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What was Right

Oct28

This is a continuation of The July Linkback Story and its continuation here by [personal profile] rix_scaedu‘s commisioned request.

She thought it was right.

Bowen chewed over that while they went through the checkpoints – those were new, or maybe they were just there because they were entering through the Village and not through Luke’s elevator – and parked the car in front of the motel.

“Addergoole has a motel?”

“Addergoole has all sorts of things they don’t bother telling you about.” Phelen tilted his head at the tidy little two-story motel. “This thing. The crèche. The cake shop.”

“Crèche… no.” Bowen shook his head. “I don’t want to know.”

“Happens to guys here more often than you’d think.” Rozen wandered up beside them and doled out four room keys – actual keys, each with a room number painted on it.

“They get used as a turkey baster and dumped?”

Rozen snorted. “Lots do, here. And lots of women take off with the kids as soon as they can.”

“Addergoole isn’t exactly known for fostering loving long-term relationships.” Phelen was a mass of drippy shadows. Bowen glowered at him anyway.

“You got a pretty good deal out of it, didn’t you?”

“I did.” He clearly saw no point in arguing it. “But it’s not like I haven’t seem other people fuck up, or get fucked up.”

“Enough girl chat.” Baram laid a meaty hand on each of their backs. “She’s this way.”

Rozen followed their not-entirely-willing progress with a deep laugh. “That man has radar for pretty girls.”

“It’s Addergoole.” Even being shoved along the road, Bowen felt brave enough to try a joke. “Finding a pretty girl is mostly like ‘walk out door, point.’”

“Or just ‘point.’” Phelen was inordinately proud of himself. Just because he’d gotten a girl his first year – and his second year. Okay. Bowen would probably be proud of that, too.

“You got lucky, squid butt.” Rozen punched Phelen in the arm. Bowen had to be a little impressed at how much Phelen didn’t flinch. Being punched like Rozen was like being hit by a Mack truck.

“I got skills, Drow.”

“..what?”

“Nobody’s ever called you a dark elf before?”

“People don’t call me a fairy.”

“Kai.” Baram punched them both in the arm, which made both of them, it looked like, struggle not to flinch. Baram was the whole train. “Be fairies later.”

Rozen grumbled a few choice insults, but it looked like talking about Kailani was enough to shut him up. Bowen made a note of that. The big man had a weak spot.

“Everyone,” Professor Fridmar had taught him, “has weak spots. Trick is to learn where yours is, and guard. Not to not have weak spots. That would be stupid.”

Bowen had been determined never to be trapped again. He still was determined: nobody would ever collar him. Nobody would ever have that sort of power over his emotions, over his mind again. Nobody would ever cut his tail off again.

Professor Fridmar had given him quite a few words on the subject. “Don’t be rock. Rocks get broken. Be tree, bend.”

Bend. Bowen didn’t want to bend anymore.

“Come on, lambkins.” Rozen grabbed his shoulder, shaking him out of his memory. “Time to go. You can moon off at the scenery later.”

“I wasn’t…” He didn’t want to explain that to these guys. “Coming.”

The Village was as ridiculous as it has always looked.

Bowen didn’t get it. Regine and her people could have made it look like anything; they chose to go for as close to Norman Rockwell bullshit as they could. "Normal Americana." Right. They were anything like normal. They were even anything like human.

The motel was just off Main Street, with its little storefronts and its freaks pretending they were normal. Nobody Masked out here, not in the summer. There were no new kids to scare, nobody but the denizens of Freakville.

Bowen liked the word denizens. Professor VanderLinden had taught it to him, perhaps in an attempt to apologize for the monster that was its Student and Bowen’s Keeper. Professor VanderLinden had taught Bowen a lot – and Bowen had, for the first time, discovered he could enjoy English class.

Denizens. And any of another handful of words Aggie hadn’t thought to forbid.

"I wouldn’t have figured you for a space cadet. Reminiscing?" Phelen’s voice was soft, barely more than a whisper.

"Kinda." Bowen shrugged. "Guess it wasn’t all bad. Magic. Good teachers." Something like honesty compelled him to add, "Tolly and Dysmas weren’t all bad. They just wouldn’t do anything to stop her. ‘Just go along with what she wants and it’ll be easy.’" He shook his head. "Always wondered if she had some sort of mind control going. Couldn’t have been Keeping them, right, since Dysmas had Nydia and Tolly got collared? But maybe some sort of Working…?"

"People are sometimes loyal for really stupid reasons. Shiva being loyal to Ty, for example." Phelen shook his head. "I’m not saying it wasn’t magic, just that maybe it was just stupidity. We’ll see what Dysmas is like without her around." His shadows imitated a shrug. "What Shiva’s like, too."

"Hunh." Bowen wondered about that, but what was he going to say? Not his business, really.

"Are you two ladies having fun back there?" Rozen had plenty to say. Then again, Rozen always had plenty to say. "Come on, we’re almost there."

Rozen was a little funny about Kailani. Bowen had never seen the big guy looking that impatient, or that – it couldn’t be nervous. Rozen would never be nervous. Would he?

Baram, at least, just looked like Baram. And Phelen was back to looking like a creepy cloud of shadows. Bowen elbowed the shadow-mass. "The creepy look is totally going to ruin my thanks."

"Bah, it’ll just make it all the more cool." Phelen pulled the darkness back in, though. "You gonna try to make this good?"

"I dunno?" Bowen shrugged. "I mean, I gotta do it." He nodded his head at the impatient mass of Rozen ahead of them. "And she did…" Shrug. He didn’t like saying "she pulled my mutton out of the fire," but it was true.

"All right. Here’s what you do then. I might be cy’Fridmar, but I barely missed being cy’Drake, and you learn a lot about the formalities." Phelen continued in a low whisper as they walked across the Village.

It was formal all right. But Bowen knew, too, that it was the right thing to do. Like Kailani rescuing him because she thought it was the right thing. Like him helping her stop Aggie later, although that had been at least fifty percent revenge.

"Here we are." It was a pretty cottage, like most of the things here, made to look like something safe and innocuous – another VanderLinden word, innocuous – and human. This one had a moat, which was a little different, at least. And a wide wooden door with a lion’s-head knocker.

Maybe she wouldn’t answer. He knocked anyway. Some things, you really didn’t have any choice about.

Knocked, and then, when she opened the door, knelt on one knee. "Kailani cy’Regine, I owe you a debt of honor." The words were awkward, but they were right. "I owe you deeply, for the good you did me. I humbly request that you tell me what I can do to repay this."

He really didn’t expect her to start crying.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/413875.html. You can comment here or there.

Dunk, a vignette

Oct26

The summer between Years 5 & 6 – late summer

“Why do I have to be in the dunk booth?”

Jamian looked at the swimsuit in some concern. A childhood of covering up his body had not entirely been erased by a year being Kept by Ty.

“Because you look hotter in that thing than I would. And people will pay for the chance to get you all wet.” Melchior grinned toothily. “Nobody’s going to pay to see my 6-pack.”

“It’s a nicer 6-pack than mine, though.” Jaya gave in to the inevitable. Saying no to Mel really didn’t work. “So I sit up here…”

“And I call them in.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/413181.html. You can comment here or there.

Family Matters, a story of Fae Apoc for the Giraffe Call

Oct22

To Tix_Scaedu‘s prompt.

Fae Apoc has a landing page here

The city’s counter-culture had never been so counter.

Unfortunately for Gillian, what it was being counter to, this month, was her wishes.

All right, large portions of the social circle she called home were often counter to her wishes, but she’d never had trouble before bulling her way through, reshaping things (and people) to what she needed.

Until this. Reegan was a good kid, and it wasn’t a bad Change, such as things went. Toothy, but then, the person Gillian had always assumed was Reegan’s father had been pretty toothy.

So what if she’d given another man Naming rights? The creep who’d probably fathered Reegan was, well, a real creep, and Matt had as much of a statistical chance of being the dad as Mr. All Mouth.

That had been fifteen – nearly sixteen – years ago. Now Reegan had Changed, and was looking, as was proper, for a Mentor.

Matt turned him down first. “Sorry, kid. But it’s just…” He wouldn’t explain more than that, although Reegan seemed to understand something Gillian didn’t out of this.

Then Connell, Sharp-Hands-Flying, who also had had some time with Gillian back around then. He could have taught Reegan combat as well as the Law – but he wouldn’t even answer Gillian’s calls.

Then Kit, Maria, The Doomchaser, Abbot and the Monk, Red Rhoda and Blue Betty all turned Reegan down. Lame excuses or no excuse at all, and no amount of haranguing on Gillian’s part would sway them.

“It’s ridiculous. I’ve been part of this group for years. Decades.” Gillian paced back and forth, muttering and swearing. “It’s a disgrace, an outrage. Horrible.”

“Mom. Mom. Mom!” She didn’t know how long Reegan had been trying to get her attention. “Look, I’ll handle it.”

“I’m your Mother. This is my last duty as your Mother.”

“Well… as my Mother, maybe you ought to trust me. I can handle this better on my own, okay?”

Gillian didn’t know what he meant, but she was willing to let him screw up on his own if it would make him listen. “Fine, go ahead and try. Then I’ll move on to plan B.”

He didn’t need her approval or sign-off to choose a Mentor, not by the Law. She should have remembered that before she sent him out the door.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/411653.html. You can comment here or there.

Catch

Oct19

To jeriendhal‘s prompt.

Not long at all after Etchings.

Addergoole has a landing page here

Gregori and Speed regarded each other across the room.

“Kid,” Gregori asked carefully, “are you sure?”

That wasn’t the question you were supposed to ask on Hell Night. You were supposed to ask “Are you mine?” as he’d done with Damaris, and when they said yes, then you moved on to the part where they yelled and hit you for a little while and you explained how things were going to go.

But the prey wasn’t supposed to proposition you. At least not so directly.

The kid rolled his eyes at Gregori. “This place is magic, yeah? There’s demons and fairies and werewolves, et cetera.”

He would have to do something about that attitude. Quash it, or nurture it, or bonsai it. “More or less. Fae of all sorts, yeah.”

“And there’s collars. Collars and BDSM, bondage toys and pain toys. I found that part of the Store. “

“Somehow, I’m not surprised.” He was a bit overwhelmed, but not surprised. “Yes. There’s d/s here.”

“Maybe magical d/s?”

“Maybe magical d/s,” he allowed. “For someone asking to wear my collar, kid, you’re not very submissive.”

“I’m not yours yet. I don’t bend my head to just anybody.”

“But you’re offering to bend it to me.”

“And you’re turning me down?”

“I’m trying to make sure you understand.”

“Sir, I understand that this is going to be d/s. I understand it’s maybe magical. I understand you’re more experienced than I am. That you will take me in hand and direct me, educate me.”

“Control you.”

“Control me. Completely?” He didn’t look terrified. He looked turned on.

“Utterly. From now until the end of this school year, if you’ll be mine.”

The prey wasn’t supposed to smile as they walked into the trap. Gregori wasn’t entirely sure this was the catch it looked like. “Then I’m yours, master.”

Next:
Formality (LJ)
Bound (LJ)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/410286.html. You can comment here or there.

Etchings

Oct16

My Giraffe Call is Open here! Stop in and leave a prompt!

This is to thesilentpoet‘s prompt.

Addergoole has a landing page here

“This is my room.” Speed opened the door and stepped inside, despite the way Gregori was holding his wrist. He liked the way Gregori was holding his wrist – firmly, without pain but with the certain threat of it underneath the surface.

“Invite me in.” He liked that, too. No fucking around; Gregori got right to the point.

“Please come in, Gregori, sir.” He lowered his eyes, making it sound coy, and stepped back into his room, using the bigger boy’s grip on his wrist to reel him in. “Would you like to see my etchings?”

“That’s a line so old it’s petrified.” He seemed pleased. Speed liked that it pleased him.

“I decided to make it new again.” He tilted his head towards his desk, asking permission and pointing all at once. Sell it. Be, be with every muscle, the perfect sub, and see if he bites.

Speed hoped he bit. Unlike some of the other bears around here, Gregori didn’t have rend-and-tear predator teeth. Speed wasn’t certain he’d like quite that much pain.

“You… ha.” Gregori moved that way, allowing Speed enough play to get to his desk. “You did, indeed. Are you using acid?”

“I am.” He picked up his favorite print. “Professor Akatil said he had a set-up for printing, too, down in the basement. I did this one before I came here.”

As a come-on, it left little to the imagination; as a self-portrait, even less.

“You can’t have drawn this from life.” Gregori sounded amused, but he also sounded impressed.

“Photos,” Speed allowed. The etching, one of his best, showed him bound in a complex hogtie, gagged, and blindfolded. he looked through his eyelashes at Gregori. “I could use some new photos to work from…”

Etchings on wikipedia

Next:
Catch (LJ)
Formality (LJ)
Bound (LJ)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/408419.html. You can comment here or there.

Signal Fire

Oct15

For Rix_Scaedu‘s commissioned prompt.

After The Life You Make (LJ) and Memories (LJ), and directly after Safe House (LJ), which is right after
Company LJ)

The guests were skittish, the taller one barely perching on the edge of her chair while Viatrix brought them all tea. She didn’t trust his promise. She wasn’t seeing him. She was seeing – what, a memory? Somebody he’d been once before? Jaelie called it his legend, his notoriety. She told him, over and over again until he could not forget, “I came for the legend.” Later, she told him, more times than the first thing, “I stayed for the man.”

This girl was staring at the legend. Baram found he wanted her to see the man.

“Gonna get the kids,” he grunted. Maybe she – and her very-quiet friend – could relax if they saw there were small people here. Happy small people. Before Via could say anything, he lumbered to the basement door. “Aly.”

He was pretty sure the little one didn’t mean him to hear her squeak. “In the basement?”

He was more sure that Via wanted him to hear her response. “Safety drill. Stranger danger; people at the door means get out of sight.”

“That makes sense.” That was the taller one, with a voice as sharp as her bones and her blades looked.

The kids tumbled out, picking up where they’d left off, leaving the dining room alone. They were learning fast. One of them climbed up Baram again, a little one, a girl. “Grr! Argh!”

“Grr,” he agreed. “Play castle later?”

“Awwwwww.” She slipped down his back like it was a slide and was off, chasing after one of the boys.

The visitors were still staring at him. He was going to have to deal with this. Baram rolled his shoulders uncomfortably. He knew he was a monster. He knew sometimes he earned that title. But he protected women and children. That was what he did.

“You trust him?” The small one thought she was whispering.

“With my life. With our kids.” It still made him feel warm to hear Via say that.

“But he’s…”

“We all graduated from Addergoole.” Aly cut the skinny one off, as if she was protecting Barem’s feelings. “Can you say that any of us are clean?”

“Still…” The skinny one looked at him like she was trying to look into his brain. Really, he needed to look into hers.

“Aly. I need…”

She knew what he needed. It wasn’t the first time she’d done it, although she never liked it. “Are you sure, Boss?”

“I am. Can you…” How to say it?

Via knew already. Neither of them were as smooth at this as Jaelie, but they knew him well. Better than he knew himself.

“Miss, he really doesn’t remember. And he’d like to understand. He’s been… he’s been changing, lately, since we’ve all been here, I think. But he can’t make amends for what he doesn’t remember.”

“Make…” The skinny one stared at him. “How can you think you can fix what you did?”

“Not fix.” He knew he was sounding more and more like a monster. He couldn’t seem to do better than that right now. He put his hands down on the table, carefully. “Understand, and make amends.”

“You. You, Baram cy’Fridmar, you want to make amends for what you did to me?”

“Me. Baram, the Shield.” He liked it better than any other Name he’d been given. “Yes. If you’ll let me.”

She sank back in her chair, staring at him. “You promise?”

“I promise I want to make amends.” It was an easy promise. “To you.” He was sure there were others, but today, it had to be her.

“What do you want to do? To… to what, understand?”

He tilted his head at Via. She talked better than he did.

“You still have all the memories. With your memories, miss-”

“Callista. The Bladed Dervish.”

“sa’Bladed Dervish. With your memories, I can trigger his. They’re locked away, otherwise.”

“You want to touch my mind?” Her throat bobbed up and down. She was far too thin. Baram wanted to feed her. Surprising that Aly or Via hadn’t brought her something already. “Will I have to relive it?”

“No. You can sleep, if you want, or just rest here. I won’t bring them to your conscious mind.”

She swallowed again. “And this will – he really doesn’t remember, otherwise?”

“He really doesn’t. As far as we can tell, he loses almost everything past six months. It’s all in there, somewhere, he just can’t access it.”

“That’s horrible.” The little one frowned at him. “You really don’t remember?”

“Really. Sorry.”

She shrugged. “I don’t have… I don’t have quite such bad memories.” She thought about that for a moment, and added, “I mean, not just not as bad of memories of you. You were the boogeyman, but you were never my boogeyman. But not as bad of memories all around.”

“Some people get off more easily than others.” Aly sat down next to the little girl with a tray full of snack foods. How she’d manage to get that together without leaving the room, Baram didn’t know. He assumed magic. “And some people just slide around the bad stuff.”

“Oh, I had a bad Keeper. It’s just that Callista’s Keeper was… something else.”

“Aaah. Relative horror. If you were there with our employer, you must have been there during the bad years. I’ve heard stories.”

“The stories are usually twice as bad and not a third as horrible as it really was.” She shrugged again, and made a handful of cheese vanish into her mouth. “Callie, I think you should do it.”

“Yeah?” Her taller friend looked down at her. “Why?”

“You need to close something. You won’t track down the bastard who hurt you, and you’ve got this guy here willing to make amends. Close a door, put something behind you.”

The bastard who hurt you. Baram suppressed a growl. When he was done, when Jaelie was back and he could leave the house for a little while, then he would find this person who had hurt this guest, and he would pay him back in kind. People should not hurt women. Certainly not women who had carried Baram’s children.

“All right.” The woman – Callie? Callista? – nodded. “All right.”

Via, sensitive as always to Baram’s moods, glanced at him for permission. “Both of you close your eyes, please. Callista, sa’Dervish, please relax as much as you can. If you know how to blank your mind, please do that. Boss, you know what we’re doing.”

“I do.” He breathed until his mind was clear, emptying everything with each breath. It was always a little frightening, putting himself under. There were so few memories to begin with; he always wondered if there’d be anything at all left of him when he came back.

He had hurt this woman, whether or not he’d meant to. He could risk his Self to make amends.

Down, down. He breathed out the trappings of modern day, breathed in quiet.

Further down.

The children were gone, the house, the women.

There was nothing but dark, and quiet.

Further down.

The monster was gone.

There was nothing here but silence, nothing but cool darkness.

We need something from you. A demon spoke to him out of the darkness. We need someone to back us up. Shad and Mesh are getting too strong, and it’s going to come to a fight. We need your muscle.

Memory-self rumbled in response. That crew is nasty. Memory-self had no crew, just a friend he trusted to watch his back, and this demon, who asked things sometimes, and gave things in return.

They are, and they’ll run everything if someone doesn’t remind them they’re not the only game in town. Look, Callie will make it worth your while.

Another memory intruded on the first.

Make him happy. You know we need him. You know he needs you. Smile and be a good girl for him, Callie, and I’ll reward you when we get home.

The reward, the promise of a reward, might have kept her going without the order by that point. She needed the little things he gave her. She needed the moments where she could feel human. Even if it meant taking a monster to her bed.

Make him happy. She didn’t know if he could be happy. She’d barely ever seen him smile. He almost never talked. Rozen? Rozen had emotions. Rozen laughed. But Baram was just a thug, a golem, a creature made out of lumpy clay.

Callie knew what she was supposed to do in bed. It wasn’t the first time Ib had lent her out. Whored her out. She knew what to do, to make a guy feel like she was holding up her end of the deal. But she didn’t know if it would work with Baram.

A memory that might be his came back, over Callista’s worries.

He knew what it meant, when someone said they’d make it worth his while. He’d never had much luck, getting women in his bed normally. He had the graduation requirements to contend with, here. He had the fact that, while his brain might be a mess, while his Change might be monstrous, much of him was still a teenaged male.

She smiled when she came into his room. She never wore much, little shirts and tight jeans. Today she was wearing less. “Ib said you wanted me?”

She was going to scream, when he took his pants off. They all did. Even Isra. Even Ivette. He braced himself, and stripped.

And she smiled. It was a small smile, but she smiled.

Via…? Baram flailed, not understanding.

Make him happy. What was she going to do with that thing? What… that was what Ib had meant. She smiled, so he wouldn’t get unhappy, and walked towards him, murmuring under her breath. She had permission to do all the Workings she needed to make sure she held up her end of the deal. She could do this. She could take him in, and she could make him happy.

“You’re a big one.”

Baram remembered her saying that. He actually remembered, in the memories he could still get to. Not her, not the context, but that voice. Jaelie had said something similar, years later, and it had brought it back to him, the way memories almost never did: awed, a little bit scared, but ready to try.

He remembered a surge of uncommon affection when she had said that. Via’s touch on his memories brought it all back to him: the willingness in her voice, the little smile he’d never seen on her lips before. The way she closed her eyes and arched back against the pillows, while all six of her arms touched him.
She said son… Could Via get that for him, too? He knew, because the girls had told him, that he must have fathered two children to get out of Addergoole. But he had no memory of either child, no memory of naming them, none of holding them.

Brace yourself, Boss.

She didn’t want to let go of the tiny baby. She was afraid if she let go, Ib would never give him back. Somehow, her little boy would vanish like her little girl had, and she would be alone with Ib again.

The big oaf was waiting, quietly – he was usually quiet – staring off into the fake horizon. She wondered if there was enough going on upstairs for him to do a naming. Was there anything at all in there, except meanness and violence?

“Give him the baby, Callista.” Ib’s order left no room for argument. “Say the words.”

He voice cracked, but she got the words out. “This is the son you have given me, Baram cy’Fridmar. I give him into your hands to be named.”

Son.Son. Her son, and this monster was handling him. She was surprised at how careful the big hands were. She didn’t want to remember that his hands had been gentle with her, too. He was a monster, and he had raped her. What did it matter if he’d been trying not to leave bruises? He was Lenny, a big oaf. She knew what happened to girls around oafs like that.

But Ib wasn’t going to let her not hand over her son to him.

“I take this son that I have given you, Callista cy’Pelletier. I will return him to you in the morning with his name.” She’d never heard him say that many words at once. And then, while she choked on tears, he turned and was gone, gone with her son.

“Brand.”

The memory-trance was gone. Baram blinked at the women, skinny and hard-edged, and tiny and sharp. “I Named him Brand.” He could remember more than that, although he felt it fading already. “Like the fire. Like a beacon. Is he like that?” He could not quite find the words. “Like a … signpost?”

Viatrix, her fingers still in his mind, tried to translate. “A signal fire, a sign that danger is coming, or a sign that safety is there. He saw Brand as a light in the night.” She smiled, then. “A safe house?”

“A… oh.” Callista blinked. “Is that…? You never said.”

“Did you ever ask?” Via’s voice was very soft. “The man who Kept you, sa’ Bladed Dervish, he deserves pain and more pain, over and over again, for what he did to you.”

Callista flinched. “I don’t want to see him.”

“The time will come. We have all been hurt, you know.” Via stretched out over the table, placing her hand just inches from the skinny woman’s. “In our time.”

Baram knew the words, now. He didn’t know how long he would hold them. “Sa’ Bladed Dervish, Callista. I did not know I was being used to hurt you. I did not want to hurt you. I am sorry I did.”

She stared at him like he’d taken all her foundations out from under her. Maybe he had. She clutched Viatrix’s hand, and her short friend’s hand in another, and, before Baram could try to figure out more words, she burst into tears.

It’s okay, boss. Via’s voice was careful in his mind. Baram did not like tears. I’ve got this.

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/538505.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/407797.html. You can comment here or there.

Goodbye Tradition

Oct15

My Giraffe Call is Open here! Stop in and leave a prompt!

This is to clludle‘s prompt.

Addergoole has a landing page here

“All right, that’s enough.” Mirella stood up suddenly, causing Beckett to scramble backwards.

“Ma’am?” He looked up at her with those big puppy-dog eyes.

“You’re free. I release you. Get your clothes and your stuff and go back to your own room.” She closed her robe around her and tied the belt shut with a tight square knot. “Well, get on, go.”

The habit of obedience sent him crawling to the closet; he’d gotten half his stuff packed before it really hit him. “Wait. Wait, what? Mirella, why? I did everything you asked me to.”

“It’s just too much, Beckett. You’re just too much.” Besides, a quiet Working had told her she’d gotten what she needed. “You’re a lovely boy, you really are, honey, but I just can’t do this.”

“What did I do?” He paused, clothes in one hand and bag in the other, to look up at her. The expression was pitiful, more so for his big, lanky frame. “I can do better.”

“No, Beckett.” She emptied the one drawer she’d given him into a box, and added his books and papers on top of his socks and underwear. “You’ll do much better on your own.”

“So, just like that?” He frowned at her, which would have been a relief, except big lunk of a boy and he was still within her threshold. “You’re kicking me out?”

“I’m freeing you, Beckett. I’ve freed you.”

“What am I supposed to do now?”

“Go meet a nice girl, or a nice boy, or a nice horse. I’ve taught you everything I can about Addergoole. You know what words not to say. You know how to avoid being Kept, and how to trick someone else into the collar. Speaking of which…” She unbuckled her collar from around his neck and stepped back with it before he thought to stop her. She might need that for a couple weeks next year.

“You said a year.”

“I said a year at most. I said a year was tradition.” She handed him his clothes, and, still half on autopilot, he folded them and packed them away. “But not one I want to follow. Look, you’re a nice guy, Beckett.” Too nice. Clingy, affectionate. No fight at all, after the first couple days. “I’m sure you’ll find someone nice.”

“Just not you.”

“Well.” She cleared the last of his things out of her closet and, hopefully, out of her life. “I’d have thought you’d have noticed I’m not very nice.”

Hello tradition

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The Cup

Sep14

For [personal profile] inventrix‘s prompt

Pellinore has appeared in June Again,, Boom, amd Visit From School, and was referenced in Legacy, where JohnWayne showed up.

The rumors had been flying around for years. Pellinore had listened to them all, and tucked them in the back of his mind. The Thorn Vessel. The Wooden Death. The Hawthorne Cup.

The world was a bigger place now than it had been when he was young, bigger and so much smaller all at once, and it took him a long time to gather enough information. He traveled – he got the feeling many of them did. It made it less obvious that they didn’t get older, that they never really fit in. The story traveled, too, changing and mutating, but parts of it stayed the same. There was a cup, and it was magic.

It had been years since Addergoole, years since he’d been caught and released by Cya on his graduation day, but when he decided it was time to go looking for the Cup, Pellinore went looking for Cynara first. She could find anything. She’d know where to start.

He was braced for some other Kept to answer the door. He knew she’d made a habit of collecting them. He’d visited her from time to time, only to be greeted by another Addergoole grad wearing another collar. He even expected the guy to sort of look like him. Half the time, they did.

He wasn’t expecting the same ears, the same eyes. He tripped over his words, managing nothing but stammer for a moment. Finally, he came out with, “Pellinore. I’m Pellinore, that is. Lookin’ for Cynara.”

“Pellinore?” The boy stared at him. “From Addergoole?”

“Long time ago, yeah.” He hadn’t been that famous. Not for this kid to know him, had he? “Do I know you?”

“I’m JohnWayne.” The boy tugged at his collar. “Was sh’Xanthia. Now oro’Cynara.” He was still getting used to that, too. “You’re my father.”

Pellinore coughed. That had not been what he expected. “Yeah. Yeah, I reckon I am.”

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Visit from School

Sep12

First of two I want to write for [personal profile] inventrix‘s prompt “Pellinore.”

This Pellinore has appeared in June Again,, Boom, and referenced in Legacy.

As first referenced in Loose Ends and Tying Off (these two stories reference slavery and mistreatment), the Addergoole staff make visits to graduated students to check up on them.

Cynara wasn’t surprised when Professors Drake and Pelletier showed up at her doorstep. By now the staff had to have noticed what she was doing, and, while she had gotten good marks for being one of the more level-headed students in her year, she was, after all, part of Boom. If anyone merited looking-in-on, it was her and her crew.

Pellinore, on the other hand, seemed both startled and upset when he opened the door. “Profe…” He stopped, as if unsure if saying that was giving away some secret. “What?”

“May we come in?” Trust Professor Drake to look over Pellinore’s shoulder like he wasn’t even there and ask Cya. She was glad the kids were with Leo today. She wasn’t sure this wouldn’t get unpleasant.

“Professor Drake, Professor Pelletier. Come on in. Pellinore, take their coats, would you? Can I get you something to drink, Professors?” Pretend everything is normal. Pretend there’s nothing to see here.

The Professors were less interested in pretend than they had been when Cya had been in school. “No drink, thank you. Pellinore, how are you doing?”

He glanced at Cya, then back at the Professor. Cya managed not to roll her eyes. A basic precaution could cover most of what the Professors were looking for. But she had nothing to hide. “Be honest with the Professors, but don’t feel the need to tell them anything you don’t want to.” She headed into the kitchen to get water anyway, giving him the pretense of privacy.

She could still hear them. She listened over the sound of the faucet as Pellinore coughed. “I’m all right. I don’t… I didn’t like getting caught. She trapped me,” he added, more quietly. “Like I was back in school.”

Professor Drake chuckled dryly. “That is what school is supposed to teach you to avoid.”

“Feu Drake.” Professor Pelletier was far less amused. “Does she treat you well, Pellinore?”

“Well, I’m Kept.” She could picture his shrug. “But she’s not a bad sort. Her kids are kinda wild.” He hesitated, and then continued more slowly, “but, ya know, if I was gonna be Kept again… I can live with this.”

“Is that because you believe you have no choice in the matter?”

Cya chose her Mentor’s question as a cue to re-enter, carrying four glasses of water on a tray. It was an interesting question, but she didn’t want them to get comfortable quizzing him.

Pellinore looked at her over his water glass, then glanced back at their former professors. She smiled, but didn’t try to send him any messages.

He coughed. “Way I see it, sir, ma’am, there’s been nothing we’ve done since we were conceived we had much choice in. Cya might be another trap, but she’s a nice one, at least.” He looked over Cya’s shoulder at the adults. “If you see JohnWayne or Pepper-Potts in your ‘visits,’ tell them their daddy says hello.”

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