21 Days of Valdemar!
Jul. 17th, 2015 06:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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21_daysWelcome to 21 Days of Valdemar!
Put on your party hats - it’s time for the Dead Vanyel Memorial Party! Vanyel is OFFICIALLY the Woobiest of the Woobies, and we celebrate in his honour!
WE'RE DONE.
No More Fills posted here! Post to AO3 or FF.Net and post the link here!
Discussion Post | Mod Call Post | Resources Post
Schedule
Day 1 -Aug. 9 - Prompts! You will have seven days to put as many prompts as you'd like on this post. And if you start writing them early, well that's just good planning!
Day 8 - Aug. 16 - Prompting ends, posting begins! You have 14 days to write, draw, and potentially diorama as many prompts as you can.
Day 19 - Aug. 27 - This is the cut-off day for prompters to reply to any questions about their prompt. Unanswered questions are considered enthusiastic agreement.
Day 21 - Aug. 29 - Last day of posting! All fills must be posted by 11:59 PM North American Mountain Time.
Day 22 - Aug. 30 - Party time! You now have the option of going unanon and reposting everything you've done to AO3 under our fancy AO3 Collection. Or unanoning in whatever manner you please.
(Click on the dates for countdowns; the fest is following MDT/Mountain Time)
For the purposes of this fest, the prompts themselves are warnings. If you have issues with this policy, we recommend either not participating or using Dreamwidth blocker.
Joining the 21_days community is optional for prompters, fillers, and all interested parties; we have some extra content for comm members, but this prompt/fill post, the discussion post, and the mod call post are open for everyone.
MOST IMPORTANT RULE: Posting unanon will be deleted. This doesn't mean you aren't welcome here! And if you'd like the content of your comment PMed to you, contact the MOD CALL post.
For Prompters and Readers
- Subject lines should include the series, characters and/or pairing you want. Feel free to be as descriptive as you'd like. Warnings aren't required, but they also aren't banned.
- You don't have to write or draw. It's anon, there's no IP-tracking, and we aren't going to stalk you.
- Do not comment on other people's prompts to try and change pairings or characters. Post your own version with the characters you want instead.
- If you fail to respond to a 'is this okay?' kind of question about any of your prompts by the 19th day, it'll be taken as an enthusiastic yes, no matter what the question is.
- There are no subject bans. You may prompt anything you want.
- If you don't want to answer any questions, you can say so, and that will work as blanket permission for anything people might want to do with your prompt.
- Prompts for non-Valdemar Mercedes Lackey series are allowed.
For Artists and Writers
- No claiming prompts, please, as multiple fills are welcome!
- Minimum wordcount per fill is 100 words.
- All content is allowed and all warnings are optional, but if you want to write or draw extreme kinks** for a prompt that doesn’t specifically request them, you have ask the prompter first.
- If the artist requests it, the mods will repost art fills as an embedded picture in a reply to their comment. NSFW art will be labelled as such in the subject line by re-posting mods. Art involving underaged characters in porn situations will not be re-posted as an embed.
- RPF of underage people is not allowed. We're not even sure if it's possible for Valdemar fic, but whatever. It's not allowed.
** "extreme kinks" for the purposes of this exchange include but are not necessarily limited to: extreme underage, major character death, scat/watersports/emetophilia, extreme gore, and bestiality. Please use reasonable discretion, and ask a mod if you have any questions!
For Everyone
This is a Choose Not to Warn fest. At no point will any comment be deleted for failure to warn of its content in the subject lines. They will be deleted for rampaging dickery and failure to follow the rules.
Unanon comments will be deleted.
Attempts at policing other people's fun will be deleted.
Prompts posted after the end of the 7th day will be deleted.
Links to off-meme posts posted prior to end of the 21st day will be deleted.
Concerns are to be directed to the MOD CALL post. If posted here, they will be deleted.
Fills that have spectacularly failed to fulfill the prompt/been posted to the wrong spot will be screened. You can request a copy of your work at the MOD CALL post.
The rules may change without warning in response to unforeseen circumstances, like us thinking of better ones.
The Lost One 6/7
Date: 2015-08-27 04:55 am (UTC)He hadn't seen Vanyel since, and not for want of trying. He'd headed outdoors because Savil had offered him another frosty excuse for why he wasn't welcome any more. He didn't even know why he'd kept coming back.
It wasn't that he hadn't been afraid. He'd been terrified out of his wits, but his memories of it smoldered recklessly. He'd come out more or less unscathed - he had even been singing again two days afterward - and if that was the worst that could happen around Vanyel, he wasn't deterred in the least. Which, he reminded himself pointedly, was insane. No one should miss an exhausting charge who may or may not accidentally set fire to you on any given evening. But he missed Vanyel so much it was irritating. Like a half-finished verse, waiting for a final rhyme that hadn't come to him yet.
There's a way. And...it's not just magic. It's music, too. It's everything music ever meant to you - or to me.
But it was no blessed good if he kept being turned away from Savil's door.
He looked up at the low ridge above the river, eyes scanning the orange-red horizon. Medren had always said that meant good weather. A blessing. There was a Companion on the slope above him, a rider on her back - not in Whites, but in plain grey breeches, draped in a hooded cloak. The rider was bareback - not so unusual a sight, when a Herald was merely seeking his Companion's company. As Stefen watched, the figure bowed its head against the mare's neck - and then straightened, his hood slipping down over his long dark hair.
Stef gasped, and swung himself back to the ground, loping uphill after them. They walked on, seeming oblivious to his pursuit - but the Companion looked back at him over her shoulder, tipping her head. Beckoning him to keep following.
When he caught up with them, they had paused in a sort-of copse - a clutch of young trees, scattered across a low hollow atop the ridge. Too young and scrubby to hide them from the setting sun, but the air seemed somehow warmer beneath their thin shadows. It smelt of pine sap, and a thin coat of needles whispered under his feet - warm, living sounds. The hollow felt oddly familiar, though he couldn't recall ever seeing it before.
The Companion - that's Yfandes, who Chose the Lost One - lay on a patch of long grass, and Vanyel nestled against her back. He doesn't touch people, Stef thought. She's...more than people, he realised, and Yfandes looked up at him. She's a living myth. Her pure blue eyes held his, and in them he felt a deep and weary wisdom, and some semblance of appreciation; whatever role he was playing in the Lost One's story, she welcomed him into it.
And then Vanyel looked up at him too. Not even the stony discomfort on his face could detract from his beauty. Not old, not withered from years in darkness. But in the approaching twilight, Stef might have taken him for a ghost - lost, indeed, a shadow cast by a man faraway in the wilderness. It was the first time he'd seen the Lost One in anything close to daylight, and Vanyel's pallor suggested it was rare. But his silver-grey eyes were clear with reason - and heavy with guilt. "I'm sorry, Stefen," he said. "I - I asked Savil to tell you that for me. I didn't want you to have to see me again." Stef gaped at him, at a frustrated loss for words. Yfandes nudged him, rippling her tail. "Fandes says thank you," Vanyel told him. "As - as do I."
Stef sniffed. "I didn't do so well last time, did I?" Vanyel looked away awkwardly - it's an awful inconvenience to accidentally set fire to a new acquaintance - and Stef scratched his boot on the ground in frustration. "I'm sorry about what happened, too. It was more my fault than yours - I didn't mean to remind you of..." He trailed off. You know, all that torture and slavery you endured. That thing. Havens, I'm such a fool.
"You didn't need to remind me," Vanyel replied. Yfandes dipped her head against him protectively. "It's - hard to drive him out of my mind when I'm hurting. You were - helping me." Vanyel flinched, as if even thinking of questioning Krebain's hold over him caused the pain to redouble. He was tense the way all people in pain got tense - trying to run from it, even when there's nowhere to go. He lived with near-constant pain, in a hellscape of his memories. But that wasn't even the real problem, was it?
The problem is that you've got nothing to heal for. You're desperately unhappy. Your whole life is an empty cell. They tell you you'll hurt anyone who comes near you. You can't touch anyone except your Companion. You're rarely lucid enough to hold a conversation. And all I can give you is songs about people doing all the things you can't do. Having adventures, helping others. Falling in love. All the things that Krebain took away from you.
The determination it planted in Stef's mind was like nothing he'd ever felt before. I am going to destroy Krebain if it's the last thing I do.
He sat in the long grass close to them, but not so close that they might accidentally touch. "Savil thinks music can't heal you," Stef said plainly. "I guess she told me that because you didn't want me to come back. But I think she's wrong - she has to be. Music's all I've got and I'm not giving up." He folded his arms and stared implacably at them both.
Vanyel hung his head. Yfandes, however, still watched him levelly. "I always knew music shouldn't matter," Vanyel whispered, and his face creased. "My - my father said it was worthless. And I wasn't good enough to be a Bard -"
"Doesn't matter," Stef told him insistently. "I can't say I knew the finer points of musicianship before I came to the Collegium, but music meant a lot to me when I didn't have anything else. When I sang it didn't matter if I was cold, or hungry, or feeling like I'd never get out of a miserable trap of a life." I don't talk about this, he thought wildly. I try to fit in with the rest. I never tell anyone what it felt like - not even my best friend. But Vanyel's eyes turned wild, somehow recognising his pain. "Songs were - a different world," Stef tried to explain. "I think that's what they're for - having stories inside us, inspiring us, can set us free. No matter what you've been through."
"What did Savil tell you about me?" Vanyel asked sharply.
So much for escaping from troubles. "Nothing that would make me think the less of you," Stef replied firmly. You can't scare me away.
Vanyel shook his head. "She doesn't know. Not really. Not why it hurts," he said bitterly.
"She says there's a trap inside you," Stef said, perplexed. "She said it was to control you -"
"She doesn't know why it hurts." Van sat bolt upright, as if he couldn't even bear to touch Yfandes any more. "I let him do that. I offered him everything I am." Savil's words rang in his memory - your body. Your mind. They weren't your own. "She thinks he beat me down. She doesn't know that I just gave him all he wanted. I couldn't resist him," and Vanyel sighed, his eyes fluttering with a strange longing - you still can't, Stef knew with chilling certainty. "I chose to be with him."
Stef's stomach turned at the thought of it - an innocent, lonely child, seduced by a malign enchanter. Blaming himself for the web of coercion he'd been trapped in. For Stef needed no Thought-Sensing gift to read the desolate guilt radiating from Vanyel's face. "Van, it's not your fault and you don't deserve it. No one could deserve what you live with. It's inhuman. You know that - you're a Herald!"
Vanyel looked down at Stefen with a sneer of disgust. Self-disgust. "Stefen," and his voice was a lash, words set to drive him away. "I let Krebain come inside my deepest shields to hurt me because I wanted him to - to make love to me."
"You did not," and Stef snapped back at him with absolute certainty even as his mind reeled in horror. "He controlled your mind. He tortured you," and the truth of it fell into place with sudden, horrible clarity. "He raped you and forced you to think you wanted it?" Oh great gods. "You didn't. He coerced you. You didn't want him, and you can't keep blaming yourself forever when you have a life to live."
Vanyel sagged against Yfandes as if the reckless tirade had knocked the breath out of him. So panic, Lost One. So set fire to something again. I don't care. I'll still come back. I'm going to destroy Krebain. He shifted into a crouch, as if being ready to move would even matter if Vanyel were to lose control again. But he wasn't out of control, and Yfandes curled around his body, jerked her head at Stefen, bared her teeth. She talks to him via touch - Savil told me - and if she can reach him now...
He sang because he'd nothing else left to do. If there's no pain, and she can reach him. And if even for a moment he truly believes he's more than what Krebain made him be. If he believes he's a Herald and her Chosen and not just some mage's puppet. He saw Vanyel's lips move, whispering against her mane. Stef sang like he could see a way out even if he couldn't. You have to believe you don't deserve to live in pain. If you think you ought to keep suffering, you'll never escape. You'll just keep doing what it is that imprisons you.
He sang, sinking on his knees and putting all that he could into the words. It wasn't enough to promise the end of pain. There had to be more than that, a reminder, something else. Spring songs, midsummer songs. Lovesongs, duets with lines missing. Empty notes, waiting for another voice to fill. And he knew, he knew he was close to the end when a rasping voice joined his, searching for a key and a harmony and gasping a breath before the end of the line, but unafraid.
You never gave him your life. He took it, and you can take it back. I'm destroying Krebain.
He felt the power in the song move with Vanyel's long-unused voice. It didn't have to be in tune - didn't have to be Gifted, didn't have to remember the words. Vanyel only had to try for Stef to take the song inside him, beyond all the lines that nothing but music could cross. Stef sang, and nothing else mattered. Nothing except obliterating that sick planted feeling that Vanyel deserved endless pain.
Something nudged him hard, and he came to his senses with Yfandes standing over him, her eyes wide in shock. It was almost dark, and Vanyel was curled on the earth beside him, clutching his hands to his head.
He breathed, feeling the music echo away, leaving Vanyel in silence.
But not in pain.
Re: The Lost One 6/7
Date: 2015-08-27 07:42 am (UTC)Nonny, I'm actually seriously IRL tearing up. I may or may not have wiped tears from my eyes before starting to type this. I don't even really know what to say, this is gorgeous, and that broken duet at the end, Stefen's fierce rage against Krebain, fighting someone who's already dead but whose memory lingers so maliciously... All so, so good.
Re: The Lost One 6/7
Date: 2015-08-29 09:59 pm (UTC)The last part got SUPER LONG because these kids and their issues, but it is finally up now. Thank you again for the prompt - it has been a great & intense ride.
Re: The Lost One 6/7
Date: 2015-08-29 10:44 pm (UTC)Re: The Lost One 6/7
Date: 2015-08-27 10:47 pm (UTC)Re: The Lost One 6/7
Date: 2015-08-29 09:40 pm (UTC)Re: The Lost One 6/7
Date: 2015-08-29 03:18 am (UTC)Breathlessly waiting for the ending!!
Re: The Lost One 6/7
Date: 2015-08-29 09:41 pm (UTC)Re: The Lost One 6/7
Date: 2015-08-30 05:30 am (UTC)I don't even know what to say, Author!Anon. It's so good. Perfect Stefen. You write him wonderfully and I entirely believe everything he's doing here and wants to do and believe he can and will and did.