icon comment fic

[artyartie]

Shamelessly gakked from cerebel, who wrote yet a disturbing yet hot Cicero/Antony comment fic for me (part of the yummy Rome trifecta I've enjoyed this morning). Either a fandom or non-fandom icon is fine, so long as it's a fandom I'm familiar with.

So. I need a distraction. I have nothing much that I'm writing right now, and I'd like a challenge, so here's the thing. If you guys are interested, comment here with a pretty icon that you absolutely adore, and I'll respond with a short comment-length ficlet based on said icon.

So. Start the clock! And, comment away. :D

Comments

[spacemonkey-27.livejournal.com]

It was a tough choice between two of my icons, but I LOVE this icon, hence it is my default icon.

[artyartie.livejournal.com]

"Do you know I have a poet in my ranks?"

Cassius looks at him from across the tent, his eyes dark, amused. "Besides yourself?"

Brutus laughs, leans back against his fur-lined couch, warm in the Macedonian sun. "I'm a purveyor of melodramatic piffle. He has real talent - and a clever tongue besides."

"I wonder how he'll tell our story," Cassius glances to the door, distracted.

"It seems to be lacking an ending." Brutus smiles at his own witticism and closes his eyes. They flutter open again at the sound of hoofbeats, heavy on the ground.

The messenger who comes into the tent is caked with the dust of the road, his limbs bowed with exhaustion, but his eyes are bright. "From Cicero," he says, his breaths coming in shuddering gasps. "Of the utmost importance."

Brutus rises to his feet, takes the proffered scroll. It's feather light but curiously heavy in his hand. "Perhaps this is our ending," he says, but for good or for ill he does not know.

[spacemonkey-27.livejournal.com]

Oh, I love this. It's beautiful. Thank you so much. You've captured Brutus and Cassius to a tee. And that little mention of Cicero, wonderful.

Brutus smiles at his own witticism and closes his eyes.
This line made me giggle. So Brutus.

Thank you , Thank you. This made my day.

[artyartie.livejournal.com]

Today was just Brutus/Cassius day. :) So glad you liked it!

[grace-poppy.livejournal.com]

What? I'm not sure I understand, but eeee! Can I have a ficlet? (This is Stephen and a plushie aardvark?)

[artyartie.livejournal.com]

Oh, I cannot get Stephen's voice *at all*, but here he is, with his little animal friend. :)

***

"Get away, you gluttons! You've already eaten his mother.." Stephen cradled the pink, hairless creature to his chest, glaring at the bevy of midshipmen crowded around him.

"But we aren't going to eat him yet, sir!" Calamy, who was just outgrowing the gawkiness of childhood, peered intently at the baby aardvark.

"We'd have to fatten him up first." Blakeney, who was a squeaker if there ever was one, echoed the sentiments of the hungry midshipmen.

"None of you will lay a hand on this creature!" Stephen's voice was low and intense, so as not to startle the trembling thing. "If you even look at her with a mind to your stomachs, it will be slime draughts for all of you!"

The terrified midshipmen clambered out of the orlop, pressing their knuckles to their forehead as their captain descended the stairs.

"What's that, Stephen? Another of your creatures?" Jack reached out to stroke the tiny creature but Stephen whirled away in a rage.

"Yes, and if I hear you've been debauching it with your cakes and port, it'll be the same for you as your ravenous young men!" Stephen cradled the aardvark, startled by his tirade, even as he glared at Jack.

For how much his surgeon railed against tyranny, Jack could not help but wonder that here in the orlop, Stephen ruled with a tighter fist than any despot.

[grace-poppy.livejournal.com]

HEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!! I love it! Thanks! Hahahahahaha, that's so adorable! *cuddles the story and whirls around with it* Can I post it in my journal, pleeeease?

[artyartie.livejournal.com]

So glad you liked it! Stephen and his dear little creatures! And yes, feel free to link/post in your journal. :)

[grace-poppy.livejournal.com]

Yay! Did so. :D

[rosamundeb.livejournal.com]

*L*! Excellent - especially the last line!

[ainsley.livejournal.com]

What I want to know is what you're doing still up at 2.00!

[artyartie.livejournal.com]

Caffeine late at night plus stuffy room (a/c is broken!) equals one little insomniac.

[ainsley.livejournal.com]

Whatever did insomniacs do before the internet?

[artyartie.livejournal.com]

Watch late night infomercials?

[ainsley.livejournal.com]

Perhaps. The internet is definitely far superior to almost any alternative entertainment for insomniacs.

[artyartie.livejournal.com]

Evidently Isaac Newton came up with some theories when he couldn't sleep. If he had lived in a world with the Internet, who knows what would have happened!

[ainsley.livejournal.com]

Apples would fly.

[lucky-sparkle.livejournal.com]

<--- That's my pretty icon-ness. :D

[artyartie.livejournal.com]

Antony was expecting something else entirely when he told Atia he was marrying her daughter. A flying rage, sudden as a summer storm, nails drawing across his chest, her red hair flung about her like flames.

This silence frightened him, the stony facade that chillingly reminded him of her son. She sat up, her spine erect as the columns in the Forum, smoothed the sheets around her with a trembling calm.

"It won't change anything," Atia says, her voice earnest and yet there's a pathetic desperation somewhere in the back of her throat. "Octavia - Octavia will understand."

Octavia was the least of their worries, Antony thought as he cradled her waist. Her brother, her traitorous, scheming, little deviant of a brother, would be the only one to benefit through this marriage. Denying his mother her lover and Octavia hers, if he read Agrippa's pitiful glances right, was only part of it. Humiliating Antony - that was his entire intent.

"She's a sport," Antony murmured, the memory of a dinner party, long ago, Octavia's scathing and precise imitation of her mother.
Perhaps the taste for humiliation ran in her veins as well. Perhaps-

As Atia buried her head against his shoulder, Antony realized, with a vague, distant pain, it wasn't about her. It was about vanquishing her son, once and for all. Even if Atia was the price he paid in the end.

[lucky-sparkle.livejournal.com]

OO I love it! That last line got me good.

Thank you! :D

[artyartie.livejournal.com]

You're welcome! That last line was tricky, but glad it worked in the end.

[artyartie.livejournal.com]

This challenge gave me an idea for drabble prompts - maybe one week we could have our choice of images as a prompt, instead of a word. It was a fun, creative challenge to write these!

[babel.livejournal.com]

Oh, can we trade icon prompts? I'm feeling painfully jealous that I don't have time to play this with my entire friends list right now with all those normal prompts I'm working on. If you're tired of trading fic with me, though, it's totally understandable. XD

[artyartie.livejournal.com]

Oh, sure! I am not tired of trading fic in the least. :) Is that the icon you want me to write a comment!fic from?

[babel.livejournal.com]

Yep. That's the one.

[cerebel.livejournal.com]

Here's for some CRAZY.

(Feel free to apply this to any drink/fandom that you wish.)

Set after the battle of Pharsulus - contents are pure crack

[artyartie.livejournal.com]

The first split in the Coalition for Piracy and Against Caesar came in the first week. Pompey, who reminded everyone that "no one knew pirates like he knew pirates," wanted to be the Pirate King, bowing to tradition. Cato, wishing for a convenient accident with an oar, insisted he would never bow to a king. And so, Cato took a handful of ships to establish the Republic of Pirates against Caesar, and Cicero patched up an uneasy truce between Pompey's Kingdom and Cato's Republic before he set out with Brutus to join his uncle.

Life in the floating Republic was hardly better. Cato, when naming their new ships, christened Cicero's ship the Treasonous Coward, changing it to the Long-Winded after the orator threw a flamboyant sulk. Brutus stayed in the cabin of his ship, the Undecided, and watched the seas anxiously.

Their tactics were untraditional. Cato delivered bombtastic harrangues on Republican virtue to Caesar's attacking vessels, and they soon began to flee of their own accord. Cicero alternated so unpredictably between fleeing any approaching vessel and assailing them with verbal assaults on the manhood and sexual depravities of the crew that vessels steered clear of the Long-Winded just to save themselves the effort.

Brutus captured the only vessel, and this one of Pompey's ships, deliberately ignoring the truce. Captain Cassius was dashing in the fight and gracious in the surrender, and when he submitted himself before Brutus, it was with a laviscious gleam in his eyes.

"The legendary Captain Brutus," he purred, batting his eyelashes. "Is that a dagger in your toga, or are you just glad to see me?"

Re: Set after the battle of Pharsulus - contents are pure crack

[cerebel.livejournal.com]

LOL. Oh wow. That is SO FUNNY.

Cicero alternated so unpredictably between fleeing any approaching vessel and assailing them with verbal assaults on the manhood and sexual depravities of the crew that vessels steered clear of the Long-Winded just to save themselves the effort.

That just made the whole thing for me. All over again.

And then you put in some gratuitious Brutus/Cassius! For the win. :D

Re: Set after the battle of Pharsulus - contents are pure crack

[artyartie.livejournal.com]

Cicero would make the worst pirate ever, that's true. And today just seems to be Brutus/Cassius day. Must be something in the water. :)

Re: Set after the battle of Pharsulus - contents are pure crack

[cerebel.livejournal.com]

Brutus/Cassius...pirates...ficlets...yeah, today was a lot of quite pleasant things.

[mayara13.livejournal.com]

It was a tough choice, and I went with whichever I picked right at the moment...

[artyartie.livejournal.com]

"Swank joint, this." Spike picked up his cup, gave the blood a swirl. "Mind you, they could heat the blood up a bit. You ever tried drinking it cold?"

"No, I can't say I have." Giles sipped at his tea, his eyes anxiously watching the door for Dawn, who insisted she would be there half an hour ago. He should have known better than to trust a teenage girl who had just discovered South Kensington. "At least when it's cold it doesn't smell."

"Oh, how many times are you going to make me apologize for overheating the blood in your sodding microwave?" Spike set his cup down so violently a splash of crimson trickled down the side, leaking onto the saucer. "I cleaned it up, didn't I?"

"My kitchen smelled like a slaughterhouse for a week." Giles tried not to remember the smell, which had forever put him off rare roast beef. "And it's besides the point. It's - it's common courtesy."

"It's common courtesy, settling for pigs' blood instead of all these lovely people here, soul or no soul." Spike turns, cup raised to his lips. "I mean, you lot have souls and sometimes you wouldn't know the difference."

Giles opened his mouth and closed it again, not wanting to admit, of course, that Spike could ever be right.

[otahyoni.livejournal.com]

Hmm...out of what I've gone on me at the moment...I'm going with this one. :) Ficlet!!

[artyartie.livejournal.com]

Where once was a sea of verdant green, lush grass at her feet and teeming branches overhead, now teemed with gold. It rustled and crackled beneath her feet, fluttered past her on the breeze, sparkled overhead as if she were in an opulent palace. A place of such beauty, and she came here for such a dark deed.

The same breeze that swirled the golden leaves about her caught the sleeves of her gown, red as blood. She chose the color deliberately, so as to hide any wounds, not that she intended to allow her opponent the courtesy. But if she were to die, she was prepared, she had made her peace. Just as the fall and all its dying beauty would give way to the stillness and silence of winter, so would she give way to death if she failed.

But she did not intend, today, to lose.

[otahyoni.livejournal.com]

Lovely. Lovely, lovely, lovely. :) Thank you.