Archives

Back Around Again, a vignette

Feb9

This is to [personal profile] clare_dragonfly‘s prompt here to my February Giraffe Call.

Warning: rough situation, very unpleasant, even if the characters are baddies.

Ardell and Delaney are characters in Addergoole, and relatively unpleasant ones, at that.

“Hungry.” Del’s voice was soft, barely a whisper.

“Silence.” They both flinched, Ardell and Delaney, and they were both silent.

“I’m sorry.” Ardell mouthed it; Delaney knew those words by heart by now. She shook her head. No. No, this wasn’t Ardell’s fault. They’d thought it was a good place to settle, both of them. They’d thought the town looked comfortable and more than willing to trade safety for shelter and food. They had also, of course, thought they were invincible. Twenty years of surviving – thriving – after the apocalypse had not yet proven them wrong on that one, on any of those points.

They had not accounted for the man on the mountain. They had not accounted for the village already having a protector, one who did not want others horning in on his business.

They had not accounted for the fact that he might be more powerful than they were, even combined.

“Good.”

Delaney twitched. More than anything, she hated the praise. She hated the warm rush through her and the sense that she was doing right. She looked down at her knees, at the cold stone floor under them, and said nothing.

“Now.” The man – he had not given them a name; he had not given them anything, yet, except collars and chains and a cold stone chamber. “You’ve been here a while. Are you ready to listen to sense?”

Sense? Delaney’s tongue darted out and she licked her lips. What was sense, here?

She looked at Ardell, thinking about the last time they had been chained and naked and kneeling. She looked back at the man and wondered what sort of sense he wanted to pretend he was making, wanted her to pretend he was making.

She nodded, slowly, and mouthed the words Yes, Master. She would do what he wanted. That’s how this game worked.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/661459.html. You can comment here or there.

What Happened After School? Pania and Efrosin

Feb6

This is a brief summary of the after-Year-9 lives of two of my characters from . I may do more of these, if there is interest.

After this

Let me be your boyfriend, Efrosin had suggested, and Pania had, in all honesty, really considered it. He was a nice guy, when he was trying to be. He was the father of her son, which was another argument both in his favor and against him. After all, she hadn’t asked for that.

In the end, what killed his chances was simple. “Figure out who Efrosin is,” she told him, as gently as she could. “When you can tell me that, with a straight face and in full honesty, then we can talk.”

She felt like a hypocrite as she said it, knowing full well that she didn’t really know who Pania was either. But she said it, and he left, like a weight off her chest.

She tried being Good Keeper Pania, and found that it was harder than she’d expected (and that Terach also found it difficult to be Good Kept, and had no interest in making it easy for her to be Good Keeper).

Efrosin came to visit from school, and she told him, gently, that College Party Boy was a nice role, but she didn’t think it was him.

She tried being Older Role Model Pania, and found that frustrating, and the Eleventh Cohort difficult to mentor. So she tried being Nobody’s Ever Going to Victimize Me Again Pania, and that, at least, was rewarding, although she had a feeling Doug didn’t buy the act.

Efrosin’s Good College Student role was even harder to believe than the party boy.

She moved on to Sharpshooter Pania on a whim, and found that there, there was something she really enjoyed. Her Mentor was surprisingly unsurprised by this, and brought in an ancient fae to teach her proper use of bow and arrow and a young fae to teach her better gun skills.

By the time she graduated, she’d found that Mom and Deadly Aim Pania was a comfortable fit… but Efrosin was still trying to figure out something better to be than Tom Cat Eff. She made sure he saw his son every month or so, and made no further effort to try to change him.

~

Pania graduated and moved to college, taking her two sons with her. Efrosin… still didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life. Everyone else liked the roles, why couldn’t she?

He made sure he saw his sons every chance their mothers gave him, difficult as Reese and Pania had not settled close to one another. He went from college – high honors, but what did it matter – to the Peace Corps, because maybe there he could figure out something he wanted to do with his life?

Pania picked the college with the best preschool program, picked a major that gave her plenty of time with her children and the chance of a high-grossing career, and practiced both gun and bow every weekend.

Efrosin came back from the Peace Corps with the realization that he liked the rush he got from helping people, and got a job as an EMT in a city equidistant from Reese and Pania.

The world ended three years into Pania’s college career, when her sons were seven and six.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/658757.html. You can comment here or there.

Balancing Odds

Feb5

For [profile] kunama_wolf‘s prompt to my December Bingo Card – it fills the “evening the odds” square.

Addergoole has a landing page here on DW and here on LJ; the original series lives here.

1800, somewhere in England

Feu Drake eyed the woman in front of him over his tea. “You are an interesting woman.”

“Thank you.” She sipped her tea in turn, decorous despite the shackles on her wrists. “And you are an interesting young man… Ignazio, was it?”

“That’s as good a name as any.”

“‘Fire,’ jae’Fire-Drake. You are not interested in subtlety, are you?”

“I am not certain jae is appropriate here, Miss… Attwater, was it?”

“Du’Nicor.”

“Ah, yes. Maya Attwater, named the Nicor. You liked that better than knucker, or you were Named when the word was still nicor?“

“You’re a well-educated young man, aren’t you?”

“I endeavor to be. Although I would argue the young in any company but yours.” He sipped his tea again – it was a very nice blend – and smirked at the woman.

“Are you calling me old, Ignazio?”

“Far be it from me to impugn my elders.”

“At this rate, I’m going to believe you don’t actually like me.” Her shackles clattered as she sipped her tea. “You do get such good tea. however do you do it?”

“I own a tea room, Miss Attwater. It comes with the territory.”

“And such an interesting occupation that is for one of your lineage…”

“But you presume again.”

“I am known to be presumptuous. Now, tell me, are these silly shackles really necessary?”

“Miss Attwater, you are known to be several things. One of them is, indeed, presumptuous. Another is that you are almost universally fatal to the men you spend time with. And, as you have expressed some interest in spending some time with me, in, I believe you said, seeing what there was to see when you got this suit off of me, well, yes. I believe they are necessary.”

“They wouldn’t stop me, you know.”

“I am simply evening the odds, Miss Attwater.”

“Do you really have to call me that?” She set her tea down with a thump.

Finally, Feu Drake smiled. “Miss Attwater, there are any number of things I could call you. considering your situation, I think, if I were you, I would be satisfied with the niceties.”

Her shackled hand raised halfway to the collar around her neck – like the rest of the chains holding her, it was made of wood – and then dropped back to her lap as her chains pulled her short. “You are quite unfair.”

“That, my lovely Maya, is the point.”

See wiki here, for Nicor/knucker, and wiki here for tearoom.

Feu Drake teaches Law at Addergoole.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/658304.html. You can comment here or there.

February is World Building Month. Day Three: Addergoole

Feb3

[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; feel free to add questions!

The third question comes from [personal profile] lilfluff and is for Addergoole

Do the Nedetakaei have anything even vaguely similar to the Addergoole school?

To be honest, the Nedetakaei are far less established in my head than the Shenera Endraae. That being said… here goes world-building.

The Shenera Oseraei do not have an overarching organizational structure even as much as the Shenera Endraae do; instead, the exist in small groupings – the Elf Queen, seen In the Hall of the Elf Queen, is one such.

Side track: some people go Nedetakaei, some are raised that way.

Second side track: thanks to [personal profile] rix_scaedu for much of this in terms of ideas and planning.

It is very likely that the Nedetakaei have several small "military schools" where they train their young; filial attachment or piety is not common among the Children of the First, as their primary and, indeed, only loyalty is supposed to be to their ruler, their King or Queen or Regent (until that ruler is overthrown, of course). Such schools would do well in indoctrinating the young in the mentality necessary to claw your way to the top of the pile and, of course, to ensure the next generation.

One caveat: while the Nedetakaei have halfbreeds, they also hate them. No school of theirs would involve a halfbreed breeding program.

Terminology:

The Ellehemaei fall into two political groups:

One call themselves the Shenera Oseraei, the Children of the First. They call the other group Ashanevai, which means monkey-fuckers.

The other group call themselves the Shenera Endraae , the Children of the Law. They call the other group Nedetakaei, those who have forsaken their Names, which also means those who have forsaken the Law.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/655763.html. You can comment here or there.

The last of the Kai/Rozen Drabbles

Feb3

So a while ago I posted a meme, and I am slowly working my way through answering.

Kai/Rozen: AU (Where he does Keep her his first year) here

While this fic takes place in Mendosa’s office, it comes with the implied warning that it is, after all, a Keeping fic.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/655581.html. You can comment here or there.

Question du Jour

Feb3

If I was going to put together of new and previously-written stories about one character from the Addergoole ‘verse (or possible one pairing), who would you like to see?

As many options as you’d like, you don’t have to belimited to just one right now!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/655315.html. You can comment here or there.

Bonus Round: Dipping Your Toes In

Feb1

To thnidu‘s prompt to this [community profile] dailyprompt prompt.

This comes after A Handful of Kai-Rozen Fics. Well, it comes after the post-apoc one “Secret Kink.”

He wasn’t about to tell the gorgeous girl that this was his first time.

He could fudge it, a little. He’d had girlfriends back home, of course. There’s been kissing. There’d been… stuff.

There hadn’t been five-inch stiletto heels. There hadn’t been a girl shoving him back on the bed and straddling him. There hadn’t been the momentary panic as she ripped – ripped – his suit pants off (there’d been a dance, he’d never talk shit about dances again) and straddled him, her dress around her hips.

There’d never been anything like Dita; all he could do was hang on and enjoy the ride. Getting his feet wet? This was diving into the pool with his clothes still on.

~

“I’ve never done anything like this.” Mea squirmed under Rozen. She was smiling. She was happy. He hadn’t been sure if he could expect happy.

“Hold onto the headboard.” Best, everyone had said, to remind them right away. “Look, you can think of this as getting your feet wet.”

“Getting my feet wet?” She wiggled her toes. “Okay. So, this is… the first step?”

Rozen pushed her dress aside. Her hands were gripped onto the headboard and she hadn’t noticed. “Or diving in.” His teeth found her breast.

~

“Hold on to the headboard.” Kaiani had replaced her wooden headboard with an iron one – harder for him to break, at least. “At least until I get the ropes tied.”

“I’ve never…” Rozen closed his mouth with a snap. His… his Owner… was looking at him sideways, her expression unclear.

“We talked about this. It’s not really bondage, not the way I understand it – I still have the magical handcuffs the Thorne Girls gave me, somewhere – but it’s a start. It’s, hrrm, getting our feet wet.” She tied the rope around Rozen’s wrists and looped it around the headboard in expert-looking knots. “Test it.”

He tugged carefully. The ropes had just enough give. “Feet wet?”

She kissed his throat with careful precision. “Both of us.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/653547.html. You can comment here or there.

What was Lost

Jan31

This is to [personal profile] clare_dragonfly‘s prompt to my December Bingo card for [community profile] origfic_bingo.

It fills the “Lost and Found” Square.

It comes after/concurrent with –
Toy Soldiers
With Friends Like These…,
Cleaning Up and
this scrap (http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/398701.html)
Monsters
Mimosas.
S for Shahin
E is For Emrys/Harder than Diamonds

and is part of my Addergoole sub-‘verse, with characters from my Addergoole webserial.

“You know your options. What are you going to do?”

Ty studied its mistress unhappily. “That’s not a fair question, and you know it… Mistress.”

“I know. And I apologize for that. This isn’t going to be easy on you, Tya, whichever route either of us take.”

“No.” Ty rolled its shoulders. “But… maybe that’s what I needed. Life was easy for a long time. And now…”

Shahin packed the last piece of bedding into her pack. “And now, you need to pack, or not.”

Ty winced. “And leave you, follow you, or wait for you.”

“Yes. I apologize. But…”

“I understand. If I had someone like Emrys…” The message had come back from Addergoole, not from Regine, but from Shira Pelletier. Tell the Rapier: What was lost might be found again; the fire has always been at home in the cold; the hills are not hills.

Shahin nodded crisply. “I do need your decision.”

“I’ll come with you.” It didn’t take long to pack up its gear; it had come with little and half of that had been confiscated. Ty was surprised, on filling its pack, to find that its mistress was adding things – another blanket, a hunting knife, a small mess kit.

“Tell me why?”

Ty sighed. “Because I can help you. Because this is going to be really dangerous, and you don’t even know exactly what you’re getting into.” It swallowed, but found it couldn’t stop. “Because I don’t want to be left behind. And… and because you’re making me somebody better.”

Her hand lingered on its cheek. Ty sighed. “I hope you found Emrys. I, um. I think I’m finding Ty.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/651527.html. You can comment here or there.

A handful of Kai-Rozen Fic

Jan30

So a while ago I posted a meme, and I am slowly working my way through answering.

Kai/Rozen: Fake dating, Bodyswap, Sexpollen here

Kai/Rozen: Dark!Fic, Secret Kink, Their first Kiss here. content warning: the dark fic is dark, implied rape or torture preparation

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/648028.html. You can comment here or there.