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!

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

How very sweet!! Thank you for filling my prompt :)

Acatl has seen the sun. Brilliant, radiant, scorching. He has stood in the Heartland, the domain of the Southern Hummingbird, and baked to delirium beneath its rays. He knows its heat upon his back, knows the way it soaks into his hair. He hadn’t thought a brighter or more dangerous thing existed, either on earth or in the heavens.

And then Teomitl turns to him on a day where the sky is a flat unrelieved gray, a day where the clouds are threatening to release their burden of water any minute, and smiles.

And Acatl knows he was wrong.

Awww! This is lovely, thank you for filling my prompt! <3

Edited 2022-04-05 02:03 (UTC)

Thank you!

Oh, he thought, and then again, Oh.

It wasn’t the first time. There had been other moments where he’d looked at Teomitl, at the man who he knew with all his heart would lead the Mexica Empire to glory, and felt the dry and withered thing in his chest catch fire with the knowledge that he loved him. That he’d been an absolute idiot to have ever thought his feelings were platonic. Like a son, he’d said once, but that had ended the moment he’d seen Teomitl on the temple steps with the setting sun turning him to gold. By now, he was almost used to feeling his heart contract when their eyes met.

Almost. Teomitl was sitting quite close, almost touching; each time his fingers brushed Acatl’s thigh it was like a brand. And he’d just turned to him and smiled, continuing their conversation as though nothing at all was amiss. “Don’t you think so, Acatl?”

“Yes,” Acatl whispered, and looked at Teomitl’s mouth, and burned.

“Tell me more about this Acatl-tzin of yours.”

“He’s not my—oh, fine.” Ah, her sweet, brave, naive little brother. He can’t resist an opportunity to talk about the High Priest of Mictlantecuhtli, and he doesn’t know what he’s revealing with each smile and blush and proud Acatl-tzin says...

All she has to do is pat his arm and poor them more chocolate. Talk about how Acatl-tzin seems like an exemplary man, truly, it’s simply a shame that he’ll always see Teomitl as a child. Ah, but that’s too depressing to contemplate—tell her, has Teomitl won any great victories lately? How are things with his new bride? Is their brother still ill? The Heartland? Well, that explains a great deal about everything, if their Revered Speaker is a man already dead. Such a shame. Still, he likely won’t do anything too damaging. They can hope. Ah, but Teomitl is impatient. She can’t blame him for that. Perhaps it is wise to begin building up his own power, just in case—and yes, his dear elder sister has plenty of ideas.

“Do you truly think this is necessary?” he asks her once.

She imagines herself behind the throne clad in gold, her skirt a single shade off from imperial turquoise.

And she says, “You’re a clever young man. It’s better to be prepared for any eventuality, isn’t it?”

When he nods, she smiles.

Edited (forgot the title) 2022-04-05 05:06 (UTC)

do you like the idea of fantasy noir mysteries set in 1400s Tenochtitlan because if so, Aliette de Bodard's Obsidian and Blood is the series for you

“Sometimes I’m jealous of your hair,” Mihmatini tells him.

Acatl stares at his little sister in shock. “Why?!” It’s a ridiculous concept. Mihmatini’s hair is arrow-straight and gleams like a polished obsidian mirror, falling to her waist like a waterfall. Well, almost straight; she’s just combed out her marriage braids, and they’ve left kinks behind. But those will soon be gone, and she’ll be back to her usual loveliness. He’s positively unkempt in comparison.

She gestures at him. “It’s so thick and wavy! Like our mother’s. And it looks so nice when you bother to take care of it properly.”

Slowly, he reaches up to tuck an errant curl back behind his ear again. It’s just slightly too short to stay in the white cord holding the rest of his hip-length hair back, not that the cord is more than a token gesture half the time anyway. She is right that it’s something he’s inherited from their mother—the only thing she ever left him other than her scorn—but... “Mihmatini, it breaks combs.”

“It does not!” she huffs at him, and shifts to kneel behind him with her own comb in hand. “Here, let me comb it out for you for once. You’ll see how much better it looks.”

He sighs. There’s really no stopping her once she gets an idea in her head. “Fine,” he mutters as he loosens his hair, “but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

For a few minutes, it’s actually rather pleasant. And his hair does need the attention. But then—

Snap.

“Ow!”

“...Ah. There went a few of the teeth.”

“I tried to tell you!”

The sickness, whatever it is—fever, boils, delirium, death—is spreading, and Quenami doesn’t know how to stop it. (No, that’s a lie. He knows, but he won’t let himself contemplate it. He did not go into the Heartland, humble himself before his god, return Tizoc-tzin to life, just to kill him. He is loyal. Besides...the man isn’t such a bad Revered Speaker, is he? There have been worse. Surely there have been worse.)

(Forty captives. Three hundred dead warriors, and only forty captives, and half of them are dying already.)

(Surely there have been worse.)

He bleeds himself. He sacrifices. He prays. He whispers in dark corridors, marshals his priests, keeps Tizoc-tzin as stable as he can. And he watches more men (women) (children) die, and he hopes he isn’t next.

Magic, says that jumped-up peasant Acatl, not a common plague. He hates to admit it, but the man might be right. At least in that case, it isn’t his responsibility anymore; with Acatl doing what he does best, he’s free to focus on ensuring their Revered Speaker’s survival. The common rabble can die in droves, but the leader of the Mexica Empire must live on.

With the High Priest of Huitzilopochtli by his side, naturally.

I think I would love that, thanks

Copper and bronze were useful in their own ways, but they required regular sharpening and maintenance. Not so obsidian, which stayed as sharp as the day it had been flaked off from its core. Underworld obsidian, green-tinged and rippling with magical power, was even sharper.

All this was to say that when Teomitl idly rolled over and picked up one of Acatl’s knives, turning it this way and that, he was acutely aware of how his lover stiffened. He couldn’t blame him, really; wounds made by these blades festered instead of healing, and even a scratch could mean a slow death. Still... “I just wanted a closer look.”

“You’ve seen them before,” Acatl pointed out. There was a rustling that suggested he was propping himself up on one elbow to keep an eye on him.

Worrywart, Teomitl thought with no small amount of affection. “Usually when you’re using them.” The knife he was holding was excellently made, handed down from one High Priest to the next; the edges gleamed like mirrors, and the hilt had been wrapped in white leather cord. The same sort of white leather cord, in fact, that held Acatl’s hair off his face. The overall effect was of something clean and elegant in its simplicity, with nothing ostentatious to distract from its purpose.

“And?” Acatl’s warm breath wafted over his shoulder. “What do you think?”

“They remind me of you.”

“Do you trust me?” Teomitl asks him.

Not, Do you love me. Or, Do you want me. The answers to those are so obvious as to be self-evident even with Acatl’s reticence and Teomitl’s general insecurity. But trust? That’s something different. Something much more important than Acatl’s heart or body. It’s a question that requires thought.

Acatl’s decided on his answer long ago.

“Yes.”

“Good,” Teomitl breathes, and draws his sword.

And they charge into the fray together.

There are tamales stuffed with duck and fresh greens. There are bowls of stew, fragrant with chilies and herbs. There are platters of roasted venison in pumpkin sauce and freshly-sliced fruit drizzled with honey. By the sides of everyone’s plates are stacks of warm flatbread baked to golden-brown softness, just the way Acatl likes them.

He’s not allowed love or wealth or glory. But he is allowed this, and so he digs in with abandon.

The witch raised her hand and twisted, and he could feel her pulling the thread of his life somewhere above his navel. He raised his head, and found that the thread was made of numbers, vertical chains of them in columns of green text code. Concentrating, she isolated his life thread swiftly with a flick of her wrist and changed it to 0.

She plucks up a strawberry from the bowl of glistening fruits, and, lifting it to her lips, daintily sinks her teeth into the luscious berry. The stem is discarded to the side, and she smiles, the plush curve of her mouth slightly redder than before. You wonder what she will look like when she eats the rest of the fruit, and wait with baited breath as she twirls a finger around the bowl, deliberating between blackberries and blueberries.

It feels strange, Acamapichtli reflects, to be working on a ritual with Acatl that actually doesn’t involve the very fate of the Mexica Empire. At least, not immediately. It’s for the maintenance of the Great Temple, which while certainly vital isn’t about to collapse under their feet.

Not that Acatl seems to realize this, judging by the agitated inky swirls of his magic. Acamapichtli prods him a little too hard to be entirely companionable. (He really can’t help it. Acatl’s just so skinny and easily offended, it’s a constant battle not to put him in a headlock.) “Calm down. We’ve done this dozens of times before.”

“You have,” Acatl mutters.

Acamapichtli smirks. That’s right; he’s been High Priest of Tlaloc for far longer than Quenami and Acatl have served their own patrons. “No pressure, then!”

It is common advice passed along those who lucid dream that should you come across the King of Dreams (or any of his siblings) in your travels, you greet him as you would anyone you have a polite acquaintance with. The powers of the Endless are vast and incomprehensible, even to those that have extensively studied their domains.

And, honestly, if they are here for you, there is little you can do to avoid your fate, so it is best to make your encounter as pleasant as possible.

While probably not the stupidest thing Acatl’s ever done, he’s aware that this is up there. Tizoc is so paranoid, so unstable, that even to breathe a word of treason within the palace is to take his own life in his hands. But Teomitl has asked, and this time—without the army at his back, without the adrenaline still racing through his veins—it’s not so desperate. He’s asked because he really wants to know. And, more pertinently, because he wants Acatl’s advice. As a friend.

There’s something very nice about being wanted.

“...What do you think we should do about this?” Teomitl’s asking. This, at the moment, is Tizoc’s plans for a complete refurbishment of the Great Temple, a massive construction project that they can ill afford no matter how much it might please the gods.

Acatl grimaces. “Nothing.”

“But—”

“It’s a stupid idea,” he clarifies, “but it will keep him occupied and not ruining anything else.”

“Until we go off to war again,” Teomitl mutters mutinously.

Acatl takes a moment to study him—the young Master of the House of Darts, keeper of one-fourth of Tenochtitlan’s army, devotee of She of the Jade Skirt, skilled in magic and warfare, currently crunching a handful of peanuts as though they’ve done him an injury. And then he finds himself smiling. “I think you can handle that.”

The worst part, Teomitl reflected, was that he’d really thought his elder sister had cared about more than power. That she’d been sincere when she’d patted his shoulder and told him to have faith, it would all work out. That she’d ever once weighed his misgivings as more than an unfortunate attack of morality. (She’d asked about Acatl. About Mihmatini. And he’d been so stupidly, pathetically grateful to have someone to talk to that he’d told her.)

Hatred—at her, at himself—curdled his heart, but he stood in front of her complex in Zoquipan anyway. The guards had their weapons half-drawn. The one on the left (gods, he’d never learned the man’s name) said, “State your business.”

He straightened up to meet the man’s gaze. “I’m here to speak to my sister.”

And warn her never to contact me again.

There are unexpected complications to becoming Revered Speaker. The new septum piercing, for instance, which itches abominably and hurts when he sneezes. The difficulty in finding any actual privacy for longer than an hour. The part where he’s expected to have concubines, which wouldn’t be so bad except that he has no idea what to say to women who are trying so painfully hard to fawn over him. The sycophancy in general, really. Is it too much to ask for honesty from the people around him?

But at the moment, the worst part is that the Revered Speaker is expected to lead sacred dances at certain festivals. And he...well.

“Again,” says his instructor with a sigh as the musicians begin drumming anew.

He has to learn the steps eventually, right?

Quenami was supposed to be the loyal one. Tizoc had appointed him, after all, and he knew where his power ultimately derived from. He would never do anything to jeopardize that, and that was why Tizoc could trust him. Quenami had helped him to the throne. Had brought him back to life (oh, the other High Priests had helped, but they would have gotten nowhere without Quenami and everyone knew it.) He was very possibly the closest thing the Emperor could have to a friend.

And so Tizoc was smiling as he accepted the bowl of spiced chocolate and raised it to his lips. It had been a dreadfully long time since he hadn’t had to fear poison.

“What do you think, my lord?” Quenami’s voice was soft and smooth as always, a balm to his soul.

He took a deep draft. “Wonderful.” It was wonderful, rich with vanilla and honey and chile. There was an odd spice he couldn’t place, though, so he opened his mouth to ask Quenami what it was—

And then he blinked, spots swimming in his vision. The room seemed to spin before his eyes. The guards, he thought frantically, fetch my guards—but he couldn’t say it, because his tongue was too thick and heavy in his mouth. The cup slid from his useless fingers to smash upon the floor.

“Yes,” murmured Quenami, “it is.”

“Look at yourself,” She of the Jade Skirt whispers, and Teomitl can do nothing but obey. He is acutely aware of Her presence behind him as he’s been aware of nothing else in his life, even though all She’s doing is standing over his shoulder as he kneels to peer down into Her crystal-clear waters.

He sees—himself. Just himself. There’s his curved nose, his high cheekbones, his dark eyes. His hair is growing out, thick and dark and still too short to do anything with. He doesn’t look like a warrior or a prince or a future Revered Speaker. He just looks...normal. Ordinary. Mediocre, hisses a voice in the back of his head. Mediocre, even with Jade Skirt’s patronage.

He blinks back an unruly tear, and his eyes are jade from lid to lid.

He tilts his head, and an ahuitzotl sitting across from him mirrors the motion.

Over his shoulder, Chalchiuhtlicue smiles.

He is Ahuitzotl; thanks to Chalchiuhtlicue’s favor, the beasts for which he was named are bound tightly to his soul. As much as they’ve saved him in the past—it turns out that even the fiercest fighter is vulnerable to a man-sized blur of teeth and claws that can spring from any source of fresh water—there are occasional downsides to that. He finds it more difficult to keep ahold of his temper when he’s hungry. His hair is frankly unmanageable. (They are, after all, thorny water beasts, referring to their spiky wet fur.) His teeth are sharper than they ought to be, and he keeps biting his tongue or the insides of his cheeks by accident. Sudden bright lights give him headaches.

And he is absolutely, shamefully ravenous for raw fish.

(“Teomitl,” his wife asks, “what are you eating?”)

(He swallows the rest of his still-bleeding meal quickly. “Just a quick snack!” It’s not technically a lie.)

Despite her follies, her heartbreak, her frankly terrible choices, Huei had been her sister-in-law. She’d borne Neutemoc five healthy, happy children. And now she was dead, having given herself in sacrifice to Chalchiuhtlicue to escape the judgement of the Underworld, and there was a hole in the air where her place at the table had once been.

Mihmatini knew she wasn’t the only one feeling it. The children had been inconsolable all day; even Necalli, who bid fair to take after his uncle Acatl, was silent and shaky and close to tears. Neutemoc had barely spoken a single word in weeks. Acatl...well, he was always quiet, but now there was an edge to it. He’d tried to save Huei. He’d failed.

Finally, it was too much to take. Carefully, without quite looking at either her siblings or her nieces and nephews, she picked up another serving of now-cold meat and said aloud, “Do you remember when she made these?” Huei, for all her skills in other areas, had never been able to roast anything without charring it to a crisp.

Neutemoc made a face. “Unfortunately yes. Ah, but her baking...”

Sniffling, Mazatl added, “Mama made the best maize cakes.”

That set Necalli and Ohtli off, and even Acatl managed to unbend himself to share his own stories. Huei was still gone. Nothing would change that. But for the moment, she lived on.

There were so many ways this could have went so badly. Acatl knew them instinctively and could list them off without thinking. But he didn’t, because...because it wasn’t going badly. Because Teomitl was in his arms and in his life, and it was good. Because they were safe together, and both of them intended to keep it that way.

So when Teomitl nuzzled in with a grin of his own and breathed, “Now, what’s put that smile on your face?” Acatl kissed him, and told him why.

Perhaps slightly too effusively, admittedly, because Teomitl went absolutely crimson and tackled him back onto the mat, with the end result that they were both extremely late for a planned meeting. It was worth it.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 174 of 187

Three Sentence Ficathon 2022 Part 2

Re: Rey of Light (Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Ben/Rey)

Obsidian & Blood, Acatl/Teomitl

Re: More inspired by the Musical

Re: More inspired by the Musical

Obsidian & Blood, Acatl/Teomitl

Obsidian & Blood, Chalchiuhnenetl & Teomitl

Re: Obsidian & Blood, Ichtaca & Acatl

Obsidian & Blood, Acatl & Mihmatini

Obsidian & Blood, Quenami

Re: Obsidian & Blood, Ichtaca & Acatl

Obsidian & Blood, Acatl/Teomitl

Obsidian & Blood, Acatl/Teomitl

Obsidian & Blood, Acatl

Fill

Fill

Obsidian & Blood, Acatl & Acamapichtli

Sandman, dreamers, Advice

Obsidian & Blood, Acatl & Teomitl

Obsidian & Blood, Teomitl & Chalchuihnenetl

Obsidian & Blood, Teomitl

Obsidian & Blood, Tizoc & Quenami

Obsidian & Blood, Teomitl & Chalchiuhtlicue

Obsidian & Blood, Teomitl

Obsidian & Blood, Mihmatini & her brothers

Obsidian & Blood, Acatl/Teomitl