BONUS ROUND 1: THROWBACK PROMPTS

[a1c0bb]

In this round, we'll be using prompts from last year's bonus rounds! You can either come up with a prompt based on the previous themes, fill a prompt from previous bonus rounds, or fill a prompt that's been posted this year!

Here is the tag with all the previous bonus rounds!

Fills can be in any format, and you can fill your teammates prompts, but you cannot fill your own prompt.

You can post as many fills and as many prompts as you want!

for your prompt post title, please use the following format:

PROMPT: TEAM [TEAM NAME]

for your fill post title, please use the following format:

FILL: TEAM [TEAM NAME]

If you're filling from a 2023/2024 prompt, please link to their prompt in your post!

To participate, reply to this post!

Comments

PROMPT: Team Magical Girls

[thestoryeater]

For Mythology: Orpheus and Eurydice-type leaving the underworld

FILL: Team RWBY

[hopelessgemini]

ship: winter/cinder

fandom: RWBY

content warnings: blood/injury

-

The way out of Hell is a tunnel.

Salem’s whole island is collapsing behind them. The world might be ending. Cinder might be dead. And the way out is an escape tunnel the people who built the shrines to the gods put there before the first extinction of humanity.

Winter doesn’t look back for her, because she can’t bear to look back. She knows Cinder is behind her from the harsh sound of her breathing and the way her footsteps echo off the walls, uneven and staggering. But she can’t look back, because if she looks back she’s half-convinced Cinder will cease to be real.

She died in there, she thinks. They both did, probably. A little bit.

Well, she knows Cinder died, or something like it. She just can’t really figure out what happened next.

They’ve been going for the better part of an hour. Winter’s run has slowed to a walk — she can’t bear to fly; she knows she’ll run straight into a wall and knock herself out. Her aura is completely depleted. A gash on her forehead is trickling blood directly into her eye. And Cinder —

Cinder hasn’t spoken once. Winter has tried talking to her, checking that she’s still there, and all she’s gotten in response is the sound of harsh, winded breathing and a guttering laugh.

“I’m mostly sure we’re nearly there,” she says now, now that they’re out of the bowels of the earth and the walls have turned from shifting, oozing Grimm matter to stone. “Mostly sure, but it’s better than nothing.”

Cinder’s quiet, rasping laugh kicks off again. Winter wants to turn around and hold her, but she thinks if she stopped moving she’d fall over. She reaches back, though, and Cinder’s hand settles in hers. Flesh and blood. That’s a good sign.

“I love you,” she says.

Cinder coughs wetly. When she speaks, she sounds as though her throat has been scraped raw, as though her body can barely hold her. “I love you too.”

“... How are your injuries?”

A pause. “Present.”

Winter hums. They push on.

-

The airships are waiting for them when they breach the surface. A thin film of Grimm matter has formed over the entrance; Winter slashes it away with the broken blade of her sword, and from behind her Cinder makes a quiet, pained noise.

They step onto the beach; black sand and glass. Winter doesn’t let go of her hand, but she can’t quite bring herself to look either. And she knows it must be killing her, knows it must be destroying Cinder from the inside out, knows —

A hand settles on her jaw, turning her head to face her. Winter fights the instinct to close her eyes. “Winter,” Cinder says, “if you have a panic attack on this beach I’m not dragging your ass back to the mainland.”

“You’re alive,” Winter says eloquently.

She blinks, brows furrowing. “Well, yeah.”

“I thought — I thought you’d — god, Cinder —”

Cinder pulls her in for a hug, still very confused. “You were holding my hand for like, half of the walk back.”

Winter buries her head in Cinder’s shoulder, pretending not to notice the blood that starts sticking to the front of her shirt. Well — not blood; calcifying Grimm matter. “I know. I just — I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you.”

Cinder hums, moving them gently towards the ships. “Well, you didn’t.”

“I — she ran you through, I —”

The island trembles behind them. Cinder curls one hand under her knees and lifts her up smoothly, depositing her in the ship. Winter misses her immediately; she pulls her back against her the moment they’re both inside. “Yeah, about that, um. You know how my arm was like, Grimm?”