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Cataleb

Apr2

First: Slaves, School
Previous: Space and Time

They didn’t get to meet the ninth member of their dorm until the next morning.

That first night, they spent a little time talking, getting to know Doria, Poiy, and Lufet and sharing more stories of the stairs, but they were all exhausted and they had an unknown but presumably early bell to answer to coming probably far too soon.

Des’ last thoughts as he drifted off for the night were that the bed was surprisingly comfortable, the pajamas ridiculous, and the ceiling far too close.

The bell came early, but not as awfully early as he’d expected – there was already a splash of light through the window. In the winter, that would make the bell unpleasantly early, but right not Des could see enough to climb out of bed without kicking either Talia or Doria.

He dressed quietly, listening to the grumbles and rumbles of his dorm-mates without really hearing anything. The buttons on his shirt seemed to give him trouble, but he managed on the third try without anyone else seeming to notice his issues.

He left his tie messy, as many other members seemed to, and slicked back his hair in the bathroom. He looked – he spent a minute he should’ve been spending on getting to breakfast looking at himself – he looked like someone different, in the clean and fitted clothes, the white and beige and blue. He looked rich – except the collar.

::I beg your pardon. I look rich, too.::

Desmond touched the collar with two fingers. “Rich people don’t wear collars,” he muttered. “People who wear collars aren’t rich.”

::That is an interesting belief; however, it has little to nothing to do with reality. Now. Breakfast.::

“I’m going, I’m going. Why are you in such a hurry?”

::Because there will be magic today, and if you have not eaten, you can not perform magic properly. Go. Go.::

“Going, going.” He managed to catch up with the tail end of his dorm-mates halfway to the dining hall – Doria, Talia, Jefshan, and the younger “new” student.

“This is Cataleb,” Jefshan introduced the short, childlike ninth Blue. “Cataleb did the stairs yesterday and then, as soon as a bed was provided, fell down on it.”

Cataleb nodded solemnly. “It was a lot of stairs.” The voice, too, was childlike. “And I wasn’t hungry for nothin’ after all of the stairs, so I just… slept.”

“I can’t say I blame you.” Desmond wanted to ask how old this newest member of their group was, but it would be rude to imply Cataleb wasn’t capable of being there. “My collar’s been yelling at me to get to breakfast. I’m surprised yours didn’t yell at you to get to dinner.”

Cataleb held up one of the collar-suppressors with a wicked grin before dropping it back in a pocket of their kilt. “Lifted this one. Comes in mighty handy when the thing is too talky.”

“That’s…” Des trailed off. He remembered what his collar had said about how it felt, and he didn’t know what he should say.

“…Amazing,” Jefshan filled in. “How did you get it?”

“I’m pretty good with my fingers. And now my collar’s all quiet and not bothering me at all. Nifty, isn’t it?”

“Your collar didn’t complain?” Des offered cautiously.

“Well, yeah, a bit, but I’ve still got the thing. ‘Sides, it’s not like it’s a person. Just a talkative piece of metal. So, what’d I miss in dinner?”

“Food.” Talia looked almost as unhappy as Des felt. “And some talk about where we were and what we were doing.”

“Gonna dig ditches magically and all that, right? Glare at people and make them tell the truth in court, that sort of thing? Go off on boats and pray they don’t get lost like they always do?” Cataleb’s head-shake made golden curls go every which way. “Forget that. I’m out of here as soon as I find a door, collar or no.”

“Do you really think that’s a possibility?” Des was curious, more than interested for himself. “And – really, why? Good food, good sleeping arrangements, education – what do you have to go back to that’s better than that?”

“Not having a thing talking in my head all the time, for one. You tell me that’s what you like? Someone always talking?”

“I’m the middle child of three,” Des answered without thinking. “Someone’s always talking either way. And I like – well, everything here so far, almost.”

“Including that death trap? Those stairs? Seriously, a body could’ve died on those stairs and who would’ve known except their screamin’ collar? No thank you. This place wants to kill me and I want to keep my skin on my body, thank you – shut up! Shut up or I’ll shut you up!” Cataleb fell quiet, glaring off into the air.

Des shared a look with Jefshan, who seemed to have become the unofficial dorm parent for their group. Jefshan’s shoulders twitched in a shrug that Cataleb could either miss or pretend to miss: Don’t ask me.

Des sighed. “What do you think breakfast will be like?” he asked Doria, just to be talking about something else.

“No idea!” Doria looked far too cheerful about the lack of knowledge. “But I bet it’s going to be food. Probably edible food, maybe even tasty.” A tug at the waistband of the uniform kilt showed that Doria’s, too, had been fitted. “I hope our collars are good at letting skirts out the way mine made it all go in, ‘cause I’m going to need a new kilt in a week otherwise.”

“Unless,” Talia pointed out, “they keep us running up and down stairs – really?” Talia’s nose wrinkled. “Magic uses energy. Some of it’s from the collar, but some is from us. Maybe as much as running up and down stairs all day. No getting fat from us.”

“Where do the collars get energy? Mine said something about that the other – that was yesterday.” Yesterday seemed a long time ago.

“They can starve?” Cataleb perked up.

Desmond shot a disgusted look at the newest member of their dorm and moved into the lunch room.

::I don’t like that one:: his collar murmured in his ear. Desmond was pretty sure it went without saying that he felt the same.

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Beauty-Beast 8: Claws and Monsters

Apr2

First – Previous – Landing Page – Next

🔒

Ctirad could practically feel Sir’s eyes on him. The silence seemed to hang in the air, something nobody was saying just waiting to be said.

Finally, Ctirad cleared his throat. “So what should I know?”

Sir chuckled. “I’m not Ermenrich. Sometimes I’m an asshole, and I admit it – Sal will tell you…”

“Sometimes he’s an asshole,” Sal agreed cheerfully.

“-Thanks, Sal. But I’m not a monster,” his voice did something strange. Ctirad looked up at the voice as if that would help.

He felt a hand on his hair. “If you would, if you can, keep your eyes closed just a little longer, please.”

Well that, for all the buffer, was an order. Ctirad nodded slowly. “Yes, sir. That’s fine, I can handle that, sir.” Some impulse made him add, “as long as I’m not left alone, please, sir.”

There was silence for a moment, and then Sir’s hand moved from Ctirad’s hair to his cheek. “It’s a deal. I won’t leave you alone and blinded ever, all right?”

“Thank you, sir.” He swallowed, worked his way around a lump in his throat, and nodded his head uncertainly. “I just. Can’t read your expression,” he admitted. “…Shit, I sound ridiculous.”

“You sound,” Sir corrected, “like someone newly under a new bond of Belonging, someone who didn’t have a very good time of his last Keeper and maybe not the Owner before that. You sound like someone who needs to be treated with respect. Because I can see your claws, Ctirad, and I am very interested in them, but I wonder if you know exactly how much they show.”

Ctirad swallowed. “Sir?” He flexed his fingers. He did not have claws, not with his Mask down. He never had – at least, he was pretty sure he never had.

Sir stroked Ctirad’s back and the back of his hair. “You have anger in you, which is completely understandable, but you have barely-restrained violence, too. Frustrated violence, if I don’t miss my guess, but also, mmm, like a tiger. Simply sitting there, you have the potential to murder.”

Ctirad went stiff. “Sir.” He tried to show nothing in his voice. He was pretty sure he failed. “I Belong to you.”

🔒

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Funeral: Ellehemaei Inheritance Law

Apr2

First: Funeral
Previous: Funeral: Legacies and Unimportant People

The lawyer was waiting for them, all prickly and officious. “Miss Senga Monmartin, Mr. Erramun Silence. Here are the full details of Mirabella’s behest to the two of you. It encompasses all that was read in the will – both the rewards for compliance and the punishments for a lack thereof, as it were – but includes also this statement:

“‘Now, Silence, I know you, and you’re going to try to give up as little as possible, and Senga, I know you, and you’re going to try to be nice, because that’s what you do. Neither of those things are bad traits – but they don’t suit this plan of mine. If I’m gone – and if I weren’t gone, you wouldn’t be hearing this, now would you – you’re going to have to trust the plan, both of you, because nothing else will keep you both above water.

“‘In that vein, I will only consider you to have followed the letter of my will and the spirit if you swear to the Belonging in front of Mr. Maladono, my favorite lawyer, and if you do so with no qualifiers. Nothing but you, Silence, saying you Belong to you, Senga, that and nothing more.’”

Senga looked at Silence. He was growling softly under his breath, glaring at the lawyer and the paper the lawyer was holding. The lawyer, quite sensibly, took a step backwards. Senga resisted the urge to do the same as Silence turned his glare on her.

“This was not my doing,” she pointed out, “or I wouldn’t have bothered to be negotiating terms with you.”

“You’re fucked if I say no, aren’t you?” There was something amused under the growl. Senga struggled not to show anything on her face.

“You’re fucked if you say no, too, aren’t you?” she countered.

“Oh, yeah. But it’s nice to know we’re fucked together…. or not-fucked together.” He smirked at her. “Which defeats the purpose of me being under your Name, I suppose.”

She snorted. “I don’t think Great-Aunt Mirabella arranged this all just so my bed would be warmer. For that, I can imagine she’d have picked someone who wanted the collar. She had a few of those, didn’t she?” She turned that question on the lawyer, who was doing his best to pretend he wasn’t listening to this discussion.

He cleared his throat. “If you mean, were there people in Mirabella’s will… there were three. Those disbursements were handled separately, as that is obviously against the law in this state.”

“All states, I’d think?”

“Oh, actually, there are special laws in three states, including California, that were presumably put in place stealthily and under the aegis of other laws by powerful Ellehemaei. That being said, if you wish to discuss inheritance law vis-a-vis Ellehemaei, I’d be more than willing to do so – at another date. Right now, I need to know which path the two of you are pursuing.”

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A story featuring a male Keeper and a female Kept, post apoc Fae Apoc… Things.

Apr2

Landing Page – Next

The slave market was exhausting. Mélanie felt like she was in a constant state of panic, twitching at everyone who walked by and shivery when she wasn’t twitching. Someone was going to buy her. And if they didn’t buy her, she was going to be punished again. She’d been on short rations to save money since the last slave market, since she’d been cowering in the corner and hiding from everyone who walked by.

This time, she was chained so she couldn’t hide, and she’d been told if she hid anyway, she’d be beaten. They hadn’t beaten her yet, and she didn’t want to find out what it was like. So she smiled cautiously at everyone who walked by and tried not to look nearly as terrified as she felt.

“A little skittish, isn’t this one?” The voice, in other circumstances, might have been pleasant. In this situation, it made her lift her chin just a tiny bit and hope that she looked pleasant and buyable and not nervous or intractable.

“Oh, she’s just eager to get out of the cage and serve someone. You know how they can be.” The slave factor’s voice had too much forced cheer in it. Mélanie took a step forward – a half-step, as that was all the chains allowed for – and smiled hopefully. Maybe it would be enough.

“She looks scared out of her mind. I can’t be that frightening, can I?”

“A new situation is always a little nerve-wracking, isn’t it, sir?” There was so much oil laid onto the factor’s tone that it had to be giving the customer pimples. Mélanie certainly felt like it was making her break out.

“Bring her out here. I want to see her before I make my decision.”

“But sir…”

“Oh, if she’s eager to be bought, she won’t make a run for it, will she? And if she’s not, well, I’d rather know before I brought her home. Bring her out here.” The customer’s voice was implacable. Mélanie couldn’t quite hide a shiver.

“Fine.” The slave factor was sulking. He opened the cage and unhooked three of the chains holding Mélanie in place before tugging her outward.

She wasn’t going to run, of course; she had nowhere at all to run. But the slave factor couldn’t know that, and neither could this guy.

His shoes looked well-kept for. He – or someone who worked for him – had oiled them, so even though they were worn, they looked good. His pants were hemmed with no ragged lines. Not jeans, but something like denim.

She kept her eyes on those shoes and those hems. It was safer that way.

“She’s underfed.”

“Aren’t we all, these days?” The slave factor patted what had once been a fat belly. “Aren’t we all.”

“And shivering.”

“Well, she’s eager, sir.”

“And freezing. I’ll take her. But for the price you’re asking, you’re throwing in that jacket you’re wearing. It doesn’t suit you anyway.”

“My jacket?” The slave factor took a step backwards. “This is mine!”

“And she’s going to be mine, and a large portion of my trade goods are going to be yours, and you’re going to give me the coat. Now.”

Something in his voice brooked no argument. Something in his voice, Mélanie noted from a distant place in her mind, was terrifying.

She wasn’t listening to that place. She was paying attention as the slave factor, bitching and whining the whole time, put his jacket around her shoulders and even held it for her to get her arms in. It smelled faintly of tobacco and, strangely, not of anything worse. It almost smelled clean.

“There. Now. I’m going to pay you forty pounds of trade goods. And she’s mine?”

“By the terms of that agreement, this slave is yours. You’re his now.” The factor gave her a little shove.
Mélanie shook her head, trying to clear the sudden strange feelings as ownership transferred. The new man caught her by the wrists. “Mine,” he repeated quietly. “Let’s get you into that wagon and pay for you, shall we? Don’t run off,” he added, his voice so quiet she thought maybe he meant the order to be a secret. “Stay within sight of me if you can. I want to get us out of here.”

“Yes, sir.” She nodded politely at the man and didn’t even try to pull away. “Where are we going, sir… in case I lose sight of you?”

“My cart is on the far side of here, the east side, just outside the gate. Now, can you hold your head up and not look like you just got bought?”

“I – yes.” She shifted her shoulders and thought about better times, lifted her head up and pulled on a smile a much earlier incarnation of herself might have worn. She was proud. She was with someone she was happy to be with. She was clothed and her main item of clothing was even mostly clean. She could be proud for a bit.

Landing Page – Next

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Finding a Doctor

Apr1

This is in Lady/Sword timeline, and is after everything posted to date. Leo needs some help… Cya Finds it.

“I don’t like this place.” Isra looked both ways and frowned. “There’s something… wrong here.”

“I know.” Cya murmured. “It’s almost Stepford, isn’t it?”

“Like that movie… those movies?” Isra frowned. She’d gone to Doomsday; she’d gotten used to Cya’s references to things that had happened before the world ended, but sometimes it still seemed to throw her.

“Just stay close and be ready to go in a hurry.”

She didn’t really need to tell Isra that. The place was creepy. It was clean, everything crisp, the wall surrounding the town looking more like a suggestion than a wall until you realized that it was topped by three lines of electrical fence.

She had up heavy-duty “we’re not out of place” Mind Workings, and she didn’t think they’d be enough if they were here too long. Luckily – well, planning, not luck – they’d shown up in their target’s front yard.

Cya rang the doorbell. Isra shifted from foot to foot.

The woman that answered the doorbell looked, Cya noticed first, old. She seemed to be in her late 80’s by a pre-apocalypse judge of age, a thin woman with medium-brown skin that seemed fragile and tissue-like and a short halo of curly white hair.

“Ma’am? Doctor?” Cya already had a Working up that projected her voice only in a thin line to exactly where she wanted it to. “I’m hoping you might be willing to come with us. My friend desperately needs a therapist… one who can understand him…. and I have a feeling you might want a new place to live. We’re from Cloverleaf,” she added, and because they had traveled quite a ways to get here, “a small city in what was once Montana, in the – well, it was the US a long time ago.”

The woman stared at them with eyes that were very sharp before nodded crisply. “You’d best come in – if you have no intention of harming me.” She ushered them into her home and closed the door.

Inside, the cottage was as antiseptic and unreal as on the outside. “Is this the friend?” the woman asked. “I’m Billie Rexinger, by the by. Dr. Bilyana Rexinger, Planting-Hands.” She looked down at her shaking hands and frowned. “That was a long time ago.”

“I’m Cya Dayton, Red Doomsday.” She hadn’t used that last name in a long time. Maybe she should steal Leo’s…. no, probably not. “This is Isra, Moonlight, Moondance.” Dr. Rexinger hadn’t been the first one by a long shot to assume he applied to the long, lean Isra with her tight-queued hair and her businesslike clothes which obscured sparse curves. “She’s not the one who needs help, no. My friend, my crewmate, Leofric Lightning-Blade, he…” She sighed. “A long time ago, we were both hurt by our Keepings, by our Keepers.” It had taken her most of that long time to admit it had been both of them. “His… shattered his mind. He was delusional for a long time.”

“But not now.” Dr. Rexinger might look ancient, but her mind was sharp.

Cya reminded herself that she, herself, would look older than this woman if she Masked at her calendar age. “But not now,” she answered carefully. “He fought himself back to himself some time ago. But recently..” She winced. “Recently, we’ve been working on his self-esteem and other issues. I’m a fairly good mind-healer,” she admitted. “I’ve had a lot of practice. But – I told him something that, ah. It broke some of his belief foundation that I didn’t realize was still holding him up. Some ways he’d dealt with being Kept and being abused. And..” She swallowed. “I can Find anything. So I went looking for what he needed to put himself back together.”

The woman was still listening. Cya had a feeling she had practiced that listening face a lot. It was calming, encouraging, and rather impressive. Cya wasn’t sure she liked it being used on herself.

This visit wasn’t about her.

“What he needs is therapy, someone to listen. Someone to help him sort it out. And I, I’m too close to it. I was there for the whole mess. I was there through everything. I hate the woman who hurt him, and I can’t… I can’t hold back enough to help him.”

She hated that. There weren’t words for how badly she hated it. But it was the truth, and right now the truth was important.

She cleared her throat. “What I’m offering is a home, a proper house, in Cloverleaf, which is a settlement -”

“I’ve heard of Cloverleaf,” the doctor cut her off.

“Oh!” Cya ducked her head. “This far away? Well. A house in Cloverleaf as least as big as this one,” she looked around, “with a yard. A stipend while you treat Leo, and a smaller stipend for ten years after that. References to other people who might need your services, and help finding anything you need for relocation. And,” she looked around. “I offer quick and immediate relocation, via Isra, who walks the shadows.”

Isra bowed. She liked it when Cya was melodramatic about her titles.

“You care very strongly about this Leo.”

“He’s my crew. He’s the most important person in my life after my children – and my children are all grown and gone.” It was that simple. It was always that simple.

“Will he cooperate?” The doctor was already opening up a bag and moving things into it. “There’s a wine crate in the kitchen. I like the pans, and there’s food that’s still good in there.”

“He swore to obey me,” Cya murmured. “That’ll get you past the first visit. After that is up to you.”

“Well then.” The doctor nodded. “Twenty minutes, ten if you and your moon-dancer help. And then I can see this Cloverleaf for myself.”

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For Cal: Is He…?

Mar31

For Cal: This comes after a number of things, including Jeska and Carew wandering around the city talking, Convincing each other to tell their Keepers that they were jealous of… (in Carew’s case, Leo, and Jeska’s case, the cat)… and Carew doing some thinking. Sword/Lady timeline

She hadn’t been angry with him.

Carew wasn’t sure if it was the long talk with Jeska or the fact he was pretty sure Leo – sa’Lightning Blade – was probably still mad at him – but he’d really been expecting Cya to be angry with him. Punish him, even.

(Even if his punishment would probably have Jeska rolling his eyes and very politely suggesting it wasn’t punishment at all.)

But now that he knew she wasn’t angry… now he had something else to ask.

And she was distracted, doing paperwork, frowning at something. Not the best time to ask questions.

He cleared his throat. “Cya? Ma’am?”

She put down the ledger she’d been working in and gave him a smile that looked about half worried and half affectionate. He’d told her he was jealous of sa’Lightning Blade, and she’d told him she’d pay more attention to him. That wasn’t how it was supposed to work! That wasn’t – well, it wasn’t what he’d been expecting, but it was the only way to get Jeska to agree to talk to Leo about feeling second-place to the cat, which really had to happen.

Are we friends? Jeska had asked, and, well, if they were friends, friends looked after each other. Even if…

“What’s up, Carew?”

Sometimes she talked like she was out of one of the movies she liked to watch, pre-War things that made no sense at all to Carew but made her laugh and cry with no rhyme or reason that he could see.

He cleared his throat What’s up meant what’s on your mind?

“Ma’am, is sa’Lightnin – is Jeska a Nedetaka?”

“Why do you ask?”

Why do you ask wasn’t no, it was show your work. “Well, for one, he talks about ‘Shenera Endraae’ things ​​like they’re unfamiliar to him. He grew up being taught that what he wanted was irrelevant, that half-breeds are impure, and I’m pretty sure that humans are useless. His idea of punishment is – I’m not sure, but it sounds bad. And, um. He’s not an Addergoole grad, he’s a decade older than I am – he thinks – and he’s twitchy like he just got out of a bad Keeping. And his crew whipped him.”

He watched her eyebrows go up as he ticked off points. When he ran out of things, she nodded slowly.

“We – no. Leo. Leo stole him from a Nedetakaei camp. I found him someone willing, and he got him out of there – although he hasn’t been forthcoming with the details. So yes, Jeska wwas raised and Named Nedetaka. Now Leo has him.”

Carew considered that. He considered the way Cya’s eyes were on him. Judging him, he thought. She did a lot of that.

He cleared his throat. “He asked me if we were friends.”

“And are you?”

“…Yeah. Yeah, we are.” He lifted his chin. It was worth getting punished for, to have a friend, to be Jeska’s friend.

She kissed his cheek. “Good. I’m glad. I think that’ll be good.”

Carew relaxed as she looked back to her paperwork, more confused than ever.

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In the Spirit of 5-Minute Maps – two images of the Aunt Family neighborhood

Mar31


Click to embiggen.

I do not know WHOSE house the unlabeled red outline in the top image is, but it’s family.
The words on the lower image are “Aunt House,” “Church,” and “Diner,” from left to right, bottom to top.

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Cya, Leo, and Boom – untangling the timelines

Mar31

So, it turns out, when you get [personal profile] inventrix and I together, what you end up with is a whole lot of different timelines for the same characters.

This is as comprehensive as I can come up with a list of Cya-Leo-Boom timelines we might have posted stories for.

[personal profile] inventrix, if I’ve missed something, misrepresented something, or mislaid something, please let me know!

It appears that the turning points are:

1) When Leo (and thus Cya) gets sane. In canon, and in timelines that could be canon, that happens after Cya builds Cloverleaf, which itself is ~40 years after they attend Addergoole (see Ghost Story).
2) Whether Cya Keeps Leo or he swears an oath of obedience and service to her.
3) If/When they come to the realization that what Cya wants from Leo is not what Leo can provide

“Cya cried,” he says, a little too matter of fact, “because she’s accepted I’m not going to love her back.”
“…The fuck you say?”
“Not the way she wants, at least.”
…
“So, the basics are simple enough, you’ve got me,” he holds out one hand, “and Cya,” he holds out the other, “and we both care about each other way too much. The problem is, Cya has like a tragic romance thing going on because she wants me to be in love with her back, but like… whatever the hell I feel, it’s not that, and I don’t care what that stupid kid says,” he adds in an annoyed mutter, “I’m not going to go pretending to feel something I don’t when it’s just going to fuck everything up in the end and it’s none of his fucking business anyway.”
Leo pauses and clears his throat a little awkwardly. “…anyway, so. Her side, nice, fairly straightforward, normal romantic obsession. My side, some kind of weird martyr Kept knight thing. Which would be fine except like, the one thing Cya wants more than anything in pretty much the whole world is to be attached to just one guy who will actually, you know, love her back? You’d think after–” He stops himself from tangenting this time. “So since I’m obviously not that guy, I talked her into trying dating so she’s at least meeting people who aren’t fresh Addergoole grad Kept with issues.”

4) Whether they all flip the F out and kill everyone their first year.

Is Absolutely Canon
Addergoole: Year Nine
Addergoole: A Ghost Story

Probably Canon
That story about Cya ordering Leo not to die.

Could be Canon but aren’t Yet.
The Sword and Lady Timeline — this includes most of the currently-posted stuff on DW/LJ, where Leo gets punched by Carew, Luke tries to apologize to Mike, etc.

The Thistle Timeline — hey, it couldtotally fit within canon! This is the one in which Cya dies but resurrects(reincarnates) and Leo has to cope with all of that while Thistle-Cya copes with being 10 years old with memories of a 100-year-old in love with Leo.
I’d just re-read Thief of Time.

Definitely Not Canon
Sane!Cya Timeline — I think the only thing posted of this is something called “Sane!Cya and Panlong,” in which the man who unwittingly participated in Cya’s son Yoshi’s torment as a Kept, Panlong, actually doesn’t end up getting TOO horrid of a deal…
This is the timeline where Leo has a psychotic break after Cya locks him in the barn (this is a fixed moment in time) and comes out the other side sane.

Black Knight/Chess Timeline — In which Leo gets an army, starts taking over the West Coast, and achieves godhead. Also in which Luke ends up Kept by Cya, flappy wing bongage, and such things.

Expelled Timeline — in which we’re not entirely sure what happened but Boom gets expelled in their first year, their memories wiped, and sent home, or in Cya’s case, to a foster home.

Leo Dies — in which we misread Inventrix’s rp, Leo suicides, Cya tries to blow up the earth with Abatu Eperu (destroy Earth), and in the end Howard talks her down and she and Zita heal Leo’s body, find his soul, and shove it back in.
Cya feels strongly about Leo dying, okay? 🙂

Fixed Moments in Time
These happen in pretty much everything but Expelled

  • The Ranch: As the end of the world looms, all of Boom, their kids, and their closest allies (and some allies’ kids) go to live on a ranch in wyoming and slowly take over the territory.
  • Cya Locks Leo in a Barn: She has a cell for such things, because Cya believes in being prepared. So when delusional!Leo decides he’s going to leave them all so he can go fight monsters and probably die but they’ll survive, the crew tracks him down, literally force him into the van, and tie him up in the cell until he promises not to do that
  • Cloverleaf and Doomsday: Cya gets sick of putting Addergoole people back together after the fact and builds her own school in what was once Montana. Because she’s like that, she also builds a city around it. And then starts trade routes. And then…

I might add links later. I might bribe people to add tags to things later – I’m totally willing to do that! But for the nonce, this is what I’ve got.

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Worldbuilding Month Day 12 – What’s in a Name?

Mar30

March is Worldbuilding Month! Leave me a question about any of my worlds, and I will do my best to answer it! (I need more questions, guys)
🌏
This twelfth one is from B: have you figured out the naming rules for that one world?

So “that world” is Portal Bound, which there is a map of here. The basic premise is that it was originally discovered – i.e., this continent at least had no human life on it – by a family who found a portal in their back yard. They were handwave-Scandinavian at the moment.

BUT this land has several portals! Many portals! And the portals are not so regular about where they lead or where they come from. So this land has had immigrants throughout the course of time from many different worlds, and from many places over the world. Most are human, or humanoid, but they speak many different languages and having many different ideas about names.

“When in Rome, shoot Roman candles.” The naming thus ends up being an interesting combination.

Usually, children are given names of the parents’ culture, if the parents happen to have a culture in common. Children from mixed-cultural-heritage families sometimes alternate, so you might end up with Lars and Yuki, for instance, as brother and sister. Ancestors’ names are common, although not normally parents’ names.

If the parents are themselves very mixed-heritage or feel no particular connection to the heritage or world they came from, then the children are often named Scandinavian names, as those are still the most common in this world – often they are then named after historical figures, Princes or Kings, Queens or Princesses or Governors from times past. It is considered ill luck to name a child after a living person.

(In a family where there are many siblings having children, this can lead to battles about who gets to name their daughter after Grandma Yuki or Grandpa Lars.)

As for family names, most people use a patronym or matronym – sons follow the father’s line, normally, and daughters the mother’s line, although a fatherless or motherless child will go with the extant parent. So Larssen or Yukidar, or Larsdar or Yukisen.

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Assumptions (Cya, Carrew, Lady/Sword Timeline)

Mar30

In the Sword and Lady timeline, after
Cya Yells at a Kept which itself followed (but was posted before) Faking it.

“Leo and his Kept are coming over tonight — for dinner and to sleep over.”

Cya said it like she expected it to be nothing, just another day, but her eyes were on Carew and he had no doubt she was gauging his reaction.

She did that, said things without any tone and waited to see what he made of them. Carew still wasn’t sure what he made of that.

“So…” He tried for casual. He almost made it. Leo was still angry at him for the face-punching thing, at least as far as he knew, and, truth be told, he couldn’t blame the guy. It had seemed like a good idea at the time… “Extra lasagna for dinner, then? And I’ll sleep in the guest room — or do you want me to go hang out with Dev?”

Dev was Magnolia’s — not Kept, but might-as-well-be, he called himself her pleasant-revenge lover — and he was just about Carew’s age. They weren’t exactly friends, but they’d been in Addergoole together, the women they lived with were sometimes perplexing, sometimes terrifying, and sometimes wonderful, and they liked the same beers.

“I didn’t say I was kicking you out. It’s a big bed, hon.”

It was. Four of them would probably fill it comfortably. He’d always wondered why she had such a big bed — now, he supposed, he knew. He worked around a lump in his throat and tried to show nothing. “All right, sure. So lasagna?”

“Lasagna’s a good idea. I’ll start on the filling if you start on the noodles.”

He let the companionable working-peace fill the room for a few minutes before coughing. “So, uh, why’s Leo coming over? Over night, I mean. Is that why he’s bringing his Kept?”

“He’s… having a bad week, and I don’t want him left alone.”

“…Oh.”

Lots of stupid things went through Carew’s mind, like Isn’t that what HE has a Kept for? and Is that where you were last night? and If you’re just going to sleep with him — with THEM — what do you need me for? He focused on the noodles and said none of them. It wasn’t his first rodeo.

“What is it?” she asked. Carew swore internally. He didn’t think he’d been showing anything at all.

He cleared his throat and looked away.

Her hand on his shoulder almost made him jump. “It’s okay, Carew. I’d rather know than not know, all right?”

“It’s just… your whole world seems to revolve around him,” he muttered.

“Well… To some degree, yeah. It’s like this, here.”

Here wasn’t an order, but he looked anyway. Her left hand was held out flat at chest-height, marking a level.

“So,” she brought her right hand up, marking a line a little above the left. “There’s my kids. Then crew.” Her right fingers touched her left. “Then Kept—” a little lower on the right, and Carew’s heart did something weird up in his throat “-and then my project, which right now is school,” her hand moved down, “and city,” her hand moved down a bit more. “Except right now, I don’t have any kids in the nest, so,” her left hand moved up a notch, “and Leo’s the only crew in the city with me… So, yeah, my life kind of revolves around him. What?” she asked gently, although Carew had no idea at all what his face was doing. “Haven’t you ever had someone you loved? Or a crew you’d kill for?”

“Yeah…” He worked his throat, fighting with emotions he really, really didn’t want to deal with right now. “Both. But, uh. They were older, and they didn’t come back for me.”

“Well.” She patted his shoulder. “Did you tell them you wanted them to?”

“No, but…” He frowned. “Why wouldn’t they?”

“See, that’s the thing about assumptions. Maybe they assumed you’d come find them. Maybe they got there a few days late.”

“Wouldn’t the school have told them where I was?” He turned back to the lasagne just to have something to do with his hands.

“Well, depends on who they asked, and what mood they were in.” She turned to the food, too, but her eyes were still on him. He could feel them, feel their pressure. “Luke knows, because he’s still not entirely convinced I’m not locking Kept up in a dungeon… non-consensually. But if he told them would depend on if they asked, and if he approves of them, and any number of other factors.”

“Wait.” He put his hands on the counter to steady himself. “You lock Kept up in a dungeon consensually?”

“Well, some of my Kept have been pretty kinky, and so am I and—”

“You never said anything!” He slapped his hands over his mouth, but he’d already said it, and he’d already interrupted her.

Her eyebrows went up. “Now, remember what I was saying about assumptions? And then I went and assumed you weren’t the type. Well.” She patted his ass affectionately. “We’ll talk about that tomorrow night, mm? And this coming weekend, maybe we can talk about Finding your friends and crew.”

Carew swallowed. “Yes, ma’am… thank you, ma’am.” Both of his hands went to his collar. “Thank you, ma’am.”

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