Whispers

Yesterday, I actually got a lot of various scenes written. Now just to get the books and stories pulled together, huh? :rolls eyes at self:

Lovemark the Seasons

I wanted to love you because that's what you wanted, but... "I don't really do in love."

Words don't always make sense, and your stormy eyes told me these ones hadn't.

Exasperated, I sighed and tried again. "I love my brother, but I'm not in love with him."

"Yes..." You still weren't getting it.

"I can love you without falling in love with you." Moments ticked between us. Wrestling angels of understanding, and I knew I wasn't helping, but. "You're not my brother."

Everything is Blood

Russian snow—she still had to snap Niko out of the Red Room in his mind whenever they worked on Russian snow—outside on the ground and more of it falling from a stone-grey sky. Her leg was propped up on a chair, her crossbow completing her arm at one side. The other hand filled out paperwork. She'd been hunting this trail for weeks now. This wasn't a simple job, put an arrow in an enemy or a terrorist and stop the bad guy in his or her tracks. She preferred the simple jobs. You're just a girl with a bow. This wasn't what she'd signed up for.

Mother and daughter traveling on the train, in cars, over the national borders, seeking asylum, refuge, what? It didn't matter. One of them was Collie's target and the only complication was which.

The Rothnen Cycle: Blood

"Thinking on what might have beens?" Kyrieh asked gently.

Casaia shrugged, brought the analytical gleam back into her eye. "Not really. Renaiven and I could never have been."

Kyrieh's eyebrows came up and Casaia realized her friend had never know the exact relationship that hadn't occurred.

[untitled]

No team is family as a group. One bond leads to another and to another. This one would do anything for that one and the links form a chain which eventually circles the entire Department. Whisper called Shift called Thought called Vision called name after name and operative after operative with the word that now was the time they had all been waiting for from forever ago when they were children and swore one day this would be over.  Tracers moved into computer files their admins had never known they hacked. Voluntary teams turned involuntary and used every. single. privilege, every single access point into the systems designed to control these living weapons. Trip wires and triggers promised certain retribution should certain things be done. Law books were opened, loopholes exploited, implants deactivated or interfered with in whatever fashion wouldn't kill the one who wore them.

This was the biggest mission of the teams' collective lives. They hadn't been taught how to fail.

Originally published at Liana Mir. You can comment here or there.

Hedge Your Bets

Canon: Avengers 919
Characters: Colleen "Hawkeye" Barton, Nikolai "Atrax" Romanoff, and Philippa Coulson
Pairings:
Prompt: Well, maybe later. Not yet. / Like an old comfortable coat that is tattered and torn.
Rating: T
Notes:

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Collie Barton is comfortable with what she does and with being an archer in a sniper’s world. Then she gets Nikolai Romanoff as a target.

   

Originally published at Liana Mir. You can comment here or there.

So for the next so long, you'll be getting batched updates because I'm writing 2 count per day. This time 'round, I was particularly pleased with the poem, and if I were going to submit any of these, it would be "By the Numbers."

Well Doing, Weary

Canon: Miscellaneous Fiction
Characters:
Pairings:
Prompt: Oh, I try out a smile / And I aim it at you / Oh, you must have missed it / You alway
Rating:
Notes:

Sometimes we get weary. Really, bone-tired weary.

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That moment when faith becomes sight.

All the old preacher wanted was some sign the families in his church might soften their hardened hearts to the Word they claimed to keep.

   

Don’t Remind Me That It’s Over

Canon: Kingdoms and Thorn
Characters:
Pairings:
Prompt: Don't let the past remind us of what we are not now
Rating:
Notes:

So a whole new set of characters, I know, but this was actually the first team I ever developed of this world. Team five. It was kind of nice to find they matched the prompt.

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Ricki had put away the past when she put away the name.

Anna has a new photography job and decides to go back through her old snapshots and memories. Ricki, who is visiting, demands that she stop—before it hurts too much.

   

By the Numbers

Canon: Miscellaneous Fiction
Characters:
Pairings:
Prompt: If love is anywhere / Mine still belongs with you...
Rating:
Notes:

This is a sequel of sorts to “Bridge.”

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How does one rekindle a faded love?

David had been buried in work and statistics so long, he and his wife had forgotten how to communicate. They just need to take that first step…

   

Flight of a Wild Mare

Canon:
Characters:
Pairings:
Prompt: I am not a poet, living is the poem...
Rating:
Notes:

I swear, I’ll write you some prose off this prompt. Just not this time.

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You’re riding me hard, and I’m put away wet. / My soul like His cloak is a gamble, a bet.

   

Originally published at Liana Mir. You can comment here or there.

Collateral Damage

Canon: Kingdoms and Thorn
Characters: Andre, Jennifer Haller, Shift, and Brittany Rachelle Winslow, the Database
Pairings:
Prompt: Is she really going to die because of her abilities?
Rating: T
Notes:

So let’s just say there’s a reason Rachelle tries to stop her team members from helping her, and that reason has a name—Shift.

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No price is too high...

Andre knows a young woman’s genes are killing her, but is saving her a lost cause?

   

To Dance with a Dragon

Canon: Vardin
Characters: Etienne Gravois de Calai, Template, and Jhemet out of Calai
Pairings: Etienne/Jhemet
Prompt: a rothnen pair that's happy with each other/glad to find the one from their dreams
Rating:
Notes:

So frankly, I should’ve finished Jhemet’s coming to Vardin story first, but it didn’t like me, so this is what you get.

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He preferred the translation, Never assume anything.

Etienne has a few assumptions about this girl, this woman he may one day marry. She doesn’t much mind setting him straight.

   

Blood of Dragons

Canon: Vardin
Characters: Akena out of Britak, and Burn
Pairings:
Prompt: I probably need some clarity on what it means to be a dragon in Vardin...
Rating:
Notes:

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She was still a little girl for all she was a woman.

Akena is the daughter of guardians of Vardin, sworn to protect their people and their lands, and yet, she doubts herself, that she will ever become what she should.

   

Name Me Another (or Glass Angel, Redux)

Canon: Kingdoms and Thorn
Characters: Ashen
Pairings: Ashen/Jordan Michael
Prompt: Who are these two?
Rating:
Notes:

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He wanted to know her name. She wanted him to know who she was.

Ashen hopes to create a new life and a new name for herself with Jordan Michael, a businessman with his own reason to be interested in special type humans like her, but can he ever see who she is beyond the name?

   

Originally published at Liana Mir. You can comment here or there.

That is Something

Canon: Vardin
Characters/Pairing: Tracer, Rhiannon "Cipher" out of Alyón
Prompt: I don't have a choice but I'd still choose you / Oh, I don't love you but I always wi
Rating:
Notes:

So pygmymuse wrote the first piece of fanfic ever of my work, an AU piece I liked a lot but wanted to tweak into being more them and more indicative of the underlying dynamics involved in being kahtchen. She liked this and let me plunk it in here. Actually, this is one world where it could even end up as canon (see “Tenderness”—more info coming with WIP “Eglantine”), but that’s another story.

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We do not choose who we love.

Rhiannon gave up her hunt and accepted the first failure of her life as a guardian—for Tracer, but he might never forgive her for considering choosing another.

   

Originally published at Liana Mir. You can comment here or there.

When the Clock Strikes Midnight

Canon: Kingdoms and Thorn
Characters/Pairing: "Shift" Jessica Haller, Andre
Prompt: Picture of Cinderella
Rating: T
Notes:

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Unlike Cinderella, Shift had no hearth to welcome a prince to...

The clock would strike midnight, soon, and all Shift wants is to remember that she has a heart before her cinderella run is over.

   

After the Grief

Canon: Kingdoms and Thorn
Characters/Pairing: Storm, Whisper/Red Wolf
Prompt: Happy
Rating:
Notes:

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Storm likes to worry about her. Whisper likes to ignore that.

You would think Whisper had ended a relationship instead of started one, but big brother types could be protective regardless.

   

The Way of the Hunt

Canon: Vardin
Characters/Pairing: Josh Williams, Rachel Gravois out of Calai
Prompt: Picture of Archer
Rating:
Notes:

So, pygmymuse didn’t understand the concept of hunting in Vardin—more one of treasure hunting or hunting down than animal hunting. I went looking for an outsider to explain it to and Josh was so remarkably convenient.

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Just when he thought he found some common ground—at last.

Josh Williams is an outsider to Vardin, kidayet, and so he’s glad to find some common ground at last with someone native. Even if it’s not quite the way he thought.

   

Originally published at Liana Mir. You can comment here or there.

A meme I did once a long time ago from the incomparable xenokattz:

Give me
a) a fandom/original world
b) a character/pairing

Then add any (or all) of the following
1) an image
2) a quote (but not in the same fandom)
3) Your battle cry
4) a recipe

First 10 prompts will get a strict drabble commentfic; that is, a 100 words very brief fic. No promises after 10 although I'll do my bestest.

Originally published at Liana Mir. You can comment here or there.

Best Friends

Canon: Alliance
Characters/Pairing: Shelley Huntington, Langley Asberg
Prompt: Best Friends
Rating:
Notes:

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An unlikely rescuer and a shy little girl...

Five-year-old Shelley Huntington falls prey to the class bully, but meets an unlikely rescuer with startling results.

   

Originally published at Liana Mir. You can comment here or there.

Remembering Stories

Canon: Vardin
Characters/Pairing: Cayden/Llereya
Prompt: A memory from your chosen character.
Rating:
Notes:

In “Of Memory and Making,” Connor makes the decision to not share memory with his significant other. The choice seemed so significant to me and in_the_blue mentioned it. Here I wanted to show the healthy relationship established and continuing to develop between another couple whose memories have affected them just as deeply, if not more so. Here is a woman who has more self-control than anyone I have ever met. And there is a reason why.

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She remembered the akhlakhai. She did not honor them.

It is Llereya’s birthday, a day for remembering what has gone before, but these are things she remembers alone. She does not like to honor her birthday.

   

Originally published at Liana Mir. You can comment here or there.

A Tale of Fae

Canon: Faeology
Characters/Pairing: the Old Bard, Fae Alend
Prompt: Fairy Tale
Rating:
Notes:

A dribble-drabble (150 words) for 100 Word Stories.

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“Tell us a fairy tale,” the children cried.

The old bard loves to tell stories—of anything but Fae and her beautiful, terrible magic.

   

Originally published at Liana Mir. You can comment here or there.