LJ Community: sastiel-bigbang

It's an underscore instead of a hyphen, but I don't think I can type underscores here. Feel free to leave a prompt or fill on (A Very) Sastiel & Mishalecki Fic/Art Meme. Both fic and art welcome, no LJ account necessary.

In addition, sign-ups for authors, artists and betas are still open for Sastiel Big Bang, so do sign up if you're interested. Visit the community or look up sastielbigbang on Tumblr for more information.

Many, many thanks go to Meinarch for the beta and the cover image. I hope you enjoy these fills. I love feedback, so please leave some!

And since I am not supposed to post completely non-story chapters, allow me to present to you a sweet short story in a zoo.

Pandalecki & Llamisha

Once upon a time, there lived a panda in a bamboo grove. His name was Pandalecki, and he was bigger than all the other pandas in the grove. Quite a few were scared of him, but learned to like him when they discovered he was a very nice panda.

One day, Pandalecki fell into a trap, and he was taken from his home. After many days of being fed stale bamboo leaves by strange creatures in dank places, he was finally released into a garden. The bamboo cluster was smaller, but fresh air, sunshine and real bamboo trees were more than he'd been expecting. As he climbed, he met several other pandas. They too had been taken from their homes, and they said that strange creatures would come to look at them everyday from outside the invisible wall, but life wasn't so bad here, really. There were no predators to worry about and plenty of food. But Pandalecki still missed his family terribly.

As he explored the garden, Pandalecki came to the realization that there were other creatures living there besides his kind. They were hard not to notice for they were noisy, but though they ate grass and leaves, they did not climb trees. From the other pandas, he learned that they were called llamas.

One morning, perched on a high branch and nibbling his breakfast, Pandalecki noticed one of the llamas standing apart from the others. He seemed sad and all alone. The llamas were quite big, but they weren't nearly tall enough to reach the most delicious bamboo shoots at the top of the trees. Perhaps some nice young leaves would cheer the lonely llama up. Plucking a few of the best shoots around, Pandalecki carefully climbed down the tree and ambled over to the solitary llama. Lost in thought, the llama didn't even notice him until he tapped the other with a paw.

The llama turned. It had eyes as blue as the sky. Pandalecki had never seen blue eyes on any of the others. Perhaps this one had been ostracized for being the odd one out, just as the other pandas had avoided Pandalecki when he was younger because he was so much bigger. Pandalecki frowned; that wasn't very nice. He held out the bamboo leaves he'd brought. The llama seemed surprised and hesitant, but when he offered the leaves more insistently, delightedly ate them. Then the llama leaned forward and nuzzled him on the cheek and told Pandalecki his name was Llamisha.

They tried to run across the garden together, but Llamisha was very much faster, so they ended up walking instead. They swapped stories about home – Llamisha missed his family and friends very much too. He had been thinking about them when Pandalecki approached, and it was true that the llamas here didn't like him very much. Pandalecki still thought Llamisha had the prettiest eyes, so he hugged him and told him so. Llamisha only nuzzled him on the cheek again and said he was very happy they'd met.

Every day henceforth, just around midday, Llamisha would canter over to the bottom of the bamboo trees. He'd call and lie down, and Pandalecki would climb down to sit beside him. They would then share stories and bamboo leaves. They still missed their families, but it was a nice garden, and they had each other. All things considered, things could be a lot worse.