the deep moans round with many voices

This year, the Three Sentence Ficathon has its own dedicated Dreamwidth community: threesentenceficathon.

Here is the information post.

Here is the first ficathon post (now closed for new prompts, but still open for fills!), and here is the second ficathon post. The ficathon will remain open for new prompts through February 12.

Here are my fourth set of fills:

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( 19. ) For siver, in response to the prompt: Howl's Moving Castle, Any, a dash of folly, written 1/17/23.

A Fool and His Folly (165 words)

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"My hair is not a potion ingredient!" Howl yelped as he ducked Sophie's third lunge with the pruning shears and scuttled around the kitchen table; "Even if you did need human hair -- which you don't, unless you're making a healing potion or an emotional influence potion and need to tune it to the drinker, and I'm neither ill nor in need of an attitude adjustment -- my hair has spent so long exposed to magical charms and dyes that it would be an explosively unpredictable reagent."

"That's exactly why I need it," Sophie said, stalking Howl as he backed warily toward the stairs, arms outstretched as if his silk cape might somehow deter her; "It's a luck potion, the instructions call for a dash of folly, and you are the biggest fool I know -- and if chucking explosives into a boiling pot doesn't count as folly, I'd like to know what does! Now stand still and let me snip a piece where it won't be obvious."

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( 20. ) For arveldis, in response to the prompt: Six of Crows/Shadow and Bone, Kaz, I knew that something would always rule me, written 1/17/23.

As a seal upon thy heart (125 words)

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Idealism withers in the face of the Barrel's iron logic, and vengeance inevitably burns itself out in either triumph or death, but all men must have some ruling passion -- the question is whether each man is wise enough to choose his guiding star or whether he lets his appetites and fears make that choice without his knowledge or assent.

Greed is common, as is pride, or any of a thousand particular fears, but vices distort perspective and Kaz relies above all on his ability to see an obstacle or opportunity whole and clear in all its moving parts; money and reputation are useful tools, but poor masters.

Love is even more foolish and delicate a vice than idealism, but for Inej, he's willing to submit.

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( 21. ) For paxilam, in response to the prompt: any, any, trembling reaction, written 1/22/23.

Pawn to Queen Four (245 words)

Fandom = Greenwing & Dart (Victoria Goddard)

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"Why do you wish to serve the Indrillines?" the girl (surely no older than Violet, and while normally she would squash the embers of resentment that her own mother hadn't trusted her with responsibilities equal to what The Indrilline evidently deemed suitable for his heir, now she fanned that lick of flame the better to lend verisimilitude to her act) asked, with a bored smile on her lips that was nearly perfect in its air of casual amusement save for the empty chill that lurked in the corner of her eye.

Violet gathered herself, proud and angry, resentful that she must rely on another's whim to achieve her own ends, and underneath that bravado, fingers trembling with poorly concealed nerves: "I want money, and power, and a shield against the marriage my mother has arranged," she said, letting that truthful stew of emotion flavor her lie; "I see no reason why her promises should bind me when I never swore fealty to her, and I won't swear unconditional loyalty to you either, but I have some talents and some connections among the Lady's faction that I think you'd find useful."

"Presumptuous," the Indrilline girl said, still in that tone of bored amusement; "Tell me, Violet of no family and no name, what conditions would you presume to set upon your loyalty?" and Violet fought not to sway with the sudden rush of relief that she might yet play this game through to its bitter end.

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( 22. ) For dawen, in response to the prompt: any, any, I'd like to have an octopus on my shelf (from this Stardew Valley screenshot), written 1/24/23.

An Ambassador from the Sea (235 words)

Fandom = Nine Worlds (Victoria Goddard)

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"But why do you want to keep the octopus in your workroom?" Kip asked as Fitzroy swept into the house, a sphere of seawater floating above his left shoulder; inside the water, an octopus with a head roughly the size of Kip's fist rippled from gray to ochre and back as it jetted about to peer in all directions.

"If I were rescued from drowning by a strange sea creature and provided with a magical supply of air, I would unquestionably want to stay underwater for a while and learn everything I could about my new situation," Fitzroy said as he flung open assorted cupboards and pulled out miscellaneous glassware that he promptly discarded in a heap on the kitchen table; "Octopuses are highly intelligent, so I think it's only fair to give this one a chance to explore -- one could even argue that as the former Lord Magus of Zunidh, it's my responsibility to provide opportunities to all inhabitants of this world."

"I still think we should have cooked it for lunch; grilled or fried octopus is delicious," Kip said, "but if you want to keep a temporary pet" -- ("Temporary guest!" Fitzroy corrected) -- "then I'm sure someone has a fish tank they'd be willing to lend us for a while; meanwhile, you can tidy your shelves so your new friend will have a view of something other than a thousand sheets of crumpled paper."

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( 23. ) For topaz_eyes, in response to the prompt: Any, any, They say that he got crazy once, and he tried to touch the sun, written 1/24/23.

Alone in the Sky (200 words)

Fandom = Nine Worlds (Victoria Goddard)

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They called it sun-madness at court, though people spoke of it but rarely: the impulse, whether fleeting urge or deep-seated obsession, to touch the Emperor despite the taboos and the certainty of death for anyone who had not undergone months upon months of painstaking ritual purifications to shield them from the blazing vastness of the Empire's magic as it coursed through the linchpin of the Emperor's own flesh.

For some, it was akin to the inexplicable self-destructive curiosity that seizes people at the edge of cliffs or on the brink of some social disaster, that insidious whisper of what would happen if...?; while for others it was an equally destructive need to conquer, to prove one's own strength against the ultimate test; and for still others it was born of greed run wild, crying out to hoard the greatest imaginable treasure where no one else could reach.

If the Emperors and Empresses ever felt an equal but opposite urge down the aching centuries, to reclaim the slender comfort they had known as children before the weight of all Astandalas crashed down upon their shoulders, or to take revenge for the humanity denied them, that was not spoken of at all.

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( 24. ) For primeideal, in response to the prompt: Project Hail Mary, Ryland Grace & or / Rocky, touch-starved, written 1/24/23.

Wire Monkey (135 words)

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Touch isn't quite the same for Eridians as it is for humans: on the one hand, they're a lot less squishy so all contact has to translate through their thick exterior shells and lacks the immediacy we unprotected meat sacks feel; but on the other hand, they're vastly more sensitive to sound, so touch and hearing are very nearly the same thing -- to speak kindly to another Eridian is like the echo of a hug, and to shout in anger is the shadow of a blow.

Which is a long way of saying that I can hug Rocky, more or less, but given our incompatible temperature and atmospheric needs, he can't readily return the gesture -- and I might be going a little squirrelly from lack of human contact.

We've started working on some mechanical arms.

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More to follow!

Here are six fills from the current Three Sentence Ficathon. (I am quite aware that only four of them actually meet the structural requirements. Shush. I do what I want.)

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1. For samparker: Star Trek AOS, Uhura/author's choice, someone playing with her hair, written 2/8/15.

[Gaila/Uhura]

( Sisterhood )

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2. For betony: King Lear, Goneril, Regan, (&Cordelia), they loved their sister once, written 2/9/15.

( Loving-kindness )

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3. For saoirse7: Narnia, Lucy & Susan, adventures of their own, written 2/9/15.

( Interesting Times )

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4. For minutia_r: Homeward Bounders, Joris (/ & author's choice), be prepared, written 2/9/15.

( Be Prepared )

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5. For ruanchunxian0: Any, any, I would follow you to the ends of the earth with only mild complaining, written 2/10/15.

[Homestuck, alpha timeline, Dave/Jade/Rose]

( Gladly Beyond )

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6. For betony: Howl's Moving Castle, Sophie Hatter, the path of pins or the path of needles, written 2/10/15.

( The Grandmother's Tale )

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Yay for writing stuff!