rthstewart | Three Sentence Ficathon 2022 Part 2

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Three Sentence Ficathon 2022 Part 2

UPDATE 14 FEBRUARY 2022 -- 3SF 2022 IS NOW CLOSED TO NEW PROMPTS! Do continue to fill prompts already posted but the 3SF 2022 is now closed. We'll be back next year in a new comm (If I can get my act together). Thank you again!

THIS IS THE NEW POST FOR PART 2 OF THE 3 SENTENCE FICATHON -- ALL NEW PROMPTS SHOULD BE POSTED HERE
You may continue to fill prompts (but not leave new ones) at the original Post 1 here but please post new prompts here, not there. And if you're asking, hey is just me, or did this get enormous really fast? Why yes, yes it did. Last year, it took us ten days before I opened a new post. This year, it took us about 5.5 days to get there. So, by all means, go back and fill in Post 1 and post new prompts here!

Also woops, in an indication of how busy I've been with other things, I neglected to post that for a third year in a row the awesome

conuly started a master list of unclaimed prompts and has been updating it as time permits. Obviously a huge task! Thank you!

Welcome to the Three Sentence Ficathon!

Here's a Friending meme!

What is the 3 Sentence Ficathon?
This is an open exchange where you answer a prompt with a fic consisting of only three sentences. It's open to all fandoms and you can post and fill as many prompts as you like, as many times as you want.

What do I do first?
You can start 3SF by posting prompts! When posting a prompt please format it this way:

fandom, character(s), prompt word/sentence.

Only one prompt per comment please. So, for example,

Star Wars, Obi-Wan Kenobi, I don't like sand."

Open ended and anthropomorphic fills are popular too, such as:

Any, Any, "I don't like sand."

or

Earth geography, sand, "I don't like humans very much, either."

What happens after that?
You answer other posters' prompts in three sentences (or more if you can't stop yourself) and fill as many prompts as you want, as many times as you wish. If you see that a prompt you loved has already been filled, go ahead and fill it again! Multiple fills of the same prompt are allowed and even encouraged! (We get really fun stories going this way).

Can I still post if I need more than 3 sentences? Or should I just abuse grammar in ways the English language never contemplated?
Yes. Yes.

But I'm not a member of Dreamwidth
No problem. You can comment anonymously or through open ID

I'm really overwhelmed by all the prompts and how much there is and how fast it goes. I can't read 1,000 prompts and fills. It's too much.
I hear this a lot and it keeps a lot of people from participating. The 3SF is big and it moves fast, especially at first. I get overwhelmed, too, and I'm hosting the thing. With 2020 and 2021 sucking so badly you don't want something that's supposed to be fun cause you anxiety. I have a couple of suggestions for managing the 3SF volume.

First, really, you don't have to read every prompt and fill on every page. You can start at the last page of this and just go forward, or back a page or two. It's fine.
You can come and go as time and energy allow, you don't have to participate the whole time, and it drops off quite at bit after about 2 weeks and especially once we open a new post because this one is approaching 4,500 comments.
Even after the 3SF and new prompting end, people fill prompts all year long.
You can fill an already filled prompt and you can can leave a prompt that's already been prompted before. People do it all the time.

Always make sure you're looking at top-level comments only, not threaded. That helps a lot. Your screen should look like this.

But shouldn't I read everything to see if someone already prompted the same prompt I want to leave if someone already filled it?
No. Prompt as many times as you want, as much as you want. It doesn't matter if someone prompted the exact same prompt. Go ahead and prompt again!

I left a prompt and no one filled it. Can I prompt it again?
Absolutely!

Can I spread the word?
Yes, please. I generally fail at creating banners and embed codes but if you create one and make it really idiot-proof, I might be able to post and share it. Feel free to cross-post this entry. If you create your own banners or icons, let me know and I'll share!
Please share the 3SF with your followers, friends, and any channels and comms you are active on. I'll post on fandom calendar, Tumblr, and Twitter, but I don't have many connections in other spaces such as Discord.

Here's my attempt at a text box that might go horribly awry.

How long will it go?
The 3SF closes to new prompts on February 13, 2022. The entry stays open permanently and people post fills all year long. (There were a bunch of new posts to the 2021 3SF this week!)

Are there any rules about cross-posting?
Nope, you can post wherever you want, whenever you want. A lot of folks collected their responses together and posted them on AO3 under the 3 sentence fiction tag. 3SFs are a terrific prompt for remixes and could be helpful for Yuletide bears, too.

What about spoilers, content and archive warnings, triggers, pairings, ratings, tags, and squick?

I thought a lot about this. It boils down to reader beware. In my experience, this typically gets too big, moves too fast, and the stories are too short for content warnings and ratings to even apply. It is too big for me to moderate in this way. You should assume spoilers are fair game and that the initial poster and the responder have opted to use no content warnings or tags. This means AO3 content warnings for dubcon, violence, canon character death, underage, etc. COULD be present (and much more). I've found personally that I can skim and scroll by stuff that, from the prompt, I can tell isn't my favorite flavor of delicious cake. Use your best judgment, protect yourself, and be prepared to skip over things that aren't your thing. In this format, the obligation is on you, the reader, to protect yourself from triggering content.
Some posters do include warnings and spoiler tags or include spoiler space, but they don't have to do so.

Why is 3SF split among several posts? That seems confusing.
It is confusing and we always lose momentum once we have to move to a second post. The reason is because at 5,000 comments to a single post, DW installs a human test CAPTCHA, which is a pain for users. So, once this entry gets to the upper 4,000 comments, I open a new post. If you've been waiting until things slow down to participate, when we open a second post is often a good place to join.

If I have questions, what do I do?
I'm rthstewart everywhere, here, Twitter, Tumblr, gmail and AO3.

A special thank you to

conuly .
Last year, Conuly started logging all unfilled prompts.
This year's (2021) unfilled prompts are here.
Last year's (2020) unfilled prompts are here.

Conuly asks that you not reply, as they want to be able to edit and add more prompts to the list.

Here, have some icons and banners and let me know if you've created your own!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

any, any, flow down like silver

When her brother-in-law- returns from his two year tour of the continent his hair is long and he has gotten handsome; Gertrude had already started to pay more attention than she should before he left, but then Claudius was still mostly a boy and still becoming himself.

Without thinking about it she reaches out to touch his hair, which is just as soft as she imagined as it flows through her fingers, and it is a while before she notices how very still he has grown, but she is unwilling to let him go because they both know it can never happen again, so she lingers.

A week later, he’s cut it short again.

This is gorgeous--I'd never considered a Claudius who tried to fight his ambitions and desires, who tried to to do the wrong thing, and this breaks my heart even more. Poor Gertrude. Poor Claudius (there's something I thought I'd never say!)

thank you! i love getting people on the claudius train, however briefly

one of my favorite productions has a claudius who's very young and very personable and very in love with gertrude, so in the extended universe in my head he was a lot younger than his brother, and treated almost an afterthought by his parents, and gertrude was the foreign princess who was raised with both of them, so it's childhood friends to lovers and a lot of aching unsaid moments like this.

Ooh, I love that (and I will have to check out that production!) Also, please forgive me if I end up spamming with Claudius/Gertrude prompts because that sounds tragic and terrible and totally MY JAM.

omg, don't apologize, that's the absolute best thing!

here's another fill i already did for them where they get to dance, and one with claudius/laertes/gertrude because the chemistry between claudius and laertes is instant and palpable.

*runs off to read* :D

psst i’ve been reading ernest’s comment threads because they’re a dear friend and headcanon partner and i just want to slip in this fanvid i made for the claudius of that production https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k4jzdmhI-10

yes, i made a fanvid for a college production of hamlet, he’s that compelling

whoops, forgot to sign in

oof that last sentence, the rhythm of it, like the short snip of scissors after a moment allowed to linger too long. it says so much, and i’m so sad for them.

thank you so much, that's exactly what i was trying to do with that final line, you don't get to see what he's thinking during that week, but it's also very clear what happened there. they're so sad and they deserve to be happy :(

When Katan had first been with his lord Rosiel, when he had a childish heart and childish feelings, early on he had impulsively touched Rosiel's hair. It was silvery pale and exquisite in how it flowed and curled and Rosiel gently smiled at him and tousled his own hair, not begrudging him the instinctual action of trying to experience that beauty.

Now, he lies in bed curling one exquisitely soft silver strand around his finger and Rosiel's eyes half-opened, gazing at him dreamily and madly from a face younger than his own, and Katan knew that no matter how far Rosiel fell, no matter how great a monster he might become, Katan would die a thousand deaths before he would leave him.

These poor broken angels :(

"Give you the moon and the stars from the sky is supposed to be a figure of speech, usually. . ." Toby said softly, lifting a hand and watching as a river of sparkling silver flowed from the night sky like the stars were bleeding.

"What you ask I would give," the King said behind him, and Toby turned, breath catching as Jareth lifted a hand, a sparkling silver circlet coalescing in his hold; it settled light as spidersilk on Toby's brow, "what would you have of me, my prince?"

Toby hesitated, feeling the thrum of the circlet he now wore. "What else can you do?" he asked, and Jareth grinned broadly, catching his hand and bowing to kiss his knuckles.

Humans who do not have golden cores have basic needs - air, water, food, shelter - and Wei Wuxian knows he will need to find them all if he is to survive this. He staggers and scrambles over the ground, hides himself as best he can from the fierce corpses, tries to bandage his wounds and draws half-thought-out talismans in his own blood to try and prevent infection from seizing him, staggers and stumbles and finally falls to the ground beside a flow of water too small to even be called a stream.

That small flow is more precious to him than silver.

any, any, don't you come here and say I didn't warn you/About the way your world can alter/And oh how you try to command it all still/Every single time it all shifts one way or the other

“We must do something,” Goneril’s fear blurts out, “and in the heat!” She and Regan have made the mistake of thinking about what might happen instead of defying their circumstances for too many decades, and now their father’s unpredictable moods have ended in two banishments which his pride will not allow him to revoke.

They can neither turn back the clock nor stop its relentless march forward, but they can agree to meet the changes as they come, arm in arm, and even then its gears grind them up without mercy.

oh goneril. you can really feel the fear in her, and i like the phrasing of 'goneril's fear blurts out,' it's not goneril herself, it's her fear coming out of her. and just that ... carefully worded fear of having lived in a house with a father who has unpredictable moods, and not doing anything in all that time, because of all the things that might happen if you did something. there's something beautiful about them banding together at the end, and it makes it so sad that the gears of time still grind them up and turn them against each other.

thank you! i was really pleased with 'goneril's fear blurts out' so i'm glad you caught it too. and yeah, it's because of the things that might happen if you do something, oh goneril... it's a tragedy!

Shadow & Bone/TGT, The Darkling/Alina, when is a monster not a monster?/oh, when you love it

Aleksander would be wary of the Sun Queen even without the warnings of his mother and sister; as long as he can remember, he has heard the stories of how she stopped a war between both her peoples, how she wrested control of Shu Han and Ravka from untrustworthy royals into her own hands, how she has turned the fields and frozen wilds alike into endless, exhausting summer. The peasants pray to her with the fervor that true fear brings about, and the few short hours of nightfall they are allowed are considered a rare blessing.

But when he is marched past members of the Second Army, and laid down at her feet, she is the only one to reach out a hand to help him, and he thinks--he wonders--in all the stories told of her monstrosity, no one had thought to mention that she might be sad.

Oh my god, I need you to know what's going on with it RIGHT NOW because I love it!!!

Alina the Sun Queen!!! Only a few hours of nightfall allowed!!! SHE'S SAD AND ONLY HE SEES IT. The idea that he's probably been caught and brought to her as some kind of threat to her power, the boy who can summon night...I absolutely need more of it. This is amazing.

Yes! I figure Aleksander would be brought to her as a threat, but ironically they both keep their canon personalities, where Aleksander is more ambitious and power hungry, while Alina just wants to escape into obscurity--it's just more complicated by the fact that she's now the one with more authority, and unfortunately, also the one hated and feared by most everyone else :/

Ooooh yes, I can see that - that Aleks might want to use her/their power to make a world for Grisha only, or raise Grisha up above everyone else, while Alina would be more focused on helping everyone, even people who were not at all grateful for her aid. And to your point about her being feared and hated - god, now I'm imagining scenarios in which she's threatened and he goes feral a la Kaz & Inej. This is some good AU.

any, any, I thought I'd never say that word

"That's defenestration!" Lucas North called as he left Harry's office, "which is a word I'd never expected to say."

"What's happened now?" Ros Myers asked.

"I simply threatened to throw Lucas out of my window," Harry Pearce explained, as he too came out of his office, "if he didn't leave me in peace immediately!"

Ahaa excellent word choice!

Thank you. It's one of my favourite words!

The House of Mu and its army were loyal, ‘rebellion’ never a word that crossed anyone’s lips, that was always how it had been, that was how they had gained and retained their title and seat in Yunnan, so far from the capital, and survived so long with an emperor who saw shadows even in the midday sun. If that was all to come crashing down now, in the hands of Mu Nihuang, she would be better off condemned as a lonely ghost, never able to face her ancestors again.

But if it was all to come crashing down, Mu Nihuang would gladly knock it all down, for Mei Changsu, to save him from the terrible fates she had once been forced to sit back to accept crumbling down upon the House of Lin; she might be born a daughter of Mu, but for these many years – and most important, for now – she chose to be the wife of Lin, and if she died today, she was sure she would die a ghost of the House of Lin.

“What I attempt today is dangerous, and goes against all of our Father’s efforts thirteen years ago to preserve our House,” Nihuang said to Mu Qing, “you do not need to gamble yourself and the future of our House in this with me.”

“Sister, do you think we will be spared if you fail?” Mu Qing asked. “You have never led us astray before, I do not believe you will lead us astray now; in this battle, like the thousand that preceded it, we all ride beside you, and if we fail, our bones will turn to dust together.”

“We have not been blind these thirteen years, Princess,” General Wang, who trained with, and was subordinate under her father, and now her greatest advisor, said. “We see what the kingdom, what the emperor have all become, and our hearts break for what the Old General once fought for, what you have sacrificed so much to preserve, all these years. If this is what is needed to herald in a new dawn, then our swords are with you.”

Oh this is really atmospheric! I love how the strength and the complexity of their relationships comes through.

Be patient, the Teachings say, have faith, but Braska has only the memory of his wife’s body cooling in his arms, and his daughter watching solemnly through the pyrefly veil of the Sending; let Sin take her too, the Teachings say, and Braska can only answer, no.

2. “Kid was a crybaby,” Jecht says, tossing the sphere skywards and catching it easily, but that’s only half the story; here, in the humid, starry night of a world he’ll never return from, it’s easier to say the rest: “But it’s not like I didn’t give him enough to cry about, and – hell, I just wish I could tell him I’m sorry.”

3. Once, Auron would have told them Go with Yevon, but that word is empty and the green plain waits below; on Gagazet’s descending slope, he pulls them both close, shutting his eyes against the sting of wind, and in a voice that feels wrenched out of him, he whispers, Go with my love.

Oh my goodness thank you for this ❤️ “Cooling in his arms” is such a strong image! And the end … ahhh poor boys ❤️❤️

Thank you so much, and yes, poor boys. <3

oh this gorgeous, every sentence could be a full story in itself, and it’s such a gift to get all three of them, such a vivid look at these three men we mostly only know through memory (except for auron, and even then).

Aw, thank you so much, and I’m really happy to hear it!

This gave me chills! Excellent work ♥

Thank you! <3

"I quit." Kakashi said into the space between two of Tsunade's instructions, not waiting for her to stop speaking.

She was staring at him - so were her ANBU, what would be his ANBU if he didn't-

"No." Kakashi said, shaking his head; he'd never thought there would be anything Konoha could ask of him - after all he'd given, in blood and more - that would make him say it, but- "I quit. I won't take your job, I won't sit behind that stupid desk; I will not do this."

“Motherfucker,” Acatl muttered, and then realized what he’d just called the Revered Speaker of the Mexica Empire and winced.

On the other side of the mat, Teomitl was staring at him in openmouthed shock. Well, he’d encouraged Acatl to speak his mind more often, so really this was his fault in the first place. “I didn’t even know you knew words like that,” he finally managed to blurt out.

Acatl snorted. “I studied in the calmecac the same as you did. Do not get me started.”

Trojan War Cycle, Aeneas/Cassandra, forgive me, lover/for i have sinned/for i have let you go/but you’ve been every now and then on my mind

She does not think of him when the city falls, when she cradles the statue of the goddess and weeps, when she is forced onto the boats and retches in horror; she does not allow herself to steal southwards where she knows he will be, guiding his father and son and followers to the boats.

He would be angry for it, if he knew, but he doesn't; and besides he is not a thought for these dark hours, but for the brief respite that follows.

Aeneas is a dream, and Cassandra will not drag him down into her doom.

weeps

Every time I think it's obvious which POV the prompt must be from, you turn it on its head and do the opposite beautifully. This is so, so sad; that she keeps him tucked away, as though even her thoughts might doom him, as though she must be careful not to let any of the future she sees for him escape her mind, even for a moment, just in case. That she lets herself go to her awful doom so he might escape...! IT HURTS.

YESSS *sniffs* I think it was just as I was writing this that I realized Cassandra presumably knew that Aeneas was heading over to the ships in the middle of the chaos, and could have y'know, detoured out and escaped to safety with him instead. CASSANDRA WHY.

See, now I want to prompt Cassandra escaping, but I'm afraid I'd just get "and then DOOM FOLLOWED" instead of happiness!! They do both exist to be messed with, don't they.

Narnia, Pevensies, no one can know/what we started with the light we stole

They are children again, English children in the countryside, small and young and sent to bed by eight o'clock. Yet there is something else about them, too, which Professor Kirke recognizes and draws out: the knowledge and experience and grace of a lifetime ruling in Narnia that lies sleeping inside them. It appears in the tilt of Susan's head, the confidence in her walk; in Peter and Edmund's long conversations in front of the fire and talent on horseback on the horses Polly has stabled with him for years; in Lucy's bright laughter when she says, "I think He would want us to go outside," on that moonless night when shooting stars arc across the sky.

This is beautiful!

THank you!

Such perfect little moments for all of them!! Lucy's is my favorite, I think - it's just a touch mystical in such a natural way, just like herself. Of course Digory could hardly help seeing that in them.

(Also I just love the simple elegance in your writing. Every word is just as it should be.)

Oh, Lethe, thank you! I do think Lucy's is sort of -- on that liminal stage, maybe it's magic and maybe it isn't. How can you tell? Maybe Polly and Digory disagree.

I can just see Digory standing there with a dreamy smile on his face while Polly is all "magic, pish posh" about it! Lucy is a very liminal person in general, you're right.

Agreed. Every word is so careful and lovely, and the writing is so clear and precise.

this is lovely

Shadow & Bone/SoC, Inej/Kaz, you’re a bandit like me/eyes full of stars/lusting for the good life/never thought I’d meet you here/it could be love

Shadow & Bone/TGT, The Darkling/Alina, and tell me if somehow/some of it remained/how long you would wait for me/how long i’ve been away

Shadow & Bone/TGT, The Darkling/Alina, my eclipsed sun/this has broken me down/my twisted knife/my sleepless night/my winless fight

The Mandalorian, Din/Bo-Katan, the way she shows me i’m hers and she’s mine/open hand or closed fist would be fine

Bridgerton (book series), Francesca/Michael, the old widow goes to the stone every day/but i don’t/i just sit here and wait/grieving for the living

Sometimes, when it was too humid and hot to sleep, Michael would lie awake, and think of her. Running away seemed like a good idea at the time – it was still a good idea, even if in these sleepless nights, Michael couldn’t help but dream of what it might be like, if he had stayed and allowed them to be of comfort to each other; in fantasies when he could convince himself that she would let him be her comfort, Michael imagined that her smiles would be enough to warm even the coldest of Scottish winter nights.

These dreams and fantasies were indeed beautiful when he could bring himself to get lost in them, but inevitably, eventually, he would be snapped out of them by the buzzing of mosquitoes, and then all he would be left with were linen sheets sticking to him like guilt; sometimes he thought he had ran away and stayed away, because here, oceans away, it was easier to pretend that John was still alive and Michael was still coveting his wife, and hate himself for it, than to face the terrifying reality that his dreams of making Frannie his own could actually come true, and he was simply too much of a coward, preferring to hide here than be back there, throwing himself at her feet.

(It's been a while since I read the book so ignore anything that seems off.)

It all seems dead on to me, and it's lovely! Michael's guilt and his fear come through so well here, combined with the physical discomfort of hot, humid nights and mosquitos (who are busily giving him malaria). The fantasy vs reality angle works so well for them.

any, any, in the right stories, the house and the haunting are the same.

quote from post by chetungwan

In the right stories, the house and the haunting are the same. Marian’s ghost follows Camille up the stairs and Amma walks in line with her, so close that Camille wonders if she can see her too; Amma falls sick, and Adora feeds her the same medicine she fed Marian. Camille takes it too because she does not belong here and she is bad and she deserves it and it should’ve been her who had died and now it will be and the cycle of the secrets this house keeps will be over and she can save Amma—- and her steps do not resound on the hardwood floor as she weakly fights her way to Amma, telling her to escape for once and for all, and she wonders if she has already become a ghost.

Beatrice, or rather the ghost of Beatrice, or rather the person behind Beatrice, is intimately familiar with both the beginning and the end. They are inseparable from each other because both of them are Beatrice: it hasn’t happened yet, it is already happening, it was over before it began.

This impossible house on an impossible island has told the story, and been the story, enough times for Beatrice to know that it will always end the same way, regardless of the bits in between, and after a certain point there is little difference between knowing the outcome and causing it, so the only thing left to do is cackle all the way to a conclusion.

ooh when i saw this prompt i thought at once of umineko and that house on that island that so represents the ushiromiya legacy and the ushiromiya curse, and how the house and the haunting are the same. i love your take on it, and the ghost of beatrice, who is so many things, but in many ways they're all same thing, and the end is the beginning is the end. the haunting is the house is the haunting. (and gosh, the insight of 'there is little difference between knowing the outcome and causing it,' and what that says about the demon's roulette, and how she has to cackle.)

thank you! it was either going to be umineko or hill house, but the ghost of beatrice was so compelling to me it had to be her

The Last of Us Part II, Ellie and Jesse, becoming friends.

Dark!Narnia, Any, There are no bargains between lions and men. I will kill you and eat you raw.

As Edmund lay in the dark, the only sound he could hear was the drumming of his heart.

Then a soft thunder of a creature’s footfalls coming closer and closer. Its presence looming ever larger, taking up so much space it was hard breathe.

It was Aslan.

The great lion was at Edmund’s feet. Slowly, Aslan made his way up Edmund’s body. At last, he hovered over him, his hot breath and low rumbles making Edmund shiver with fear.

Still, he met Aslan’s eyes. They held anger, betrayal. They held a great stone table, the great lion himself tied down and motionless as the dead. They held the cries of his sisters, of battle and bloodshed. They held the witch, a cruel grin on her face.

Terror struck Edmund. Terror and sorrow, for the lion had shown him a future he did not want.

Tears fell from his eyes though he could not look away from Aslan. I’m sorry, he thought miserably, the words stuck in his throat. I’m sorry.

Aslan growled, then roared.

“For there to be forgiveness, there must first be a sacrifice,” the lion’s voice seemed to say and at once Edmund understood.

When Aslan opened his great maw and bent down, Edmund closed his eyes and waited to be devoured.

ZOMG!!!!! this is amazing!!! I love the eerieness, the terror, the starkness of the consequences and Edmund's acceptance of the inevitable. Aslan takes no prisoners!! My Edmund feels are going haywire <3333

incredibleeee

aaah omg!!

There exist things older and darker than the Deep Magic, and from these was Jadis born; Jadis who silences, Jadis who conquers, Jadis who ends.

Jadis who knows that magic comes from speech, from lips and tongues, formed of air breathed through throats and lungs.

So it is these she begins with, once the Lion lies dead; his tongue and throat and lungs vanishing into the red maw of her lips, word by glorying, devoured word.

fucking YESSSSS

I love it i love it i love it

that last line is KILLER holy shit. *fans self*

oh my god!! Love it! super creepy

“I never asked to become a symbol – not betrayal, not sacrifice, not redemption.” Edmund forces his back straight and his voice steady as he digs his heels into the kindling, unflinching under the Lion’s patient breath, and continues, “I never belonged to my family, nor to the witch, nor to you, and you can’t have me.” He strikes the match and the flames that roar up around him don’t even hurt.

Oh wow.

ooohhhh a twist!

“You are sure it was the Witch who took him then?” the talking Beaver asked. “They say Aslan is on the move as well, and he doesn’t take kindly to traitors.”

Even though the children had never heard of Aslan before, they all got the strangest feeling at hearing his name. Peter felt fierce and disquieted all at once, bloodthirsty and merciless like a warrior on the battlefield, but one that felt the looming threat of a force more violent and dominating still. Susan felt like she was both the hunter and the hunted; she was the kestrel flying high and the mouse pinned under its gaze, the hungry tigress and the cowering deer. Lucy got that feeling you sometimes get when you step on an ant- like a giant, big and strong and invincible, yet she also imaged she was the ant; her life at the mercy of a power beyond her comprehension. Edmund just felt a bone chilling terror.

“There was a note,” Peter said finally, after he had recovered somewhat from that queer feeling, “signed by the Captain of the Secret Police of Queen Jadis.”

The Beaver shushed him, gesturing that he should be more quiet, and then said lowly: “You would have known if it had been The Hunt who took him anyhow, there would have been-… there would have been signs.”

He looked awfully afraid as he said it, and strangely queasy as well, and the children knew he had meant to say something else entirely, but had thought the better of it. Peter and Susan exchanged a glance- maybe it was better if they didn’t know.

“Best to get inside now,” the Beaver said, “even the Trees have ears and eyes, you know.”

Feeling small and afraid, the four children followed the talking Beaver into his home.

In the distance, a Lion roared.

I liked how everything about this is just a bit off - it gives a great uneasy feeling.

thank you!

Final Fantasy VII/Laputa: Castle in the Sky, Aeris and Sephiroth (or / if you prefer), the Cetra as Laputans more interested in their gardens than the myth of empire.

Final Fantasy VII/Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, any, Wutai does not rely on simple mortal forces to repel invaders.

Final Fantasy VII/Laputa: Castle in the Sky, post-game Sephiroth, He doesn't remember what the world was before but the sky is very peaceful.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night/Laputa: Castle in the Sky, any, Dracula's castle is a flying one.

any, any, sword & sorcery AU

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

For the higher-born they prefer such accomplished young women to have some skills in spellwork, though of course this much be of the more book-learned sort that runs households with grace and Mends in necessity to keep up appearances in times of lower funds; elemental magic is the wilder sort, unbecoming of genteel young ladies of good breeding and delicate sensibilities.

Elizabeth Bennett, second-oldest of the many Bennett sisters and one of those genteel young ladies herself, was fit to call down a storm the like of which would wash Meryton - indeed all of Hertfordshire - clear off the map when Mr Bingley hurt her sister.

GO ELIZABETH ::cheers on shamelessly::

LAdy CAtherine deBOUrgh does NOT APPROVE

yesss, i cheered out loud for lizzie! i also love the worldbuilding of "and Mends in necessity to keep up appearances in times of lower funds"

Mending is an AMAZING cantrip and I wish I could use it IRL, no word of a lie. I keep wanting to give it to all my D&D characters.

oooh i love this!!

oh this is a brilliant, i love all the bits of worldbuilding about what magic is or isn’t ladylike and the unladylike fury in elizabeth’s storm.

Oo, this is delightful! *chinhands*

Ohh, I love this.

"You want us to go in there?" Keith asked, gesturing absently with his sword and eyeing the dark mouth yawning before . . . them- Keith sighed as a bright figure charged right into it without pausing.

"No, I do not!" Agnes' voice snapped from the enchanted ear cuff he wore. "I want you to hold back until I can get a scry through, and then-"

"Ah, Wild Tiger has just," Keith paused, squinting a bit to try and make out anything in the unnatural shadow filling the doorway, but it was no use, "gone in." he finished quietly as Agnes started shouting.

any, any, Warring States period AU

"Do you know what they say about you, Zelda?" her father growls - "they say that you are heir to a throne of nothing," and all the Princess can do is bow her head, fold her hands white-knuckled into her sleeves and swear - yet again - to work harder at her training.

Mother, Grandmother - would you have taught me more if you could? I wish you were here now-!

But she was all alone with no-one to guide her, her father consumed by the fighting that raged all around them and dragging her along as proof that he should remain shogun over all, that her family retained the blessings of the Goddess. Zelda, in the most private recesses of her thoughts, wondered if they hadn't lost the Goddess' favour long ago, and if her failure was only the most blatant sign.

WAAAAAAAAH also I EAT YOUR ROYAL KNEES RHOAM

ROYAL KNEES ARE BEST SAUTEED

any, any, faerie AU

"Jazz, stop!"

Jazz froze, the tip of one pede just on the verge of crossing the threshold of an ancient, tumbledown doorway. "Prowl what the frag," he hissed, balancing mid-stride with effortless grace and an annoyed ripple through his field even as he flicked out a scan for pressure plates or tripwires he'd somehow managed to miss.

"Not that way," Prowl hissed back, doorwings twitching in sharp, angry little jerks, glaring at what was left of the frame like an angry cat as he strode off around the doorway and the rusty lump of wall poking up on either side. "It's not safe."

"Yeah, I figured! What-"

But Prowl was already around the door and moving off at an angle, and Jazz turned to follow without the faintest idea of the line he'd been about to cross.

Ooooh, and how does Prowl know this? Inquiring gnomes want to mine~

*wiggles fingers mysteeeriously* Maybe Praxians have their ways~

The foolish old king is granted three wishes – each of them is a daughter and each becomes a curse.

The youngest, last but not least, tells the truths not everyone wishes to hear, and because she sees no value in tempering her words she finds herself cast out; the eldest, like a princess trapped in her tower, wishes only for someone to truly love her, but failing that at least some decorum in her own domain, and instead she is granted sterility, poisoning herself and everything she touches from the inside out; the middle child, satisfied with being ignored, sharpens her claws alongside her husband, but when they reach too high and try to trade blood for eyes, she loses him for good.

All the while the storm, a living god, swallows each of them in turn: no one returns from a journey like this, or if they do they come back different, but the tale of the two brothers is for another night.

Ohh this is amazing!

ooh, this is fascinating

Agnes stilled, the nape of her neck tingling, warning her to stop - to flee - as a shiver of power rolled through her, bearing with it all the warmth - and the strength - of the summer sun.

Her spun-snow skirts swirling around her, Agnes whirled with a click of her icicle heels on the stone paving to face the Summer Knight.

"Hello, my lady." Keith said with a smile, extending his hand to her, dampening his power so that it didn't sting to be so near him, and Agnes slowly relaxed as she put her own hand in her lover's clasp, pulling in the winter winds that surrounded her so as not to bite at him in turn.

Edited 2022-01-28 23:10 (UTC)

beautiful imagery!

Thanks! It's left me with the impulse to write a longer fae AU for the fandom. XD

Sorry for responding so much later. . .

Everyone knew the king and queen of the Seelie Court had been at odds for years upon years, but even so, nobody thought (or dared not think openly, which was nearly the same thing) that the king was involved in her death, not when she was so clearly stabbed and poisoned by cold iron.

The Court limped through a season without the queen's stern hand guiding the steps of their dance and their endless skirmishes with the Unseelie Court and the wild fae, before the king called together a quartet of lesser fae and proclaimed that he had cast the bones and read the stars, and fate decreed one of them would step into the queen's role as joint lynchpin of the Court, after some unspecified trials.

Jon, Sasha, Tim, and Martin exchanged a wary network of glances, all carefully not looking at the rust-marks that still marred the queen's empty throne, but what else could they do but accept?

ooh, fae court murder mystery, i'm hooked

Thank you! :)

The faerie lord’s voice rippled with glamour, but she trusted in the necklace of rowan berries that lay underneath the collar of her homespun tunic and the nails of silver cleverly sewn into the seams of her sleeves; though he may have come under the guise of friendship and aid, she did not trust him or his kind: They were fickle and capricious and often cruel; they did not care for the lives of mortals, who were but mayflies to their unending years—and so she refused his offer.

The faerie lord leaned close to her, his inhuman eyes scrutinizing her face for a long moment; she held her back straight and met his gaze evenly, obstinately; she would not be cowed by one of the Folk, however lofty and revered he may be among his people, and she would not accept an offer of aid from one who would trap her in a cunningly-worded promise as soon as he would lift a finger to come to her people’s aid.

Something flickered in his eyes—something she might have called respect, if she had been looking into human eyes—and he drew back from her, tall and terrible in his beauty, his eyes glittering as he said to her, “I hope you have chosen wisely, mortal.”

ooh, well done her.

Kotetsu stood in the garden and stared down at the naked man lying curled up in the cabbages. He'd hoped Kaede was exaggerating when she'd run in and told him there was a man in the garden, but apparently that had been too much to hope for. It was weird, too—they were too far outside of town for it to be some random drunk, and completely naked was weird, even for a drunk.

The only other explanation was the forest just beyond the edge of their property, but nobody from town ventured into it. And the ones in the forest sure as hell didn't come out.

He crouched beside the man and nudged his shoulder until he stirred. "Hey. Hey. Who are you, and what are you doing in my cabbages? And where are your clothes, huh? It's cold at night!"

The man sat up, his blond curls sticking up every which way, and he rubbed his eyes, looking slowly around at the garden, a slight wrinkle deepening between his eyebrows as he did.

Kotetsu poked him again. "Hey, who are—"

The man turned to him, staring at Kotetsu with huge green eyes framed with the longest lashes Kotetsu had ever seen in his life. "Where am I?"

Kotetsu sighed. "You're sitting in my cabbages. Without any clothes on. And I asked you first. Who are you?"

The man frowned at the cabbage, opened his mouth, and then closed it again. "I...don't know."

Well. Shit.

thaaaat's always a bad sign XD

any, any, fixit

"I've defied Yevon before," said Braska, growing more confident by the second, "and I'll do it again."

"You're just gonna turn back?" Jecht exclaimed.

Braska nodded, his smile slowly expanding as he went on: "I think you're right, Auron, there has to be another way – and we'll be the ones to find it."

yes, go Braska!

Here for this!

After the first time he offered her power, she resolved to become stronger.

After the second time he offered her power, she resolved to become wiser.

When he offered her power the third time, she seized it from him and used it to obliterate him and his follower, for she would not be fooled a third time by the words of a demon.

not sure if this is a Good Guy thing or a Bad Guy thing but I approve either way XD

Mihmatini is truly and honestly still furious at him. He stood in front of her with an army and asked her to help him break their empire, and thought—just because she’s his wife—she would actually do it? Even after he turned his troops around, even after their long-overdue conversation, she still kind of wants to slap him. (He’d let her, too. She can’t stop thinking about his sword thrown in the dust between them, the tremor in his voice as he’d stared at it and whispered that he was sorry.)

So when he stands in the doorway of their chambers, swallows audibly, and says, “I...came to get my sleeping mat,” her first thought is that it’s for the best. She needs to get her head on straight.

But her second thought is—No. They were barely married a week before Teomitl went off to war, and that was four long, cold months without him. Then he came back, and she’s barely seen him for days during which he almost died. He may be an idiot (which she’s said to his face, and she knew he knew he’d done wrong when he didn’t even get defensive over it) but he’s her idiot.

So instead of standing aside, she says, “You don’t have to.”

He recoils like he’s been slapped, eyes going wide. “Mihmatini...”

(Why did you do it? she’d asked. What could have possessed you to think any of this was a good idea? And if he’d said for the Empire or for the sake of the Fifth World, she would have divorced him on the spot; such a man might make a wonderful Emperor but that’s not the sort of husband she wants. But instead he’d blurted out because Tizoc tried to kill Acatl, and he’s a danger to you, and—and I—I can’t—)

(She can understand that. She still doesn’t like it, because she and her brother can both take care of themselves—well, maybe not Acatl, honestly, Teomitl has a point there—but she can understand it.)

“Come on in,” she says with a sigh. “The other side of the room is free.”

any, any, necromancy

"Mother," he whispered, "Mother, please, show me how-" and the knowledge was pouring into his mind before he could follow, sloshing grotesquely and pressing hard against his temples from the inside and he bit his cheek against the pain and pressure.

He held out a hand and pulled, polar opposite to the push of casting but still with the burn of magical expenditure alongside it; for too-long moments nothing happened, his heart beating fever-quick alongside the pounding of his head, and then - and then-

The worn-smooth flagstones bumped. Or, rather, something bumped up against them, underneath them, and Sephiroth's mouth was full of bile even as he reached down with unnatural speed to rip them up and bare the mountain earth underneath.

Professor Gast's shoulders pushed out of the earth, grey with dust and time and decay, clumps of hair falling out along with the loose pebbles dislodged from under the stone, and Sephiroth wanted to scream and laugh and cry all at once - and who was to stop him from doing all three?

-

Aeris looked up, smiling, and Cloud's body wasn't his own, wasn't his own-

A flash of metal above, and Vincent barrelled past knocking Cloud out of the way; steel shrieked against steel, and a shambling figure hit the plinth where Aeris had been kneeling hard enough to collapse over its own feet.

"No," Aeris whispered, pressed between the upright stone and Vincent's protective weight, eyes wide; the thing straightened, unevenly, one limb jerking along a little faster than the other and swaying before reaching some kind of equilibrium.

"I will become a god," whispered in Cloud's ears, as Zack's bloodless, staring corpse swung a borrowed Buster sword down to point at him. "We will travel between the stars together, all of us, with this wretched Planet as our vessel. All those I choose to raise, to keep alongside me. Mother showed me how, Cloud, no matter how long ago the death of the body. Or how brief.

"Aren't you glad I kept you?"

BRB SCREAMING

YOU'RE WELCOME

"You- I- There's a dead body just- Hanging around in the garden!" Izuna yelped, and Madara hummed, stretching a little more; he didn't even open his eyes.

"Yes, there is. He's not going anywhere, he's secured." he added, flapping a hand lazily before using it to brush his fringe out of his face, and Izuna looked back to the- the- the dead person, who was, yes, secured by a rope around his middle and by a ring of incredibly complicated-looking fuinjutsu.

"You are way too comfortable with this." Izuna told his brother; he could even remember when Madara would have been at least as alarmed by this as Izuna himself . . . before he'd spent so much time with Tobirama; before his lover had moved in, with all his mad focus and experiments.

oh no, worse than the usual "roommate's SO has weird hobbies"

So very much, even for professional ninja. XD Poor Izuna. >.> Perhaps he should look into taking his own hobbies to a house other than his brother's - and away from Tobi.

Sorry for responding to this a year later. >.>

The Powers - the Gods, the Goddesses, the Others - can be petitioned, invited in, to make a person something More - a Champion, an Avatar of something large or small, concrete or abstract: War, Hope, Poetry, Sewing, Teaching, Dancing, Laughter...

Death is different; answers no calls, accepts no pleas. But sometimes, things become so unbalanced that even Death needs a Champion - and some poor soul finds themself (unasked for, always unasked for) surrounded by Death and the Dead, dead spirits and dead bodies both, and their touch brings death to the living and activity (though never true Life) to the dead, until they have resolved whatever Death needed them for and sink into Death's final embrace.

To raise the souls of the dead from their rightful afterlives—or worse, to shove them rough and uncaring back into their rotting bodies—is the mark of a sorcerer. But to go to those afterlives and speak with them there? To lay them to rest properly and respectfully? That’s Acatl’s job.

Which, of course, means that when the dead begin walking the streets of Tenochtitlan everyone is looking at him, and he has to say—more than a little defensively—“I don’t know why this is happening either!”

“Probably Tizoc-tzin’s fault,” Palli mutters, and Teomitl adds in an undertone, “It’s not too late—”

“We are not committing regicide just in case it stops the walking dead!”

Even though, he thinks wryly, it almost definitely would.

any, any, spooky ritual games

"This is a bad idea," one of the boys whined, and Tifa didn't bother to look up and see who.

"Then go away," she said, hard but absent, and though they shuffled a little, nobody moved. Carefully, Tifa drew a line across the paper on the floor in front of her - side to side, then another top to bottom. She set her pencil down after writing yes and no on the lines in her careful round letters, sat back on her heels and let out a breath.

"Charlie Charlie, are you there?" she asked, just a little too loud for her normal speaking voice. For a long moment nothing happened, and one of the boys let out a sigh of relief - then the pencil juddered, twitched, and started to roll around in a circle until the worn lead pointed to yes.

Tifa gasped, her heart starting to pound; this was it, something was there! Mount Nibel was full of ghosts and passing spirits, on their way to the sunshine on the other side - maybe one of them had seen her Mama, or maybe this was Mama right now-!

"Charlie Charlie, are you my Mama?" she asked breathlessly; the pencil wobbled again, then started to roll - faster and faster and faster, the paper under it scuffing and starting to curl up at the edges and the air was starting to move and the edges of the paper were starting to catch fire-

A man's deep, dark chuckle echoed around the room under the boys starting to shriek, and the pencil scored right through - No.

oh no aaaaaaaa Tifa! ;_;

THIS WAS A BAD IDEA

Hollow Knight, the Hollow Knight, hugs

The light had been itching and scalding and cutting and burning, aching and blinding until all Bigsib could do was lash out trying to make it go away. They understood, they did, they were the same after all - they chased the light back to its source while Hornetsib held Bigsib down tight and tight, they and manysibs and Biggest-And-Deepest-Darkest smothering it and pulling it down until the very last sparking itching flaring roar of it went out and would never blaze up again.

Hornetsib was very very angry when they woke up, for scaring her, and then for Bigsib waking up as well; it was okay. She wasn't quite the same as them, but they were still sibs. They reached out and patted Bigsib's arm - the only one they had now, but they were quiet and tired and not hurting with the itching madness anymore, and relieved-and-grateful enough to pat back.

Maybe Hornetsib would want a hug too?

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

:D? :DDDD? ~~Maybe Hornetsib will want to go for frozen yoghurt!~~

noooooo this is the CUTEST

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Page 7 of 57

Three Sentence Ficathon 2022 Part 2

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Hamlet, Claudius/Gertrude, pre-ship

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Angel Sanctuary, Rosiel/Katan

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Gifts (Labyrinth; Jareth/Toby)

MDZS, Wei Wuxian in the Burial Mounds

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No idea what's going on with this AU, but oh well

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Spook (MI5): Lucas North

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Nirvana in Fire

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Fill: FFX

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Rokudaime (Naruto; Kakashi)

Obsidian & Blood, Acatl

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The Pevensies in England

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Sharp Objects (tv series)

Umineko, Beatrice

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He Fell By the Wayside (Narnia, Jadis & Aslan)

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He's not a tame Lion

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