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February is World Building Month. Day Twenty (Yesterday): Dragons Next Door

Feb21

[personal profile] piratekitten has declared February world-building month.

Every day in February, I will answer one question about any one of my settings.

The question post is here, please feel free to add more questions!

The twentieth question comes from Kelkyag and is for Dragons Next Door

How did a magic-ignorant to magic-averse race of technology users wind up the clueless dominant race in a world full of magic, some of it not at all subtle?

Nobody is quite sure! This goes well with How do dweomers originate?.

The problem is, humans showed up. As far as anyone can tell, they showed up already knowing how to hurt dragons and ogres and centaurs, how to fight against spellcasters, how to do more damage than anything that small and seemingly-helpless ought to be able to manage. They showed up already deadly.

Well, that’s one theory.

Another theory is that the humans, by their sheer mundanity, seemed to hold off the other races, who didn’t know what to do with something that small and that helpless and still determined to push on.

Another theory is that they’re the pet project of some ancient spellcaster of one form or another, and that they are protected from being overrun by said spellcaster’s, well, spells.

What is true is that humans aren’t entirely clueless. They’re just used to living in their areas, while the magic things live in theirs. They’re used to thinking of many of the magic races as lesser, smaller – in terms of, ah, enlightenment, they’re back at least fifty years from IRL, possibly closer to a hundred and fifty. Dweomers, of course, and in other ways tinies and pixies, have always existed alongside humans when they chose to – and, indeed, dweomers don’t even have their own cities (Unless you count the region in which the Black Tower resides, but that’s a story for another day). But most of the strangest races have lived in their own places and only within the last fifty years begun co-existing with humans in the same cities.

After all, the tiny fragile things have such interesting toys.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/675937.html. You can comment here or there.

February: World-Building Month

Feb10

[personal profile] piratekitten has declared February world-building month.

Every day in February, I will answer one question about any one of my settings.

The question post is here, please feel free to add more questions!

The eighth question comes from Kelkyag and is for Dragons Next Door

How do dweomers originate?

There are probably as many theories of the origin of dweomers as there are dweomers – and possibly more than that, as many of the other races have opinions on these not-quite-human-more-than-humans.

What is known is: They rarely but occasionally appear to spontaneously generate; cases where two normal humans give birth to a dweomer are almost entirely the result of one or both humans lying or being misinformed about their own genetics.

There have been dweomers around as long as, say, Dragons and Centaurs and the like have been known – which is to say, at least as long as history has been written, and the dragons have very long histories. Dweomers are crossfertile with humans, they look like humans, they can generally pass as humans as long as blood or genetic tests are not involved, but they are not, in actuality, human.

(If you look at the science of this too hard, I will remind you that this world involves tiny-humanoids in two categories, as well as centaurs and dragons. <3)

One of the favorite theories is that humans themselves are the anomaly: the world grew up with dragons and ogres, centaurs and elkin and such, but at some point humans fell into this world from an alternate reality. They found dragons eggs to be immensely irresistible, and found clever ways to hunt them; they found centaurs to be very tempting mounts, and quickly managed to enslave some.

(This, of course, being a tale told around fires, especially non-human fires, does not say how the humans did such).

The short answer is: the question isn’t so much how did dweomers originate, as how did humans originate.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/663767.html. You can comment here or there.

Friends Do, a story of Dragons Next Door for OrigFic Bingo

Jan28

To kelkyag‘s prompt to my January card for [community profile] origfic_bingo.

This fills the “friendship” square.

It comes after Hands-on Knowledge.

Jin leaned against the bleachers in gym class, and listened to his human friends fail to understand.

“You introduced her to your folks, right? You did the whole prom thing, you’ve gone on dates… you’ve got all the hard stuff out of the way.” Toby had been with his girlfriend, Vanessa, for over a year; he at least thought he knew what he was talking about.

“Until Valentine’s Day.” Geordi had gone through seven girlfriends in six months. “Or her birthday. Or, god forbid, Christmas. But it’s April. You’re golden, unless her birthday’s in May.”

“Seriously.” Toby caught a ball tossed their way – they were supposed to be playing dodge-ball – and shook his head at Jin. “Unless this is oogy boogy stuff?”

“Oogy boogy!” Geordi wriggled his fingers in what he clearly thought was a classic “magic happens” gesture.

“Yes.” Jin sighed. “It’s oogy boogy stuff.”

“Is she…” Toby mimicked Geordi’s gesture.

“Well, yeah. I mean, I wouldn’t have brought her home so soon otherwise.”

“Racist parents, hunh? I know how that can be.” Toby shrugged. “So she’s a… damnit.” It was as if, having played the ‘racism’ card, he felt like he had to be correct himself. “She’s a dweomer, then? So it’s not like you have to keep the magic stuff hidden from her. Can you do that, in your house? I mean, we’ve been there, man…”

“Exactly. You’ve been there. Which means, you know who my neighbors are.”

“What, the pixies?”

“No, they’re not quite neighbors…“ Jin shrugged. “Besides, she’s already met them.”

His friends – even his human friends – weren’t stupid. “Woah. You mean the dragons. You haven’t introduced her to Jimmy yet?”

“No.” He hunched his shoulders forward. “I haven’t. When a dragon doesn’t like someone…”

“He’s your best friend, man. I mean… we’re your friends. He’s your literal wingman.” Geordi patted Jin’s back. “She makes you happy, right?”

“Yeah?” Yeah. More than anything.

“Then Jimmy will be fine. But you gotta tell him.”

Jin swallowed. It wasn’t nearly that simple, but… “Right. Right, okay. If you see charred remains…”

“We’ll make sure all the girls cry at your funeral, yep. But it won’t be like that.” Toby punched his arm. “Go. Talk to him. That’s what friends do.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/645248.html. You can comment here or there.

Hands-on-Knowledge, a Drabble of Dragons Next Door for the December Bingo Card

Jan12

This is to [personal profile] anke‘s prompt (on twitter) to my December OrigFic Bingo Card. This fills (for the second time) the “Knowledge” square.

Jin, Bianna, and the narrator (Aud) belong to the Dragons Next Door setting.

“There’s theoretical classes, of course.” Jin was talking fast. I tried not to smile; he liked to talk fast when he didn’t think his father was going to give him something. It worked on Sage, half because Sage didn’t notice it was happening, and then the other half because he noticed and was amused by it.

I was not Sage, but it amused me as well. I let him go on.

“There’s classes in everything, and Bianna’s already taking classes in the local college. And, being here, being so close to Smokey Knoll, you know that the college here is good in those things. But there’s all of those classes, and they only cover a small amount, and it’s all theory, you know, none of it is solid practice, and even the ones that do field work won’t let someone Bianna’s age – or mine – go on a field mission.”

“And you think I ought to know better than college professors?” I found it interesting that Bianna was simply listening. Her back was straight and she was watching me, not Jin. This was a girl to watch out for – or one to welcome into the family. Sage and I had been arguing that since we met her.

“I know you know better than the professors. The question is whether or not you’ll trust Bianna, not whether or not you’ll take a teenager on a field mission. After all, you’ve taken me and even Junie on trips.” He held up his hands. “I know it’s different. We’re your kids. You’ve been training us since we were born. but Bianna doesn’t have that. Her parents are human… as far as we can tell. She’d never even met a pixie until she came along with me on my birthday, much less a dragon. And the field is larger than you can handle on your own for a city, Mom, you’ve said it yourself, large and growing. You’ll need more than just me and Junie – if she wants to – and there’s going to be my time with the Tower.”

My boy knew how to talk. I nodded to Jin. Watch carefully, or welcome into the family. Possibly both. “And what does Bianna want?”

Bianna cleared her throat. “I want to learn, ma’am. I mean, I was considering social work for a career, but then Jin told me that the other races have almost no representation at all, and it occurred to me… maybe I could combine them. But I don’t know anything except what I’ve read in books.”

I knew everything the paperwork of a bureaucratic city could provide on Bianna, but that was not, by far, everything one could learn. “Perhaps we both could benefit from some hands-on learning.”

And if my son shot me a warning glance, well, that was his right. He was welcome to whatever relationships and loves he wanted, but when he introduced her to the family business… then it was time for some hands-on learning indeed.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/634766.html. You can comment here or there.

Victimization, a story of Dragons Next Door for the Giraffe Bingo Call

Jan8

To [personal profile] kelkyag‘s prompt to my orig-fic card. This fills the “Cunning Plan” slot.

Juniper, Kelkathian, and Azdekious are part of my Dragons Next Door setting; its landing page is here.

This story is directly after Team D.

“What’s the big deal? She’s a rich kid.”

Kelkathian stood on kel’s toes and shot Azdekious a glance. The driver still wasn’t getting it. This could be a problem. They had an unconscious kid they’d contracted to protect, an immensely important unconscious kid, a panicking backup guy, and a dumb driver.

The situation could be a lot worse, of course; any of them in the front could know what they were doing.

“The big deal.” The backup guy coughed. “The big deal? The big deal?”

“Stop saying that!”

“The big deal is that this is a kid from Smokey Knoll!”

“It’s a human kid from Smokey Knoll. Only rich humans live up on that hill.”

Kelkathian counted silently. One, two, three.

Four, five, six, seven. Wow, the passenger really was angry – or stunned. Possibly both.

“There are no humans living on Smokey Knoll.”

And now there was another silent count. Looking at Azdekious, he was doing the same thing. One, two, three…

“Say that again?” The driver’s voice had changed.

“There are no humans living on Smokey Knoll.” So had the passenger’s voice. They were both using very careful, measured tones.

And now, now it was time to make sure the driver understood. Kelkathian reached out with kel’s othersense, grabbed the electricity, and shorted out several fuses. The car went dead.

“There aren’t… but… the heck?” The driver turned the key a few times. Nothing happened, of course… and then the glue holding the cloth to the roof failed over the driver’s side.

The seat brackets failed. Something in the radio began to pop and hiss. A spring in the seat popped out and jabbed the driver in the posterior. Kelkathian had to stifle a giggle.

The passenger got out of the van. Fleeing? No, the back door opened.

The passenger, a slim man in his late twenties, was holding both of his hands in the air. “I am going to take the girl out of the van. I am going to carry her to this bus stop. I am going to call her parents and wait there, protecting her, until someone arrives to pick her up who can prove parentage.”

“The heck are you doing?” The driver was trying to extricate himself from his seat, but not having much luck.

The man appeared to be looking at Junie, who was still laying motionless. “I do not wish to be the victim of this child’s allies’ rage. I am going to do everything I can to get her back to her parents before I am.”

Kelkathian studied the man. She didn’t generally have much use for humans, but this one was showing promise.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/632365.html. You can comment here or there.

Team D, a story of Dragons Next Door for the Giraffe Bingo Card Call

Jan5

To [personal profile] kelkyag‘s prompt to my orig-fic card. This fills the “Cunning Plan” slot.

Juniper, Kelkathian, and Azdekious are part of my Dragons Next Door setting; its landing page is here.

“What… what the seventeen different sparks?” Kelkathian and Azdekious stared at each other, and then at the van they had suddenly found themselves in. “This isn’t team C.”

“This isn’t Team B.” Kelkathian gave a headshake, and wormed out of the backpack. Juniper was unconscious, looking for all the world as if she was napping at home in her bed. “Can’t be team A.”

“You’re telling me we were guarding against three teams of kidnappers…”

“And a fourth one came out of nowhere. I am indeed telling you that.” Kelkathian dropped carefully to the floor. The back of the van was filled with plumbing supplies, all of it with the appropriate level of wear for an actual plumber, but something about it still felt wrong to Kel.

“Is she waking up back there?” The voice came from the driver’s seat; Kel ducked into Juniper’s jacket while the passenger turned around. “I thought I heard something.”

“Must be dreaming, then, ’cause she’s still out like a light.”

“Hunh. Thought a rich kid would be harder to grab than that.”

Kel peeked over Junie’s pocket and saw the driver’s face – nothing exciting, nothing important, and her othersight told her he was nothing but human. Very human, strong and tough and so normal it was almost painful, but this wasn’t a dweomer or an elf or an elkin or really anything but a normal human kidnapper…

…who thought Juniper was a rich kid.

“You’re sure her parents have money?” The passenger seemed to have the same qualms about this plan that Kelkathian did.

“They live in Smokey Knoll. You tell me a human that could afford a house there who wasn’t filthy rich.”

The car screeched to a halt. “This is a Smokey Knoll kid?” The passenger’s voice was a hiss. That was your cunning plan? To grab a kid from Smokey Knoll?”

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/632365.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/629631.html. You can comment here or there.

Under Pressure

Dec31

Story: Introductions
Prompt: Under Pressure – Orgfic Bingo
Series: Dragons Next Door
Summary: Directly after Now and Then.

“Mom, Dad… this is Bianna.”

There were a hundred things Jin wanted to say; there were at least fifty that Bianna wanted him to say, and probably forty-five of those overlapped. He could guess at a double dozen his parents wanted to hear from him, and twice that his siblings would want to hear.

But all of that had to wait on that sentence. Jin knew how this worked. He understood a thing or two about becoming an adult, and he understood more than that about his parents, and how you had to deal with them, especially if you were their child.

So simply: “Sorry I’m late… Insert excuse here… here’s the girl of my dreams.”

Which, when you were Audrey and Sage’s child, was a little more of a statement than it would be from a human.

There was a pause, a heartbeat, another heartbeat, another one. “Bianna, welcome. You’re just in time for Jin’s birthday party.” Jin’s mother stood up and greeted Bianna, both hands enclosing the younger woman’s hand in a warm greeting, while her eyes stayed on the girl’s face.

Jin found himself breathing again. “Bianna is in my class at school; we ended up spending the prom together, after the, ah, incident.”

“Pleased to meet you, Bianna.” Jin’s father stood up and bowed, deeply, the sort of thing he saved for formal occasions. “While I’m saddened to have not heard of you before, I’m very glad to have you here now. As Audrey said, it’s our Jin’s eighteenth birthday celebration.”

Jin was holding his breath again.

“So I heard.” Bianna had a winning smile, the sort of bright and sharp-toothed thing that had made her family line famous. “And I’m so excited to get to meet you finally. I think Jin was worried that you wouldn’t accept me.”

And, just like that, she dropped the bomb.

And, just as handily, Audrey caught it. “Nonsense. Of course Jin has reason to be worried – we’re his parents, and we fuss – but we’re happy he brought you home to meet us.” This time, her gaze was assessing, what Jin thought of as her professional glance. “Do you eat greenery, dear? Baked goods? If not, we have plenty of meat on the table as well. Please, do, pull up a chair.”

“I can murder the occasional salad.” Bianna’s teeth were, of course, meat-rending, but Jin had seen her eat vegetables and even sometimes a bagel. She took the seat Audrey indicated, waiting the half-heartbeat so that she and Jin sat at the same moment. “You’re both so kind.”

“I imagine,” Sage’s voice was quiet, “Jin wasn’t the only one worried that we’d accept you. Please don’t worry, Bianna. We do strive to be welcoming here.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/624054.html. You can comment here or there.

Then and Now – Audrey and Sage, Dragons Next Door

Dec24

To [personal profile] kelkyag‘s prompt to my orig-fic card. This fills the “Then and Now” slot.

Audrey, Sage, and Jin are part of my Dragons Next Door setting; its landing page is here.

Then

“The centaur next door is foaling.” Sage came home late at night, his sleeves rolled up to his shoulders. “And the pixies in the mailbox could use some help… oh. Oh, Audrey, blessings from the bottom of the world, what…”

That had not been the reaction I’d been expecting, but I would take it. “It appears…” My voice was a little more shaky than I’d thought. I coughed, sipped my soothing infusion one-handed, and tried again. “It appears it’s going around. Kidding season, perhaps?”

“Kidding…” I had never, never in our years, heard Sage’s voice do that, that thing where it squeaked at the end. Never seen his composure shaken. “Audrey, did you do this on your own?”

I lifted up the tiny baby so he could see own firstborn. “Nonsense, Sage, you had something to do with it.” He was so distraught, I had to throw him a bone. “Mistress Gnomen served as midwife.”

“I was going to…”

“Plans change, my love. It’s all right.” Everything was all right. We had each other, and we had our son.

Now

“Plans change, my love. It’s all right.” I lit the candle in the warmer and tried not to glance out the window.

“It’s his birthday.” Sage was pacing. My beloved was not very often distressed, but when he was, it was a sight to be seen. I was, truth be told, a little surprised that there weren’t sparks coming from his fingers. “He’s late.”

“He’s our son, Sage. Something probably came up.”

Sage’s cheeks darkened. No, that was not what I’d wanted. “Like his last birthday?”

“Sage, darling.” What to say to that? Yes, like his last birthday. Like the day Jin was born and many of the birth-days in between. But that would not help matters, when Sage was waiting impatiently to gift his firstborn with his adulthood, and that firstborn had, in the time while we were busy, gone and taken it on his own.

Sage sighed. “I know. But it’s his eighteenth birthday. And you made his favorite meal.”

“Sorry I’m late.” The door slammed. When you had teenaged boys, the door often slammed. “We got stuck in the middle of a pixie debate, and you know how those are. Oh, Mom, Dad… this is Bianna.”

A sip of a soothing infusion calmed me; by the time Jin and Bianna made it into the dining room, I was smiling and ready. Our son was home; everything was all right.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/620399.html. You can comment here or there.

Two Years Ago – Badges

Oct18

Two years ago, I wrote Questions for the “Spooks, Creeps, Ghosts, and Ghouls” Giraffe Call. This follows that.

I admit, Juniper joining a Girl Scout troop was not my favorite idea when she broached it.

The troop, like her school, was mixed, which both a point for and against it. Juniper needed more experience dealing with “normal human kids,” on the other hand, dealing with normal human kids sometimes meant she came home crying, because they didn’t live in the same world she did.

Sage and I conferred. Then we debated. Then we bargained. Then Juniper went to Girl Scouts.

First, there was that incident with the Rakshasa. The Girl Scout leadership, you see, is entirely human. They’re entirely human and very, very mundane, and they didn’t know what a Rakshasa was.

I had a talk with them – and a much longer talk with the Rakshasa – and the troop got a second leader. I thought everything was settled. Juniper was having fun. She was even making friends, friends with human girls. She even had her first sleepover – which meant I had a nice long conversation with three human mothers and, in the end, one of of them slept over, too. We braided each other’s hair and watched bad movies; it was like being back at the Pumpkin again.

Things were going well, and the Rakshasa hadn’t eaten anyone (my brownies, she said, helped quite a bit). Then Junie came home with her new friends, crayons, and blank badges. After they’d been working for three or four hours, I thought to ask what they were up to.

Junie looked up at me with her best I’m-innocent-really-Mom expression. “We’re making new badges.” Her friend Mirella was drawing something very very tiny with pen in the middle of her badge.

“New badges?”

Courtney held up her paper, on which, in very careful handwriting, was listed a full description of what had to be the badge Mirella was drawing. “They don’t have enough badges. So we’re making more. This is the pixie furnishings badge.”

Well, at least she was spending time with more girls her age…

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/584892.html. You can comment here or there.

Learning and Lies

Aug18

This is the first of Rix’s requests from the What I Want What You Want Fundraiser. It ties in with Hatred and is on the darker end of Dragons Next Door, as much of the self-hating Dweomer stories are

Belinda had not, for a long time, questioned Cathal, his motivations, his cause, or his methods.

He was an immensely charismatic figure, which might excuse her from some of this, and his cause resonated with her upbringing, which excused a little more.

But for five years, she – along with a small group of dedicated hunters – followed him and took his lead. She hunted with him – they hunted with him – tracking down the deviants from humanity and eliminating them.

It seemed a noble cause. They hurt humanity. Not only did Cathal say so, but she’d seen it with her own eyes. They damaged humanity when they pretended to be part of it, they tainted the bloodlines with their blood, and they blurred the line between other and human until there was no line at all anymore. And none of this could be accepted.

“Please…” Her recent target had woken up sooner than expected. Sooner being at all. Bound in iron and wrapped in silk, they didn’t normally do much except end. They’d never plead with Belinda before.

Manners pushed her into answering. “I can’t untie you.”

“I’m not asking you to. I know what you are. I know what your people to do my people. It’s too late for me.”

It sounded far too human. Belinda moved to tape its mouth shut, but it hissed out another plea, so quiet and so urgent that she had to stop. “No, please, please… my daughter.”

Belinda stopped, her hand inches from the thing’s mouth. She’d never thought about them having daughters before. Children. “Your daughter?”

“She’s upstairs. She’s in her bedroom. Please… please don’t let her see me like this.”

“Is this a trick?” Her hand still hovered. They could be tricky. They could fool you.

“No, No, I swear it on iron and stone.” The thing winced as the iron wrapped around it burned it. An oath made like that normally had to be tortured out of them.

“Why?” Belinda had to ask. “Why swear?” Why did she…

“It’s my daughter.”

“Dweomers don’t have family.”

“I can’t lie to you, I swore by iron and stone. Whatever they told you about dweomers, that part is true.”

“You’re saying someone lied to me.”

“Everybody lies.” The thing twitched and winced. “Except, right now, me. Or anyone else you bind with iron and stone.”

“Any dweomer, you mean.”

“Anyone who can be bound. You’d be surprised how many humans aren’t as human as they think they are.” The thing pulled against its bonds. “Promise me. Promise me that she won’t see me like this. Take her away, give her to a foster family. but don’t let this taint her.”

“If you have a daughter…. won’t she be a dweomer as well?”

“Not always.” The woman struggled. “Please. Please, not for me. But for her…”

“You have a daughter. And you care about her.”

“Yes. Yes, I love her.” And she did not flinch. “More than anything in the world, I love her.”

“Dweomers can’t love.”

“You have been lied to. You have been lied to so much.” On the floor, the mother rolled her shoulders. “You have been lied to. But I will not lie to you. By blood and stone, iron and flesh.” She twitched and winced on the floor. “I will not lie to you. As long as I live. I have a daughter and I love her.”

“Speaking of love doens’t burn you.” Belinda looked down at the woman. “It’s supposed to burn you as bad as iron does.”

“As I said, you have been lied to. My daughter… I beg of you. My daughter.”

Belinda took a long breath. “I need you to promise me something else.”

“Anything. Anything, for my daughter.”

She needed to stop saying that. Belinda could hear someone moving upstairs. She could hear sounds that sounded like her own daughters. She could imagine a child walking downstairs and seeing its mother dead… finding its mother gone, never to return.

“Promise me no retaliation for this day.”

“No…” The woman’s eyes had shut. Now they flew open again. “I swear to you that I will bring no retaliation down on you for your actions of this day. I swear it..”

“That’s enough.” Belinda put her hand over the woman’s mouth. “No need to burn it into your flesh. You are a mother and so am I.”

She cut the silk bindings loose and unlocked the iron shackles. “I have to run. I have to run, before they find me. And you do, too, you and your daughter. They won’t forgive either of us for this.”

“Take your child and run.” The woman, the dweomer mother, stood and shook out her limbs. “Now that I know that they are after me, I will be able to stall them quite a while before they think to come after you.”

They met each other’s eye, and then the dweomer woman winked. “If I do it right, they’ll never know you survived.”

“Thank you.” Belinda picked up her kit. She could use the tools for something, she was sure.

“What will you do? Besides run?”

She looked down at her kit and considered. “Learn. I have been lied to, you said. So now I will have to learn.”

“A noble goal. But first…”

“First, we run.” And she ran.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/563690.html. You can comment here or there.