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April A-Z Blogging Challenge: F is for Fires of Gobann

Apr8

The Meme Master Post

F is for Fires of Gobann, of course.

Fires of Gobann is my Camp Nano novella, if I ever get to it. It’s set in the Faerie Apocalypse, right in the middle of the apoc.

What is Faerie Apocalypse (otherwise known as fae apoc)? It’s one of my favorite settings, the one in which Addergoole, among other things, lives. It’s a world “much like our own,” but one where magical beings, the Ellehemaei (fae) live and exist next to humans, indeed, appearing as humans. And those beings, in 2011-2012 in-world time, cause a massive apocalypse which wipes out approximately ninety percent of the population: faerie apocalypse.

In this middle of this, two young fae who are former students of Addergoole, Hedda and Argeus, are engaged in a consensual but not exactly friendly Keeping.

What’s a Keeping? Although explored in great deal throughout the setting writing, the short version is: a magical bond in which one person, the Keeper, (in this case Hedda) agrees to be entirely, utterly responsible for the other. In return, the second person, the Kept, (in this case Argeus) is magically bound to obey all of the Keeper’s orders.

So Hedda and Argeus have entered into this relationship – “why” is still unclear at the beginning of the book – and are still working around the edges of it. They don’t particularly like each other; they didn’t really like each other in school, either. They don’t trust each other. They can barely stand each other.

And then the nearby city lights on fire.

(Gobann is a bastardization of a Celtic forge god’s name, and the city is probably Pittsburg.)

Hedda and Argeus are just about to leave the area for someplace safer when another old schoolmate shows up with a favor to call in. Now, they’re heading straight into the fires of Gobann. How will they survive?

I’m really looking forward to writing this story. So far, Argeus is an awful brat and Hedda is a bitch. And that’s from his POV!

I blogged earlier about the cover for this book and the theoretical sequels – here.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/920291.html. You can comment here or there.

April A-Z Blogging Challenge: E is for Elves

Apr6

The Meme Master Post

E is for Elves, for fairer or worse

Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.
No one ever said elves are nice.
Elves are bad

This quote, by Terry Pratchett (“Lords and Ladies”), along with some Shakespeare and Tam Lin by Pamela Dean and Beauty by Sherri Tepper, all of that has colored my impression of fae, faeries, fairies. Add onto that the Changeling I mentioned in “D”, where the sidhe where the hereditary rulers who had gone away for hundreds of years (*Cough* fae apoc *cough*) and, now that they were back, assumed they should rule once again – (I had this habit of playing a rebel – angry Eshu, bloodthirsty satyr…)

Elves are terrific. They beget terror.

The Grigori in Fae Apoc are the closest, I think, to the elves that I keep in my head – tall, imposing, beautiful, arrogant, self-ordained to rule and unbudging in that mandate. The Grigori are all of those things, everything except pointed ears. (and there are fae in Fae Apoc with pointy ears. Eris. Mabina-and-Cassidy. Caity. Llew, who I forgot until I needed an icon. I like pointed ears a lot, okay? If I didn’t have to work a day job, I might point my own ears).

*Cough* all right. So I suppose the sum of that is: in my head, elves are beautiful assholes. And they’re great as semi-antagonists: see Regine. Aesthetically… mm, those ears.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/919387.html. You can comment here or there.

April A-Z Blogging Challenge: D is for Dragons

Apr6

The Meme Master Post

D is for Dragons, with gold for a bed

You know, I don’t remember being a dragons sort of girl. The winged-cat-people people don’t have dragons. Most of my early fantasy doesn’t have dragons. Elves, yes, horses, lots. Not so many dragons.

Addergoole got dragons on a whim. After all, Aelfgar needed something big to be fighting! (Actually, I think the parent story of Addergoole, Whisky Lullaby, first introduced the dragons. The same concept, though: so’jers have been fighting dragons as long as the faerie apoc ‘verse has existed.) Dragons Next Door was born as a 15-minute fiction prompt: “obnoxious dragons.” (here).

More than that: I came late to Pern, and read very little other fantasy involving dragons. I’ve enjoyed dragon movies, mostly for their spectacular effects, even when everything else in the movie (*cough* “The D&D Movie”) sucked. But dragons… dragons for me are more common as a metaphor.

I went through a period where my favorite phrase was “sometimes the maiden is safer with the dragon.” I was playing – in a LARP (Changeling: the Dreaming) – a satyr seer paired with a redcap (in that setting, the most violent of the “acceptable” “non-monster” fae). There were times when someone tried to convince my little satyr she was safer with the “good guys” – that’s where the concept came from. Dragons are the honest monsters, the safe ones. You know where you stand with something fifty feet long with scales and claws. Safer, maybe, then a would-be-white-knight.

…I should write that story sometime. I wonder what I’d do with it now, a decade later.

I think my favorite dragons story I’ve actually gotten to read would be the Dragon Librarian story eseme was writing many years ago. And this may be my favorite dragon art, by M.C.A. Hogarth.

Dragons ho!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/919247.html. You can comment here or there.

April A-Z Blogging Challenge: B is for Bondage

Apr3

The Meme Master Post

B is for Bondagage, Nice and tight

Well, we’re diving right into the “Adult Content” warning I had to put on my A-Z link, aren’t we? *Cough*

I can’t remember the first time I encountered fictional bondage, but it was probably a Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror anthology – where I got most of my early erotica.

I remember very clearly when someone first used the term “S&M” around me – I can’t tell you who he was, but he was the friend of friend, on a mall not-quite-double-date. And when I asked what it meant, he said “spaghetti and meatballs.” 😛 😛

I don’t think he expected me to know the words. But at that age – early teens – I was all about the words.

Buying my first handcuffs, discovering newsgroups (alt:binaries:pictures:erotica:bondage!)… it’s all immensely personal, and yet seems entirely natural to me. I’m not sure I can say much more about this in blog format, so… have a microfic.

This is one of the scenes that started Addergoole. It’s set in Tir na Cali, in a school open to American kids with Californian bloodlines.

~

She’d agreed to be his slave for a week, because he’d said she couldn’t handle it. She wasn’t going to give in now, even if she was beginning to worry that he might be right.

She’d had only the vaguest idea of what that meant. There were slaves in the school, of course – this was California; there were slaves everywhere – but none of them… well.

She shifted from one knee to another as surreptitiously as she could. He ignored her, as far as she could tell; he was probably focusing on his game. They all seemed to be ignoring her. She wasn’t certain, not truly, if she preferred that to being paid attention. She had never been so exposed. Or so helpless.

It was a good thing that their weekly D&D game was in his room; otherwise he might have carried her down the hall like this. As it was – well. She couldn’t walk, that was certain. She could feel the corset pushing into her ribs, pushing her breasts upwards. She could feel the stilleto heels pushing two ridges into her ass. She could feel the way the gag distended her mouth and pushed against the back of her throat, the straps on either side of her nose, the way the buckle pressed against the back of her head. She couldn’t see any of it, not with the thick blindfold covering her eyes. But she could feel it all.

He’d used so much leather. Her arms were laced behind her back in mitts that went straight to her shoulders. Her legs were strapped together in ten places. Even the heels of her shoes were tied to each other – he’d let her watch that one.

She shifted again, trying to get the heel out of her ass. She’d told him she could handle this. She was going to handle it.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/918474.html. You can comment here or there.

Leaving the Swamp

Apr2

Written to [personal profile] clare_dragonfly‘s question here: How did sa’Skin-Taker end up at Addergoole?

After A Vision to Purchase.

~1895

The visions wouldn’t leave her alone.

It had been three years since the woman had visited her. The payments had come as promised, quality stuff, and with some planning Chantal could have lived for years on the largess of her client. But the visions wouldn’t stop.

She had moved out to the swamp because she did not like touching people anymore. Touching people led to visions; visions led to nightmares and that worrisome time when she couldn’t separate the vision from the reality in front of her. But she was touching no-one, speaking to nobody but the man who brought her goods and took her furs, and yet the visions kept coming.

She knew what she had to do. The Fur-taker packed up the things she would need, leaving much of the cabin’s supplies where they were. Either someone else would find the cabin and use it, or she would be back.

The man who brought her food was willing enough to take her to dryer land. The fur-taker assumed he’d probably gotten rather rich on her over the years, but she hadn’t been interesting in accumulating wealth, and she’d been less concerned about his honesty than his reliability.

He proved half her suspicions correct and the other half slightly less correct when he handed her a leather bag at the edge of the water. The bag jingled quietly as she took it; the fur-taker raised her eyebrows at the man.

“I’ve put it aside for you over the years. You’ve done well by me and it was the least I could do.” He handed her two pieces of paper. “That, and these. Train tickets. You said you were going to San Francisco.”

The Fur-taker was rusty on her human manners. “Thank you,” she said, more cautiously than gratefully.

“We’re each given to do what we may. Do what you can, Fur-taker.”

“I will,” she assured him. That was why she was leaving the safety of her swamp, after all.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/917874.html. You can comment here or there.

A Beginning

Mar29

Written to Rix_scaedu‘s question here: Who were Agmund Fridmar’s parents and who was his Mentor?

1841

Artyom looked to his father, to his mother, and back to his father. Neither of them had shown any surprise when, four weeks ago, Artyom had woken in the middle of the night to find himself a cubit taller and four hand-spans wider. “Aren’t you a great bear,” Artyom’s father had said, but he’d been smiling. Artyom’s mother had just said “I’ll write to Magnus.”

Magnus, it appeared, was a Norseman a hand-span again taller than Artyom and quite a bit broader. He had bowed deeply to Artyom’s mother and called her Star-Catcher, a name Artyom had never heard before. His bow to Artyom’s father had been polite but much less deep, and he’d called him Gospodin Ivanov.

Artyom’s mother was not a gentle person, but she was using her soft voice now, the one she used for hard things. “Artyom, this is Magnus, called the Winter Hound, and he will be your Mentor. He fought by my side, in the days when we were warriors.”

There was a story there, Artyom knew it. But there was also no room for argument in his mother’s voice. “Gospodin Winter Hound,” he said, instead of arguing, and bowed deeply. He’d always known he might have a Mentor, if things turned out one way or another. It seemed gaining a cubit in height was one way for things to turn out.

“It will be a long voyage, young warrior. Say goodbye to your parents now, and, should all be well, you will be saying hello to them in some years as a new person.”

Artyom nodded again. There was no point, he could tell, in saying that he didn’t want to leave, that he had no wish to be a new person. Things had been decided. He bowed to his mother and to his father. “Good-bye,” he said. His voice cracked, but he ignored it and, politely, so did they. “I will return.”

His mother’s hand landed hard on his shoulder. “You will return to us, my son. Go now into the hands of your Mentor, and may the gods guide your steps.”

Artyom turned to the gigantic Magnus. “Sir. I am yours to teach.”

see obsolete Russian units of measure.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/916027.html. You can comment here or there.

World/Character-Building Fun Prompt Call – Dragons Next Door, Addergoole/Doomsday, Reiassan/Edally

Mar28

I had so much fun writing the four world/character/storybuilding stories yesterday that I want to do more! 🙂

But I’m still really busy with Sekret Projeckt. 🙁

So! No promises I’ll get to any of these, much less all of them, but here goes:

For Addergoole/Doomsday/FaeApoc, Dragons Next Door, or Reiassan/Edally, ask me any world/character building question that can be answered in fiction form.

For example: How did Akatil end up at Addergoole (I’ve already answered that one, short form), Where did Aud go to school? (another one already answered ;-)… I think you get the idea.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/915765.html. You can comment here or there.

A Job Offer, a story of Doomsday Academy

Mar27

“You tore the city down?” Ric’s voice was the tone usually used for discovering someone had murdered a pile of babies.

The woman in front of him held up both hands placatingly. “We took pictures. We took pictures of everything and I used a flyer to get photos from the air. And everything written was saved and put in the library. There’s some artifacts you might find interesting in our museum – that is, if you take the job.”

They were back to the job again. “Why me?” Ric frowned. The woman spread her hands in an expressive shrug; Ric plowed on. “I mean, you said that your power could find anything. I can understand that.” Finding your missing pen didn’t register as all that strange; Ric, it seemed, could grant wishes. “But why me? There have to be plenty of teachers in the world, even Ellehemaei teachers – even teachers from Addergoole.”

For a split second, it seemed as if the woman was blushing. She coughed and looked away. “I know your father.”

“…that’s nice. I mean, I don’t.” He’d met his father – four times now, if his count was right. That was different from knowing him.

“I Kept your father. I’ve Kept quite a few people, over the years. One a year, more or less, since my second year. So… quite a few.”

Ric’s mother had been Twelfth Cohort, his father something earlier. He’d lost track of the years, but he was pretty sure they were somewhere in the late 30’s or early 40’s of Cohorts now. If this woman was older than his father… “That’s quite a few Kept. So, again… why me?”

“Well, ‘child of someone I’ve Kept, who happens to have the skills I need, might be interested in the job, and could benefit from it’ – that’s a pretty refined search to start with. And I mayyyy have,” she dragged the word out, and again Ric thought he might see a blush, “limited it to only a few of those Kept. My favorites, as it were.”

“That’s a pretty specific power you have.”

“I’ve pushed its limits. I like pushing its limits.” She smiled brightly. “You don’t have to answer today, you know.” Her smile slipped easily back into a professional expression.

“You brought a teleporter today.”

“Well,” she looked back to where her teleporter was waiting, reading a book and seeming to pay them no mind, “he does make things easier.”

Ric looked her over again. She was clean, her (dyed-red) hair, her fingernails, her clothes. Her clothes looked new, too, brightly colored and with no patches or thin spots anywhere. She looked rich. “Does this job pay?”

She grinned at him, as if she knew she had him. Well, she probably did. “That all depends on what currency you want to get paid in.”

Ric is Athanaric; he is the son of Hroderich, who I don’t see in any stories except as a mention (Cya Kept him directly before Pellinore. Hroderich is a grandson of Aelfgar (as is Howard; Leo is Aelfgar’s son; Aelgifu is his daughter… Aelfgar has a lot of kids…)

Also new Djinni Icon!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/915665.html. You can comment here or there.

The Storm Will Come

Mar27

Set c. 1829, written in response to cluudle‘s question on the last story.

It is possible Regine would never have noticed the woman.

She was a half-breed beggar, sitting in the halls of the mighty because the humans would not have her, or so Regine assumed. She was skinny, wretched, and here, here in the stronghold of the Grigori in America, she was un-Masked, her doggy ears flapping and her doggy tail twitching under her skirt.

Regine dropped her a dollar, because she could spare it, and then another dollar, for Falk, and would have thought nothing else of it, except that the wretched woman tugged at her skirt.

“Lady, there are things you must know.”

“There are many things I must know.” Her father was already walking on ahead. She knelt down to look at the woman, intrigued despite herself. The half-breed reached out and grabbed Regine’s hand with both of her own. She blinked, and her eyes were white, with lightning in them.

“The storm is coming, Lady of the Lake. The waters will rise and all will be flooded out. All will burn, all will die. The storm is coming, Lady, the fathers are coming back. And everything will be destroyed.”

“Regine! Regine, what are you doing? You are going to be late to the meeting.”

“I am sorry, Father.” She was thirty years old. She was married, with a young child of her own. She let her father take her hand as if she were a toddler, the storm in the half-breed’s eyes still flashing in her mind.

“I don’t know why we let those half-breed mutts in here anyway…” her father was muttering.

“Because the storm is coming, Father.” The truth was as clear to her as day, as sudden as lightning. “And we will need them.”

Her father did not listen, of course. But that was all right. She would find those who would.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/915251.html. You can comment here or there.

A Vision to Purchase

Mar27

Set ~1890, in response to a conversation with cluudle last night.

Content notes: this includes allusions to some of the most awful stuff in the Addergoole ‘verse, but mostly in passing.

She was living in a cabin in the swamp.

It suited her; away from people she saw less, felt less. Also, she was still a fur-taker, would always be one, and that was a trade best plied alone. A man came once a month – he took the furs and skins and things, and brought her food and clothing and such.

Today was not that day. She grew a little fuzzy on the passage of time, true, but the moon had been full when he’d come last, and it was only a half-moon now. And yet there was a boat bumping against her dock.

The fur-taker threw on pants and her favorite shirt, soft and worn, the cuffs stained, but so comfortable. She had fancy clothes, but she did not dress fancy for uninvited guests.

She was “decent” enough by the time the delicate knock came at her door, and flung said door open with a dramatic woosh.

There was a woman standing on the fur-taker’s porch. She was dressed tidily, expensively, in a smooth dress that was just a little too sleek to be fashionable. She had, the fur-taker noted with approval, put on thick boots in defiance of fashion and deference to sense. Beyond her, a man waited in a sturdy row-boat.

She was, the fur-taker noted, a beautiful woman, blonde, clear-skinned, with a firm set to her chin and an equally determined set to her shoulders. She cleared her throat. “Are you the one they call the Skin-Taker?”

The fur-taker waited. This was her home. It was not up to her to identify herself first.

The woman coughed twice. “My name is Regine; I am called the Lady of the Lake.”

Nobody the fur-taker had heard of. But she’d done the proper thing, so she got a nod. “I’m the Skin-Taker.” This seemed like a social visit; she hesitated and added, “my father named me Chantal.”

“‘Stony’ and ‘song’.” The woman nodded. “They say that your name fits you.”

The fur-taker smiled sharply. She had shaped her teeth to points, herbivorous Change be damned. “Both names do.” To the woman’s credit, she didn’t flinch. “Come in, if you mean me and mine no harm.”

“I mean you no harm at all.” The woman took the invitation and stepped into the fur-taker’s cabin. “I come simply to consult. They say you are the best seer that has ever been.”

The fur-taker nodded her head. “That has been said.”

“I come to commission a seeing from you.”

Chantal closed her eyes. “They come at a high price.” Out here, she did not have to touch people, to see the future. Out here, there were only the small futures of deer and weasels and other such things.

“The price to not knowing is so much higher.” The woman’s voice broke. Chantal opened her eyes to surprise a brief moment of vulnerability on her visitor’s face. Not a Grigori, then, despite the loveliness. They were never vulnerable. “I have brought… some things. And I will send more with your man every month for ten years, if you perform a seeing for me.” She pulled a parcel from her bag; the smell of cheese wafted to Chantal’s nose. And – she sniffed deeply – yes, gunpowder and… cardamom. And as the woman opened the package, she saw salt and the glint of steel: one steel knife, and a new pistol, the style strange to her eyes.

She nodded crisply. “This is a good price,” she agreed. Her mouth was watering; it had been some time since she’d tasted cheese like that. “I will need to touch you.”

Some cringed at that. She was not particularly clean, living in the swamp, and she looked dirtier than she actually was. This woman put out her lily-white hand without hesitation.

Chandra closed her eyes and took the hand. Images flashed through her mind, pushing, forcing their way out. She gasped, forcing herself not to release the other woman’s hand. “The end will come,” she was singing now, always singing. “Those gone will come. The stars will come; children will come.” She shook her head, clearing the song. “It is coming, Lady of the Lake. The fire.”

“Yes. And after?”

After. “After?” The question prompted new images. “Death comes hard and slow, scours high and low. Rips the life away, steals the child away.” Again, she shook her head like a cat, clearing the images. “It will be hard. There may not be many left at all.”

“And if I go through with my plan?”

Plan? Again, the images pushed at Chantal. She opened her mouth, but nothing but a moan came out. She tried again. “So many sad children. Dead children, crying children, broken children.”

“And the rest?” The woman’s voice was implacable, unshakable.

Chantal’s vision cleared. She opened her eyes, confused, unhappy, but at the same time… “They thrive. The world ends, and they strive. The cities fall; they’re alive. The fires burn – they survive.” She spoke no more.

She didn’t need to. The woman nodded, sadly, it seemed. “Then I will do it. Thank you, Skin-Taker. Your payments will come as promised.”

Chantal waited until the woman had left, until the boat was out of sight. She picked from the package of payment a small bottle of scotch. Square and heavy, it did not seem to suit the woman who had just been here.

But at the moment, it suited Chantal just fine. She drank, sips at first and then gulps, until the sight of the sobbing, bloody girl had been scrubbed from her mind.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/915144.html. You can comment here or there.