#february words

[inkandblade]

February Words 07: Product

“I heard that woman from the Neeman Pack saying that the pickings were so good this year that she might actually ask for a wine list to go with the feast her eyes were having.” 

Boyd said it with little emotion, but Derek knew they all felt as disturbed by the joke as each other.

Derek shivered and pressed himself further into the wall next to the door to outside. It was pretty obvious just why the Neemans were shopping for a replacement Alpha after four years looking. Why the hell would anyone want to take them on? He’d been practically groped by three of their betas this already, and it was only the first day of the conference. He wondered if they’d be so free in their attempts at handling the merchandise if he did become their alpha.

Once again he cursed the fact that the Hale blood was so strong. He was still convinced that he could spend the rest of his life as his sister’s beta, no matter what Deaton had said. Derek and Laura’s mother had almost grown three inches when the Druid had told her that both of her twins carried the alpha potential. It had lasted all of three minutes, of course. She’d quickly realized the harsh reality: one day Derek, the younger of the two, would be forced to leave the pack to avoid the inevitable friction that would happen when the alpha-spark was passed to Laura.

And so he was here, in a bland hotel, basically waiting to get courted. But finding a new pack wasn’t an easy process, and it wasn’t just that there were unpleasant possibilities with those like the Neemans. Derek would also have to find a pack with a pleasing scent and, to keep his sanity intact, a similar level of power as the one he came from. Hale blood meant that was high, and most packs who were strong enough didn’t need someone to come in and take over.

Derek suppressed a whine.

He ran a hand over Boyd’s and then Erica’s arms, then down over his own face to calm himself. He wasn’t an alpha yet, but they would be two of the three or four betas that would come with him when he took over a new pack, and his wolf recognized that. He daydreamed, on occasion, that he could make a clean break with just them and build a pack of his own that way. It wouldn’t work, of course, they’d all forever stay linked to the central Hale alpha-spark if it wasn’t mixed with the pull of another’s.

There was a commotion at the other end of the conference hall, near the doors that lead further into the hotel. Derek felt a small rush of distress from Jackson and Isaac, and then saw Isaac’s blond curls coming towards them through the crowd, making a beeline to packmates and safety. Jackson was close on his tail, likely having put himself between Isaac and the Alpha Pack—everyone in the hall could smell them approaching—so Isaac would have less chance of coming face to face with one of the men who’d roughed him up last year.

“That’s decided which of the next sessions we should attend then,” Erica huffed as she folded away the timetable. “We’ll pick whatever’s the farthest away from the Skank Parade.”

Erica was particularly offended by the way Kali and Julia attempted to use their feminine-wiles, every year, to get Derek to join the obscenity they called a pack. The first two conferences had been bad, but last year had almost ended in claws and fangs when they’d blatantly stated that no matter how good Erica was, they could, and would, fuck better. Just the memory left a bad scent in his nose.

Derek hated that his difficulties in, and reluctance to, choose another pack was putting all of them through this once more.

“They’re headed this way.” Isaac was practically panting when he finally came into view.

“Then we’ll face them again, together,” Derek said, pushing his alpha-potential into his voice in an effort to calm the four other beta’s hearts, and soften the feeling of stress they were all pushing at him through their bonds. He really, really didn’t want to get a call from his mother because she could feel it all the way across the country.

Derek took a few steps away from the wall and felt as Isaac and Erica slipped in behind him, Jackson and Boyd standing either side. He waited, counting each breath out for eight and in for six.

Deucalion and his minions didn’t push through the crowd to them, though. Derek stepped forward and as if on queue the crowd pulled back to reveal just what had prevented it.

“You dare show your face here, boy? My Julia could have wiped the floor with your pitiful magic even when you had an alpha to tether it to.” The ‘boy’ Deucalion was addressing was in his mid-twenties. He stood tall with his shoulders back and a smirk on his face. It was a courageous stance for anyone when faced with the self-proclaimed Alpha of Alphas. Deuc didn’t seem to notice just how not-intimidated by that the guy was, though, and kept talking. “What makes you think any wolf in their right mind would want to claim a group of misfits so unworthy that their alpha’s dying spark didn’t choose any of them?”

That was a slightly shocking statement. Derek had never heard of an alpha-spark just disappearing. The packs that came to these conventions to shop for alphas did so because no one within their ranks wanted the power. There was the odd case where the current alpha didn’t feel anyone in their pack was worthy of passing the responsibility to, but, well. Derek had never heard of the power not getting passed to someone if there was a death.

“Pack,” said the guy Deuc was harassing.

“What?” spat Julia, her eyes glowing a dark Druid-purple momentarily.

“We’re a Pack, not a group of misfits.” The guy’s eyes answered back with a strong white glow that marked him, openly, as a spark.

Most of those watching, that is most of the room, reacted to the realization the same way Julia did, flinching slightly.  

Deucalion just snarled. “Oh? Should I be scared? Mine do that, too.” His alpha eyes glowed stronger than most, the color sickly and wrong.

The spark laughed sharp and loud at Deucalion and then his face went blank and his eyes went from white to alpha red.

Deucalion, and everyone else in the room, stepped back. That wasn’t just unusual, it was down right bizarre.

Derek realized too late that he was in the open. The spark had already turned to look at the fact that the Hales were the only ones who hadn’t retreated.

Derek flared his nostrils, trying to get more of an understanding of what might be about to happen; the spark’s eyes were still red and his face was still blank. His scent though, it faded from obvious anger to something Derek wanted to call intrigue. It was not an unpleasant aroma.

The guy’s eyes faded from red to white and then human, and his smirk returned. “Hey there, ballsy-wolf. What’s your name?” He tilted his head and the smirk turned softer.

“Hale.” He wasn’t sure how he’d managed to speak, but apparently the spark liked that he had.

“Of the Hales? From New York?”

Derek nodded.

“That’s a bloodline I can get behind. You, sir, are about to buy me a coffee.”

♠

Product (n): merchandise, ware, or commodity offered for sale

Prompt masterlist.

[staringatthetwinsuns]

Oh, that Luke/Han/Leia goodness!

Hey readers! Just a friendly reminder that we are in the HOME STRETCH of of the Luke/Leia and Luke/Leia/Han Fic Exchange!  Fics will be revealed this FRIDAY, so watch this space as well as @brotherskywalker's Tumblr, or just keep an eye on the AO3 page. :)

Also a friendly reminder, while you're waiting, that I did write a Luke/Han/Leia fic EVERY DAY in the month of February, so for my newer followers, check those out if you haven't! The February series is here... no need to read them in order so feel free to go by tags or kudos or whatever you like!

I'll be posting some more related content in the days leading up to the big reveal, so again, watch this space! And if you're here via my Skysolo or my gen fic, don't worry, I'm still writing that too, but I hope you'll check this out as well! :)

[inkandblade]

February Words 12: Terrace

Derek stood back and took in, finally, what he’d managed to complete. The late afternoon sun was just starting to dip too low to be of use, and fruit bats were beginning to stretch and tussle with each other as they woke for their evening flights. He listened as they screeched their hellos and challenges across the trees around the village and envied them their freedom from his current task.

He’d taken a good six moons to re-shape and prepare his small field allotment — inherited from his grandmother when the old alpha had finally decided to resign herself to less active tasks — and although he thought his looked better than the other newly claimed plots around, he still wasn’t happy.

Derek still wished he’d had time to polish the top layer of stones on each of the five curved walls he’d refurbished. Jackson had been given so many fowl by his parents when he’d started his preparations that he’d been able to give two in payment to Isaac’s father, so that the younger boy could do the polishing instead of Jackson doing the work himself. Derek had complained long and loud to his own father, and this alpha mother, about the injustice of it all. They’d both listened and then asked if he thought anyone in the village, or the next, or even the one after that, hadn’t already heard of the arrangement. Derek had had to concede that he thought it was so unusual a thing that mostly likely those in villages far enough away to not even know which direction Beacon was in would have heard, and then that, no, any omega Derek was interested in would likely not be impressed by it anyway.

It had made him feel better, but it still rubbed Derek’s wolf the wrong way, and even now, months after he’d learned of it, thinking of it made his hackles rise.

He shook off the thought with a drink of water from his new barrel — a thoughtful coming of age gift from his otherwise annoying uncle — and, out of habit, almost turned to walk back to his parent’s den.

He gripped the wooden cup hard in his hand to steady himself, and then reached out to touch the doorway of the den he was standing in front of to make certain of it.

His den.

He’d slept in it a few times already, of course, on nights when he’d simply been too lazy to walk back to his parents’ hearth, and once or twice when he wanted to be away from Cora’s mooning over Isaac or his parents’ mooning, and moaning, over each other.

Tonight he must sleep here, though. He shouldn’t cross another’s hearth until after the Inspection, or tomorrow word would reach the omegas that he’d not thought enough of his own handiwork to bed down in the space he’d been preparing for them. For one of them.

There was only one he’d want to impress, of course, but he supposed that was the same for most of the alphas and betas in the same position tonight. Stiles, the omega son of the head man in the next village, had smiled at Derek sweetly and offered him fruit from his basket the last time Derek had made a trip that way, and then a month ago Derek had looked up from tilling to see the same smile not two body lengths from where Derek was standing now. Stiles had, Cora told him later, been watching him work for longer than she would have thought necessary.

Stiles had seemed pleased with Derek’s progress then, and Derek hoped, as he laid himself down next to the fire pit, over the sleeping furs that he’d worked hard to earn and would hopefully soon share with Stiles, that the omega would be a least that, if not more, on the morrow.

♠

terrace(s) (n): a series of horizontal ridges made in a hillside to increase cultivatable land, conserve moisture, or create stability

I wrote this during a word sprint (am trying to get myself into tight deadlines) and then realized as I was reading it over that the fruit bats/flying foxes I’m used to aren’t something everyone gets to see/experience in daily life. So, if you’d be so kind as to disregard the fact that I’ve just dumped an animal from Australia/Madagascar/Asia etc into North America, that would be lovely. Thank you.

Prompt masterlist

[inkandblade]

February Words 14: Cultivate

“And the results?”

Stiles gripped Derek’s hand tighter at the end of the sentence, as if emphasizing it physically, under a table, would make the question more likely to be answered with an affirmation.

Derek breathed in his Mate’s stress, and for once hoped that Stiles had let the energy cell on his chemo-comp run down. They were both stressed, but Stiles’ tension would multiply if he had a clear understanding of just how anxious Derek was about this, too.

“Your second round samples were successful.” They both breathed out in relief. The med-drone blinked at them in turn, a faux display of understanding that everyone knew was programmed into the bots, but reportedly worked anyway.

Derek watched as a screen-display flickered in above the desk between them and the med-drone. Stiles understood the technicalities better than him, though, so Derek sat back and concentrated on the feeling of their hands clasped together. Stiles nodded and waved through the information, occasionally flipping back a screen and then moving on again.

Stiles’ scent grew spicy with satisfaction and his blood started pumping harder.

“Good news, then?” It was obviously so, but Stiles always enjoyed explaining.

“Very good news,” he muttered, scrolling a little further through the data. “We—” He scrolled some more.

The med-drone made a strange noise, apparently in agreeance and complete disregard of the fact that Siles would have continued, eventually. “Pu-Were samples are rarely problematic, Mx. Hale, so your first collection is also of use. However,  hu-Weres, even more so than hu-Mans, have healing factors that call their cells back to them. Mx Stilinski’s samples therefore required extra care.”

Derek knew that. Any couple attempting fecundation did. He threw an alpha-red glare at the med-drone to see how its programming would respond to that. It simply kept silent.

Stiles, however, apparently hadn’t been bothered by the repetition of obvious information, brain still churning and processing the results. “They harvested strands that match to yours perfectly.” He looked back at Derek, wide eyed. “See here,” Stiles’ long finger pointed at a gliph-graph that Derek knew was a gliph-graph but still just looked like a pretty pattern to him. “They’ve sequenced seventy-two distinct triads for us to use. That means we have a full two hundred sixteen possibles to take our twenty-five requests from. Most hu-Weres can only be matched to about forty of a pu-Were’s.”

The med-drone spoke again. “You are highly compatible. Your progeny should be easy to slide and tend.”

Derek decided that the smile the words brought to Stiles’ face were worth the bot’s interruption.

♠

cultivate (n): to promote or improve growth cultivate (n): to produce by culture: to cultivate a strain of bacteria

Prompt masterlist

[inkandblade]

February Words 03: Gravel

“It’s permanent, then?”

Derek tried to keep his voice low, but it echoed off the cold white surfaces of the hospital anyway. Stiles’ heartbeat sounded like he was asleep, but Derek had discovered that was no longer a given. In the three weeks they’d be held captive — with only a thin wall between them but no way for Derek to break free or even speak, no matter how loud they made Stiles scream — Stiles had spent his downtime meditating and had learned, finally, to calm his heart and mind.

The first day in the abandoned meatworks they’d told Stiles that Derek was dead. A week later they’d showed him a uniform shirt covered in blood and told him it had belonged to his father. They’d taunted him with photographs of Pack members who didn’t seem to be searching for him.

Stiles hadn’t reacted to their taunts openly. He’d only given them his voice when they cut him and burned him and

Derek swallowed the bile and memories that rose in his throat.

Melissa pressed her hand over his as she nodded, then left to continue her rounds. Derek sat in the bleach-stink plastic chair and looked at his shoes. They still had no idea what the hunters had really wanted.

“It’s not your fault, D.”

They were still, unmistakably, Stiles’ words, but for days on end he’d screamed and screamed and screamed.

Stiles smiled and reached out the hand that wasn’t hooked up to a machine. The blue and yellow and purple on it would fade. The bones in his other fingers would would knit back together, as would the one in his leg. The flat, red lines where they’d torn his flesh would morph mostly back to the same pale his skin had always been.

Derek took the offered hand in his own and pulled what pain there was left under the codeine thrum in Stiles’ blood.

Stiles smiled around the thick sounds his throat made.

“I think I sound kinda sexy, actually.”

gravel (adj):  harsh and grating

Prompt Masterlist

[staringatthetwinsuns]

February Words #23: Disappoint

Summary:

It's Leia, Han, and Luke's last getaway before their family of three becomes four. There's wine and there's a beach at night and they're all feeling sweet and romantic... until Han promises Luke and Leia that he'll get them whatever they want, and Luke decides to ask for the impossible.

Part of the same general continuity as the rest of the series, but like all of these little ficlets, this one stands alone!

(This one deviates pretty far from the prompt, by the way.)

Read on AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/13774284

Or here:

~5 ABY~

They’re alone on a beach at the end of the world, on this night that’s a beginning and an end.

Leia stretches her arms out and twirls around, like she’s drinking in the whole sky. “Just think,” she says, in this voice that’s like singing, “the next time we’re here, we’ll be four.”

They’ve never been here before. They might never be again. But the day after tomorrow, the baby’s officially old enough to arrive “any day now,” as the medical droid says. So by here, she really just means like this . At peace. Away from work, from politics and war.

“He’s so big.” Luke wraps his arms around her, his hands cupping her belly as if he’s already holding their son.

“I’m so big!” But Leia laughs. She’s so happy, in this light and careless way she’d never thought she’d be again.

Han just watches. He’ll join them, probably, soon enough, as soon as the wine’s gone just a little more to his head. For now, he’s just trying somehow to believe that they’re his—that all three of them are somehow with him.

“So what do you think, kid?” His words slur, maybe, more than he thinks they will, and it strikes him as a little weird, a little sad, that Luke won’t be the “kid” in their family for much longer. “The beach. The ocean. I finally got to show you.”

Luke’s seen beaches before, on missions with the Alliance, but Han’s either forgotten or chosen to forget. “It’s perfect,” he says, his eyes on Han, his mouth nearly on Leia’s. “So… full of life.” Not at all like Tatooine.

Leia lets him kiss her, but then twists free of his grasp. “You’re drunk,” she laughs. “'So full of life'? I don’t trust either of you to fly me home!” She feels drunk too, though, even though she hasn’t had a drop since they learned about the baby. And she thinks she sees what Luke means, about life.

They’re staying here tonight, anyway, at the resort that sparkles behind them. Where saner, soberer, less-in-love people are maybe already in bed.

“Well,” says Han slowly, “you could always fly us. Take us up into the stars.”

He’s not sure if he meant that to come out sounding dirty, or if it would even sound that way without the wine.

But Leia picks up on it, and as much as her pregnant body complains, she folds her legs around him, her belly pressed against his back, and her forehead barely resting between his shoulders. She’s scared, maybe. Just a little. Of the birth itself, but also what comes after.

Maybe Han picks up on that, somehow.

“Hey. Don’t you worry, Princess. I’ll take you anywhere you need.”

Luke’s watching the waves, half-listening to their conversation. He knows he should be here, but it’s hard. The sea is so full of life, and the little life burning in Leia is so overwhelming. And the wine’s in his head and everything seems so much bigger, and so much fuller of things he can’t begin to understand.

“I want to give him everything,” he says, softly, in a voice not really meant for anyone to hear.

But Leia hears it, and she answers back, “Me too. I want to give him the world.”

Han knows it’s stupid, that he should leave it like that, because he feels the same and they know how to say it better than he does. But he loves them all so much in that moment, and he’s happy and he’s drunk and he’s in love. So he twists around, so he’s almost looking Leia in the eye, and says, “Whatever you want, I’ll get it for you.”

“Whatever I want?” She smiles.

“I’m serious.”

Leia smiles. “I know you are.”

“Whatever you want?” Luke turns around, and there’s a mischievous glint in his eye. “I say we test him. Whatever you want, Leia.”

“All I want is a healthy baby.” She laughs, and wriggles her swollen toes. “And maybe a foot massage.”

“I think I can do that,” Han takes her feet, and starts rubbing, and it feels so good she closes her eyes and raises her face to the sky.

“What about you, kid. Luke,” Han corrects himself. “Guess you’re not the kid around here anymore.”

Luke always wants to be Han’s kid, but he loves the way his name sounds like that too.

“What, you’ll make my dreams come true?” He sits on the sand beside them. His legs are stretched out long beside Leia’s, and his head’s almost on Han’s shoulder. And they feel just like one person, almost—the four of them. His family. His dream.

“Sure,” Han says, too casually. “Why not?”

Luke was planning to say he’d already done it, that this was his only wish, true already, right here. But Han's so cocky, and that cockiness is sexy, and Luke wants to see what he’ll do.

“Fine,” he says. He has nothing in mind till he says it, and then the only thing that comes to mind is the most impossible thing in the world.

“Bring me a star.”

“A star?”

Leia laughs, and shakes her head. “Han, you were asking for it.”

“Asking for what?”

“A star,” she half-sings. “Bring me one too. A star for me, and one for Luke, and one for our baby, too.”

Han rolls his eyes. “You sure you haven’t been drinking?” But he's starting to get an idea. “All right, fine.” He breaks free of her arms. This is the perfect night, after all. And if anyone can bring them a star, it's got to be him.

“Han,” Luke protests. “Come on. I was kidding.”

“I know,” Han says, and he's shaky on his feet, but there's nothing like vintage Alderaanian wine for confidence, and he turns it into a swagger. “You two wait here.”

Leia watches Han as he walks off down the beach, and looks at Luke with a wordless question.

“I have no idea,” Luke answers, and kneels beside her in the sand. The way he rubs her feet is different from Han—softer, less practiced, a little hesitant, but sweet. “Is… are you doing okay?” he asks. “I mean, with the baby and everything?”

Leia knows he can feel it, that quiet little fear that paints her happiness a muted undertone. Will they be good parents? Will the world judge them too harshly, for having this baby together—the three of them—at all? Luke's fears are different, stained by memories of Vader. But it makes her feel better that he has them, just like it makes her feel better that Han seems to have no fears for their family at all.

“I’m fine,” she says, after a pause that's really too long. The Force answered for her, she knows. “Where do you think he went, anyway?”

“To get us a star?” Luke jokes. “Who knows?”

Leia laughs, but she's glad she can sense Han. Glad she can tell he's safe, and not too far.

“I think the wine you drank is going to my head.” She kisses him, and he tastes like it, too. “If Han doesn’t come back in a couple of minutes…”

“He’s coming,” Luke says. “Over there. See?”

“Did he bring us a star?” Leia laughs. Such a silly, meaningless joke.

But Luke’s gaze goes distant. “He has… something.”

He can't really tell what it was, but there is something with Han, a little... spark. “Han?” he called out. What did you do?

But before he can ask, Han answers.

His hair is wet, and he's drenched from the waist down, and his sleeves are rolled up, exposing his arms. And he has this brave, crazy smile on his face, as he bows and presents Leia, first, with…

“A sea star?” Leia jerks her arm back. “Han, that’s alive. You can’t just… What if it’s got some bacteria that could hurt the baby?”

“Hey,” Han puts on what he hopes is a suitably offended expression. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to give it to Luke here, then.”

He half-expects Luke’s reaction to be the same, really, and maybe that's sort of the point.

But Luke's looking at it with this wonderful, wide-eyed expression that makes Han just want to hold him. Protect him. And never in a million years stop calling him “kid.”

“What?” he asks, in a tone that was supposed to be teasing and comes out too gentle instead. “You never seen one of these before?”

Luke shakes his head.

“It doesn’t like being out of the water,” he says.

There are tidal pools, down close to the ocean, and when he slides the little sea star into one, its presence relaxes in a pure, empty happiness—not quite thoughtless, but simple and open and glad and relieved to be home. It crawls onto the edge of a rock, moving just fast enough for the human eye to follow. Luke shakes his head. He doesn't even want to blink. “I didn’t think they moved at all.”

He doesn't notice Han and Leia standing behind him, watching each other watching Luke with a secret, shared smile that bubbles with laughter and pride.

“I guess he’ll be a good dad,” Han mutters, just to Leia.

“Don’t forget,” she says, just a moment before she kisses him, “you’re the one who knew how to bring him a star.”

Notes:

So, this one deviated pretty far from the prompt... sorry about that. I was so happy about Mark Hamill getting a star on the walk of fame that I decided that Luke needed to get a star, too. <3

As always, thank you SO much for reading!!! All feedback including concrit is welcome.

[inkandblade]

And...

And... I’m attempting a challenge again. This time, I’ve got @staringatthetwinsuns joining me. We write very different things in very different fandoms — she’s a Star Wars lover — but we both want to get writing again.

We looked around for a prompt list we both liked/felt, but couldn’t settle on one. Instead we used a generator to make our own. Grab it and join us in writing, or any other kind of creating!

If you’re going to grab the prompt table please link back or credit (and please grab it rather than reblogging.)

I’ve got personal-request prompts to write, and I will, but at the moment I’m having issues just getting a handful of fic-words down. 

I’ll be making a new post with this table to list my (hopefully finished) fic. 

So... forward ho! Fic, possibly, ahoy!

EDIT: The masterlist of my finished prompts is here (with links to tumblr and AO3).

[staringatthetwinsuns]

Summary: Luke hasnt been able to feel Han through the Force since he rushed off to Bespin. Now, the night before Leia is set to infiltrate Jabba’s Palace, his presence is back—cold and distant. But when you’re at the bottom there’s nowhere to go but up. Notes: This is a part of my February Words prompt challenge, although like the others, this story stands alone and does not require you to have read the others. Because I liked my post-Endor, I wanted to try a post-Bespin. TBH, I’m not really thrilled with how it came out. (Warning, purple prose ahead?) But. The point of this challenge is to write something every day. And I finished this. So... let me know what you think!