Talking, Aftermath (More of the Chess AU)

“Done already?” Leo asked them. He looked startled.

Mike didn’t know what to think about that, that Leo had expected them to be in there longer.

“Didn’t want to be too long.” The Kept-skirting-orders feelings were coming off of Luke in palpable waves. Mike wondered if he knew it. She wondered how it would change him – this whole thing, the bond, twelve years under the collar, being away from Addergoole.

Leo snorted, with a headshake that looked far too amused. “I’m not even your Keeper.”

“Doesn’t mean you can’t give me orders.” Luke’s shoulders were even hunched forward. It was very nearly adorable.

“I didn’t give you an order, baka.” Leo flicked Luke’s forehead lightly, grinning. Mike fought against her own grin.

Luke wrinkled his nose, his expression showing how much he was fighting against – being offended? Slapping Leo’s hand away? “In that case…” He glanced over at Mike and his whole countenance softened. Mike had no idea what to think about that. She was used to Luke being more scowl-y when it came to her, not less. ”I think we have more to talk about.”

Leo shooed them away. ”I’ll come get you when I need you.”

Mike couldn’t help her chuckle this time. ”Oh, gosh, Luke. You have New Kept Smell. It’s adorable.”

“He totally does,” Leo agreed.

“New… What?” Luke looked between the two of them, clearly lost.

Mike took his arm. ”It’s what some of the students call it. That feeling where you can’t quite tell an order from a suggestion, and everything that your Keeper says feels like it’s engraved in stone. They must be treating you with kid gloves,” she added, sotto voce, as they stepped back into Leo’s tent. She was pretty sure she approved of that. “If you’re still feeling it weeks later.”

“New Kept Smell.” He wrinkled his nose at her. “I’m not a new car.”

“Oh, but darling, you totally are. Come on, how many times have you given the lecture to your Students?”

Luke grumbled. “My Students don’t end up Kept very often,” he pointed out. “Not like…”

“Yours don’t end up Keepers pretty often. But you had three Kept last year, and you can’t tell me you missed it.”

He hadn’t, she knew. He’d only had four first-years; half of them and then one of the second-years had been collared. “I try,” he complained, clearly uncomfortable. He sat down on the floor of Leo’s tent and looked up at Mike.

“I know you try, Feathers, but you’re uncomfortable with — well, so many things. Bertholt, you were a lot better about him that you would’ve been back when we started this thing, but Perseus knew you didn’t like it, he knew why you didn’t like it, and it made things harder on everyone.” Mike sat down and leaned her head was on his shoulder. Much to her surprise, Luke draped his arm over her shoulders.

“I didn’t do bad with Bertholt. I mean.” He shifted a bit. “I don’t like it when they’re Kept.”

“You don’t like it when they’re Kept badly, and you don’t like admitting that they could be Kept well and enjoy it. Like Omarri.” She grinned at him. She was poking, but he was going to have to admit it eventually.

Luke’s wings twitched. The second-year Student who had ended up bending knee to a fourth-year cy’Fridmar, yeah, that had bothered him. Even Regine had noticed. “I’m raising warriors,” he complained quietly. Very quietly.

“I know. And warriors follow orders, don’t they?”

“Their commander’s orders. When there’s someone else…”

“Warriors have lovers, too. Children. Families. I know there’s a lot of pretense about not having connections, but warriors are people, Bird-brain.” She kissed his cheek. ”Tell Leo, by the way, that I’m the only one that gets to call you idiot.”

Mike wasn’t sure why she’d said that. She wasn’t sure why she’d done that. Kissed Luke? On the cheek, sure, but she hadn’t done that in nearly three centuries. She leaned back; even though she knew he didn’t like hitting her in female form, that wouldn’t stop him if he thought she was messing with him.

To be fair, the only times Luke had actually hit Mike, Mike had been messing with him.
He didn’t look ready to hit anyone. He looked a little disgruntled and a little amused. “I don’t think he’ll listen. He’s my commanding officer, you know.”

“But not your Keeper.”

“And neither are you.” He turned to look at her, catching her face in his hand. He’d never done that. She’d seen him do that to other women, but never with him. He’d never touched her like that. ”We’re crew, Mike. We’ve been friends for a long time. And… maybe, in twelve years, maybe we might talk about something else. But it won’t be Keeper and Kept. All right? I’m not going to go there with you… again.”

“Not even for fun?” Needling him was too old a habit; the words were out of her mouth before she considered them. So she batted her eyebrows at him and made sure he knew she was playing.
The look he gave her was far too considerate. Mike swallowed. This was not what he was expecting.

“I don’t know,” he said, slowly, like he hadn’t quite worked the thought out, “exactly how far I’ll be allowed to go. But I might want to try something… in private, of course.”
Mike froze. ”Say that again?” she asked quietly. ”Just… Um. Just say that again?”

He couldn’t mean… could he? After centuries of barely looking at her, at least not as anything but a friend and crewmate…

He should get Kept more often, if this is where it got them.

She blushed the moment the thought crossed her mind, but Luke was clearing his throat and, rather surprisingly obediently, saying that again.

“There’s something I want to try with you, maybe. In private, real private. If I can. We know, uh. We know she’s the jealous sort, but I don’t know. She’s in a… a thing, with Leo.” Luke cleared his throat a couple times. ”I’m not sure where their lines lie. Where her lines lie, when it comes to uh. What I can and can’t do.”

Mike was still mulling over we know she’s the jealous sort. ”You’ve been paying a lot of attention to her for a long time, haven’t you?”

“To Boom.” Luke’s wings shifted, but they were much stiller than they had been before he came here. Mike reached out on impulse and stroked the leathery tissue of the wing; Luke didn’t quite freeze, but he was holding that wing very still to Mike’s touch. ”To Boom,” he repeated, “and, well, yeah. To Cya. Think about it. A Kept a year for decades. At least once – no, twice – that I know of, she Kept in a generational stack. That was a lot of potential damage. A lot of potential good, too.” He sounded a little guilty at the last. Mike wondered if Cya’s lines on her Kept included passive emotional reading.

She decided it was worth the possible challenge, and dipped into Luke’s emotions.

Oh, the roil of defensiveness and worry, Kept-feelings and concern. “Luke – it’s okay for you to have been analytical about Cya when you were security and administration for Addergoole. We all should have been paying more attention.”

“I know that,” he growled. “It’s just this… thing in my brain….”

“The bond doesn’t like you thinking critically or negatively about your Keeper. No, it never does.”

She hadn’t had that problem when Luke had Kept her. She hadn’t ever thought critically about him, collared or no. “The question is – what does your Keeper think about it?”

“I don’t know,” he muttered. Embarrassment flooded through him. “I’m not good with that shit, Mike. With, you know…”

“Feelings?” she offered dryly. “It’s one of your best Words, bird-brain.”

“Talking about feelings,” he complained. “That’s different.”

“So don’t talk. Act. Come on, you’re good at acting…” Mike trailed off, wrinkling her nose. “I feel like I ought to be jealous.

“Were you jealous before?”

Before meant Kiara, meant Wil, meant way back, when Luke had first been married.

“Of course.” Mike’s lips twisted in amusement. “What? You expected me not to be? Of course I was jealous. More jealous when it came to Manira, though.”

“Because she wasn’t your daughter?”

He must be feeling better, he was teasing her.

She smiled sweetly at him, rather than give him a reaction. “Because she is a Daeva, love.”

Luke flushed. “I didn’t know that at the time.”

“I guessed. If I’d thought you’d known, I would have been quite hurt.” She kissed his cheek. “It’s not like I haven’t had lovers over the years.”

“I know,” he grumbled. Mike felt her eyebrows raising.

“Luca,” she asked, in a tone that was meant to sound mock-scandalized, in part because she was genuinely a bit shocked. “Are you jealous? Of my lovers?“

“Well, yes.” He half-sulked, half-glared at her, presumably for poking at a touchy subject. “Yeah. A little, sometimes. Not… well. Yeah.”

“No wonder you’re so cranky all the time,” she teased him, and was rewarded by a very nice sulk. She gave him a hug, for once feeling like she didn’t have to guess what was acceptable. “My darling, the only consolation for how ridiculous we are is that we’re not the only ridiculous ones.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1230636.html. You can comment here or there.

In Which Neither Amrit nor Mieve Communicate

Jan11

First: A beginning of a story which obnoxiously cuts off just before the description,
Previous: In Which Mieve is Uncertain and Unhappy.
🐝
Amrit stalked to the garage behind her — behind his captor, because she refused to be something else. She was scared. He could tell. He ought to be happy about that, but it was just making him more angry.
He handed her the turkey piece by piece and snarled the Workings at the fridge that would keep the inside cold for a while, adding three large blocks of ice to the freezer. The thought made him smirk, even through his fury. “Icebox,” he muttered. “Height of Betty Boop technology.”

(https://youtu.be/uCIYIhDRTG0?t=294)

She snickered. “At least you don’t have to carry it up the stairs.”

“Yeah, well.” He shifted his weight uncertainly. “What now?”

“Now, I’m going to cook up the leg I put aside, and we’re going to have that with dinner. And cake.” She sounded defensive about the cake. Who was defensive about cake? Who was defensive to their slaves? “Thanks… for the turkey. It’ll be good food.”

“Yeah, well.” Was she mad at him or happy with him? Amrit rolled his shoulders. “What do I need to do for dinner?”

“Just clean up. Unless, uh. Unless you want to play heat source for the pan?”

“You’ve got the stove, right?”

“I have a limited amount of stove fuel. I could heat up the wood stove, but…”

It wasn’t that cold out, not really. “I can do it Just give me a couple minutes to clean up?”

“Yeah, of course. I’ll get everything prepared.”

What was up with her, anyway? She was pleased with him, she was apologetic, she was angry, she was… Amrit eyed her sidelong. She had hormones, he was sure, but he was pretty sure this wasn’t some sort of fae PMS.

He washed his hands like he was prepping for surgery, and then washed them — and his arms, all the way to the shoulder — again, just to give himself something to do. His shirt wasn’t all that dirty, but he left it off to let his arms dry off.

She had everything waiting for him, so he sat down at the table, ignoring her far-too-thoughtful gaze on him. “Low, medium, high?”

“High at first, and then the best all-over medium you can do. Do you need a new shirt?”

“What, you keep a clothing store in your garage?” He’d been in her garage. He hadn’t seen anything of the sort.

“I have a few shirts and such in my closet. There’s some in your closet, too,” she answered, a little uncertainly. “Most of it ought to fit you okay.”’
Amrit didn’t want to think too closely about that. He did the Workings to make the pan hot just where he wanted it hot, and held it in the air, the turkey leg sizzling.

“You have people just run out naked?” The more reasonable answer was she killed them and buried them in her garden, but that didn’t really seem like her.

“Not naked. But.. Sometimes they don’t stop for a change of clothes.” She looked away. “And, uh, sometimes I trade for stuff and it doesn’t fit me well or at all, but I know there’s going to be someone new that it might fit eventually.” She swallowed. He watched her throat work, and wondered what she was worried about.
“And… when people attack here, I mean, it doesn’t happen often, but I make sure they don’t tell anyone else about this place.”

Amrit looked at her over the crackling turkey leg. “I’m not going to be bothered by wearing dead man’s clothes,” he told her levelly, “as long as there’s not still blood and bullet-holes in them. It wouldn’t be the first time. Hell, these pants, I got them out of someone’s house. Not sure if they’re alive or dead. It’s the end of the world, you know?”

“I know. Most of the stuff I trade for, it’s about the same, you know, might be something from a store, more likely something from a house. I don’t ask where the scroungers get their stuff. And they don’t ask me questions, either.”

She was babbling. She was nervous. Amrit stared at the pan for a moment and muttered a series of fine-tuning Workings. He didn’t need to do them, but it let him concentrate on something other than her worried voice.

He rolled his shoulders, stared at the pan some more, and did a couple more Workings. “I’m not great at, you know, repairing Worked things. If I was, I figure I’d either be set for life or chained up in a sweatshop somewhere, which, I suppose, is also set for life.” He smiled crookedly at her. “I could use a shirt. I could use a shower,” he admitted. “Or a bath. I kind of smell.”

For some reason, that got her to smile. She turned away for a moment, as if she didn’t want him to see her smile – did she ever make any sense at all? “You get used to it. But bath, that’s easy, especially seeing as you can do the whole heating thing.” She settled down into a chair and seemed to force herself to look at him. “Thank you. For the turkey.”

He rolled his shoulders. “You said that already.”

“Yeah, well. It’s important?” She took a couple breaths. What was wrong with her? “Thank you for the promises, too. I know you didn’t have to do it. And I know you didn’t do it just to get the gag off.”

“Not gonna keep the gag off anyway, is it?” She was making him antsy. He made himself look at her.

“Well.” She smiled crookedly. “I could ask you to be Mine again.”

“You know what I’d say.” He knew what he’d say, too. Didn’t he? He cleared his throat. “I’m not the rules sort. Not the Keeping sort.”

“I know. But you’ll make promises?”

“Easy to make promises not to attack you.” The turkey was almost done. Good. That would give them something else to talk about.

“Even though…” She looked down at her hands.

“Look.” Amrit sighed. “You didn’t enslave me. You bought someone you expected to be already Kept, nice and wrapped up in a ribbon for you. I wasn’t, and I’m not going to be sorry for that but I get why you kept the gag on and the chains and stuff. And the leg – relax about the leg. I’ve had worse than that. Seriously. I forgive you, if there was any forgiving to happen, you have it. You don’t need it; you told me exactly what was going to happen and then you did it.” Now he was babbling. What was wrong with him?

She looked at him for a minute. “Time to take the turkey down to a very low heat, okay?”

“What… yeah.” He did the Workings and surrounded the turkey in a ball of heat before setting it, carefully, on the stove. “That should hold it.”

“Thank you.” She shifted in her seat, staring at him.

Amrit sighed. It might just be easier for her to put the gag back in.

🐝
Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1236230.html
🐝


Want More?

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1229789.html. You can comment here or there.

Buffy: the Invitation (an Addergoole Crossover), Part 20

Jan10

Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Part VI
Part VII
Part VIII
Part IX
🦇

Part X
Part XI
Part XII
Part XIII
Part XIV
Part XV
Part XVI
Part XVII
Part 18
Part 19

Willow was staring at Ms. Valerian. Ms. Valerian… was not offended in the least, from the looks of things.

“You’re delicious.” Ms. Valerian grinned at her. Willow blushed and turned away, nearly missing what the professor said next. “Talk to me about that when you’re an adult, legally, all right, sweetheart.”

“Go…” Xander trailed off, as if he’d been about to tease her and changed his mind. Willow appreciated it, whatever the reasoning in his pointy head. She was poking at the feelings inside of her and didn’t know what to think at all.

“So, classes. Great. What about those of us not so, uh, study-like-ly inclined?” Buffy interjected. “I mean, this is me we’re talking about…”

“Well, there’s the combat lessons. You’re impressive, but I think even you could stand some teaching from one – or all – of our combat professors. There’s the social life. There’s the lack of demons and vampires in a more homicidal sense.”

“You have a rule saying ‘killing gets you expelled’,” Xander pointed out. “How non-homicidal can you be if you need a rule about it?”

“Less than someone who counts her kills in the ‘I don’t count that high,'” Ms. Valerian pointed out. Ms.? Miss? Mrs.? Her ring finger was bare, but a lot of women didn’t wear rings all the time.

Willow shook her head. She had other things to worry about right now. “So you’re saying it’s safer here? But what about the Hellmouth? How safe is that going to be if-“

“Will.”

“I’m serious. There’s a reason for Buffy, Mister.”

“Will.”

“No! Why are you trying to… Oh. Hi, Giles.”

“Director Regine and I have been talking, and we believe we have a solution to Buffy’s problem.”

“Oh, good, because I mean, no matter how many times I bleach, I keep getting roots.”

“No, not that problem, although I’m fairly certain they could solve that one, too.”

“Oh, really? First good news I’ve heard all day. Giles, you did not tell me there would be demons here. And Vampires. And bit… unpleasant people, although I could have guessed that.”

“Giles, you didn’t tell me about the curriculum here! And the independent studies!” Willow sulked. “And computer classes that I don’t have to teach myself.”

“Giles you didn’t tell me… I’ve got nothing,” Xander admitted. “I just wanted to join in.”

Giles cleared his throat. “I might point out that I knew nothing about this school but conjecture and rumor before we came here less than an hour ago. Buffy, you haven’t staked anyone, have you?”

“No. You told me not to.” Buffy was clearly sulking.

“Yes, yes I did. And for good reason. Now please, come on in to Director Avonmorea’s office and we can discuss the issues surrounding your attendance here before you give away all of your secrets to randomly passing students.”

“Hey, they’re not so random. One of them had a cat tail. And wings! The wings was someone else…”

“And then there really was a vampire,” Willow offered loyally. “And a giant. And some really nasty person, but that seems normal. I mean, not that the vampire didn’t seem normal, but I begin to worry that my sense of normality is entirely skewed. Do you think it’s skewed?” she asked Xander.

“Hey, this is me, fish-guy hyena-guy soldier-guy. I’m not sure I’m the one to be asking about normal.”

“Ahem, a-hem Let’s go into Director Avonmorea’s office now, shall we?”

“Oh! Right, the secrets and the things. Of course, sorry, right away.” Willow let herself be steered. “It’s like going to the principal’s office, only scarier. And nicer,” she added, as they were ushered into a fancy reception area, through that, and into the office.

The reception area had been all wood and old and books everywhere, like a lawyer’s office. This was smooth and glass and modern and computer screens, and the woman sitting behind the desk was just as smooth and glassine. Her hair was straight, blonde; her nose was straight, perfect; her expression was straight, unreadable. Willow felt immediately grubby and small, and wished she’d worn a suit.

“These are the students, Rupert?” She made an expression with her face that was probably meant to be a smile. It looked like it had seen a smile in a magazine once.

“Ahem. Yes. Th-this is,” Giles cleared his throat again and straightened, seeming to gain inches in height and lose a few years. “This is Buffy, Willow, and Xander. Buffy is the one I was discussing primarily, with the–“

“‘Vampire Slaying’, yes. The Council.” The Director’s voice dripped with disdain. “And the other two?”

“Willow is a brilliant student, of course; you’ve seen her records. And, due to the nature of the rift in Sunnydale, she has begun to manipulate magic without the use of Words.”

“I use words!” Willow wrinkled her nose. “I use spells and everything.”

“Yes.” Rupert nodded. “You use very impressive spells that are, themselves, bending the world, which is impressive, because you are doing them without the Words of power. And this is Xander, who is earnest, loyal, and strong, dedicated and devoted. Also, he appears to be a magnet to the otherworldly, the magical, and the strange.”

“Hey, how come he gets all that earnest, loyal stuff and I just get quote-unquote Vampire Slayer?”

“Because, Buffy, you already know what you are. Sometimes Xander needs to be reminded.”

“Indeed.” The director looked from one to the next of them. “So.” She steepled her fingers and looked at them over her hands. “You were dedicated to this school on your births, and, as such , we have the stronger commitment. However, the… ‘spell’ that the Council used to bind Buffy to the calling of her spiritual ancestors is a strong one, and it is not without validity. I have sent a firmly-worded message to the Council, but in the meantime, I understand that both Buffy’s calling and the nature of Sunnydale remain problems.”

“You think? Demons and vampires and occasionally monsters from hell, oh, don’t forget the curses.” Buffy glared at Regine. “Yes. They’re ‘problems.’ I’m a ‘problem’. Always have been always will be. Just let me go back to Sunnydale and continue being a ‘problem’ for everyone.”

“Buffy…” Giles sighed.

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1232305.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1228772.html. You can comment here or there.

Buffy: the Invitation (an Addergoole Crossover), Part 19

Jan5

Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Part VI
Part VII
Part VIII
Part IX

Part X
Part XI
Part XII
Part XIII
Part XIV
Part XV
Part XVI
Part XVII
Part 18

“Your name is Buffy?”

“Yeah? So what. Yours is Agatha; I wouldn’t throw too many stones.”

“And I suppose you’re a cheerleader,” Agatha scoffed.

“Well, I was. But then the cheerleaders lit on fire, so now I’m just the girl who keeps the cheerleaders alive. And the football players. And… oh, yes, everyone else.”

“Oh, departed gods help us, it’s another cy’Doug.”

“I’m cy’Giles, I keep saying that…”

Agatha’s attention slid over Willow as if she didn’t exist and went straight to Xander. “And what about you? Do you fight off monsters?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, if Buffy’s busy or if it turns out I’m dating a demon again, which, you would not believe how many times it’s happened, but mostly I just run and hide.”

“Demon?”

“Do not get into that with them,” Magnolia advised. “It is weirder than you think it can be.”

“Well.” Professor Valerian coughed. “As I was saying, I believe we ought to get back to Director Avonmorea and these children’s… these potential students’ minder soon, before anyone else dies.”

Buffy brushed herself off and walked up to Dysmas, stepping up until her toes were touching his. He didn’t flinch or even move, although Willow did both and so did Xander.

Buffy put her fingers on Dysmas’ pale neck, unerringly reaching for his artery. Willow noticed the way Dysmas held a little bit stiller, which struck her as the first sensible thing he’d done all day.

“Hunh.” Buffy frowned. “Pulse. Bloodsucker with a pulse, that’s new. All right, fang-boy, I guess you get to live.” She turned to Anatoliy and bowed. It was a lazy bow, with poor form and loads of Buffy flair, but it looked like it got the point across. “You, you fight like woah. You should choose better friends… but you fight like woah. I wanna spar with you sometime. Without pads, of course.”

“I might need pads,” the giant joked. “You fight like you were born to it. Nobody here, not even the Thorne girls, moves like that.”

“I was born to it. One girl in all the world, yadda, yadda. Chosen, picked, that’s my thing. I fight monsters.”

“That’s… neat.” He grinned crookedly at her.

“No,” Agatha complained. “No, Tolly, it’s not neat. She was Attacking you. She was trying to kill Dysmas. It’s not neat, it’s not okay, and you shouldn’t spar with her and give away more of your combat tricks. She’s not your friend.”

“Well, hey now,” Willow spoke up. “He might want to be friends with us. And we might want to be friends with him. And who are you to tell him no? I mean, seriously. He’s a grown man.”

“Really, really grown,” Xander put in.

“Exactly. He’s big enough to pick his own friends.”

“I am his crew, and you are nothing. You don’t even go here yet.”

“Way to sell the whole school thing,” Buffy put in. “I’m real excited to attend your little school now.”

“And I care? Seriously, how excited you are has nothing to do with anything. You’ll come here, the same as the rest, and you’ll be teeny-tiny fish in a big pond, and I’ll get to watch the sharks gobble you up.”

“Did you miss the part where she could kick your friends’ asses?” Xander was glaring at Agatha now. Of course, so was Willow.

“Did you miss the part where she had to do it with her eyes closed because Dysmas nearly had her eating out of his hand? Oh, yes, you did. You weren’t here for that part. I don’t care how well you fight, the sharks are going to eat you all alive, and I’m going to sit back with my mojito and enjoy every minute of it.”

“You’re not a very pleasant person,” Willow informed her. “I look forward to being the chairperson of the I Hate Agatha club.”

“Oh, that’s so mature,” Agatha sneered.

“Well, and so what? Mature just means old, and, and I have no intention of being old any time soon!”

“You tell her, Will.” Xander grinned. “Besides, we’re already in charge of the I Hate Cordelia Chase Club. I’m sure we can join another club without any problem.”

“And this one would be better,” Willow added, with a little bit of cheerful malice she wasn’t ashamed to admit, “because Xander wouldn’t start dating the target.”

“…are you certain these children are old enough to attend Addergoole?” Agatha asked, eyebrows raised. “Perhaps they should wait two more years – and then I’ll be gone, and it won’t be my problem at all.”

“They’re old enough.” Professor Valerian looked more than a little amused. “Come, now. Magnolia, I’m going to relieve you of your duties as tour guide and take these three to Director Regine before they light the school on fire.”

“Hey, I only did that once… well, twice, but the second time was completely justified!” Buffy’s sulk was back in full force, although she kept shooting Dysmas strange glances. Willow didn’t worry too much. Buffy was good at looking at people funny.

“So, the three of you knew each other,” Ms. Valerian was saying, “and you all attend school in this Sunnydale…”

“Right on the Hellmouth,” Willow offered cheerfully.

“Ahem, indeed. And you’re all called to Addergoole at the same time. That’s very unusual.”

“I’m very unusual,” Buffy offered perkily, “and so are Willow and Xander.”

“Hey! I resemble that remark.”

They were walking much more casually through the same halls. Willow wondered if they’d ever see more of the school than just these hallways. “You know,” she mused, “we’ve seen demons and vampires so far but absolutely nothing about academics.”

“Oh, well,” Xander scoffed, “who expects those from a school? I mean learning? We’re lucky if the school projects aren’t trying to eat us.”

“If I’d known you were interested in academics,” Ms. Valerian put in, “I’d have made sure it wasn’t Magnolia giving you the tour. She’s a nice girl, but she’s not primarily interested in classwork. “

“Oh, well, around her, I’d be glad to indulge in her interests,” Xander offered.

“I’m telling Cordelia.” Willow stuck her tongue out at him. “Sorry, Ms. Valerian. Academics?”

“We have a strong course of study, designed to transition you into your third or fourth year of college when you leave here, or perhaps into graduate work. We focus heavily on traditional subjects – history, mathematics, literature, linguistics, and science – but there’s a lot of room for independent study or building your own curriculum, and if you’re interested in more modern subjects – like, say, computers – we do have a former NASA scientist on staff.”

Willow shut her mouth, only they realizing it had been open, and then opened it immediately afterwards. “Marry me?”

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1228772.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1225129.html. You can comment here or there.

January By the Numbers Three: Butterflies (Fiction piece)

Jan3

January by the numbers starts here!
From anke‘s prompt “butterflies;” a story of Addergoole (Year 9 character).

“So, I’m going to teach you a few very important things, and when you have figured them out, I want you to be sure you think about them as examples, not just as truths in themselves. Allegories, all right?”

Alhandra remembered her father’s stories for years. The one about the monk who climbed the mountain. The one about the monkey who made bad promises. The one about the princess with the sword. This, this always stuck in her mind, in part because he didn’t start out like he always did:

I’m going to tell you a tale, and when I’m done, perhaps you can tell me what you learned.

All of his tales were lessons, but these, somehow, these were supposed to be more important.

So Alhandra remembered.

“Butterflies first. Pretty things, butterflies, small and fragile, right? They’re not the most dangerous-looking things around. Lots of people are like butterflies, angel. They look pretty, they look weak, like they won’t last too long. You know the sort.”

Allhandra nodded. She knew the type, all right, even then.

“Butterflies can be poison. And people who are beautiful, they can be poison, too. They can be deadly.” He touched her hair, gently. “They don’t have to be. The little butterflies that wander around the meadow behind the house, they’re safe. And not all pretty people are poison – that’s important, too. But you know about the viceroy butterfly, how it imitates the monarchs? Remember that. Some people are poison in a pretty coat, and some people are harmless and look like poison.”

“So… look beyond the wings?”

“It’s more important than you’d think it is, princess. Not just the pretty faces, but the pretty words. Not just the pretty words, but the soft touches. You have to really, really know someone before you know if they’re poison or just pretending.”

“What’s the next part?”

“Noam!” Alhandra’s mother had called from the back yard at that point. “Noam, it’s time.”

She’d had to wait for another day to learn about sharks.


Want More?

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1223550.html. You can comment here or there.

Buffy: the Invitation (an Addergoole Crossover), Part 18

Dec30

Part I: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1096503.html
Part II: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1100922.html
Part III: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1104619.html#cutid1
Part IV: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1108537.html
Part V: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1112216.html
Part VI: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1124762.html
Part VII: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1134781.html
Part VIII: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1139412.html
Part IX: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1146552.html
Part X: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1155478.html
Part XI: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1164418.html
Part XII: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1173922.html
Part XIII: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1178885.html
Part XIV: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1182860.html
Part XV: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1186127.html
Part XVI: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1189171.html
Part XVII: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1210168.html

“Professor Valerian, aren’t you going to stop this?” The blonde girl pouted at the professor, entirely ignoring Xander.

Ms. Valerian smirked. “I really should, but I notice that Luke isn’t here yet, and I imagine by this point he’s quite aware of it. And he hasn’t decided to stop it yet.”

“Well, she doesn’t have a stake at the moment… Will, why’s she going for all those throat shots?”

Willow had been trying to work the same thing out. “Well, she’s not trying to… ow.” Buffy had just run up the side of the wall, pushed off, and slammed her elbow into the giant’s throat. “That had to hurt. She’s not trying to stake them, probably because she doesn’t have any sort of stake… Oh.” Buffy had ricocheted off the wall again and broken the paneling, pulling a long piece loose. “Well, now she has wood.”

“Wood, but not hawthorn or rowan,” sneered the little blonde. “What does she think she’s doing, anyway?”

“It has to be rowan? I can do that, that’s an easy transmutation – oh, wait.” Willow deflated. “We’re not supposed to be killing this vampire. So, if she’s going for the throat, she’s trying to keep them from talking – some sort of spell, probably. If her eyes are closed, someone has some sort of eye power, like, oh! I read about that last week!”

“Okay, so, how do we stop her?” Magnolia shifted uncomfortably.

“I’ve never tried stopping Buffy,” Willow admitted. “It never really seems like the right idea.”

“Well, it might be right now. I mean, if he’s a person…” Xander didn’t look all that sure about it. Willow couldn’t blame him for that.

“Of course he’s a person!” the blonde girl interjected angrily. “Why would you say something like that?”

“Well,” Xander answered reasonably, “he looks like a vampire, he smells like a vampire, and most – all – of the vampires we’ve met have been decidedly non-persons. So, ah, Professor Valerian?”

“She’s fighting blind, against two stronger opponents, and she’s still winning,” the professor mused.

“I wouldn’t bet on stronger, even with the giant there. Most things aren’t, except master vampires, and uh, I don’t see a master vampire going to school.” Xander shifted uncomfortably. “But she’s going to win, because that’s what she does, that’s her job, and then… well, now she has a stake.

“And she’ll… you’re serious, aren’t you? And how many… later, later.” Her voice rose and seemed to fill the area. “Excuse me, Buffy, Dysmas, Anatoliy. Stop.”

Buffy kicked back off the giant’s chest and stopped ten feet back in a combat stance. The giant was looking a little worse for the wear. The Dracula-wannabe was looking a lot worse off. “What?” Buffy’s voice was nearly a snarl. “I nearly had him.” Her eyes, Willow noted, were still closed.

“Unfortunately, that’s the problem. I’m Laurel Valerian, one of the professors here. And I can’t allow you to kill another student.”

“He’s a vampire. Pointy teeth, pale skin, demon inside?”

“Do you hear her?” screeched Agatha. “She’s insane.”

Professor Valerian ignored her. “You’re correct on several points, Buffy, however, Dysmas is not a, well, he’s not a demonic vampire. He does not fear the sun anymore than an albino would; he does drink blood, but he still has his original soul and his original self, tainted as those may be.”

“Your endorsement is so pleasant,” the wanna-be vampire complained. His voice was hoarse and raw.

“I’m keeping you alive, Dysmas. I wouldn’t argue about the tactics.”

“We were doing fine.”

“Her friends hadn’t joined in yet, and, from the looks of things… no. You were barely holding your own. Buffy, it’s a pleasure to meet you. But I’m afraid I really can’t let you kill this one.”

Buffy’s posture, if anything, had gotten more combative. “I’ve heard about vampires with souls before.”

“I’ve… heard of a single situation of that sort,” Professor Valerian admitted. “But the problem is, Dysmas is technically a sangovore humanoid fae, not a vampire. And… while you’re certainly more than capable, physically, of killing him, he would not, ah, react the same, from the books on vampirism I’ve encountered.”

“You’re seriously indulging this nonsense?” Agatha complained. “She attacked Dysmas! And then Tolly!”

“Well,” the giant rumbled, “to be fair, I got in the way of her attacking Dysmas.” His voice, too, was rough and strained.

“Why would be you be fair?” Agatha sneered the word fair like a curse. “She. Attacked. You. And she hurt you.”

“Excuse me? I wasn’t the one throwing around the flash-eyes be-my-will sort of thing, or the magic words that burned, I might add. I wasn’t the one doing any mind-control oogey boogy or making the floor swim.”

“…You used Workings.” Professor Valerian’s voice was dripping disdain. Willow wondered if she’d ever be able to sound half as cool as that. “On a visiting student.”

“She was attacking me,” Dysmas pointed out. “With, it seems, intent to kill.”

“And yet you were able to survive.”

“Hey! I would’ve killed him if you hadn’t interrupted. I was about half an inch from getting the pointy bit through his chest!”

“She makes my point for me.” Even if he hadn’t been a vampire, Willow thought she would probably hate this Dysmas guy. He was slick like oil, greasy, and way too self-confident. He was handsome, too, and he knew it.

The giant, on the other hand – he was easily over eight feet tall, with shoulders proportionate to the height – he was kind of sweet, all hunched over and trying to be small. “We didn’t know she was trying to kill us, Dysmas.”

“Would you shut Up?” Agatha glared daggers at Anatoliy. “Seriously. She tried to kill Dysmas, she was attacking you, she should be in trouble. Expelled.”

“Nobody gets expelled for starting fights, Agatha.” Magnolia stepped forward, and Agatha did a double-take before recovering her aplomb.

“And what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be naked or something?”

“I’m all for that,” Xander offered. Both girls ignored him.

“I’m showing our new students around the school, or, well, I guess they’re might-be-comin’-here-this-year students, don’ ask me.” Magnolia held up both her hands. “I don’t pretend to understand why they’re gettin’ a tour when no-one else does, but I have a feeling it has something to do with, you know, Buffy here kickin’ your friends asses.”

“Your name is Buffy?” Agatha sneered.

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1225129.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1220972.html. You can comment here or there.

Luke and Mike… Talk (More of the Chess AU)

Dec29

This happens after Slave and after, subsequently, Cya, Luke, and Leo have had an off-screen conversation. Thanks to inventrix for editing.

“Oh, Luke.” Leo had paused just slightly, with that expression that meant he was being Humorous Leo. “You might want to give Linden some pointers, her punch is terrible.”

There had been other words spoken since Luke walked in to find Mike and Leo talking in the General’s tent, but those had stuck with him. Those, and the part where Leo had offered to give them some time alone.

“She was concerned we might not be treating you as well as we should,” Leo had informed him. There’d been a warning there. Luke had taken it to heart.

Luke stared at Mike.

Mike looked back at him. She was in female form, but her clothes said she had been travelling male.

“You’re sure…?” She hadn’t said anything since Leo had left. Now, she looked at him with her head tilted, her expression naked.

Vulnerable. Vulnerable was the word he wanted.

They’d told Mike about the mind-fucking Regine had done. They’d had to tell her twice, but Luke could see, in the way her body language shifted, that she believed them. She didn’t want to believe, any more than he had.

“There’s memories. Sa’… Cya’s good, but I don’t think she could make up the memories that are there, not with all the emotions connected to them.”

“I don’t think she ever studied Hugr,” Mike, who had always been in charge of teaching emotions, mused softly. “So Regine…”

“Took out things that were inconvenient. Stole them. Because, uh. Because I wanted to leave, usually. Because I wanted to change things. When Aleron…” His wings shifted and Luke sat down. He couldn’t deal with this.

“Aleron,” Mike breathed softly. “That long ago? That was, oh, the tenth year. I thought maybe, the Collapse…”

“That wasn’t that much longer,” Luke pointed out dryly. “But… Yeah. At least there. She’s still working. It’s…” He shrugged uncomfortably. He could take anything. He’d always let Mike think he was invulnerable to emotion.

He considered Leo, and the difference between Leo-at-home-with-Cya and Leo-the-General. Maybe he didn’t have to pretend with Mike?

Maybe, someday, he wouldn’t have to pretend with Mike.

“What is it?” She narrowed her eyes at him. She. She hadn’t been a woman in a while. “You’re…”

“I thought you didn’t read my emotions.” His voice was harsh. That wasn’t what he’d wanted.

“I don’t, I don’t. You hate it when I do. But I can read your body language.”

Luke took a breath. “Remembering those things, it was hard. Knowing my crew did this to me, that’s harder.”

“Leo said… he said something like ‘…with your crew it’s not so much of a given, is it?’ He knows, doesn’t he?”

How long had Mike been here, talking to Leo?

“You really punched him, didn’t you?”

“Not very well, I guess. It’s just, I came in here and there you were – in town, walking down the road. Steel collar, your wings all bound.” Her hand lifted up to touch Luke’s collar – silver again, because, he assumed, he wasn’t being punished anymore – and fell back to her lap.

She had seen him like that? Luke looked away. “Being Kept is… it’s not like being in the army.”

“No… no, it’s not. Oh, Luca.” She sighed sadly. “I knew this would be hard for you. But she’s a good woman, no, Cynara? She’s always seemed honorable to me.”

Luke struggled with bond-feelings (at least, he was pretty sure they were bond-feelings) and his own impressions and coughed, giving himself a moment. “I think she’s an honorable woman,” he agreed. “I think she’s being fair with me. But both she and Leo think it’s important that I know what being Kept can be like — and I agree with them.” He looked Mike in the eyes. “It’s important that we all know about being Kept, since we’re subjecting all these kids to it. Over and over again. And, Mike, there was so much I didn’t know about the collar.”

Mike winced and looked away. “Regine is — she’s hard to budge,” she whispered. “I knew, I knew that it could be hard, emotionally. I remember being Greta’s Kept, centuries ago, and how much it hurt that she didn’t really want me. I mean, to be fair, nobody had ever not wanted me, before that. I knew it could be hard — but Regine was right, we needed to, we needed to get kids in and educate them fast, and we needed them wary about the Bond before they went back out into the world. The world was ending, Luke.”

Luke’s wings didn’t move. Days in the harness had made him far too aware of how often he let his wings telegraph his emotions.

“The world isn’t ending anymore,” he pointed out, very calmly. He didn’t want to spook Mike.

She looked up at him as if he’d shouted, her eyes wide. “It’s not.” Her voice was very careful. “You think we should have intervened.”

“I know we should have intervened. Over and over again. There’s probably a Keeping going on right now that we ought to intervene with, either students or someone graduated.”

“Do you know how many people there are out there? We don’t have the resources—”

“The fuck we don’t!” Luke felt bad the minute he’d shouted. He patted awkwardly at Mike’s hands. He had such a harder time with this when she was female. “But we should try.” Luke caught his breath. “Look… we can debate this later. Maybe with Regine, since… since none of it will happen without her say-so anyway.”

“She really… really…” Mike shook her head. “Do you think she did that to me, too?”

“I’d bet on it,” Luke admitted. “Probably not as much. It took you a long time to get to the point where things bothered you. I… hunh.” He considered Mike. “I figured you didn’t want to know.”

“I didn’t. Especially not when it was my cy’ree, being Kept, Keeping. Being hurt, hurting. Because we’d said it was a good idea. I, I said it was a good idea, and I was the one who had been Kept, over and over again, out of all of us. Who’d Kept people.”

“None of us anticipated how nasty some of those kids could get,” Luke offered, an excuse as much for himself as for her. “And they, uh. They got good at hiding it.”

“I’m an empath. I’ve caught some in the last few years, and if I caught those, when they knew what to hide, I should have caught the earlier ones.” Mike shook her head. “You’re right. We should allow Keeping… but we should be a lot more careful about it. We should be watching them.”

“Later.” Luke was feeling the pressure of orders and non-orders. For a little, Leo had said. He’d leave them alone for a little. They could borrow his tent.

A flush came to Luke’s cheeks at the thought of what he could do with more than a little time and a tent that Leo often sound-proofed. He shook his head. “Later,” he repeated. “Right now… Mike, you didn’t have to release me from those promises.”

“That’s what she said,” Mike pointed out, looking confused.

“She meant the oaths from Regine. For you…. look. You know I’d go against orders to protect you, right?”

Mike looked both amused and a bit confused. “I’m centuries older than you. I’m pretty capable of taking care of myself.”

“And I’ve bailed you out against a tougher opponent how many times? Mike.” He patted her shoulder awkwardly. “I mean it.”

“I’ll do my best not to get into any trouble that runs you against orders. Have you, yet? Tried going against orders?”

Luke shook his head slowly. “No. Suggestions, yes. Orders, no.” He meant to smile but it came out as a grimace instead. “The whole thing is hard enough without doing that to myself… I’ve seen what that does to someone.”

“Good.” She reached for his collar again; this time, she let her fingers brush over it. “This is nice. It should be gold… but it’s nice.”

Luke understood why it wasn’t gold. He wondered if he could explain it to Mike. He considered it, and ran into an order, and then another order. “Silver suits me,” he said instead.

“It’s better than the steel.”

Luke grimaced. “If Addergoole ever gets serious about disciplining students who break the rules… we should hire sa’Doomsday to coordinate it.”

Mike winced. “Still can’t believe you getting in trouble. Aren’t you the straight-arrow?”

Luke snorted. “I’m the straight arrow when I like the rules, turns out.”

“Or when, what, someone’s making you forget you don’t like the rules?” She looked like it tasted bad just to say it. Luke didn’t blame her. It tasted bad, knowing it.

“Yeah. Yeah, or that.” He folded his wings close against his back. There were so many things he wanted to say to her. They only had a little while to talk. “I’d rather she not know I know.”

“She’s got to know Cynara has the Words.”

“The thing is… Regine is likely to underestimate Boom. She always have — we always have. Would you think someone you’d taught could untangle your Hugr Workings?”

“Hunh. No. You think they could?”

Luke opened his mouth, closed it again, frowned. “You should talk to sa’Doomdsay,” he said, because that was on his mind and he could actually say that. “About your mind, and about not letting Regine know before we’re ready for her to know.”

“You don’t want Regine to know that we know that you know everything you’re not supposed to know?” Mike smirked at Luke. “When did you get complicated?”

“I guess,” Luke shrugged, “being Kept is complicated, and then I have to come up with, uh, complex ways to deal with it.” He thought about the teenagers they’d Mentored who’d been dealing with this. “We really ought to teach a master class in being Kept. And another one or five in Keeping.”

“Regine wouldn’t like it.” Mike’s comment was almost reflexive. Luke could tell by the way she flinched afterwards. “And the Keepers wouldn’t like it.”

“I think the ones that wouldn’t like it are the ones who need it the most,” Luke muttered. “…and the ones whose Kept probably need it the most, too.”

“You have a point.” Mike sighed and fell silent. Luke watched her, the way he had avoided watching her for years. She had one blonde curl loose, draping over her eyebrow and hiding something of her face. She must do it on purpose; her hair was short-cropped when she was male. And yet he wanted to brush her hair out of her face and let his hand linger.

This was why he didn’t look at her, not her. This was why he liked it better when she wore a male face.

But she’d shown up male, punched Leo, and been female for a conversation that, from the sounds of things, had revolved around her being protective of him. (Her! Protective of him!)

Luke cleared his throat. He should wait. He should wait until he knew he’d be able to see her privately again. He should wait until he knew that he’d be able to… able to… He shied away from the thought process with long practice. Regine had never had to delete those thoughts.

He should wait until he had longer than a little while to talk to her.

“I’ve been thinking,” he tried, “Leo is gay.”

Mike stared at him. “We’ve known that for some time, you know. I know you didn’t like to think about that, with your Students…”

“Not like Aleron.” He tried to be level-voiced; he tried to be calm. He thought he sounded a little too urgent. “Not, uh, interested in any kind of gender. I mean, Leo likes guys.”

“Yes?” Mike had a strange expression on her face, like she was worried Luke was losing it.

“Cya… Cya’s female, which, yeah, we knew already. I’m trying to say-“

“Ohhh.” Mike’s eyes widened. “Because Leo is into guys, but – oh, are he and Cynara…?”‘

There was a lot he couldn’t say, but Luke could definitely insinuate. “They’re… something, and they’re something even though Leo’s gay.”

“Fascinating. I wondered how long it would take them.” Mike looked up at Luke’s expression. “I am an empath, you know. They’ve been… well, fighting it for – no, all I know is that they were fighting it in school. Not all the time in between. I do cheat sometimes,” she added, misinterpreting Luke’s expression.

He cleared his throat. Did he have the balls – ha. Did he have the nerve to go through with this?

He was pretty sure he’d never hear the end of it from Leo if he didn’t. “I’m…” He paid attention to his wings, placing them very carefully half-opened. He spent heartbeats on it, looking at one tip and then the other, as if he couldn’t tell exactly where they were without looking. “I’m not… into guys”

“Luke, I know that. I’ve known that for a long time. Pretty much since the moment I met you.” Mike’s voice rose up a bit, exasperated and, Luke thought, a bit hurt. Damnit. “You don’t like… you’re not into girls that are boys sometimes, either. Women that are men sometimes. You have made that very, very clear.”

She was more hurt than he’d expected. And she wasn’t letting him get a word in edgewise.

“If you’re trying to tell me you’re sleeping with Cynara, one, duh, two, what does Leo think about that, and three, last I checked, she’s female. Which you said… oh. Oh, Luke, are you and Leo… are you into… Into Leo? It’s Cya’s collar, isn’t it? I mean, if it was Leo’s, the bond can do that, even when you don’t feel it normally. That’s what it was like with Greta… oh. What?” Mike frowned. “You said it first!”

Luke cleared his throat and heroically hid a smile at the very young-sounding wail in Mike’s voice. “I don’t have much time.” Not nearly enough time, damnit, why had he started this now? “But I’m not talking about Leo, Mike. Meckil. For one thing, I think sa’Doomsday would flay me.”

“She might. I don’t think she shares well. Which, uh, begs the question…” Mike’s voice turned slowly upwards. “Luke, who are you talking about and why are you talking about this now?“

Luke swallowed. “I’m talking about… um. About you. And I’m talking about it… because uh. Someone hit me upside the head — not literally! — with it and, uh. It’s going to be a long twelve years and I am advising in an active war zone…”

Luke didn’t really think he was at any direct risk of dying. They weren’t fighting many nedetakaei, and when they did encounter other fae, most of them weren’t a match for Leo or even Leo’s younger lieutenants, much less for Luke.

He wanted to tell Mike that, especially with the ashen look her skin was taking on, but he —

“I’m trying to be honest with you. So. I’m not out here fighting gods —” He’d never been out there fighting gods, not more than the two or three times he’d managed to bully Regine into letting him go. But that was a matter for another time. “— and I’m not in huge risk. But things happen. And, uh. If I let things happen to Leo…”

Mike considered that. “From what I’ve seen, if things happen to Leo, I don’t think I’ll survive long to mourn you. Boom can be, ah… explosive.”

“sa’Doomsday can be very explosive,” Luke agreed dryly. He was letting himself get distracted. It was tempting to just let the conversation flow away from the touchy stuff. “So… if I don’t make it.” He forced himself back on topic. “I want to be sure I’ve said it. And if I do make it, I want to have said it early, so you know. So you know it’s me saying it.”

Her eyes were wide. “Luke?”

“I’m.” He coughed. “I let myself get hung up on things that are kind of ridiculous. So, I apologize. I,” his wings spread out a little bit and he tried to rein them in. “I haven’t been protecting you, sticking close to you, hell, sticking with Addergoole all these years for the fun of it, you know.” He found he was scowling and tried to soften the expression. “But… as much as I can, while…” he touched his collar with both hands, “while I’m paying off the price of my stupidity, do you think, maybe, you and I…”

She was smiling. Luke squirmed. “What?”

“You’re awful at this. I always wondered how you’d be at it.” She touched his cheek gently, taking the sting out of her words. “I think I knew you’d be awful. But I am, too. I haven’t been sticking around Addergoole, around this colonial mess here, around the frozen north, for the fun of it, you know.”

Luke’s wings twitched and he let them. “I don’t have a lot of practice,” he admitted.

“I know, cloud-chaser, I know.” She leaned back and studied him. “I don’t think I can do faithful,” she warned. “This won’t be like it was with your wives.”

“I guessed.” He smirked dryly at her, because he didn’t trust himself with another expression. “I’ve been around a while, Mike. I know you.”

“You know some of me,” she corrected. “It will be interesting to see what happens when we get to know the rest of each other.”

“I know some of you,” he agreed, “and vice-versa.” Damnit, he really did have no time at all. How long was a little while? He did not want Leo walking in at the wrong moment. “Will you let me get to know more?”

“Will your Keeper?” she countered. “Or… do you want to pick this conversation up in twelve years?”

Twelve years should be nothing to a friendship that had outlasted a nation. Twelve years…

“Mike and me, whatever’s between us, it’s been there centuries. It’s not going to go strange or stale in a decade.”

He hadn’t meant to tell Leo that he was in love with Mike. Hell. He’d never even thought those words coherently before Leo starting goading him (”unless you and Linden are secretly in love with each other or something, you’re going to have to go out and meet people….”)

It hadn’t even come out so much as Luke had let himself get agitated, and getting agitated around a mind-reader and an emotion-reader who were in control of his life was not the best idea.

And then Leo had started looking worried, and he hadn’t needed Mind or Emotion readings to guess at it. So he’d said that. That it would hold another twelve years.

And, ever helpful, Leo had said,

“You’ve never been Kept before, though.”

“…No,” he’d admitted, ruefully, unwillingly. “… Fuck. But. Let’s be honest. I never saw Mike and me going anywhere, either.”

And here he was. He took a breath. “My Keeper suggested I talk to you. My… she… Cya would probably prefer you to be her ally, rather than her enemy.”

“She enslaved you,” Mike complained.

“To be fair, we were part of an agreement that, uh, paid for her conception, arranged for her slavery, and then did the same thing to her kids.” Luke had never said the words quite that baldly before. Cya was rubbing off on him.

“She enslaved you,” Mike repeated, clearly not having an interest in being fair.

“Mike? I beat Leo to within an inch of his life, within sight of most of his army. Enslaving me let him not lose face, and, uh, kept his army from beating me to death. I made a stupid choice; I let my pride get in my way. Twelve years in a collar? I can handle that. It’s better than war.”

“It’s better than you dying,” Mike allowed. “How long do we have, do you think?”

“Probably not long.” He spread his wings a bit, testing the air like it would tell him. “But we’ll have other times, I think. I mean, I’m teaching in Fall.”

“Twelve years.” She looked thoughtful. “I suppose that’s long enough for you to teach me how to punch properly, isn’t it?”

That had not been what’d been on Luke’s mind, not at all. “…What?” He knew he was gaping. He didn’t care.

She winked at him. “Private sessions. In your room. Even if all you do do is teach me to punch… it’s still time alone with you. And I have a feeling I’m going to be a slow learner.”

There was nothing Luke could say to that, so he kissed her.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1220416.html. You can comment here or there.

In Which Mieve is Uncertain and Unhappy

Dec22

First: A beginning of a story which obnoxiously cuts off just before the description,
Previous: In Which Amrit sulks Usefully.
🐝
Mieve had done her best to stay busy, even if she was being a bit more violently busy than she needed to be. She weeded, she sorted through her food stores, she cleaned the kitchen, she washed all the sheets and hung them in the brisk breeze. She made a list of things she’d need for the winter — they’d need for the winter — the stuff they could make here, and the things they would have to trade for.

She should find out his Words. Meentik, yes, and obviously tempero and Tlactl. Not Panida. So he could make things — what things? Making flesh didn’t seem all that useful — and he could control bodies. Good if they were attacked. Didn’t happen all that often, but sometimes roamers came upon her little hide-out, and she didn’t like attacking with the bees if she could avoid it.

Could he work with earth? More importantly, could he do that very nice Working her last Kept had, to turn earth into fuel oil for the stove and the back-up furnace? Could he work with heat and make the cooler into a fridge, so they could store leftovers in the summer?

She put some lentils on the stove with the last bit of sausage she’d traded for. Rice, she missed rice, and while she could grow legumes just fine here, rice wasn’t happening. She wondered how good he was with Huamu, with plants.

All of this was moot if he was just looking for his trick, for his way out. She ought to put the chains and gag back on him before he could attack her, before he could steal her tools, steal her honey or her stores of winter food.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, the beehive buzzed. She quieted the noise with something human, the way she always tried to do – a crossword puzzle. She was running out; she’d need to find a new one the next time she went out trading. Or get Amrit to start playing board games with her.

Again, could be a moot point. She put a lid on the lentils-and-sausage and started looking around for something nice for dessert. Not more apples, she was sick of apples. Maybe something like a cake? Or brownies – no. Chocolate. Another thing she missed more than she cared to admit.

She distracted herself with the trivial and the long-gone for a good hour while the sun slowly sank behind the trees. Crossword puzzle, cake, check on dinner, fret about stove fuel, crossword puzzle. She paced, walking down a groove she’d paced many times before. She sorted her books, putting back the few that had fallen out of place.

He was never coming back. He had run, somehow, despite all his oaths. She was going to have to move, or put up wards that would exhaust her, or…

He walked back into her clearing carrying a dead turkey. It was already field-dressed, she saw, and he looked both proud and abashed.

Mieve made herself walk, not run, out to the clearing. “That is a big bird.” She couldn’t help a smile, and not just because he’d come back. “That will feed us for quite a few days.”

“I missed meat,” he admitted. “But I forgot about uh, blinds, for a while. Sorry it took me so long.”

“Most of the meat out there is crepuscular anyway. Next time… maybe go out there just before the sun is going to set?” She looked him over. “You’re wet all over.”

“It’s summer, I’ll be fine.”

“It’s spring, and still cold. Let’s get this thing into the kitchen and decide what we’re going to do with it.”

“You have that fridge in the garage… we could probably use that as a cooler. It’ll hold a kwxe Working nicely, pull it down to zero super fast and put it in the freezer area. Surround it with blocks of ice, maybe?”

“I, we. One of my old Kept, he did that. It’s a good idea,” she agreed. “It’s why I kept the ‘fridge.”
He eyed her thoughtfully. “You haven’t asked me about my Words.”

“The gag sort of made that moot.” Past tense? Why had she used the past tense?

“Planning on putting it back in, then?” His shoulders tensed. Mieve couldn’t blame him.

“Depends,” she answered, even though she wanted to say Of course not. “Your promises will run out.”
“They will.” He stalked into the cabin, leaving Mieve to trail along behind her. “And you haven’t asked for new ones,” he called back over his shoulder.

“I didn’t need to, the first time.”

“I was feeling generous, the first time.” He dropped the turkey on the table. “How do you want to handle this?”

She studied the bird. “I’ve got it, just give me a second.” A series of long Panida Workings — it might be dead, but it was still an animal — and a couple judicious cuts with a cleaver later, the bird was ready for the freezer. She wrapped it carefully in butcher paper — another thing she would miss badly when it was gone. Like running water, like new clothes, like grocery stores. “There. Ready for flash-freezing.”
“Are you going to answer me?”

“You didn’t ask a question. But I’ll give you an answer anyway — after we get this turkey dealt with.” One leg quarter she left out, tossed into a pan for dinner.

“So these Workings are fine but then you’ll gag me?”

“You want your hard work to be useful, don’t you?” She should have told him she didn’t plan on gagging him. She should have assured him she wanted to know his Words. But that’s what he wanted, wasn’t it? For her to trust him?

“What do I have to do?” he snarled. “For you to believe I actually want to stick around? For you to trust me?” He slammed his fist down on the table, making the pieces of turkey bounce. “No, don’t answer that. I don’t really want to know how many more hoops I have to jump through. You line ’em up, I’ll jump. I told you I was here through the winter, and I’ll do that. But, let me tell you, I never liked-” he cut himself off with a wave of his hand and started freezing the turkey with angry, spat-out Kwxe Workings, pulling out all the heat in quick movements.

He was good, Mieve had to give him that. As a combat tactic, that would be terrifying. And he hasn’t started with that, any time he’d tried an attack.

She didn’t know what to say. He was furious… and she was a little bit scared.

“Thanks.” She gathered up the turkey and helped him carry it out to the freezer. “This’ll.. this’ll be good.”


Want More?

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1216765.html. You can comment here or there.

Helping a Friend Out, Part Two

Dec20

Part One
Addergoole-verse, Early 2012 (in the middle of the Apocalypse)
Written to rix_scaedu‘s commission.
I do not have an Agmund icon. But here’s Luke looking uncomfortable about the whole thing.

The boy was not happy about Agmund’s presence, but he was more than willing to lay out the details of the attack. The Nedetakaei nest had at least ten human hostages, was in the middle of what had been a very populous area before the gods came to town, and had been lain with booby-traps, Worked wards, and at least three explosive trip-lines.

“They don’t want anyone coming in to them, but they’re not going out much, either. They come out just after dark, about every fourth day — no set pattern, but it’s been three days with nothing, so hopefully today’s the day — but they always bring at least two of their hostages, and they go out in two-person teams. If we want to wipe out all three, we have to get the two when they’re out —”

“And then beard the third in the lair or hope they come out. Da. Roof attack?”

“Booby-trapped.” Dominic smiled grimly. “It’s almost as if they expected combat-ready opponents with wings.”

“Always said, Mara’s greatest failing was predictability. But you.” Agmund tapped the boy’s shoulder. “You are not a Mara, no?”

The boy folded up a bit. “Don’t need to rub it in,” he muttered.

“Who is rubbing in? I am not a Mara, either.” Agmund dropped his Mask for a moment, letting the bearishness of his features show through. “So we are not so predictable. What about up from underneath?”

“Under… never thought of that.” The boy’s wings twitched in a habit he’d probably picked up from Luke. The fliers that didn’t study under him didn’t get that habit of nervous telegraphing in quite the same way.

“Then we should look, no, and hope they did not think of it either. Think of it this way,” Agmund offered, with a large grin, “it is much cleaner now than it would have been a year ago.”

Dominic made a face. “Sewers. I hate sewers, even clean ones. But it’s not a bad idea.”

“If back-up had come, what would your plan have been then?”

“Like I said, wait for the two to come out, then storm the place. I don’t want any hostages to die… but the Nedetakaei have to be taken out. They’re too dangerous otherwise.”

“Willing to try it my way, this time?”

Dominic studied him. “Well, you’re the grown-up, and you came to back me up.”

“You are a grown-up too,” Agmund reminded him. “I was there when you received your name, Shifting Shield.”

“But you’re the one with the experience,” Dominic countered. “So your plan wins this time. We go from below?”

“We go from below,” Agmund agreed. “And we go quietly, when the first ones leave.” He growled an Idu out, sending his senses through the street below, and was pleased to hear Dominic do the same.

The boy didn’t appear to have the words for Earth or Worked things, but with a mutter to himself (“Everything has air and water;” he sounded as if he was quoting someone), he did a Working to Know the air and water beneath their feet. The two patterns together would tell them where they were going.

“There,” they pointed at the same time. The manhole cover was just a few yards from their feet. And, as if on cue, the back door to the warehouse opened and two Nedetakaei exited.
Agmund nodded to the boy, and they got to work. It might be messy, but the Bear could go back to Addergoole and tell Luke that one more of his Students had survived. That, in Agmund’s opinion, was worth far more than wading through a sewer.


Want More?

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1215458.html. You can comment here or there.

Protected: Get-away – for Patreon

Dec16

Alder's Grove Fiction

The Worlds of Lyn Thorne-Alder

Archives