gift's 100 theme challenge

[giftwrapped]

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

Adding rules because Noz did them.
1. Prompt fill will be as long as I goddamn feel like making it. I'm not writing to any specific length.
2. Any given fill will (probably) not exceed half an hour of my day.
3. I will attempt to clearly indicate which fills are Warden's canon, which fills are purely hypothetical what-ifs, and which ones are ridiculous crack. - Stolen from Tua
4. Content warnings: there is potential for all sorts of trigger to show up. Off the top of my head I can guess there will be elements of: profanity, murder, sex, violence, abuse, suicide, drug use, sociopathy, and nudity. I intend to treat all these subjects respectfully, and will content-warn at the beginning of any given fill, if necessary.

1. Eating Glows
2. Bubbly pie goes splat (in someone's face)
3. Trundle with the Trundle Bugs
4. Bloodletting for Wherlets
5. Gather Fun!
6. Hatching Time!
7. First Flight
8. A candidate midnight rendevouz - La
9. Flaming Thread
10. Flying high
11. Chore Duty
12. Swimming with Shipfish
13. Bountiful Eggs
14. Corraling the herdbeast
15. Forever Mine
16. Runner Races! - Boy
17. Harper's Dance
18. Frolicking with friends
19. Fly With Me
20. We go together, Mine - Serdek
21. Too Much Klah
22. We the Hold Folk - D'rian
23. A Lord's gotta do what a Lord's gotta do
24. My Craft
25. Those of the Dark - I'saac
26. Beneath the Dawn Sisters
27. Run Run Run! Thread has Come!
28. Tunnelsnake Trouble
29. Oh Shards - Kas
30. Colors - I'saac
31. Protect Me
32. Candidates Can Party Too!
33. Female and Proud of It
34. Weyrlings are Rampant
35. Getting into Trouble
36. A Healer's Duty - Jiru
37. Fight and Defend - Serdek
38. Exploring
39. I'm Yours; You're Mine
40. Black, Blacker, Blackest
41. I Outrank You!
42. I Wanna be a Harper - Sa'nil
43. Flames
44. Disaster Strikes
45. It's...Complicated
46. My Craft is Better
47. Seriously?
48. Sibling Rivalry
49. Egg Touching
50. Sharding Hot Sands!
51. There's No Stronger Bond
52. Peace at Last - I'saac
53. Things that Glow in the Night
54. I Love You
55. No Other Choice
56. Wherry Hunt
57. The Child in Me
58. Firelizard(s) - La
59. Swim with Me
60. A Good Oiling
61. No Such Thing (As too Much Wine) - Jiru
62. Dancing
63. Sing Me a Song
64. Sleep Little Hatchlings
65. Looking My Best
66. A Little Wild
67. Starstones
68. Wings in the Sky
69. Drifting
70. Crunchy Firestone
71. Tunnelsnake Toss
72. Voices in My Head - I'saac
73. You Can't Fly! (wher)
74. Dragonless
75. Wherless - Boy
76. We Bleed Green
77. The Bond
78. It's Called Tag
79. An Heir's Duty
80. Broken Shells and Broken Hearts (those left standing after a Hatching)
81. A Rite of Passage (weyrbrats sneaking onto the sands to see the eggs)
82. A Gather
83. Welcome to the Family
84. With Sweat and Blood and Tears, I Made This
85. Those Troublesome Twos
86. Silence is Golden
87. A Lady's Jewels
88. Simple Pleasures
89. A New Home (A new Candidate's first time at the Weyr)
90. Saving Grace (AKA Saving a Goldrider) - R'ley
91. A precious gift (A new baby) - K'bay
92. Joys of Search
93. Expression of the Heart
94. Aerobatics
95. Joining the Ranks
96. Infirmary
97. Stuck!
98. Stuffy Records
99. Bathing Time - Jiru/Soap OTP
100. One of the Same

[giftwrapped]

42. I wanna be a Harper!
Canon - Sa'nil - childhood


"But mum! Dad!"

The thirteen-turn-old boy's voice rang out high and clear in the sudden awkward silence of the weavers' quarters, not quite whining but certainly striking a piercing note that approached wheedling, at the very least. Sanilmar clasped his hands in front of him, glancing over his shoulder at the iron grey hair and difficult-to-read amber eyes of the Harper man. He reached out, touched Sanilmar's shoulder lightly, and turned to the weaver pair. "Your son shows some acute talent," he offered, in a voice that boomed slightly. "It would be prudent to train him."

"I don't like the idea of sending him out there alone," the boy's father answered, and Sanilmar made another soft noise that, in a voice less musical (and if he was playing the musicality up just a bit for the sake of an answer, it wasn't his fault!) would have been an insufferable whine. "He's never left Southern Boll before, and Fort..." He shrugged expressively, and his wife (petite, with gold hair and blue eyes. In every respect, the boy took after her) nodded her agreement.

"I don't want to worry about you, Sanilmar," she remarked, in a voice much quieter than her husband's. "What if something goes wrong at Fort?"

"I will personally escort him to the Hall, Samara. How long have we known each other? Five turns? And you, Morinil? Approaching eight now, I believe. I've seen Sanilmar grow up. I've heard his voice. If you don't allow us to develop it now, he may lose his chance entirely. It would be prudent, at the least, to consider the option."

"I don't like it," Morinil answered darkly, clasping his wife's shoulder and sighing quietly. Samara said nothing, simply leaned into her husband and gave the Harper a long, hard look. Sanilmar whined quietly, reaching out a hand to tug at his mother's skirt.

"Mum," he said softly. "Just for a little while, maybe. Can I just go and try it? I'm really good at it, and Kobol wants me to, I'll be fine, I promise! But I really really want to go and if I go then I can become a Harper and come back here and teach everyone! I'll be good at it, you'll see, and if I go then I can get stationed here when I'm trained, and I will, I promise! And-"

"All right, all right!" Morinil cut the boy off with a wave of his hand, reaching down to tug Sanilmar into a rough hug. "And it would be terrible to see that voice of yours go to waste, I know." He looked at Kobol, and the Harper gave him a tiny, unreadable smile. "And Kobol's right, I suppose. It would be a real tragedy to lose a voice like yours, 'Nil." He glanced at Samara, who was still watching the boy with an expression of fierce protectiveness. "Mara," he said softly, squeezing gently around her shoulders. "We've known Kobol for turns. If anyone can protect our boy and get him safe and happy to Fort..."

"I know," she answered softly. "And...I'd like to see 'Nil follow his dreams. But if it's too much for you, Sanilmar-"

"It won't be! Thank you thank you thank you!" And this time the high squeal (which made Kobol grit his teeth for a moment) was one of delight as Sanilmar hugged both parents ferociously around the waists. "I won't let you down, you'll see! I'll be the best Harper there ever was and I'll come right back here and everyone will know that you sent me to the Hall and it was the best decision ever! They'll love you because I'm a Harper now and-"

"Okay, okay, Chatterbox." Morinil's expression was one of fond exasperation. "What are we going to do without you around to chatter like this for turns?"

"I'll be back before you know it!"

"In the meantime, don't talk too much at people. You might just talk yourself out one day."

"Never!"

"I suspect," Kobol cut in, the edge of a laugh in his voice, "that Sanilmar would keep talking even if his voice did run out. He's one of those personalities. It's what we look for as Harpers."

"See? I'm a Harper already!"

"You will be, Sanilmar. You will be."

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36. A Healer's duty
Canon - Jiru - pre-arrest


"My dear boy, if we were to ignore such cries for help, what use would we be to Pern as Healers?"

The man's voice, low, genial, with the creak of old age setting into it just as the cricks of arthritis set themselves into the speaker's fingers - he spoke as he watched the prone form of an unconscious addict. The man had come to the healer's clinic for help, half-mad from withdrawal symptoms and begging for a cure. There had been none. They had dosed him with fellis and restrained him. The fellis had abated some of the symptoms, but more importantly, it had for the time-being sent him into unconsciousness. Jiruyno watched as his mentor took vital signs, looked over the body.

"Emaciated," he remarked softly. "Hasn't been eating; letting the Dust do his feeling for him. He probably doesn't realize he's half-starved."

His gaze turned from the addict then, green eyes with the sclera gone yellow with age and rheumatism fixing themselves on Jiruyno's, a searching expression momentarily crossing his face. Jiruyno said nothing, but nodded, reaching out and placing his fingers on the unconscious man's wrist. "Heartbeat dull," he remarked, a flat tone. He pinched the skin just above the pressure point, watching it sluggishly creep back. "Severely dehydrated. He'll need fluids. Fluids and fellis." The words were guarded, curious, a sixteen-turn-old's voice confident in its assessment but anxious to see how the old journeyman would feel about it.

"Fellis until the worst of the symptoms wane. Sometimes it's better for them to be unconscious. They scream," the old man answered, and for a moment, his expression was haunted. "They scream, and they beg...there would be no room in a workshop like this for that. We will tend him how we can, and the longer he sleeps, the better he will be. This is the work of a healer, Jiruyno. This is why we're here." He stopped again, a catch in his old voice. For a time, his breath rattled in his lungs. Jiruyno said nothing, merely watched.

Eventually, he continued, coughing a little into a handkerchief and tucking it away before the young journeyman could see the blood in his sputum (no use; Jiruyno already knew the man was old and dying. Any idiot at the Hall could have seen - and he was far from an idiot). "You are my hands now, Jiruyno, but you ought to remember. This isn't about us. It's about them. We're fixing the mistakes that Healers themselves made turns ago. Dust was our fault. It's our own mess that we're cleaning up when we treat addicts."

Jiruyno said nothing, turning his grey eyes on the prone form again. The old man continued. "This is the duty of a healer, Jiruyno. Helping those that can't help themselves. Fixing them. It is not to make it worse, or to make it hurt. We cause no harm, as Healers - no harm but that necessary to make the body healthy again. We exist to eliminate pain, never to cause it. And Dust...we thought it would. And then it didn't. Remember that, if you decide you plan to go into pharmacology, Jiruyno. The duty of the healer - this duty - is to help. To protect life. Don't forget that."

For a moment, luminous grey eyes, bright and sharp and brilliant without the wisdom that would come with years, met dulling green ones that blinked too often and wore wrinkles around their edges and sagged. Then Jiruyno nodded mutely, turning away and adding drops of fellis juice into a cup of water. Doubtless the addict would be waking soon, and he would need treatment.

The old man's words would have rung so much truer if Jiruyno hadn't discovered the small package of vials, each one full of precise, expensive doses of Dust, all neatly-packed and ready to be sent out with the next shipment of medicines, in his bag the night before.

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30. Colors
Canon - I'saac - pre-Warden's

Sometimes, I'saac wondered if he had personally done something to prejudice Wingleader C'ross against greenriders. Sometimes he wondered if C'ross even realized what he was saying when he snapped that a flashy tunic made one of his wingseconds "look like a greenrider," or remarked slyly to a companion that he ought "be careful" lest "people start mistaking you for a greenrider." He wasn't even sure why it stung so much; he wanted to say it was because he wanted so desperately to respect C'ross.

But...he did already. He would respect the man unconditionally. He would follow C'ross to the ends of the earth if the wingleader asked it of him. It was just that...he sighed and shook his head. The words that C'ross said sometimes, the look of harsh amusement, or thinly-veiled disgust when he used the word, the implications against him...it was odd. And I'saac didn't like the implications of the word any more than he liked the reality of the insults. He was fairly certain that C'ross was implying....

Well, nevermind. If that were the case, then I'saac was comfortable in his knowledge that at the very least, he didn't fit that stereotype. Still... "I don't know what to do about it, Nicoth," he remarked, finally glancing up to look at the dragon, who had been seething silently since the wingleader's latest onslaught against greens and their riders. "I respect C'ross. He's..." Everything I want to be. The thought was suppressed at the last moment, before it could pass to Nicoth, though I'saac was fairly certain at least some of it made it to the green dragon's head.

Nicoth did not answer immediately, choosing instead to huff and sink to the ground, curling in a loose C shape around her rider. There is nothing inferior about greens, she growled, tail lashing just shy of striking I'saac. If he wants to talk about disgraceful dragons, he ought to look at his own sharding bronze.

"Easy, love," I'saac murmured, reaching out and resting a hand on Nicoth's neck. His fingers curled idly against the hide, and the dragon rumbled, a noise of what might have been pleasure. I'saac smiled slightly. "I know you're not inferior. You're my dragon, and we'll make it work somehow."

I'll show that oaf of a bronze, Nicoth grumbled, snapping her teeth irritably. Insulting me, insulting you... The grumbling turned into a full snarl, dragon lifting her head and peeling her lips back from her teeth in a gesture I'saac found himself unconsciously mimicking until he forced the look off his face. That was something he was still having problems getting used to, the sudden washes of emotion that sent Nicoth taking off with his own head. He was certain it would go away eventually; he had Impressed late and no doubt that had something to do with all the strangeness.

"We'll think of something," he answered. Nicoth grumbled. "He probably doesn't mean it the way it comes out. It's just...he's a bronzerider. They think like that sometimes."

Then he should stop. Greens are not inferior. Insults to greenriders are insults to me. He has no right.

"We just need to give it time. Maybe I'll talk to him tomorrow."

You'd best.

"Just...try not to kill Merceth in the meantime."

I make no promises.

[giftwrapped]

CONTENT WARNING: Minor mention of suicide and suicidal thoughts.

25. Those of the dark
Canon - I'saac - post-breakout


You could hear the ocean and the river from the riders' weyrs. Neither were loud enough to be heard clearly in the thick Southern nights, but it was enough. It was soothing, in a way. Calming. A repetitive sound that thrummed itself into the ambient, turned into a background noise that couldn't be heard unless the listener was actively looking for it. And if they were...and when they found it...it was hypnotic, nearly. A rhythm, a pulse. An echo of life that it was easy to fall into. It was easy to get lost in the sound, and doing so felt...

He wouldn't have used the word 'wonderful.' Nothing was wonderful anymore. Nothing had been wonderful for a long time. But it was calming. It allowed him to feel a part of something without having to feel alive, allowed him to experience a rhythm that wasn't breathing, or another heartbeat. It gave him the illusion that he was alone in the world, apart from the rest of the living. It was how he felt in his soul every moment he was lucid, and when the world outside reflected it, he could almost appreciate it.

It was why he liked the night, as well. The darkness and quiet, interrupted only by night birds or the occasional rush of wings overhead - but he put those out of his mind. There were whers somewhere in the dark, but whers didn't patrol rider quarters. Nobody patrolled rider quarters. It meant he could sit outside, back to the palm outside the small hut he and C'ross shared, and let the darkness and the river and the ocean take him.

When....it had first happened, when he was still adrift, he had gone to the ocean because he thought about drowning. It would have been so easy, to let those waves take him. He would have welcomed death, then. But things had changed. It was no longer about death, so much as it was about solitude. The worst of the darkness, the bit that threatened to drag his soul out of his body and throw it between forever, that had passed. And what was left was still dark, yes. But it was darkness punctuated with starlight and birdsong and the soft noises of moving water.

He did not sleep anymore. He would stay like this until the sun rose, and begin another day in waiting for sunset again.

"I'saac...? Come to bed, love."

C'ross's voice drifted into I'saac's consciousness, and he lifted his head, turning to glance at his weyrmate. C'ross was standing in the doorway to the hut, hair every-which-way and eyes still half-closed as he fought with his own weariness. I'saac considered responses. He wasn't tired; he could lie with C'ross for hours and he doubted weariness would come. But C'ross...C'ross still had his shifts (though fewer, and in thinner concentrations) and his work, still had Merceth. He wouldn't sleep if I'saac didn't come back inside.

And slowly the once-greenrider got to his feet, turned toward C'ross, and cast a single long look over his shoulder at the moons. One waxing gibbous, one waning crescent. It felt...fitting, somehow. He didn't look back until he felt C'ross's hands on his arms, and C'ross's lips on his cheek. "Come on, I'saac," the bronzerider murmured. "At least try to sleep. Maybe it'll help."

It wouldn't. But I'saac didn't have the heart to answer truthfully. He allowed C'ross to take his hands, casting a final glance at the moons before following the bronzerider back to bed.

[giftwrapped]

8. A candidate midnight rendezvous
Canon - Lanakirene - childhood

"Hey! Wake up!"

The hushed whisper broke the dead stillness of the Candidate barracks, and La shook the sleeper gently, laughing as she roused with a stifled yelp. She could only imagine what the girl thought, waking to find someone kneeling beside her hammock, their face on level with her own. But she rallied spectacularly, and recognition flared in her eyes. La kissed her quickly. "C'mon, Olli. I have something to show you."

"Do you have any idea what hour it is?" the other girl mumbled sleepily, displacing the tangle of blue and green firelizards from her chest and rolling out of her hammock. In the dark, her pale skin shone with the light of the single glow La carried in a half-shielded basket, and the Healer apprentice took a moment to kiss her bare hipbone before the fishcraft apprentice hurriedly pulled on drawstring trousers and a light, sleeveless top. "Where are we going? What are you doing this sharding early in the morning?"

"It's a bit past midnight, you'll see when we get there, and you'll see when we get there," La answered, grabbing the girl's hands and rushing backwards out of the barracks. "You'll thank me when you see it, though," she added, smiling brightly. It was quite dark in the barracks, now; she had left the glowbasket behind. But that didn't matter. "Just a bit more," she murmured. Candidates knew the barracks as well as they knew their own bodies (and in a lot of cases, better. The barracks weren't constantly going through growth spurts or suddenly getting bigger where they had been small before). If you couldn't navigate them in the dark, you were a piss-poor excuse for a Candidate, weren't you?

"This better be good, La, I have to be up at dawn for net mending with-" Anything else the girl had been about to say was lost in a gasp as they stumbled out of the Barracks and into the Weyrbowl. Both moons were full, bathing the sandy floor of Ista with light almost as bright as day. A double full moon was rare enough, but what La had been so impatiently dragging her fellow Candidate out to was even more. Dozens of bright flashes of light streaked across the sky, leaving bright trails behind them.

"A meteor shower!" Olli gasped, and her arms instinctively went around La's waist. Lanakirene laughed, pulling the girl closer to her and wrapping an arm around her shoulders. "Oh, La, it's wonderful."

"All for you," Lanakirene answered, a cheeky smile playing on her lips as she rested her head on the other girl's shoulder. "I've been planning it for months." Her companion laughed, and La felt lips brush her hair, but for now they were quiet, consumed in the beauty of the scene above them. "I'd have liked to have a dragon by now," she said softly. "This would have been beautiful to watch from the beach."

"It's beautiful from here," Olli answered, turning away from the sky to grin at Lanakirene, eyes full of starlight.

They kissed.