CHALLENGE TWO - January 12 2009 - February 2 2009 (3 weeks)
Next Off is a creative writing contest for all those writers out there. You will have to write 2 short oneshots fanfic. It can occur anywhere in the series, or it can occur in AU (Alternate Universe) as long as you can describe the environment. Creativity is key here. I'm not interested in how great Lacus is, we already know that; what I'm looking for is something difference, emotional and will keep the readers wanting for more!

Definition: Oneshots: A Stand-alone plot with no means of a continuation. A Begining, middle and end is presented an solved usually resolving with ones issue.
  • Must be about Lacus Clyne. No Original Characters as main or supporting characters please. All other character uses must be from the series. Background characters that are hardly mentioned are okay as original characters.
  • Uses of Literary Devices are highly encouraged.
  • No more than 750 words (roughly 3 pages/6 page double space) for each fanfic.
  • Font: Times New Roman and size of 12 points please. Double Space please.
  • You name (used for crediting) and email that wishes to be used must be in the document header or footer (top of bottom of the page).
  • Check your grammer and spelling! I will be getting a few of my friends in English Majors to be judging this portion of the contest. Good practise for school too! If requested, I can try to arrange your edited copy to be sent back to you, if you want to learn what your mistakes are.
  • All topics must be children-friendly. No Hentai, Yuri, Yaoi or anything inappropiate matter.
  • Your Title of the Writing is also very important. Please also include it at the top if the page, bolded.
  • If you feel one shots are not your taste, Poetry is also welcomes. The only perks is, you must do all 3 themes instead of 2, mainly because you are writing less.
To make your life a little easier, I'll e giving you 3 themes and you must choice 2 out of the 3 themes to write about:
  • Pink
  • Seasons
  • Regret


Author: Courtney
Do not replicate, edit or use fragments of her work without prior permission.

FIc#1: Fight the Blues:

"dream on but don't imagine they'll all come true"
- vienna, billy joel.


pov; lacus, prompt; seasons.
playlist: fight the blues - utada hikaru and vienna - billy joel. 		  Fic#2: One Last Candle:

"everything changes,
I don't care where it takes us"
- about you now, miranda cosgrove.

pov; 3rd, prompt; regret.
playlist: about you now - miranda cosgrove.


Fight the Blues


December 24th.

Kira was enough. He really was. He was docile and caring, never prodded where my heart was tender, never acted against my wishes. He was everything I never thought to ask for. I was happy with Kira. Happiness didn't mean always though—it wasn't concrete. At least Kira was a constant, the most consistent thing in my life when happiness wasn't always. I love Kira more than anyone, but that empty space was still open with absence. It was never volatile. It was utterly, completely impossible to replace, that missing part. Most days it played nice, only singed me a little, if at all, but... the nearness of Christmas always ripped the tiny whole open again. No blood spilled, but it never offered me the grace of numbness. It hurt badly.

And of course Kira knew the sting was there, as sensitive as he was to emotion, especially my own. He never asked about the pain though, only offered his arms and a forgiving half-smile. He, too, more than myself, knew the sorrow of death. The awful cacophony of burning that came in variety, in a multitude of frequencies. I didn't judge him, just as he wouldn't judge me.

"The Winter season is early this year," Kira folded his free hand—his other securely in my own—into his pocket. His white breathe illustrated his point, steaming as each word left the touch of his lips.

I only nodded, distracted. My fixation, which, these days, rarely strayed free of Kira, rested over a silver hair pin in the window. It was simple enough. Moon-shaped, gleaming and rather pretty in its understated way. Kira didn't appear upset while I reverted my attention to him and asked, "Did you say something, Kira?"

He didn't press the subject again, but the new snowfall reminded the hole to hurt again.

He towed me further along the line of shop windows spanning down the market street, each wearing a novelty for the season. An unsurprising number of glances and double-takes found our path. Is that another obsessive fan, the expressions said, or is that the real Lacus Clyne? My small but friendly smiles seemed to convince some of the latter, while others just looked away, disinterested.

We continued down the string of windows, and Kira never questioned my urgency as we passed the shops who’d expressed admirable efforts towards Christmas this year.


December 24th, eleven fifty-nine pm.

My blues eventually learned to cope with the pain; it wasn't easy, but the fight never was—especially in December. Father had always adored the most uniting season of the year, made everything happy and so right. Whole. Though I really was impossibly ignorant, a bit too much of an ingénue before the war began. Through empathy, I could now understand without naivety clouding my vision. He missed Mother more in December than in any other month, just as I missed his presence now. My heart pounded for his... yet each week, each month, each year, I began forgetting the tiniest things about him.

I didn't cry then. It wasn't without effort.

"Merry Christmas," was said.


December 25th, twelve am.

The heavy echo of the grandfather clock on the first level confirmed the words symmetrically. December twenty-fourth vanished into the flurry of snow. I shifted only slightly, my gaze still out past the window, watching snowflakes flounce down from a black sky. I didn't need to turn to know that it was Kira.

It was ironic about mother, so sad that I hadn't realized. She had been born in the early hours of Christmas, and married, too, in the early hours of the same day. She'd also died nearly an hours' time on the dawn of Christmas. Of course the season hurt father... but he'd always made me so happy, and so near-sighted.

Kira came to sit by my side and watch the sky with me, slipping a small, moon-shaped pin into my fingers. He took my hand. It didn't erase the pain, but it helped. It was enough. It would always be enough.

"Merry Christmas, Kira."

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One Last Candle


"You love him, don't you?"

She didn't really mind if he hated her for the answer, and he didn't mind if she hated him for asking. She wasn't right for him; they weren't right, not for each other. And he knew it the moment he wasn't angry, the moment his question became a statement and not an absurd burst of accusation. You love him, therefore Kira and not him, don't you, otherwise meaning he knew she did.

"I do. You don't love me, do you?" Her tiny hands worked themselves in and out of mindless patterns.

She wasn't accusing, either. She was stating a perfectly reasonable fact, which both of them knew the answer to. She offered it for the sake of the conversation, devils-advocate.

"I don't," His lips pulled up into a half-smile, feeling the weight lift off of him as he admitted, "Not in the way you're asking."

Maybe it should have hurt his pride more, that his wife-to-be was in love with his best friend? But it just didn't. Athrun was even a little happy for the two, because, if Lacus loved him, it was only a matter of time before Kira loved her in return. And maybe he already did, risking the condemnation of a traitor for releasing the daughter of Siegel Clyne. He would have done it anyway, even sans the alleged love; Kira always did what he thought was right.

"I don't love you," Lacus said with a smile. Athrun saw the same worries float from his friend as she said so. "Not like that, but I still love you Athrun."

He was glad, because he still loved her, even if he had never loved her.

He leaned in to press lips lithely to her forehead, nose and both cheeks. "Thank you, Lacus." He meant it.

She flashed him her lovely smile, no regrets in her field of vision, or in his, no regrets for knowing how right they both were. He was pleased that they'd been kind and honest enough to one another before things were impossible to fix, and she was happy to know that things, even in the chaos of the Bloody Valentine War, were changeable. It gave her hope that the war could end soon, that change was possible even from the ruins of the destruction. Change was what needed to happen.


"We'll be home soon," she reminded him, the tiny dot that was PLANTS partially visible.

Until then, they both resumed watching the blue emptiness and wonder of space.
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