skygiants

So.

I seem to have acquired a diploma-shaped thing.

O.O!!!!!!!!

Guys, if you want to give me a graduation present, leave me drabble prompts please! It's a long flight home tomorrow, and a longer few weeks after that as that whole Real World Terror thing starts to hit, and so write-y distractions would be useful for both.

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From:

adiva_calandia

WOOHOO YOU.

Mary/Eustace. See how you like it. :P

From:

skygiants

:P TERRIBLE PUNISHMENT.

Mary gave Eustace’s story some thought and then said, finally, “It could have been a great deal worse.”

Eustace gaped at her a little. “Well, I know that,” he said. “That wasn’t the point – were you even listening?”

“Of course I was.” Mary lifted her chin and folded her arms in front of her, looking like nothing so much as a small blocky fortress. “You were trying to tell me that it is dangerous to be too cross and sulky and selfish. But I think there are far worse things to be than a dragon. Dragons are very brave and very fierce and they are not in the least bit stupid. I should much rather be a dragon than a – an amiable sort of mouse!”

“You never met Reepicheep,” said Eustace, torn between exasperation and amusement. “There’s nothing meek and amiable about mice, let me tell you. But look, don’t you think you’d really rather be a human being more than anything?”

“Yes, but mostly because of the fingers,” said Mary.

“What?”

“You need fingers to do anything useful,” Mary explained, and unbent enough to disentangle her elbows from each other and hold out her hand. She wiggled her fingers to demonstrate. “If you are anything other than a person you have not got fingers – except perhaps a monkey, and they lack dignity.”

Eustace shook his head. “I’ll grant you fingers have their uses, but that can’t be the only thing you like about being a human being.”

“Being able to speak is also an advantage,” said Mary thoughtfully, and Eustace grinned at this – it was extremely difficult to imagine a Mary who was at all capable of not speaking – “but on the other hand dragons can likely speak dragon, so that does not
bear on the present discussion. And being a dragon would have other advantages.”

“If you’re imagining something like you get in illustrations, you should think again,” Eustace told her, aware that he was sounding perhaps slightly patronizing. Then again, as stuffy as Mary was sounding at the moment, it was really a question of the pot and the kettle. “It wasn’t all soaring elegantly about – I mean, I wasn’t exactly a handsome beast. It was crawling and scaly and perfectly ghastly. And it hurt like anything getting out of it.”

Mary looked at him with some scorn. “As if I should mind how I looked as a dragon! I should not be missing a great deal; I am hardly handsome as a person.”

Eustace was not at all sure what to say to this, except perhaps to protest once more that she was missing the point entirely. On the other hand, although Eustace hadn’t much experience with members of the opposite sex who were not his cousins – or Jill, who nearly counted – he was at least aware that if a girl made any disparaging comments about her looks, you were meant to contradict her as soon as possible. “I’ll tell you what,” he said, “you’re far better-looking than a dragon.”

Immediately after he said it, Eustace became aware that this remark was perhaps not going to make the list of Top Ten Most Flattering Compliments ever. Now, he thought, kicking himself internally, she was going to fly into a rage – and indeed Mary was giving him a very peculiar look.

After a moment, however, her expression resolved into one of understanding. “Well, of course you would say that,” she told him kindly. “You’re prejudiced against dragons.”

Eustace sputtered. “I am not – you’re mad, you know that? I’m trying to tell you you’re pretty, and you’re trying to protect draconic reputations!”

“But,” said Mary, looking puzzled again, and then, suspiciously, “Why?”

“Because you said you weren’t!”

“Oh, well, then I hardly think you can say being a dragon cured you of being contrary!” Mary was using her triumphant ‘I told you so’ voice, but her arms were crossed in front of her again.

Edited Date: 2008-08-08 01:16 am (UTC)

From:

skygiants

“I’m not saying it just to be contrary,” snapped Eustace. If he couldn’t win the dragon argument, he felt he at least had a shot at coming out the victor in this one. “I’m saying it because for someone who thinks she’s so very clever, you ought to take a better look at yourself. You might not be Vivien Leigh exactly, but you’re perfectly decent-looking. No one would say you’re a fright. And I do think you’re pretty, except when you look like you’re going to bite my head off,” he concluded, rather sulkily.

Mary looked quite a bit taken aback, which gave Eustace at least some satisfaction. Finally, she said, “I should not want to look pretty when I was shouting at somebody anyways. I should not want them to be wanting to kiss me when I was cross at them and trying to get them to think about more important things.” She gave him a narrow look. “Do you ever want to kiss me?”

. . . this was not a place Eustace had anticipated the argument going. “Um,” he said, as a several panicking caterpillars crawled into his stomach.

Mary waited, and Eustace could easily identify her expression. It was the patient one that came over her face when she was preparing to stand in one spot until whoever she was talking to managed a satisfactory answer.

So as long as she was going to be standing there, Eustace thought, he might as well take the time to come up with a satisfactory answer. Did he want to kiss Mary? Of course he had no objection to kissing as an activity, if he got the opportunity, but did he want to kiss Mary specifically? It was true she was very often extremely annoying.

But there were the times that she wasn’t.

The caterpillars waited to see how things were going to develop.

Eustace took a breath, then let it out again, then scratched the back of his head, then said, finally, “I suppose sometimes. Do you ever want to –”

He broke off, aware that he was slightly red, but determined nevertheless not to let Mary have things all her own way in the asking of difficult questions department.

Mary did not blush, a fact about which Eustace was instantly bitter, but she did look rather awkward as she answered. “I do not know. I had not thought about it until only just now. Now that I have, I think it might be pleasant – but of course I have never tried really, so I could not say for certain.”

“Ah,” said Eustace.

There was a sort of pause. It was the kind of pause that had presence.

Eustace was no entomologist, but he would definitely classify the contents of his stomach right now as butterflies.

From:

adiva_calandia

HEARTS.

OHMIGOD. HEARTS.

From:

skygiants

SECRET CROSS-CANON OTP FTW!!!

From:

genarti

Eustace couldn't talk as a dragon, IIRC. Unless this is the time in Milliways.

EEEHEEHEEHEEHEE.

*tiny hearts*

From:

skygiants

*sheepish* You are right. I shall fix! This is what comes of writing far far away from your books.

THE AWKWARD IS WAY TOO MUCH FUN TO WRITE. *giggling*