up in two weeks or less -- and it's beyond her why nobody ever expects a temp to read the papers she handles.

And if she should happen to spot something not just proper weird but dangerous... well, Donna may be a little fuzzy on the past few years of her life, but she remembers just enough to know, bone-deep, that she can make things better.

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I have such a lot of fun with this ficathon every year. :DDD