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Saving the Cult (if not the World), Chapter Seventeen

May8

Saving the Cult (If not the World) "It's time." Manfield Lee knew he was good at sounding authoritative even when he didn't know what he was talking about - he'd turned a fortune into a megafortune doing just that, after all, not to mention running the Organization - but right now, he DID know what he was talking about. After all, it was just a date, wasn't it? And if the date turned out to be wrong, well, then he knew exactly what to blame it on, and that blame would fall on the scholars and the psychics, not on him. The other thing Manfield Lee knew how to do was to place the blame in very specific ways that were not him.

Sorry about the pause in posting this – I have very little excuse (Except pandemic) because I have like 7+ chapters ahead already written.

🏕️

Lina tried not to put too much weight on Jackson, but she felt like she had no energy at all left.  She tried to force her mind to work, to come up with something to say.  What had she been thinking about?

Physics.  Physics.

“When we – I need a book on Physics.  A good one.  And maybe I need to call our physics teacher.  Mine, I mean.  Or yours.  If they —”  She looked out.  To either side of the plaza, the wave had left broken buildings and scorched-looking places.  “If they survived?  Is this-“

“BzzZzt.  Dean.  Dean, they say That was the first wave.  The second one shouldn’t hit for more than 12 hours, and then another 8 after that.  They don’t know how long before it wears itself out.”

“Direction?” Lina snapped. 

“Dispatch.  Which way will it go?” Continue reading →

The Ladies of the Jungle

May7

Reegatia’s people were all women, or at least they were all ladies. 

It had come about because of a misunderstanding with an explorer who had “discovered” the people that he – the explorer was a he, at least – had called The Ladies of the Jungle. 

There were three things wrong with that, possibly 5, and it was a title only 5 words long in the Imperial language, one in the explorer’s native tongue – Pialejiarnna. 

But the end result – because the explorer had returned to his own people with drawings and notes and more notes, had come back and then returned with even more notes, more drawings, and a few of the weird new Daguerreotypes, and then on his fourth voyage had brought back four of the Pialejiarnna – was that the world believed that Reegatia’s people were all women. They were the Ladies of Pia, and the fact that they called themselves the Ineguruhh was a fact only known to those that considered themselves in the know; the etymology of that term had been hotly debated in certain groups but, unfortunately, nobody had ever asked an Ineguruhch. Continue reading →

Detention

May6

I’m having a writing retreat day!  Tell your friends!  Tell your foes!  Tell everyone~

This prompt (two prompts, combined) – from @marionline@mastodon.art

~*~

It was the sort of thing that people – teachers, specifically, Mrs. Gruble, very specifically – thought was clever. 

Ani and Charlie had never gotten along, not since – well, if Ani was going to put a date on it, or a First Event, it was the second time they met, which would have been the third preschool Ani had gone to, the good one, the one that was fun, the one where Ani fit in.

Until Charlie showed up.

And that – that had been their entire school life.  Not just school. Scouts. Church. 4-H.  You name it – it wasn’t that big a town – and Ani and Charlie were both in it. And they were at loggerheads. 

But of course, since teachers like Mrs. Gruble only saw a tiny fraction of it, they tended to think that they knew what was going on, and they tended to think that it was nothing important, nothing rational, nothing but a little spat or something. 

Which is how Ani and Charlie had ended up working on a project together, which was how they’d both ended up with detention, which was how they had ended up in the theatre’s prop room, moving things around, sorting out ancient backgrounds, and cleaning everything. Twice.  Thrice, possibly. 

Which was okay – the theatre prop room was pretty big  – until they both sighted a really nice tiara in the middle of the room, right on the line that they’d agreed on, mostly silently, was their borderline.  Continue reading →

Malina and the Border Banners, Chapter 11 (A Story for B)

May6

Began here.
Chapter 2 here
Chapter 3 here.
Chapter 4 here.
Chapter 5 here.
Chapter 6 here.
Chapter 7 here.
Chapter 8 here.
Chapter 9 here.
Chapter 10 here.

 

 

The bed was soft and fluffy; it smelled of an herb Malina could almost remember and it felt like sleeping in a pile of silk and feathers, which she thought might be a bit more accurate than intended. 

The sand-cat slept on the pillow Malina wasn’t using, and thankfully, he did not snore. 

She had fallen asleep far more easily than she’d expected – a strange place with nothing but the reassurances of a cat that she was safe; a place far from home where magic seemed to do all the housekeeping, when she had considered magic something that was barely in one’s life, or at least barely in her life; a place where she was still, when she came down to it, quite lost.  She had slept solidly, but as the sun filtered in through screens of silk, paper, wood, and stone, all of her dreams were loud in her memory. 

She opened her eyes to the bedroom, the Queen’s sleeping-chamber, which was draped in silk so that the limestone walls seemed very far away, although it was not a huge room.  She closed her eyes to pull back to mind the banners flying in the air, crisp and perfect.  

“Three spears azure, upright, oh, bother.”  Malina furrowed her brow.  “I was never good at all that terminology.  Three spears azure, upright, per chevron, with tips bloody, on a field vert, the border or.”  She saw the banner fluttering, and it seemed to her like the blood on the spears, the spears themselves, were suddenly real.  

“The three chiefs of the place that became the Ever-Flowing Fountain, the Karanala.”  The cat had not yet opened his eyes.  It didn’t seem to matter.  “They lay their spears down on the green grass where it still remained green and not red with blood, and they swore an ever-lasting peace, so long as the fountain flowed.” Continue reading →

Weird

May6

I’m having a writing retreat day!  Tell your friends!  Tell your foes!  Tell everyone~
See more about Katydid and Whitney here – http://www.lynthornealder.com/category/verse/fairytown/ 

~*~

It was one of the weird days.

You’d have thought that, considering that she’d set herself to restoring a park in a city that was known for the magic flowing through it and the oddities in its shadows and in its sunbeams, a park that was a crossroads at the center of that city (if you read the right map), a park where the ghosts and the spirits were as likely to advise her and help her as the local gardening groups were, possibly more so, where a giant but see-through cat followed her around for the treats (along with the slightly more mundane cats, who were interested in  more mundane treats), well, with all that, you’d have thought that Whitney didn’t have weird days anymore. Continue reading →

Blood Oranges

May5

Written to the writing prompt here – 

https://writerswrite.co.za/daily-writing-prompt-1152/

although I missed one word.  Warning, this got a bit doomier/darker than I meant it to.  No body horror, but suggestions of murder/kidnapping/other crimes.

🚗

“Put it in the trunk.”

Chase waved the keys to send the trunk lid popping up in the air.  The sleek black sedan, executive standard, had a trunk bigger than the car looked like it ought to have, which in this case was more than big enough for the rolled-up rug that Toke and Hep were carrying.  Continue reading →

The Bellamy, Chapter 14

May4

We’re done discussing human remains for the time being!-

📚

“You broke her.  One, you broke her, and she was nice.”

“Oh, come off it, she was too nice to be real.  If she’s a little broken, maybe she’ll be more -“

“More real?  You’re saying that and you’re you and you’re saying that to me and-“

“Not broken,” Veronika interrupted.  She was still crouched on the floor.  She was still holding her face in both hands.  She didn’t really want to move.  She hadn’t really wanted to interrupt; the interaction between the two of them was fascinating.  But –  “I’m not broken.”  That was important. “I’m angry, and I’m… understanding something, I suppose.  And I’m angry.”

“You said that already.”

“No, she said it differently the second time, don’t you ever pay attention?”

Impossible to tell which was which without looking; they had the same voice.  Veronika looked up.  “Your voice copied better than your image.”

“You should see our livers,” Two quipped.  “Thank Carlson, you’re not broken.  Angry is – angry is good.”

“Why is angry good?” She felt like a fool, down on the floor.  Slowly, Veronika unfolded back to her feet.  She was surprised to find both Two and One taking an elbow and helping her up – up and away from the skeletons.  

“Because,” One answered for her sister/copy/twin/duplicate/clone? “for one thing, it’s an active emotion.  Or two emotions, I suppose.  And for another, what is the quote? ‘If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention?’ I believe that second angry means that you’re paying attention, which speaks to your chances of survival here even more than you breaking the sunbeam’s grasp.”

Veronika looked between them.  “You want me to… you want me to be angry, no.  You want me to be paying attention.  You want me to pay attention because you want me to survive.”

“Both.  They feed into each other.”  One nodded, a very bare smile crossing her lip.  “If you’re the sort that pays attention, that’s good for the Bellamy.  Sometimes, Miryam just hires people because they’re, well, because they have an archival skill.  That’s great, of course, we’re an archive.  But you need more than archival skill to survive the Bellamy, and,-“

“And the Bellamy needs more than archivists,” her sister/clone/duplicate picked up.  “Bellamy needs, well.”

“More people like us,” One snorted.  “And obviously, we can’t just…”

“Duplicate ourselves.”  Two snorted identically.  “Like we said.  Our livers.”

“Your livers.  Right.” Veronika straightened out.  “You do realize that if you two happen to be putting me on about any of this, I am never bringing you any of our family wine.  And that is actually a punishment.”

They shared a look.  One nodded politely at Veronika.  “Then it’s good we’re not putting you on.  We’ve done that, of course, but not with people who, not with people who were handling things well, if that’s any consolation.”

“Not consolation,” Two corrected.  “Because we haven’t done anything to her, except you were a little rude to her.  More like reassurance.”

“I swear, I did not put a dictionary in the – anyway.  We’re going to walk you to Supernatural and Occult.  There aren’t that many more dangers this way, but, uh.  I’d rather be sure.  And then we can put in a word for you with Amanana.  She’s, ah, interesting.”

“Interesting?”  She glanced over to One.  “You, you are saying someone is interesting.”

“Well, she is – she is interesting. She doesn’t run Supernatural and Occult all of the time – our department is one of the only ones that stays with the same people all the time, and that’s because nobody wants to deal with it but us.”

“Well, also because-”  Two made a gesture that seemed to indicate something.  Veronika could guess that it was because they were duplicates, but it could have meant that they were short, comparatively, or just smarter at technology, or had bad hearts. Veronika discovered that the idea of trying to figure out which just made her tired. 

“Tch.  Come on, I thought we agreed we wanted Veronika to stay.”  One smacked Two on the shoulder.  “Don’t be all mysterious and weird right now, save that for the tourists.”

Two sulked.  Veronika didn’t bother to stifle a small giggle. 

That, weirdly, made Two stop sulking.  “I guess it’s a bit silly, isn’t it?  You’ve already guessed it, or close enough.  So Amanana, she likes reactions, so you don’t have to hide yours if you have one or anything, but just – well, if we tell you, she’ll be annoyed.  Come on, this way.  Oh, see this line of boxes?”  Two turned a bit to point at a row of boxes that were painted with a red line.  “That’s the safe point for the sunbeam… thing.”

Veronika blinked.  “You just changed subjects three times in one breath,” she muttered.  “Red line.”  She looked over the line again.  “Because you can’t put up a wall.”

“It gets aggressive.”  Two made a face. “I know, I wish we’d get rid of the thing, too.  Maybe now that I tell Miryam that it’s been eating people, eating trainees, well, no, of course not, we always knew it did that-“

“We tell her it tried to eat Miss Bellamy and she might think differently,” One countered. “Maybe we can shutter the damn thing or stick it in a ritual circle or something.”

“I wouldn’t want to be on the team that had to work with that.  At least it’s not a reproduction,” Two added.  They were walking Veronika through the passages of shelves of boxes, taking seemingly random turns. She wondered if she was meant to be distracted from the specifics or if this was yet another test.

She glanced at the boxes she was passing.  Something about Pompeii.  She caught her breath and glanced at Two.  “An unsolved murder in Pompeii?” she murmured. 

“Or something else unsolved,” One answered.  “They’re not all murders.  They’re not even all unsolved cases. Some of them are just storage.  A lot of them are just storage.”  She gave Veronika a strange look – strange even for her, as far as Veronika’s experience went.  “Unsolved murders?”

Veronika flushed. “I don’t know where that came from.  I honestly have no idea.  I just looked at the boxes and thought  – this time, not the first time – I thought unsolved murders.”  She wrinkled her nose.  “That’s not normally like me.”

“It’s not all that far off,” One admitted.  “We didn’t pass the sign that said this part was unsolved crimes, but that’s where we are.  I don’t think, ah.  I don’t think it’s a bad sort of not normal,” she added considerately.  “I think that you’re just getting a feel for the Bellamy.  It talks to you – and that’s a good thing.  The ones who stay for any length of time, it talks to all of us.”

“You realize -” she swallowed slowly.  “You realize that’s what they say about the archives, and they don’t say it as a good thing?  Be careful.  You spend too much time in places like that and they start to talk to you.  It gets under your skin.”

Her university advisor had told her that, actually. Twice, in slightly different wording, and then once in a very short form when do you want me to check up on you? To make sure that you’re still you?

Both One and Two were looking at her.  “And what do you think?” One asked her quietly. 

“I think – I think that if I turn left here, I’m going to be in the Supernatural department.”  She looked between them.  “And I think that the window won’t catch me again.  But I still think you ought to get rid of it.”

“We,” Two corrected her, but she was doing something that was almost a smile.  “We ought to get rid of it.”

Want more?

The Bellamy, Chapter 13

Apr27

Content warning for the below chapter: mention of human remains.

📚

“It’s you, shit.”  Hands landed on both of Veronika’s shoulders and pulled her backwards.  She let herself be pulled backwards, until even her toes were out of the sunlight.  “Do – do many people scream up here?”

“No.”  She thought it was Two behind her, but that voice was coming to the side of her.  She glanced over – Two was frowning at her.  “No.  Usually, they don’t scream at all if they make it that far.  You managed to pull yourself out and to scream.”  She shook her head.  “I figured it was Four, maybe, or maybe uh, one of the older ones who sometimes forget.  I didn’t think you’d come way over here,” she added, accusation thick in her voice.  “This isn’t the way to Supernatural and Occult.”

“It is if you’re trying to see as much of the Bellamy as you can without taking too much time,” the voice behind her commented.  So similar, just a little smoother.  One moved over to Veronika’s left, flanking her.  “But you might have noticed that can be dangerous here.” Continue reading →

Purchase Negotiation 38 – Hospital

Apr25

First: Purchased: Negotiation

Leander woke to Sylviane crying as someone did something awful to him, pressing on him, strapping him-

“And then – then they were going to kill him if I didn’t go with them,” she sobbed.  “Oh, shit, no. No, no straps, please, you’ll freak him out.  He’s got, he’s got PTSD, you can’t -“

“Miss, we have to get him into the ambulance.”

“Just the belt and, and the feet then?  I’ll help, I’ve done all the first aid classes, I’m certified.”

She was topless, smeared in his blood, wearing a little lace bra.  At least Mr. MacDiarmad hadn’t told him to keep her safe from the press. 

“Jacket,” he snarled weakly at the police officer.  It took the man a moment, but before Leander’s vision went blurry again, someone had put something over Sylviane’s shoulders. 

He forced himself awake until Sylviane took his hand again. “It’s okay, Leander. It’s okay.  I’m here. Dad’ll meet us at the hospital. I’m here, and they’re only doing a couple straps and I’ll make them undo them as soon as possible, okay? I’m here.”

“I’m fine,” he managed, and then he lost consciousness. 

He woke to a man staring at his face, shining a light in his eyes.  “He’s going to be fine, he’s just lost a bunch of blood. You’re a hero, did you know that?” he told the man.

“Kidnappers,” he tried, but he was slurring his words something horrible. 

Sylviane squeezed his hand.  “I promised him I wouldn’t leave his side,” she told the man.  

“I’m afraid you can’t be in the room while we operate.”

He couldn’t see her, but he could tell from her voice that she must have lifted her chin.  “Is there a regulation to that effect and how much of the hospital do I have to buy to get it overturned?”

“Miss, it’s going to be bloody and gory, and he’ll be unconscious anyway.”

“Let me gown up and scrub in and I’ll stay out of everyone’s way and-”  She dropped her voice into something that sounded like praying, unless you knew what she was doing.

The man slapped her. “None of that.  You didn’t say it was a promise.  Come on then, gown up.”

Leander snarled.  “Slap her again and I’ll eat your hand.”

“Tell her not to use any of that shit on me and I won’t have to,” the man retorted.  “Come on, time to prep you for surgery, Mister hero.”

He hated, hated, hated going under, the feeling he couldn’t control anything.  He felt his heart rate rising; he struggled to sit up, to get out, to go anywhere else. 

Sylviane squeezed his hand. “I told you,” she murmured. “I’ve got you.  I’m here. I’ve got you. I’m here. I’ve-“

He let go of consciousness more easily than he’d thought possible.

~*~

“-the sort of threat I thought of, no. But it’s an equally good threat to keep in mind.”  Mr. MacDiarmad had been talking for a while, Leander thought. He sounded tired, strained. 

Shit.  He pulled himself upwards, only to be pushed downwards by a firm hand. 

“Easy,”  Mr. MacDiarmad soothed.  “It’s fine. Sylviane’s fine, she’s right here.  And you’re fine, other than the new hole in you.”

Leander managed to open his eyes.  There was Sylviane, there was Mr. MacDiarmad .  “A trap,” he croaked. “I didn’t noticed it was a trap.”  He braced himself for the punishment. 

“You’re not paid to notice traps, you’re paid to get her out of them safely.  And you did. You did, from what I’ve seen and been told, you did an amazing job of that.”  Mr. MacDiarmad patted Leander’s head. “And in a little while, we’re all going to go home. You did good, Leander.”

He closed his eyes as the warmth went through him.  “I nearly got her shot,” he muttered. 

“No, I nearly got me shot, and I did get you shot.  Leander, stop beating yourself up,” Sylviane complained.   “You did exactly what you were supposed to do.”

“Doesn’t feel like it.”  He closed his eyes. “Feels like I fucked up.”

“Okay.”  

He opened his eyes.  Sylviane was leaning over him, looking him straight in the face.  “Okay?” he croaked. 

“So that’s how you feel.  After-action report, soldier.  Why does it feel that way?”

He made a noise that was half grunt and half whine.  “What?” Report, he could handle that. But she remembered the soldier thing was a story, right?  “Report? Okay. We were approached by a teenage girl in bad clothes who wanted to find, uh, Harriman.  Harriman Hall. We – you led her towards the hall, into a narrow alley between two of the classroom buildings.  Four of her companions boxed us in. They pulled guns and offered me money to leave. Obviously I didn’t take the offer, but I stalled them so that you could do a protection Working.  The stalling failed and I stopped them from attacking you.”

He watched her face. 

“You kicked their asses, you mean.”

“I should’ve noticed they were following us.  I’ve gotten soft.”

She pinged his shoulder lightly with her fingers.  “Stop that. You got soft in a slave camp?” she hissed.  “You’ve totally had plenty of time to train, I’m sure,” she added in a dry drawl.  “They were stopped, I’m fine, you’re going to be fine. You not only succeed, you rocked.”

He relaxed slowly.  “I’m supposed to keep you safe,” he protested again, anyway, because it was still biting at him.

“And you kept her very safe.”  Mr. MacDiarmed patted his arm gently.  “You kept her safe. And I’m -” He cleared his throat.  “I’m very pleased with you, Leander. You did exactly what I hoped you would.”

Leander struggled against the feelings, the warmth, the pleasure.  He found his face was flushing. Damnit. He didn’t want, he didn’t-

His Master was pleased with him.  He let himself relax. The complaint would come next, the things he should have known, and he’d have his feet under him again.

“Keep up the good work.”  Mr. MacDiarmed patted him on the arm again.  “Now. They said that you could come home with us once you woke up.  It was a pretty clean wound.”

“The doctor,” he remembered.  “The one who – who slapped-“

“Not fae,” Sylviane murmured softly, “but Faded, family.  He’s good people, and he apologized for slapping me. Twice.  And once to Dad. It’s okay, Leander. We can go home. We can – we can go home.”

He huffed softly and sat up.  “Head’s – head’s funny,” he muttered.  “Can’t-“

“I’ve got the protection detail for now, Leander.  Your only responsibility for now is to take care of yourself.  Understood?”

Leander blinked blearily.  “You’re… not real,” he murmured. 

“Afraid I am.  Come on, we’re going to put you in the wheelchair.  Sylviane, you’ll push him?”

“Oh, I love pushing him,” she teased, making Leander flush.  “Come on, then, right here in the chair.”

He let them coax him into the chair.  He let himself be pushed, feeling helpless, feeling useless, feeling…

Sylviane patted his shoulder.  “My hero,” she murmured, and she sounded affectionate. 

Feeling cared for.  He blinked a couple times and let the fog of the drugs hold him until they got to the car.

💰

Want more?

Hey, it’s a chapter of this!  As I’ve mentioned, I have had some issues writing in the last couple months (note to self reading this in the future: The Coronavirus Crisis, Lyn.  And you were sick for all of February, too, remember?) and I’ve gone through almost all my buffer. 

But one day late to post it for this week (I’m scheduling this on the 19th, Sunday), I finally finished a chapter!

Catch the Train, Chapter 1 (A Teaser)

Apr23

Another story I’ve been playing with that definitely isn’t to the 10,000-word buffer, but since everything’s been a little weird with writing lately (I’m writing this on 4/20), I figure it’s something I know I have written and it’s, well – um. Here.  Have a chapter, let me know what you think.

<3

Oksana

Falling. 

Falling!

Tumbling, the wind whipping in her ears, nothing around her but air, nothing below her, nothing anywhere. Continue reading →