HOKAY.
I always, always, ALWAYS give my friends presents for Christmas. You guys are no exception.
SO.
Everyone gets a written present. They will be in a 'four times, one time' style. I.e, 'four times Alex and Maverick hooked up, and one time they didn't.' 'Four times Roxias tried to impress Vera and one time he did.' Etc, etc.
You can choose the style and the characters. I will write slash, femslash, straight, friendship, family, romance, adventure, pretty much anything that isn't smut. (So don't try and request it. )
Becuase of the season, I want to make them semi-christmas themed. If you don't want any christmas-ness, of one o your characters does not celebrate Christmas, please let me know so I don't screw it up.
ALSO, I have always wanted to do a one-month challenge, and so because of Christmas and gift giving, I will do it. (A one month challenge means that I will be posting a story every day for a month.)The archives for said story's will be posted here. You can discuss and comment at your lousier. Merry Christmas!!
PRESENTS (to be revealed Christmas Eve!)
ONE MONTH CHALLENGE
DEC 1
"YEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!" Vera let the deep throated yell echo across Briar Valley. From where she stood, on top of of the highest hill in the woods, she could see EVERYTHING. The Fresh Made Pile, the school, her house-everything, all covered in a powder coating of snow.
"Vera-huff,huff-slow down!"
"Speed up!" The 11 year old retorted as Maverick finally reached the hill's summit. "You're the one who works out all the time!"
"You're.....a.....freaking.....mountain goat." Maverick puffed out, not having the energy to put any venom behind the words. His breath clouded in the air and fluffed off, like tiny ghosts. Vera watched for a moment, completely fascinated.
"I.:......hate........both a you." Alex panted. She collapsed in the snow mere inches from her younger friends. At 13, Alex was the oldest, tallest, and prettiest, though it was hard to tell under her layers of snow protection. (This was the one time of the year Vera was glad for her thick mane.)
"Didja get the sign?" Maverick asked eagerly, all exhaustion forgotten. Like most pre-adolescents, he was easily distracted by the prospect of adventure.
Alex groaned. "Yes. Can we please collapse now? We're entitled. We have spent THE ENTIRE DAY, from FOUR FIFTEEN IN THE MORNING, looking for this stupid hill. Can we puh-LESSE take FIVE MINUTES?!" She begged, beyond exhaustion.
"Oh, fine." Vera huffed. "First we need to stake it." She wrenched the hand-made sign from Alex's dead grip and proudly stuck it in the ground.
The sign was made of a sheet of metal from the time Vera's roof had to be replaced. In bold black letters, it read 'EPICT HILL: DISCOVERED BY MW, AK, VR' (Maverick has put the 'H' too close to the 'C' and left it as a 'T', and they had run out of space to put 'and' between AK and VR.)
Maverick and Vera made a (slightly pathetic) snowman while Alex inched herself over to a rock formation.
See, technically, this was a foothill for the huge mountians that edged an entire side of Briar Valley. The closer you got to the mountains, (Sir Night, St. Melody, and Lady Rose, respectively,) the more rock formations you encountered.
Alex sprawled herself across one, grudgingly admiring to herself that this was a good base of operations, despite the distance. Her two best friends had apparently discovered it late yesterday, and decided it was theirs.
In way, it was sort of Alex's fault they had gotten up so early. She had been the on to explain to the two 'outsiders' the valley custom: If you find a good sized piece of forest, and make some kind of five point boundary, it's yours.
She could still remember last nights sleepover at Vera's, all three of them inside a tent in her backyard. Alex had been doing the 'I'm gonna hold a flashlight under my face' thing as she told them The Tale Of BriarClan.
"Long, long ago, when the first settlers came the Briar Valley, they didn't have the resources to build any kind of real settlement. They were on the run from a terrible plague, and barely had enough to survive! So, having heard stories about mining camps-"
"Where if you stake a four-post claim, it's yours. The rule and idea was established during Manifest Destiny, also called the westward expansion or the gold rush."Vera interjected.
"Ahem. So, having heard stories about mining camps, they cleared a huge space in the woods, leaving only five trees. One per corner, with an extra one on top, like the points on a pentagon. They built up a home there, made of nothing but what they could find from the land.
"Eventually, though, something happened. No one knows what. But the villagers spilt into two groups. One formed Briar Valley. The other sealed themselves inside the pentagon, building sky high barriers of brambles.
"The Valley folk tried to crush out any mention of the others, who were dubbed Briar Clan. But the children then, and the children born now, still have a piece of ingrained knowledge born in them, letting them know that five points mean ownership. It is the Code Of The Forest." Alex had finished her story on a somber note.
"Can we call it The Five Point Principle, for time's sake?" Vera asked.
"You killed the mood." Maverick informed her. "It really spooky, and then you stabbed it in the face."
"Good."
"You were like, 'Smartness!' And the mood was like, 'Oh crap, I'm dead!' See what you did?"
"You sound like a valley girl, Mave."
"I blame Alex."
"Hey!"
Suddenly, something wet and cd hit Alex square in the mouth. She shot up, shocked, and yelled "I'M GONNA KILL YOU TWO!!"
"Shigs! Shigs!!" Vera shrieked , leaping from rock to rock down the exposed hillside.
"Ahhhhhh!!!! Run!" Maverick yelped. He almost tumbled over himself in his efforts to sprint the whole way down.
"WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON YOU TWO, YOU ARE GONNA WISH YOU LET ME SLEEP IN!!
" We wish it! We wish it!"
"Run faster, Mave!!"