Archive | April 7, 2017

Rocks – a Cya/Carew story

Apr7

Cya and Carew, Carew’s POV – what happens when Cya starts feeling things she’s been repressing.

He could have gone to his crew.

They were here, now. Cya had Found them and offered them a ticket to Cloverleaf via her teleporter, and, much to Carew’s relief and occasional confusion, they’d all agreed.

(He’d spent six months wondering why they hadn’t come to find him when he graduated, only to find out that they had, just the day after he’d left, and nobody they’d asked had known that Cya had taken him.)

But he didn’t want them to get the wrong impression and, besides, this was the second time, and he was sort of hoping someone would do something, so when Cya started throwing things – pebbles, rocks, stones – at the wall, he’d slipped out the back door and run to Leo’s house again.

Leo had gotten a strange look on his face and left. Carew had settled in to teach Jeska some more card games and anything else that could keep his mind off of my Keeper is throwing shit at the walls.

She was in therapy. She was supposed to be getting better. She seemed to be getting… more emotive. He thought that was supposed to be better. Most days it was better.

Not today.

She came back a couple hours later, walking in with Leo. Her face was red; she’d been crying. Of course she’d been crying. But she looked like she was over the bad part.

“Hey.” She sat down next to him and held out a hand.

He took it without thinking, then wondered if it was a good idea. What if he’d done something wrong?

She never hurt him (except in the good way), even when he messed up, which did happen on occasion. But sometimes she could be scary anyway.

“I’m sorry. I’m getting used to having emotions again – I did a really good job of making them go away for a really long time – and, uh. I’m feeling things I’d forgotten about. But that doesn’t mean I should make you suffer for it.”

A really long time. Carew looked at her cautiously. She was older than the end of the world.

“So, uh,” he hazarded a guess, “things from Addergoole?”

“Things from Addergoole,” she admitted. “Want to come home so I can make it up to you?”

“Wait, it’s a choice?” He regretted the words the moment he’d said them, but she didn’t look offended.

“Tonight, it’s a choice.” She leaned in and kissed his cheek. “It’s not like I don’t know I messed up.”

“No,” he shook his head, then hurried to finish the sentence. “You didn’t mess up, boss. But I won’t mind some making up, anyway.”

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Beauty-Beast 9: Weapons

Apr7

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🔒

There was a moment of silence in the car. Ctirad could hear the road under the tires, some traffic noise, the breathing of all three of them.

“You Belong to me,” Sir agreed carefully. “And I neither object to you having claws nor intend to use you as a murderer. Would you like my word on that?”

Ctirad wasn’t certain he could speak. He cleared his throat and settled for “sir?” with an intonation that might have relayed what the fuck?

“I am not going to use you as a tame killer. I will never order you to kill and I won’t put you in a situation where the bond is forcing you to kill if I can help it. Okay?”

“Sir.” He didn’t know how to express what he was feeling. He didn’t believe it, but he wanted badly to. He swallowed around the dryness of his throat and the way everything felt like it was pressing down on him, taking his air. “…sir?”

“My name is Timaios, Ctirad, and when we’re alone – which includes with Sal – you have permission to use it. Does that offend you?”

“Does…” There were too many options. Shit. “Does what offend me, sir… Ti… sir?”

No. Fuck it, he was not going to give in to that trap. Timaios was his owner, and he was not going to forget that, not even for a second.

“Does it offend you that I won’t use you as a weapon?”

“Sir. I am a weapon.” There was nothing to be offended by, or not, in that. He pointed his face blindly at his owner’s and waited.

“Do you want to be used as a weapon?”

“Sir.” His throat worked as he tried to come up with a safe answer. “Sir, I Belong to you. I Belong to be used. There is some use you are going to have for me, or you wouldn’t have taken me as payment. I’m not decorative-”

“The fuck you’re not,” Sal muttered from the front seat. Ctirad ignored him.

“-I don’t talk sweet, not without paying a lot of attention to my words. I don’t do accounting, I’m a lousy housekeeper-”

“-bet you look great in an apron.”

“Sal. That’s enough.”

“-I’m a decent cook, but nobody buys a Kept because they can cook. So that leaves bitch, whore, and weapon, and of those, sir, I prefer weapon. I’m better at it anyway.”

“Sal?” Ctirad’s owner’s voice was tight. “Please remind me to find an unpleasant end for Ermenrich and, more immediately, to find a way to rehome or free all of his other servants, slaves, and Kept?”

“Yes, sir.” The joking was gone from Sal’s voice, too. Ctirad held still and waited for the fallout.

🔒

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Funeral – A description of Senga

Apr7

Working on in-text character descriptions. Senga, from Erramun’s POV

Erramun took a moment while Senga was bantering with her cousin to really look at her.

She wasn’t so much short as she was shorter than him, which, to be fair, wasn’t saying much. She was wearing a very nice dress in sedate black which very nearly concealed most of the weapons she was carrying and, to a less trained eye, might hide the muscles in her arms. It couldn’t hide the way she moved, though, like she was tracking something. He wondered if, under her Mask, her Change was feline.

Her hair had been done up; it looked fancy, but it stayed out of her way. Black-brown and straight or straightened, for all she called herself the white sheep, he was amused to see her hair was darker than her honey-brunette cousins. She looked comfortable in the fancy-dress, and looked like she could kill someone without breaking a sweat. It was an interesting combination – but one that was less surprising than it might have been, given her family.

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Funeral: Family Problems

Apr7

First: Funeral
Previous: Funeral: Ellehemaei Inheritance Law

Senga looked over and up at Silence. He was looking over and down at her. He lifted his eyebrows at her. She shrugged at him.

“You’re right,” she admitted, “I’m screwed if you say no, and you’ve got more to lose by saying yes.”

“You don’t have shit to lose by saying yes,” he growled.

“Why don’t we talk about that when we’re out of here, one way or another? Because this isn’t exactly my cup of tea, either.”

“Yeah, well..”

“I’m sorry to rush you,” Mr. Maladono interrupted, not sounding the least bit sorry, “but I have several more cases to get through today. Mirabella’s will was, as you might have noticed, quite complicated, and there are quite a few people who wish to contest the terms or amounts of their inheritance.”

“You’re going to need more bodyguards,” Senga muttered. She looked up at Silence. “Well? This is your call. You’re the one that’s going to be wearing the collar.”

“You’re the one who — well, no.” He leaned backwards and stared at the ceiling for a minute. “Senga Monmartin, I Belong to you for—”

Mr. Maladono’s loud throat-clearing interrupted in.

“Oh, departed gods fuck all. Senga, I’m yours.”

“Erramun, Death Comes Silently, you Belong to me. Don’t kill me. Don’t maim me, either, and let’s get out of here before either of us maims someone else.”

“Sounds good to me.” He snarled it, tugging at the collar of his shirt. “I mean, sounds good to me, mistress.”

Senga caught a flash of expression on Mr. Maladono’s face that she didn’t like, something like a pleased smirk. Maybe he enjoyed these clauses. Maybe he’d written them in with Great-Aunt Mirabella.

Maybe he was just an asshole.

Right now, he wasn’t her problem. Her problem was taller, looked nicer, and also looked like he was about to kill her, regardless of orders to the contrary.

She walked out of the funeral home as quickly as she could while still looking casual. Next to her, Erramun stalked. His face was set in something that looked irritated rather than furious, but she could see the hand closer to her was clenched at his side.

“Senga! Senga, you little bitch, don’t ignore me!” Eaven hurried up to her. Senga stopped, mainly because she didn’t want her cousin screaming her name in the middle of a wake filled with very important people of many different stripes. “Senga, you know you don’t deserve any of what mother left you. Just give it to me all now and there won’t be any trouble.”

“The Monmartin house?” Senga raised her eyebrows. “I think I deserve the house I grew up in.”

“You don’t have any use for that. A penny-ante thug like you? What are you going to do with an estate?“

Erramun took a step forward so he was looming over Eaven. “It’s her inheritance. It’s her business what she does with it.”

“And you?” Eaven sneered. “Are you her inheritance, too?”

He smirked. It was an expression that looked like a tiger about to eat a fat gazelle. “It looks that way.”

“I always knew you were born to-”

“Eavan.” Senga cut her cousin off with far more shortness than she’d ever dared use in the past. “Eaven, I think it’s best if you don’t finish that sentence. We are leaving now. With that which we were given. And I’d suggest you do the same.”

“I’m going to get it. The manor. The money. Him. You know I am. There’s never been anything that she’s denied me.”

“And maybe that’s why you don’t have as meaty an inheritance as you wanted. Because you got it all along.”

“Is that what this is all about? You’re jealous because my mother gave me the goodies your mama never could?”

“My mother’s dead,” Senga pointed out, her voice flat. She’d cried those tears a long time ago, and, besides, it’s not like Eaven didn’t know that – and didn’t like to rub it in.

“You’ll be joining her soon enough if you don’t give in. You know you can’t win, and you know you don’t deserve it. So make life easy on yourse-”

She trailed off, staring at Erramun. He was growling, low and animal-sounding. “Senga, put a leash on him before he hurts someone.”

“I’m fairly certain the point of him is to hurt people. And I’m fairly certain I’m not going to put a leash on him. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around, cousin. Do enjoy what your mother left you. And, oh.” She couldn’t help leaving with a parting shot. “Try not to let your sister steal everything she didn’t get from you. I’m sure she’s going to be trying.”

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Character Descriptions: Desmond

Apr7

Working on in-text character descriptions. Here’s Desmond, from Desmond’s Climb, from Talia’s POV.

Talia watched Desmond slide into pajamas . She’d already gotten into her own, and this last-one-up-the-stairs student intrigued her.

Desmond was a couple fingers taller than Talia, stocky in the shoulders and hips, with the sort of legs that told her they did a lot of walking and the sort of shoulders that told her they did not a whole lot of lifting. Not a manual laborer, then. Their hair was sandy blonde, a little longer than current style dictated for people leaning male but a little too short for the current ideal for people leaning female. So growing it out or hadn’t been able to afford a haircut.

Their eyes were not the same blue as the cravat or the house-blue pajamas, that would have been too much, but they were a nice blue-gray that made Talia wary. Like the sea.

She ducked back in her bunk before Desmond noticed her watching and wondered exactly how much of that her collar had overheard.

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