Archive | August 2014

What is Closed can never Close

Aug25

but rises again, weirder and stranger.

(With apologies to George RR Martin).

My Giraffe Call is closed,

but if you want more words, you can always donate!


(the tip jar is a kitty for reasons)

For every $1 you donate, I will write 75-100 words on the Giraffe story of your choice. Donate more than $1, and I’ll write a second fic to your prompts.

If I get to $25, I’ll get take-out. Current total: $5

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/788019.html. You can comment here or there.

Last Call for the August Giraffe #Promptcall!

Aug25

My Giraffe Call for August is still open, but not for long!

It will close in just about 4 hours, at 1:24 EDT.

If you haven’t prompted, get your prompts in before then. Prompting is free; tips get you continuations.

The theme is Animalia.

Closed!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/787670.html. You can comment here or there.

Addergoole/Criminal Minds Xover, Part VI

Aug24

This began here with a meme; it takes part after Rix’s guest fic here (and click “next” for the second part.)
It continued here, here, here, and here.

There was a point in most cases where the pieces just fell into place, one after another after another.

They’d reached that point with this one, finally, and instead of the adrenaline surge he usually felt, Derek Morgan was feeling nothing but dread.

“I hate cases like this.”

“If she truly killed him in self-defense, then it’s unlikely that the Bureau or the local police will…” Spencer kept going. Derek tuned out.

This was worse than finding the killer who’d done so to save her own life. That sucked back enough. This was finding someone who’d had the wherewithal to kill a monster. And that could lead to any number of horrible places.

Where it led, this time, was to a convenience store surveillance camera, and from there to a local canvas. From there, they ended up talking to a very nice woman who started out with truth and then started lying.

The girl was Penny. Yes, she’d been visiting; she was a school friend of the woman’s daughter, Kath. Yes, she was back in school now, along with Kath.

And then a brick wall. They were in boarding school. They would be back for Christmas break. The woman didn’t even seem to notice that she wasn’t passing on other information, such as where the school was or had Penny had some trouble. She just kept politely answering questions that weren’t quite what they were asking.

Reid was getting frustrated. Hotch was getting angry. And Morgan could smell magic all over this case.

But before he needed to start fighting fire with fire, Penelope Garcia worked her own version of magic.

“Found ’em! Or, I should say, I found a shell. And I have to say, this is probably the most interesting shell I’ve ever found. I mean, there are students who have graduated with high honors from this… shell. And they’re going to places like Yale and Harvard. So, either they’re ghosts, their credentials are ghosts, or something very hinky is going on with this shell.”

Morgan wasn’t ready to rule out any of those possibilities.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/787290.html. You can comment here or there.

How Do You Know it Won’t Work

Aug24

For [personal profile] thebonesofferalletters‘ prompt, set in the Fae Apoc ‘verse.

“It doesn’t work like that, Esau.” Cinnabar looked out the window at her son and tried not to laugh. “I’m sorry, but it really doesn’t.”

“How do you know?” At nine years old, Esau had opinions on everything, and most of them ended or began with how do you know? “Have they researched how the genetics work for this sort of thing?”

“Well…” Cinnabar looked around. Her older three weren’t in earshot, the ones that were pledged to Addergoole. “The Director at Addergoole has done some research, at least through the last two generations.”

“Has she tried sympathetic links?”

“Well, there was the Bull-Dozer.” She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I don’t think any studies have been done on surrounding yourself with an animal to encourage a Change into that animal, genetics don’t work that way. Besides, Esau, where did you get all the red pandas?“

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/786991.html. You can comment here or there.

A Week In Alder

Aug23

The Highlights

A Few Stories
A Hero of Reiassan – Patreon Story, a story of a Reiassan Hero
Kittens, a story for the Giraffe Call
Where the Stars Went Out Fae Apoc, Apoc Era

Ask For More Stories
Giraffe Call! A Prompt Call – Leave a Prompt, get a fic. Theme: Animalia

Serial Fiction
August 12-August 19 in the Faerie Apoc
Edally Academy: The Angry Aetherist Interude: In the Onadyano Tower Dorms

A Piece of My Life
Blog Hop Stop: Fiction in the Alder’s Grove
Tomato Season!

Other People’s Stuff
“More than you probably want to know about canning” – tomato canning by Ranunculus
K_A_Webb Words Raffle

Stories
Friday Flash: With the Moon
Test Story for Clockwork Apoc: More Blank Plains – travel the wastelands of the clockwork apoc
Any Given Apocalypse (3-Word-Wednesday)

Flying-Squirrel’s Freedom (or Fetters) (Furry Sky {irates)
It’s You (Friday Flash)

And We Are Not Monsters, a continuation of Baram’s Elves
Reynard’s Story in Reynard’s Words
Her Verdict (Reynard)
The Beast we Become (Ayla, Addergoole Year 6)
Gonna Be A Samurai (Doomsday Academy)
Doomsday Academy: 1st Day of History Class

Meta
Reiassan – a Welcome
Character Meme Day Three: Tairiekie in Another Era

(Reiassan Demifiction)
On Hair-Braiding Patterns and Their Significance
Lannamer Department Gendarme Report
The Lannamer Chronicle: the Karsekarzlen Bucks
A Review of “On the Nature of the Sira & Its Flow”
A Letter Home from the Bitrani South

Musing about Identity Online (Personal Blog Post)
Self-Sustained Living: How Big a Backyard do you need to feed a family of Four? Infographic Discussion

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/786834.html. You can comment here or there.

The Beast We Become

Aug22

To [personal profile] clare_dragonfly‘s prompt.
Set in Year 6 of the Addergoole School, about halfway through the year.

Aelgifu (Ayla) and Callista (as well as the mentioned others) are Addergoole characters.

“You can’t ignore it forever, you know.”

When Ioanna said it, she was gentle. Callista hadn’t gotten the feeling of being gentle yet, so it came out, like so much of what she said, rough and raspy and cutting right to the bone.

There was no question what Callista thought Aelgifu was ignoring. For one, she was waving at Ayla with all six arms. For another, they’d been talking about this on and off for the six months since they’d crewed up.

“I’m very good at Masking.” It wasn’t quite an answer, but she didn’t want to give an answer.

“Can’t Mask your brain, little jackalope.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Why not?” Callista leaned forward, mid-arms resting on her thighs. “I’m a spider, you’re a jackalope, your pretty girlfriend is a face-changer, and your brother is an antelope. It’s just the way things are.” Her smile twisted into something nasty and fierce. “And Ib is a demon.”

“Ib is a demon.” There was no argument there. “But a jackalope is a mythical creature.”

It was the wrong thing to say, and she knew it before she’d closed her mouth. Callista rattled out another laugh.

“Look around you, sweetheart. We’re all mythological here.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/786589.html. You can comment here or there.

Her Verdict, a continuation of Reynard

Aug22

First: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/753621.html
Previous: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/777479.html

“And that’s how I ended up Belonging to a terrifying mass of muscle, ma’am.” Reynard did his best to make a bow, although the bonds of probably-hawthorn restricted his movement enough to make it only a twitch. “How I ended up Belonging to a -” he coughed. “Forgive me, ma’am, to a beautiful woman like yourself is another story.”

The woman studied him for a minute. She seemed neither be offended by the compliment nor complimented by it – for the life of him, Reynard couldn’t read a single emotion off of her face. He was out of practice working without magic.

“That is a very interesting story.” She spoke slowly. Shit, was she – differently abled? He’d never belonged to anyone slow before. “I even believe most of it.” She pursed her lips. “It definitely sounds like you.”

That again. And he couldn’t remember her at all. He coughed, and went for a completely non-committal “Ma’am?”

“It will do for now, at least.” She picked up a pair of wire cutters from her table of tools.

“Ma’am?” This time, Reynard knew his voice went high-pitched. The things you could do with wire cutters… “Ma’am, I…”

“Shhh. You belong to me, Reynard called Fox in the Henhouse. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not going to torture you.” He wasn’t entirely clear if the repetition was clarification or reassurance. He wasn’t reassured, either way.

“Ma’am?” This time it was a whisper. He didn’t have much choice.

She started clipping, far too near parts of him he was very fond of. “When I’ve got you out of this, we can talk living arrangements.”

Well, at least that meant he was probably going to live.

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/815558.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/786429.html. You can comment here or there.

Any Given Apocalypse – You Do What You Have To

Aug22

To Three-Word-Wednesday (Today’s words are Impulsive, Morose, & Sparse)

You did what you could with what you had.

There was no running water, so you carried it in buckets, or ran a hose from the creek. There was no indoor lighting anymore, so you used candles, if you had them, flashlights, if the batteries still worked, or lamps, if you were lucky.

And that was the comforts. The necessities were harder. But you did what you could with what you had.

You burned what you could for heat, and tried not to think about cancer or the ozone layer too much. You huddled all of you in one room; in the coldest nights, all under one blanket. Privacy was a luxury for warm days, and you were none of you too clean, anyway.

You ran through every can in your pantry, every bag of grain, trendy or plain, and told yourself the bugs were protein. And when it was nearly gone, you started looking to see which of your neighbors had left, or died, or just not kept a gun, and raided their pantries too.

You did what you had to for what you needed, and tried not to think about how scarce resources were going to turn into complete rarities before long.

You learned to make every day, every hour, every minute of daylight count – shoring up your shelter, bringing in burnable material, repairing weapons. You learned to take five minutes of quiet time as your vacation, and learned, usually a harder lesson, that there was no room for being impulsive.

You did what you could with what you had; you did what you had to for what you needed. You tried not to get down about it all. There was no point at all in being morose and mopey about the hardships of life – you were alive, after all, when so many weren’t.

You tucked in for the night by candlelight, close to your family, and remembered, as you huddled near the fire for warmth, that any count of your blessings started with we made it and ended with and we can do what we need to, to keep making it.

Amen.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/786024.html. You can comment here or there.

Gonna Be a Samurai, a story of Doomsday Academy for the Giraffe Call

Aug22

Written to [personal profile] inventrix‘s prompt, although I didn’t get to the catboy part yet! O-O

Using Cynara (Prof. Doomsday) and Leofric (Prof. Inazuma)’s son’s icon, since I don’t actually have an icon for either of them.

Set about 5 years into Doomsday.

Austin was going to be a samurai.

He had known since he was five years old and that wandering samurai had come through town, killing the monster and rescuing Austin and his little sister.

He had known despite his mother’s insistence that one crazy man in funny armor did not mean that samurai really still existed. He had known even when his older brothers – 6 and 8 years older than him – told him that he couldn’t be anything like that, that the best he could hope for was to be a farmer, like his (not their) father. He had known despite his father spending every day of every week teaching him how to be a proper farmer, how to be a land-lord in, his father said, the old sense.

He read books on samurai, first from the local library, then, when he was old enough, he convinced his parents to let him to go the next town over on a trade caravan. They had a bigger library, salvaged from the ruins of several towns.

His older brothers went to school, but he and his sister, their parents said, were going to stay at home, where it was safe, where they could learn how yo be proper farmers. Austin kept reading – now the scroungers knew to look out for books for him – and kept learning. He was going to be a samurai some day.

When the letter came from the Academy, Austin was unsure. He was going to be a samurai farmer – what did he need with school.

His mother and father were unsure – he was going to be a farmer. What did he need with school? Besides, his mother had gotten her fill of boarding schools. And Austin was barely ten years old.

And then Professors Inazuma and Doomsday walked into their town. Looking over the blonde professor – Inazuma – in his kimono, Austin knew he was going to Doomsday.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/785910.html. You can comment here or there.