cherith

So, due to being sick and pretty much asleep for the majority of Yuletide sign-ups, I actually missed signing up as a writer. But, like I have the past few years, I picked up a few pinch-hits and ended up writing two stories. Neither in fandoms I've given a lot of thought to. As with a lot of stuff I write that's outside my normal fandoms, I was super nervous to write these, and I'm still not completely happy with them. But, I wrote them.

(All Story links go to AO3)

Ifs, Whens & Maybes - The Secret Circle [Cassie/Jake]
The Force - The Star Wars Volkswagen Commercial

And then somehow (I didn't know they did this to be honest) I was able to sign-up to get a story anyway, because I picked up more than one pinch-hit. Quel surprise! And then, I didn't get one, but SIX gifts, and I just was over-the-moon. So, for your reading pleasure:

An Honest Mistake - Dragon Age [Isabela/Aveline] (a special treat for me by virusq because technically DA isn't a Yuletide fandom)
Purgatory - Carnivale [Henry & Management]

There's more, but let me first say that I've requested Little Red Riding Hood stories every year I've done fandom and I've been super impressed every year by what people come up with. I got four LRRH stories this year and I love each of them. You'll see by the tags, I have a type for LRRH stories and I think all of these are slightly smutty.

Snow White and Red Riding Hood by Kastaka
Different than Good by Aja
The Beating of her Bound Heart by kassidy [Red/Wolf]
My Lupe by keerawa [Red/Wolf] (This is f/f with POCs - with warnings for age difference)

As for Dragon Age fandom, I wrote a few things for that (and one co-written piece) by far the longest of which is Of Wolves (which you might be tired of hearing about, but I'm not tired of talking about it - {see love of LRRH stories}

All Sweetness & Light / When No One is Looking [Isabela/Bethany] (a two-parter for onlytowardschaos and signcherie)
A Special Assignment [Nathaniel/Cauthrien] (written on the DA Kink meme as a Christmas gift for serindrana - technically unfinished, but reads pretty well as a complete piece)
Two Sides of the Same Coin [f!Cousland/Ser Gilmore]
Of Wolves written with serindrana [Bann Teagan/Ser Cauthrien]

And I got some cool stuff too:

Of Pride and Home by serindrana [Bann Teagan/Ser Cauthrien]
A Chance Encounter by seeherwrite (tumblr link)[Bann Teagan/Bethany]
If Death Should Part Us by theflowergirl (LJ link) [Neria Surana/Alistair]

Title: Until You Belong to Me
Author: Cherith
Genre: Horror, Supernatural
Word Count: 11,224
Rating: M
Warnings: religious subversion, something very much like dubcon, femslash, graphic/violent scenes, fire
Summary: Sorrow is a demon trying to get away from her master, and she enlists the help of an old friend. Written as a companion piece to last year's: Blind Denial the Long Way Down (also written for OFBB).

Part One | Part Two

Bonus content:
Mix: Devil's Spoke by

inferiarecoming

[Written for a prompt at the Dragon_Age Community on LJ]

“Sister, what do I say? What do I tell him?”

“Bethany, I’m not the one to ask. If you feel the need to leave a letter, then do so. You already know the limits of what you can safely say to him.”

Bethany nodded and looked back down to the parchment under her fingertips. If she wrote it quickly, wrote it the way Marian had asked her to, she wouldn’t be saying anything at all- not really. And she couldn’t imagine what that might do. For him to find such a letter. For him to know that she had left not just the Gallows, but Kirkwall altogether, but nothing of how she felt, how she wanted to stay, not how she wished that things had been different- oh, so different.

Marian would have her say none of that. Not to say that she was leaving, not to say that she cared for him (and in a way that no mage should care for a Templar) and especially not to say that her sister, her sister, was bringing Anders with them. Maker, how could she fit all that into a single letter? Or a pile of them.

She couldn’t.

But, she knew words that he would understand. Even, if there was nothing else to go with them.

Carefully, she penned the Canticle of Trials, just two verses. It was all she would need, if she put his name at the top and her name at the bottom, then he would know. He would know.

When she was done, she showed it to Marian who nodded her approval. ”If you had to write something,” her sister sighed, “then that was well written. In that you didn’t really write it at all.”

Her sister’s voice was dismissive, as she handed the parchment back and Bethany found it hard to smile, though Marian had approved of it in her own way. Bethany frowned, because she knew it wasn’t complete. It wasn’t everything, but it would have to be enough. She turned it over, putting his name again on the other side so that when she rolled it, his name would show. Then, she placed it within plain sight on the desk in her room.

Strangely, once her fingers had left the parchment, she felt an odd sense of peace about it. This way, no one would know, but she and him. This way, it looked only like the Second Enchanter had assigned words of remembrance and peace in a dire time to the new Knight-Commander of Kirkwall.

Maybe in them, Cullen would find some strength.

[Written for the DA_Land Community where the prompt this week was merely Dwarves]

“Lady Aeducan, if you don’t stop that, I’m never going to finish writing this.”

She looks up at Varric and trails a finger down the inside of the neckline of his open tunic. “Stop what, Tethras? This?” She twirls a strand of chest hair between her nimble fingers. “Or this?” Her other hand toys with the laces of his leggings, laces she’s already undone.

“Oh you do not play fair do you,” he chuckles and sets his parchment aside. “You know, I knew someone a bit like you in Kirkwall. Well, not quite like you, being human and all. But just as… determined.”

“Varric Tethras are you telling me that you…?”

“Oh, no no no. Not for me she wasn’t. No, Rivaini had her eye on lots of men.” His chest rumbles with laughter. “And I know she eventually had her way with many of them. Not my type though. Besides you know how Bianca can get. Still if it hadn’t been for her- I wouldn’t have gotten to writing all these things down in the first place you know…” He looks at his abandoned story, something he knows Isabela will enjoy when she sees the latest chapter.

Lady Aeducan spares a glance towards the chest at the far end of the bed, a chest she knows is locked and solidly so and that contains only one thing, a thing lovingly oiled and cradled with silks. Her eyebrow arches as she looks back at Varric. “Oh yes. I remember.”

With another chuckle he reaches out a hand and rubs at her shoulder. “Bad memories of what the big, bad crossbow did to you?”

Lady Aeducan huffs. “I’ll have you know Varric that my shoulder still gets sore in that spot. Stupid duster healer never set it right.” She pulls her hand from his chest, pushes his hand away and rubs at the spot with a feigned look of frustration and pain.

“I’m not getting any more writing done, am I?”

She grins and her hand moves from her shoulder to his, pushing him back into the pillows behind him. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”

“Whatever the Warden Queen commands.”

[Written for a prompt at Commentfic over on LJ]

"Do you think she believed you?"

Marian is leaning back onto the bed, her hands behind her head. She gives him a cautious, but questioning smile and arches an eyebrow. Her hair has grown longer in her time away from Kirkwall and as she sits up, it falls forward over a shoulder.

"No way to tell for sure, Hawke," he says as he slides on to the seat at the desk in the corner of their small room. "But, I'll know soon enough. Already have my eyes and ears open to find out where they move next. The Seeker hasn't exactly been quiet these days."

"And was she really with them?"

"Sunshine? Yeah, she was there." He grants her a sly smile and gently taps the side of his nose. "Knew she was there when they pulled me in. She made sure of it." He frowns slightly at the memory. "Did seem like they've picked up a lot of the Circle mages though."

Marian moves forward and slides her legs off the side of the bed. "Varric, is my sister okay? If they're going through all this trouble..."

"Hawke, I've been telling as many people as I can, but it's going to take time. It's not like I can just put out word that Hawke's looking for her sister."

He reaches out his arms to her and she goes to him. She kneels in front of the chair and puts her head against his lap, her brow creased with worry.

"I just worry, Varric," she whispers against his thigh.

He pats her head. "I know you do, Hawke. I'm doing the best I can, and I've told so many stories now about how you left- who you left Kirkwall with... " he smiles down at her. "Try not to worry, Hawke. You know how good my stories are."

That brought a small smile to her lips and she folds back to sit against her heels. She looks up at him. "You know I love your stories, Varric. But that's not what I'm..."

"Good," he says, cutting her off. With a nod he lifts a finger to her chin and tilts her gaze to his. "Then you should know that if they're listening to my stories, none of them really know the truth."

Title: Delicate Retrieval
Author:

cherith

cherith
Artist:

scarimonious

scarimonious
Genre: Fantasy
Pairings: n/a
Word Count: 2191
Rating: PG-13 (maybe Teen?)
Warnings: death (non-character)
Summary: A merchant gets a strange gift from a friend and then gets caught up in a very weird retrieval job. (Otherwise known as -- I'm bad at summaries!)

Link to artwork that inspired this story, by

scarimonious

scarimonious : here
---
( Delicate Retrieval )

Current Mood: dorky

I wish I could've done more this year, and in fact I applied for a TON of pinch-hits, but only got one of them. That's okay though, I got pretty wrapped up in on of my stories, and was writing down to the wire.

YULETIDE
I wrote two stories:
FairyTales: East of the Sun, West of the Moon: An Interstellar Search for Love in the Four Corners of the Universe for Phantom.
This is quite basically East of the Sun, West of the Moon IN SPACE!
Eastwick (TV): The Restorative Powers of Hot Chocolate and Marshmallows on a Winter’s Afternoon for roadmarks
I have never written Eastwick before, and might not ever again, but I enjoyed writing this.

And I received 3 stories!
FairyTales: Little Red Riding Hood: The Funeral Dress by antartic and Scarlet by calenlily.
Alice in Wonderland: The Queen's Special Tea by foxtwin.

I love them all.

I also participated in this year's Secret Swooper exchange at at

swooping_is_bad.
Dragon Age: Origins: Cautiously, but Onward for jessicajones_1.

I have not as of yet received a SS gift in return, though I've been assured that I'm supposed to get one. *shrug* At this point, I'm not holding my breath.

With the Holiday totals, this means I wrote about 68k words in fic for this year, not including what I did in non-fiction for NaNoWriMo. That's not shabby. Though if I'd been able to do the Alice in Wonderland BB and the Inception BB, it would've hit 100k, or damn near close. Maybe I can try that for 2011. :)