Archive | August 18, 2012

Auntie Kitty, a story for the August Giraffe Call

Aug18

For kelkyag‘s prompt

After Kitten Troubles.

Aunt Family have a landing page here.

The mother cat wouldn’t stop meowing, but neither would she get close enough to Radar to take her kitten back. The kitten, having spoken once, was going back to upset mewling. And Radar looked immensely lost.

“You’ve never fathered a speaking cat before?”

“Never.”

“In all of your unspoken years?”

“Not once. Not until her.”

“Mirrowl.”

“Mirrow-ow-ow-owl.”

Beryl picked up the momma cat, mindful that, as with all cats, she could consist entirely of sharp ends should she wish. “Can you talk to her?”

“She won’t listen to me. She might listen to you.”

“You’re the cat.”

“You’re the Aunt.” He coughed, somehow. “Err. -in-training.”

“Yeah.” She counted that as worry-about-later and looked down at the distressed momma cat now squirming in her lap. “Okay. Radar, put the kitten down on the bed. Kitten, stay on the bed. Talk to your momma. Momma cat, your baby is fine. Weird, but fine.”

She set the cat down carefully, and stroked her behind the ears, thinking soothing thoughts. “Weird but fine. I’m afraid if you’re going to be a mother in this family, you’re going to have to learn to get used to that. Does she have other daughters, at least, Radar?”

“She has other kittens.” Radar set the kitten down carefully, and backed off a few paces. The mother cat went from cautious purring to growling until he backed off more, almost to the edge of the bed. “My daughter is not a Auntie, girl. She is…” He made a very cat noise, a very uncertain noise. “Impossible. But not an Auntie.”

She looked between the momma cat, the kitten, and her magic cat, all three pictures of feline distress, and wondered what she was supposed to do with this.

::You have to wonder,:: the necklace mused, ::why the idea of her being an Aunt bothered him so much.::

Next – http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/529730.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/390455.html. You can comment here or there.

Fifty-Second, A story for the Giraffe Call

Aug18

For rix_Scaedu‘s prompt

Fae Apoc has a landing page here.

The streets were less wild than it seemed like they ought to be.

Marietta and Dominic slipped through the crowds, as noticed as they felt like being, as always. There were fae on the TV, returned gods and calling themselves exactly that. It seemed like cities ought to be falling into the sea, like Atlantis, or going up in flames, like Pompeii. It shouldn’t feel like an ordinary Saturday night.

“…bunch of nutjobs. Bunch of crazies, that’s all.” The girl in too little too-bright clothing had too-loud opinions, and her companions seemed willing to agree to anything she said.
“Gods. Who do they think they are?”

Marietta and shared a look that was half disgust, half interest. She might be fun, if they washed the makeup off. If only she could be coaxed to shut up.

“Ugh, my mother’s calling again. A-GAIN.”

Too much trouble, and besides, they were on a mission tonight. O had sent them out in the streets, looking for something (or someone) he called Mandrake Mauve.

“What does Lute know, anyway?” The name caught their attention – not the too-bright girl but one of her friends, muttering to his bored-looking buddy. “Mandrakes. Just roots, after all. Might as well bring home a parsnip.”

If Lute was sending his people out, and O had sent them out, chances were Catnip had sent out her people, too. And the only clue they had was the fifty-second card.

“We’d better be getting on.” Dom did something complicated with the straps of his bondage pants. “The first Fifty-One await.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/390344.html. You can comment here or there.

Wake Up Where? A story for the Giraffe Call

Aug18

For stryck‘s prompt

Fae Apoc has a landing page here.


All My Friends Say

You know I don’t remember a thing
But they say I sure was raisin’ some cain
I was a rock star, party hard
Gettin’ over you comeback kid
Hey I musta did
What all my friends say

Jordan woke slowly, with a dull, niggling headache that just wanted to tell him all its problems, a whining thing that suggested he’d drank too much last night.

Last night. Last night, he had gone to The 51 Cards, because even if the news wanted to scream about people who thought they were Athena and Thor, he didn’t think it was worth not drinking over. He’d sat down next to a lovely girl with the best tattoos he’d seen in a long time. He’d ordered a drink.

He opened his eyes. The light was dim, and he couldn’t see much, but the shapes of the shadows suggested it wasn’t his room at home. So far, no surprises. He reached out one arm, and found the edge of the bed. The other arm found a nightstand, and nobody in bed with him. That was a bit of a surprise, but not horrible. He sat up, and swung his feet over the edge of the bed.

Even in the faint light, he could see that something was wrong. His feet were fuzzy, blurry. Was his vision off? Drinking enough to kill his memory could do that. He reached for the nightstand, found no lamp, but there was something… yes, a flashlight.

The bright LED bulbs revealed the room to be tiny, more of a cube than a room, with no furniture but the bed and the nightstand, no windows, and no discernible door. More immediately important, they revealed that his feet were missing.

“The hell!” The shout didn’t make his head hurt more, but it did echo unpleasantly. He’d woken up missing clothes before (not this time), his wallet (still there), his pride and his virginity (still missing), but never before had he looked down and seen mist where his feet were supposed to be.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/389982.html. You can comment here or there.

Kitten Troubles, a story of the Aunt Family for the August Giraffe Call

Aug18

For dahob‘s prompt

After Charming, Kitten Switch, and Boy Trouble

Aunt Family have a landing page here.

Beryl didn’t worry when Radar wandered off. He was a cat, for one, a tom cat (who would dare get a magical cat neutered? Besides, he knew better than to mark in the house), and he was a magical being on top of that.

When he’d been gone for a week, she started to get a bit concerned, and, although her necklace berated her for it, she started to miss him, too.

::He’ll be back when he’s ready,:: necklace-Joseph reassured her. ::He’ll come slinking back and slide into your life like he’d never left, like that boy.::

“Enough about the boy.” She wanted to glare at the necklace, but what good would that do. “Radar…”

“I have a problem.” Never was her cat’s ability to talk without moving his mouth more clear; he walked in with a kitten scruffed in his mouth, a siamese-looking kitten who was mewling unhappily. Behind him, a black cat Beryl recognized from Crazy Aunt Beatrix’s collection followed, yowling angrily at him.

“You stole a kitten?”

::I told you he was no good.::

“I did not steal her. I fathered her. And she has been getting in no end of trouble.”

“You’re a tom cat, isn’t that what you do?” She ignored Joseph’s inveigling, letting it fade to the buzzing of bees in her mind. The mother cat was harder to ignore. “Can you let her have her kitten back?”

“It’s too late for that.” This was a new voice, a lavender-and-tea voice, young, female, and very prissy. The kitten in Radar’s mouth was staring at her. “I’m here now.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/389887.html. You can comment here or there.