Archive | January 2012

In Any ‘Verse

Jan5

For TheLadyisUgly’s prompt. This is set in the two AU’s of the Addergoole ‘verse, whose landing page is here on DW & here on LJ.

Tya/Jamian
Jamian hadn’t been at his new school for more than a week when the pretty strawberry-blonde upperclassman cornered him.

“So,” she demanded, with a cheerful smile of perfect teeth, “are you going to ask me on a date?”

“I…” suspecting a prank, Jamian looked around for the girl’s other friends. She hung out with a tough crowd of dangerous-looking seniors and juniors, some of whom looked like the sort that would enjoy pushing the new kid around, or getting a laugh at his expense. Seeing no-one else around, he hazarded “was I supposed to?”

“Well, duh,” she smirked. “If you wanted a chance to talk to me outside of school.”

“Ah.” Not feeling any more clear about things, he offered, hesitantly, “would you like to go out for dinner sometime? I hear the restaurant down on Main and Schmidt is pretty cool.”

“D’Angelo’s?” She looked surprised. “That’s a really nice place, yeah. This Friday?”

“Just you and me, right?” Feeling a little braver, he added, “I can’t afford all of your friends, too.”

“Just you and me, handsome,” she assured him. “Pick me up at my mother’s at eight?”

“Sure…” His stepfather would let him borrow the car for proof he wasn’t really gay. “Uh… where?”

She smiled slowly at him, a teasing thing he was already in love with. “If you really want it, you’ll find out.”

Ty/Jaya
“You’ve been here a month, and the only people that know your name are the ones who pay attention in your classes.”

“I’m sorry?” Jaya hadn’t even noticed there was someone in the student lounge; she had been cutting through on the way to her study hall. She turned around to search out the speaker, and found him looking up at her from an armchair.

“You should be.” He grinned up at her, offering her a hand languidly. “I’m Ty. I’m a senior here.”

“Jaya… freshman.” She didn’t quite squeak it out.

“Jaya. That’s a lovely name. Why so shy, Jaya?”

“I, uh…” Brilliant. “People generally aren’t all that nice when you’re the new kid. And I’ve been the new kid a lot.”

“Well, I’m always nice, and so are my friends. Sit with us at lunch today, instead of hiding in the corner?”

He didn’t make it sound so much like a request as a royal demand. She should have been offended, told him whatfor. But he really was the first person who’d bothered asking her name since she got here. “I’d like that,” she told him shyly. “Um, right in the middle, right?” Out where everyone could see them.

“Right in the middle,” he grinned. “Advantages to being a senior – or to being friends with one.”

And that was definitely a suggestion. “I see,” she agreed carefully. “I’ll see you there.”

“I look forward to it,” he purred.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/221457.html. You can comment here or there.

I Want to Tell a Story

Jan5

For EllenMillion‘s prompt.

“I want to tell a story.”

It wasn’t what Miss Kelley was expecting to hear from her students, and certainly not from this particular student, shy and a bit slow to learn. She looked down at Diandru thoughtfully. “What kind of story, Di?”

“I had a dream,” the very earnest child told her. “And it was like a movie, with everything very clear and bright, and there were explosions and gunshots and people were crying. And there was a dragon.”

“It sounds like a very interesting dream.” Miss Kelley found herself leaning forward, intrigued by the suggestion of a story.

“It was really cool. But I don’t know how to draw it and I’m not very good with letters yet.” Diandru held up a few crayon drawings. “They don’t look right.”

“Well, then.” Miss Kelly patted the bench next to her. “Let’s figure out how to tell this story, then, you and I, okay?”

“Okay.” Diandru scrambled up next to the teacher, and the two began to plot.

So it was that, at storytime the next day, Diandru began to speak, in a voice as clear as a bell, holding up illustrations drawn by Miss Kelly, labeled in painstaking handwriting by Diandru.

“The dragon came into town in the middle of the night. It was very cold, so cold that his fire wouldn’t light.”

The children leaned forward, intrigued, even those who wanted to be dismissive.

“He was looking for a warm place, somewhere that would make his steam turn back into fire. Dragons don’t like the cold, you know. Like Miss Carpenter’s snake.”

The children nodded. Snakes didn’t like the cold. They knew this to be true.

“There was a building on fire. It was in the part of town where the firemen took their time, a scary neighborhood where people shot just to hear their guns.”

The kids shivered, and nodded. They knew those neighborhoods. Some of them lived there.

“And the dragon saw this building, and its fire – it was a house,” Diandru hurried to add, but managed not to break the flow of the story anyway, “with people trying to get out. And the dragon settled down around the house, soaking up the fire like a cat in the sunlight.”

The children smiled at the image, but leaned in. “What about the people?” demanded a classmate.

“Well, they shot at it. That’s what people did in that neighborhood.”

“That was silly!”

“Yep. It was very silly, because the dragon didn’t even notice. It just kept soaking up the fire, eating it up, getting warmer and warmer… so that by the time the firemen showed up, the fire was all gone, and the people were saved.”

“And what about the people who had shot at the dragon?”

“Well, they felt really silly about shooting at something that was helping,” Diandru answered, holding up the picture labeled “feeling silly.” “And they threw all their guns into the lake…. Where the lake monster ate them for dinner!”

As the children giggled happily, Diandru hugged Miss Kelley’s legs. Looking down at the small child, the teach couldn’t help a giggle of her own. “Next week,” she whispered, “we can tell them the story of the Lake Monster.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/221276.html. You can comment here or there.

Thursday Morning!

Jan5

We ordered blinds for the Giraffe Room last night (Cellular/honeycomb shades, to be specific), so we’re down to “make the moulding fit, paint everything again, and find/install a light” for livability. (Also, the shades arriving, though chances of someone peeking their head in our bedroom window are pretty slim)

Slowly getting picked up and organized. Slowly. I come home from work pretty exhausted at the beginning of the month.

Art is happening all over the place, in less sleepy news! [personal profile] anke is still taking free sketch requests! And shadows-gallery is holding a $5 character portrait day.

[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith has also posted her list of poems from the January Fishbowl…

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/220857.html. You can comment here or there.

Ask me about my writing, a meme

Jan5

Stealing this one from [personal profile] recessional, who stole it from [personal profile] lizbee:

I think it would be fun to talk about stories, but the usual memes are like, “What happens next?” “Tell me about Character A?” Which isn’t so much talking about stories as it is writing more of a story. But you know how sometimes you read something and you’re like, “I got ___ out of this story, I wonder if I have that right?” or “What on earth was ____ supposed to be?” and it’s too awkward to ask the author? Now you could totally ask!

I’ve heard people say that writing is hard because you have to make decisions, but we never really talk about the decisions we make with stories or why we make them. We talk about plot bunnies, but not about how we actually turn them into a story.

And it seems like a lot more fun to do that than to do working.

So, if you wanted, ask me questions! (Or use this to ask your flist to ask you questions).

What were you trying to do [here]? Why did you decide to ____? This is what I thought about xyz, is that what you were going for? What made you write ____? Why did you decide to do this? And so on.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/220490.html. You can comment here or there.

Okay, Kelkyag et al…

Jan4

Pick two points in the Rin & Girey timeline you want to see more of! *rubs hands together* and I’ll start writing!!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/220227.html. You can comment here or there.

Kinkmas Bonus: Exposition, for @Rix_Scaedu

Jan4

More story of Fae Apoc, the Black House, for Rix’s request.

I could use someone to pick a communal card… or I can ran-generate one for me.

Exposition
Yaminah didn’t quite look at him. Her vision was still blurry from the drugs, and she wasn’t certain, either, that she dared. “How would you have me serve you, Master?” she asked, her voice feeling a little hollow to her ears. She belonged here. But would she survive it?

He took her chin in his hand, and studied her. “First, by always being honest with me when we are alone. Completely honest.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Secondly, by telling me what brings a former student of Addergoole prostrating herself at my door. Completely honestly, remember?”

Her mouth was suddenly dry as, with his question, the enormity of what she had done began to sink in. “My power, sir,” she said carefully, “tells me where I need to be. It told me I needed to be with you. For the next two years, it seems.”

“Interesting.” He didn’t sound pleased, but, held by the chin, she couldn’t flinch away. “Has it done this before?”

“I’m… not certain. I hadn’t Changed yet when I was caught before. But, considering the way my first year went, I’ve wondered if my power didn’t push me towards him.”

“Even more interesting. A power that wants you Kept.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/220054.html. You can comment here or there.

A Belated Yule Gift, a story of Tir na Cali for the Giraffe Call (@cluudle)

Jan4

For Cluudle‘s prompt.

The same characters as this story; Queen Larissa is also canonical Tír na Cali, in that she is one of the first characters I created in the world.

Tír na Cali has a landing page here on DW and here on LJ.

A slave was always at a bit of a disadvantage in dealing with his Mistress. The American-born kidnapped slave of the Queen of Tír na Cali was at even more of a disadvantage; their status could not, in this status-mad-society, be further apart unless he went rogue (at which point, he’d have bigger concerns than social disadvantages). When the Queen and Mistress was telepathic, there was no use even thinking of an advantage, not when she could turn off the telepathic damper at any time.

So Jeremy had no idea what Queen Larissa was thinking, just that, from her body language in the last few days, she must be planning something. It made him uncomfortable – he’d served her so well, made her, as far as he could tell, so happy. Californian politics were full of potholes and traps he hadn’t even thought to look for, when he’d first been bought; had he stepped in something and not even noticed? Had he horribly offended some very important person?

The worries ran in trapped-hamster circles in his mind for days while his Queen stayed busy with the rather-more-important business of running the country, and did not call on him at all, which did nothing to help his concerns. By the time she called him into her chambers, late on a Saturday evening, he could barely sit still for the nerves.

“I want to talk to you about something,” she told him slowly, which did not help. “Come here.”

He did, of course. Being disobedient would not help his case. He sat by her feet while she brushed his hair, and waited to see if she would say anything.

After a while, she did. “Duchess Candida’s eldest daughter.”

Another lineage test? Now? “Kerry? Black hair, probably from her father, stunning blue-grey eyes, and a very sharp smile. Unmarried and without Consort or children.”

“I would like to give you to her.”

“You…” His heart nearly stopped. It was one thing to know you were property, another to hear yourself being discussed like a piece of meat.

“Loan, rather, for perhaps a month and a half.” She squeezed his shoulder. “I like you, Jeremy. I won’t do it if you ask me not to. But she is, as you said, childless and young, and I am neither of those things, not by quite a while.”

He frowned. The Californian nobles aged very slowly, it was true, but Queen Larissa was no longer young even by their standards. “I enjoy serving you, Your Majesty,” he murmured, neutrally but honestly.

“I have noticed,” she answered dryly, her fingers hovering over the controls to the telepathic damper. “Will you tell me how you feel about this, Jeremy, or am I going to have to take it from your mind?”

“I…” he choked, caught on conflicting feelings and a desire to say nothing at all about any of it. Feelings weren’t what he wanted to talk about. “Wrap me up in a bow?” he choked out. “Happy belated Yule, Kerry, enjoy the present, I know I have?”

She patted his shoulder again, and did not invade his mind. “I hear,” his lover and Queen whispered, “that she’s absolutely on fire in the sack. Who do you think I’m giving a gift to, Jeremy, her… or you?”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/219873.html. You can comment here or there.

Winter is Here

Jan4

The tiny creek that
drains our land is frozen, its
voice stilled: it, too, rests.

Okay, it’s a culvert, not a creek. But it’s still frozen. Winter is here!

House stuff has moved to a crawl; there’s a lot we really can’t do in the winter. We installed a closet rod & shelf in the closet – making the built-in cabinet will wait till spring, when we can stain & poly without killing ourselves. Soon, I think, we’ll have the window finished, and then we can sleep in a bedroom!!

We bought granite tile to go under the wood-burning stove, and when that arrives (around the 7th), we can make a hearth board, then have a chimney person come and install the stove, and then we will have firefirefire.

Christmas was wonderful, hanging out with my folks & the dog on Xmas eve, cocoa with [personal profile] capriox, then Holmes with T. on Christmas Day (we skipped going out to Chinese and had pizza the day before instead). New year’s was quiet – mostly knitting. I’ve been knitting a lot.

[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith wrote this lovely poem to my prompt in yesterday’s fishbowl.

[personal profile] anke‘s free small art is still open! Go prompt! She’s specifically asked for non-tipping prompts as well as tipping, so don’t be shy!

Rix_scaedu has posted the roundup from her call for prompts. If you haven’t read them, well, read them!!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/219311.html. You can comment here or there.

Merry Kinkmas! Washing & Service, 2 stories of Fae Apoc for @Rix_scaedu

Jan3

From my card, center row, “i,” and top row, “i.” for a block of “center three, rows one and three” for Rix.
(the free square picked at random from [community profile] kink_bingo‘s communal cards100 words each, Fae Apoc

Content warnings: …slavery, drugs, confinement, humiliation….

Washing/Cleaning
She didn’t notice when the car stopped, until the sense of belonging heightened to an intoxicating level and the trunk opened. Even through her closed eyes, she could see the light.

“Tch,” her Master murmured. “You’ve gotten yourself all messy again.”

Gotten herself didn’t seem fair, considering she’d done what she was told, but she mumbled an apology around the pacifier anyway.

“Come on, pretty.” He lifted her out of the trunk in his arms and carried her, somewhere, somewhere right. It wasn’t until she felt warm water sloshing around her that he told her “you may open your eyes.”

Service
“You serve me now,” he told her, as he washed her.

“Yessir.”

“Do you understand how to serve?”

“Yes?”

“Good. Still, I will have to teach you how I expect to be served, won’t I?”

“Yessir.” His hands were tender and careful as he cleaned her, but his voice was implacable. What had her power gotten her into?

“Understand,” he murmured, “that there is this service, that you will do me, and then there is serving me as my Kept, and they are different things.”

“Yes?”

“It will not always be on your knees and naked that you attend me.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/219053.html. You can comment here or there.