the bathroom window

Of course she couldn't stay away after that, and when Fenris grabbed her she shook him off. "I won't let him be alone," she told him and the elf scowled as he stepped out of her way. "I'm going to him. Now."

"Be careful," he insisted darkly. "He's a mage - a renegade - and he has that creature inside of him."

The thought of Justice prickled inside of her, as if she were the one possessed. "It doesn't matter," she said, realizing as the words left her how true they were. "He's still Anders."

"He could have killed -"

"But he didn't," she snapped. She slid by him and around Isabela, who clucked her tongue before dragging the fuming Fenris out of eye sight. She said again as she stomped away, "He's Anders. Our Anders."

And he was - tired and frayed, almost angry at her when she slipped through the crowd of waiting patients and into a damp privacy of his clinic - but still a man. When he had confided in her the secret path through the gallows, he had stepped close enough for his breath to ruffle her hair, but now Anders gave her a wide berth and refused to meet her eye, even as she handed over the papers he'd been so eager to find.

But once he had them he looked up, eyes bright, and his thanks made her feel ridiculously triumphant.

Chapter 2, draft 3

The bell finally rang and before Takeru even put down his pencil, I was up out of my seat and running through the door. School was over and Hikari was waiting for me. At the lockers I pulled out my cell and sent her an email, and then leaned against the wall where I had a good view of everyone. Once we met up we'd head to the art clubroom together, or maybe I'd be able to convince her to forget about it and go to the Digital World instead. Takeru would just have to sit around at a computer and wait for us to come back.
( Read more... )

He's in the basement, stacks of papers and a computer screen to keep him company in the dark and dreary days. And nights, since he probably doesn't obey the laws of bedtimes. She crouches there int he shadows and watches him, the slink of his hair and the the glare of his eyes as he reads and writes and types out all of Shinra's secrets. Rufus' explicit instructions to spy on said traitor were ignored as soon as he said them, but Yuffie wants to know what Vincent's up to anyway: this moment of espionage is for her, fuck Rufus and Reno and all of the Turks and all of Shinra and maybe even all of Midgar. So she crouches and watches.

He hasn't changed: skin like parchment or snow or bleach-clean bedsheets. Eyelashes so long she could practically braid them. Yuffie's heart pounds like it always does, like it will always do no matter how many years go by. He barely moves as he works; he's an automaton or a statue or something, something that's eternal and unworldly.

Like a curse, she thinks to herself. Especially effective on ninjas.

There's a sound, not her of course, she's too awesome to let her secrets escape. But a sound's a sound and he turns, stands, draws a gun in a single, fluid motion. Art. Poetry.

Yuffie applauds. "Wow. A perfect 10. You haven't lost it, have you, Grandpa?"

If he's surprised she came, he doesn't show it. "I suppose Shinra sent you."

"Ooh, sorry. Gonna have to deduct those 10 points. Nope, I'm no one's lackey. Or gopher. Or butt monkey." She jumps down from her perch on the towering bookshelves and lands with nary a tap on the floor at Vincent's feet. She stands, holds the pose, then bows, but Vincent remain unimpressed. "All right, all right. Yeah, Rufus posted big Reward posters of you all around his new-and-improved-but-still-lame headquarters. And you look mighty fine in them, if you ask me. But this isn't a business trip. And on your behalf, I told him to go blow himself. He's probably still trying to figure out how that's even physically possible."

Vincent stares down from his ivory tower. "So what do you want here, Yuffie?"

Title: Fine Art (chapter one)
Fandom: Digimon
Rating: PG
Warnings: Nope
Author's note: I'm going to finish this sucker or die trying.

( Chapter one )

Three Weeks for Dreamwidth went really well - My FL was a titter with stories, pictures, poems, and polls. I managed to stick with my resolution to write a drabble a day... Well, a drabble every weekday. And that's good enough for me.

A handy list:
Ace Attorney
Digimon
3:10 to Yuma
FFVII/FFX
Coraline
Zelda
FFVII
FFX
Another Digimon
More Digimon
Persona 3
Beatles
Beatles again
And another Digimon

Paul's French was better than his, but both their accents were terrible. He followed as much of the ridiculous conversation as he could, adding in his own limited vocabulary when Paul got stuck on conjugating a verb. "Ou est le fromage. Le chien est blanc. Allons enfants de la Patrie. J'aime les petits garcons."

Paul laughed but their waitress pulled a perfect pissed off Frenchie expression and looked pointedly at her pad of paper.

"Je m'appelle Pierre." Paul tried again. "Right? I think that's how you say it."

"Pierre?"

"Good and French, yeah?"

"I get to be Napoleon then. Je... What's it, again?"

They were completely ignoring her now, heads bent together so he could hear Paul's slow pronunciations.

She fell backward (for a moment she forgot about the floor and expected to keep falling down down down into the abyss), scraping her spine through her sweater on the cabinets that marched in a row along the wall. The gun in her hand shook like it was alive and trying to escape, the muzzle pointing at her face, her heart, her forehead, her throat, her stomach. She had to pull the trigger (had to had to had to) or the slithering black darkness would get her, too.

Her shoes squealed (like a lamb at slaughter) when she pushed herself backward, and the cabinets still there behind her dug into her ribs. The dark hole of the gun's (not a gun, she tried to convince herself, not a gun, not a gun) barrel stared back, a single unblinking eye.

He'd only tuned the first two strings before Taichi grabbed the guitar's neck and pulled it out of his lap. When Taichi strummed it, it unsurprisingly sounded terrible. He wailed some lyrics in English, something about cars and something about seat belts, and then jumped upp and did a hip thrust that was so funny that Yamato laughed himself off the side of the bed.

Everyone and their pet donkey has heard of the wank involving Diana Gabaldon and the evil that is fanfic by now so I'm late jumping onto the bandwagon, but I just gotta say that damn, that woman is tripping balls crazy.

If I ever get published, I'd consider fanfic about my book an honor greater than any award. Because it means that not only do people like your stuff, they're inspired by it.

Fanfic is awesome! It gives me new ways to explore the characters, situations, worlds. It keeps that universe open and alive. And where else am I going to read about mpreg? Come on!

Also, if I get published, I will read the hell out of any fanfic for my stuff. In fact, I'm going to write my own. One of the amazing things about fanfic is that it allows you to write characters in ways that you couldn't get away with in profic. That is, there are tropes that are acceptable for fanfic that aren't for profic.

...I might have already planned out some fanfic. I can neither confirm nor deny that I've worked out a gender!switch story.

Princesses didn't muck out stables. Princesses wore gowns of silk dripping with pearls and tip-toed on velvet rugs; they did not wear boots while stamping through piles of crap and hay. Princess Zelda had a scepter and Malon had a shovel.

Princess Zelda was gone. Dead, probably, said the Gerudo, who shrugged at rumors of a blond-haired hero who had been seen at the border of the Lost Woods. Alive, certainly, said Ganondorf, who disappeared into the bowels of the castle to study. Malon secretly hoped Zelda was alive, because she couldn't imagine a Hyrule without its princess.

She sighed and blew an errant strand of hair out of her eyes and then wiped her sweat-wet face. Boots were more comfortable than high heels, anyway.