... yeah, screw it.

[taennyn]

I'm burning a ridiculous number of CDs to fill the last order for today, so have some time on my hands.

Spark me, people!

I make no promises as to what you'll get in response. :)


---

35 sparks, split as:

Deaths (8)
precampaign, "wolves and plaid" (the Morrigan) which expanded to old feuds and is still growing.
precampaign, "almond biscuits" (the Morrigan)
precampaign, "steel coins" (the Morrigan)
early campaign, "accurate" (Eduard De'Ath)
campaign, "Wait, you actually traveled in that?" (Eduard and Julian De'Ath, the Morrigan) which expanded to Troy
campaign, "DUCK!" (Julian De'Ath, the Morrigan) which expanded to heat of the moment
postcampaign, "upside down and annoyed raven" (the Morrigan) which expanded to caw to you too, darling
postcampaign, "velvet or silk in dark forest green (Julian De'Ath, the Morrigan)


Herding the Witches' Horses (Falcons' Feathers: 2, Sibir: 2, Swallow's Tail: 4, Witches' Horses: 2)
Falcons' Feathers, "accent" (Irina and Sajal)
Falcons' Feathers, "acceptance" (Irina and Sajal) which expanded to unwelcome

Sibir, "battlefield communications" (Katusha, Nadya) and "the wrong trap" which became raiding the stores

Sibir/Swallow's Tail, "actually effective armour" (Helena, Lev Petrovich)
Swallow's Tail, "a piece of metal with no discernible purpose" (Lev Petrovich, Sascha)
Swallow's Tail, "a sudden loud clatter" (Sascha, Lev Petrovich) which expanded to fishing for tools
Swallow's Tail, "the smell of hot metal" (Sascha)

Witches' Horses, "goosebumps on foxes" (Ilya, Katya)
Witches' Horses, "ancient tourist book" (Ilya, Dima)


Wild Roses (12)
Trickwood Unification, "lapses in translation" (Hernén, Ettore)
Trickwood Unification, "intricate carving out of boredom" (Donel, Ruadhan) which expanded to another winter afternoon
Some Kind of Love Song, "brown sugar sand" (Arianhrod and Takashi) which expanded to dawn
Some Kind of Love Song, "stolen kisses under starlight" (Arianhrod and Takashi)
Some Kind of Love Song, "annoyingly sticky fingers" (Arianhrod and Takashi)
Trickwood Unification, "tree speech" (Thérese Manannan)
Trickwood prewars, "bad time to magic" (Conall)
Trickwood wars, "feathers of unusual size" (Isael, Conall)
Post wars?, "bad tea shipment" (Madame Lehseet)
post wars, "blue cotton candy" (Jonathan and Sascha)
Alternate Earths, "elemental" (Yasha)
Future Forward, "accentuate" (Hazel and Lin)


Nataraj (5)
"cold fried chicken that's gone slightly soggy" (Samuil)
"friday pie" (Rita)
"sugar scrubs" (Rita and Luke)
"oatmeal" (Samuil)
"last good shirt" (Samuil, Luke)


Please let me know if I mucked up a link.

Also, please forgive my typos and word substitutions--I normally catch those before posting but in a hurry (as with sparks), I don't catch 'em all in time.

Comments

[youraugustine.livejournal.com]

accent

acceptance

accentuate

accurate

Falcons' Feathers - Irina and the many-named, "accent"

[taennyn]

"No, no, try again."

She gave him a look that boded bruises later, then squinted at him. "Your grandmother sucks reindeer hides."

He laughed, patted her head. "Better! But to be accurate you should say 'your grandmother chews reindeer hides', and besides that's not what we were practicing."

She pressed her palms to her cheeks, dragged them down so her lower eyelids gapped pink beneath her eyes.

Wild Roses - Lin and Hazel, "accentuate"

[taennyn]

That shirt, taken objectively, is nowhere near as suggestive as it really is. What are simple plain-cut hems with the faintest brush of pinstriped decoration in abstract become long, body hugging lines that accentuate her spare curves, the length of her torso and the sweep of her breasts beneath the cloth.

He might possibly be obsessing, he notices as she starts laughing at him, set her hands on her hips and poses hipshot, shoulders angled to contrast her hips.

Falcons' Feathers - Irina and the many-named, "acceptance"

[taennyn]

"So.. you're just going to accept this, and let go?"

"We knew it wouldn't last--"

"No."

" . . . No."

"No. We'll figure out something."

There were tears standing in her lashes, about to float free, when he leaned in and kissed her, felt the salty-water transfer to his skin instead being licked up by the horse, brushed his cheek against her again, borrowed a little more, kept her a little longer.

Deaths - Eduard De'Ath, "accurate"

[taennyn]

Well, the councils kept accurate records, he had to give them that.

Or if the accounts weren't accurate this was the neatest bit of fakery he'd ever seen in his life.

None of which made what he was reading any easier.

He growled at himself, went to the next filing cabinet, pulled the next file. He'd keep what he thought might be relevant, even if only in his head, and burn the place to the ground in his wake.

[darthneko.livejournal.com]

blue cotton candy

ancient tourist books

cold fried chicken that's gone slightly soggy

Nataraj - Samuil, "cold fried chicken"

[taennyn]

Belatedly noticing that he was kind of hungry--a check of the clock said it'd been a good six hours since he'd last had anything with caloric content--Samuil did a save-as and went prowling for the remains of lunches past.

The pantry was empty, unless he counted sugar packets, which he didn't, but the fridge rendered a bruised peach (organic by the depth of fuzz on the skin) and a tupperware container of fried chicken. Cold, the breading had gone a bit soggy, but it wasn't nearly old enough to have picked up strange flavours or textures, so he ate it over the sink, shedding bits of crust, and had the peach for a follow-up.

The peach was messier by far than the chicken, and he washed the tupperware, threw away the pit, and scrubbed his hands and chin before going back to work.

Wild Roses - Jonathan and Sascha, "blue cotton candy"

[taennyn]

"What is that?" he heard her demand from off to one side, and hoped it wasn't explosive this time.

"Can you spin it?" she was asking of the vendor, all but putting her head into the tub--so he snagged her collar with a flicker of power and pulled her back a touch.

"No, no, you eat it!" the vendor replied, pinched off a piece of bright-blue fluff the size of his thumb and handed it to her.

It disappeared, and her eyes widened as the cotton candy dissolved on her tongue.

"One the size of her head," Jonathan interposed before she could demand the whole stock for experimental purposes. "And we may be back."

Witches' Horses - Ilya, "ancient tourist books"

[taennyn]

" . . Isn't that village abandoned now?" Ilya asked when a particular slim book's cover caught his eye.

Dima shrugged, picked it up, tossed it to Ilya, who caught it automatically, then wished he hadn't.

The cover was cold from sitting in the body of the terem for so long, the colours faded from the overhead lights; it made the happy smiles of the people waving welcome from the gates of a village creepy, instead of welcoming, like the smiles of skeletons.

"Might fetch a bit," Dima said as Ilya dropped the book back onto the pile of things. "Even all faded like that. And if not, can toss it to the horse."

[klgaffney.livejournal.com]

annoyingly sticky fingers.

a piece of metal with no discrnable(sp) function.

intricate carving done out of boredom.

a sudden loud clatter.

Swallow's Tail - Sascha and Lev Petrovich, "a piece of metal"

[taennyn]

Lev Petrovich squinted at the grease-marked exterior, then plucked the equally greasy bit of metal from Sascha's stained palm. "So you took it apart, because it was clanking."

"Mm," Sascha agreed, like he was thinking about something else.

"And when you put it back together, you had a leftover piece, but it worked."

"'s about the size of it, yeah. Can you figure out what the extra's for?"

Lev petrovich flipped the piece back and forth a few times. It had no hinges, no threads, no holes for threads to bite . . . "No, no I can't."

"I'll tape it to the top then, in case we figure it out later."

Trickwood Unification, Ruadhan and Donel, "intricate carving done out of boredom"

[taennyn]

Ruadhan threw himself into the other chair as soon as he'd stripped off both outer layers--draped 'em to dry--his gloves and hat, started chewing on one of his string callouses.

After a moment, he lowered his finger from his mouth, gave Donel a suspicious glance. "Since when do you carve?"

"Since it was the middle of winter and I was bored out of my skull enough to learn, baby brother. You should think about trying things like that, as opposed to just picking fights when you're bored."

Ruadhan started to lunge over, to start a proper fight, but paused before he reached his brother, hung up by guitar-case and the glitter of the little carving blade in Donel's dominant hand.

"Hnh," he muttered, settling himself again like one of the wolves who'd missed a pounce for a rabbit and wanted to pretend it'd never tried, "So what wonderful project are you working on, then?"

Donel turned the half-roughed in dragon around so his brother could see it. "Winters-gift present for Fin." He grinned. "Closest he'll get to a dragon this year."

Rudahn blinked, then started cackling.

Some Kind of Love Song - Arianhrod and Takashi, "annoyingly sticky fingers"

[taennyn]

When she walked into the kitchen in search of a refill for her empty teacup--trailing in her wake like a kite--she found her lover standing at one of the counters, experimentally shaking his fingers like a wolf trying to shed water from a paw.

She raised an eyebrow as the kettle obediently started heating, loud enough to attract his attention first to the stove and then look around for her.

He smiled greeting, stuck the figners he'd been shaking in his mouth.

Around them, tongue flicking in and out of sight in mildly distracting fashion, "Y'honey jar's leak."

"Really."

He scraped his teeth along his index finger, chewed idly at a stray cuticle. "R'ched in and got sticky."

The offense in his voice was much much funnier than it should be. "There's washing-water in the sink, fox mine."

" . . . Right!"

Swallow's Tail - Sascha and Lev Petrovich, "a sudden loud clatter"

[taennyn]

".... You all right up there?"

"Festering son of a witch," t'Captain growled from overhead.

Sascha considered that. "Burn, cut--"

"Dropped the old-man punched wrench and it's out of reach."

'And I just nearly put my shoulder out of socket trying to get at it,' Sascha filled in. "See if you can toss it from coil to coil, if not I'll go find Helena and we'll get a magnet on a string or something."

There was a brief pause. Then, "Sascha?"

"Yeah?" he replied absently, inching his fingers under the housing again.

"How in God's green earth do you know this kind of thing?"

"I grew up with reindeer. You pick things up."

[illian.livejournal.com]

Lapses in translation

Actually effective armor

Feathers of unusual size

Tree speech

Wolves and plaid

Bad time to magic

Steel coins

Upside down and annoyed raven

Goosebumps on foxes

Bad tea shipment

"Wait, you actually traveled in that?"

Stolen kisses under starlight

The wrong trap

Last good shirt (or pants)

Brown sugar sand

o.o Okay, the brain just wouldn't stop for a while there.

Hey, go for the gusto, man.

[taennyn]

And you cleared the number that makes certain people twitchy, so 's all good. :D

Some Kind of Love Song - Arianhrod and Takashi, "Brown sugar sand"

[taennyn]

In his own shape, in his own skin, yellow eyes and rusty-red hair and brown-sugar-and-sand skin, he made a startling contrast to her. Never a reflection, always complement or contrast, the unmarked skin that contrasted with her freckles, his hair darker and fair straighter, coarser, than hers.

There was never a question of which of them had shed into the bedclothes or into the brush--unless he cheated, and even then once shed his hairs had a tendency to revert to their own shape. She'd actually had the chance to watch, bemused, as what she'd assumed was a tangled nest of her own hairs uncoiled, aged like fallen leaves to his shade of red from hers.

She liked the way her hands stood out on his skin, though--never so deep a contrast as with her first husband, though her hands were darker now than they'd been then--pale freckled fingers and pink nailbeds brushing at molasses-touched skin.

Trickwood Unification, Hernén and Ettore - "Lapses in translation"

[taennyn]

" . . . . I thought I asked for lunch."

Ettore looked at him a little blankly, then reached over with what suddenly became a hand and lifted the deer's head by an antler tine. "This is lunch."

Hernén sighed, looked around for a place to start a fire safely.

Deaths - the Morrigan, "Steel coins"

[taennyn]

(Also, I love this image. :D)

It wasn't until after she'd received her change, pocketed it and gone her merry way that she realised why the coins had felt funny in her palm.

Ducking into an alley so as to try to confirm her suspicion, she dug into the pocket, pulled out four coins, and tinked them about together with the fingers of her other hand.

Sighing, she made a mental note to separate them from her normal spending money, and to drop them off with a smith sometime soon.

They were good forgeries, well stamped and plated in the metal they should be entirely, but the cores were iron or steel, and they were buzzing in time with her heartbeat already.

Trickwood Unification - Isael and Conall, "Feathers of unusual size"

[taennyn]

"..... Is there a reason you're dragging around a feather the length of my arm around like a cat who got the drop on a sparrow?"

Conall paused, thought about it, then spat out the quill end of the feather and sat down on his haunches, one forepaw pinning the feather in case of a breeze. "Seemed like a good idea at the time?"

Isael rolled his eyes. Conall lolled out his tongue in a grin.

"Comparison value--someone's claiming this was the biggest bixie in decades, so I yanked out a primary and we're going to measure it against the one on record."

And you're doing this four-legged because..."

"It's rather too early in spring to be wandering around without a shirt on?"

".... Go away, 'Nol," Isael said without uncovering his eyes.

Wild Roses - Madame Lehseet, "Bad tea shipment"

[taennyn]

When the crate was cracked open, her nostrils flared, and not in a pleased way.

When she leaned forward, brushed away the delivery-boy with the crow-foot to get a proper look at the contents of the crate, she frowned.

Then stuck her head into the crate, hips teetering slightly on the wooden edge, feet dangling.

Rotated herself upright, gave the man with the manifest a proper Look. "You call this tea."

"That's what the manifest says!" he protested, waved the sheet of paper at her.

She snatched it out of his hand, pointed at the correct line item with almost no looking. "Here. It says 'tea, green, flavoured with lemon-peel and tamarind'. Not 'tea, once-green, spoiled in transit'. Take it back, you. I wish a refund."

"We offer excha--"

"A refund," she repeated. "I will not order with you again."

Nataraj - Luke and Samuil, "Last good shirt (or pants)"

[taennyn]

"Dammit!"

Samuil paused, blinked at the screen, trying to remember his train of thought, then gave up. "What?"

"My last good shirt has died a soldier's death and I've got a meeting in twenty," Luke replied as he came into Samuil's office, dressed in a pair of charcoal slacks, good shoes and a white undershirt. A pale buttondown was dangling from his left hand, and from the looks of things one of the sleeves had come off entirely.

Smauil considered asking what on earth his boss had done to destroy his shirt so badly, but went with "There's a three-pack of monochromes in the hall closet on the top shelf. I think you stashed them there a while ago."

Luke blinked. "Really? Well, that'd be useful."

And disappeared.

A crow of discovery echoed down the hallway not long after.

"Thanks, Samuil!"

"Lock the door after you when you leave!" Samuil called back by way of 'you're welcome.'

Fine, more context! Sibir - Katusha, "the wrong trap"

[taennyn]

She had all of her pockets stuffed, the apron, too, and her hands full when she turned a corner and walked smack into a beam of bright light and a booming voice demanding her business.

She squeaked, dropped the jars in her hands.

" . . . Wait, you're not one of the kids. What on earth are you doing, miss?"

She squeaked again, backed up into a storage-bank; something made an ominous teetering noise over her head.

"Pass me over to him, Katusha," Nadya said, and Katusha automatically plucked the mouse off her ear, held it out to the worried-looking sergeant.

"Hello?" he said, holding the mouse to his ear.

"Really. Mm-hmm. And you didn't--I see. No, no, I'll--young lady, if you get anyone to touch my supply of apples nothing in the world would--really. You actually got your hands on--no, no I wouldn't have thought of that one. Well played. Mmhmm. I'll bring the apples by myself so no-one else gets a look. Yes. Later--" he passed the mouse back to Katusha, who could hear Nadya laughing even before she put it back on, then knelt and picked up the jars of fruit she'd dropped.

"Next time, just ask, girls," he said, smiling. "Especially if it's because you're baking."

Katusha nodded violently, thinking that Nadya was going to lose several of the saints-day treats to her nerves.

[zero_pixel_count]

almond biscuits

battlefield communications

friday pie

Deaths - the Morrigan, "almond biscuits"

[taennyn]

The tea was classically Russian, smoked within stems of its life, served with milk, jam and a sugar lump to the side so she could adulterate it as she wished.

Accompaniment, much to her surprise and pleasure, was almond biscuits, just heavy enough on the flavour to be tasted through the smoke of the tea, and she ate more of them than she'd expected to as a result, all but purring her approval.

[billradish.livejournal.com]

oatmeal

sugar scrubs

the smell of hot metal

"Duck!" (note: not the bird)

elemental

velvet or silk in dark forest green

Alternate Earths - Yasha, "elemental"

[taennyn]

It's hard to fear winter when a piece of it puffs up your hair with his hand as a greeting.

Difficult to worry about the cold when you're three clicks from a beach in the middle of summer--and that's only because you're choosy about which beach to go to.

But sometimes as you're standing suddenly smaller than usual next to Winter, you remember, and remember more why people used to fear it, sacrifice to it, try to lure the sun home a little faster.

You still can't, because you've got toy cars stashed where no one can find them, but you understand why others do.