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Doomsday Academy: First Day of Survival Class

Aug3

This is set in Cynara’s Doomsday Academy, several years after its founding. Kheper is a Year Nine Student.

Nine children were waiting in Cynara’s classroom. Nine Third-year students, twelve years old and fresh out of Ascha’s tender care.

Every year, Ascha said the same thing to her, don’t scare them, Aunt Cya.

And every year, Cya said back to her crewmate’s daughter, oh, come on, you know me.

Yes, I do. And they’d both laugh, and roll their eyes, and Cya would walk away wondering what, exactly, was so frightening about her.

Don’t scare them. She walked into the classroom and smiled at the children. “Hello, and welcome to Survival Level One.” She looked around at the children – bright-eyed kids, two years in and old hands at this whole school thing. “Over the next five years, I’m going to teach you how to survive in just about any circumstance.”

They shared looks amongst themselves. Cya could read in some faces all that in five years and in others that’s going to take five years?

She’d been teaching this class for five years. She’d gotten used to both reactions.

She smiled at all of them again. “Pull out paper and a pencil. We’re going to start with an exercise.” She’d done this with her kids. She’d done this with her grandkids. If the fates were kind, she’d probably be teaching this to her great-grandkids in a few years. “Imagine that you are, say, building a small town for thirty-five people. List everything that you will need for their survival.” She held up a hand. “There are no wrong answers, and I full expect that every one of you will have different answers.” She looked over their faces again. “You’ve all come from very different places, after all.”

And there, there was the thing Ascha kept warning Cya about. Fear.

Cya swallowed the sigh and made the smile a little wider and, she hoped, a little more reassuring. Nineteen-year-old Addergoole graduates were easy. Why were thirteen-year-old students so hard?

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/761679.html. You can comment here or there.

And a Bit More Reynard – a new story taking place in Fae Apoc/Addergoole ‘verse

Aug2

First: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/753621.html
Previous: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/758881.html

Reynard had, in his past, been in sticky situations. He’d earned his Name fairly – if humorously – and being caught in unfortunate circumstances had been a large part of earning that Name.

But he had not been, as far as he knew, in any situation quite as as uncomfortable, quite as strange, as this one. He tested his bonds again; the prick of thorns into his wrists reminded him quickly why he wasn’t doing that.

“They Named me Fox in the Henhouse.” He picked every word carefully – not as weapons, the way he did when he was on a hunt, but as shields. “My Mentor did.”

“VanderLinden.” The woman smirked at him. Reynard didn’t like that smile. “I remember how you earned it.”

He swallowed. “Ah?” He wiggled again, and, again, remembered why he wasn’t doing that.

She flicked her hand to the side, dismissing the train of thought. “So, how did you end up in a crate on my doorstep?”

“Ah.” He twitched again. “I…” He swallowed quietly. There had been a town, and some pretty girls, some pretty boys, and then…

Reynard shook his head, trying to clear it. “I pissed off the wrong people.”

“I guessed that.” She pulled a letter out of her pocket and read. “‘This statue is making a mess of my garden, but I know you go for this sort of thing.’ And then on the inside package, ‘there’s a fox making trouble in all my henhouses; do you have a fox coop?'”

“I wasn’t…” He swallowed. “I didn’t think I was making that much trouble…. Oh!” The memory forced its way to the front of his mind. “Damn. Ow.”

The woman slid into a chair and leaned her chin in her hands. “I’m listening.”

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/763771.html

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Doomsday Academy: First Day of School for First Years

Aug1

This is set in Cynara’s Doomsday Academy, several years after its founding. Ascha is a child of Magnolia, a Second Cohort Student.

“Hello, children.” Ascha stepped out from Cynara’s shadow and smiled at the gathered ten-year-olds and their very-nervous parents. “Hello parents. I’m Aceline Waterbridge, but you can call me Miss Ascha. I teach the First and Second Year students here at Doomsday Acedemy.”

She walked down from the low stage as she spoke, letting her skirt swish against the stairs. Soothing sounds, soothing thoughts. Her brother liked to tease her that she looked like a kindergarten teacher. Ascha had decided to take the concept to heart.

“The dormitory for this year’s first-year students is right this way. You’ll share a building with the second- and third-year children, and, of course, with me. My assistant, Ammon Donndubhán – you can call him Mr. Ammon – lives in the building as well. You’ll meet him in a few minutes.” She walked down the middle aisle, smiling at the parents, smiling at the children. “It’s going to be a fun year, and we’re going to learn quite a bit.” Calm. Reassuring. Generally, about half her students had never been inside a school before. Almost all of them had never been away from home for any length of time.

She shifted her tone, turning her words to the parents as they, not really realizing what they were doing, fell in behind her. “The students will stay in the same dorm for their first three or four years; after that, they’ll move up to dorms by Mentor until their seventh or eighth year. All of the housing is monitored by an adult, and it’s all well within the school walls.” She pitched her voice up a bit. “You can see the Dining Hall to my left here; there are covered walkways for the summer and,” she dropped her voice into a melodramatic stage whisper, “tunnels for the winter.”

She turned to catch the expressions on her new students’ faces and grinned. It was always the most fun when she could get them to play along.

“And here…” she continued, “this will be your new home.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/760827.html. You can comment here or there.

Doomsday Academy; First Day of Law Class

Jul30

This is set in Cynara’s Doomsday Academy, several years after its founding. Kheper is a Year Nine Student.

Professor Kheper Agislaw strode into his Year Five Law class and posed.

He didn’t exactly think of it as posing, but he stood just inside the doorway, looking over the seven students who were fresh to the grown-up classes and, thus, fresh and new to him.

Four girls, three boys. The boys looked younger, impatient; the girls – most of them – looked solid and serious. At this age – they would be fourteen, plus or minus a few months – most of his students fit that pattern.

And they were all looking at him, even the most impatient boy. Kheper knew he was striking. He’d been striking since he hit puberty, and he’d had decades to polish the look.

Vain, Cya teased him, and he was fine with that.

This wasn’t Cya’s time, and this wasn’t time for vanity. He finished his walk into the classroom, his best smile touching his lips.

“Welcome to Introduction to Law. I am Professor Agislaw, and I will be your Law Professor for the next four years.” He waited for the predictable giggles to die down, counted to three, and reached behind him.

The first book thumped down on his desk with a meaty sound. One of the boys squeaked.

“This.” He gestured, indulging in his flair for the melodramatic. “Is the book of law for the city – it’s more of a town, really – of West Sands, in what was once Nevada.”

The next set thumped down, four books, each of them bigger than the single West Sands book. “These are the laws – the greater portion of the laws – of the Restored United States of America, on the east coast, in what was once mostly Virginia.”

He had their attention. He thumped down the much smaller book. Of course, she hadn’t had that many years to accumulate laws yet. “This is the legislation of Cynapolis, the city in which you are currently sitting.”

Pause. Pause.

The pamphlet hardly made a sound. “And this is the sum total of the Law of the Ellehemaei, which will occupy the vast majority of our time for the next four years.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/759111.html. You can comment here or there.

A little more Reynard – a new story taking place in Fae Apoc/Addergoole ‘verse

Jul30

Introduction here

Reynard swallowed hard. “Ah…?”

The woman ignored his question, as was her right. “What’s your name?” She was pulling a pair of leather gloves from her back pocket and sliding them on. He found her fingers facinating. Of course, she currently held his life in them. That was understandably interesting.

Reynard knew this answer. “Whatever you wish it to be, mistress.”

She made a noise like a laugh, and he found himself looking to her face. It wasn’t beautiful, he thought, but she still took his breath away. Pointed chin, high cheekbones, and a mass of dark hair, all of it framing the most sardonic smile Reynard had ever seen. “Somebody taught you your lines. Was it recently, before they put you in the box? Or was it back before?”

Box? He tried to look around, and found that, while moving his head was surprisingly painful, it was, in actuality, possible.

He saw a room, bare of almost everything except a big chalkboard and three big windows – the view was of a wheatfield, and behind that a stone wall. He saw the woman, and a small table, full of tools that made his heart drop out of his chest. And he saw the remains of a crate, if his guess was any good, most of it to the left of him.

Box? He looked up at the woman, whose expression suggested that, while she was waiting patiently, she wasn’t going to be patient about things much longer.

She wanted his name. And she wanted to know who had trained him.

“I pay attention, mistress.” With luck, that would be enough. “And, ah, they called me Reynard, when I was free.”

“Reynard.” She took one of his ears – fox ears, of course, or his name would have simply been ridiculous, and his Name as well. “I remember you. They called you Fox in the Henhouse.”

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/761398.html

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Reynard, Introduction – a new story taking place in Fae Apoc/Addergoole ‘verse

Jul19

Reynard woke to the point of a blade.

It was pointing, very, ah, pointedly, right between his eyes, and it was very clearly wood. He found it held his attention very… sharply.

The blade moved, although not in a way that he found at all comforting; it shifted from eye-crossingly close to his nose to ball-tighteningly close to his throat.

“The next word out of your mouth….” The voice warred for his attention with the blade. It was what had been called a whisky voice, throaty and husky. Definitely female, though. “…had better be yes.”

Reynard swallowed, forcing his throat against the blade. Bad idea. He shifted – tried to shift. Something pricked into his wrists, which were, it appeared, tied behind his back.

Ah, it was all coming back to him. Yes, she had him in a very… tight… position.

“You Belong to me.”

Yes, yes, that had been what he’d thought she’d say. He swallowed, reminding himself forcefully of the blade at his throat. “Yes.”

He waited for the air pop, for the feeling of falling. It didn’t come.

Still, the blade stopped poking him. He tried, hard, to bring his vision into focus.

She was putting the blade away. She was sheathing the blade, on her belt. That might be important later. Reynard swallowed. “Ah…?”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/753621.html. You can comment here or there.

Moon Landing – Addergoole-Style

Jul18

Today’s news covered the 45th Anniversary of the Moon Landing, which, in my Addergoole-centric way, made me realize it’s been five years since I wrote the Addergoole story of the Moon Landing.

If You Believed…, titled from the R.E.M. lyrics, is set in Addergoole, 25 years after the moon Landing.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/752456.html. You can comment here or there.

Orientation

Jun27

First: So, Who Are You?.
Previous: Bridge…

“Still here.” Sedge was still smiling, even if he was complaining.

“I know. But we’re leaving.” Niobe gave Blaecleah’s hand another squeeze. “Come on, kiddo.”

“Kiddo?”

“Probably not the best nickname, sorry. Come on, Blaecleah.”

“I could…”

“Later, Sedge. You’ve given me something to think about, and so right now, I’m going to think about this lovely gift.” She moved from an amble to a swift walk; Blaecleah had no trouble keeping up, at least.

“Where are we… oh. Your room, right?” He swallowed. “Can I talk?”

“You’re talking, aren’t you?”

“Um, yeah, but you didn’t say I could.”

“More importantly at the moment, I didn’t say you couldn’t. Yes. Yes, you can talk. And yes, we’re going to my room.”

“Thanks. I – I’ve never done this before.”

“I’d be surprised if you had. You can’t be Kept before you’re an adult, except here, and here is… weird.”

“Here is weird.” That was something they could agree on, that was for sure.

She paused – halfway down the stairs. Blaecleah stumbled but managed to catch himself before he jerked on her arm. “Why did you agree to the collar, Blaecleah?”

He swallowed. “It was kind of dumb.”

“I’m not saying it wasn’t. But why?”

“He said I was soft. That I wouldn’t survive here.”

“Aah.” She started walking again. “That makes sense.”

“It does?” He hurried to catch up, feeling the way she was holding his hand like a leash – oh, dead gods, leashes…

“I’d have done the same thing. Pride gets people into messes sense would never allow – and now I’m quoting one of my mothers, look what you’ve done.”

“I’m, ah, sorry?” He coughed. One of my mothers? Damn, he didn’t have any, and she had more than one?

“Don’t be. I mean.” She stopped again. At least this time they were on a level surface. “That wasn’t an order.”

“Hunh? Oh. Oh! Can you… can you do that?”

“Yeah. She closed her eyes for a minute. “I can do almost anything I want to you, kid, and the almost is because we’re here.”

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This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/742949.html. You can comment here or there.

Kicking out unwelcome guests

Jun25

This is a continuation of Unwelcome Guests, Part the Third for my “More Please” tag.

The girls knew what to do. They had fought to defend their property – their home – before. Hell, they had been fighters long before they met Baram.

The trees knew what to do, but Baram didn’t think too hard about that. He let them grab the woman in the lead, while he went for the guy that was probably their tank. Shit, shit, the second bitch was a fireball-thrower; he moved the tank between him and the thin, ashen girl and kept hitting.

It was a quick fight, Jaelie and Via hitting from the walls, shooting rowan bullets and hawthorn arrows, the trees doing their share of damage, and Baram in the middle of the fight like some sort of bull in a china shop.

The bikers were fae, but they weren’t organized, and they weren’t all that good at being fae – except the ashen one he’d thought was a bitch, the fireball thrower. Baram took her down hard, broke her jaw and pinned her wrists with a hawthorn arrow.

By then, the tree had the leader and her probably-second-in-command, and everyone else except her maybe-a-seer-boy were down. He looked between the three of them, then decided sitting down with his hands on his neck was a good idea.

Baram grunted. “You okay?”

“We’re fine, boss. They’re not all that good at this.”

“No teamwork.” He toed the fireball-thrower. “This one’s interesting, though.”

“So’s the boy.”

“We’re not keeping them.”

“He might be useful.”

“Another… shit, he fainted. Okay.” He walked over to the tree and poked the leader in the stomach. Her eyes and stomach were about all that was visible… that had to hurt. “You.”

She grunted incoherently. Baram poked her again.

“You take your people and you leave. We’re keeping one – or two -”

“-as the fee for having the stupid gall to attack us,” Jaelie filled in.

The tank, who wasn’t quite dead, it seemed, spoke up. “What about our target?”

“Never here.” Baram added a kick to punctuate it. “Got it?”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/741304.html. You can comment here or there.

Bridge…

Jun23

First: So, Who Are You?.
Previous: Baking Out & Walking In

“For the rest of the school year, Blaecleah, you belong to Niobe cy’Fridmar sh’Aelfgifu.”

“For the rest of the school year, Blaecleah, you Belong to me.” It was like déjà vu, except the rising panic in his chest. Blaecleah nodded, finding that his throat was too tight for him to speak. Niobe looked down at him, a frown creasing her lips. What had he done? “Come with me. Stand up and come with me. Here.” She held out her hand.

Blaecleah stared at the hand for a moment. What was he… oh. He set his hand on top of hers, very carefully, in case that wasn’t the right thing to do.

She clasped his hand, so either it was the right thing, or she was willing to let it pass. Tension slid off of Blacleah’s shoulders. Okay, he’d done something right. Step one.

“We’re going to go to my room. Has Sedge explained anything at all to you?”

“…no?” Was that the right answer?

“I didn’t have all that much time, ‘Obe,” Sedge protested. “I just got him, and then I brought him to you.”

“I know, I know. For your deal. Okay, Sedge, we’ll talk later. Start shopping around, see what you want, all right?”

Shopping… Blaecleah shivered. Right. For a girl, or, theoretically, a guy. Like he’d shopped around for Blaecleah.

“Easy.” Niobe gave his hand a squeeze. “It’s not fun, the first couple days, but it gets easier.”

“I don’t need easy. It’s just new.”

“I know, I know.” She reached over with her free hand to pat him on the shoulder. She was, he realized, not really all that tall, if you discounted the horns. “But there’s no reason for me to make it hard on you, just because Sedge was being… ridiculous.”

“Did he really talk me into a collar just to get you in bed?”

“This is Addergoole, kid. Stranger things have been known to happen.”

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Next: Orientation

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