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Briars & Vinegar: Eating the Roses, a story of fae-apoc post apoc for the Giraffe Call (@rix_Scaedu)

Mar2

For Rix_Scaedu‘s prompt, combined with [personal profile] clare_dragonfly‘s prompt.

Fae Apoc has a landing page here.

After:
Briars and Vinegar (LJ)
Briars and Vinegar: Blood on the Snow (LJ)
Briars and Vinegar: For 100 Years (LJ)
Briars and Vinegar: Sharp and Bitter (LJ)

Something kept eating the rosebushes.

This was startling enough on its own – roses weren’t the most palatable thing in the world, and Vin’s roses had thorns the size of small daggers.

But, since Darrel had moved into her cabin, and Keri and Clarence had built their own nearby, since Dame Elena had, herself, come to shelter inside Vin’s large hedge of roses, there was hawthorn planted alongside the rosebushes, twisted in with them, its sharp prickers providing a second layer of defense. And hawthorn was even less palatable than roses.

(Dame Elena, who had been Old Dame Elena as long as anyone could remember, had turned out to have a surprising wealth of information about the old fae. That had made Vin give her a sharp look and pull the old lady aside for a few whispered conversations.

Clarence tried not to mind. It was clear that Vin knew quite a bit she wasn’t sharing, and he didn’t blame her, usually. The war had hurt her quite badly, he thought, blamed for things she could neither have done nor stopped.

But when something started eating the roses and the hawthorn, and Elena and Vin went back into whispered conversations, Clarence had had enough. He pulled the two women aside – gently, very gently, but still.

“Look, you need to tell me what’s going on. Kari and I live here too, you know.”

“And I welcomed you, but you don’t need to stay,” she snapped. Dame Elena’s hand on her arm stopped her, and she sighed.

“There aren’t many things that will eat roses like this, and most of them aren’t natural; they’re constructs of the war or leftover monsters from Ellehem – from faerie-home,” she translated. “And I’ve never encountered anything unnatural that could stomach hawthorn.”

“But I have,” Elena put in. “Not a faerie creature as such, but something they made from creatures already here. Mouth like a meat grinder, could eat anything. Did eat anything. And everyone.”

She frowned at the chewed-upon bushes. “We called it the omnivore.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/289272.html. You can comment here or there.

Early for Roses – A story of the Fae Apoc for the Feb. Giraffe Call

Feb29

For moon_fox‘s prompt.

Fae Apoc has a landing page here.

They’d decided, after a great deal of discussion, to call themselves “Early for Roses.” It had the proper air to it, and suited Selina’s sense of the ironic.

Once they had a name, they needed a look, since they already had a sound. Selina liked lace, long, dripping lace that covered the fact that she was too skinny, far too skinny. Ashton was fond of the same, for the same reason.

Dallas, on the other hand, like denim and flannel, was wedded to the denim-and-flannel, slept in the denim-in-flannel. In the end, Selina ended up sewing a black-and-grey flannel jacket and Ashton bought black jeans, lots and lots of black jeans.

They looked, Ashton had to admit, like exactly what they were. Which, in this day and age, wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

They had their first performance the day that Houston fell, their second the next day. By the fourth performance, they were moving on to bigger venues.

Nobody knew what to expect. But, as Ashton pointed out over a bottle of Patron, if there was going to be a soundtrack to a faerie apocalypse, it might as well be a bunch of fay fae.

And thus Early for Roses was perfectly positioned to be the house band for the end of the world.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/287500.html. You can comment here or there.

What they Needed

Feb29

For Friendly Anon’s prompt.

Addergoole has a landing page here

About 15 years before the current storyline: 1984

Maybe what they needed was romance.

Ambrus watched the women sitting in Mo’s Tavern, drinking beer and looking at each other – and the other men in the area – uncomfortably and uncertainly.

They knew what they were there for. Regine’s invitations were nothing if not explicit, her contracts even more so. But it was one thing to sign a paper, especially for a liberated woman who wanted a child without a man, and another to be staring at a tavern full of other egg-or-sperm donors, full of strange people with strange bodies, and think that you would be, by someone else’s choice, going to bed with one of them. It was like a key party with someone else arranging all the keys.

This was, of course, nothing new to Ambrus, but for these women, he imagined it had to be different.

When he had first come here, he had simply done what – and who – he was told to, plying his powers to make things a little smoother. And after that debacle with Rachel, he’d stopped really even talking to the women, beyond what was needed to arrange the act.

There’d been four more women and two more children, as far as he could remember, since that debacle, and, looking at these miserable women, he had to do something. If it blew up in his face again… well, then it blew up in his face again. It wasn’t as if any of these women would be sharing custody of his children with him anyway.

“Who’s up on my dance card?” he asked Maureen quietly. She consulted her book of such things, one eyebrow raised at him in question.

“You’ve got Adelberta – with the owl markings? – Jacqueline, over there, with the pointed ears? – and Saatchi, with that lovely dark skin and equally pointed ears. And Ké, of course, although we both know that’s never going to happen.”

“Luke would kill me. Twice.” Ambrus twitched. “And not in a fun way. I think Jacqueline.” Saatchi was beautiful but a bit intimidating; Adelberta was flat-out terrifying. “So, can I talk you into one of those little chocolate tortes? And a bottle of that sweet port?” The roses he could get from the garden; Valentina wouldn’t mind as long as he asked. And for the gift… a bracelet. One of the new denizens of the village had skill working gold; Ambrus could trade a favor.

He looked at the woman, leaned over her drink as if holding onto it for warmth, and smiled. Maybe what she needed was a little old fashioned romance; roses, chocolates, wine and a little box wrapped up brightly. He could give that to her.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/286963.html. You can comment here or there.

Making new History, a continuation of Fae Apoc for the Jan. Giraffe Call (@inventrix)

Feb28

After
Scrounging for History (LJ)
Digging through History (LJ)
Delving in History (LJ)
Bringing Home History (LJ)
Singing down History (LJ)
Learning of History (LJ
Getting over History (LJ)

Part 7 of 7.5

Fae Apoc has a landing page here on DW and here on LJ

“That’s a harsh chance to ask us to take.”

Karida stared down into the pit at the witch, Amalie, Fiery, and Dor hovering nearby, Amalie’s song seeming to hang in the air. The witch stared back up at them, the hope leaving her face.

“So leave me here. Leave me in this pit,” she spat bitterly. “Leave me like everyone else has.”

“Talk like that and I will,” Karida snapped. She didn’t want to, though… but her company’s safety was at stake. “What do you know of what you are?”

“Freak. Monster.” She sat down hard on a pipe, her tail lashing. “I know I can purify water, purify food. I know this happened when I turned seventeen. And I know I don’t get older.”

“Have you ever made someone a promise?”

The witch thought about that one for a moment. “No. Yes. Yes, that I would keep their water clean if they didn’t attack me.” She hissed softly. “And then… then I could not stop. I couldn’t stop helping them, even when they took everything from me. Not until that kid threw a rock at me. I… I see.”

“You’re smart, good. Promise that you mean no harm to us or our company, that you will not betray us, and we will take you with us, and teach you.”

“That’s a lot to ask.”

“This is my family we’re talking about. And you’ve already attacked us once.”

The woman’s tail twitched, and she looked down at her fingers, at a broken claw, at her ragged clothing. “How did you get to learn what you were, to use it? How come you have clean clothes and family, when I have nothing?”

“Just lucky, I guess,” Dor answered, the spite out of his voice. “But you have a lot of life ahead of you. You can have all that, too.”

“Guys,” Amalie interrupted, “we still haven’t found anything to bring back to the company. Not enough, at least. We need to move on…” She hummed quietly. “We need to find the feast/to twist ‘way from the beast/to bring to large and least/to give to each, to each.”

The witch looked up at them. “I can help with that,” she said, with the faintest hint of a smile. “I can help you bring something to your company. If you let me out. And I can help you avoid the real monsters. The beast. I know this city. I’ve been living here for… for a long time.”

“Swear it,” Dor said sharply. “Swear that you mean us no harm.”

The witch sighed. “I, once-called-Sana, swear that I will do no harm to you four, to your company, to your family, unless you first harm me. I swear I will not betray you, if you let me out of this pit.”

“Good enough?” Dor asked.

Amalie frowned, humming. “I… Family and kin/under the skin/buyer beware/move forth with care?”

“Tricky,” Karida sighed. “We may have to try something else, but for now we can simply be careful. Once-called-Sana, what do we call you now?”

“They call me witch,” the woman answered, as Dor made stairs down to her. “I call myself Nightwalker.”

Next: Trusting in History (LJ)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/286146.html. You can comment here or there.

Planting Seeds

Feb26

For [profile] stryck‘s prompt.
Addergoole has a landing page here and a wiki here.

Content warning: mayyyybe implied heavy flirtation?

Two weeks after Thorny Disposition (LJ)

Phillipa sat in Professor Valerian’s office, very carefully picking the rose hips from her hair and popping the seeds out of them, dropping the roses into a tall bottle.

“There was a student,” the Professor told her, “a few years back. Nikita. A similar Change to yours – he grew grapes. I know that he and his Keeper made wine from his grapes, but it was, for them, an intimate affair.”

Keeper. She had heard that word a few times in the last couple weeks, but she hadn’t quite gotten the gist of it yet. Her new friends seemed to shy away from the topic whenever she brought it up, and so did others, people in class who were so forthcoming about other things, other Eighth Cohorts who were suddenly shy and not talking at all… “Keeper?” Maybe her Mentor would tell her something.

The Professor pursed her lips. “His girlfriend,” she qualified. “Shiva. You know Efrosin? His half-sister.” She reached over and carefully plucked one of Phillipa’s berries. “It can be, I’m told, an immensely intimate experience.”

Phillipa blushed hotly. Intensely intimate… It was as if the professor was reading her mind, her daydreams and fantasies. “I can imagine?” she offered cautiously. “I mean, this is part of me, right?” She stripped the fruit and offered the meaty bits to the older woman, studying her Mentor’s lips and not her eyes.

“It is,” the professor agreed, licking the berry from Phillipa’s fingers. “I wonder what would happen if we planted the seeds?”

Now, she could manage to look her teacher in her amazingly-green eyes. “Let’s find out.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/284439.html. You can comment here or there.

Thorny Disposition

Feb26

For [personal profile] clare_dragonfly‘s prompt.
Addergoole has a landing page here and a wiki here.

Addergoole, Hell Night Year Eight

The halls were dark and creepy, and Phillipa had gotten horribly turned around. She didn’t know where she was, or even how she had gotten there, and she didn’t really know, now, where she wanted to go.

Some giant minotaur had been bearing down on her when she’d slipped and gone twisting down some sort of slide. She’d barely avoided something that looked like a mechanical monster and gotten hit with three squirt guns of stinky, gooey something, and now she was sitting in a tiny box that had the pleasant advantage of being quiet and well-lit but the disadvantage of letting her know exactly how badly she’d gotten drenched. Her heart was still pounding, and her palms and butt felt as if she’d scraped them really, really badly. She really should move, but she knew, if she went back out there, it would just get worse.

The door to her box opened, and a short, cheerful girl stuck her head in. “Phillipa, right? I’m Caity. We’re in the same PE together, remember?”

Caity, unlike a lot of the students here, still looked mostly like Caity, if a bit sharper-edged. Phillipa nodded uncertainly. “Yes? What’s going on?”

The tiny girl was looking at her sharply. “Are you in pain?”

“I think I scraped myself a little bit…”

“I’d say so! Here, stand up, you look like you’re bleeding.” Caity took her hand, very gingerly, and tugged her out of the box. “You’ve fallen into our protective custody trap. I hope you don’t mind too much, but it looks like it stressed you out a bit?”

“A bit,” she winced. “It shows that badly?”

“Well, here.” She reached behind her and took a mirror from… Phillipa wasn’t really sure from where, actually. “Look for yourself.”

“What? I know I’m all coated in goo… oh.” In the mirror, she saw a stranger. Her eyes, but greener than hers had ever managed except with contacts. Her nose, but narrower, her lips, but redder, her hair, but… tangled with vines, somehow. And her fingers were longer, sharper, or something, and along her arms…. “Are those thorns?”

“Technically, on a rose, they’re called prickles. I wonder if you’ll be able to hold onto things better with them?”

“I… rose, what?”

“Well,” the tiny girl smiled, “it makes sense. You’re pretty, with a bit of a thorny disposition.”

“I am not…. am I really?”

“A little.” Caity patted her shoulder. “But it’s okay. we’re all a bit victim to our biology.”

next! Planting Seeds (LJ)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/284018.html. You can comment here or there.

Wolf in the Circle

Feb25

After Wolf at the Door (LJ)

Warning: contains violence.

“This is insanity, you know.” Tynan and Ellen followed Ciara from their suite to the gym, Tynan scolding her the entire way. “Key, if you lose this challenge, there’s not going to be anything we can do to help you.”

Ciara shook her head. “If he decided he was sick of waiting for me to give in and dragged me off into his room, what could you do?” she countered. “Ty, El, I have a plan.”

“Does it involve cookies?” Ellen asked, eying the platter Ciara was carrying.

“They’re the backup plan,” she admitted. “Stay away from the ones with the red sprinkles.”

“Right. Avoiding Ciara’s cookies.” Ellen rolled her eyes. “Tynan is right. This is crazy.”

“I know,” she agreed, keeping her voice quiet. “But so is he, so is this entire school. The only way to get through it is to be as crazy as everyone else.”

“Or, you know, just keep your head down and get through your first year. He’ll be gone and you won’t have to worry.”

“I’ve got this, guys. It’s too late to back out, anyway.” She set the cookies on the table at the side of the gym, and walked towards the circle Luke had drawn for them.

“Are you sure, Ciara?” the PE teacher asked quietly.

She wished everyone would stop asking her that, but totally understood why they were. “I’m sure,” she agreed. “Besides, here he comes.”

Amadeus looked a little bit lost. He came surrounded by his own friends, and yet, while they were talking to him, he wasn’t talking back. He barely seemed aware they were there. Ciara swallowed a smile. If she had knocked him off his game, even a little, she might stand a chance.

A tiny chance.

She stepped into the circle and bowed to her opponent.

“It’s not too late to concede, you know,” he grinned at her. “I’ll be gentle.”

“You could concede, too,” she reminded him. “I’d be gentle.”

That made him snarl. “You can’t win. Whatever trick you think you have, I’m still older and stronger than you are.”

“Then you have nothing to worry about, do you?” she smiled back at him. “Ready?”

“Ready,” he growled, dropping his Mask. “No Workings, first one to leave te circle loses.”

“Exactly. Luke?”

“Just remember everything you break Caitrin has to put back together,” he grumbled. “Begin.”

Amadeus’ eyes seemed to be flashing red flames. “You’re going to pay for this, little girl,” he snarled, and attacked.

She’d been expecting violence, and knew her own combat skills, while she’d been practicing, were probably not up to par with an upperclassmen. But getting hurt was part of her plan anyway, so all she had to do was dodge as much as she could without stepping out of the circle.

And he looked like he wanted to take his time. Break her down, break her… ow. Bones. She fell to a knee as he landed a sharp kick on her spine. He wanted to make her…ow. He kicked her in the shoulder, snapping something. He wanted to make her flee the circle, not to throw her out. That might mess with her plans a … ow. She managed to get back to her feet, just in time to catch his fist with her ribs.

“Think about it,” he hissed, “when you’re Mine…”

Oh, he was good and pissed now. She smiled through a cracked lip. “When you’re Mine,” she teased, and, finally, he rushed her.

He got her again, once in the face, once in the kidney, once in her ribs, snapping something inside of her, and then grabbed her, clearly intending to throw her out of the circle.

She was barely conscious. She hadn’t planned on that. Weakly, hurriedly, she pulled on her innate power – not a Working, not forbidden, any more than his
strength was – and sent most of the force he imparted in the throw back at himself, saving and redirecting just enough to send herself downwards, hard, still inside the circle.

“Done,” Luke shouted, as Amadeus landed against the gym wall. “Done, with Ciara the winner. Good job, girl.”

She looked up, weakly, as the promises they had made before the match made Amadeus say “Ciara – damn you, bitch – I Belong to you.”

“You do,” she agreed. “Grab my purse, don’t touch anything or anyone else, and…” that was all she had energy for. She let the pain take her away.

Next:
Ciara: Wolf in the Hand

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/283238.html. You can comment here or there.

Love and Hospitality

Feb24

For

[livejournal.com profile] rix_scaedu

‘s prompt.

Addergoole has a landing page here

This prompt pinged on a conversation I was having with [personal profile] inventrix about Nydia’s life after school and her son Corentin.

This take place near the end of Year Eight – Wren is living in the Village, as she graduated at the end of Year Seven.

Icon (in DW)is a clip of this lovely art of Wren.
Followed by Graduation Plans

"We could do this, you know."

Nydia looked over at Wren uncertainly. "This?" She looked down at the cake they were making. "You mean, the planners idea?"

"Exactly." She piped another rose onto the edge of the second tier. "Cy’DJ, cy’Maureen, we’d make a good team. We could go into business together in a small city, use the stipend Regine gives us as seed money, and raise our kids together." She tilted her head towards the penned-off playroom where her two and Nydia’s two were playing together. "They get along, and we get along…"

Nydia blushed furiously, a lovely indigo color over her unmasked complexion. "I don’t like girls, like that," she whispered.

Wren smiled reassuringly. "I don’t either, not really," she whispered back. "But that’s not what I meant. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with two friends living together, is there?"

"No, of course not," Nydia answered hurriedly. "It would be nice to have someone else to help with the babies." Dysmas had expressed some interest, when he was still in school, but since he’d graduated, all he’d done was send cash-filled cards for holidays and Cory’s birthdays. "But… boys? I mean, it might be nice, once in a while, to have a man around."

"I know," Wren nodded wistfully. "To have someone to take care of the heavy lifting, literal and figurative."

Nydia thought about that for a moment. "And figuratively," she echoed. Was that what she’d been missing? Wren had seemed rather happy, the year Elfred Kept her. And then with Kellagh the next year, but…

"I don’t want to be Kept again." She’d loved Dysmas. She still loved Dysmas. But she didn’t ever want to be under the collar again.

"Me, neither," Wren agreed thoughtfully. "But there’s nothing saying we have to. Look," she said, putting the last touches on the cake. "We can do this. We can offer love, and hospitality. Both as a business…"

Nydia was beginning to understand. "…and at home," she nodded slowly. A man didn’t have to be Keeping them to take care of, as Wren had said, the heavy lifting. "I like this plan."

 

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/282449.html. You can comment here or there.

Presented

Feb23

For [profile] rix_scaedu‘s commissioned prompt – more of “Birthday Present,” from the December Giraffe Call.

Addergoole has a landing page here

Content warnings: mind control.

“I’m not…” Noam gave up. If this infuriating bitch wanted to think he was stupid, let her. What would it matter? He was trapped. he couldn’t move, and, even if he could, he’d been paying attention. He couldn’t really get away from her – the school had no exits, or, if they had, he hadn’t gone through enough of the dungeon to find them yet – so running was, at best, a stalling measure.

It’s her birthday… You should thank me.

“Thank you,” he said, not certain if it had been an order or not. “You think Brenna will like me?” As conversational gambits went, that one was pretty lame, but she already thought he was a moron, and he wasn’t really trying to make friends with her. He had her pretty firmly in the category of not-friend, and planned on keeping her there.

“I know I had a ribbon around here somewhere… Aistrigh unutu. There, that ought to match your patterning better. Hold still.”

“Already holding still,” he muttered.

“Aren’t you clever,” she crooned sarcastically, as she tied a teal-green ribbon around his neck. “Yes, I think Brenna will like you. She’d been complaining that she can’t find anyone.”

“She talks, then?” He hadn’t been certain.

Hera chuckles. “She’s shy. It’s probably why she can’t find anyone. But you’ll be good to her, won’t you?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Well…” She patted his shoulder and studied him thoughtfully. “I plan on giving you to her, you know, not Keeping you myself and letting her just play with you. That would be entertaining, I suppose, but you’re really not my type.”

“I guessed,” he muttered. Too pretty, too dumb…

“Mm-hrmm. I like my men shorter, brighter, and stronger. Less Dionysus and more Hephaestus.”

The back-handed complements and insults were giving him whiplash. She liked him, but she thought he was stupid. Not her type, but pretty and god-like. He wanted to nod, couldn’t, so just made a little noise instead.

“Don’t grunt, dear, it’s not pretty. Here, take you… no. you’re holding still like a good boy.” She stood on her toes to unbutton his shirt and tug it out of his pants, leaving him blushing at the contact. “There. You may move enough to take your shirt off. Leave it on my bed.”

He shrugged his shirt off and let it fall on the mess of her blankets. Like this, almost all the markings of his Change were showing. He hoped she decided that was enough, and didn’t make him show the rest of them.

“Mmm.” She studied her work critically. “One more ribbon… Aistrigh unutu… you can move enough to put your wrists behind your back, crossed over each other.”

He didn’t like where that was going, but he did it anyway, rolling his shoulders a little bit, trying to get comfortable. She walked around behind him, muttering to herself, nothing he could quite hear, and tied the second ribbon around his wrists, rather firmly.

“Don’t try to get out of that, mind you. You can move now. Follow me; we’re going to go see Brenna.”

“My shirt?” he asked, even though he had a feeling it was a lost cause.

“Mmm. I’ll bring it by later, don’t want to ruin the effect. Hush now, and not another word until Brenna says you’re hers.”

He hushed and followed, because he didn’t have any choice in the matter, frowning at her back. He felt conspicuous, exposed, and cold, all of which were pretty accurate, shirtless, bound, and following a girl more than a foot shorter than him like a trained puppy.

What if someone sees me like this? was quickly replaced by Is he looking at me? as they came upon Jabez. The short, dark, dragon-like boy shared a PE class and a History class with Noam, but they’d never really spoken. His eyes slid right over Noam now.

“Hera,” he nodded at the short girl, and

“Hey, Jabez,” she replied, and that was it. Noam might as well have not been there at all.

“Don’t frown,” Hera scolded, when the other boy was out of sight around a curve. “It makes you look sullen.”

He felt sullen. But he smiled anyway, trying to make it not look horribly fake.

“That’s better.” She patted his shoulder as she stopped by a door in another pod. Noam’s heart did weird things in his chest as she knocked, and he spent a bad couple minutes trying to find a loophole in her orders. He didn’t really have to stand here waiting like a… well, like a birthday present, did he?

But he did, and he had just sighed in frustration when the door opened.

Brenna hadn’t been expecting company, he was fairly certain: she was wearing a long t-shirt over leggings, her hair pulled back in a kerchief. Her TV was going in the background, and the smell of popcorn filled the room.

“Hera!” She stepped back into her room a couple jittery steps, looking uncertain. “And… Noam?” Her voice squeaked a little. “Hera, what did you…”

“Happy birthday, Brenna.” She pushed Noam forward until he almost bumped against her friend’s threshold. “He’s yours now.”

“You… got me a boy?” She reached out for Noam, and, somehow, he managed not to flinch back. “You got me Noam?“

Was that a good thing or a bad thing? He didn’t know, and he couldn’t ask, so he smiled gamely at her. She’d always seemed like a nice girl. Could she fix this?

“I did. Take him, Brenna, I think you’ll have fun breaking him in.”

No, no, he didn’t want that. He shook his head unhappily, nervously, but Brenna just smiled. She had, he noticed, what would be a very nice smile under other circumstances.

“I think I will. This is the nicest gift I’ve gotten this year. Come in, Noam, you’re mine now.”

“Tell her your hers,” Hera urged from behind him, as, for lack of anything better to do, Noam stepped into Brenna’s room.

“I’m yours,” he said unwillingly, and then clamped his mouth shut.

“Very good. Hera…”

“You two have fun,” Hera chirped, and headed down the hall. Brenna closed the door, locking a struggling Noam – he could struggle! He’d better do it fast! – in with her.

“So…” She looked him up and down, smiling uncertainly. “This might be fun.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/281557.html. You can comment here or there.

Getting Over History, a continuation of Fae Apoc for the Jan. Giraffe Call (@inventrix)

Feb23

After
Scrounging for History (LJ)
Digging through History (LJ)
Delving in History (LJ)
Bringing Home History (LJ)
Singing down History (LJ)
Learning of History (LJ

Part 6 of 7
Fae Apoc has a landing page here on DW and here on LJ

The witch at the bottom of the pit, the monster-thing that was maybe not a monster at all, looked up at them uncertainly.

“Why would you care?” she repeated. “Why would anyone care?”

“Why care?” Fiery echoed, her bound hands going to smooth her own ragged hair uncertainly. “Families don’t.”

The witch nodded in agreement. “What she said. The people who knew me threw me out. The people who knew that one threw her out. Why would your people be any different?”

Karida sat down on the edge of the pit and dropped her Mask. Her extra-large feet and long, thick tail dangled over the edge. “We just fought you with Workings and magic. What made you think we weren’t the same as you?”

The woman blinked at her, the question obviously taking her completely by surprise. “How… What…?”

“How?” Fiery repeated. “HOW?” she demanded, urgently.

“We will teach you,” Amalie soothed the girl. “We will…” She hummed quietly, and then continued, “bring you, teach you, wash you, show you, sing you, reach you, wash you know you. Teach you, reach you, show you, know you; bring you, sing you, Bring you home too.”

The girl nodded uncertainly; Karida couldn’t blame her. That had been one of Amalie’s sillier ditties.

Down below her feet, the witch keened. “And me?” she groaned. “Would you leave me here, ignorant?”

“You know something,” Karida pointed out. “You could help Fiery’s people.”

“Not like you do. Not like,” she gestured at the stairs. “That sort of thing.”

“So suddenly scrounger trash has something you want?” Dor was, to put it mildly, cranky. Karida couldn’t really bring herself to blame him. “After you attacked us?”

“Humans have been using and hunting me for decades. They’ll do the same to your little captive there. It’s what they do, when their blood turns sour.”

“But you knew we weren’t from your village, if you knew we were ‘trash scroungers,” Dor grumbled.

“And? You with your girl there in ropes, do you think others of your kind haven’t done the same? Slavers, people-takers, food-stealers all of you. I don’t want to be stolen.”

“But you want to be rescued and taught?” Karida asked, caught up in the narrative.

“I don’t want to be left in a pit! If you’ll teach her, why not teach me, too?”

Amalie was frowning now, humming her tune slowly, as if she couldn’t quite get it to go properly. “Viper in the nest,” she murmured, “kitten at the breast, Wildfire in the hearth, candle burning bright thenceforth.”

Karida took that all in. “So she’ll either be fiercely loyal or betray us utterly.” She looked down at the witch. “That is a harsh chance to ask us to take, with our whole company at stake.”

Next: Making New History (LJ)

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