BJD_30 Minute Fiction

On the Road (Endless Sorrow)

2008-08-21T00:54:52Z

Prompt: Endless Sorrow
Title: On the Road
Rating:G
Dolls: Navi (furture Peakwood Skiya) Sistole (CP Juri 05)
Authors Notes: It took me a long time to get the song to sound right in my head. I think that's where all my time when. This defiantly is not where I thought it would go and I ran out of time.

When you look, and your backs against the wall
Then you suddenly start to fall
Because the answer to your prayers
Is a shining knight that isn't there
By drifting farther out to sea
Once everything fades to black

That's when you realize

You're trapped in a endless sorrow
No hope reaching for tomorrow
Clear skys all dribbled to grey

Close- your- eyes- and- acc-ept your- fa-te

The last part of the song she always sang in this airy, wispy, lullaby filling her lungs then letting the words flout out. She opened her lilac eyes and let them drift over the crowd of thousands that stood still in the packed arena. You could hear the leaves rustling outside things where so still and everyone was in a trance that her angelic voice lulled them into. It was a haunting song she sang even to the last chorus as the spot light shone down on her adding to the mood and illuminating the vivid blue of her clear ocean dress. The orchestra was done and waiting for their next que from the conductor. Whom, like the rest of the crowd has his eyes fixated on the star.

Naviagail Author, the starlet that did everything and dabbled in multiple genres of music. Her unconventional look of blinding pink cotton candy textured hair and traffic distracting clothing, often got her pre-judgments before she even spoke. Despite her look, her bubbly try anything attitude had won her the attention of the nation. She bowed her head gracefully and thanked the audience for coming to her concert before turning, picking up the ends of her dress and disappearing back stage. It collectively took a clap from the rafters to awaken everyone. There was a roar from the crowd as they demanded an encore and she considered giving it to them.

"How was I honestly?" She was rushed out of her dress and into another outfit.
"Good as you always are honey!" the redhead hugged her tightly.
"You think so Sistole? I wasn't off key was I? I got so caught up I was probably flapping around like a bird or something," she giggled.
"Well, you can't really help that you sing with your whole body. But you looked so....enchanted. It was really moving."
"Don't you butter me up for anything miss! You've cut off all the limbs on this money tree!"
"OH shut up Navi!"

Response to Prompt 4: Diamond

2008-08-19T21:20:06Z

Prompt: Diamond(August 11, 2008 )
Title: No Title >.>
Rating: G
Dolls: Fleur Royale(Mythdoll Yue)
Author's Notes: Ack, yet again, nothing really happens. Sorry if you were expecting something exciting, I'll try to write something less boring next time! The couch is based on a chaise I built for my dolls out of clay a few weeks ago. Comments, even if it's just to say that you read it or you hated it, are all appreciated! Thank you!

The crisp sound of the door chime rang in the small, fine ears of Fleur Royale. 'A customer, at last!' she whispered. It had been two hours since Alwyn had left for her magic lessons, leaving Fleur alone in the Shop. She quickly ran from her desk to greet the guest. It was a woman, the most etheral woman Fleur had ever had the pleasure of seeing. Her pale blue hair, the colour of a winter's sky, reached her ankles. She was dressed in a flowing, sparkling gowns that look as if light itself was the cloth. On her head rested a delicate headdress made of silver and diamonds that shone like stars. To see her was like meeting a goddess come to visit earth from the heavens.

"Good evening," Fleur said in a quiet voice most unusual for her. The lady turned to face her and smiled a small, kind smile.
"My name is Fleur Royale. May I be of assiantance?" The woman nodded her head and spoke in a soft voice, hardly louder than a whisper. She pointed to one of the rooms and asked if she could look in there. Fleur answered that of course she could. She escorted the lady over to the fine goods that were kept behind a glass cabinet but the woman shoke her head.
"I am here only to see what there is. Show me whatever you like, Miss Royale," she said, scarely audible. Fleur next guided her over to another connected room, filled with a grand variety of objects. Here there was wood furniture, silverware, glass figures and curios from around the world. But this was not what Fleur wished the woman to see. Fleur peeked behind a large chest of drawers and, finding what she sought, guided the lady past a smaller doorway and pulled back the silk curtains.

There lay a beautiful crystal fainting couch with gentle curves like draped fabric. Elegant and ornate designs were etched into the pure crystal that shone like a diamond. The patterns were only visible when sunlight caught the impressions. The woman whispered to Fleur, "That is perfect. Thank you." With that, she left to talk about price with the Shopkeeper, Miss Celeste.

Fleur attached a Sold tag to it, written in the same handwriting has the Shop sign. After the woman had gone, Miss Celeste strolled up to Fleur as she was sweeping the floor.
"Fleur," Miss Celeste called in her strange accent, " you did a wonderful job today. That was Vesta Celosia. She was very pleased with both you and that couch you picked out for her. Keep up the good work."

Endless Sorrow

2008-08-19T02:58:28Z

Prompt: Endless Sorrow
Title: As If He Were Not There
Rating: PG13 (Mild suggestion of sex)
Doll: Erasmus (Unidoll Jace)
Author's Notes: This is simply an interior moment that offers character definition

Time had crawled across the wall, first ivory, then lemon, then deepest gold before it dissolved into black and was replaced by the static sterility that is the combination of neon hues, yet still he sat staring, unmoving. Not long after the door had gently clicked behind him and silence had gained weight, he had curled against his chest, placed his hands, fingers splayed, on his thighs as if he might prevent the flight of memory and retain the few remaining shards so they could continue to slice their reminders into his soul.

Time was, these jagged-edged findings could leave him choking on the blood of longing for all of substance and dream that was lost. But time had twisted things, and now the bleeding was the piece for which he longed. The hurt itself, carefully crafted into myth and metaphor, was enough.

There had been a body here when the sun had turned lemony. Just beside him. Eyes and lips, arms and fingers, muscle, skin and bone. There had been a smile, a touch; they transformed into sweat and friction, and he had felt himself expand, imagining he might open again if only his desire were for these eyes, this touch. If only reincarnation could be cast through a wish. He had tried.

Slowly, stiffly, he stood and walked to the curtainless window, extended his arms to wrap the fingers of each hand around the trim, leaned to press his forehead against the inanimate cold of wintered glass. He gazed down through the girding of fire escape, dimly aware that figures moved in predictable ways along the pavement below.

The blue, the green, the false yellow and the garish pink from neon tubes beat against his chest until they found their way through and resumed their place of endless sorrow on the wall, as if he were not there. As if he might never be there again.

Endless Sorrow

2008-08-18T19:42:21Z

Challenge: endless sorrow
Title: None
Rating (G through NC-17): G
Dolls: Sabik Elf (coming soon)
Author's Notes: Technically part of the Llewellyn Saga that has grown to hundreds of thousands of words. One of these days to actually get it all down in English. :P Aneirin is half elven, d’uh, and about 300 years old at this point I think. Time: 1200’s.

The dirt track lead up from the valley, through the mud and wattle town he remembered from his youth and up the side of the holy mountain Yr Wyddfa. The track was overgrown with waist high grasses and brush, the trees bending low with ancient branches and Aneirin wondered why the family had not kept up the approach to the house. His steps took up further up and he paused at the fork, one path leading up, he knew, to the mountaintop the other toward the house of his growing, his father’s and brother’s house, his home. Pausing for a moment to get his thoughts together, he moved on, his steps growing lighter, his heart open in anticipation. His younger brother Rhys would greet him with quiet reserve while his sister Siana would dance and trail butterflies. His mother would be in her morning chamber, the sun warming her and illuming whatever needlework she was engaged in. His elder brother Dafydd would probably be roaring in the outer court, demanding perfection of his men and himself and father... well father might well be dead now, he thought.

At last his feet brought him to the crest of the hill and he paused to look down on the lush fields of home and his steps faltered. No fields opened out to him, no warriors mounted on warhorses tromped the practice grounds; no words of welcome were shouted for no house remained, only tumbled and charred blocks overgrown with wild grass. A coldness clutched Aneirin’s heart and he stood for long minutes staring before descending the final hill to his once home, a numbness overtaking his senses, a dread seeking his bones. What has happened here? Yet looking he could see what transpired in the burnt stones, the age of dirt and debris.

"I’ve been gone too long."

Aneirin sat on a nearby boulder, his body suddenly feeling the weight of years and miles. He denied himself the vision of the fallen stones, the charred remains of his home; looking would not bring back the old house, the yard, the flowers or his family. Gone now was everything he had ever known, lost in the mist of time. If only he had not lingered in Chin, or dallied in India. But these thoughts were brushed aside for the real sorrow was not the years he served King Richard but the loss of his sister and mother and younger brother.

His shoulders sunk and he leaned on one elbow, resting his head on his hand, his long white hair draping like a shroud over his shoulders and covering his face. The beat of his heart was steady, the initial faltering at sight of his lost home steadying and denying him the physical pain he wanted to chase away the emotions. There was no denying that he was gone too long, the century or more spent wandering now a burden rather than a joy. All the things he had seen, the sights and sounds, tastes and textures he planned to bring back went sour in his mouth. There was no homecoming; no younger brother grown tall and strong, no delicate sister to laugh and dance around him. No mother of ancient name, no elder brother. His human blood cried within him, the hot fire of it bleeding out of his eyes in a stream of tears while the Tylwyth Teg whispered of cold hearts, empty mountains and the long stretch of time.

For long minutes he wallowed in the human feelings, letting their bitterness burn through him, leaving him empty, and alone before he finally rose, brushing dirt from his clothes and looked around with clear blue eyes. Nothing remained but memories. But his family may have survived by passing through the Gate. Aneirin sighed.

I have no idea where the Gate is, where the door resides to the Fairland, he thought. I left without thought of needing it. How foolish. But I will search. I will seek out my little brother Rhys, and my sister Siana and my blessed mother, should they survive.

Like a ghost he moved along the old road and past the overgrown grass and out into the back of the property. What tumbled stones remained were overgrown as well and these he ignored, following his memories of the past. Up there, in the mountain behind the house was the old well, perhaps here he would find an answer for what he sought. The path upward was as overgrown as those below with branch and root cracking the rocky path and breaking it in places. But finally he reached the ledge, the edges overshadowed with ancient roots and the little fount at the back near the wall. It no longer bubbled into the clay bowl, its opening now stopped with dried mud, it leaked forlornly down the side and Aneirin sighed. Even here time has passed. Moving away he shoved aside the overgrowth and looked out on the valley below, the once vibrant fields buried beneath mud and wild grass, the trees no longer the green of his youth. Here was age, here was mortality brought home to him. How mortal the world, how human. He felt time as he had never before, the passage of years had been as hours, days and weeks as a mere thought. Now, standing on the ruin of his home, his memories laughed at him and the cold of the world between called him.

I will look for them, for the Door to the Fairland. I have nothing else to live for. And if, after a man’s lifetime, or a hundred men’s lives, I have not found them, then I will go West. Looking down to the valley Aneirin sighed. There is nothing here for me any longer. I am the last.

Seachange

2008-08-18T06:47:35Z

Challenge: Endless Sorrow
Title: Seachange
Rating: G
Dolls: Keahi *volks Arashi*, Jace played by Lawrence *minimee Balian*

The sound of the guitar filled the small house. The gentle voice caressed the young man who sat and waited.

He’d wait forever if he could continue to listen to the plaintive soprano. To listen to the beauty of it as the sound rose and fell. As the notes were played and replayed. The practice sometimes was close to perfect and sometimes a good distance from it.

He didn’t know where he was from or going and the song made his waiting easier, he knew he’d like to stay, but how can you go through an interview when you aren’t sure even who you are or where you came from.

The music changed and he smiled. The music took on a cheery note. Something about it was familiar, but not. He wished he could hear the words. Wished he could make sense of the melody.

The room was fairly small, enough space for six chairs. Three placed on each side with a door at one end and a small table with a few magazines on the other. He stared at the sea foam green walls. No windows. He picked up a copy of a magazine, something about art.

The room went silent and the world drifted away, he remembered the pathways through the aether. He remembered the souls, the tide of souls. He shook his head and suddenly the little black winged angel drifted into his vision. “Are you sure?”

“I like the idea of a large family. And my little boy will find his way to me?”

“He’s already there, not in the form you know, but one you’ll recognize.”

Jace looked around the room and he heard the music very quietly pick up again. This time the voice was clearer closer.

He got up, moved across to the door. He opened the door and a child sat on the floor in the hallway with a small black guitar.

He sang in his strong clear soprano the guitar a sweet accompaniment. *I am a man of constant sorrow….I’ve seen trouble all my day….*

Tears streaked down his face and he knew his son for who he was. His son who through time and a hundred re-incarnations had never survived childhood. And now it would all change.

He smiled as his keeper hot glued his elbow joint and knew that he was home.

08-009 ~ Endless Sorrow ~ Tea with a Twist

2008-08-18T04:47:38Z

Challenge: Endless Sorrow
Title: Tea with a Twist
Rating: PG-13 (Language warning)
Dolls: SA Bermann (Trent), SA Tanned Dollshe (angel-demon guy... almost here)
Author's Notes: Continuation from over here. I went a little long so I could finish the section by maybe 10 minutes.

“Ah, you are finally awake,” said the tanned angel, sipping from a delicately painted teacup. “I was hoping you wouldn’t sleep through. Your tea is getting cold.”

Trent’s heavy-lids slowly opened, just as he allowed a soft moan to escape his lips. The distinct scent of earl gray clung to the heavy air like a frightened child to his mother, along with the acrid smell of death.

The Merlin tried to push himself up, but felt a sharp pain reaching down through his spine like fingers and arms, pulling him right back down. With startled tears in his eyes, he gasped for air before he was able to focus on the figure sitting in the over-stuffed parlor chair.

“Where… are… my… friends?”

Trent could see the man-angel-demon from his position. He was sitting just 20 feet away, but now wearing gentleman’s tails and striped trousers, with no shirt or shoes. On the top of his head was Trent’s own hat, barely fitting, with all his hair stuffed up into the fancy black top. “I don’t know,” he said with a wave of his hand.

“Don’t lie!” Trent jerked again, trying to free himself, but screamed in pain. Every staggered breath Trent strangled out, a cloud of white dust rolled against the floor. At first the wizard was in too much pain to see, but then, his eyes looked down and saw the ancient writing scribbled all around him. Then he saw the blood signs smeared.

“I’m not lying,” said the demon, pouring himself more tea. “I dumped them all off… someplace. My butler knows really. I’m sure they are fine. I could care less about them really as long as they don’t bother us.”

“What do you want?”

“Someone to have a little fun with,” he answered with a mischievous grin. “Bringing endless sorrow to the known world.”

“Do you have any idea who I am, boy?” Trent’s voice wobbled as his hand reached up towards his neck feeling the heavy ropes of hair crisscrossing down his torso. Up his cheek his claw-like hand reached until it tentatively found its target upon his forehead – heavy demon horns. Craning his neck, he found what was pinning him down – his own black wings were unfurled and spiked down. “Oh, god… what have you done to me?”

“Just did what should have been done a long time ago.”

“Turn me back! Now!” Trent struggled. “Fuck it, you have to! I don’t want to be a monster! I’m not a monster! No, no, no, NO!”

The explosion of power, of emotion, washed through the captured mage. It filled the entire room with hundreds of red-hot lights, swirling and humming, throwing the angel-demon hard against the opposite wall. Furniture, statues, pottery, and antiques alike all lifted and twisted in mid-air, exploding, along with whatever else wasn’t nailed down in the room. All the while, the tanned angel man was laughing in the corner of the room, his own black wings covering himself from the worst of the violent mess.

Minutes passed and finally, the remnants all fell to the ground like hail in a bad storm pooling all across the ground. The angel-demon man spread his wings and looked up, the dust flying at the mere motion of his giant wings. Standing before him in only his ripped wool suit pants, shoes and spats was Trent, his long dredded hair looked like the snakes of Medusa’s. Glowing red-eyes glared down at the angel-demon man.

Trent allowed a playful grin to curl his lips. “So, what were you saying about endless sorrow?”

08-009 ~ Endless Sorrow ~ Sea-Lupin and Wild Roses

2008-08-18T04:27:44Z

Challenge: 08-008 ~ Endless Sorrow
Title: Sea-Lupin and Wild Roses
Rating: PG
Dolls: Meikyou (Mei, NS Dollshe Hound) and a little Imikin (MSD Volks Mika)
Author's Notes: Still at the Institute, Carter Hall, where Imikin has just been hired on. But from Mei's point of view.
Summary: Mei finds his little lass again, but she's different, changed... she's forgotten everything. (Set in the beginning, oh aye. Poor Mei TT;; )

She had forgotten everything. Meikyou felt a part of his heart break at the sight of his little charge, his little goddess, all grown up and lost. After all this time- all the searching, all of the false leads- of course it would end up that she find him first.

But she did not remember him.

So he had laughed, and laughed, and laughed until he had started crying. Sakia and Sekouba had been sent to make sure he did nothing untoward to the new housekeeper, but they were not needed. He sat down, aware that his little mistress, his forgetful little lady, was glaring at him in a way that definitely meant that she did not like him at all. Ah, how some things never seemed to change: he could still read her expressions like a book.

As Meikyou wiped the tears from his cheeks, he watched as Imikin was introduced to the other inhabitants of Carter Hall. He only listened with half an ear as he watched her nod and smile at the inhabitants, or shiver a little at others. She had grown up to be a beautiful young lady, just like he always knew she would. She had kept her hair in the short bob that she had when she was but a little sprite, and even from where he sat, Meikyou could see that her green eyes still sparked with the love of life.

The introductions over, Meikyou frowned fiercely at the sight of Imikin leaving with Doctor Kaleb and Micah. He trusted Micah, but Doctor Kaleb was as tricky as a two headed snake. With a glare sent to the two security guards flanking him, Meikyou followed his small charge into the hallway, where other inhabitants were either gossiping or moving off to their own rooms. Meikyou’s height enabled him to be able to see over most of the humans’ heads and he watched as the little party went into the main bathroom on the second floor.

Training, then, he thought as he leaned leisurely against the wall by a window. He would wait. Hell, he had been waiting for human lifetimes to find his little charge.

But for her to have forgotten everything? That was a hard pill to swallow. A part of his mind had known that she must have forgotten her past, or else she would have searched him out just as he had searched for her. Sorrow pooled in his chest at the thought of her wandering the earth for all of those years, alone, confused, and lost.

“She’s quite the sight, isn’t she?” someone said as two men wandered by Meikyou’s standing form. The speaker’s companion agreed and the two wandered down the hallway laughing.

Meikyou felt a frown mar his brow as his lips pulled into a tight line. The hair at the back of his neck rose as he felt the urge to destroy something gripped at his arms. No, he thought, I will not… not unless it is needed.

The two fools finally turned the corner into another hall, and Meikyou let out a sigh. He hadn’t felt the protective urges in decades, and it was nearly a foreign feeling now. But Imikin would have to be protected again, of course; she would have to remember, have to remember him and her duty and her home. It would be tough, especially since she seemed to have such a great dislike for him from just the first meeting.

Meikyou looked away as Doctor Kaleb left the bathroom and wandered down another hallway. Micah was shortly after, and Meikyou nodded towards the dark haired man, who smiled in return. Meikyou made himself scarce, leaning into a shadow of a pillar when Imikin emerged, her eyes wide and frantic. She had found something, her body language said to him, and she knew not what to do with it. She looked first one way, then the other down the hallway, and, seeing it empty, wandered out. Behind her followed a dog and a small cat.

Meikyou bit back a grin. She always was good at finding odds and ends in the strangest of places, but a two lab animals in a bathroom? That was a new one. He carefully watched as she made her way back to her room, unlocked the door, and went inside, the animals following behind. She was out again in a brief moment, heading in the direction that Doctor Kaleb had gone.

The two of them were back before Meikyou realized, and he heard laughter from the closed room shortly after. Then they were out again, without the animals, so Meikyou assumed they would stay with his lady. Away they went down the hall, most likely to Doctor Svetlana, the head of the animal research laboratories.

Meikyou’s mind went back to wandering. The sky above was still grey, and it looked like rain. The ocean crashed silently against the cliff below the Institute, though Meikyou knew the sound of the rushing waves well due to his time out tending the gardens. How he wished he could be out there again, digging his hands deep into the soil as he had been doing for the past decade or so. He wanted to show his little lass where the sea lupin grew, and where the most fragrant wild roses bushed. He wanted her to see the soil beneath his fingernails and to remember his broad hands, his eyes, his warmth.

But she had forgotten everything. Her home, her brother, her duty, and her guardian angel, all at once.

Meikyou felt like flying, but knew it was impossible. He hadn’t flown since he had been brought to Carter Hall all those years back, right when it was first opened. He would not be able to fly now…

Soft footsteps paused behind him and he instantly knew who it was. Miss Imikin was returning from wherever she had disappeared to, and had spotted his tall figure. She continued walking after a brief moment, and Meikyou couldn’t help but stare after her as she made her way down the hall. He saw her shiver and knew he was the cause of it, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

So she had forgotten about everything from home, but at least she was alive.

~

Out of time! D:

Hope you... enjoy? ^^
<3
-Mako 'n the Crew

This weeks prompt

2008-08-18T01:21:37Z

Okay this weeks prompt. Prompt 5; endless sorrow

Likouala

2008-08-17T22:03:38Z

Challenge: Diamond
Title: Likouala
Rating: PG/FRE
Dolls: Wren Llawcae [Tohya/DT 15Girl], Ming Jian Yuan[Seimei]
Author's Notes: Any and all criticism and comments welcomed, as always.

Likouala

They started in the Likouala region, a WUNPO plane dropping them onto the shore of one of the region’s abundant lakes. It took them only a few minutes to pare down, stripping off all the things they would not need, gathering the largest rocks they could find and sinking their jump gear – parachutes, oxygen tanks, masks – into the lake. Jian caught a fish while they did so, and Wren looked at it, pronounced it a safe species to eat. He cleaned it as they began their hike through the forest, and they ate raw fish as they walked.

It took two days to reach the Oubangui, the river swollen and surging with the season. They followed it for another half day before reaching a village, a collection of corrugated tin and daubed-mud huts on the bank of the river, farm animals tethered and corralled near some of the larger homes, children running and playing and screaming in the dirt. They avoided it carefully, moving around the outskirts, staying in the cover of the trees. There was a band of clear-cut around the village, stumps sticking up out of it, with some small food-plants in even rows trying to grow in the sandy soil.

They made camp, gathered what edible plants they could find and ate some of their freeze-dried rations. They waited for night to come, sleeping by turns.

When it was full dark, in the early hours of the morning, they crept down to the village and stole a boat from the edge of the river, a thing like a large canoe, a small outboard motor on the back of it. They took it from a line of other boats, all nearly identical – Jian grabbed a full container of gasoline from one of them. They slid it into the water and climbed in, pushed off with a stick and allowed the current to carry them away from the shore. They waited nearly an hour before starting the engine.

The little vessel carried them up into the Democratic Republic of Congo, to the place where the Oubangui merged with the Congo River, became wider, slower, muddier. The gasoline finally ran out, and they steered the boat to the shore, jumped out, then abandoned it to the mercy of the Congo.

Neither of them spoke much, not even when, after three more days of hiking, they found what they were looking for. It was a small camp, guards posted around the perimeter, knock-off AK’s and M-16’s cradled in their arms. There were children there, skinny, crouching in the dirt, crawling down into holes in the ground and coming out again, what seemed like hours later, with bags of soil and rocks. They squatted in gangs, sorting through the bags, and sometimes one of them would jump up and run over to one of the men watching them, offer whatever it was they had found. The man would wash it off with a bit of water, and it would catch the light like mica, like fishscales. The child would be given a bit of food – they would inhale it, belly bulging, eyes wide – then be sent back to work.

Blood diamonds. That was all they needed to see. They backed away, careful, silent, settled down at a safe distance.

Jian took the small satellite radio out of his bag, tuned it, and spoke into the little mouthpiece. “Command, this is Team Gemini. Team Gemini. Seven-one-two-six-four. Do you copy?” The numbers identified them, were given to them just before they left – no one aside from them and the person monitoring that connection knows their number string, or what the correct reply is.

“Copy loud and clear, Gemini. One-eight-seven-naught-niner-niner-three. What do you have for me?” The voice crackled a bit, a static buzz, but the connection held.

“Coordinates.”

“You found them?”

“One camp, anyway. There will be others.” Jian’s voice was tired, and Wren looked at him sharply, watched him as he rattled off their location to the comms officer on the other end of the radio. “Send in the cavalry.”

“Done. Approximate ETA three hours. Command out.”

Jian flicked the radio off, put it back into his bag and looked back at Wren. They were both silent for a moment, then Wren said, slowly, “Maybe we should take a break after this one.”

Jian sighed, ran his hand through his hair – it was dirty and greasy and the filth on his hand didn’t really do anything to change that – and leaned back against the tree behind him. “You think?”

“We haven’t spent more than five days in a row at home in…nearly six months. I think we’re going to start making stupid mistakes if we don’t get some rest.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

~Cornered~

2008-08-16T23:19:36Z

Prompt: Cornered
Title: Fourty Eight Hours
Rating: 18 - implied sex, language and references to attempted suicide
Dolls: Kieran (Still working on this one), Ace (Narin)
Author's Notes: 30 mins wasn't enough for this one. And I'm behind with reading commenting and posting at the moment!! Sorry! But I will get to commenting soon. Anywho... Comments and critique much appreciated. I wanted to go much futher but I ran outta time, so I missed the prompt a bit. Right. Here it is.

I pretended I couldn’t hear it at first. Quiet rhythmic thudding and thumping in the room next door. I pretended I couldn’t hear and closed my eyes to go back to sleep. But the more I concentrated on not hearing anything, the louder the noise echoed in my ears. Thudding and murmurings. Low voices in the darkness. The more I heard, the more determined I became in trying to convince myself it wasn’t what I thought it was. My jaw was starting to ache from my teeth grinding together. He wouldn’t, would he? Of course he would. And you can practically smell the sex from here you sad bastard.

I threw off the covers and reached for the lamp on my bedstand, my heart in my throat. This wasn’t the first time I’d found myself here, like this, unable to sleep because Ace is fucking some idiot. Usually I would torture myself with trying to deny it was happening so hard that I started seeing his face. That face. The face he makes when he’s about to come.

Tonight would be no different. I sat on the edge of the mattress, head in my hands, staring through the carpet between my feet, gathering the strength it would take to stand. I was still recovering from having my veins torched with adrenaline from the heart and my guts pumped out until I was completely empty. Ace had picked me up from the hospital earlier that evening, all frowns of concern and supporting hands and shoulders. He never says a word about my problems. Every once in a while stuff just mounts up on me. I don’t even know why, but choking down the pills makes sense at the time. Then I wake up in the hospital, my body aching, head pounding and my mouth lined with a paste that tastes like it was made from roadkill.

And there he is. Bent over me like an angel, only I’m not dead yet and his warm fingers running through my hair are the only thing left to cling to. “You okay, Angel?” He calls me that. And obediently I nod, close my eyes and go back to sleep with all the weight on my shoulders lifted with the relief that he’s come to take me home. Within forty-eight hours I start to hate him again, tonight was just a record breaker.

Sucking in air I readied myself, and then heaved my dead weight body upright. I needed a glass of water and a trip to the kitchen would be better than sitting and seething. The floorboards and then tiles were cold beneath my bare feet and Ace’s apartment was in peaceful disarray around me. Books, newspapers, empty bottles, glasses and ashtrays littered almost every available surface. It had a warm, lived in feel to it. I liked being a part of it.

Hanging on the back of the kitchen diner chair was one of Ace’s shirts. Without thinking I slid my arms into it and folded the loose thin layer of cotton around my chest. I was much thinner than him these days. Wearing the shirt filled the air around me with the smell of his cologne and cigarettes.

With the water to sip at, I sank into the sofa to let the drone of late night TV numb me to sleep.

bjd_30minfic @ 2008-08-16T00:23:00

2008-08-16T08:06:16Z

Challenge: Diamond
Title: Accidental Beauty
Rating (G through NC-17): FRT
Dolls: Dance, Emma, Drin (DollTiD, hybrid Sylvia head on Elfdoll body, Minimee head on Flexi-perennial body)
Writer's note: I've had a plotbunny take off from the previous bjd_30minfic prompt, "Cornered", so I've been a bit preoccupied with seeing where it went--and it turned into plot-elephant. It isn't a matter of *planning* on this prompt--it's just that this story arc is all I seem to be thinking about lately! This bit is part of the same skewed universe trying to join your regularly-scheduled reality.

===

Emma sinks into a corner of a battered leather sofa, and pulls a thick crocheted comforter over her legs, and rests her head on the cracked back cushions. A faint odor of incontinent animals and children rises from the area. Her eyes close. She's not sure she cares.

When she opens her eyes again, she's aware that she's been slumped to one side, snoring a bit, and her eyes are scratchy and her mouth is dry. She blinks, unsure what woke her up. A flash of white and then arcs of rainbow colors dazzle straight into her eyes, making her blind. She jerks, unable even to fumble up a hand in time, and squints he eyes shut. She struggles her arms up out of the comforter's wallowing tangle.

Lights and rainbow fractions of it flash around the whole room, shifting and scattering and hypnotic.

Dance is sitting in a chair with his feet sitting in a patch of sunlight from a window. His arms cradle a classical guitar, one knee propped up slightly higher on a cardboard box. He is playing flamenco music on it, fingers moving all over the neck of the guitar. His face goes remote and stern when he concentrates so hard, eyes shut.

He forgets to think about anything else when his whole body is focused on the guitar. His whole body shifts gently and sways with his playing.

He has forgotten that this body includes a prehensile tail that he didn't have some weeks ago. It is a tail with new vertebrae, a tail that has been growing out of the base of his spine in a matter of days. He is still clumsy trying to grip things and move it. He is still learning how to move with it, how to use its unknown optical properties. When he is fearful or alarmed, it will look so much like its surroundings that it can virtually disappear.

When he forgets himself, like this, the tail emerges from all its various camouflages to astonish them.

It is the tail, lying in the sun around his ankles, curling and shifting and coiling in time with the breaks in the music's beat, that is punctuating all the pauses with knuckle-like thumps and knocks on the wooden floor like the castanet beats of a dancer's heels.

In the stretch of sunlight, reflections flash and glitter off the keeled surfaces of the tail, flaring off diamond-paned scales in sprays of color. It flares back the light in an almost perfect mirror, creating lenses and throwing brilliant arcs of sunbow spattered across the walls.

Emma squints, watching the colors flicker around the walls. For some moments, she stares up in amazement at an entire wall filled with little diamonds of color. It looks like a snakeskin of pure light stretched up the grubby stucco wallboard. The reflected light ripples, like a soap-bubble, rippling through all the colors of the rainbow, over and over. When she puts out her hand in the way, the little diamonds of color move and breathe over her fingers.

Prompt: Cornered.

2008-08-16T06:10:02Z

Prompt: Cornered
Title: A Great Start
Rating: R-ish Mostly for language and implied sexual violence.
Dolls: Cherry (future Unoa Zero)
Author's Notes: I always run out of time. There was supposed to be more but! I ran out of time again ;_;. I love comments!

I was trapped. He chased me around the condo, from room to room up and down. My prada heels clicked silently, muffed by the red lush carpet. It was blood red. I imagined myself, bleeding face down on it. Slowly my blood starts seeping into the weaving of a perfect match of crimson. I hear his voice ring out, assuring me if I tried to leave there would be a thin thread of fish line waiting for me in the doorway. No doubt in my frantic stupor I would run neck long into it decapitating myself. I shout back into the hallway so it echoes into which ever high vaulted ceiling room he was in,"Shit like that only happens in the movies." I can hear that ridiculous manic laugh he does. "You can't imagine how many people say that and end up in my head trophy case." It always chilled me to the bone when he laughed like that. "The rents due time to pay up!" he said his raspy deep voice seemed close. "Or why not just get on the payment plan and let me fuck you! You can skip all your payment that way."

The shitty part is he isn't even the f-king landlord of this place. Not only is the though of rape horrible but it's worst when the assailant is your brother. Thank god we're not related by blood or that would be ripped right from the pages of some backwood trashy romance novel. No matter where I moved, when, out of country...he found me. Some places took more time to find then others. He used to tell me all the time when I was younger while pinning me down and lifting up my Sunday best that i was his favorite kinda pie ever. I had a flashback to my childhood and hid under the bed, pressing my self flat against the wood floor. He entered wearing those worn real snake skin boots Memaw got him five Christmas ago. The pit of my stomach felt just like it did when I was eight riding my first roller coaster. I tried to swallow but my throat was dry and itchy.

Clutching the cross at my chest in a feeble attempt to slow the pounding in my ears, I feel my lungs fill up with air and I hold it. I watch his spurs spin on his heels as he ground them into my expensive imported wood. Ruining the finish..... that bastard. I was to preoccupied with my dismay to realize my hiding place had been outed. Until, I felt his rough fingers wrap around my ankle clenching it tight. Picture me, like all those other girls cast in horror movies, digging my heals into whatever skin I could find and holding onto the bed frame. Of course with one strong yank my fingers where pried off at the cost of a couple of manicured nails. Now I know exactly how a fly feels when it's rudely shoved mid air by the swatter abruptly having a fatal meeting with the wall.

My head clipped the corner of the nightstand making me have to put pressure on the gash to try and stop the bleeding. So, here I sit backing up into the right angle of my master bedroom. Redecorating my designer wallpaper and wooden floor with a natural shade of Cherry red. Now seeping out in limited quantities. I was cornered, snagged, in a pinch and all those other synonyms that you don't want to be in. Especially in your own home, alone, injured but not unarmed.

I leaned back in my computer chair and stretched. Looking over the page I wrote I thought to myself,"This is going to be a great book. The start is perfect."

08-004: Ring (Prompt: Diamond)

2008-08-15T23:13:01Z

Challenge: 08-004: Diamond
Title: Ring
Rating (G through NC-17) : G
Dolls: Yoriko Hasagawa (Elfdoll Ryung), Fall (Iplehouse Soo Ri), Rikio Hasagawa (CP Chiwoo), Kaiichi Hasagawa (Dollmore Kyle Reese on Dollzone body)
Author's Notes: Different set of dolls in this one. I tried to think of a way to tie ‘diamond’ with Adee and Rune but this was the scene that came out instead. Yoriko and Fall are my first two dolls. Rikio and Kaiichi are her younger and older brothers respectively. The three of them are Japanese/American and the boys grew up in Japan with their father. Yoriko grew up in America with her mother. All three of them are quite bilingual (unlike me #^^#). This so demands a sequel of some sort. Now I gotta find a ring for her, too…

“I really don’t know what to do,” Fall said thoughtfully to Rikio as they came in from the forge. “Yoriko insisted on taking me on this vacation with her. I feel like I should do something nice for her, too. She’s…so important to me.”

“Of course you should do something,” Rikio said, nodding agreement. “She set this whole thing up for you, the trip, the stay at the Salish Lodge, the food and everything. It’s a special present. You should give her something to say thank you.”

Kaiichi was sitting on the back porch, smoking his pipe. Yoriko didn’t allow him to smoke inside, so sitting outside was his only chance of getting his tobacco fix. He raised an eyebrow at their conversation, setting his pipe aside.

“Only one proper present this stage your relationship,” Kaiichi declared, giving Fall a fierce look. “Ring with diamond.”

“W-what?” Fall asked, heart skipping a beat. “Bu-but…”

Kaiichi huffed and looked at Rikio, saying something in rapid-fire Japanese. Rikio blushed, nodding agreement and answering in rather more hesitant Japanese. Fall couldn’t follow what they were saying but it didn’t take long before Rikio bowed slightly to his older brother and turned to Fall, looking a little embarrassed.

“Kaiichi-o-ni-sama asked me to tell you that he knows that you and Yoriko-o-ne-sama love each other,” Rikio said, smiling at Fall. “He says that it’s quite obvious and very touching the wonderful effect you’ve had on her. When she was younger she was very wild and quite violent, but since you came into her life she has settled down and become a very wise, responsible, beautiful woman. She has apparently had just as great an effect on you, helping you to overcome your depression and anger issues. Kaiichi-o-ni-sama says that he admires your restraint in not advancing to a sexual relationship before marriage as so many in this country do, but if you wish to keep her, you must take the next step. The proper method of doing that would be to give her a diamond ring, an engagement ring. Kaiichi-o-ni-sama says that he has spoken to Yoriko-o-ne-sama about it, and she very much wants to marry you. She’s afraid to say anything though since you tend to be so very shy. Kaiichi-o-ni-sama is thus saying this for her, so that you will know that she is ready for more, and does wish to spend the rest of her life with you. He says that her love is very strong and very deep. Your love is equally strong and deep. An engagement ring is making that bond formal and obvious to everyone so no one can try and steal her from you.”

Fall started blushing as Rikio translated for his brother. He didn’t think that he’d had anywhere near that effect on Yoriko, though she’d certainly turned his life around. The thought of someone stealing her away made his heart stop. He’d never thought of that. He couldn’t imagine being without her, not anymore. Yoriko was his sun and moon, the reason that he got up in the morning and that he went to bed at night. He took a deep breath and nodded slowly.

“Thank you,” Fall said respectfully. “I’ll definitely think about that. Not sure where I’d get a ring for her, but you’re very right.”

“Make one,” Kaiichi said, nodding towards the forge. “Are metal-smith. Why not do for self? Means more if comes fully your hands.”

Rikio nodded vigorously at that, beaming at Fall.

“I’d love to learn how to make rings!” Rikio said. “Why not?”

“Well, we do have a little time before dinner,” Fall said, voice shaking almost as badly as his knees. “We can at least start work on it.”

“Congratulations,” Kaiichi said, smiling at Fall. “Yes is forgone conclusion.”

Fall didn’t have anywhere near that much confidence in Yoriko saying yes, but he could make her a ring and then if she didn’t say yes, let her keep it as a thank you for everything she’d done for him. He showed Rikio how to make rings. He knew about six different methods, from cutting a tube and sanding the edges to making it free hand. He made a blank and then worked out a design to adorn it with flowers and leaves. The Dwarves had partially paid him in jewels when he delivered his last shipment of spelled swords to them, so he had a variety of polished jewels to choose from.

“Not something too big,” Fall said thoughtfully as he studied the gems in their cradle of black velvet. “Diamond is appropriate?”

“That’s what’s traditional for an engagement ring,” Rikio said, “but Yoriko’s never been that delighted by them. I know she’d like whatever you chose, but I know she likes blue stones and green ones best.”

Fall nodded and picked a sapphire out of the others, turning it over in his fingers. It would look beautiful on the ring. He put it on the life-size sketch he’d made, nodding at the effect. Rikio nodded as well, beaming.

“That one,” Fall said, putting the other jewels away. “This shouldn’t take too long to make. It’s a simple design.”

“Fall!” Yoriko’s voice called from the house. “Rikio! Dinner’s ready!”

Rikio and Fall exchanged looks. Fall sighed and tucked the design, ring blank and sapphire away. He’d have to come out and finish it tonight, or maybe finish it in the morning before they went on their trip. He wasn’t sure that he’d survive giving the ring to her—his heart was going to give out—but Rikio and Kaiichi were quite right. It was time to make things more formal between them. He never wanted to loose his Yoriko again, not until the day they died.

Prompt: Working 9 til 5(June 11 2007)

2008-08-13T18:46:14Z

Prompt: Working 9 til 5(Jun 11 2007)
Rating: G
Title: First Day
Characters: Fleur Royale(Mythdoll Yue), Alwyn(Souldoll Tiffee)
Author's Notes: Well, it took a long time,but I finally sat down to do some writing. I started my first real job in July, so that's what inspired this little story. Any comments or feedback, even if it's just to say that you read it are very much welcome.

Sunshine streamed onto the sleeping form of a girl deep in the realm of dreams. The butter-yellow sheets were pulled away, revealing long black hair and a light, bright blue nightgown. A hand carefully touched her shouldar and a soft voice said, "Fleur, it's time to wake up now." When the figure did not move, the voice spoke again, louder this time.
"Fleur, you need to get up, you've slept much too long." Still no response. The voice, annoyed now, repeated this yet again but still the girl slept.
"Fleur Royale, you are going to be late for work if you do not get up this instant!" Fleur's eyelids fluttered open and sat up very slowly.

"Were you saying something, roomie?"
Alwyn could hardly stop herself from yelling at her,"You could sleep through an earthquake! I shook you, tapped your collarbone, yelled, whispered, everything!"

"I was having a nice dream, I didn't want to get up before I got to the ending." Fleur smiled her easygoing smile and batted her long eyelashes. Alwyn left her alone to get changed and waited by the door to thier room until Fleur emerged. She was wearing a tailored pink dress that showed off her curves, an orange scarf was tied in a bow around her neck and she wore a pink beret to top it all off.

"You look very french today," Alwyn mummered as they walked to the dining room where thier breakfast awaited them.
"Well, I should, being from Quebec and all!" She replied and then laughed. Fleur Royale had lived in Quebec, French Canada all her life while Alwyn came from the Praire city of Winnipeg.

It was Fleur's first day of work at the Curiosity Shop, her new home. She and Alwyn shared a room behind the store and Fleur couldn't wait to start work there.

"What do we do at the Shop, Wynnie?"
"Mostly sit behind the register, sweep, mop and help with customers when it's needed. Most of the people who come in are regulars though, so they know what they're looking for. I can put on some music while we work, it can be awfuly boring just sitting here." With that, the small, pale, bonde girl left Fleur as she went to track down the radio.

Fleur wandered the Shop, pausing to examine the strange objects for sale. She was looking at a curious trunk with mysterious carvings when Alwyn came back with the old radio and a beautiul record player. They cleared off a corner of the desk and placed the antique radio down. With Celtic music and a church chorus playing in the background, they settled into thier places and waited for customers.

08-005 - Prompt 2: Twist

2008-08-12T19:59:40Z

Challenge: Twist
Title: Bad Timing
Rating: PG
Dolls: SA Bermann (Trent), DO Bermann (Christian), Hound (Jason) & SD16 Yukinojo(Apollo)
Author's Notes: Part II of a future story. Part one over here I actually wrote this when the prompt went up and then didn't think it was any good. Decided not to post it. joey112 last night encouraged me to post it, albeit late.

Trent’s time vortex twisted opened, like a mini tornado within the gilded room, just as the giant grandfather clock struck 6:00am. Spilling out of the warping time stream stormed a small group consisting of: the wizard, Apollo, a determined Christian as well as Jason. Apollo steadied Trent after the necromancer took several unsteady steps.

“Wrong room!” Christian shouted, his fingers curled around his clockwork blaster. Brass gears clicked as he, as well as the rest of the warriors, powered on their weapons. Unearthly glows emitted from the displays. Spinning around the hall, he glared through heavy tinted goggles at the handful of spiral staircases that climbed up into the shadowy heavens. “Damn it, wizard! Can’t you do anything right?”

“Back off, Chris—“ Apollo began, nosing his way up to Christian.

“Code names, godling! Don’t forget!” Trent chided, his leather duster flapping behind him as he pushed between the two, separating them. In the process he dropped his staff as well as his top hat. “You never know whose listening! I certainly hope they just come on out so we can get this over with.”

“Mind your own!” Christian snapped back at the god, gloved hand reaching into his vest pocket, fumbling once more for his holo-watch.

Trent glowered at his friend, his skin pale. Shrugging off Apollo’s concern, he waved his hand. “She’s nearby, Launcelot. I didn’t want to warp right on top of her.”

“That’s a first,” Jason quipped just as he crossed the room and yanked on the doorknob of the larger of the two double doors. Leather gloves prevented him to struggle much with it. He merely stepped back, raised his gun and aimed. “Locked, but not for long.”

“Tristan, can you wait one bloody moment or has that pilot’s hat and goggles cut off the circulation to your brain?” Trent pulled Apollo back, just as Christian-Launcelot strode past the two, his tailcoat barely covering the power pack hidden underneath. “Launcelot, you need to slow down! You don’t want to walk right into a trap for god’s sake.”

“Less talk more action, Merlin,” Christian replied stiffly, coming up beside Jason-Tristan and leveling his own weapon. “She’s behind there and depending on us. I think Tristan has the right idea.”

“The day Tristan has the right idea is the day the world really has gone bat-shit insane,” Trent-Merlin whispered to Apollo as his friend picked up his dropped gear. Both ran up behind the two gunmen. “Just hold on, boys.”

“Fire!” Launcelot ordered.

“No!” Trent-Merlin yelled, raising an arm to protect himself.

Feedback, pure energy ricocheted back off, from gun to door and back at the Knights in one powerful, blinding explosion. Christian and Jason, taking the worst of the blast, crumpled to the floor before the power arced and shut off. Trent and Apollo followed moments after, their clothing smoking as their motionless and twisted bodies lay on the cold wood floors.

Wing flapping came from the hopelessly high ceiling and down plunged a winged, tanned man. Just as he landed beside the pile of intruders, the doors opened and a brass automation butler rolled out.

“Guests, Sir?” the butter droned, his spotlight eyes jerked first down and shined on each of the men, before lifting back and dimming to his master.

“Quite,” the angel-demon replied. “Just in time for tea.”

A Good Bargain

2008-08-12T17:59:10Z

Challenge: Cornered
Rating: R (dark humor, implied m/m violence and sexual themes)
Doll(s): Halden (CP BW SS EL mod hybrid)
Author's Note: Takes place during a huge war where sometimes the danger is closer to home than the enemy's encampment. Halden is not a character I have written very much but this is from his youth, back when he thought joining the war and running away from home were good ideas. Survival rule of "flight before fight" is a favorite of Halden's. The writing came easy, so hopefully it also came well organized.

--

It was one of those disconcerting moments when Halden had the realization he was in trouble. Outnumbered, limited survival skills and lost as hell. Damn the gods to hell, I should have known that lift was an unintelligent idea. Tumbling into one of the numerous traps in this fort was just another symptom of his ill luck and he was getting incredibly tired of being the ass of dangerous jokes. Warriors Wing was not a place he would normally have put his scrawny self in, and this was just one more reason why he would never again do so if he could help it.

To be perfectly honest, he was altogether uncertain as to when he had lost most of his tunic and his left shoe. Halden dodged another pair of grasping hands only to fall disgracefully into a different awaiting lap. Long hair, sticky with sweat clung to his face, curling with the damp and he swore to himself that he would cut it the next chance he had as a fistful of it was yanked, dragging his face closer to the smell of onions and what he could only assume was some poor excuse of alcohol. He flinched as the lips pressed against his, only to have his body forceably yanked back against another person and a weapon sailing past him in a flash of silver. He squirmed away, kicking at hands holding onto his clothing, losing his remaining shoe, and tripped into a humorous sort of jog, pants attempting to fall about his ankles.

"Whoa, whoa!" Halden panted, holding his hand up to them, the other palming the wall behind him. "Could you just... pause and let me take off my trou?" Surprisingly, they did, holding the exact positions they had one moment before been moving in. Cautious now, refusing to bend down and glance away, he kicked his trousers off. Their response was immediate as they started towards him once more. "Wait!" Again, the plea stopped them. "I just- Here, this is valuable... can I just..?" Using his foot to hook the pants up to his hand, he started digging in his pocket, only to draw out a small velveteen pouch. "I am just going to put this up over here... and out of the way... fine?" Without waiting for a response, he set the pouch on a wooden chair that had somehow managed to not be upturned in the tussle the barbarians seemed to think a game, his mind racing.

"Look, this does not seem hardly fair, boys. Your fighting is... impressive. Furthermore, there are more of you than me."

"It is not just a fighting style, it is a way of life," the speaker grinned, showing fairly intimidating canines.

"Ah, yes.. but it is not a way of life for me. Hence the unfairness of it." Feeling a bit braver, he mentioned almost casually, "I hesitate to point out that you also have weapons and I..." He gestured down to his now naked form before continuing, "I do not."

The grinning soldier guffawed. "Giving you a weapon will hardly make it more fair, but if you would like one...?" Turning one of his daggers hilt first to Halden, he held it out.

Hesitantly, Halden tilted his head to the side as if contemplating it; then shook his head. "No." Firmer now, "No. You, my friend, are correct. I think it would make things more painful. But," he continues, "Neither is it fair that you have weapons and numbers against me."

"We aren't using the weapons against you, just each other. We have not decided who is first, you see."

Swallowing the whimper trying to escape past his throat, Halden protested, "But on each other near me, I can still get hurt."

"You are fighting and fleeing us, you will get hurt either way." The man seemed amused. Amused, Halden reasoned, was better than anger in this sort of situation.

"I..." Halden offers a helpless gesture in front of them. "I do not think I can not fight. It is not in me."

"Even though it is useless?"

"Even so," he nodded.

"Then we will put down our weapons. Fair?" Obviously the grinning speaker was in charge of the monsters down here as the others started sheathing their weapons.

"Fair enough, I suppose." His good eye followed where some of the weapons went, amazed at the inventiveness of where they were hidden. He shook his hair back in front of the eye patch, an unconscious gesture of awkwardness with a fresh wound.

"Even though we, in ourselves, are weapons?"

"I suppose there is not much you can do about that." Halden agreed warily.

"Even though you are outnumbered, still, boy?"

"I am outnumbered even one on one and I doubt you'll agree to that any which way I ask."

"True," the fighter grinned again. "We still have not decided who is first."

I do not believe there is a deity out there listening, but if you would like to prove me wrong on this front, now might be an exceptionally good time. "Ah, yes, about that-"

"Enough. You have bargained a good bargain, fish-wife. Take the deal and let us have our fun." The smile, still fiercely amused, killed the argument on Halden's lips. "You are aware you can not escape?"

Halden's voice cracked, "Yes."

"Well then," the smile widened. "I suggest you run, then." And he did.

08-007 - Diamond --- Free Falls

2008-08-12T03:40:10Z

Need to respond to comments.. need to get ready for work. Aaah, overtime work from 8PM to midnight, followed by 7AM-3:30PM tomorrow. Weewoo~

Challenge: 08-007 - Diamond
Title: Free-Falls
Rating: PG
Dolls: Imikin (MSD Volks Mika, but not so much in this) and 'Mei' (Meikyou, NS Dollshe Hound)
Author's Notes: I need to work on my adventure-writing. Always, when things happen, it sounds kinda bland to me. 9_9 I was kinda falling asleep while writing this... (Crazy Man Michael, by the way, is a fellow who remembers things in dreams. He has them constantly, though, and has a hard time telling the difference between dream and reality sometimes. He's friendly, and Imikin likes him as a friend, though he sometimes weirds her out.)
Summary: Imikin gets dragged to a small garden to see a treasure that her sort of friend/sort of annoyance Mei found. Too bad someone let Michael out at the same time.

~

“Why, again, am I walking with you?” Imikin asked, frowning at the tall man next to her. Mei just grinned and dragged her along, his arm looped with hers. Imikin grumbled and looked ahead when he did not respond.

They were nearing the terrace that overlooked the sea, and by that terrace was the garden that she knew Mei tended. He had caught her while she had been heading towards the little library and demanded she follow him. When she had refused, he had dragged her along. She could not find it in her to fight him off and so followed him, if not angrily, then at least rather disgruntled.

“I wanted to show you what I found in the garden today, lass,” Mei said as the stopped before the small patch of land. Imikin pushed back the urge to take her shoes off and curl her toes in the rich soil and leaned back on the high stone wall instead. Behind her, the sea crashed against the cliff face in a never ending roar that was rather peaceful when one listened. Mei bent to pick something up from behind one of the cast aside stones and handed it to her.

It was a ring. Just a simple golden band with a small, clear diamond held on by small claws. There were smaller stones around the band, but its time in the garden had covered the colors up with soil and time.

Imikin turned the little ring over in her hand and looked up at Mei, “Quite the find, I should say.”

“Isn’t it, though? I wonder how long it has been here,” he took it back from her, careful to touch the least amount of skin on her palm as possible. She watched him put the ring on with a slight grin and leaned back once more against the rock wall. The ring only fit on his pinky finger, the rest of his fingers being far too wide for such a little ring.

“What are you gonna do with something so flowery?” Imikin asked, grinning. She couldn’t imagine the tall man wearing a little diamond ring around.

“I’ll keep it safe until the time is right,” Mei said as he, as well, leaned against the stone wall. Imikin glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, but his gaze was fastened on the sea before him.

Just as she was about to speak again, she was interrupted by a new voice. “There- there you are! There you both are!”

Imikin glanced over and smiled at Michael who was rushing towards her. Her smile fell away when Michael did not stop rushing towards her and felt his hands push on her shoulders. Before she could swipe at the pushing hands, Mei had grabbed them and pulled them away.

“What do you?” he growled, a fierce frown on his brow, “That’s a cliff, you idiot! You could have pushed her off!”

“I had a dream! A dream, I say,” Michael crooned, “I saw her flying in a memory. She was a lot littler, but she had pretty wings and a large, golden eagle type creature flying with her. I just thought that I should bring the dream to reality again-”

With that, he wrenched his hands free from Mei’s in an unusual show of strength, and heaved Imikin over the wall before anyone was the wiser. Imikin shrieked and clawed for any sort of purchase, but she was…

Falling.

A scream pierced the air and part of her mind realized that it had been her. She was going to die. There was nothing- nothing to do; no way she would survive that fall, even if there was water below her. There were rocks, jagged and black below her, and barnacles and always, always the raging sea. If she somehow did survive, she would drown…

She closed her eyes tightly and waited…

The only saving grace was how high she had fallen. She would hopefully, hopefully pass out before she hit the bottom…

Large, warm hands grabbed her arms and pulled her out of her free-fall. Her eyes snapped open only to look into swirling blue, one with white and one with black. That idiot Mei had jumped after her…

She felt a rush of air beat against her skin as she finally succumbed to the lightheaded darkness of weightless fall.

~

“I know you are awake, lass,” a deep voice said from somewhere above her head. Imikin frowned, squeezing her eyes closed. How had she not died? How come neither she nor Mei were being pulverized by the constant roar of the sea?

The room was dark when she opened her eyes. And there seemed to be feathers everywhere. She wondered idly if she had just been dreaming and had ripped a pillow to shreds…

A long, dark cerulean blue feather was held before her face. With shaky fingers she took it and twirled it. It was a very pretty thing, that, but… why were there feathers everywhere?

With a small amount of struggle, she was able to turn and look at Mei, who looked drawn and haggard. He smiled a little when he noticed her watching him, and brushed some of her bangs from her face, “I thought I’d lost you there.”

Imikin could feel her ears burning and looked away. There were times when she could get along with Mei and she cherished them, even if they were few and far between. She was comfortable with him, and that’s what truly mattered to her.

“These are…” Mei held up one of the blue feathers, “These belong to you, now.”

“Why? Why me?” Imikin asked, rubbing the edge of the feather against her cheek. “Why are there feathers everywhere?”

“Well, you see-”

“And how am I still alive? I was pushed off the wall by Crazy Man Michael! And I could have sworn that I saw you jump off as well… Explain to me that.”

Mei just grinned, “Maybe one day. But how do you know that it wasn’t really a dream?”

~

x-posted to mine journal. Comments highly adored. <3
Now, to work! XD

<3
-Mako 'n the Crew

bjd_30minfic @ 2008-08-11T09:49:00

2008-08-11T16:51:08Z

The Masque was well underway when the Satyrs made their appearance. They arrived drunkenly and with tempers already flared by the slight of not having been invited. A dozen strong, they were a formidable match for any of the males present but only several of them preferred fisticuffs to fucking. Unless provoked, though, they would instead wreak a priapic vengeance on Cunan’s court.

The music stuttered then stopped as the group convened at the top of the sweeping marble staircase, masked faces looking up. It was Summer Solstice and the satyrs were clad only in the colours of their curly pelts. Sporrans and silver tankards strung on leather thongs hung across their shoulders, they knew better than to wear their bows and quivers. Each wore a satin eye mask, hand-dyed in muted, jeweled tones.

The musicians began the slow waltzing tempo once more and the ball goers swayed and dipped in time. Their presence would be tolerated.

Moving through the dancers, bending sloping shoulders, feinting with muscle-heavy thighs, smirking mouths hidden behind wavy Van Dyke beards, ears turning forward then back, hooves clopping in natural rhythm, borne on mysterious smells of darkening woods and wet moss, they paired and tripled up with sotted lads and lassies only to leave them tangled and sticky and inexplicably wanting more. To lay with a Satyr was to have one’s body marked physically, bruises and love bites and kiss swollen lips, but also to find later that sexual longing for hooves and horns had become a dizzying need beneath the skin, driving the lovers to seek out Pandemonium. The goats knew this and the power of it fueled them forward into the crowd, twirling amongst the dancers, descending for deep kisses, groping down thighs and up skirts, filling the silver tankards beneath the spigotted kegs and casks and drinking past the point any human male could stand. Literally.

Passing in gilt hallways, rutting in corners of the chequered dancefloor, against marble columns, the brothers greeted one another with brays and deep-throated laughter, tally marks confirmed aloud. They knew they were being watched and they relished the bristling fur of the Wulf Guard, enjoyed the scandalous looks of humans grown too dry to fall prey to their sexual wiles.

The evening was still in its infancy and the hours ahead promised entertainment the likes of which they had not enjoyed for some long time in the Kingdom. Cunan was a sober leader, a man of intent and purpose, calculating and shrewd, hosting a Masked Ball seemed out of character for the young king, only Jarek knew better his intentions, and he stood where he had been standing since their arrival, at the long-timbered tables where kegs and casks of beer and wine had been tapped. His tankard was filled with rich pale ale. His red brown eyes ever watchful, vigilant, drooping ears perked, the ale not dulling his sharp senses but taking the edge off the interminable longing he was learning to live with.

Later he would wonder how she had been able to approach without him being aware of her proximity until she was within his strike zone. He scented her before he saw her. For one long moment, his eyes closed lightly and he breathed in deeply the smell of something he had thought he’d forgotten, come to believe he would not ever find, convinced himself was not real. Slowly, he stepped back, lowered his head and let his gaze move down the edge of the table. She was standing quite still and looking at him. And later, alone, he would play that moment over and over again and marvel at how he saw her completely and yet was ignorant of her costume, only the shape and form of her body, the long limbs, her breasts at the neckline of the bodice, the aching curve of her collarbones. He had not seen the elaborate knotting of her hair, instead its colour and somehow its weight discerned. He had looked past the half-mask she wore aware only of the light blue of her kohl-rimmed eyes.

He inclined his head, almost imperceptibly, and was rewarded with a smile, full of warmth and promise. He stepped one step, two steps, thrice closer to her and bowed low.

“Hello, Satyr.”

“M’lady.”

“Please, I am Iola.”

“As you wish. And I am Jarek.”

She had stepped closer, a hand offered in propriety. He lifted it without looking, unwilling and unable to break her gaze. But when he bent to bring his mouth to her knuckles, the betrothed diamond on her wedding finger, glinted and flashed beneath his lips like the tooth of a viper.

Sunday prompt

2008-08-11T01:43:55Z

Please read the rules.

Prompt number 4: diamond

08-003: Vermin (Prompt: Cornered)

2008-08-10T22:29:10Z

Challenge: 08-003: Cornered
Title: Vermin
Rating (G through NC-17) : G
Dolls: Adee (Elfdoll Adel – damaged knee joint and ankle joint), Rune (CP 2006 Nanuri), Gara (CP Moon—not one I own yet but maybe someday I’ll get him!)
Author's Notes: I so put this one off. It hits a lot too close to home for Adee and me. Her life with Rune wasn’t all snuggles and fluff. This bit is a pretty typical example of her life when Rune wasn’t around, I’m afraid. This part builds off of the others that I’ve done here, here, and here for those interested in reading more about Adee and Rune.

“I swear I saw something in the rafters,” one of the maids said, shuddering.

Adee froze, hiding in the nook between two rafters, deep in the shadows where they shouldn’t be able to see her. It was the weekly heavy cleaning that Adee had learned to fear. During the week they only cleaned a few things here and there, changed the sheets, dusted, but once a week there was no place for Adee to hide. Once a week she had to cringe in the corners and pray that Rune came back from his meetings early. Worse still, this week they’d gotten to the room early and were talking about being more thorough than normal.

“Well, if there’s some vermin up there, we’ll find it,” the oldest of the maids said, patting the younger girl on the back. “Let’s get to work. There’s not much time before Master Rune returns. You know how much he hates us cleaning his rooms.”

While the women were gathering their feather dusters and rags Adee darted along one of the rafters to a cross brace that let her get right up into the roof. There was a little knothole that she could just fit into. It was a tight fit and hurt her wings and leg, but she didn’t dare be out in the room. They’d find her. She’d be cornered and crushed and Rune would be distraught and Adee didn’t want that, not ever.

The women started cleaning the main room, getting on step ladders to dust the rafters and clean the eaves. Adee whimpered and tried to curl even farther into her knothole as the feather dusters got closer and closer to her hiding place. It was shadowed in her little hideout but not shadowed enough that the women wouldn’t see the iridescent sheen of her wings. Her heart was pounding. Her wings were trembling and those evil dusters kept approaching.

The buffeting from the duster that swept her area was like being beaten. The dust made it impossible to breath and the feathers did their best to sweep her right out of her hideout. She clung to the knothole, bracing herself and clinging for all her worth, but her weak leg and the pain from the duster battering her wings made it impossible to stay put through the whole attack. She held her breath as she was swept free from her hideout and knocked to the rafter below.

“Hmm, there was something in one of the knotholes,” the girl attacking Adee said.

“Well, make sure you get it off the rafters,” the oldest woman said calmly. “We need to get this place properly cleaned up.”

Adee panted and then scrambled running along the rafter towards the eaves where there was a long hollow area, just hidden behind the edging. If she could make it there she’d be safe, she wouldn’t die. They wouldn’t kill her. The girl with the duster screamed when she saw the skitter of movement, nearly toppling off of her step ladder.

“There’s something alive up there!” she squawked. “I saw it moving!”

“Get the brooms!” the oldest woman said grimly. “I’m not leaving some vermin in Master Rune’s rooms! He’s difficult enough as it is. I won’t have him complaining about vermin invading his home.”

They grimly gathered brooms, scanning the rafters for any hint of movement. Adee whimpered, tears cutting tracks through the dust coating her cheeks. Rune, Adee whimpered mentally, still biting her lip so that she wouldn’t cry out. Whenever the women looked away, Adee scooted closer to her next hiding place. She stayed belly down on the rafter, trusting her tiny size to keep them from seeing her from below. She was only making inches and it was feet to her safe spot.

“There!” the oldest woman cried, spotting the shine of Adee’s wings. “Damn it, how’d a fairy get in here? Get it!”

Adee stopped trying to hide and ran, lurching on her crippled leg. The woman flailed with their brooms, hampering each other in their attempts to batter Adee down from the rafter so that she could be crushed. There was shouting and dust and harsh straws from the brooms smacking all around her. Adee sobbed, heart screaming for Rune, for Gara, for anyone to make the attack stop before she was cornered and crushed, killed for not being big, for not being an Elf like them.

“What in the world are you doing?” Rune roared behind the women, making them squawk and abruptly abandon the attack.

As they whirled to face the thunderously enraged Rune and Gara timidly peeping around his back, Adee darted into her hiding place, panting and trembling. Her leg ached so badly and there were scratches and bruises all over her body. She hated this, hated it so bad, but there was nowhere else for her to go. Crippled Fairies were killed by their own people. Besides, she loved her Rune and wouldn’t leave him, even if this was the price, even if she had to be corned every week and nearly killed.

“There was a fairy lurking in your rafters, sir,” the oldest woman said. “We were just trying to get rid of it for you.”

“You haven’t the foggiest what you’re dealing with,” Rune snarled. “My patient makes animatronic constructs, especially climbing and winged ones. He’s been making them and setting them loose in my rooms.”

“It calms me down,” Gara said quietly. “I hope you didn’t break it. They’re very hard to repair.”

Adee squirmed a little farther into the hole, praying that the women bought it. They’d still hunt Adee down when Rune wasn’t around, but maybe Rune and Gara could make her a safe hiding place for cleaning times. She doubted it. She’d always be vermin and the elves always would clean when they got the chance, not on a schedule.

“From now on,” Rune growled, “you’re never to clean my rooms unless I’m present, is that clear?”

“But…”

“Is that clear?” Rune bellowed, eyes almost glowing in his rage.

“Yes sir!” the women said, bowing.

“Out!”

They filed out, giving Rune dirty looks behind his back. They took all their supplies with them, leaving Rune to get a chair and go stand on it under the hiding place Adee was cowering in.

“They’re gone, love,” Rune said gently. “Come on out. Let’s get you cleaned up and we’ll find a way to keep you safe for the next time.”

“Rune,” Adee cried, crawling out of her hiding place.

She was filthy, covered in dust, bruised, and bleeding in places. Rune moaned, tears in his eyes as he gently lifted her down, cradling her in his hands. Gara whimpered, going to get a little bowl and washcloth for her to use to get clean. Adee gave in and cried, clinging to her Rune, her savior, the one she loved even though it was going to be the death of her. It was only a matter of time before she was cornered and killed like the vermin the Elves thought she was.

bjd_30minfic @ 2008-08-07T09:35:00

2008-08-07T16:39:49Z

Challenge: Cornered
Title: Bosatsu
Rating: G
Dolls: Dollshe Hound, Hypermaniac Gye-do

Author note: I rarely write from Ira's point of view. I should do it more often. This is all over the place, but it's timed writing, and I'm gonna let it stand.

He has the biggest hands I’ve ever seen.

We’re in Eric’s car. I had no idea he had the keys to Eric’s car, but we’re on Highway 81 at 7-0-clock in the morning. We aren’t listening to the radio. There’s just the sound of this hyper-competent engine and the scratching sounds from the brown paper bag in the back seat.

“How far do we have to drive?” I ask him.

“A few miles,” he says.

“That far?” His eyes flick from the road to me. The half-smile that’s always there gets a little wider. I hear the struggles from the back seat again.

“Well,” he says, “we could stop here, but it’ll find its way back.”

“From here?" A dispassionate part of me – the Old Man part of me – listens to the squeak. The very frustrated actual-age part of me is making a conscious effort to modulate my voice down however many clicks it takes for me to stop making that stupid sound. I break on an E. Why do I break on an E?

“Our house is its home,” he says simply. I consider this.

“We’re kicking him out.” He lifts his eyebrow when I shift pronouns.

For a while, neither of us talks. Highway 81 winds through brown hills and stands of live oak trees, but every so often we come around a bend and we’re surrounded by gas stations and strip malls. The area is changing fast, and there are fancy houses on the ridge that weren’t there when we moved here eight months ago.

“He’s pretty smart,” he says finally. He takes the car off to a wide shoulder. The morning is still foggy and grey, and I zip up my sweatshirt as I get out of the car. “In fact,” he says, as I collect the paper bag, “we might not have gone far enough out of town.”

“What, he’s that smart?” I hear the car doors autolock, the alarm beep, and then we clamber over the barbed-wire lining the shoulder. The ground is soggy. I picked the boots I’m wearing on purpose because I want them to get a little beat up—they’re too new, which makes them look lame.

“He’s that smart. This is not,” and he laughs, “his first trip.”

I stop, my feet sinking, water puddling around my boots, to stare at him. There’s a sound from inside the bag, and I imagine the little claws scrambling for a purchase on the smooth surface.

I remember me and Erling, armed with jou and nunchuks, waiting at the kitchen door for the little brown shape.

I remember the way Martin – you didn’t see his hand move. You literally could not clock that movement. He just was there and the rat was in his hand: a Norwegian Roof Rat, not especially big, and Erling turned kind of grey and sat down in the breakfast nook.

“So basically, you are a repeat rat rescuer.”

“Or I’m a ravager of worlds, I guess, from the rat’s point of view,” he says softly. “Here. This should do. You can open the bag.”

bjd_30minfic @ 2008-08-05T11:40:00

2008-08-05T18:40:07Z

Challenge: Fog
Title:Earth's veil
Rating: PG-13 (some language)
Dolls: Finn MacGregor (CP BW Nanuri 06 hybrid)
Author Note: Anything I got wrong in clans I blame on ignorance. Seriously. I needs to study my clans and geography before I write another one of these, but it was fun. And this was my first time for this community. So please forgive my errors of ignorance.

-=-=-=-

The earth around him was moist, smelled of loam and things that once had been living turning back into the soil from which it was born. Through the trees he could just make out moving shapes, clouded, slipping amoungst the trunks. The fog made it hard to see those who were hunting him. It made it harder for them to see him.

If he stayed still the fog rose from the earth to hide him as if she too wanted to keep him safe.

He had hidden in her before. Using her veil to keep him safe from watchers. Heedless of his tartan, the mud would help him blend in better, he crept foreward. His ears were of more use to him than his eyes now in this surreal mist of morning.

With the trackers otherwise occupied hunting each other in the trees and fog he made his way back to the holding. With her gates and fences now ungaurded he slipped through. Even the dogs had left to root in the mud for pigs and grubs. He felt himself smile. They were so gullable. So easy to taunt.

In the distance, he heard dogs barking.

He lifted the latch to the pasture. It held two horses of undetermined color and around 25 head of cattle. All were turning grass to soil in the way of all animals. Eat it then shit.

The mist was lighter around him now. He would have to be more careful. He threw glances over his shoulder to the keep and edged around the fence to get behind the livestock, always int he darkest shadow he could find. He edged up to one of the horses. THe light was not bright enough yet to tell it's markings. It could be brown or black. He grabbed to fist fulls of mane and it shied sideways from his touch.

"Shh... There's a good lass." He got closer again and this time kept a undervoice commentary to the horse as he did so. "Big strong man like me riding you, now that's a great honour. Not often one has a yound gentleman come calling the small hours of the morning. These things have to grasped and taken in both hands. Or maybe just one if you know what I mean."

He pulled himself astride the horse, but stayed close to her neck as he edged her into position. The dogs hard gotten closer. They'd found his trail back to where they had all began this hunt.

Letting out a battle cry he kicked heels to the flanks of his mount and started to run the cattle and the other horse out of the pasture.

Cows are stupid, by nature. They can be hard to start, but once you do it can be a simple thing to keep them moving. It's getting them to move where you want them that is the trick. He was doing a passable job of herding them out the gate and turning them to the south when the cry went up that he'd been spotted. Not good.

He made more noise and the dogs helped him more than their masters at this point. The barking got the cattle to move when his yelling alone had not worked as effectively. He leds them through a break in the low stone wall at the border of the keep's lands and into the woods. He was almost free. He persuit was on foot. The would be hard pressed to keep up as long as they had those dogs with them urging on the cattle. All he had to do was get back.

The fog had hidden him. The pre-dawn light had helped. His tartan had been unrecognized. He smiled. Now. To get these damn cows to the lands of Ian McAllister. Wouldn't he be pissed to have 25 new cows and angery in-laws to boot. It was a good morning.

Finn decided to keep the horses for hiself. He did charge a fee for this sort of thing after all. Leading the keep on a lark in the small hours of the night, that was free. Putting up with the smell of cows, that cost two horses.

Noob ahoy!

2008-08-05T18:28:25Z

This is my first one; hope it doesn't break too many rules. oO; Blame anjelchan for me joining. >:D

Title: MEEP!
Rating: G
Characters: Echo (Soulkid Tiffee Boy), Athan (60cm Narin boy), Aries (Shiwoo boy), Bree (Soulkid Miryu girl), hapless best friend Kumar (5'7" Hindu male).
Prompt: Twist

"No way, Echo! Don't do it!" Aries chuckled, only half-serious. He really did want to see excrement hitting the fan, but knew he should at least pretend to be a voice with some semblance of reason. He and Echo were pretty good friends, even though Echo was only 11 or so. Bree, Aries' feisty and much shorter girlfriend, folded her arms indignantly and huffed, her bushy ginger hair fluffing up a little.
"You're so immature, Echo. He's just here to feed the cats. He already thinks we're weird as it is."
Echo grinned malevolently. He was a short blond with a tuft of hair that popped straight up out of the top of his head and bobbed up and down as he paced atop the bookshelf atop which all the dolls had been set. "Kumar's cool. 'Sides, he's got a good sense'a humor. It'll be so awesome!" Aries fought back an unnecessarily encouraging laugh and Bree poked him in the ribs. Athan, Echo's older brother, raked his fingers through his long black hair and sighed. There was no talking Echo out of a prank... particularly since Athan didn't speak. All he could do was wait for the inevitable and hope nothing too grisly ensued. Echo whipped around to look at everyone, raising his hands into claw gestures and trying his best to sound spooky. "In the deeeead of niiiiight, an aaaawful friiiight!"
Bree mocked his voice and limply mimed his gestures. "Watched and be amazed as the onion head gives his mom's best friend a heart attack and she comes home to his dead boooodyyyy." Aries burst into a snorting giggle fit and Echo scrunched up his face. Athan couldn't help but grin.
Echo balled up his pudgy little fists. "Only Knee-san can call me Onion-head! 'Sides, 'least my head doesn't look like a big bushy hairball!"
Bree snarled. "Hairball?! HAIRBALL?!"
Aries smacked his forehead. "Too far, dude. Too far."
The little redhead's lively mane was her pride and joy and the one way to really tick her off was to bring up her inability to really tame it. She whipped off her wig and chucked it at Echo's face. Unable to remove it, he flailed until he slammed facefirst into the wall. Everyone enjoyed the scene and amidst the laughs, Echo screeches. he'd removed the wig but his eyes had been knocked loose and were now rattling around in his head. "I'M BLIIIIIND! HELP! KNEE-SAAAAN!" Athan tugged gently on the boy's jeans until he sat onto his lap, then popped off his wig and headcap to set about replacing his eyes.
Bree replaced her hair and daintily perched into Aries' knee. "Little twerp." The sound of the house door opening and closing escaped their notice.
Echo stood up just as Kumar entered the dimly lit room, searching for the cat he'd been instructed to hunt down and feed canned food to. That damned cat food always smells so raunchy, he thought. He turned to go into the kitchen when he heard a clicking noise come from the area of the doll shelf. Athan had forgotten to turn Echo's head back the right way and at the very instant Kumar looked toward the dolls, Echo wrenched it back into place.
"THAT DOLL'S HEAD JUST TWISTED AROUND! SCREW THE CAT!" he bolted and the door slammed shut, the sound quickly followed by that of a revving engine and squealing tires.
Bree snorted. "Good going, dingleberry."
Echo cocked his head and blinked. "That... was... AWESOME!"

~Fin~

Over Medium

2008-08-05T04:33:47Z

Challenge: Cornered
Title: Over Medium
Rating: PG-13/FRT (For Implied Sexuality and Brief Allusion to Past Violence)
Dolls: Wren Llawcae [Tohya/DT 15Girl], Ming Jian Yuan [Seimei]
Author's Notes: Any and all criticism and comments welcomed, as always.

Over Medium

Jian rolled over, kicking the pale down comforter off of himself as he came awake, and what felt like every muscle in the right side of his body seized and held in screaming, bloody agony. He gasped, a landed fish staring helplessly at the open door and the wall that housed it, unable even to make a sound, and slowly – so, so slowly – the tendons and muscles relaxed, stopped tearing at his bones, the pain fading to an almost bearable ache.

Wren appeared in the doorway, eyes watchful. There were dark bags under those eyes, the smeared bruises of exhaustion. It would take much more than one night’s rest to clear them away. Maybe they’d even have time for that, this round. Maybe not. Never could tell – predictions of that sort were pointless in their line of work.

“Can you get up?”

He favored her with a look he normally reserved for the particularly obtuse among the new recruits and transfers that occasionally showed up in the SIU, the ones who thought that just because he was shorter than average and wore his hair longer than usual, he’d be fun to push around. She simply smiled in response. The movement made her lip split, one of the cuts at the side of her mouth cracking open. Her eyes didn’t even flicker, nothing in her expression suggested that she’d felt it, but after a moment or two of blood welling up she licked it away, absently, a quick dart of tongue. He watched, then grunted and rolled to the side of the bed, swung his legs over the edge and rose onto his feet. The world was made of hurt. Could have been worse – had been, in the past. But it still hurt.

Wren walked over to him, and he saw that the butterfly bandage closing the long laceration along her left cheek was coming loose. He reached out – the muscles in his shoulder tried to seize but he pushed past that position before they had a chance – and ran his thumb along it, pressed the little bit of fabric and adhesive back down. “This will need to be replaced.”

“After a shower. There’s no point before then.” Wren slid one arm around his waist, tugged just a bit so he was leaning on her. He didn’t protest. It made things easier, and she’d just ignore him anyway.

As she helped him into the bathroom, placed him in front of the toilet to piss and turned to fill the bathtub with water, he spared a moment for slightly sour jealousy over her ability to recover so quickly. She’d taken just as much of a beating as he had, over the last week. She hadn’t gotten even an hour more sleep in those last, tense couple of days. She’d even been caught at the edge of the same blast as he had; they’d been surrounded and huddled together, reloading behind the cover of a CONEX container, when one of the gunrunners on the other side of the thing tried to do something fancy with a brick of C4 and ended up blowing himself – and all his friends – to kingdom come. The corrugated steel walls of the container had saved them, but they’d also been smashed up against the concrete wall thirty feet behind them, and pinned under the thing for well over an hour. They were just lucky no one else had been in any condition to take advantage of their immobility before an extraction team could get to them.

So it was a bit of a burn, that she wasn’t moving like she was about to keel over. Oh, sure, she was feeling it – she was favoring one leg, and he noticed that she had the wrist brace on, despite the fact that they were at home. She was moving slower than usual, too. But still. Sometimes that altered stuff didn’t seem fair.

Wren turned around, and the smile on her face was wryly amused. She knew exactly what he was thinking. He was sure of it.

Jian pushed away from the wall – he’d been using one hand to steady himself against it while he had his way with the toilet – and tottered over to the bath. There was no steam. This was going to suck.

Wren’s smile turned a bit more amused. “I already had my soak. Your turn.”

Jian tossed a grimace at her. “You going to keep me company?”

“First I’m going to go get breakfast before it loses all of its warmth, but yeah.”

Jian sighed, and got into the tub, submerging himself in one quick – painful – movement.

Cold.

He came up, gasping for air, and Wren was gone. He went back under. The sooner his body got used to it, the sooner he’d be able to ignore it.

He’d gone under – and had to come up for air – seven times before Wren returned. She had one plate in her left hand, one balanced on her forearm. She really was moving more slowly than usual. She turned away from him, setting the plates on the floor beside the tub.

Jian went under again.

Wren dumped a bag of ice cubes – he hadn’t even seen it, distracted by the cold and the smell of the freshly cooked eggs – into the water with him. He came up swearing. Wren just laughed and stripped off her wrist brace and climbed into the water with him.

He was a bit mollified at her hiss as she sank into the water until only her head was showing.

More so when she settled against him, skin to skin in water that was getting steadily colder, and sighed. They were silent for a while, shivering together.

“So. I smell eggs?”

“Over medium. Would have been scrambled, but the milk was pretty rank.”

Jian thought about this for a moment. “Milk lasts longer than eggs.”

“I borrowed them from next door. Before I discovered the milk.”

“Ah.” Jian smiled just a bit. “I trust you put on clothes to leave the apartment, at least.”

“Sweats. And a shirt. Just had to take them off to soak for a while. Seemed kind of pointless to get dressed again after that. Knew I'd be getting back in the water soon enough.” He could almost feel her smile, even if he couldn’t, in this position, see her face.

Of course that was her only reason.

Right.