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Useful

Sep20

Set ~50 years after Addergoole: the Original Series, after the “Retirement” stories.

To her credit, his owner hadn’t said “make yourself useful.”

To his frustration, when she’d said “I want to make use of you,” it hadn’t been anything like what he’d had in mind.

Rozen looked at the class – all girls, all in their teens – and then back at Kailani. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”

“You’re close enough to full strength now.” She had her analytical voice on. She was, however, also smiling. “I’m sure you can handle teaching self-defense.”

“Self-defense. Right.” He looked at the girls. They looked back at him, as uncertain as he felt. “All right. I’ve got this,” he told Kai. “I won’t hurt ’em. You can… go do whatever you do. Dean.”

She hesitated. He saw the moment where she questioned her decision to leave him alone with teenage girls. He wanted to be offended – but he didn’t want her to get into the habit of thinking he was harmless, either.

Rozen turned his back on his owner and studied the girls. “All right. We’re going to start with you showing me what you’ve got. Don’t hold back. I’m hard to hurt.”

Un-slump-me prompt call

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/983446.html. You can comment here or there.

Character building: Eris (a drabble)

Sep20

Mid year five

They were whispering again. Eris held her glass out to Aviv and waited, patiently enough, while he filled it.

He raised his eyebrows at her, at the way her free hand was drumming on the counter. “Careful. That’s your seventh.”

Eris laughed, although there was no humor in it. “What’s going to happen if I drink too many? You gonna try to grab me?”

“I won’t.” There was never a time when Aviv didn’t look serious. Eris wondered if the tentacles that made up his mouth under his Mask could even make a smile. Today, he sounded serious, too. “But I wouldn’t assume someone else is as smart.”

Eris raised her eyebrows. “Smart? You saying I’m a bad catch?”

He saluted her with a drink, the closest he might ever come to that elusive smile. “I’m saying nobody with half a brain thinks that they’d survive putting a collar on you again. If you didn’t kill them – and you probably would – well, Joff and Rafe aren’t collared anymore. It would be a mess.” He leaned back and sipped his drink, or, at least, held his drink up near his lips and some of it vanished. “I might even get involved.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/983165.html. You can comment here or there.

Mentor-Student

Sep19

He’d tried “no,” “fuck no” and “no way in a billion fucking years.” Doug had tried everything he thought he’d work and a few things he’d known wouldn’t, but in the end, he’d lost anyway. His father had put his foot down, and Doug had found himself sitting in his own office, staring across his desk at a new student.

“I’m going to be your Mentor.”

She glared back at him and worked her mouth for a moment, like the whole idea tasted bad. “They told me. Thought we were supposed to get a choice.”

Doug swallowed most of a laugh. “Yeah, me too. Guess we blew that one.”

She raised her eyebrows, raised her bic, and lit up a tiny flame. “Rock on.”

Un-slump-me prompt call

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/983020.html. You can comment here or there.

Character building: Rand (a drabble)

Sep19

This story contains allusions to non-consensual everything


End of Year Five.

Rand didn’t go out to Maureen’s much, but the day the Second Cohort left, he found himself leaning on the fence with a bunch of other dads, trying to pick his kid out of the tumbling toddlers. She’d be blonde, probably. That didn’t narrow it down all that much. Maybe about, what, a year old now? How big were one-year-olds?

A hand slapped across his back. He didn’t need to turn to know who it was. He’d always know her touch.

“Cheer up, kiddo.” Acacia was laughing at him. She spent a lot of time laughing, she always had. “You’ve got two more years left. You’ll find someone who holds still long enough.”

Rand bristled. “It was just-“

“Or,” she continued, that way she had of talking right over him, “it’s not like you don’t know what to do to make them hold still. I thought we taught you that much, at least.”

And she was gone, leaving Rand staring off into the Village at her ponytail. Following after her, the way he always seemed to.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/982649.html. You can comment here or there.

First Cohort’s Graduation, a drabble story of Addergoole

Sep15

I felt like writing this, so I did. Year four was pretty awful for everyone.

End of Year Four of the Addergoole School

The students had all walked across the stage, had all been given their names and released from one set of obligations and oaths into another. Various bonds and promises had broken. The students milled around now in the Village, waiting for parents to pick them up, waiting for Luke’s Jeep to take them to the airport.

Regine watched them from a distance, accompanied by Mike and Shira Pelletier. They bounced about, nervous energy making them louder than they normally would be. Students who had spent four years ignoring each other talked now, bonded by the feeling of “us against the world.”

There was a chance they’d need it. Mike cleared his throat. “Well, there goes the First Cohort.”

“Indeed.” Regine’s lip twitched. It wasn’t a smile, not as normal people smiled. Mike wasn’t even sure it counted as an expression for Regine.

“How do you think they’ll do?” He snuck a look at Shira, but she was ignoring him. “Do you think they’ll be okay, out in the world?”

“We gave them everything we could, every educational tool we had at our disposal.” Regine’s eyes tracked them coldly. Shadrach, who Mike had failed so badly. Dita, who had chosen her road and nailed herself to it with her stiletto heels. Isra. Lavanya. Linden had Named four Students as Adults today, and he wasn’t entirely certain he’d done well for any of them.

“We educated them.” Shira spoke slowly, thoughtfully. Her Students were all Third Cohort or younger. She had no horse in this race, as it were. “We taught them about being fae. We taught them about fighting, and we taught them history and science, literature and so on. But did we equip them for the end?”

Mike felt as if someone had dropped a truckload of rocks on his chest. The end. There were few scarier words than those, from a seer’s lips.

Regine cleared her throat. “We’ve followed the plan. If you believe the plan needs changing, Shira, then perhaps we should discuss it with the entire staff.”

If she expected the Skin-Taker to back down, she was barking up the wrong tree. Shira raised her perfect eyebrows and smirked.

“Why don’t we do that, then. Michel?” She made Mike’s name sound lovely in French. “What do you think?”

Mike watched Shadrach and Meshach hop into Luke’s Jeep. He cleared his throat and nodded.

“Yeah. Yeah, I think we ought to look at the plan again.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/981589.html. You can comment here or there.

Year ONE Addergoole

Sep15

If I was going to write a story about Addergoole Year one, do any of the students intrigue you as a Point-of-View character?

Cohort 1
1995

Absalom
Aella
Amanada
Anise
Barnaby [name subject to change]
Ciro
Dita
Donegal
Holly
Isra
Juniper
Lavanya [formerly known as Oralee]
Liza
Megan
Meshach
Shadrach
Tristan
Ysolde

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/981278.html. You can comment here or there.

Sharing the Infliction, a story continuation of Addergoole

Sep3

After Inflicting Change, beginning of Year 20 of Addergoole

“Director Regine doesn’t ever take Students. My mother said she never has.“

Jack punctuated his words with lazy sneers and casual touches, patting Senka’s arm, shaking his head as if she was being foolish.

Senka pulled away. She had only been here for a week and a half, and she was already sick of Jack and the dozen others that were remarkably similar to Jack while looking nothing like him. “I did not say she had.”

“Your mother was wrong, anyway.” Perth was not like Jack. He was so completely not like Jack that Senka was unclear why he was friends with him, “crew” with the loud, obnoxious, self-satisfied, touching her again Jack. “She’s taken one Student. It was when my mom was here. Maybe your mom missed it.”

“Senka?” The Director’s secretary showed up just in time to forestall yet another fight between Jack and Perth. Senka wondered if Perth had seen the woman coming and timed it that way. “Director Regine would like to see you in her office after your magic classes today.”

“Thank you, Miss Hayley. I’ll see her there..” Senka barely resisted the urge to smirk at Jack.

She did, however, give in to the desire to gloat. “Perhaps,” she commented as they left the table for afternoon classes, “Director Regine will have one more student.”

~

Four students sat in the office, looking at each other. Two of the three, a boy named Mirek and a girl named Lianshi, were in advanced calculus with Senka. The third, a slender boy with lapis-blue eyes, she shared a Russian class with. Sumner.

They were alone in the room, despite having been called in by Director Regine. Senka, at least, was uncomfortable, and she could guess from the way that Sumner was shifting around that he was too. Lianshi was staring at the wall; Mirek was watching Lianshi – and Senka. Was every boy in this school prepared to be obnoxious?

“You’re all on time. Very good. That is a very good quality in a student.” Director Regine stepped into the office and closed the door behind her. “I am here to offer the four of you positions as my Students. I do not often take on new Students, but I have decided to make a change. You four would be my first Students in many years.”

“You want us to accept you as our Mentor?” Lianshi leaned forward. “Why us?”

“You are universally brilliant. You have at least one Grigori ancestor, which increases the chances that we will get along and be able to understand each other. And you have expressed in interest in one or more of my own areas of interest.”

“And why you?” Mirek was leaning back, looking like he was proud of himself. Senka rolled her eyes. “Why should you be our Mentor?”

“Well.” It struck Senka that the Director had not thought this through. “I am skilled and experienced in many things you have expressed interest in – the workings of Intinn, biology and genetics, mathematics and statistics.”

“No thanks.” Mirek stood up. “I think I’ll stick with Professor Fridmar. Thanks for the offer, though.”

He walked out, leaving Director Regine clearing her throat uncomfortably. “Well, ah, then. And the rest of you…?”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/979033.html. You can comment here or there.

Help fill the Roster – Addergoole year 20 (& 19,18,18)

Sep3

The year is (fictionally) 2014. The world started ending in 2011. Tell me something/as much as you want/ everything about an Addergoole student beginning school this, the 20th year of Addergoole.

Existing students in year 20 are:
Adalbert (Anda/Ciro)
Alewar (Sarita/Finn)
Ankara (Aggie/Bowen)
Berry (holly/Tristan)
Chaney (http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/123052.html)
Eryk (Shiva/Ty)
Lidah (Ivette/Anwell)
Rasputin (‘Lisha/Vlad)
Selena (Oralee/Meshach)
Semiramis
Willow (Acacia/Carter)

This is still early enough for 1st generation characters, however!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/978837.html. You can comment here or there.

“A Storm over Addergoole East” posted on Patreon

Aug19

Posted on Patreon for Patrons-only, a story of Kailani, Regine, and Addergoole East:

A Storm Over Addergoole East

August 2008
The school looked very much the same. That was, Kailani supposed, reasonable. It had not changed in the three years she’d been there; only her viewpoint had.

The halls were empty. There would be nobody here except teachers she recognized anyway, but she still found herself looking in the corners and niches, peeking into the classrooms. That’s where Rozen had grabbed her. That’s where she’d first met Taro. There was the dining hall, where she’d first found out she was in a school of faeries.

This was Director Regine’s office…

Want to read this and many other stories? A Patronage of just $1/month will give you access to everything posted on Patreon. That’s just $1 for $36 worth of fiction!

Want input into the story prompts? A Patronage of $5/month lets you prompt in the monthly prompt calls. For $15/month you get your own personal story!

Check it out!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/973936.html. You can comment here or there.

Angelic Visitation

Aug14

This comes after The Storm Prince of Death and @inspectrCaracal’s response here. It is set in the Fae Apoc, at least 60 years after the 2011 apocalypse.  Yoshi is the son of Cynara, often mentioned.  

⚡

Yoshi loved his parents, he really did, but sometimes he just needed to get out into the world and get away from them. The same was true of Dáirine, with whom he had a strange sort of on-again, on-again relationship that neither of them quite understood.

To get away, he’d taken to wandering the world — a family trait, it seemed. There was a lot of world out there to see; Yoshi had a feeling that he could travel for a century and not see half of it. But he made a point of checking in every year or so. There was nothing more embarrassing than having your mother appear out of nowhere because you hadn’t remembered to visit.

It was on the way back “home” — to Cloverleaf, which had never been home but was the place his family lived — that Yoshi encountered the little village. It was friendly to a passing stranger, something not all towns would do in this rough age, but their friendliness had a cautious edge to it. Continue reading →