sideways | 3 sentence fics

Managed a few fills for 3 Sentence Ficathon season! I feel like I managed to almost have a theme here. 1 Jurassic Park, 1 Scavenger's Reign, 2 Finisterre, and 1 TMNT.

Fandom: Jurassic Park/Dinotopia (Ellie Sattler, Alan Grant, Bix)
Prompt: Jurassic Park crossover/fusion

It's a terrible story, pushed out in a hurried and desperate whisper between the bars: helicopters storming a faraway sanctuary, ropes and cattle prods and cages; and the excuse of entertainment cast over it all like a curtain, the truth hidden beneath bright lights and merchandising.

An unbelievable story, not least because of its messenger; and because Dr Ellie Sattler understands the need for empirical evidence in these matters, she risks the second meeting for the sake of the introduction, crouched in the darkness beyond the electric glare of the security lights, at the corner of the pen where the cameras can't reach.

“Alan,” she says in a low voice, a careful hand on his knee, light pressure warning him to hold all incredulous questions until he hears for himself the account from the owner of the improbably intelligent gaze, and even more improbably eloquent beak, “this is Bix.”

Fandom: Scavenger's Reign (Ursula, Sam)
Prompt: Studying Vesta flora and fauna

Day 1: They soak the nutrient-dense ration blocks in the bottled water (boiled, tested, safe) to mitigate some of the dry-mouth effect, and Sam makes a weak joke about soup before sinking into the silence of the radio for the rest of the day. Ursula lies on her stomach long into the night, watching faint shadows slip past the hab's window, rippling bioluminescence lighting a spine that hooks at impossible angles before it jags away into the dark.

Week 1: The yellow wood burns, the red grass does not; the needle-tipped plant species that could be an insect species that mostly would set a room of taxonomists on each other like dogs plumes noxious smoke into the air that nearly smothers them both, and brings a sudden rain of sour and pimpled fruit from trees that burst open like common violets.

Month 1: Sam meets her eyes reluctantly over the chunky broth studded with alien matter (boiled, trialled, a leap of faith); says with grim good humour, “Well, I asked for soup, huh,” and clinks his bowl against her own.

Fandom: Finisterre (Jennie Sabotay)
Prompt: ecology

It had been mama's stern practicality that kept her chained to the labour of literacy until she saw for herself how putting a word to something made it a powerful and lasting thing; papa's absent, “You've got a knack there, Jennie-cub,” that kept her working on her lines and shadows until what came out on paper looked anything like what was standing there in front of eyes or mind.

It's Rain who fills her notebooks, though; Rain and the border riders, and the whole wide world, living and lusting and spilling over in [wild storms on wind bringing grasses to seed] and [nest in leaves, danger] and, “Mollyfinger leaf's fine enough for tea in spring-time, my girl, but once that flower falls off you better remember it's poison.”

Out in the meadows, bare feet dangling in the stream and book open in her lap, she leans her back against the warm nighthorse flank, studies the red-shelled crawler sliding between the rocks - unknown and unnamed by uncaring man, a fleeting [nasty pincher] in Rain's slippery attention - and tries to put one more piece of it in place.

Fandom: Finisterre (Carlo Goss, Danny Fisher)
Prompt: "Love, when you get fear in it, it's not love any more. It's hate."

Vincint calls him ‘son’ in passing - and, God, doesn't mean anything by it, Carlo knows, but it's one of those days where [gun] isn't far enough away from his thoughts for anything to safely turn them in that direction, and there's blood drawn between the horses by the end. Carlo spends two nights in the mid-way shelter sweating the terror of banishment before they tell him to come back; tell him to get his fool self into town as far as he can get from the dens and the riders and the true ambient, and drink more than any sixteen year old has a right to until he spills enough of what's in his head and heart that he can go about his day without setting his horse to violence over a situation dead and gone.

“I loved him,” is what comes spilling out after not near enough drinks, a loyal and ragged psalm from a well-worn Bible, “he was my father, I love him,” and it's Danny over his own untouched glass - Danny who's come with him, of course, Danny laying ears on his last confession - who says quietly, “Yeah, Carlo; but you know it's okay if you don't, right?”

Fandom: TMNT 2k3 (Casey Jones, Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello)
Prompt: Chickens

"Yo, Case,” Raph shouts distantly through the kitchen window. “What's with the tiny house?”

It's a sign of how desperate they're getting for something to do that isn't stacking enough firewood to see out an ice age, or patching up another hole in the tiling, or watching Leo flinch and sweat through nightmares; they all end up piled around the side of the farmhouse, peering at the rickety stand of timber and mesh and old hay.

“Oh, I know,” Mike says with grandiose confidence, gradually leaning more of his weight on Raph's shell until he draws out a low growl and an elbow thrown back towards him. “This is where they used to put Casey when he was being too, you know, Casey to be with the rest of the normal people.”

“I think they call that a doghouse,” Don murmurs, all mild-mannered innocence that isn't fooling anyone.

“It's a coop, you morons,” Casey says, exasperated. “Y'know, for chickens. Grandma Jones had a bunch of ‘em, used to send us kids out to fetch the eggs every morning.”

“What's a chicken?” Mikey says, then snorts at the look on Casey's face. “Dude! Joking. Come on.”

Raph's still half-crouched, staring inside the dilapidated coop with the sort of look he usually reserves for rusty carburetors. “So... me and Donnie fix this thing up, then you can get more chickens, right?” He looks around. “What? It's free eggs, you heard him.”

Casey shuts that down, and hard. “No way. It's not free eggs, it's a bunch of crazy birds that'll peck your face off as soon as look at you.” He grimaces. “Chased Sid all the way to the road one time like they were tryna run him into traffic. Not saying the squirt didn't have it coming, but...”

If anything this review only seems to deepen Raph's sudden interest in permaculture; but the Jones Word is final, and the bite of frost underfoot puts a hard deadline on how long anyone's willing to stand around arguing about it.

“You know what you should get?” Mikey says as they amble back towards the house. “Cows. And horses so you can lasso the cows. Oh, and sheep because, obviously, then you get to have sheepdogs-”

“Yeah, yeah." Casey makes a lazy shove at the back of the shell in front; thinks maybe, chickens or not, it isn't so different from having the farm full of cousins again. "You just keep walking, Farmer Brown.”