[Meme] Stories I haven't written

[edenfalling]

Tell me about a story I haven't written, and I'll give you between one and three sentences a few paragraphs from that story.

(I am trying to be honest about my length issues. *wry*)


---------------

Responses so far:

Utilitarian Virtue for cherokee1 -- original fic about a wanderer between universes and her mysterious task (opening paragraphs of a novel, 350 words)

The Lion, the Witch, and the Ninja for aishuu -- Naruto/Narnia crossover, in which the Pevensies were originally from Konoha (fragments of a long fic, 850 words)

Legacies for jjhunter -- in which Naruto's grandkids add his name to the Memorial Stone (complete ficlet, 400 words)

Grass and Silence for animus_wyrmis -- in which Lucy and Susan go on a quest without their brothers, and Lucy makes a choice and Aslan takes Susan into his confidence. (opening paragraphs of a long fic, 375 words)

Comments

[jjhunter]

That one where Naruto's grandkids add his name to the Memorial Stone.

[Fic] "Legacies" -- <i>Naruto</i>

[edenfalling]

Apparently this is a proper ficlet now instead of just an out-of-context scene. Oh well, these things happen. (400 words)

"I still say we should have added 'the Great and Awesome' to Ojiisan's name," Umaiko said to her little brother after the ceremony, while the grownups were still standing around talking politics and memories. "You know he would've loved that." She tugged at the cord around her neck, trying to get used to the unfamiliar weight of the necklace -- both physical and otherwise.

Kureji shrugged extravagantly, arms over his head and an giant yawn cracking his face -- the same stupid face, though Umaiko kept expecting to see whisker marks appear to match their grandfather. But it seemed that was just another thing that made their grandfather unique. "Yeah, yeah, whatever, Neechan," Kureji said. "You know Hachidaime would never have gone for it, no matter how much she looked up to the old man. Besides, this way we can add it like graffiti! He'd like that even better."

Umaiko tried to maintain a properly serious expression in the face of her little brother's ridiculousness. As always, she failed. "Oh, can't you just see him laughing?"

"'You kids these days, can't even keep your own village clean,'" Kureji said, wrapping their grandfather's illusion around himself: an old, old man with a shock of wild white hair and deep wrinkles carved down his face, but his blue eyes still bright and his grin as infectious as ever. "'When I was your age, I had to clean the entire Hokage Monument in one afternoon!'"

"Conveniently leaving out that he was the one who painted all over it in the first place," Umaiko said through her laughter.

"...I miss him, Neechan," Kureji said, dropping the illusion. "The stupid fox misses him."

"Yeah," Umaiko said, pulling her little brother in for a hug. "Yeah, me too."

When their parents found them at Ichiraku several hours later, Umaiko braced for a scolding -- the old, "Where have you been, why didn't you tell anyone where you were going, don't you know there are people who want to kill you" -- but instead her mom just hugged Kureji, her dad touched her new necklace with a gentle finger and a pensive set to his face, and they sat down on either side of Umaiko and Kureji and ordered ramen of their own.

They left a bowl at the Memorial Stone for their grandfather.

The next day, someone painted blinding orange spirals all over the Hokage Monument.

Somewhere, Umaiko was sure her grandfather was laughing.

Re: [Fic] "Legacies" -- <i>Naruto</i>

[jjhunter]

Oh, that's brill. I'd love to read more from this universe, though this is perfection in a ramen bowl in its own right.

Re: [Fic] "Legacies" -- <i>Naruto</i>

[edenfalling]

Thank you! Alas, more from this universe would require me to decide who on earth Naruto has kids with (or whether he adopts, or what), and that is a bear pit I would prefer to avoid. So I am going to play it safe and leave this as a standalone. :-)

[cherokee1.livejournal.com]

Tell me about the wanderer that crosses from one universe to another, using the keys
etched into their bodies by their IA keeper.
The keys are sigils, fashioned by scarifications, and metals produced with the body.
Why do they wander? What is their job? Where do they go?
What happens when they are traveling? How did they get the scarifications?
Why are they chosen?
C

[aishuu.livejournal.com]

That really awesome Naruto/Narnia crossover in which the Pevensies are originally from the Naruto-verse before stumbling into Narnia.

[Fic] "The Lion, the Witch, and the Ninja" (only not really ninja; that's just for the sound of it)

[edenfalling]

No fair! That totally demands a several proper fic of at least ten thousand words, which I obviously do not have time to plot or write. *glares at you* But anyway, the opening:

Mukashi mukashi, there were four children named Ishimaru, Yuri, Keiei, and Shoumeiko, whose mother and father sent them away from Konoha during the Third Shinobi War because they had already been killed and resurrected once and that is more than enough for any parents to bear. They were sent to the estate of an elderly noble who had some tenuous connection to a previous daimyo of Fire Country, and who consequently kept many peculiar and dangerous objects in his storerooms. As the noble lived miles from the nearest village and his only contact with Konoha had been through the legendary Jiraiya, nobody knew about the problems until too late.

In any case, the four children settled in easily enough, since the old nobleman largely ignored them and they were careful to keep out of the housekeeper's way. While the weather was good, this caused nobody any harm, since they spent their days exploring the vast rambling wilderness that had formely been a set of formal gardens. But when a rainy day arrived, they were forced indoors and began to explore the aforementioned storerooms, with predictable results.

-----

And a bit from later on:

When the next rainy day arrived, Ishimaru and Yuri were somewhat reluctant to go back to the empty rooms, but Keiei and Shoumeiko made each other miserable in close company and eventually the elder two decided to separate them by means of playing hide-and-seek. Ishimaru forbade Keiei from using the little ninpou he'd learned at the academy before the war, which made him sulk, but under pressure he admitted it would be more useful to use his eyes and brain instead.

They played several rounds with no trouble, until it was Yuri's turn to be 'it' and Shoumeiko got turned around while looking for a good hiding place and found herself in the room with the mysterious cabinet. She didn't want to hide there -- that would only set the whole argument off again -- but by this time she was beginning to wonder if she had imagined Narnia and Tumnus-san after all. So she stepped inside, just to check, thinking she would easily have time to find a better hiding place before Yuri finished her count.

Just as she vanished into the dark belly of the cabinet, Keiei slid out from behind the open door, where he had been hiding in the dusty shadows. He was annoyed, first that Shoumeiko was in the room and thus spoiling his chances of trying to use ninjutsu to avoid Yuri when she inevitably checked behind the door (Yuri was very thorough about these things), and second that his sister seemed to still believe her nonsense about the cabinet, when anyone could tell it had a perfectly solid back and he had checked it all over for seals. If she didn't believe him...

Well, at the least he could give her a good scare. Keiei pulled a handful of shadows around himself to hide the dim, rain-soaked light of the storeroom, and slipped silently into the cabinet after his little sister.

-----

And from later yet:

Beaver-san was out of the cave like a flash the moment he heard the bells, too fast for Ishimaru or Yuri to stop him. "Oh, oh," Shoumeiko murmured to herself, biting the tips of her fingers. No matter how well he thought he could hide, if the Witch's magic was anything like ninpou, there was no telling what signs she might use to spy him out.

"We should leave, now," Yuri whispered to Beaver-san's wife. "Beaver-san is foolish, but he will not mind sacrificing his life for you and your country."

"She won't see him," Beaver-san's wife said in a comforting tone, but the children knew better than to believe her. Ishimaru motioned his sisters close and they were just about to begin sneaking away when they hear loud voices from above.

"Oh!" Beaver-san's wife said, clutching her bag in distress, but Shoumeiko smiled and shook her head.

"It's all right. That's not a fight; your husband sounds too happy for that."

"Let's go see what he found," Ishimaru said.

-----

And there you go. *stalks off to make a cage for the plot bunny*

[Fic] "Utilitarian Virtue" -- original

[edenfalling]

Clearly this is the start of an action/adventure story, in which Aujae and her latest target work together to figure out the story behind the Keeper and what, exactly, it's trying to prevent from happening in universe after universe. But I am not going to write that.

Aujae crossed universes with her eyes open once. After she nearly ripped herself apart by trying to turn around mid-step, and vomited the entire contents of her stomach, down to pure bile, from the nauseating visual wrongness of the process, she returned to closing her eyes like the Keeper had advised.

She generally ended up following the Keeper's advice in the end, no matter how much she wanted to find some point on which to stand and rebel. On technical matters, that wasn't too bad. Of course the Keeper knew the details of the process and the job better than Aujae; the Keeper had been doing this for millennia, trading out one operative for another when their bodies inevitably rejected the heavy metal of the sigils and not even the nanobots in their blood could hold back the cancer and the rot anymore.

But on matters of ethics, Aujae wished she knew the right words and the right way to put ideas in order so the Keeper couldn't keep twisting her arguments back on her until she couldn't see any path but the assigned one as justifiable. She never found any holes until after, and the Keeper wouldn't talk about anything but the present and the future. Talking about the past would require it to acknowledge her as a person rather than a tool.

Maybe this time, Aujae thought, as she always did when she stepped through the shrieking, twisting stickiness of the void and opened her eyes to a new world. Maybe this time, she'd find her own way.

She clenched her left hand into a fist, making the sigils glow with a minor effort of will; everything worked as it should. Then she flicked open the connection to the Keeper.

"Operative Two Seven Seven Eight Alpha, requesting download of universe parameters and mission goals. Who is my target and what is my time limit?"

Aujae closed her eyes again and waited for the face of a stranger to bloom in her mind. This would be her fifty-second kill. It never got any easier.

Re: [Fic] "The Lion, the Witch, and the Ninja" (only not really ninja; that's just for the sound of

[aishuu.livejournal.com]

You should be very, very careful what memes you use if you want to avoid getting plunnied.

<3 So much fun!!! I really have to wonder at how shinobi children crash into the christian allegory... the cultural values are just so different!

Re: [Fic] "Utilitarian Virtue" -- original

[cherokee1.livejournal.com]

Wow. That... made me really happy.
I am always in awe of those who can make the words do what they please.
Dramatic! Stylings! seems to be a default write device of mine unless it is
academic, and I always feel so silly trying to write a story.
This is wonderful, and I want to know more.
It went down very well, just like all your writing does, smooth flow, interesting ideas,
nice word to picture in head path.
Your stories are an artist's drug, very compelling!
C

Re: [Fic] "The Lion, the Witch, and the Ninja" (only not really ninja; that's just for the sound of

[hungrytiger11.livejournal.com]

Haha! I especially liked the part with Beaver-san!

Re: [Fic] "Utilitarian Virtue" -- original

[edenfalling]

Thanks, I'm glad you liked the snippet!

Re: [Fic] "The Lion, the Witch, and the Ninja" (only not really ninja; that's just for the sound of

[edenfalling]

Well, they are civilian children except for Keiei/Edmund, who has one or two years at the academy under his belt (...I couldn't resist, it explained various things so tidily), but even so. Definitely different cultural expectations! And just because they aren't shinobi doesn't mean they don't have a much greater familiarity with archaic weapons and an ease with the concept and reality of violence than British schoolchildren would.

Re: [Fic] "The Lion, the Witch, and the Ninja" (only not really ninja; that's just for the sound of

[edenfalling]

*grins* I kind of want to write this story properly now, to see how much of Lewis's plot and general thematic stuff I can derail while still keeping the overarching heart of the story.

[animus-wyrmis.livejournal.com]

Tell me about that story where Lucy and Susan go on a quest without their brothers, and Lucy makes a choice and Aslan takes Susan into his confidence.

[Fic] "Grass and Silence" -- <i>Chronicles of Narnia</i>

[edenfalling]

There was no stone or shrine to mark this circular clearing on the riverbank as the place where the legendary Tree had stood for nearly nine hundred years, its magic mingling with the blood and breath of Narnia to keep Jadis out. But somehow it was impossible to mistake. A great good had lived here once, and a great ill had tried to obliterate it. The echoes twined and repeated still in the song of the water over the stones of the riverbed, and Susan was torn between gladness and unease.

"I can see why nobody comes here," she said to Lucy, as her sister knelt to press her hands into the violated earth. "It is not a place to be. Look -- all the trees are leaning away, and the green plants are thin and pale, even more so than the approach of winter warrants."

"It shouldn't be this way," Lucy said, digging her fingers into the soil. "Can't you feel it? The Tree was planted out of love, not out of fear. Its shade was a place to come and be glad, not a place to hold in distant awe. Jadis has no right to this taint on its grave."

"She took many things to which she had no right," Susan pointed out. She stroked her hand gently down the nose of her dumb horse, quieting the restless twitching of its skin.

"So she did. And we have taken them back," Lucy said. She rose, determination painted all over her face. "Sister, winter is coming, but when the spring returns, let us go on a great quest to restore this lost heritage of our land. It will do us good to renew our connection to what truly matters."

By this she meant that it would do Susan good to think of Narnia instead of Rabadash, as she had thought all too often since this summer, but Lucy was too kind to single her sister out that way.

"Perhaps," Susan said, but she knew that come spring, she and Lucy would ride out in search of adventure, for just as Lucy loved everyone, all of Narnia loved her in return and would do almost anything to avoid disappointing her.

-----

Then they drag Edmund into helping them research the history of the Tree over the winter, in spring they go on a quest and there's stuff with Aslan, in summer they fix the problem with the Tree's grave... and in autumn you know what happens with the White Stag. *sigh*

Re: [Fic] &quot;Grass and Silence&quot; -- &lt;i&gt;Chronicles of Narnia&lt;/i&gt;

[animus-wyrmis.livejournal.com]

Uuuuuugh Lewis why do you do this.

I love the idea of Susan questing. It drives me absolutely up a wall when parts of fandom restrict her to boys and lists and dresses and nagging. And sisterrrrrrrrs omg.

Re: [Fic] &quot;Grass and Silence&quot; -- &lt;i&gt;Chronicles of Narnia&lt;/i&gt;

[edenfalling]

I don't understand it, either, because Susan is an excellent person to have along on a quest. She will make sure you have all the correct supplies in the correct amounts, she can hunt game for extra food, she's good at dealing diplomatically with any strangers you meet on the road, plus I bet she knows a lot of stories, since she was the one looking after Edmund and Lucy when they were very small. Practicality is a virtue, not a sin, no matter what Lewis insinuates about it being associated with witches!

Sisters are the best. Brothers are good too, but there should always be more stories about sisters. :-)

...I have far too many projects in the air right now, but I will sit on this idea and see if it grows into a proper fic in the spring.

Re: [Fic] &amp;quot;Grass and Silence&amp;quot; -- &amp;lt;i&amp;gt;Chronicles of Narnia&amp;lt;/i&a

[animus-wyrmis.livejournal.com]

Right?! Susan is on my shortlist of people to take on adventures. She's clever, she's practical, she'll remember to get your coats and she'll probably bring some soap along too. Plus, let's be honest, she's probably more fun to have around than Peter.

:)! I think it would be a really fun fic.