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Turn, Turn, turn

Dec31

“Everything turns.”

Ce’rilla showed her daughter how to plant the acorn, carefully mounding the soil over it.

“The old world?” Sweetbriar had less patience for greenery than ‘Rilla’s older kids, but she was trying, anyway. “That cracked and turned.”

“The acorn does, too. So that an oak can be born.”

“Are we the oak?”

“That’s the idea. And from us…”

Sweetbriar patted the earth carefully. “Then there’s another acorn?”

“Exactly.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/875895.html. You can comment here or there.

New Year’s Prompt Story 1: Chrysalis

Dec31

3rd Generation; Phanessa is Eriko’s grandkid

Corbet wasn’t sure what to do when his Kept went into the closet after dinner and didn’t come out.

He’d been trying to be good to her, but Phanessa was from a protective enclave and even Addergoole was a bit rough for her fragile self. So he let her stay there, thinking she wanted some privacy.

When she hadn’t come out by bedtime, he peeked – only to find her wrapped in some sort of hard cocoon.

By the time she emerged – late in October – he’d given up on ever having a proper Kept and made other arrangements for his second child.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/873745.html. You can comment here or there.

Free and Clear

Dec23

Prolly nigh on 50 years after Addergoole: Year 5

She wasn’t really sure why her last owners released her.

She’d done (almost) everything right, and had been (relatively) docile and obedient. She’d been trying to learn, and Owners Number Three had taught her quite a bit. But ‘why they released her’ wasn’t part of it.

They’d given her a nice big pack of stuff, too. The girl who had once been Delaney looked at it for the third time. There was enough in here to survive for a month, if she decided to wander. There was enough to trade for… well, a whole bunch of booze, if she felt like that, instead.

She wasn’t really sure what she felt like. She’d been under the collar for what she thought was probably a decade, and before that… before that, she’d been insane, cracked, and, if the stories and her vague memories were true, psychotic and sadistic.

That person had a string of homes and wealth scattered across the country. The person she was now wasn’t sure where any of it was – or if any of it was still where she’d left it. She’d shared everything with a partner, after all. And that partner was gone.

She stared down the road. It curved through wasteland and farmland, through places she didn’t remember being and places she might never have been. And it was all hers. She could do whatever she wanted.

The horse-drawn wagon clomped up beside her. “Going west, Miss?”

“I am.” At least, that was the direction she was pointed in. “I could give you..” she touched her pocket. “Twenty dollars Sondaran for a ride.”

“Ten will do. Hop on in.”

The man in the driver’s seat reminded her of Amish, long ago – beard and straw hat, plain shirt and plain pants. She wondered if the Amish had survived. “Thanks.” She passed over the money, first.

“My pleasure. My name’s Amos, by the by.”

She’d prepared for this. She had more than enough reasons to leave that old name behind her. But she’d needed a new one. “Ellery.” She smiled brightly. “You can call me El.”

She had a fresh start, and she was going to take it.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/870681.html. You can comment here or there.

Two peeks at Doug

Dec19

Year One:

Doug watched the new students coming in to the brand new school. They were fresh-faced, some of them, while others were already bitter and untrusting. They were so young, all of them, and so human-seeming.

His son was among them, Donegal, who he hadn’t gotten to raise. He watched the boy moving through the crowd, and found himself fading into the background. Now was not the time to try to raise the kid; now was the time to do his job.

Two tall, dark boys – brothers, Doug thought, but not twins – moved their way through the crowd as if they were pushing aside brush. Doug watched the way they moved, the shorter one aping the taller one’s movements. They were going to be trouble.

“First day of school.” The woman standing next to him finally spoke up. Laurel, Doug thought her name was. “This’ll be interesting.”

Doug cleared his throat, and found he had nothing to say. He settled for “yeah.”

Year Fourteen:

Ana was pregnant, and Doug was doing everything in his power not to glower, hover, growl, and in general act like (as more than one woman had called him) a royal pain in the ass.

He was fairly certain that he would have been a hovering, miserable, overprotective dinosaur (as Ana gently teased him) even if she hadn’t been carrying his child, his child, as well as the boy Teal’s, but he couldn’t guarantee it. Doug was in love, and it messed everything up.

He watched the fresh-faced new Cohort, just a month into the year and still looking so very young, so very human. A short, stocky irish boy – notable in that he was shorter than either Doug or his father – met Doug’s eyes and grinned, arrogant and insouciant.

“They’re shaping up to be interesting.” Laurel Valerian laid fingers on Doug’s arm in a way that would have, from another woman, seemed possessive. “I think this is going to be a good year.”

Doug shifted his weight onto his heels. The Irish kid was looking at Ana. Looking was fine. Looking was fine. He cleared his throat and made himself look at Laurel. “Yeah.”

I’m not really sure what to put in for context here…

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/869070.html. You can comment here or there.

Changes in Policy, a ficlet of Addergoole

Dec17

This one comes with a warning: If you already actively dislike the Addergoole staff, this is not the story for you.

I don’t usually say things like this, but I’m in a foul mood today, I wrote this for fun, and I don’t want it to turn into a discussion about how Regine et al are evil stupid horrible monsters, please.

That being said, story:

On occasion, the staff at Addergoole found themselves needing to implement a new policy.

Their school had been entirely experimental at the outset, and none of the three founders had all that much experience with teenagers. Their first policy changes had involved the sheer violence of teenagers – something they might have picked up from Lord of the Flies or Heathers but learned on their own quickly enough.

Their second policy major change came about because of the secondary purpose of the school – to ensure genetic diversity after the coming storm – and the quaternary, to allow Regine to study the genetics of half-breeds. They had not expected students forced together by pseudo-Keepings to form lasting bonds (although they had expected some of the Crews to last). For the most part, those couples formed by Keeping did not last – but some couples, however formed, stuck together through the four years of Addergoole and beyond.

A later policy change was implemented much more quietly, and very few students ever saw it in action. Once again, they had failed to allow for exactly how violent teenagers could be, and at the same time failed to realize how badly a former Kept might react to a Keeping that, by their new rules, was closely-monitored and carefully mentored.

The original Keeping had been skating the edges of acceptability: the boy had isolated his Kept, treated her like a pet, and controlled every aspect of her life for a school year. When a routine visit found her Keeping him post-school, however…

They had pulled in her Mentor, his Mentor, Solomon, and Mendosa, and just barely managed to talk her into releasing what was left of the boy. He had survived – but only just, and it would take Caitrin and Mendosa three years to put him back together.

The Addergoole staff had always encouraged their alumni to find each other. After that, however, they started asking more questions.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/866797.html. You can comment here or there.

Moving On To Number Eight…

Dec11

Yet another in “where did that kid come from” series.
Caprice is Phelen & Manira’s daughter.
Jack is Ib’s child.
Eryk is Shiva/Ty.
Adalbert’s Ciro/Amanada
Zahavi is a half-sibling of Cynara and a 1st generation student.

Christmas Break

“Well, you’re definitely pregnant.” Dr. Caitrin looked over her glasses at Caprice. “I don’t suppose you know who the father might be?”

The first-year student rolled her eyes at Caitrin by way of answer.

The doctor sighed. “No, of course not. Do you think you were entirely fair with those young men, Caprice?”

The disdain turned into a playful pout. “They wanted a pretty target. I make a very, very pretty target.”

“Mmm. And still, do you think you were fair to them?”

The girl smiled broadly. “None of them asked. All they had to do was ask..

~

Week four.

“I don’t know what to do with her,” Jack complained. “I mean, she doesn’t do anything I want, she’s hot one minute and cold the next, and she bites.“

“Perhaps, if she is not doing what she is told, the fault is not in the Kept but in Keeper.”

Professor Fridmar had probably meant the advice to shame Jack into being authoritative with his Kept. He, however, took it as an excuse.

“Look, Zahavi, you’re a good guy. You’ve been chomping at the bit to rescue someone. Here. Rescue her.”

If he shoved Caprice a little roughly at his Cohort-mate, well, nobody was paying that much attention. “She’s Yours.”

~

“Well, now that you know, are you going to tell your current Keeper?”

Caprice smirked at the doctor. “Adalbert? Bird-boy’s gone home for the holidays. I think he’s done already.”

“And you didn’t want to go home?”

She shrugged fluently. “The world’s a mess out there, Doctor. And my father’s going to come visit me for a little while.”

“Your father?” Dr. Caitrin proved she didn’t know everything and raised both eyebrows at the girl. “Not your mother?”

“Daeva, I’m told,” she shrugged, “don’t deal well with children once they reach the ‘competition’ age. Dad raised me from eight to sixteen.”

“Aah. So Adalbert’s gone home. Do you want to track down the actual father?”

~

Week Seven

“Come on Eryk, you know you’ve been looking at her for weeks.” Zahavi was somewhere between wheedling and selling snake oil. “And now I’m offering her to you on a silver platter.”

“Not interested.” His blue furred ears, however, were pointed straight at Caprice.

“You know you are.”

“I know that she looks like a trap. What’s the problem?”

“Problem? It’s just that she’s… too compliant.”

Caprice pouted prettily.

“…Fine. I’ll take her.”

~

“I suppose I need to tell him, whichever him it is.” Caprice leaned back against the chair and studied the Doctor thoughtfully. “Do you think they’ve learned their lesson?”

“Frankly, dear, I think you weren’t quite hard enough on them.” Dr. Caitrin smirked. “But you’ve only made it through seven. Maybe one of them will manage to learn from the mistakes of the rest of them.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/863901.html. You can comment here or there.

December Meme – Day Nine (@rix_scaedu)

Dec9

The Meme

Today’s prompt is from [personal profile] rix_scaedu: Doug

Ah, Doug.

For those of you going who? Doug is a character in Addergoole.

He started out as back-up porter and security guy, and looked like Luke, which led me to extrapolate that he was Luke’s son. The fact that he later turned out to be Mike VanderLinden’s grandson means that he probably doesn’t look THAT much like Luke – but that was later.

When I needed a dance teacher for a RP character (Kylie), he became the dance teacher; when I needed someone who Mentored monster-hunters (rather than the White Knights that were cy’Luca*), that became Doug. And when he had to show Kylie Masking – well, then I learned what his Change was.

Of all the background characters in Addergoole, I think he’s evolved the most. He is still definitely the Mentor for monster-hunters and riot grrls. He’s the dance instructor, and a later RP timeline gave him a love interest in another dance student.

(And yes, I love the conflict there between dance students and monster hunters and the one time I convinced Doug to take a male Student…)

Mike sleeps with students willy-nilly. Doug, who is as much his father’s son as he is his grandmother’s grandson, doesn’t refrain from teacher-student relationships, but he goes into them, like he goes into everything, slowly & deliberately. His Name is Brontosaurus for more than one reason, after all.

Doug is one of my favorite characters, & I should write more about him.

/Looks at queue/

Maybe someone ought to commission me to write more about him… <3

* cy’: of the cy’ree of, that is, one of the Students Mentored by.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/862271.html. You can comment here or there.

Dollar bill y’all

Dec1

After Put me on a dollar cause I’m who they trust in.

Luca=Luke (Luca was what he was called when younger)

Mike/Michelle/VanderLinden/Meckil are all the same person.

Akatil Yixox teaches tinkering and “unutu,” worked objects (artifacts?) at Addergoole.

It was just too tempting. Mike left the 3-clover bill on his desk for a week, turning it over and over.

Regine refused to acknowledge that Cloverleaf or Doomsday Academy were anything but the pitiful games of angry children; when DJ had suggested trading with them for goods, the Director had actually thrown the Procurer (and the school’s buying agent; DJ was good at the job) out of her office.

But the currency sitting on Mike’s desk spoke far more loudly than Regine’s chill, snipped answers. It was well-done, for one, with at least three Workings embedded it in. Akatil Yixox had raised both eyebrows, and then said, with some consternation, “this is not the work of my Students. But it’s not the work of yours either, is it?”

It was a good question, and not one Luca had been thinking of, clearly. Luca, bless the bird-brain’s heart, had been too busy flailing his hands and wondering how the children grew up so big.

Considering his wife was the daughter of one of those children, Mike thought perhaps Luca needed to think out his reactions a little bit better. Then again, Luca had a bit of a thing for those far too young for him.

That was far, far beside the point, maddening as it was. The point was, the currency was fascinating. Having a bill with one’s own face on it was absolutely delicious. And having a fifty with Luca‘s face on it… Mike slept with that bill under his pillow, but only when he slept alone.

He had to do it. He had to see this city.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/857503.html. You can comment here or there.

Cure for Boredom

Nov27

As we work on filling in the later years of the AG Roster, I like to tall little stories of how x guy ended up with x girl to make xx baby. So here’s one of those stories.

JohnWayne, you’ve met plenty times before. Azariah is the daughter of two back-story characters: Abednego and Birgit. This is set in JohnWayne’s second year of school

“You look bored.”

JohnWayne sighed. The dance floor was full of beautiful girls. The brunette in the rose-pink dress? Had turned out to be his half sister. The one in royal blue? Could not be pinned down; she bent space and time.

That one over there – well, that had turned out to be a boy. Which was fine for some, but JohnWayne was, if nothing else, looking to fill his second grad requirement. And the 29th Cohort was smaller than many others, the ghosts of those who hadn’t made it as visible on the floor as the pretty girls.

“Bored would be one word for it,” he admitted.

“Here, I bought you a drink.” From behind him, a long-nailed hand pressed a glass into his hand. “John, right? Yoshi’s girl Kept you last year?”

“Dáirine. Yeah. And it’s JohnWayne.” He took the drink and turned to see who his mysterious benefactor was.

He had the drink to his lips when he turned, and had to make a quick assessment. She had her Mask up, but the eys were still the same. They flickered with electricity over the blue-sky color.

He swallowed a few sips of the drink, wondering if he’d regret it. “Azariah. Uh. Thanks for the drink.”

Her smile became more gentle. “I’m not going to drug you and drag you off the floor. But if you’re finding hunting frustrating this year…”

JohnWayne looked at her, really looked at her. “…I’m probably not the only one, am I?”

“Look, I know Pippa was rough. But that’s Pippa. We could work out a contract.”

JohnWayne swallowed. “You want to Keep me.”

“Well, it beats trying to Keep your sister, doesn’t it?”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/855981.html. You can comment here or there.

Family & Coincidence

Nov26

This is what happens when I start trying to give people kids.
See JohnWayne here: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/tag/character:+johnwayne and more importantly here: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/254212.html
See Dai here – http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/tag/character:+dairine – and I’ll have to go back and tag her elsewhere later.

JohnWayne had been at the Ranch for a week when he heard a woman’s exasperated voice call out “Storm! Breeze! Rain!”

It wasn’t Dáirine’s voice. Even four years later, he knew his first Keeper’s voice.

But it didn’t quite sound like a weather forecast, either, and it sounded a little too much like the names he’d given his triplet daughters. He looked around, casually, while doing the stack of chores he’d been assured Howard gave to every new Kept.

He caught the flash of black curls before he saw anyone, and then the tall figure of a woman who was definitely not Dáirine, despite having similar coloration and hair. For one, this woman had spots, which Dáirine did not. For another, she had almost a foot on Dai.

“Storm, what did I tell you? Wait till I tell Dái what you’ve done, you naughty thing, you. Come on.” The drawl was thick and southern as the woman scooped up a little girl.

From this distance, it was hard to tell. But she had her mother’s curls and his complexion.

JohnWayne swallowed. If his former Keeper – and the daughters he’d fathered on her – was living on the Ranch, his time under Cynara’s collar had just gotten a lot weirder.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/854700.html. You can comment here or there.