Archive | February 8, 2012

Two Vignettes of Cynara – Addergoole Boom Post-Apoc

Feb8

This first vignette happens around year 20 of the Addergoole school, 3-4 years after the Apoc begins. This is a little bit after this scene. Note: Cya is known for keeping Kept for a year directly after they graduate Addergoole; she Kept Gaheris for 3-1/2 (the apoc messed with her normal methods of doing things)

Cya lay in bed next to Gaheris, not sleeping, running through their date – date! DATE! – in her head, running through what he’d said to her. What she’d felt about what he’d said. The way he’d looked at her. He was, she thought, maybe really staying.

She felt, guiltily, at the edges of her love for Howard, her love for Leo. Feeling this comfortable with another free Ellehemaei felt like a betrayal, felt like she was cheating on them, in a way that having, sleeping with, Kept never had.

Stop it, she told herself, with a tiny, suppressed squeak of frustration. Even beyond the sexual, Howard had Magnolia, and loved her. Leofric had Zita, and they – they had their perfect balance together. It was no more cheating to have Gaheris than it was for either of them to have their loves.

But still.. countered the little voice in her head. The one that said that that’s not what Cya did. Cynara planned, and she was there, and she was always there when she needed her.

And that is not going to stop, she reminded herself. She was still going to be the one that was there. But this… this could be okay.

Slowly, uncertainly, Cya let herself fall in love again.

The second one is in line with this series:
Separation Anxiety (LJ) Boom!/RP timeline/ Cynara
Parting Advice, and Mother Bears (LJ)
Mother-Son Bonding (LJ)
Kept du Jour (LJ)
“Are we killing this one?” (LJ)
Meeting the Family (LJ) (a chat log)
Roleplay Log (Cya/Cabal, posted by cluudle)
Cleaning Up (LJ), One month later

Cya escorted her dripping Kept into her cabin by the back door – because, with a house designed with two growing boys in mind, the route from the back door to the bathroom was unobstructed and hard-surface, very hard to ruin, and because that door was closer to the barn, and thus a shorter route for her jittery, unhappy Kept.

Once in the bathroom, she gave Panlong a gentle shove towards the tub. “Fill it with water at a temperature you’re comfortable with, and get in, in whichever order you’d prefer.” No use chancing that he might still have New Kept Syndrome and end up hurting himself trying to follow vague orders. “I’ll be back in a moment. I’m going to make us some doctored hot chocolate.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he stammered, and started the water. Cya hid a sigh in her turning, and hurried through the cocoa-making. Cabal was right. She really hadn’t been fair to the boy.

She didn’t want to be fair to him, of course. She wanted to make everyone who had hurt Yoshi pay… Didn’t you have this conversation with your father once? she reminded herself sharply. And what did you tell him?

“If you kill everyone who ever hurts me, Dad, I’m never going to learn how to do this revenge thing right on my own.” She muttered it under her breath, smiling a little bit at the memory. Her dad had made such a boggled, lost expression at that…

…sometimes Leo reminded her of her father. Especially around Ruki. Best not to think about Leo right now, it would only muddle things more. She poured a generous shot of hoarded Kahlua and a tiny smidge of vodka into the cocoa, poured it into two mugs, and added a handful of marshmallows to each mug. Time to deal with the boy. Time to figure out if he could be dealt with. If he could be helped.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/264191.html. You can comment here or there.

Character description and signal Boost

Feb8

djinni is hosting ICON DAY 21!!

And for an icon request, #1 was Summer. Here’s her description:

Summer is younger, a sunny blonde; her hair is generally pulled back in a loose ponytail, strands falling in her face: http://www.my-hair-style.com/2010/08/23/the-sleek-ponytail-in-its-various-different-avatars-for-fall/

She prefers bright colors for her clothes, especially yellow, orange, and that bright colour in between those two. Simple clothes, probably a T-shirt like this – http://images.footballfanatics.com/FFImage/thumb.aspx?i=%2FproductImages%2F_619000%2Fff_619717_xl.jpg&w=400 saying something clever- I like “Yes, and?” or, if smaller, “try.”

Like her siblings, her face shape is most like this picture here: http://www.edinburghpastoralcounselling.com/resources/coupleiStock_000008560478Small.jpg; her skin is tan but not deeply so.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/263782.html. You can comment here or there.

All you can be, a story of Addergoole Year Nine

Feb8

After Damn list (LJ).

Ahouva’s stories all come with that warning: magical thinking.

I don’t like being scared of my Keeper. He shouldn’t have seen that. She shouldn’t have written that.
She shouldn’t have even thought it; it was okay to be frightened of your Keeper. He was in charge of her, after all. He had the power of life or death over her, that’s what Kendon had said. That was frightening, very reasonably frightening.

But it made Basalt unhappy, and the last thing she wanted to do was… “Where are we going?” Stupid, dumb, stupid, questioning him. Keeper knew what he was doing. That’s why he was in charge, not her.

“Outside. It’s still nice enough out, and I thought you might like the open air.”

“…Oh.” She blinked, not sure what to think about that. “Thank you?”

He smiled down at her. “You’re welcome. So.” He opened the door. “You don’t like the list?”

“I…” she quailed. “I didn’t say that!”

“I know. And if you really disliked it, it would end up on the list, wouldn’t it?”

It had taken some twisty thinking to keep it off of there. Guiltily, she muttered “yes?”

“Ah.” He paused, the sun shining down on them. “I want to know what’s really going on, not what you think I want to hear.”

“But then…” she stopped herself, but not in time. He shook his head.

“Finish that sentence the way you originally planned to. Please.”

The please didn’t make it any less of an order. “But then you’d be angry with me. I’m not very grateful. I’m not very good at being Kept.”

“Oh, Ahouva.” He hugged her very carefully. “You’re very good at being Kept. But you’re not very good at helping me be a good Keeper to you.”

“I’m sorry?” she squeaked. It felt nice to be held in his arms. And safe. Kendon’s arms had never felt safe.

His breath was warm across her hair as he sighed. “I asked you to write the list because I want to know what’s going on in your head – and because I want you to think about your wants and dislikes, instead of just mine.”

“But why?” she muttered into his shoulder. “It’s easier to be a good Kept if I just think about what you want.”

“I know, honey.” He pressed her a little closer to herself. “But what I really, really want is for you to be the best Ahouva you can be. Sorry,” he added ruefully. “I know the other thing is probably easier.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/263569.html. You can comment here or there.

I HAVE NEW ICONS YAY!

Feb8

Djinni has posted my new icons and yay!


Winter, from Stranded World


Me, in Construction Mode


Giraffe!!

Over here, I’ve been pondering what icons to request this coming time.

Annnd! [personal profile] meeks has posted her queue – three of my pieces (Diapering Dragons, The Deep Inks, and Dragon Next Door) are on the list to work on next.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/263260.html. You can comment here or there.

Prickly

Feb8

After Trojan Gift (LJ). (I realized I needed to define their relationship more clearly before I wrote further ahead with Sylvia/Gar

This is set in the Addergoole ‘verse, whose landing page is here on DW & here on LJ, in year 9. Sylvia the Otter-girl is the character in the icon, by @Inventrix, shown here:
.
To say Gar was pissed would be to woefully underrepesent the situation.

He stood in the hallway, shaking. You don’t hit girls. You don’t hit girls. You don’t…

“You trapped me!” he shouted, fists clenched. Her otter-ers twitched, but her expression didn’t change.

“Don’t shout. Yes, I trapped you. You’re handsome and clever, and, with Arundel having gotten a new Kept, I find I miss having a warm presence in bed with me at night.”

“You…!” He couldn’t shout. What was more, he knew exactly why. “I’m your possession now,” he hissed angrily. She hadn’t told him not to explode, and he felt the rock quills coming to the surface. “You trapped me because you wanted a teddy bear.” Fury, denied the shouting, erupted in a cloud of red-rock spikes. “And made sure I knew exactly what was happening.”

“Ow.” The weak sound of it forced him to look down at her. At his Owner. At his Owner, lying on the floor, about a million tiny pieces of rock sticking out of her, bleeding little trickles everywhere and still managing to look mostly calm.

The collar provided him information: It is hard, although not impossible, to kill an Ellehemaei with conventional weapons. That takes hawthorn, rowan, or an innate power with those properties, although beheading has been known to work, as has removing the heart.

She wasn’t going to die. He was pretty sure that was a good thing.

Students who kill another student will be expelled and possible expunged, the collar informed him.

“Shut up, shut up,” he muttered. Rocks, he was good at. That was the first thing he’d started learning. “Abatu eperu,” he muttered, making all the piece of shrapnel vanish. He was better at transmute, but he was pretty sure she didn’t want diamonds sticking out of her, either. “Why me?” he muttered. “Couldn’t you just, you know, ask me to sleep with you?” He picked her up as carefully as he could, wincing at the blood smears.

“That is often mis-construed and even more often rejected,” she muttered weakly. “I wanted to be very clear.”

“Yeah, well, congrats. I think I was clear on my feelings on it, too?”

“Very,” she wheezed, and passed out.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/262914.html. You can comment here or there.

Exterminator

Feb8

For anke‘s prompt

Dragons Next Door has a landing page here.

Unusual calls were the norm in Steve’s line of work.

Ever since the non-human races had started moving into the cities in the mid-twenties, spurred by talk of prosperity and just in time for the Depression, the underbelly of the urban areas had been getting weirder and weirder.

Gone were the days when an exterminator could lay down some poison gas and call it good; gone were the days when cockroaches and rats were the biggest problems. Drets, tiny dragon-like insects, proliferated (and ate cockroaches, and sometimes started fires). Creels, about the size of a large mouse but armored like an armadillo, chewed through wires and ignored rat poison.

The family that called him Tuesday, however, thought they had a mundane infestation of termites. They’d heard scratching in the walls, and noticed some sawdust near an electrical outlet. Steve knew of seventeen things that could be, only two of which were more benign that termites, but if they wanted to insist they had small wood-eating insects, well, he’d come in and pretend he was looking for small wood-eating insects.

The wife hovered. He hated that sort, but what could he do? He set out his kit, ignored her worried fussing (“You won’t need any of that magical stuff. We just have bugs.”), and set to work finding out what was in their walls.

“Do you have to cut into the wall?”

“Yes, ma’am. This is where you said you had the problem?” He already knew it wasn’t termites, but he wasn’t sure exactly what it was.

“Right there, yes, all through this wall. That wallpaper was very expensive.”

“I’ll cut on a seam; it will be easier for the paperer to repair it that way.”

“You don’t…?”

“No, ma’am, that’s all in the contract you signed.” He sighed – they never read it – and went back to sawing into the supremely ugly wallpaper.

“Ey, ey! That’s my wall!” The tinny voice made Steve stop cutting; down by his toes, a tiny man – a Tiny man, to be specific, was shaking a fist at him. Steve grinned.

“Ma’am, I’ve found your problem, and it’s definitely out of my jurisdiction, but I can suggest a good co-habitation counselor.” He carefully picked up the Tiny man so that the client could see him. “You have Tinies.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/262800.html. You can comment here or there.

Icon ponderings!

Feb8

I hear that Djinni may be posting icons late today or tomorrow, which means that another icon day is coming which means…

…I need to pick icons to request.

Thoughts:
Ceinwen
Ahouva (problem: she has no Change)
Timora

Spring or Summer

Someone Cali? (Tricky keeping it sweet-and-innocent)

…something in Fae Apoc, not sure who though.

Telepathic purple Clydesdale

Another member of the Facets team

An Aunt, with a Cat (Caunt?)

Thoughts?

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/262587.html. You can comment here or there.