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On this Date: Addergoole Drabbles of Rozen

Oct22

October 22, 2004

“What are you planning on doing now?”

Rozen hadn’t meant to collect a mascot. Keeping pets in school was one thing, but the world outside was different.

It had turned out, though, that the world outside was a bit difficult. And she’d volunteered. Liked his biceps.

“You tell me.” Not quite a mascot. More of a seeing-eye girl.

October 22, 2013

“Rozen, boss, you can’t fight them.”

Lily was dragging on Rozen’s arm. When Austin had left him, he’d found her: flame-red hair, freckles all over. He liked redheads.

“Lil. Let go.” He pushed her behind him. “Go get my weapons, then you can hide or run.”

“Boss, you’re going to die.”

“No. But you’re definitely not going to.”

He really liked redheads.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/586940.html. You can comment here or there.

Bracken, her second year

Oct22

Thirteenth in a series of character-building vignettes following a bunch of characters through their time at Addergoole & beyond.

“Abatu. Abatu… Eperu.”

A tiny puff of dirt vanished.

“Again, and use the whole working.”

“Abatu Eperu gamma χώμα.” Braken leaned into the Working, pushing all of her energy into it. A pile of dirt the size of her fist disappeared.

“Better. And now we’ll try something a little easier.” DJ had its implacable, patient, never-getting-tired voice on. One of them needed to. “Create water in that hole.”

“Meentik.” Bracken coughed. “Meentik Yaku beta λακκούβα με νερό.” As demanded, a little puddle of water appeared in the hole she’d created.

“Very good. But I still can’t believe this is as far as you got in all of last year.”

“Last year was a bit distracting.”

“Your Workings classes aren’t supposed to be subject to that.”

“Tell that to my former Keeper.” Bracken shrugged. “He wasn’t all that bad or anything, but he was still distracting.”

“I remember. Still, you’re barely beyond basic Workings on anything…”

“Not on anything!” Bracken surprised herself with how vehement that made her. “Come on, there’s a couple things I can do really well!”

Her Mentor paused in its diatribe. “Indeed? Show me.”

Bracken found herself sighing in relief. She grabbed the hem of her shirt and yanked a big tear in it.

“Bracken, what are you…”

“Jasfe Unutu πουκάμισο.” Fix my shirt. She stared at the shirt, and let her smile break out as the shirt mended itself perfectly.

She pointed at a chipped mug on DJ’s desk. “May I?”

“Mm? Oh, yes.”

“Jasfe Unutu κούπα.” The mug looked as good as new, with almost no energy expended. “Jasfe Unutu καρέκλα.” Her chair became much more comfortable. “Jasfe…”

“That’s enough, that’s enough.” DJ looked as if it was trying to smile and frown at the same time. “Very interesting, very interesting. Appears you are… mmm… very specialized.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/586734.html. You can comment here or there.

Rohanna, her Second Year

Oct18

Twelfth in a series of character-building vignettes following a bunch of characters through their time at Addergoole & beyond.

“And what will you do?”

Professor Fridmar was staring at her. Rohanna knew this was supposed to be unnerving, but she couldn’t bring herself to feel anything but a little amused.

“What, you mean ‘now that I’m free?'” She shrugged, and tried not to laugh at the professor. At her Mentor, even if she’d had to growl and grumble to get him to agree. He hadn’t liked her reasons. Neither had Dyfri. That was the point. “It’s not like Dyfri yanked the chain that much.”

“But the chain was there, nonetheless, and now it is gone. Dah, what will you do now that you are free?”

“Same thing I did while I was under the collar.” She didn’t understand what the big deal was. It was a collar. It was a few rules. And then it was gone. She’d been through that before a time or three.

“You are going to wander around seeing how many people you can annoy and how much effort it takes to do so?”

Rohanna felt a grin coming to her face. “Yes, that was part of the idea. Probably continue to sleep with cy’Linden, because that confuses everyone.”

“And your animals?”

Rohanna felt her expression soften. “You’ll let me keep helping, right?”

“And if I say, only if you stop sleeping with all of cy’Linden?”

“Then I say, you are giving me a rule and not a frown, and then I stop sleeping with some of cy’Linden.”

“And if I say, only if you come to my bed?”

She tilted her head. That was a new one. “I say, ‘well, Professor, I didn’t know you cared.'”

“And you do it?”

“With your promise.”

“Animals are a very important thing to you.” He said it like a fact, which it nearly was. Rohanna corrected him.

“The animals are the only thing.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/584248.html. You can comment here or there.

The Cup Part VI

Oct18


After The Cup and The Cup, Part II, and The Cup Part III, and The Cup, Part IV, and, The Cup, Part V, in that Order

They drove on. There were other holes in the road, of course, but none were as bad as the one that had nearly swallowed the van.

They wore themselves out, Cya and Pellinore, muttering Words under their breath to make the dirt, to shape the road, to give themselves the paved surface where no road crew had been in generations.

And then, when they were both panting from the effort, Pellinore’s son wiggled up into the front, perching on the console between them. “I can…?”

He made it a question, which made Pellinore want to punch something. This was his son. His son, not some woman’s…

“Hey.” The boy thumped him in the arm with a fist. “You’re getting that face.”

Pellinore coughed. “What face?” The boy was a stranger, he couldn’t know…

“The Luke face. I mean, Luke gets it a lot; he doesn’t like the idea of collars at all, I think. Ambrus got it once or twice, but if your name is really Pellinore, I always figured that explained it.”

“That…” Pellinore was lost.

“Anyway, relax. I like being under her collar. It’s a lot better than anything I’ve had before. And anyway, I can take over for the Workings for a bit and let you two guys rest.”

“I think we’d better stop the van.” Cya was already matching actions to words and putting the brakes on. “Because…”

She didn’t need to finish that sentence. Because the road ends would have been close, but the road didn’t so much end as turn straight upwards in a gravity-defying right angle.

And in front of the right-turn there was a sign.

“Well.” Pellinore coughed. “I bet this is our first stop.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/583991.html. You can comment here or there.

Friend to Friend, a drabble of Addergoole for @Kissofjudas

Oct17

Sometime after year 30 of the school but before year 45.

“If anyone should know, Luca…”

This was by a long stretch not the conversation that Reid wanted to be having right now. It wasn’t a conversation he wanted to be having ever.

But it was the conversation he was having.

Mostly, he was trying to have a conversation, and Luca was growling at him.

“If it was Caitlin…”

“If it was Caitlin, I would wish you the best of luck and possibly offer you some armour. My daughter is a tough nut to crack, Luca, and with her twin in tow, you would need all of your Mara endurance to survive. But it’s not my daughter we’re talking about. Nor is it yours.”

“My daughter isn’t old enough.”

“I think we both know that’s not the point, Luca. That aside… this is Mystral we are speaking of. The daughter of one of your former students.”

“And one of my former students herself.”

“As Nyx was mine.” Reid was not a snarly sort of guy, but right now he wanted to snarl back at the stubborn, rock-headed Mara.

“Nyx wasn’t the child of a student.”

“No.” It was getting harder and harder to not snap. “Perhaps I am a little bit quicker about this than you are, Luca. And, considering that your daughter almost is old enough… perhaps you should learn how to be a bit faster.”

That got a wing flap and a frustrated noise. But Reid knew he was getting through. “You. You and Mike and ‘Fina…”

“And everyone else, I’m sure. Luca. We want to see you happy, that’s all.”

“I’l talk to her.”

“Good.” Reid let out a breath. A tetchy Mara made the whole school anxious, and Luca had been tetchy for far too many years. “Good, Luke. You need it.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/583049.html. You can comment here or there.

On This Date: Addergoole Drabbles of Kendra

Oct17

October 17, 2004
“It’s all right,” Kendra reassured the scared-looking boy – man, legally – in front of her. “I have a trust fund.”

It, in this case, was the little pink lines on the stick in front of her, which would bring her number of children to something between eight and 11, considering her luck.

And add that much more money to the “trust fund.” Regine liked babies. Luckily, so did Kendra.

October 17, 2012

There wasn’t supposed to be anyone out here. There weren’t supposed to be any threats like this within a hundred miles of this city.

But the human at her door had suddenly grown fangs and started spitting out Workings.

“Get inside.” She snapped it to her youngest child’s father, who was probably old enough to know better. “Falke. Get the youngers and get them under cover.”

She grabbed her walking stick – 6 feet of hawthorn, with the thorns still in the top foot – and blocked the door. “You’re not getting anywhere near my kids, you bastard.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/582744.html. You can comment here or there.

Orlaith: Her Second Year

Oct17

Eleventh in a series of character-building vignettes following a bunch of characters through their time at Addergoole & beyond. Orlaith we’ve seen much later in her life, in the series with her son Hunter-Hale and her later Kept Adder.

(Ora tag here)
(Adder tag here)
(Hunter-Hale tag here)

September, Year 11 (2005) of the Addergoole School

If there was one thing her former Keeper had said to her that had stuck in Orlaith’s mind – and there had been far more than that, as Accalon was prone to talking quite a bit, and saying words like remember this while he did so – it was what he’d said about Silas.

Accalon saw things. He saw people’s futures, their worst, their best. Sometimes he saw what they wanted, or what could be done to change their path.

He’d seen the way Ora looked at Silas. Nobody else had really noticed, but Accalon, well, he saw things.

“That one. That boy you look at out of the corner of your eye.”

She’d felt guilty, but she hadn’t tried to deny it. “Silas.”

“Him.” His voice had shifted tone, into that odd sound he used when he was seeing some future somewhere. “He’s going to fall, far, Orlaith. He will fall into darkness and into evil. He will fall as far as any of Addergoole’s children has ever fallen, and, being an over-achiever, he will then fall further still.”

She’d tried to make some protest.

“Remember this. He will fall, and you will need to kill him. It will be your hand on the blade that ends his existence, Orlaith, or the world will fall instead.” His eyes had opened and he’d pinned her with a gaze. “Or.”

“Or?” It was either her nickname or another option. She grasped at it either way.

“Or you will bring him to the light. It will be a hard road – possibly harder than killing him – but you can do it. But you’ll need to be prepared.”

That was when her lessons had begun in earnest. And now… now her mission began. Accalon was gone. She was free, as free as any Addergoole student could be.

“So.” She had been talking to the table of students for a few minutes. Long enough to not be suspicious. “What do you think about Silas?”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/581760.html. You can comment here or there.

On This Date: Addergoole Drabbles of Niassa

Oct16

October 16, 2004

College was weird.

The classes were alternately harder than anything at Addergoole and easier, her teachers were strange and at the same time more professional and less, and her classmates were so /young/ it hurt.

But Niassa had lost that argument, so through Intro to Psych she sat, dreaming of fighting dragons.

October 16, 2013

She couldn’t really fly with the things she’d gotten in lieu of wings.

But on the back of a dragon, a sword between its shoulderblades and a garrote around its neck… then, then Niassa was flying, higher and higher into the air.

She didn’t think about the fall, not yet. Not until it came.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/581356.html. You can comment here or there.

Cynara: Her Second Year

Oct15

Tenth in a series of character-building vignettes following a bunch of characters through their time at Addergoole & beyond.

Cynara’s First Year Vignette is here.

Year 7 of the Addergoole School; September

Cya had spent most of the summer walking, hitch-hiking, wandering around. Her father had been meant to pick her up at the airport, but he hadn’t, so she’d decided to make a months-long trip of getting back to Addergoole.

It had taken the whole summer of that to clear out the empty spot in her chest, and even that hadn’t really worked. Dysmas was gone. He’d walked away with barely a second glance. Dysmas was gone. It hadn’t even surprised her when her father didn’t show up, after that.

She didn’t feel so achey anymore, but there was still this feeling as if there was something missing. She limped into school, ignoring Luke’s irritated growls. So she’d walked back. So what? So she’d managed to time it so she met a handsome new student at the airport. So what? It was generally considered cheat, she knew… but everyone at Addergoole cheated (And he really was quite handsome).

Dysmas was gone. The loss hit her all over again as she looked at the niche where he’d sometimes snacked on her, the halls where they’d had classes, the stairs down to his suite. He was gone.

She sat on the stairs until her breath came back. He’d been using her, of course. Using and manipulating. He’d been drinking her blood for a year. He’d treated her like an employee at the best of times.

And he was gone, and she missed him. She didn’t want to think about that one too much, and yet she couldn’t stop thinking about it.

“Cya!”

“Cya, honey! You made it!”

She looked up, only then realizing she’d been looking at her knees.

“We got the suite!”

Bearing down on her were… were Boom. Were Howard and Zita and Leofric. Smiling. All of them, smiling.

Were her crew.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/580245.html. You can comment here or there.

One Year Ago / Hello Tradition, a story of Addergoole Yr 12

Oct14

After Goodbye Tradition.
Beckett also has an appearance in Don’t Cry, Baby; Leithe also shows up in A New year, a New… Who?.

http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/407350.html

Beckett spent a week trying to pretend he wasn’t sulking, and another week trying hard to ignore the questions. None of them were polite. Some of them were just insulting.

“So, Mirella cut you free?”

“So, you couldn’t hack it as a Keptie?”

“So, you’re in the market now?”

So, so, so. No, no, no. Beckett didn’t feel free. He didn’t feel like he’d failed. He felt, more than anything… angry.

“I wish…” But life didn’t work that way.

“What do you wish? Maybe I can make it come true.”

He knew Leithe. He shared a couple classes with her; more importantly, Mirella had declared her utterly and completely off-limits. She was petite, lovely, and looked nothing at all like Mirella.

“I’m not sure.” Beckett shrugged. Pretty girls didn’t generally talk to him – part of why he’d been such a sucker for Mirella. “I wish she’d either never Kept me or never released me, I guess.”

“It hurts, doesn’t it?” She tilted her head and frowned at him. “When it breaks, the bond? It makes you feel like everything is going sideways.”

It did. Beckett nodded cautiously.

“And it makes you feel empty.”

“You’ve been Kept?” It was a stupid question, but he was good at those. Everyone was Kept eventually.

“I did my time. You got off easy, some people would say.”

“Being hers… it wasn’t bad.” He’d felt like he’d been worth something. “Not being anyone’s kind of sucks.”

“Well, there’s always the alternative.”

Beckett swallowed. Even HE could pick up what she was offering. But was that somewhere he wanted to be?

“Think about it?” Leithe tilted her head again. She was smiling; she had a pretty smile. “And if not that… well, come talk anyway. Having friends around here is helpful.”

“Friends.” Beckett swallowed. Friends, he could do. “Okay. Uh. Friends.”

Mirella had cut him free. For the first time, free didn’t feel like falling.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/579306.html. You can comment here or there.