Bonus Round 5: Myth & Lore

[referees]

Summer's a time for swapping stories around the campfire. With that in mind, this round draws inspiration from the stories humanity have told each other over the centuries.

This round is CLOSED as of 7PM on August 4 EDT. Late fills may be posted, but they will not receive points.

RULES

• This round does not have prompts. Instead, we ask you to draw inspiration from the wide pool of mythology, fantasy, folklore, and fable. An urban fantasy or supernatural AU? A re-imagining of your favorite folk tale? Characters swapping ghost stories or playing D&D? As long as your fill in some way incorporates the fantastical and/or supernatural, it's welcome here.
• Your fill still has to be about a ship from one of our nominated fandoms. What ships you create work for is up to you, though.
• To submit your fill, simply leave it as a comment as a reply to this post.
• Remember to follow the general bonus round rules, outlined here.

FORMAT

Bonus round shenanigans all happen in the comments below. Brand-new works only, please.

Required Work Minimums:

• 400 words (prose)
• 400px by 400px (art)
• 14 lines (poetry)

There is no max work cap.

Remember, this is a NO-PROMPT round. Format your fill comment in one of the following ways:

If FILLING:

If FILLING as a TEAM GRANDSTAND participant:

FILL: TEAM [YOUR SHIP], [RATING] Replace [YOUR SHIP] with the name of the team you belong to Write it exactly as it appears on the team roster (without brackets) or your team will not receive points Replace RATING with the rating of your fill (G - E) Place applicable major content tags and word count before your fill (when applicable) If no major content tags are applicable, make sure to state this-- even if including other additional tags NSFW FILLS: Please cross-link these fills and use clear tags in your comment. Written/text fills should be hosted at AO3 ONLY as a new, unchaptered work. Art/visual fills can be hosted anywhere. You may include a small safe-for-work preview of the fill in your comment. To place an image in your comment, use this code: <img src="LINK TO YOUR IMAGE" alt="DESCRIPTION OF YOUR IMAGE"/> Visual example

FILL: TEAM GRANDSTAND, [RATING] Replace RATING with the rating of your fill, G - E, as explained in the rules Place applicable major content tags and word count before the fill, where applicable If no major content tags are applicable, make sure to state this-- even if including other additional tags NSFW FILLS: Please cross-link these fills and use clear tags in your comment. Written/text fills should be hosted at AO3 ONLY as a new, unchaptered work. Art/visual fills can be hosted anywhere. You may include a small safe-for-work preview of your work in your comment. To place an image in your comment, use this code: <img src="LINK TO YOUR IMAGE" /> Visual example

Posts not using this format will be understood to be unofficial discussion posts, regardless of what they contain. They, like all comments in this community, are subject to the code of conduct.

SCORING

These numbers apply to your team as a whole, not each individual teammate. Make as many fills as you want!

For fills:

First 3 fills by any member of your team: 20 points each
Fills 4-10: 10 points each
Fills 11-20: 5 points each
Fills 21+: 2 points each

All scored content must be created new for this round.

Etc.

If you're hunting through the prompts looking for what to fill, a good trick is to view top-level comments only.

Have a question? Check The FAQ first. If you still need help, feel free to contact the mods. Happy fanworking!

Comments

FILL: TEAM KOZUME KENMA/KUROO TETSUROU, T

[hapaxlegomenon]

Aoyagi Hajime/Teshima Junta; Yowamushi Pedal

Word count: 519
Tags: Voltron AU! Implied torture and PTSD, non-consensual amputation, vomiting, nightmares

When Aoyagi dreams, his sleeping mind pulls up everything his consciousness has forgotten, shoved away in hidden pockets of his psyche for its own protection. If he’s lucky, he doesn’t remember the dreams when he wakes up in a cold sweat or in screaming, crying hysteria, surrounded by the soft cleanness of his room in the Castle of Lions, his metal arm aching and twitching with phantom pain.

Continuing the trend of his recent life, Aoyagi is rarely that lucky.

But there’s several small comforts to take, now, when he wakes up with the taste of narcotic poison on his tongue and the echoes of Galran chants ringing in his ears. He’s free to leave his claustrophobic cell of a room and wander the wide, empty hallways, and to watch the stars from the flight deck. He can knock himself out with rigorous midnight workouts that leave his mind muddled and his muscles shaking. Most of all, he can go down to the engineering deck, where Teshima is almost always awake and tinkering, or passed out on top of a desk with a tablet drooping from his hand.

Tonight is no different, when Aoyagi wakes up with tears on his face and a fresh memory of Tadokoro screaming in pain under the Galran witch’s experiments. He stumbles out of his room, detours to a disposal chute to spit up a foul mix of bile and radiation-green food goo, and makes his shaky way to the one remaining piece of his life on Earth.

Teshima looks up with a tired smile when the pneumatic door hisses open, a smile that quickly slips away into a frown. He immediately makes his way to where Aoyagi lingers inside the entry, stopping just short of a hug that, some other day, Aoyagi might violently rebuff, strains of don’t touch me don’t touch me don’t touch reverberating in his head. Tonight, though, Aoyagi steps into Teshima’s arms and squeezes tight. Teshima is solid and comforting and Aoyagi tries to get his breathing under control.

“I’m here,” Teshima soothes, and Aoyagi is grateful beyond words that he never says “it’ll be okay,” or “I understand,” or any of the meaningless platitudes he gets from the well-intentioned others. It’s not okay. And nobody understands. But it’s enough, for now, to have Teshima there.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Teshima asks, like he always does. And Aoyagi shakes his head, just like he always does, and leans into the kiss that Teshima presses to the side of his head.

“I had one, too,” Teshima says conversationally, after a long silence broken only by their overlapping heartbeats, because Teshima is different. He needs to talk. And Aoyagi wants to listen, even if it hurts. “About. When I found out you were dead. They didn’t tell me, you know. I saw it on the news like everyone else.”

The pain is fresh and raw in Teshima’s voice, and Aoyagi tries to squeeze it away.

“I’m here,” he says in a voice rough from screaming, and Teshima takes a deep breath and nods against his cheek.