the deep moans round with many voices

Here are six fills from the current Three Sentence Ficathon. (I am quite aware that only four of them actually meet the structural requirements. Shush. I do what I want.)

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1. For samparker: Star Trek AOS, Uhura/author's choice, someone playing with her hair, written 2/8/15.

[Gaila/Uhura]

Sisterhood (200 words exactly) [AO3 version]

Gaila has little concept of human social appropriateness, but in her blunt way she's very careful about asking permission -- to touch skin, to use personal names, to have sex -- at least until people make it into her inner circle; this takes Nyota an embarrassingly long time to realize because she's been inside since day one, when she tried out a few Orion phrases she'd looked up the moment she got her roommate assignment and somehow found herself with a best friend (and occasional lover) for life: a sister, as Gaila says.

Nyota has always assumed that's a mistranslation, since she's quite certain she's never been attracted to her blood sisters that way.

But now, as Gaila's fingers move strong and deft over Nyota's scalp, tugging her hair into an intricate crown of braids -- "Hey, fish around in my dresser and find my amber earrings; I want to use them as accents to match your dress and it'll look better if I weave them into the structure instead of jabbing them on after the fact," Gaila says -- Nyota blinks away old memories of laughter and lopsided childish masterpieces, and wonders if Gaila's choice of word has more layers than she'd thought.

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2. For betony: King Lear, Goneril, Regan, (&Cordelia), they loved their sister once, written 2/9/15.

Loving-kindness (125 words) [AO3 version]

Cordelia was always their father's favorite, always his precious, cossetted pet, born late and unexpected and loved though she was not the hoped-for son, though she stole their mother with her birth and brought grief as her cradle-song. And yet, she was their sister, their living doll, their secret-keeper: the sweet-natured child who followed them with stars in her eyes and thought they hung the moon; of course they came to love her in their turn.

Perhaps if they had not all loved her so, Regan reflects as their father rages, perhaps if they had let the indifferent cruelty of the world touch her life, she would have learned to do what was necessary rather than dash herself to ruin on the unforgiving cliff of her ideals.

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3. For saoirse7: Narnia, Lucy & Susan, adventures of their own, written 2/9/15.

Interesting Times (725 words) [AO3 version]

This got a little out of hand. Oops?

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"I am never getting on a ship with you again," Susan proclaimed with great and injured dignity as their Galman merchant ship and its piratical attacker sank, smoldering, into the seas off the western shore of Terebinthia. "In fact," she continued, "given this latest proof that I'm right about our curse, I think we should make it an official royal policy not to be within five miles of each other for more than a week at a time, with the exception of Cair Paravel itself."

"We are not cursed to cause chaos whenever we're together, and in any case, it's far better for us to face pirates and other perils than to let them threaten people less equipped to deal with unexpected adventures," Lucy said. She braced her feet against Susan's seat and dipped the oars of their stolen dinghy into the ruffled waters. It was wretchedly difficult to make any progress eastward against the wind, not to mention she kept knocking into bits of floating debris.

As she raised the oars, a pirate breached the surface and made a desperate grasp for the edge of the boat.

Susan hauled him in, knocked him out, and began tying him up with their other two captives.

"This sort of thing never happens to Peter and Edmund," she said. "And yet here we are. Might I remind you of the phoenix that stole you away when we went riding along the shore near the Shribble. Or the Sarovencian raiding party we surprised when visiting Cauldron Pool. Or the time we fell down a well and spent a fortnight wandering an abandoned mine infested with Cruels and Boggles and the People of the Toadstools."

"That could have happened to anyone!"

"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is a pattern, and we're well past that by now," said Susan. She looked over her shoulder toward the foundering ships. "This is absurd. We're much too far west to reach land without a sail, and it's obvious that nobody is escaping that mess in anything with an intact hull. We might as well row back and see if there are any other survivors."

"But our cover story--"

"Will be in shreds by the time Windswift persuades someone to sail out and rescue us," Susan pointed out. "Any wind-weaver may tame a dumb hawk, to gather its feathers and watch it trace thermals in its flight, just as two sisters traveling together is naught to mark or remember. But two sisters, with black and golden hair, accompanied by a Talking Gyrfalcon..."

Lucy sighed. She had so enjoyed pretending to be an itinerant healer; it seemed a shame to return to the constraints of proper royal dignity ahead of plan. "Bother pirates. People are much less intimidated when one isn't wearing a crown -- though it was annoying to be so summarily whisked away from the boarding party and bundled overboard." She turned the boat around as best she could and began laboriously rowing back toward the wreckage.

"Speak for yourself," said Susan. "I found it quite thoughtful of the captain. Whatever insanity makes you and our brothers eager to hurl yourselves into battles seems to have skipped me, thank the Lion."

"It's not madness. And I know you secretly enjoy adventures!" Lucy said.

"All adventures are disasters," Susan said firmly. "That some of them fail to reach their worst potential depth doesn't make them desirable."

In the belly of the dinghy, one of the tied-up pirates groaned and stirred. Lucy rolled her eyes when Susan refused to silence him again, and instead turned her attention to tearing strips from her skirt and tying them into a makeshift wind-net. The breeze stilled, then shifted, spiraling upward to draw away the smoke as they approached the burning carcass of their ship.

"You couldn't have done that sooner?" Lucy asked.

"Not at any greater distance," Susan said through a frown of concentration. "I can't hold the weave for long, either, so whatever you're planning, I suggest you be quick."

Lucy eyed the tilted, sinking ship, nudged the dinghy along its keel until she was within reach of a trailing rope, and nodded. "Right. I'm going to search for survivors. If I'm not back in, oh, five minutes, row away to the east and wait for me to swim free."

She gathered her breath and leapt across the water.

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4. For minutia_r: Homeward Bounders, Joris (/ & author's choice), be prepared, written 2/9/15.

Be Prepared (175 words) [AO3 version]

The demon comes around the corner of the farmhouse in dead silence, a writhing bundle of wings and razor talons, and scatters Joris's tools from the patch of dirt where he emptied his knapsack in a desperate search for his spool of wire.

Joris gets one second to shout for help -- there's no use in false pride, Konstam always says, and the rest of the Khans nod solemnly and agree as they point out their various scars -- before the demon pins him down and thrusts its claws through his hip in a blur of blood and pain.

When he wakes, much later, in the Khans' private infirmary, Konstam is slumped in a chair beside his bed, dark circles obvious under his eyes, and there's a strange weight over Joris's legs; he looks down in shame, expecting to see the restraints used in case of possession, but instead a genuine demon-hunter's belt with a dozen snap-fastened pouches is draped across his sheet, with a note in Konstam's handwriting: I should have given this to you sooner.

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5. For ruanchunxian0: Any, any, I would follow you to the ends of the earth with only mild complaining, written 2/10/15.

[Homestuck, alpha timeline, Dave/Jade/Rose]

Gladly Beyond (250 words) [AO3 version]

"I want to state for the record that if I get eaten by rabid albino alien cryptozoology specimens, it is absolutely your fault, my estate will sue, and I'll haunt your ass until the heat death of the universe, and even if we avoid that shitastic scenario I may turn out to be nothing but a collective hallucination of my fans and therefore shrivel up and blow away if I'm removed from Hollywood for too long," Dave said as he stepped out of the helicopter and onto Jade's roof. "Hey. Long time no see. Love what you've done with the place."

Jade had rarely felt their age difference as strongly as at this moment, when she couldn't decide whether she would rather hug Dave or scold him for being ridiculous and far too self-sacrificing for his own good. "If this is a bad time to be away from your studio, I could have risked a short trip to the mainland. You do know you didn't have to come to Hellmurder Island just because I asked, right?" she said as Rose also slid out of the helicopter, pilot's headset still resting on her shoulders.

Dave shrugged. "Yeah, I know. But you asked."

Beside him, Rose offered a faint smile of agreement and a matching nonchalant pose, though her eyes sparkled with clear knowledge of just how provoking their behavior was.

Jade settled for giving them both merciless noogies, before she drew them both in for a long overdue shower of kisses.

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6. For betony: Howl's Moving Castle, Sophie Hatter, the path of pins or the path of needles, written 2/10/15.

The Grandmother's Tale (150 words) [AO3 version]

"Will you take the path of pins or the path of needles?" the wolf asks the girl in the old story, goading her to brave the unknown, but Sophie missed her moment to step into that dance; now she is the old woman alone in the wilderness, a handsome, heartless wolf already inside her door, and there is no bright-cloaked maiden coming to find her along any symbolic path no matter how many hints she drops to mark the way.

Sophie watches Calcifer flicker in the hearth as Howl sweeps out the door in a swirl of silk and secrets, and thinks that's just fine; after all, she has no intention of being eaten and replaced... nor, to be perfectly honest, does she want to kill the wolf, however sharp his teeth.

She tucks a stray hatpin into her pocket as a reminder of the life she's lost, and returns to saving herself.

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Yay for writing stuff!