Category Archives: Fiction

Here, Have a Snippet

I've got a handful of stories that are on the table right now:

  • belated Yuletide gifts (1 or 2 will do, she's not picky)
  • the collaboration (she's patient, which is good because I'm deep in revision/formatting wonderland)
  • Splintered Gates (which is my learning how to write on a tablet book)
  • Collateral Damage (the follow-up to Dowse and Bleed)

I've had an 4100+ word opening to Collateral Damage from before that phrase appeared in Dowse and Bleed, but I didn't know which direction to turn after that because it starts out from the perspective of Andre and Shift instead of a direct head-on with Rachelle. Which meant I hadn't the foggiest idea whose story it was and why. I only knew what was going on: the crisis.

Today, I went for the dubious option of just pick one. Here's the snippet:

Breathe. This was not supposed to happen now, not so soon, and not like this.

It was an effort to breathe, to shift gears from the world as Rachelle had always known it. Cycling was survival. She had to move the flood of genetic entries through her vascular system and into archive as soon as possible, or the backup would overwhelm her veins, which could only handle so much. But this day had been coming a long time, and it hit her hard when she incorporated one more entry into her own permanent genetic makeup and then felt that harsh inability to breathe that it was the archive out of space.

Don't cycle. Don't cycle. Back up, spin the paddles, find a shield and stop her own genetic flow. How can you deny your very bones?

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Fluff, Relationships, and Traditions

This entry is part 52 of 52 in the series 365 Challenge

So characters have habits, ways they interact with certain people and situations, things they do and like to do, stories and histories together. I've known a lot of my characters' for a long time but getting them all into fic is interesting, particularly for the ones I don't know that for.

I've got about five novelettes I want to turn out plus a short story, created out of the 5 Things Meme and then the whole Pieter/Ashen dynamic that originally played in my head before I even wrote that first Ashen drabble (and it is awesome to me, but got sidelined drastically with a deluge of other prompts), but, but, but...

I'm on day 265 of my challenge and story count 157 and I'm still plying angles and there's all those little things above that I'm itching to nibble at. Want to help a girl out?

Particularly of interest to me are things like where does Wesley work (not sure actually), and then relationship things that I haven't gotten to like how Justus always recognizes Shift regardless of her current form or demeanor, friendships, sibling relationships, Ilsa and her husband, etc.

Calling for prompts, as promised:

  1. character(s) and/or canon/fandom
  2. random word, quote, or other prompt

Oh, and I'll try to keep it short and fluffy or sweet. Try is the operative word. :grins:

Continue reading

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Angst, Fluff, and Inferno

This entry is part 48 of 52 in the series 365 Challenge

Let's take the third first. Overhauling the story from inferno, aka "Dowse and Bleed," left me feeling drained and exhausted, but it's out to beta and may she not find any more structural issues that need addressing. For that matter, may I not!

On angst: I write a lot of it. I know that. I've been buried it in lately and I feel a desperate need for something light, fluffy, and humorous, so on to point two:

Anyway I need something light and fluffy to clear out some headspace. Anyone want to give me

  1. A character or couple
  2. A random word or object

And I will write you a drabble: 100 words. No more. That'll keep my headspace break from getting out of hand. :grins:


Completed Drabbles

Seven Days

Kingdoms and Thorn

Kingdoms and Thorn/Fire and Water Crossover Fanfic

X-Men Movieverse

X-Men Evoverse

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365 Challenge: Playing Catchup...

This entry is part 44 of 52 in the series 365 Challenge

85/365: A Pairing of Convenience

Rogue has an offer that Gambit’s not so sure he ought to take.

X-Men Movieverse Fanfic
425 words


86/365: When the Coffee Does Not Work, Drink More Tea

When the coffee doesn't work, drink more tea. / If you don't drink coffee, then drink more tea.

Lyric Poem
8 lines


87–88/365: Snow Day

Ashen wondered briefly if perhaps he was no regular-type human as Pieter had professed but if he were instead a naturally gifted with the ability to charm half-asleep girlfriends who did not wish to be awake.

Science Fiction Romance Short Story
1991 words


89/365: Five Reasons I Love You

There are five reasons I love you / (And none of them are the ones you want to hear)

Science Fiction Romance Poem
86 lines


90–91/365: Acceptable Cost

Some things are worth it.

Alaine Shaever is a healer by nature, and she’s studying to become a medic by trade. It’s her first emergency call out in the field. Nobody ever told her it’d be like this.

Science Fiction Short Story
1761 words


92/365: Without a Reason

It’s one thing to not understand Rachelle’s messed up team relationships; it’s another to ask whether she loves a man she’s never even considered loving.

Science Fiction Flash Fiction Short Story
901 words


93–94/365: Its Own Absolution

Shift’s team was brutal. They had to be. Storm’s team was bloody. They were a strike team. They had to be. Storm had a conscience. Shift didn’t. The only thing they all have in common is the will to survive.

Science Fiction Short Story
2208 words


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365 Challenge: Little Things

This entry is part 43 of 52 in the series 365 Challenge

So I've been scribbling away on the Comment Fic LiveJournal Community, and while they welcome original fiction, I've mostly scribbled fanfic. This is the first original piece I wrote over there. I'll put up the other 2 (make that 3) fanfic pieces later.

Little Things

Canon: Kingdoms and Thorn
Characters: Justus "Defender" Ellison and Rachelle "The Database" Winslow
Pairings: Justus/Rachelle
Prompt: "You look good in my shirt."
Rating:
Notes:

This one’s for you, thecatisacritic. :grins:


Justus never expected to see Rachelle wearing his shirt. He also didn’t expect his reaction to seeing it.

   
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Been Doing that Scribbling Thing Again

Yesterday, I actually got a lot of various scenes written. Now just to get the books and stories pulled together, huh? :rolls eyes at self:

Lovemark the Seasons

I wanted to love you because that's what you wanted, but... "I don't really do in love."

Words don't always make sense, and your stormy eyes told me these ones hadn't.

Exasperated, I sighed and tried again. "I love my brother, but I'm not in love with him."

"Yes..." You still weren't getting it.

"I can love you without falling in love with you." Moments ticked between us. Wrestling angels of understanding, and I knew I wasn't helping, but. "You're not my brother."

Everything is Blood

Russian snow—she still had to snap Niko out of the Red Room in his mind whenever they worked on Russian snow—outside on the ground and more of it falling from a stone-grey sky. Her leg was propped up on a chair, her crossbow completing her arm at one side. The other hand filled out paperwork. She'd been hunting this trail for weeks now. This wasn't a simple job, put an arrow in an enemy or a terrorist and stop the bad guy in his or her tracks. She preferred the simple jobs. You're just a girl with a bow. This wasn't what she'd signed up for.

Mother and daughter traveling on the train, in cars, over the national borders, seeking asylum, refuge, what? It didn't matter. One of them was Collie's target and the only complication was which.

The Rothnen Cycle: Blood

"Thinking on what might have beens?" Kyrieh asked gently.

Casaia shrugged, brought the analytical gleam back into her eye. "Not really. Renaiven and I could never have been."

Kyrieh's eyebrows came up and Casaia realized her friend had never know the exact relationship that hadn't occurred.

[untitled]

No team is family as a group. One bond leads to another and to another. This one would do anything for that one and the links form a chain which eventually circles the entire Department. Whisper called Shift called Thought called Vision called name after name and operative after operative with the word that now was the time they had all been waiting for from forever ago when they were children and swore one day this would be over.  Tracers moved into computer files their admins had never known they hacked. Voluntary teams turned involuntary and used every. single. privilege, every single access point into the systems designed to control these living weapons. Trip wires and triggers promised certain retribution should certain things be done. Law books were opened, loopholes exploited, implants deactivated or interfered with in whatever fashion wouldn't kill the one who wore them.

This was the biggest mission of the teams' collective lives. They hadn't been taught how to fail.

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Scribbling on illicit fiction...

Not all stories ask permission nicely to impinge upon my inspiration. No, they barge in and take over! We're at 2000+ words and counting.

Have a snippet:

"Storm."

He is just coming out of the conference room and glances down at her before they fall into step on the way to their team area in the underground military facility. They don't speak until they're on home turf, out of the way where it's safe, and Storm discharges enough electrical energy into the security system to kill any tracking or monitoring.

Whisper shows him the file. Code 48. The Department's way of cutting its losses and abandoning a compromised operative to their own fate.

Storm's jaw clenches. Alpha Wolf doesn't deserve this. "You know what you're asking?" he demands of her. Countering direct Department orders always results in punishment, and Storm has always deliberately made sure he took the heat for all of them. It is the way of the third ranking, which Storm now occupies. He has always had the temperament for it.

But Whisper shifts her head slightly to one side in a negative, bigger picture in mind than what he's implying. "Storm," she says softly, sotto voice, and his eyes darken as he listens. "I'm not asking."

Compromised operatives do not have family. They were stolen as children and have never been a liability for their knowledge, only the physical evidence of genetic manipulation and government illegal activities their bodies represent. Human weapons. Red Wolf, her lover whom she calls Alpha, has a family. He knows everything there is to know about too much classified information.

"I lost the Christian," she whispers.

The first man she had ever loved died while infiltrating a terrorist cell. Storm held her through that storm, anchored her grief after she had wiped out every person related to the Christian's death. He hears what she has not said outright. They're going to kill him.

She didn't ask Storm before she took on an entire terrorist organization and became known as the first ranked assassin in the Department. She isn't asking now if they can save their leader.

"Do you know what you're saying?" Storm raises his eyebrows, incredulous, because he does. This will require more than just defying orders and intercepting the kill team. They can't just extract him. They have to keep him alive and either out of the reach of the Department and their handlers or of his family who is now rushing to his side.

Whisper nods. "Shift owes me."

They're going to have to burn the Department to the ground.

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365 Challenge: on blood, guilt, and redemption...

This entry is part 40 of 52 in the series 365 Challenge

How Many Ways Can You Make Me Bleed?

Canon: X-Men Comicverse
Characters/Pairing:
Prompt:
Rating: K
Notes:

They told Prodigy his mental shields existed for a reason. They didn’t mention the reason might be horrifying.

   

Accounting for Redemption

Canon: Kingdoms and Thorn
Characters: Jennifer "Shift" Haller and Justus "Defender" Ellison
Pairings:
Prompt: "I got red in my ledger. I'd like to wipe it out."
Rating: T
Notes:

How do you account for redemption in a world where survival is the only law?

Justus once believed that his decisions were being guided by a God whose will was sovereign. Now he doesn’t. These sins were his own and he does not know what to do with them.

   

Counting Heartbeats

Canon: Kingdoms and Thorn
Characters: Jennifer "Shift" Haller and Justus "Defender" Ellison
Pairings:
Prompt: I was with Justus, wanting them all to regret the monsters they'd become.
Rating: T
Notes:

Follow-up to “Accounting for Redemption.”


She didn't have the luxury of regret.

Shift may not have had a soul, but she had a heart and for some d— reason it was still beating. And she had Justus. She just didn’t know how to save him.

   
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It's That Time Again...

I've been mired in big fics or flexible prompts for a while now. Feeling blah and uncertain which big fic I really want to mire in at the moment. Prompts anyone?

1. Character/Fandom/Original Fiction World

2. Prompt or question of any kind

I'd like to commentfic if you all would be so kind as to help me out? :bats eyelashes:

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365 Challenge by the Count

This entry is part 38 of 52 in the series 365 Challenge

In the last few months, I've posted the following because of the 365 Challenge:

Words: 32,849
Lines: 388

This doesn't count the thousands of words or hundreds of lines of poetry I've written that was not for the challenge or that hasn't been posted.

The scribbler is happy.

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