Thursday: Beloved and Treasured Things

[creepy_shetan]

Hi again, and welcome! I’m creepy_shetan, your host this week. How's your "2024" writing practice going?

As a reminder, for January, we will be trying a new posting schedule. Sundays are for Lonely Prompts and sharing the fills that you completed during the week, Tuesdays and Thursdays are for new themes and prompts, and Saturdays will remain a Free for All.

With that being said, here's ✎ today's theme: beloved and treasured things. Prompts can be about or feature anything that a character holds dear. Something they fought hard for? A memento of a good memory? A family heirloom? Something seemingly worthless to anyone besides them? Tangible or intangible, if it's something they have and would hate to part with, it's fair game.

Just a few rules:
No more than five prompts in a row.
No more than three prompts in the same fandom.
Use the character's full names and the fandom's full name
No spoilers in prompts for a month after airing, or use the spoiler cut option found here.
If your fill contains spoilers, warn and leave plenty of space, or use the above-mentioned spoiler cut.

Prompts should be formatted as follows: [Use the character's full names and fandom's full name]
Fandom, Character +/ Character, Prompt

Some examples to get the ball rolling...
+ Resident Evil (game/CGI 'verse), Sherry Birkin (+ any) (/Jake Muller), she still has/wears Claire's red jacket (and something of Leon's?) from Raccoon City
+ any video game fandom, any +/ any, "Why do you carry around that old [item]?"
+ author's choice, any, someone breaks or throws away something they've used in their kitchen for many years

We are now using AO3 to bookmark filled prompts. If you fill a prompt and post it to AO3 please add it to the Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2024 collection. See further notes on this option here.

Not feeling any of today’s prompts? You can use LJ’s advanced search options to limit keyword results to only comments in this community.

While the use of LJ's advanced search options is available, bookmarking the links of prompts you like might work better for searching in the future.

If you are viewing this post on our Dreamwidth site, please know that fills posted here will not show up as comments on our LiveJournal site, but you are still more than welcome to participate. =)

If you have a Dreamwidth account and would feel more comfortable participating there, please feel free to do so… and spread the word! comment_fic


tag="beloved and treasured"

Comments

[creepy_shetan]

any video game fandom, any +/ any, "Why do you carry around that old [item]?"

Fill: FFVIII, Seifer + Fujin + Raijin, post-game, implied/referenced past relationship

[nagi_schwarz]

Seifer plopped down on the edge of the pier and shrugged off his coat, the long white duster decorated with the infamous red crosses. It was ragged at the hem but still his coat. It was part of him, like his SeeD cadet uniform and the silver choker at his throat.

“Your coat is distinctive.” Fujin sat beside him, fishing pole in hand. “People wouldn’t recognize you as the sorceress knight if you wore something else.”

“I was plain old Seifer Almasy before I was the sorceress knight, and this coat has been with me since then.” He folded the coat a little haphazardly — he didn’t even have to think about the motions after all these years — and set it aside. Then he reached into the pocket and drew out a ragged little stuffed lion and set it on the coat.

Raijin thumped down on the other side of Seifer. “Why do you carry around that old stuffed animal?” He peered at it. “What even is it?”

“Leo the Lion,” Seifer said.

“Original.” Fujin set about baiting her hook. She was utterly unsqueamish about worms.

Maybe one day Seifer would get a boat and sail out to sea. He’d fish enough to feed himself and have a bit of extra gil to keep himself in clothes and other necessities, and then he could lie in his boat and bask in the sun and study the clouds and just be.

Just live, and not fight.

He’d been fighting his entire life, from his first day in the orphanage, until —

“Is it a lion? It’s not the right color for a lion.” Raijin continued to eye the stuffed animal dubiously.

Seifer patted its head gently. “He’s been through a lot. Like me.”

Raijin’s gaze flickered to Seifer, expression uncertain. He’d never known Seifer to be sentimental.

Only one person had ever known Seifer to be sentimental, and that person’s memory of Seifer had been slowly clawed away over time, affection and devotion chewed up and swallowed down by the demigods who humans pretended they had leashed.

Guardian Forces, the Gardens called them.

Memory eaters was what they were.

Supernatural, superhuman memory eaters who thrived on love and affection — and stealing it from others — in exchange for terrible powers in battle.

“Oh. Well. Okay, then.” Raijin patted Leo clumsily. “Welcome, little lion. You’re in good company now.”

“Lions? Seifer? Type? Wrong,” Fujin said, and cast her line.

Her one-eyed glance was too knowing for comfort.

“One of them is my type.” Seifer threaded a worm onto his own hook, then cast his line out into the waves.

Maybe one day, when peace had truly come, all those who had been soldiers could send the guardian forces away, and some of their memories would come back.

And maybe the solemn-eyed boy with the lion heart would remember his precious little stuffed Leo — and the green-eyed boy who’d always promised to protect the both of them, first at the orphanage, then in the Garden halls, and right before agreeing to be a sorceress’s knight.

Re: Fill: FFVIII, Seifer + Fujin + Raijin, post-game, implied/referenced past relationship

[creepy_shetan]

Omg, FF8, and it's Seifer? ♫ Thank you so much! :D

I like the gentle atmosphere of this, despite it being tinged with sadness.

Re: Fill: FFVIII, Seifer + Fujin + Raijin, post-game, implied/referenced past relationship

[nagi_schwarz]

You’re so welcome! FFVIII was my first video game fandom so I had to come back to it.