Challenge #04: Meta-Fic
Dec. 5th, 2011 02:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kungfuwaynewhoTwo short fics for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
writerverse; the challenge was to write about someone writing.
Title: The Marke of Mercy Cooper
Word Count: 499
Rating: PG
Original/Fandom: Original
Pairings (if any) none
Warnings (Non-Con/Dub-Con/RPF etc): none
Summary: An accus'd witch must confess lest she be Lost of God.
Mercy Cooper stared at the paper in front of her. They had shoved a quill into her hand, but her hand shook, and she did not think that she could write no matter any inclination to it she might take.
“You shall confess,” Goodman Hopkins intoned. “You shall write of your sins, the cavorting with the Devil and his brood and those others of your coven. You shall name your fellow witches, and you shall do so now.” Beside him Reverend Hale held his Bible in front of him like a shield, and beyond Mercy could see Goody Bates, the mistress of the jail, standing by the open door. Shadows cloaked her, but she seemed to be shaking.
Mercy realized that Goody Bates was laughing.
“I will not confess,” she whispered, and she moved to set the quill down, but Hopkins reached down and closed her fingers around it, his hand like iron.
“Little Grace has testified that she saw your mother and father taking their brooms from the barn. There was a pot under your mother's arm. The Devil's ointment, yes, to make them fly? And Goodwife Brown testified that she espied a Witch's Sabbath in the woods behind her fields, saw your mother stoop to kiss the devil's fundament.”
“They're lying.” She began to cry, the hot tears burning the cracks on her face. Mercy did her best to remain still. Moving tore at the still-raw wounds on her back, the places Goody Bates had whipped her.
“They spoke the Lord's Prayer,” Reverend Hale said, his voice deep and sad. “They held the Bible, the word of God Himself, as they made their testimony.”
“Now, child, if you were to name the other witches, perhaps we would believe that your mother and father were no part of this. It can be difficult to rightly identify a woman at night, from some great distance. Perhaps Little Grace and Goodwife Brown were mistaken? They saw someone, most assuredly, but if it were not your mother and father, then whom?”
Mercy's mind raced. They would not want a confession pointing to those already in the jail with her, Temperance and Mary and Honour. Who else could she name? And then she remembered Goodwife Humility Barnes, who had slapped her during afternoon service three years ago, because Mercy had stuck out her tongue. Goody Barnes lived by herself, in a one-room cottage with a rotting roof., and she had a great wart on her chin with three monstrous gray hairs growing out. A devil's mark if Mercy had ever seen one.
The quill still shook, but she managed to scratch a few words on the paper. At one point the tip of the quill caught on a rough place, and a spot spread out, a slowly growing blackness that Mercy could feel entering her own soul.
goody barnes I saw cruely tortureing severall Children and she spake a prayr to the Devil himself...
Title: So Someone Will Know
Word Count: 213
Rating: PG
Original/Fandom: Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Pairings (if any) none
Warnings (Non-Con/Dub-Con/RPF etc): none
Summary: Laura Roslin writes the history of the Occupation.
Laura hated feeling powerless. She hated sitting in her tent, trying to teach children who couldn't concentrate on long division or reading because they worried about having enough to eat, or about being rounded up in the middle of the night, or about their parents, locked away in detention. Laura hated the sight of Colonial One, knowing that inside the ship the Cylons and Baltar were conspiring together, and today might be the day they decided to kill them all. She hated watching the members of the Resistance scurry to and fro, under marching orders from Tigh, and none of them would listen to her, not a single one.
So she set herself a task, something to do, something more than just sitting and fretting and stewing and wondering. Tori had found the blank notebooks last week, precious sheets of paper bound together, the pages ready and waiting.
Bill would return. If he found nothing else, he would find these notebooks, and at least he would know.
Laura shook the old fountain pen, willing the ink to warm up enough to write. She rested the tip against the first line, mind cleared, thinking of how to begin.
It has been six weeks since the Galactica and the rest of the fleet left us...
writerverse; the challenge was to write about someone writing.Title: The Marke of Mercy Cooper
Word Count: 499
Rating: PG
Original/Fandom: Original
Pairings (if any) none
Warnings (Non-Con/Dub-Con/RPF etc): none
Summary: An accus'd witch must confess lest she be Lost of God.
Mercy Cooper stared at the paper in front of her. They had shoved a quill into her hand, but her hand shook, and she did not think that she could write no matter any inclination to it she might take.
“You shall confess,” Goodman Hopkins intoned. “You shall write of your sins, the cavorting with the Devil and his brood and those others of your coven. You shall name your fellow witches, and you shall do so now.” Beside him Reverend Hale held his Bible in front of him like a shield, and beyond Mercy could see Goody Bates, the mistress of the jail, standing by the open door. Shadows cloaked her, but she seemed to be shaking.
Mercy realized that Goody Bates was laughing.
“I will not confess,” she whispered, and she moved to set the quill down, but Hopkins reached down and closed her fingers around it, his hand like iron.
“Little Grace has testified that she saw your mother and father taking their brooms from the barn. There was a pot under your mother's arm. The Devil's ointment, yes, to make them fly? And Goodwife Brown testified that she espied a Witch's Sabbath in the woods behind her fields, saw your mother stoop to kiss the devil's fundament.”
“They're lying.” She began to cry, the hot tears burning the cracks on her face. Mercy did her best to remain still. Moving tore at the still-raw wounds on her back, the places Goody Bates had whipped her.
“They spoke the Lord's Prayer,” Reverend Hale said, his voice deep and sad. “They held the Bible, the word of God Himself, as they made their testimony.”
“Now, child, if you were to name the other witches, perhaps we would believe that your mother and father were no part of this. It can be difficult to rightly identify a woman at night, from some great distance. Perhaps Little Grace and Goodwife Brown were mistaken? They saw someone, most assuredly, but if it were not your mother and father, then whom?”
Mercy's mind raced. They would not want a confession pointing to those already in the jail with her, Temperance and Mary and Honour. Who else could she name? And then she remembered Goodwife Humility Barnes, who had slapped her during afternoon service three years ago, because Mercy had stuck out her tongue. Goody Barnes lived by herself, in a one-room cottage with a rotting roof., and she had a great wart on her chin with three monstrous gray hairs growing out. A devil's mark if Mercy had ever seen one.
The quill still shook, but she managed to scratch a few words on the paper. At one point the tip of the quill caught on a rough place, and a spot spread out, a slowly growing blackness that Mercy could feel entering her own soul.
goody barnes I saw cruely tortureing severall Children and she spake a prayr to the Devil himself...
Title: So Someone Will Know
Word Count: 213
Rating: PG
Original/Fandom: Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Pairings (if any) none
Warnings (Non-Con/Dub-Con/RPF etc): none
Summary: Laura Roslin writes the history of the Occupation.
Laura hated feeling powerless. She hated sitting in her tent, trying to teach children who couldn't concentrate on long division or reading because they worried about having enough to eat, or about being rounded up in the middle of the night, or about their parents, locked away in detention. Laura hated the sight of Colonial One, knowing that inside the ship the Cylons and Baltar were conspiring together, and today might be the day they decided to kill them all. She hated watching the members of the Resistance scurry to and fro, under marching orders from Tigh, and none of them would listen to her, not a single one.
So she set herself a task, something to do, something more than just sitting and fretting and stewing and wondering. Tori had found the blank notebooks last week, precious sheets of paper bound together, the pages ready and waiting.
Bill would return. If he found nothing else, he would find these notebooks, and at least he would know.
Laura shook the old fountain pen, willing the ink to warm up enough to write. She rested the tip against the first line, mind cleared, thinking of how to begin.
It has been six weeks since the Galactica and the rest of the fleet left us...
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Date: 2011-12-06 12:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
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