Archive | May 14, 2012

May Giraffe Call with Extra Second Prompt Winner!

My May Giraffe Call is open (and on LJ). The theme is Origins and Creations.

For every $25 donated, I will choose at random a prompter and write an additional prompt for them.

We are $9 from the $50 level!

For the $25 level, the winner is [personal profile] becka_sutton!!

I am still taking prompts!


Donate below

Art by Djinni!
I also take payment by Dwolla

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/340339.html. You can comment here or there.

When the Storm Came

For flofx‘s prompt.

After Creation Story. Thanks to @Anke and @inventrix for help coming up with the idea.

“And when I came to, well, I was kind of part of the machine…”

Cobalt Deus, who called herself Eve at home, listened to the young members of her team talk about their so-called origins, how they had gotten the “sparks” that kept them going.

Silently, from the corner where she watched most things, she shot blue sparks between her fingers, the sparks that gave her both her “superhero name” and her power, and thought about the storm that wouldn’t end.

She had been young, barely past her menses, and mankind had likewise been in its early teenaged years, struggling with the concepts of reality, morality, permanence and transcendence. The storm had been, she had later learned, the product of sorcerers in the next town over, working not out of malice, but in a desire to bring water to their own valley’s fields.

Weather magic was then, and continued even into the modern age to be, the most dangerous and most volatile of the high arts. Cobalt Deus had spent millenia quietly eliminating those who refused to learn this.

There had been nothing left of the next town over except one scared child, and very little more left of “Eve’s” village, when the storm passed. It had rained for weeks, thundered, and shot lightning at every raised thing, poured until the rivers flooded, until the buildings burned, until “Eve” and her few surviving family could no longer count the time, because there was no light through the clouds to tell the day from night. It had rained until they had given up the thought of life altogether… and then the lightning had touched them.

There had been five of them holed up in a cave high on the hillside. Of them, only “Eve” had survived the lightning, making her and four who had been on another hill the only members of their town alive. And Eve had been marked by the storm.

Cobalt Deus stared at the lightning between her fingers. The children spoke of their creation stories, embarrassed that they weren’t dramatic enough. Cobalt, who had been living under the storm that would not end for longer than mankind kept records, wished, herself, for an origin and a life that had been less marked, and less dramatic. She hoped the children never reached the point where they, too, wished that.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/340009.html. You can comment here or there.

Being First, a story for the May Giraffe Call (@shutsumon)

For [profile] shutsumon‘s prompt

This, ah, came out a bit odd. Sorry!

Ayam was lonely.

Lonely, that was a new word. Ayam had made it up, sounding out things until it found something that worked. Lonely, the feeling of being alone in the world.

There were the others, of course. The long-limbed creatures from who Ayam had been born certainly thought of it as one of theirs. But Ayam could not talk with them, could not share ideas with them. Ayam needed a companion.

The going was hard. Ayam first tried taking a baby from the creatures when newborn and raising it, talking to it, trying to teach it. Whatever had happened in Ayam’s case, however, didn’t hold true. The stolen babies could not learn to do more than parrot speech, and that awkwardly.

Lightning? Lightning was an early memory of Ayam’s, but when exposed to the bright flashing shockiness, the children – or the older creatures, Ayam tried everything – only ran away, or died, or sat there twitching for several days before dying. And Ayam was still alone, and still lonely.

Ayam made up writing, to scratch out everything h’ was feeling, to scratch out all of its experiments. And then Ayam had to create paper and ink, because the rocks h’ drew on were not easy to carry around. And then a way to put the paper together into books, long tubes wrapped in hide. And then came tanning, to make the hides last longer. Ayam was keeping busy, slowly busy, but Ayam was still, at its core, so very lonely.

And then, into the valley where Ayam had retreated when the creatures grew too loud, another creature walked. This one had fur that was pink-streaked, in a way Ayam had never seen before. It stood upright, the way Ayam had learned how to. And it was carrying in its paws a pile of tools, which Ayam had never seen any creature but itself use.

And foremost in that pile of tools was a spear. Ayam, muttering to itself, began to create a new word. Oh, Shit.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/339882.html. You can comment here or there.

Sick Kitty

My Draker has a fever. :-/ We took him to the vet’s on Saturday, and they said his kidneys are fine, his heart is fine. They gave him fluids and gave us an appetite stimulant and an if-this-is-an-infection drug.

But he’s not eating barely at all, barely drinking… so we’re going to take him back to the vet’s to let them take care of him until he gets better.

People, I’m worried. I’m beside myself with worry. I know the vets will take good care of my cat… but I’m terrified it won’t be enough.

Keep him in your thoughts, please. :-/

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/339622.html. You can comment here or there.