standing on your tippy toes, frustrated you can't reach your lover's lips
--
“You know, we have enough credits we could have hired somebody else to do this.” Han wipes his forehead. Naboo is hot and sticky in the summer, especially outside of the cities.
“We could have. But this was hers.” Leia pauses, leaning against the ladder. She doesn’t have much from her birth mother. A closet full of clothes, memories of watching archived holo footage when she didn’t know, and a little vacation cottage five hours outside of Theed. “It feels like I should be taking care of it myself.”
“If that’s what you want to do, I’ll help.” Han takes her hand, presses a kiss to her knuckles. He tries to stretch up to get to her mouth, but the ladder’s too high.
She makes no move to bend down, and he huffs. “Also you’re enjoying lording it over me.”
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t, just a little bit.” She steps down just enough that he can reach her on tiptoes.
Wake was the first story I posted solely to AO3 instead of cross-posting to DW! I actually started it in the middle of NaNoWriMo 2013, when I was supposed to be working on Bottom of the River. I took a break from River because the opening scene of what ended up being Wake got stuck in my head and I had to write it. It’s also the first time I wrote a story that uses the TCW timeline instead of the old Republic/Clone Wars comics timeline from the EU.
An escalating prank war between Steve and Natasha.
The prank war would be existing concurrently with a serious supervillain threat, and they would 100% incorporate the supervillainy into their pranking until they end up caught by the supervillain, both convinced it’s the other’s prank.
They are able to get away by working together to prank the supervillain.
Fic ends with them bickering over who deserves a point for that.
Oh man, that’s really tough! I’d have different answers depending on different moods/times, but lately I’d say Celluloid Hero, the fic I wrote last year about Steve making the Captain America movies we see tiny bits of in Captain America: The First Avenger, and performing at the Hollywood Canteen for the troops. It had two of my big interests: Cap fandom and film history, particularly Golden Age Hollywood, and I got to work in people like Hedy Lamarr, Marlene Dietrich, Bette Davis, John Garfield, William Powell, and lots more. I hadn’t seen anything like that in the fandom and I always felt like there must be something fun in the Skull’s “I am a great fan of your films” taunt. Plus that era of 20th century history is my jam, and writing it gave me something to focus on besides cancer.
42. do you plan or do you write whatever comes to your mind?
Hm, you know, looking at this, I’m not sure if this means outlining or they’re talking about something else... But I’ll go with outlining, and no, I can’t write that way. I wish I could, but it’s never worked for me, either fiction or non. By the time I’ve written an outline, I feel as though I’ve already written the story, and it’s just drudge-work to do the actual piece.
I even tried Scrivener, since so many people I know sing its praises to the heavens as a tool for organizing and writing, but it was not at all intuitive for me, and it felt like outlining at times, plus it interacted badly with my editing tools, so I didn’t pursue it. Now if I could only find that app that takes thoughts from my brain and makes them into text without me having to try to articulate them...
[Fic] “Terms and Conditions May Apply” - Chronicles of Narnia
musesfool said: Cor/Aravis: Three wishes! (1,050 words)
Note: And this one is four months late, argh to infinity. Anyway, it's set in the year 1024, two years after The Courting Dance and about five months after Lune's death; the coffee tariffs refererence a conversation Cor and Aravis have in chapter 11. Some of the quoted proverbs are borrowed from Heliopause's excellent fic Calormene Proverbs: a handbook for travellers, which you should go read immediately if you haven't already. :)
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Terms and Conditions May Apply
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"The terms of our wager were clear," Aravis murmured into Cor's ear as they danced together on the thick summer grass of Anvard's inner courtyard, threading deftly around the other couples in precise, knot-like patterns. She moderated her smile into something that might pass as serene and gracious (though she suspected the illusion frayed somewhat at the corners of her eyes). "Corin challenged the Sarovencian ambassador before the second course, which means you owe me three wishes. Three of my desires, fulfilled with no complaints or delays. Considering that I haven't invoked penalties for this conversation, I think I'm being excessively lenient."
Disgruntlement flickered over Cor's face, rather like a cat whose attempt to rescue itself from an unexpected mud puddle had only led it deeper into the mire, before he smoothed his expression into pleasant blandness. "I think I'm being excessively reasonable, considering that you led me to think this was an entirely personal affair. Matters of state should be off limits, as per our agreement during that mess about Corin's betrothal."
Aravis failed to catch the start of her reflexive wince, though she converted it almost seamlessly into a flirtatious tilt of her head.
Cor, annoyingly, caught both the reaction and the disguise. "Yes, exactly! And given that stipulation--"
"But I haven't asked anything that affects matters of state," Aravis interrupted. "If I wished for--"
The musicians reached the end of their song, and she broke off to bow her head and spread her skirts in honor of their skill while Cor turned at a tap on his shoulder and exchanged formulaic pleasantries with the Lady Mayor of Armouth and her nephew. The flutist gulped a quick glass of water while the fiddler retuned one of her strings and the drummer switched the tambor for a suspended metal frame and a pair of wool-wrapped mallets. Then the fiddler tapped her foot to give the beat, nodded her head, and they dove headfirst into a waltz. Cor bowed his excuses to the mayor and swept Aravis back into the dance.
It was slightly impolitic for the new king and his queen to continue dancing with each other rather than honor other partners, but in the first year of their ascension, the country still raw and tender from the shock of Lune's death, people were willing to indulge them. (The fact that half the court were still somewhat undecided whether dancing with Aravis was an honor or a backhanded insult was also relevant, though hopefully that idiocy would resolve itself by the time they no longer had the excuse of mourning to cradle them in its delicate, public shield.)
As they settled into their new rhythm, turning in neat triangles that swirled her Northern-style skirts out like a fan, Aravis resumed her point. "If I wished for you to reduce the coffee tariffs unilaterally, that would of course be in contravention of the terms. But I only asked that you add an equivalent surcharge to every other culinary item that comes through Anvard's gates. The castle budget is, after all, your money. You don't even need to pay the excess to the merchants directly; you can set it aside as a special fund and use it for whatever good works you choose. But if I have to pay through the nose for my coffee, you can pay similarly for your own indulgences."
Cor rolled his eyes skyward. "Yes, gods forbid that I feed my people at reasonable rates. You do remember that I drink coffee, too? And that there are other tariffs, equally shortsighted, that affect far more people than the one on coffee?"
Aravis reapplied her serene smile. "Of course. I assure you, O my love and O the sun in my sky, that I have no intent to bankrupt you -- not least since your purse is also mine these days. But I think perhaps the annoyance will serve as a more effective reminder that coins speak louder and more eloquently than swords, particularly in a land whose lords cannot change the law at will. Let us set the forfeit at a term of one year."
"One month," Cor countered.
"Eight."
"Six."
Aravis allowed her smile to show teeth. "I believe we have an accord. Truly it is said, the gardener's perseverance brings forth perfume on the evening air."
Cor raised one eyebrow, pointedly, before capping her proverb: "Who wanders in the garden will best enjoy its well-hidden delights."
Arrogant man, insulting her in the same breath he accepted her offer. Well, two could play that game. "Just so. And I daresay that those of discernment might even discover, among those hidden delights, two wishes whose terms might be more to their pleasure. But while heaven on earth may be found on horseback" -- or in a book, or between a lover's thighs, the proverb continued; but some things echoed more if left unsaid -- "one must recall that a horse which will not carry a saddle receives no oats."
Cor's hand tightened on her waist, but his voice was dry and even as he said, "So long as you don't mean that literally, I believe I could keep that in mind."
Aravis trailed the fingers of her left hand from Cor's shoulder, up the bare skin of his neck, and buried them in the soft hair that curled around his ear. "And if that were my second wish? The challenge Zardeenah set Sokda at the fountain, which he failed to his frustration?" she murmured.
"Then I would remind you that the courier whose whip is never still, though he be fastest with the news, will lose all his wages on horseflesh," Cor returned, still managing to sound very nearly calm, though the flush rising along his cheekbones betrayed him.
"Ah. In such a case, I believe I can think of other desires," Aravis said, and stretched upward with the dying notes of the waltz to press a kiss to her husband's mouth.
As she pulled away, and Cor's eyes opened bright with desire, she added, "After all, it would be a shame to bankrupt myself on your flesh when coffee is still so dear."
Cor never did manage a satisfactory public explanation of why he burst into helpless laughter in the middle of the Sarovencian ambassador's welcoming ball.
