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#ThimblefulThursday: Earning Your Keep

Jun16

Content warning: slavery, humiliation, other things of that ilk loosely hinted at.

“Please, mistress.” Brock swallowed against his dry throat and his pride. “Please,” he repeated. He hated it. He hated the kneeling, hated the begging, hated calling her mistress.

He hated more the way she looked at him when he did those things, like he was a passably-trained pet. “You know what you have to do, dear. I told you.”

Brock ducked his head again. “Please, mistress. It’s… I can’t.”

“You can, my pet, and you will, or you will sit in here and starve.”

It had been three days with nothing but shallow bowls of water. Brock had started begging near the end of the second day. He knew already what the fourth and fifth day looked like. His mistress had her lesson plans, and she stuck to what worked.

Brock touched his head to the floor. “Mistress? Is there any other way?”

“There is starving, my dear. You do what you need to do to earn your food, the same as everyone else here.”

He swallowed hard against a lump in his throat. “I… I will do it.”

“I know you will.” She patted his head. “You’re a good boy, you know. You just have to be reminded.”

The praise felt hollow and horrible and good. Brock waited, basking in it and hating it, hating her and wanting her to say more nice things, and remembering, most of all, that he wasn’t in the clear yet.

“Now come here, dear. I’ll give you a little to tide you over. We wouldn’t want you fainting in the midst, would we? …again.”

Brock winced. “No, mistress.” He crawled forward through the small entryway in his cage. If he’d had any more pride to swallow… but he was long past that. “Is it…”

“Noone you know, pet.” She set a bowl in front of him, rice, with a trickle of sauce on it. Brock waited, patiently. He didn’t know whether to be pleased or worried by her answer. Someone new, it could go either way… “You may eat.”

“Thank you, mistress.” Waiting, thanking, holding still until he was told to move… Brock had learned many lessons since he’d been captured. Now he knelt forward and ate, slowly and carefully. The food was bland, boring… the food was food, and that was all that mattered.

“That’s my good boy.” He barely felt it when she clipped a leash on his collar. “Now come.”

Written to June 9th’s Thimbleful Thursday prompt, “Meal Ticket.”

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1128176.html

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The Pact Slips, Part One.

Jun15

Acquiring Students
When my tablet runs out of battery…
The Crew Continues
Crew, Continued
The Day
A Pact

Doomsday Academy, a couple months after “the Pact,” above

Content: implied sexual suggestion

“Kerr is all wrapped up with that girlfriend, and, well, it’s not really sex if we…” Astarte’s gestures left no doubt what she had in mind, and Aron’s body left no room for argument about its opinions on the matter.

“But we…”

“It’s not really sex. It’s fine.”

~

“I really loved her, you know.” Kerr stared at his empty mug; Sunny had taken away the bottle he’d been using to refill it. “I really…”

“I know, honey.” Sunny petted his hair and tried to soothe her crewmate. “It sucks. I know.” It’d only been two weeks before that her short-lived first relationship had seemed to fade away into the ether.

“You get me. Why do you get me?”

Sunny swallowed. The look in Kerr’s eyes, she ‘got’ that all right. She knew where this was going. “Because I listen, love,” she murmured, throaty and maybe a bit inviting. “That’s all. I listen.”

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1126134.html

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A Pact, a continuation ficlet of Doomsday Academy

Jun13

Acquiring Students
When my tablet runs out of battery…
The Crew Continues
Crew, Continued
The Day

Doomsday Academy, a few years under a decade before Cya Keeps Leo.

“It’s not that it’s gross…” Aron spoke carefully, his eyes darting between his three crewmates. “It’s just that it seems wrong when they’re just…” His hands lifted as if ready to make a gesture, then flopped to the bed, and his cheeks colored.

Today they were in Sunny’s cy’Red dorm, stacked on her bed, because one of Aron’s cy’ra were… engaged… with a cy’Sweetflower. Loudly.

“And I mean, sure, they’re having fun, but then there’s going to be that loud mess like there was with the last one, with Silva, and with Kit before that. At this rate, he’s not going to be able to talk to anyone in the school by the time he graduates.”

“We’re not going to do that. Right?” Sunny looked between the three of them, her crew. “We’re best friends. We’re crew. We’re not going to get all… all sexy and start fighting with each other, right? Right?”

“No sex,” Astarte agreed with a sharp nod.

“Sex is for outside the crew,” Kerr agreed, very quietly.

“It’s a deal.” They put their hands together and shook, all for one, one for all.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1121822.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

The Day, a continuation, a ficlet of Doomsday Academy

Jun7

Acquiring Students
When my tablet runs out of battery…
The Crew Continues
Crew, Continued

Doomsday Academy, a few years under a decade before Cya Keeps Leo.

“We’re a day, you know.” They were on Aron’s bed again, cy’Lightning having proven the best at dealing with the nascent crew. Sunny was laying over the foot of the bed, staring at the ceiling. “Sunshine and darnkess,” she gestured at Kerr. “Stars,” she flopped a hand at Astarte, “and if we bend your name we get Aroon, and that’s a dawn.”

Aron raised his eyebrows. “That’s a day,” he agreed slowly. “Is that what we are?”

Sunny propped herself up to look at Astarte. The smaller girl looked back, twitched an eyebrow. Sunny shrugged one shoulder.

“Yeah,” Astarte answered. “I guess we are.”

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1121822.html

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Crew, a continuation, a ficlet of Doomsday Academy

May27

Acquiring Students
When my tablet runs out of battery…
The Crew Continues

Doomsday Academy, a little over a decade before Cya Keeps Leo.

“So what do we do about cy’rees?” The four of them were flopped in the fourth-year students’ dorm all on Aron’s bed. He, in turn, was studying the long tail Kerr had recently grown.

“Do?” Astarte peeked up at him through a fringe of hair. “We pick them, right?”

“But we’re not all going to pick the same one, are we? I mean, we could… ’cause if we don’t, they’re going to split us up.” One hand went protectively over Astarte and the other over Kerr, leaving Sunny to snuggle into his arm on her own.

“Well…” Sunny mused… “it’s a small school. It’s not like they can actually separate us.”

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1118332.html

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The Crew Continues, a ficlet of Doomsday Academy

May27

After/part of When my tablet runs out of battery…, which is after Acquiring Students

Doomsday Academy, a little over a decade before Cya Keeps Leo.

Kerr was not talkative. He communicated when Miss Ascha pushed him in class. He told the cook what he wanted, at lunch. With Aron and Sunny, he preferred gestures and a minimum of words.

When he brought Astarte over to Aron and Sunny, the day she arrived – the first day of their second year of school and her first year – he did so without words. He took her hand and gave a tug; she followed. He tugged again, and she walked with him, her white-pale hand in his dark one, until he tugged her one more time to pull her in front of him, presenting her very clearly to Sunny and Aron.

Aron understood. “Hi,” he said, if for no other reason than to prove that one of them actually talked. “We’re a crew, or we will be when we’re old enough. Want to join?”

She was as small as they had been a year ago, her eyes wide. But she smiled. “You’re funny,” she told Kerr. “I like that.” She tilted her head at Aron, looked down at her hand, still firmly held in Kerr’s, and giggled. “I think I already did.”

next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1114010.html

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When my tablet runs out of battery…

May27

…I write long-hand.

This comes after Acquiring Students and is the beginning of a series of character-establishing notes/stories/ficlets.

next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1113482.html

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The Uncle’s… Pet? – a story continuation for “Finish It” Bingo.

May27

After Uncle, a story of fae apoc. To the Finish It! Bingo.

They’d named the creature — the fae, the sentient being Bruce was now Keeping — they’d named the thing Bjorn, or, at least, Bruce’s niece Kikyo had offered the name and it had stuck.

Bruce couldn’t get another name out of the thing, but, then, he hadn’t been able to get much at all in the way of language out of — out of him, out of Bjorn.

That made it harder to remember that the creature, that this Kept Bruce had now, that it was sentient, human-ancestried just as Bruce and his kids were. The fur everywhere didn’t help, either.

Bruce counted children three times, and then got them lined up in front of — in front of Bjorn. “All right. These children here…” He rattled off their names one by one. “You are not to hurt them. You may stop them from hurting you, but as gently as possible. Do you understand?”

Bjorn nodded. It cleared its throat once, twice. “Not hurt,” he offered.

“Good. Bobby, start filling a tub. Not for you,” he added before the children could start whining. “But I don’t think Bjorn should wait until our Saturday baths.”

Bjorn twisted its face into something that looked like a grimace. “Bath…” it started.

Bruce cut it — him, he was fairly sure the thing was a he — off, perhaps too brusquely. “If you live under my roof and my name, you bathe at least weekly. More if you end up stinky from something. And we start today, because I don’t want fleas in my house.”

Bjorn wrinkled its nose but did not complain. “Good boy,” Bruce muttered. What was he supposed to do with a semi-sentient housepet?

“Kikyo, Dolores,” he called. “You wanted to bring him in. You’re going to help get him clean. Kiya, go get a comb. Dol, get the scissors.”

The thing flinched away at the word scissors. Bruce waited until the children had run off on their errands before he patted Bjorn lightly. “To trim your hair — fur — whatever,” he explained quietly. “It doesn’t hurt if I cut it, does it?”

Bjorn stared at him, clearly trying to follow the words. “Fur.” It tugged on the hair on top of its head. “Fur doesn’t hurt.”

“Good, see? So. You understand children? They’re children, Bjorn, so be very careful what you let them know. They’re safe here, and their mothers trusted me with them. Don’t… I don’t want you to betray that trust.”

Bjorn was watching his face intently. SLowly, he nodded. “Children,” he agreed softly. He seemed to be remembering words as he went. “I… I’ll? I… will… be careful.”

“Good. That’s the right comb, Kiya, good. Bjorn, she’s going to comb you, all right? I’m going to go check on the tub.”

Bruce felt like every sense was on high alert, listening, even sniffing for trouble as he left his nieces alone with the creature.

The tub was filled, room left for Bjorn to slide in, and Bobby had added a couple drops of oil. “Is he… Is he a person?” he asked softly.

“That’s what we’ve got to find out,” Bruce sighed. “Come on, Bjorn, clothes off, get in the tub.”

Cleaned, his hair trimmed and away from his face, and dressed in a pair of Bruce’s cast-off pants, Bjorn looked — not human; he had a tail and his pointed ears were tufted — sentient and aware. He was gentle with the children, and protective, like a sheepdog, enough so that after a few days Bruce was comfortable leaving him alone with even the younger girls. But he had to be taught even the most basic table manners — the kids found it hilarious — and preferred grunts and gestures to words.

Bruce tried for patience, but when he caught Ryuu and Cherry communicating in grunt-and-gesture while they were supposed to be learning math, his temper had reached its limit. He held it in — he didn’t yell at the kids unless they were in danger, by long-established precedent and a lot of practice — but when Bjorn answered a basic question with a shrug and a whine some hours later—

“You,” Bruce said, his voice carefully quiet, “were born human, same as the rest of us. You are a person, not an animal. Talk like a person.”

Something lit up in Bjorn’s eyes that had not been there before. He ducked his head, and for a moment Bruce thought he was going to have to deal with a whimpering, miserable Kept. Then Bjorn turned the head-duck into a bow, deep and very precises.

“I Belong to you,” Bjorn said carefully, as if picking the words out of his memory. “You wish me to be a person?”

Bruce rejected the formula. “You are a person.”

Something that could have been relief came over Bjorn’s face. “Then I will be a person again.”

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#ThimblefulThursday: Kangaroo Court

May26

Thimbleful 1.png

They’d grabbed a couple barrels and a door to make a “bench”; they’d hung a curtain, or at least a ratty blanket, over the room to make a “private” courtroom, and they’d pulled in five people to witness, Carter Westcott to serve as judge, and Ardell Aspen to serve as prosecutor.

There was no defense. I wanted to say something about that; I was one of the witnesses, because I hadn’t moved away from the curtain quickly enough – me and four others who’d been loitering around, wondering what they were going to do with Barton after – well, after. But considering the mood of our little community of stragglers, I stayed quiet. I’ve regretted that for years. I didn’t want to end up there, where Barton was… but still.

The prosecutor read off charges. Barton could hardly say he wasn’t guilty – I mean, they’d gagged him, but that didn’t matter when he’d grown feet three times normal size and big furry ears – but they made some pretense that it was a court and not a murder.

If I’d only gotten to him before they’d found him, maybe I could have helped in. Instead, I stood witness to his “conviction” in the most half-assed trial I’d ever seen.

And his would not be the last I’d witness, either.

This is written to today’s Thimbleful Thursday prompt

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

May26

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

“Who knew that vampires could be so stupid? I mean, obviously, vampires are often stupid, but is it me, or was that beyond the stupid? And then the look on that girl’s face, like you had just performed some sort of arcane act of killage…”

“Well, technically, she…”

“Clearly,” Giles cleared his throat, “I cannot allow you to go out unsupervised in a strange city.”

“Hello? Slayer.” Buffy glared at Giles from the back seat. She was feeling less than clear-headed after a very early morning had followed a rather late night. “When there are vampires, I slay them.”

“Indeed. And the part where you explained to the girl — what is it Xander said?”

“‘Vampire, suck blood, rawr. Wooden stake, heart, poof,’” Xander helpfully recited.

“Yes, that. You do remember that vampires are supposed to be secret?”

Buffy scoffed. “Come on, you can explain that stuff a hundred times to people and they never really get it. Next week, they’re all, like, ‘barbeque fork accident’ and ‘wild dog attack’ and going back out into the alleyways with mysterious strangers.”

“Well, in Sunnydale, yes. There has always been a strange Working — that is, a magic spell — tied to the Hellmouth there. It seems to make people forgetful, as you say. But we are no longer in Sunnydale, and such things are not nearly as thick. She may remember that there are vampires — or she may merely remember that a blonde girl told her some ridiculous things. Either way, we do not wish to leave a trail like a dotted line pointing from Sunnydale to Addergoole.”

“Guess that would be rude,” Buffy allowed. “‘Hi, new school. Look, all my enemies followed me.’ I guess then maybe they’d stop trying to enroll me.” She aimed a pointed look at the rear-view mirror.

Giles clucked. “Buffy, I know — I know the sort of people we’re dealing with here. Please do not attempt to convince them that you are not student material. Please do not attempt to convince them of anything at all. It will only lead to them being displeased without changing their mind one bit. It might even cause them to be more determined to enroll you.”

“Look, Giles, I don’t get the big. Get the Watcher Council involved if you have to. Nobody’s gonna let me move out of Sunnydale. The Hellmouth. The Place of All The Apocalypses. I mean, especially not to Nowhere South Dakota. I mean, they’ve probably never even heard of vampires out there. What do they get, mm? Corn demons?”

“As hard as this may be for you to believe, and as loathe as I am to admit it, there are powers bigger than the Watcher Council in existence, and one of them may be in play here. And, if I am correct about the origins of that invitation, there may be other commitments at hand than your commitment to being a Slayer—”

“Look, it’s not my commitment that’s the problem. It’s the fact that it’s a mystical thing that doesn’t go away. Here I was hoping that, you know, maybe I could share the duties, and then, well, things, and I dunno, nobody seems to have replaced Kendra. So no, it’s not my commitment at issue here.”

Giles coughed. “By that I meant, not your personal commitment, but the fact that by being Chosen, you were committed to the role. I am not questioning your dedication, Buffy, and I know this has been very hard for you…”

“Vampire. Stake it. Move on.” She rolled her shoulders and flopped back. “Not hard. Just a thing.”

Giles paused for a moment, frowning into the rear-view mirror. He coughed, checked the road, and frowned at the rear-view one more time. “Yes. Well. What I am saying is this: It is likely someone made a commitment on your part — and Willow’s — that you would attend this school, just as it is likely that someone made a commitment on your part that you would be the Slayer. It is not precisely fair, but it is often the way of things in more mystical dealings.”

“Yeah. I’m beginning to get the ‘not fair’ part.” She looked out the window, clearly done talking.

Giles continued anyway. “There may very arise a question of which commitment takes precedence. And, while this has not happened before as far as I know, it is also possible that the Watcher’s Council would suppress such information.”

“The Watchers? Those lovely pieces of humanity? Suppress information? Say it ain’t so!?” Xander made wide eyes and his best innocent face. “Especially anything that could get the Buffster off the hook. Man… wait. There’s something that could get the Buffster off the hook?”

Giles coughed.

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