So, ADifferentForest.com, which is one of my sometimes fandom haunts (I try to stay away because I tend to just end up arguing with people, but it tends to suck me in like a tractor beam), continues to host 1,000-word fic challenges. I find them fun, because it’s always very interesting to see what I can do in about 1,000 words. 1,000 words requires precision that is a great workout for my writing muscles. Present tense? Past tense? First person? Multiple scenes? One scene? Every one of those decisions has huge repercussions in short short stories in a way that it doesn’t in a longer piece, where the effect of any one of those is mitigated by all the other writing you do.
This one started because the prompt was “Edward’s Angsty Christmas.” It had to be Edward, it had to be angst (I hate that word, but–let’s say Edward had to be having a not-so-happy Christmas), it had to be 10 years post Eclipse and “canon, with no Renesmee.” Because wolvesnvamps is someone who I can tease publicly a little, I snarkily pointed out that, as obnoxious as she may be to some, Renesmee is canon 10 years post Eclipse.
She replied that I know she ignores BD (true) and would I please write something anyway?
So since I was being silly, I decided to see if there was a way to write the prompt exactly as written, and still with my defense of what is canon…and this little ditty came out. It’s not as polished as I like things to be , so it’s going to be one of these website-only pieces. Enjoy a trip into my twisted mind.
Last year at Christmas, I used the ADF challenge to turn out “Souls in Stillness.” That fic is titled after a contemporary advent hymn called “My Soul in Stillness Waits.” So for this one, I chose another contemporary advent hymn, “Each Winter as The Year Grows Older.” The chorus reads:
Each winter as the year grows older
We each grow older, too
The chill sets in a little colder
The verities we knew
Seem shaken and untrue.
She never believed in Santa, but she did believe in us. And we came through every time. Until the day we couldn’t.
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