(no subject)

[skygiants]

Hi guys! A FEW POINTS:

a.) It's Friday.
b.) My laptop charger cable has broken, which means that until I get a new one shipped to me I will be working off of The Ancient Dead Laptop of Death or The Boring Work Laptop, which means a lot of the stuff I have been doing to feel productive is currently on pause.
c.) As you, uh, may have noticed, I seem to be unable to write anything these days that is not EPICALLY LONG.
d.) It's Friday!

As a result of all these things, I am asking a favor of you guys: give me drabble prompts! I would like to have short things to work on this weekend until I can get back to using my usual laptop. I would also like remind myself that it is possible to write fic that is not ten thousand words in length.

Feel free to toss me anything you think I would know; if I don't know it well enough to write, I'll tell you to give me something else.

Comments

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

Short scene from any of your Revolutionary Girl Utena crossovers. Parker scaling an elevator shaft when she hears Japanese babbling about hatching eggs, Kyon and Utena playing MST3K for the Kashira Players...like that.

a few leverage crossover snippets

[skygiants]

In Nanami’s mind, it’s so easy – she’ll “accidentally” open Parker’s locker; the set of handcuffs she planted in there yesterday will come falling out; Professor Hardison will say, “I’m disappointed in you, Parker! I didn’t think you were the kind of girl to bring handcuffs to school!”; and Operation: Parker-Is-A-Big-Weirdo-Who-Keeps-Handcuffs-In-Her-Locker will be an unqualified success!

Things start to go wrong pretty fast, though.

Boom.

“What was that!” Nanami shrieks, jumping backwards, as smoke starts to fill the hallway.

Hardison sighs and rubs his forehead. He doesn't even have to look at Parker. “You rigged it?”

“Uh, yeah,” Parker says. “I don’t want anyone going through my stuff.”

“Ain’t that cute,” Hardison says, amused in spite of himself. “What, you got like a diary in there or something?”

Parker gives him a don’t-be-stupid look in response. “No, my favorite pair of practice handcuffs.”

(The next day, Keiko leans over to Aiko and whispers, “Gosh, Nanami-sama kind of looks like a space alien with her eyebrows all singed like that, doesn’t she?”)

************************

Nate shades his eyes and squints up. “So that’s what this is all about, huh?”

“It is beautiful.” The sight is stirring some kind of deep emotion in Sophie; they can all tell when this happens because she closes her eyes and attempts to memorize the feeling to use later In Her Art. “You can almost understand why they all go so mad over it.”

“I dunno, I mean, it’s real nice, but it’s getting a little Super Mario up in here,” Hardison says. “Listen up, guys, ‘cause I’m calling it now – the princess is in another castle.” But he keeps staring upwards, and so does Eliot, who doesn’t say anything at all.

Parker looks blankly from one rapt face to the other. She peers up through her right eye. Then she peers up through her left. Finally she opens both eyes, wrinkles her nose, and hazards, “You mean the planetarium projector?”

*********************

“Oh no,” says Eliot. “Hell no.”

His opponent glares at him across the dueling arena, already brandishing his sword. (Too early, Eliot notes in a corner of his mind. If he were the kid’s teacher he’d tell him it doesn’t pay to pull out your weapon prematurely, but right now he’s got bigger things on his mind.) “What are you waiting for?” Saionji snarls. “Draw the sword!”

The light glints off of Anthy’s glasses, and off the hilt of the sword protruding from her chest. It’s very slightly possible that she looks disconcerted. “Eliot-sama . . .”

“I put up with the flowers,” Eliot says flatly. “I put up with the epaulets,” and those things better come off his favorite jacket, by the way, or someone is going to pay. He can hear Hardison snickering through the earbud, which is not helping. “Here’s where I draw the line. You wanna fight, you can take the boob-sword. I’m done."

********************

“You’re late tonight, Anthy.”

Anthy sits down on her bed, across from Utena’s. “I’m sorry, Utena-sama,” she says. “I was helping my brother. He hurt his hand.”

“Oh – is Akio-san all right?”

“He should be careful picking flowers. Sometimes they scratch him.”

“Poor Akio-san!”

“Poor brother,” Anthy agrees, hands folded demurely in her lap.

“I hope he wasn’t too badly – oh! Chuchu, leave that alone!”

Chuchu squeaks and claps his paws to his nose, and the insect he’s been grabbing at buzzes vengefully off. Utena blinks after it.

"Hey, aren't bees supposed to die after they've stung something . . .?"

"Oh," Anthy says, "that one must be a wasp."

Several buildings away, in the transfer-student-dorm-slash-temporary-Leverage-headquarters, Parker snaps, “I’m not a people person!” and storms off into the next room.

“We really have to remember not to ask her to do this kind of thing,” Nate says to Sophie.

“I know,” Sophie says, and sighs. “But did it have to be another fork?"

[vivien]

You know I am always in the mood for Mary Lennox future fic drabbles! How about something spy and WWI related?

hahaha this may actually end up happening

[skygiants]

If it wasn’t for Milliways, even Mary sometimes admits, she’d never be able to pull this off without exploding.

Today, for example - when she sees the headline in the paper, and can't react to it with anything except thinned lips and silence, not even a little bit, until she gets to Milliways and does what she's been longing to do, which is throw the newspaper down on the nearest table with extreme force.

This does not actually relieve her feelings as much as she’d hoped.

“. . . Mary?” Ingress frowns and picks up her tea, heading over to the table nearest the door. “Are you all right?”

Mary glares down at the paper, as if she can erase the headline by staring at it, and doesn’t answer for a moment. “What a fool!” she bursts out, finally. “How could she be so – we’ve still years of war left, and she hardly made it one!”

Ingress looks down at the headline. Unhelpfully, it’s in German. “Um . . . do you want to talk about it?” she hazards, although the answer already seems to be yes.

Mary stabs down a finger at the name: EDITH CAVELL.

“Executed by the Germans,” she says, the words suddenly clipped and short. “For treason.”

“Oh, Mary –” Ingress’ eyes widen. “She didn’t have your name, did she?” This isn’t a question Ingress would have thought to ask a few years back – but they teach you a lot of things when you put on a set of Grays. Espionage can certainly fall within a Herald’s job description. “Will you need to come here to hide? You know you can always stay at the House of Arch –“

“No - we were in the same line, but I didn’t know her,” Mary says, and Ingress relaxes a little. “They do try to keep us separate – for just that reason, of course. I ought to be safe as any of us will be now, but if the Germans will have got the wind up – we’ll have to be timid as mice, and not get half of what we might do done. I do not do well,” she adds, unnecessarily, “with timidity.”

“That’s sad, though,” Ingress says, looking again at the paper, and the picture of a trim elderly woman in a gray nurse’s uniform. “About Edith Cavell.”

Mary puts her hand down on the paper and then abruptly crumples it, her fingers pulling together savagely. “They’ll make it a national tragedy, I expect.”

Ingress looks at her friend’s drawn face, drained the color of sour milk. She wants to ask if she’s scared, but she’s known Mary long enough by now to know just how well that will go over.

“Be careful,” she says, instead.

“Well, I shall have to be now,” Mary says, which isn’t an answer, and then glances up at Ingress, and smiles, quick and wry. “And if I’m not, you may sit here with a newspaper headline and call me a fool.”

[in-the-blue.livejournal.com]

Eve Genoard with a photo album.

[skygiants]

As a little girl, Eve Genoard had loved having her picture taken. Benjamin and Samasa had indulged her, as they did in everything, calling in the photographer for every birthday and special occasion; she would drag her brothers to stand in front of the camera and beam anxiously up into the black box, making sure her hair was neat and her dress was smooth and begging Dallas and Geoffrey to smile. Geoffrey did smile, most of the time, old enough to be indulgent to a pleading small sister, and Dallas could occasionally be bullied into it, but neither one ever stayed to take more than one group picture before they pelted off to go do whatever boy things they did on their own, leaving pretty little Eve in full possession.

When he was sixteen, Dallas went into a rage and ripped up all the photos of himself that he could find in the house. Eve managed to save a photo of herself and Dallas by the expedient of hiding it in a book of Poe’s short stories; the only place Dallas was less likely to look was her Bible, but somehow hiding a picture of Dallas in the Good Book felt disrespectful to the Bible and her brother both. She couldn’t get to any of the pictures of Geoffrey-and-Dallas in time, though. Dallas had gone after those first.

After that, the only pictures left in the photo albums were shot after shot of small Eve, demure little girl with her hands neatly folded, attentive to the photographer’s instructions. By the age of ten, she’d already become less enamored of having her picture taken, but she’d never had the heart to tell Benjamin and Samasa. Half the dresses she’s ever owned are immortalized here; in every one she sits alone, her skirts growing longer and her smiles more and more tentative as the years pass by.

She hasn’t looked at the photos in years.

She’s looking at them now – studying her own face, small pointed chin, light-colored locks. Anxious to look her best, anxious to please somebody unseen; smiling in every picture, even the most recent, the ones where she felt least like smiling. What a sweet, what a good little girl.

“Eve!” Samasa appears in the doorway, frowning over at her. “Eve, you decided what you’re gonna wear for the picture yet?”

“Yes,” Eve calls back, closing the photo album on the last picture of her, taken on her sixteenth birthday. She’s wearing now the same dress she did then; it’s pink, with puffed sleeves and ruffles around the waist. She spent some time considering her options before concluding that she liked pink and ruffles, and there wasn’t any good reason to change. “Is the Daily Days photographer here?”

“Yeah, Elean brought him on over. Listen, Eve, me and Elean are gonna go take in a movie, but Benjamin’ll be here. Don’t let that Daily Days no-good boss you around too much, all right?”

“All right,” Eve says, and sets the photo book aside.

A few weeks later, there’s a new entry to slide into the back of the photo album. A newspaper clipping, from an article about the Genoard business’ recent philanthropic projects – a human interest piece, accompanied by a picture of pretty little Eve Genoard herself, so young and such a tragic story; a newspaperman's dream.

In the photo, Eve doesn’t look much older than she did in her sixteenth-birthday picture. The outfits she chooses aren’t calculated for sophistication.

But she’s standing, hands straight at her sides and her chin is high, and she isn’t smiling.

[agonistes]

Tamaki, Kyouya, Blanche Devereaux, and Sophia Petrillo.

Road trip.

[skygiants]

I do not know Golden Girls well enough! D: Basically the sum total of my learnings was summed up by the romance novel cover I did you.

[blacksheep91.livejournal.com]

As a place holder, I ask for tea time with Mytho and Dios. Utter crack if you please. (Doesn't even necessarily need to be in-universe.)

Though I strive to think of something more worthy of your talents!

[skygiants]

So you asked for crack, and I gave you a meta-commentary on prince roles instead. *sheepish* Uh . . . sorry?


In every Prince-character, there’s a little bit of Dios.

Admittedly, some correlate a little more directly than others.

“Would you like some tea?” his sister asks politely.

The reflection of Dios sitting across the table blinks at her and ventures, “I don’t really know if I like or dislike tea.”

“Well,” Dios says. “You’re a prince. Courtesy and consideration are important traits. So if a princess offers you tea, you should accept it.”

Mytho nods. “Thank you,” he says, and obediently holds out his cup. Anthy pours the tea. Green eyes meet gold, in what combined might be the most overwhelmingly blank gaze in human history.

Dios resists the urge to facepalm.

“All right, Mytho,” he says. “Do you know where you are?”

“No,” says Mytho, apparently not at all concerned by this.

“That’s good,” says Dios, “because you’re not really anywhere. This is the castle where eternity dwells, and it doesn’t exist.”

“Oh,” says Mytho.

“In a way,” Dios adds, though he’s not sure why – it isn’t as if Mytho’s going to understand – “it’s as if you’re inside your own heart. I’m the embodiment of your princely nature, the only part of you that hasn’t been shattered, which is why I’m here. Anthy’s here because –” He glances over at Anthy, whose smile is perfect and placid. “Well, as far as I can make out, Anthy’s here because she’s fascinated by the nobility that she feels she lacks and she enjoys being passive-aggressively disruptive. If she can, she’ll throw your story off-course, but don’t mind her.”

“More tea?” says Anthy. The light glints off her glasses, and Dios wonders, not for the first time, if he can talk her into contact lenses.

“Thank you,” says Mytho, and holds out his cup, which is still full. Anthy carefully tops it off anyway.

“You’ll go back out into the world eventually,” Dios continues, as Anthy fills his cup without him asking. “You might even get your heart back. The point is – what I’m here to remind you of is – that being under a spell doesn’t release you from your duties. It’s your role as a prince to come to the rescue – always. To help the helpless. To save the princess. Do you understand?”

There is a pause that Dios generously chooses to interpret as Mytho thinking this over, although, of course, with Mytho it is often difficult to tell whether thought is possible at all. Finally, the other prince says, “I don’t know if I’m very good at helping anyone right now.”

“Nonetheless,” Dios says, “you have to try. What’s a prince without that?”

“A trap,” remarks Anthy.

Dios jerks his attention to her. “What?”

“Chuchu got his head stuck,” Anthy explains sadly, and holds up the small monkey-mouse, whose head is, indeed, stuck inside a birdcage.

“Chuuuuuuu!” complains Chuchu, struggling vigorously.

Dios takes a moment to wonder what a birdcage is doing inside Mytho’s heart – but, after all, his story does feature a significant raven. Maybe they’ll even put it on the DVD cover. “Well,” he says, to Mytho, “anyway, you do understand, don’t you? Don’t worry. I’ll be with you the whole way. If you see a lost puppy, or a bird falling off the roof, or, above all, a princess in danger – just listen, and I’ll tell you what to do.”

“Okay,” Mytho says.

“Don’t worry,” Dios says again, which is ridiculous, because Mytho isn’t worrying, and, in fact, probably can’t worry, at this stage. “As long as you keep your nobility, I’m sure your story will have a happy ending.”

"Before you go," says Anthy, looking at Mytho's full-to-the-brim cup, "would you like some more tea?"

[genarti]

Oh man and I am NOWHERE NEAR my enormous list of random scenes and ill-advised crossovers I have threatened to make you drabble for me! TRAGEDY. A related problem of course is that that list doesn't technically exist, except in scattershot form in chatlongs and emails...

Ummm um um. Marcoh and Scar on their road trip!

Elrics in Kinkan Town!

Edit because I was reminded by somebody else's icon: some combination of the following: Hawkeye, Mustang, Howl, Sophie, and Calcifer. (I do not demand all five in a drabble. Although hey, if you wanna!)

I will stop editing in more prompts. Really. Honestly. Probably.

[skygiants]

Do you realize how much fic you are going to owe me when this is all done? *just laaaaaaaughing*

aaaahhhhh i cannot write scar

[skygiants]

Marcoh is not a quiet man by nature, but necessity has helped him grow accustomed to it, and so he does his best to respect Scar’s silences on the long days they spend walking the roads.

He’s not always able to repress the desire for conversation. If he were going to be honest with himself, there’s a certain reassurance in Scar’s gruff, often monosyllabic responses, about as far from Envy’s manic malice as it’s possible to get. He tries his best, all the same; silence is a gift Marcoh ought to be able to give to this young man. It’s the least he can do, surely, given the peace that Scar’s presence brings Marcoh.

Which is not to say that Scar never speaks to Marcoh first. It’s Scar who calls the midday halts, always, with a keen eye for when the older man starts to flag. Marcoh tries to thank him for it, the first day.

“You’ve been injured,” Scar says, expressionlesss, “and you aren’t strong. If you fall sick again, you’re useless.”

This has the opposite effect of what’s probably intended, in that it makes Marcoh want to thank Scar twice as much. He wants to thank him for believing in his usefulness; for not forgiving him, because Marcoh has done the unforgivable, and finding value in him regardless. He stores the words away somewhere, aware Scar won’t welcome them. Perhaps he’ll find a time when it’s all right to say them.

But the longer they travel, the more he thinks that he never will; slowly, left to their own company, they are reaching the point where things don’t need to be spelled out. “Look,” he says to Scar one day as they pass by a children’s shop, feeling a smile settling over his ruined face, “see those barrettes in the window? They’ve got black-and-white cats on them just like Xiao Mei.”

Scar pauses. Then he turns on his heel and walks into the shop, coming out in a few moments with the barrettes displayed in his hand.

He doesn’t say anything, and Marcoh finds it hard to explain even to himself, for a while, why this small moment stays with him for so long after. It’s not just the sense of being understood, although this is a good part of it. The other part, he eventually realizes, is the implication of the act: if little Mei has made her way safely home to Xing, as Marcoh devoutly hopes she has, then the only way for her to receive this present is if someone crosses the desert to deliver it. He thinks he would like to let Mei show him around her home, and see how her irrepressible confidence asserts itself on her home ground. Perhaps Scar feels the same way.

A few months ago, if Marcoh was looking forward to anything, it was reaching the peace at the end. He has a heavy suspicion that Scar felt something similar, although (needless to say) they’ve never spoken of it. It’s a relatively common consequence of a life lived as one long discussion with the dead.

Marcoh is thoroughly aware that his travels since then have changed him. But before now, he hasn’t even thought that perhaps he is not the only mass murderer to have found an unexpected grace while walking this long, quiet road.

can you tell I wrote this late at night

[skygiants]

People always stare a little when Al walks into a new place. They try to be polite about it, but the plain truth is that vintage armor is bulky, heavy and uncomfortable, and nobody wears it while traveling.

When they walk into Kinkan Town, though, it’s Al who finds himself staring.

“Brother!” he whispers, leaning down so far his side-plating creaks. “That was a cat chimera! Just walking around!”

“I saw,” Ed hisses back. “There’s a crocodile chimera over there.”

“Brother, no one’s even looking at them! What is this place?”

“I dunno. The rumors were all pretty hazy. But,” says Ed, breaking into a sudden sharp grin that narrows his eyes, “If there’s chimera just walking around, and nobody cares, that’s a pretty good sign that someone’s been using a lot of power here, isn’t it? Maybe even –”

“Maybe,” says Al, but he shivers. He doesn’t know what good reason someone would have for making so many chimera, and it’s kind of giving him the creeps.

Or maybe that’s just the weirdly jaunty music that has suddenly sprung up out of nowhere. “Brother,” he says, but Ed’s attention has already been jerked away by a green-haired woman who’s standing in front of them.

(Which Al could have sworn she wasn’t, a few seconds ago – but then again, he was distracted.)

“Would you like to buy a gem? Pretty gems,” says the woman, “to give as a gift.” If Ed’s patent irritation fazes the woman, she doesn’t show it; her smile remains fixed and serene. “A present for the one you love.”

“Not unless you’ve got a philosopher’s stone in there,” mutters Ed, and prepares to shove on by, but Al touches him on the arm.

“Brother . . . maybe, if she’s got something nice to give to Winry in case you break your arm again . . .”

Ed freezes, then sighs and stomps back around, huffing air through his nostrils. “Okay,” he demands of the gem-seller, “what’ve you got?”

A slender, almost too-long finger extends and presses a button; the lid of the music box pops open, revealing a veritable bird’s nest of jewelry. There might really be a philosopher’s stone in there, and you’d never know it, thinks Al, trying to bend his head over to see the wares without blocking off all the light.

“This is the gem called resolve,” remarks the seller, holding up a square, stolid golden gem; Ed ignores it, and she carefully replaces it in the pile, pulling out another, pale pink one. “And this is the gem called tormenting the fanbase.”

“What?” says Al.

“- Hey,” says Ed, tugging at the edge of a chain. “What’s this one?”

It’s like Ed, to go straight for the one that’s hardest to reach. The gem-seller’s fingers dive swiftly into the tangle; in a few seconds, she’s somehow managed to separate out the necklace in question and holds it up now for them to see. “This is the gem,” she says, “called character growth.” Her voice is as serene as ever, but her fingers curl a little around the chain.

Ed looks at it for a long time. Then he shakes his head, and lifts his hand, half-turning away. “Nah,” he says. “I’m pretty sure Winry’s got one like it already. Keep your gems, lady, it’s okay.” He walks on ahead, and Al follows hastily after.

He’s pretty sure it’s just his imagination that he hears a crackling old voice behind him, heckling: why didn’t you just give them that old thing? We don’t have any use for that one! Almost entirely sure. But he’s distracted from listening, anyway, as Ed in front of him announces, “Al, this is a weird town.”

Al can’t do anything but agree.

[futuresoon.livejournal.com]

I believe we once discussed medstudent!Tenma and silverfox!Fakir.

Make it so.

[skygiants]

j;lsakjdfdsa

THAT IS INDEED THE RIGHT ICON FOR THAT REQUEST *dying*

and that is how fakir accidentally wrote Monster, what

[skygiants]

“Oh, for god’s sake, Fakir,” Autor sighs. “He’s a med student, not an undergraduate. He’s attractive, he’s of legal age, I don’t know what you have to angst over.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Fakir snaps, without looking up from notebook. He’s working on a new children’s story: a young prince given as a hostage to a war-torn faraway land. The prince will have to escape somehow, unless of course the moral is that he can be happier helping the people who need him in the war-torn land than he will be if he returns home to his peaceful life. Fakir hasn’t decided yet. “Actually, I don’t know why you’re even here. Why are you here?”

“Because you had Rudy Gillen for your intro to psychoanalytic literary criticism class last semester, and now I have him for the master class and I need to pick your brains. But your brains are clearly filled with Kenzo Tenma, so I don’t know why I even bother. Why do you even teach psychoanalytic literary criticism? You’re terrible at it. You should just let me teach both classes.”

“I’m not terrible at it,” Fakir mutters. “I just don’t like people using my stories as examples.”

“Well, then you’re a hypocrite. It’s not like your stories are very good examples anyway. Really, Fakir, it’s literary analysis for kindergarteners. A handsome prince and a swan, please –”

Fakir tunes out Autor with relative ease, now that he’s not talking about Kenzo Tenma – it’s a skill he’s had decades to practice – and taps his quill on the page, frowning. (He still writes with a quill, though everyone else in the department has long since switched over to typewriters. Students invariably think the bright yellow feather is a sign of hidden depths of frivolity, and are inevitably disappointed.) If his prince character perhaps meets a girl in the kingdom – no, too easy, and he doesn’t want to write a love story anyway. Maybe instead he'll introduce children –

“What’s that?” Autor’s sharp, nervously excited voice cuts through his reverie again, and Fakir scowls.

“If you’re just going to –” Fakir begins, but Autor cuts him off.

“Well, all right,” he says, shaking his head, and then turns to flash Fakir one of those smug, I-know-everything-you’re-dying-to-know smiles that he never really grew out of. (They serve him fairly well, actually, as a professor.) “I can certainly see why he’s your type.”

“What?” Fakir leverages himself out of his seat, at approximately a third of the speed at which he would have been able to launch himself before his knees started going stiff after long periods, and heads for the window of his faculty bungalow. Outside, he can see young Kenzo Tenma, sitting on the ground and carefully cradling a small skinny dog, as spectators start to filter around. His leg is torn and bloody; so is the dog’s muzzle. Someone is bending solicitously over him, and pointing towards the hospital.

For a moment, Fakir just stands clutching the window, gritting his teeth. He is restraining a desire, or a memory of a desire, an urge to march out there and grab the young man by the shoulder, to shake him and demand: Why do you do such pointless things? What possible good could it do you?

Instead, he turns around, in a short gesture, and goes back to his desk. “Autor,” he says, aware that his voice is harsh, “I really have to work.”

Autor rolls his eyes underneath his glasses and heads out the door, still carrying the file with Rudy Gillen’s notes under his arm. Fakir doesn’t notice. He picks up his pen, pauses again, and starts to write.

Children - is that what he was thinkingg? Threatened children – dangerous children? Perhaps the prince stops to help them, at risk of danger to himself, but something goes wrong . . . there are consequences to kind acts. Maybe that will be the moral of this story. It’s a moral worth reiterating, after all; it’s a thing that princes never seem to understand.

[oneechan19.livejournal.com]

This crossover has been in my head since I read SYWtBaW: Howl as a Young Wizard! :D

[skygiants]

Mrs. Penstemmon blinked as an apparition appeared in the mirror behind her, and then calmly went back to powdering her face. “Howell Jenkins,” she said. “I thought I trained you better than to call up like that without notice. “

“Pendragon is what I’m using now,” said her most frustrating student, and gave her an airy smile.

“Pendragon?” Mrs. Pentstemmon sniffed. “I don’t know why I should be surprised. In the years I have spent as senior to this area, I have never encountered a wizard as vain as you – and what, dare I ask, have you done to your hair?”

“I find my astonishing good looks,” explained Howell, “act as a strong weapon against entropy.”

“Clearly,” said Mrs. Penstemmon. Every wizard in the area vividly recalled the time that thirteen-year-old Howell Jenkins had attempted to take care of his acne problem by rewriting his own description in the Speech during a working, and had almost erased his own face as a result. “What is it you wanted me to do for you?”

Howl’s green eyes grew wide, and he pressed a hand to his chest, nattily clad in a black silk shirt that set off his currently-blonde hair. He looked far too elegant for the small and extremely untidy kitchen she could see in the background behind him. “You wound me, Mrs. Pentstemmon,” he said sadly. “Can’t I just call up to say hello to my old teacher? Must I always have an ulterior motive?”

“I certainly hope you do,” says Mrs. Pentstemmon, “or this would be a terrible waste of wizardry.” Howell could have just called on the phone, of course, but he always did have to be flashy. She worried about young Howell. Proud as a peacock, and that was exactly the sort of fatal flaw a Certain Person (in Mrs. Pentstemmon’s mind, this phrase always had capital letters and a disdainful edge) was always looking to exploit. Her only reassurance was how slippery Howell was. It made his workings lovely, complex things, a privilege to witness, really – not that she’d ever tell him that – but moreover, she hoped, it would keep him from getting pinned down into any devil’s bargain. On the other hand, that stroke of cleverness could be dangerous in and of itself. From what little she knew of it, his Ordeal had been harrowing. “Besides,” she added, “whatever it is must be important, to get you up before noon.”

“I’ve changed, Mrs. Pentstemmon,” Howell protested. “You know I can’t rely on raw power anymore. I’ve become studious. Diligent. You wouldn’t recognize my work habits anymore.”

Mrs. Pentstemmon allowed her face to express that she did not believe a word of it, and started to pull on her gold-mesh mittens.

Silence stretched for a moment, and finally Howell broke. “I did have one question I wanted to ask,” he said, aiming at her a charming, coaxing smile.”

“Go on,” said Mrs. Pentstemmon.

“Senior,” said Howell. “What do you know about doing workings on stars?”

[varadia]

That time Dave walked by when Mary and Galadan were discussing her future career path. *solemn*

Or her homework.

(OR Jamie stuck in Ouran universe?)

[skygiants]

“You are aware that I do not, in fact, wish to rule the world,” Mary says, flatly, and Galadan raises one eyebrow.

“Fortunate, as I am not, in fact, teaching you the skills to do so. You could perhaps become an adequate general –”

“But I don’t wish to be a general,” says Mary, and then reconsidered. “Well – I suppose if we were at war, and the one we had was very stupid, it would be better that someone did it who knew what they were talking about, so at least we could get out of it quicker. And you have taught me enough for that.”

“You are getting complacent, Mary,” Galadan says, “if you think that you have learned all you would need for such an endeavor.” His face is perfectly composed, but he’s not bothering to hide the gleam of amusement in his eyes.

“You have taught me enough not to be very stupid,” Mary informs him, sure of her ground. “I do not know if you have taught me enough not to be stupid at all. But I am not likely to become a general in any case.”

Galadan does not deploy the eyebrow again, but it’s clearly only a matter of time. “Do you find your tactics lessons useless, then?”

“Of course not,” Mary says, with patent sincerity. “It is useful anyway, to be able to plot things that are likely to happen in all kinds of battles – and besides, though it is unlikely, if I were to have to lead an army one day, I should hate not to be prepared.”

“And that’s what she said,” Dave reports to Kim later, pacing restlessly through the limited space available in the apartment. “Tiny goddamn generals! What the hell does he want with them?”

“You could always just try asking her,” Kim suggests. She does not, as far as Dave is concerned, look anywhere near worried enough about Galadan’s Ominous Plans.

“Are you kidding?” Dave stops and stares at her. “That’s a fourteen-year-old girl who’s being trained by Galadan. Either she’d tear my head off, or she’d make me so mad I’d tear her head off, and either way it’s a lose-lose.”

“Then I guess you’ll have to resign yourself to not knowing,” Kim says, and looks up, her finger in the place of her book to keep it. There’s a glint of mischief, almost the twin to Galadan’s, lurking around the corners of her mouth. “Look on the bright side – at least you know that, unlike certain other persons of our acquaintance, she has no interest in ruling the world.”

don't ask how Jamie ended up attending an elite academy for rich students

[skygiants]

It is unfortunate for Jamie that his hormones choose this time to start kicking in.

Unfortunate, because in any other world, Jamie thinks he might actually have a shot with the girl in question, even she would seem to be right out of his league. Jamie’s two hundred years old, after all. He’s seen plenty of flirting. He’s reasonably sure he could manage to pull it off all right. And Tadanobu Eriko is blessed with not only very shiny hair, but also a sense of humor; she likes to laugh. Making people laugh is meant to be Jamie’s strong point.

Unfortunately, it’s also one of the (many) strong points of the Hitachiin twins. And, like all the other girls at this bloody school – really! All of them! And how is that even possible, given the size of the music room, Jamie would like to know? - Tadanobu Eriko spends most of her afternoons with the host club, watching a pair of brothers make moon-eyes at each other. (Very good-looking moon-eyes, even Jamie has to admit. But all the same.)

“If I had a brother,” Jamie says to her one day, in a jokey way, “d’you think I’d have a chance?”

Tadanobu laughs. “Maybe. If you were willing to wear the super-cute Hawaiian outfits that the Host Club boys were wearing the other day.”

Jamie thinks about all the various things he’s worn over the course of his life – some of them quite a bit odder than anything he’s seen the Host Club put on – and says, “I don’t think that would be a problem.”

“Sorry, Hamitano-kun.” Tadanobu smoothes back her extremely shiny hair, and Jamie tries not to stare at it. “I do like you. But an afternoon at the Host Club is always much more entertaining than a date with anyone would be.” She pauses, and her eyes momentarily slip into dreaminess. “Unless it was a date with both Hitachiins, maybe . . .”

“Rejected!” exclaims Jamie, and falls into a dramatically woeful slump over his desk, which has the added benefit of preventing him from having to witness Eriko Inner Mind Theater. (He doesn’t like the way everyone’s Inner Mind Theaters appear to be visible in this universe. People ought to be allowed to have privacy for their fantasies; he’s turned a corner and walked into Suoh-senpai’s bizarre visions of Fujioka in a bunny outfit more than he can count.) Fujioka gives him a sympathetic pat on the back as he passes by, which, considering, rather lends insult to injury.

Nonetheless, he sits up and looks woeful. He and Fujioka have a bond, based on a preference for cheap tea and a shared secret conviction that all wealthy people are idiots, and he intends to make use of it. “Fujioka,” he says. “Tell me. Those rich bastards you pal around with, d’you think they’d let me join up?”

Fujioka considers this question with clear-eyed thoughtfulness, as he does everything. “If you asked,” he says, “they’d probably say that they already have one foreigner and don’t need another one. Then they’d ask why you wanted to join. Then Suoh-senpai would start feeling sorry for you and recruit us all for Operation: Get the Weird Foreigner An Impossible Date.”

Jamie sighs. He has witnessed the outcomes of Suoh-senpai’s operations before. “Thanks,” he says, “but no thanks.”

Fujioka nods and slips off to his seat, looking slightly relieved. Jamie can’t blame him. A remarkable percentage of Suoh-senpai’s schemes involved putting Fujioka into strange costumes. It’s not that Jamie’s judging, because far be it from him, but you’ve got to consider it gets tiresome.

Anyway, Tadanobu Eriko appears to be a lost cause, which is a shame, because her laugh and her very shiny hair are going to haunt Jamie’s daydreams for a long while. Nonetheless, Jamie is determined that this won’t keep him down. They’re supposed to be having a cultural exchange festival soon, after all, and people keep talking about the awfully pretty girls at Lobelia Girl’s Academy . . .

[shati.livejournal.com]

I WILL GIVE YOU EVERY PROMPT!

(you can um pick one.)

- Dangerous Ladies!! Either pre- or post-series. (I like flashbacks AND I like aftermath!)

- Appa. That is the prompt. Appa.

- Southern Water Triiibe! Post-series.

- Pre-series Azula and her mother!

- Ty Lee at the circus for the first time!

- Zuko attempting to write poetry for Mai, and Sokka's reaction.

i swear i am writing you a cheerful one next to make up for this

[skygiants]

When Mai turns around, she is not particularly surprised to see Ty Lee perched on her windowsill.

“Hi, Mai! It’s so good to see you!” As usual, Ty Lee manages the most enthusiastic whispers that Mai has ever heard. She bounds off the windowsill into the room. Mai catalogs: bright smile, anxious eyes, deep worry line between carefully shaped brows, Fire Nation guard’s uniform, and takes a step back, evading her outstretched arms.

It’s not that she would especially mind a hug from Ty Lee right now. She wouldn’t actually mind at all. And she doesn’t think Ty Lee would take advantage of the moment to block her chi, not yet – Ty Lee has certain priorities, and hugs are near the top of them – but they’ve all grown older and smarter now, and it’s a risk she doesn’t want to take.

She knows her face is composed. She says, “I figured you’d come when you heard about the rebellion. But you’re not going to stop me.”

Ty Lee does not say, you couldn’t or you wouldn’t. No one who had traveled with Azula would. Ty Lee is here because she knows exactly what Mai can and will do. “Um,” Ty Lee says. The chipmunk-fly smile fades from her face, leaving it thinner and older. “Yes, I am. I’m sorry.”

“She tried to kill me.” Ty Lee has a tendency to assume things are about emotion, because that’s how Ty Lee works. Mai doesn’t want Ty Lee to think this is about emotion – though that’s probably a lost cause –and so she keeps this statement very flat. “She tried to kill Zuko.”

“I know,” Ty Lee says.

“She probably tried to kill you when you snuck in to visit her, didn’t she?”

Ty Lee stares down, carefully placing one slippered foot on the inside of her opposite knee. Of course Azula isn’t allowed to have any visitors, but it’s not like those little details stop Ty Lee. “She’s just – really upset right now.”

Mai almost laughs. Instead, she says, “As long as she’s alive for people to form plans around, we’re not ever actually going to have peace. I mean, you know that, right? This is the Fire Nation.”

“I don’t care about that,” Ty Lee says, unabashed, and looks across at her. “And neither do you.”

“No,” Mai agrees. She doesn’t care about the Fire Nation. They have this much in common, Mai and Ty Lee: neither of them care about very much. What most people don’t understand is that when you’ve only got a very small set of things that you care about, you end up caring about those things kind of a lot.

Azula isn’t included in Mai’s set of things, not anymore.

Almost entirely not.

They stare at each other for a while. Mai is positive Ty Lee will be the one to break it, but finally, to her own surprise, she’s the one who speaks: “Zuko won’t do it. So I have to. I’m sorry.”

“Because Zuko’s not dead inside!” says Ty Lee, and abruptly bursts into tears – a weapon that only Ty Lee, of the three of them, ever really learned how to use.

It hurts more than it should. Bizarrely, Mai thinks: we’re not even on Ember Island. “Yeah, well,” she says. “That’s why he needs me around.”

She doesn’t need to check to make sure she’s got all her knives in her sleeves. She’s already made all her preparations, and there’s no more reason to tarry. She doesn’t turn around to look at Ty Lee, but she’s prepared to fend off one of her dancing chi-bending attacks, if one comes.

But it doesn’t come.

[elspeth-vimes.livejournal.com]

Pre-series Kenji meets post-series Tenma. Urasawa dorkiness (and possibly angst) ensues.

Alternately, Kallandras gives Kenji singing lessons.

Alternately, the Serra Teresa and Riza Hawkeye discuss political strategies.

Alternately, all of these.

(Also I will totally write you fic in return, if you want, just be warned it will take me forever to write. I apologize for this.

I know you said pre-series Kenji! I apologize for the liberties

[skygiants]

Tenma was trying very hard not to notice that the little girl’s guardian had come to the appointment in a large pink bunny suit.

This should not have been so difficult. In the past, Tenma had provided medical assistance to many people who had made far stranger lifestyle choices than taking to the streets disguised as enormous rabbits – and if Tenma had come to any single conclusion during the course of his medical career, it was that it was not a doctor’s job to judge. Still, while he had learned to ignore thieves, murderers, gang members, and henchmen of various stripes looking over his shoulder as he performed an examination, there was something about the bunny suit that was peculiarly distracting.

Or maybe it was just the way that the man was hovering.

Tenma finished the examination and straightened; the man in the bunny suit straightened with him, conveying generally anxious vibes. “All right, I can give her the vaccine if you’ll feel more comfortable,” he said, “but I’m about 99 percent sure that your niece is not infected with chicken pox.”

“Man! That’s a relief,” said the man in the bunny suit, and wiped imaginary sweat off his furry brow. Tenma would guess that he was sweating real sweat underneath; it was a hot day out there. “Hey, Kanna?”

“That’s a relief!” said Kanna, swinging her legs over the side of the examining table, and wiped imaginary sweat away from under her bangs.

“I dunno what kind of shots she’s supposed to have had, but it’s kinda hard keeping her up to date,” said the man in the bunny suit. “Given the, uh. You know.”

Tenma nodded. He didn’t know the specifics of Kanna’s uncle’s circumstances, only that a friend of a friend of a friend of his had somehow made the acquaintance of a certain Vietnamese doctor in Germany. There aren’t many doctors willing to treat those without paperwork. There are even fewer doctors willing to treat those without paperwork and also without money. Word spread somehow; arrangements were made. Often, as in this case, they involved no names.

“If you tell me when she last saw a doctor,” he offered, “I can tell you what she’s behind on. I don’t have the kit with me right now to do everything, but I’d be happy to set another appointment.”

“Really? That’d be great,” said the man, his smile invisible under the permanent grin of the costume. Tenma had no doubt that it was there, though, and offered a tentative smile back. “It’d take a load off my mind, seriously. I know kids are supposed to get regular checkups.”

“You don’t need to worry too much,” said Tenma. “Overall, she’s amazingly healthy. Wherever you’re living – I’m not asking – but wherever it is, it must agree with her.”

The rabbit scratched his nose. “Well,” he said, sounding sheepish. “I mean, we’re not exactly living in a house in the countryside. Any credit for health has all gotta go to Kanna and her kickass immune system.”

“Uh-huh!” said Kanna. “I’m kickass!” The girl’s tiny hand and the cotton rabbit’s-paw smacked together, and then gave each other a thumbs-up.

“Seriously, though?” said the man in the bunny suit, fuzzy ears tilting back towards Tenma. “Everything’s okay?”

If he asked three more times than the average parent, Tenma supposed he couldn't blame him. Tenma was a doctor; he didn’t judge. It was true that the life of a fugitive from the law, for whatever reason, was probably not ideal for a small girl. But by now Tenma thought he could count as something of an honorary expert-by-proxy on various ways of child-rearing, and as far as guardians went, Kanna could do a lot worse than a man who put his freedom at risk to find a doctor just because she’d been playing with some boys who’d come down with chicken pox.

Besides, Dieter seemed to be turning out all right.

“From a medical standpoint,” he said, “you’re doing fine.”

[lacewood]

1) Mustang and co, HIJINKS OF ANY SORT
2) Mustang and Hawkeye raburabu (or UST, I can always take UST)
3) Armstrongs and/or the Briggs battalion

... It's kind of obvious that I miss the FMA cast already, isn't it. COUGH. Not that I expect you to write ALL of the above... XD;;

[skygiants]

“Colonel? It’s Hawkeye.”

Mustang is already smirking when he hears the measured voice on the phone. He has been smirking, in fact, since the phone started ringing. “Afternoon, lieutenant. Isn’t it your day off?”

“I thought I should let you know that I received an unsigned package today, sir. It could be suspicious.”

“Good call. Thanks for letting me know. Did you take a look to check what’s in it?”

He can visualize the deadpan expression on her face perfectly clearly. “It appears to be a pair of vases, sir. Flower vases.”

“Maybe someone heard you don’t have any,” Mustang says. He knows his smirk is broadening, and he doesn’t much care.

“I’ve never really felt the lack. Only drunken idiots ever try to give me flowers.”

Mustang chokes back a laugh, with some difficulty. “It could be your local florist trying to drum up some business. I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”

“Well, it’s a little inconvenient, sir.”

“Oh?”

“I’m in the middle of packing up for our transfer next week. Vases don’t really travel well, and these were delivered in a flimsy bag. If someone was going to send me something delicate, it would be nice if they could provide me with better packing material.”

“It’s supposed to be the thought that counts, lieutenant,” Mustang informs her. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Breda studiously making no expression at all.

“Not that it’s anything to do with you in any case, sir,” said the amused voice over the phone. “Anyway, you’d better get back to work, hadn’t you?”

“So that’s why you really called – to nag me about paperwork. All right, all right, I’m going back to the requisition orders. Enjoy your day off, lieutenant. Maybe your mystery florist will drop off a nice romantic packing crate.”

“It would be better if they’d stay to help me pack it up while they were at it. Please try not to slack off today, sir.”

Mustang waits until he hears the click to hang up the phone on his end. He takes a second to take a breath – this is new territory they are navigating, slowly and carefully, if couched in all the old forms and jokes – and then brings himself back down to the office, though he lets the smirk remain. He’s not sure he could entirely remove it if he tried. “Breda,” he says, “pass me that pile of papers on your left, will you?”

Breda is still emphatically Not Using His Eyebrows To Indicate Anything. “The ones you've been procrastinating on all day?”

Mustang’s already reaching for a pen and a stamp. “Come on, Second Lieutenant – I want to get out of here on time today.”