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A Vision to Purchase

Mar27

Set ~1890, in response to a conversation with cluudle last night.

Content notes: this includes allusions to some of the most awful stuff in the Addergoole ‘verse, but mostly in passing.

She was living in a cabin in the swamp.

It suited her; away from people she saw less, felt less. Also, she was still a fur-taker, would always be one, and that was a trade best plied alone. A man came once a month – he took the furs and skins and things, and brought her food and clothing and such.

Today was not that day. She grew a little fuzzy on the passage of time, true, but the moon had been full when he’d come last, and it was only a half-moon now. And yet there was a boat bumping against her dock.

The fur-taker threw on pants and her favorite shirt, soft and worn, the cuffs stained, but so comfortable. She had fancy clothes, but she did not dress fancy for uninvited guests.

She was “decent” enough by the time the delicate knock came at her door, and flung said door open with a dramatic woosh.

There was a woman standing on the fur-taker’s porch. She was dressed tidily, expensively, in a smooth dress that was just a little too sleek to be fashionable. She had, the fur-taker noted with approval, put on thick boots in defiance of fashion and deference to sense. Beyond her, a man waited in a sturdy row-boat.

She was, the fur-taker noted, a beautiful woman, blonde, clear-skinned, with a firm set to her chin and an equally determined set to her shoulders. She cleared her throat. “Are you the one they call the Skin-Taker?”

The fur-taker waited. This was her home. It was not up to her to identify herself first.

The woman coughed twice. “My name is Regine; I am called the Lady of the Lake.”

Nobody the fur-taker had heard of. But she’d done the proper thing, so she got a nod. “I’m the Skin-Taker.” This seemed like a social visit; she hesitated and added, “my father named me Chantal.”

“‘Stony’ and ‘song’.” The woman nodded. “They say that your name fits you.”

The fur-taker smiled sharply. She had shaped her teeth to points, herbivorous Change be damned. “Both names do.” To the woman’s credit, she didn’t flinch. “Come in, if you mean me and mine no harm.”

“I mean you no harm at all.” The woman took the invitation and stepped into the fur-taker’s cabin. “I come simply to consult. They say you are the best seer that has ever been.”

The fur-taker nodded her head. “That has been said.”

“I come to commission a seeing from you.”

Chantal closed her eyes. “They come at a high price.” Out here, she did not have to touch people, to see the future. Out here, there were only the small futures of deer and weasels and other such things.

“The price to not knowing is so much higher.” The woman’s voice broke. Chantal opened her eyes to surprise a brief moment of vulnerability on her visitor’s face. Not a Grigori, then, despite the loveliness. They were never vulnerable. “I have brought… some things. And I will send more with your man every month for ten years, if you perform a seeing for me.” She pulled a parcel from her bag; the smell of cheese wafted to Chantal’s nose. And – she sniffed deeply – yes, gunpowder and… cardamom. And as the woman opened the package, she saw salt and the glint of steel: one steel knife, and a new pistol, the style strange to her eyes.

She nodded crisply. “This is a good price,” she agreed. Her mouth was watering; it had been some time since she’d tasted cheese like that. “I will need to touch you.”

Some cringed at that. She was not particularly clean, living in the swamp, and she looked dirtier than she actually was. This woman put out her lily-white hand without hesitation.

Chandra closed her eyes and took the hand. Images flashed through her mind, pushing, forcing their way out. She gasped, forcing herself not to release the other woman’s hand. “The end will come,” she was singing now, always singing. “Those gone will come. The stars will come; children will come.” She shook her head, clearing the song. “It is coming, Lady of the Lake. The fire.”

“Yes. And after?”

After. “After?” The question prompted new images. “Death comes hard and slow, scours high and low. Rips the life away, steals the child away.” Again, she shook her head like a cat, clearing the images. “It will be hard. There may not be many left at all.”

“And if I go through with my plan?”

Plan? Again, the images pushed at Chantal. She opened her mouth, but nothing but a moan came out. She tried again. “So many sad children. Dead children, crying children, broken children.”

“And the rest?” The woman’s voice was implacable, unshakable.

Chantal’s vision cleared. She opened her eyes, confused, unhappy, but at the same time… “They thrive. The world ends, and they strive. The cities fall; they’re alive. The fires burn – they survive.” She spoke no more.

She didn’t need to. The woman nodded, sadly, it seemed. “Then I will do it. Thank you, Skin-Taker. Your payments will come as promised.”

Chantal waited until the woman had left, until the boat was out of sight. She picked from the package of payment a small bottle of scotch. Square and heavy, it did not seem to suit the woman who had just been here.

But at the moment, it suited Chantal just fine. She drank, sips at first and then gulps, until the sight of the sobbing, bloody girl had been scrubbed from her mind.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/915144.html. You can comment here or there.

Where It All Began – the Zeroth Cohort in Addergoole

Mar20

Written to Kuro_Neko’s commission. The 0th Cohort were a test year before the First Cohort of Addergoole, and, as documented in Addergoole: Year Nine, many things went wrong. This is where things started going south.

“And for your homework tonight, class, be sure to read Chapters Seven and Eight of the History of the Americas text. And start thinking about your mid-term projects – yes, Nyla?”

Nyla’s hand was up. That didn’t seem like a good idea to her. Her hand was up and her lips were moving and how had she let herself get talked into this?

Oh, that was right. Because Professor Valerian liked her. Because she was the one with the leaf-green eyes and the forest-green hair and the tree-professor thought she was cute.

Nyla missed juvie.

She coughed. “Professor Valerian? We heard a rumor that this school has some unusual graduation requirements.”

We heard a rumor was code for Aine slipped through the wall and read the Director’s confidential documents. But it was a rumor now.

The professor frowned over her glasses at Nyla. “That information was to be shared with each of you from your Mentors.”

Which Valerian really wanted to be, for Nyla. Could trees impregnate other trees? How did this fae thing work, anyway?

“So that means the graduation requirements are real?”

“That’s something you’d need to discuss with your Mentor, should you get around to choosing one.”

“Professor?” Nyla was smiling. Why was she smiling? Why was this fun? It shouldn’t be fun… “Have you noticed that neither of us have said what these ‘graduation requirements’ are? For all I know, you’re talking about a GPA of 3.75.”

The class murmured. Addergoole was tough. A 3.75 might be harder than the requirements Nyla was actually talking about.

Professor Valerian’s smile was awfully sharp. Trees didn’t have teeth, no. But, Nyla was realizing, they could have thorns. And they might move slowly, but they could crush rocks nonetheless. “I did notice that, Nyla. Why do you think that might be?”

“Well, on your part, there’s always the chance that the thing I think it is really isn’t what it is – and we’re really talking about that 3.75. Or you don’t know that I know, and you’re avoiding telling me something I’m just hinting around the edges of.”

“You’re doing well so far.”

When had this become a school problem? Well, they were in school and she was asking a teacher. Around her, the rest of the small class sat quiet. For a moment, Nyla hated them all. “And as for me – I seem to have a hard time getting the words out, truth be told.” She pieced it together slowly. “The rumors are all sideways, too.”

“And why do you think that might be?” Now, Valerian’s eyes swept across the room. “Juniper, yes?”

Juniper could have asked the question. Juniper was a tree-girl even more than Nyla was. But noooo, it had to be the juvie-hall girl, ‘cause Nyla was brave.

Nyla’s head was spitting from forcing out the question, and they still didn’t have an answer.

“Is it some sort of aversion?” Juniper rolled her shoulders and took in a long, loud breath. “Like – ah. We don’t call home. That sort of thing?”

“And why do you think there would be that sort of aversion?”

It was Caiside, pretty, pretty Caiside, who answered. “Because someone thinks we’ll freak out – or our parents will freak out.”

What was the professor doing? Nyla looked around the room again, at the slowly dawning comprehension on all her classmate’s faces. It was Melantha that spoke up this time. “So it’s true. This is – this is some sort of breeding school.”

Everyone let out a collective breath. It had been said. Someone had put the words in the open. And Professor Valerian had her lips pressed together very tightly, which had to be saying something.

“Then why bother with classes?” Zetta had risen half out of her chair, her hands clenched into fists. “Why bother with all this, with training, with magic, with the Law, if it’s all for nothing? If this is just to get us knocked up and waddling around with faerie babies?”

It was a good question. The classes were challenging – they were way more in-depth than anything Nyla had had back home, but that could’ve been because of juvie – the magic lessons were exciting, and the combat training was really, really hard. But if this was meant to be a place to make babies…

Professor Valerian coughed. “It may be hard to believe right now, but being parents and being scholars, or being parents and being warriors, these things are not mutually exclusive. Everything in this school is meant to educate you, not to placate you.”

“Except the aversions keeping us from talking about this stuff.” Zetta was on her feet and away from her chair now. “Except the lying to us about it. How is it supposed to happen? Is there some sort of lust Working in the walls, too?”

Professor Valerian looked amused. Amused. Nyla was beginning to feel as irritated as Zetta looked. “Generally, no lust Workings are needed when you have a number of active teenagers in an enclosed space.”

“What happens…” Caiside’s voice was very quiet, but everyone listened. “What happens if we do not have these children?”

Professor Valerian coughed uncomfortably. “I am not given to understand that that’s an option.”

That hung in the air for a moment. Nyla stood up, her chair scraping loudly against the tile. “Well, then.” It was better than Fuck this shit. She walked out of the room, uncertain where she was going.

~

There was no way out of Addergoole. Nyla had tried. Luke had come to get her for class, and she had explained in short words why that wasn’t happening. He’d stared at her for a moment, giving the uncomfortable impression that he was living up to his Name, then nodded curtly. “Tomorrow.”

Tomorrow wouldn’t be any better than today, but she could deal with it then. Tonight, tonight she was going to sit in her room and eat cookie dough ice cream and sulk about the unfairness of the world.

“Top-notch education,” she muttered. “Bucolic location. They’ll get you into college even with your arrest record.”

“Are you talking to yourself, Nyla?” Caiside leaned on her door-frame. “You skipped afternoon classes.”

“I was angry.” She glared at him, as if daring him to challenge that. He held up both hands in surrender.

“I am, too.”

You couldn’t tell to look at him. Then again, about all you could tell about Caiside looking at him as that he was beautiful.

And that he was not moving from her doorway. “Come on in,” she offered. “Grab a spoon, if you want. Do you even like girls?”

He blushed! He did even that beautifully. “Why do you ask?”

Nyla raked her eyes up and down Caiside‘s fashionable, pretty form. “Do you really not know?”

His blush darkened, and now, now he managed to step inside her threshold. “Yeah, I’ve heard it before. But I don’t think it matters who I ‘like’, does it? I still need to provide the same children everyone else does.”

Nyla resisted telling him that the way he talked did nothing to quiet thoughts about his interest in boys, girls, or possibly sheep. She stabbed the ice cream with her spoon instead. “Man, the one thing, one thing I could say about myself is that at least I wasn’t a teen mother.”

“Well… how old are you?” Caiside sank gracefully into Nyla’s arm chair.

“Sixteen. Why?”

“Well, if you waited until the very end, you could have a child at twenty – but that’s only one of them, of course. You’d have to stay an extra year, I suppose.”

“There’s also the matter of the rest of my life, you know? This place pays for college; it’s right in the letters. Only way I was ever going to get into a school like that. And then… bang. It’s like it was all some stupid joke.” She ate a mouthful of ice cream and passed it to Caiside.

He reached one ridiculously long arm into her silverware drawer and grabbed a spoon for himself. “On the upside, I suppose, there is the fae thing.”

“But they tell us that’s genetic. I mean, we would have been… oh. Oh, oh, fuck them.” Nyla put her face in her hands. “Oh, fuck them sideways.”

Caiside glanced at the open door. “Are you sure…?”

“What are they going to do?” Her voice was getting louder and she didn’t really care. “Lock me up in a prison until I produce genetic material for them? Oh, wait. They already did them. This is fucking eugenics, Cass. They want pretty fae babies, and they brought pretty fae kids to do it. And then – then what? I mean, maybe we won’t even have to worry about raising the kids, maybe they’ll keep them. Maybe they’re going to raise our kids in tubes or something. I mean, then I wouldn’t have to worry about anything except two pregnancies before I’m twenty and… and…” She caught a sob before it entirely escaped. “And being a prisoner,” she added, far more quietly.

“They say… didn’t they say that our parents enrolled us? That our parents knew where they were sending us? When they started teaching us magic, they said something like that.” Caiside‘s voice was still quiet, but Nyla thought she heard a storm beneath it.

“You can’t mean our parents…” Then again, Nyla’s parents had let her go to juvie without a second thought. “Shit. No help there, then. I mean, even if the mind control let us call them.”

“You sound as if you’re in some distress.” The melodic voice in the doorway made them both jump.

“Ah…” Casside was blushing. “Professor Kairos. Ah. I’m sorry…”

“There’s no need. You two are not the only ones distressed by the arrangements, you understand. Perhaps, if I could come in, I might be able to help you.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/910979.html. You can comment here or there.

Making Things Work

Mar6

This is a continuation of There Are Always Choices for [personal profile] rix_scaedu as a fiction exchange. It runs to *cough* 2250 words.

It wasn’t often that Alkyone decided to put her foot down about something. It was even rarer that she interfered in Via or Jaelie’s lives. Living in such close quarters, the three of them held certain privacies very dear.

Today, Aly had grabbed Via by one arm, the Kept Rohanna by the other, and physically dragged them out back, to the small bench-and-fountain set-up Jaelie maintained between the trees. “Not work,” she insisted. “Not rules, nothing of the sort. Just… remember what it was like to be collared, Via.”

“I hated it.” She already knew Rohanna hated it; they’d collared her at knifepoint.

“Not that part. We all hated it. What about the rest?”

“The rest…?” But Aly had stalked off, leaving Via staring in confusion at Rohanna.

Who was, to be fair, staring in confusion right back at Viatrix. “So, um…” She swallowed. “What…?”

Via chewed on her lip. The rest. The orders? No. The sex? Aly was unlikely to suggest Via rape her Kept. Even if the touch…

Touch. And if she was talking about the parts that felt good, Aly had probably meant the whole set of good-Kept feelings. Via took a breath. She’d never been good at that part. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Rohanna scooted back a couple inches on the bench. “Okay… what?“

“Okay.” Viatrix took both of the girl’s hands, and tried to hold them gently. “Okay, this is me not being a monster.”

Rohanna squirmed but, notably, didn’t pull her hands out of Via’s loose grip. “Are you going to brand me again?”

Via ran her thumb over the healed mark on the girl’s wrist. “No. Have you – have you been collared before?”

“I lit the last guy on fire who tried.” She’d gone still at the touch on her wrist. Viatrix tried to remember if she’d touched Rohanna since the branding, and couldn’t. No wonder Aly was interfering.

“And yet you took my collar.”

Rohanna’s right hand twitched. Via released it, and the girl touched the thin leather collar around her neck. “I’m pretty sure I can’t survive a hawthorn beheading.”

“Practicality is a good thing. I-” Gentleness was not Viatrix’s stock in trade. She had gotten her reputation for being ruthless. She took a couple breaths while she considered her words. “If you work with me, we can make this not suck.”

“What, if I do what you say, it won’t hurt? I’ve been there, and no, thanks.”

“No, no…” Via couldn’t help smirking. “Not that. I’ve been there, too. It really does suck. No.” She chose her words carefully. “If you will tell me what you want, I can help.”

“But why would you?” Rohanna was staring at their hands. Viatrix had not moved the hand the girl had dropped; now, as if afraid that it would bite her, Rohanna set her hand back on top of Via’s. “I mean, you already have me.”

“Because there’s no reason for this to suck. And…” Her first-year Keeper hadn’t really been a monster. He’d just been an awful Keeper. “And there’s no reason for me to be a lousy Keeper when I can be a good one.”

Rohanna was quiet. Viatrix wondered if the girl was going to laugh at her; she wondered if she was going to flail out, or run away. None of those things were prohibited by her orders, after all. After a while, she shrugged. She was still looking at their hands. “I didn’t know there was such a thing as a good Keeper.”

“Hunh.” Viatrix thought about that one for a while. “Well, you’ve seen Jaelie and Wish, haven’t you?”

“Wish looks lost most of the time.” The edges of Rohanna’s mouth curled upwards.

“Well, that’s because he’s a Returned One. He really is lost.” Bad example, then, but she didn’t have that many good examples to go on. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Rohanna peeked again. “You keep saying that.”

“I’m bad at this, okay?” Via snickered the moment she realized what she’d said, and, by some miracle, Rohanna let herself chuckle, too. “Right. So, you’re miserable.”

“Not miserable. Not miserable all the time. Except that I’m here, and I didn’t want to be here.”

“So, what would make you less miserable?” Viatrix counted to three silently, then mouthed along with Rohanna.

“Not being here. But you knew I was going to say that.”

“Yeah.” Via smirked. “What could make you less miserable being here?”

“I don’t know, maybe if this parasite in my head wasn’t telling me I was horrible all the time.” The answer wasn’t so much snapped out as sidled, like Rohanna had been thinking about it for some time and was testing the waters.

Viatrix closed her eyes. “Right. The bond. Okay, this is going to be weird… but Ro, I think you and I need to be friends.”

~

The boy flinched at everything, and every time he flinched, he reminded Baram of other boys, younger boys (because even he, in this lifetime, was younger than the skinny boy he was Keeping now), who had flinched and winced away.

He couldn’t order the boy not to flinch. He could, but Baram and his girls with him were learning how to not be monsters, and Jaelie had been very firm on that one. Monsters tell you not to look unhappy. Good people help you learn how to be happy.

It was mostly theory, for all of them, reaching in the dark and only knowing that there were sharp edges.

Viatrix could talk to her angry Kept. Jaelie petted her would-be returned god and praised him until he calmed. Baram scared people by his very presence, and he did not talk well.

You do not have weaknesses unless you allow yourself to be weak. Professor Fridmar had said that, more than once, during his lessons. Your weakness can be strengths.

Baram looked at the boy. At Kavan. Kavan winced. Slowly, feeling as if he was swimming through snow, Baram worked through the problem.

The kid was old, nearly fifty, he’d said. He was old, and he’d known pain and ownership and renaming. It made Baram feel awkward, and young, and stupid.

But Baram was both old and young. “Do you-” the boy flinched. He kept going anyway. “Do you know the Words for Mind?”

The boy’s chin came up and his eyes opened wide. “I.. yes. Yes, mas- Baram? I can use Intinn.”

“And know?“ Baram pushed on, despite the way Kavan’s shoulders were trembling.

“…and Idu, yessir.” Kavan had gone pale, even his lips bloodless. “Sir?”

Baram realized his hand was clenching into a fist. It wasn’t Kavan’s fault. It wasn’t even really about Kavan. “R-” Please. Jaelie had pointed that one out, too.

Baram had grumbled; it didn’t make it less of an order.

“It makes it feel more like there’s a choice. And sometimes that’s what matters.”

Baram cleared his throat. “Please read my mind.”

Kavan’s eyes opened wide. “Sir… sir, are you sure?“

“Words… words are hard.” He felt a frustrated rumble in the back of his throat and stifled it. Not quickly enough: the boy flinched again. “It’s hard to talk, easy to see it in my mind.”

“Sir.” Kavan ducked his head. “I… I can.”

“Please.” The word was a hard one. But Baram forced it out yet again. “It’s important.”

Kavan nodded. He did not look, Baram thought, any more comfortable; he kept peeking at Baram rather than looking directly, and his skin was still pale. But his voice didn’t tremble as he did the Working.

Baram focused on the boy. He tried not to think of other terrified Kept he’d known, but he knew they would show up. He tried to remember – tried, and almost succeeded – the cold and wet field he’d woken up in, the moment he’d found himself in this life.

The boy had his eyes closed. Baram could feel his presence in his mind, a gentle touch, simply enough to let Baram know where he was.

“You worry.” Baram kept his voice quiet. “You don’t know me. And I don’t…”

“Show anything,” Kavan offered. There was a bit of wonder in his voice. “You… sorry, sir.”

“S’okay.” Baram closed his eyes. “You can look.”

Kavan’s touch was different than other times Baram’s mind had been read – gentler, more tentative. But even so, Baram could feel old memories coming up, whispering to him in the way that they did.

The boy murmured while he worked. “And then you… And then… oh. Oh dear.” Baram did not blush, was not the sort to do such things, but the oh dear was so prim, and the memory so vulgar, that he dropped his head and looked away, even with his eyes closed.

And then there was a brushing against places that Baram never touched. “This…” He could hear the way the boy swallowed. “May I?”

It was an effort of will to say yes. That spot, those places, they didn’t want to be remembered, even more so than most of Baram’s scrambled history. But the boy had actively asked for something, so… “Yes.”

These memories didn’t really flood. They poked up their heads cautiously, diffidently, much like Kavan. Look at this, do you want to remember it?

No, no, of course he didn’t. But he would.

The field. He was in a field, sprawled out on the dirt, his lungs hurting like he’d fallen. That was where the memories stopped. That was where…

He was falling, tumbling. His chute hadn’t deployed and he was tumbling down, down, every downwards. He was going to land. This was going to hurt. This was going to…

He was in the field, he was laying there staring at the sky. He was panting, whining like an animal, and Kavan was holding him tightly.

“Easy, easy. Easy, si- Boss. I’ve got you.” The boy stroked Baram’s back, and the world righted itself. “I’ve got you, boss.”
~

Jaelie was having a bit of trouble with their “guests.”

Ardell and Delaney had figured out quickly that they couldn’t get out of the trap-basement unless Jaelie – or someone else – let them out. They’d figured out soon after that they couldn’t easily Work out of it, either, and they’d figured out soon after that that Baram wasn’t going to talk to them.

Jaelie didn’t tell them why. She wasn’t entirely certain why herself.

She had told them the conditions of their release. It wasn’t the first time someone had ended up in their “guest house,” and the terms were almost always the same. Ardell had been willing to swear the oaths. The problem was Delaney.

“Fuck you! We’re talking to Baram or nobody, and if you don’t let us out of here soon, you’re going to regret it. I’m going to peel the pretty skin right off of you, you miserable little…”

Jaelie let the door slam shut again. “They can wait another couple hours for the food,” she told Aloysius.

He hesitated. “Do you want me to watch them?”

Jaelie started to shake her head, and then paused herself. “Do you have some reason to think you ought to?”

He was getting more and more hesitant, she noticed. He didn’t deal all that well with the collar. “Something feels wrong, Mistress. They are planning something.”

“I trust your judgement on this one.” Jaelie watched the way his shoulders twitched, and leaned over to kiss both his cheeks. “Good job. Please, do watch the guest house, then.”

He bowed to her. He liked to do that, sometimes. Jaelie found she liked it. “I will do so.” He settled into a tree, the thorns making way for him, seeming content to watch all day if he needed to.

Jaelie reminded herself to check on him before bed time, and went back to those things that could not be neglected forever.

She didn’t have to wait until bedtime. It was just as the sun set that she heard the rumble, the rumble followed by a scream, the scream followed by a startled set of grunts.

They dove into action like they had too many times before. Aly grabbed the kids. Via grabbed her sword. Jaelie was already calling on the trees, who were telling her fire, fire.

And standing in a hole in their yard that had not been there before, the bitch of a visitor was throwing fireballs. At Aloysious. At Jaelie’s Kept, and at her trees.

She was shouting off Workings as she ran, spitting off insults in between the Workings, and, as she doused the entire yard in sudden rainfall, doing her best to get between the “guests” and her Kept. She could stop them. She could stop them, if her trees could just reach them, if – they were backing towards the gate, still throwing off projectiles and force, things rain could stop. There were broken tree limbs everywhere, and they were still throwing off force bolts.

“Let them go.” The boss’s voice came from the doorway. “They’re not worth it.” He followed with a series of Workings, throwing up a shield around Jaelie, and, she noticed gratefully, her trees and her Kept as well. “They’re just strangers we will know not to let in again.”

For the boss, that was a speech. Jaelie leaned against Aloysious and panted as their former guests got away. “Are you okay?”

He wrapped an arm around her ribcage, for once too exhausted to be tentative. “You protected me.”

“Well, yeah.” She craned her neck back to look at him. “And the Boss protected us. That’s… that’s just how it works.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/905521.html. You can comment here or there.

Messy

Mar5

“All right. This could get messy, but if we do it right, it could also be fun.”

Leia was sitting cross-legged on the coffee table in the middle of the suite, studying the group of them. She looked, Saga thought, a bit like their Aunt Ruki. Blonde, of course, and with the feathers on the sides of her head, but it was more in the way she carried herself.

Of course, Saga would never be considering this with Aunt Ruki. Not and be contemplating breathing next week too.

“Messy sounds fun.” The boy named Butler had a cheerful disposition and an aggressively untidy demeanor. Saga wanted to brush him. “How messy are we talking?”

“Well, there’s you, me, Saga, and Aaron.” Aaron, the youngest member of their potential arrangement, was sitting quietly on the floor, carefully not looking at anyone. He hadn’t said anything… ever, as far as Saga could remember. “There’s also the first-year Saga’s interested in, and there’s that fourth-year that’s interested in you, Butler. Probably under the mistaken impression that your name is accurate.”

Butler blushed darkly. It was quite a cute look on him. “Mmm.”

“In terms of romantic relationships, there’s of course also the complications involved in any relationship, times… many. And possibly more many, adding in even more options for envy. To say nothing of what happens as each of us graduate over the next few years.

“And, of course, anyone who’s envious of,” Leia ticked off on her fingers, “our suite, which is the best one, the family relationships here – well, between Saga and I, at least – the impression that Saga and I are hoarding at least two, maybe three underclassmen, or the fact that that two of you are, ah, hoarding Saga and I.”

Saga caught a glimpse of Aaron’s face. He must have thought himself unobserved, because his expression had slipped into something almost creepy. Plotting, she thought; he looked like he was plotting. “Messy,” Saga muttered. Well, she was the daughter of the Black Prince and the Call of the Whirlwind. She could handle one calculating first-year.

One calculating first-year, one aggressively untidy house-elf, her cousin the demon, and possibly a pretty blonde hermaphrodite – all in a four-bedroom polygonal relationship where they were only betting that there’d be more fucking than fighting. Saga found herself smiling. “Messy sounds good to me.”

Her father hadn’t tried to name her Epic for nothing.

Written for Three-Word Wednesday. Today’s words were envious, messy, calculating.

Addergoole has a landing page here.

These characters (parents shown in tags where there is one):

Leia is the daughter of Viðrou (shown in DW icon) and Cybele, who is the daughter of Elfred and Niassa. (Niassa is in Addergoole Year 9 in the Wylie stories; Elfred is in Addergoole Original Series in a bit part.).

Saga is the daughter of Yoshi and Song; Song is the daughter of Akaterina and Agravain (Addergoole Year 9). Yoshi and Viðrou share a mother; Viðrou and Ruki share a father.

Butler is the son of Bailee (Kendra/Werther) and Diarmaid(Mabina/Cassidy) (all four in Addergoole Original Series). And Aaron is the son of Chimera/Sunil, Sunil being the son of Eluned and Olifur from Addergoole Year 9

Phew!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/905345.html. You can comment here or there.

Keeping Secrets

Feb8

Addergoole-‘verse, about 3 years after the end of the world. Warning: discussion of violence.

Also warning: it’s a fragment

“…and then…” Troia leaned forward over the table, already smiling. She loved this part of the story. She knew Achaeus loved it, too. It suited the violence of his Mara-blood; Troia had no such excuse. “I drove one last nail into her…” The door to the kitchen swung open, and Troia fell quiet.

Achaeus picked up for her. “Hey, Matt.”

She’d only been Keeping her former Keeper for a few days, and she had yet to accustom herself to the skittish refugee he’d become since the world ended. Troia smiled brightly at him, and was rewarded by a wan smile in return.

“We were just discussing breakfast. Any ideas?”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/893972.html. You can comment here or there.

After Release

Jan25

This story is from the middle of a RP, so requires a bit of background. Short version: Vanyel (yes, named after that Vanyel) got himself stuck in an unpleasant Keeping (not awful, as these things go, just not great) and has just been released. He’s hiding in his room, like you do.

Addergoole, approximately 12 years after the apocalypse.

The teachers waited until Saturday morning, but when it became clear Van wasn’t coming out, Luke pounded on the door.

Vanyel opened the door, but kept his whole body carefully within the threshold. “I’m fine.”

“You can’t stay in there all weekend.”

“I’ve got-” he glanced at his kitchenette. “A bag of rice, a can of salsa, and two tins of fish. I could stay in here for days.”

Luke sighed. “But you can’t stay in there forever.”

“No.” Vanyel shook his head. “Of course I can’t.” He hadn’t taken the steel collar off. It had a lock, and he… probably could’ve Worked it. He just… hadn’t. IT was heavy against his neck, almost reassuring.

“At least let Dr. Caitrin take a look at you.”

“There’s nothing wrong with me.” He pulled the robe tighter around himself.

“You walked back to your room naked, son, there’s no use lying about it.”

Van sighed and stepped out of the way. “Fine. Dr. Caitrin, Luke, please come in if you mean me and mine no harm.” Better than standing in the doorway arguing; the second-year across the hallway had opened her door and two third-years were staring from the lounge.

The doctor started her Working before the door was shut, while Luke stood stoically. “She didn’t even take the collar off?” Almost stoically.

“I didn’t ask her do.” He touched it cautiously. “I didn’t give her time to.”

“May I?” It was the gentlest he had ever heard the gym teacher. Van nodded silently. It wasn’t like Ava’s collar could protect him anymore anyway. It wasn’t as if it had really protected him in the first place.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/889953.html. You can comment here or there.

Addergoole TVTropes Page Needs Help! (Lots of Help)

Jan23

It was brought to my attention that the Addergoole TVTropes page (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/Addergoole?from=Main.Addergoole), which I thought had been deleted for PWP problems, is still active.

And um, it needs help. The tropes have no descriptions, spoilers, or bad (inaccurate or silly) descriptions. They are often not cross-linked. There are some missing, the description is okay (straight off the main page; I can’t complain too much) but I think fails to cover exactly how dark Ag is.

So… I don’t know how many entries yet, that’s open to negotiation, but let’s start with, I’ll write 250 words (related to the tropes in question, somehow, or something else at your request) for the first 5 entries people fix. Comment here with fixed things.

Thanks!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/889334.html. You can comment here or there.

Kink/Fluff/Angst Meme: Doug

Jan21

This story starts in the middle of Doug Gets a Hug and ends after it. Doug, Ana, and Teal are Addergoole characters.

The girl had a boy. So help him, Doug was not going to make it through her four years sane.

She – Ana, Anastasia the dancer, Ana the pert, Ana oro’Willow – didn’t exactly have a boy, because Teal himself had an oro’ at the end of his name, and his Keeper was the possessive sort. But when Teal and Ana danced – and Teal danced, of course he did – Doug could watch the sparks. And that wasn’t all he could watch. It was a good thing neither Keeper was in the habit of visiting their dance practices.

He wasn’t going to survive the next four years, but it might be a fun way to go crazy.

~

She’d been waiting for him the day after Willow left, leaning against his apartment door and wearing a little trenchcoat that was unseasonable, unneeded inside, and entirely tantalizing.

She’d at least waited until they were inside his apartment – but not until the door was all the way closed – to show him exactly how much she wasn’t wearing underneath. And then, for several athletic, dexterous, and wonderful hours, she’d shown him quite a few other things.

Doug was happy. He was actually smiling, something he couldn’t quite remember doing before, or at least not in quite a while. But, being himself, he couldn’t help poking at it.

“What about the boy?” She had her head pillowed on his chest, so he was talking to the top of her head. “You like him.”

She looked up at him, a smile dancing on her lips. “Nobody ever said I only had to ‘like’ one person.” The smile slipped, her expression and her voice suddenly serious. “Did they?”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/888418.html. You can comment here or there.

Turn Left Story One: Baram’s Elves

Jan12

From the Turn Left meme here: http://aldersprig.livejournal.com/1005760.html; off of this story: http://aldersprig.livejournal.com/306171.html in the Baram’s Elves sequence, an AU.

When the first creature broke through – fell through, really; her hedges were hungry and she’d taken lessons from Valentina as well as Valerian – Jaelie speared him to the ground. “Submit,” she demanded.

He coughed blood on her shoes, blood that slowly began eating at the leather of her boots. “Bitch,” he spat out. “I submit.”

Viatrix’s blade hesitated.

“You’re mine, then.” Jaelie twisted the spear. “Say it.”

He spat again, the acid in his blood beginning to dissolve her pants. “Yours, fine.”

Once he’d fallen, the battle went quickly. The rest either submitted or died, leaving Via, Aly, and Jaelie with four angry returned-God Kept between them.

After the third act of near-disobedient, nearly-deadly sabotage in a week, Baram – who had been grumblingly patient – put his foot down. “No Kept in the house. No other men in the house.”

The women took stock. Something was going to have to change. “I’ll go.” Jaelie stepped forward. “I’ll… do something with them, and come back.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/884379.html. You can comment here or there.