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Haunted House 44: Money

Apr6

First: A story featuring a male keeper and a female Kept.
Previous:  Buying and Selling

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The second customer left having actually paid – traded – for their goods, just as a third one stopped to finger the silk blouse Jasper’d wanted Mélanie to keep.

“You have a knack for finding the prettiest things, Jasper Fox,” the man told him.  He was an older guy, his beard long and braided into several pretty braids on the sides and his hair almost completely gone.  “I don’t know how you do it – and no, I don’t want to know, either. Some secrets are better kept, hmmm?”

“Indeed, my old friend, indeed.  Mélanie, this is Doug Carter. He’s a good customer – and if you ever need to buy something from him, count your change when you leave, but he’ll have the right stuff, mm, Douggie?”

“I always have the right stuff, my man, but you’re never buying.  No worries, Tonya down the lane was buying so I have this honey here, and, let’s see, oh, no, you don’t need eggs, do you, but how about some very nice cured sausage?  You know Jake makes the best stuff…” Continue reading →

Camp NaNoWriMo – Autumn Lightning

Apr3

So, a year and a half ago or so, I wrote this story – Lightning in Autumn – to Inspector Caracal‘s (Cal’s) prompt.

This story features Leofric Lightning-Blade, from Addergoole: Ghost Story (before he was Lightning Blade), the Princess and the Elf AU/Fanfiction, approximately 8 million stories in 7 million AUs on my blog, and probably half that many or more on Cal’s blog. In addition to prominently featuring Leo,  it’s from the point of view of a man named Nathan, who is actually three people in one body – Public Face, Social Face, and The Other (though that doesn’t really come up in that story).

Then I… kept writing the story.  Through the apoc and out the other side and I kept going until it was 100000 words of a gay romance post-apoc travel journal exploration of Addergoole.

For Camp Nano this year, I’m trying to finish it! Continue reading →

Haunted House 43: Buying & Selling

Mar30

First: A story featuring a male keeper and a female Kept.
Previous:  Thieves

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A job.  No matter the discussions, she knew what Jasper was offering Kearney.

Mélanie wanted to protest – this is a kid we’re talking about! –  but no matter how young Kearney looked, they were clearly already getting comfortable with being on their own. She smiled instead, like she thought this was a great idea.

Kearney looked between them, coughed a couple times, and seemed to decide.  “Sure. I can do that. But only because the lady here is nice.”

“She is nice,” Jasper agreed.  “She’s quite nice, and I would suggest you remember that as you deal with her.  Because I’m not the nice one.”

Kearney didn’t shudder, didn’t even look all that impressed, but there was a slight change in their manner as they looked at the booth Jasper had been setting up.  “So, where do I put this? What can I do?” Continue reading →

A scribble and a doodle of a story map

Mar25

Originally posted on Patreon in March 2019 and part of the Great Patreon Crossposting to WordPress.

So I’m writing a particularly moving-around-heavy portion of a story.

Nathen saw the stairway down between two stoops going upward…. There was a closed and locked door in front of them.  Nathen glared.  Sure, opening it wouldn’t be hard – but it would be obvious.

Oh.  The Social one perked up.  Turn.

Nathen turned to the right.  The door there was almost invisible – no knob, hidden hinges, painted the same color as the wall.  He gave it a careful push.

The door swung open into a narrow hallway.  He pushed the door shut behind him and whispered a dark-sight Working just as the light from the entryway vanished.  Forward….

…He made his way down stairs that were half-gone…

…”You don’t want to go out the front.  This way.”…

…They were out the back door, up another set of stairs, and into a narrow strip of yard quickly after that.  Their guide took a quick look around and headed straight back, towards the next row of yards.  There was a gap in the fence – the Other mended it behind them – and a narrow alleyway between two buildings.

They zig-zagged through three more blocks in quick succession, leaving subtle obstructions where they would seem coincidental, until they reached a semi-collapsed row of brownstones.

So, of course, first I had to figure out this weird layout, which I did during a rather long meeting.

And then, when I started writing them fleeing, well, yes, I Excel’d up a whole set of like 6 city blocks of brownstone-style houses.

And then I figured out how to draw Nathen’s route (and then with Leo) through this neighborhood to the place where they end up.

Which, no, doesn’t have a floor plan yet.

Red dashed line on the Excel map is their route; grey is roads, green is yard and alleyways, black dotted lines are fences, and house-shapes that are in dashed lines are in a state of broken, half-falling-apart, maybe-a-dragon-landed here.

Big dragon.  Small Godzilla.  You know.

Want more?

Haunted House 42: Thieves, Thick As

Mar23

First: A story featuring a male keeper and a female Kept.
Previous:  Market

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Mélanie stepped closer to Jasper and surveyed the area.  There were people everywhere. More than half of them hadn’t seemed to notice the shouting at all.  A few of them were looking across the market. A few more were looking at Jasper.

Was she going to have to do Workings again?  Was she even allowed to?

Jasper waved enthusiastically with one arm, balancing the packages with the other.  “George Ridges! I haven’t seen you in forever!” Continue reading →

Haunted House 41: The Market

Mar16

First: A story featuring a male keeper and a female Kept.
Previous:  Wants and Desires

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In retrospect, Mélanie thought perhaps she ought to have expected a question like that.  Dressing her in silk, treating her like a partner – she shouldn’t have been surprised that he asked her if she wanted anything.  Wanting her to want things, wanting to get her things, seemed on par with everything else that he’d done so far.

That it took her completely by surprise was a sign she wasn’t paying attention.

She blinked at him. Continue reading →

Funerary Rites 43: Stupid Lessons

Mar13

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Chitter squealed as she was dragged into the back seat, but the moment Erramun was cradling her, she stopped complaining.  “I’m—” She smushed her face into Erramun’s chest.

“Easy, my young friend, easy.  There’s always going to be more that you can learn.  There’s always going to be more that you can do. But you can only grow so fast, and you can only do so much.  It’s a hard lesson to learn, I know—”

“It’s a stupid lesson,” Chitter muttered.  Ezer kept his face forward and drove, but Senga could see him peering in the rear-view at them.

“It is,” he agreed, “but we all have to learn it at some point.  So. I’ll help you get the education you need, but you have to accept that it’s okay.  You made a mistake, yes, but nobody got hurt-”

“You got shot!” Continue reading →

Differential Diagnosis

Mar11
A story of Faerie Apocalypse

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“Generally-”

Vianne’s Mentor pinched his nose and frowned.  He had been doing that a lot in the last three weeks.  At this point, Vianne was more than willing to just throw in the towel and call it a loss, the whole fae thing, the whole mess.

“Generally?” she prompted, out of some stupid urge.

“One’s Change gives one some clue about the gift that comes with it.  Or if not a clue, then a demonstration.  A lightning storm, for instance.   Sudden darkness. Fire.  Moving things from one side of the room to the other.”

“I didn’t have any of that,” she offered helpfully.

“Yes, Vianne, I know.  That – that is the problem.  One can assume that you have an innate gift.  Every fae does.  One can assume that is not the innate gift of any of the three ‘pure-blood’ groups, because you do not have the Change of those three.”

“No wings, no horns.”  She had long swooping elf ears and a wiggly tail, spots and skin that sometimes changed colors.

“Sometimes, one can look to the student’s parents.”

“Foundling.”  She could almost sound cheerful about that, even.  It had been long enough.

“-or one’s childhood environs.”

“Passed around like a hot potato.  I don’t appear to get hot to the touch,” she offered.  None of this was making her Mentor pinch his nose any less.

“All right.  So we are going to have to do this the difficult way.  I have a list of categories of powers.  We are going to attempt to test you for each of those.  And then, if we can find a category we cannot eliminate, we’re going to find sub-categories within that category.  Do you understand?”

Vianne sat down.  “You’re not going to just get rid of me?”

“Not going to – no.  No, of course not.  You are my student, Vianne.  And my student you will remain until you are ready to be an Adult.  Now, let’s start with fire powers.” Her mentor leaned back and smiled at her.  With a Working, he lit three candles. “So, first, I’d like you to try putting these candles out with your mind.  And then I want you to try lighting the other three.  And then-”

Vianna had a feeling it was going to be a long day, but at least her Mentor wasn’t pinching his nose anymore.

Haunted House 40: Wants and Desires

Mar8

First: A story featuring a male keeper and a female Kept.
Previous:  Honest

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Jasper was still laughing. Mélanie was staring at him with something between horror and worry.  Had she broken him?  Was he going a little mad?  Was this what happened right before he finally got angry with her?  

“Easy, easy,” Jasper managed through a chuckle.  “Oh, my dear, easy. Telling me that you think I’m doing something wrong.  Being a little difficult? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have laughed at you.” He draped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to him.  “I do apologize. I know you were serious. And I take it seriously — I do!  — that you feel strongly enough about this that you’d tell me you thought I was doing something wrong.  I know that’s hard for you.” He squeezed her a little more firmly. “It’s just that if that’s what it takes to get you to give me your opinions more often, it’s tempting to go find the nicest little old couple I can find and bilk them out of their life savings.”

“Don’t do that!”  Mélanie twisted in his hold to stare at him.  “No, don’t — please, I mean —” Continue reading →

Funerary Rites 42: Eat a Candy Bar

Mar6

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The tension in the van was slowly receding.  Ezer looked pleased with himself.

“Chitter, good job as always on getting into their systems, and your little bugs are the shit,” he kept on.   “Love ‘em. Allayne – you patched Erramun up so fast, I didn’t even get a chance to see the hole. Thanks. And Senga and Erramun, you guys definitely held their attention and kept to your roles the whole time.” He looked back in the mirror at them.  “Try not to get so bloody next time, all right? It makes me techy.”

Without a word, Chitter passed him a candy bar.  Ezer snorted. “Fine, fine, it makes me bitchy.  I don’t know, Chitter, anything out of that security guard?”

“Allayne triggered something, not an alarm, some sort of tertiary back-up.  Yes, I know I should have caught it, yes, I feel like an idiot for not catching it, but it was really well hidden.  It was – look, here, see?”

“You know it doesn’t mean anything to me,” Ezer complained. Continue reading →