Archive | November 2011

Encountering Dad, a story of Rin & Girey for the Giraffe Call

Nov17

For LilFluff‘s prompt.

This is in the Reiassan Setting, which has a landing page here (and on LJ). It comes after everything else I’ve written in timeline for Rin & Girey, and directly after/during Mother Knows… ()

“I need to visit my parents,” Rin-Arinya-Arinyanca had declared. They had only been in the palace complex for a few days, but Girey had already learned that, much as when they were on the road, “I am going somewhere” quickly became “we are going somewhere.”

In this case, it was, at least, reasonable. They were attending Elenerja’s wedding that afternoon, already dressed for it in Callanthe finery. This was, in theory, just a brief stop.

Nothing these people did was brief, any more than anything they touched was dull-colored. They could turn dinner into a three-hour affair with the slightest provocation. The wedding was supposed to last from sundown until sun-up, with a week-long celebration afterwards. He’d asked “how do you people ever get anything done?” only to receive a cryptic “we’re very efficient” as an answer.

He followed her into her parents’ suite with more than a little trepidation. So far, people had been either nice or politely chilly, but those were family members, cousins, aunts, uncles. This was her parents. The parents of the woman whose captive he was. It was…

“Oh, you must be Arinya’s Bitrani captive.” A big hand clapped him on the shoulder. “I’ve got an ancient Bitrani artifact I want to ask you about.”

“Uh… sure, sir.” He glanced at the hand – not all that big, by Bitrani standards, but for Callanthe the man was a giant – and then at the man, who was as tall as Girey was, green-eyed, and smiling fiercely. He collected himself, with a stern mental reminder that he was a prince, not a yokel, and ought to act like it, and stood up straight. “Where to?”

“Right here, into my study.” He steered Girey firmly through the door, then shut it with a solid thud behind them. Wood doors, Girey noted, and heavy – they might have far too many heirs, but they certainly lived like royalty.

“There,” the man smiled. This room was paneled in stone, with drawers, boxes, and shelves filling every spot. “I do have an ancient Bitrani artifact – it’s a scroll – though I know you’re a soldier and not a scholar. But Irri and Rinnie are going to go off about things that, frankly, bore me and likely bore you too. So I thought I’d get you out of there.”

“…Thanks?”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/179191.html. You can comment here or there.

The Life You Make

Nov17

For rix_scaedu‘s prompt.

This is a continuation of the Baram story posted in Monster (LJ), Memories (LJ), and One Sharp Mother (LJ).

Faerie Apoc, Addergoole Year 17 – landing page here (or on LJ)

Baram threw the monster – a real monster, a beast, a so-called returned god, a shit who had been attacking his neighbors – through the front wall, and jumped after him. The thing had ripped out a few of Baram’s ribs, and done something unpleasant to his stomach, but right now, he didn’t care. He’d care later, maybe, when his house was safe.

He ripped the weapon out of the god’s hands and shoved it through the creature’s face, swearing incoherently at him, spitting blood all over the thing. He jammed the weapon into the creature again and again, spewing profanity and bodily fluids over him, until the thing was in pieces. Then, only then, did he look up.

In the doorway of the house, a bunch of kids – more than he thought there ought to be by nearly double – were staring at him. In the gate to the backyard, his women were standing, holding up, loosely, a bleeding Grigori.

He looked back and forth between the groups. His women. His family. His house. And strangers. He showed teeth to the Grigori stranger, who took a cautious step backwards into Jaelie. She, in turn giggled.

“He followed us home,” she offered, pointing at the ruined side wall. “Can we Keep him?”

The Grigori wilted under Baram’s gaze, which made him smirk through a mouthful of blood. “Only if he’s useful.”

“Jasfe Eperu τεῖχος,” the man offered, and, behind Baram, the wall put itself back together.

“All right,” he allowed. “As long as he doesn’t piss on the carpet, same as the dog.”

“Wow.” A kid’s voice he didn’t recognize brought Baram’s attention back to the doorway full of children. “Your dad’s awesome.”

“He’s not…” Gerulf started, and then met Baram’s eye. “Yeah,” he said, as a small smile crossed his face. “Yeah, he’s pretty cool.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/178920.html. You can comment here or there.

Character Development Meme (morning Warmup), Question 2

Nov17

As discussed here and on LJ, I’m going to do this meme for a few characters (I’m rotating seasonal sibs to not totally overwhelm myself).

Feel free to suggest another character, and I’ll work through them in rotation.

Question 1 here and on LJ.

Question 3 here and on LJ.

2.) What are your characters most prominent physical features?

The RoundTree Siblings:
They share a stubborn chin they inherited from their father and a strong nose they got from their mother, a build that is sturdy or athletic rather than willowy, and a medium height that is neither tiny not giant.

Winter’s hair went prematurely white (his sisters blame Spring); he wears it long and in a ponytail, and it’s arrow-straight.

Autumn’s hair is a curly mess of russet, which she wears mostly-loose.

Summer’s hair is golden blonde, and as straight as Winter’s. It spends much of its time in a ponytail.

Spring’s hair is dirty blonde, light brown, and worn feathered and, no surprise, a little chaotic.

Conrad: The tail is probably the most notable, and his oversized, extra-digits-and-knuckles hands and feet. With his Mask hiding those Changes, the hands and feet are still oversized, and his once-broken nose and blue, blue eyes stand out more strongly.

Rin: Rin is a model of her ethnicity, as is not all that surprising from a member of the royal family. Her long black hair and small mouth with its rather generous smile are most notable; her skin is a light mocha-tan in the cold season, but, after several seasons at war and on the road, is burnished to a dark very-slightly-olive tan.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/178529.html. You can comment here or there.

Othel, a story for the Giraffe Call

Nov16

This is to The_vulture‘s prompt “Othel,” and it’s a little weird. As I looked at the rune Othel, I thought of a story, coming up and down over generations. It didn’t end up quite like what I’d first pictured, but it helps if you think of this story as 6 lines, with two junctures (there should have been four, as I look at it, but the shorter junctures are the top and middle points); the story starts at bottom left and follows the rune around to the bottom right.

Learning Memories
The farmhouse where her grandfather had been born, where her mother had grown up, was bustling with family and rocking with laughter. Feather was in the midst of it, sitting on her grandmother’s lap, listening to her uncle’s stories, “…and then the damn cow walked, backwards, all the way out.”

Inheriting a Place
Feather held her grandmother’s glass bluebird. Not a lap, not a hug, or a story. But grandma had loved it, and she could hold it.

Making Memories, I
The bluebird sat in Feather’s dorm window, the room full of laughter and friends. “…and then the damn cow backed right out of the barn. My uncle never could live that down.” She leaned against Jerome’s shoulder, basking in the warmth of her friends. “And then there was that time…”

Making Memories, II
The bluebird turned a blind eye as they came home, muddy, soaking wet, and laughing. “I can’t believe you pulled me out.”

“What was I going to do, let you drown? Here, let me get that.” Jerome pulled her sweater off, wrapping a towel around her shoulders, pressing her close.

Making a Place
“…in sickness and in health …” The dress was blue, echoing her grandmother’s; the bands just like his parents’.

“With this ring, I thee wed.”

Making Memories, III
They stood high on the side of the mountain, their kids to either side of them, looking over the valley below, the trees a rippling blanket of green spread out at their feet. Her son hugged her, briefly and impulsively. “It’s beautiful,” he exclaimed. “I’m going to remember this forever.”

Making Memories, IV
Feather wore dark blue; she always did, to weddings, and this one was more important than most. She held Jerome’s hand tightly while their daughter said her vows, surrounded by the love of her family and friends. A child whispered “she’s pretty,” and the church, as one, laughed, brightly, happily.

Leaving a Place
She wrapped the bluebird carefully with shaking hands, nesting it in layers of blue tissue paper. Her granddaughter might not understand yet, but she would.

Teaching memories
“And then there was that time up on the mountain,” Feather chuckled, cuddling her granddaughter close on her lap, “when your dad decided to slip-and-slide his way down the last hundred feet. I nearly had a heart attack.” The house rumbled with laughter, full of family and warm with love.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/178222.html. You can comment here or there.

Budding

Nov16

For kc_obrien‘s prompt.

This is in the Fae Apoc Setting, which has a landing page here.

The internment camp came into existence in
Discovery Channel, was expanded in
Invisibles; Daryl and his family were introduced in
The Pay Was Good.

***

One thing Dylan was glad for, when they’d moved into the internment camp they were supposed to be guarding and started guarding it against intruders instead of escapes, when they’d become, more or less, farmers and homesteaders, a small community against the outside world, when they’d finally armed the fae because, really, nothing but manners was stopping them from taking the weapons anyway – one thing he was glad for, when it was all said and done, was that his babies would not be old enough to date for many years, enough years that the war would, god-in-heaven willing, be done by then.

Not that he had anything against the Ellehemaei, but, when you came down to it, did you really want your daughter bringing home a boy that looked like a snake? Or, god-in-heaven forbid, what happened when your son came home, like Jose’s son Miguel had, saying, “Dad, I got her pregnant…” and you find out that “her” might be a pretty girl, but she had a peacock’s tail and wings, and Jose’s grandkids were eggs. Eggs! No, better to keep Marilyn and Jack close to home, playing with other human kids.

Miguel and his pretty bird were only the first, of course. All crammed together like that, and the internees had a lot of teens, and the guards, well, they had kids, and they had sex drives, the guards and the kids and the teens, all of them. They held weddings, mixed shindigs no less convoluted than some Dylan had seem at straight human marriages, and they had affairs, and even Dylan got propositioned by the pretty girl with the goaty bits.

He turned her down – they were at a wedding, for one, and he was faithful to his lovely Kaylee, for another – but it made him look twice, the next time he saw Miguel and his bird, or Curt’s kid Tasha with the boy with tentacles. He had a few words with Kaylee, and they started putting together baby gifts from what they could. A budding family was a budding family, after all, even if they were hatched. Or, for that matter, budded.

***

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/177958.html. You can comment here or there.

Dwimors, a story of Dragons Next Door for the Giraffe Call

Nov16

For [personal profile] meeks‘s prompt.

This is in the Dragons Next Door setting, which has a landing page here (and on LJ).

It is part of the series that includes:
Over the Wall (LJ Link),
The Black Tower (LJ Link,
The Pumpkin (LJ Link,
Skeletons (LJ)
and
Rule Three (DW)

“A lovely story.” Zizny watched me with one broad eye. “And your Sage seems like a very reasonable man, even when he was still a juvenile.”

“Very reasonable,” I agreed. “He’s a good man, my Sage.”

“But you have been avoiding telling me of your family woes. Perhaps a bargain?”

“A bargain?” I repeated dumbly. “What sort?” I’d been hoping to keep it entertained long enough to distract from the whole family issue at all.

“You clearly do not wish to discuss this, but I confess I am very curious. If you will tell me what it is that so bothers you about your family, I will tell you something, in return, that bothers me.” It paused. “About my kin-group as well, no less.”

That was, on the surface, fair. I nodded slowly. “I can do that.” Please don’t roast me. Zizny was my friend, my neighbor. It wouldn’t hold my ancestors against me, would it?

I took the longest, deepest breath I could, stalling, working up the nerve. “My father’s family are, for the most part, just poor, dirt-poor. Sometimes thieves, sometimes tricksters. There’s a thought there’s some elkin blood way back, and it would explain things, at least some things.”

“Mm. So it sounds as if they are not the ones who bother you?”

“Not really, no. As silly as that sounds.”

“It doesn’t sound silly at all. So your mother’s family? The grandmother who paid for your time at the Pumpkin?”

“Yes,” I sighed. “My mother’s family are what you’d call, or, at least, what people I know might call self-hating dwimors.” I watched Zizny’s expression, wondering if the term would be familiar… yes. Yes, that blink and all those very sharp teeth suggested that it had encountered the term before.

“Monster hunters, I believe they call themselves?”

“Yes,” I sighed. “Yes, yes they do.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/177754.html. You can comment here or there.

Hump Day!

Nov16

Yesterday was mellow, getting-over-sick and somehow writing 4025 words (woo).

We made “pumpkin” “pie” for the first time this season, one of my favorite desserts.

(make pie custard with butternut puree, then pour into a casserole sans crust and bake. Nom! Also much lower-calorie that way).

We bought a nice Dremel for T. to do some work with, and he enjoyed making wood chips all over the living room.

(The situation: the “card room” is a small former-porch-maybe, 8’x8′, off the living room, next to the bedroom. Its floor is 4″ higher than the living room, and will hopefully be lowered next year. Its ceiling was just a scoootch lower than the living room’s, the difference covered by a styrofoam wood beam. We removed the beam to find that someone had cut off the wall studs about 1″ lower than the ceiling. So to cover the hole smoothly, we needed to saw off these Very Very Firm Studs. hence, tiny Dremel saw!)

(Also? Tiny Dremel saws are awesome.)

((Also? I finally have a Dremel and now I don’t want vampire fangs O_O))

I posted 100 more words on the linkback incentive (LJ) for [personal profile] ysabetwordsmith‘s signal boost, but I have a feeling I’m missing some. 550 words = 11 linkbacks.

And, since the prompts stay open until I write the last prompt, I’ve still got two to go!

On LJ – http://aldersprig.livejournal.com/316593.html
and on DW – http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/170868.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/177469.html. You can comment here or there.

And Sisterhood

Nov15

For @daHob’s offline prompt.

This is in the Tír na Cali Setting, which has a landing page here (and on LJ), with characters I have not used before. It comes rather soon after Brothers and Brotherhood (LJ).

“Cotswald told me I’d find you here.”

Caleb glanced up from his book, refusing to jump, refusing to look nervous. Marianne was not the enemy. Next to him, Cye was having less of an easy time of it. “We weren’t hiding.”

“Clearly not well enough.” She sat down near them. “You weren’t at dinner. The Lady Mother noticed.”

“I wasn’t hungry.”

“That works for you, does it?” She pulled a couple rolls out of her pocket. “I know Cye’s mom will make sure you don’t starve, but you have to leave the library for that.”

“I like the library.” He took the offered rolls anyway, and passed one to Cye. “Thanks, Mare.”

“Hey, I like to look out for you, when I can.” She pulled three cookies out of her pocket and shared them around. “She’s on a rampage, you know.”

What was new? “Cotswald was looking for Simeon.”

“He wasn’t at dinner either. Probably why she noticed you weren’t there.”

Caleb winced. It was one thing to be invisible, another thing to have your nose rubbed in it. “Does this have something to do with Baroness Jacoba’s younger daughter?”

“That squinty half-wit? For everyone’s sake, I hope not.” She filled her mouth with cookie for a few minutes, and they all sat in passably companionable silence.

“Me, too,” Cye offered shyly after a moment. “Your ladyship.”

“You, too, wha… oh, Jacoba’s daughter? Why’s that?”

“She beats her slaves. Not all of them, I mean, but her companion.” Unspoken, because they all knew it: if she beat her slaves, would she beat her husband’s slaves? Would she beat her husband?

Marianne looked grim for a moment. “Thank you for that information, Cye,” she said gently. “I’ll lean on our Lady Mother, if she is talking to Baroness Jacoba about something other than land rights.”

“Thanks, Mare,” Caleb murmured quietly. It would probably be Simeon and not him, if it was anyone, but still…

She smiled crookedly at him. “I owe you two, for what you did with Michel ó Gwydion at that dance last month. And besides,” she added, when both of them flinched at the memory, “you’re my kid brother, Caleb. And you’re his, Cye. I have to look out for you two.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/177370.html. You can comment here or there.

Of Clay and Salt, for the Giraffe Call

Nov15

For [personal profile] pippin‘s prompt.

This is a one-off.

When Ned Wharton lost his wife Amelia to childbirth, he, too beset with grief and too busy with his work to think of courting another woman, made a golem of clay mud and salt tears to serve as a nanny to his infant son and housekeeper for himself. For a heart, he gave her the glass rose he had given Amelia on their first date, and for a brain, he gave her an abacus. For her voice, he installed a music box Amelia had loved.

He named her Adamanta, and, as his son grew to adulthood, she served the family faithfully. She did not age, and did not sleep, but she could pass, for a short time, as human, and many people assumed that Ned had simply remarried on the quiet. The stone woman was entirely faithful to Ned and young Edward Junior, a devoted house-woman and a scrupulous house-cleaner. She neither gossiped nor was the subject of gossip, and was said by many to be a perfect wife.

As young Ed Junior grew up, Ned, who did on occasion notice what was going on under his roof, saw that Adamanta was becoming quieter and more withdrawn, and would often spend time in the old nursery, holding Ed’s outgrown toys. So he created for her a child, a daughter of clay mud and seasoning salts, a tiny teddy bear from Eddie’s childhood for a heart, a flute for a voice and a puzzle toy for a brain. He called her Adora, Adamanta’s daughter, and treated her as he treated his own flesh and blood.

She was a lovely girl who would never age, never grow up, a sweet thing who loved to hug people and would spend hours drawing strange mystical cities. Eddie was mystified by her – but Adamanta and Adora were invited to his wedding, and had a family’s place of honor next to Ned.

As more time passed, Ned resigned himself to the fact that he was aging. His son had children of his own, who were growing more rapidly than seemed possible, while Adamanta and Adora stayed young and fresh and loyal. As the cough set in, one late, damp February, Ned understood that he would not be around for his wife and daughter for much longer.

He built for them a man of mud clay and salt tears, with a diary for a heart, Ned’s very own journal, and a set of clockwork gears for a brain. He did not give the man a voice, for he had never found he needed to speak much at all, but he did give him a stomach of brass and copper. And with his last breath, he gave this husband of mud a name.

Attend.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/176874.html. You can comment here or there.