(I promised I'd get to these! This one's got a little bit of a throwback to another prompt fill from about a thousand years ago...)
She should have been watching him.
She should have been watching him but instead, as the GEMINI unit sparks and collapses, she stands staring at the smoldering chambers as her stomach twists itself into knots. She knows those faces, locked now into open-mouthed rigor. She knows them. Knew them.
Theron was right. Of course he was right. You have no idea, he’d said on Copero, her hand on his mouth and her heart in his teeth, how deep this thing goes, Nine. No idea.
She hadn’t. She thought she had, but-
She should have been watching Atrius. He wasn’t dead and she knows that, knows better than to turn her back on a wounded enemy. Instead, she’s looking up at Marcus fucking Trant, may the Void devour him, when Lana screams out a warning; she turns, too late, as the tip of a Force pike rips through Theron from back to front. He drops like a stone, on hands and knees, crawling, and then his arms give way and she is running, running but not fast enough to catch him before he collapses.
For a moment she thinks of Asylum and the memory of it alone staggers her mid-stride. Even with Valkorion still in her head then, even with all his power keeping her alive, it was agony. Theron doesn’t have that, doesn’t have anything but himself- oh, stars, they were so close. So close to the end of this terrible year, so close to him finally, finally coming home. To lose him now-
Lana’s pulling him clear now, his head lolling to one side, a bright halo already coalescing around her before another, brighter light in the periphery of her vision finally forces her to look away from him. (She cannot. She cannot. If he stops breathing while she isn’t looking, if he dies-)
“Their blood is on your hands, Commander.” Atrius gestures broadly around him, at the broken bodies that fueled Zildrog and upward, outward as she imagines the sky full of the pieces of what was once the Eternal Fleet. “His blood-” he points toward Theron (still breathing, still breathing, oh, please keep breathing, love, just a little longer)- “is on your hands.”
She racks her rifle and draws her blade. A blade did little against a machine-god, but he is no machine and no god and she will rip him to pieces for this. “No,” she says. “No. But yours is about to be.”
Blossoming romance prompt: surprising them with their favourite treat
The last two days had been the longest of Deviali’s life. Being abducted by mindflayers was already bad enough, and it honestly should have been her death sentence by now – maybe it was the gods slowly punishing her for all the times she’d stolen from priests and clerics who left their coin purses unattended in Wyrm’s Crossing.
But then fighting alongside a Githyanki warrior (who had only reluctantly identified herself as Lae’zel) and another half-Elf stranger (Shadowheart, she had introduced herself as) to crash the ship, and yanking a stray wizard out of his portal, and nearly being shanked by a pale Elf, and spending one night huddled in the ruins of an ancient temple before fighting off a swarm of goblins and being granted temporary sanctuary in a druid grove, along with a pack of tiefling refugees? “No one at home will ever believe this,” Devi muttered, shaking her head. “They’ll think I’m trying a new line to get out from the Fists’ idea of justice.”
“Are you accustomed to trying to talk your way out from law enforcement?” the wizard, who’d introduced himself as Gale of Waterdeep, asked with a small chuckle.
“More used than I am to breaking myself back out of being arrested,” Devi muttered. She poked at her bowl of potato porridge, wrinkling her nose slightly. While she supposed she wasn’t in a position to be picky with food, and she also supposed she should be grateful to the tieflings for sharing their supplies with the pack of tadpole-infected wanderers, she’d grown up on all things potato in the Lower City of Baldur’s Gate, and the porridge wasn’t her favourite food.
“A common thug. How uncouth.” Astarion – the pale knife-happy Elf – looked down his nose at Devi, having already finished his serving of the porridge, with much grimacing on his part. Apparently whatever upper level of society he hailed from didn’t eat peasant food often.
“Brave words from the person who pulled a dagger on me less than a minute after meeting me,” Devi retorted. “Besides, I ain’t a thug. Just a damn good thief.”
“Clearly not that good, if you have to talk your way out of trouble regularly…” Astarion commented.
Devi’s eyes narrowed threateningly, but she felt Shadowheart set a hand on her shoulder before she could get up. “If we have to work together to find a cure, then try to get along,” the cleric said, giving both Devi and Astarion a look – with a look tossed at Gale as well for good measure. “Bickering isn’t going to accomplish anything.”
With a sigh, Devi settled back into her seat, leaning against a rock and trying to get comfortable. “Anything about home we’re missing in particular?” she asked after a moment of uncomfortable, awkward silence among the group.
“My library,” Gale immediately said. Somehow, that answer didn’t surprise Devi in the slightest.
“A comfortable bed,” Astarion commented. “And not a bedroll.”
Shadowheart hummed in thought. “Besides having my head to myself? Decent wine.”
Astarion seemed to perk up. “Oh, I’d like to change my answer now…”
Devi snorted in amusement, then set her bowl down. “For me? Honestly, pumpkin soup from this one particular tavern in the Lower City. It tastes almost how my mother used to make it.”
Gale tilted his head slightly. “Of all the things you miss about home, you miss pumpkin soup the most?”
“Not just any pumpkin soup,” Devi clarified. “Just that particular one. I’d actually been on my way to get some when…” She shrugged and gestured to her head. “And I’ve been wanting it the last tenday. Don’t suppose you and your wizardly powers could conjure something up…?”
Chuckling, Gale shook his head. “I’m very good at what I do, but I’m not that good. Conjuring items is one thing, but food is nigh impossible if you want it to be in any way satisfying. You’ll have to take that up with Mystra, I fear.”
Devi groaned and slouched against her rock. “Then I hope we make it back home soon, without our parasites.”
—
Almost a month later, and no decent pumpkin soup had come across Devi’s path. She sighed as she slouched on a chair in the Last Light Inn, nursing a mug of beer and listening to the Harpers and tieflings marching around on different tasks. Moonlight Towers was going to be a huge challenge to undertake, even with the Harpers backing her crew up. And Devi was no tactician, nor strategist – she was just an ordinary thief from Baldur’s Gate, who had somehow been regarded as a symbol of hope that the tadpoles and the Absolute could be resisted.
How in all the hells had her life wound up like this?
She almost didn’t register the sounds of bootsteps on the wooden floor until she saw a flash of purple out of the corner of her eye. When she looked up, she saw Gale standing beside her, holding a tray in his hands. “You looked uncharacteristically melancholy,” he said with a tentative little smile. “May I join you?”
As if Devi could say no to the handsome wizard, even if he didn’t know how fully her heart belonged to him already. She nudged another chair at the table out for him to take a seat beside her. “You’re welcome to interrupt my brooding anytime,” she said with a grin. Curiously, she looked at the tray as he set it down on the table; a second later, her eyes widened at the two bowls filled with bright orange contents. “Is that…?”
“Pumpkin soup,” Gale confirmed with a wink. “One of the Harpers knew the tavern you were speaking of when you mentioned missing their soup, and claims to make the best replica of said soup.”
“I mentioned that once, Gale – I didn’t expect you to remember!” Devi picked up one of the bowls and took an appreciative sniff of its contents. “Oh, it smells right…” She closed her eyes, for a moment imaging herself back in her favourite slightly-sketchy tavern back home, with a bowl of her favourite soup before her, the normal denizens of the Lower City mingling around her, with someone playing a barely-tuned instrument a few booths over and a brawl close to breaking out over a dice game. She could almost forget where she was, in the heart of shadow-cursed lands, trying to figure out how to permanently kill an undead general in service to the Absolute without going insane from the shadows… although she couldn’t quite forget the handsome wizard beside her – not that she wanted to ever forget him.
She took a tentative sip from the spoon Gale had helpfully brought along with him, and softly moaned in pleasure. “Oh, I could kiss you right now,” she said, before her brain quite caught up to her mouth. Her eyes flew back open as she looked sidelong at Gale. “Er, I mean…” she started, trying to figure out how to explain that she’d been entertaining thoughts of kissing the wizard for at least the last two tendays, wondering what his lips tasted like, imagining running her hands through his long, dark hair…
Gale’s ears were red, but he appeared pleased, to go by his smile. “If I had known that I could win your affections with pumpkin soup, dear lady, I would have made a greater effort far earlier,” he chuckled.
“I’m no ‘lady’ and you know it, Gale,” Devi retorted, although she was smirking. “There’s not much that can buy me so easily, but this soup? Definitely on that list.”
“Forgive my curiosity, but what else is on that list?” Gale settled into his seat beside her, taking his own cautious first sip of the soup. “Oh, that is quite good.”
Devi tilted her head in thought for a moment. “Gold, obviously, or a good heist to plan out. And flowers – I love roses, like you might have guessed from my neck tattoo. And…” She hesitated. “I’ve heard that in the northern reaches, you can sometimes see lights dancing in the sky at night, brighter than even the moon. I saw a painting of them once, and it was gorgeous, and the artist said the painting didn’t do the actual sight justice. That’s something I’d sell my soul to see.”
“Lights dancing in the night sky, and roses, and unlawful schemes?” Gale chuckled. “You are a complex woman, Deviali. I’m sure that you’ll get to see those lights without needing to sell your soul, though.”
“You really think so? I’d never even left the Baldur’s Gate area before this whole adventure,” Devi said, for the moment ignoring Gale’s use of her despised full name. It didn’t sound nearly as bad when it came from his lips. “My plan was to steal a lot of gold and then buy a trip anywhere else, to see the world beyond the Lower City and Wyrm’s Crossing.”
Gale smiled fondly. “Fate has a curious way of making things work out. Waterdeep is north of Baldur’s Gate, far enough that in the winter on a clear night, I have sometimes seen those lights dancing in the sky myself. In another time, I would have taken you home with me and let you see the lights for yourself.”
Seeing dancing lights in the night sky wasn’t usually the reason Devi heard people expressing a wish to take her home with them, and she secretly hoped it wasn’t the only reason Gale wanted her in his home city. “We’ll get back to civilization alive,” she firmly said, “and we’ll deal with our tadpoles and the Absolute, and then you can take me home to see the lights. And if Mystra doesn’t like it, she can kiss my backside about it.”
That got a small smile from Gale. “One of us has to be the eternal optimist, I suppose,” he commented. “And you have a force of will that could make the gods hesitate in their steps… even Mystra.”
“Good,” Devi said with a firm nod. “The Absolute is on the top of my list of gods to throat-punch when I get the chance, but Mystra’s not far behind for what she’s done to you. The rest of the gods can form a line.”
“I’ve never had anyone offer to punch a deity before in defense of me,” Gale chuckled, looking more relaxed and at-ease than he’d been since the crew had met Elminster on the mountain pass road and gotten his grim message about the Orb. “It’s rather flattering.”
“And nothing less than what you deserve, especially for finding my favourite soup in the middle of nowhere,” Devi responded, grinning. “You’re my favourite wizard – I ever mention that?”
“I’ve risen that much in your esteem, just for bringing you soup?” Gale smirked. “How many other wizards am I up against?”
“I mean, most of the other wizards I’ve met were real pricks,” Devi admitted. “But you’re kind, an’ sweet, an’ smart, an’ don’t walk around with your staff up your ass.” And handsome, and talented, and compassionate, and too damn good-hearted to be stuck with an ilithid tadpole in your head… not that she could say all of that out loud.
“Tragically, I do know more than a few other wizards who meet your description,” Gale chuckled. “And few enough would track down a specific pumpkin soup in a cursed region for the behalf of a charming half-Elf thief with a heart of gold. Their loss, I must say.”
“Damn straight. Maybe I wouldn’t be so inclined to rob ‘em all blind if they weren’t entitled, arrogant jerks. Ain’t a bit like you, aside from the whole ‘magic’ thing.” Devi cheerfully nudged Gale in the side, little more than a light tap with her elbow. “Keep pullin’ miracles like finding soup like this, and you’ll be safe from any thievery from me.”
“Oh, I do have a magic touch with miracles,” Gale said, winking at her. “Ask nicely, and perhaps I’ll show you another one later.”
A sentence like that shouldn’t have made Devi’s heart skip the way it did. She was used to receiving flirtatious statements like that – she’d grown up in the Lower City, for hells’ sake! People had been flirting with her since before she was of legal age. Yet the relatively tame statement from Gale, only a little bit suggestive, made her want to squeal in excitement like a girl. Instead, she let a casual grin show itself on her face before she widened her eyes innocently. “Oh Mister Archmage Gale of Waterdeep, would you be so kind as to show your favourite Baldurian thief another miracle?”
That made Gale burst out laughing, half at Devi’s words, and half at the way she made a show of fluttering her eyelashes at him. “How can I say no to such a sincere plea as that? Give me some time, and I’ll work my magic for you.” He chuckled and gently returned Devi’s nudge with his own elbow. “But enjoy the soup for now – I’m told it’s not as good when it’s cold. Your miracle will come along later.”
“I’m looking forward to it,” Devi assured him with a grin. Any excuse to watch Gale at work with the Weave was a good excuse, and if he was doing something with her in mind? She was excited to see what he could conjure up.
Kiss Prompts: An accidental brush of lips followed by a pause and going back for another, on purpose.
The fire crackled, sending sparks upward into the night sky, and Vassanna slipped her hands around Theron’s.
“I think you’re selling yourself short,” she said softly. “Just because you don’t use magic to heal people the traditional way”—she shook his hands in emphasis—“doesn’t mean that you don’t help them, or heal them, or make them better.”
He turned to face the fire with a derisive snort, pulling his hands back to his lap, where they lay in tight fists. “I’m the only one in generations who has to resort to making healing potions and tonics. Generations,” he snarled.
“Well, your hands made those magical tonics,” Sanna retorted. “And I’m fairly well-healed, yes?” She gestured to her side, where they both knew only a whisper of a scar lay in the place of a mortal wound. “So I would say you still have a healer’s hands.”
Theron glared at her and she raised an eyebrow in return, daring him to contradict her.
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
He had such a low opinion of his own talents simply because they weren’t the same as most of his family line. When would he understand that he was still as special as the rest of them?
Still, it meant that he was far too easy to bait on this subject. Instead of arguing further, Vassanna simply let a smug grin find its way to her features and let her gaze drift to the fire, its light dancing before them. Deep down, Theron knew she was right. He had to know, didn’t he? A frown replaced the smirk from a moment ago.
“I’d be dead if not for you and your magic, Theron,” she whispered, “different as it may be from the rest of your family’s.”
She turned to him, needing to offer reassurance, only to find his face a hair’s breadth away. His lips brushed against hers, light as a tender spring breeze. Their eyes met and time stood still.
A moment, a year, a decade passed. Shifting ever so slightly, she leaned in closer, and he followed. Their lips touched once more, softly, gently. His hands slipped hesitantly around her waist and she wrapped her arms around his neck, her fingers finding their way into his hair.
Oh, gods, she’d imagined this before—kissing him—but it was so much better than she’d dreamed. Theron pulled her closer, kissed her harder, and Sanna decided she’d be content to stay like this forever.
Writing asks: Can you accurately predict how long your fics are going to be? If you can, what's your secret?
I'm pretty sure I have never once in my life accurately judged how long a piece of writing was going to be.
You'd think that my contract work writing scripts for Lovestruck, which went by word count, would have gone some way toward helping develop that skill, but you would be wrong. My process for that was a combination of tracking word count as I went and either adding or editing out bits to complete the scene in something resembling the ordered length.
(My producers also frequently had to just put up with getting scenes longer than what was ordered. TRUE FACT: the last three episodes of Sevastian's final season in Reigning Passions contained about a whole extra episode worth of length. Fortunately my producer generously let it go.)
Even writing "Le Chien Noir," for which I had a scene by scene breakdown, was very much an exercise in "it'll be as long as it is."
Was going through some screenshots the other day and found this pic from the @greyias life day event on Ilum! Everyone had a great time, and i wish i hadn’t had to bail before things got *really* crazy! (I’ve seen the photos! 🤯 )
H a h this has been in my askbox for ages, but it struck enough fancy for me to dust off my rusty writing gears today! Let’s pretend that this isn’t super ah...rough lol.
The lovely Aramys, of course, belongs to @lumielles
--
Seeing the sun in all of its bright, warm glory daily was a commodity Wren was not quite used to yet. Waking up to its yellow glow throughout the room was often more of a rude awakening than cozy after years of Dromund Kaas’ extensive rainy season of clouds and lightning.
Yet there was a new novelty in its beauty. Wren rested her head on her hand, admiring the way the sunlight streaming through the windows enveloped Aramys in a golden glow. The way that it cast shining highlights in her hair and danced bright as her and Danna’s smiles across her face.
Aramys looked up from the little game she and Danna were playing for the reward of precious giggles and the sunlight caught the dark wells just enough to make them gold, “Are you sure you don’t mind watching Danna today?”
Startling from her mesmerized staring, Wren let her hand drop from her cheek, “Oh! Is it time for you to leave already?” A quick glance at the chrono blinked numbers she didn’t want to see--time truly had slipped away from her this morning.
She stood and picked her way over to Aramys, holding out her arms. With a smile, Aramys shifted Danna into Wren’s possession and the little girl settled on Wren’s hip, already reaching to tangle her fingers in the sith lord’s long locks.
“Of course I don’t mind watching this precious darling.” Wren said with a smile, “Though I do hate to see you go.”
“Where your eyes wander says otherwise.” Aramys teased, though it was punctuated by a sigh, “It’s all such dull meetings today.”
Wren smoothed her hand over Aramys’ hair with a soft chuckle and teasing, “Ack it’s so dreadfully dull when you aren’t working against a ticking clock.” On a whim she leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Aramys’ forehead. Though her kiss was light a slight red outline from her lipstick of her lips marked where her kiss had landed.
Gently she wiped it away, adding a “Have a good day though my love, I’ll see you tonight.” before sending Aramys back on her way.
In fact, the Commander had almost made it to the door when an idea struck Wren, “Wait!”
Aramys turned around, eyes wide, “What? Did I forget something.”
“No, but I did.” Wren crossed the room as fast as she could with a baby clinging along for the ride and snatched up Aramys’ hand, pressing a kiss to the back, “I love you.”
“I love you t--” Aramys narrowed her eyes, “Ah-ah you’ve got a look in your eyes...?”
Wren pulled back, forming her expression into one of innocence. “Oops, I left a lipstick stain on the back of your hand. Looks like you have to stay a minute and wash it off.”
Looking between her hand and Wren, Aramys pursed her lips before marching off to the sink.
As if on habit on the way back to the door, Aramys paused to balance on her tiptoes and press a farewell kiss to Wren’s lips. Only for her fellow sith to slip to the side and press a quick kiss at the corner of her mouth.
Wren drew back, her hand flitting up to brush across where she had just kissed. This time she couldn’t hold back her mischievous smile, “Ah another one...my mistake.”
“Wren!” Aramys chastised, though she couldn’t keep the amusement out of her voice. Enthused by the presence of her mother remaining, Danna reaching out for Aramys with what could only be described as gimme-gimme hands.
Eyes flitting between Danna and Wren, Aramys’ expression turned thoughtful. Her eyes drifted then to the chrono and her lips pursed, eyebrows furrowing in the absolutely adorable thinking expression that Wren had become well acquainted with.
“I’m cancelling my meetings.” Aramys decided bluntly.
Wren blinking, surprised what had been a teasing, playful ploy had worked. “Darling I--don’t let me--”
“Nope,” Aramys said firmly, grabbing her datapad, sparing Wren a dazzling smile, “Definitely cancelling my meetings.”
