( fic ) mamma mia vacay drabbles 2023

[spiraea]

juniper & minato / there was only one bed / for cal

The thing about Juniper inviting people into her world to go on an adventure was that she'd never been a good host.

That much was clear when, after a long day of trekking through the woods and finding a nice clearing to camp with, Juniper realized:

"Ahh! I forgot to bring an extra bedroll for you, Mimi!"

Minato, for his part, blinked quizzically at her, his hand coming up to rub at the back of his neck while his thoughts wandered to the notion of his body curled snugly into Juniper's, his form wrapped in the arms that he'd just witnessed swinging a greataxe around all day while fighting monsters in the forest.

"Oh, I—" he choked out the words before he cleared his throat, "I think we can make it work, Juni-chan."

juniper & kotone / dandelions / for kia

It had taken a lot of convincing, on Juniper's part, to have Kotone take a break from her responsibilities to spend even just a day at the Witchlight Carnival. When at last she arrived, it had been as clear as the giant floating bubbles that speckle the skies over the carnival that Kotone was tired, tired enough that not even the wonder and whimsy of the fey carnival could widen her pretty, strawberry-hued eyes in awe.

But the moment came when the two girls were given each given a dandelion - drawn from the tiniest quiver fixed upon a friendly squirrel's back - for each of them to wish on, a custom for every guest at the carnival. Juniper handed hers to Kotone, her smile as wide and bright as ever.

"Here, Koko. I don't need to make a wish anymore, now that you're here!"

Finally, the younger Dandelion Heart smiled - and another one of Juniper's wishes was fulfilled.

elsa & sabine, but make it some mundane modern au bc I don't remember shit about dragon age / waiting / for mai

Elisabeth "Elsa" Cousland had always been taught to be on time. She leveled an exasperated look at her best friend, Sabine, who was blankly scrolling on her phone. She was used to this sort of tardy behavior from Zevran, who was always running on "Antivan time," but...

"Relax, Elsa," said the elf, "it's gonna be all right."

Was it, really? There was another reason Elsa was on edge, and they both knew it. Her birthday dinner was tonight, and it would be Alistair's first time meeting her family.

The mystery was -blessedly - soon solved. The two missing men rounded the corner; Zevran looked as charming as always, and— did he give Alistair a makeover? Elsa's lips parted in awe, her eyes having gone wide.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, love. Please tell me your being speechless is a good thing?"

"It's— It's very good," the Cousland huffed out a laugh as she reached up and fastened just one more button on Alistair's shirt, undoing some of Zevran's handiwork. "You look great."

(Somewhere in the background, Zevran handed Sabine ten gold.)

darry & renton / stargazing / for metin

Sometimes, Renton would catch Darry looking so very distantly at the night sky. They often went stargazing - how could then not, when the night sky was so clear here - but those times, when he would turn to look at the way her eyes were filled with stars, he worried that she was somewhere he couldn't reach. Thinking about things he could never understand. Thinking about what awaits her at her home. Those times, he would curl his hand around hers, and squeeze.

"Oh. Sorry, Renton-san." She still addressed him with an honorific, even after all this time. This time, Renton decided as he drew in a deep breath and smiled at her, he would not let his worries keep him from growing closer to her.

"I was thinking..." He tipped his face upward, turning his gaze towards the stars. "Would you tell me more about what you and your brother are doing out there?"

ori & dorian / beauty / for meilin

Ori often wondered if Dorian knew just how ethereal he looked, with azure skin that mirrored the sky on a clear summer day, and long hair that always seemed to move as though a gentle breeze were blowing through. He was the only air genasi she'd ever met, but still, she was sure that he must be remarkable even amongst his people.

Even more so when he was performing. Gods, she had always been so easily captivated by bards... Especially when they would sing of things like flowers, of enchanting woods and starlight, of the grace of nature's creatures, and of... lilac skin? Hold on.

His eyes met hers, even from a way's away where he stood in the middle of the town square, busking, and she knew. It had to be—

He was singing about her.

juniper & pinocchio / crime / for kabby

"Hold up, what the hell are you doing, Juni!?"

"Mmm?" Juniper blinked at him innocently, unable to offer a more coherent response with her mouth full. It took another moment of chewing before she could add, "I got hungry, so I thought I'd grab a snack!"

"Okay, but—" the little wooden boy's gaze fell forlornly at the hapless flower bed in the park, one that is now missing a handful of pretty pansies that were now in Juniper's tummy, before he turned his attention to the sign: Please do not pick the flowers.

Yet it wasn't the crime done to the flower bed or the food crime of Juniper snacking on flowers that so baffled him and drew his disbelief. Rather...

"Like... so many dogs could have pissed on those flowers, Juni."

ori & aki / bedrest / for bayleaf

It was a little funny, for an accomplished and competent Devil Hunter like Aki Hayakawa to find himself so thoroughly bested by his very first Alchemighty-branded adventure in earnest. It was intended to be a simple quest into the Hollow Wilds with young Juniper, but as with most things concerning the Alchemighty: it went to shit.

Well, she wasn't going to complain about an opportunity to spoil him, now that he'd been confined to bedrest by her very own orders.

"It's not that funny," Aki mumbled, his tired gaze finding the amusement that curled Ori's lips as she prepared the components for a Potion of Lesser Restoration while sitting on the edge of the bed.

"It's a little funny... I did tell you to gently decline if Juni offered you anything. No matter how sure she sounds about what she foraged. She still gets plants mixed up sometimes..."

...But Aki couldn't help it. He couldn't dare to disappoint the young girl... But maybe it was worth a little bit of poisoning, to be pampered by Ori like this.

juniper & childe / farewells / for bayleaf 2 electric boogaloo why did you give me such a sad fucking prompt in the middle of the rest of these

Juniper had known, in the back of a mind otherwise so full of whimsy, that a day would come for them to part ways.

She hadn't thought that it would come so swiftly, so suddenly, so unexpectedly... and so soon. They were supposed to explore all of Prismeer together. They were supposed to defeat the Hourglass Coven together. They were supposed to fulfill her wish together...

Yet as she watched the light of his Vision flicker and at times fade, she knew: she had to let Ajax go. The answers to the questions that surfaced in his mind - that plunged his spirit into darkness - would not be found here. Just as she'd returned to the Feywild to find her own answers... he must go back. At the very least to Teyvat... Perhaps even to that place.

"Juni..."

Juniper had never before seen him look defeated. Even when she bested him in their spars, his loss would only ever be expressed in exhiliration, a look that said, too: "When can we do that again?"

But with his back turned from a portal of stars to take him away, his arms wound tightly around her, leaning in to press his face into the base of a leporine ear, he had truly lost.

"This is it, krolik. Fa—"

"Miri," Juniper interrupted her treasure. She would not give him a farewell; instead, she would give him a promise: "Next time, I'll be a lot stronger. And you better be, too. So... I'll see you later, Ajax."

sumina & gojo / cooking / for bayleaf 3 the squeakquel

Once Gojo had learned that Sumina often had strange, otherworldly names for the most unassuming of things, it became an endless source of amusement.

"Okay, okay. What about these?" Why was he even here, in the Elderflower's kitchen? Sumina had long lost track of when this habit of his began to form, but at least this time he was helping. Her lips simply pressed into a thin line as the jujutsu sorcerer with a seemingly endless amount of free time (when it came to bothering her) wrapped a piece of orcish pork strips around a verdant, spearlike vegetable.

"Greenspears." She answered simply, matter-of-factly, even knowing she would be met with a bout of laughter. Oh, how wonderful he thought she was, a bona fide alien with stars in her eyes.

"Wrong! They're asparagus, Mina-chan!"

She offered him a look that only made him laugh more. As if "asparagus" made more sense as a name...

sumina & dae / childhood friends / for karin don't think too hard about elven vs half-elven lifespans

Daelareth Veltris was a prodigy by every measure of the word, enough that he - Thalia's boy - was consistently a topic of conversation within her family.

Sumina Heartleaf, on the other hand, was quite the opposite. The position of family golden child was well-enough occupied by her cousin Elenaril, but nonetheless... Dae would always make time for her.

She had been sulking on one of the inn's many lounge chairs after a particularly arduous day of (failed) magic lessons, crying into a cushion when Dae found her. She was sure, at that moment, that she hated magic. She hated this magical inn. She hated her magical family.

(She hated not living up to their expectations.)

But Dae rested his hand on her shoulder, casted Prestidigitation to dry the tears from her face, before he handed her a ring.

"It's a Ring of Prestidigitation!" he explained, unknowingly quelling her rising panic at being handed a ring by a boy, "You can use it, too. You know what I think? You don't need to cast your own spells to be magical. Real magic comes from the heart, and you've got a lot of it, Miss Sumina!"

Sumina still wears and uses that ring to this day.

linden & daisy / k a b e d o n / for ramey

Why, oh why, did they always end up running into monsters in such tight, constricted spaces? If Linden hadn't known any better, she would almost think this to be the cruel trick of her god. But Jergal wasn't concerned with such trifling matters as repeatedly putting her in close proximity to a very pretty tiefling with eyes as blue as the sky and skin the color of sunflowers, and a voice that sounds like birds chirping in the morning...

This time, at least, Linden was not the one with her back pressed to the wall. This time, a miscalculated swing of her mace had resulted in her losing her balance, causing her to nearly collide with the aforementioned tiefling, if not for the way she'd braced herself against the wall. So this is what it was like to be on the other side. For a brief moment, Linden felt as if she could understand Myrdiane just a little bit better - at least until that singsong voice of Daisy's pulled her back into the ongoing chaos of combat.

"You doin' okay, sugar?"

Excuse me, was what Linden meant to say, but what instead came out was an incomprehensible series of squeaks as the cleric extricated herself, pushing off of the wall.

vaer & vergil / the color red / for jen

"It's just a shirt."

Vergil couldn't help but quirk a brow at the look of utter, absolute disblief that this remark earned him from Vaer.

"Just a shirt?" Vaer could not believe the audacity of these words, honestly. "Beloved, this is silk spun from a magical species of arachnids. It is not just a shirt. "

"You have a spell that would take care of this, don't you?"

"It's called Prestidigitation, and yes, I do, but that's not the point. The point is - that a nobleman spilled his red wine onto this shirt, specifically, to remove me from the party—"

It was then that Vergil decided there was enough drama for the night, although he was convinced his beloved bard could never truly have enough drama. For the time being, at least, he could simply press in close and remove the shirt and its offending stain from the situation entirely. This was far more enjoyable than the soiree he'd been dragged to, anyway.

ori & tighnari / hurt/comfort / for aiden

Blessedly, Ori did not dream this time. She had earnestly been surprised by the fact, given that dreams had shaped so much of her life as a druid of the Circle of Dreams, but she had to thank her lucky stars. She was used to navigating the dreams of others, and this made her all more resilient even to the horrors she'd seen in both Aki and Tighnari's dreams.

She didn't ask for an explanation, when they awoke. She didn't need one. It had been clear to her that the nightmare she and Aki saw had been borne of Tighnari's deepest fears. All that mattered was that it wasn't real, and as she would do everything in her power to remind him of that from the moment she would see him again and onwards.

He clung to her tightly, padded fingertips digging deeply into her back as she wrapped her arms and tail around him in turn, like a shelter from the rest of this wretched prison. And then, spoke of what she knew to be true and real:

"I'd love to really meet them one day, you know. Collei and Cyno."