Archives

Haunted House 40: Wants and Desires

Mar8

First: A story featuring a male keeper and a female Kept.
Previous:  Honest

🌳

Jasper was still laughing. Mélanie was staring at him with something between horror and worry.  Had she broken him?  Was he going a little mad?  Was this what happened right before he finally got angry with her?  

“Easy, easy,” Jasper managed through a chuckle.  “Oh, my dear, easy. Telling me that you think I’m doing something wrong.  Being a little difficult? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have laughed at you.” He draped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to him.  “I do apologize. I know you were serious. And I take it seriously — I do!  — that you feel strongly enough about this that you’d tell me you thought I was doing something wrong.  I know that’s hard for you.” He squeezed her a little more firmly. “It’s just that if that’s what it takes to get you to give me your opinions more often, it’s tempting to go find the nicest little old couple I can find and bilk them out of their life savings.”

“Don’t do that!”  Mélanie twisted in his hold to stare at him.  “No, don’t — please, I mean —” Continue reading →

Running in the Bear Empire 37: Halorans

Mar8

First: Running in the Bear Empire
Previous: Guests
Next: 38: Loyalty

🐻

Deline froze.  The voice in the cabin didn’t sound like the Talon, but she couldn’t be sure.  They were both female voices, that was certain, and how, otherwise, had she gotten past the wards.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Fine.  Settle in, here, have a drink, and we can wait for whatever you’re waiting for.  But you can move that knife any time now.”

“What, so you can attack me?”

The accent was different.  It was probably – probably – not the Talon.  

“I’m not going to attack you. You attacked me first, remember?  And we’re both Halorans.”

“Yeah, so what are you doing way out here in the middle of the Bear-Empire Mountains?”

“I could ask you the same thing.  We’re in the same cabin together, after all.” Continue reading →

The Seventh Estate

Mar7

In Seldith stood seven estates.

There were many houses, of course, some of them large enough to be considered manors, many buildings and homes and a great number of farms and plantations – but there were seven Estates.

From East to West, the first was the home of the Leader and thus whoever lived there had the First Vote, which was most powerful.  The second home was for the Head of Priests, who held the second vote. Continue reading →

Funerary Rites 42: Eat a Candy Bar

Mar6

🔑

The tension in the van was slowly receding.  Ezer looked pleased with himself.

“Chitter, good job as always on getting into their systems, and your little bugs are the shit,” he kept on.   “Love ‘em. Allayne – you patched Erramun up so fast, I didn’t even get a chance to see the hole. Thanks. And Senga and Erramun, you guys definitely held their attention and kept to your roles the whole time.” He looked back in the mirror at them.  “Try not to get so bloody next time, all right? It makes me techy.”

Without a word, Chitter passed him a candy bar.  Ezer snorted. “Fine, fine, it makes me bitchy.  I don’t know, Chitter, anything out of that security guard?”

“Allayne triggered something, not an alarm, some sort of tertiary back-up.  Yes, I know I should have caught it, yes, I feel like an idiot for not catching it, but it was really well hidden.  It was – look, here, see?”

“You know it doesn’t mean anything to me,” Ezer complained. Continue reading →

Feast of Sterha

Mar5

New setting or one-shot, just an idea that came to mind, slightly inspired by The Exiles Trilogy and slightly by my inability to stop singing Good King Wenceslas.  

🎖️

“So let today hereby be named the Day of the Martyr Baloran, with all due pomp and ceremony, and let us remember this day by, hrm, bu picking up rocks from our neighbors’ fields and using them to help build the walls between fields, on my authority and honor as the leader of this colony-”

“Ah, honored one?”  Gerilip did not like interrupting the Leader, but her job lead her to need to quite often.  “Today is the day of the Blessed Epolitie.”

“Ah.  What about Baloran’s birthday?”

“The day of the Blood-Consecrated Delfikin.”

“Ah, hrm. The day Baloran joined the Service?”

“That’s the feast of the Holy One Relian.  Honored One,” Gerilip cut in, before this could get quite silly, “there is only one day left open on the calendar.” Continue reading →

Hidden Mall 59: Nice Abby. Good Abby.

Mar4

Abby took ‘Via’s hand and put it on her hip, curling the fingers around her belt loop, and squeezed until ‘Via  held on of her own volition. She took Olly’s hand with her left hand and held on to Liv’s arm with her right hand.  

“Close your eyes,” she told all three of them.  “Keep them closed. We’re going to walk forward now, everyone all set?  There we go, forward, forward.”

She shut up as she came nose to nose with the first ghost, closed her own eyes and took two steps forward.

It felt like a ghost of fire touching her skin – like the memory of sensation without the pain or the heat, just a strange flickering touch.  She moved forward as one of the three – Had to be Olly, the sound was coming from her left – yelped. Continue reading →

Haunted House 39: Honest

Mar2

First: A story featuring a male keeper and a female Kept.
Previous:  Upset

🌳

Once again, Mélanie was in the wagon, this time back in the front. Once again, she was leaving the House behind. She waved as they left; two of the shutters on the second floor clacked back at her in what she was going to assume was a wave.

The horses seemed to like the trip to town. Their ears were pointed forward and their clip-clopping hooves seemed happy, like they were going someplace they knew and liked.

Jasper caught Mélanie looking more than once.  “You can still talk to them if you want,” he encouraged her, the third time he’d smiled at her as she’d turned away blushing.  “They like the apples the carter in town feeds them, I think, but I don’t really talk well to them.”

“I can?”  She leaned forward happily and muttered a Working, slipping into their contented minds. They liked going this way.  This way came with happy places. They was way easy, and the Human was happy when he left here.

She chuckled. “Aw.  They like you, I think.  They like you being happy.”

Continue reading →

Running in the Bear Empire 36: Guests

Mar1

First: Running in the Bear Empire
Previous: Hunting
Next: 37: Halorans

🐻

She watched the pebble flow true and thunk hard against a forehead before she had time to process who was standing there.  No weapons out, no Imperial insignia, not someone she knew — they looked startled and took three steps back.

She dropped her slingshot in a pouch and grabbed her longknife.  “Hello.” If they had darts, they’d be going for a pouch; a wrist-dagger, they’d be shifting their wrist, a sword or blade, reaching for their back or thigh.  Sher shifted her weight to her back leg and got ready to block with a wrist or an elbow if she had to.

The woman had her hand halfway to her neck when the “Hello” seemed to make her pause.  With her hand still hanging in the air over her shoulder, she cleared her throat. “Hello.”

“Are you here to kill me?”  The woman had the same blonde Bear-family hair as Deline, the same blue eyes and broad shoulders. Probably not a Deklegion bounty hunter, but it didn’t do to take stupid risks.

“Depends.”  The woman rubbed her forehead where the rock had hit her.  “Who are you?” Continue reading →