Hey everyone! It has been an incredibly hectic year, to say the least, but we will in fact be having a February Ficlet Challenge for 2026! This year's theme is the alphabet: 26 letters for 2026! (Plus some Special Secret Prompts at the end of the month.)
For those new to the Challenge, here's how it works: every day in February, there will be two prompts posted on this Tumblr. Your challenge is to write a ficlet of at least 200 words in a single day using at least one of the prompts, and post it to the AO3 collection.
For a harder challenge, use a different pairing each day. For the hardest mode, make up a list of pairings that you'd like to write ahead of time, and use whichever is next in line!
There are no restrictions on content, fandom, pairing, or format; 200 words is the minimum but you can absolutely go longer if you want to. The collection will remain open for a full year, so if you can't quite finish a ficlet in time, or if you want to come back and write one later, you're welcome to do so.
One month. Twenty-eight prompts. Twenty-eight pairings. One ficlet a day. Write Fast.
Your gaze hadn’t left Cassandra’s face since you’d gotten here. Your eyes had found Cass’ face and stayed stuck. The batfamily had made space and then, you were holding her hand, sitting by her side; waiting and watching for her colours to change.
The colours around you were murky - grey’s and blue’s and other shades and tones of distress. It had choked you; you hadn’t dared ask.
You and the batfamily stood around Cass, everyone’s gaze focused on either you or Cass ; even the one’s, not hovering in the immediate vicinity.
Slowly, so slowly, that you thought you were imagining it, her colours started darkening.
“Knocked on her head” Jason said. You don’t know what had given you away, but perhaps nothing had - the batfamily weren’t experts on microexpressions for nothing.
You nodded.
“Lucky, if she won’t have amnesia” Dick said, testing you.
You made a small sound of distress, but your eyes never left Cass’ face. Jason shot Dick a dirty look.
Neither of them said anything after that; assured you weren’t keeping secrets or lying.
Gradually, her colours came alive with fear.
You shushed her and caressed her hair, murmuring “It’s just us, darling. Just us. We’re here. You’re okay. It’s okay. We’re all okay.”
You kept murmuring assurances and shushing her and caressing her short, filthy hair as exclamations, sighs and groans burst around you.
She was awake - that’s all anyone could’ve hoped for; it’s what all of you had hoped for.
Slowly, quietly, her colours changed again and she was dreaming; a happy dream, you knew.
“Get something to eat” Batman said; quiet as a reverent father.
You shook your head. You’d stay here till she woke up.
Batman huffed and told Jason to get you a sandwich - which set off a new cacophony of banter between the whole family.
But you were fed and hydrated and watched over as you watched over your Cass.
Because the batfamily took care of their own. And you were just that - one of their own.
Characters: Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Merlin (Merlin)
Additional Tags: Jealousy, Oaths & Vows, Confessions, Jewelry, Arthur Pendragon Knows About Merlin's Magic (Merlin), Everyone Knows About Merlin's Magic (Merlin), Canon Divergent - Post Series But Still In Camelot But No One Died
Summary:
When Merlin walked in with a new pendant around his neck, Arthur noticed immediately. From the moment he saw it, the itchings of jealousy had begun crawling under his skin. He hated that feeling, but he got it surprisingly often when Merlin was involved. If Merlin should be wearing anyone’s pendant, it should be Arthur’s. The thought was as clear and undeniable as any Arthur had ever had.
Prompt fills for @herohardshipsbingo "Came back wrong", @ir0n-angel fluffuary2026 "found family", @februaryficletchallenge "Different first meeting".
Title: i knew you in another life
Relationship: Cassandra Cain & Bruce Wayne, Cassandra Cain & Stephanie Brown, Cassandra Cain & Barbara Gordon, Cassandra Cain & Duke Thomas
Fandom: Batgirl (Comics)
TWs: Mention of childhood trauma, memory loss
Summary:
Cass loses her memory after a run-in with a magician, remembering only her life before joining the Batfamily. In the aftermath, she has new first meetings with Duke, Babs, Steph, and Bruce, which slowly paint the picture of what her future looks like.
“What you said just now, ‘Stop’. That… That was the first word you ever learned to say out loud.”
“How do you know that?” She asked, furrowing her brow. [...]
“I was the one who taught it to you,” Barbara replied.
FFC 2026 | guest | Control Resonant | Dylan Faden & Emily Pope | Rated G
The Rangers tried not to touch Dylan as they put the gear on him.
“Hands at your sides!” A Ranger barked. He stood just outside the open door of the cold glass cage, as if stationed there to keep the prisoner from running too early.
Dylan smiled, twitching pale fingers back into his pockets. (The FBC had given him pockets!) The heavy coat thudded onto his shoulders as he met Emily Pope’s eyes. She stood at a distance, with a band of Research whitecoats on the low steps surrounding the glass box. Dylan grinned at her in order to make her feel as uncomfortable as he did.
A pneumatic hiss caressed his ears, then a chunk like machinery. Someone had clipped something heavy into his hair. Now that something weighed down the back of his skull.
“He put stuff in his pocket,” another Ranger accused. “Check his hands.”
“Show us your hands.” Someone else. The FBC agents were all so interchangeable, even though they moved around him with different instruments, or looped an earpiece onto his ear, or stood with empty hands because that one had been holding the heavy coat.
Dylan showed his hands and the fat marker. He had stolen the black marker from one of the first Rangers who had tried to restrain him for the fitting of the gear; now he held it up at Emily, waving the fingers not pinched around the marker.
“Art supplies,” he said. “You know they have me do art therapy now and then.”
Emily watched thin-lipped, suspicious.
Dylan dug in. He hadn’t learned a lot about what happened in the Oldest House between the Hiss taking him and the city going weird, but he knew Jesse was respected — and had the sense that any such respect would earn him some long-denied leverage. What he said might even be true. Hopefully, it was true. But the hope didn’t show through the scorn in his tone. “Jesse would want me to have it.”
The earpiece crackled. “Testing,” someone said over it, ignoring Dylan’s interaction with Emily.
The skin around Emily’s eyes tightened just a fraction. Like many of the people who had endured the lockdown, she looked scared, tired.
“Give the marker back to him once he’s out of the safety perimeter,” Emily said. “For now, take it.”
The voice over the earpiece: “P6, acknowledge whether you can hear me. Over.”
Dylan dropped the marker. Several of the Rangers flinched at the movement or when it hit the ground.
Dylan didn’t break eye contact with Emily as he replied to the handler, putting cold, oozing disdain into the words. “I hear you.”
Later, he would drag the marker's tip back and forth over the three letters on the coat, negating his affiliation.
Premise: Ethan didn’t think his life could ever be beautiful… until he lived it.
Fandom: Open Heart
Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Cassie Valentine)
Rating/Category: Teen. Fluff.
Words: 1,240
A/N: Submission to @choicesfebruary2026 prompt "An unexpected future". Also submitting to @februaryficletchallenge prompt 6 "Fluff"
I. The Before
He lay on his back, one hand tucked beneath his head, listening to the chorus of crickets and cicadas in the trees behind him.
They called these times the “dog days” of summer—long and humid with a hazy mist in the air. But twelve-year-old Ethan Ramsey wasn’t sure what dogs had to do with the weather. He should add it to his list of things to look up at the library.
School was still out for another few weeks, but the local library had a better collection of books anyway. Plus, the librarian there wasn’t nosy, always wanting to know why he wanted to borrow a book she considered too advanced for his age.
Learning was learning. What did age have to do with it?
Just the idea of it had him scoffing as he scratched his nose. In a nod to the heat, he’d stripped down to his white Fruit of the Looms, but he could still feel sweat pooling on his back.
He tried to stretch his long legs (he’d grown a whole half inch over the summer), but there wasn’t much space in the old sleeping bag. It was also getting a bit threadbare now, and he could feel the grass poking his bare thighs.
Ethan wished he could’ve gone out of the city to see the meteor shower, but his dad had work in the morning. So he’d parked himself in the darkest corner of the backyard, hoping that with the house lights off it would be dark enough.
He yawned loudly as night settled around him, the quiet punctuated by the occasional car driving down the street.
A million different thoughts drifted through his mind. He worried about what it would be like when school started. Would people stare and whisper behind his back the way they did at Sunday service?
Poor motherless boy, they said, fake sympathy in their eyes. Imagine running out on your family like that, they whispered with sanctimonious pity, all while feeling secretly pleased with their small lives.
His father told him to ignore it, but that was hard for Ethan to do. He wanted to shout at all of them to mind their own business. He might not have a mother anymore, but he wasn’t—and never would be—an object of their pity.
Marriage was dumb anyway, he told himself fiercely. There were more important things in life than tying yourself to one person, pumping out a few kids, and living a life of sameness, day in and day out.
He was going to show them all. He wasn’t going to settle for ordinary in any aspect of his life. One day, the name Ramsey would be associated with refined culture, sophistication and, above all, greatness.
He bit back another yawn as the darkness around him lengthened. Feeling his eyes drift closed, he blinked rapidly to try to stay awake. But it was a losing battle, and he was fast asleep when a streak of light shot across the night sky.
II. The After
Light snow fell outside the tall windows lining the walls of the ballroom. Inside, it was warm and bright, filled with laughter and the possibilities of forever. The string quartet had launched into a medley of famous ballets throughout history, throwing in the occasional aria as a nod to the father of the bride.
The gold band on his left hand caught the soft light from the chandeliers above as he lifted the whiskey tumbler and took a sip of the smooth liquor. Ethan smiled above the rim as he watched his daughter pirouette in the arms of her husband, the skirt of her shimmering wedding gown floating in the air.
Connor MacKenzie looked just as dazed as Ethan had felt a lifetime ago when he’d taken Cassie Valentine’s hand in his and led her into their first dance as husband and wife. It had been a soft waltz then, a bubble of contentment and love surrounding them beneath these very lights.
When Sophie told them she wanted to get married at the Valentine estate in Newport, Ethan had felt transported back to his and Cassie’s wedding.
Of course, it had been summer rather than winter, and the ceremony had taken place in the gardens overlooking the waves crashing on the rocks below. But the reception had been in this ballroom, with its Gilded Age décor and a century of Valentine traditions and celebrations seeped into the walls.
He’d finally felt accepted then—a Ramsey making his mark on this hallowed estate.
Just as he’d finally come to accept Connor’s presence in his daughter’s life.
It helped that the man was clearly in love with her, not merely dazzled by the elegant ballerina Sophie became when she stepped onto the stage. That was all Ethan could ask for his eldest daughter and most sensitive child.
She’d inherited his introspective nature, just as her sister had inherited his no-nonsense attitude. But where Eloise was ready to fight, Sophie took everything in until there was no space left to hold it.
That was often when she’d turn to him to fix what was wrong. When she’d been six, Ethan had been happy to play savior. But as the twins grew older, he and Cassie had taught them everything they needed to live life on their own terms.
He was proud of his daughters, even if he didn’t always understand them. But he supposed that was the case with fathers and their children. He glanced at his own father—well into his nineties now and still relatively active—seated at a table with Eloise, his feet tapping to the music, a content smile spread across his lips.
The years fell away as he felt Cassie’s presence beside him, her hand slipping into his as she leaned into him. He wrapped an arm around her, and she angled her head to smile up at him.
In her gaze, he saw a beautiful time lapse of their lives. Steadying her hand that first day at Edenbrook as they worked on a patient together. Her green eyes flashing in indignation at being called an amateur.
The crash of waves on the moonlit balcony in Miami when he kissed her, throwing caution to the wind. City lights outside his bedroom sparkling like stars the first time they made love.
The quiet contentment when he finally stopped running from his feelings, the tender touches as they slow danced under the kitchen light at midnight.
Proposing to Cassie on the couch as they ate Chinese takeout and watched a ridiculous movie. Bringing their daughters home from the hospital, watching them explore the world.
Quiet Sunday mornings with just the two of them again, and noisy family dinners when the girls visited, full of stories and laughter.
Ethan wondered why he’d ever thought this life wasn’t for him. It had been everything he hadn’t believed he could ever have.
As the dance floor opened to the other guests, Ethan drew Cassie closer, turning her softly until she faced him fully. He cupped her face in his hands, his eyes bright with feelings he didn’t have words for. But she didn’t need them. She never had.
She slid her arms around his neck and tugged him closer, her lips finding his in a gentle, familiar kiss.
Love had found him after all, and his life was richer for it.
Summary: February Ficlet Challenge, Day 3: Sora goes to sleep.
Rating: K
Word Count: 238
Links: AO3, >Tumblr<
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Heavy. Everything in Sora’s body just felt… heavy. In a haze, Sora couldn’t even recall the last time he’d felt this tired- if ever. The young version of Xehanort had insisted Sora had drifted too far into the dream, and maybe he had. That might have been why he could barely move now. It was time to sleep. It was time to simply let the darkness envelop him and no longer think about fighting.
Darkness…
Yes, he was surrounded by the darkness now. It swirled around him, but not quite touching him, as he continued to fall. It too seemed to goad him into slumber. It promised peace- rest. The battling was over. The war would continue in a different time, in a different place. His work here was done.
The darkness started to enter him now. He had given it permission to at this point. Its influence further driving his exhaustion into a cold numbness. There was nothing uncomfortable about that coldness, just a small acceptance.
A light flickered in the darkness. It was too far away. It had reacted too slowly. Sora’s eyes were completely closed to its arrival- the ability to see the swirling darkness around him lost the further he fell. The light was doing its best, it was coming but the darkness was faster. By the time the light could reach Sora, the boy had been completely enveloped.
