Archive | September 2012

Visit from School

Sep12

First of two I want to write for [personal profile] inventrix‘s prompt “Pellinore.”

This Pellinore has appeared in June Again,, Boom, and referenced in Legacy.

As first referenced in Loose Ends and Tying Off (these two stories reference slavery and mistreatment), the Addergoole staff make visits to graduated students to check up on them.

Cynara wasn’t surprised when Professors Drake and Pelletier showed up at her doorstep. By now the staff had to have noticed what she was doing, and, while she had gotten good marks for being one of the more level-headed students in her year, she was, after all, part of Boom. If anyone merited looking-in-on, it was her and her crew.

Pellinore, on the other hand, seemed both startled and upset when he opened the door. “Profe…” He stopped, as if unsure if saying that was giving away some secret. “What?”

“May we come in?” Trust Professor Drake to look over Pellinore’s shoulder like he wasn’t even there and ask Cya. She was glad the kids were with Leo today. She wasn’t sure this wouldn’t get unpleasant.

“Professor Drake, Professor Pelletier. Come on in. Pellinore, take their coats, would you? Can I get you something to drink, Professors?” Pretend everything is normal. Pretend there’s nothing to see here.

The Professors were less interested in pretend than they had been when Cya had been in school. “No drink, thank you. Pellinore, how are you doing?”

He glanced at Cya, then back at the Professor. Cya managed not to roll her eyes. A basic precaution could cover most of what the Professors were looking for. But she had nothing to hide. “Be honest with the Professors, but don’t feel the need to tell them anything you don’t want to.” She headed into the kitchen to get water anyway, giving him the pretense of privacy.

She could still hear them. She listened over the sound of the faucet as Pellinore coughed. “I’m all right. I don’t… I didn’t like getting caught. She trapped me,” he added, more quietly. “Like I was back in school.”

Professor Drake chuckled dryly. “That is what school is supposed to teach you to avoid.”

“Feu Drake.” Professor Pelletier was far less amused. “Does she treat you well, Pellinore?”

“Well, I’m Kept.” She could picture his shrug. “But she’s not a bad sort. Her kids are kinda wild.” He hesitated, and then continued more slowly, “but, ya know, if I was gonna be Kept again… I can live with this.”

“Is that because you believe you have no choice in the matter?”

Cya chose her Mentor’s question as a cue to re-enter, carrying four glasses of water on a tray. It was an interesting question, but she didn’t want them to get comfortable quizzing him.

Pellinore looked at her over his water glass, then glanced back at their former professors. She smiled, but didn’t try to send him any messages.

He coughed. “Way I see it, sir, ma’am, there’s been nothing we’ve done since we were conceived we had much choice in. Cya might be another trap, but she’s a nice one, at least.” He looked over Cya’s shoulder at the adults. “If you see JohnWayne or Pepper-Potts in your ‘visits,’ tell them their daddy says hello.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/401390.html. You can comment here or there.

Commute

Sep10

To [personal profile] anke and [personal profile] eseme‘s prompts

Alinara woke up just before dawn. The snow had been coming down heavily when she went to sleep, and the radio had said it was going to be just below freezing all night.

The chill in the air suggested the radio hadn’t been quite honest. She slid on a spare pair of pants before getting out of bed and dove into her fleece slippers. The cabin, with its thick, thick walls, didn’t lose heat quickly, but a hard freeze could hurt more than just her breath and joints.

She fumbled the matches twice before she managed to light the tinder, and then had to light the tinder three times to get it going. A strong draft kept whistling down the chimney, putting out her little flames.

The pipes hadn’t frozen, at least. She set a kettle on the stove while the fire got itself going, and washed her hair in the sink. She could take a nice hot bath when the drive was shoveled out.

She drank her first mug of tea while she got dressed in outdoor gear. By then, the cabin was starting to warm up, her breath no longer showing in the air. Reluctantly, Alinara stepped into the breezeway, shut the doors firmly behind her, and pulled the exterior door open.

The snow was hard-packed enough that it didn’t come tumbling in, which was both a good thing and a bad thing. Wishing for a flamethrower, Alinara climbed to the top of the drift, shut the door behind her, and started shoveling. With luck, she’d be able to clear her way to the bus stop with time left over for a bath. Normal back-to-nature sorts might be able to forgo day jobs, but she still needed to get into the office, rain, shine, or three feet of hard-packed snow.

When she’d gone out into the woods to find herself, she hadn’t imagined that the self she’d find would have quite so much upper-body strength.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/401127.html. You can comment here or there.

Addergoole T-shirts ideas – feedback wanted

Sep7

So, 3-1/2 years after starting the original serial, and one day after launching The New Serial, I finally have ideas for T-shirts.

My thoughts, such as they are:

A series with flat color or line-art of the Addergoole Coat of Arms on the front left chest, text below.
Text: STAFF, KEPT, KEEPER, and then cy'[Mentor]

I’m not sure about the back text for the first three, but for cy’Mentors, something like:

Linden’s Students
They who have the most toys[fun?] win.

Luca’s Students
Fight with honor
Love with honor
Live [die?] with honor

Valerian’s Students
Nature is sharper than it looks
and less forgiving

Pelletier’s Students
I can see your future.
It looks ugly/Do you want the bad news or the really bad news first?

Fridmar’s Students
[some variation on “what doesn’t kill you makes me stronger”]

Mendosa’s Students
I can see your problem now; you’re crazy
Would you like me to fix that?

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/400596.html. You can comment here or there.

Looking to commission tip jar art.

Sep5

I am looking to commission two tip jars for Addergoole: Year Nine.

Both in a cartoony style, rather than realistic.

* a glass jar with fingerprints, reading “Tips.”
* a book titled “story futures”

Anyone interested in quoting me a price for one or both?

Edit: Found! Thank you!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/399719.html. You can comment here or there.

Yesterday’s handwritten story, typed out

Sep4

Thanks to [personal profile] wispfox

If it had been Tolly who showed up, Kai thought, she might have
stood a change. They had never been able to really get away from him,
of course; they’d been raising his son for nearly 12 years. But Conrad
had also never forgiven him.
Kai wasn’t sure she had, either, but that burned quietly, in a place
she didn’t look at often.
If it had been Tolly, or Mark, or one of the later members of the
cy’ree, she might have had a change of keeping Conrad with her. He had
never, after all, been the most noble, most white Knight of the
cy’Luca bunch, by his own admission.
But it was Vlad, greenest of the White Knights, and Finn and Smitty,
who showed up at their cozy cottage. When she saw the mer-man armed
for battle, great axe with a wooden-edged blade hanging over his
shoulder, she knew she’d lost him.
“They’re destroying our world.” Finn spoke over her shoulder to
Conrad. “We have to stop them.”
“L.A., ” Smitty added. “There’s a Nedetakaci in L.A., claiming to
own the place.”
Technically, the Returned were not Nedetakaci, but Kai did not think
that cy’Luca – or Los Angeles – would appreciate the distinction. She
didn’t bother wasting her breath.
“Come back in twenty-four hours,” she said instead. “There’s a guest
house out back. You can stay there.”
“Conrad,” She’d thought Vlad at least would know better.
Conrad did. He put his arm around Kai’s shoulder, like they’d never
had their problems. “The Returned will still be there tomorrow, guys.
Come back in twenty-four.”
“I didn’t think she was still Keeping you.” Smitty didn’t seem
happy, if the ears were any indication.
“She’s not, not since school. Twenty-five hours.”
She didn’t ask if he knew it was good-bye. They both knew enough
seers – and they knew visions could be mutable. So she didn’t ask, and
neither of them said the word. Their children, more perceptive than
their mother ever had been, were well-behaved, almost somber.
Cy’Luca gave her the twenty-five hours, and then they took Conrad from her.
When they returned his plaid and his blade to her, it was Luke – and
only Luke – who did so. She cried where no one could see her, and, in
her icy cy’Regine way, went about her revenge.

—

It wouldn’t have been fair to say that Ty was adjusting well to her
collar. It was clear captivity chafed the gregarious hermaphrodite;
clearer still that enforced silence and chastity were making it
miserable.
Shahin had not worn a collar in 50 years, but she had Kept her
share, she and Emrys, over the decades. She did what she could bring
herself to do, to ease her captive’s anxiety. Still, it was two weeks
before she could allow Ty in her bed.
Ty stripped when ordered to, but the tease and flirtation had gone
out of its movements. She’d waited longer than she should have. Too
long? She didn’t want to return him broken to Regine. She still had
descendants going to that woman’s school.
“Come here, and take my clothes off as well.” She hated the hope she
saw in his eyes. She didn’t think she could give him what he wanted.
She could…
more to come!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/399195.html. You can comment here or there.

Unfunking my habitat

Sep3

So, thanks to a number of awesome people, I have been following Unfuck your Habitat.

It’s been helping get into small habits: wash the dishes every day(6 days out of 7, really), make the bed every day. The house is never Really Bad but it does tend to accumulate.

Today, I’d taken a short day to work on yard stuff, and then it rained, so I couldn’t work on the yard stuff OR sand the door. So I started working on getting rid of the finger marks on the cabinets & drawers. You know, those saponified (stop it Opera, that’s totally a word) marks around the handles where your fingers move over the wood over and over again?

And then I was down on the floor, and thought, while I’m down here….

So an hour later, 7 cupboard doors, 6 drawer fronts, the dishes, and three rows of tiles are clean, as well as the cats’ food area and the spots under the wire shelving.

I even dusted our water >.>

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/398954.html. You can comment here or there.