Archive | February 26, 2012

Giraffe Update!

Feb26

Since the last Giraffe Update, I have written:

For February’s Call LJ:
Stranded
Not That Kind Of Girl (LJ)
Vas
Vinting Love (LJ)
One Off:
Bleed it Out (LJ)
Rose Petals (LJ)
Twelve Roses and One (no xpost)
Pure Snow White (LJ)
Tír na Cali
Second Pressing (LJ)
Addergoole:
Love and Hospitality (LJ)
Yr8
Thorny Disposition (LJ)
Planting Seeds (LJ)
Planners ‘verse
Rose of the City (LJ)

For the Aunt Call:
Bless the Cat (LJ)
Passing the Cat (LJ)

For January’s Call:
Unicorn-Chased (LJ)
Addergoole
Mission to Paris (LJ)
Fae Apoc:
Getting Over History (LJ)
Presented ()
Fairy Town
Meeting Mr. Ting (LJ)

Non-Giraffe: Wolf in the Circle (LJ)

OTHER:
Alder By Post (LJ): the second issue is out!

I’ve rewarded myself (LJ) – things the Giraffe Call has helped fund!

Signals Boosted! (LJ)

Call for Call Ideas!! (LJ) – I need ideas for upcoming Giraffe Calls!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/284957.html. You can comment here or there.

Rose of the City, a story of the Planners Verse for the Giraffe Call

Feb26

For [personal profile] eseme‘s prompt.

Planners ‘Verse has a landing page here.

In part inspired by this article.

“But the regulations clearly say that we can grow plants on our balconies, so long as we stay within the weight regulations. There’s no call on what sort of plants, the aesthetic value thereof, or if Mrs. Taylor upstairs can’t spy on me anymore.” Ashley’s arguments were by necessity well-reasoned-out and backed up by facts, which wouldn’t stop the super, of course, if he decided he really had an axe to grind. She was hoping the Mrs. Taylor thing would swing it, though.

“She says the thorns pricked her.”

“She was leaning over trying to push them out of the way if they did. Look, Aaron, sir, you and I both know how she is. And the roses…”

“They make a very nice screen, I agree. And they’re very pretty, and they hide everything else you’re growing here.” He looked over the three by ten balcony with raised eyebrows. “Quite an impressive set-up. You could feed a family of five with this.”

“Nah, but it does help.” She looked over the set-up with a smile, the roses trained up on nearly-invisible rope trellises to create a screen against the neighbor on the north, the compact compost pile masquerading as a table, the vegetables growing in planters hung four high in a complex PVC frame. Beyond her garden, the city, with all its crowded urban stink, stared back at her, but the garden helped mask that. “It helps remind me of home.”

“You’re a long way from it, aren’t you?” He patted her shoulder in a way that she should have minded but really didn’t. “All right. I’ll tell Mrs. Taylor to stuff it. You can keep your garden, honey.”

“Thanks, Aaron.” She decided today was not the day to tell him about the angora rabbits living in the second bedroom or the mushrooms in that closet. “You’re a great guy.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/284926.html. You can comment here or there.

Planting Seeds

Feb26

For [profile] stryck‘s prompt.
Addergoole has a landing page here and a wiki here.

Content warning: mayyyybe implied heavy flirtation?

Two weeks after Thorny Disposition (LJ)

Phillipa sat in Professor Valerian’s office, very carefully picking the rose hips from her hair and popping the seeds out of them, dropping the roses into a tall bottle.

“There was a student,” the Professor told her, “a few years back. Nikita. A similar Change to yours – he grew grapes. I know that he and his Keeper made wine from his grapes, but it was, for them, an intimate affair.”

Keeper. She had heard that word a few times in the last couple weeks, but she hadn’t quite gotten the gist of it yet. Her new friends seemed to shy away from the topic whenever she brought it up, and so did others, people in class who were so forthcoming about other things, other Eighth Cohorts who were suddenly shy and not talking at all… “Keeper?” Maybe her Mentor would tell her something.

The Professor pursed her lips. “His girlfriend,” she qualified. “Shiva. You know Efrosin? His half-sister.” She reached over and carefully plucked one of Phillipa’s berries. “It can be, I’m told, an immensely intimate experience.”

Phillipa blushed hotly. Intensely intimate… It was as if the professor was reading her mind, her daydreams and fantasies. “I can imagine?” she offered cautiously. “I mean, this is part of me, right?” She stripped the fruit and offered the meaty bits to the older woman, studying her Mentor’s lips and not her eyes.

“It is,” the professor agreed, licking the berry from Phillipa’s fingers. “I wonder what would happen if we planted the seeds?”

Now, she could manage to look her teacher in her amazingly-green eyes. “Let’s find out.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/284439.html. You can comment here or there.

Passing the Cat, a story of the Aunt Family for the Mini-Giraffe Call

Feb26

For rix_scaedu‘s commissioned prompt, after That Damn Cat (LJ) and Bless the Cat (LJ).

Aunt Family has a landing page here on DW and here on LJ

Zenobia had held on to a hundred and ten, not because she really was enjoying life anymore, not even with every charm she could come up with, but simply to irritate her family.

This also meant that her niece was not young and, possibly, Zenobia considered, rather irritated as well, which hadn’t really been her point. Of the seventeen potentials, Elenora had always been her favorite niece for the position, and she’d made an effort, as much as she did with anyone, at least, to be friendly with the girl.

Girl. She chuckled into her tea. The girl in question was now in her mid-seventies, hale and hearty but prone to be a bit crotchety. And Zenobia was at the end of her ability or desire to hold on any longer, so she was having a long talk with her niece.

“This,” she said, about two hours and four cups of tea in, “is The Cat.” The Damn Cat allowed himself to be picked up in a way he never would have tolerated in her younger days. “You will find that he neither likes to tell you about himself nor to be talked about.”

“Yes, Aunt Zennie.” Elenora had taken on the family’s annoying habit of talking to her as if she was a little gone in the brain. Zenobia whacked the woman over the knuckles with her tarot deck as if she was a wayward child.

“If you’re going to be the next Aunt – and you are – you might as well know what you’re doing,” she scolded. “Pay attention and stop acting as if I’ve gone batty.”

“And what if you have?” she snapped back. “Talking to your cat? What’s next, talking to your tea? Having conversations with the lawn furniture?”

“Your Aunt Fabiana talked to her settee quite frequently in her mid-thirties. It told her all sorts of things her husband was up to behind her back. My point is, young lady, you might be a little more willing to believe things when you’re a member of this family and have been for seventy-three years.”

Elenora glared back at her. “I’m perfectly willing to believe normal things like demons and ghosts, the tarot and charms, but Aunt Zenobia, you’re talking about talking to your cat!”

“Yes I am,” she hissed, “and you would do well to listen.”

“You would,” The Damn Cat finally deigned to say. “I have helped your Aunts more than you can imagine.”

“My… Aunts. Plural.” Elenora studied The Cat thoughtfully. “You are, then, not an ordinary cat.”

“I should say not.” He groomed himself pointedly. “Not in any way. But I am still, miss, a cat. I like cream, and chicken. And the occasional slice of beef.”

“He is a very pampered cat,” Zenobia admitted, “but he has more than earned his keep and, Elenora, I think he will do the same for you.” She looked her niece in the eye. “There are many things I will leave you, because you will be the Aunt. The Cat, I am leaving to you because you are my heir.”

Next: Legacy Cat (LJ)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/284206.html. You can comment here or there.

Thorny Disposition

Feb26

For [personal profile] clare_dragonfly‘s prompt.
Addergoole has a landing page here and a wiki here.

Addergoole, Hell Night Year Eight

The halls were dark and creepy, and Phillipa had gotten horribly turned around. She didn’t know where she was, or even how she had gotten there, and she didn’t really know, now, where she wanted to go.

Some giant minotaur had been bearing down on her when she’d slipped and gone twisting down some sort of slide. She’d barely avoided something that looked like a mechanical monster and gotten hit with three squirt guns of stinky, gooey something, and now she was sitting in a tiny box that had the pleasant advantage of being quiet and well-lit but the disadvantage of letting her know exactly how badly she’d gotten drenched. Her heart was still pounding, and her palms and butt felt as if she’d scraped them really, really badly. She really should move, but she knew, if she went back out there, it would just get worse.

The door to her box opened, and a short, cheerful girl stuck her head in. “Phillipa, right? I’m Caity. We’re in the same PE together, remember?”

Caity, unlike a lot of the students here, still looked mostly like Caity, if a bit sharper-edged. Phillipa nodded uncertainly. “Yes? What’s going on?”

The tiny girl was looking at her sharply. “Are you in pain?”

“I think I scraped myself a little bit…”

“I’d say so! Here, stand up, you look like you’re bleeding.” Caity took her hand, very gingerly, and tugged her out of the box. “You’ve fallen into our protective custody trap. I hope you don’t mind too much, but it looks like it stressed you out a bit?”

“A bit,” she winced. “It shows that badly?”

“Well, here.” She reached behind her and took a mirror from… Phillipa wasn’t really sure from where, actually. “Look for yourself.”

“What? I know I’m all coated in goo… oh.” In the mirror, she saw a stranger. Her eyes, but greener than hers had ever managed except with contacts. Her nose, but narrower, her lips, but redder, her hair, but… tangled with vines, somehow. And her fingers were longer, sharper, or something, and along her arms…. “Are those thorns?”

“Technically, on a rose, they’re called prickles. I wonder if you’ll be able to hold onto things better with them?”

“I… rose, what?”

“Well,” the tiny girl smiled, “it makes sense. You’re pretty, with a bit of a thorny disposition.”

“I am not…. am I really?”

“A little.” Caity patted her shoulder. “But it’s okay. we’re all a bit victim to our biology.”

next! Planting Seeds (LJ)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/284018.html. You can comment here or there.

Call for Call Ideas!

Feb26

I am, unless I want to do something about the misappropriation of cultural heritage or the evolution of holidays over different cultures for March or April, out of seasonal ideas for Giraffe Calls!

So, my fine readers: please give me suggestions, here, for Giraffe Call Themes.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/283875.html. You can comment here or there.