“there aren’t murderers just hanging out in every abandoned building like cockroaches”

In a veterinarian’s waiting room

A ruined church (thank you to the copy of Carmilla currently next to me for the inspiration)

Fandom: Hokuto no Ken
Ship: Mamiya/Airi
Wordcount: 933

The church steeple stands tall above the abandoned town, the bell housed within cracked and fallen from its perch. No more than a blip on the map, this town hadn't had a name for some time now, victim to the same fate as many places in the wasteland: anything that survived the bombs fell to bandits and raiders.

Mamiya is acutely aware of how similar she and her crew are to those raiders right now. She kicks in the front door, rusted lock buckling quickly and bullethole-riddled doors creaking inwards. On her signal, the scavenging crew files into the abandoned church, armed members taking the lead and surveying the area with crossbows at the ready. Only when the perimeter sweep confirms that the church is empty and free of traps does Mamiya relax her guard.

Airi steps up from the back of the group and takes Mamiya's hand in hers, squeezing it slightly. "I'm going to join in on the search, okay?" Mamiya hesitates slightly, but she knows what this means to Airi. She had been the one to propose stopping here, pointing out that raiders would have skipped over artifacts with cultural value. This was another facet of her work in the village, helping to expand her yarn of mythological figures of the past.

Mamiya squeezes her hand back. "Just don't wander off, alright?" They'd all put up with loss in these harsh times. She couldn't use that as an excuse to be overprotective. Airi smiles and darts off to the church's pews, checking each seat for salvageable missalettes.

Mamiya stares after her for a while before her focus shifts to the central altar. She was never really a religious person-- religion was one of many things that her family had foregone when survival became the utmost priority-- but the building still invokes a sense of reverence in her. For as long as she remembered she had been enamored with the idea of a wedding, and even now that feeling still had sway over her.

It didn't take much for her to visualize what that might look like in her mind's eye. The church may never look like what it did in its prime, but with a few weeks of work with her townspeople could clean it right up. Multicolored light would pour through the repaired stained glass, pews overflowing with everyone she knows from the village. Soft music would play-- maybe the church organs couldn't be repaired, but there was always the choir and even Johnny with his guitar-- and the general murmurs in the room would hush when she walks in. She is absolutely radiant, the white shawl covering her face both making everything appear to shimmer and obscuring her tears from the audience. Slowly she would walk forward, not even noticing the dress's train dragging behind her and she gets closer and closer to the altar...

The vision slowly dissipates. For as much time as she spent in this idle daydream, she had never put much thought into who would be waiting for her at the altar. It was never an important part of the fantasy. She distracts herself, moving on autopilot as she rifles through drawers in the narthex for anything of value. Her fingers fumble through sodden papers, likely some kind of church bulletin from the before-times. Many years ago she had been witness to a couple's wedding, only for the ceremony to be abruptly ended by marauders. She had done her best to intervene and try to save them but nearly lost her own life in the process.

She can't make out the words on the page, but she cannot tell if this is because the paper has deteriorated or her vision is out-of-focus.

It had been a pair of men who saved her from her premature end. Many years had passed since their lives had intersected, but thinking on it for too long still makes her weepy. At different points in time she had considered either of these men as the ideal person to be opposite her at that altar, but even with the clarity of hindsight she couldn't say if that would be a fulfilling idea. By all means they should fit into the fantasy-- they were handsome, chivalrous, living their lives to defend others-- but the notion of being united with either of them didn't fill her with the joy that she knew she should feel. Something was missing.

She feels herself on the precipice of a familiar pit of despair. No, there's no time for that now. She looks up from her papers to Airi, who flits about the church with an understated grace. Carrying sheathes of loose paper under her arm, she meticulously flips through books in the back of each seat, each finger nimbly parting the pages. She reminds Mamiya of the first flowers to bloom in their village, delicate stems and petals that pushed apart the cracked earth and bloomed with a radiance that many had forgotten was possible. It had been a long undertaking to reach that point, many months of labor and love spent preparing the wasteland to allow the plants thrive. Looking at her now, you would never guess that many years ago Mamiya had to guide her by the arm as she shuffled through the village, walking made difficult due to her atrophied vision.

Mamiya slams the drawer shut, catching the people nearby her by surprise. Maybe she would never find that special someone, but for now she had a village to run and people to protect. And that would be enough for her.

Jail (Monopoly version)

The devil’s sacrament

In the caves behind my house
I found the ruins
of a softer world.
Kindness couldn't save them.
(Kindness won't save anyone.)
- A Softer World, 1237

Ship: Asahi Minato/Saki Mitsurugi (Ultraman R/B)
Words: 200

-----

“You shouldn’t have come here.” Saki says, not looking away from the moonlit night sky, when Asahi’s footsteps click behind her in the office she has claimed for her own.

“Tsuru-chan,” Asahi’s soft voice calls, so close yet so far, “I don’t want to say goodbye just yet.”

Say goodbye. Tomorrow, Leugocyte will arrive. Tomorrow, Saki is blowing herself, the Earth, and that detestable creature into smithereens. Tomorrow, those pesky brothers of Asahi’s will try to stop her and probably get all of them killed by the monster.

Saki doesn’t want to say goodbye either.

“How come DRLN let you in?” She says instead, and it’s a legitimate question, even if she knows she won’t get a satisfactory answer. Asahi doesn’t understand what happens around her better than anyone else does.

“Because we’re friends, aren’t we?”

Saki sighs.

“If you say so.”

“Would you rather we be something else?” She’s so close now, leaning on Saki’s shoulder by the windowsill. It’s far too much.

“In a softer world, perhaps.”

“Can’t we make it one?” Her gentle murmur right next to Saki’s ear is far too sorrowful for comfort.

“No.” Still she rubs Asahi’s head in a soothing motion. “We can’t.”

A date at the worst rated restaurant in the area (knowingly or unknowingly)

“This sucks,” Cinder says delightedly, “you really know how to make me hate myself, babe.”

Winter makes a noise too dignified to be a laugh into her cup, tactfully avoiding meeting Cinder’s eyes over the table. “I can’t count the number of meals I’ve had at this place. My father loved meeting contractors here.”

“Oh, that explains so much about him.” She picks up another piece of steak with the end of her fork and studies it in the half-light, mouth working into something that could be a smile. “G-d, even you can’t fuck food up this badly.”

“Tell me about it,” Winter says idly. She picks her own fork up and takes the steak from Cinder delicately, looking amused. “So, do I win?”

“Well, I don’t know how I’d beat this,” Cinder hums. “So yes, you win.”

Winter settles back into her seat, tilting her head up. “Excellent. I’ll mark this down.”

“Catering for the wedding?”

She kicks her shin under the table. “I’ll hire some place halfway decent for that. You haven’t tried any good Atlas food.”

“I refuse to believe Atlas and good food belong in the same sentence. You were posted in Mistral; you should have had all the time in the world to find somewhere better than this,” Cinder laughs, flashing a grin at a waiter as they pass by. Winter, being Winter, just sort of stares in a way Cinder’s sure she thinks is friendly.

“Well, maybe. I was sort of preoccupied with being in the military at the time.” She picks another piece of steak off Cinder’s plate and adds, “But I’d like to try, if you’d be so willing.”

“Maybe when we’re not engaged in a ‘worst date ever’ competition,” Cinder says. She finds Winter’s leg under the table and hooks her ankle around her shin, pulling her close. It’s the kind of thing she would have called gross a few years ago, the kind of thing she revels in now. “You know, I am so endlessly glad that I lost.”

“And why’s that?”

“It means I’m incapable of making a date bad.”

Azeroth (World of Warcraft)

A stadium

At the end of the world

The Town on Gorkhon (Pathologic)

An empty theatre

Pairing: Yuzuki Murashihe / Makoto Kurume

artwork

Mount Celeste (Celeste)
(Bonus points if one of the characters is trans)

His Dark Materials-verse

The Twilight Saga Museum in Forks, Washington

Caught in a storm

I love power outages,
the house itself is dead
and yet
somehow we still live.
(as close as we get to cheating death.)
- A Softer World, 1203

Hey good lookin
want to go for a ride
on my murder boat?
wait no
I ruined the surprise!
- A Softer World, 977

Moshpit meet-cute!

In the

house

on Ash Tree lane

In a shared dreamscape

There are two things Cinder becomes aware of immediately when the world takes shape around her: glass shards in the blue carpet under her feet, and the sound of someone crying coming from the closet in front of her.

The rest of the world comes into focus. She doesn’t pay it any mind. This is what she’s here to do. This is her wife crying in that closet; this is who she’s here to save.

The glass doesn’t touch her feet. She crosses the hallway and has to stop herself from throwing the closet open, because nothing would be more terrifying to an abused child than someone bursting into their one and only hiding space. Still, it’s her wife in there, so she has to force herself to sound calm when she knocks twice and calls out, “Winter? It’s me.”

The crying stops abruptly. Cinder knocks again, just to be sure. “I’m going to come in. Okay?”

She doesn’t wait for an answer. They could be stopped at any moment. The more she waits, the more she becomes aware of other sounds: shouting from somewhere else in the mansion, more quiet crying, glass shattering. It’s not worth the risk. If the dream escalates, she’ll be thrown out, and Winter won’t —

Cinder throws open the door and stops short. Winter — barely six years old, curled up underneath a shelf — peers up at her, scrubbing her hands over her face, and something in Cinder’s chest jolts and sinks, sinks, sinks.

“Where’s Weiss?”

Winter flinches. Cinder realises how she must look and drops to her knees in front of her, pulling the door shut. The only light in the closet is a small Dust crystal in a jar. “I don’t know,” she says, “I don’t, um — I don’t know. Zayde took her.”

“He did, did he?” Cinder rocks back on her heels, giving Winter room to sit up properly. “Are they fighting again?”

Winter scrubs at her face again. “Yes. If Father sees me after he’s fought with Mother he gets angry, so. I’m hiding here.”

“Well, it’s a good hiding spot,” Cinder says, because if she tries to make her mouth form any other words she thinks she might burn the whole dream mansion down. “You’re okay, though? Physically.”

She nods shakily. And then she says, trembling hard, “You — you’re my Cinder.”

Relief at being recognised hits Cinder so hard that she nearly doubles over. She sinks to her knees in the closet and pulls Winter to her, crushing the two of them together. “G-d, yes, it’s me. I’m here. Come here.”

Winter makes a noise that sounds an awful lot like a sob. “I don’t know what’s happening. I’m not — Weiss isn’t —”

“She’s in the room next to ours. When you wake up, we’ll go bother her. Okay?”

“Okay. Okay.” She falters, breathing hard. “I want — I want to go home. Can we go home?”

Shade isn’t even remotely close to home for either of them, but it doesn’t matter, Cinder supposes. She kisses the top of Winter’s head and runs her fingers through her hair, steadying her breathing. “Yeah. We can go home. Do you know how?”

Winter shakes her head.

“That’s okay. I’ll help.”

FILL: TEAM FIRE EMBLEM

miyukitty - 2024-08-27 09:16 (UTC) - Expand

Re: FILL: TEAM FIRE EMBLEM

ghostvines - 2024-08-28 13:24 (UTC) - Expand

piltover &/or zaun (from arcane / LoL!)

Ouran Academy (Ouran Highschool Host Club)

an abandoned mansion belonging to a distant relative

stealing from the same place

YURI SHIPPING OLYMPICS 2024 - BONUS ROUND 7

PROMPT: TEAM ACE ATTORNEY

PROMPT: TEAM ACE ATTORNEY

PROMPT: TEAM ACE ATTORNEY

Fill: Team OCs 🌚

PROMPT: TEAM ACE ATTORNEY

PROMPT: TEAM ACE ATTORNEY

PROMPT: Tokusatsu Yuri Ships United Front

FILL: Tokusatsu Yuri Ships United Front

PROMPT: Tokusatsu Yuri Ships United Front

FILL: Team Anime/Manga

Prompt: Team Anime/Manga

Prompt: Team Anime/Manga

Prompt: Team Anime/Manga

Prompt: Team Anime/Manga

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fill: TEAM KITTYURI

PROMPT: Team Rosemary

PROMPT: Team Rosemary

PROMPT: Team Rosemary

Prompt: Team Anime/Manga

PROMPT: Tokusatsu Yuri Ships United Front

PROMPT: Tokusatsu Yuri Ships United Front

PROMPT: Tokusatsu Yuri Ships United Front

Prompt: Team Anime/Manga

house

PROMPT: TEAM ACE ATTORNEY

FILL: Team Anime/Manga

FILL: TEAM FIRE EMBLEM

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PROMPT: Team Griddlehark

PROMPT: Tokusatsu Yuri Ships United Front

PROMPT: Team Anime/Manga

PROMPT: Team Anime/Manga