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Auntie Kitty, a story for the August Giraffe Call

Aug18

For kelkyag‘s prompt

After Kitten Troubles.

Aunt Family have a landing page here.

The mother cat wouldn’t stop meowing, but neither would she get close enough to Radar to take her kitten back. The kitten, having spoken once, was going back to upset mewling. And Radar looked immensely lost.

“You’ve never fathered a speaking cat before?”

“Never.”

“In all of your unspoken years?”

“Not once. Not until her.”

“Mirrowl.”

“Mirrow-ow-ow-owl.”

Beryl picked up the momma cat, mindful that, as with all cats, she could consist entirely of sharp ends should she wish. “Can you talk to her?”

“She won’t listen to me. She might listen to you.”

“You’re the cat.”

“You’re the Aunt.” He coughed, somehow. “Err. -in-training.”

“Yeah.” She counted that as worry-about-later and looked down at the distressed momma cat now squirming in her lap. “Okay. Radar, put the kitten down on the bed. Kitten, stay on the bed. Talk to your momma. Momma cat, your baby is fine. Weird, but fine.”

She set the cat down carefully, and stroked her behind the ears, thinking soothing thoughts. “Weird but fine. I’m afraid if you’re going to be a mother in this family, you’re going to have to learn to get used to that. Does she have other daughters, at least, Radar?”

“She has other kittens.” Radar set the kitten down carefully, and backed off a few paces. The mother cat went from cautious purring to growling until he backed off more, almost to the edge of the bed. “My daughter is not a Auntie, girl. She is…” He made a very cat noise, a very uncertain noise. “Impossible. But not an Auntie.”

She looked between the momma cat, the kitten, and her magic cat, all three pictures of feline distress, and wondered what she was supposed to do with this.

::You have to wonder,:: the necklace mused, ::why the idea of her being an Aunt bothered him so much.::

Next – http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/529730.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/390455.html. You can comment here or there.

Kitten Troubles, a story of the Aunt Family for the August Giraffe Call

Aug18

For dahob‘s prompt

After Charming, Kitten Switch, and Boy Trouble

Aunt Family have a landing page here.

Beryl didn’t worry when Radar wandered off. He was a cat, for one, a tom cat (who would dare get a magical cat neutered? Besides, he knew better than to mark in the house), and he was a magical being on top of that.

When he’d been gone for a week, she started to get a bit concerned, and, although her necklace berated her for it, she started to miss him, too.

::He’ll be back when he’s ready,:: necklace-Joseph reassured her. ::He’ll come slinking back and slide into your life like he’d never left, like that boy.::

“Enough about the boy.” She wanted to glare at the necklace, but what good would that do. “Radar…”

“I have a problem.” Never was her cat’s ability to talk without moving his mouth more clear; he walked in with a kitten scruffed in his mouth, a siamese-looking kitten who was mewling unhappily. Behind him, a black cat Beryl recognized from Crazy Aunt Beatrix’s collection followed, yowling angrily at him.

“You stole a kitten?”

::I told you he was no good.::

“I did not steal her. I fathered her. And she has been getting in no end of trouble.”

“You’re a tom cat, isn’t that what you do?” She ignored Joseph’s inveigling, letting it fade to the buzzing of bees in her mind. The mother cat was harder to ignore. “Can you let her have her kitten back?”

“It’s too late for that.” This was a new voice, a lavender-and-tea voice, young, female, and very prissy. The kitten in Radar’s mouth was staring at her. “I’m here now.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/389887.html. You can comment here or there.

Icon Flash: Courting, a story of the Aunt Family [donor perk]

Jul3

Continuing flash series! I’m going to write one flash for every Icon I have, over 4 LJ accounts, 1 DW, and a whole bunch of not-currently-in-use, until I get bored or run out of icons.

Today’s icon:

Beryl and That Damn Cat/Radar

Icon & Art by Djinni

The Aunt Family has a landing page here See Boy Trouble for an earlier piece about the cat and the necklace.

Beryl’s cat didn’t approve of her new boyfriend, but her necklace did.

This was not a problem she’d imagined herself in, a few short months ago. Then again, she hadn’t really imagined herself en-boyfriended at all, much less also en-catted and en-jewelled with a talking specimen of all three.

At least the boyfriend couldn’t hear the cat or the necklace – yet – and didn’t appear to think it strange that Radar didn’t like him. He had brought treats – a catnip mouse, a small fish, chicken livers – to ply the cat with, along with games and cookies for Beryl’s siblings and flowers for her mother.

“Are you courting me or them?” she teased, as they left the house for their fourth date. She tried to make it sound like a joke, although she wasn’t entirely certain she felt joke-y about it.

“Well…”

That wasn’t helping at all. Only the voice of the necklace-Joseph, the necklace in her pocket and the voice whispering in her ear, reassured her.

::He knows the family. He’s heard of the family, at least. He knows he’s on shaky ground. Be nice to him. Being a man in this family isn’t easy.::

He couldn’t be a man in the family at all, if Beryl was going to be the Aunt. But that was another problem, and one Joseph seemed gleeful about. Right now, her problem was the boy, the flowers he’d brought her mother, and the kiss she wanted from his lips.

“I want your family to like me.” He leaned across his truck slowly, one hand inching up her thigh. “I don’t think flowers will bribe you, though. I think I’ll have to work harder for you.”

::He can stay:: Joseph was pleased; for once, Beryl agreed completely.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/365374.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Building the Homes, a story of the Aunt Family’s Origins for the May Giraffe Call

May12

For Kelkyag‘s Prompt.

Aunt Family have a landing page here.

1802

“Here.” Carrie and Thomas glanced at each other, and then back at the land, and nodded.

“The road’s almost here, it won’t take us much to bring it this far. We’ll put the main house right on the road, and then we can build two more there and there,” Carrie pointed down the road a ways, “and a small place over there.”

“Woah, woah.” Thomas grinned at Carrie. “The small house is for your sister, then? Sarah? What are the others for?”

“This one will be for us, of course. But Elizabeth and William won’t be children forever. And there will be more.”

“Let’s build the big house first.” Thomas smiled indulgently at his wife. “The Bakers will help us, and Robert Gunnerson down the way. We helped them with their places.”

“The big house first.” Carrie set her hands on her still-flat stomach. “We’ll need it. And we can always build on later.”

~~

Twenty-five years later

“You weren’t born yet, of course.” Elizabeth pointed her sisters’ husbands towards a corner of the tiny “Aunt Cottage.” “When we moved into the big house. But by the time you were three months old, Father had already built the cottage. It’s not that Mother had a problem with Aunt Sarah, but it was more that they were much happier separated by a few acres and a few walls.”

“And you think I’ll be happier that way, separated by you by a few walls? More walls,” Harriet teased, “since you have all the men in the family building you a room onto the back of the cottage.”

“That’s for the school.” Elizabeth was, as always, placid, calm, and far too sure of herself. “And, yes. I do believe with your own child on the way, you and John will be happier to have your big sister out of your hair.”

“The house hasn’t been lived in in over a decade, Elizabeth…” Harriet was protesting mostly out of form. She, Elizabeth, their mother, William’s wife June, and their younger sister Emily had scrubbed the house down to bare wood.

“By this point, wherever Aunt Sarah vanished off to, I think it’s safe to say she’s not coming home.” Elizabeth picked up the brown tabby cat who had been ghosting around the family farm, and cuddled it against her chest. “If she does return, well, now we’ll have room for two maiden aunts.”

“You could still marry…?”

“Or I could do this. I think I’ll do this, thank you.” Elizabeth nodded at Harriet’s husband. “Thank you, Jesse. Glad to have the help around the place.”

“It’ll be nice for you to have your own house,” Harriet decided. Nice to have her sister no longer bossing her husband around, too.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/337758.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Sidekick

Apr6

For [personal profile] kelkyag‘s commissioned prompt.

The Aunt Family has a landing page here on DW and here on LJ.

“Were you taught about the archetypes?”

It wasn’t the question Evangaline had been expecting; it segued out of left field while she was still pondering the implications of someone leaving their family, of a son leaving the family.

“The tarot?” she offered, while she tried to remember things Asta and the others had mentioned to her. The archetypes, the archetypes… “No, no, not the tarot, but sometimes it seems similar. Something about the stories? Aunt Asta mentioned them, but she didn’t…”

“No, she wouldn’t have. I don’t believe she had the skill of seeing the stories. I wonder if you will.”

“I… don’t know. When Aunt Asta taught me about them, I had dreams…” Only Rosaria could make Eva feel this way, like she was being measured and judged against an invisible ruler. She shrugged, trying to shake off the elementary-school feeling. “In the Wizard of Oz, the way at the end Dorothy say ‘and you were there, and you, and you? That’s what it was like. Crazy dreams, with Uncle Arges as the Scarecrow.”

She gestured hurriedly with her free hand. “I don’t mean really the scarecrow. I mean, a sidekick, following another guy around. They were younger than I knew him, my age at the time, so late teens. I think I’d seen a picture of him at that age recently, one of the family shots? But this was much more vivid.”

“The Sidekick.” Rosaria made her “thinking” noise. “That would be Argie at that age. I don’t have the paintings with me, nor could you give them a proper look while you were driving, but the Sidekick is one of the archetypes we see a lot in our family. The Buddy. The support. That was Argie to Willard, every inch of the way. It’s what’s so tragic about the whole thing.”

More: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/534069.html
The whole story: http://lynthornealder.com/fiction/aunt-family

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/317663.html. You can comment here or there.

Heroes, a story of the Aunt Family for the March Giraffe Call

Mar31

For [personal profile] jjhunter‘s commissioned Prompt.

A continuation of “Tell me a Story,” (LJ), “Princesses, Knights, and the Huntsman” (LJ), The Princess and the Huntsman (LJ), and Princesses (LJ).

The Aunt Family has a landing page here on DW and here on LJ.

The princess had been the first painting Estebana, Adam, and Anselma had shown Rosaria, first because many young girls dreamed of being princesses, first because, as Anselma had said, in her dry, always-amused voice, “this can be the most dangerous of the stories, for everyone involved. Remember that, Rosaria.”

She had, of course. She’d remembered it when Aunt Estebana had told her the story of her Hero, and gone instead for the Farmer, for her Ned. Ned had been a steady man, a serious man, a reliable man.

Roasaria was careful to never tell her own children, he own grandchildren, not to go after the Hero or the Prince or the Knight. Let them learn on their own, not live their whole lives wishing for something they hadn’t had, the flash of blue eyes and a charming smile.

The Hero. That painting had been stacked sideways against two others, the Prince and the Knight. “These can come after this one, or be part of him, or be completely aside from it,” Estebana had explained to a baffled young Rosa. “We start with the Hero. Many boys start here, as many girls start with her.” Her dismissive gesture had taken in the pretty girl with her tiara as if she was a speck of dust or a bad idea.

“The Hero.” Grandma Anselma’s voice was steady, always steady, always smiling. “He’s a nice one. See him like this, his sturdy chestplate and his long sword. See him when you see a fireman on TV, a soldier coming home from war. This is the one who will protect you. That’s his goal and his shining quest, to protect, to rescue.”

Adam never spoke, but he spoke now, his finger hovering over the painting. “That’s the ding in his armor, the crack there, the dent there. That’s what he takes for the protection. That’s the strength he needs to protect, there in his muscles, there in his sword.”

“There’s a hole in his armor,” young Rosa had pointed out.

There’s a place you can hurt him, a much older Rosaria understood.

“There is,” Adam agreed. “Every Hero has that. Never forget that, Rosa.”

“And him?” At the time, a hole hadn’t seemed all that interesting, nor had the way her aunt and grandma weren’t saying anything seemed significant. The man in the back corner of the drawing, the second face of the Hero.

Aunt Essie smiled. “Ah, him. That’s the Father. Like your father, Rosa, he’s a hero, protecting his family, keeping them safe and warm and fed.”

“Why isn’t there a girl Hero?” The young Rosa had found that very unfair. Princesses were pretty and nice, but she wanted to be a hero, with a sword. She wanted to protect her younger sisters and stab bad guys and her armor would be shiny.

“Aaah.” Essie shook her head. “There are, of course, women who protect, girls who fight and rescue. But they are not Heroes, or Knights, any more than boys are Princesses. That is not how the story goes.”

Rosaria smiled through the decades at her long-gone aunt, and shared a memory of a knowing look with her cousin Adam. Stories, she knew, changed. People changed. And if she wanted to, she could be her own Hero, even now.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/312669.html. You can comment here or there.

Princesses, a story of the Aunt Family for the March Giraffe Call

Mar23

For [personal profile] jjhunter‘s Prompt.

A continuation of “Tell me a Story,” (LJ), “Princesses, Knights, and the Huntsman” (LJ), and The Princess and the Huntsman (LJ)

The Aunt Family has a landing page here on DW and here on LJ.

Rosaria sipped her tea and stared out the window at the tiny back yard. She’d moved here when she couldn’t take care of the big house anymore, leaving that to her oldest daughter and her brood. The family did that, passing houses around – this one had belonged to an elderly aunt of Rosaria’s, Estebana – much the way they passed charms, and trinkets, and power. Nothing was ever lost.

It had been Estebana, actually, Aunt Essie, and her grandmother Anselma, who had taught Rosaria about the stories. She could still remember sitting at the kitchen table – now her table, just with a new coat of varnish – learning about the archetypes.

Her cousin Adam, Estebana’s son, had been there, too. It had been his watercolors that she’d learned from, bright, brilliant paintings illustrating the forms the story-characters might take.

“This is the princess,” Aunt Essie had begun. The painting was of a girl in a flowing yellow dress with a white pinafore. Rosaria had wanted that dress so badly, and the little yellow-gold tiara, and the bouquet of flowers. “She represents a certain type of girl. She is pretty, and regal, and she will need rescuing at some point. Unless…” She pointed to one of the smaller women in the background of the picture. “If she is holding this,” this princess wore fringed buckskin, and carried a fierce-looking club, “it will be she that does the rescuing.”

That hadn’t, at the time, seemed that romantic to a young Rosaria. Now, staring out at the daffodils, she saw her granddaughter Lily, wearing a white pinafore and gold tiara, and carrying a giant war-club. It bore reflection.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/305635.html. You can comment here or there.

Frog Pancakes

Mar21

To [personal profile] kelkyag‘s commissioned prompt, after Big, Bad Witch

“So.” Eva stared at the boy over her orange juice for a moment. “Pancakes, little kid thing?”

“Are they in the shapes of dinosaurs?”

She smirked. “I only do that for kids that are still shorter than my knees. They’re safe, normal round things.”

“Will they turn me into a frog?”

“I don’t know anything that can do that, legends aside… so probably not.”

“Then I guess I’m probably not too old for pancakes.” Was he flirting with her?

“Good,” she answered while she tried to figure that one out. “Because they taste horrible the second day and there’s way too many for me to eat on my own right now.” She passed him a plate and a glass of orange juice. “So. You thought I was a witch?”

“You still haven’t said if you are or not. And sometimes your family says stuff, you know.”

“I’m sure they do; everyone’s family says stuff. I just have a really big family.”

“Mmn.” He stuffed his mouth full of pancakes for a minute, eating like every teenage boy she’d ever seen, as if he hadn’t eaten in weeks.

When she thought he might be able to breathe again, she added, “what sort of stuff, in this case?”

“Hunh? Oh, your family. Just… ‘Aunt Asta died, Aunt Eva’s The Aunt now.'” He dropped the caps in melodramatically. “If you don’t get a boyfriend, Beryl, you’re going to end up The Next Aunt.” He shook his head. “Like it’s a thing.”

“For us, it kind of is,” she admitted, gambling on honesty. “Sometimes we have more than one in a generation, but yeah.”

“So you really are a witch?” He looked down at the pancakes thoughtfully. “At least they’re not gingerbread.”

“You’re not running screaming in terror?”

He grinned at her, another one of those expressions she was pretty sure made Beryl go “:X” “I could feel it, you know? In my toes. I was just waiting for you to decide to tell me.”

Older Witches (LJ)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/304427.html. You can comment here or there.

Big Bad Witch

Mar18

For [personal profile] clare_dragonfly‘s Prompt.

Evangaline modern-era. After Unexpected Guest, Followed Me Home (LJ), and In the Cards (LJ)

Pancakes in hand, Eva knocked on the door to her Florida room and paused to listen.

A startled jumping sound was followed quickly by some hasty blanket-noises, and then, cautiously, “yeah?”

“It’s Eva,” she called, amused. “I brought breakfast. I can bring it in, or you can come eat in the kitchen with me.”

“I… uh. Could you bring it in?”

“Coming in,” she agreed, trying not to laugh. She swung the door open, and set the tray down on the low coffee table, before plopping herself into the old wicker chair. “Did you sleep well?”

“I… yeah.” He sounded a bit startled by that. “Did you… hex me or something?”

“I thought we talked about the witch thing.”

“You said you didn’t look like a witch. And you really don’t. But this house… everyone says it’s the witch’s house. Always has been.”

“And they say you shouldn’t go inside?”

“They say kids who do, never come out.”

Eva pursed her lips. “There is the off chance,” she allowed, “that one of my ancestors liked to scare small children. But, if it’s who I’m thinking of, those small children are grandparents or great-grandparents now, and that Aunt is long gone.” Although it might do to check the parts of the basement that had dirt floors.

“You still haven’t said you’re not a witch.”

“I haven’t,” she agreed. “But I’m not the sort that eats little children, either.”

The glance he gave her was half wounded dignity and half what she was pretty sure Beryl had meant by “Interesting :x,” though she would have just called it “steamy.” “I’m not a little kid, either,” he pointed out.

“No,” she agreed, and sipped her orange juice. “You’re clearly not.”

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/304427.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/301572.html. You can comment here or there.