Ficlet O'Clock Promptfest

[scribblemyname]

 Add prompts and/or fills to your heart's content. For prompts, you can include canon/fandom and characters or ships, if desired.

I'll be coming back a little later today to add my prompts.

Comments

[etchedinjade]

"I have lost a hero
I have lost a friend
But for you, darling
I'd do it all again"

~St. Vincent, "New York"

Kingdoms and Thorn ficlet, Air + Shadow + Gloria, Team 14, Warnings: mentions of mind control

[scribblemyname]

It was over—over—and the ache in Air's heart was mirrored through every muscle in her body. She dropped down beside Shadow in the mud by their jet's wheels and leaned against him. She didn't care about the squelching feeling under her or the wet hair hanging in her eyes or the fact that both of them were tense with exhaustion and the pain of what they'd just done.

Gloria was one of theirs. Gloria had been Knot and Air's best friend since they were tiny children turned weapons in the belly of a Projects military base. Air never asked Shadow how close he was to Gloria personally, and there wasn't any way to know from his behavior, not when he never talked, but she didn't need to ask.

Gloria was her friend and he was Air's shadow, and they were all team. They didn't turn on each other. They protected their own. They didn't hover in aura's of their own power with radiant green eyes and turn their mind-reading abilities on the people they'd promised to never hurt or invade.

Air realized suddenly she was shaking, choking down air, she couldn't breathe and she wasn't sure she cared. She started to pitch forward, unable to hold herself up even enough to sit, but Shadow's arm suddenly tightened around her shoulders, leaning forward with her, her perfect shadow the way he'd always been.

But it wasn't physical, it was her heart beating out its breaking in his chest, and she suddenly pressed herself into his arms and actually clung to him like she almost never had to do.

She'd lost a team member, a friend— no, they had, and the misery dripped off them both.

"I hurt her," she gasped out abruptly, somehow eking the words around the wet lump in her throat. "I nearly killed her."

Air could kill, drop a person through the floor or ground and then turn them tangible again when they were well buried. It was horrible and horrific and she had nightmares from every time she'd done it and she'd never wanted to turn it on her own friends.

But Shadow just shook his head.

Gloria had hurt them.

Green eyes flashing, nightmares rearing to life behind their eyes in their imaginations, pain spiking through bodies too used to feeling it to stop. Gloria knew them all, too well, but then she'd done the unforgivable and taken control of Shadow's body, and Air snapped, breaking her own rules not to hurt her own for keeps.

She shuddered, finally spent, saying nothing and being heard all the same. I'd do it again. For you, I'd do it all again.

Re: Kingdoms and Thorn ficlet, Air + Shadow + Gloria, Team 14, Warnings: mentions of mind control

[etchedinjade]

This one is painful in all the good ways, which is a weird thing to say, but it is intense and makes you feel for them and understand the horrors of the situation and the bond between them and everything.

Re: Kingdoms and Thorn ficlet, Air + Shadow + Gloria, Team 14, Warnings: mentions of mind control

[scribblemyname]

Eeee! Glad it worked. I couldn't lean on backstory that I knew and you didn't and I wasn't sure I'd capture enough.

Re: Kingdoms and Thorn ficlet, Air + Shadow + Gloria, Team 14, Warnings: mentions of mind control

[etchedinjade]

I did have all those questions going along with it, about what led to all this and was it all Gloria going evil or had she been taken over/corrupted herself and other things, but the fallout still works almost on its own. If that makes sense.