Short Fic Round Up
Aug. 23rd, 2017 11:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
redfiona99Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Disclaimer: Not mine. No money being made from this.
Character(s): Hawkeye and Black Widow
Rating: PG
Prompt: Ten Words - any Whedonverse. any. black ink
They fight so their ledgers have more black than red.
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Disclaimer: Not mine. No money being made from this.
Character(s): Giles
Rating: PG
Prompt: Ten Words - any Whedonverse. any. black ink
Every lie he's told is recorded forever in black ink.
Fandom: Firefly
Disclaimer: Not mine. No money being made from this.
Character(s): River
Rating: PG
Prompt: Ten Words - any Whedonverse. any. black ink
Out here, ink is an old-fashioned waste. River loves it.
Title: Crown Me Already
Author: Red Fiona
Disclaimer: I don't own Rome, the BBC and HBO do. No money is being made from this.
Fandom: Rome
Characters: Octavian
Ratings/Warnings: PG-13 - Canonical character death. Octavian's sister issues.
Notes: Written for the OPI Summer Challenge. The prompt was Crown Me Already.
Summary: In three days, they will crown him with a garland of laurels.
In three days, they will crown him with a garland of laurels.
He has waited for this, with a mask of patience for most of the time. It doesn't do for people to know you're planning something.
He has no desire for the title of Emperor, nor will he take it, but he wants the power of it. There shouldn't be an emperor. Empires lead to tyranny or dissolution, or both. Rome deserves a strong, moral leader, no, Rome needs it, or else it will slip into degeneracy, if it's not more than halfway there already.
He is the best option. He has been for years. He wouldn't say that he always has been, but it has been a long time since he wasn't. He wonders, sometimes, idly, because things cannot be changed, what would have happened if Caesar lived.
He compares his memories of the man with other people's memories, and with those standards held up for leaders, of men with power. He tries not to let his sentiment for his uncle cloud his vision. It's difficult though. He remembers Caesar fondly. A man with weaknesses, like all men, but a great man nonetheless. And he would have been greater still with Octavian by his side.
He likes to imagine a world where Caesar wasn't killed, where he would have had time to fully learn the systems of men under Caesar's guidance. Octavian knows his weaknesses - he is a physical coward, he hasn't got the skill of getting men to fight for him, never mind die for him - but those would have been masked under Caesar's tutelage.
Maybe he would even have learned the knack of it himself.
But probably not. It seemed to be an in-born talent, not something you could learn. Why had a man like Antony had been blessed with an excess of it and he none? It might have been evidence that the Gods played sport with mortals. Because Antony had all the gifts that Octavian lacked, and what a waste that was. The man was indolent, more beast than human, and thought more with what was between his legs than what was between his ears.
Or had thought, really.
Antony and the Egyptian queen are dead. Their desiccated corpses will decorate his carriage in three days’ time.
Antony had wiped off the make up before the end, died a Roman. It wouldn't do for a victory procession. So Octavian had his men repaint Antony. Watched them as they made him up to match his queen; hair, eyes, cheeks and nails.
Octavian thought he understood hatred, he'd felt it for boys who were stronger than him and rubbed his face in that fact. He'd felt it for anyone who touched his sister. But that was reasonable and rational in comparison to what he felt for Antony. He hated Antony for all his gifts, for the way he wasted them (he had Octavia, how dare he waste her), for the way that waste had robbed Octavian of what remained of his youth. And his ideals. Octavian used to have such ideals. He would have hated the man he's become, had to become because of Antony and his unreliability and inability to do what was necessary for the good of Rome.
Octavian's never once wanted to be emperor but he knows it is his duty. So he has done everything in his power to become the emperor, in all but name. In this one thing, he is his mother's son. He has fought, he has crawled, he has plotted, and he will win. It what they do.
In three days he will be crowned with a garland of laurels. He has been waiting since Actium, since Philippi, since Caesar's death, thanks to his mother, he's been waiting for this since his birth.
Title: I Can Never Hut Up
Author: Red Fiona
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars, George Lucas and Disney do. No money is being made from this.
Fandom: Star Wars
Characters: Han Solo and Chewbacca
Ratings/Warnings: PG-13
Notes: Written for the OPI Summer Challenge. The prompt was I Can Never Hut Up.
Summary: It *was* a simple job. If you ignored the details.
He should have known there would be trouble. Lando never forwarded jobs to them unless they were impossible. Smugglers code - help yourself, and never give up easy money.
It had all sounded so simple over the holo.
It *was* simple. If you ignored the details. The credits the job would pay meant that Han had maybe ignored one detail too many. It was in a good cause. The Falcon had more than three systems on the edge of failure at the same time and they needed the credits.
The job was this. Go to Bareesh. Pick up a box of junk from a Rodian scrap vendor there. Deliver the box to Grelsh on the fifth moon of Antares IV. Receive in exchange a packet of very expensive Sho-la liver. Deliver the liver to Barosh Ungaron on Hotarn.
So far, so easy.
Then there were the details Han had skimmed over while he was trying to make sure that the contract went to them. The Sho-la liver would be ripe when they got it, which meant they had three days to get it from Antares IV to Hotarn. Sho-la liver went off quickly, and tasted worse than Bantha hide when it did. The smell was something else too.
On top of that, Sho-la liver was one of those delicacies that the Empire frowned upon. Which explained the price of it, and the fee charged by any smuggler willing to transport it. The Empire knew that it was the height of the Sho-la hunting season, which meant it was the height of liver smuggling season so they'd stepped up patrols in the area. It wouldn't be a problem normally. The shortest way between the two points, and one that near enough completely avoided Empire space, was to go through Phlobian space.
Normally that was a nice trip. If they hadn't have been working to such a tight deadline they might even have stopped off on Phlobos II to pick up some extra work.
The thing that had skipped Han's mind while he was glibly reassuring Barosh that, of course, delivery of one non-rotten Sho-la liver wouldn't be a problem was that it was the Phlobian Year of the Sun. In Han's defence, it only came round every eight years and it wasn't like the Phlobians got aggressive, or closed their space off during it. There was no real reason for him to need to remember it normally. The only difference between the Year of the Sun and normal was that, for the year, Phlobian space was supposed to be for pilgrims to the Temple of the Sun on Phlobos only.
Sure, it was vanishingly unlikely that the Phlobian patrols would catch them. They weren't going on the major routes on the way to Phlobos. But the Phlobians weren't idiots, and knew that it was Sho-la hunting season, and that smugglers liked to use that short-cut to avoid the Empire, so they’d increased the number of patrols too. If a Phlobian patrol caught them, they'd confiscate the Falcon and sell her for scrap. Scrap metal was one of the Phlobians main industries. It might well have been how the Rodian got the scrap he was selling in the first place. Because it must have been a valuable alloy if Grelsh was willing to swap it for a Sho-la liver.
Losing the Falcon was a result that Han would like to avoid. The simplest way, and therefore what they were going with, was to be dressed up as sun-worshipers while they were flying through Phlobian space. The Phlobians weren't likely to check that they actually were, they just had to look the part. It had required some quick shopping before they set off, because they wouldn't have the time to get fully dressed once they had the liver.
Han knew they looked ridiculous. But they both looked equally ridiculous, so he could do without Chewie's complaining about the colour of the nail varnish they were having to wear as part of the outfit.
"What do you mean, grey isn't your colour?!"
Disclaimer: Not mine. No money being made from this.
Character(s): Hawkeye and Black Widow
Rating: PG
Prompt: Ten Words - any Whedonverse. any. black ink
They fight so their ledgers have more black than red.
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Disclaimer: Not mine. No money being made from this.
Character(s): Giles
Rating: PG
Prompt: Ten Words - any Whedonverse. any. black ink
Every lie he's told is recorded forever in black ink.
Fandom: Firefly
Disclaimer: Not mine. No money being made from this.
Character(s): River
Rating: PG
Prompt: Ten Words - any Whedonverse. any. black ink
Out here, ink is an old-fashioned waste. River loves it.
Title: Crown Me Already
Author: Red Fiona
Disclaimer: I don't own Rome, the BBC and HBO do. No money is being made from this.
Fandom: Rome
Characters: Octavian
Ratings/Warnings: PG-13 - Canonical character death. Octavian's sister issues.
Notes: Written for the OPI Summer Challenge. The prompt was Crown Me Already.
Summary: In three days, they will crown him with a garland of laurels.
In three days, they will crown him with a garland of laurels.
He has waited for this, with a mask of patience for most of the time. It doesn't do for people to know you're planning something.
He has no desire for the title of Emperor, nor will he take it, but he wants the power of it. There shouldn't be an emperor. Empires lead to tyranny or dissolution, or both. Rome deserves a strong, moral leader, no, Rome needs it, or else it will slip into degeneracy, if it's not more than halfway there already.
He is the best option. He has been for years. He wouldn't say that he always has been, but it has been a long time since he wasn't. He wonders, sometimes, idly, because things cannot be changed, what would have happened if Caesar lived.
He compares his memories of the man with other people's memories, and with those standards held up for leaders, of men with power. He tries not to let his sentiment for his uncle cloud his vision. It's difficult though. He remembers Caesar fondly. A man with weaknesses, like all men, but a great man nonetheless. And he would have been greater still with Octavian by his side.
He likes to imagine a world where Caesar wasn't killed, where he would have had time to fully learn the systems of men under Caesar's guidance. Octavian knows his weaknesses - he is a physical coward, he hasn't got the skill of getting men to fight for him, never mind die for him - but those would have been masked under Caesar's tutelage.
Maybe he would even have learned the knack of it himself.
But probably not. It seemed to be an in-born talent, not something you could learn. Why had a man like Antony had been blessed with an excess of it and he none? It might have been evidence that the Gods played sport with mortals. Because Antony had all the gifts that Octavian lacked, and what a waste that was. The man was indolent, more beast than human, and thought more with what was between his legs than what was between his ears.
Or had thought, really.
Antony and the Egyptian queen are dead. Their desiccated corpses will decorate his carriage in three days’ time.
Antony had wiped off the make up before the end, died a Roman. It wouldn't do for a victory procession. So Octavian had his men repaint Antony. Watched them as they made him up to match his queen; hair, eyes, cheeks and nails.
Octavian thought he understood hatred, he'd felt it for boys who were stronger than him and rubbed his face in that fact. He'd felt it for anyone who touched his sister. But that was reasonable and rational in comparison to what he felt for Antony. He hated Antony for all his gifts, for the way he wasted them (he had Octavia, how dare he waste her), for the way that waste had robbed Octavian of what remained of his youth. And his ideals. Octavian used to have such ideals. He would have hated the man he's become, had to become because of Antony and his unreliability and inability to do what was necessary for the good of Rome.
Octavian's never once wanted to be emperor but he knows it is his duty. So he has done everything in his power to become the emperor, in all but name. In this one thing, he is his mother's son. He has fought, he has crawled, he has plotted, and he will win. It what they do.
In three days he will be crowned with a garland of laurels. He has been waiting since Actium, since Philippi, since Caesar's death, thanks to his mother, he's been waiting for this since his birth.
Title: I Can Never Hut Up
Author: Red Fiona
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars, George Lucas and Disney do. No money is being made from this.
Fandom: Star Wars
Characters: Han Solo and Chewbacca
Ratings/Warnings: PG-13
Notes: Written for the OPI Summer Challenge. The prompt was I Can Never Hut Up.
Summary: It *was* a simple job. If you ignored the details.
He should have known there would be trouble. Lando never forwarded jobs to them unless they were impossible. Smugglers code - help yourself, and never give up easy money.
It had all sounded so simple over the holo.
It *was* simple. If you ignored the details. The credits the job would pay meant that Han had maybe ignored one detail too many. It was in a good cause. The Falcon had more than three systems on the edge of failure at the same time and they needed the credits.
The job was this. Go to Bareesh. Pick up a box of junk from a Rodian scrap vendor there. Deliver the box to Grelsh on the fifth moon of Antares IV. Receive in exchange a packet of very expensive Sho-la liver. Deliver the liver to Barosh Ungaron on Hotarn.
So far, so easy.
Then there were the details Han had skimmed over while he was trying to make sure that the contract went to them. The Sho-la liver would be ripe when they got it, which meant they had three days to get it from Antares IV to Hotarn. Sho-la liver went off quickly, and tasted worse than Bantha hide when it did. The smell was something else too.
On top of that, Sho-la liver was one of those delicacies that the Empire frowned upon. Which explained the price of it, and the fee charged by any smuggler willing to transport it. The Empire knew that it was the height of the Sho-la hunting season, which meant it was the height of liver smuggling season so they'd stepped up patrols in the area. It wouldn't be a problem normally. The shortest way between the two points, and one that near enough completely avoided Empire space, was to go through Phlobian space.
Normally that was a nice trip. If they hadn't have been working to such a tight deadline they might even have stopped off on Phlobos II to pick up some extra work.
The thing that had skipped Han's mind while he was glibly reassuring Barosh that, of course, delivery of one non-rotten Sho-la liver wouldn't be a problem was that it was the Phlobian Year of the Sun. In Han's defence, it only came round every eight years and it wasn't like the Phlobians got aggressive, or closed their space off during it. There was no real reason for him to need to remember it normally. The only difference between the Year of the Sun and normal was that, for the year, Phlobian space was supposed to be for pilgrims to the Temple of the Sun on Phlobos only.
Sure, it was vanishingly unlikely that the Phlobian patrols would catch them. They weren't going on the major routes on the way to Phlobos. But the Phlobians weren't idiots, and knew that it was Sho-la hunting season, and that smugglers liked to use that short-cut to avoid the Empire, so they’d increased the number of patrols too. If a Phlobian patrol caught them, they'd confiscate the Falcon and sell her for scrap. Scrap metal was one of the Phlobians main industries. It might well have been how the Rodian got the scrap he was selling in the first place. Because it must have been a valuable alloy if Grelsh was willing to swap it for a Sho-la liver.
Losing the Falcon was a result that Han would like to avoid. The simplest way, and therefore what they were going with, was to be dressed up as sun-worshipers while they were flying through Phlobian space. The Phlobians weren't likely to check that they actually were, they just had to look the part. It had required some quick shopping before they set off, because they wouldn't have the time to get fully dressed once they had the liver.
Han knew they looked ridiculous. But they both looked equally ridiculous, so he could do without Chewie's complaining about the colour of the nail varnish they were having to wear as part of the outfit.
"What do you mean, grey isn't your colour?!"
