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Strong Enough?

Oct3

“I’m telling you, man, she’s something else. She’s in here like she’s on the prowl, on the huuunt.” Ted drew the word out like he was tasting it. “When’s the last time you saw a chick in here like that?”

“Well, a),” Rick ticked off on a finger, “we haven’t seen her yet, and 2), I haven’t seen a chick in here at all, except Patty the bartender, since Donnie’s wife came in after him. This is a sports bar, bro, and there’s nothing here but a giant sausage fest.”

“And beer.” Donnie demonstrated by slinging his beer back in one giant swig. “And my good friends Jack and Johnny. Think you’ve had too much to drink, Teddy boy.”

“What about you?” The whisky contralto snuck up on them, the sort of voice that tightened their pants and sped up their heart rates. “Are you strong enough?”

To a man, the Tuesday poker club turned to look. She was leaning over some poor slob at the bar, Craig, wasn’t it, the one whose wife had vanished. She wasn’t dressed sexy – white button-down and blue jeans – but she made it sexy anyway, made it deathly hot. “Are you?”

Craig belched blearily at her. “Babe, I’m strong enough for whatever you want.”

“I don’t think you are.” She straightened up, giving them all a glance of her white lace bra. Her eyes landed on Rick. “What about you, sweetheart? Are you strong enough?”

Rick had learned a thing or two from his older sisters. He met her gaze and held it, never mind how the jeans were hugging every inch of her thighs like he’d like to, never mind the white lace bra. “Miss, if you put a challenge before me, I’ll do my best to meet it.”

“Well then.” Teddy was right. Her smile was predatory. “Maybe you will be enough.”

My Dungeon & Cave Call is open!

We all know where this is going, but if you want to see more, drop a tip in, ah, the tip handcuffs:

This story written to @dahob’s prompt.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/821122.html. You can comment here or there.

A Rescue, of Sorts (A story for the Caves-and-Dungeons #Promptcall)

Oct3

He would never admit it if you asked, but Daxton found something relaxing about being chained up in the Red Queen’s dungeon. There was regular, if boring, food, a nice hour of full sunlight every day, and the expectations were amazingly simple: all he had to to was continue to say “no” to the Red Queen, which wasn’t as hard as she’d like to think it was, and the food would keep coming and the bucket-of-tepid-water-baths would keep him from stinking too bad for her royal nose.

It wasn’t an ideal situation, of course, but Daxton had found that there were few situations in life that were ideal. Farmers were at the whim of the weather and the magic storms. Merchants were at the whim of their supply and the demand. Daxton was either at the whim of his Ducal father, or he was at the whim of the Red Queen.

The Red Queen had informed Daxton that his father had hired mercenaries to rescue him, and had then, rather cheerfully, told him every time they failed. Daxton had been Outraged Of Course and secretly a little bit relieved. It was thus with some dismay that he found his early-afternoon sunbath being interrupted by a few very quiet thuds from outside his cell door.

He sat up, because it wouldn’t do to be rescued looking like he wanted to be here, but kept his legs in the sunbeam. The stone walls were cold, and he liked the warmth.

In a surprisingly short time, the door to his cell swung open. A merc – the light leather armor was good-quality but not government-issue and almost hid the fact that she was, under it all, probably a woman – slipped through, closing the door almost all the way behind her.

A woman. Well, that explained one of the things the Red Queen had been joking about. And his father did, after all, have other sons. “I’m very grateful for your rescue-“

A gloved hand slapped over Daxton’s mouth before he could get to the but. “Speeches later. Unchaining and running now.”

My Dungeon & Cave Call is open!

If you want more of this story – and there is more dying to be written – drop a tip in, ah, the tip handcuffs:

This story written to [personal profile] ysabetwordsmith‘s prompt.

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/824624.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/820052.html. You can comment here or there.

The Ship that Visited, a story for the Giraffe Call

Oct2

To [personal profile] rix_scaedu‘s prompt.

When the space ship hovered over Earth, everyone feared the worst.

We’d all seen the movies, so many movies about alien invasion. War of the Worlds. Independence Day. Signs. The list went on. They were doing to alien-a-form our planet. They were going to enslave all of us and kill the ones that couldn’t work. They were going to eat us.

When the ship just – stayed there, people started to wonder. The best linguists and the small-stipend-retrainer xeno-specialists started working on communication. Planes circled the ship, trying to find an entrance. The subject of bombing was debated endlessly. Meanwhile, the ship – stayed there, doing nothing.

The scientists went over it with every instrument they could come up with. There was some exhaust, mostly water vapor, but the ship wasn’t sending out radio waves, x-rays, infared – anything. It was just sitting there.

We’d almost started to get used to it. We’d gone back to farming – those of us who farmed – to office crunching – those who worked in offices – to vacations and TV watching and whatever our lives had been like BS, Before Ship. We just didn’t look up, if we lived in the northern hemisphere, or, if we did, we didn’t look too far up.

And then, five months to the day after the ship had appeared, we all heard the noise. It was something like a squeak of a gate, but much louder, and something like the squeal of tires, but lower-pitched. And in the bottom of the ship, ten circles opened up and beams of – oh, I don’t know. Not sure anyone knows, to this day. But we called it steam and it felt like fog, like very thick fog.

Beams of this stuff began sweeping the hemisphere, one three-foot-wide swath at a time. And when they passed by, things had… changed.

My goats were walking on two feet (but only some of them) and I’d found myself with hooves. Cattle farmer down the road had the same problem, and the horse farmer across the street doesn’t really talk right anymore.

Anywhere there were animals, some of them turned out to be a bit anthropomorphised. And anywhere there was humans – everywhere – some of them turned out a bit more animal.

The way I figure it, the aliens had been spending all this time trying to figure out what we wanted – and they’d been doing it by watching anime.


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This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/817964.html. You can comment here or there.

The Manticore

Sep30

She lived in the center of the Rebuilt City, in an apartment high in a tower that had once held offices. Although the city was called Rebuilt, the place where she lived was still more ruin than reconstruction, and few people ventured that deep into the former metropolis.

She was not often seen, not by people who reported back to others, of course, but there were rumors of her from time to time. Sometimes, adventurous people did not bother her, and thus could sight her and leave without danger. Other times they simply escaped.

She could fly, some said. She could run faster than any human ought, others whispered. She could rend flesh effortlessly, with claws or teeth: they showed the proof of that, sometimes, in wounds that festered and rotted. She could poison you with a flick of her tail.

And yet they also said she was a beautiful girl, a young woman who looked small and vulnerable, who would be found sunning herself high on a balcony, overlooking the ruins.

They said she ate people – those who escaped, those who had never been there. They said she devoured them whole, unhinging her jaw like a snake. They said she was a monster. And it was true that those who vanished into her territory were never heard from again, nor were any signs ever seen – not hide nor hair nor clothes nor weapons.

They called her the manticore. And they either loved her or feared her, but none knew her true.

Written to [personal profile] anke‘s prompt

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This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/816857.html. You can comment here or there.

Hard Hat and Easy Choices, a ficlet for the Genderfunk call

Sep30

Written to [personal profile] clare_dragonfly‘s Prompt to my gender-funk call. More gender than funk, but still fun

“Excuse me, Miss, you can’t – Oh. Oh, excuse me.” He wasn’t really recognizing her; he wasn’t even reading the name on her pass. He was just looking at the green bar across the top of it that meant “money.”

“No worries. Here.” Andy fit the hard hat – custom-made and screaming of “money” as much as her pass did – over her ringlets. “The boots are steel-toed and, yes, I can climb in these jeans.”

“I’m sorry, Miss, Ma’am, it’s just…”

“I know.” She air-patted near the man’s shoulder. It wasn’t kind, she supposed, but she’d run into this enough times that it had gone from amusing to just tiresome and back again. “Look, I’m Andonia Carter, and this is my building. I just need to get up to the third row of balconies, all right?”

He looked flummoxed. They always did. She’d found if she was going to do this job, it was the only way to get what she wanted without sacrificing anything she didn’t want to lose.

“Ma’am, Miz Carter, you can go right up. I’m sorry, it’s just…”

“It’s always just.” She patted her ringlets, just to hammer home the point, and swung into the construction elevator. She’d have to go through it again tomorrow, probably – but eventually, word would get around.

It would have been easier to just dress like they did… but then she’d never make an impression at all.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/816428.html. You can comment here or there.

Hallowe’en’s Past, a ficlet

Sep23

To [personal profile] finch‘s prompt. No setting, AFAIK.

“Dana…” Kelly stopped in the doorway of their apartment and looked Dana up and down. “You know, Hallowe’en’s been over for a week. You can stop dressing up.”

“This isn’t… this isn’t really a costume.” Dana plucked at the shirt and tie. “I mean, I, ah. I cut my hair for Hallowe’en, but if I’d really just been dressing up, I could’ve just put it under the hat, right?”

“Well, I figured you were sick of fighting with it, and it was a good excuse, if you didn’t want to be fighting with Aaron instead of fighting with your hair. Right?” Kelly bit her lip. “But this is – well, I mean, it’s cross-dressing, isn’t it? I know Aaron’s a jerk…”

“He is.” Dana leaned against the wall, sticking out a complete lack of chest under her silk button-down. But this isn’t about him. This is – this is just about me.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/814267.html. You can comment here or there.

Under the Sea, a story for the Giraffe Call

Sep17

To [personal profile] alexseanchai‘s prompt

When the war came, she went, not to ground, as so many of her friends and cousins did, but to water, to the sea.

The bombs were falling all around, but she slipped on her seal skin and slid under the water, down where the Leviathan still remembered her, down where her other family, her seal family, still lived. She found the little place she had built, so long ago, where those like her – and those like dolphins and true seals, merfolk and otters – could breathe safe air, deep under the ocean and yet dry and homey. The humans were clever, but none smart enough to find this place.

It was not the first time she had gone to see, and it would likely not be her last. She was, if not eternal, near unto it, and she did not like war at all.

There she stayed, with otters and selkies, seals and merfolk, under the water, while above the rockets fell and the cities burned. They were clever folk, humans, clever at destruction, clever at building it all up to destroy it again. But she was more clever, and she had her refuge from all their brilliant ideas.

The years past, under the sea. Otters and seals, dolphins and merfolk kept her company. The true animals grew old, and died, no matter the magic she used, but the merfolk and the selkies, the naiads and the kelp-dryads, they stayed the same, as she did. Above the sea, the war raged on, and stopped, raged again, and stopped. The humans were clever, and eventually they found peace. Still she waited.

It was safe, under the sea, never too cold and never too warm. It was peaceful under the sea, no war and no armistice, no fighting and no treaties. But the humans were clever and the merfolk and selkies were eternal – but they were not, as things went, so clever.

The humans were clever. And no matter how long she was gone, there was always someone waiting, when she slipped onto the beach. There was always someone who remembered how to steal her skin.

As she pretended to fight against the farmer who had “captured” her, the selkie found herself smiling. It was safe, under the sea. But on the ground things were interesting.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/811835.html. You can comment here or there.

The Haircut – Patreon

Sep15

“Are you sure?” Cyan ran shaking hands through the new hair-cut. It was short, shorter than Cy had ever dared before, but just long enough, or so Mary assured, that it could be made girly when the urge or the need arose.

“Cy, with your folks, nobody can ever be sure of anything. But, in a normal world, yes. If they’re being stupid, you can show them how it curls up so cutely when you want it to. And if they’re not, you can slick it back and do the manly thing when you want to. Days you’re feeling middle-of-the-road, the curls are easy to tame down once you get out of the house.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

“Look, everything will be easier when you can get out of the house – but this, this is hair. It doesn’t have to be hard or anything.” Mary fluffed the back of Cy’s hair. “This should be fine.”

“Psst.”

Cyan and Mary both ignored the voice coming from the alley. It didn’t do to talk to strangers, not in this neighborhood.

“And besides,” Mary continued, “your mom when through her pixie cut stage, didn’t she?”

“Yeah, but my dad-”

“You want easy?” The voice in the alley was not to be ignored. “I can make you look the way you want to, kid.”

“-my dad hated it. My dad hates everything.”

“Come on, someone transitional like you, wanna be red one day, green another.” Now the alley-way voice had resolved itself into a shadowy figure. “I got what you need.”

It wasn’t going to shut up and it wasn’t going to go away. Cyan looked directly at the shadow. “I know better than to make deals with fairies.” The haircut would have to be enough, for now.