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Giving up the Ghost – Reiassan – for the Giraffe Call @inventrix

Oct26

For Lilfluff‘s prompt.

Thanks to @inventrix for the name.

Reiassan, some generations before Rin & Girey. Reisassn has a landing page – here (or on LJ)

Commenters: 1

“It’s getting close to time.”

Ellanasia lay comfortably on the slab in the back room of the temple, no companion, now, except the High Priestess of Veignevar. Her family had come and gone. Her courtiers had come and gone. The healers and herb-mongers and attendants, maids and bed-warmers and chroniclers had all stepped in and out in their due time, but now, at the very end of her life, there was time only for Veignevar, and for herself.

“This is going to hurt,” Tabyna warned her. Ellanasia choked on a laugh.

“Everything hurts, most honored one. Everything has hurt for a long time.” The scars from a lifetime of service to the red god ran tracks over her body like a map of her conquests, and every one of them ached with the cold of the coming snows, and the cold of the slab beneath her. “I will welcome the rest.”

“I know you will, Elle.” The Priestess set a kiss on her lips, a thing far more tender than either of them were known for. “I can’t say I’m sad you’re choosing this. I’d miss you.”

Ellanasia smirked, trying not to show how much effort even that cost her, now. “The most complicated ritual in all of the threefold faith, and you’re doing it out of sentimentality.”

“No more than you are, Your Most Exalted Majesty,” her old friend retorted. “I’m doing it out of necessity.”

“Then do it.” She leaned up, struggling, for one more kiss, then set her head on the slab with a thump. “We’re nearly out of time.”

“We are. With Veignevar’s blessing, then, Ellanasia.” The sword slid into her, hurting like nothing she’d ever felt before as it split her ribs and pierced her heart, and then, as the chanting of her priestess slowly faded into whispers, and then into dark silence, the Empress of Callanthe slid into the sword.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/159168.html. You can comment here or there.

Unintended Consequences, for the Giraffe Call

Oct24

For Stryck‘s prompt.

Commenters: 5

Asani kept the old place looking run-down from the front; it suited her to have the neighbors ignorant to her presence. She didn’t drive, after all, and didn’t need to leave the house all that often; when she did, she could walk down to the bus stop with none the wiser where she’d come from.

The front rooms of the house were empty, the doors closed, the windows shuttered. It meant that she could light up the back of the house as much as she wanted and, thanks to the dense foliage, even nosy neighbors were unlikely to see the lights. A yard service kept the place trimmed and painted enough to not bring down property values, but they told people (with more than a little honesty) that the house’s estate paid for the work. Asani was left to her work in quiet, and that was how she preferred it.

She liked to take walks at night, when the neighborhood had mostly gone to bed, wrapping her favorite jacket around her, an old white wool duster that, while it might have seen better days, was long, warm, and blocked the wind; besides, who was going to see her, anyway, in the middle of the night?

Late winter, early spring, those mystery days when the weather changed every fifteen minutes, she shrugged into her coat for a later-than-usual walk, walking lightly over the packed and frozen snow in the dim light of very, very early morning. She slipped down the path of trees towards the side gate, only to come face-to-face with a couple of the older boys from down the street, staring at her in frank terror.

“Shit, Jonah, I told you there was a ghost here,” the taller of the two mumbled. “Now what do we do?”

“Run?” the shorter one offered nervously. “Damn, Carter said he’d seen her, but I didn’t believe him. That lady who died, you think?”

“Gotta be. Shit, ma’am, we’re sorry.” The boys were backing towards her gate hurriedly. “We’re sorry. We’ll go leave some flowers for you, all right? Don’t spook us like you did Carter, all right?”

They were gone before Asani could say anything, leaving her wondering what had happened to Carter – and how she could use this to her advantage.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/156426.html. You can comment here or there.

Strange and neat – Addergoole Reading

Oct23

Okay, this is cool

The latest Webfiction World has readings from Addergoole and [profile] haikujagaur‘s Aphorisms of Kherishdar.

I will note that the pronunciations are off on a couple things – “Ellehemaei” is (I really need to make a recording for this) ELLE-eh-Hem-aye (the last syllable is really between rhymes-with-hay and rhymes-with-die). “Daeva” is DAY-vuh, at least in my head. And “Elasmo” is “Uh-LAZ-moe.” But the reading is awesome.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/155354.html. You can comment here or there.

Spooks vs. Bugs – Giraffe Call

Oct20

For YsabetWordsmith‘s prompt.

After Staying in the City (LJ) – from last month’s Giraffe Call.

Commenters: 6

Warning: potential squick – referenced mind/body control

The bugs had a problem.

Paula knew, now, that they weren’t bugs, but the word they used for themselves, Tillalillathianin, twisted strangely in the human part of her brain, so in the parts that were still hers, she still thought of them as “bugs.” Her symbiote didn’t seem to object.

Symbiote. She was still getting used to the feeling of it, to the double-senses inside her and the loss of control of what still seemed like her own body… mostly. She was still getting used to the additions the symbiote had brought, and the echo of its feelings against hers. They all were, symbiotes and hosts, the bonded and those who were still Just Bugs.

But that wasn’t the problem – not quite, at least. The problem was, it seemed, that the Tillalillathianin’s home planet – not their home planet, really, but the one they had conquered the longest ago within their memory; when you asked a bug or a symbiote “what happened to your real home planet?” you got an hour-long headache and no good answers – well, anyway. Either none of the planets the Tillalillathianin had conquered before had an otherworld, or they had never before merged with a race that could see them.

This was causing them some issues, more because the bugs-proper could still not sense the other-beings, the fae and the restless undead and the monsters-under-bed sort of creatures, but those that had been bonded could, and it was freaking out the symbiotes. They kept giving up control of their human hosts every time they saw a ghost, which was, if disorienting, rather entertaining for both ghosts and hosts, and upsetting for the bugs-proper.

The fairies had already figured it out; Paula had a host of the tiny pixies following her around now. The ghosts were beginning to get it, and somebody, she’d been told, had sent the monsters a message.

The spooks were going to spook out the bugs. In the growing part of her brain that was still hers, Paula found this very pleasing indeed.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/154662.html. You can comment here or there.

Ghosts of Memory – Rin/Girey – Giraffe Call

Oct20

For kelkyag‘s prompt.

Reiassan. Reisassn has a landing page – here (or on LJ)

Probably after Bed-Warmer (LJ) but maybe after after Enemy, in which case the first paragraph will have to change.

Commenters: 5

Rin had gone, over the week after they left Ossulund, from whistling to thoughtful, with glances at Girey he was pretty sure she didn’t think he noticed. That suited him; he had his own thoughts to ponder.

Sarella, the pretty little blonde who had more than a little cause to remember him fondly and fair reason to expect him to rescue her, had gotten him thinking. The thoughts weren’t the most comfortable, either, chafing like his shirt no longer did, now that Rin had dressed him up like a Callanthe noble.

“So what’s the difference?” he asked her back, in a sunny moment of quiet on the trail.

“The difference?” She hadn’t even jumped, but she did frown back at him.

“You said that your people don’t keep slaves.” He jangled his chains at her. “But you take captives.”

“A slave is a possession, yes?” she asked, her Bitrani, as always, careful and stilted. “But a captive has a chance of being anything.”

“But you’re not going to take your prisoners of war and put them to work running your towns, for instance. You have war-brides like Sarella – the girl in Ossulund? In Bitrani, we’d call her a slave. And you have captives like me.” And he wasn’t going to think about the possibility that his position might be the same as Sarella’s. “What about the rest of them?” What were they doing with his countrymen? “You told that farmer he’d go back to his family. Is that common practice?”

Now, she turned to regard him with a strange look, one he hadn’t seen on her face before. On a Bitrani officer, he’d think it was respect, but from her, he couldn’t be certain. “Enlisted men, yes,” she answered carefully. “Farmers, workers, Their families and villages need them.”

“Good.” He paused, thinking about that for a moment, before he added “Thank you.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/154262.html. You can comment here or there.

Very Quick Giraffe Call update

Oct20

Work & home stuff kept the writing short yesterday, but the donations have been filling my giraffey bank! We’ve reached the third donation incentive – if you only left one or two prompts, please feel free to go back and add a second/third!

DW – here

LJ – here

*dance*

Thank you all for all the support!!

(the original incentive was “write to all the prompts received in 24 hours,” but that’s not all that many more than the $65-level, soooooo….)

You can read all the giraffe call stories on this tag (or this one)


This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/153601.html. You can comment here or there.

Giraffe Call Update – Second Goal Reached!!

Oct19

Good morning!

This weekend’s Giraffe call Went Splody in a good way!!.

I wrote 3 more responses yesterday, bringing my total to 19 so far, and finishing the first round of prompts!

I wrote yet-another 100 more words for the Linkback Incentive story (LJ)and I think I owe you one more (Vulture’s linkback; I got Meeks’ and Ysabet’s for their stories)…. ooh, call that 100, Janet’s.

We reached $65! Thank you very much! If you prompted and only left one prompt, head back to the post and add a second prompt – here or here).

You can read all the giraffe call stories on this tag (or this one)


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This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/153071.html. You can comment here or there.

Cunning Linguist

Oct18

For The_Vulture‘s prompt.

Thanks to cluudle for the Shakespeare line and Zoe_E_Whitten for the txtspk line.

Commenters: 14


The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary
– James Nicoll

He was, he admitted, a bit of a hoarder. He took things because they looked pretty, or because they were a shortcut to what he wanted to say. He shifted, evolving so much he could barely recognize his former selves, except in the random piece of clothing he kept around for nostalgia’s sake. He changed ties at a whim and faces when it suited him, and his clones across the globe did the same, so that they could barely understand each other when the day was done.

Misspellings ached a little in his joints, like a cold day, but he knew, better than most, how spelling would change in time, and so he accepted those as growing pains. New words, too, felt funny around his ears, and he’d been surprised to wake up one day with a few extra digits, but this was, after all, the digital age.

He listened to immigrants (to him, anyone for whom he was not the first language was an immigrant, no matter where they lived or where they were born) sweetly twine him with their native tongue, and he pressed up against Spanish and Russian and French with equal glee; he had always been a polyglot-sexual, and that would never change.

Shakespeare had been a friend, but had a maddening habit of giving him new socks and ties and handkerchiefs and then insisting they’d always been there. Chaucer kept trying to nail things in place, but that had never suited his style. These urban poets, now, did some interesting things with their tongues, moving him in ways he hadn’t been moved since Wordsworth. (and Dickinson, but best not to speak of that).

The texters, now, that was another matter. He glared at one thumb-typer, bending him into strange contortions, bending, spindling, and mutilating him in the name of quicker communication.

“‘Quicker’ is not the same as ‘better,’ my lad,” he muttered, reaching out to touch the phone.

“R u free 2nite 4 a d8?” morphed at his touch into “An it please you, an assignation would be pleasing.”

“The fuck?” the boy muttered, but the reply was already on its way:

“Eeee! ‘Twould please me, aye.”

Giggling, he moved on, touching phones and unfolding himself as he went. He could, with a little work, stretch himself even further. This was going to be fun!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/152160.html. You can comment here or there.

Giraffe Call Update!!

Oct18

Good morning!

I’ve been very busy on this weekend’s Giraffe Call (If you missed it, you have until I get to the bottom of both lists to add a prompt – here or here).

I wrote 4 more responses yesterday, bringing my total to 16 so far. I have 3 more prompters to get to, and then I will move on to the sponsored stories. People have really been creative with their interpretations of the theme, and it’s been a lot of fun.

the Linkback Incentive story (LJ) is still going; I’ve written 100 more words and think I can wrap it up in 150-200 more words (or 3-4 more linkbacks).

Right now Ninja Kitty is winning for # of commenters, with 10. (LJ)

Whichever story has the most commenters by the end of day Friday, I will write a short setting piece for that setting.

You can read all the giraffe call stories on this tag (or this one)


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This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/151572.html. You can comment here or there.

Giraffe Call Update – two other things

Oct17

the Linkback Incentive story is going along nicely; I owe you (I think) 50 words for Ysabet’s link to the story I wrote for her.
(LJ)

Right now Ninja Kitty is winning for # of commenters, with 8. (LJ)

Tied for second with 6 commenters each are:
Rude Roomates (LJ) and
The Grey Line (LJ)

Whichever story has the most commenters by the end of day Friday, I will write a short setting piece for that setting.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/150280.html. You can comment here or there.