The 2023 Three Sentence Ficathon is live!!
This year, to spare poor![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rthstewart's inbox, Ruth has some co-mods and the ficathon now has its own dedicated Dreamwidth community: ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
threesentenceficathon.
Here is the information post.
And here is the first ficathon post. The ficathon started yesterday, on January 13, and will remain open for new prompts through February 12.
Anyway, here's my first set of fills:
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( 1. ) Forwearing_tearing, in response to the prompt: any, any, tarot, written 1/13/23
Cards on the Table (385 words)
Fandom = Greenwing & Dart (Victoria Goddard)
-----
"Fascinating," I said, shuffling the Tarot cards one final time before returning the deck to the Ystharian ambassador's niece, a young woman of indeterminate ancestry with scandalously short hair and an ingenious set of spectacles that Hope assured me could not possibly be made from glass. "The symbolism is rich despite the repetitive nature of the suits, and the Major Arcana add additional layers of possibility -- what games do you play with them?"
"Hardly any these days," Miss Soledad Aguilar said as she tucked the cards into the canvas satchel slung over her shoulder. "We use a simplified version of the minor arcana for thousands of games, but the full deck is mostly used for divination, which means many people think playing games with the Major Arcana is disrespectful or dangerous -- though most card-based divination is of dubious strength or accuracy."
I thought of the layers of Poacher, the ways that prosaic gameplay and the more arcane aspects intertwined to build upon each other until the great masters could nearly read a man's soul from his discards, and slipped my own deck from my pocket. "I think we took the opposite road on Alinor," I said as I fanned out the deck, displaying various Fish and Happenstance cards to Miss Aguilar's evident interest, "to the point where some people will deny Poacher has any power beyond that of parting fools from their money, but I assure you from personal experience that the cards can speak messages from the gods themselves."
"Fascinating," Miss Aguilar echoed, pausing for my nod before she slipped a pair of cards (the Salmon of Wisdom and Friend with Errand) from my hands to examine. "Mr. Greenwing, I believe there's an empty table under the pergola. Would you mind teaching me the basic rules of Poacher in return for instruction in some simple Tarot spreads? With, perhaps, the Lady Violet to help both of us demonstrate -- I know one of my uncle's predecessors taught her some Tarot, which is why I brought my deck in the first place -- and I assume she knows at least the rudiments of Poacher."
"Miss Aguilar, it would be my pleasure," I returned, and clicked my heels and offered her my most elaborate bow before I began pushing through the crowded afternoon fete in search of Violet.
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( 2. ) Forbetony, in response to the prompt: Queen’s Thief, Gen/Attolia, apotheosis, written 1/13/23
Prayer Like a Knife (170 words)
-----
Eugenides is named for a god and touched by a god; sometimes, in some lights, he may even embody that god; and these days he carries the painful brightness of that attention, visible only from the corner of one's eye: a flaring ember of divine fire and glory that reflects from his eyes and teeth like the breath of dew rising from grass at the touch of morning sun.
Attolia bows to the altar in the temple she has erected to honor her husband's gods and says, so quietly that no air moves to carry her words to mortal ears, "If you steal him, or burn him up in your plans, I will find a way to lay siege to your heavens myself until you repay the fullness of my loss."
As she steps back into the light of day, she ignores the way her shadow seems fainter and less sharp-edged than those of her handmaidens, as if some impossible light has lingered in her hair and beneath her skin.
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( 3. ) Forwingedflight, in response to the prompt: Duck Hunt (discord game), Strong Duck, shake it off, written 1/13/23
Horatius at the Bridge (90 words)
-----
If you can hold them off long enough -- just one more bullet, one jammed gun, one pause to reload or change out a magazine -- your sister will have time to set off the explosion.
The hunters think it's murder-suicide, but in truth it's only cover fire to let the younger, sillier members of the flock escape.
A third bullet smashes through your wing and you stumble at the searing pain of shattered flight feathers, but you're not dead yet, and you will sell your life as dearly as you can.
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( 4. ) Forwingedflight, in response to the prompt: any, any, this is the darkest timeline, written 1/13/23
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines (340 words)
Fandom = Nine Worlds (Victoria Goddard)
-----
"This is, without a doubt, the darkest timeline that has ever, will ever, and could ever exist," Fitzroy announced as he burst out of the tent (much larger on the inside, courtesy of some highly experimental magic) where the rest of the Red Company were taking their ease after a filling lunch.
Jullanar counted to ten, then uncricked her neck and glanced up from the ethnographic and cartographic study of southern Colhélhé that she had bargained fiercely for in a small market stall just that morning. Fitzroy looked slightly put-out at her delay in giving him her full attention, but neither calm enough nor wild enough for this to truly be serious, and so she merely raised one eyebrow and said, leadingly, "Oh?"
"Yes, because Pali ate the last of your gingersnaps and laughed at me for being too slow to claim it," Fitzroy said, and flung himself down on the grass to rest his head in Jullanar's lap like an oversized cat -- or perhaps like a younger brother asking for comfort without yet knowing how to vocalize his needs.
Jullanar wondered if he would ever tell them the truth about his childhood, and what he had been doing before he fell out of the sky and into that rowboat between her and Damian. She was fairly sure it couldn't have been anything pleasant, not with the way he sometimes treated normal human interaction like a vast, intricate puzzle constructed by intelligences as foreign as, say, termites.
She was equally certain that mentioning her concerns wouldn't help anything.
"I'll bake some more gingersnaps after I finish my chapter," she said, "if, and only if, you hold very still and let me use you as a bookrest. I think that's a reasonable bargain."
"Deal," Fitzroy said instantly, and closed his eyes. Soon thereafter he drifted off to sleep, and Jullanar allowed herself the small pleasure of combing her fingers gently through the wild curls and squiggles of his hair.
She read three chapters rather than disturb him before he woke on his own.
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( 5. ) Forscytale, in response to the prompt: any, any, sheep, written 1/13/23
A Good Shepherd (180 words)
Fandom = The Dark Is Rising
-----
"The thing about sheep, see, is that they make sense," Bran said as he and Will wedged their hands under nearly twelve stone of panicky flesh and sodden fleece, then heaved the fallen sheep off her back and onto her side; the sheep hastily scrambled to her feet and staggered off on wobbly legs toward the rest of her flock.
"They may not be the brightest, or the most sensibly designed," Bran continued, wiping his muddy, oily hands on his equally muddy trousers, "but sheep want to have enough food and water, to be around other sheep, to make little baby sheep at the right time of year, to not get too hot or cold, and to not get eaten by wolves or minks or terrifying sheepdogs -- simple and sensible, and easy enough for a farmer to arrange -- and they don't bother with things like taxes or religion or the costs and benefits of the devolution of parliamentary authority."
"I know where you're going with this," Will said preemptively, "and no, I won't replace the British government with sheep."
"Shame."
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( 6. ) Forwingedflight, in response to the prompt: Sandman, Dream, Rose, and Jed, family dinners, written 1/13/23
First Steps (230 words)
-----
"Is family dinner going to be a regular thing?" Rose asked as Jed excitedly handed his dinner request to the chef; "Because if this is going to be a regular thing, you need to tell me so I can rearrange my schedule and fall asleep normally instead of you showing up out of nowhere to blow sand in my face and only explain after the fact."
(There were no gilded and leather-bound menus to match the fancy silverware and china plates of the private dining room Dream had conjured up to the left of the great hall, just two blank sheets of heavy paper that the fanged chef assured the Walker siblings would record the foods they wanted most, even if they didn't consciously know what those foods were; Rose admitted it was a neat trick, and mentally awarded Dream a half point on her tally sheet -- at this rate, he might break out of the negative before Jed was old enough to vote.)
Dream looked even more stiff and awkward than normal, which should have been anatomically impossible, but he somehow managed; "You have my apologies for the short notice, and my word that, if you and Jed find yourselves willing to attempt another meal after this, I would be willing to visit the waking world so that you may choose a time and location more convenient for you."
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---------------------------------------------
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More to follow!
This year, to spare poor
rthstewart's inbox, Ruth has some co-mods and the ficathon now has its own dedicated Dreamwidth community: threesentenceficathon.Here is the information post.
And here is the first ficathon post. The ficathon started yesterday, on January 13, and will remain open for new prompts through February 12.
Anyway, here's my first set of fills:
---------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------
( 1. ) For
wearing_tearing, in response to the prompt: any, any, tarot, written 1/13/23Cards on the Table (385 words)
Fandom = Greenwing & Dart (Victoria Goddard)
-----
"Fascinating," I said, shuffling the Tarot cards one final time before returning the deck to the Ystharian ambassador's niece, a young woman of indeterminate ancestry with scandalously short hair and an ingenious set of spectacles that Hope assured me could not possibly be made from glass. "The symbolism is rich despite the repetitive nature of the suits, and the Major Arcana add additional layers of possibility -- what games do you play with them?"
"Hardly any these days," Miss Soledad Aguilar said as she tucked the cards into the canvas satchel slung over her shoulder. "We use a simplified version of the minor arcana for thousands of games, but the full deck is mostly used for divination, which means many people think playing games with the Major Arcana is disrespectful or dangerous -- though most card-based divination is of dubious strength or accuracy."
I thought of the layers of Poacher, the ways that prosaic gameplay and the more arcane aspects intertwined to build upon each other until the great masters could nearly read a man's soul from his discards, and slipped my own deck from my pocket. "I think we took the opposite road on Alinor," I said as I fanned out the deck, displaying various Fish and Happenstance cards to Miss Aguilar's evident interest, "to the point where some people will deny Poacher has any power beyond that of parting fools from their money, but I assure you from personal experience that the cards can speak messages from the gods themselves."
"Fascinating," Miss Aguilar echoed, pausing for my nod before she slipped a pair of cards (the Salmon of Wisdom and Friend with Errand) from my hands to examine. "Mr. Greenwing, I believe there's an empty table under the pergola. Would you mind teaching me the basic rules of Poacher in return for instruction in some simple Tarot spreads? With, perhaps, the Lady Violet to help both of us demonstrate -- I know one of my uncle's predecessors taught her some Tarot, which is why I brought my deck in the first place -- and I assume she knows at least the rudiments of Poacher."
"Miss Aguilar, it would be my pleasure," I returned, and clicked my heels and offered her my most elaborate bow before I began pushing through the crowded afternoon fete in search of Violet.
---------------
---------------
( 2. ) For
betony, in response to the prompt: Queen’s Thief, Gen/Attolia, apotheosis, written 1/13/23Prayer Like a Knife (170 words)
-----
Eugenides is named for a god and touched by a god; sometimes, in some lights, he may even embody that god; and these days he carries the painful brightness of that attention, visible only from the corner of one's eye: a flaring ember of divine fire and glory that reflects from his eyes and teeth like the breath of dew rising from grass at the touch of morning sun.
Attolia bows to the altar in the temple she has erected to honor her husband's gods and says, so quietly that no air moves to carry her words to mortal ears, "If you steal him, or burn him up in your plans, I will find a way to lay siege to your heavens myself until you repay the fullness of my loss."
As she steps back into the light of day, she ignores the way her shadow seems fainter and less sharp-edged than those of her handmaidens, as if some impossible light has lingered in her hair and beneath her skin.
---------------
---------------
( 3. ) For
wingedflight, in response to the prompt: Duck Hunt (discord game), Strong Duck, shake it off, written 1/13/23Horatius at the Bridge (90 words)
-----
If you can hold them off long enough -- just one more bullet, one jammed gun, one pause to reload or change out a magazine -- your sister will have time to set off the explosion.
The hunters think it's murder-suicide, but in truth it's only cover fire to let the younger, sillier members of the flock escape.
A third bullet smashes through your wing and you stumble at the searing pain of shattered flight feathers, but you're not dead yet, and you will sell your life as dearly as you can.
---------------
---------------
( 4. ) For
wingedflight, in response to the prompt: any, any, this is the darkest timeline, written 1/13/23Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines (340 words)
Fandom = Nine Worlds (Victoria Goddard)
-----
"This is, without a doubt, the darkest timeline that has ever, will ever, and could ever exist," Fitzroy announced as he burst out of the tent (much larger on the inside, courtesy of some highly experimental magic) where the rest of the Red Company were taking their ease after a filling lunch.
Jullanar counted to ten, then uncricked her neck and glanced up from the ethnographic and cartographic study of southern Colhélhé that she had bargained fiercely for in a small market stall just that morning. Fitzroy looked slightly put-out at her delay in giving him her full attention, but neither calm enough nor wild enough for this to truly be serious, and so she merely raised one eyebrow and said, leadingly, "Oh?"
"Yes, because Pali ate the last of your gingersnaps and laughed at me for being too slow to claim it," Fitzroy said, and flung himself down on the grass to rest his head in Jullanar's lap like an oversized cat -- or perhaps like a younger brother asking for comfort without yet knowing how to vocalize his needs.
Jullanar wondered if he would ever tell them the truth about his childhood, and what he had been doing before he fell out of the sky and into that rowboat between her and Damian. She was fairly sure it couldn't have been anything pleasant, not with the way he sometimes treated normal human interaction like a vast, intricate puzzle constructed by intelligences as foreign as, say, termites.
She was equally certain that mentioning her concerns wouldn't help anything.
"I'll bake some more gingersnaps after I finish my chapter," she said, "if, and only if, you hold very still and let me use you as a bookrest. I think that's a reasonable bargain."
"Deal," Fitzroy said instantly, and closed his eyes. Soon thereafter he drifted off to sleep, and Jullanar allowed herself the small pleasure of combing her fingers gently through the wild curls and squiggles of his hair.
She read three chapters rather than disturb him before he woke on his own.
---------------
---------------
( 5. ) For
scytale, in response to the prompt: any, any, sheep, written 1/13/23A Good Shepherd (180 words)
Fandom = The Dark Is Rising
-----
"The thing about sheep, see, is that they make sense," Bran said as he and Will wedged their hands under nearly twelve stone of panicky flesh and sodden fleece, then heaved the fallen sheep off her back and onto her side; the sheep hastily scrambled to her feet and staggered off on wobbly legs toward the rest of her flock.
"They may not be the brightest, or the most sensibly designed," Bran continued, wiping his muddy, oily hands on his equally muddy trousers, "but sheep want to have enough food and water, to be around other sheep, to make little baby sheep at the right time of year, to not get too hot or cold, and to not get eaten by wolves or minks or terrifying sheepdogs -- simple and sensible, and easy enough for a farmer to arrange -- and they don't bother with things like taxes or religion or the costs and benefits of the devolution of parliamentary authority."
"I know where you're going with this," Will said preemptively, "and no, I won't replace the British government with sheep."
"Shame."
---------------
---------------
( 6. ) For
wingedflight, in response to the prompt: Sandman, Dream, Rose, and Jed, family dinners, written 1/13/23First Steps (230 words)
-----
"Is family dinner going to be a regular thing?" Rose asked as Jed excitedly handed his dinner request to the chef; "Because if this is going to be a regular thing, you need to tell me so I can rearrange my schedule and fall asleep normally instead of you showing up out of nowhere to blow sand in my face and only explain after the fact."
(There were no gilded and leather-bound menus to match the fancy silverware and china plates of the private dining room Dream had conjured up to the left of the great hall, just two blank sheets of heavy paper that the fanged chef assured the Walker siblings would record the foods they wanted most, even if they didn't consciously know what those foods were; Rose admitted it was a neat trick, and mentally awarded Dream a half point on her tally sheet -- at this rate, he might break out of the negative before Jed was old enough to vote.)
Dream looked even more stiff and awkward than normal, which should have been anatomically impossible, but he somehow managed; "You have my apologies for the short notice, and my word that, if you and Jed find yourselves willing to attempt another meal after this, I would be willing to visit the waking world so that you may choose a time and location more convenient for you."
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More to follow!
