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Here's your word for the week!
Don't look at the word until you are ready to write. When your fifteen minutes are up and you have completed your ficlet, you may either post it as a response here, or post a link to the ficlet in your own journal. If posting on your own journal, please hide the prompt word in some way (ie. under an LJ-cut) in order to avoid spoiling it for others.
Today's word is: miracle
You can copy and paste this code when posting your ficlet if desired.
Don't look at the word until you are ready to write. When your fifteen minutes are up and you have completed your ficlet, you may either post it as a response here, or post a link to the ficlet in your own journal. If posting on your own journal, please hide the prompt word in some way (ie. under an LJ-cut) in order to avoid spoiling it for others.
Today's word is: miracle
You can copy and paste this code when posting your ficlet if desired.
original
on 2010-06-14 02:05 pm (UTC)She's stunned, dazed, but aware that her husband has saved her.
No miracle at all.
He sets her down in a safe place, then goes back for the others. She coughs and coughs, ridding her lungs of smoke. She is burned and soot-covered, and it takes nearly all of her energy to sit up against the tree.
She watches as her husband runs in and out of the house, carrying people out. She watches as neighbours form a bucket chain, fetching water to extinguish the fire. She listens to other neighbours, women too weak to help, cluck and gossip about the unluckiness of the house catching fire on her wedding day.
It's an omen, perhaps. The East and the West remain divided. This attempt to join the two sides together, this farce of a union, is not looked upon with pleasure by the Five Makers. She knows that these Eastern women, these painted fools, see her as ill luck. Perhaps they even believe it was she who started the fire. She rubs at her face, rubbing away soot, or perhaps a tear.
"Mujian!" She doesn't look up, only nodding to acknowledge his presence. She stares at his torn and dirty shoes, picking at her own ruined finery. Neither his nor her family could ever have afforded such a festive wedding. Their lords had chosen to pay for everything, after selecting one man and one woman of marriageable age to be matched as a symbol of unity. What fools.
She had to leave her family, and for what? This lumbering ox from the other side of the river.
She says nothing, unresisting, as he picks her up carefully, like a porcelain doll (though she is a better archer and horsewoman than he could ever be) and carries her to a safe place.
The house is saved, but no one can return yet, so they must spend their wedding night elsewhere. She yields to him.
It is no miracle.
Re: original
on 2010-06-15 05:32 am (UTC)no subject
on 2010-06-15 05:31 am (UTC)Original: very loosely inspired by "The Golden Goose"
Characters: Jack, Daniel, and Ella
Rating: G
Word count: 1,400
Once upon a time a poor woodcutter and his family lived near a forest at the edge of a kingdom.
(This is not really a 15-minute fic in execution, but I did work out the three incidents and write a rough version of the first two-thirds within the time limit. I just got interrupted by life and then attacked by the editing bug. *sigh*)
original, pg(-13?) for language, etc.
on 2010-06-15 07:12 am (UTC)Molloy grunted his assent, though he wasn’t sure whether he agreed, and if truth be known didn’t want to give a thought to it. Bruce could show or not show, for all the bugger he cared; what’d they need that mug around for, anyway? One more body. One more beer. And it wasn’t as if Bruce was all that likely to stand a round of drinks. So what’d it matter, one way or another?
“You’d think he could, at least give us a holler.” This from Royce again, who sniffled, wiped a sleeve across his face (his nose? likely that, the way his nose’d been dribbling, must have a cold), threw back an indignant swallow of his poison-pick. That was Royce. Always wondering about this one or that one’s affairs, and never happy unless he was involved. As if it were necessary he be a part of everyone’s day. Royce Drogan, ray of sunshine to sparkle through every soul’s day. Lord love you and give you solace if you didn’t get your little ray of Royce.
Ray of Royce. Molloy snorted.
“What? You think he won’t?” Look of worry for a moment as Royce questioned, and Molloy wondered where that earnest concern came from, and how it had a right to be there. Good ol’ Royce.
A shake of the head and the concern was gone, retreated to leave some vacant mulling. “You think he won’t.” Now a statement, and Ray of Royce sounded almost resigned to this, the unkind fate that is was. Bruce keeps away. Bruce doesn’t give a rat’s ass. Bruce walks in his own darkness, thank you very much (or has he found another ray somehow? perhaps Royce isn’t the only one, and if so, why, what if all the village should turn to this new, other ray, what then? tragedy for Royce).
As if Bruce ever showed up anywhere. More likely to find him sprawled out in a ditch, head-down and face soaking up the grass and leeches, bidding good morn’, good even’ to Mother Earth. Her favored son. And there he’d pass the night, mumbling to the Earth herself and herself alone. Too much a bother to make his way anywhere at all. As if he could find his way.
Meanwhile, Royce had assumed an air of resignation. Hands wrapped around the mug, eyes downcast-defensive, head wagging. “Well. Fuck him, anyway.” Flash of a smile, want to be a pal, trying it out. “Who needs him, eh, Molloy?”
Molloy decided not to answer that one.
Not his business to manufacture comfort, and not his business to play along. Kid Royce along any further. Not that Royce needed encouragement, anyway; already, he was beaming at Molloy, as if Molloy’d thrown in a chorus, a full aria of encouragement. Hearing more than had been spoken or ever intended, but that was Royce. And now Ray of Royce was gearing up for the old friendship speech, the best of pals, march to the ends of the earth, forever united and—
“’d I miss anything?”
Voice of Bruce, and then a shot of his grinning, half-filthy face. Well. Wonders and wonders.
But maybe it was a lucky thing in its own right. Because the Ray of Royce had turned to engulf its new and long-awaited target, and Molloy was free to continue with his drink.
no subject
on 2010-06-22 02:52 am (UTC)no subject
on 2010-06-26 01:28 am (UTC)Fandom/original: SuG
Characters: Chiyu/Shinpei
Rating: PG15?
Word count: 370
He was his. His miracle. (http://vulgar-vogue.livejournal.com/63823.html)