Dark Drabblefest: Prompts for Day Seven

[dark_administrator]

The last day of the drabblefest is on us, and we hope you enjoyed playing. Please feel welcome to continue using the prompts as inspiration strikes you, and in whatever fandom you may wish to dabble in. Thank you to everyone for writing!

Theme:
Part of why we dance is that so much of dance is about shared code. In a shared culture, dance transmits the cultural code. The logic of the dancing body, the rhythms, the manners — the things transmitted through the dances are [found] in that society. But if you take that dance to another culture, those codes don't make sense. So the dance becomes decoration and it's just pretty. If it's just pretty, it becomes an object — you can buy it, you can toss it away. And fundamentally, I don't think that's what dance is for but for the most part, that's what dance has become.

So when we live in a multicultural and diverse world, without a shared mythology, how do we connect to our bodies? How do we address the question of dance? Yet, I think we all need to feel each other's bodies, to have a fuller understanding of each other. Understanding is not just intellectual. There's a whole body intelligence that I feel is missing in our efforts to live together. - Lee Su-Feh (Source)

Texture:



Trope:
Occupiers Out of Our Country

Taste:
~ lambent ~ saffron ~ sticky

Tongues:

Nipa loho ya kihindi wino na kalamu kandi nikuswifie mapendi. Yameningia moyoni kwa sahihi ya aini kana wanja wa machoni.

Give me a writing board of Indian wood, ink and a precious pen, let me praise love for you. It has entered my heart forsooth, oh pupil of my eye, you are like cool antimony. (Source)

Guidelines:

• Prompts are entirely optional, to use, subvert or ignore as you please.
  
• The goal is to write a drabble of at least 100 words in one of the qualifying Remix fandoms. If you end up writing a longer fic, more joy to us all.
  
• Your drabble must put a chromatic character at the centre of its narrative.
  
• You can share your drabbles in comments to each day's prompts post, as long as you include a fandom and a rating in your subject.
  
• You may suggest and/or solicit fandom or character specific prompts in comments, as long as your ratio of prompts to drabbles does not tilt heavily towards the former.
  
• If you are trying to qualify for Remix 2010, you will need 7 drabbles in any one fandom. You don't have to do Remix to play here, though.

Comments

[alexseanchai]

(didn't we just do 'lambent' the other day?)

"Penelope", T'Pel, Star Trek Voyager (PG)

[alara]

Penelope

In the pathway of the sun,
In the footsteps of the breeze,
Where the world and sky are one,
He shall ride the silver seas,
He shall cut the glittering wave.
I shall sit at home, and rock;
Rise, to heed a neighbour's knock;
Brew my tea, and snip my thread;
Bleach the linen for my bed.
They will call him brave.
- Dorothy Parker, "Penelope"


"There is no logic in behaving as if you are yet one bonded," T'Ser, the clan matriarch, said to T'Pel. "You are yet young, and your husband is most certainly dead. It would be appropriate for you to consider taking a new husband."

"There is no proof that Tuvok is dead," T'Pel said serenely, no trace in her voice or expression of the anger she could not entirely stop from feeling, illogical though it was. "And I have four children. My oldest son is newly bonded. I have no time to pursue remarriage, nor any desire to do so."

"You are too young."

She was 92. She had married a man fifteen years her senior, when she was twenty-five and he was forty -- his parents were in Starfleet and had chosen to let him choose his own bondmate, expecting that he might require a wife who could travel with him, while her expected bondmate had died in an accident. Vulcan women were not generally permitted to remain unbonded past the age of thirty. The pon farr killed unbonded males and tradition stated that despite the acceptance of male homosexual bonding, despite the acceptance of men taking alien wives, despite the fact that young boys still died on their kahs-wan, it was still necessary for any Vulcan woman who was not kohlinahru or otherwise unsuitable to give over her life and body to a man that he would not die or go mad. The cold statistics demanded that to ensure that all men of breeding age had bondmates, all women of breeding age had to be bonded or available to be bonded. It was not a choice.

The choice she had made, the only choice, had been in who she chose. A husband who had been offworld, who had experience in military and police operations, was not who most Vulcan women would have chosen, but for T'Pel, Tuvok was the closest thing to rebellion against the dictates of her society that she was allowed. Her clan was powerful, a distant offshoot of the Shi'Kahr aristocracy, and they did not interpret the teachings of Surak to allow military service, or Starfleet service, or the occasional need for violence required of police officers. She placated her family by becoming a nurse, a counterbalance to her choice of husband -- a man older than she was, a man who had been among offworlders, a man whose entire family accepted and embraced necessary violence. Spies, soldiers, Starfleet officers, peacekeepers. This had not been T'Ser's mother's idea of a suitable husband for a great-granddaughter, and now that T'Ser was matriarch, evidently she wished T'Pel to move back toward the traditions of her clan.

A 92-year-old widow would never be accepted by the matriarchs. The Vulcan women who ruled over the clans were chosen from those who had performed their lifelong service to the Vulcan species, giving themselves to a Vulcan husband until either he died or his fires faded in old age. T'Pel was not even quite middle-aged yet. She had four children and might soon be a grandmother, but it was too soon for her to take the power of a widow, not when she had nearly a century left that she could give. So T'Ser believed, as T'Pel could see in her repeated insistence that T'Pel was young.

"I am young to be a widow," T'Pel agreed. "But Tuvok's fires last burned merely months ago. If he lives, he has seven years to come back to me. If he does not live... then in seven years, I will know it." And if he lived, but could not return within seven years, he would either die or be forced to take a new wife. She could consider the matter of a remarriage then... or, more likely, spend the next seven years coming up with good and logical reasons why she couldn't remarry, because she had no desire for a man that was not Tuvok.

"There is no reason to believe that he lives," T'Ser said. "His ship was lost in the Badlands. The Maquis craft he traveled on was small, and could not be expected to withstand a violent spatial anomaly. A Starfleet vessel, better equipped, was lost at the same time. Why would you assume that the Maquis craft could survive what the Starfleet vessel did not? It defies logic."

"They didn't find debris from either vessel," T'Pel said. "I don't assume that the Starfleet vessel was destroyed, or that the Maquis vessel was. Kathryn Janeway is a superb captain, for a human, and her crew are excellent Starfleet officers. I consider it entirely possible that Janeway did find the Maquis vessel, that she took her quarry into custody, and that her ship was lost, but not destroyed, with Tuvok back aboard it. In the absence of evidence, either scenario is possible."

"But the odds against the scenario you describe are highly implausible."

"Yet not impossible. And I am under no time constraint as a man would be. I will work, and if Sek and Sotari grant me a grandchild, I will help them tend that child. Asil has returned from the ranks of the kohlinahru to pursue a worldly life, and I will assist her in that. Varith seeks a mate; I will assist him. Elieth attends graduate studies; I will assist him. My life is quite full; I have no need to pursue remarriage at this time. I can wait, to learn the truth of Tuvok's fate."

T'Ser leaned forward. "T'Val never considered Tuvok a suitable mate for one of your stature."

"And yet he has given me four healthy children and a satisfactory life. It is illogical to seek more than that in a marriage."

"True. But there are several men from Shi'Kahr, of ages similar to yours, who seek a mate of an appropriate clan after the loss of their wives. I believe it would be wise for you to entertain their offers."

T'Ser was the clan matriarch. Reforms made over the centuries prevented her from actually having any legal power over who T'Pel did or did not marry; T'Pel was an adult, and Vulcans no longer allowed the clan leaders to rule over the adults in the clan. But the social pressure she could bring to bear was considerable. "I am certainly willing to converse with them, but they must understand I will make no swift decisions."

"They have time."

So this was to be her task, then. Entertain men she had no intention of marrying, converse with them, show T'Ser the proper deference due a clan matriarch and appear to be doing her will... and stall for time. Because if Tuvok lived, and came home or sent word, then all of this was moot. She would not need to remarry if she was not a widow. In fact she had no intention of remarrying at all, but she didn't wish a confrontation with T'Ser and the rest of the clan matriarchs unless she was forced to it. "Send me their names and contact information, and I will make arrangements to meet with them." And then she would contact Sek and Sotari, and invite them as well. Let a man come to her home to meet with her about remarriage, and let him do so in front of her adult son and his wife, reminding them that she was a mother and perhaps soon a grandmother, reminding them that there would be no erasing her marriage to Tuvok. It would inhibit them, give them a reason to pursue their suits slowly... and that would give Tuvok time to come home.

I know you live, my husband. There is no logic to it... the bond doesn't operate over the distance you've traveled. I cannot know you live, and yet, I do. Come home to me, Tuvok. Soon.

Leverage - Alec Hardison; PG-13; 'Techno-wizardry'

[blackeyedgirl]

(Not playing remix, and this is only one little triple-drabble, but wanted to write something)

*

Alec does things with computers that aren’t, in the regular senses of the word, possible. He can stick a moving image of Parker right into a live camera feed. Press a button and get control of your phone, your car, your damn house. Ain’t no one in the world who’s as good or as fast as he is. He’s pretty much a magician, is the truth of it, no matter what Eliot might be implying with his bitching over there on the couch. When Eliot knows how to rewire the systems so they talk wirelessly to the server Alec has built downstairs, then he can pick the entertainment. Alec has got World of Warcraft playing on a screen fifty times bigger than the first one his Nana ever bought for him, back in the day. That was the one he ran with a computer he built himself, the first time he realised nothing he could afford was ever going to be powerful enough. He probably could afford it now if he decided, but he wants to be sure of every component of the computers they use on the jobs. No one’s going to tamper with anything in this place, not ever again. Alec can make sure of that, ‘cause he’s better than anyone they’d send. Alec has earned his skills, just the same as Eliot earned his, back when he was a baby assassin or whatever. Alec has earned the right to call himself whatever the hell he wants.

Eliot rolls his eyes. “Look, I just don’t get why you’re playing as the wizard or whatever the fuck he’s called.”

Alec leans forward in his chair and shows Eliot his empty hands. “Truth in fiction, baby. Now just give me the damn mouse and sit back. Watch the magic happen.”

Star Trek: TOS, PG, Nyota Uhura and Zahra Jamal, pg, Alone Time

[medie]

Zahra's the one who comes up with it. "Argellius isn't Risa, but it's not bad." She pushes the padd toward Nyota, a gleam of mischief in her eye. Nyota knows that little glint all too well. Just it's appearance is enough to raise her interest. "Just look at it, Ny. It's beautiful."

Sitting down, Nyota unzips her boots. Her hands are quickly batted away by Zahra, who quickly takes over. "Just look," Zahra says, giving a firm tug to one of the troublesome footwear. "You'll see what I mean."

"Honey, anywhere I'm alone with you is fine by me," Nyota says, smiling. She picks up the padd anyway, letting her tired eyes roam the images. The Argelians weren't the Risans by any stretch of the imagination. They hadn't quite married pleasure and commerce in the same way, but they had a knack all their own. She looks at the pictures, almost able to feel the feel of the lush carpets and fluffy, inviting bedclothes.

"See?" Zahra murmurs, her hands sliding up Nyota's leg. "It'll be wonderful. Just you, me, and a few days of peace and quiet."

Her fingernails skim Nyota's thighs, inching beneath her uniform skirt, raising gooseflesh and Nyota's interest in the same lazy motion. "Quiet?" Her breath hitches and she lifts her hips, helping Zahra inch down her hose. "Honey, you're a screamer."

Zahra grins, rising up. Her lips are soft, warm and careful against Nyota's. "So are you," she says into the kiss. When it breaks, both of them breathing just a little heavier, she pulls Nyota to her feet. "Well?"

Nyota laughs, pushing her toward the bed. "Book it."