21 Days of Valdemar!
Jul. 17th, 2015 06:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mornelithe_falconsbane posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
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.
FILL: Nyara post-Mage Winds gen - "Stable"
Date: 2015-08-18 06:35 am (UTC)~
"Stable"
~
At last, gryphons and Heralds and Hawkbrothers had dispersed, and Nyara saw a path to escape the series of celebratory embraces. Skif was distracted, talking to one of the Healers; she slipped away without him seeing. She left Need propped up in the salle – though the sword could certainly address her from anywhere she chose, the physical distance gave Nyara the chance to forget that for a while.
She headed for the stables trying desperately not to cry. Or at least, to conceal her tears from the servants and Heralds she passed. So far as she could tell, none had so much as given her a second glance. She was utterly unremarkable, just a pretty girl in foreign garb, and Nyara never would have guessed the invisibility would sting so much. It wasn’t just Skif she was worried about, she realized now. She’d grown enough over the past several months to know that one man’s opinion, however beloved, was not the be-all and end-all of her.
Every man’s opinion, though – and every woman’s – she had finally learned to walk among people, and it was harder than anything she’d ever done before, but she’d done it. Perhaps not very well, but she’d done it her way, as best she could.
And now she had to start all over from a crawl. Her clothing itched against her skin without her soft fur in between.
She nearly took a wrong turn. Her sense of smell had been muffled; she’d almost missed the stables halfway across the grounds. The gardens, which she’d had brief occasion to explore, no longer filled the air with sensual delight. They were brighter, yes, this whole world was colored sharper than the one before, and it hurt to look at. She could scarcely walk straight, and she felt cold and overheated in dizzying turns.
Nyara slipped inside the stable, ducking her head to avoid eye contact with the stable-boy at the door. The lack of smell should have been a relief in here, but she even missed the rich, real scent of horse-droppings. A tall dark bay craned his head over the door of his stall and whickered at her. She froze.
The horse’s lip quivered, and his ears perked forward. He was a fine creature, with kind eyes and glossy coat, a streak of white marking his forehead. According to the brass plate affixed to the door, his name was Jack.
Jack seemed to be a very ordinary sort of horse, and he had whickered at her, still stared at her with expectant eyes. As if she was a very ordinary sort of visitor who might be convinced to procure a treat for him. He wasn’t wary of her, couldn’t smell the corruption in her flesh, couldn’t tell what she was – what she had been, she reminded herself. She stepped closer, enthralled, and reached out her hand. Jack leaned forward and sniffed at her fingers, his whiskers tickling at her bare skin.
Perhaps this was why she’d changed, she thought. Not to make her more seemly in the eyes of the crowd, but to allow her small moments like this.
Nyara felt the tears welling up again. This time she let them fall. She whirled away from the horse and dashed down the aisle, her limbs still quick once she got them moving. Spotting an empty stall, bare of straw and clearly not in use, she skidded a turn and darted inside. She tucked herself tight in the corner behind the door, clapped her hands to her mouth to muffle her sobs.
No longer a Changechild, but she had changed, and would keep changing. Nyara determined, hiccupping, that from now on no mage, sword, or goddess would direct that change. Whatever she was to become, she would become it of her own free will.
Re: FILL: Nyara post-Mage Winds gen - "Stable"
Date: 2015-08-18 08:28 am (UTC)Re: FILL: Nyara post-Mage Winds gen - "Stable"
Date: 2015-08-18 02:14 pm (UTC)Thank you! I agree, I was always kind of bothered by how it went down in canon. It was framed overwhelmingly as a good thing, a reward, by the narrative, but would have been more logical if it was reframed through the lens of "unwanted fate meddling" like what Elspeth deals with the whole series.
Re: FILL: Nyara post-Mage Winds gen - "Stable"
Date: 2015-08-18 07:17 pm (UTC)Re: FILL: Nyara post-Mage Winds gen - "Stable"
Date: 2015-08-19 02:27 am (UTC)But yeah, dick move. I get that it was supposed to be a nice gift, but most nice gifts don't involve nonconsensual body modification? Uncool :(
Re: FILL: Nyara post-Mage Winds gen - "Stable"
Date: 2015-08-18 11:22 pm (UTC)Re: FILL: Nyara post-Mage Winds gen - "Stable"
Date: 2015-08-19 02:29 am (UTC)Re: FILL: Nyara post-Mage Winds gen - "Stable"
Date: 2015-08-22 09:22 pm (UTC)