Girey! Looking cranky!
Girey is one of two protagonists of my fantasy romance journey series, creatively titled “Rin and Girey;” he spends most of the series cranky.
And Shiva! looking cranky!
Shiva is a background character in my webserial, http://addergoole.com, and the protagonist of her own super-secret miniseries (shh). She’s also a bit of an author-insertion.
Icons by djinni, from his most recent Free Icon Day
From Ty’s prompt here, check out the picture!
They were building it anew.
There hadn’t been much left after the devastation, and the city they’d lived in had been a stinking, rotten, fetid ruin. Better to leave it to the dead and dying, better to leave the diseases to work their course. Those of them who could walk, who could carry a pack, who wanted to live, had banded together and headed for the hills.
They had among them a surprising number of skills for “city people,” and just as surprising, to them, were their gaps in knowledge, vast holes that the city, that civilization had filled in. but they had what their ancestors had had, in spades: a strong desire to keep living, and a willingness to innovate.
They didn’t all have a willingness to work hard, but those who didn’t either fell by the wayside, or found ways to work “smart,” to reinvent old technology quickly, and to steal or jury-rig what they couldn’t just make.
They were on an old tor, where thousands of years ago, castles had risen from the ground. The castles were gone, victims of age, victims of the same devastation that had ruined the city, but the things that had made the tor a good place to build a castle were still there: fresh water, a view for miles in every direction, and stone. Stone and stone and stone. They grew tired of looking at stone, of carrying stone, of cutting stone. Their hands were covered in so much dust that they might as well be stone. They dreamed of stone.
But they dreamed in safety, behind sturdy walls that grew sturdier and safer every day; they dreamed with full bellies, their food supplies growing from hunting and gardening and plain old scrounging; they dreamed in a growing community, in a world they were building for themselves:
Their dreams were of stacking stone; but their hopes were of stacking knowledge.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/21335.html. You can comment here or there.
This comes after Curriculum, which came after Learning Curves,, which came after Flattery, but it can stand on its own.
It’s in my fae apoc setting, in the same locale as Walled Flowers and Slipping the Trellis
Three Word Wednesday is a once-weekly 3-word writing prompt.
The three words are dainty, haunting, tantalize.
In Her Song
Flowers and herbs are, by nature, mute, pretty, to be savored, adored, enjoyed; and thus was it with most of the Flowers in Lady Alouetta’s Garden: they might converse, but only as an echo of the patrons’ conversation. For the most part, pleasure was taken of them without engaging them except as a decoration, a receptacle, a delicacy.
One Flower was different from all the other pretty things in the Garden: rarely touched, and never without her consent, rarely spoken to, her presence in high demand but, unlike the other Flowers, almost never privately, almost never for the bedroom or the grotto.
Her name was Zinnia; her name was always Zinnia, and that alone set her apart, when her fellow Flowers changed name with the day, with their handlers’ moods, with their patrons’ desires. It was, of course, not her birth name, but no-one but the Lady herself, and Zinnia, knew who she’d been before she’d come to the Garden.
She was slender, dainty even in comparison to the others there, who tended towards a slim fragility favored by many patrons, with tiny hands and feet and an ethereal speaking voice that she rarely used. Clothed in lavender and cornflower, she brought to mind more a lily of the valley or a forget-me-not than a hearty, bright Zinnia, but Zinnia she was, last in the alphabet, last in line, last in the bunkhouse. Newcomers puzzled over her, chin high, smile faint but perpetual, until the first Saturday night.
When she stepped up onto the small stage and the room quieted around her, granting her the courtesy of attention they granted no other Flower, even the densest newcomer began to understand something was afoot. When she opened her mouth, it all became clear.
She had a haunting voice, unearthly, fae; she drew people out with a note, with a measure of a melody. She pulled at their hearts, at their bodies, at their wallets; she could tantalize an aesthetic into dance and bring stoic businessmen to tears. When Zinnia sang, everyone listened.
The boy who was sometimes known as Jason was serving tables today, a jonquil tucked behind his ear in lieu of a name tag; it was the first day Lady Alouetta had seen fit to allow him in public, and the first time he had heard Zinnia perform. He watched the patrons around him struggle with their emotions; he watched them lose the battle, one after another, like dominos falling, and he worried. If he cried like that, would the Lady understand? The other Flowers were smiling, moving among the tables as they were called for, seeming oblivious to the song’s tug.
He chewed on his lip, knowing he wasn’t supposed to do that, either, but too concerned not to. The song was pulling at him; she was singing of home, which was just cheating, a home he could barely remember. Weren’t the others bothered by it? Hadn’t they been torn from their lives, too?
Jason-Jonquil glanced up at the stage, at the singer, just as she looked at him. She threw in a trill that sounded like a flamenco dancer twirling, and winked, very deliberately, at him. Her melody changed, a tug and a tear, ripping the song from home to prison, ripping the listeners with her. The Flowers, who already lived in prison, who had already been torn from home, swayed with the music and were unhurt; the patrons reeled.
He stifled a chuckle and moved on to the next table, to the next patron scrubbing surreptitiously at tears, understanding, for a moment, why the other Flowers smiled at Zinnia’s songs.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/21035.html. You can comment here or there.
Originally posted to Fifteen-Minute-Fics, a 15-minute-ficlet to the prompt “platitudinous”
She smiled at the gathered crowd and took a long, deep breath. They would listen to her; they’d paid to come in here, after all. But would they hear?
She waited while they squirmed a bit. No-one expected her to be all that interesting, did they? They expected her to preach, to pontificate, to pour platitudes on their plebeian pates. They came to say they’d heard her speak, not because they expected it to be an entertaining speech.
“Punch ’em in the gut,” he’d recommended. “Don’t be platitudinous. Don’t use words of more than two syllables unless no other word will do. They’re here to look at you, after all, and for the cachet of hearing you speak. Let them look at you. Then, and only then, honey, hit them in the gut and don’t let them catch their breath until you’re done with them.”
He’d added a wry smile then, one she’d come to know very well. “I know you can do it. You’ve done it to me.”
She stepped away from the podium, carrying only the small remote control for the projector. She shed her business jacket. Let them look at you. All right, then; under the jacket she was wearing a thin, strappy chemise and a skirt that looked a lot less professional without its matching jacket, especially when a mystery breeze began brushing it to and fro, suggesting more than showing, but certainly suggesting a lot.
While they were staring at the moments of revealed thigh, at her freckled shoulders, at her flame-colored, hair, the projector screen lowered. She stood so that she was directly in front of the images, and showed them her pictures:
Avignon, where a would-be god sat on a throne in the middle of city hall, young men and women in chains at his feet. The light made it seem as if she, too, was chained before him. Click.
Barcelona, where the center of the city stood as destroyed as if an earthquake had hit it. She looked, now, as if she stood buried to her waist in rubble. The crowd began to make uncomfortable noises. Click.
Lisbon, looking as if nothing had changed, at first glance. Peaceful. Calm. Happy. Click… and so very uniform. Everybody the same. Everybody moving with a small careful fixed smile on their face: nothing wrong here. We like our uniforms. We are not stepping out of the crowd. Click.
The light of an American anytown showed them her face, with the same careful smile, the same blank expression.
“The enemy is already here,” she said into the nervous silence. “The questions is not when they will arrive. It is what. will. we. do?”
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/18938.html. You can comment here or there.
From another 15minfic prompt, this one a photo. It insisted on being FaeApoc. And I kept writing for 2 more paragraphs after where it wanted to end. You’re welcome. 😉
Ken stumbled, caught himself, and stumbled again. He was exhausted, no past that. Exhausted had been several miles, or at least a long time of walking, back.
He was freezing already; if he fell, the falling snow would cover him, and he would be a corpsicle for a long time before anyone found him, if anyone ever did. But there were lights in the distance; if he could get there, he could get help.
He wasn’t dressed for the weather; they hadn’t been expecting the dragons in the sky, or the wyrm-creature that ripped up the highway. They’d hit the grocery store and been on their way to the mall. Now Sarah was dead, and Aisha…
…well, he’d bandaged her wounds the best he could with his T-shirt, left her wrapped up in the back seat with his coat and hers covering her and the easiest-to-eat of the groceries. He’d taken one bag for himself, the one with the candy bars and, stupidly, the light bulbs. Couldn’t eat light bulbs. Then he’d started walking, looking for help.
The roads were chaos, the area near the highway a mess. No-one wanted to help; all they wanted to do was get away, get as far away as they could from the monsters, from the strange godlings in the sky fighting the monsters, from the lightning bolts and fireballs being thrown like bad CGI come to life. No-one worried about one skinny college kid. He wondered if they’d listen more if they could see behind his Mask, or if they’d just kill him on sight, assuming he was another monster.
He stumbled again, tripped, and fell. The snow was cold, but it was so soft under him, and he couldn’t bring up the energy to stand. He had to stand. He had to be found, or they’d never find Aisha. He reached for the last candy bar, ate it in two gulps, washing down the sickly-sweet sugar taste with mouthfuls of snow, and tried to bring himself back to his feet.
He made it four feet, maybe four yards, before his foot caught on a rock and his ankle buckled beneath him. The groceries caught his fall, the light-bulbs spilling out over the snow.
Lightbulb. He blinked groggily at the twist of glass. His feet might not move anymore, but maybe he could find a little more energy…
“Tempero hiko,” he muttered. The body had electricity in it, right? He could Control it. He could…
The bulb lit, flickered, and stayed lit. Ken put his head down on the ground and tried not to fall asleep.
The world was cold, so very cold, when he heard a voice say, “hey, hey kid. Wake up!” the hands brushing the snow off him felt like they were brushing off his skin; he tried to scream and found that he had no energy for a voice. “Oh, thank god,” the voice said. “He’s alive. Come on, kid, let’s get you inside.”
“Aisha…” he muttered, as strong hands lifted him from the snow.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/17370.html. You can comment here or there.
Originally posted in response to a photo prompt here: go see it, and you’ll know why this had to be fae-apoc Apoc. It ended up being Arnbørg because Wyst & I had been discussing Jamian.
The sky shimmered and rippled like an old parking-lot oil slick, the world stretching and tearing in the bright sunset.
“Oh, no you don’t.” Arnbørg settled the heavy army coat a little more firmly, and pointed a single finger at the sky. The ripples slowed, and then shifted direction, as if looking over their shoulder at their caught tail. The sky bunched and puddle, and a small tear of orange appeared in the blue-red clouds.
“No.” This time, the word had power behind it, a shove like pushing a big dog back to the ground: down, boy. Down. The world tore a little bit more, the ripples frozen in their pushing, and Arnbørg pushed back with a single finger and a single word.
“No.” It may have been the only word of power to ever properly cross those lips, but it would be strong enough. Shoulders set, the slender mutt said it again: “No.”
Through a hole barely big enough, in the scheme of things, to count as a pinhole, thrust the head of a being who at one time had been worshiped as an all-knowing deity. “What?”
“I said no.”
The god worked a shoulder through, only to find himself sucked back into the hole, nothing but his nose and mouth sticking out. “Who are you to naysay my will, child?”
“I am Arnbørg sh’Arvilla by Aelfgar, and I say no.” With every repetition, the slim shoulders swayed, the sky rippled, and the hole in the world shrank.
“What are you to naysay me,” the god roared, but he sounded tinny and far away.
“I am the one who says No,” Arnbørg repeated, “and I say no to your intrusion.” Bony shoulders shook with cold, but the finger remained unwavering until the world stopped rippling and the tear vanished. “No,” whispered with the last thread of strength, and a wry smile as knees hit the ground.
“No.” When Arnbørg had been just past three years old, a tired Arvilla had declared it looked like her contrary child’s sole ability would be to deny everything and anything. At twenty-eight, the slender mutt cheerfully denied a god and proved her mother right.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/7294.html. You can comment here or there.
From Ty’s prompt here, “Yearning.” Probably faeapoc.
The yearning was nearly unbearable.
It had been nearly a week since she’d seen him, since she’d felt his touch, heard his voice, since she’d breathed in his scent, tasted his skin.
She didn’t know when he’d be back. “I’ll be gone as little time as I can manage,” he’d told her. “Stay inside unless you have to go out.” The directive had left her an uncomfortable amount of leeway; she’d gotten unused to making decisions, content to allow him to steer
She’d been fine for a few days. She’d lazed in the sun as it shone through the living room windows, re-read some old books and one she hadn’t seen before, tucked away under his bed but not all that hidden, not hidden enough to suggest that she shouldn’t read it. She tidied up and cooked herself treats that he didn’t like and sprawled across his bed at night.
The nights were bad, though. She was used to his presence right there beside her, his body pressed against hers. She stayed up until she was exhausted, reading, until her body demanded sleep, and then it was ragged, uneven, unhappy sleep, hag-ridden with nightmares.
She took to napping through the day in the sunlight, reading through the night or prowling the house. There was no phone, no internet, no TV, but there were books, and she found a notebook and a pen and started doodling.
She’d always had idle time while he was at work, but there were chores, laundry and dinner and picking up, and there was knowing he’d be home. Her evenings had always been filled with him; now they were filled with nothing but her own thoughts.
More days passed. There was food to last a month, and she had little appetite. She re-read her books, and wrote notes to herself that turned into drawings and stories. She played in his weight-room; he’d never expressly forbidden her to go in there, after all. She played in the basement and tidied his tools. She thought, and as the days went on, she thought more.
The yearning was still there, but she was learning to bear it. He’d left her with so little, a few books, some food, and some orders that barely constrained her. He’d left her to fend for herself, who had sold herself for comfort. She read another book, and wrote herself some more notes.
“Stay inside unless you have to go out.” The directive, the only one he’d left, gave her quite a bit of leeway. She stared at the door on the fourteenth day of his absence, and decided she had to leave.
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