Entry tags:
Dragon Age Kiss Battle!
As hinted/threatened, here it is!
Dragon Age Kiss Battle!
Based on the Kiss Battle that has run in the Final Fantasy fandom for the last few years (credit to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
seventhe for the most recent variation on the rules), this is just a fun way to celebrate February with lots of fun kissing fanworks. Any kind of kiss is welcome -- het, slash, femmeslash; shippy, familial, gen; cheek kisses, mouth kisses, kissing of... other things; serious fic, fluffy fic, silly fic; fanfic, fanart, whatever you come up with; anything goes!
The post will open to prompts and comments at approximately 9AM Pacific Time, Tuesday February 7th (Click here for the time in your timezone). I don't anticipate closing it at any point, so come by any time! Update: posting is now open!!
Update: I have created a master list of fic, here! If new stories are added, I will link them from the master list.
Update, Feb. 5th 2012: This is the 2012 kiss battle, and as of now it is closed to prompts. If you are interested in participating in the 2013 round, check out the info post!
THE RULES:
If you have questions, please ask them here. Thanks, and happy kissing!!
Update: Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ovo_lexa, there is now a Mass Effect Kiss Battle underway! (Now with bonus correct link! Oops.) Check it out.
Based on the Kiss Battle that has run in the Final Fantasy fandom for the last few years (credit to
seventhe for the most recent variation on the rules), this is just a fun way to celebrate February with lots of fun kissing fanworks. Any kind of kiss is welcome -- het, slash, femmeslash; shippy, familial, gen; cheek kisses, mouth kisses, kissing of... other things; serious fic, fluffy fic, silly fic; fanfic, fanart, whatever you come up with; anything goes! The post will open to prompts and comments at approximately 9AM Pacific Time, Tuesday February 7th (Click here for the time in your timezone). I don't anticipate closing it at any point, so come by any time! Update: posting is now open!!
Update: I have created a master list of fic, here! If new stories are added, I will link them from the master list.
Update, Feb. 5th 2012: This is the 2012 kiss battle, and as of now it is closed to prompts. If you are interested in participating in the 2013 round, check out the info post!
THE RULES:
- To leave a request: Post a comment with a pairing (or moresome) and, if desired, a prompt. Put the pairing/characters in the subject line and the prompt in the body of the comment.
- To respond: Reply to the prompting comment. Include characters, rating, and title in the subject line.
- Multiple responses are both allowed and encouraged!
- There is no limit to the number of prompts you can post.
- Please, be kind to others regarding pairing choices, prompts, or anything else. This game is for everyone! :)
- Anon commenting is on, as is OpenID, if you neither have nor want a Dreamwidth account.
- Send your friends! :D
If you have questions, please ask them here. Thanks, and happy kissing!!
Update: Thanks to
ovo_lexa, there is now a Mass Effect Kiss Battle underway! (Now with bonus correct link! Oops.) Check it out.
Death and the Maiden (1/3)
Carver is dead. He is gone. And he always will be. Carver, and father, and-
"Bethany," Marian says, and Bethany startles. It's only the thought of father that keeps fire from dancing along her palms, and she presses them together to still any wayward cinders.
"Yes?" She looks up and she tries to smile. It feels tight and false across her face, and she would much rather be murmuring words of the Chant, or old stories, or anything but necessity. She's too young for this. She's a woman now, but that doesn't mean she's not too young for this, and she wants to wrap her arms around herself, hunker down, and disappear.
"There's a fishing ship, willing to take us up the coast. It can only get us towards Amaranthine, though."
Bethany frowns. "Why are you asking me?"
Marian smirks, though it too is hollow and haunted. "I'm not. Get your things."
The boat is open to the heavens and she thanks the Maker that it doesn't rain. She does end up crispy pink by the time they reach shore again and begin to march on foot, from sunlight shining on the water and turning deadly. It leaves a tan in the months that follow, holed up in a small house in Amaranthine.
At first they plan to take ship, but money is scarce and news reaches them that all the ports along the Waking Sea are closed to Fereldans. Nobody wants a refugee anymore, especially not muddy, dirty ones with no gold to speak of. So they fold their arms around themselves, hunker down, and wait.
It's her nineteenth nameday when the Hero of Ferelden enters the city. She sees the woman pass, and her eyes fix on the staff she carries. The rumors are true, then- a mage has saved the world. A mage walks free. A mage…
"She looks like Rivka," her mother wonders quietly beside her. "Do you think…?"
"What, mother?"
Her smile turns tight, the same tight it's been since Lothering. "Never mind."
Death and the Maiden (2/3)
She holds on to every shred of memory she can find, even though it makes her heart ache.
Bethany's head is bowed when she hears armored footsteps that don't sound like templars' (and templars rarely make her flinch anymore, and perhaps it is because Carver is not there to fight them off, and Marian is not there enough to worry). A peculiar scent that she recognizes but cannot place drifts in through the curtain of curling spindleweed smoke. She does not look up. There's speech, quiet speech, and the sound of crying for a brief moment.
And then there are footsteps.
"I request a moment alone."
The voice is a man's, firm, odd around the edges, and Bethany can't place why. She lifts her head and looks over her shoulder, finally. The Hero of Ferelden stands there, wildly curling hair and rounded limbs, her lips purse.
"I'm not sure that's wise," she says, and her voice is like gravel, scarred and halting. It's not how she imagined it.
"Commander-"
"Perhaps the tavern would be better."
"I decline," the man says, and Bethany twists to look at him in full. Something in her breast stammers to a halt. There is a fine jawline, yes, and an elegant brow, but the skin is paper-thin and greying, and there is what looks like patches of rot below his cheekbones.
The smell is death.
He is not natural.
The Hero casts her gaze around the chapel, then shrugs. "Fine. You have until the next bell. Then we have work to do."
"Yes, Commander."
And the Hero leaves, a corpse in her wake who does not shift uncomfortably, who merely goes to a pew and sits, all mechanical movement. There is nothing individual to it. It is like the thought of movement.
She rises to leave.
But as she passes the pew, she slows. It's obvious that she's looking at him, and after a moment he turns to look at her in turn. His eyes are strange, and there is a tension in his brow that she didn't know the dead could have. The dead. Carver is dead, father is dead… mother is dead in some real way, even if she walks and talks still, and has a warm lap to rest a head in.
Bethany takes a deep breath, then smiles. "May I sit with you, ser?"
He is a quiet companion. The smell of him is sickly sweet, but there's something else beneath the natural smell of decay (that is fainter than she could have hoped for). There's an edge of Veil there, lyrium and herbs and the scent that is there but not there. She can feel magic in him. It doesn't surprise her, not in the least.
What surprises her is when she has the daring to look about for templars, see none, and snake a thread of power between them to touch his hands.
He does not jerk or grimace or glower. He blinks, and that is a gesture of choice, for he has not blinked the whole time they have sat next to one another. He turns to her.
"Ah," he says, and whatever he is, he knows enough not to say more.
"Who are you?" she asks, when what means too much.
"My name is Justice," he says, and there's a hesitation that she wants to pry apart. A chantry is not the place to do it in, but the reckless girl in her with a dead brother and a dead father leans in.
"You're dead?"
"This body is," he returns, voice blessedly hushed.
"I can see that," she says with a nod to a cheek that is too hollow to be unsettling, going straight by the unnatural to something unbelievable. She waits.
If he considers, she can't see it in his eyes. He is something coiled within the body, not the body itself. She waits.
"Why have you come here?" he asks at last.
Death and the Maiden (3/3)
"I came to see- this body's wife. The woman that the man who once moved this form loved."
He does not seem like a demon. She cants her head.
"Why have you come here?" he asks again.
Her lips quirk in that hysterical smile she doesn't mean, and she shrugs. "My father. My brother."
"They are here?"
She points to the candle, the incense.
"Ah. You mourn them."
She nods.
A man might have shifted uncomfortably, or may have reached to comfort her. He may have stood, he may have changed the subject. Justice only sits.
A lovely name and idea, Justice. But she isn't sure it was real.
"Your body loved her?" she asks to change the subject. "This woman?"
"Yes."
"But your body is dead."
"Yes."
She purses her lips. "… Do you need a body to love, do you think?"
"I do not know."
She watches him. He doesn't blink and he sits unbearably straight and still. He is not a man, she thinks, and maybe that is what pushes her to lean in - or perhaps it is her ongoing fair with death, how it wraps coiled around her and doesn't want to let go.
She touches her fingers to his chin, and he lets her turn him to her.
"Maybe this can provide answers," she says, and she leans in and touches her lips gently to his.
There are no answers there for her, only thin, dry lips that leave the taste of death and Veil lingering on her mouth. The answer comes in how he closes his eyes, how he considers as she pulls away. He raises a hand almost wonderingly and touches at his mouth.
"I… remember this," he says at last. "Thank you."
She doesn't know what he is except for death, but he has never offered her a deal, or offered her anything at all. Her father taught her well. He is no demon, whatever he is. So when she rises, she has no fear of turning her back to him.
"Good luck, Justice," she says.
"Your name?" he asks, and she feels herself flushing.
"It doesn't matter."
"I wish to know it."
She considers a moment. She could give him a false name, Rhia or Vera. She could tell him Faith or Hope, but neither are qualities she bears with her daily. So instead she only smiles and says,
"Bethany."
"I am glad for our meeting, Bethany," he says. "… would you light a candle for me, as well?"
"Of course."
He doesn't smile, but the small incline of his head is enough. She curtsies slightly.
And then she retreats from death and out into the too-clear air of the city.
Re: Death and the Maiden (3/3)
I fear I am too incoherent to leave any sort of message of love that isn't just sfakdjfasajfhad <3 <3 <3 <3 so I hope that will suffice?
Re: Death and the Maiden (3/3)
Re: Death and the Maiden (3/3)
Re: Death and the Maiden (3/3)
I'll keep a thought open on maybe touching on this again some day. :D Thank you~!
Re: Death and the Maiden (3/3)
Re: Death and the Maiden (3/3)