Archive | February 4, 2012

Fated, a story of the Aunt Family for the Mini-giraffe-call

To [personal profile] inventrix‘s prompt.

Modern era, another branch of the tree.

“Damnit, not again.” Karen threw the pregnancy test in the garbage and leaned against the bathroom door, sighing.

The phone rang as she was getting her nerve up to leave the bathroom. Of course. She picked it up without bothering to check the Caller ID. “Aunt Becka.” She knew she sounded inhospitable. She wanted to sound a lot more than that.

“It’s not always a blessing, I know that, dear,” her mother’s oldest sister began without preamble. “It was for me, but it wasn’t for all of us. But when it’s not a blessing…”

“It’s a responsibility. Yes.” She grumbled at the phone. “I didn’t ask for this, Aunt Becka. The family has other lines. Let them be all aunt-y. Leave me out of it.”

“The power doesn’t work that way, dear, I’m sorry. Enjoy being free of it for now, I suppose. I still have a few years left in me.”

She hung up with a scolding click, leaving Karen to stare at her phone, and wonder who there was left to appeal to.

She’d asked her mother, who had told her, simply, “You’re the last unmarried niece your Aunt Becka has.”

That all her other sisters and cousins – nine of them – had done their damndest to get pregnant before they even finished highschool and married at, in three cases, the expense of college at all, while Karen had finished school, that didn’t seem to faze anyone, least of all the Aunt Magic.

She didn’t know if it was bad luck or the magic messing with her, bad biochemistry or just a bad hand at love that had left her thirty-four, childless, and without a relationship that lasted longer than three months, but she hated it either way. Her oldest cousin’s oldest daughter was already pregnant! And she…

…would be the crazy lady in the corner house with no love and no children, raising cats and reading tarot cards. And, because everyone assured her that she had no skill at this sort of thing (her sister Letty had had that, and their cousin Edna, but they had run screaming from the power with babies at seventeen and nineteen, respectively), she would just be a vessel, a stupid vessel for the stupid family power. A coma patient could do that. A BOY could do that.

In the corner of the bathroom, a photo fell over. Sighing, Karen picked it up. Her Great-Aunt Ruan smiled back at her, her arm around her long-term beau Johias.

“Well.” Un-married and childless, that was the rule. Smiling slowly, Karen dialed the city’s adoption agency. No-one said she had to carry this stupid power around alone.

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1323390.html

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Lines of the City, a story of Stranded World for the Giraffe Call

For [personal profile] eseme‘s prompt

Stranded World has a landing page here on DW and here on LJ

Autumn didn’t like the city.

She thought, all in all, it was a fair dislike. The city was noisy, crowded, smelly, loud, and foreign; the traffic impatient, the people worse.

She had grown up near people like those she chose to live with now – people who were sideways-of-normal enough that they didn’t judge, or, at least, when they did, there was someone else to call them on it. Walking into the city was walking back into the normal world, as her mother would say, “Mundania.” It was remembering how to put on a face that felt stiff and uncomfortable, like a suit, like a mask.

There were times, however, when the cities were unavoidable. Paperwork. Downtown craft festivals. Her brother calling. A mysterious message from someone who might be Tattercoats and might not be (The handwriting had been all off, but the wording had been perfect). And so into the city she went.

Craft fair meant she could shirk conventional appearance rules; paperwork meant she could not. Winter meant she had to look nice, but a little odd, to tweak him. Tattercoats meant she had to look pretty. She had spent more time getting dressed today than she normally took in a week, and ended up looking, to the naked eye, quite a bit like Autumn-dressed-down, or perhaps a Victorian Gypsy.

The paperwork people did not notice, which, after all, was the whole idea. She filed her forms, paid her fees, and left poorer and more knotted into the system, but less likely to become far more poor and far tighter knotted. Her father had taught her that: “‘Render unto Caesar,’ honey, means ‘make sure the guards have no reason to look at you.'”

Her father, she pondered, had been more than a bit of a rebel.

Winter had noticed, if only for the many-times-touched lines of her clothing, but had simply said, “you look very nice today, Autumn.” Winter was only a rebel in having gone as smooth and orderly as was humanly possible.

And then she was in the park, waiting for someone who might or might not be Tattercoats, and a man walking by looked at her, looked at her and didn’t say anything, but tipped his hat at her as if it was 1890, and Autumn felt something twist. She reached for the connection to Tattercoats, found it, as always, elusive and uncooperative, and found instead the heartstring of the city.

She was sitting on the bench, reading songs in the heart of the metropolis, when her alarm rang an hour later to remind her of the festival. She left humming, new songs in her heart and a new design for a picture already presenting itself. She might prefer the wild roads, but the city, it seemed, would have its own song for her, too.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/257670.html. You can comment here or there.

Giraffe, Etc. Summary

The Mini-Call is up! (and on LJ) Prompt on the Aunt Family series!

Since the last summary (and on LJ), I have written:

For the January Giraffe Call:
One-Off
And Before That? (LJ)
Backstage (LJ), technically Big Trouble in Little China fanfic

Fairy Town
In Mr. Ting’s (LJ), after Burning Summer Quest (LJ)
Katydid’s Camp (and on LJ)

Tír na Cali
Tea with HER (continuation 5) (LJ)
Tea with HER (Completion) (LJ)

Fae Apoc
When the Gods Attacked (LJ)
Delving in History (LJ)
Bringing Home History (LJ)

Bug Invasion
From the moment they breathed our air (Lj) after: Staying in the City (LJ) and Spooks vs. Bugs (DW)

Non-Giraffe Writing included:
Non-Giraffe

Addergoole Yr9
Moving On (LJ), Ahouva & Basalt
Damn List (LJ)
[personal profile] clare_dragonfly wrote this story of Kayros and Vic.
[personal profile] kajones_writing created
these characters and then wrote
this story and
this story.

Addergoole: Boom
Meeting the Family (LJ) (a chat log)
Roleplay Log (Cya/Cabal, posted by cluudle)
Cleaning Up (LJ), One month later
cluudle wrote this story set in the same general timeline as my current Boom ‘fics, staring Yoshi’s paternal half-brother Etienne.
Legacy (LJ) – several years later

Tir na Cali:
Wrong Brother? ()after “Can we be that Close?” (no xpost). [Donor Perk]
Cali-Novel Ch17-most (LJ) [Beta]

Aunt Family:
Read my story “The Wish Machine” (from the Aunt Family ‘verse) in this month’s EMG-Zine!

And I’ve asked you, and asked you to ask me:
Pick a character to ask questions of! Any character of mine in any setting!
(and on LJ)
Ask Kendra here (LJ)
Ask Rin here! (LJ)
Ask Audrey Here! (LJ)

The donations reached an AMAZING $246!

Thanks to everyone who participated!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/257500.html. You can comment here or there.

Mini-Giraffe Call: The Aunt Family

The Mini-Giraffe Call is CLOSED! Thanks to all that participated!

For the next 36 hours, leave your prompts on the Aunt Family ‘Verse.

The Aunt Family has a landing page here (and on LJ)

Because this is a mini-Call, there will be mini-perks!

* For every $10 donated, one prompter chosen at random will get an extra 500-word story
* If the call reaches $30, I will write a second prompt for everyone
* If you donate, as always, you had sponsored 100 words continuation on any Giraffe story for every $1US donated.


Also! Because my goal for this mini-call is to raise $$ for character art, I will take donations in art as well. Talk to me to discuss reasonable words-for-art rate.



(Dwolla account available on request)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/257100.html. You can comment here or there.