#tinyancientone amren

[editoress]

Is it too late for me to request a ficlet? I'm feeling kinda shitty and your fics always help. Just like...pick one of these, I don't even care: RhysKat, RiddleKat, CobbleKat, or Victor/Me? Just something short. Something cute?

Katie was a night owl by nature but not always in practice.  Like everyone else, she had business to conduct during the day and had resigned herself to an earlier schedule than she might have had otherwise.  Victor was a habitual night owl.  He was always up late.  But the man was simply not built for it.

Victor endeavored not to sleep at all, and the results left him haggard.  The shadows under his eyes could be mistaken for bruises some days.  Katie tried to pester him into sleeping, but though he didn’t argue, exactly, it never worked.

So when Katie woke up on the couch one afternoon to feel a warm weight against her side, she thought she was dreaming.

Victor was leaning against her, dead asleep.  He was not handsome: his hair was even more disheveled than usual, stuck up where it caught on her sleeve, and his pale face was slack.  One shoulder was hunched so far inward that it nearly rested against Katie as well, and his fingertips were still curled around the cover of one of his precious semi-philosophical textbooks.  To all appearances, he had passed out from sheer exhaustion.

Katie carefully shifted to curl her arm around him and let his head better rest on her shoulder.  With her other hand, she tugged the throw blanket from atop the couch to drape it haphazardly over him.  After a moment of careful consideration, she kissed the top of his head.

At least she knew how to get him to sleep now.

[editoress]

Cassian/Nesta: "You ripped my favorite bodice!" | CobbleKat: "I can't sleep lately." | and for the hell of it and old time's sake - Kate/Renfield: "I'm sorry, what?"

“You ripped my favorite bodice!” shouted Cassian’s voice from two rooms over.

Azriel halfway looked up from his book in dawning horror and frowned, calculating the odds of his being able to just ignore it.

“Are you complaining right now?”

“I really liked it---though---I also enjoy it off---”

No, Azriel had to leave, right now, immediately.

“I can’t sleep lately,” Katie admitted as Oswald peered right onto her face and turned her head this way and that.  She was irritated and debating whether to bring up his hypocrisy---she might have bags under her eyes, but she still looked less frazzled than he did on any given day.

“Well, why didn’t you say something?” he demanded.

“I just did,” she muttered, pursing her lips.

Oswald’s expression turned comically uncertain, but his voice was firm when he replied, “I’ll make you some hot cocoa.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Would you,” Kate repeated evenly, “like to come to the show with me?”

“Oh,” Renfield said as though he understood, but his face clearly said he didn’t.  “Accompany you to...”

“As a date,” she clarified.

“Oh,” he said again, and this time he meant it.

[editoress]

Let's try something new here. Me/Victor Frankenstein (wee babby version that I sent you, just play guesswork): "I guess it isn't THAT bad..."

“I guess it isn’t that bad,” Victor managed.

Normally Katie might be happy to hear those words, but when Victor was bent on a project, he rarely ever agreed with her so easily.  When he did, it was because he had burned himself out beyond recognizing what was being said to him---possibly beyond knowing what he himself was saying.  He needed rest, and Katie would be sure he got some, just as soon as she took advantage of the situation.

“I do love you, Victor,” she told him as matter-of-factly as she could manage.

His head bobbed twice in a serious nod, and he replied just as matter-of-factly, “Well, of course, I love you too.”

[editoress]

Name: Catriona / Setting: The lands outside Prythian - she's not fae, but she's not human. Have at it!

Catriona is the daughter of two high fae of the continent, in the mountains.  She’s the spitting image of them, with her slightly tan skin and angled amber eyes—which is funny because she’s not related to them by blood.  She’s a changeling of sorts, stolen away from her human parents as an infant.

But the scent of iron and a childhood surrounded by magic didn’t make her anything more than human.  What did that was her own decision.  She has always been able to use magic—not in the effortless way of will that true fae have, but through study and research.  No one looks down on humanity more than Catriona, and from a young age she’s been struggling not to be one of them.  She thought she finally found a way to change herself, not by high fae gifts but by herself.

It didn’t work out.  Who knows what she is now.  But it’s not human anymore.

[editoress]

Amren x Flynn: "Dance with me."

“Dance with me,” Flynn said, voice bright and bold like it was less an invitation and more a friendly challenge.

Amren’s eyes narrowed.  “You have to be joking.”

“Not at all.  Listen---this song is perfect.”

Amren would never agree with him out loud, but she did dance with him.

[editoress]

Lucien x Elain: "What type of flower is this?"

“What type of flower is this?” Lucien asked.

Lucien was of the particular opinion that one flower was as good as any other, and though his work at the Spring Court required he be able to tell the difference, Cauldron take him if he cared a whit about the seemingly endless list of flower names.  But more and more often lately he found himself asking about them.

It was probably had something to do with the way Elain’s shyness melted away whenever she talked about plants.  She would babble for hours about them, pointing out the coloring and smell of this and that, which ones liked sunlight and which preferred shade.

Lucien loved listening to her, but to his utter consternation, he still didn’t know what her favorite flower was.

[editoress]

Rhys x Me: "I thought *I* was a bad dancer..."

“I thought I was a bad dancer...” Katie mused innocuously in a perfect stage murmur.

Rhys narrowed his eyes (dark blue in the shadows) at her.  “Everyone can hear you, you know.”

“Oh, I know,” she said breezily, “I just wanted them to look at us dancing.”

Rhys spun her around gracefully but accidentally kicked her foot.  Katie started to laugh, but he pulled her closer, cheek to cheek, and informed her, “They’re already looking.”