Title: Weapon of Choice
Fandom: FFX-2
Rating: PG
Wordcount: ~6000
Characters: Paine, Cast
Pairings: Hints of Paine/Nooj, but mostly gen. Unless Paine/her sword counts as a pairing.
Spoilers: Minor for Paine's backstory and other parts of the game.
Notes: Written for 30_fantasies, theme #2, "Sword", and largely inspired by a long-ago request by parron for a Paine/sword story. This one is for her, although I suspect she had something much crackier in mind when she asked for it. ;) This story has taken almost two years to write, and I stalled on it several times, but working on it for JaNoWriMo really helped shake things loose, especially the concept for the ending.

Ten short pieces about a woman and her most faithful companion.

Wow, I haven't done one of these in awhile.

Title: Secret of the Flames
Fandom: FFX-2
Rating: G
Wordcount: ~1200
Characters: Paine
Spoilers: None
Notes: A tidbit from Paine's childhood. Based on the backstory I created for The Confessional. Written for the theme "Fire". This was originally going to be for a different theme ("Monk"), but it quickly decided that it wanted to go another direction. Enjoy! Everyone's thoughts are, as always, welcome.

Three children hid in the shadows behind the open door. The shorter of the two girls craned her head into the doorway, then whipped it back, out of sight of the warrior monks who patrolled the entrance to Kilika Temple's inner sanctum.

Title: Dark
Fandom: Final Fantasy X-2
Characters: Paine, Yuna, Rikku
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Set in-game, during Chapter 3; minor spoilers to that point.
Wordcount: 484
Notes: Written for 30_fantasies for the theme of Power. Fic as game meta. Inspired by a thought I had while replaying the game: what would it be like to use the Dark Knight dressphere, giving up your hit points to attack your enemies? And the rest came from there. Enjoy. Review and commentary welcome, as always.


Dark

Title: Scars
Fandom: FFX-2
Rating: R
Wordcount: 300
Pairings: Paine/Nooj
Spoilers: For their backstories; set post-game.
Notes: So this is perhaps cheating, since I wrote this both as a 30_fantasies story (Theme #6, Healing) and to fulfill the current ff_100 challenge (FFX/X-2, Old Wounds). As far as I can tell it's not against the rules in either place. Hopefully all the various mods involved will forgive me.

Only the light from the fireplace lit their naked bodies...

As an aside, I can't believe how few people have written stories for ff_100 this time around. "Old wounds" just brims with potential as a theme. I could probably come up with half a dozen stories, easy: Gippal's eye, the Highroad shooting, Nooj, Kimahri's horn, Auron... and that's just if I take literally. If you strech to think more figuratively, you could write about pretty much anyone, and twice on Sundays. Seriously.

Title: By His Side
Fandom: FFX-2
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Nooj/Paine
Spoilers: Minor, for backstory.
Notes: This fic was written while I was playing with making a P/N soundtrack and with the idea of writing a song for each story. I quickly concluded that most of these wouldn't make a full story, but I did get this drabble for my 30_fantasies claim out of it. Posted for the theme Death; inspired by "By My Side" from the musical Godspell (the original stage version, not the movie). I may still post the FST and related scribblings eventually, depending on how it comes together.

It was a journey he had intended to take alone...

Title: Inheritance
Fandom: FF X-2
Paring: Paine/Nooj
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Not really
Wordcount: 1104
Notes: Bunnied by a single line that popped into my head. If you saw my WIP list from the other day, you can probably guess which one! Written for 30_fantasies for the theme "Life." Set several years post-canon (so it does not directly relate to the AU story that was posted yesterday, although it was certainly inspired by it).

"Mom! Hey Mom!" The young boy came in the front door and launched himself across the room. Paine looked up from the book she had been reading and smiled, opening her arm and letting her four-year-old son nestle into her side. "Guess what, Mom? I shot a fiend!"

I have been in a ficcing mood lately. Maybe it was seeing the sheer number of works-in-progress I have going!

Title: Desert Cold
Fandom: FFX-2
Rating: NC-17 (yes, really)
Wordcount: 442
Pairing: Paine/Nooj
Spoilers: Not really; I suppose you could say minor ones for Paine's backstory
Notes: Written for 30_fantasies, Theme #10, Ice. A departure for me in many respects, so feedback, including crit, is even more welcome than usual.

"She had expected the desert to be hot, and it is during the day, but the nights are cold, harsh winds sweeping in as soon as the sun goes down, stars glittering overhead like shards of ice."

Theme: #5, Thief
Rating: PG
Spoilers/Warnings: None
Wordcount: 1110

(Meeting in the Market)

Another pre-Yuna Gullwings story. Written (using, yes, pen and paper) while flying back from Boston last night. One of the quickest complete stories I've ever written -- the first draft, which is not that different from the last, was finished in under an hour.

Enjoy!

Title: Darkness, Dawn
Fandom: Final Fantasy X-2
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Vague, for Paine's backstory
Wordcount: 1232
Disclaimer: Characters, places, and themes from FFX-2 are copyright Square Enix.
Notes: For 30_fantasies, Theme #17: Airship.
Well, here goes nothing. ;) Inspirations for this piece came from all over the place, but most notably parron's desire to see stories about the Gullwings before Yuna joined up, bottle_of_shine's call for genfic, and a drabble by edenbound that stuck with me for days.


(I opened my eyes and I was flying into the sunrise, a dark red-orange-pink smudge of light ringing the horizon.)


So this is the first time I've really spent with the Paine of "Fate" for a good long while. As usual when I slip from one backstory to another, it was a little disconcerting for the first few paragraphs and then settled in remarkably easily. I don't know that I'll do any more of these yet, but the story for this one was there and I wanted to set it down. As always, we'll see.

The latest chapter of DSHnD is up at the usual location. Read and enjoy!

For once we don't have the next chapter completely finished -- a key scene that's going to be non-trivial to write only exists in outline. But the chapter after that is almost completely done and has been for weeks, and it's one I've been dying to get to and I can't believe how close that one is to being presented to our public. So I have an incentive.

Also, dear god what have I done? (Scroll down to the bottom.)

But it will give me a good central place to store all my Paine plot bunnies that aren't developed enough for real stories. And as far as I can tell the mod only pokes you if you don't post anything for two months, so it's not like there's lots of pressure. It shouldn't take away from my other writing time. Or so I keep telling myself. ;) We'll see what happens.

(Oh yeah, more lines.)