Archive | February 13, 2014

A selection of Addergoole microbits for the Giraffe Call

Feb13

So, I was looking at [personal profile] ysabetwordsmith‘s prompt here, and I asked Twitter for some ideas and then um you ended up with four microficlets.

One is Canon, Two could be, Three Might be, and Four is a definite AU.

All are Addergoole.

One

Luke was flapping in Regine’s office. Again. She set aside her papers and regarded her crewmate.

“Have you seen the reports?”

“I’ve seen the films.”

“Not those.” She tilted her head at a small pile of mostly-hand-written notes. “Those are from Williamsburg; the stack under them is from the former Washington State. Places whose survival has been smoother because of the presence of Addergoole graduates.”

She gestured at another pile. “These are the fatality figures for one hundred selected areas. Ten of them have active Addergoole graduates.

“Not to mention,” of course, “the survival rates of our graduates vs. that of the general population.”

Luke flapped again, but Regine was unfazed. “We are doing good here, Luca. We continue to do good for the world and for our students.”

Two

“You just have to learn to survive without him. It’s a one-day-at-a-time process, but you can do it.”

The matron was very kind. Keven appreciated her kindness, at the same time as he wanted to rip out her lying tongue. It was quite a contradiction, but, then again, this whole place was a contradiction.

“I’m bound to him.” He’d explained before. He’d explained every day he was in this place. “He’s my Keeper and he owns me. Without his say-so, I can’t just ‘let go.'”

“I know you think that, but it’s just a process of brainwashing that we can reverse. But you have to be willing.”

In the room next door, someone screamed. Keven felt like joining them.

Three

“It’s always better to be honest.”

The Addergoole South project wasn’t an official branch of the school, yet, but there were students they could pull in, and they were hoping for official accreditation soon –

    “It’s always better to be honest” was one of their main tenants, and one they had built right into the walls and the wards of the school.

    “Teacher? I don’t think I should have to learn this. It’s boring and, besides, I’m only going to be a despot when I graduate.”

    “No, Morley. I’m not interested in wearing your collar. You smell like a dead bat.”

    “…and that’s how we’ve set up the breeding program for maximum efficacy and best results. We got the idea out of a science fiction novel…”


– soon. As soon as they had the wrinkles worked out.

Four

Luke burst into the room, wings flaring and sword in his hand. “Put down the girl.”

Angus looked up at the Mara, then back down to his Kept. “…what?”

“Don’t act stupid, boy, you do well enough without acting. Giada, come here, be a good girl. Angus, you’re going to release her now.”

“…but I’m happy.”

“…but I didn’t do anything wrong to her.”

“That’s not what the tapes show. After what you did to her in the shower-“

“You were watching me in the shower?” The tiny girl shoved Luke and darted back to her Keeper. “Angus! Angus, he was watching me. In the shower.“

“I’m always watching everyone.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/667301.html. You can comment here or there.

February is World Building Month. Day Ten: Aunt Family

Feb13

[personal profile] piratekitten has declared February world-building month.

Every day in February (or most days), I will answer one question about any one of my settings.

The question post is here, please feel free to add more questions!

The tenth question comes from Kelkyag and is for The Aunt Family

Ruan seems to be in a different genre from the rest of the family, with scientific chemical/alchemical experimentation and enchanted mechanisms (as well as trapped spirits and whatnot else). What changed? (Or have we just not seen more recent Aunts at that sort of work?)

Good question!

Ruan was certainly more scientific-minded than many of her relatives, even in the era in which she lived.

Aunts tend to fall into two camps (truly, it’s more nuanced than that, but this is the short version): Those that accept the power, often those just considered a placeholder until a stronger Aunt can come along, and those that stretch the power to its limit.

However, the Aunts do not live in a vacuum, and what they do – and how they do it – is heavily influenced by the rest of their family, especially their mother, their grandmother, their predecessor, and their successors. So an Aunt who lives in a repressive family is either going to end up quiet and unassuming, not pushing the magic far at all, or, like Zenobia, end up pushing everything as far as she can in hopes of finding new limits and then breaking those.

It is likely that, given a little more time, Evangaline is likely to start exploring the limits of the family power, reading into old notes, and learning what others before her have done before.

(As a side note: Ruan had huge impetus, in what her non-Aunt-aunt had left her; she had to figure out what to do with all those ghosts. So far, nothing quite that big has spurred Eva).

Short answer: the scientific urge runs in the family, but in some cases it is far stronger than others.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/666998.html. You can comment here or there.

February is World Building Month. Day Nine: Unicorn/Factory

Feb13

[personal profile] piratekitten has declared February world-building month.

Every day in February (or most days), I will answer one question about any one of my settings.

The question post is here, please feel free to add more questions!

The ninth question comes from Kelkyag and is for Unicorn/Factory

What do the factories produce? (Other than pollution …)

The factories in the Unicorn/Factory setting are very early Industrial Era for this world. Whatever ulterior motives the Governors (dun-dun-dun!) or the Administrators have, the Factories were developed and built to provide basic consumable goods in a mass-produced fashion.

Among the things produced in the four Towns and the central capitol are: fabric, clothing, farm tools, machine tools, and weapons.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution

Many of these tools are labor-savers, taking time and effort off the shoulders of farmers and laborers who can then do other things.

And if they could come to a more comfortable accord with the Unicorns, the ‘Corns could actually work very effectively as air- and waste-scrubbers. However, that would require not having chained them in the first place….

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/666730.html. You can comment here or there.

Pirates and Bad People

Feb13

This is to kelkyag‘s and cluudle‘s prompt here to my February Giraffe Call.

It takes part in my Space Accountant ‘Verse.

Names from Fourteen Minutes’ name generator.

It was easy, when the ship wasn’t raiding, for Genique to forget that she worked for pirates.

It wasn’t even that hard when the ship was raiding, because support staff like Genique were locked into their rooms while the raids happened, for reasons that were entirely unclear but that, to be fair, Genique didn’t look too closely at that lack-of-clarity. Numbers were where she focused.

It was very easy to focus on those numbers. The ship had such a tangle of them, such a jury-rigged bureaucracy, as if they had just picked someone and given them an office and a budget any time a need came up – and, looking at this place, they very likely had done just that.

So, when Genique was meeting withCleonorayen Clyd and a strange man walked in, it did not faze her or strike her as strange – until Clyd was bowing and so Genique was too. Clyd was the First Mate; that meant this had to be-

“Captain Anson.” Clyd rose from her bow.

“Who’s the new girl?” The captain didn’t look like a pirate, although none of them really did. He was clean-shaven, snappily dressed…

“Genique, sir. She’s an accountant.”

“Everyone starts in the Pit. Or in my cabin.”

“Yes, sir, but she’s been helping with the books.”

“Everyone starts in the Pit, Mate. Everyone. Send her to the Pit.”

Genique cleared her throat and risked a full glance at the Captain. Ten earrings in one ear, seven in the other; his skin was golden brown under black hair; his eyes were blue like the sky she could barely remember. Jayssey, then, and she was wearing no jewelry at all.

“If this one might be permitted to speak to the Captain?”

“Speak.” He was smiling, and his voice was amused. Good.

“This one has already done time in the Pit.” The Pit-Master had given what he called the short tour, but it had been twenty-four hours she would not forget.

“Yeah?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then I guess you’re coming to my cabin.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/666475.html. You can comment here or there.

So, um, Winter.

Feb13

Yesterday, we (mostly Spousal Unit) got to deal with a new facet of home ownership: frozen pipe!

Well, technically, broken pipe due to freezing.

It turns out that one pipe in the utility room (going to the heating system) was originally, or at least as of the last iteration, run just under the threshold of the back door, which tends to be a bit air-leaky. Yesterday was one of those supercold mornings, and thus, by mid-afternoon, Pop!

That was an expense we weren’t expecting.

On a hopefully-less-urgent note, Theocracy has been acting listless and floppy, although he’s still eating and taking in fluids. So vet appt. this afternoon to see what’s up with the fluffer.

So… I’m still taking commissions via my Giraffe Call, although now the funds will go to Unexpected Expenses Fund, February Version.

In happier news, Meritocracy, the adopted little sister of Theocracy and Oligarchy, has discovered catnip and she thinks it’s awesome. She also is fairly certain the tall coyotes (us) are probably not going to eat her, and the fireplace is the most wonderful thing in the world, thanks.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/666166.html. You can comment here or there.