Archive | August 23, 2011

30 Days Second Semester: 17, Misery Loves…

Aug23

For the 30 Days Meme Second Semester, for the prompt “17) write an uncomfortable story.”

Faerie Apocalypse (LJ Link), Addergoole Year Nine, the day after “Say Yes.” (LJ).

Thorburn seemed jittery and uncomfortable on Wednesday, as if somehow he’d been the one to get the wrong end of Tuesday night. It grated on Ceinwen, set her teeth on edge. What right did he have to play the victim?

“I still hate you, you know,” she informed him, since he wouldn’t let her leave the room.

“Stop saying that,” he snapped, without looking away from his homework.

Bereft of even that pleasure, she pulled up a second chair and sat next to her Keeper, staring at him. He was Masked, handsome, his dreads tidy, his eyes improbably hazel-green. “You’ve never shown me,” she said abruptly. If she was going to be uncomfortable, she’d find a way to share it. “Even on Hell Night, you kept your Mask up.”

He frowned, closing his book, finally, to look at her. She plowed on, a little nervously.

“I know there are people without physical Changes, one or two of them, at least. And I know that some aren’t visible with their clothes on, but I’ve…” she swallowed hard and forced herself to continue, “seen you with your clothes off. No Changes. Why haven’t you shown them to me?”

He was still frowning, and she struggled against the urge to quail backwards. His orders last night left her uncomfortable with talking about what had happened, but this… if he wanted her to stop, he’d tell her.

“I mean…”

“When you Change,” he interrupted her. “When you Change, I will show you. I promise.”

The List:
1a) the story starts with the words “It’s going down.” (LJ Link)
1b) the story starts with the words “It’s going down.” (LJ Link)
2) write a scene that takes place in a train station.
3) the story must involve a goblet and a set of three [somethings]
4) prompt: one for the road
5) write a story using an imaginary color
6) write the pitch for a new Final Fantasy styled RPG (LJ Link)
7) prompt: frigid (LJ Link)
8) write a scene in the middle of a novel called “The Long, Dirty Afterwards” (LJ)
9) prompt: mourning dead gods (LJ)
10) write a story set in three different time periods. (LJ)
11) Write a movie trailer style trailer for a story, existing or not-yet-written. (LJ)
12) prompt: sweet iced tea (LJ)
13) re-write a story that everyone knows (LJ)
14) write a vanilla story dealing with kinky subject matter (LJ)
15) prompt: ascension (LJ)
16) write a scene that takes place at the end of a long road trip. (LJ)
17) write an uncomfortable story

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/116889.html. You can comment here or there.

Spring Break!

Aug23

To [personal profile] lilfluff‘s commissioned prompt in my Call for Prompts: A story in which both parties believe they are the abductor and the other is the abducted.

Sections of 83 words, because it pleased me to do so.

“Come away with me this weekend.”

The words had sounded so innocent, and been so permanent under the surface. Spring Break. No schoolwork to worry about (other schools might try, but a state school knew better than to bother), parents who weren’t going to ask where their kids were going, in case they accidentally found out, and she’d lied to her friends about her secret plans for the weekend. By the time anyone realized they were gone, it would be way too late.

“With you? Sure.”

That made everything both harder and easier. He’d been working out a plan, but hadn’t expected the opportunity to jump into his lap like this. He didn’t have all of his details in place; he was going to have to wing some of it. He came up with a lie for his parents and another for his friends, and packed his special bag inside his normal suitcase. He really hated winging it. It left way too much up to chance.

“It’s just down this road.”

Away from everything, secluded, private. Far enough away that nobody would hear them. Far enough away that even finding them would be tricky, unless you knew what you were looking for. Her uncle had built the place. She had never asked him why; she didn’t really want to know. She’d bleached it roof to basement when she inherited, and waited for the family to forget about it, and him, and her.

They’d been more than willing to oblige.

“This place is really out there, isn’t it?”

More than out there, it was the sort of remote he hadn’t known existed this close to the city. They’d been driving for half an hour since the last gas station (she’d filled up there, much to his relief), and the houses were few and far between, nestled into hillsides. Often, all you saw was the mailbox, lone and lonely-looking. He tried to memorize everything; he didn’t want to stand out, lost, when he left.

“Now that we’re all alone…”

With her touch, the cabin had become pretty cozy. She’d pulled all the drapes and lit a fire, leaving them enveloped in wood-paneled hunting-lodge charm. Even a passing hiker wouldn’t nothing anything, which was good, on the rare occasion that things went sour. Uncle Thomas had really planned for everything.

(She’d left the flower bed alone. She didn’t want to know who was under there, any more than her parents wanted to know where she got her money).

“Quite alone.”

The place reminded him of a couple of his bolt holes. It was well-situated, well-provisioned, and cozy, with what looked from the outside like a full basement. Somebody had put some money into this place. And now, here he was, locked in it (she hadn’t noticed when he pocketed the deadbolt key) with his quarry. Cuddled on the couch like the college kid he was pretending to be.

The only trick was going to be getting out of here with her.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/116723.html. You can comment here or there.

Eep… worldbuilding. What do the Wild Tribes wear?

Aug23

Okay. So, for the Anthropologist sub-series of the Planners’verse…

The narrator. I picture her original clothing a combination of a British explorer – thus and Evie from the 1st Mummy movie – thus, or dollies.

Her look is something like this girl and this girl (here).

Okay. That’s the easy part. Librarians wear robes, see icon. They have textile production, at least small-scale.

This is 300+ years after the “Conflict,” which, as I can picture it, is a massive economic meltdown leading to total social collapse. Enclaves of “civilization” exist, along with tribes who have gone back to a nomadic lifestyle, who distrust the Tower(s), the villages, etc.

So. What do the Wild Tribes wear?

Also, why hasn’t more technology reasserted itself? *why* is so much of the country still wild?

But more importantly right now, what do the Wild Tribes wear?

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/116408.html. You can comment here or there.