Originally posted on Patreon in February 2019 and part of the Great Patreon Crossposting to WordPress.

A story of Addergoole, Hell Night, and friendship.

It came down to the two of them, back to back, the darkness and the monsters all around them.

They hadn’t even really talked before this. They had three classes together, but Pramod had been trying to make friends with the closest to jocks that this school had, and Swanhild was trying to find the artsy sorts – easier to find than jocks, at least. Pramod had been on the top of the heap before coming to this place, and Swan had been used to being ignored by guys like him.

Now she had her back against him literally, and the shadows were snarling at her, at them, and somewhere outside their pod someone was sing-songing “come out, come out, wherever you are,” which wasn’t creepy at all. But Swan had seen plenty of horror movies, and had come to school with four things that didn’t really look like weapons until she needed to swing them at someone – or to have Pramod swing them, since he was bigger. Swan had thought she was tall until she met Pramod, who was a full 8 inches taller than her and made it look surprisingly good.

So he had the baseball bat and she had the antenna from her dad’s old car – an in-joke that had already left two people swearing – and they had each other, back to back.

“I don’t even know you,” he whispered, in a moment between attacks.

“That’s all right. I don’t know you, either, and I already know I like you better than any of these assholes.”

He laughed at that, as he was meant to, and then they were under attack again.

When the lights came back on, both of them were panting, sweating – laughing. Both of them were aching, bruised, bleeding – smiling. Both of them were free.

“Friends?” Swan offered, holding out her hand for Pramod.

He grinned down at her. “Friends. Hey, that jerk with the whip. Wanna gather up a couple others and go after him? I bet we could take him down with enough of us.”

“How about we go get lunch, instead,” she countered. Jocks, she thought, but it was affectionate in a way she’d never felt before. “Then maybe we can smear his name so that he never gets laid again, how’s that?”

“Nerd.” He smiled down at her, and she felt warm at the label the way nobody had ever managed.

“That’s me.”

Want more?

Beyond Rules

Feb23

Originally posted on Patreon in February 2019 and part of the Great Patreon Crossposting to WordPress.

This is a story written to @Eseme’s prompt to my Valentine-day Prompt Call.

💕

There were things that had rules, rules they had established through the years of their relationship. There were things that were too small for rules, or too mobile, or simply too unpredictable — they had a Rule about neighbors but not one that encompassed the entirety of living next to dragons, for instance. And then there were things that were too big for Rules.

Their Time was one of those. They didn’t call it date night, because more often than not, neither of them wanted to deal with crowds or even quiet, intimate restaurants. They didn’t call it parents’ time, the way some of their friends did, because it was time to not be parents, or a warlock and a witch, but simply Aud and Sage.

Jin had agreed to watch the younger children, as he did most weeks, for a reasonable going rate that meant they didn’t have to try breaking in a new babysitter — a situation always fraught with difficulties when one lived in Smokey Knoll. Aud and Sage took their dinner up into the tallest tower in their house, into a room they saved for times like this; the children were instructed to only interrupt in the direst of emergencies.

Sage lit the candles. Aud poured the wine. They sat together on the divan and looked out over the city, watching the lines of magic flow through the enchanted viewing-glass in their observatory. They held hands, each of them eating one-handed, and smiled, letting their own private magic flow between them.

They didn’t talk much. There was plenty of time for talking, and they had said many of the things they might need to say already. They simply were, and when it was Their Time, that was enough.

Want more?

Time Passes

Feb14

Originally posted on Patreon in February 2019 and part of the Great Patreon Crossposting to WordPress.
After The Fairy Road and Planting Some Good on my blog and The Cats’ Ways and Community Service here on Patreon.

🏞️

There was not, Whitney had thought, an easy part to the restoration of the Crossroads Park. The whole thing was a challenge, and the whole thing was back-breaking work, work that ate time, hours and weeks and seemingly years passing by while she dug. The whole thing was the hard part.

That was before she got to the really hard part.

There was a corner of the park now that looked fresh and beautiful — so fresh that not only had the local newspaper taken pictures, one of the national magazines had come in to tell her story. The plantings, mostly perennials, had been picked to thrive with minimal care, the grass was trimmed weekly by a local kid who wanted something to do for a school project, and the local fae and spirits had taken to sharply … reprimanding… anyone who littered in the cleaned area or near it.

But that meant that first, the rest of the park looked far worse than it was, and secondly, Whitney was now faced with a wall of brambles where a raspberry bush and a rose bush had gone feral and started fighting over a statute of a Revolutionary War hero. Continue reading →