Month: September 2019

Earring Tales: Royal Turquoise

~ crossovercreativechaos ~ 2 Comments

And this is a more standard but hopefully pretty bit. 🙂

Royal Turquoise5 Continue reading →

Advertisement

Not a Princess Ficbit – Unfamiliar Ceilings

~ crossovercreativechaos ~ 15 Comments

Still slowly working on Track battle, so… have a bit of something I’m working on in tiny scribbles at wee hours of the morning.

A/N: AU where Private John William Bancroft did not disperse with the Incarnate Unit just because Cain said so; not with their captain and doctor both missing. It’s amazing what a dragon can overhear from tired medics, even when he’s not trying to be stealthy.

…Time for a dragon-napping.

Hell, Hank Henriette thought blearily, looked an awful lot like a worn wooden ceiling. Sounded like summer birdsong and cicadas, and smelled like tea, sun-dried cotton, and the warm breath of a sleeping girl.

Elaine?!

His side and arm both twinged as Hank started. The arm was almost expected, the tug of a medical drip – if he could expect anything, past Cain went mad, he shot her, he went mad and we never knew-!

The side was surprising. It hurt. Like a… healed bullet wound.

He’d been shot since the transformation. It’d always healed in days, or less. This hurt like it’d been healing a while. Like he’d been made a frail, vulnerable human again.

Worse. Even the worst gut-shot still let you move. What did Elaine put in those bullets?

He’d dipped the bed, trying to sit up. The girl slumped in a simple wood chair at his bedside leaned further onto her arms, pink lips pursed in sleepy annoyance as her headrest moved.

Not Elaine.

No. Too young, and Elaine had never worn dark hair in a tight, no-nonsense braid. Not to mention after years of war, Elaine hadn’t had the sheer joy it would take to wear that brilliant blue butterfly clip.

Elaine. Elaine is… gone.

And I’m alive.

Hank drew in another breath, trying to tease as much information from the scents as he could. This didn’t make sense. He ought to be in a military hospital, or under guard, or – if Elaine had told their superiors what she suspected – not waking up at all. If all the Incarnates would eventually go mad….

Cotton. Bread baking somewhere not too far away. Children; boys and girls, he thought, all younger than his exhausted nurse. Green growing things on the breeze from the sunny window, a scent of scales and smoke that said dragon–

A massive blue eye peered through the open window. Blinked. Huffed, with just the faintest trace of smoke.

“Will?” The sight of brown scales was enough to get Hank moving, a little more gingerly this time. Ow. “What’s going on?”

Oh hell, why was he even asking, William couldn’t speak anymore-

A claw lifted a chalkboard into view, chalk a bright white line where someone had harnessed a piece onto one massive talon.

“Take it easy, Captain. You’ve been out cold two months.”

Track of the Apocalypse Ch7 Ficbit – Windblown

~ crossovercreativechaos ~ 21 Comments

A/N: I am, hopefully, about 2/3 of the way through the big hurricane battle. It’s going to take a lot more work, but here’s a starting snippet.

The winds are getting worse.

Kurusu squinted, moving his head a fraction of an inch so blown leaves skimmed harmlessly past. A fallen leaf in a breeze might seem innocent. The same leaf-stem borne on typhoon winds could rob a man of his eye.

“Wish the Koutetsujou carried extra lenses,” Kibito called to him across the prow. “Winds like this, it’s not just steamsmiths who need them!”

True enough. Though Kurusu also found himself curious about the odd glasses Carter and Jackson had donned; they wrapped around all sides of the eye like steamsmith gear, hugging tight against the wind, but the black material of the frames seemed to be lighter and more rigid than leather.

Ikoma would likely want to pore over those in detail, muttering speculations about lacquer and rock oil and who knew what. Kurusu just noted them as another item the Koutetsujou might profit from examining. Later.

For now it was more important to double-check the two alien bushi were properly harnessed against the wind, set up to fire for knockback if any Kabane got close to the derailed car or the Koutetsujou. Knockback only; Kurusu believed O’Neill’s assessment of his team’s skills, the four had survived long enough to be rescued, but the winds would affect everyone’s aim and there was simply no time to train strangers on steam rifles.

A/N: Oh, a rather chilling fact – I’ve only seen a few clips of the Unato movie on YouTube, but apparently it’s in-universe canon that Kabaneri do still carry the Kabane infection in their bite. (At least some form of, I keep hoping the movie comes out on DVD so I can get specifics….)

…Which is exactly what you’d expect if you believe Mumei’s initial explanation of “the bodies of Kabane, but human minds”. but it’s useful to have that confirmed.

Murphy’s Laws of Single-Drop Brick Stitch

~ crossovercreativechaos ~ 12 Comments

1 – Have another beading needle. Have two or three more. By the end of the project your stainless-steel wire will be a stainless-steel pretzel.

2 –  If the needle slips easily under the thread, you’re in the wrong row.

3 – The base row of ladder stitch will be finicky but relatively peaceful. The second rows that hang off the base row? Don’t start those tired. Just… don’t.

4 – It’s easier to go through beads than under thread. Especially when you shouldn’t.

5 – The lighting is never good enough.

6 – Delica beads allow multiple thread passes. You will be forced to abuse this.

7 – The tiny design will take as much effort and time as a double-drop design three times the size. At least.

8 – And after all that, no one’s going to believe it cost as much labor as something three times as big. Augh.