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edenfallingSummary: Rose said later that "I was really fucking bored" was insufficient explanation or indeed justification for the First Triennial Human/Troll Flashstepping Competition. (575 words)
Note: This is a response to the "Leave me the first sentence of a fic and I will write the next five" meme, for![[tumblr.com profile]](https://www.tumblr.com/favicon.ico)
madamehardy, who gave me the summary sentence as a prompt. I had a little trouble with verb tenses, so you get two ficlets for the price of one. :-)
[ETA: the AO3 crosspost is now up!]
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Things To Do Post-Sburb When You're Bored
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Take One:
Rose said later that "I was really fucking bored" was insufficient explanation or indeed justification for the First Triennial Human/Troll Flashstepping Competition, particularly in light of the money their little hippie commune of Sburb survivors now needed to spend on home renovation.
At the time, of course, she was much more sanguine.
"You call that a challenge?" she said to Dave. "No. If I'm going to participate in your little obstacle course, I want to be an obstacle worthy of the name. Flashsteppers must replace the book in my hands with another book, but without A) slowing down enough for me to see them, B) losing my page in the real book, or C) disturbing my hair and clothes. It goes without saying that damage to either my book or the replacement volume will result in a complete loss of points for this round."
"Points?" Dave said, looking slightly overwhelmed.
Rose frowned. "You do have a scorekeeping method, don't you?"
"...No?" Dave ventured after a moment.
Rose sighed and fished around on her nightstand until she found a bookmark. "Right. I see that I have my work cut out for me. You gather your participants, I'll steal Jane's whiteboard, and we'll meet in the kitchen for a council of war."
She pushed her brother out of her bedroom and strode down the upstairs hallway, unwitting of the chaos she was about to unleash.
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Take Two:
Rose said later that "I was really fucking bored" was insufficient explanation or indeed justification for the First Triennial Human/Troll Flashstepping Competition.
"I realize this is a painful truth to digest, considering it goes against all your psycho-fondling instincts, but sometimes there is no subtext," Dave said without bothering to stand up from the cake-smeared carpet, or even to roll over to face upward. "I was bored. It was a thing to do. We did it. End of story. You're just pissed off that Roxy ditched your tea party to compete in the second round."
"If I'm pissed off at anything, it would be the state of this room, not to mention all the other public areas in the compound," Rose said. She prodded Dave's hip with the tip of her shoe. "Furthermore, boredom might explain one round of mayhem, but I fail to understand why you decided to schedule a repeat -- nor why you chose three years as your target interval."
Dave rolled over, then winced as a stray piece of circuit board dug viciously into the small of his back. He contemplated the effort it would take to dig the fragment out, versus the effort of twitching sideways and hoping... yeah, there we go, now it was just like lying on lumpy grass instead of a tiny knife trying to disembowel him. And he didn't have to sit up, score!
"You've heard the phrase 'high on life,' right?" he said.
Rose rolled her eyes. "I refuse to dignify that with an answer."
"Turns out sufficient quantities of boredom have a similar psychedelic effect. Who knew. And now if you will excuse me, I'm going to catch some zees before I zap myself back in time to complete six stable time loops and keep this compound from falling into a doomed timeline, which I think you'll agree is a worse fate than just needing industrial strength spring cleaning."
He closed his eyes with the firmness of the utterly exhausted, and let Rose's passive-aggressive disapproving noises usher him into disjointed, dizzy dreams.
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End of Ficlets
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I don't think these ficlets take place in exactly the same continuity -- Rose's participation level doesn't quite match up between them -- but they use the same implicit background of the various players all living together in some sort of communal housing.
Note: This is a response to the "Leave me the first sentence of a fic and I will write the next five" meme, for
[ETA: the AO3 crosspost is now up!]
---------------------------------------------
Things To Do Post-Sburb When You're Bored
---------------------------------------------
Take One:
Rose said later that "I was really fucking bored" was insufficient explanation or indeed justification for the First Triennial Human/Troll Flashstepping Competition, particularly in light of the money their little hippie commune of Sburb survivors now needed to spend on home renovation.
At the time, of course, she was much more sanguine.
"You call that a challenge?" she said to Dave. "No. If I'm going to participate in your little obstacle course, I want to be an obstacle worthy of the name. Flashsteppers must replace the book in my hands with another book, but without A) slowing down enough for me to see them, B) losing my page in the real book, or C) disturbing my hair and clothes. It goes without saying that damage to either my book or the replacement volume will result in a complete loss of points for this round."
"Points?" Dave said, looking slightly overwhelmed.
Rose frowned. "You do have a scorekeeping method, don't you?"
"...No?" Dave ventured after a moment.
Rose sighed and fished around on her nightstand until she found a bookmark. "Right. I see that I have my work cut out for me. You gather your participants, I'll steal Jane's whiteboard, and we'll meet in the kitchen for a council of war."
She pushed her brother out of her bedroom and strode down the upstairs hallway, unwitting of the chaos she was about to unleash.
---------------
---------------
---------------
Take Two:
Rose said later that "I was really fucking bored" was insufficient explanation or indeed justification for the First Triennial Human/Troll Flashstepping Competition.
"I realize this is a painful truth to digest, considering it goes against all your psycho-fondling instincts, but sometimes there is no subtext," Dave said without bothering to stand up from the cake-smeared carpet, or even to roll over to face upward. "I was bored. It was a thing to do. We did it. End of story. You're just pissed off that Roxy ditched your tea party to compete in the second round."
"If I'm pissed off at anything, it would be the state of this room, not to mention all the other public areas in the compound," Rose said. She prodded Dave's hip with the tip of her shoe. "Furthermore, boredom might explain one round of mayhem, but I fail to understand why you decided to schedule a repeat -- nor why you chose three years as your target interval."
Dave rolled over, then winced as a stray piece of circuit board dug viciously into the small of his back. He contemplated the effort it would take to dig the fragment out, versus the effort of twitching sideways and hoping... yeah, there we go, now it was just like lying on lumpy grass instead of a tiny knife trying to disembowel him. And he didn't have to sit up, score!
"You've heard the phrase 'high on life,' right?" he said.
Rose rolled her eyes. "I refuse to dignify that with an answer."
"Turns out sufficient quantities of boredom have a similar psychedelic effect. Who knew. And now if you will excuse me, I'm going to catch some zees before I zap myself back in time to complete six stable time loops and keep this compound from falling into a doomed timeline, which I think you'll agree is a worse fate than just needing industrial strength spring cleaning."
He closed his eyes with the firmness of the utterly exhausted, and let Rose's passive-aggressive disapproving noises usher him into disjointed, dizzy dreams.
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End of Ficlets
---------------------------------------------
I don't think these ficlets take place in exactly the same continuity -- Rose's participation level doesn't quite match up between them -- but they use the same implicit background of the various players all living together in some sort of communal housing.
