7 more drabbles for 100_women--
3-10 from 100_women
Fandoms in this bit:
Serial Experiments Lain
Fullmetal Alchemist
X-Men 616 Comicverse
The Silmarillion
Final Fantasy VI
Title: Obsession
Author: agunagirlafix
Fandom: Serial Experiments Lain
Character: Lain
Rating: G
Prompt: 004 Insides from 100_women
Word Count: 129
Wires. Clothes laid carefully aside. The naked girl was doing her best to repair the bust fuse-no, to make her machine even better, perfect access to the WIRED. Her eyes gleamed as her nimble fingers pulled cords and cards and reapportioned them, wondering where her soldering iron was.
Eventually, Lain sat behind her computer, wires connected to herself-almost every part covered by an electrode or alligator clip. It had to get inside of her, so she could get inside of it.
The girl, still naked, her eyes simple and dull now, stared forward, the electrical pulses reflecting in her eyes. She was inside, where she could see everything and yet nothing. It was her solitude and her hell.
But all that mattered was that she was in.
Title: Invitations We Can Never Accept
Author: agunagirlafix
Fandom: Serial Experiments Lain
Character: Alice
Rating: PG
Prompt: 005 Outsides from 100_women
Word Count: 301
Sometimes, Alice wondered what she had done to deserve this.
All the pain and suffering she had gone through, while her friends remained oblivious. What had she done to retain the hurt when everyone else around her was blissful?
She tried to ask Lain, sobs, tears, and everything. She had done so much for the outsider-allowing her in when no one else would. But really, Lain assured her without words, the girl’s small hand touching her cheek to wipe away tears, she was just doing the same thing.
They were benignly killing each other.
Lain had been stuck outside of the social spectrum, and Alice had done everything she could to invite her in, get her friends, and help her.
They had grown so close, though encounters, some of which Alice didn’t even know about. In the same way she had felt pity for the young outcast, Lain refused to push her back to the outside.
But the tears were enough. Lain would always be on the outside of the social fringe and Alice would never be in Lain’s inner world.
No matter how close they were, these were just invitations they could never accept, watching each other’s lives from the outside.
Alice was content forgetting everything, though she couldn’t place what piece was missing. It must have been nearly ten years later when she saw a little girl on the street and she felt like she was window-shopping, forgetting her slightly-inebriated boyfriend for the moment.
“I love you,” she swore she heard.
She wrapped her arms around her boyfriend, knowing he hadn’t said the words. She wasn’t exactly sure if she could place who the little girl was, but she had the overwhelming sense that it was nice to know she was invited, even if she couldn’t get in.
Title: Ignorance as a Chance to Deny Humanity
Author: agunagirlafix
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Character: Sloth
Rating: PG
Prompt: 006 Past from 100_women
Word Count: 159
She had been told the miracle story of her birth. She had seen the way the blond looked at her and the shivers that went up the suit of armor with the soul of a boy. But she couldn’t remember; the memories were like the ones you’d seen on video tapes-just things someone else has filled in for you, detachable. No, her past was completely blank, those golden eyes no more recognizable than a stranger’s.
But it gave her assurance-this past she couldn’t remember-that he wouldn’t be able to hurt her. Well, maybe hurt wasn’t exactly the right word. That was such a human emotion. But it was amazing how being free of a conscience and a past allowed you to do whatever you needed to, no matter how dirty or personal the work.
No, she was not Trisha Elric.
That wasn’t even past anymore. But she could still pretend, if it got the work done.
Title: Dark Phoenix
Author: agunagirlafix
Fandom: X-Men 616 Comicverse
Character: Rachel Summers
Rating: PG
Prompt: 007 Present from 100_women
Word Count: 196
The words… they resonated in her brain and she seemed dimly aware of light and clean air. “Dark Phoenix,” Kate had said, an odd combination of words to tell a Project Nimrod Sentinal about to kill you. But she was breathing and her heart was beating… and there were no Sentinals. No search beams.
She stretched, her muscles feeling oddly fatigued, trying to figure out where she was. The sky was clear and the grass was green and above all no one was hiding scared in their houses or stuck behind fences in camps. Was this the world Kate had saved?
…how had she gotten here? For a fleeting moment, she thought that Kate must have actually saved their world and this was their present, it just took some time to take affect… but the Phoenix Force had said otherwise, which meant she wasn’t in her present. No, this was the other world, the other timeline.
Dark Phoenix… she never had thought her friend to be the martyr in the end when she had been the one claiming she would put everything on the line. Maybe it was a present after all. A present from Kate.
Title: To Listen
Author: agunagirlafix
Fandom: The Silmarillion
Character: Vairë the Weaver
Rating: G
Prompt: 008 Future from 100_women
Word Count: 140
It was all in her hall. Vairë may not have been the most powerful of the Valar, or one that seemed to interact much with those that had awoken on Arda’s soil, but she, in her solitude, had harkened to the music of the Ainur while she had sung, not just implicating herself into the melody or fueling aimless fights.
That was why she was Vairë the Weaver, and it was in her solitude, in her hall, that she picked together the fibrous strings of past and present, weaving them into a solid history-and future. No, most of the Awakened didn’t even know her lonely existence, the only unmarried Valier, but prestige wasn’t what mattered to her.
It was completing the hall of Mandos. The Fourth Age was coming and she was ready to sing the end of days.
Title: Gambling Your Life
Author: agunagirlafix
Fandom: Final Fantasy VI
Character: Daryll
Rating: PG
Prompt: 009 First from 100_women
Word Count: 294
She was laughing, through back a glance, looking around the course. “Looks like I have that bitch beat,” she said, landing the airship easily. She grinned and smiled for photographs, practically flaunting herself in front of them, waving her winner’s trophy in the air.
A young man, tossing dice in one hand approached her, and her body guards tried to hold him back, but she told them to let him through, intrigued by his attitude.
“I knew I should have doubled my bet on you,” he said with a wink.
“They still let people bet on me?” she asked with fake shock. “I’m sure they would have noticed by now I always come in first.”
“As long as you’re far ahead, I still get my money,” he grinned, tossing her the dice. “Setzer.”
“Daryll. But you knew that and you know I’ll always fly as fast as I can until I make my way to the finish line. They same I’m crazy, going to kill myself, even my manager, and I tell them I’d prefer to keep comin’ in first and flyin’ fast, even if it kills me.” She caught the dice easily, rolling them in her fingers, shooting him a grin.
He just smiled, watching her, enjoying the show of cockiness. “Care to race me?” he asked eventually.
She pressed the dice firmly against her palm then tossed them up and down. “Is that a date?” she asked coyly?
“Sure. The stakes are pretty high, though,” Setzer said in a mock-serious voice.
“But you know I always come in first.” She winked at him, tossing the dice back, her body guards following her as she motioned to leave the track. “Tomorrow morning. Same place. Eight o’clock.”
She was invincible. She’d be there first.
Title: The Things that Matter
Author: agunagirlafix
Fandom: The Silmarillion
Character: Celebrían, Lady of Rivendell
Rating: G
Prompt: 010 Last from 100_women
Word Count: 330
Her feä had protested beyond everything. Her body was ruined, tainted, dirty and very little of her wanted to live, to be contained in such an abomination. But there was that small part of her that needed one more moment, and it kept her from the halls of Mandos.
She had the vague notion that her fear and torment had stopped, but her body was no longer feeling any of it. She only had one purpose now, and it was even clearer as everything faded into black.
She thought, perhaps, that the poisoned wound had taken over her body, but when her eyes fluttered open, she wasn’t in Valinor, but below the richly carved rafters Rivendell’s house of healing was known for. It meant only one thing-her body was healed. But it left the question-was it cleansed?
A hand touched her cheek, and she knew she was crying from the implications of her own thoughts. Celebrían looked up into her husband’s eyes.
“I couldn’t imagine passing without you seeing me one last time…” she said, though she could not recognize the voice, even though it was her own. She spent three quiet months with Elrond and her children, Arwen, Elladan, and Elrohir.
“Take me to the sea,” she begged Elrond. “You four are the only things left for me in Middle Earth, yet that is not sustaining enough for me. I am broken, and soon enough, I will die. I must go to the havens, the undying lands.” It pained her to say it, knowing she would never see her children again. “But I promise this is not a last farewell…” She trailed off, touching Elrond’s hand, feeling the Eldar’s ring of power, twisting it in her fingers. “I promise before the end of this age, we will meet again.”
Elrond heard her unspoken words just as clearly as the spoken ones. “You do have the sight of your mother,” he said, knowing he had no other choice.
Fandoms in this bit:
Serial Experiments Lain
Fullmetal Alchemist
X-Men 616 Comicverse
The Silmarillion
Final Fantasy VI
Title: Obsession
Author: agunagirlafix
Fandom: Serial Experiments Lain
Character: Lain
Rating: G
Prompt: 004 Insides from 100_women
Word Count: 129
Wires. Clothes laid carefully aside. The naked girl was doing her best to repair the bust fuse-no, to make her machine even better, perfect access to the WIRED. Her eyes gleamed as her nimble fingers pulled cords and cards and reapportioned them, wondering where her soldering iron was.
Eventually, Lain sat behind her computer, wires connected to herself-almost every part covered by an electrode or alligator clip. It had to get inside of her, so she could get inside of it.
The girl, still naked, her eyes simple and dull now, stared forward, the electrical pulses reflecting in her eyes. She was inside, where she could see everything and yet nothing. It was her solitude and her hell.
But all that mattered was that she was in.
Title: Invitations We Can Never Accept
Author: agunagirlafix
Fandom: Serial Experiments Lain
Character: Alice
Rating: PG
Prompt: 005 Outsides from 100_women
Word Count: 301
Sometimes, Alice wondered what she had done to deserve this.
All the pain and suffering she had gone through, while her friends remained oblivious. What had she done to retain the hurt when everyone else around her was blissful?
She tried to ask Lain, sobs, tears, and everything. She had done so much for the outsider-allowing her in when no one else would. But really, Lain assured her without words, the girl’s small hand touching her cheek to wipe away tears, she was just doing the same thing.
They were benignly killing each other.
Lain had been stuck outside of the social spectrum, and Alice had done everything she could to invite her in, get her friends, and help her.
They had grown so close, though encounters, some of which Alice didn’t even know about. In the same way she had felt pity for the young outcast, Lain refused to push her back to the outside.
But the tears were enough. Lain would always be on the outside of the social fringe and Alice would never be in Lain’s inner world.
No matter how close they were, these were just invitations they could never accept, watching each other’s lives from the outside.
Alice was content forgetting everything, though she couldn’t place what piece was missing. It must have been nearly ten years later when she saw a little girl on the street and she felt like she was window-shopping, forgetting her slightly-inebriated boyfriend for the moment.
“I love you,” she swore she heard.
She wrapped her arms around her boyfriend, knowing he hadn’t said the words. She wasn’t exactly sure if she could place who the little girl was, but she had the overwhelming sense that it was nice to know she was invited, even if she couldn’t get in.
Title: Ignorance as a Chance to Deny Humanity
Author: agunagirlafix
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Character: Sloth
Rating: PG
Prompt: 006 Past from 100_women
Word Count: 159
She had been told the miracle story of her birth. She had seen the way the blond looked at her and the shivers that went up the suit of armor with the soul of a boy. But she couldn’t remember; the memories were like the ones you’d seen on video tapes-just things someone else has filled in for you, detachable. No, her past was completely blank, those golden eyes no more recognizable than a stranger’s.
But it gave her assurance-this past she couldn’t remember-that he wouldn’t be able to hurt her. Well, maybe hurt wasn’t exactly the right word. That was such a human emotion. But it was amazing how being free of a conscience and a past allowed you to do whatever you needed to, no matter how dirty or personal the work.
No, she was not Trisha Elric.
That wasn’t even past anymore. But she could still pretend, if it got the work done.
Title: Dark Phoenix
Author: agunagirlafix
Fandom: X-Men 616 Comicverse
Character: Rachel Summers
Rating: PG
Prompt: 007 Present from 100_women
Word Count: 196
The words… they resonated in her brain and she seemed dimly aware of light and clean air. “Dark Phoenix,” Kate had said, an odd combination of words to tell a Project Nimrod Sentinal about to kill you. But she was breathing and her heart was beating… and there were no Sentinals. No search beams.
She stretched, her muscles feeling oddly fatigued, trying to figure out where she was. The sky was clear and the grass was green and above all no one was hiding scared in their houses or stuck behind fences in camps. Was this the world Kate had saved?
…how had she gotten here? For a fleeting moment, she thought that Kate must have actually saved their world and this was their present, it just took some time to take affect… but the Phoenix Force had said otherwise, which meant she wasn’t in her present. No, this was the other world, the other timeline.
Dark Phoenix… she never had thought her friend to be the martyr in the end when she had been the one claiming she would put everything on the line. Maybe it was a present after all. A present from Kate.
Title: To Listen
Author: agunagirlafix
Fandom: The Silmarillion
Character: Vairë the Weaver
Rating: G
Prompt: 008 Future from 100_women
Word Count: 140
It was all in her hall. Vairë may not have been the most powerful of the Valar, or one that seemed to interact much with those that had awoken on Arda’s soil, but she, in her solitude, had harkened to the music of the Ainur while she had sung, not just implicating herself into the melody or fueling aimless fights.
That was why she was Vairë the Weaver, and it was in her solitude, in her hall, that she picked together the fibrous strings of past and present, weaving them into a solid history-and future. No, most of the Awakened didn’t even know her lonely existence, the only unmarried Valier, but prestige wasn’t what mattered to her.
It was completing the hall of Mandos. The Fourth Age was coming and she was ready to sing the end of days.
Title: Gambling Your Life
Author: agunagirlafix
Fandom: Final Fantasy VI
Character: Daryll
Rating: PG
Prompt: 009 First from 100_women
Word Count: 294
She was laughing, through back a glance, looking around the course. “Looks like I have that bitch beat,” she said, landing the airship easily. She grinned and smiled for photographs, practically flaunting herself in front of them, waving her winner’s trophy in the air.
A young man, tossing dice in one hand approached her, and her body guards tried to hold him back, but she told them to let him through, intrigued by his attitude.
“I knew I should have doubled my bet on you,” he said with a wink.
“They still let people bet on me?” she asked with fake shock. “I’m sure they would have noticed by now I always come in first.”
“As long as you’re far ahead, I still get my money,” he grinned, tossing her the dice. “Setzer.”
“Daryll. But you knew that and you know I’ll always fly as fast as I can until I make my way to the finish line. They same I’m crazy, going to kill myself, even my manager, and I tell them I’d prefer to keep comin’ in first and flyin’ fast, even if it kills me.” She caught the dice easily, rolling them in her fingers, shooting him a grin.
He just smiled, watching her, enjoying the show of cockiness. “Care to race me?” he asked eventually.
She pressed the dice firmly against her palm then tossed them up and down. “Is that a date?” she asked coyly?
“Sure. The stakes are pretty high, though,” Setzer said in a mock-serious voice.
“But you know I always come in first.” She winked at him, tossing the dice back, her body guards following her as she motioned to leave the track. “Tomorrow morning. Same place. Eight o’clock.”
She was invincible. She’d be there first.
Title: The Things that Matter
Author: agunagirlafix
Fandom: The Silmarillion
Character: Celebrían, Lady of Rivendell
Rating: G
Prompt: 010 Last from 100_women
Word Count: 330
Her feä had protested beyond everything. Her body was ruined, tainted, dirty and very little of her wanted to live, to be contained in such an abomination. But there was that small part of her that needed one more moment, and it kept her from the halls of Mandos.
She had the vague notion that her fear and torment had stopped, but her body was no longer feeling any of it. She only had one purpose now, and it was even clearer as everything faded into black.
She thought, perhaps, that the poisoned wound had taken over her body, but when her eyes fluttered open, she wasn’t in Valinor, but below the richly carved rafters Rivendell’s house of healing was known for. It meant only one thing-her body was healed. But it left the question-was it cleansed?
A hand touched her cheek, and she knew she was crying from the implications of her own thoughts. Celebrían looked up into her husband’s eyes.
“I couldn’t imagine passing without you seeing me one last time…” she said, though she could not recognize the voice, even though it was her own. She spent three quiet months with Elrond and her children, Arwen, Elladan, and Elrohir.
“Take me to the sea,” she begged Elrond. “You four are the only things left for me in Middle Earth, yet that is not sustaining enough for me. I am broken, and soon enough, I will die. I must go to the havens, the undying lands.” It pained her to say it, knowing she would never see her children again. “But I promise this is not a last farewell…” She trailed off, touching Elrond’s hand, feeling the Eldar’s ring of power, twisting it in her fingers. “I promise before the end of this age, we will meet again.”
Elrond heard her unspoken words just as clearly as the spoken ones. “You do have the sight of your mother,” he said, knowing he had no other choice.