Three-sentence fics

[shinon]

Some from this ficathon, some by request last fall.

ETA 02/04: Bravely Default; Tales of Symphonia; The Years of Rice and Salt; Raffles; one more FFVI, one more Ghost Trick, and one more Folk of the Air

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Bravely Default
1. Ringabel, "bad pickup lines"
Ringabel had offered to let the others read his journal, in the early days, to prove his bona fides - but now it was clear no one was taking him up on that, he was free to keep the compendium meticulously updated with all the most important information. If he didn't keep a good record, then he'd just had his ego bruised for nothing. He flipped to a page near the back and discreetly, regretfully, added another entry to the list "Lines that DEFINITELY Don't Work on Edea."

2. Alternis>Edea
Edea returns from sword training with a colorful bruise across her right biceps, and Alternis is shocked at how sick the sight makes him feel, but she merely grins and waves at him, proud of her own toughness, and he feels - sicker? But a good kind of sick? What in the world just happened?

Final Fantasy VI
1. Edgar, Sabin
By this point Sabin had completely forgotten whatever issue they were trying to settle, because they’d been playing rock-paper-scissors for a minute and a half and had so far thrown the same thing every time. “Okay, is this some freaky twin thing we’ve just discovered, or are you cheating?”

“Sabin, if I were cheating, why wouldn’t I cheat to win?”

2. Setzer, Locke
"Birds are meant to fly, anyway," said Setzer, "not - whatever that thing's doing." The chocobo was placidly preening its under-wing feathers about fifty feet away, having sidestepped his last three attempts to mount up.

"But Setzer," said Locke in mock surprise, riding by in another lazy circle (of course he'd picked a cooperative bird for himself), "you said you were the master of anything with wings."

3. Celes
Celes doesn't know much about art, and until that moment on stage when the aria bursts out of her, this is a point of pride. Afterward she thinks, I was lied to, that wasn't frivolous at all, that did something. And long afterward, when she finally chokes her pride down far enough, she goes back to the opera house, asking: "How do I make that mine?"

4. Cyan/Sabin
"Maybe that's the secret," said Sabin, "maybe sometimes you just gotta - go up a mountain and think about stuff."

"I doubt not it worked for thee, but... for mine own part, if the shadows of the past hang less oppressive, it was not my time atop Mount Zozo made it so. It was" - he paused, reddening slightly, and Sabin waited him out - "it was thou."

Fire Emblem 7
Sain, Fiora
On the return trip from the Dread Isle Fiora drilled with a weighted training lance until her hands blistered, and the blisters burst.

“You needn’t tax yourself like this,” said one of the knights of Caelin - the forward one - who had until now been watching in uncharacteristic silence. “Please believe that if perfection of form could have saved your comrades, they would have been saved.”

Fire Emblem 8
Rennac/L'Arachel
“I tire of your posturing,” L'Arachel announced. “You know full well you would stay by my side for all time for no more pay than this,” and she dragged Rennac down to her height and kissed him.

When she let go, which was not soon, he said, “Forty-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine.”

Fire Emblem 9-10
Elincia/Lucia
They learned these steps together as children, although, Elincia’s existence being a secret, she had no balls to attend. She never voiced the question, but she wondered at times - what was she practicing for?

Now Lucia, all in white, a sword at her hip, is leading the Queen of Crimea through the same dance, and all the sorrows of the past year are gone, and Elincia finally knows: For this.

The Folk of the Air
1. Jude/Cardan
Cardan stands so close to me I can feel his breath, but we aren't touching, and to stop myself touching him I inventory all the knives I could put into him in the next three seconds if he makes one more smart remark. One up each sleeve, one strapped to my thigh, and although they'll take a little more time to get to, today I've got some very interesting hairpins.

I think there's a reason I like him best when he's within striking distance.

2. Jude/Cardan, but make it Homestuck
This is the fourth time Oriana has explained quadrants to me, believing that as a human I can't possibly understand the subtext of everything I'm seeing here - a treatment Taryn, the born auspisticizer, never gets. The problem is if I let myself zone out too much during the explanation, I start mentally filling all my quadrants with the same person. I dig my nails into my hands and tell myself, I don't hate him romantically, I hate him the regular way; he's never going to keep me and Nicasia from each other's throats; it's not my job to restrain his worst impulses; I don't pity him his miserable upbringing when Faerie offers no other kind.

Ghost Trick
1. Cabanela
Whoever told Inspector Cabanela about standing desks had made a serious mistake. "But it's greeeat for productivity," he said, not understanding that this was the entire problem. Now nothing could prevent him from staying in the office mulling over case files until two or three in the morning - because now he didn't even have to stop dancing to do it.

2. Yomiel
Yomiel can't feel the small furry body nestled against his side. After all, he's dead. But eventually he relents, and scoops the kitten up in his arms - and hears it start to purr, so at least someone's getting something out of this.

Raffles
1. Raffles, "rugby"
Rugby was not, like cricket, a gentleman's game. But rugby had one other attraction - it appealed to Raffles's fascination for violence. "Bunny," he would sometimes say, reaching for a Sullivan as he watched an informal game unfold in the park, "do you suppose..."

2. Bunny
I paced the floor waiting for his return, three hours past the time we'd agreed upon, muttering to myself, "I'm going to kill him. I'm going to kill him."

When he finally appeared at the window, I almost didn't change my mind.

Tales of the Abyss
1. Luke
You didn’t get many stars in Baticul. The crater walls went too high, and from below there were all the lights of the city. As if getting randomly teleported out to the middle of nowhere wasn’t enough to deal with - when Luke looked up and saw all that sparkle in the sky over the valley, every thought fell out of his head.

2. Ion, Luke
He’d been schooled since birth in how deadly his secret was, but there were times Ion wished he could at least tell Luke. He imagined saying something like, “No matter how you came into this world, your life is your own” - and Luke would give those words their true weight, and maybe tell him the same. But that could never happen.

Tales of Symphonia
Zelos/Sheena
As Sheena tumbles back into the blackness she has time to think of just how far up the Tower of Salvation they got before she fell; this is not gonna be a pretty death, although it's one she can be proud of. She made it count, for a world where no one has to be sacrificed, and she likes to think she looked kinda cool with that mini-Mana Cannon stunt, and - she's never known how to let herself be rescued, anyway.

But this part's weird: below her, in the darkness of the Tower's central shaft, twin points of orange light are growing brighter, resolving into wings.

The Years of Rice and Salt
the power trio; modern day
"What kind of idiot does political activism on Facebook?"

"Well, even if it's imperfect, you have to reach out to people in the places where people actually are."

"Okay, B, you have a point, but please just join our Mastodon instance so she'll stop ranting about it."