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Protected: Logistics
Protected: Care
Two “PrepTober” Pieces
These have been sitting in my drafts bin for a bit, but here we go…
Based on Twitter Prompts
“Write your character sick“ – Deline, Bear Empire, some time before the book
“Bear Claws don’t get sick.”
Deline had been saying this for a week, but the evidence was mounting up against her: chills, fever, an unfortunate habit of losing whatever she put in her stomach, an increasing inability to stand up.
“We don’t. It’s part of the magic of the Claw. It’s part of the initiation, it’s part of what we are. We don’t get sick.” She wasn’t really arguing with Anire, her husband’s junior wife; she was more arguing with the facts.
Anire had never turned down a fight. She looked Deline up and down and huffed.
“Well then, someone poisoned you. Or cast a nasty sort of magery on you. Something like that. Either way, you cannot go on a mission today, and you shouldn’t be going to a formal dinner. You shouldn’t be going anywhere except to bed.” Anire took a firm hold on Deline’s arm and tugged.
It was a sign of how miserable that Deline was feeling that she didn’t feel strong enough to resist the tug. “We have to be at that dinner. Any absence, any of the four of us, it will be noted.”
“This, this is why you need another husband. You need someone to send you to bed and then take your regrets to the dinner. You need someone to tell you when you’re being foolish, Deline. And make sure that you don’t knock yourself over. If you’d listened to me, if you hadn’t gone out on that hunt yesterday-”
“Enough.” Deline tried to put some firmness in her voice, but she found she had none to offer. “Enough, Anire. I will go to bed and sleep until an hour before the dinner. You can send your junior husband in, if you’re worried about me staying in place. And then, when it’s time for the dinner, I will put on my best gown and my best bright-eyes spell, and I will walk around. Then, if someone has poisoned me, they will see that they’ve failed.”
“Sleep.” Anire shoved Deline lightly into bed and hauled a blanket over her. “If you sleep now and drink broth when I bring it to you, I will make sure someone wakes you up in time for you to dress for the dinner. But if you give me any trouble at all, I’m going to sit on you, and we will both miss that dinner, and the scandal can say that we would rather spend the day in bed together than meet with the governors. Which, considering it’s the Lynx and Elk governors, has more than a small grain of truth to it. Sleep, Deline.”
Deline blinked up at her husband’s junior wife, wondering why she looked as if she was shining. “Sleep,” she agreed. She was so cold. “Another blanket?”
“Another blanket. And, you know, Deline. I’m a Claw, too. You know I know there’s no such thing as magic to keep you from getting sick.” Anire kissed her forehead lightly. “Rest, Sister Claw. I’ll watch your back.”
NanoWrimo Counter
~
“You think maybe Verve isn’t always going to be reading so maybe she can take a turn on dishes?”
“Afraid not,” Jenivere deadpanned back at him. “I am going to be reading until I die. That’s the problem with being a wizard — you literally can’t stop reading.”
~
She paused by the settee. One writer had spent a particularly long time describing this piece of furniture, in particular the way that is had cachobons set into the arms and three into the back of the piece. While the writer had not assumed they were magical in purpose or nature, such things had not been quite such common knowledge in the Harve i’s time.
~
She’d also ordered take-out from the one place willing to drive out to the middle of Nowhere and Cowsville, a pretty decent pizza-and-pub-food place in the nearest town. The pizza sat on the counter next to a soda; she wasn’t going to get pizza grease on Aunt Asta’s journals, even if she was subjecting them to heat, chemicals, and a light dabbing with distilled water.
What Next?
Written to Clare-Dragonfly’s prompt to my new “WTF?” Prompt Call. Aunt Family all the way.
Beulah considered the spell that had been the work of the last decade.
She considered young woman now leaving the property a young woman who attended the property – an 85 year old Widow. Valise in hand, she was headed off to a new life, away from whispers of what she’d done when she was twenty (the story originally had been what they did when they were twenty, but as more and more of the children of the original miscreants told the story, rather than the people who had been there, they didn’t wish to impugn their own parents, and so one by one the party shrank until it was only the woman leaving now and Beulah – and nobody made whispers like that about Beulah where she might be some day hear them); she left behind two dead husbands, three dead children, eight grandchildrens and at least four great-grandchildren, one of whom was Beulah’s great-grand-niece. Continue reading
Protected: Walk the Spiral – A Patreon story
Loss
Originally posted on Patreon in May 2018 and part of the Great Patreon Crossposting to WordPress.
This story comes after “Securing One’s Own Legacy” and is a tale of Zenobia. Warning: it covers grief and loss.
⛼
Zenobia looked good in black. And she was in no position to appreciate it.
She was actually mourning the man, although she doubted anyone in her family would believe that.
Lewis had been a sweet man, a patient man, and willing to do just about anything to keep his family off of his back, which had included a sweet but entirely sham marriage to Zenobia – a marriage he had, in the weeks before his death, explained to their pastor exactly how sham it was. Continue reading
Criminal Endeavor – an excerpt
Eva had not exactly been expecting the police to show up at her door with a warrant, but she was not completely surprised, either.
“Officer.”
“Miss Bauer. I have a warrant here to search your house for Donald Olson, or the body thereof.”
“He’s not here, in this life or the next, but you’re welcome to search. Come on in.” Eva stepped out of the way. She’d had time to clean up anything she didn’t really want the police seeing since her last encounter, two days past, with Officer Halligan and her cronies. “Watch your step; I heard one of the cats having a hairball but I haven’t found it yet.”
The officer stepped in with exaggerated care. She’d come to the front door, of course. It was a good thing Eva had cleaned all of Aunt Asta’s detritus from the front foyer last week. The front room and foyer still had a sort of prissy, maiden-Aunt sort of feel, but that was in keeping with at least one of the reputations of this house. “How long have you been living here, Miss Bauer?”
“Four months, Officer. Can I get you some tea while your team searches? And may I read the warrant?” Continue reading
First 2/3 of May on Patreon
Posts marked * are free for all to read.
Stories
Lost Niece – Lilac woke up in the middle of the night with a strange feeling of loss and, at the same time, like something had just made her stronger.
The Expectant Wood Chapter 23 — A Lesson in Plants – She nibbled on the nutmeat, finding it as described. “You really are quite good at plants.”
Run – a trunk story – “Run.” Sona grabbed Ree’s hand and, matching actions to words, began running.
Reposts
Two Concurrent Stories of Zenobia *
Family Magic Revealed * Demifiction written in the Aunt Family by dialecticdreamer, back in 2014.
Kingmaker Cake *
Misc. And Meta
Mer-May and Tarot *
The Aunt Family House & Victorian Awesomeness *
Aunt Family Tree-in-Progress *
Bonus
With a Cage * It started with a cage, the way such things do. It was a very nice cage, as such things go…