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Jan12

To [personal profile] rix_scaedu‘s prompt for here, my [community profile] dailyprompt prompt “doomed from the start.

Luke and Doug are characters from Addergoole, which in addition to the two webserials, has a landing page here.

Context for those not familiar with the universe: “Addergoole” is an underground boarding school for fae children in a dystopic modern-fantasy setting.

This is set in about year Nineteen of the Addergoole school; the war began at the end of Year Seventeen (2011) when the Departed Gods returned. There is a war on, a war that gives the overarching setting the name “Fae Apoc.”

Luke is the head of security (and PE teacher) for the school; Doug is his son, co-security, and combat teacher.

“Don’t they know there’s a war on?”

Doug’s father was irritable.

Doug’s father was always, as long as Doug could remember, irritable – angry, cranky, grumpy. Only one person in the world had succesfully noticed that the reason Doug seemed so grumpy all the time was at least fifty percent a flat imitation of his father (two people, but really, his mother didn’t count).

This was different. It had begun around year sixteen, and had just gotten worse over the last three years. Too many former cy’Luke had died in the war. Too many old friends of both of theirs, too, and too many students all around.

And now there was a team of nedetakai or returned gods attempting to slip through the eastern wards. They were slick, sure, but they were still trying to sneak around some of the best wards in the world – for no reason, as far as their intel could determine, except that the ward was there, and shiny.

Luke had his swords out, steel and rowan. He had his wings unfurled, and an expression on his face that Doug had rarely seen. He took to the air with a wordless snarl.

Doug took to the road by Harley. The look on his father’s face… he almost felt bad for the intruders.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/635124.html. You can comment here or there.

Bribery

Jan7

This is to [personal profile] clare_dragonfly‘s prompt to my December Origfic Bingo Card.

Addergoole has a landing page here. These are new characters… probably.

“I am not above bribery. I am not above blackmail, either, and you know I can come up with blackmail on you after what I’ve seen.”

His voice didn’t exactly quaver as he answered. He wasn’t quite sure, yet, if she was serious. “Blackmail? There’s nothing I’m that ashamed of.”

“What about…” even here, they could be overheard. She dropped her voice down to a whisper and murmured in his ear. It wasn’t a perfect precaution – nothing was, in Addergoole – but it was something.

His cheeks flushed. “You…” This time his voice broke. “You said something about bribery?”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/631474.html. You can comment here or there.

Unwelcome Guests – a story of Baram’s House Elves/Addergoole for the Giraffe Bingo Call Card

Jan4

To [personal profile] clare_dragonfly‘s prompt to my Orig_fic Bingo card; this fills the “Unwelcome Guest” square.

Baram and his family are part of the “Baram’s House Elves” sub-series of the Addergoole ‘verse, which can be found here; Baram is also a background character in Addergoole.

There wasn’t so much a war anymore, as far as they could tell.

They didn’t get any TV anymore, local or cable or anything else. The radio they heard these days was sporadic at best, and there would be weeks where there wasn’t anything at all.

But they hadn’t seen a returned god in several months, they hadn’t seen an army soldier in the last month, and they hadn’t seen another Ellehemaei in a couple weeks. They had gotten a couple human refugees – they were a standing house with a standing wall and hedge, burning lights and smoke in the chimney – but the girls fed and equipped them and sent them on their way, if they were over eighteen, and added them to the child collection, otherwise.

Baram liked it that way. He liked the quiet, and he’d found that he didn’t mind all the kids around. Liked them, actually, if he was going to be honest… and he had space in his head to be honest, now.

(Which might have been because of the children, actually, something else he said only in his own head.)

There wasn’t so much of a war anymore… but there wans’t so much of a world anymore, either. That bothered the girls, Baram’s angels, and it bothered the children, but it didn’t really bug Baram all that much. He had his family, he had his house, and nobody bothered them here.

“Boss! Someone’s at the door!” Alkyone’s voice echoed through the house. “Trouble, I think.”

“Trouble.” Baram liked his armchair. It was soft, and comfortable, and normal. But he levered himself out of it before he was finished saying Trouble? “Kids?”

“Got ’em.” Viatrix slapped the Swish-boy on the ass. “Aloysius, get the kids and take them down to the safe room.”

“Yes ma’am.” Jaelie’s boy did have some use, at least in a pinch.

“Sword.” It wasn’t the first time they’d had unwanted guests. Baram took the sword from Viatrix’s hand. “Jacket.” He shrugged it on. He was tough, all the way through, but there were things, they’d found, for which it didn’t hurt to have an extra level of protection. “Stake.” They weren’t vampire hunters… but they’d hunted vampires. “Okay. Door.”

Via swung the door open… and Baram shifted the sword into a guard position.

“Oh, come on, is that any way to greet an old classmate?” Ardell and Delaney stood on his stoop, leaning on each other’s shoulders and looking like they’d stepped out of a leather magazine.

Barm shifted his feet a bit further apart. “Yes.”

Continued: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/675139.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/628825.html. You can comment here or there.

Zzzzap

Dec27

To Raka Metz’s request on Facebook in response to my December Drabbles call.

Mid-Year 6 of the Addergoole School

“No! No, I’m not going to… let go of me!” A flash of lightning ripped through the hallway; the lights flickered and burnt out, leaving only the dim “Hell Night” red emergency lights.

“I think you should leave him alone.” The lights flickered but did not turn back on, as a second voice – one that bore a strong resemblance to the first – chimed in.

“She might seem nice now, but she’s not stable, and it’s not a healthy situation.” The third speaker released his quarry, however, and stepped back until he was silhouetted against one of the red lights. “Rory, I’m just saying…”

“Do you think I don’t know all that?” The boy – Rory – backed up another few steps. “What’s more, do you think it matters? Really? Of course she’s unstable. Wouldn’t you be, after what she went through?”

“I’m just trying to help…”

“Don’t.” This time, the two boys standing there spoke at the same time.

A third voice chimed in, right on their heels – feminine, but sounding much the same. “I’d listen to what they said.”

The upperclassman sighed. “I don’t want to see anyone get hurt.”

The lightning flashed from three sets of fingers. “Maybe you ought to back off, then.”

“Backing off… but I’d fix those lights before Luke gets here.” With a much-put-upon sound, the upperclassman – Nikolai – took his leave. If the Aelfgar-get wanted to stay in bad situations, he wasn’t going to take on a whole family of electrical madmen to help them.

Rory muttered up a light and stared at the two other Sixth Cohorts. “Thanks. Now, um…”

“Um, indeed.” Arnbjorg looked up at the lights overhead and muttered a Working. “I think you just blew a fuse.”

“Just?”

“It could be a lot worse…” she glanced at the third of them, their half-brother (or at least they all assumed.) Leo was staring at the light fixture, grinning. “Right. So, if it’s a fuse, we just need to Idu our way to a fuse box and hope we beat Luke there.”

“Too late.” On the plus side, at least the gym teacher sounded amused.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/622354.html. You can comment here or there.

December Drabble – So You Knew

Dec26

Posted here – http://www.addergoole.com/9/2013/12/december-drabble-so-you-knew/

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/622149.html. You can comment here or there.

About That…

Dec25

This story is in response to Guesty’s request for “more sexy/romantic Fridmar” in my December Drabbles post here (and here).

It follows directly after Fridmar and Love and And Then There’s You.

Damn the Daeva, but it didn’t let go once it had something in its teeth. Agmund had, in the end, had to make promises to get Mikhaíl to leave.

As if Agmund was the only one who needed in his life some companionship. As if Mikhaíl was not staring woefully like a dog who could not have its bone. But no, it was into Agmund’s life that there would be meddling.

He had made the promises he had to, to get Mikhaíl to stop… being so very Mikhaíl all over his office. And now he was sitting in that same office, wondering how one could not be awkward about such things. How had Doug handled it? Indeed, how had any of them handled it? Agmund knew things about his fellow teachers that he did not think they knew anyone knew.

“You wanted to see me, Professor Fridmar?” Fairuza flopped into the chair with insouciant grace.

“I did say when time allowed.” You couldn’t very well call a student to the office for this.

“Yeah? Well, time allowed.” She smirked at him. Unafraid. Agmund liked that about her. “You have something on your mind?” She shifted into Farsi. “Is there something your Student can do for you, Professor?”

“The name is Agmund, please.” He managed to find his voice, although it took more effort than it should have. “It’s your fourth year here at Addergoole.”

She leaned forward, both feet on the floor now and suddenly not nearly as casual. “I didn’t know you had a first name, Professor. Agmund. Or is that your Name?”

“It’s the name I was given.” He tilted his head at her. “Do you not wish to call me by it?”

“It sounds serious, if we’re doing first names. You’re not usually this serious.” She tried a smile. It only made it as far as her lips. “If you’re here to yell at me about not having a second kid yet, Professor, you can save your breath. I’ve got a few months. I’ll figure it out.”

Agmund cleared his throat. “Actually…”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/620966.html. You can comment here or there.

Jasfe Unutu, a story bit of Fae Apoc

Dec24

Inspired by these pictures

Given their options after school, hiking through the wilderness that had once been suburbia had seemed like a good idea to the Goldilocks Crew. They didn’t often run into people, and, while there wasn’t much food left, a decade after the apocalypse, sometimes there were useful tools.

Well, useful to someone who had Repair and Worked Objects as their best words, which was Nadette; Orsa could use the words and Beirne was okay with them. But Beirne could find clean water or clean it for them, and Orsa could make food happen anywhere. They made a good team, and not just because they were the Three Bears.

They’d been picking their way through abandoned houses and creepy forests for five months when they came across the hotel; they hadn’t made it very far south, winter was coming, and they wanted a place to bring their kids home to.

And the hotel was a mess. More than a mess, a straight-up disaster.

“This has to have been empty longer than just since the war.” Beirne poked at the moss growing on a mattress. “The houses we’ve seen…”

“Some of them were nearly this bad.” Orsa ran her hand over a broken window. “But there’s graffiti here. I imagine this was empty for a while before things went to shit.”

Things went to shit was the way they phrased it, usually. It seemed less terminal than when the world ended, and, after all, they were still here. Things had only ended so much.

“The roof’s still sound.” Nadette had been muttering Idu Unutu Workings under her breath, Knowing the structure of the building. “And it’s got a well, so there could be water if we can figure out the plumbing.”

“‘Dette, there’s moss on the beds.”

“Abatu Huamu.” Orsa gestured over the bed, and the plant life was gone. “Abatu Huamu mikróvia. That ought to take care of any bacteria.”

“It’s still a saggy mess with saggy wallpaper and a hole in the floor.” Beirne didn’t sound as doubtful as perhaps he ought to, given the circumstances.

“Jasfe Unutu kreváti, Jasfe unutu sanidó.” Nadette shifted as the floor planks knitted themselves back together under her feet. “The walls are sound.”

Beirne looked between the two of them. Finally, he sighed. “Jasfe Unutu paráthyro.” He gestured at the window, and it was whole again. “All right. This can be our cottage.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/620002.html. You can comment here or there.

Linden-Flower Tea

Dec18

This came about because of a box of tea my roommate just showed me. 😉
It helps to know that Mike is Mike VanderLinden, whose original use-name is Linden-Flower.
Shira is Professor Pelletier; Maureen is Lady Maureen Foxglove. All three are staff at Addergoole.

It had started as a dirty joke between Shira and Maureen, shared over their third or fourth beer one late night in Mau’s Tavern.

“Well,” Shira had been laughing, “if all else fails, there’s Linden Flower tea for what ails you.”

“Unless it’s lindens that ail you, of course.” Maureen had smirked over her beer and they had moved on to more tree metaphors.

Shira had forgotten the whole thing until Christmastime, when a box of linden-flower tea had shown up under her tree. Once that had been done, though, the gauntlet had been thrown and it was on.

Linden scented oil. Linden sachets. Little linden-leaf-embroidered towels. “Good for what ails you.”

“Unless the lindens are ailing you.” Not that Mike was ever what actually ailed them, Maureen and Shira. They had their weaknesses, neither would deny it, but vain and vapid Daeva were not on either’s list.

After a while, it creeped into Shira’s everyday vocabulary. She had a student who was having some issues with body image, and, in speaking to Caitrin, suggested the boy might want some linden-flower tea for what ailed him. Another year, she suggested it to Laurel, when she and Wysteria were having a falling-out in their invisible relationship. Once, she even said it to a student.

“I don’t know. It’s just the whole idea is a little nerve-wracking. I get all the urges, but then I start getting scared and over-thinking everything…”

“Have you considered some linden-flower tea?” In Shira’s defense, it had been a long week. She covered it quickly, segueing into something else before coming back to the suggestion more directly.

But in all those years, it never occurred to her – and possibly not to Maureen, either – that the target of their joke was aware of it.

Until she found a box of tea under her tree again that Christmas, with a note attached:

Don’t bother with the infusion, come straight to the solution. ~M~

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/618267.html. You can comment here or there.

Lost in Translation, Orig-Fic, Addergoole

Dec17

To Rix_Scaedu‘s prompt to my orig-fic card. This fills, perhaps unsurprisingly, the Lost in Translation square.

Summer, Between Years 9 & 10 of the Addergoole School

“You’d think this would be easy.” Shira Pelletier stared at the document in front of her.

“No.” Feu Drake shook his head. “No. Some might think this is easy, but I would not be one of them again.”

“You’re doing it again.” She glanced up at him, not yet irritated but willing to sound it.

“Of course I am ‘doing it again.’ I am not certain you would ever be reasonable to expect something else of me, j-“

“If the next sound out of your mouth is a jae, you’re doing this on your own, Drake.” Now, now she was becoming actually irate.

“You are rather younger than I am.” He managed to make the statement of fact sound like a reproach. Shira was un-reproached.

“And does that mean that I am your junior?”

She caught the faintest twitch that meant she’d either amused the man or caught him by surprise. “You posit a curious question… Shira.”

“See? I knew you could use my use-name if you tried hard enough.” She allowed herself to be mollified, because if she kept this up much longer, it would no longer be sparring and be something far more like flirtation. (Maybe. With Feu Drake, it was hard to tell even when he was naked. Clothed and poring over ancient papers, there was almost no option short of a Working to get a certain answer). “This part of this piece makes no sense.”

“Are you sure it’s not you?”

“I am certain it’s not me, Feu Drake.” She pushed the sheet over to him – a piece of gold pressed thin as paper and inlaid with the ancient script of Old Tongue, Idu a’Iduþin. “This part here, the prophecy. ‘The mother who cares not?'”

Drake frowned. “‘The mother who…’ yes, ‘who gives no caring for her children but simply births them as the mice do.’ An odd way to phrase that.”

As the mice do. Shira sighed. “Oh. Well, it can’t be one of ours, can it?”

“I don’t see why not. Addergoole was prophesied in at least three different texts.”

Shira looked back at the words. “‘Shall…’ but something is missing, isn’t it?”

“Lost.” Drake picked up a leather-bound book and passed it to Shira. “But here’s a Greek translation. You think it’s one of your Students?”

As the mice do. “Let’s just say, I’m hoping it’s a mistake of translation.”

“jae” is a diminutive honorific; the prefix for those who outrank you is sa’, and for equals you simply skip the honorific.

Shira Pelletier and Feu Drake are professors in the Addergoole School.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/617966.html. You can comment here or there.