Batch the second, more to come. :)
All prompts drawn from the 2022 iteration of the
Three Sentence Ficathon (
post one and
post two), hosted by the wonderful
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rthstewart. Come play with us!
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( 7. ) For
syrena_of_the_lake:
Narnia AU, Jadis, a different sort of Queen (Take it as literally or cracky as you want!), written 1/15/22
Killer Queen (210 words)
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"The sexual innuendo is disrespectful," Jadis said as the song finished and the disembodied voice resumed its spate of falsely cheerful inanities, "but it's true that my rule would automatically remedy the follies of your world's native leaders, and your gunpowder and guillotines have great entertainment potential. Nonetheless, I fail to see why I should waste time on common musicians and their caterwauling rather than secure one of your nuclear missile launch sites as a power base for my inevitable conquest."
"The thing is, your Majesty, the problem with conquering the world is that then you have to rule it, and that's a
lot of work," said the sweating woman whose 'car' Jadis had commandeered at wand- and knife-point. At Jadis's raised brow, she gulped and added, "It's much more efficient to get rich and famous and pay other people to cater to your every whim. People fall all over themselves to do stupid shit for their idols, and if you're rich enough, you can buy your way out of just about any trouble."
"And you think this presumptuously named band might aid me in such an endeavor?"
The woman shrugged, damp hands shifting on the steering wheel of her cramped, inelegant, and odiferous vehicle. "It's a place to start?"
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( 8. ) For
anonymous, in response to the prompt
any, any, lightning in a bottle, written 1/23/22
Refuge (200 words)
Fandom = original-----
As Amanda stepped over the threshold into the witch's house, she blinked her eyes at the lack of sudden dimness -- the tiny windows had their paisley curtains pulled aside and a fire crackled merrily in the hearth, but those didn't explain how a cramped wooden cottage could be nearly as bright as the noonday sun reflecting off the midwinter snow and ice.
After a moment she noticed a glass bottle wrapped in layers of multi-colored gauze and hung over a cluttered worktable in a net of cords, filled with a searing, shifting glow only slightly softened by the muffling fabric; "What on earth--?" she said, taking a step toward the table, uninjured hand lifted in wonder.
"Ah ah ah, don't touch!" the witch said as she tapped Amanda's legs with her walking stick, leaving a wet, muddy smudge; "That's bottled lightning, a little fallen spark I caught in the last storm and brought home to feed up until it's strong enough to leap home; but even a half-dead flicker of lightning is enough to sear your flesh from your bones, so best you keep back while I fix you up, sort you out, and send you back on your way."
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( 9. ) For
anonymous, in response to the prompt
any, any, purple rain, written 1/23/22
Never Satisfied (85 words)
Fandom = Homestuck-----
TT: I am perfectly well aware that the aesthetic for this absurdly improbable planetoid is pastel rainbows; nonetheless, one might hope for at least scattered locations with a single dominant color theme, such as, to pick one randomly from a hat, a nice, restful lavender.
TG: yeah what even is up with all this happy sparkly shit when you just want to get on down with your woegothic self and dance in the purple rain
TT: ...It's such a shame our friendship had to end.---------------
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( 10. ) For
undeadrobins, in response to the prompt
any, any, tell me you love me, written 1/23/22
And No Other (150 words)
Fandom = Greenwing & Dart-----
"Tell me you love me, Jemis," Lark said with a careless laugh one midwinter afternoon as she lounged by a frost-etched window in the library, and Violet forced herself to watch as Jemis's clever, animated face went slack with drugged adoration.
"Of course I love you; how could I not, when you're the center of my world?" Jemis said, without even an allusion or a doubled meaning, when just that morning he had been chattering to Violet about the depth such poetic devices could lend declarations of intent; and when Lark patted her lap in invitation, he laid down his head as reverently as if her Morrowlea robes were imperial cloth-of-gold.
Lark smirked conspiratorially at Violet, one hand tangled possessively in Jemis's sleek brown hair just as her magic tightened in strangling coils around his own, and Violet allowed Lark to see a hint of pain behind her answering smile.
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( 11. ) For
scytale:
any, any, green was the silence, written 1/23/22
The Interim (200 words)
Fandom = Greenwing & Dart-----
When Astandalas fell, all the bindings the Empire had wrapped around its five close-held worlds shattered, for good or for ill, and all the brighter stars and deeper dark that had been trampled down and barred out for generations crashed down upon the provinces like a roaring spring flood when the ice gives way (as all things give way in their time).
Olive Greenwing felt the ties that bound her to the Woods Noirell strain and screech, and had barely the strength to see her son rush across the suddenly soft-edged room (had the walls always been so tenuous? the angles of the joists so debatable?) with fear etched upon his face before hungry silence swallowed her soul.
In the dim fog where she floated for many days thereafter, she prayed to the bees and the Woods and the honey and the sunlight, and most of all to the Lady of Green and White: that she would wake, that her son would live, that the world would regain shape -- and finally, after a timeless time, when all her words had worn smooth to meaningless sound, a bright leaf sprouted in the emptiness and the Lady's answer tinged the silence green.
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( 12. ) For
violsva:
any, any, and you're not even here / on the coldest night of the year, written 1/24/22
Winternight (420 words)
Fandom = Greenwing & Dart/The Return of Fitzroy Angursell-----
The first Winternight after the Silver Forest, Jullanar was far too busy to think further than a week into the future. Scrimping her way through the bitter East Oriolan winter as an unaccompanied young woman, in a province made tight-fisted and suspicious of strangers by the protracted siege of Galderon and the slowly spiraling civil unrest that the siege had touched off, was difficult enough. Doing so as a wanted outlaw (though she managed to keep
that secret mostly under her hat -- aside from one brief indulgence in the wild lay to help some local highwaymen fleece a truly asinine Voonran notable on a grand tour of the Empire, which had won her a newer, more interesting hat) was even more demanding.
By the second winter, however, she was beginning to feel the weight of expectations looming over her future like the shadow of some great carrion bird -- all the narrow straits she had sidestepped and outrun for years, now gathering pace and lapping at her heels. She was safe (and known, and respected) within Galderon's walls, but once she finished her exams... oh she didn't technically
need to return home to Fiella-by-the-Sea, but what kind of daughter and sister would she be to not at least visit? And she knew herself well enough to see that once she visited, once she set so much as a finger back into the strictures of her former life, it would be next to impossible to leave again.
Not without a friend. With Ayasha or Damian, Pali or Sardeet, Masseo or Pharia, Gadarved or Faleron, to say nothing of Fitzroy, she knew how to be brave, how to turn a moment of outrage into a steady flame that could withstand an empire's scorn, but on her own she was gnawingly certain she would fold.
She lit a candle at sunset, a fat beeswax pillar (no smoky tallow, not for this), and murmured, "White Lady, you who guard us through the winter dark, help me stand strong. I was born Jullanar Thistlethwaite, but I chose -- I
choose -- to be Jullanar of the Sea. Help me know myself. Help me remember."
For a breathless, scorching moment the wick flared like a falling star. Jullanar sprang back, patting her eyebrows with reflexes trained by years of Fitzroy's more experimental spells, which had a distressing tendency to explode. (Fire was always his truest element.)
"Thank you," she whispered, unsure whether she meant the words for the Lady or her absent friend.
Either way, she would keep faith.
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And now, I think, to bed. :)
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