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sharpeningthebones has opened a Fiction Carnival! The Theme: Fairytales and mysteries. Leave up to three aspects of the story you’d like to see, and StB will write ~125 words. Tip for more fic.
And itsamellama is holding a Mini Art Sale. Paper bead jewelry, stickres, and ACEOs are available.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/629448.html. You can comment here or there.
To rix_scaedu‘s prompt to my Orig_fic Bingo card; this fills the “Favorite Place” square.
Autumn and Summer (and Bishop and Melinda) are characters in my Stranded World setting; this story is later in their lives than most of the stories.
“Let me show you this place.”
Summer watched her sister. She had been watching her sister much of her life, it seemed; the way she moved, the way she smiled, the way she seemed to dance through life without a care. She watched the way Autumn smiled with her mouth without smiling with her body; she watched the way she flirted shamelessly and almost never carried through, and the way, when she carried through, it was a dance of the body, without the heart.
Summer had been watching Autumn and Winter forever, picking and choosing what parts she wanted to emulate, and then parts she wanted to throw away (On some level, she knew that Spring did the same with all three of them, though with Spring it looked as if she was throwing away everything, just to confuse and confound them all).
This year, she was spending the summer, or at least part of it, with her sister and her own lovers, which lent a certain color-commentary feel to the whole art of watching Autumn.
“Is she…” Bishop whispered it in Summer’s ear, which cause Mellie to squirm closer on the other side.
“Hssst. Wait and see.” Summer adjusted her bodice – this silly Ren stuff Autumn insisted on; maybe this year she’d splurge on one that fit properly. Two, one for her and Mellie would look lovely in a wench dress, maybe…
“A place?” The man had been hanging around Autumn’s booth for the entire weekend; he’d wander away to hang out with his friends and slowly gravitate back to admire the art, to admire Autumn’s ink, to admire Autumn herself when she wasn’t looking. “But your booth?”
“Well.” Autumn’s breath hitched, the cut of her vest making it obvious. “You could always come back after the Faire closed. It’s prettier by moonlight, after all.”
“Mmmmm, look at the way he watches her.” Mellie was nearly purring. “Good thing we brought our own tent.”
Summer was smiling, but inside she was cheering, albeit a bit nervously. In all the years she had been coming to this Faire with her sister, never had she known Autumn to show a lover – or anyone but kin, actually – her favorite place.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/629191.html. You can comment here or there.
To clare_dragonfly‘s prompt to my Orig_fic Bingo card; this fills the “Unwelcome Guest” square.
Baram and his family are part of the “Baram’s House Elves” sub-series of the Addergoole ‘verse, which can be found here; Baram is also a background character in Addergoole.
There wasn’t so much a war anymore, as far as they could tell.
They didn’t get any TV anymore, local or cable or anything else. The radio they heard these days was sporadic at best, and there would be weeks where there wasn’t anything at all.
But they hadn’t seen a returned god in several months, they hadn’t seen an army soldier in the last month, and they hadn’t seen another Ellehemaei in a couple weeks. They had gotten a couple human refugees – they were a standing house with a standing wall and hedge, burning lights and smoke in the chimney – but the girls fed and equipped them and sent them on their way, if they were over eighteen, and added them to the child collection, otherwise.
Baram liked it that way. He liked the quiet, and he’d found that he didn’t mind all the kids around. Liked them, actually, if he was going to be honest… and he had space in his head to be honest, now.
(Which might have been because of the children, actually, something else he said only in his own head.)
There wasn’t so much of a war anymore… but there wans’t so much of a world anymore, either. That bothered the girls, Baram’s angels, and it bothered the children, but it didn’t really bug Baram all that much. He had his family, he had his house, and nobody bothered them here.
“Boss! Someone’s at the door!” Alkyone’s voice echoed through the house. “Trouble, I think.”
“Trouble.” Baram liked his armchair. It was soft, and comfortable, and normal. But he levered himself out of it before he was finished saying Trouble? “Kids?”
“Got ’em.” Viatrix slapped the Swish-boy on the ass. “Aloysius, get the kids and take them down to the safe room.”
“Yes ma’am.” Jaelie’s boy did have some use, at least in a pinch.
“Sword.” It wasn’t the first time they’d had unwanted guests. Baram took the sword from Viatrix’s hand. “Jacket.” He shrugged it on. He was tough, all the way through, but there were things, they’d found, for which it didn’t hurt to have an extra level of protection. “Stake.” They weren’t vampire hunters… but they’d hunted vampires. “Okay. Door.”
Via swung the door open… and Baram shifted the sword into a guard position.
“Oh, come on, is that any way to greet an old classmate?” Ardell and Delaney stood on his stoop, leaning on each other’s shoulders and looking like they’d stepped out of a leather magazine.
Barm shifted his feet a bit further apart. “Yes.”
Continued: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/675139.html
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/628825.html. You can comment here or there.
To @Dahob’s prompt to my origfic bingo card: this fills the [text/exam] square.
This may be in the “Space/Colonies” verse but I am uncertain.
“This is how we’ve tested since the dawn of time.”
Ruttiger’s mother, the Dame Anne Halloran, was adamant. Ruttiger himself was not quite as confident. “Are you sure it’s needed, mother? To test her for a witch…?” He was, after all, rather fond of the girl in question; he was also a pragmatic young man, and did not really wish to be tarred by association.
“I am certain.” Dame Halloran put down her booted foot with a thump. “She has shown all the signs.”
The girl in question was not in the room; that wouldn’t have been proper. Dame Halloran’s seven sisters had her in the back room of the chapel, going through the cleansing rituals that were nearly as old as the test.
“She’s still young. You could be mistaken.” Ruttiger really did want to be cautious. He was speaking hunched, shoulders forward; he was quite a bit taller than his mother, which was exactly what he didn’t want to remind her of at the moment.
“If she is so young as to be too young for the test, Ruttiger Mensen Halloran, then she is far too young for you to be stepping forward as her champion or her luger. You’re nearly a man grown.”
Nearly was both too close and good enough. Ruttiger sighed, and lowered his head in respect. “I worry about her, mother. I don’t want her hurt.”
“The test has been used since humankind was sprung here. It will be used until we are gone. It is the way things are, my son, and sooner or later you will have to accept it.” She patted his hand. “You will have daughters some day, and they will have to be tested, too, if they show the signs. They will have to stare at the fire, just as I did, just as Renia will. They will have to be tested for a witch. Don’t you want a wife who has passed the test herself?”
Ruttiger sighed. As always, his mother was right. She set the field of battle; it was easy for her to win. “Yes, mother.”
“Very good. Now go take your seat, young man. The testing is just about to begin.”
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/628251.html. You can comment here or there.
2,794 words total, 1,276 words yesterday.
This is weird.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/628000.html. You can comment here or there.
anke has clearly been spying on my gardening! Read "Homegrown Food," a short slice-of-life story.
And rix_scaedu hits the nail on the head again with "First of Her Kind"
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/627942.html. You can comment here or there.
To rix_scaedu‘s prompt to my daily bonus from ![[community profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
dailyprompt.
There weren’t any witnesses, which helped matters, just three fuzzy surveillance vids and circumstantial evidence: Dr. Potter had motive; he’d been seen walking into the building, and he’d called the cops when it was all over and been first on the scene, hands covered in blood as he tried to hold Dr. Ahluwalia’s life into her body.
Dr. Ahluwalia’s last words had been not particularly helpful, either. “You bastard. I know…”
Of course, Dr. Potter and Dr. Ahluwalia were both employed by Those Madmen in the Tower, so there was no knowing what the late Doctor had known. And, while the police swore that they’d seen Dr. Potter for a moment as they arrived – long enough to hear those words – 1700 of the world’s best and brightest scientists were willing to testify in court that he’d been in another city at the New Ideas and Orthodoxies (NIO) Conference, giving a speech on ends vs. means. Dr. Ahluwalia had intended on attending, but backed out at the last minute, which the police felt sounded suspicious.
Even more suspicious, however, was the topic of Dr. Potter’s speech: On the ethics of cloning and the uses thereof; What to Do With Yourself.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/627670.html. You can comment here or there.
Today’s prompt is "a clone".
Now accepting up to three prompts (total) for this theme. Closed!
Bonus points if they dovetail with a square of my OrigFic bingo card
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/627217.html. You can comment here or there.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/626830.html. You can comment here or there.
| Knifeplay | Orgasm denial | Case!fic | Eating disorder | Office / workplace |
| Atonement | Crack!fic | Torture | High school / college | Oral sex |
| De-aging | Bodyswap | WILD CARD | Comfort food / comfort item | Grief |
| Tentacles | Difficult pregnancy | Bet / dare | Trapped | Unexpected pregnancy |
| Werewolves | Friends with benefits | Mental illness | Arranged marriage | Organised crime |
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/639028.html. You can comment here or there.