5 ⧽. is there a certain kind of fic that feels the most satisfying to finish? any reason why?
I mean, long ones, obviously. But even moreso, I think fics where I’m aiming for a specific tone—emotion, writing style, theme, all tangled together into an aura pervading the whole fic—and I nail it. I’ve certainly only ever accomplished that, or even attempted it, on shorter fics.
Tanoraqui’s Top ‘Nailed the Vibe Check’ Self-Recs:
In Which Space Orcs are Men, a scifi take (‘humans are space orcs’ minigenre, specifically) on the prophecied apocalypse of The Silmarillion. 4.4k.
The Second Party, Silm/LotR, the last night of the Third Age of Middle Earth, in an au in which Maglor was adopted by hobbits. (Prequel is advised reading, but not strictly necessary.) 3.1k.
Brier vs the Lords of the Forest, Kencyrath faerie tale au featuring, if I may toot my horn even further, some lovely sensory description. 7.9k.
On the Subject of Falling, Girl Genius, Tarvek dreams before waking up from the timestop & poison. 3.4k.
for your ask meme, abduction and/or possession, Kindrie and/or Kirien
Duck! cried Kirien's ride-along angel.
Three days into the strangest week of her life. Kirien flung herself to the slightly grimy floor of the 7-11 without question.
So she dodged the first imp—red, bat wings, shrieking and venomous, the whole hellish shebang—which would have soared through the automatic doors and crashed straight into her head.
Unfortunately, it put her directly in the path of the second imp. Shrilling like a gleeful fire alarm, it latched onto her leg and started biting the shit out of her shin, straight through her jeans.
Sorry, sorry! Kindrie said frantically. The growing wound barely hurt, as divine magic flooded it healed just as fast as the imp could bite. Kirien's leg felt warm and shone white through the increasingly tattered denim.
That was great, because it freed Kirien's attention for groping around for a weapon, preferably without topping the tire shelf of snacks and shampoos on top of all of them. She was shrieking, too—three days was not enough to adapt to living in an urban fantasy adventure. Subjects of investigative journalism were supposed to just evade your calls, not send hellspawn after you!
That conditioner was in a metal bottle! Kirien grabbed it and brought it down on the head of the imp on her leg. The cheap aluminum bottle crumpled, but so did the imp's skull.
Duck! Kindrie shouted again, and Kirien didn't think—she just rolled over, covered the back of her head with one arm, and pulled the drugstore display rack down on top of her back.
The avalanche of haircare products and bags of chips finished crashing down on her, followed immediately by the dull points of the rack itself. But a lucky edge must've clipped the airborne imp, sending it careening over her again like a Doppler siren.
The 7-11 clerk was also shouting, now, and running out from behind the counter. That was bad, because it meant they were the biggest and loudest moving target when the next monster crashed through the front doors—literally crashed, too fast for the auto-open. The glass panes and metal bars didn't stand a chance against the hulking, snarling, black thing that wasn't a dog, wasn't really anything else, and drooled fire with a slavering hunger.
It actually came through backwards, knocked over several more racks of clattering goods and hit the ground with a crack that would've broken bones, if hellhounds had bones. In an instant, it was on its feet with its burning jaws in the screaming clerk's midriff.
Hellhounds can be distracted, but they don't stop until they've gotten their target or been utterly destroyed, Kindrie said urgently.
"I know, I know," Kirien muttered, patting herself frantically for her phone. It had the map of the sewers she'd downloaded yesterday. They'd trapped that last hellhound—this hellhound again, presumably, because they hadn't actually destroyed it—in a sewage tank—
A second hellhound ran into the shop and sank its fangs into the first hellhound's shoulder. This one's eyes were a little more gold than yellow; otherwise they were identical, as they turned on each other in a snarling, savage ball of biting shadow-stuff.
Kirien had no idea what was going on now, even more than usual. But a person was dying of a gaping gut wound and she could channel healing magic. So she wiggled her way out from under her turtle shell of a display rack and crawled through scattered 7-11 goods to the clerk, narrowly dodging around the spinning coil of battling hellhounds.
The clerk was gasping and weeping, silent with shock, hands fluttering weakly over their burnt and savaged abdomen.
"Sorry," said Kirien, and did her best to drag them back to the shelter of the counter. "You break into one corporate office, and find a secret room with an elaborate arcane sigil on the floor, and—"
She was babbling, because the alternative was looking at the literally visible intestines. Even Kirien's curiosity had limits.
It's going to be okay, Kindrie promised. We have strength enough for this. Kirien could feel his uncertainty with the whole situation, mirroring hers, but for the task at hand there was only confidence, approval, and gratitude. Her hands started to glow white, and she could feel wings unfurling in her soul like a gentle hug around her shoulders, and a pianist cracking knuckles before a difficult piece. Just lay your hands on the edge of the wound, and—
"And what have we here?"
A low, throaty voice purred in Kirien's ear. She whirled with another shriek, open hand turning into a frantic fist.
The woman behind her caught her wrist in an unworried grasp. Her hand wrapped entirely around Kirien's thin wrist, trapping it in an iron cage tipped with black claws. She was broad-shouldered, tall even when crouching, with fire-red hair and eyes as solidly pitch-black as her claws.
I know you said it'd draw on my life force, but actual real divine smiting would be GREAT right now! Kirien thought desperately at her angel, facing her first real, actual had-to-be demon.
Kindrie did the weird little mental shoulder-tap that meant he'd like to take control of her body, and Kirien did the weird little mental slide-aside that let him—though she noticed in the last split second that instead of scared or battle-ready, the entity she'd semi-released from a giant magical circle in Rawneth Randir's secret back office was suddenly overwhelmingly relieved.
"Jame!" he cried with Kirien's mouth. "Thank goodness you're here. It's me!"
@thelordofgifs tagged me to share "some sentences" from a WIP (side note: I love how far this has devolved from neat tag memes like "Five-Sentence Friday" or even "WIP Wednesday). As it so happens, I spent yesterday and today writing a short little thing for the Chronicles of the Kencyrath, so here it is in full! Tagging @finxwrites, @smallblueandloud and @words-writ-in-starlight to go next if you want :)
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Smothering, twisting darkness swirled around them in a dancing duel with silver-pale weirding mist, and the mist was winning. Where it cleared away the taint and then itself, it revealed a silent battlefield—exhausted, watching the center where the Tyr-Ridan stood, the living all still alive for now and the dead all staying dead at last. Rathilien was saved. Perimal Darkling was destroyed.
Yet darkness still loomed in front of them, utter, absolute Darkness. Ahead and behind. The ground had stopped shaking—Mother Ragga stood watching with the rest, not far away. But something still shifted unsteadily beneath Jame’s feet. Some loose thread—loose steering rope, loose fate whipping in the winds of history—was left untied.
"We have to go back." Her lips were numb with the realization. "We have to go back and start it all."
Kindrie shouted, a wordless rathorn cry of grief beyond endurance. He turned away and strode to where Kirien stood, not far behind them (or maybe distance hadn't mattered in…about as long as time hadn’t mattered).
He took her in his arms and kissed her fiercely, then pressed their foreheads gently together. The serpent cloak on his shoulders wrapped around them both.
Jame looked away to give them their privacy.
The final battlefield was full of friends and loved ones, kith and kin, more alive than she would have expected. Timmon and Gorbel were leaning heavily on one another, as were Trishien and Dianthe of Danior, all surrounded by Kendar of a melange of houses. Randiroc’s jewel-jaws were feasting on his corpse, which was fair. A few steps away, Death’s-head had started eating the Dark Judge’s corpse, which would probably give him indigestion. Before Ashe had finally gone still with the rest of the haunts, she’d sat back to back with Harn, who was gritting his teeth over a mangled forearm while Sheth, kneeling beside them, tore and tied his black coat into a hasty tourniquet.
The Kencyr had gathered closest to their lords and lady, but they were far from alone on the field. Gran Cyd bent a bloody-speared Chingetai into a passionate kiss and showed no sign of stopping. Wolvers began to howl, a rippling harmony of triumph tinged with mourning. An assortment of Tai-tastigonian gods, Bashti ancestors and other deities still ran amok, mopping up shadows with spears, fire, frying pans and odder weapons, egged on by Old Man Tishoo soaring above. Through the howling chorus, Jame heard a distinct quonk! Further yet, Arribek sen Tenzi was already stalking around, rallying his hillmen for whatever came next.
He wasn’t the only one. Countless people looked back at Jame and in their eyes she could see that one word from her, the slightest nod, and despite their wounds, exhaustion, and dawning sense of relief, they would stand and follow unflinchingly into the darkness. Brier was already getting to her feet, with blood coating her side and a mulish set to her chin. Yce was glaring past Jame, past Tori, straight into the heart of Perimal Darkling, teeth bared and legs coiled to pounce on the enemy that still hadn’t fully vacated her territory.
Kindrie let go of Kirien at last, and she of him. As he walked back to his cousins, the serpentine Cloak pressed closer and closer to his skin until it sank in completely, leaving only a ghost of snakes’ heads at his shoulders. As it faded, Kindrie shone brighter and brighter, with a white light so pure that it burned Jame’s eyes.
She turned away, and dropped the ivory Knife from her right hand. It disappeared into the shadows curling around her feet and never landed; in its place her claws slid out, longer and sharper and more natural-feeling than ever before. Each would be deadly with only a scratch.
As usual, Torisen was the last to join them. He hasn’t reacted at all to Jame’s words; his head was bowed over the Book still open in his hands, his shoulders hunched.
With a deep breath, he straightened. The Book flared and fell into ashes in his hands. The fire licked down the bonds that tied the Knorth to their lord, and the Kencyrath to their Highlord, and set them all loose before any could be drawn into the Darkness before the three of them. Pure Creation remained, unbound, and the Kenthiar on his neck blazed as brightly silver as his open eyes.
Jame snapped her few bonds with a flick of her wrist, as easy as breathing for Destruction incarnate. With her other hand, she turned her claws carefully away one last time as she took her brother’s scarred hand, and leaned her shoulder against his. Her odd, black-purple glow was dark against his silver, though still bright against the Darkness.
On her other side, Preservation gripped the loose sleeve of her d’hen, just in case the road was rough.
And so the three faces of the Kencyr god, Torrigien, Regonereth and Argentiel, walked out of Rathilien and into the Darkness beyond worlds, beyond time.
A little while later and thirty thousand years earlier, the Three-Faced god bound together the Kendar, the Arrin-ken, the in-between race that would be known as Highborn, and the short gray folk who had always called themselves Builders, and charged them to fight the purest malevolence of entropy until it was defeated—and then upon its defeat, to the stupefaction of many on a small, divinity-packed world far down the Chain of Creation, released them all at last.
Tori would do nothing for a Klondike bar. Tori has never heard of Klondike bars. Jame, however, would trip - literally - into an alternate dimension where there are Klondike bars, befriend a couple local divinities, infuriate a couple other local divinities, semi-accidentally help somebody stage a coup, scandalize any Kendar who'd managed to follow her here, and return with several crates of Klondike bars. She sends one of them to Tori with a letter explaining that she thinks these may be useful for feeding their people through the upcoming winter; also that she accidentally hastened the advent of the apocalypse again by personally punching Gerridon in the face (again) (it was during the coup. don't worry about it!).
Tori may or may not read the letter. He takes a bite of one of the Klondike bars and concludes that they're good, and sends them to the kitchens to see if they can be replicated in some way, lest everyone starve this winter. He sends one to the college at Mount Albion to see if they can do it, too.
Kirien writes back that she's set the appropriate scholars on it, and by the way why isn't Tori writing about Kindrie's arrival in Gothregor? He set out two months ago.
(Kindrie has been kidnapped again. He does not get a Klondike bar.)
ideas for future Kencyrath books somewhere between predictions and concepts that just make me feral:
Sheth Sharp-tongue publicly breaks with Caineron and immediately turns around - literally, physically, 180 degrees turns around - and offers his bond to Jame
Jame vs Keral fight and he's winning, Jame is knocked back, injured - and Shade steps in between them, calls Keral "Grandfather" and kicks his fucking ass (or, buys Jame time to get back on her feet, and then they kick his ass together). Alternately: Shade calls him "Grandfather" after kicking his ass, and just before sliding a white knife into his heart
Gerridon attempts to "Luke, I am your father" Kindrie. Kindrie responds with approximately, "Yeah, well, you sucked at it. Now get the fuck away from my cousins."
Rawneth attempting to mess with someone's soul-image and Kindrie quite simply stops her. ("She can create and destroy and you can only heal" my ass.) I'm open to both Kindrie having a dream!flamethrower to destroy her webs as soon as she spins them, but I'm partial to her threads not even being able to find purchase because Kindrie is standing there, arms crossed, Preserving this place against her.
Tori resting his hand on something - earth, an old wooden door, weary ancient stones - and growing a plant out of it.
The highlord's council chamber in Gothregor transformed into a war room, as the final battle descends upon the Riverlands. Tori standing at Marc's window, one hand against the colored glass, stretching his sight and reporting in a slightly distant voice that the haunts have finished with Shadow Rock, they'll be at Falkirr soon; Restomir is still holding out...the Southern Host is holding the Karnids well at the Cataracts, but shadow-clad reinforcements are coming from the desert...while Burr or maybe Jame or Rowan makes grim notes on the more standard map spread across the table. Maybe Mother Ragga is there as well, co-directing, if Tori's vision is limited to his blood-marked keeps.
Jame dancing the senetha with the elemental Four of Rathilien. Swift but sturdy movements with the Earth Mother, stomping the ground in time. Flowing turns and curves with the Eaten One, as the River Snake roars. Playful twists and deadly scours as the Falling Man blows in, out, and around the pattern she weaves. Leaping with the Burning Man, through flames and with them, just barely mirrored dance rather than combat. And the world turns around them...
Lyra Lack-wit and her antics somehow being absolutely instrumental to the saving of the Chain of Creation.
