Premise:

1. Pick a character, fandom, or pairing.

2. Put your iPod on "shuffle." Press play and listen to five songs.

3. For whatever song is selected, write something for your selected character/fandom/pairing. You have until the song is over to finish. Do not go back and change. Then post.


The third entry in a five-part drabble series. This time around, it's Ritz. She was a fun one to write; she's a bit angry for my taste, but an interesting character nonetheless. Enjoy, and please review on your way out~!


Part 3: Ritz – Bladed Lady


- - -

"Now, do it now

While he's gassing himself to a palpable stupor

The timing's ideal and the moment is super

To ready and fire and blow the sick bastard away

Now, do it now

Just a flicker of pressure right here, right here on the trigger

And Audrey won't have to put up that pig for another day

Now, for the girl, now, for the plant

Now, yes, I will...

But I can't."

-Alan Menken, Now (It's Just the Gas) [from Little Shop of Horrors]

- - -

She stood over him, one arm extended as if to help him up. But there were no open hands, not for him.

Marche stared at her, grass stains on his elbows, disbelief written across his face. The point of the rapier rested delicately at the hollow of his throat, pricking the skin.

Her eyes were green, blue, hard as jade.

There was no mercy in those eyes.

It was only a heartbeat's worth of time, but it was a heartbeat that seemed to last for an eternity. At last she raised the rapier. "Go."

Marche went.

- - -


- - -

"I don't need a lot of things


I can get by with nothing


Of all the blessings life can bring


I've always needed something


But I've got all I want


When it comes to loving you


You're my only reason


You're my only truth"

-Leann Rimes, I Need You

- - -

"Watch it!"

Ritz ducked just in time. The enemy blue mage's sabre went whistling overhead. There was a satisfying thunk as Ritz's elbow slammed into his gut. He went down with an "oomph."

Ritz straightened as Shara came bounding from the trees. "Thanks."

"Yeah," replied the viera, sighting down her arrow. "You've been off lately."

Ritz knew. She'd noticed herself.

They both knew that the answer why lay halfway across the continent, with a boy with hair the color of sunflowers and eyes that could pierce your very soul.

"Just watch yourself," was all that Shara said.

- - -


- - -

"I was too ashamed yeah I was too ashamed

I was just too weak to save her

But she doesn't care

No! She doesn't care

Please let me take your pain away for one day"

-Daphne Loves Derby, Middle Middle

- - -

She was pretty sure she hated him—

No, that was wrong. She didn't hate him.

She hadn't hated him before, at least. And if she did now, she wouldn't have hesitated to put her rapier through his gut. She'd had plenty of chances; they always seemed to end up pulled together, though circumstances or through sheer dumb luck.

But she hated that as much as she hated the stupid noble notions he got, the way he always tried to play the hero. She hated the way his stupid brilliant smile made everything else seem so foolish, the way it made her want to give him his dream, even if it meant sacrificing her own.

She hated him for promising the impossible.

…Yeah, she hated him.

Hated him like hell.

- - -


- - -

"I'm gonna be the mane event

Like no king was before

I'm brushing up on looking down

I'm working on my roar"

-Broadway Kids, I Just Can't Wait To Be King

- - -

"Fight your way to the top! Rah, rah, rah!" she chanted, planting a boot on the fallen enemy's back.

"Gitcher foot offa me," mumbled Colin through a faceful of snow.

She smacked him with the snowball she held in her mittened hand. "Quiet! We beat you guys fair and square!"

On the other side of the playground, Guiness dusted himself off. He and Lyle were sopping wet. "Crazy girl!" he shouted. "We'll get you for this, Whiteylocks!"

As they fled, Colin stumbling behind them, Ritz smiled. For today, she was queen of the schoolyard, and words like that couldn't touch her.

- - -


- - -

- Vivaldi: Four Seasons, Op. 8/4, RV 297, "Winter" – Largo, Yo-Yo Ma, Ton Koopman; Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra

- - -

She danced over the flowered hills, her rapier case bumping at her side. The peonies and marigolds were out, as were the white flowers and roses (of every shade; it seemed like flowers were always in season somewhere in Ivalice).

It felt so good to be alive. It was almost criminal.

She turned her grinning face up to the sun, drinking in its warmth. She was just one more flower in a field of thousands, heedless of the blossoms trampled beneath her bare feet.

- - -