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cabinpres_fic) wrote2012-04-03 07:26 am
cabinpres_fic) wrote2012-04-03 07:26 am
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PROMPT POST PART IV
Please see the most recent MOD NOTE
(updated 6 June)
Welcome everybody. How you got here I have no idea but thank you for coming and welcome again, nonetheless . As you may have gathered this is a Fic Prompting Meme dedicated solely to the hilarious and oh-so-addictive BBC Radio 4 sitcom - Cabin Pressure. I'm aiming for this to be pretty anything goes - but in order for everything to run smoothly, there are a few guidelines. Don't worry - they're not too restrictive.
FILLING GUIDELINES
As you probably all know - our meme now has it's very own database created and maintained by the great Enigel. It both catalogues each and every prompt that we post and provides links to fills. You can find it here: Google Spreadsheet
We also have a Pinboard archive which has been put in place by the lovely
oxfordtweed in the place of our late Delicious Archive. This Archive contains a list of all the prompts this meme has to offer - you can find it here: Pinboard ArchiveThis is a great step forward in making our meme just a little more organised (but not too organised of course. This is Cabin Pressure) which is always a good thing.
So in order to make things easier to archive - Please nest your fills.
This can be done by either posting each part as a reply to that part's immediate predecessor, OR by replying each time to Part I OR - well you get the idea :D
It makes it simpler for Enigel and myself to link fills in a clean and clear manner. Following these guildelines will be very much appreciated guys :D
REPROMPTING
Reprompting is allowed but please include the URL of the original prompt when you do so. It will make it infinitely more easy to Archive which would make both Enigel and I very happy :)
As for everything else
- Be respectful to one another. Disagreements are fine, but not everything disagreeable is trolling. If you suspect someone of trolling, just ignore it. If you cannot respond to a comment without attacking or trolling someone else, keep it to yourself.
- No bashing prompts. It might not be your cup of tea - but obviously someone wants it enough to go to the effort of requesting it. So just scroll past it.
- Prompt away as much as you like guys - seriously, go wild - but please try to fill as well.
- Please no RPF. I'm not trying to oppress you RPF writers and enthusiasts, I would just really like to avoid any legal problems.
- When you post a fill (or post a new part of a WIP) please go over to the Filled Prompts Post (if it is complete) or the WIP Post (if there are still more parts to come) and, following each post's guideline's, post a link to this fill or new part.
NEW - If your fill includes a major element that veers from the original prompt (crossovers, established universes, kinks, et cetera), please take a few moments to check with the OP that such additions are welcome. This has caused problems in the past and it only takes a few moments of your time.
REALLY IMPORTANT ADDENDUM
According to numerous Child Safety laws it is illegal to provide pornographic material to minors. Seeing that the majority of the stuff we have here is rather adult in nature, this Meme is consequently an 18+ zone. Failing to comply to this rule could result in the Meme getting shut down. So if you're here and you're under 18 please back button now.
+ Please do not post anything regarding minors in a sexual situation. It really doesn't matter how tasteful or crass it is, there are laws that classify that sort of thing as child pornography and as such, I'm afraid we're going to have to go with the attitude that safe is better than sorry.
It really is VERY important that these rules are upheld as the consequences are severe.
Other than that - go crazy guys. Any problems please just message me and I'll try my best to work it out.
Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII | Part VIII | Prompt Index
Current Prompt Post | Current Chatter Post | WIP Post | Filled Prompts Post | Searching Post | Orphan Post | Page-a-Mod Post | FAQ | Beta/Concrit Post
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FILL: Cabin Pressure / HDM (1/?)
(Anonymous) 2012-04-04 10:53 pm (UTC)(link)--------
"Could you maybe settle as an aeroplane?" says Martin to the arctic tern pecking at his scabby knees.
The tern raises its vivid red beak to Martin, fixing him with beady eyes bright with intelligence. "Pardon?" says the tern.
Six year-old Martin Crieff uncrosses his legs and scrapes the edge of his sandal thoughtfully against the gutter. The suburban street curb he sits on is still warm in the expiring late-summer sun, but street lamps in the distant dusk are beginning to flicker on and the street is shaded over in turns with blue and orange.
"Well I was thinking," continues Martin slowly, "about daemon settling and things. About how daemons are really just another bit of a person. Like a little piece of your heart or whatever makes you talk and think - "
"The brain," interrupts the tern.
" Well, sort of... yes, all right, a little piece of that, except it's outside your body and it talks back at you and you can hold it and play with it too. And you know, with how we love aeroplanes so much, I kind of think aeroplanes are a piece of us, right?"
"If it's your brain we're still talking about, then I think aeroplanes make up more than just a 'piece' of it," says the tern wryly, hopping from the pavement onto Martin's scuffed tennis shoe.
Martin feels the familiar slow burn of affection for his daemon and her cleverness. "Hush, Willoughby," he says through an unabashedly gap-toothed grin. "You're a bigger piece of me than any aeroplane is." He rubs a thumb over the tern's black and white head. In turn, Willoughby leans into the pressure.
"Which is why," continues Martin, "I think that if aeroplanes are so important to me and you're so important to me, maybe there's a - an - an overlap, of importance, or something, and when we grow up you could settle as a jet and I wouldn't even have to be an airline pilot, I could just fly you around because I wouldn't be able to leave your side anyway - not without both of us hurting very, very much - and we'd never have to do anything but fly all day."
Looking down at his daemon for approval, Martin expects a wholehearted endorsement. His enthusiasm falters a little when he sees a certain tug of scepticism around her beak and in the tilt of her head.
"I want to agree with you, but I still don't know what you're getting at." The tern becomes a chaffinch and alights on Martin's thigh with a flutter. "Do you want to know if I can, if I could - if it's possible for me to be an aeroplane? Or... or are you outright asking me to - "
"No!" cries Martin in an alarm. His fingers clench protectively around her small body. "No, I wasn't trying to - no, of course - Willough, you can become whatever you want, whatever feels right for you. It's your choice, and I'm not going to - I couldn't make you be something you didn't want to be, not even if I wanted to. And I don't want to. Make you do that." With uncoordinated but reverently careful hands, Martin scoops up the chaffinch, draws his knees against his thin chest, and addresses her from eye level. "I was asking... I don't know what I was asking. Answer whatever is easiest for you."
Willoughby leans forward and pecks his nose in a gesture of reassurance. "I know you didn't mean that, silly," she trills lightly. "And I think that sounds rather grand, actually." She pauses, looks down at her claws in thought. Martin can feel her frown lines without seeing them. "But I don't think it works like that."
Martin's shoulders don't slump; his face doesn't fall. He just wraps his arms around his middle in accepting resignation. "I thought so," he says without bitterness.
"I know it would make you really happy!" says Willoughby anxiously as she dances from foot to foot. "It would make me happy too; I like flying as much as you do! But aeroplanes are cold things, and while I'm not really warm like you are or even like normal birds and cats and dogs are, I'm not... cold. Or mechanical. In fact, I'm kind of the opposite of a machine. What's the word Mummy uses to describe how we can predict the weather sometimes?"
"Intuition."
"That's right, I'm all intuition. So while flying is brilliant and flying in planes is almost as brilliant, I'm afraid that I really can't settle as a fighter jet or a helicopter for you."
Martin closes his eyes and see in his mind's eye the guts of an aeroplane, as depicted in his manuals. He pictures all the wires, engines and electric bits as fleshy pink gears and thick arteries and he decides that a living, breathing aeroplane would make walk-arounds troublesome for a pilot.
"You're right ," he says softly. He strokes the daemon's feathers with his whole hand. "I just thought... well, it's all very well for you if you settle as a bird. You could fly any time you like, but I'd still be stuck on the ground. I just thought if you were a plane, we could fly together... but that's kind of silly, isn't it? Forget I said anything."
The whole of Willoughby's tiny bird self trembles and sags in relief at Martin's understanding before she becomes a polecat and scampers fluidly up Martin's arm. "Jealous, were we?" she says teasingly.
"Stop! That tickles!" giggles Martin as she pushes a pink nose into his ear.
He can feel Willoughby's little polecat grin against his cheek as she licks his ear, sending him into raucous shrieks of laughter. "Why would I want to be a plane anyway, when we could have the real thing?" she croons. "You wait and see, I'll settle as a gigantic bird. I'll be so big that you can ride on my back and we'll be able to escape anywhere. Together."
"You're relentless," gasps Martin. A soft-furred polecat tail is most useful for reaching Martin's sensitive places - Willoughby knows every one of them - and he's ended up with his back to the pavement and his daemon kneading his chest.
"What's the rush, anyway? I don't want to be stuck in one shape just yet. Why, I think that maybe I never ever want to settle, because once I do I won't be able to do this." In quick succession, Willoughby leaps off Martin's chest as a spider monkey and takes off from the pavement as a budgerigar. She elicits cries of delight from him as she flies circles around his head as a fruit bat and pulls at his hair with sparrowhawk talons. She's a dragonfly glimmering emerald and royal purple in the dusk when she flutters onto a nearby lamp post but then takes turns in trilling and squawking as a nightingale, a gyrfalcon, a cormorant, and a toucan. All the while, Martin stumbles after her in the dying light and laughs earnestly and beams up at her from below.
Martin follows Willoughby as she glides or flaps or leaps from lamp post to low-lit lamp post, each time landing in a new form, all the way home for supper. That night, they converse in confidential whispers under Martin's sheets in the company of a flashlight and a birdwatcher's guide book, discussing the merits of each bird as a potential daemon form.
Before Willoughby settles, they'll have become bird experts and tried on every single bird shape in that book. She ends up settling as none of them.
Re: FILL: Cabin Pressure / HDM (1/?)
(Anonymous) 2012-04-05 12:10 am (UTC)(link)Re: FILL: Cabin Pressure / HDM (1/?)
Re: FILL: Cabin Pressure / HDM (1/?)