Speedwriting for Great Justice

This is an ask blog run by Ayankun! Now accepting (League) fic prompts of 400 words or less - please see additional guidelines before sending in your requests. <3 Words Logged: 18830

[writefastdienever]

250 Words: There are some types of booze Vi can't drink anymore because they taste like bad memories.

The waiter brings the wine and the butterflies in Vi’s stomach break out their baseball bats and go to town on her guttyworks.  Caitlyn notices her flinch – ace detective, of course she does – but Vi grins, breathes through her nose, tries to swallow against the noxious way her head is swimming.  

Be cool.  

This is their first date – first real date – and it’s supposed to be fancy and perfect and, above all, puke-free.

But as she copycats Cait and swirls the blood-red poison in her glass, the smell of it almost puts her on the ground.  Jaw clenched, gut knotted, that foolhardy grin tightening into a garish horror-house leer, Vi holds her breath and –

“Vi–” Caitlyn’s hand darts across the table.  Her fingers lay lightly on the back of Vi’s white-knuckled claw that’s this close to snapping the glass stem in two.

Putting the wine back down on the table feels like a stay of execution.  She’d push it away, too, but Cait chose the restaurant, chose the wine….  

Only Caitlyn’s too smart, too good, too perfect to think that Vi might be pushing her away, and their hands stay folded together on the table.

Vi, mortified, rolls her thoughts around, hoping one might shake loose so that she can explain herself.  But how does she explain that, for all her maverick ways, she’d do anything to be esteemed in the eyes of the right person?  

–Even if, as her nauseous memories would tell it, that person’s the wrong one.

[writefastdienever]

Sona/Ahri - Sona proves to Ahri music doesn't need words to be beautiful (~350)

The beat pounds through the studio floor like a living thing.  It resonates in the hollow of Ahri’s throat, overriding her own heartbeat with its insistent rhythm.  She lets it.

For Ahri, rehearsing choreography is almost mediation.  A pure zen experience, one which blends driving percussion with airy synth riffs with Ahri herself; every step, breath, turn, and smoky-eyed pout synced perfectly with all things.

On top of that, because the stage demands her best, Ahri internalizes the mastered vocals of her bandmates, matching her harmonies to their melodies and feeling for the moment when she has to fill the pre-chorus lull with words that are hers alone.  

“So keep your eyes on me, now,” she sings into a silent, dark room.

She blinks into the blackness, ears buzzing with white noise, realizing after a disconcerting moment that the power’s gone out.

Ahri waits another minute, listening to the sound of her breath echoing off the unseen walls and the tap-tap-tap of her sneaker against the floor.

Nothing changes except her eyes start to see shades of gray amongst the black, and her ears prick up as she suddenly detects a melody cutting through the stillness.

It’s piano music, coming from one of the smaller practice rooms down the hall, and Ahri’s surprised to find that it’s an instrumental version of the song she was just rehearsing.  It must be an overzealous studio musician, the final track hasn’t even dropped yet.

Ahri listens, curious and captivated, drawn inexorably towards the source, and finally pushes the door open only when the piece has ended.

“Mind if I join you?” she asks into the room, and like magic, the lights smash back on.  Oh.  It’s the quiet one who watches everything and says nothing.  The one with the pretty name.

Sona – isn’t it? – just looks up at her from the piano with an unspoken question of her own posed in the way her hands hover over the keys.

The raucous bass-synth of the original track starts to pulse in from the hallway.  Ahri smiles and answers by closing the door behind her.

[writefastdienever]

85 Words: Karma uses a phrase that Riven's heard from other lips long, long ago, and it drags her back to the past suddenly.

The air gets stuck in her throat, mostly smoke now with the sun rising over the charred skeletons of the village.  She’s standingat a scorched stone gateway, looking down at the smoldering timbers and tryingto forget the night.

“Smile,Commander!” one of her men cajoles as he strolls past, bag of loot in hand.  “It’s ours now.”

Riven smiles automatically,choking out the memory of another bloody conquest.

“Did you hear me?”Karma asks, holding open the freshly painted gate, “It’s ours now.”

[writefastdienever]

100 words: Riven learns that Irelia and Karma aren't new to this whole poly triad thing. They had another lover once, a few years ago... before she died to Noxian blades.

Riven knocks onceon their dorm room before letting herself in. It’s dark – are Karma and Irelia out?

She drops herscarf on the table next to the futon, knocking over a small picture frame.  Righting it, she realizes it’s the old pictureof her girlfriends with their arms around someone she’s never met.  A girl in a hockey jersey that matches Irelia’s.

Riven frowns,turning slowly to the calendar on the wall. Today’s date is circled in blue and damn she should haveremembered.  Of course she wasn’t invitedto the hospital.

She doesn’t waitfor them to return.

[writefastdienever]

Riven gets Karma to waterfall-meditate with her. She gets distracted. (+200)

Back straight, shoulders squared, chin up, mind clear.

Riven breathes easier than she has in months – maybe years – the crushing weight of the waterfall helping her stay invigorated rather than numbed.  Well, besting the challenge is one fragment of the tender peace she’s found, but Riven owes even more to the woman seated at her side.

Karma has different ideas about how best to weather the torrent.  She’s chanting some unheard mantra under her breath, her will manifested as a gossamer-thin and iron-strong barrier keeping her dry as the Shuriman desert.

Back straight, shoulders squared, chin up, Riven’s mind wanders.

She thinks about how close they’ve grown, how connected; about the way Karma always has the right words ready to slay her lingering doubt, or how she can sense what Riven needs without being told.  She thinks about Karma’s rich voice whispering low in her ear while those magic hands roam–

The barrier flickers out, water dropping over Karma with a sudden crash.  She splutters forward, Riven reaching through her disoriented flail to pull her out from the unforgiving deluge.  “Distracted?”

Karma whips her hair back and gives an easy, breathless laugh, “I should say so!”

Riven grins.  “Me, too.”

[writefastdienever]

Plot twist 250 words: There is a possessive hunger to Irelia's grip and it does far more for her than shes willing to admit. (Pup doesn't have a problem.... )

Katarina would sooner die than kneel before an Ionian.  Although putting it in those terms is bullshit, too – more like she’d rather kill an Ionian than speak to one.  She rarely exchanges words with Irelia but killing her proves to be more trouble than it’s worth, so she settles for what she can get.

Irelia is passionate, vivid, wild, nothing but hatred in her eyes and bloodlust on her lips and Katarina is addicted.  More often than not she’s also infuriated; Irelia doesn’t tire, doesn’t falter, doesn’t hold back until Katarina is dizzy, breathless, and thoroughly subdued.

When Irelia kicks her to the ground, something inside Katarina goes slick and dark like oil waiting for ignition.  Irelia’s got a hand in her hair, jarring her to her knees.  The blade paused at her throat thrums with anticipation, begging for her blood.  The seconds stretch on with the tension ramping up and up until Irelia’s hand twists and Katarina’s skin breaks ever so slightly and that’s all it takes to set them both ablaze.

Katarina would sooner have the tables turned, but the fist in her hair and the ardent emerald glower holding her in her place insist that this is the best she’s going to get.  After all, there are countless ways to administer death, and Katarina is just as versed in this as she is the others.

She’ll get hers soon enough.  Life’s too short and too bloody and too beautiful to worry about who gets to go first.

[writefastdienever]

50 Words: Caitlyn has an old piano at her place - Vi has never seen a real one before.

Caitlyn had fostered a pup once; she’d find it cowering in the darkest corner, overwhelmed by this change of circumstance, fearful it wouldn’t last.

Vi seems just as lost, sitting mute at the piano in the storage room.  “Budge up,” Caitlyn takes her place at Vi’s side.  “I’ll show you.”

[writefastdienever]

200 Words: The one thing Janna regrets about spending the night with Piltover's Finest.

The comic whooga-whooga of the taxi in the street below hastened Janna on her way.  She spared a quick look around, confident everything was neater than when she’d arrived.  She hadn’t much used the room this trip.

Airfield by one-forty-five, Demacia by four-fifteen, Ambassadors’ dinner at five o’clock sharp.  Cutting it close if not for the strong tailwind she had up her sleeve.

As she breezed through the lobby, the concierge presented her a lilac envelope.  She accepted it politely and shushed sudden butterflies, seeing her name inked by that smooth and confident hand.

She helped herself into the cab, the driver pulling sharply into traffic after a hefty round of cursing at his fellow roadsters.  “Airfield?”

She didn’t hear the question.  The card bore the picture of a springtime bouquet, all pinks, violets, soft yellows.  Caitlyn had inscribed some suitably demure pleasantries, but Vi’s childlike scrawl spattered the bottom of the card with bold ink:

“So when are you coming back to us?”

“Not the airfield?” the driver pushed, eyeing the upcoming intersection.

Janna folded her heart in the card and stuffed it back into the envelope.  “Airfield by one-forty-five, Demacia by four-fifteen, Ambassadors’ dinner at five o’clock sharp.”

[writefastdienever]

Riven needs a new kidney and both Karma and Janna are a match. Go ham, buddy!

Soraka slides the test results across the desk.  No one moves.

Finally, Riven reaches out and flips open the cover.  Karma drops her eyes to give her privacy with the news; Janna bites her thumbnail but can’t read it from over Riven’s shoulders without her glasses.

Riven swallows hard and reads it again.

“Oh,” she says, “Okay.”

She closes the folder and leans forward, scooting it back towards the doctor.  Soraka’s smile is professionally thin, neither causing undue worry nor encouraging rash optimism.

Karma’s hand goes to Riven’s shoulder, but she doesn’t know what to say, what to ask.  All she wants is for Riven to know she’ll have all the support she needs no matter the journey.

Janna’s anxiety prevents her from accessing her usual tact.  “Bad news, or?”  She doesn’t want the bad news, but she doesn’t want the heartbreak of expecting the good news and not getting it.

Riven’s smile is quick and sour, everything Soraka’s is not.  “Both, I guess?”  She looks to Soraka before continuing, a silent plea to carry on if her own words fail her.  “Kidney’s not gonna make it.  It’ll have to be a full transplant.”

Her next breath is shaky, but she’s a fighter, she’s a survivor.  She looks to one side and then the other, that smile twisting wider on her face as she studies Karma’s somber expression and the deep creases in Janna’s brow.

“But there’s a match.  There are,” she corrects, a flustered glance to the doctor, “matches.”

Karma lets out a sigh that sounds like she’d been holding the weight of the world on her shoulders and Riven’s news has released her from the burden.  Janna opens her mouth to say anything but all that comes out is this half-sob-half-laugh monstrosity and she quickly closes it again.

Riven’s smile goes unnaturally tight and her voice breaks when she speaks.  “It’s you guys.  Both of you match.”

[writefastdienever]

(Karma/Riven) Riven has some inspiring words of her own. (+50)

For the second time this year, Karma leaves the Convergence of Elders with a heavy heart.

“They didn’t listen,” Riven guesses, helping Karma into the carriage.

Karma turns to the window, Riven climbing in after.  “Ananda listened.”

Riven shrugs.  “Next time, another.  One person at a time is still progress.”

[writefastdienever]

100 Words: Karma brings Riven to see some live music. It's not what Riven was expecting.

Imagine Riven’s surprise when Irelia pitstops to pick up her RA, who is her roommate, who is her girlfriend.  Wrong-footed, Riven shakes the hand of the young woman who is dating her date and tries to stay cool.

Karma is unlike any RA Riven has ever seen.  “OM” stenciled onto her shirt, posters of the Ono-Lennons and Bob Marley and Johnny Cash on the wall, a bong on the nightstand.  She eyes Riven lazily.  “Ready for the show?”

Riven shrugs, “I don’t get out much."

Irelia pries their hands apart, keeping a hold of each.  “Whatever, we’re late for Pentakill!”

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Diana/Leona - Leona catches Diana watching the sun rise and it's not hate that she sees in the white haired woman's eyes (~200)

She rises from your secret resting place and you let her slip away without a word.

The night is old and withered and soon the sky will catch the sparks of fiery dawn, rendering your sleepless hours an ashen memory.  When you can’t counterfeit sleep any longer, you will go to greet the sun, and she will not join you.  It will be as though you dreamt she had ever been at your side, the cold hard reality of her banished along with the fading moon.

She had stayed but once, in another lifetime hundreds of nights ago.  She hadn’t been as cold then, not nearly as hard, and those nights had seemed to last a beautiful eternity.

You’d been softer then, too, and you’d stayed her with a warm hand when the birds roused and the thin promise of daybreak threatened to tint her starlight cheeks the color of a winter rose.  And, back then, because you asked, she had stayed.

You thought you might introduce one to the other, to announce the sway they both hold over your heart.  But as you turn to her with bright eyes, you just catch the fearful shadow hidden in her own.

[writefastdienever]

300 Words: Riven allows Karma to see the extent of the melters' damage for the first time.

Karma had thought she’d seen the worst of it, fingers trailing carefully across Riven’s back, mapping the irregular wrinkles where the skin had warped, gliding unfelt over the shiny patches where magic and medicine had exhausted themselves in piecing the soldier back together.

It had been a tremendous step for Riven, baring herself, submitting to Karma’s tender care.  But that had been the first, just one of many steps on her journey towards recovery, towards redemption.

Eventually the night comes that Riven wakes her, the darkness in her eyes blacker than the moonless sky.  “Karma, I was dreaming,” she says, a pale ghost drowned in shadow, “I had a dream I didn’t walk away from Couer.”

Karma raises herself in the bed next to her, pressing a palm over Riven’s chest, the faint heartbeat a reminder to them both.  “I’m sorry.  That must have been terrifying.”

But Riven shakes her head.  “It was for a while, but then –” she huffs this dry little laugh that Karma’s never heard before “—then it felt right.  I felt like the peace I’ve been looking for, somehow.  Like everything was the way it should have been.”

Her heart beats, slow and steady, under Karma’s hand.  Karma withdraws it gently.  “Let me put the kettle on, and we’ll talk more.”

The hall is long and dark, but she knows the way.  She fills the kettle and hangs it over the glowing coals, quickly stoked to a lively flame.  She unlatches the tea chest and comforts herself in the aroma of wild jasmine until the kettle whistles.

Karma lifts it from the hook, but her hands are shaking too hard to pour. When she doesn’t return, Riven goes looking and finds her weeping on the kitchen floor with the cooled kettle in her lap.

[writefastdienever]

Plot twist 400 words Her body is alight with desire. She isn't sure if its for a rematch or something else.

When shed been young, her father had introduced her to a variety of training regimens; physical, mental, spiritual, some more effective than others.

Irelia remembers well the unforgiving cascade he would bring her to, thundering in the mountains just outside the Placidium.  It tested her on all fronts, sitting motionlessly beneath the torrent, muscles frozen and senses numb and nothing in her heart save for the white-pure heat that burned for her nation.

These days, every breath is a conscious effort for her frozen body.  Every sensation is numbed, distant, unimportant.   Every moment is suspended and propelled by a burning persistence, this unearthly forward motion that keeps well her above ground when she ought to be buried under the Ionian soil that has been sanctified with so much of her blood.

In the heat of battle it’s another story entirely.

Blade to blade, every cell of her sings.  Cold, musty, and dead – Irelia is none of those things when she and her weapons are one.  Predatory bloodlust surging bestial and ferocious in her veins, she dispatches opponents with all the lithe artistry of a wild tiger, relishing the strident detail of their essence, wicked hot and irresistible, where it paints her razor sharp steel a vivid crimson.

In battle she lives as though she’s never lived, and dies as though she’s never died.  It happens, however rarely, and every time it’s as much a shock as it was the first.  Life loses its three dimensional quality and Irelia wakes again, cold and dead.

She remembers red, a bloody shade and beautiful, streaming past her like a specter.  And blades, knives sharpened until the barest pressure could draw blood, the simplest motion could tear life from a throat, blades that sparked against her own and made her feel alive.

Noxian assassins are delicacies, meant to be savored and appreciated in the moment – true once-in-a-lifetime pleasures.  Irelia hates to waste them.  Every strike is faultless, precise, and breathtaking, and she drinks in every last drop until at last they break and her blades feast on what little blood they have left to give.

Katarina Du Couteau is less a treat and more a toy.  One that’s brought out on special occasions, handled delicately, and put away again.  Irelia doesn’t hold her breath for their next meeting, but she always lets Katarina, wicked hot and irresistible, wring the very best out of life.

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Sejanna (347): Sej hates mornings more than anything in the world, but that doesn't stop her from getting up early to drive Janna to the local news station for her audition.

Beds are warm and comfy and good for ignoring the frostbitten breath of Father Winter icing the air in the little apartment.  The bedroom is cast in shades of pale gray, as sunless at 6:30 AM as it’ll be all day, and Sejuani grunts as she jams a knee against the rickety desk in the ghostly non-light.

Their little bed calls to her sleep-laden bones, but Janna calls louder; like a spring breeze whispering amongst icicles, urging them to thaw.  Coffee helps take the sting out of the early hour, too, and Janna conjures a hot mug of it into Sejuani’s hands.

“Miracle worker, you are,” Sejuani mumbles, bringing the mug to her lips and closing her eyes into the steam.

Janna’s chuckle is music and Sejuani remembers the chimes they hung on the cramped balcony that used to laugh in the long, lazy summer evenings a lifetime ago. 

“Negative nine right now,” Janna tells her, because no conversation is complete without a rundown of the current weather.  “Feels like negative seventeen.  Mostly cloudy with zero percent chance of precipitation; lows will dip into the high teens this afternoon due to wind chill, so don’t forget to bundle up!”

The coffee’s so hot it burns, but Sejuani relishes the heat.  She peels her eyes open, her sluggish body craving another few hours of sleep but having to make do with the bitter caffeine, fixing Janna with an ice-blue stare.  “You’re a natural,” she says, quiet, “you’re gonna blow ‘em away.”

Janna bats her on the arm, so light Sejuani barely feels it, and flashes the bright rectangle of her cell phone screen.  “Weather app,” she admits.  “No surprises.”

Janna’s standing there in their little kitchen dressed to the nines and looking more radiant than a Technicolor sunrise, and Sejuani’s chest swells with a warm kind of pride.  She nods, shuffling off to grab her coat and stuff her feet into boots, swiping the keys to the rusty old van that’ll complain the whole way to the station.

“C’mon,” she says, “let’s go make you a weather woman.”

[writefastdienever]

Ashe looks forward to the stories Quinn brings during her visits. (+100)

When she pictures Shurima, Ashe tends to repaint the grand ice fields of the Freljord in gold and bronze, with an enormous sun kissing the sands with impossible heat.  Instead of icy peaks lording over the horizon, she tries to imagine the majesty of silent stone pyramids, structures she’s only seen in the detailed sketches Quinn has shown to illustrate her stories. 

The dense jungles of Kalamanda, the cascading Ionian waterfalls, the sprawling city-scape of Demacia – Ashe doesn’t feel a stranger to these unseen landscapes, not after they’re breathed into existence by Quinn’s pencil and ink and eager, mead-heavy words.

[writefastdienever]

100 Words: Sometimes Caitlyn only wants to cuddle, and that's okay.

You’re a night owl but Caitlyn’s worse, a starlit chill waking you when she finally sighs into bed. 

Second nature rouses you to your duty, taking her into your arms with the sleepy intent to chase the shiver from her skin with the heat of your lips.

But she hides from you, tucking herself small into your embrace, her lashes soft against your collar bone.  Ah, so it’s one of those nights.

You reach to pull the blankets snug around you both, settling your arm protectively over her shoulder, guardian of her dreams.  She warms against you all the same.