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There Are Always Choices

Sep2

After And We Are Not Monsters.

The girl called Rohanna did not take well to the collar.

Viatrix had sympathy for that. Nobody in their house had ever taken well to submission and, to the girl, they were the enemy. They had stolen her from her crew at hawthorn-point.

What she did not have was tolerance. “No.” She knew she was getting sharp, and could not manage to soften her tone. “No, what did I say?”

Rohanna snarled. “If I washed the floor I didn’t have to wash the dishes.”

“Try again, little mage.”

“Don’t call me that!” Rohanna swung back from Via’s hand. “If I cleaned the floor… well… I didn’t have to wash the dishes.”

“Better.” This time, Via caught Rohanna’s collar. “So. Floor again, or dishes. Your choice.”

~

The boy – not a boy, the Kept – named Kavan didn’t know quite what to do with, about, or for Baram.

It was mutual. Baram found that the slender fae with the fragile-looking body brought out memories, and he’d never been very comfortable with the sort of memories he was getting now. He found that the not-kid brought out a protective urge, and for the first time that he could functionally remember, the urge was meet, right, and by the Law. And he found that the little Kept frustrated the living shit out of him, in large part by being terrified.

“Your choice,” he repeated. Again. “My bed or the couch-bed.”

“Whatever my master wants.” Kavan stared at the ground

“Your master. Wants you to choose.”

~

The one called Ardell could be made to see sense.

The other one, the one named Delaney, was rabid. She hissed, spat and swore, none of it in any way useful. It seemed she knew the Boss, and wanted the Boss to help them. Everything else was irrelevant.

So Jaelie spoke to Ardell. “The Boss is busy, cleaning up after the people you led here.”

“I knew you could handle them.” The man was insufferably smug. “I knew Baram could handle them. He’s as tough as a truck.”

“Tougher. But you brought them to our door, and that causes problems.”

Delaney said something. Jaelie watched Ardell. “So. We’re gonna need oaths, or we’re gonna need to take information from your mind. Your choice.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/799051.html. You can comment here or there.

Being A Samurai Takes Work, a drabble of Doomsday Academy for the Giraffe Call

Aug29

A commissioned continuation from (I believe) [personal profile] thnidu.

After Gonna Be a Samurai

and Going to Learn How to be A Samurai.

Being a samurai took a lot of discipline. That’s what the books had said. Discipline and hard work and kimono and…

And apparently it took math classes, too, history classes, watching tv shows called anime from before the collapse, and, peh, being nice to all his fellow students. Even the silly ones.

And it took listening to Miss Ascha as if she were his sensei. Which, Austin supposed, she really was. And that meant more math and history and geology and, well, more being nice to his fellow students.

He bowed very politely to Sianna. If she wanted him to learn how to waltz, well, he guessed he was learning the waltz with her.

I don’t have a strong mental image for Austin yet (except touseled light-brown hair), but Sianna looks more or less like this

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Going to Learn How to be A Samurai: continuation of Doomsday Academy for the Giraffe Call/@inventrix

Aug28

To [personal profile] inventrix‘s commissioned continuation of Gonna Be a Samurai.

Austin was going to be a samurai.

He was going to a samurai school, and he was going to have a samurai teacher, and he was going to learn how to be a samurai.

“It says in the letter that they gives you a full education, Austin. Math, science, history, literature, life skills. I wonder what they mean by life skills?” His mother shook her head. “Nothing about being a samurai.”

“But you saw him! You saw Professor Inazuma!”

“And I saw Director Doomsday. I must say, that’s an ominous name for the head of a school.”

“Wasn’t there a note on that, too?” The welcome letter had come with quite a stack of welcome-information, including a small bio on each of the teachers. “She was… what’s a prepper?”

“Something from the before world. But that’s okay, she’s probably from the before world, too.” Austin’s mother shook her head yet again. “Are you sure you want to do this, Austin? I don’t think it’s going to be all samurai training.”

“I don’t care! I’m going to be a samurai! Please, mom? Please? I’ll work extra hard all summer!”

“Well, let me talk to your father…”

Austin was going to be a samurai.

He looked at dismay at the uniforms available. “But what about hakama and kimono?” Kilts and pants and plain white shirts were so boring. Especially compared to Professor Inazuma’s clothes… “Do I have to wear boring clothes?”

“Austin, they’ve nice clothes. Don’t be rude.”

“We have kimono.” The nice lady behind the uniform counter smiled at both of them. It took Austin a moment to realize that that was Principal Doomsday, the head of the school. The weasel ears had thrown him off for a moment.

So had the strange smile. She continued, as if unaware of the panicked surprise on Austin’s face. “That’s one of the things I actually did prepare for. Here are your kimono,” she added a hefty stack of black, just like Professor Inazuma’s, to Austin’s pile of uniform clothes. “And Miss Ascha is waiting for you over there.”

Austin was going to be a samurai.

He was going to be a samurai, even if he had to take classes in math and reading – some of the kids here couldn’t even read! – and how plants grew, and poetry. Even if he had to share a room with girls – and other boys, including the ones that couldn’t read. Even if everyone else thought this school was about growing up to be a teacher or learning how to be a doctor or even, in Sianna’s case, a silly ballerina. (Were there even ballerinas anymore? At least they knew teachers still existed!)

He was going to be a samurai, after eight years of classes and then, Professor Inazuma told him, maybe more classes still. But he could start learning right away, not just the math and reading and farming and stuff, but really learning.

“I’m going to be a samurai,” he informed Sianna. And he got to start today!

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This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/794780.html. You can comment here or there.

Wildlife Refuge, a story of Fae Apoc for the Giraffe Call

Aug27

To [personal profile] rix_scaedu‘s prompt

“Let me see.”

The gate-keeper had four legs, which wasn’t the weirdest things Capri had seen on this trip. The fact that they were giraffe legs was kind of interesting, at least.

“See?” Capri made the nothing-to-hide gesture, jacket held wide open. “I left my weapons at the front gate, as instructed.” And if that wasn’t an uncomfortably vulnerable feeling, Capri didn’t know what was.

“Drop your pants and your Mask.”

Oh, that was.

“Excuse me?”

“You saw the sign on the front gate, didn’t you?”

It had been written in Old Tongue. Capri had gotten maybe one word out of seven. “Yes.” One of the words had been half-man or maybe half-human. That could mean a lot of things, all of which applied to Capri.

“So, it’s a wildlife refuge.” The… centaur? pawed the ground with one hoof. “Satyrs, fauns, minotaurs, centuars, griffins… you get the idea. Gotta be half-human, half animal, to walk in here. Or fly.”

“Ah.” Now that was a meaning Capri hadn’t thought of. “Right. So, you want me to drop my pants…”

“Well, if your upper half is animal, taking your shirt off will work, too.”

“I don’t suppose you’d settle for just seeing my ankles…”

“What, are you shy? Everyone drops trou. I mean, everyone who wears pants. I, obviously, didn’t have that problem.”

Shy. “Well. It’s just that… yeah. I’m shy.” Capri gave up and dropped Mask and trou both. “Also, faun.”

At least the fur covered almost everything.

More: Safety

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Landing Page: Doomsday Academy

Aug26

A sub-setting of Addergoole and the Fae Apoc, Doomsday Academy is what happens when a fae graduate of Addergoole decided to build something better.

It features Addergoole characters from two generations as professors, and an all-new cast of students. The school experience runs from ten years old to 18, covering a wide swath of education not often found in the post-apoc world.

And post-apoc it is. Set approx. forty years after the titular Faerie Apocalypse (“the Disaster” “the Collapse”), the world is a far different place. Monsters still roam the blasted countryside, and cities are mostly destroyed shells. The human/fae population are just beginning to move past bare survival. Electricity, running water, telephones – these things exist, but mostly in sheltered enclaves.

I Have this School (LJ)
A Drabble of Addergoole meets Doomsday (Facebook)

The Professors
Doomsday Academy: First Day of Math (by [personal profile] inventrix)
First Day of School for First years (LJ)
First Day of History Class (LJ)
First Day of Survival Class (LJ)
First Day of Law Class (LJ)

The Students
Aquilina at School (LJ) at least 4 years in.
Gonna Be A Samurai (LJ)

The Parents
The Tower (LJ)

The City
The Year Cya Didn’t Keep Anyone (LJ)
Tweets: Planning a City (LJ)
Takes a Village to Build a City (LJ)
Boom Town: Center Street (LJ)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/790873.html. You can comment here or there.

Aquilina at School – A Storybit of Doomsday Academy

Aug25

Written to [personal profile] wyld_dandelyon‘s prompt, set in the Doomsday Academy, at least 4 years in.

The compound had always been full of kids – cousins, siblings, unknown-relations; Aquilina’s mom & her people made kids like it was going out of style.

The first three years here at Doomsday had been much the same – the First Years got put into a dorm room, all together, and they stayed together until they Changed or otherwise moved on to a Mentor.

And now… now Aquilina was cy’Law, having very politely and conveniently Changed over the summer break, and she had, for the very first time ever, a room to herself.

It made sense, of course. Her new wings took up a lot of space, and she was still getting used to not hitting things with them.

But it was quiet.

Her bed was big, and covered with soft plush comforters, and her dresser was bigger than the one she’d shared with a sister and two cousins at home. The mirror was almost big enough to get in all of her Change, which was something of a feat. She could sprawl out and not run into anyone at all; even though the room had little more than the dresser, the mirror, the bed, and the desk, it was still spacious.

And way too quiet. Aquilina hopped off the bed and opened the door.

~

For her first three years at Doomsday, Aquilina and the rest of her yearmates had cheerfully herded from class to class, splitting up only for clubs and not even for all of those.

It was strange to move now with her cy’ree instead – a small cluster of Law students with their bright green-and-orange silk ties and socks, murmuring in the code Aquilina was still learning. Stranger still to peel off from the group on her own and join the rest of the fourth-years in their first class of the day – Earth Science, with Professor Sweetflower. And it was downright odd to sit down in the midst of pink-and-green, blue-and-blue, gold-and-blue, red-and-red, and so on. They might not have all Changed, but they had all changed over the summer.

When Professor Sweetflower stood up, though, a wave of relief swept over Aquilina.

“Hello, students,” the Professor began, in her honey-and-wildflowers drawl, “and welcome to your first day of Earth Science.”

Some things might change – but some things never did. It was nice to know the teachers, at least, were constant.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/788775.html. You can comment here or there.

Addergoole/Criminal Minds Xover, Part VI

Aug24

This began here with a meme; it takes part after Rix’s guest fic here (and click “next” for the second part.)
It continued here, here, here, and here.

There was a point in most cases where the pieces just fell into place, one after another after another.

They’d reached that point with this one, finally, and instead of the adrenaline surge he usually felt, Derek Morgan was feeling nothing but dread.

“I hate cases like this.”

“If she truly killed him in self-defense, then it’s unlikely that the Bureau or the local police will…” Spencer kept going. Derek tuned out.

This was worse than finding the killer who’d done so to save her own life. That sucked back enough. This was finding someone who’d had the wherewithal to kill a monster. And that could lead to any number of horrible places.

Where it led, this time, was to a convenience store surveillance camera, and from there to a local canvas. From there, they ended up talking to a very nice woman who started out with truth and then started lying.

The girl was Penny. Yes, she’d been visiting; she was a school friend of the woman’s daughter, Kath. Yes, she was back in school now, along with Kath.

And then a brick wall. They were in boarding school. They would be back for Christmas break. The woman didn’t even seem to notice that she wasn’t passing on other information, such as where the school was or had Penny had some trouble. She just kept politely answering questions that weren’t quite what they were asking.

Reid was getting frustrated. Hotch was getting angry. And Morgan could smell magic all over this case.

But before he needed to start fighting fire with fire, Penelope Garcia worked her own version of magic.

“Found ’em! Or, I should say, I found a shell. And I have to say, this is probably the most interesting shell I’ve ever found. I mean, there are students who have graduated with high honors from this… shell. And they’re going to places like Yale and Harvard. So, either they’re ghosts, their credentials are ghosts, or something very hinky is going on with this shell.”

Morgan wasn’t ready to rule out any of those possibilities.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/787290.html. You can comment here or there.

How Do You Know it Won’t Work

Aug24

For [personal profile] thebonesofferalletters‘ prompt, set in the Fae Apoc ‘verse.

“It doesn’t work like that, Esau.” Cinnabar looked out the window at her son and tried not to laugh. “I’m sorry, but it really doesn’t.”

“How do you know?” At nine years old, Esau had opinions on everything, and most of them ended or began with how do you know? “Have they researched how the genetics work for this sort of thing?”

“Well…” Cinnabar looked around. Her older three weren’t in earshot, the ones that were pledged to Addergoole. “The Director at Addergoole has done some research, at least through the last two generations.”

“Has she tried sympathetic links?”

“Well, there was the Bull-Dozer.” She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I don’t think any studies have been done on surrounding yourself with an animal to encourage a Change into that animal, genetics don’t work that way. Besides, Esau, where did you get all the red pandas?“

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/786991.html. You can comment here or there.

The Beast We Become

Aug22

To [personal profile] clare_dragonfly‘s prompt.
Set in Year 6 of the Addergoole School, about halfway through the year.

Aelgifu (Ayla) and Callista (as well as the mentioned others) are Addergoole characters.

“You can’t ignore it forever, you know.”

When Ioanna said it, she was gentle. Callista hadn’t gotten the feeling of being gentle yet, so it came out, like so much of what she said, rough and raspy and cutting right to the bone.

There was no question what Callista thought Aelgifu was ignoring. For one, she was waving at Ayla with all six arms. For another, they’d been talking about this on and off for the six months since they’d crewed up.

“I’m very good at Masking.” It wasn’t quite an answer, but she didn’t want to give an answer.

“Can’t Mask your brain, little jackalope.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Why not?” Callista leaned forward, mid-arms resting on her thighs. “I’m a spider, you’re a jackalope, your pretty girlfriend is a face-changer, and your brother is an antelope. It’s just the way things are.” Her smile twisted into something nasty and fierce. “And Ib is a demon.”

“Ib is a demon.” There was no argument there. “But a jackalope is a mythical creature.”

It was the wrong thing to say, and she knew it before she’d closed her mouth. Callista rattled out another laugh.

“Look around you, sweetheart. We’re all mythological here.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/786589.html. You can comment here or there.