International Women's Day -- prompt me or write your own!

[rthstewart]

In the past I've written in response to International Women's Day. If you have a fem-oriented prompt, please leave it, and I'll try to write something cheerful and fun and maybe it will have the added bonus of jump-starting the rest of my downcast muse.

EDIT -- please feel free to signal boost, fill any prompt that catches your eye and cross post to your own journal!  Gif!  A sentence!  3 sentences!  A personal reflection!  anything that inspires you!  The sun is shining (here at least) so let's celebrate women and spread the cheer.

The wonderful and awesome jjhunter and alexseanchai are doing the same thing here and here so go play!




Source

To say that finishing H&M is going badly is a gross understatement. I am trying, sort of. I've never fully appreciated the term "bitter end" until now.

Comments

[alexseanchai]

Lucy, Susan, memories

(also I swiped your prompt call idea, I hope you don't mind)

Dawn of Memory

[rthstewart]

Note: This ties in with my femslashy Follow the Star, which snacky remixed to Follow the Star Into the Light, http://archiveofourown.org/works/390150

(I named Ramandu's Daughter "Dawn")

ooOOoo
Eustace’s letter comes at dinner and is brimming with stories of a long trek across the moors, Giants, a brilliant Marsh-wiggle, a lost Prince found, and the death of Caspian and his Queen. Eustace has sent the letter to Lucy, and Susan understands why, but she silently scolds Eustace for his obtuseness when her sister’s eyes fill with tears and she flees the table.

Susan collects Lucy’s forgotten jumper and makes polite excuses to the other girls already whispering behind their hands of “bad news from home.” Their Headmistress, who everyone calls Blockhead behind her back, acquiesces to the abrupt departures with a condescending nod, knowing full well that it’s for appearances – she cannot keep Lucy from what the Valiant Queen wishes to do, nor can she keep Susan from following Lucy. Matron, on the other hand, has seen the trouble and being a kindly person, hands Susan a second handkerchief as she heads out the door in search of Lucy.

“I am sorry to see there’s bad news,” Matron says with a comforting squeeze.

“A death of a close friend,” Susan says, which is true.

Lucy is on the roof, crying still. It’s a clear, crisp night -- the most terrifying sort during the Blitz but tonight the only planes blocking the stars and moon are RAF reconnaissance and patrols. Everything is still under curfew and blackouts, but the Luftwaffe have not dropped bombs on their heads in months. Without interference from the electrical lights below, the stars brilliantly shine above.

Susan wraps Lucy in her jumper and hugs her tightly. Lucy sniffles into her shoulder.

“I’m a terrible person.”

“No, of course not,” Susan soothes. “You are hurt, lonely, and sad, and you miss someone you loved very much.”

“I shouldn’t be jealous. I am happy they married. I am,” Lucy insists, though Susan isn’t arguing with her.

“Narnia needed a Queen; Caspian was infatuated with Dawn the moment he saw her. It’s all just wretched and sad for them both.” Lucy emphasizes the point defiantly, daring anyone to contradict her, which, of course, Susan does not do.

Susan strokes her sister’s hair and dabs the tears. “But it’s sad for you too. It’s alright to grieve.”

“I’ve missed her so much and I’m sure she forgot all about me.”

So much hurt and a little anger. But Susan understands and gives her sister a little shake. “Oh, Lucy, no one could ever forget you. Surely, Dawn carried the memory of your time together on Ramandu’s Island all the way to Aslan’s Country. I am sure she is waiting for you.”

“But… Caspian?” Lucy makes a sharp little sound, part sad hiccup, part sob. “I’m such a selfish thing, I know, but…”

“Lucy, you didn’t want Dawn to stay on that lonely island her whole life with naught but her memory of you. You told her to go with Caspian.”

Lucy eschews the handkerchief and wipes her tears on her jumper. A Queen will do what a Queen will do; her burdens and how she chooses to carry them are her own.

“I sound like the worse sort of hypocrite, I know.”

“You sound hurt,” Susan emphasizes. “Because we loved them both so well, let us hope that she did come to love Caspian and that they had some happy times together. But remember, Lucy, loving Caspian does not mean Dawn loved you any less. We can love more than person, in more than one way. You and Dawn both knew that, and Caspian as well.”

Nodding, Lucy takes a deep breath and lifts her head up to the clear night sky. “Dawn always wanted to shine in our skies. She hoped she would be able to look upon me and me to her and so we would always keep our memory burning bright.”

Susan puts her arm around Lucy and they look north, toward the Plough. “According to Eustace’s letter, Aslan granted Caspian’s wish and let him see our world. Surely he would do the same for Dawn.”

Lucy points. “Perhaps she is there. Near Cassiopeia.” She blows kisses to her love, a distant Star.

They clasp hands, raise their arms, and sing songs to the Stars and ignore the bell that calls them to bed, for once a Queen always a Queen and she will not be summoned except as she wills it.

Re: Dawn of Memory

[alexseanchai]

;_;

Re: Dawn of Memory

[rthstewart]

I know it's not Bechdel passing. I have something else but I didn't feel it did much except show sister bonding. I might post that too, though I deleted it in a fit of disgust so I'll have to re-create it. The fact is, I ship Lucy and RD really, REALLY hard. It's one of my favorite pairings ever, and I've loved writing them together. Thank you for the prompt!

Re: Dawn of Memory

[alexseanchai]

Not everything needs to pass Bechdel. It's lovely as is, really.

Re: Dawn of Memory

[heliopausa]

I've only just seen this! It's so sad! -- the hurt and the utter loneliness, which is just everywhere in this, for Dawn, for Lucy, for Caspian (in the limping, second-best marriage you hint at, and then her death). Very, very convincing and moving, to see Lucy's grief and Susan's wonderful, intelligent being there for her.
Also, I love them being so incontrovertibly Queens, and not at anyone's bidding, though for a season they are seeming to the world around to be schoolgirls.

[jjhunter]

Fly-by with some tweaked old goodies from previous 3 Sentence rounds; feel free to play with all or any.

- Narnia, Susan, queen of the department

- Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Joyce Summers, alternate career

- Any Batman-related canon, Barbara Gordon, book cart drill team

- Elementary, Joan Watson, historical misconceptions about the 'king bee'

- Rivers of London, Lesley May, Sappho's fragment 16

- Greek Mythology / Robinson Crusoe, Ariadne, lessons from the leaving of Theseus

- Wonder Woman (comics) / Elementary (tv), any, truth

- White Collar (tv) / Birds of Prey, Elizabeth Burke, details

[jjhunter]

Added a few more & posted the lot for public grabs here at my journal.

Elementary (TV) Joan Watson, Una apis, nulla apis

[rthstewart]

[cross-posted at jjhunter


Fortunately, Ms. Hudson was not the least concerned about Romulus and Remus when Joan admits her to the brownstone for the bi-weekly cleaning. “I earned Merit Badges in veterinary medicine, bird study, and farm mechanics.”

Marie inspects the food Sherlock has been feeding the roosters and tuts at its nutritional inadequacy. Each rooster submits willingly to Marie's confident, gentle handling and coo and cluck contentedly as she tucks the bird under her arm and carefully inspects feathers and feet. “You don’t want mites or bumblefoot,” she says.

Marie returns the next day with oyster grit for their gizzards and a pair of clippers for their toe claws.

Once the roosters are trimmed and returned to the pen, she and Marie can finally enjoy the too-often-delayed cup of tea.

“The birds are obviously a metaphor for Sherlock,” Joan says, thinking of Lestrade, Mycroft, and even Bell. “Two males who can’t share the same roost without pecking each other’s eyes out. It is behavioral therapy for him as much as it is for the birds.”

Marie shakes her head, the exasperated men, implied rather than spoken. “Perhaps he has finally taken a cue from his bees. His fascination with family Apidae has always been so contradictory.”

Joan sips her white Darjeeling and considers this further. “There are no solitary bees, are there? No King Bees?”

“No, though the King Bee as colony patriarch was a common misconception until the mid-17th century.”

Now it’s Joan’s turn for an exasperated huff. In theory, they have moved beyond the 1600s. Still, the casual sexism of police work should not have been the surprise it was.

Marie dryly adds, “Like Romulus and Remus as allegory for only one cock on the block,” -- they both giggle like teenage boys telling a dirty joke -- "A. mellifera and its related subspecies are very much a metaphor for the benefits of collective cooperation for the greater good."

Una apis, nulla apis,” Joan replies. She’s been reading up on bees now that she has her own species.

“Precisely.”

ooOOoo
As far as I know, still no first name for Ms. Hudson, ergo, "Marie."
"Una apis, nulla apis" means "One bee is no bee."

Re: Elementary (TV) Joan Watson, Una apis, nulla apis

[heliopausa]

Oh, this is terrific! :D I love them snickering together, and I love Mrs Hudson's competence, and Joan's analytical mind putting her finger right on the possible readings of the roosters and the bees. Both such women of calm experience, and friends! Lovely! :D

Re: Elementary (TV) Joan Watson, Una apis, nulla apis

[rthstewart]

Thank you! I really love Joan and Ms. Hudson and it is a lot of fun to write them. I'm not nearly smart enough to write Ms. Hudson though. She's a lot of work.

[heliopausa]

One more: Susan, Zardeenah, code-breaking

:)