24 hours only: ask for something written and I will add it to my queue directly.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/864445.html. You can comment here or there.
Archive | December 2014
Courier Duty, a continuation of “Itty Bitty Package” for Morepls (@clarekrmiller)
After Itty Bitty Package.
Want to bring a specific more, please to my attention? Go here.
The road wasn’t really a road anymore, not in this section of the country. It was three-quarters pot-hole and one-quarter bomb crater, with the occasional multi-terrain vehicle left abandoned half in one sort of hole or another. There were corpses, too – livestock and buildings left burnt out and falling down where they stood, people who had fought until they couldn’t fight anymore.
The front had moved forward; technically, Pretza had already gotten them through the worst of it. They had moved past the soldiers, past the tanks, past the first line of rear guards. They had crossed three minefields and one inferno. And they were almost to the border.
The road wasn’t actually safe, but moving near the road had served Pretza well. Too far off the beaten track, and they were likely to find bandits, deserters, and land mines. On the road, they were a target. She moved through the remains of the trees, instead, murmuring as quietly as she could to the tiny bundle pressed up against her chest. “It’s all right, just stay quiet a little longer. Just a little longer, kidlet.”
She avoided three soldiers and one deserter, and then ran smack dab into the fifth man. He grabbed her by both arms, shaking her and her tiny package.
Pretza took a deep breath and assessed the situation. At this range, arterial blood would splatter all over her and her package, which would not only attract flies but make them very obvious. His face was pockmarked and scarred, his nose broken so many times it was impossible to guess if he was Thalassan, Corbetian, or Orion. His hair was grey and nearly gone, and he wore no helm, no uniform, and no insignia.
“You’re not her,” he muttered. “You’re not her. Never really thought she’d still be here, but I had to look.” His eyes raked over Pretza. “But at the moment, you’ll do. Come on, girlie. The front is no place for a pregnant girl.”
Tip Package 😉
Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/865297.html “The Border”
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/864159.html. You can comment here or there.
Moving On To Number Eight…
Yet another in “where did that kid come from” series.
Caprice is Phelen & Manira’s daughter.
Jack is Ib’s child.
Eryk is Shiva/Ty.
Adalbert’s Ciro/Amanada
Zahavi is a half-sibling of Cynara and a 1st generation student.
Christmas Break
“Well, you’re definitely pregnant.” Dr. Caitrin looked over her glasses at Caprice. “I don’t suppose you know who the father might be?”
The first-year student rolled her eyes at Caitrin by way of answer.
The doctor sighed. “No, of course not. Do you think you were entirely fair with those young men, Caprice?”
The disdain turned into a playful pout. “They wanted a pretty target. I make a very, very pretty target.”
“Mmm. And still, do you think you were fair to them?”
The girl smiled broadly. “None of them asked. All they had to do was ask..
~
Week four.
“I don’t know what to do with her,” Jack complained. “I mean, she doesn’t do anything I want, she’s hot one minute and cold the next, and she bites.“
“Perhaps, if she is not doing what she is told, the fault is not in the Kept but in Keeper.”
Professor Fridmar had probably meant the advice to shame Jack into being authoritative with his Kept. He, however, took it as an excuse.
“Look, Zahavi, you’re a good guy. You’ve been chomping at the bit to rescue someone. Here. Rescue her.”
If he shoved Caprice a little roughly at his Cohort-mate, well, nobody was paying that much attention. “She’s Yours.”
~
“Well, now that you know, are you going to tell your current Keeper?”
Caprice smirked at the doctor. “Adalbert? Bird-boy’s gone home for the holidays. I think he’s done already.”
“And you didn’t want to go home?”
She shrugged fluently. “The world’s a mess out there, Doctor. And my father’s going to come visit me for a little while.”
“Your father?” Dr. Caitrin proved she didn’t know everything and raised both eyebrows at the girl. “Not your mother?”
“Daeva, I’m told,” she shrugged, “don’t deal well with children once they reach the ‘competition’ age. Dad raised me from eight to sixteen.”
“Aah. So Adalbert’s gone home. Do you want to track down the actual father?”
~
Week Seven
“Come on Eryk, you know you’ve been looking at her for weeks.” Zahavi was somewhere between wheedling and selling snake oil. “And now I’m offering her to you on a silver platter.”
“Not interested.” His blue furred ears, however, were pointed straight at Caprice.
“You know you are.”
“I know that she looks like a trap. What’s the problem?”
“Problem? It’s just that she’s… too compliant.”
Caprice pouted prettily.
“…Fine. I’ll take her.”
~
“I suppose I need to tell him, whichever him it is.” Caprice leaned back against the chair and studied the Doctor thoughtfully. “Do you think they’ve learned their lesson?”
“Frankly, dear, I think you weren’t quite hard enough on them.” Dr. Caitrin smirked. “But you’ve only made it through seven. Maybe one of them will manage to learn from the mistakes of the rest of them.”
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/863901.html. You can comment here or there.
Science! Landing Page
Why haven’t mad scientists taken over the world? Either they already have, and we just don’t notice, or they’re too dysfunctional to take over much of anything.
This setting posits a little bit of both.
Best place to start
Engineered (LJ)
The stories run in more or less chronological order.
Engineered (LJ)
Re-Engineered (LJ)
Golden Egg? (LJ)
Making Friends (LJ)
Shows Promise
(LJ)
Alibi
P for the Possum Postulate
In Theory
100 Per Cent
Through Biology (LJ)
Blame Game (LJ)
In a Fashion (LJ)
Next on the Tour(LJ)
Lair (LJ) [Beta Filter] started it all
Two stories of Science! appear in Alder by Post, Issues Five and Twelve.
Order back-issues here.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/343641.html. You can comment here or there.
Cali, Femdom, Catgirls
By the time Daniel was dragged to the sales floor, he was bruised in at least seven places, two of which didn’t show; he was chained, collared, naked, sweating, had been forcibly showered three times and had his hair combed five time. He was furious, but he’d gone past furious into panic and then past panic into shaking.
And then the cat-girl walked into the room.
There was no other word for her. She had perky cat ears, whiskers, and a tail; she had a human face and body with fur or patterns on her hands – paws? She was wearing a small dress and tall heels, and very little else.
She strode in like she owned the place, and here, in California, where supposedly anything went, everyone stared. Daniel couldn’t fault them; he was staring too. Had to be prosthetics, or some sort of cosplay thing. But the ears were moving. The tail was moving.
The girl was moving. Woman, he supposed, nobody ever called them cat-women. Except DC comics. Anyway. She was moving towards him. She was carrying something in her hand. Something – what –
“Oh, no, no, no, no.” He couldn’t back up. He was so very locked to this place he was standing. He could fall backwards, and he did that. “No.”
She leaned down until her lips were nearly at his ear. “Yes.”
He felt the leash clip onto his collar, but he was out of options.
Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/873343.html
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/863725.html. You can comment here or there.
Science! landing page updated
Here: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/343641.html
In honor, I will now take 2 prompts for Science!
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/863353.html. You can comment here or there.
Rumors about the Family, a story start for the Aunt Family
I asked for Non-Addergoole Prompts here; this is to kiarrith‘s prompt.
The Aunt Family has a landing page here.
It was a whisper, not even a proper rumor, passed among the members of the family – mentioned as an overheard sort of thing in an e-mail, or drunkenly chuckled about in a party when the Powers That Be were busy being powerful elsewhere. Did you hear about the Aunt that got herself a cult?
Not even a proper Aunt, the rumors would continue. No sisters, a dead-end line. But that part, scandalous as it was, wasn’t nearly as shocking as the other part. And she’s being worshipped! Worshipped!
There were things you didn’t do, in the family. You didn’t trust men with power, you didn’t get pregnant if you were the Aunt, you didn’t bring men home – or women, or even cats – without running them by at least one Granny first. You didn’t show off your magic to outsiders, if you had any, or talk about it, if you didn’t.
And you certainly didn’t let people think you were a goddess.
But the rumors persisted. And, one day when her last child had left the nest, a woman named Stolen – a sensible, practical woman, a mother of four and already a grandmother of two, the sort who had put aside her tea leaves long, long ago – began making some discreet inquiries.
She had spent twenty-seven years working in insurance, and thus, in addition to being more cynical than most of her sisters, had a very well-honed skill with investigation, which she put to good use talking to relatives.
She might be a grandmother, but she was not yet, technically, a granny, and, besides, she was so down-to-earth that nobody really expected she’d be doing anything untoward. She was putting together a book of family legends, sure. It had been done before, but not recently. So people told her things.
And people outside of the family – they were easy. She might have put aside her tea leaves, she might have been solid and rational and dependable, but she was still what she was. People were easy.
It was thus that, two years into her youngest’s college life, Stolen found herself donning an all-covering blue robe and pulling the hood until it shaded her face.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/862984.html. You can comment here or there.
December Theme Poll!
This Month’s Theme Poll is live!
The choices are:
1. Stranded World (Setting)
2. Fae Apoc (Setting)
3. Love Stories (motif)
4. Hurt/Comfort (motif)
5. micro-flash-fiction (type)
6. Demifiction (type)
7. Vas’ World (Setting)
8. Dragons Next Door (Setting)
9. Obsession (motif)
10. Music and song (motif)
If you have donated or commissioned me in November (nobody did), in October after the last theme poll, or if you donate/commission me between now & the poll closing, you may cast your vote here!
Become a Patreon Patron OR Commission something via Paypal.
As a Patreon patron, you’ll have access to Patreon-only fiction. Donate $6 or more, and you’ll also put us over the threshold for a second chapter on both serials this Sunday, and get the Patreon that much closer to the first donation threshold.
Commission a story, and I’ll write you your very own fiction, 250 words for every $5.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/862547.html. You can comment here or there.
December Meme – Day Nine (@rix_scaedu)
Today’s prompt is from ![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rix_scaedu: Doug
Ah, Doug.
For those of you going who? Doug is a character in Addergoole.
He started out as back-up porter and security guy, and looked like Luke, which led me to extrapolate that he was Luke’s son. The fact that he later turned out to be Mike VanderLinden’s grandson means that he probably doesn’t look THAT much like Luke – but that was later.
When I needed a dance teacher for a RP character (Kylie), he became the dance teacher; when I needed someone who Mentored monster-hunters (rather than the White Knights that were cy’Luca*), that became Doug. And when he had to show Kylie Masking – well, then I learned what his Change was.
Of all the background characters in Addergoole, I think he’s evolved the most. He is still definitely the Mentor for monster-hunters and riot grrls. He’s the dance instructor, and a later RP timeline gave him a love interest in another dance student.
(And yes, I love the conflict there between dance students and monster hunters and the one time I convinced Doug to take a male Student…)
Mike sleeps with students willy-nilly. Doug, who is as much his father’s son as he is his grandmother’s grandson, doesn’t refrain from teacher-student relationships, but he goes into them, like he goes into everything, slowly & deliberately. His Name is Brontosaurus for more than one reason, after all.
Doug is one of my favorite characters, & I should write more about him.
/Looks at queue/
Maybe someone ought to commission me to write more about him… <3
* cy’: of the cy’ree of, that is, one of the Students Mentored by.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/862271.html. You can comment here or there.
December Meme – Day Eight
Today’s prompt is from aoifes_isle: Obscure factoid that everyone should know.
I went with an obscure vocabulary word!
Obscure factoid that everyone should know.
fungible
adjective
Definition of FUNGIBLE
1: being of such a nature that one part or quantity may be replaced by another equal part or quantity in the satisfaction of an obligation (oil, wheat, and lumber are fungible commodities)
So, this word was a revelation to me, in the context of budget items are often fungible. Not personal budgets, as discussed yesterday, but, say, the budgets of major corporations, charities, governments.
If you give a college a grant of $1m only to repair roads, then they can shift every cent in their repair roads budget, up to $1m, to other categories. So you are, in effect, funding, say, the Making Centaur-People lab by your roads only donation.
If I win a $50,000 gift card only for groceries (they happen, really), then I have $50k I don’t have to spend on groceries. See? Fungible.
It’s a neat word, and a good one to apply when people are debating public budgets.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/862126.html. You can comment here or there.