eritis sicut deus

Challenge #5: Carnival Barker

Journaling prompt: Be a carnival barker for your favorite movie, book, or show (or any other of your choice - game, comic, anything else)! Write a post that showcases the best your chosen title has to offer and entices passersby to check it out.
Creative prompt: Write a fic or original story about a character reluctantly doing something they are hesitant about.

You know what? I'm just skipping the barking part because I'm tired, and just dive into these fandom-of-ones! 🥳 Again, I asked liriaen for some prompt(s), and since they offered me three very fine and lovely phrased ones, three drabbles is what you get. :)


Fandom: 16th CE Artists RPF, Northern Renaissance RPF
Characters: Albrecht Dürer (artist), Agnes (his wife), Susanna (their maid)
Rating: Teen
Word count: 100
Summary/prompt: It's such a long journey. And he's not in his early twenties anymore. Yet Albrecht decides to travel all the way to Antwerp to reclaim his stipend from the new emperor Charles. And yet... needs must?

Albrecht has bundled up his prints himself this time; now they’re watching Susanna putting their clothes in coffers. Her skirts swish quickly across the floor, their fabric enfolding shadows only to release them the very next second.

"It’s the best," Agnes says, reassuringly, for about the tenth time today. "Remember how deep he’s now in Fugger’s debt." She snorts, fists bunched on her hips. "The sooner we have him acknowledge what you’re entitled to the better."

Albrecht sighs. "I know."

"Come now," Agnes pats his arm. "I know a good inn or two in Frankfurt I’d like to show you."


Fandom: 16th CE RPF, Renaissance Politics RPF, mumble-mumble Borgia
Characters: Miguel de Corella, Cesare Borgia (off-screen)
Rating: Mature (due to language)
Word count: 100
Summary/prompt: November 1503: Miquel takes the last of Cesare's troops and the war-chest towards Romagna, leaving Cesare a hostage in Rome. He is not convinced this is a good idea.

Things had been falling apart, Miguel was smelling it for some time now. But Cesare had shrugged it away. Not arrogantly, but rather matter-of-factly.

Now, spurring his mare northwards, there are so many strings pulling him backwards. Coins in the chests are rattling in time with the hooves, his men trailing behind like dregs of a stillbirth. Would regrouping in the loyal Romagna really benefit their chances? Finance new troops, or maybe collecting more money in case Julius was looking for some ransom?

Miguel spits out. As if that thieving cunt would let Cesare go now that he’s got him.


Fandom: Barbarians (TV)
Characters: Ari (aka Arminius | Hermann the Cheruscian), an unnamed völva (OC)
Rating: Teen
Word count: 100
Summary/word count: Ari's fresh back from Rome, back in Germany, and one of the auxiliaries tells him it would be a good idea, a worthy gesture, if he visited the local Völva. Ugh, is that necessary, really?

He’s unsure about how to enter her hut when he hears the rumble from within: "What are you waiting for, son?"

Swallowing, he parts the buckskin veils to enter the smoke-filled abode. "Greetings, wise woman," he says into the light-flitted darkness.

He hears her grin, rather than seeing it. "Welcome back," she says, her words’ tilt and roll sounding so much like his mother’s he feels a quick stab into his gut.

"Do we know each other?" Ari asks, unsure.

Her staff is the only thing peeling itself from the shadows around.

She barks a laugh. "Do you know yourself?"