Tower, a story of post-apoc Ag for the OrigFic Bingo

This is to @inventrix and Sky’s twitter prompts to my December OrigFic card; this fills the “Tower” square.

It is set in post-apoc Addergoole-world, not in the school, sometime around year 50 of the school, with new characters.

“What do I do, what do I do?”

Leontyne was in the habit of talking to herself. It wasn’t a particularly good habit, but it wasn’t her worst habit by far, and her children were fond of it, as, they said, it telegraphed her pretty darn well.

Her children. Addergoole had gotten the first two, because that’s what happened. And it wasn’t as if Leontyne’s experiences there had been horrible. But now her third child was coming of age, the first two still in Addergoole – and her third, Jerome, had been born outside of the auspices and breeding programs of her alma mater.

“What to do, what to do?” She had very little faith in the Tarot, not like the woman who’d raised her had; she wasn’t a precog, as far as she could tell, wasn’t a seer of any sort. But she used it the way she used the dice and sometimes even the Bible, as a randomizer for decision-making. She tapped the edge of the deck on her small table. “Where to go. Where to go.”

“Mom, you’re doing it again.” Jerome poured her a cup of tea. He was a good boy, when he wasn’t getting into trouble – so, for about fifteen minutes awake, and then when he was asleep, much like her older two. He’d be a hell-raiser in Addergoole or anywhere else. “What to do about what?” He lifted the Tarot deck from her unresisting hand and pushed a scone in front of her.

“You.” She sipped the tea; once they’d got the hang of growing it, they’d been in business. “This is the new – what?”

“Me?” He had the lost-kitten look all of her sons learned from birth (no surprise there). “What did I… hunh.” A card had fallen from his hand onto the table: the Tower.

It wasn’t a card Leontyne could remember seeing before; it wasn’t one from her deck. A tall edifice twisted into the sky, three-sided, surrounded by interlocking circles of walls.

She’d seen that before, in a brochure left by a travelling salesman.

“Doomsday Academy.” The card sat on the table, making change and transformation and chaos. She quirked her lips up and smiled at her most chaotic of sons. “Think they’re ready for you?”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/675347.html. You can comment here or there.

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