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yonmei @ : 10 flash fiction stories - late, argh!As requested, following a longstanding tradition:
moonflowerz asked: I don't think you are a xena fan, but if you are familiar with the show, I enjoy reading fan fics about her =DHero
Hero, Gabrielle breathes sometimes, silently, to herself. Xena is a hero. Xena is the hero Gabrielle dreamed of, long ago when she decided to be a poet: tall and handsome, brave and decent, capable of deeds beyond the normal run, beloved of gods.
(Gabrielle shivers, briefly, looking into the fire. Beloved of gods is a fine phrase, but it sounds so much better when it doesn't mean slimy Ares showing up with a gleam in his eye.)
She dreamed of being companion and poet to such a hero, and now she is: but she forgets to think about it most of the time, these days. Is it always the way when dreams come true? The true dream is sitting by a fire in a wet forest with half a meal each inside them, and Xena's familiar face thoughtful in the firelight as she leans forward to place another stick on the small blaze.
jekesta asked: Oh, me? Can I have mash fic of anyone, with the word frame. Yes. ::GLOVES YOU::Warm and clean
It's winter in Korea, cold everywhere, cold in the tents, cold in the sleeping-bags, cold everywhere except under hot water in the showers, and Mulcahy never gets to the showers while the water is still hot. There never is enough hot water for all the hundred or so people in camp to have a proper shower: everyone grumbles about it, and Colonel Blake claims there's nothing he can do. Of course he says that about everything. Mulcahy reminds himself to say a penance for that uncharitable thought.
Everyone gets filthy in the operating room except the patients. Blood, sweat, dust from the compound, or mud, plaster of Paris, blood, tears, and sweat. Mostly blood.
There is blood caked on Mulcahy's hands, under the fingernails, and he can't even remember how it got there, but he wants it off, and the water is cold and he can't get a lather up with the thin soap. He is leaning against the wooden wall of the shower, almost crying, when someone comes in, and takes Mulcahy's hands in both of his. Mulcahy doesn't lift his head to see who it is: he stares down at his hands in the frame of the other's, watching as the stroking fingers clean the blood away.
He knows who it is. He doesn't need to look. He knows, lucidly and strangely, that he can only keep meeting Hawkeye's eyes when they're both awake, if he keeps his eyes down when he dreams of him.
whatho asked: I think I want West Wing fic, with Toby in it. I only saw the first season and bits of the second. I am not a proper fan. But I do like Toby. Please to be getting a headache into it somewhere. I feel a headache kink coming on."Somewhere in this building is our talent."
Toby hates it when he can't think of the right words.
He learned to write twice, in Hebrew and in English. He still remembers the pleasure of seeing how the letters came together on the page to make words. He wrote his mother a letter once that said I love you, I love you in English and in Hebrew. She hugged him with tears in her eyes and he had to admit he hadn't written the letter because he loved her but because he loved how the letters became words on the page. (He did love her. But somehow he never got around to explaining that part.)
All his life he has had the ability to make words up, to pin down an idea in three words and outline a scheme in ten. Give him a keyboard and he can make people angry or sad, furious or despairing.
He has four years. Eight, maybe, but four, surely: four years in which his words will be spoken by a man whose voice can reach billions, whose word could send Americans to Mars or demand a cure for cancer or end a war.
He's writing a birthday message. He has a headache. The words won't come right.
melancharisbron asked: Pick one for me; I'm Mary Sue. *wink*"Who's that ensign with the tiger-paw slippers?" Kirk asked Spock.
"I don't know, but I think I'm in love," Spock answered, causing Kirk to raise an uncharacteristic eyebrow.
"She speaks Japanese better than I do," Uhura chimed in.
"She can pilot the ship better than I can," Sulu said enthusiastically.
"She bakes better bread than in Moscow," Chekov sighed in an increasingly-improbable Russian accent.
"That may be," said Kirk sternly. "But she's out of uniform. And her haircut isn't regulation."
"I feel certain that she will save the ship," said Spock, "and as this is only fanfic, I can overrule you because of certain unspeakable Vulcan mysteries and a quite pathetic look of logic misplaced."
"I need a beer," said the author.
plasticsturgeon asked: Fandom: any Child ballad, word: heatherBrokeback Ballad
There was a knight. And a shepherd. And because there was a knight, there was also a horse. And sheep. Flocks and flocks of sheep. And heather. You may argue that sheep don't graze on heather: but it wouldn't be a ballad if it was bees and a beekeeper.
So the knight did something unspecified involving line, twine, the willow the the dee, which is 16th-century for one finger, two fingers, three fingers, use plenty of lube. And when the shepherd got up again, deflowered and sticky, the knight said "I'm not queer," and the shepherd said "Me neither, it's nobody's business but ours."
Oh wait, that wasn't the ballad, it was the movie.
In the ballad the shepherd said to the knight that the knight had stolen his heart, and the knight said something unspecified involving line, twine, the willow the the dee, which is 16th-century for "Christ was I drunk last night, I don't remember a thing."
But he admitted that while cruising he was Jack or he was John, but at the Faery King's court he was Sweet William. He was a flower knight. And the shepherd tied a hanky at his waist, and the handkerchief was line, twine, the willow the the dee, which is 16th-century for likes to get fucked, doesn't like to get screwed and followed the knight across the heather - because there is always heather - and swam the river, because there is always a river, and ran to the king's court, and rang the doorbell.
And of course the king answered the door himself, because that's what kings do in ballads. The king said good morning to you, and the shepherd said good morning, sir, you have a knight in your court who's robbed me, and then the king said line, twine, the willow the the dee, which is 16th-century for "I don't pay my knights to get cute with shepherds, how much money will this cost me?"
The king offers the shepherd 20 pounds and a glove, line, twine, the willow the the dee, which is 16th-century for next time have safe sex and now go away. The shepherd insists that he doesn't want money or a glove, he wants the knight to marry him, and then the king said line, twine, the willow the the dee, which is 16th-century for "Where do you think you are, Canada?" but because this is a ballad he summoned his knights, and Sweet William arrived last. Sweet William came behind, which is what he did to the shepherd, and complaining that he was drunk and he shouldn't have to follow through on something he did when he was drunk, because line, twine, the willow the the dee, which is 16th-century for this grubby man is just a shepherd, why do I have to marry him?
The shepherd said to Sweet William, "If I'm just a grubby shepherd, you should have left me alone, but line, twine, the willow the the dee, which is 16th-century for you fucked me and the law says I can make you marry me. And then something ballady about the dog gets the flour and you get the bran, which may be obscenely metaphorical, because the shepherd also says "I'll make you wish you were never born. And line, twine, the willow the the dee," and no one knows what that's 16th-century for. But they rode together to the nearest town, and the Flower Knight and the shepherd had the gayest wedding at the very next church. And line, twine, the willow the the dee, which is 16th-century for "And they lived unhappily ever after."
bubosquared asked: I'd like some Dr Who fic, Mickey/Jake, word: rain.Forget...
Sometimes Jake forgets and calls him Ricky. Sometimes Mickey forgets and calls him Rose. When the rain drums hard on the roof of the van, they can each pretend they didn't hear the other man forget.
strangeriana asked: A flash fic based on Georgette Heyer would be delightful. It needn't be in her Regency dialect, unless you want to tackle that, but among some of those characters. My favorites are (but I like them all, actually) The Quiet Gentleman, Friday's Child and A Civil Contract. Word: stranger. "Well, I don't know what there is to cry about, I'm sure," Jenny said firmly. "Nor it won't do to fall into a fit of the dismals. So we'll have a light supper, and you shall tell me all about the latest on dits from Almacks, which I'll be bound you know all about."
"But you don't understand," Hero said plaintively. "Your husband and mine - they were kissing."
Jenny controlled a brief qualm of jealousy. "I don't doubt it, but it's nothing to be surprised at. Why, Sherry and Adam have been friends forever, isn't it so?"
"But kissing," said Hero, throbbing with anguish.
"Well," said Jenny, with bracing practicality, "they'll be coming home in half an hour and we'll both be better able to ask them what they mean by it. I've no sensibility - never have had ! - but there's no denying. things always look a sight better after you've had something to eat."
Indeed, over the black butter and toast and other sumptuous good things Jenny had provided (though she kept back the macaroons: even if Adam had been kissing a stranger's mouth, that was no reason to deprive him of his favourite cake) they both hatched a scheme, and when Adam and Sherry came home, they found Jenny and Hero kissing on the hearthrug, and neither of them looked a bit ashamed.
rainherder asked: Fandom: Lord of the Rings. Word: femur. Theme: optionsThis Side of the Sunset
Sam broke his leg when he fell off a haystack two summers ago, and now his left femur aches when it rains. He doesn't mind. He prefers this to the alternative.
There is a place on the ships to the West for Samwise Gamgee, Ringbearer, if he wants it. He can sail into the West, into the land beyond the sunset, to live there forever with Frodo and Bilbo and the elves.
He tells his daughters about the elves who once lived in the forests of Lothlorien and Mirkwood. He tells his daughters about Elrond Halfelven, who walked like a king in the Last Homely House, and Arwen who became a mortal woman for love of King Aragorn, whose rule is wise and just, and about Legolas Greenleaf, whose arrows could not miss. He tells them about the dwarves of Moria, of Gimli the Beloved, of skill with stones and courage with axes. He tells them stories of their uncles when their uncles were lively boys, before they grew in stature beyond any other hobbit in the Shire.
He doesn't tell them about the Ring. He saw it seldom even on their long journey: Frodo kept it hidden. But once, when he thought Frodo was dead, once he took the fair shining circle of gold, pure and beautiful and heavy to the hand, and put it on his finger, and walked the night. Once, he was a Ringbearer.
solar_boat asked: Blake's 7 (be aware that I'm Blakecentric) and the word is "Library"Escher on the Liberator
Blake misses the Liberator.
He doesn't miss Vila, because Vila used to steal his boots and put jelly in them. He doesn't miss Cally, because Cally used to get possessed by aliens and kick him in the face. He doesn't miss Avon, because Avon was a miserable bastard who liked to get on his case about how rich he would be if he wasn't with Blake. He doesn't miss Jenna, because Jenna is still with him and won't let him miss her. He doesn't miss Gan, because he feels too guilty every time he thinks of Gan to think of him at all.
He misses Orac, sometimes, when he has to actually think about where he might find information instead of just asking Orac. Then he remembers the arguments he used to have to have with Orac in order to get information out of it, and then he doesn't miss Orac one byte.
He doesn't miss Zen. Jenna misses Zen, and says so, sometimes. More often than Blake quite likes, actually.
He misses the Liberator. Mostly he misses the Liberator library. It was spectacularly large and filled with books from side to side and upside down: gravity in that library was a little strange, and steps curved round the shelves and turned at right angles to each other. He liked the library. He read books there he's never seen anywhere else.
When he hears that the Liberator is destroyed, he thinks first of the library. He feels guilty because he doesn't much care about Avon, Vila, Cally, and whoever else got killed on board, and Jenna is angry because he doesn't care about Zen.
He misses sitting at the foot of a flight of steps, which is the top of another flight of steps, which is at the bottom of a circular well of light, reading books he's never heard of until his eyes are full of the dust of words. All of that is gone. And he is going too.
ruthi asked: Ninth Dr. Who, word: Duck (I'd prefer the fowl, if that works)St James Park
In some religions, on some worlds, ducks are a symbol of eternity. The Doctor stood with his hands deep in the pockets of the leather coat he had found in the TARDIS wardrobe, looking at the ducks, listing the worlds and religions in his head. The coat seemed to fit. He hadn't looked at himself in the mirror. Not yet. He would. Soon.
London had grown around this patch of green. The pond had changed in size and shape. The trees and undergrowth had tamed from the original temperate forest to placid and green. The ducks had always been there.
(He shouldn't have regenerated this time.)
Earth was one of the Doctor's favourite planets. Earth was the favourite planet of a lot of people. More people than the six billion sentients who lived there. It was a favoured tourist stop, a magnet for resource-hungry miners of various species, and the human sentients were popular - or unpopular - for reasons that ranged from the flavour of their flesh to the colour of their thoughts, from one side of the galaxy to the other.
Wiping out a whole world of sentients was the kind of thing that the Doctor would have moved worlds to stop, in the past. Wiping out a sentient species - two sentient species -
He didn't want to think about that.
He had spent a lot of time on Earth, whichever way he measured it. The TARDIS could tell him how much, if he cared to ask. He had saved the human species from itself, from its predators, so many times. A lot of it just recently, in his own timeline. Humans hadn't invented good mirrors till recently, it was safe to wander their past. What had he meant to do just now? Autons, that was it. The Autons had come back.
The ducks would still be here.