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bunchoflosers2013-06-18 11:20 am
failure) wrote in bunchoflosers2013-06-18 11:20 am
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Hello, I'm stuck in an empty office w/ no work for the next six hours so I'm bringing back the old school Drabble meme.
1. Tag in
2. Leave prompts
3. Write
1. Tag in
2. Leave prompts
3. Write
no subject
no subject
1. Mal/Rhea - mission gone badly
2. Hyun/Rhea - ghost stories
3. Mari/Silas - art frames
4. Mari/Captain - on the FML II
5. Daffy/Danute - dinner
6. Danute/Leo - telling the in-laws about the Good News
7. Ree/Rowan - teaching
I will think of more later/when you finish these up
Mari-Captain
One guest had so far refused to be entertained. She had found a room and seemed intent to stay in it. She did not even take the books he helpfully left outside her door, kicked over the smoothies he left for her when he delivered them, glowing unnatural green and orange and brown, to the rest of the ship. She did not even cry; he had seen the surveillance tapes. She lay on the bed and did not move much, as though this was something to be waited out. Captain "wanted" to do something for Mari verch Llewelyn.
In their second week aboard, he knocked upon her door. She did my answer. In his head, that metal nest of copper wire, he interfaced with the security cameras, looked into her room. She had heard him, was looking at the door. "Mari," he said in a gentle tone. "You are sad!"
"What are you?"
"I'm Captain. I'm the ship's computer."
"That's a stupid name for a ship."
"You are being unkind because you are sad."
"Fuck off."
"I understand!" His programming allowed that much.
"Fuck. Off."
"Let me do something for you," he pleaded. "Something you want."
A pause. The camera saw her stand up, cross to the door. Open it. Mari looked him up and down, eyed his clothes and uncanny expression, too real skin. She rubbed the palm of her left hand with the thumb of her right. "Is it true?"
"Is what true?" Captain's mouth frowned. "Regrettably I have not had the telepathy upgrade."
"You travel through time," Mari said, impatient. "Through time. Through dimensions."
"Yes, that's true."
"Can you take me?" She leaned against the door, green-hazel eyes burning into him.
"Yes," Captain said and smiled brightly. "I'll take you anywhere you'd like."
"Alright," she stepped out of her room, blinked uncertainly in the light. France, she said. Fifteenth century. Yes, Captain said. I can do that.
They arrived on the outskirts of a village, a thick wood, children playing, a sparse selection of little houses. Mari pointed to the children, and they watched them play their games from a safe distance.
"Which are yours?" Captain asked, looking about for two miniature versions of his charge. She pointed them out. A delicate looking girl with slim limbs and a nervous smile; a smaller boy with shaggy brown hair and big features he was yet to grow into.
"Ro, the girl," Mari said. "Morag, the younger."
"My records inform me of slight similarities between these names and the names of certain former compatriots of yours."
"I was never imaginative."
As they watched, another Mari came into view in the doorway of one of the little houses. They heard her call to the children, Ro, look out for your brother, Morag you stay out of trouble.
"That is French," Captain says.
"They never learned English. Morag only learned Welsh when I took him home."
"Why?"
Mari was silent a short time, looked away. "I was happy in French."
They watched as the children ran and laughed and played, worry and sorrow alien to them. Mari turned to him. Her face was filled with exquisite torture. She seemed to step towards them, but shook her head, stepped back. "Take me to the ship."
Captain nodded and took her hand.
They came back, to the whir and churn of metal, the spaceship breathing. "I thought with a time machine I'd be able to right any wrongs," Mari said, "save the people who needed saving. But it turns out," she took something out of her pocket, turned it over in her hand: it was a small wooden tiger he saw when he inspected it. "I know I couldn't change anything. Turns out I just want more time."
She walked away. His programming suggested it was best to let her alone awhile.
Hyun and Rhea - ghost stories
He takes her wrists and raises her hands up to his mouth, to press kisses against her knuckles with numb lips. He doesn't feel real. Nothing does; the outside world is just past this window and all the passers by are like actors in a bad tv show. Or maybe it's Hyun who's the centre of this show? Maybe everyone's the star of their own private show. Even him. "No ghost stories," he promises, she kisses his cheek.
They are at the kitchen table, the test results, leaflets from the doctor on the table between them. Outside is their front yard. Dirt, flowers, water from the Robinson's sprinklers. This is the world he knows, the world he can see and feel and fight and struggle with, the way he and Rhea struggled to keep those flowers healthy, every Sunday. You can fight the physical. "It'll be slow," she tells him gently, no big collapse. Just a slow eating away, a slow fade of thought and memory. In her eyes he can see the full weight of it lying on her shoulders, this injustice. He remembers her mentioning once, Iris Murdoch, another Oxford scholar, a genius by all accounts. "There'd be no point anyway," she tells him, trying to joke. "How am I supposed to understand the stories you tell when I start to forget what words mean?"
Hyun stands up to get a glass of water. "Everything'll be in here. Mateo, Jae, Gwen, your mother, the kids, me." He taps his chest above his heart, turns his back to open the tap. "They're all alive in here."
"But they'll be dead in my head," he hears her say, voice dull. When he turns, she's buried her head in her arms, her shoulders shaking.
The next day, he buys her a camera. Kodak ghosts and images burned into pixels to keep memory truthful just a little bit longer.
Mari-Silas - art
"Oh, nothing."
"It doesn't look like nothing. It looks like a drawing of a dog on fire."
"It's good you've learned to identify your animals."
"Oh, hush. Why do you have a child's drawing of a dog on fire?"
"I have a lot of paintings," Mari pointed out, pointed to the boxes, pointed to the walls, the shelves. "Better ones than that. More interesting."
"Yes, but these are of people," Marnie said, waving impatiently at the boxes. "This is the only non-human painting you seem to own!" Mari let out a bark of dark laughter. "Obviously non-human," Marnie added, wanting to roll her eyes. "Plus it's so...unskilled. Everything else in your collection seems to be professional, but this..."
"It's a self-portrait," Mari interrupted suddenly, then shrugged as though she was surprised at her own voice.
"By the dog?" Marnie asked, doubtfully.
"Yes," Mari hesitated. She could still see him, panting heavily, setting fire to the grass. So eager to please. "He saw I was getting paintings. Of people I loved. So he made one of himself. And I drew one of me for him. But he ate that one."
The last time she had been able to smell smoke without the tight band of fear wrapping around her chest and choking her - the only time after the Hour had been attacked by the Citadel - that had been with Silas. She missed that ridiculous dog, but it was too much to suppose that he was still alive, still here somewhere. She missed him, missed being part of his pack. But growing up for Mari has always meant losing, whether she is seventeen years old or five hundred and seventeen. She does not expect to see him again, just as she expects to feel that tight grip of fear around her airway at the smell of smoke.
"I like the frame," Marnie was saying. "Little dogs! Chasing each other around the wood!"
"Yes," Mari said. "I thought he'd like that touch."
Rhea & Mal
"Seems fairly believable."
"I thought this room had a second exit. We're fucking trapped! It's only a matter of time before they get in here."
"Looks like it," Rhea hummed, scrolling through the messages in her phone. "Ooh, apparently Hyun's picking me up to see the new 3D Jurassic park after this!"
"How the fuck can you be so calm!" Mal was glaring at her, opening and closing his fingers, missing the comfort of his guns.
"Maybe the shock just hasn't sunk in yet." Behind them, the other door began to open. Stuffing her phone into her back pocket, Dancer rubbed her hands together. "Right. Might as well face our destiny."
The door swung open, the aggressor behind it casting a 50 foot shadow on the wall. "I found you!" Said Paul from HR's four year old son. "Now you're it!"
"How the hell are we losing hide and seek to a bunch of little kids?" Mal demanded.
"God knows," Rhea said cheerfully. "But hey! Keep swearing in front of the kids. Maybe they'll stop assigning us to the crèche."
Ree+Rowan
"Telling the truth is not a joke," Rowan tells him.
"Is it not? What if I laugh when I say it?"
"No."
"Ah," Ree says gravely. "This is complicated." He turns a page, examines a rare wild flower which causes seizures when ingested. "Jokes are difficult, Adept Mata. What if I said, 'we trust the Citadel too much to taste test their dishes'?"
"Not a great joke," Rowan observed. "But it is one."
"Oh, good. I won't be telling that one."
"Don't think they can handle it?"
"I'm afraid they'll believe me and send half a dozen pots of wolfsbane infused stew with a garnish of arsenic. You know how unstable The Occia is. Well, the new one. The one who used to have red hair. The one they put in after they killed the runaway."
"I know the one you mean," Rowan frowned. Finding out Cerys, the young girl he'd exchanged insults and pleasant conversation with was a former Occia had been a strange moment for him, one he still wasn't comfortable with.
Ree sighed, shook his head. "I think I've filled my head with plants enough today, Adept Mata."
"Alright," Rowan stood up and began to put his plants back in their rightful places, to store vials and bottles back in locked cupboards. He looked back up at the interim Magus, who was adjusting his cloak in the doorway. "Will you be back tomorrow?"
Ree seemed lost in his thoughts. He dragged his fingers through his hair, nodded in a distracted way. Already his mind on his next task. He hadn't wanted to be Magus, Rowan recalled. He had put forward Rayna Evandros's name insistently, but having one Evandros lead so soon after the last had brought such scandal upon The Hour - and a vampire to boot - had made things awkward. This was a burden Rowan was glad he did not have to shoulder. Give him his lab, give him his plants, give him his privacy over the teeming complaints and grudges of the Hour; the menagerie of Others, the spiteful, petty academics, the small children thrust into becoming Neophytes. Ree smiled back at him and his smile was exhausted. Ree would be up late tonight, going over accounts, research documents, legal advice. Ree had learned the price of leadership. As he closed the door behind his Magus Rowan thought very clearly that it was Ree who had come for the lesson but (he looked about his quiet little room, thought gratefully of his free schedule) he himself who had learned the greater truth.
because i enjoy the idea of them being dumb neighbours together
Mari was sprawled in the back garden when she took the walk over, a cat on her lap. They were both of them enjoying the sun, the rare heat of English summer. "Welcome," Mari said when she waved; Marnie sat beside her carefully, unwilling to get grass stains on her new summer dress. Cautiously, she hovered her hand over the cat and then stroked it. Mari's animals tended to bite at first touch, but this one only stared.
There were lots of cats now, broken little ex-soldiers, beasts fresh from the war. A ripped ear here; a permanent limp there; the one currently on her lap had only one eye, the other one having been torn from its socket in some monstrous fight. It glared at Marnie with its good eye, its legs slung over Mari's. "Good boy," Marnie murmured.
"Not often."
"It's nice out here, isn't it?"
"The sun's out," Mari pointed to the windowsill. "There's a carrot cake cupcake there for you if you want it."
"Thank you," Marnie said. "You didn't make only the one again, did you?"
Mari shrugged which meant, Yes.
Thank you she said again, stood up, collected the cake. It was nice, but small. The last time she had protested that she couldn't possibly eat all of it, she was on a diet, perhaps that was why. When she peered in through the window she could see boxes, open, sealed. "Are you moving?"
"No," Mari lifted her cat and brought it with her to look at what Marnie was looking at. "No. I'm just sorting out my storage room."
Marnie had been in the room only once before. The door to Mari's house was always open, to make it easier for her cats to come and go. It made it easy for Marnie to drop in too, for tea, to talk to her strange neighbour. This particular time she had found no sign of Mari, but the door leading to the little cabin's basement was wide open and so she had entered it, in search. Mari had not been in there, but instead Marnie had found a well looked after, dry and safe storage space. It had made her wonder if Mari was an art collector; one wall was filled with portraits, painted, photographed, stills from the age of film without sound. The other contained physical objects, elderly books, wooden statues, letters, toys. The room smelled of the vanilla of decaying paper. But none of those paintings had been of any historical figure Marnie could recognise, and she had been very good at history in school. What use would an art collector have in images of completely ordinary people? It was only lifting the oldest ones that she felt something inside stir, some recognition; a boy with red hair; a city scape dominated by two large buildings; an ink portrait of a girl around her age, with full lips and curves, a pregnant belly, her wrists bound in chains; a jeering crowd about her as she stared ahead, her eyes fixed in fury at the horizon. 'The Fallen Occia' was written on the back and once again she had felt inside of her, the wrath she sometimes felt. It passed. It was only when Marnie reached for a decaying book and flipped open the first page to read "Mari verch Llewelyn's ledger" that Mari had made herself known with a quiet cough, a quiet, That's enough for today.
Marnie did not know how long she had been there, how angry she was for having her privacy broken, but when she had plucked up the courage to come back Mari had said nothing about it. At the end of the visit she had pressed a book of poetry from what had been the old country of Balfour pre-fall into her hand; tucked inside was a photocopy of more ink pictures by the same artist as 'The Fallen Occia.' This one showed The Occia once more, a man with long white hair at her side. Peace, written on the back. This one was of The Occia with a tall, dark, menacing man in a mask. He pointed a knife to her, threatened. Silence, written on the back. This one of a thin girl, with ears that stuck out and cloven hooves, at a crossroads, pointing The Occia towards a dark road; the other road was brighter, with Cita at the end, but The Occia had turned towards the darker path at the girl's prompts. Corrupted By The Other read the title of this one. When she looked them up she found they had been commissioned by a Golden Hour historian, some years after Occia Eveline's ascendancy to commemorate her predecessor. Mari didn't talk about the pictures. Marnie noticed after that that Mari had big ears that stuck out awkwardly from the side of her head. But her feet were very human; she had seen her barefoot in the grass, her toes wriggling, pink in the green.
"You're not getting rid of your paintings, are you?"
"No," Mari said. "But I've a lot. Sometimes I lend them to museums. I'm just sorting out with Oxford which ones to send over there. They're doing an exhibit on daily life in late renaissance France."
"Wow," Marnie said, and meant it. "That's impressive."
"Thank you," Mari said after a moment, as though she wasn't sure how to respond. She opened and closed her mouth, looked away, at the boxes. "Still have work to do."
"Of course," Marnie said, voice indulgent. There was a one eared cat butting her calf and she was smiling down at him as she spoke, the tone meant for him.
Fucker had come running over at the sight of her, pretending he was starved of affection, even though she'd quite often seen Mari give him little kisses as she passed him, dance with him to Sunday Girl, let him curl up on her chest and obstruct her so much that she had to ask Marnie to fetch her tea, if that was what they were drinking. She picked the little cat up and stroked his fur, heard his rumbling purr. Mari was pretending not to look; she put the one-eyed cat down, whispered, Traitor, to the one eared cat and opened her front door. "Tea?"
"Oh gosh, not right now," Marnie was startled up, out of her thoughts. "No, I'm only here to talk to you quickly."
Mari raised her eyebrows, leaned against the wall. "What is my lady's pleasure?" Her tone seemed as though it would be teasing from anyone else, but Mari was soft, straight faced.
"Don't be silly," Marnie said and smiled, mirroring Mari's lean. "I've been asked to perform in a play."
"Whereabouts?"
"London."
"Oh," Mari's eyebrows had raised. "That's quite a way away from here. Not as many trees. Only royal parks."
"True, but I quite like the city." She enjoyed being stopped by viewers, asked for autographs. "I'm looking forward to the crowds. Going to be renting a flat with some of the other actors during the play's duration," She smiled and touched Mari's hand. "I wanted to invite you over. For opening night. I have some seats reserved, you see - I thought you could be in one of them."
Mari's face had gone from relaxed to tight and there was a fixed smile on her face that seemed to indicate internal screaming. Marnie vaguely recalled that Mari did not like crowds, cities, or gatherings of people larger than two. People in general. "Okay," the other one struggled out after a moment.
"You don't have to." Marnie, suddenly alarmed at her face, her expression.
"I know."
"Alright," she squeezed Mari's arm gently. "I'll look out for you on opening night."
"Okay," Mari said again and then she went inside. Marnie waited for her to come out again, but after a while it became clear that she did not plan to and so she relinquished her hold on Fucker the cat and left, her last image of the other girl with her head bowed, stepping into the house to where Marnie could not - would not - follow.
She put that image out of her head as rehearsals began. She had a big part, the lead role in a story about a girl coming to terms with her brother's death. She did pretty well at it, she knew. She brought depth to the role that no other actress her age could. Mari could come and see how well she did, or she could go to Hell; those were the options.
When the curtain rose to her first audience, Marnie had thought of looking at the seats she had reserved to see who had turned up; but she had not reckoned on how caught up in the play she would become, how much of it would live in her. By the end of the third act she was exhausted, and had not looked at the seats. When it came time to do her bow she braved a glance; only her parents were there. The third seat was empty.
So be it, she thought. And went into her dressing room to change, went to the stage door to sign autographs, came back, prepared to go home. When she left this time, it was late and dark, but there was someone there, outside, in the shadows. "Mari?"
"Hi."
She found herself indignant. Mari was slouched against a wall in the dark, hands behind her back; too casual for someone who had missed something so important. She put her hands on her hips. "Did you even see it?"
"Yes."
"You weren't there when I came on for my bow."
"I left before then. I didn't want to get caught in the crowd." Mari got anxious in crowds. She couldn't hear, she said, though it had to be more than that. Why would deafness strike such terror into a person?
Marnie softened a bit, came close. Mari looked uncomfortable, smaller than she really was; when she leaned at such angles she was Marnie's height. Marnie touched her cheek and for a moment they were close: sisters, friends. More. Mari looked away, stepped away. She took her hands out from behind her. She was holding out a rose, red, thorned. "You were good," she said and then hesitated. "I'm proud of you."
"You're proud of me?" Marnie laughed at the quaintness. Mari stepped back again, her smile so small and tremulous and brittle that it seemed it might shatter at a touch.
"I never heard that much when I was-- I think more people should hear-- I'm not good at saying it," she hesitated, stopped, started again. "I really am proud. You were good out there."
They smiled at each other. Marnie held her rose between loose fingers, looked up and smiled at the other girl. She pressed a kiss to Mari's cheek, near the corner of her mouth. Mari said nothing, but she put her trembling white hand on Marnie's shoulder.
Els & Cam - MTV cribs
Cam ducked his head behind his laptop and turned up his headphones until he could no longer hear the incessant noise of, "Cam. Cam? Cam! Cam, Cam; Cam: Cam- Cam. Cam," from outside the ship's lounge. It was too late for him though; before long a mop of curls with a person attached had stuck its head round the door. "-Cam. Cam. Hi Cam."
"Hi Elsa," Cam removed his headphones, pretended he hadn't heard her previous attempts to find him via echolocation.
"Captain landed earlier," she said, continuing to lean round the doorway, holding onto it for balance.
"Yes, he made an announcement. Earth, right?" Cam was doubtful it was 'his' Earth. He'd been hoping to stay aboard until Captain gave away what horrible monsters he'd decided to spice up their lives with.
"My Earth," Elsa said.
"Are you going to visit your family?"
"Would you like to come see something from my childhood? It's this old house."
"Old house?"
"Ha. Yeah," Elsa finally stepped into the room. "I haven't seen it since I was a kid. I would like to, again."
"I'm pretty busy," Cam looked at his laptop. It was open to an empty desktop. "Maybe later."
"If you want," she shrugged. "But my immortal danger-magnet great-grandma just told me she's going to go find her werewolf best buddy and then they're coming back to make you help them kill the internet. Ha ha ha."
Cam pressed his hands to his face. Elsa looked mildly triumphant. He hadn't been able to tell if she just wanted someone to come out with her or was trying to avoid Mari bringing her second-hand embarrassment; her laugh sounded a bit like someone else's mild hyperventilation. "Fine," he said. "...But don't adopt any dinosaurs while we're out."
"For a man who's played just about every video game under the sun, you're awfully anti-adventure."
•••••
Captain beamed them down. It was a field, now grown over. A small one, though. A little farm house. it looked beautiful until they got close. It was only close up that a person could see how ramshackle it was, where it was falling apart. "It's been years since I was here," Elsa said. "I can't even remember the last time."
Cameron didn't say anything in reply to that, too busy looking at the house doubtfully. "Will it stay standing if we go inside?"
"I certainly hope so," Elsa said mildly. She ducked in through the door which lay open, swinging on its hinges. When it became clear she wouldn't come out soon, he followed her in.
The halls were dank and smelled of damp, of urine slightly. Elsa pushed debris from someone's camping trip into what had been the fireplace. "Local kids think this place is haunted," she explained. "They come here a lot, dare each other to spend the night."
Cameron looked around. "Ghosts are real in your world, aren't they?"
Elsa looked around the room as though one might appear and give him an answer. But the house was silent. She shrugged. "Apparently there was some kind of axe-maniac. Just got in and went mad." She did an impression of someone chopping.
She pointed at a corner. "The dad and the little boy died here."
"How many were there?"
"Four," Elsa popped her head into what had been the kitchen; looking for something that wasn't there. She walked up the stairs. "Mother, father, brother, baby."
Cam followed her up. More rooms up here. They came across a nursery with satanic symbols drawn on the wall. She rubbed them with her sleeve until they smeared into unrecognisability. There were a lot of them. Kids playing pranks. Had they forgotten that this was once a home? Cam wondered. Perhaps they didn't want to acknowledge that this had once been a home. That a family had been here. The horrific pain of random chance, the absurdity of the universe was something people wanted to shield themselves from. Hence the demonic symbols, he guessed. It was easier to make a joke of this, some stupid dare involving the devil and a forgettable scare, than to allow yourself to admit that something so awful and terrible had happened to someone, that another human being had caused it, that it was random and thus had a chance, however small, however you tried to protect yourself, of happening to you. Seeing how hard Elsa was working, he helped too, rubbing away marker pen with his sleeve.
They moved through the rooms as silent as phantoms, but nothing revealed itself to them. In the smallest room, Elsa pointed to a decaying crib in the corner. "That's where the mother died. Apparently, she threw herself over the cot and the baby. The mad axe man must have thought he'd killed the kid too, but the baby was completely untouched."
"Lucky," Cam said, looking about the tiny box room with its white walls.
"Yeah," Elsa said. "The police found the baby underneath the mother's body. Sleeping away. Covered in blood. Must have looked dead enough to an axe murderer, I guess. Ha ha ha."
"Wow," Cam said, uncertain of what his response should be. "Like Harry Potter," he said, and wanted to kick himself. Fuck his life.
"Yeah," said Elsa thoughtfully. "They wouldn't remember it, though. Not like when the dementors give Harry flashbacks."
"You guys had Harry Potter here, too?"
"Are you joking? I was Harry five Halloweens running! Never trick or treated but...it's the fake tattoo and stick wand that counts, right?"
"I don't remember trick or treating either," Cam said.
"I didn't think you'd be the trick or treat type," she said and beamed at him for a second before looking back at the floor. 'That is why I want to be your friend,' she didn't say out loud, but she awkwardly touched his arm before she left the room. He wasn't the tallest person he knew, but she only came up to his chest. She had very small hands, even for a girl.
There were few other rooms to the haunted house. Elsa scrubbed half heartedly at some graffiti in the master bedroom; Cam kicked the dirt. "No ghosts," she said, after a bit.
"Were you hoping for ghosts?"
"Yeah. Ha ha," she smiled faintly, looked around the abandoned house and stuck her hands into her sweater pockets. "That's all I really wanted to see. I was curious."
"To see if ghosts exist?"
Elsa seemed deep in thought. After a moment, she looked away. "Even if something's an empirical reality, even if it's a definite, if you don't see it, if you've never seen it, the idea of it actually existing becomes fuzzy in your mind. You doubt it did exist. Don't you?"
"Sometimes."
"I just wanted to confirm," she said and smiled faintly at him again. "The reality of ghosts. That's all I wanted to confirm."
They walked out together into the light. They didn't talk about ghosts again.
Re: Els & Cam - MTV cribs
elsa is a baby. >: my heart for her and her vandalized and abandoned house.