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Linden-Flower Tea

Dec18

This came about because of a box of tea my roommate just showed me. 😉
It helps to know that Mike is Mike VanderLinden, whose original use-name is Linden-Flower.
Shira is Professor Pelletier; Maureen is Lady Maureen Foxglove. All three are staff at Addergoole.

It had started as a dirty joke between Shira and Maureen, shared over their third or fourth beer one late night in Mau’s Tavern.

“Well,” Shira had been laughing, “if all else fails, there’s Linden Flower tea for what ails you.”

“Unless it’s lindens that ail you, of course.” Maureen had smirked over her beer and they had moved on to more tree metaphors.

Shira had forgotten the whole thing until Christmastime, when a box of linden-flower tea had shown up under her tree. Once that had been done, though, the gauntlet had been thrown and it was on.

Linden scented oil. Linden sachets. Little linden-leaf-embroidered towels. “Good for what ails you.”

“Unless the lindens are ailing you.” Not that Mike was ever what actually ailed them, Maureen and Shira. They had their weaknesses, neither would deny it, but vain and vapid Daeva were not on either’s list.

After a while, it creeped into Shira’s everyday vocabulary. She had a student who was having some issues with body image, and, in speaking to Caitrin, suggested the boy might want some linden-flower tea for what ailed him. Another year, she suggested it to Laurel, when she and Wysteria were having a falling-out in their invisible relationship. Once, she even said it to a student.

“I don’t know. It’s just the whole idea is a little nerve-wracking. I get all the urges, but then I start getting scared and over-thinking everything…”

“Have you considered some linden-flower tea?” In Shira’s defense, it had been a long week. She covered it quickly, segueing into something else before coming back to the suggestion more directly.

But in all those years, it never occurred to her – and possibly not to Maureen, either – that the target of their joke was aware of it.

Until she found a box of tea under her tree again that Christmas, with a note attached:

Don’t bother with the infusion, come straight to the solution. ~M~

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/618267.html. You can comment here or there.

Lost in Translation, Orig-Fic, Addergoole

Dec17

To Rix_Scaedu‘s prompt to my orig-fic card. This fills, perhaps unsurprisingly, the Lost in Translation square.

Summer, Between Years 9 & 10 of the Addergoole School

“You’d think this would be easy.” Shira Pelletier stared at the document in front of her.

“No.” Feu Drake shook his head. “No. Some might think this is easy, but I would not be one of them again.”

“You’re doing it again.” She glanced up at him, not yet irritated but willing to sound it.

“Of course I am ‘doing it again.’ I am not certain you would ever be reasonable to expect something else of me, j-“

“If the next sound out of your mouth is a jae, you’re doing this on your own, Drake.” Now, now she was becoming actually irate.

“You are rather younger than I am.” He managed to make the statement of fact sound like a reproach. Shira was un-reproached.

“And does that mean that I am your junior?”

She caught the faintest twitch that meant she’d either amused the man or caught him by surprise. “You posit a curious question… Shira.”

“See? I knew you could use my use-name if you tried hard enough.” She allowed herself to be mollified, because if she kept this up much longer, it would no longer be sparring and be something far more like flirtation. (Maybe. With Feu Drake, it was hard to tell even when he was naked. Clothed and poring over ancient papers, there was almost no option short of a Working to get a certain answer). “This part of this piece makes no sense.”

“Are you sure it’s not you?”

“I am certain it’s not me, Feu Drake.” She pushed the sheet over to him – a piece of gold pressed thin as paper and inlaid with the ancient script of Old Tongue, Idu a’Iduþin. “This part here, the prophecy. ‘The mother who cares not?'”

Drake frowned. “‘The mother who…’ yes, ‘who gives no caring for her children but simply births them as the mice do.’ An odd way to phrase that.”

As the mice do. Shira sighed. “Oh. Well, it can’t be one of ours, can it?”

“I don’t see why not. Addergoole was prophesied in at least three different texts.”

Shira looked back at the words. “‘Shall…’ but something is missing, isn’t it?”

“Lost.” Drake picked up a leather-bound book and passed it to Shira. “But here’s a Greek translation. You think it’s one of your Students?”

As the mice do. “Let’s just say, I’m hoping it’s a mistake of translation.”

“jae” is a diminutive honorific; the prefix for those who outrank you is sa’, and for equals you simply skip the honorific.

Shira Pelletier and Feu Drake are professors in the Addergoole School.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/617966.html. You can comment here or there.

Inflicting Change

Dec11

To Sky’s request to this call for Addergoole prompts.

Between Years 19 and 20 of the Addergoole School

Luke’s voice still wasn’t up to par, but he had gone to the wedding, of course. His Student had invited him – and she and Hayden deserved this, more than Luke had words for, even when his voice was properly working.

When he came back, Mike was waiting for him. “I’ve been thinking.”

It had been the years for it. Regine had been meddling more than normal; she had pushed them to meddle more than normal. What had resulted was a cluster fuck that, if they were lucky, the students affected would eventually forgive them for.

“Me, too. I’ve got an idea.”

They didn’t need much more conversation than that; they had known each other for quite a while. A few more words, a plan, and then it was Mike (who still had a voice, who had not been shouting at Regine until he was hoarse) who presented it.

“You need Students.”

“I have had Students in the past.” Regine’s normally-calm-and-collected voice and still body posture did not change much, but there was a tilt in her head and a minute quaver in her voice.

“You had one Student, Regine. We mean a full cy’ree – at least four students – every year.”

“This will take time from my other projects.”

“This school is your project.” Mike’s voice rose up a little louder, a littler firmer. Luke watched with interest. It hadn’t been the Daeva doing the shouting – but he had a feeling he’d missed some things along the way.

He’d missed a lot, this year; he’d gotten enmeshed in one Student’s concerns.

He coughed, and tried for a quiet voice, because nothing louder was going to work anyway. “You need Students because you’re too far from the problems. You need to be emotionally invested.” He sounded like Maria. Well, there were worse people to sound like.

“I do not become emotionally invested. It is part of my strength.”

Mike fielded that one. “It’s become the school’s weakness, Regine. You focus on the theoretical and ignore the human.”

“We are none of us human.” Her voice was beginning to have inflection, and Mike’s was losing it.

“And that, Regine, is the problem in a nutshell. Students. A real cy’ree, four or more. Every year.”

“And if I do not?”

They had been expecting this. Neither of them answered. A heartbeat passed. Another. Another.

“Very well.” Regret and something that Luke could not identify tinged her voice. “Four or more Students. Every year, beginning this September.”

It was only a beginning, but it was that, at least.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/615687.html. You can comment here or there.

An Arrangement

Dec11

To kiarrith‘s prompt to This Call for Addergoole Prompts.

All new characters.

Third week of School, Addergoole Year 16

Minerva slipped into the suite after her magic class – Yaku! Water, her new favorite Word – to hear the tail end of a conversation she was likely meant not to hear.

“…do about Minerva?”

She froze, and then just as quickly unfroze and found a place to hide. The closet. The closet was right there.

“I don’t think there’s anything we need to do about her.” Oh, good. Calum was angry. Minerva touched the collar around her neck – call it a choker or a necklace all you wanted, it was still a collar. Calum was angry and one of the girls wanted to do something about Minerva. Again. She curled a little further into the back of the closet, behind a winter coat she’d had no use for yet.

“Something has to be done. Calum, I know you’re fond of her, but she doesn’t really fit in, does she?” Kenna had that tone in her voice that meant she was going to bend the facts until they fit. Or bend Minerva – or Calum – until they fit.

“And she’s miserable.” Tzefira this time, with a coaxing, cajoling tone in her voice. “She doesn’t like being left out any more than we like leaving her out.”

She was? She didn’t? They didn’t? But if this was a two-on-one intervention, Calum’s crew-mates were really sick of her being around. And if it was two-on-one, Calum didn’t stand a chance. He might not wear their collar, but it hadn’t taken Minerva long to figure out who really pulled the strings around here.

“She doesn’t seem miserable to me…”

“Well, she wouldn’t, would she?” Tzefira was so very persuasive. “Did you want to look miserable, when you were ours?”

“No, no, but you still knew.”

“Well, dear…”

She had to say something. Calum would yell. Tzefira and Kenna would yell. But it was that or get kicked out. Minerva stood up, pushing the coats out of the way.

Nobody noticed her at first. Tzefira was going on about how they knew better than he did. It let Minerva step forward until she was standing at the table.

Kenna was taller than Minerva – and that didn’t happen often at all – but they were all sitting, and she was standing. “Why don’t you want me here?”

They didn’t deal well with direct, she’d noticed. Kenna coughed. “It’s not that we don’t want you here, it’s just that you don’t fit here happily. We think you’d be better off somewhere else.”

“Calum has to grow up sometime, you know.” The worst they could do was get rid of her, and they were going to do that anyway. “He can’t be your pet forever.”

“Of course not.” Tzefira recovered faster than her crew-mate. “We released him. We know he needs to be his own person. But don’t you want to be your own person, too?”

Good one. Minerva thought it ought to have hit home, but it didn’t. She shrugged instead. “Right now, I like being Calum’s – when you let him have me.”

“Minerva.” Calum’s voice didn’t have warning so much as pleading. She ignored him, as much as it sent twists into her stomach.

“I like being his, but you don’t want him to Own someone, because it brings home that he’s not yours anymore – not to you, because you both know the truth. But to him. Him being in control of someone reminds him that he’s the one in control.”

Tzefira was smiling. That was unexpected. “You think so?”

“I know so. That’s why you don’t want me here. Not because I’m miserable – I’m not, Calum. Not because I don’t like being left out – I don’t mind, and neither do you. But because it draws a line in Calum’s brain.”

The two women shared a look. “You want to be his pet, even knowing…” Kenna’s gesture was entirely unclear, but Minerva took her meaning anyway.

“Even knowing how it works between you two and him. Yes.”

“Why?” Tzefire leaned forward; this answer was the important one.

Why, indeed? Minerva licked her lips. “I like what you guys have here. I’d like to have it some day. But right now, that’s not what I want. Right now, I want a nice, comfortable collar and a Keeping to get me through this first year of school. And… I like him. I really do. Doormat status and all.”

“Minerva!” This time, it was a warning. She sat down and watched the three of them, waiting.

The Characters
Tzefira‘s the only one with a wiki page so far

Calum
The character is male
5 ft. 11 in. tall.
muscular build.
cropped short perfectly straight black hair.
brown eyes.
light skin.
movement is notable in some fashion

CHANGES
unicorn related Change
Significant physical Changes include skin tone , facial feature(s) , hands and/or feet
Innate ability can consume thoughts in some way.

Kenna
The character is female
6 ft. 1 in. tall.
curvy/stocky build.
hip length+ tight curls Irish red hair.
grey eyes.
ebony skin.
movement is notable in some fashion

CHANGES
djinn related Change
Significant physical Changes include hair color , eye color
Innate ability can control space in some way.

Minerva
The character is female
6 ft. 0 in. tall.
slim build.
shoulder length wavy blue-black hair.
black eyes.
dark skin.
hands is notable in some fashion

CHANGES
naiad related Change
Significant physical Changes include eye color , height , hands and/or feet
Innate ability can destroy thoughts in some way.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/615456.html. You can comment here or there.

Being Wanted

Dec9

To rix_Scaedu‘s request to this call for Addergoole prompts.

The thing that students didn’t understand, Maureen mused, and then, in her mind, corrected herself. One of the things students didn’t understand is that a two-year-old was still plenty aware enough to notice things, and a three-year-old even more so.

One of the things two- and three-year-olds noticed was when some of their peers left the school, and others didn’t. They noticed when Adorlee and Aceline’s mother came to visit, and Harvey and Miliana’s mother didn’t. They noticed gifts and new clothes and special attention paid – and it gave them a standard against to measure the attention their own parents gave them.

Shiva’s three had packed up their belongings and cheerfully hopped into a car with their mother. Mea’s four had done the same. Mabina’s had never lived in the creche; Eriko and Callista took their children and fled.

Ivette’s children and Xaviera’s older two watched this with interest, never asking why they weren’t going, what was going to happen. And then Anwell came for Ivette’s Lidah, and then Adrian for her son (his son) Oliver, and that left of that year Harvey and Miliana.

They didn’t say anything that year. They went back to playing, and that was fine. They didn’t say anything the next year, when Wren and Rowan, Lydia and Eris, Genevieve and ‘Lisha all took their children, or the next year, when Manira left hers.

It was the end of year eleven, when Miliana was seven, that she crawled up into Maureen’s lap and asked the impossible question. “Lady Maureen?”

“Yes, sweetness?” She was a beautiful girl. Her parents were both lovely; it remained to see whether the poison in both of them would be carried in her as well.

“Condwiramur and Sprout’s mom, and Laima and Ama’s, they came and took them. But not everyone’s mom or dad takes them.”

“That is true.” Maureen had had this conversation before. Not many times, but she imagined the number would keep going up.

“My mom doesn’t love me, does she?”

“I do not know what is in the core of your mother’s heart, Miliana, and no-one but she can truly know that. What I know is that she and I spoke when she left, and the felt that you would be better served – safer, warmer, happier – here, where you had grown up. She wanted you and Harvey to be happy and safe, Miliana.”

Those weren’t the words that Xaviera had used, but they would do. Maureen finished with some that were entirely her own. “And we wanted you to be cherished, and warm, and safe. We wanted you here, in the creche, with us.” Maureen placed a careful kiss on the girl’s forehead. “We wanted you here.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/614646.html. You can comment here or there.

Santa

Dec9

To stryck‘s request to this call for Addergoole prompts.

Leithe first shows up here.

Christmas Morning, Year 10 of the Addergoole School

Leithe opened the door Christmas morning – Shang’s door, though he kept saying it was their door – to a stack of brightly-wrapped packages.

“Shang? Did you order… presents?” She tried not to sound hopeful. She tried not to feel hopeful. He wasn’t very good at this whole thing, and she still wasn’t sure he understood that he was supposed to be trying.

“Order? No, uh.” She heard something shuffling around in the room. “I didn’t order any. Why?”

“There’s a stack of presents out here. My name, your name.” She glanced down the hall. “Everyone has them.” In the other direction, she saw Orlaith picking up a stack from outside Accalon’s door. “Not all the same, I don’t think. But everyone has something.”

“Hunh. Well, it is… nope, no ticking. You can bring them in, if you want.”

“I wonder if they’re from my parents. The ones to me, I mean. My parents don’t really write or anything but maybe they sent presents…” She was doing that thing where she kept talking. She pressed her lips together, picked up the presents, and brought them back into the room.

She had to struggle with them – the presents were heavy, and bulky – and was surprised when she found Shang helping her, taking the bulkiest ones from her. “Here. Here, you didn’t say they were that big. What… Idu Unutu… hunh. No poison, no bombs. Over here.”

Over here surprised her again; there was a tiny fake tree on his desk, that hadn’t been there before, and four small presents underneath.

In the hallway, someone was shouting. “Someone got me the Supername CD I wanted. Santa got me the CD I wanted!”

Leithe looked at the presents in her arms, labelled From Santa. Then the looked at Shang.

“Are you smiling? Are you crying?” He looked nervous. That was new.

“Both?” She was pretty sure she was doing both.

“Is that good?”

“I… yes?” She rubbed at her eyes. “Yes. I think so.”

“Good…. that’s good. Merry Christmas, Leithe.”

Outside, another voice was shouting about a rare strand of black pearls. Leithe shut the door.

“Merry Christmas, Shang.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/614246.html. You can comment here or there.

And Then There’s You

Dec6

To [personal profile] rix_scaedu‘s commissioned prompt in the My-Hobbies-Ran-Into-Each-Other-And-I-Blew-My-Gas-Money-Budget Emergency Fundraiser

After: Fridmar & Love
“That was a lovely speech you gave Ana.”

“You were not intended to hear it. Come in, then, Mikhaíl, rather than keep talking in the hallway.”

“Oh, but that’s all I wanted to say.” Looking innocent and entirely unbelievable in it, Mikhaíl the Linden-flower stepped into Agmund’s office and shut the door. “It was a lovely speech.”

“It was what she needed. Sit, then.”

“Woof.” Mikhaíl levered itself gracefully into chairs that had not been designed for its tail. “Yes, of course. What she needed, what Doug needed. A pity she doesn’t trust me, but, considering her antecedents, I’m not surprised. And I am Doug’s grandmother, as much as he glowers and tries to forget it.”

The Daeva wanted something, and Agmund would have no peace until he gave it. Whatever it was. “Doug glowers because he hurts. He glowers less when Anastasia is around.”

“You’ve noticed that, too? Of course you have. But yes, your answer was good, perfect for the situation and for both of them. All three of them, but that’s another story.”

Agmund did not rise to the bait. For one, he knew what the Daeva was talking about. For another, it wasn’t why Mikhaíl was here. “Da. It makes them happier.” Twist that one, horn-head.

“And a happier teacher is, in general, a useful teacher. Better for his Students. Better for his co-workers.”

“Maybe Luke we should be getting a girlfriend next.”

“Mmm.” And now it was the Daeva’s turn not to show anything. “Maybe. But it was not Luca I was thinking of.”

“Never it is Luca you are thinking of.” And if Mikhaíl could read the sarcasm or not, there would be a message there.

“Mmm.” The Daeva’s eyes focused on the wall for a heartbeat, and then back to Agmund they swung, undeterred. “What about you?”

Agmund had been expecting the attack. “And what about me? Doug is not my type, nor I his.”

“Of course not. Men.” Mikhaíl’s hand wave covered all of the gender in one dismissive gesture. “Agmund, when is the last time you loved, yourself?”

Agmund had been expecting this, and still didn’t want to answer it. He tried a dodge, knowing that in this form of combat, Mikhaíl was more skilled. “I do not ask you about masturbation, Mikhaíl. Do not ask me.”

“Very cute, Agmund. When’s the last time you loved someone else?”

“This is also not your business.”

“And here I am asking.” The Daeva leaned forward, undeterred.

“I am not in love with you, Mikhaíl. You are not my type, either.” Drop it, his tone said.

No way, Mikhaíl’s eyes said.

“Of course not. But there was Xanthia…”

“No, there was not. There was never Xanthia, because there was Hemlock for Xaviera.”

“What about Penstemon?”

“Rather occupied, and not interested. And again, you presume.” He leaned back and pushed against his desk. Go away, nosy Daeva.

“I know you, Agmund.” Mikhaíl leaned forward. Not going anywhere, grumpy bear.

“You know what you choose to see, what you think you see. There is nobody, Mikhaíl.”

“And if there truly was, I would go away.”

“This I will believe when I see it.” Agmund wanted to relax, but it felt as if Mikhaíl was circling for another angle of attack. Did the Daeva know?

“And then there is Fairuza.” Yes, damn its eyes. It knew.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/613959.html. You can comment here or there.

Addergoole Drabble Treo: The Twins Are Asleep

Dec5

To [personal profile] wyld_dandelyon‘s request to this call for Addergoole prompts.

Early Fall, Year 6 of the Addergoole School

“Shhhh – the twins are finally sleeping!” Mabina slipped out of Kailani and Conrad’s room and closed the door very, very carefully. Vlad whispered a Working at the door as it shut.

“That ought to keep our noises out and let us know if they’re making noise.” He touched the door, lightly, with his fingers, as if apologizing to his children.

“Cool.” ‘Lisha hopped down from her stool and grabbed a tray of appetizers. “Time for the party? I invited a few new people…”

Kailani twisted her lips. “People?”

“Friends?” The girl paused, hands on hips, to look at Kai. “You know, people that we actually like.”

“I didn’t know we could invite friends.”

“I didn’t know you had friends.”

“‘Lisha, there’s no call for that. Kai, if you want to call Shahin-and-Emrys or Jamiain and Arna, you can go right ahead. This is a party, dear, and of course we can have friends.”

Kai glanced at Conrad; he shrugged back at her and touched the chain still around his neck. “It’s your call. You’re still in charge.”

“Only because you wouldn’t let me let you go.”

“Well, you had to know you were stuck with me when you agreed to Keep me.” He hugged her close. “Call Jaya. Arna could use the getting out.”

A noise from the designated nursery room stopped them all in their tracks. Mabina, Kailani, and ‘Lisha shared a glance that even Kai didn’t need help interpreting.

Conrad, however, answered the question they were all not asking. “It’s Min. She’s playing with the trucks.”

They all relaxed. Trucks! A thought bounced through Kai’s mind. “Could I buy her some toy horses? I liked them a lot when I was a girl.”

For a moment, she thought ‘Lisha was going to yell at her. Vlad’s Kept might have mellowed, but she still got snippy for no discernible reason.

Then she smiled, the biggest smile Kai had ever seen on her face. “That would be cool. Thank you.”

Mabina clapped her hands together. “And that’s party time.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/613148.html. You can comment here or there.

Addergoole in two lines

Dec4

Me: “And, really, things are going to suck here for a while, but they’re almost never fatal.” (quoting from WIP Mystery of the Missing Orders).

Sky: Addergoole, summed in one sentence.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/612840.html. You can comment here or there.

Addergoole Drabble Duo: Summer Snuggles

Dec3

To [personal profile] clare_dragonfly‘s request to this call for Addergoole prompts.

Summer After Year 9 of the Addergoole School

“Free at last.”

Jaya’s mother had the kids – all of them, which wasn’t a kind thing to do to any being, but she’d volunteered – and Arna was well and truly done with school, and Jaya was on summer break and had five days off from work. They were, in all practical senses free. They’d gone to the lake.

“Free at last,” Arna agreed. She had her lips against Jaya’s neck, her arm and one leg draped over Jaya, and her breasts pressed against Jaya’s side. She felt warm, and a bit sticky, and perfect. “And out of that place. I know.” She held up one hand lazily. “I had it good. I had you, I had Jovanna, I had an easy time of it. But it’s still nice to be out.”

“I know.” Jaya twisted until she could kiss her lover’s forehead. “I had Ty, I had you. I had an easy time of it. But it’s nice to have you out of it, too. It’s nice to be here.”

The cottage on the lake was a family property – Jaya’s stepdad’s family, but still family. Their bed was on the screened in porch, watching the lake; the chances of someone coming across them was almost zero. Still, it felt horribly daring as Jaya stretched, showing herself off to the water and the moose.

“It wouldn’t be this peaceful with the kids here.”

“Or with homework, and work, and everything else. But it’s a nice place to hide for a little while.” Arna tugged Jaya back to the bed. “Hide. And snuggle.”

“Mmm.” She pressed her lips against Arna’s collarbone in agreement.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/612530.html. You can comment here or there.