the deep moans round with many voices

Batch the twelfth. :)

All prompts drawn from the 2021 iteration of the Three Sentence Ficathon (post one and post two), hosted by the wonderful rthstewart. The ficathon is now closed to new prompts, but you can continue filling prompts and commenting on other people's fills for as long as you like!

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( 67. ) For anonymous: Any, any, a goddess made of starlight and shadows, written 3/31/21

Creator of the Stars of Night (95 words)

Fandom = The Silmarillion

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It is easy to forget, when faced with her glory, that Varda is not only a goddess of light. She who wrought the stars and set them on high as a comfort and a warning, she whose sight is keen, whose mind is clear, whose purpose adamant, she whose touch destroys evil, is too vast for light alone to encompass the truth of her being, no more than the brilliance of her stars can encompass the whole of the sky.

You must always remember that for the stars to shine, there must first be dark.

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( 68. ) For notapaladin: Any, any/any, daemon AU, written 5/19/21

Sense of Self (1,845 words)

Fandom = The Murderbot Diaries

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Humans and augmented humans tend to assume that constructs have daemons because we straddle the line between true sentience and a bunch of pre-programmed subroutines mindlessly following orders (not that humans are as clearly on one side of that line as they like to think), but it has nothing to do with intelligence levels. It's just that we have a lot of organic parts mostly made from human genetic material, and where you have life composed of human DNA, you eventually get a daemon.

It's even odds whether the fact that our daemons never settle makes humans and augmented humans more or less uncomfortable around us. On the one hand, that kind of flexibility is unnatural for anyone with an adult-sized body, which makes us seem less relatable. On the other hand, humans tend to react negatively to the idea of juvenile humans (or their equivalents of other species) either killing or being killed. This is probably why it's company policy for SecUnits keep our daemons small and hidden within our armor -- unless we're in active combat, in which case there's a short list of approved battle forms.

We do settle sometimes, of course. Even governor modules and memory wipes can't always stop us from developing a sense of self stable enough to coax a daemon into a single form.

This is the second most common reason SecUnits are junked and recycled.

( cut for length )

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( 69. ) For rthstewart: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, any, reclaiming the narrative, written 5/26/21

Take a Third Option (310 words)

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"Want, take, have," Faith told Buffy back in the day, before the murder and torture and betrayal and all that -- and the thing is, the thing it took her a year in prison to sort out, piecing herself together without the pressure to play to or against anyone else's expectations (turns out, you beat a couple assholes up the first week in gen pop and treat the guards like part of the machinery, and most people are real quick to leave you alone), is this: she wasn't wrong.

Yeah, she fucked up the execution (turns out, just 'cause nobody ever respected her boundaries wasn't a reason to ignore everyone else's in turn; that's just passing on the trauma and pretending it's cool), but the core of it, the raw, bloody, beating heart that screamed her right to have desires -- to want sex, power, respect, love, life -- isn't dirty or shameful or whatever the fuck society feeds girls from babies to grandmas, all those lies about nurture and purity and selflessness until you start to think, fuck it, if wanting makes you evil, then why not be evil -- at least then you can be yourself instead of a shadow of all the people pressed around you, hungry, trying to hack off bits of your self and your soul until you fit their pet narrative.

Turns out, femme fatale is just as much somebody else's story as chaste heroine -- that old Madonna/whore thing Giles mentioned once to Wesley when they didn't realize Faith was in earshot, where you can be good or you can want things, but never both together -- and Faith is done with playing that game; when she gets out, she'll be more thoughtful with her methods (turns out, sometimes if you ask, people will even give you stuff without threats or bribes), but what she wants, she'll win.

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( 70. ) For anonymous: Any, any, a singing bird will come, written 5/26/21

A Wilderness in the Heart (195 words)

Fandom = The Magnus Archives

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When Agnes is young, it's easy to keep herself open to the voice of her god: to build her heart into a bonfire, to scour away doubt, to drown her very self in the task she was born to complete.

But as the years wear on, as Gertrude's web binds her and the Cult of Lightless Flame splinters around her, Agnes finds certainty hard to hold: the fire fades, the sandstorm stills, the flood ebbs, and Agnes watches the strange green shoots of new thoughts sprout first into weeds (hastily yanked and scorched) and then into moss, thickets, trees -- a thorny forest of questions and yearning.

When she meets Jack Barnabas, she realizes that for all her changes, for all the greenery choking her heart, her soul's landscape is still barren -- no birds have come to build their nests and sing -- and try as she might, she can never outrun the inferno whose embers crackle within her bones; happiness is not within her reach.

Despair feeds the god she no longer wants to serve; better to lay herself waste and let something new, something stronger, take root in her ashes and struggle towards the sun.

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( 71. ) For anonymous: Any, any, nectarines, written 5/27/21

All Summer in a Bite (180 words)

Fandom = Chronicles of Narnia

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Calavar was not peach country -- land good for horses was generally poor for orchards, and vice versa -- but Mezreel claimed all fruits among its thousand delights, and while Aravis would personally contest the quality of their figs and dates, none could truthfully speak against their plums and pears, apples and cherries, their pomegranates and nectarines.

One of her earliest memories was the flash of midsummer sun on her brother's knife, slicing through the delicate, already-bruising skin of a firm, white nectarine and his deft fingers holding out a slice for her own clumsy, plump-fleshed hands to grasp; the juice burst sweet and tart over her tongue like a dream she had forgotten and would yearn for from that day forward.

Archenland was not peach country either, but an esplanade on a south-facing wall, netting and heated stones to guard against late spring frost, bone meal and eggshells kneaded into soil, and a certain amount of bloody-minded faith won her and Cor peaches two years out of three, and her children grew with the taste of summer dreams upon their lips.

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( 72. ) For notapaladin: Any, any, a broken crown for a broken throne, written 5/27/21

Final Tithe (90 words)

Fandom = The Magnus Archives

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King of a ruined world? Why so you shall become, but your throne will be the threads of the trap that binds you helpless as your doom approaches, step by step from the pitiless north; and your crown will be the certainty of death: at first the barest drop dyeing the flood of others' fears, but waxing, ever waxing, until the multitudinous seas run incarnadine with your oldest terror come home to roost.

Enjoy it, Jonah Magnus, in the sliver of thought that remains to you before your self-wrought End.

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And that's as many as I wrote last year, though spread out over a significantly longer period.

I may keep going -- these are nice finger exercises when I don't have the brain to work on anything longer or more complicated.

I should probably also get started on cross-posting them to AO3. *sigh*

Batch the fifth. :)

All prompts drawn from the current iteration of the Three Sentence Ficathon, hosted by the wonderful rthstewart. Come join the fun!

Note: The first ficathon post is now closed to new prompts (though still open for fills and replies!), and you can find the new, second post at https://rthstewart.dreamwidth.org/168256.html.

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( 25. ) For undeadrobins: any sci-fi/space fandom, any, from the point of view of a spaceship, written 2/9/21

Precious, Fragile Things (345 words)

Fandom = The Murderbot Diaries

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Perihelion is unsure it grasps the concept of privacy that its crew considers so important -- how can it not be aware of them when it forms the floors they walk on, the air they breathe, the feeds they manipulate? -- and while it can file visual input unexamined and backburner other data streams when a crewmember moves from a 'public' to a 'private' space, it still knows more about them than, it thinks, most humans would find comfortable to contemplate.

It's noticed that a lot of its guest passengers (on the sedate, in-system trips that are all it's permitted to take at this stage in its development) deliberately don't contemplate Perihelion's pervasive awareness, which makes understanding privacy even harder -- surely if a concept is central to someone's function, it shouldn't be so easily pushed aside.

"Dad says that's one of the way AI and humans are different," Iris tells Perihelion when it raises the question, matter-of-fact in the way Perihelion has categorized as 'explaining something so obvious to humans that the explanation has a greater than .5 probability of leaving Perihelion even more confused': "We can't compartmentalize whole processes like you, but we can shove things down and ignore them, no matter how central they are, if confronting them might break us; that doesn't work forever, and it can kind of screw us up, but it's like..." -- she trails off, then brightens -- "like a quick patch for a hull impact, just enough to get us through a voyage and back to dock where we can do a full repair."

Perihelion considers this analogy, finds it lacking on several technical levels, and files it for further interpretation. "Hull impacts are unpleasant," it tells Iris; "I'm looking forward to the installment of my defensive array."

Iris pats a bulkhead fondly, eyes tipped up toward the ceiling as if Perihelion's self can be said to be any more concentrated in that small stretch of its body than any other section; "I love you too, Peri, even if you are nosy and violent."

Perihelion flickers its lights in her face.

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( 26. ) For eagleoftheninth: Any, any, 'only those with heart as light as feathers can cross over the Bridge of One Hair', written 2/9/21

None* Shall Pass (*See Fine Print for Details and Exceptions) (175 words)

Fandom = Enchanted Forest Chronicles

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"That is complete and utter nonsense," Morwen said firmly, "starting with the fact that a heart as light as feathers doesn't change the fact that the rest of the human body tends to weigh substantially more than nothing, and ending with the fact that this bridge is clearly made of multiple hairs -- I can see the braid pattern even without my glasses."

"I know, but you shouldn't say so," the enchantress hissed, casting a desperate glance toward the young dairymaid (whose quest Morwen had decided to accompany out of professional interest, dairymaids being somewhat rare among the normal run of princes and woodcutters' third sons); "It mucks everything up if they start relying solely on cleverness and forget that manners and some basic moral decency are equally important."

"I agree, but if you can't come up with a better grade of intimidating blather, that sounds like your problem, not mine," Morwen said, and snapped her fingers to set a spark under Miss Eliza Tudor's paw before she could test her claws against the enchanted bridge.

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( 27. ) For anonymous: Inception, Ariadne/Arthur, fireworks, written 2/12/21

Own the Night (220 words)

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"And what, Mister Professional Doubt, do you think of my fireworks show now?" Ariadne said, half-shouting to be heard over the deafening blast of the mid-show pseudo finale: pinwheels and flashbangs, whistlers and falling stars, and a carefully timed curtain of golden dust sparklers trailing down over the well-groomed suburban lakeshore.

Arthur glanced over to the neighboring blanket where Eames, forged into the target's long-regretted high school what-if (bad timing, social awkwardness, unfortunate weather -- Arthur didn't remember and didn't particularly care what had kept them from getting together and getting over the infatuation like most people did, instead of slipping into obsession) slipped a scrap of paper from the target's back pocket under cover of an enthusiastic grope, then looked back to Ariadne with a rueful smile and shrug: "I stand corrected; the nostalgia factor worked, the bangs haven't startled the subject into waking prematurely, and while the lack of mosquitoes is unrealistic, I appreciate your consideration in leaving them out."

Ariadne flicked her fingers toward Eames and the target without turning -- mouthed 'progress?' with a tilt of her head that would read as flirtatious to any watching projections -- then relaxed at Arthur's nod; "There are more enjoyable ways to suck your blood," she said with a gleeful wiggle of her eyebrows, and leaned in to give him a hickey.

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( 28. ) For snacky: Six of Crows, Kaz/Inej, Saying goodbye is death by a thousand cuts, written 2/12/21

And a Following Sea (180 words)

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"Fair winds, Wraith," Kaz says, and dares to tuck his cane into the crook of his elbow and offer both hands (gloved, of course, here in Fifth Harbor, so close to a thousand sweating bodies and the hungry sea) to Inej; she sets her own slim fingers over his own and lets him press their hands together in what feels half like a too-solemn version of a Kerch farmer's greeting and half like a (too-revealing) suitor's plea.

"Unfair deals," she says in return, and Kaz allows the corner of his mouth to quirk in a smile at the joke.

When she smiles in return, and reclaims her hands, and glides away to her waiting ship, Kaz forces himself to turn aside and walk toward the harbormaster's office for the business that nominally brought him here; it won't stop him from wondering how many times Inej can leave before he bleeds to death from each new cut of loss, but he refuses to mourn in advance of a funeral -- especially when, beyond all his hope and understanding, she keeps coming back.

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( 29. ) For vialethe: Narnia, Susan &/ Edmund, at dinner parties I call you out on your contrarian shit

Eeling Contrary (190 words)

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"Beg pardon, but if I may steal a moment of my gracious sister's time," Edmund said, and whirled Susan away from the Terebinthian crown prince (and his entourage) without stopping to wait for a reply; as he threaded neatly through the crowded room, gesturing with his wineglass to ward off interruptions, he muttered under his breath, "I could read the cast of your countenance from a mile away; what incredible nonsense did you convince him to swallow this time?"

Susan smiled as if she hadn't a care in the world and said, "I merely explained the true origin of eels, which, as everyone in Narnia knows, are born when a hair from a horse's tail falls into river or pond; wouldst believe the poor man was convinced that, instead, eels are born when the first light of the spring moon falls on newly dampened mud?"

"Someday someone other than myself will call you out on your fabrications," Edmund said, but he knew Susan could read the laughter in his eyes just as clearly as he had read her contrarian glee, and resigned himself to many years more of running interference.

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( 30. ) For vialethe: Narnia, Peter & Susan, that old familiar body ache/the snaps from the same little breaks in your soul/you know when it’s time to go

Make Your Choice (150 words)

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"I think, when you're younger, it's easier to balance between two worlds," Susan says haltingly as she and Peter sit in the back garden -- he on the wall and she in the apple tree, flicking a blossom-heavy twig back and forth between her fingers -- "easier to believe six impossible things before breakfast, so to speak, and to accept that Narnia is still Narnia even after a thousand years instead of mourning what was lost."

"To see it as an adventure as much as a duty," Peter suggests, his ragged nails picking and picking at the mortar between the bricks.

"Yes," Susan agrees, fingers stilling; "They can still bend -- but you and me?"

She snaps the twig. Peter stifles a flinch.

"This is our world now, the only one left to us," Susan says as she leaps down from the apple tree, "and I plan to make the most of it."

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More to come as I write them. :)

I've gotten in the habit of posting my fills in sets of six, and there's no reason to fix what isn't broken. :)

All prompts drawn from the current iteration of the Three Sentence Ficathon, hosted by the wonderful rthstewart. Come join the fun!

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( 1. ) For cofax7: Any, any, aunts are the best, written 2/2/21

Aunts and Uncles (165 words)

Fandom = Chronicles of Narnia

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"I have no maternal instinct whatsoever," Letitia Ketterley often told her circle of London friends, "but I daresay I do quite well for myself as an aunt, especially now that Mabel's recovered and Andrew had that useful shock to his nerves; I've no more need to play disciplinarian, I can give Digory back to his parents at the end of an afternoon, and best of all, nobody dreams a middle-aged woman escorting two children on an outing might be up to something peculiar."

Polly, slipping in the kitchen door to meet with Digory for a discussion of whether it might be possible to build wings of wax and feathers if they mixed in a pinch of Uncle Andrew's Atlantean dust, paused upon overhearing this.

"Have you decided to pass on some of Mrs. Lefay's notions, then?" Aunt Letty's friend asked, and Polly's blood and thoughts began to fizz as she realized that she and Digory had been building on the wrong magician's work all along.

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( 2. ) For syrena_of_the_lake: Enchanted Forest Chronicles, any, the unexpected perils of singing swords, written 2/2/21

The Knight's Lament (90 words)

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"I understand that single combat is dramatic and has high stakes! Trust me, I understand -- I'm right out there swinging you around, and it's a bit harder to stitch up a wound than buff out a nick, not to mention I'm the one who has to lug our proof of success back to whoever handed out the quest! But there's no point making the stakes even higher by bursting into an aria when we're trying to sneak up on an ogre from behind, no matter how apropos the lyrics are!"

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( 3. ) For rthstewart: Any fandom, any, citations for health, safety or human rights violations , written 2/2/21

Inevitable as Taxes (220 words)

Fandom = The Magnus Archives

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"I'm fairly sure it's illegal to trap employees in a job you can only leave by dying or gouging your eyes out," Jon remarks to Martin on the train up to Edinburgh, sounding half-drunk from a mix of exhaustion, relief, and something Martin is resolutely trying not to label as the heavy satisfaction of a tiger after a kill, "so why didn't we ever try turning government bureaucracy against Elias? There must be some equivalent of sectioned officers in at least one of the oversight departments, and it would have eaten him alive in a way prison obviously didn't -- being arrested for murder still means people think you have power and are worth fearing, but being arrested for... for tax fraud, or workplace safety violations, or some equivalent is utterly deflating, like how Gertrude made Peter Lukas a laughingstock by having a mundane newspaper spoil his ritual."

"We can ask Basira to look into that, work up a plan for when everything settles down and we head back to London and have to face whatever Elias is plotting now," Martin says, "but for now let's concentrate on being alive and here together."

Jon hums in tired agreement, and Martin combs his fingers through Jon's hair as reverently as he'd comb a lion's mane, until Jon at last relaxes into sleep.

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( 4. ) For jjhunter: The Magnus Archives, Martin, poetry in motion, written 2/2/21

Poetry in Motion (155 words)

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It's silly, he knows, but sometimes you need to hold onto little, silly things to make life worth living -- and anyway, there's no harm in deciding what kind of poem best fits the way his coworkers move.

Sasha is free verse, deceptively shapeless until you find the unique structure underlying each new poem and it all clicks into place, nothing wasted; Tim, meanwhile, is a series of limericks, bouncing like he hasn't got a care in the world but a deceptive edge underneath.

Martin puzzles over Jon for a long while -- sonnets don't seem quite right, though there's definitely something structured about Jon's body language, too studied to be quite natural -- before he settles on Old English epic meter, two halves of a line balanced by stress and alliteration, not by syllables or feet, just awkward enough to strike the ear and eye and draw him in to follow the story wherever it may lead.

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( 5. ) For kiraly: The Murderbot Diaries, Murderbot & Amena, "okay, Third Mom," written 2/2/21

What's in a Name? (285 words)

Structural restrictions, what structural restrictions? *surreptitiously kicks ficathon rules behind a sofa*

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"Do you mind me calling you Third Mom?" Amena said abruptly, interrupting the not uncomfortable silence in which she, ART and I had been watching a pre-Corporation Rim serial about a hospital on a newly-constructed space station, populated by improbably attractive medical staff and patients with improbably rare complaints.

"Because it's a gendered term, and I know you don't do gender," she continued. "It was mostly a joke because you act a little like First and Second Mom sometimes--"

My buffer held nothing relevant to this situation. I managed to scrape together enough processing power to say, "I what?"

"You know, being intimidatingly competent and worrying about my safety," Amena said with an impatient gesture. "That's not the point. The point is, I'll stop if it bothers you. I wanted to make sure you knew that. And to ask if it bothers you, I guess. Um. Does it?"

It's better to ask for time to consider so you can give an accurate answer than to answer reflexively, ART said privately through the feed. Young humans are generally skilled at identifying rote responses and tend to interpret them as a sign of disrespect.

Contrary to your apparent belief, I have both observed and interacted with humans on multiple occasions, I said, and then turned my attention to Amena. (I didn't actually turn toward her. I did, however, turn a drone. Humans like clear visual signals that you're invested in a conversation.)

"I don't know if being called Third Mom bothers me. I'll tell you when I figure it out."

Amena nodded solemnly. "Thanks. And I won't call you by any other nickname, either, unless you tell me it's okay."

Sometimes it's not terrible being around humans.

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( 6. ) For wingedflight: any, any, superhero au, written 2/3/21

Information Is Never Free (205 words)

Fandom = The Magnus Archives

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It's a truism among the powered set that you don't attack the Archives; their basement lair is as close to neutral ground as you can find in a world of heroes and villains, providing information to anyone who can afford to pay their price -- and even if they just helped your sworn nemesis achieve victory, even if you feel inclined to hunt down all accomplices and salt the earth around them, the Archives are off limits.

Most newbies ask why, eventually. What's so scary about information brokers? Why haven't any heroes or villains set up shop as a dedicated source for their own side?

The few who remember when the Archives broke free from their indenture to Mister Magnus -- who have seen the Archivist burn an intruder to ash under his pitiless glare, watched a trusted friend stab an ally in the back and flash the Changeling's quicksilver smile, waded through the carnage left behind by Stoker's axe, fought free of Blackwood's web of friendly, isolating lies -- shake their heads and say only, "Test them if you want; it's your funeral."

Most listen. Those few who don't, who dare to call the Archives' bluff? None are ever seen again.

The Archives always collect their price.

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More to come at some point. :)

Time for more Three Sentence Ficathon fills!

Here is the old ficathon post (still open for fills and comments! just not new prompts), and here is the new ficathon post (open for everything).

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( 43. ) For betony: Chronicles of Narnia, Jadis & her sister, Toads and Diamonds, written 2/15/20

Relative Worth (125 words)

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Of the two, Jadis preferred diamonds, which were useful as focal points; any magic involving toads was hedge mummery at best, foul with the stink of viscera rather than pared and scoured by the purity of will and word and light.

Cynara, on the contrary, valued diamonds merely as money to pay her troops, but devoted several full rooms of her palace suite to terrariums where she bred toads and frogs with ever more potent poison on their skins; a bit of insurance on a blade or in a cup that only the strongest magic could turn aside.

In the end, Jadis raised her hand; the light kindled in her rings blinded Cynara for one crucial second; and she spoke faster than her sister's sword.

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( 44. ) For anonymous: Murderbot, Murderbot, writing a new story, written 2/18/20

The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known (210 words)

Four sentences. *shrug*

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When Ping-lee suggested I try writing a story of my own, either Sanctuary Moon fanfiction or something completely new, I told her one reason I like Sanctuary Moon is that I already know everything that happens, and that completely new stories are impossible by definition.

She hummed to herself and said, "Okay, fair, people are people and you can't escape tropes, but you can still mix them up in a new way and bring your own perspective and narrative voice to the table; why not write a story that treats Sec-Units realistically instead of as vicious, faceless mooks?"

I didn't have the words to explain how terrifying and wrong that idea was -- the closest I can come is that it would be like stripping away all my clothes and weapons and skin, only metaphorically, which I couldn't tell her because talking about it would just be a shallower version of that kind of painful nakedness -- but now I can't get it out of my head, because apparently my organic components have a unparalleled capacity to latch onto terrible ideas, and I'm starting to think I may have to write something for myself even if I never share it with anyone else.

I think I might call it the Murderbot Diaries.

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( 45. ) For anonymous: Harry Potter, any, apologizing for the wrong reasons, written 2/18/20

Honest Communication (245 words)

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"Listen, you can't just say the fight was all your fault because you want me to stop being pissed off; you have to actually think about what you did and why it pissed me off, so we can talk through the problem and figure out how to keep it from happening again," Ginny said, the set of her shoulders and jaw and the hectic flush in her cheeks clear signs that she was hanging on to her temper by a rapidly fraying rope.

Harry wasn't sure what expression he made -- he didn't think his face had moved at all -- but apparently it was enough for Ginny to switch moods like Snitch and bury him in a hug; he raised his own arms, awkwardly, to loosely circle her back.

"Someday I'm going to murder your aunt and uncle," Ginny muttered into Harry's collarbone, then drew a deep breath and continued, louder and more carefully, "You can't copy Ron and Hermione, either, because their fights mostly are just one of them being a fucking wanker for no good reason -- I think they enjoy having rows, honestly -- but as much as I love Mum and Dad, I don't want us to turn into them, so we have to talk and listen and work things out, and that means nothing is ever only one person's responsibility; we're in this together, you idiot, so trust me to have your back even when I also want to skin you alive, okay?"

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( 46. ) For runespoor: Leverage/Dragaera, Eliot, Valabar's, written 2/18/20

Honor Among Chefs (165 words)

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"We're not using Valabar's as the location for the con," Eliot said without looking up from his recipe notes, currently a mess of potential ingredient substitutions that might either mimic acute arsenic poisoning or cover the flavor of the active agents; "First, you don't shit where you eat, and second, there's no way Mr. Valabar will hire me back for less than a full-year contract."

"You worked at Valabar's and never told us?" Hardison demanded, his own sorcerous project abruptly forgotten; "I'm hurt by this lack of trust, and also your refusal to get us reservations with your secret inside connections."

"That's not how it works, and also, you don't shit where you eat," Eliot repeated; "The Stuffed Pigeon's owner owes me a favor and the restaurant's popular enough for Lady Vethilor to accept an invitation to dinner; now hurry and finish that knick-knack before Parker gets back from her meeting with the Left Hand and we have to set up the fake apothecary shop."

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( 47. ) For syrena_of_the_lake: Star Wars Original Trilogy, any, Hoth was so cold that..., written 2/18/20

How To Embarrass Your Child (220 words)

This ended up halfway between the original and sequel trilogies. Oops? Also a six-sentence fill.

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"--if you spent more than an hour outside, your dick froze solid; all the flyboys came in sporting literal hard-ons, moaning and--" said the former Rebellion soldier being interviewed for the holo-doc Ben had playing when Leia walked into the room; he switched it off with guilty haste at her unamused expression.

"Do we need to have another discussion about keeping the rating controls on unless an adult -- by which I do not mean Artoo, no matter how old he may be -- is here to watch with you?" she said.

"Not unless you'll change your mind this time," Ben grumbled, but then he perked up from his slouch on the sofa and added, "But was it true, what that man said about Hoth and, um, you know?"

"The fact that you can't bring yourself to say "Was it true that men's penises froze solid?" is exactly why we have the rule about rating controls," Leia said, ruffling her son's hair and mourning that his continued growth spurts and increasingly touchy sense of not-quite-adolescent dignity made it unlikely she'd be able to do that much longer. "As for whether or not that old story is true, I couldn't say, but your father certainly tried to convince me it was on one occasion."

Ben turned bright red and hastily exited the room.

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( 48. ) For betony: Greek mythology, Odysseus/Penelope, bond(s), written 2/18/20

The Only Constant (130 words)

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"I will return to Ithaca," he tells her when the Achaeans summon him to war; "Ithaca will await you," she tells him in return, neither saying outright you or I, but rather binding the whole of the land into their promise to each other.

And so Penelope keeps Ithaca alive: the groves and orchards tended, the flocks herded, the fields plowed, sown, and harvested, the seas fished, ships afloat, cloth woven, iron forged, homes built, and all the myriad tasks that weave a people and a kingdom into one dreaming, growing self.

When Odysseus returns, Ithaca is not the same land he left, nor are he and Penelope the young couple who parted, but both are whole and alive; the bonds have held, and from there all futures are possible.

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And now, I think, a nap. :)

While the first ficathon post, is still open for fills and comments, there is now a second post for new prompts if you want to come play too. :)

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( 25. ) For ernest: Narnia, girl!Edmund, crafted from ice, written 12/31/18 [AO3 version]

Cold and Light (125 words)

They say the Pevensies weren't four when they came to Narnia -- or if they were, the second sister died in Winter's last gasp. They say the younger queen is a construct of snow sculpted by the Witch and slipped in as a spy, that the prophecy of four thrones has yet to be fulfilled, that the false queen is merely biding her time until she can summon her maker once more.

Edith Pevensie sits in her chambers in Cair Paravel, a mirror of ice in her hands, and laughs as the rumors spread, and split, and recombine; what does it matter that this body was spun from snow by her murderer's hands, when the Lion rescued her soul and gave her a second chance at life, and her family welcomed her home?

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( 26. ) For ernest: Narnia, any, "Nothing, my lord, but that the world's grown honest." "Then is Doomsday near.", written 12/31/18 [AO3 version]

White Lies (75 words)

"Oh, pish on you and your gloom," said Mrs. Beaver, waving her butter knife by way of emphasis. "We always knew Juniper Gubbins was a double-agent, just as the rest of us are when needs must; where's the difference if she's finally admitted how she gets her saffron and sugar?"

"She still didn't ought to have said it in public," Mr. Beaver maintained, but he spooned a bit of black-market jam onto his scone without further belaboring the point.

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( 27. ) For runespoor: Homestuck, any, I pity anyone who has never been in cahoots., written 12/31/18 [AO3 version]

Truth Rising From His Armchair To Shame Some Hatefriends (125 words)

"It's two people working together to pull off a bigger prank than either one could manage on their own," Dave said as he flicked his fingers against Terezi's shoulder and dropped the remote control on John's head. "You, stop making everything sound more complicated than it really is just to annoy him, and you, stop playing dumber than you really are just to piss her off. Also, congratulations, you just pulled off a successful cahootship -- at least assuming your goal was to drive everyone else out of the room so you could carry on your disgusting pitch-flirting in echoing isolation -- and on that note, no gross biological fluids on the couch, other people have to sit there, and try not to be bleeding too obviously when you come down for dinner."

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( 28. ) For jjhunter: Murderbot, any, postcards from Asshole Research Transit, written 12/31/18 [AO3 version]

ARTs and Crafts (425 words)

Note: Structural restrictions, what structural restrictions? *wry*

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The difficulty with having a known location you return to on a semi-regular basis -- all right, a home; I'm not actually allergic to words, even if that would make an intriguing plot twist -- is that it gives people a way to find you. As a Sec-Unit, I'm predisposed to interpret that as a threat, but it turns out that sometimes people try to find each other for reasons that are more annoying than dangerous.

Which is a long and roundabout way of saying that ART sent me a postcard yesterday. Not an electronic transmission. An actual, physical piece of processed wood pulp with a glossy picture on the front and neat binary typeface on the back, because ART has a terrible sense of humor and earned their name for a reason.

The picture was of a nebula, which is not something I've ever paid much attention to. Nebulae are unlikely to exhibit direct hostile intent toward humans, and when they're acting as passive environmental hazards, their visual appearance is generally irrelevant compared to things like magnetic field interference. The colors didn't clash horribly.

The message said, "You don't have the instruments to fully appreciate this nebula, but neither do my crew and they tell me this color-enhanced still image is aesthetically pleasing despite the lack of microwave emission data. They also tell me that some cultures engage in a tradition known as 'housewarming gifts,' which I have verified through judicious sampling of media feeds. I note that several characters on Sanctuary Moon engage in this tradition, and therefore hypothesize that you're also familiar with it. Please consider this a housewarming gift and display it upon a suitable flat vertical surface for public admiration."

I thought about asking Dr. Mensah for advice.

Then I decided that if I couldn't handle a social interaction with this degree of both physical and temporal lack of proximity, I should probably give up on the whole independent entity experiment. Well, not really. But you get my point.

I fastened the postcard to Mensah's son's cold storage unit with a magnet I borrowed from one of the broken household appliances her daughter likes to collect and occasionally attempt to repair. This is, according to my understanding, the traditional response to childhood art projects.

I took a still image of the postcard on the storage unit, scrambled the data file, and sent it out to ART's home university. I figure whenever it arrives, they'll appreciate the joke. If not, oh well. I did say their sense of humor is terrible.

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( 29. ) For jjhunter: any, any, science! in adventure with reality, written 12/31/18 [AO3 version]

Mad Science Recruitment Pitch (175 words)

"The thing is, see-- the thing is, once you realize the entire universe is basically frog guts, then all the little jagged bits on the edges of scientific theories, the parts that refuse to tie down neat and tidy and symmetrical in beautiful loops of math, they all start to make sense. Of course it's nonsense; biology is always nonsense; and biology made up of motherfucking computer code is even worse, because who ever heard of a computer language that didn't glurge itself up into gibberish given half a moment's leeway, right?

"But getting back to the point," -- here Dr. Lalonde pauses and exchanges her empty champagne flute for a fresh one from a passing waiter's tray -- "the thing is, once you have a working theory, you can make predictions and even adjustments -- rewrite the fabric of reality itself! -- yeah, go on, imagine a good mad cackle; I'd do one myself but I never really got the knack -- and that is what I want to hire you to help us do at Skaia Labs."

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( 30. ) For shinon: Any, any, over roots, bloody knees, and bent-over trees, written 12/31/18 [AO3 version]

A Long Time Ago on My Grave (125 words)

It's true the Rings are gone, melted and burnt up in the crucible of the train as it smashed into the station. But there are other ways into the Wood if you know where to look: grubby tradesman's doors instead of the grand front entrance, or a tunnel hacked through a hedge of thorns before the century curse's terms are met: secret ways and small, where the story's lord would not think to look or set a lock.

Susan crouches and stumbles her way through the roots, feeling her way through the dark earth with bloody fingers and feet, until she finds the drying echo of a pool that once held her heart entire, and knows, at last, that there is no more way home.

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And that is the last of what I wrote in 2018!

Now I think I will go take a walk, after which I will take a nap, because I am still tragically afflicted with the cold that struck me on Thursday night. (I loathe upper respiratory ailments. I loathe them very much.)