#pt ficlet

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Fakiru: Le Belle et la Bete

(By this request, I wasn’t quite sure whether you meant the old “Beauty and the Beast” fairy tale or the 1946 French movie of the same name.  I decided to go with the former, since the movie was based on the fairy tale anyway, so sorry if got it wrong…)

Fakir sometimes wondered why he ever bothered running from anything at all—from his sadist of a great-grandfather, from the front lines of a war he couldn’t give two shits about, from the soldiers baying for his blood because of it—when he inevitably found himself trapped all over again somewhere else because of it; this time, his chains came in the form of the cold emptiness of his stomach plaguing him for days on end and sapping strength from his limbs, with no reprieve to be seen in the winter landscape…until, impossibly, through the brittle gates to an overgrown, abandoned garden, there they were: a small cluster of what could only be late-season rose hips, clustered beside a bright bloom seemingly preserved by the sudden cold.  He squeezed through the not-quite-closed gates and fumbled for the fruits with hands made clumsy by cold and hunger, not even noticing when his movements dislodged the single remaining rose—until he heard the shriek of disused metal as the gates closed of their own accord, locking him within the garden’s towering walls.  ”Oh, I guess you have to stay, now…” a little voice spoke from beneath the rosebush, and for one wild moment Fakir wondered if he had encroached on Faerie; the little blue-eyed duck that waddled out, still chattering, seemingly trying to reassure him he wouldn’t be ill-treated (the large manor-house done up like a medieval castle was far warmer on the inside than it looked, there were living puppets for servants, and this would probably only last a year and a day so there wasn’t reason to worry overmuch) did little to ease his nerves, but he had to admit that all the running had left him exhausted and when the duck (Ahiru, she introduced herself) fluttered up to perch on his shoulder, the warmth of her small body was oddly comforting in spite—surely, of course, not because—of the lilting voice that tumbled out of it like spring rain, and he found himself thinking that staying in one place for a while might not be so bad.

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Fakiru college AU?

(For this, I imagined Fakir as being in his first year of grad school (projecting? what’s that? XD) and Ahiru as being an undergraduate junior or senior, both at the same school, of course.  Sorry Fakir, but if I have to suffer then so do you >D)

Fakir looked at the clock and barely stifled a groan, finally forcing himself to come to terms with the fact that nothing he’d been reading within the last half-hour had really stuck—it was times like this he wondered what had possessed him to pursue two Master’s degrees at once—and reluctantly set down his study materials before arching into a stretch; the last few days had been hellish and he could feel himself starting to fray around the edges, and to make it worse he was damn hungry now, but the thought of dredging up the willpower to actually cook something was…he grimaced.  He was just starting to weigh his desire for a hot meal against his desire to avoid expending any more neural energy when a few short taps sounded against the door before Ahiru stepped into his tiny studio apartment, carrying a plastic bag that radiated the scent of take-out Chinese and chirping something about deciding to surprise him with dinner since he’d been so busy lately and she didn’t have any exams to study for until next week anyway.  For a moment, Fakir could only stare (fuck, his girlfriend was a saint, a goddamn guardian angel, she’d never been more beautiful to him, and he wondered if they canonized people for things like this); he snapped out of it as she made to move past him to the card table and set of stools that occasionally functioned as a dining area, pulling her down for a grateful kiss that only half-muffled her startled quack.

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Fakiru, Pushing Daisies AU?

(*rises from the dark depths of grad school* I LIVE!! And I’m finally getting around to these prompts; sorrysorrysorry for the wait!  For this one, I couldn’t help but think of Fakir as being more of an Emerson Cod than a Ned—minus the unrepentant greed, of course.  Onwards!)

Fakir begrudgingly admitted he was impressed when Ahiru didn’t faint upon the alive-againing of the the flamboyant young man in the morgue, courtesy of the princely piemaker—God knew that he, a thoroughly hardboiled PI, had made a rather embarrassing noise that was not squeak-like in any way the first time he had seen the process up close—and he allowed himself a small surge of second-hand pride at her unexpectedly steely nerves.  Still, they certainly owed it to the small redheaded waitress to let her in the the secrets she had known they’d been keeping from her, especially with her insisting non-stoop he take her on as his partner in criminal investigation (and he couldn’t begin to imagine where that had come from, though he had to acknowledge that her people skills far exceeded his own—in just a few seconds, she had the alive-again socialite babbling about bulls and sins and a life-long valet, Suspect Number One, now), and she had proven herself to be dependable and downright tenacious in the past when she had assisted in their endeavors from the periphery.  That didn’t mean he had to rejoice in her involvement in such dangerous work, however, in spite (or because) of his ever-growing soft spot for her, and so as they left the morgue and piled into the car, formulating leads to track and courses of action to take, when she inevitably turned hopeful eyes to him he, already knowing he was on this losing side of this particular battle, could only answer one way: “Oh, hell no!”

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Any Princess Tutu pairing: arranged marriage

(The main pairings in this are, of course, Fakiru and Ruetho, but after first jotting this down I realized that it could very well imply pretty much any combination, if you like~!  In case it’s not obvious, this is another medieval-ish one; the age of majority tended to be twenty-one, but this was simply when an heir could legally inherit property.  And the fun thing I learned while studying the Middle Ages in school was that, while plenty of marriages were technically arranged, both bride and groom had their ways of making sure they’d end up with people they actually liked; they were a tricky bunch back then XD)

When Prince Mytho had proclaimed he would not take a wife until his milk-brother, best friend and chief knight did—a supposed assurance he would not need to tamper in dynastic politics too soon, since Fakir showed no romantic interest in anyone, and just as much interest in the idea of marriage—he had been almost certain he would be old, wise, and properly battle-hardened before ever needing to jump into that fray.  So it came as something of a shock when, before even reaching his majority, his council of advisors blithely informed him they had found a lady and her favorite handmaiden from a strategically and politically advantageous region who had been convinced to enter into marriage with them both; almost as shocking as seeing Fakir interact with his bride-to-be with more passion in his voice and eyes than the knight usually displayed in a month, or meeting the crimson eyes of his own intended and suddenly realizing he wanted to know everything about her he could ever hope to learn.  His unexpected happiness at the situation made the conspiratorial winks between the other three easy to shrug off—and, really, if it just so happened that Fakir had fallen for the red-headed maiden some time ago, or that her lady had likewise taken notice of himself back during his first tournament, then all that meant was that their planning and luck had brought about the simultaneous joy of four people, and he was more than fine with that.

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Give me Fakiru in another historical era (your choice)!

(Second ficlet down!  Have some Third Crusade-ish stuff~!  Just a warning, maybe: I do use the word “Saracen” as a historical term, since it originally denoted simply a person, usually one of Muslim descent, from the area now called the Middle East.  While it’s negativity was somewhat ambivalent back in the day—there are a number of romances which celebrate the valor of Saracen “knights” and the virtue of Saracen ladies—these days it’s often seen as almost (?) a slur, so apologies in advance of that causes any offense.)

Ahiru decided she had had quite enough of her ill-conceived “adventure” after the emperor managed to get himself drowned in some piddly little river, and she only kept to her usual place at the tail end of the army as far as Antioch; she was getting sick of trying to pass herself off as another peasant boy in search of his fortune, and of the the nobles and their habits, and of battles that bore more resemblance to the petty raids and blood feuds of her homeland than to supposedly “noble” chivalric combat.  So then why, by all the saints—“Hey, you were supposed to puck up more writing supplies and candles, you can’t be back this soon…”—did she choose to seek employment in the the house of some German-Saracen knight who’d never been further west than the Levant shore of the Mediterranean, who didn’t even have a lady to justify her presence there?  She mumbled something about the apricots looking too good to pass up, and besides it wasn’t like he didn’t have stores of that stuff tucked away just in case; the small, brief smile that rippled across his lips (an expression she’d realized some time ago he only seemed to grace her with) before his face settled into its habitual serious cast was enough to answer her question.

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I'd love to see your take on Adventure Time Fakiru, please! :D

(First ficlet away~!  This may or may not be exactly what you had in mind, since once I remembered that the Mushroom War was a Thing this…took a bit of a different direction ^^;)

The difference between the world as it was and world as it is now is…rather stunning—they’re used to the idea of talking animals and princesses around every corner, but not so much to rainicorns, sentient candy, or some of the odder technology, to say nothing of the eerie, shattered remains of a more familiar civilization it’s all too easy to stumble across.  On the plus side, the utter strangeness of the new order means that nobody bats an eyelash (or equivalent) when Fakir spasms from millennial oak tree to human and the single acorn on what had been one of his highest branches cracks open to let Ahiru—first light, then a duck, then a girl shedding feathers—leak out; if anything, the news they had witnessed the Mushroom War, and that they are both human, more or less, causes a far greater stir.  The enthusiastic boy with the bear hat takes an especial shine to them, and before they know it he’s procured a charming little lakeside cottage for them—he says something about needing to slay a whole nest of demonically-possessed sausage links which had established it as a gang headquarters first, which they decide not to question—which is just enough like the home they can never go back to, impromptu cricket orchestras notwithstanding (they’re perfect for dancing to, anyway), that they can look at each other and share a smile and know they’ll be alright.

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I did a thing

(The other night I was asked to do another one of the 3-sentence meme fics for another fairy tale, and at the time I was caught between Little Red Riding Hood and Rapunzel; the former soon won out, of course.  But today's class was super boring, the Rapunzel idea didn't quit skittering around my brain, and I've recently come into possession of a little moleskine notebook that's unobtrusive enough for me to scribble in in public without feeling weird, so this happened!)

She cut her hair off with the tiny silver scissors she used for thread, and it took hours, the delicate blades unable to handle more than a few strands at a time; she felt dizzy and ungrounded after is was gone, and when she hung the mass of it from the hook and let it unfurl to the ground like a narrow slice of sunset it felt like she was looking a finger she accidentally hacked off due to a bout of carelessness while chopping vegetables.  It also felt like she should have done it long ago--when she was still a child, the prodigious, unnatural length of her tresses already dangling halfway down the tower; when Fakir had first appeared at its base, proclaiming with great annoyance that, as her attempts at melody more resembled the discordant quacking of ducks, perhaps she should leave the business of singing to the songbirds; when he had first climbed into her tower; when their meetings had turned secret and shadowed, full of words and actions which made her flush lantern-bright in the the moonlight even when he was not there--but she couldn't change the past.  Now, her lover was torn and bloody and blinded somewhere out in the wilderness, and he had every intention of finding him, nor would she allow her captor to keep her from him--and so she took hold of the severed rope of her hair, blood-bright in the pre-dawn shadows, the strands which had brought and bound her love to her and which would now return him to her keeping, and descended into the world.

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I'd love to see another Fakiru fairy tale thing!

(Sorry for the lateness!  And look at that, I almost, almost, smutted! :D  But I’m guessing that comes as a natural consequence of doing a fic based off the older version(s) of Little Red Riding Hood~ :3)

Ever since they had first bumped into each other all those years ago—and quite literally: a full-moon night always left Fakir drained and less observant than usual, and she was never the most attentive person to her surroundings, though she knew the old tales well enough that she could tell what he was after only a few conversations—Ahiru had been willing, even eager, to run whatever errands might take her through the forest; the other villagers gave her odd looks and a wide berth because of it, but that just made it easier to meet with her lycanthropic…friend.  Well, maybe it was time to amend that title, if the way he was watching her now was any indication—though it had been raining awfully hard and he was right, she wouldn’t be needing all of those wet layers if she wanted to get warm, and the sight of him divested of his own soaking shirt was certainly helping with that, as was the restless heat that seemed to course through her ever more intensely with each article she removed.  But that was nothing compared to when she felt his roughened palm against her skin, first brushing and hesitant, then worshipful, almost desperate when she moved closer to him; nor to the feeling of his lips meeting hers with what could only be the sweetest adoration, and she couldn’t help but remember all the warnings of her childhood—don’t go out there alone, the wolves will get you, they’ll gobble you up—and think that she wouldn’t mind being devoured by this one.