Misunderstandings + This Girl is a Storm
Title: Misunderstandings
Story Continuity: Pandora's Earth
Flavors: Gingerbread 20: fee fie foe fum, Blackberry 14: the jury's still out, Mango 12: I quit
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 1000
Summary: Gareth and Natalie's friendship, like all good things in Gareth's life, began with a series of misunderstandings. Pocky chain.
Note: Relevant to the Summer Challenge. <3
1. Impressions
Gareth, Natalie found, had a startlingly specific look to him.
For example, after dismissing thoughts of Gareth's secret past as a pirate, Natalie easily imagined him as the sort of guy for whom proposing to "Welcome to My Nightmare" was the height of modern romanticism, and whose father perhaps secretly fed him growth hormones in his Wheaties - not really a negative, that, as for once she wasn't the only one being towered over.
Gareth took one look at Natalie and figured her for a rank amateur, but postponed judgment; he knew what happened to those who held assumptions as gospel truth.
2. Gareth Speight, Deconstructed
Gareth discovered who he was by sussing out who he wasn't. He disliked fried eggs, autumn, the weight of silence, and everything about independent coffeehouses. He craved routine and order almost compulsively, and enjoyed the Italian ice from Mario's, the effect his eyepatch had on strangers, and Canadian alternative rock bands. He once lived for drunken revelry, and he hoped those days were over. There were people who ruined their own lives with drink; Gareth ruined life for everyone. He'd done it once already.
The fae remained displeased with him for returning them to Earth. Gareth remained unimpressed with their coping mechanisms.
3. On the Keeping of Secrets
Gareth knew secrets. He kept his share even before he became classified.
Natalie was an artist. She did her job, gushed over CSI - "It's like candy," she says, "I know it's completely without substance, but I can't get enough-" - and everyone assumed her an open book.
The best secrets, Gareth knew, were never suspected.
He also knew the look of a runner. When Natalie spoke of her family, she told tales more processed than a family edition of De Sade's complete works.
He would know. Seven years of experience with child services, and nobody suspected he spent four of them in interviews.
4. Funny Sort of Claustrophobia
On her third day, Natalie gazed suspiciously at the walls and ceiling like she expected them to collapse.
"Who's saying they won't?" She'd say when asked, grinning crookedly, but her eyes remained glued to the walls. Days passed, and never mind the kelpies and rakshas, the walls remained the most worrying thing in the city.
"Penny for your thoughts," Gareth said the next day, slipping said coin to her with her coffee (taken the same way as his - black).
"Oh, honey," she said, both amused and grateful, "you'll need at least four hundred and ninety- nine more of those for what I've got."
5. Natalie Stone, Deconstructed
Natalie was a superhuman. She adored her collection of Josephine Baker LPs, Simon Pegg, postmodernism, and sewing. She hated candles, parents who insisted their hellspawn could produce a Picasso, and wearing socks. On the days she missed her family almost physically, she closed her eyes that night and wondered who they'd since become. If she was greater than their prejudice or if she'd be sent away as an evil thing.
The burden of not knowing weighed so heavily on Natalie's heart she had to coax it to beating each morning. She tried not to think about when persuasion mightn't be enough.
6. The First Door
Gareth knew the ceiling had a few funny stains, but he'd been quite sure they were definitely not doors. There were never any doors on the ceiling, and Gareth was certain it was an infallible truth. Thus, when he rolled his eyes at Colin and peripherally spotted one, he'd understandably faltered.
The world proved itself more multitudinous and mysterious than anyone could have guessed in recent history, more lethal and sly, and yet somehow this was the most disturbing thing Gareth had ever seen. Sometimes taking away the small things is all one needs to send the house of cards scattering.
7. Behind Door Number One
Gareth guessed someone may have been shooting a horror film behind the door of dubious origins (which now only occasionally appeared above them - he'd seen it in ledgers and lockers since the first time).
"If we're very lucky," Natalie said, "Our colleagues will be familiar with horror tropes and not open the door or read suspicious flesh-bound books near it. Or pray."
"That won't be a problem," Gareth said, brows and interest raised. "Why?"
"It's just strange how easily people forget," Natalie said, "that it was angels who set the Deluge on the world the first time people blatantly ignored divine mandate."
8. The Beautiful Profaned
Someone does open the door, but sadly for the curious, it's Luna.
"I can't unsee it," Luna said. "I've seen so many things. Ancient history and nascent history. I've seen human horrors. But the things I saw, they should never have been seen."
"Yeah, thanks, Miss Dickinson," Colin sighed, "Now say it in English, please."
"The big show was inside my head," Luna said, awed. "Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt."
Natalie didn't react, but stayed wary of the door.
There was some debate about entering until Shamar Davies asked, "Right. So, who wants to knock on heaven's door and risk permanent transubstantiation?"
Nobody volunteered.
9. Hellfire
Mulligan's was a nightclub on West Adams where nothing worse ever happened than surprise syphilis (which, to be fair, happened a lot), so when Gareth was woken at four AM on a Sunday about a fire there, his first thought was a broken smoke machine. His second was that he wasn't a fireman, so it was hardly his problem.
"Just get your punk ass down here," Richard said flatly, hanging up.
Mulligan had been sacrificing patrons to Dionysus. One had been Shamar's missing son.
Richard called again. Natalie had spent the night catatonic in Arrigo Park.
Gareth's common sense was tingling. It wasn't pleasant.
10. The Perils of Not Asking
"Why were you talking to that pimp?"
Natalie looked up at Gareth from her bench, smiling. "Does it matter? Pimps are completely respectable."
"In what universe?"
"You know, I thought that, too, when I told him," Natalie said, bright and brittle, gesturing for Gareth to sit. "But nobody even notices him."
"I give up," Gareth said. "Just...I don't want to know."
"Thank you," Natalie murmured. "I won't ask about the eye, then."
It would take a colossal effort, but it wasn't his business to ask, probably.
"The doors are gone," Natalie said. "Good thing, too. I personally like my coffee without doors."
...Probably not his business.
...Oh goddamn it.
Title: This Girl is a Storm
Story Continuity: Battle For the Sun
Flavors: Gingerbread 14: wicked witch, Blackberry 10: blood on your hands, Mango 14: out of my way
Toppings: Banana, Cherry (fighting, lightning, drawing an entire body (finally), successfully using downloaded brushes)
Rating: PG
Summary: Jaida attempts to kill a vampire with an axe to the head. And lightning, because there is no such thing as overkill but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing (which is, of course, wonderful).
Note: Non-colored circle brushes used created by Dark-Yarrow, ImaginationART, and iconazrylipfe on DeviantART, and I may have used a script by Green Romance and forgotten about it.
Story Continuity: Pandora's Earth
Flavors: Gingerbread 20: fee fie foe fum, Blackberry 14: the jury's still out, Mango 12: I quit
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 1000
Summary: Gareth and Natalie's friendship, like all good things in Gareth's life, began with a series of misunderstandings. Pocky chain.
Note: Relevant to the Summer Challenge. <3
1. Impressions
Gareth, Natalie found, had a startlingly specific look to him.
For example, after dismissing thoughts of Gareth's secret past as a pirate, Natalie easily imagined him as the sort of guy for whom proposing to "Welcome to My Nightmare" was the height of modern romanticism, and whose father perhaps secretly fed him growth hormones in his Wheaties - not really a negative, that, as for once she wasn't the only one being towered over.
Gareth took one look at Natalie and figured her for a rank amateur, but postponed judgment; he knew what happened to those who held assumptions as gospel truth.
2. Gareth Speight, Deconstructed
Gareth discovered who he was by sussing out who he wasn't. He disliked fried eggs, autumn, the weight of silence, and everything about independent coffeehouses. He craved routine and order almost compulsively, and enjoyed the Italian ice from Mario's, the effect his eyepatch had on strangers, and Canadian alternative rock bands. He once lived for drunken revelry, and he hoped those days were over. There were people who ruined their own lives with drink; Gareth ruined life for everyone. He'd done it once already.
The fae remained displeased with him for returning them to Earth. Gareth remained unimpressed with their coping mechanisms.
3. On the Keeping of Secrets
Gareth knew secrets. He kept his share even before he became classified.
Natalie was an artist. She did her job, gushed over CSI - "It's like candy," she says, "I know it's completely without substance, but I can't get enough-" - and everyone assumed her an open book.
The best secrets, Gareth knew, were never suspected.
He also knew the look of a runner. When Natalie spoke of her family, she told tales more processed than a family edition of De Sade's complete works.
He would know. Seven years of experience with child services, and nobody suspected he spent four of them in interviews.
4. Funny Sort of Claustrophobia
On her third day, Natalie gazed suspiciously at the walls and ceiling like she expected them to collapse.
"Who's saying they won't?" She'd say when asked, grinning crookedly, but her eyes remained glued to the walls. Days passed, and never mind the kelpies and rakshas, the walls remained the most worrying thing in the city.
"Penny for your thoughts," Gareth said the next day, slipping said coin to her with her coffee (taken the same way as his - black).
"Oh, honey," she said, both amused and grateful, "you'll need at least four hundred and ninety- nine more of those for what I've got."
5. Natalie Stone, Deconstructed
Natalie was a superhuman. She adored her collection of Josephine Baker LPs, Simon Pegg, postmodernism, and sewing. She hated candles, parents who insisted their hellspawn could produce a Picasso, and wearing socks. On the days she missed her family almost physically, she closed her eyes that night and wondered who they'd since become. If she was greater than their prejudice or if she'd be sent away as an evil thing.
The burden of not knowing weighed so heavily on Natalie's heart she had to coax it to beating each morning. She tried not to think about when persuasion mightn't be enough.
6. The First Door
Gareth knew the ceiling had a few funny stains, but he'd been quite sure they were definitely not doors. There were never any doors on the ceiling, and Gareth was certain it was an infallible truth. Thus, when he rolled his eyes at Colin and peripherally spotted one, he'd understandably faltered.
The world proved itself more multitudinous and mysterious than anyone could have guessed in recent history, more lethal and sly, and yet somehow this was the most disturbing thing Gareth had ever seen. Sometimes taking away the small things is all one needs to send the house of cards scattering.
7. Behind Door Number One
Gareth guessed someone may have been shooting a horror film behind the door of dubious origins (which now only occasionally appeared above them - he'd seen it in ledgers and lockers since the first time).
"If we're very lucky," Natalie said, "Our colleagues will be familiar with horror tropes and not open the door or read suspicious flesh-bound books near it. Or pray."
"That won't be a problem," Gareth said, brows and interest raised. "Why?"
"It's just strange how easily people forget," Natalie said, "that it was angels who set the Deluge on the world the first time people blatantly ignored divine mandate."
8. The Beautiful Profaned
Someone does open the door, but sadly for the curious, it's Luna.
"I can't unsee it," Luna said. "I've seen so many things. Ancient history and nascent history. I've seen human horrors. But the things I saw, they should never have been seen."
"Yeah, thanks, Miss Dickinson," Colin sighed, "Now say it in English, please."
"The big show was inside my head," Luna said, awed. "Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt."
Natalie didn't react, but stayed wary of the door.
There was some debate about entering until Shamar Davies asked, "Right. So, who wants to knock on heaven's door and risk permanent transubstantiation?"
Nobody volunteered.
9. Hellfire
Mulligan's was a nightclub on West Adams where nothing worse ever happened than surprise syphilis (which, to be fair, happened a lot), so when Gareth was woken at four AM on a Sunday about a fire there, his first thought was a broken smoke machine. His second was that he wasn't a fireman, so it was hardly his problem.
"Just get your punk ass down here," Richard said flatly, hanging up.
Mulligan had been sacrificing patrons to Dionysus. One had been Shamar's missing son.
Richard called again. Natalie had spent the night catatonic in Arrigo Park.
Gareth's common sense was tingling. It wasn't pleasant.
10. The Perils of Not Asking
"Why were you talking to that pimp?"
Natalie looked up at Gareth from her bench, smiling. "Does it matter? Pimps are completely respectable."
"In what universe?"
"You know, I thought that, too, when I told him," Natalie said, bright and brittle, gesturing for Gareth to sit. "But nobody even notices him."
"I give up," Gareth said. "Just...I don't want to know."
"Thank you," Natalie murmured. "I won't ask about the eye, then."
It would take a colossal effort, but it wasn't his business to ask, probably.
"The doors are gone," Natalie said. "Good thing, too. I personally like my coffee without doors."
...Probably not his business.
...Oh goddamn it.
Title: This Girl is a Storm
Story Continuity: Battle For the Sun
Flavors: Gingerbread 14: wicked witch, Blackberry 10: blood on your hands, Mango 14: out of my way
Toppings: Banana, Cherry (fighting, lightning, drawing an entire body (finally), successfully using downloaded brushes)
Rating: PG
Summary: Jaida attempts to kill a vampire with an axe to the head. And lightning, because there is no such thing as overkill but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing (which is, of course, wonderful).
Note: Non-colored circle brushes used created by Dark-Yarrow, ImaginationART, and iconazrylipfe on DeviantART, and I may have used a script by Green Romance and forgotten about it.