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Beauty-Beast 23: Shopping

Aug23

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Ctirad had been sure he’d be okay with shopping.

He was doing it for Timaios, after all, and he actually liked his current  owner – so far.  He had to keep repeating so far to himself.  If he forgot it could all go bad, it would hurt so much more when it did.

He was doing it for “the boss,” the way Shel kept saying.  But still, he walked into the first place and he wanted to turn around and flee.

“I.”  he coughed.  “This
” He picked up a handkerchief.  “It costs more than my first year of college.”

“You went to college?”

“ROTC.  Yeah.”  One of those things he didn’t think about much.  “But seriously.  This is-”

“Think about it this way.  It pleases the boss to have you dress like this.  And you’re gonna look like a million dollars when we’re done.”

“I’m going to be wearing a million dollars!  Maybe twice that.”  He was whispering.  Still, they drew the attention of the sales maven.

“Can I help you gentle- ah, Mr. Brown.  Does Mr. Kaprinsky need some more shirts?”

“Not at the moment, no, Tammy.  No, this is Ctirad.  He’s a new
 employee of Mr. Kaprinsky, and we need to outfit him properly.”

He managed to make significant pause “employee” sound less like whore and more like we don’t talk about the real relationship, but it’s important.  Ctirad took his cue from that and shifted into a rest position, raising his eyebrows at “Tammy” as she looked him up and down.

“Well, there’s plenty to work with.  He has a perfect body.  Come on then, Ctirad,” like Shel, she managed to pronounce the name correctly on the first try, “let’s get you measured and fitted out.  I have some ideas already. Plenty of room to move, I assume?  Oh, don’t look at me like that.  I can see it from your stance and the way you cased the room.  It’s important your clothes fit you as much as it’s important that you look the way Mister Kaprinsky likes.  And lucky for you, I can handle body.  Now, we’re tailoring around the
 choker
 right?  Lucky for you, the suitcoat with a t-shirt is in currently, and I have some lovely silk t-shirts.  This way, this way.”

He was fussed into a room more than he was led.  He moved along with it, feeling strangely like he was being sized up for clothing by his second-grade teacher.

And he hadn’t thought about her in ages, either, hadn’t thought about childhood.  He shook himself a little bit.

“Easy, easy.  I’m not going to do anything too weird.  See, no weapons.”  She held up her arms.

Ctirad looked her up and down as she was inviting him to.  “No weapons,” he agreed.  “You work with a lot of
 ex-military?”

“I do.  Not just in this little city, oh, no.  Here and there and everywhere, but I keep my office here for Mr. Kaprinsky.  He goes through those shirts
” She winked cheerfully at him.

“You should have a weapon, then.” What?  He didn’t tell people should, that wasn’t his job.  That was very distinctly not his job.  The opposite of job.  It had been explained
 oh.  “Shel?” he asked weakly.

“Go ahead and have bodyguard opinions.  Tammy isn’t going to mind and neither is the boss.”

So Shel, although out of line of sight, was definitely staying in earshot.  Good to know.  Ctirad wondered if that was for his comfort or for Tammy’s.

“I’m not exactly helpless, it’s just that everything I have is defensive.”  She winked at him.  “And yes, son, you can have all the bodyguard opinions you want.  It makes me feel safer, let me tell you.  Now let’s see, I’m going to have to measure all of you.  Any places you want to hold the tape instead of me holding it?”

That was, Ctirad was pretty certain, a little unusual.  On the other hand, he’d never been fitted for a suit that cost this much money before  “No, but I wouldn’t mind, uh, a warning?”

“I can definitely give you a warning.  All right, here we go, here we go.”  True to her word, she warned him before each measurement, doing it as a steady prattle of “and now I’m going to -” interspersed with gossip about a niece of hers that, for all Ctirad knew, might be entirely fictional.

It didn’t matter.  She was talking to him – like a person, or at the very least like a customer, which might be a subset of person but still meant she thought he needed to be catered to.  Ctirad smiled at the appropriate points, put in a nice chuckle a time or two, and answered her are-you-paying-attention questions with just enough of his mind to not be rude.  The rest of him was casing the place and the woman.

She might be fae; he couldn’t tell.  Knowing those things might be something else his education had been lacking.  She moved with a great deal of extraneous gestures that covered over very nicely how smooth and efficient her core body movement was.  She smiled a lot but rarely showed her teeth, and she touched him in such a way that she would know immediately if his shoulders tensed.

He thought about trying it, but she was being so nice, he didn’t want to ruin the moment.  Instead he waited patiently until she patted him on the shoulder.

“And there you go.  I’ll get you some off-the-rack things for today; I imagine you have some more shopping to do, mmm?  Can’t wander around like that all the time.  And then I’ll have the rest to you in a week.  Two weeks for the tux, three for white tie.”  That last bit was to Shel, who, it seemed, was assumed to be Ctirad’s handler.  “He’ll need to come in for one more fitting.”

Shel saluted.  “As you say, ma’am.  Come on, Ctirad, get off your feet for a few.  There’s coffee and tea, and even Tammy will take at least two or three minutes to get you some clothes.”

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EAT ME

Aug22

Two takes on sauergeek‘s prompt, and continuing to work out the kinks in cross-posting

🌿

None of the plants in Addergoole’s grotto were, technically, toxic.  That is, they might cause you to have convulsions, visions, insomnia, narcolepsy, or possibly just a warm and fuzzy feeling, but they would not kill you — or, at least, they wouldn’t kill an ordinary human or Ellehemaei child.  Some of the Changes, normal air would kill them, and Valentina could not speak for her plant life in those cases.

She enjoyed encouraging experimentation and enjoyed more watching the results of the experimentation.  After all, every plant in the grotto was the result of“hey, what happens if
?” — Hers and Laurel Valerian’s, mostly, although students other staff had put in their ideas from time to time.  Isabella Even-hand in the kitchen had the most brilliant ideas.  Most of her plants lived up in the orchard or the sunlight gardens, but there were a couple, including the Angry Peach, that deserved their place in the grotto — and made the most aggressive desserts.

“Hey.”  One spikey-haired first-year student flopped down on the soft moss next to another first-year, lanky and dark-clad and serious-looking.  “Have you tried chewing on the purple leaves?  They make sort of a tingling feeling, and then you just don’t feel anything at all for a while.”

Emotional numbness, Valentina wrote, in her unseen perch up in a prickly-pear tree. She’d been growing the purple-leafed plant for its bark and the bast fibers in its stem.

“Don’t feel anything at all?  Sounds better than those yellow berries.  Give it here.”

Long-term effects?  She’d have to keep an eye on these two.

đŸ„— Continue reading →

DRINK ME

Aug22

Written to clare_dragonfly‘s prompt.

Caroline’s adviser liked to leave her notes.

She almost never saw Dr. Comey. There was the big lecture on Mondays and the team meeting on Wednesdays, of course, and then sometimes there was the all-department meetings, which Dr. Comey sometimes deigned to attend, but the Dr. – who was so old the legend said that when they’d rebuilt the faculty wing of Ivy Hall, they’d just picked up Dr. Comey’s office and built the new building around it – preferred to work in late nights and early mornings, and Caroline’s schedule was such that she worked in the lab generally late mornings and late afternoons.

But Dr. Comey would leave her notes: combine experiment A with experiment B. Note results. Ask Sally to enter request for life test subjects again.

All Dr. Comey’s administrative help were “Sally.” The current one – Crystal – confided that they took it like a title, “Current Sally for Dr. Comey,” and took no offense from it.
Continue reading →

Desmond’s Climb – Professor Smiff

Aug21

This is written to thnidu‘s donation and request for Desmond from Professor Smiff’s eyes, and comes concurrent with Force and Shields. 

✹

Telanien Smiff walked around her classroom slowly, looking at all of the newest Blue students. She liked Blue the best, something all of her fellow teachers assumed and nobody would ever ask her about.

This year, Blue had the Last Person Up The Stairs, an honor that they were very quiet about – except in the upperclassmen dorms, where she was certain the Blues were crowing about it. And the student in question was not, to Telanien’s eyes, all that impressive – just another teenage child from one of the poor streets, well-fit into a uniform, presumably by a collar that cared about impressions, that was good, but still out of place here. If this Desmond knew how many of his fellow students were High Street, he’d probably be even more uncomfortable around them. Or around the teachers. Continue reading →

Whole World Whispering

Aug21

For TNG, Cap, and Tal, with all my love. 

 🌑

The whole world whispering
Born at the right time

It was said that if the the royal seers and astrologers could not find an appropriate sign for a royal event, they would make one.

Few could argue, however, that when Ahana, the moon, covered over Orena, the sun, in a total eclipse over a large stretch of the kingdom, the moment was ideal for all sorts of signs.

It was then that the royal child was born, into the darkness of the night-at-noon, and the world, or at least the kingdom and those near it, leaned forward to see what the astrologers and seers would say.

The astrologers and seers, who would normally be standing on those balconies allowed to them declaiming their message to the public, were nowhere to be found.

They were closeted deep inside their tallest, largest tower, whispering to one another.

“Should we tell them?” hissed a younger astrologer.

“Should we lie?  They’re the King and Queen!” hissed a middle-age seer who had never been much for those times when a sign needed to be found in a less-than-obvious manner.

“We should tell them the truth,” declared the head of divination.  At the looks she was given, she smiled dryly.  “We tell the truth as we always have.  As we always have.”

They stood on their balconies as the King and the Queen presented their tiny newborn child.  “The child has been born who will have the mighty quest,” declaimed the loudest of them.

“The child has been born who will have the kindest heart,” declared the oldest of them.

“The child has been born who will see what has not been seen,” cried the head of divination in her strongest voice, to the silence of the gathered crowds.

In the Queen’s arms lay a child every bit as ordinary as every other royal child for the last three generations.

On the far side of the nation, in a midwife’s arms in a small farming town, lay the child who had been foreseen, born as the eclipse passed over the family farm.

đŸ‘¶đŸ»

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The Hidden Mall Part XII: Rescue

Aug19

Liv was shooting Rick distrustful glances the entire way, but Abigail couldn’t quite say she blamed her. Rick was a bully, after all – or, at least, their Rick was, and she had noticed Rick hadn’t protested that he’d never throw them into a fountain or anything like that.

Still, he seemed to be leading them fairly. This mall, too, was different from the one back home – all the stores were slightly different, the doors were in all the wrong places, and the food court looked downright creepy. Abigail’s stomach reminded her pointedly that it had been quite a while since lunch, but she had no interest in the food from those very plastic-looking stands.

Was any place at all safe to eat from? Even if they made it back home, was she ever going to feel like she could eat again? She licked her lips. As long as she didn’t come upon any pomegranates, she figured she might be safe.

“Almost there,” Rick grunted. “Now, as long as we don’t-”

Too late, of course. Since this whole thing was already ridiculous. A crowd of plastic people walked around the corner and took up a stance way too much like dance-fighting for Abigail’s tastes.

“Through that door,” Rick muttered. He was pointed as surreptitiously as someone his size could over at the jewelry story (Jay Jewelry) and a door hidden just behind the counter. “I’ll do what I can.”

He was a linebacker. He could do quite it a bit, it turned out, against people with slow reaction times and stiffened joints. Abigail tugged Liv through the little black door before the Jay Jewelry woman (And she didn’t look any more plastic than they normally looked!) could stop them.

There was a plastic-looking person -very plastic, this time, not the sort of stiff-looking almost-human of the ones out in front – sitting behind – no, as part of a console that looked like something out of a 1980’s computer movie. The person had six arms, and all of them were attached to some sort of keyboard. They were moving very slowly, but all six arms were doing something.

“We’ve gone from Narnia into Dr. Who,” Abigail muttered. “Okay, mister plastic. Stop it now. Let the people go- what?” Liv had pulled away from her and skittered under the console. “Liv!”

“Got it!” Liv yanked on a long series of cords and suddenly everything went dark.

“Shit, shit. Okay, come on. Let’s get out of here before everything goes even stranger than it is.” She reached for Liv, grabbed a hand, and pulled.

“Abigail?” Someone took her other hand.
“Liv? Are you holding my hand?”

“I am, yeah.” That came from both sides.

“I- all right. Let’s go. Now. One of you find a door.”

“Wait, what, one of-” both of them said it at once.

“I am going to – no, just grab any hands you can, find a door, and let’s get out of here.”

If she ended up with three or four of Liv, she wasn’t sure what she was going to do. Maybe not have to explain to Liv’s mom if she lost one along the way. “I hope one of you is actually my Liv.”

“Wait, what?” said the voice on her left. “Got it!” said the voice on her right.

She was going to take that. “Door?”

“Here.” A sliver of light appeared. “Let’s go.”

Still holding on to both hands, Abigail plunged through the doorway.

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Aug16

Originally posted April 29, 2012

✹

If Jean had learned anything in the five years he’d been married to Zoe (and twice that if you included dating), it was that when her family said “tradition,” the best thing to do was to shut up and get out of the way.

Read On!

📆

The spellbook had been one of the best finds on the planet they had poetically called 17-5-12.

The original population had been something very close to humanoid, as far as the drawings, the records, and the shapes of the buildings showed.

Read On!

Warning: this one makes me cry to read it. Written on or around December 2010.

🌳

In the Northeast, every city, every town, every blink-and-you’ll-miss-it village has at least one, a grove of trees that will never know the cut of a saw.

Open to all “Trunk” Patreons!

The Pauper Princess and the Tallest Tower, Introduction

Aug15

The wedding had been a fete to be spoken of for generations; the entire capital city had been invited. The Princess Zsófika was resplendent in her gown of pearls and sapphires, and if anyone noticed that her vows did not allow for the possibility of refusal, no-one mentioned it.  She was marrying the Emperor, after all, poor girl.  She was marrying the Emperor and tying her natal kingdom finally and entirely into the Empire.

The celebration went on for a week, the Emperor and his new bride at every event, the bride in a shining new dress every day.  Later, women who knew who to talk to would fight each other for the rights to this dress or that, as they would only touch the Princess’ body the once, and they were, both literally and in the more common sense, a king’s ransom, every single one of them.

And then the Princess went into the Tower, the Consort’s Tower, the bride’s Tower, the Tallest Tower, and the Emperor went back to the business of ruling a slightly-larger empire. Continue reading →