rynne | various drabbles

My PS2 is an ass. Do those things wear out? Half my games won't play anymore, and this makes me sad.

many_miles_away, I got your card! I'll post the drabble tomorrow, all right? :)

I've got lots of writing to put up lately, wow. Yesterday was more Feet on the Ground, and in a few hours, once I do some editing, I'll put up the next chapter of that Luke/Vader fic, but right now here are the drabbles I wrote for

thistlerose and

yeats's birthdays. The first three were for

thistlerose, and the last one for

yeats.

They walked together in Ithilien, hand in hand and fingers clasped tight together, and the flowers bloomed around them.

"Do you ever miss the fields of Rohan?" he asked her, when they stopped beside the statue of the king recrowned. "I know it is different here."

But she smiled at him, and said: "I do love Rohan, and my brother who is king there, and my uncle who was king before. But I was a shieldmaid, trained in the art of war and not allowed to do battle, and I was discontent. It was my home, but I did ever dream to leave it."

"Does Ithilien suit you?" he asked then. "When the King Elessar gave me here my place to dwell, I was glad, for I do love these paths. And when you did consent to wed with me, Éowyn, I was yet gladder still, for you make this fair land more so with your presence. But I do wonder if you do like it here, or if you stay because I am here. There are no battles here, shieldmaiden of the North."

She paused a moment, and when she answered, said: "I have been in battle, and I do not regret it. But I have told you in the Houses of Healing that never shall I need battle again, for there I did find myself. For ever did I watch Éomer and long to do the things he did, because he was given honour and freedom, and I thought battle the only way to achieve those things, or else marriage with someone, like the Lord Aragorn, who could lift me above my discontent. Then I came to Gondor and did fight with the Witch-King, and honour I had in plenty. But when I dwelled with you in the Houses of Healing, I did discover that fighting was not the only way to gain honour and freedom, and that it would not gain me peace."

Then she laughed, and her golden hair glinted in the sunlight. "I stay because you are here," she said, "but it is a fair land, and already I do come to love it. I find that, with you and in this place, I do not need to fight to be happy."

He kissed her beneath the boughs of the trees and flowers all around them, and when he pulled back she smiled and said: "Do not worry over me, Faramir. For perhaps the first time in my life, I am happy."

"Fox!"

She would know that voice--and that nickname--anywhere, even if it had not been yelled across her clinic. "Sagara Sanosuke," she said, raising her voice just enough to be heard, but very deliberately not yelling, "I am with a patient. If there is something you absolutely must say to me, then wait outside until I'm done. If not, leave, because I'm busy."

When there was no further shouting, she smiled to herself, then concentrated on the stitches she was sewing into a young boy's arm. When she was finished, she gave the boy and his mother a few instructions, then added, "Next time you think your mother's vegetable knife would make a good practice sword, try not to cut yourself. You might end up chopping your hand off instead."

"There won't be a next time," the mother said, frowning at her son, but then turning and bowing to Megumi. "Thank you very much, Dr. Takani."

"Thank you," the boy echoed, and bowed as well. Megumi returned it, and then watched as they left.

"Now can I come in?" Sano asked, poking his head into the room, and then strolling in anyway. "Hello, Fox."

"Sano." She looked at him, and then her eyes narrowed--he was clean, and dressed marginally better than usual. That only happened for one reason. "I'm not lending you more money." She turned her back on him and started to clean her hands and her needle.

"Aw, Fox!" he protested, scratching the back of his head with one hand. "That's not the only reason I come to see you, you know."

"When you're clean and dressed up--or as dressed up as you ever get--it is," she said crisply. "And I've already told you no. Did Kaoru throw things at you when you asked her?"

"I didn't ask Kaoru anything," he said, looking hurt--though she didn't know if he really was. One never could tell with Sano. "I don't want to borrow money, Megumi."

He used her name. That was surprising enough that she set the needle down. "Then why are you here?" she asked, turning around and appraising him coolly.

"I was wondering," he started, and then stopped. His cheeks turned slightly pink. "I was wondering," he began again, and still stopped.

"Yes?" she asked, doing some wondering of her own. Something was flustering Sano?

"Would you like to come to dinner with me?" he blurted out suddenly, after a moment of silence. "Just you and me, at Akabeko. No Kenshin or Kaoru or Yahiko. I'll even pay."

Megumi was glad now that she'd put the needle down, or she would probably have stabbed herself. Sano was asking her to dinner? And was not trying to get a free meal out of her?

He looked at her eagerly, somehow seeming like a puppy in that earnest gaze. And she couldn't bear to kick him. "All right," she said, "but--"

"Yes!" he shouted, raising a fist in the air. Then, grinning, he ran out of the room.

He didn't even tell me when he's picking me up, she thought in bemusement. Oh well. He'll come back. He always does.

"Your cat's sitting on my feet again," he murmured sleepily in her ear.

"Then move him away," she replied, half-asleep herself.

"Last time I tried to push him off," Ron said, now sounding more awake, "he clawed my hand. He doesn't do that to you."

She huffed, reluctantly bringing herself further out of sleep. "He claws me too, sometimes," she said.

"Not as often as he does me," he pointed out. "My feet are falling asleep here, and this is uncomfortable, but he won't move. Come on, Hermione. Please?"

She never could resist that tone of voice, though she knew she should have learned how long ago. "All right," she said, when he opened his mouth to say something more. "I'll take him downstairs, and come back and close the door." She slid out of bed and into her slippers; the floor was cold on bare feet, and she didn't want to bother with some sort of warming charm.

"Thank you, Hermione," Ron called from behind her, still in the bed. The warm bed. She sighed.

"Come on, Crookshanks," she murmured, lifting him up with practiced ease. Ron's feet twitched. She reached down and ran her fingers lightly along the instep of one, smiling to herself when he yelped, and then went downstairs.

When she came back up, closing the door behind her, Ron was facing her side of the bed, seemingly asleep again. But when she slipped in beside him, his arms came around her, and his mouth unerringly found hers.

He pulled back slightly, blue eyes glinting in the small light that came in through the window. "Thank you, Hermione," he said again, leaning in and pressing his lips to hers in one final soft kiss. Then he scooted back a few inches, closed his eyes, and fell asleep.

She watched him for a moment, watched the movement of his chest as it rose and fell. Then she raised a hand and brushed a few strands of hair away from his forehead, kissed it gently, and murmured, "You're welcome, Ron," before she went back to sleep herself.

It was a creepy house, Remus told him once, the very first time he'd seen it. Behind his mother's back, Sirius snuck him in, and then proceeded to show him things of interest, like the house-elf heads on the walls.

They made love that night in Sirius's bed, and Remus stayed as quiet as he could, because he felt like the house was listening to him. Sirius told him that it was nonsense, that no one would hear them because Sirius's room was far away from the rest of the family and no one wanted to see him more than they had to, and they could be as loud as they liked.

But still Remus said little more than breathless oh, Sirius and please and more, and came with a suppressed moan. Sirius's cries were louder, almost exaggeratedly so, and Remus could almost feel the house's nonexistent ears prick up, feel the house turn its attention to them, feel it watching and waiting and listening. It made him nervous.

They changed the sheets later, the new ones crisp and yellow-white, but Sirius just tossed the dirty ones on the floor in the corner and said he'd take care of them later. Remus caught a strange gleam in his eye, and wondered if he really would, if he wouldn't prefer to have his mother and her house-elf find the sheets in one of their searches of his room and know what he'd been doing.

The next morning the house-elf, Kreacher, perhaps alerted by the house, found them sleeping in the same bed, and yelled about perversion and filth and oh, what would my mistress think, and Sirius laughed at him. He kicked Kreacher out the door and closed it on him, and Remus got dressed, thinking to himself that this was just the tip of the iceberg.

When Mrs Black started pounding on the door and shrieking, Sirius bundled Remus out the window, onto the sturdy branch of the dying tree just outside, whispering I'll meet you at the base in a few minutes. Remus had just dropped to the ground when he heard the shrieking increase and Sirius's laughter resurge.

Sirius came outside a few minutes later, and Remus was waiting for him at the bottom of the tree. There was a cold angry glittering in his eyes, but Remus let Sirius press him against the bark of the tree, kiss him like there was nothing else in the world, and convince him that, for the moment, everything was all right.