Archive | November 18, 2014

Similar Features, with longer hair (My favorite quote, also: Luke at Doomsday @inventrix)

Nov18

This isn’t in line with the other Luke/Doomsday stuff, coming, probably, after all that, but it was poking at my brain.

“I’m noticing,” Luke looked around the lunch hall, “a lot of familiar features.”

Cynara grinned back at him, clearly reading at least the subtext he’d meant and maybe some other text as well. “Of course. Where did you think I was getting my students?”

“I…” He coughed. “Well, you’re well known.” He hadn’t done enough research by half, had he?

“‘Oh, they’re Boom, good people to trust with your kids’ educations?'” She chuckled. “We’re on three generations now, Luke, of people having kids after school so they had children they didn’t have to give to Addergoole.”

“It’s not like we hold on to our students forever.”

She raised her eyebrows at him. He flapped his wings back at her.

She changed the subject without conceding or pressing her point. “The one you were looking at? The horned blonde? Not a Boom kid – nor Forest Manor, or any of our other close family.” She smirked. “I assume you’d know if they were yours.”

Luke coughed. “Aelfgar had a lot of children.”

“Yes, he did. And a lot of them went to Addergoole.” She flicked her fingers in the direction of the teenager. “That one’s grandmother had three more kids after school.”

She saw it sink in, Luke assumed, because she smirked at him in a manner far too much like her former Mentor.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/850574.html. You can comment here or there.

First and Last Words: Yesterday #nanowrimo

Nov18

First Line of Yesterday: She leaned back from his hand. Nobody had told her she had to obey him; then again, after a couple slaps from the slave factor’s crop, nobody had needed to tell her she was supposed to obey anyone. It was rather self-evident.

Technically, I’ve already posted the last line of last night; it was part of Pick a Card, one of the previews for Doomsday.

But the last line of The Despot of Santa Roux Finds Love is: They were, too. Marie steadied the lemonade…

A grand total of 35,456 words written, 2,482 yesterday. This keeps me at my one-day-ahead-of-par, which makes me happy.

58% done with my 60K word goal!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/850408.html. You can comment here or there.

Doomsday Intro: I’ll Take This One

Nov18

This one’s a bit darker than the otherones. Probably because I came up with it myself. <.<)

“I’ll take that one.”

The red-haired woman strode into the shop where you were working and pointed right at you.

The foreman coughed, stuttered, and, rather than throwing her out, ran and got the boss.

You weren’t stupid. You kept working. This could be a test.

The woman stood there, not watching you, but watching the place. Her nostrils flared and she rolled her weight back onto her heels. You glanced at the exit, at the other workers in the shop, and back at the exit. If she decided to bring this place down on your heads, you thought you might be able to get out, but the littler kids on the other side would have trouble.

Maybe it wouldn’t come to that this time; this angry visitor could be different than the last one. Maybe the foreman had learned.

The boss hurried in. “Ah. I hear-“

“I want to buy this slave from you.” She was pointing at you again. Why did she keep pointing at you?”

The boss coughed. “Ah. We don’t sell the children-“

“-away from their mothers, of course you don’t, that would be wrong. I’ll buy the mother and any other children, too.”

You flinched. Your mother was one of the boss’s favorites right now. Would he…?

Of course he would. “Of course. She’s right over here.”

Brittanny had the same coloration as you, at least if you squinted. But she was not your mom, and her kid looked nothing like you.

The redheaded woman frowned. “No. No, and you wouldn’t be trying to separate a mother from her children, now would you?” Something about her posture suggested violence, although she had no visible weapons. You considered hiding under your workstation. You weren’t stupid, though. This could be a test. You kept working.

The boss took a moment to consider whether or not he was stupid. Or, at least, that’s what it looked like to you. “No. Of course not. One moment.”

It took many moments, during which you worked and the woman glared at the place as it if had personally offended her. You didn’t bother wondering why she wanted you. It still could be some sort of test.

It was only when they had finished bickering over the price, only when she had said the words to your mother, your sister, and you, only when you were in her wagon and on the road, that you thought this might be real.

Whoops, note. “said the words.” The kid doesn’t really know quite what’s going on there, but that’s the transference of Belonging of zir mother to the redheaded lady.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/850110.html. You can comment here or there.