the deep moans round with many voices

The first is actually from the previous iteration of the ficathon. It is an alternate fill for a prompt which I didn't post to the ficathon itself because it requires a bunch of contextual information to make sense. In other words, it's set loosely in the world of Sunbright and Shadowfall, which works because "Sunbright and Shadowfall" is itself loosely based on Sleeping Beauty (among other things), so tossing in a Beauty and the Beast episode for a previous Queen-in-Waiting seemed reasonable.

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( 31. ) For silvr_dagger: Beauty and the Beast (Disney or fairy tale; f/f genderswap), Beauty (or Belle)/Beast, roses in the snow, written 1/14/17

signs and bargains (150 words)

Beauty is the thirteenth bride sacrificed to the transformed princess: wrapped in wedding clothes, handed a spear and a sword, and sent through the thorny, snow-swathed gates to guard the woman whose spell-twisted life keeps the town at the fortress's feet safe from the ravages of the Shining Ones, for they are bound never to kill a would-be, could-be Queen before she fulfills the Great Sign; perhaps the bargain the town has struck is hollow, trading their own safety for the hope of the world at large, but Beauty has two sisters each with children of their own, and she goes willingly to shield them.

As the gates swing shut and silence swallows the bone-white courtyard, the princess greets her with a petal in one clawed hand, and a thorn in the other. "Welcome, jailer," she says in her hoarse, bear-deep voice, tongue a bloody flicker between nightmare fangs; "Choose our fate."

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Anyway, here is the link to the current ficathon, if you want to come play too. :)

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( 1. ) For caramelsilver: Narnia, Susan, to be, written 12/5/17 [AO3 version]

that have chalked forth the way (200 words)

Susan examined the grassy depression between the trees with a considering eye: once it might have held a pool, and thus a universe now dead and forgotten, or it might have waited dry and quiet as long as the Wood had stood in this place between places, wrapped in green and silent slumber, but either way it held potential.

Archimedes once claimed that, given a lever and a place to stand, he would move the earth; he had dreamed too small.

Shaking the Wood's lethargy from her shoulders, Susan unscrewed her canteen and poured its contents -- ordinary London tap water, drawn from her kitchen sink after the breakfast washing-up and before she wrote a letter explaining her absence to her landlady -- into the deepest part of the hollow, until a little marshy pocket formed, and then, before it could all seep away and be lost, she touched the green Ring in her pocket and stepped into the puddle; "Be," she told the seed of a universe, teetering on the edge of life, and as the magic took hold and swirled her downward through darkness and stars, she wondered what she might find in this newborn world of her own making.

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( 2. ) For lizzie_marie_23: Narnia, Edmund, network, written 12/5/17 [AO3 version]

hope, like roads across the earth (250 words)

"The old road went along the north side of the Glasswater -- you can still see a few paving stones under the moss on that eyot -- but the naiads must have shifted the riverbed during the Winter and now we'll either have to petition them to allow a ford to the southern bank, or cut a new path through the forest around those hills; going straight up would make too steep a grade for carts and staying this close to the water risks mudslides or washouts after heavy rain," said Steelclaw the Badger, newly appointed head of the Royal Surveyors, as she painstakingly corrected her century-old topographical map with a greasy pencil.

Edmund sighed and kicked the potholed, grass-choked ruts of the old stone road they'd traced westward from the coast; "Let's stick a pin in that question until the census finishes and we have more than hearsay and guesses about where people actually live, and which villages the repatriates are likely to rebuild," he said, then added in response to Steelclaw's frown, "I know good craftsmanship is its own reward, but we don't have the budget to repair roads to places nobody lives anymore."

Reestablishing Narnia's transportation network was a lot more work than he'd imagined on his way to the Witch's castle, but he supposed that was always the way of things; real life involved much more drudgery, sore feet, and embarrassing mistakes, but unlike enchantments and spiteful dreams that melted like ice in summer, things built honestly would last.

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( 3. ) For anonymous: Any, any, a million birds on the branches of my heart, written 12/6/17 [AO3 version]

you can be me when I'm gone (125 words)

Cherubs aren't meant to love, no more than a forest loves the myriad creatures that shelter in its branches, but somehow Calliope's alternate self -- weak and dominated by her brother, with no notion of her powers nor intent to use them -- has learned to trace the flight of individual birds, to walk among them and care about their fate.

She isn't very good at it yet, Calliope thinks, but she has time and life to practice, and friends to help her on her way; she'll learn and change, the way Calliope herself will never manage, too fixed on her eternal war with Caliborn and her chance to finally make an end.

As the singularity swallows her forever, Calliope watches her other self fly free of the game, and smiles.

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( 4. ) For lizzie_marie_23: Othello/Macbeth, Iago & or / Lady Macbeth, "I'll fleece him presently", written 12/6/17 [AO3 version, now with entirely iambic pentameter dialogue!]

When in Rome (300 words exactly)

The Scottish queen has some sin on her soul, as is true for most who hold power; Iago would not care but that some pang of conscience (or the need to mask herself with piety) drives her to bestow gold upon Venice's war with Turk, through the medium of his general, come south to Rome to bargain with the Pope for peace on land so that Venice may focus on the islands and the sea.

He pours his own share into Othello's hands, save for one gold coin -- "That is recompense to Emilia, for her lost chance at praying before Peter's throne," he says in answer to the Moor's questioning glance, "but you need courting gifts more than I these days, to win fair Desdemona's troth" -- and smiles and shrugs when Othello laughs and warns him not to be too honest lest he destroy his marriage.

"My husband swore loyalty to a king who showed him little favor in return," the queen murmurs unexpectedly in Iago's ear as Othello strides away, and he fights down his reflexive reach for his absent sword; "I do think you forged of similar metal, in which case I remind you that such fruitless generosity to careless lords serves strong men ill in the end."

He is rarely impulsive, nor prone to show his hand, and yet he bends his head to brush his lips against her white hand, the picture of a simple soldier awed and fumbling before a highborn foreign lady, however barbarous and northern her land, and murmurs in return: "I know. And I shall fleece him presently."

"Honest indeed," says the Scottish queen, and though she rubs her knuckles as if to wash away his kiss, she smiles like daggers in the night, one sinner to an equally stained soul.

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Note: The time periods of these plays do not match up AT ALL, but what the heck, let's pretend! :) Double fill, and also a triple drabble.

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( 5. ) For iawenbemerry: The Defenders, Foggy, aftermath, written 12/8/17 [AO3 version]

for the living (300 words)

The thing about an unexpected death is that it unleashes a flood of huge, wrenching, and time-sensitive decisions exactly when the people left behind are worst equipped to handle those responsibilities.

Foggy's used to being the person hired to take some of that weight off other people's shoulders, and now he thinks he might have been underselling his services, based on how much he wants to curl up under an afghan, sleep the clock around, and let someone else sort through the detritus of Matt's life; but there isn't anyone else he trusts to both keep Matt's secrets and make sensible, legally-defensible choices about bequests and taxes and stock portfolios -- except Karen, of course, but executing Matt's will, clearing out his apartment, cancelling his delivery services, telling Josie he wouldn't be swinging by the bar anymore... all of that would hurt her just as badly as it hurts Foggy and if nothing else he wants to save her from these extra shards of glass in the heart.

"I hope your religion is right enough about heaven and stuff that you're up there hugging your dad right now," Foggy says to the ceiling as he sits on the bare floor of Matt's stripped apartment, drinking the last bottle of Matt's shitty imported beer, "but as soon as you're done with the reunion, you should look down and start feeling guilty about the mess you left, just like I said you would, you asshole; you don't get to be perfectly happy without me and Karen," and if he closes his eyes and pretends he can hear Matt's rueful, self-deprecating laugh, that's between nobody but him and Hell's Kitchen, and this neighborhood can keep one last secret for the idiot who poured out his life in its name.

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( 6. ) For anonymous: Any, any, do not weep, maiden, for war is kind, written 12/8/17 [AO3 version]

Three Views of Alternia (100 words exactly)

War is kind: it brings power, wealth, and everything Meenah dreamed of as a wiggler, a whole world within her grasp to shape to her smallest whim.

War is kind: it kills clean and quick, unlike the waking death of regrets and degradation that grinds Porrim down, until her owner's play at love almost seems a comfort instead of another violation.

War is kind: it paints a story vast as the heavens, that will last as long as the empire, and Aranea weaves herself into the center where her death will set the capstone on the rebellion's inevitable, glorious defeat.

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More to follow at some point, probably!

Summary: In which Sunbright unexpectedly acquires a body-servant. (525 words)

( Cast a Shadow )

I really need to write their actual first meeting sometime, and maybe also the explanation of why Shadowfall was working in the fortress kitchens in the first place. ...Or I could just finish outlining the novel and start work on that. That is also a possibility. *sigh*

Summary: Sunbright has a complicated relationship to the prophecy that shaped her life. (425 words)

Note: More exploratory noodling for "Sunbright and Shadowfall." This is my initial attempt at Sunbright's POV, though it's not very tight; there are shades of third person omniscient around the edges. But it's kind of hard to write a story if you don't have a handle on one of the two main characters. *wry*

( The Queen in Waiting )

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Yay, I wrote a thing!

Summary: The sleeping city is empty now, but Shadowfall cannot take that final step beyond the thorns. (350 words)

Note: Some more exploratory noodling for "Sunbright and Shadowfall." Details are, of course, subject to change as I hammer out more concrete world-building.

( Penance )

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Yay, I wrote a thing! (I've been feeling kind of blah and uncreative this week -- which I think is situational, due to November weather and screwed up sleep schedule -- so it's nice to get some words down on paper, as it were.) Anyway, this vignette would fall either late in chapter 5 or early in chapter 7 of my current outline, as Shadowfall slowly drifts away from any hope of breaking the curse. (Chapter 6 is where Sunbright accidentally learns how to dreamwalk.)

Some more noodling around for "Sunbright and Shadowfall," that Sleeping-Beauty-with-lesbians-and-world-conquest story I mentioned a while back. This is a moment from Shadowfall's childhood, before things go terribly wrong for her family. (600 words)

( Paved with Love )

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The princess that Shadowfall's father mentions is Sunbright, by the way. Yes, she has a Sleeping Beauty curse. No, that is not the main point of her story. I did mention the whole "conquering the world" part, right? :-)