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Road Trip

Jul17

This is a short story in response to rix_scaedu‘s commission in my Giraffe Sale: “What happens in Rozen’s territory after he’s packed off to Kailani?”

Addergoole/Fae Apoc. After Devil Deals (LJ Link) and Into the Woods (from Sugar Cat) and the subsequent events in Retirement and Retirement 2

He’d thought he’d have trouble moving among humans. He’d never had a particularly normal upbringing, after all, and then he’d spent decades in a sealed enclave of Ellehemaei society.

But humans, now, it seemed, were more interested in basic survival and less interested in shunning someone for odd behavior and, besides, for all he’d been cloistered away, he’d learned people. He could move from settlement to settlement, talking with his – Regine’s, really – contacts there, following the trail – without anyone suspecting he was anything more than a Mysterious (Human) Stranger, one of the Outriders who connected the sparse settlements. After all, that’s what he was.

He followed the trail for four months, the urgency growing with every stop, every step along the way. They’d known it would take some time to find his quarry, but they had thought a month, maybe two. Not four. While he’d traveled away from the enclave plenty of times since the Devastation, but never for more than two months. The distance, the separation, was beginning to wear on him as the months passed, and it made him a touchy, cranky Outrider, short with his contacts and cold with strangers. Someone who had known the young Ambrus, if they’d still survived, would not have recognized him in this cold and angry man.

His contact – her contact, but willing to talk to him – in the cold Northern township of Regina Beach was a young woman, at least in appearance, a blonde blue-eyed waif with a smile that reminded him of someone from a long time past. He worked through the required rituals with his best manners, transported for a moment to a time even longer past, when he was a child in his master’s home. And then, the spell broken with the bitter herbal tea, he cut to the chase before she could distract him into something Regine might regret.

“I’m looking for someone.”

“I know.” She gestured at the blue bowl on the table, the covered mirror. “I saw you’d come this way.”

“Then you can point me to his path?”

“I can do better than that. But there’s a price.”

There was always a price. “It’s not my mission, and there are only so many things I can promise on her behalf,” he warned her.

“This, you can give me.” He’d last seen that smile on the most poisonous child he’d ever sired. Was this sweet-looking girl her offspring? He suddenly wanted to see her Change, to see her ears.

“What is it you would have of me?” he asked instead. Wondering if she was his granddaughter, his great-granddaughter. Wondering if his orders would allow him to deny her, if she asked what he was afraid she would.

The look on her face, the sly twist of her emotions, told him she knew what he was thinking. “Not that. I imagine someone ought to ask you for something else, especially someone who has already had that blessing in her family line once or twice.”

So she was his descendant. Not surprising, all things considered; he allowed his relief to show in his face.

“Then what?”

“It’s not your only skill, I’ve been told. When you’re done with this mission, in the next six months, come back to us. There’s someone here who could use… your other skills, and your knowledge.”

He nodded slowly. “I will do that,” he agreed. No use in pretending to promise. “I can do that.”

“He’s North,” she told him. “One village up, about a day’s travel. Avoid the old warehouse; you don’t want to know what lives there. “

“Thank you.” Anxiety dropped from his shoulders. “Thank you.”

“I’ll see you within the next half a year?”

“You will,” he nodded, and left, not stopping to sleep, not stopping to eat. The pressure of the mission had gone too far for that.

He found his quarry where she’d said he would be, in a cottage in a small town, with a young wife and a young child. He had no room left for even the smallest niceties at this point; “Regine needs you,” is all he managed.

“Regine can bite off and die,” Abednego answered just as bluntly.

Ambrus leaned weakly against his horse. It had been a long night, and the creatures in the old warehouse were nocturnal. “Of course,” he said, summoning up some fragment of his legendary charm. “But her enclave serves a useful purpose.”

“Others do, too, without being evil bitches for spice.” The lanky man paused, reading something in Ambrus’ face. “I know you love her, but…”

Ambrus shrugged uncomfortably. “I’m aware what people feel.”

“You would be, wouldn’t you? I wouldn’t be in your shoes for anything.”

Ambrus looked down at his dusty boots; right now, he didn’t want to be in them, either.

Abednego misread the gesture; his voice softened. “Why don’t you come in, stay the night? I’ll hear you out on her ‘needs,’ at the very least.”

Ambrus pushed the need into a little corner, and nodded tiredly. “Thank you.” Given all night, he could do what his mistress needed him to. And then he could go home.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/80644.html. You can comment here or there.

@daHob’s prompt, not-@Sharontherose’s prompt, and some shelves

Jul14

1) I posted an Addergoole snippet on the Addergoole livejournal, because it’s right in line with the current story. This is to Hob’s prompt from this weekend.

2) I posted more on @shutsumon’s prompt (LJ Link). It was supposed to go to @sharontherose’s prompt, but it took a left turn. Or maybe I just can’t bring myself to give Thornburn backhistory trauma.

3) [personal profile] haikujaguar posted a more-photo-rich link of the shelf house I linked to in June

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/79153.html. You can comment here or there.

Dark Corners

Jul14

For @Shutsumon’s prompt “The things that lurk in corners,” though I think it’s going to be part of a 2-parter. Addergoole Year Nine, more Ceinwen and Thornburn.

While they don’t have a landing page yet, the Ceinwen/Thornburn story goes:

His (LJ Link)
I Hate You (LJ Link)
Keys (LJ Link)
(LJ Link)

And now Dark Corners:

When Professor Pelletier saw Ceinwen’s collar, she pursed her lips and asked one question: “Who?”

Ceinwen, who liked the Sciences Prrofessor, even if she was a little scary, gulped and answered: “Thornburn.”

That made the Professor frown in a strange way, and discarded answers flitted across her expression before she settled on a thoughtful “Well, it could be worse.”

Thinking of his friends, and the nasty things the one of them, Curry, had whispered, thinking of the electricity that had jolted her as she left her room Saturday night, Ceinwen couldn’t help but agree. Still, she was glad to have the professor confirm it. “I don’t like it,” she said anyway, because she didn’t.

“Neither do I, but you’ll do all right with him. Just shine your light on his dark moments, and you should be okay.”

“My light?” It wasn’t the strangest thing the Professor had said, but it ranked up there. And her knowing, pensive smile didn’t help much.

“You have a light that shines on the things that lurk in dark corners, Ceinwen. Aelgifu has something similar, but she was rather busy in her time here. Use it well, and it should see you, and all of us, through the rough times.”

She had no idea what the Professor was talking about; it sounded religious, which startled her a bit. Nobody here seemed the least bit faithful, for any definition of faith she’d ever encountered. She forgot about it, just trying to get through the day, trying not to think about Thornburn, foiled at every step by the collar he’d sealed around her neck.

The things that lurk in corners. That sounded like him, like his friends, like nasty Curry with the creepy look in his eyes. It sounded like most of the upperclassmen around here, truth be told. Creepy little monsters, waiting to jump out and bite when you least expected it.

The Professor’s words were still in the back of Ceinwen’s mind when she went to sleep that night, naked against the soft jersey of Thornburn’s pyjamas. Shine your light on his dark moments. What was that supposed to mean? So far, her captor had been dispassionate, cool, and collected. He acted as if owning another person was completely normal; of course, so did large portions of the school. But he hadn’t been mean, or violent, or angry. She hadn’t seen any darkness at all.

She drifted off to sleep, pondering what Pelletier had said. Darkness. The things lurking in the corners. What was she supposed to do, go around with a flashlight, poking it in dark places?

Dark places. The room around her came to vivid life in her dreamscape – taller, narrower, full of shadows. Everything locked away in chests and boxes, like the box Thornburn had put half of her stuff into. Everything covered with spiderwebs and dust. And in the corner…

No. She didn’t want to go there. She was his, awake; she didn’t want to be his in her dreams, too. She fled, finding that the door didn’t hold her, here.

Corners, everywhere. Bits of color and shining light, yes, but dark gritty corners, everywhere, tiny creatures skittering about. Like a basement, just like a basement. She flailed, heart pounding, reaching for the light switch.

White, shining trails of light poured out of her, twisting in spirals like a ribbon, drilling into the corners, illuminating everything, wrapping it all in streamers of golden brilliance. In one corner, a black waif of a shadow reached for the light, grabbed it, and stood, stretching, becoming a specter of sunlight herself. In another, the shadow and the person split, the shadow slipping further into the corner, the person (un-recognizable, just a silhouette of a thin boy) standing tall.

Shine your light on the things that lurk in corners.

She twisted, turning her light back homewards, pulled by the bond he’d imposed on her, pulled by the dark corners in her captor’s dreams.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/77895.html. You can comment here or there.

Keys, two variations, for jeriendhal’s prompt

Jul12

For jeriendhal‘s prompt “You mean it was supposed to have a key?” First, an Addergoole Year Nine – Ceinwen and Thornburn, then a Planners.

—
“There’s no lock.” Ceinwen sat in front of the mirror, staring at the plaque Thornburn had put around her neck. She’d known that when he sealed it there, but today, with classes just moments away, it seemed more real, more permanent.

“No, there isn’t,” he agreed. He was giving her space this morning, letting her feel her way around this new relationship. What part of her wasn’t busy hating him appreciated the room.

“There’s no way to take it off,” she said, trying not to panic.

“No, there’s not. I will take it off you when I free you.”

She wrapped her hands both around the damned thing, tugging on it, even as the pulling pressed it against her windpipe. It wouldn’t budge. “Why isn’t there a lock? If there was a lock, there’d be a key!” She knew she sounded hysterical, and wasn’t sure she cared anymore.

He wrapped his hand around her wrists gently. “You mean it was supposed to have a key?” he teased.

“It was supposed to have a way out,” she whimpered.

—

Bauer was particularly proud of the work he’d done on the vaults.

Sure, Elder Jasmine had sent him here, to work with Elder Oliver, mostly to keep an eye on a man who was past his dotage and into “how is he still standing upright?” But Bauer was every bit as much a member of the Family as Jasmine and Oliver, albeit a bit (eighty years, in Oliver’s case) younger, and with fewer descendants by an order of magnitude or two. Even if he was here to spy, he couldn’t help but do his best work, too. Besides, the Family might need it. That was what this was all about, right? The Family, the world, might someday need this planning.

So he’d put everything he had into the security on the vaults, even if he had no idea what was in them (All of the elders were secretive, but Oliver took it to extremes. Bauer wasn’t sure he told his wife what he’d had for dinner). They were supposed to withstand a nearby nuclear blast, but none of that meant anything if squatters and other intruders could just waltz in. So Bauer made them secure. So secure he was pretty sure his own wife wouldn’t be able to make it in, if he hadn’t given her the back door (Family was Family, but a wife was a wife).

He worked with the contractors (a different team for each section, and a few pieces he did on his own), under minimal supervision from Oliver, who just wanted to be sure the vault doors were always closed, for eight months. They set up locks and labyrinths and puzzle traps, all designed to funnel the unwary back out somewhere far from the central vault. They encoded everything in Bauer’s own complex cipher, and then
finally he brought his aging boss to the front door of the new catacomb, where even the lock was encoded.

“Impressive,” the Elder creaked. “Sturdy, and the ciphers here look to be uncrackable without the key. So give me that for my office file, and we’ll call it a job well done.”

Bauer couldn’t help it. He grinned at his difficult uncle. “You mean it was supposed to have a key?”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/77773.html. You can comment here or there.

The Pay Was Good

Jul11

From kc_obrien‘s prompt: “Can I get a short piece from another perspective of some of the internees/guards in the community featured in Discovery Channel/Invisibles (LJ Link)?

***

The pay was good.

That’s what Dylan told himself when he took the job. It was good pay, better than anything else a washout jock had right to expect. It let him support Kaylee and their baby girl and, a year later, their baby boy, and it was out in the middle of nowhere – just about the safest place to be, if it weren’t for the monsters they were guarding.

Not that they looked like monsters, or acted like monsters, or quacked like ducks in any way. Sure, they looked a little funny, and had a little bit of magic here and there, but that was like calling housecats dangerous because they bore a faint resemblance to tigers.

But the pay was really good. Dylan reminded himself of that when his fellow guards made rude cracks, the sort of stuff that, if it had been any ethnicity and not faeries, El-hee-may as they called themselves, would have gotten them fired, sued, and blacklisted. He reminded himself of new shoes on his baby girl’s feet and the little cottage Kaylee loved so much when a squirmy kid with scales like a snake’s bit him and his hand swelled up for a day and a half.

The day that the teenaged girl with the goaty bits came crying to him (because he was the nice guard) because three of the other assholes had gotten her in a corner and threatened to do worse if she told, he went home and held his family tight for hours, and wondered if any amount of money could really be worth it.

The paychecks stopped coming a week later.

***

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/76564.html. You can comment here or there.

First Planting

Jul10

From clare_dragonfly‘s prompt: “Fae-apoc: the first planting.” Fae Apoc, clearly. Hob, I swear I got Dree from your name. (It’s actually Adriana Moreau, “dark one/little dark.” Um, she’s a bit dark. 😉

***

Dree surveyed the ruins of the city with a critical eye. Most of the people had left when the gods started fighting overhead. Of those who hadn’t, most had trucked out when the power plant had gone offline, or when the food stopped coming in. Dree and her small crew had lasted through that by building their fence up the moment trouble started, boarding up their windows when things got really bad, and moving into a nearby apartment building when the fires ruined their old neighborhood.

The winter had been hard, and they’d done their share of covert cheating to keep alive. The building hadn’t originally had a chimney, but who was left that knew that? A city of over a million now had maybe three hundred inhabitants, a good third of those refugees from larger nearby cities who hadn’t made it any further. They knew each other, their tiny conclave, only by what they chose to share, and, in Dree’s case, as in many others, that was precious little.

They’d made it through the winter on willpower, burnt furniture, and canned goods, but now the frost was gone, and something you could call spring was here. The yard near the apartment building had been a museum, once, and, inside, some art, mostly statues, still remained. But what mattered to them right now was the long stretch of ground which had been unplowed, mowed, fertilized, and well-tended for over a century.

They peeled off the sod, Dree and her crew and their team of fellow refugees, plowed up the lush, fertile soil, and planted scrounged seed after seed, watering with hoses and cans stolen from the houses of the dead and gone, muttering Workings when there were no humans to see.

Like the seeds, they had landed in a small corner of hospitable land in the midst of a burned-out wasteland. Like the seeds, they would grow and flourish. Like the seeds, they would live.

***

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/75333.html. You can comment here or there.

Devil Deals

Jul10

I’m taking prompts ’til 6 tonight; this is both halves of Rix’s prompt, asking for Aviv & Rozen post-apoc. This takes part before Into the Woods, available in Tales for the Sugar Cat

Aviv:

There were times when doing what needed to be done meant strange partners and uncomfortable partnerships. He trekked alongside what had once been a highway, chewing over those thoughts. Some people, he’d never have to deal with again: Ardell and Delaney had gone over to the Nedetakaei and, while he would miss Del, he wouldn’t miss the partnership of them.

Baram had died. Ib was off somewhere hunting with Eris, speaking of strange partnerships. The Thornes… He hadn’t seen them in decades. He knocked on a tree for luck at that. Most of the baddies from Addergoole were gone, one way or the other, and yet here he was, weeks from home, looking for one of the baddest.

“You made it.”

And the big bad wolf had found him. He nodded acknowledgement at Rozen. “I told you I would.”

“Things get in the way, sometimes.” His tone said: for other people. Not for me.

“They move,” he shrugged in response. “So, you got my message.”

“I did. Safe haven for the likes of us?”

“Not everyone is as strong as you are. Some of them need protection.”

“From humans.” The disdain was thick; Aviv boggled, again, that this monster was still among the Shenera Endraae.

“From mobs,” he agreed mildly. “From humans.”

“And you’re the guy to provide that.”

“My team can provide that, yes,” he agreed. Stay mellow. He’d learned that lesson a long time ago, when he was far weaker than he was now.

“So what do you need from me?”

“Your hunting range is out of our current zone. Keep an eye out. Send them our way if they need it. Provide safe passage through your territory to those who just want to keep moving.”

“And what’s in it for me?”

This was the hard part. This is where you made deals with devils. “What do you want?”

Rozen:

“What do you want?”

He loved it when it came down to that. Then you got to set the terms of the engagement.

Truth be told, however, Aviv’s plan wasn’t all that bad of one. Not everyone had been gifted by a Change as nice as his, and the hatred the humans had for them was as broad and unthinking as any predjudice. Little things like Mea, like Dita, they had never done anything to deserve the mob hatred.

He smiled, letting the squiddy boy squirm on the hook a little bit. “Ah, now, that’s the question. Everyone wants something, right?” Though he really didn’t want for much. He had a nice set-up here. “So what I want is a hand with a little hunting.” Come down and play on my level, Saint Squid. You’ve never been as good as you thought you were.

Aviv was frowning; good. “Regine’s going to catch you at this eventually, Rozen. You can’t keep farming these people like your own personal crop of entertainment. It’s practically Nedetakaei.”

“Practically, but not. I abide by the terms of our arrangement,” he answered smoothly. “And as for Regine, she never fusses for all that long. She needs me guarding her flank too dearly.”

“Mmfg. So, what help do you need?” Seemed Regine wasn’t the only one that needed him to watch her back.

“They send me girls. But if they truss them up and send them like some sort of sacrifice, everyone cries and the girl doesn’t stop yelling for months. If I track them down in the forest and snatch them… it goes smoother.” And he’d never really liked the screaming.

“So if you kidnap them, they take it better than if their parents sell them?” Aviv frowned cynically. “You know, that makes a sick sort of sense. And you want me to help?”

“Hell, you know you’re good at it. Scare them a little. They’ll run right into my arms.”

This also takes part before Retirement

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/74653.html. You can comment here or there.

Coming of Age

Jul9

This is from eseme‘s prompt asking for goddesses.

Fae Apoc in its early history.

***

Ακανθα bowed before her father. Head to the stone, weapon at her side, wings swept back, she prostrated herself in front of a god she had never presumed to believe she would meet in person.

“So you are the child I begat so many seasons ago,” Ares rumbled. “You are meet and fine in my sight, child.”

“Thank you, Lord,” she murmured. She knew the forms well enough; her mother and the priests had drilled her as surely as she’d ever been drilled in combat.

“More than that, however,” he continued, “I have seen you in battle. I have seen you protect your people, and your land. Do you know the ban I have set upon My children, little prickly one?”

She did not bristle at the translation of her name, because she wished to live to see the sun rise again. “I have heard of it, Lord Ares,” she answered cautiously.

“I’m sure you have. The poets speak of it in so many words, but none seem to understand how simple it is. The children of Ares, my child, are those who protect.”

“Yes, Lord Ares?”

“You have proven that this task you can do without fail, without faltering, without concern for your own well-being, despite the disadvantage of your sex. I am well pleased with you, and it suits me to give you a gift.”

Beware the gifts of the gods. “Thank you, Lord Ares.”

“There is a city near your village, a city which has of late been under siege. Take your mother, and your siblings. This city is yours now, Thorn of Ares, Prickly Sword. They shall worship Ακανθα there, as long as you remain worthy.”

She dared raise her head, now, to look at him. “You would place me as a goddess, Lord Ares?”

The god was smirking. “Your conception did that, Ακανθα. I give you your birthright.”

Ακανθα. Lily’s ancestor? And Acacia’s?

 

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/74193.html. You can comment here or there.

Joff Gets a Pony

Jul9

I am taking prompts tonight; this is from @daHob’s prompt “Joff gets a pony.”

Year Six, i.e., after current Addergoole timeline.

Joff looked over his half-sister thoughtfully. “‘Vette…?”

This was the first time since they had been at Addergoole that they’d both been free and unKept, and they were finding it a bit heady, or, at least, he was. It was harder to tell with her. She loved everything, everything that brought anyone near her pleasure. Sometimes, he thought she was a far better succubus than he’d ever be an incubus.

Like right now.

“You said you’d always wanted a pony,” she answered, trying for innocent and almost managing, despite the devil-girl look her Change had given her. “Well, he’ll have to do for now.”

Joff looked at the boy, on all fours next to Ivette, bitted, gloved, collared, and saddled. “This isn’t quite what I had in mind,” he admitted, but, before she could pout at him, he knelt down and took the handsome, sweating cheeks in his hands. “But he looked delicious. Thank you, Ivette. May I ride him for a bit before you take him back?”

“Of course, little brother.” She tapped the boy on the ass with the riding crop; tense and twitching already, he jumped nearly out of his skin. “Lee, be nice for Joff here. Do everything he tells you to, do you hear me?”

He mumbled out an answer around the gag that sounded rather like “yes, mistress;” she smiled beatifically down at him.

“You’re such a good boy, darling. I know Joff is going to have such fun riding you.” She tapped his ass again, making the leather crack loudly, and then passed the crop to Joff. “Aren’t you, little brother?”

He looked over the boy lustily. Smart of his sister to know he’d had his eye on this one since the first day of school. Amazingly thoughtful of her to snag him as a present, and truss him up like this.

“I am,” he agreed, suppressing a giggle. The boy was big enough. Maybe he really would just ride him around the room.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/73413.html. You can comment here or there.

30daysmeme, Sparkle Lust

Jul5

Day 25 of 30 days of Fiction: “26) Write a personalized rejection letter for the YA novel ‘Sparkle Lust.'”

This is an in-joke of sorts off of the Addergoole setting; one might wonder why, of everyone, you never see Ardell’s Change…

Dear Ardell Drake:

Thank you for submitting your novel “Sparkle Lust” for consideration. However, we are not interested in publishing it at this time for several reasons.

Firstly, although you billed this as YA, and I acknowledge that the main characters are, indeed, teenagers throughout most of the story, the subject matter is uncomfortably dark even for jaded adults.

The story itself, of a stifling, abusive stepfather, a distant father, an inappropriately interested professor, and a heavy-handed first boyfriend, bears telling, I believe, but the dark and fantastic elements that you choose to couch it in bring it into the realm of a terrifying acid trip. In addition, although I am impressed with the way your metaphors carry through the entire tale, I am not certain why you chose to use something so reminiscent of recent well-known YA novels as a symbol for uncertain sexuality.

That similarity – the sparkle which you even put in the title of your novel – would open this publishing house up to potential lawsuits, since it cannot be said that your novel is a parody or satire of the original.

Additionally, the thinly-veiled autobiographical nature of some of your details is worrisome, and would likely cause many of our customers distress. If such things are truly happening in an American boarding school; action should be taken.

And, as a personal reason, Dr. Regine Avonmorea gives this publishing house quite a bit of money, and would be very irked with this novel. And your stepfather would break my neck.

My apologies, and we wish you luck with another publishing house,

Lyn Thorne-Alder
Editor,
Alder’s Grove Press

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