corpsebrigadier | Roundup: In a Peartree

As I realize the soothing pleasure I get from making lists of things, it has come to mind that I didn't post anything about

in_a_peartree, all the immensely cool stuff I got, all the immensely cool stuff I made, and the sundry other immensely cool stuff I found browsing other people's trees (despite having this large parts of this post drafted since like... the 5th).

This thing was a really fun, chill experience in general, and it's the sort of thing I can definitely see doing if it runs again.

Pears Made by Me

For chacusha

01. 02.
03. 04.
05. 06.
07. 08.
09. 10.

For evilmuffins

Ariadne had never been a knight, and by rights and writs, she never would be. Noblewomen who watch their brothers joust and spar all day did not become knights themselves; far less did peasant girls plucked from the countryside to be a bauble for the royal heir.

And yet, if a princess knighted her, was that not being a knight, even if the proclamation was in the jest of childhood games? If Celeste decided she was to wear her scarf tight around her naked arm beneath her kirtle and her smock, was that not as much a favor as worn by men tilting at one another? She made her own determinations. In the dark of the night, she stalked about the courtyards, practicing the poses men did by day with a rattan sword. When she “accidentally” caught the tail of her braid in the great kitchen fire, she wept but little that their keepers clipped her like a spring lamb, leaving her to swagger about the palace looking like a page boy in skirts.

Celeste never gave her explicit approval for such endeavors, but she smiled to run her hands over the taut newly muscled shoulders of her companion, her light fingers coming to rest on the knot of her token. While their kisses bore all the chastity of youthful friendship, Ariadne gripped Celeste tight enough to bruise her white arm when she said suddenly one evening that the most dolorous day of her life would be when she would marry.

Perhaps Fate thought it some black humored kindness that the day never came. The contagion came, and Ariadne found herself no knight with no princess. She was told to return to her village, taking two crowns and a smock as payment for her childhood. Ariadne, however, made her own determinations.

There are things peasant girls know that princesses do not. There are secrets that two coins can buy from the poor cunning woman on the hill. There are charms and pacts and cures for all ailments, even--for the truly brave--an ailment already past.

Celeste, in her latter years, looked all the blossoming girl of sixteen midsummers who should have been a some foreign king’s new made queen, although her skin never regained the rosy flush of her childhood days. Those who saw her ride said often that the pale lady looked to be a spirit or a statue, her skin like the white marble of temples and tombstones.

They did not question, however, that she should be a living princess, and in similar fashion they did not question that steel-eyed woman in mail who rode alongside her should be a knight. She bore herself with all the solemnity of any man who had seen battle and carried herself in such fashion that none were wont to question her rank. There were whispers, of course: as to who they were, as to where they were headed, as to why they would not tarry.

Ever so occasionally, some fool would speculate as to what the scarf around the lady knight’s arm signified, tattered and yellow as it was with age.

None asked Ariadne, however, and she certainly never volunteered the tale.

For ningloreth

Rocketdog persisted, embroidered smile fading with time but never falling to a frown. He watched the thrift store wallpaper yellow and a soft mantle of dust grow over him: fur atop his fur. He was patient. Timothy had trusted him.
Within his right leg, the plans and operator's key remained where they had been implanted before his deployment, undisturbed. He thought to his bravery during the operation--everything sealed with pink embroidery floss and hidden before Timothy's mother could notice her good scissors were gone.

He kept smiling. He couldn't do otherwise. Someday soon he would meet the next agent.

--

"Merry Christmas, dipshit!" Emily grinned affectionately. "I got you this haunted bear!"

Ashe smirked but didn't laugh, wiping the bangs out of her eyes as she looked at the animal's bleached and flattened features. Emily hoped she wouldn't take it the wrong way. It was a jokey gift, but she liked this sort of stuff. She could put it next to her jars of bones and sketchbooks full of dead men.

"Thanks." She reached to pick it up. "I'll make sure you're its first victim."

The red-green glow about them flickered, but their hands didn't touch in the dimmed light.

--

Ashe thought about a lot of things--about holiday obligations, college apps, Emily, the concert she missed, deleting her father's number... about Emily again... about the sad grey lump of stuffing for which she was responsible.

She smiled, turned it over, considered how it would look with mummified pigeon wings or a badger skull for a head. She thought of Emily a third time and imagined it wouldn't hurt to see what the poor thing looked like patched up and clean.

It wasn't midnight when she nearly dropped her seam ripper, grinning as a star bright marble dropped to the floor.

--

They met for a movie after escaping their respective clutches of relations: something with a lot of CG. Ashe wore red lipstick. Emily wore a sweatshirt. They shared a pack of Mike n' Ikes, leaving all the gross orange ones in a heap.

"I got you something, sort of..." Ashe said quietly as they left, sliding a green envelope from her fingers to Emily's. She posed in the mirrored hallway as Emily opened it to find a browning piece of notepaper and a crackerjack decoder ring. Eyebrows furrowed, she looked at the letters: A above E.

CSY LEZI FIIR GLSWIR

--

Asmodeus sat in the blacklight, immaculate, smile stark against his fresh washed skin. The plans had been deployed; the key transported; the treasure recovered. He'd been assigned a new agent and a new name.
When Ashe returned, beer in one hand and a laughing girl in the other, Asmodeus was uncertain how to proceed. He felt certain, however, that she knew more about the mission than he did. If she ran a different ship than Timothy, it wasn't his business to question.

As Ashe flopped against her companion, leaning in for a kiss, he kept smiling.

He couldn't do otherwise.

For olivermoss

For schlitzie_ramone

Day 23--Compass in the river. Phone dead. I'm sure everyone at Denali is going to have a good laugh. I saw it again though, and it's not a damn bear. Couldn't get my camera out in the midst of dropping the compass though. My hands trembled too much.

It looked at me, and our eyes met. Dark brown with whites barely showing, deep set in its face. I felt as though it wanted me to see--as though it wished to say firm as it could "I am here."

I am terrified that it views me as a threat.

--

Day 31--It's a she, and she is here. My leg barely is though, and none of the rangers will be laughing. Fall from the rocks. Compound fracture.

She approached after I screamed my head off. (I thought she was a bear this time.) I've been carried to somewhere behind the waterfall, and everything's set, splinted, and poulticed with something pungent and horseradishy. She brings me berries and some sort of rhizomes. Her hands are very warm.

I want to write more, but it feels like an invasion--an imposition. I want to write things more personal than field observations.

--

Day 56--She is very gentle with the leg, but it still hurts very much

Day 73--She is very gentle altogether, and something like the scent of earth in spring and autumn clings to her coat. I feel as if she would speak when her hand is on my face, and all the words I say to her would be insufficient if she understood them. Sometimes, I touch her back, and she smiles. I am glad so many primates know how to smile.

Day 124--Leg healed, but I'm staying for now. I think that she would like that.

For yuuago

Pears Made for Me

From chacusha: An in character self-portrait of Gau (accompanied by his rad muscly dads)

From shinon: A phenomenal, poetic drabble about Cyan and Gau

From tanaqui: A fantastic short fic about the cast of Bagpuss engaging in sacrificial rituals

From theseatheseatheopensea, eggsbenedict, and ningloreth: A variety of ways to utilize my ever growing collection of basil, which has resulted, thus far, in the purchase of one cookbook and a lot of basil simple-syrup cocktails.