For kelkyag‘s prompt.

Stranded World has a landing page here.
🔨
“I think you should come hang out next weekend,” Calgary told Autumn, over the last beer of the last day of Faire. “Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur are building a house.”

“Seriously?” she raised an eyebrow. She was far too drunk to be polite when faced with that.

Calgary grinned, and quaffed her beer. “Three friends of mine, been together since college. Not Faire folk but fair folk, if you know what I mean. And they’re house-raising.”

“Sounds like fun.” She set her mug down with exaggerated care. “I’ll be there.”

“I know you will,” Calgary grinned. “And you’ll love it.”

The location was as out in the middle of nowhere as it was still possible to get in a northern state, a two-acre lot in the middle of two hundred acres of field and half-wild forest. And it was a mess, a mass of machines and parts-of-buildings and everywhere people, people in a cacophonous of color and personality, like the Ren Fair only a hundred times louder.

And there was Calgary, at the center of it, waving Autumn down. “Come on! Huey, Dewey, and Louie want to meet you! I’ve told them so much about you!”

And that was a danger line, but Autumn was in a good mood, so she smiled, and let Calgary lead her to what looked like it would be the front door.

“Caetlyn, Gemini, Xavier, this is Autumn. Autumn, this is Larry, Curly, and Mo.” Calgary cheerfully introduced her to a buxom blonde in a pink flannel shirt, an androgynous person wearing a yellow t-shirt, and a tall man, head shaved, wearing a blue polo.

“Pleased to meet you,” Caetlyn smiled. “Calgary told us that you might be able to bless our threshold? You know, in the weaving way?”

Smiling and nodding, Autumn resolved to have a word with Calgary later.

“This would be easier if I had my brother with me. He’s very good at the orderly things. But I can lay down a foundation for you, and I’m pretty good with a hammer and a trowel, too,” she smiled. “Do you mind if I paint a little, where it won’t show?”

“Heck,” Xavier grinned, “we’d love it if you’d paint where it would.”

“See?” Calgary was unrepentant. “Flora, Fauna, and Meriwether are good people.”

“I see they are,” Autumn agreed sincerely.

She’d come prepared to help hammer nails and wrestle building materials, but it seemed the trio had enough people for that. So she settled in what would be a doorway, and began to weave and twist the strands.

She laid down a solid foundation of welcome and kinship, pulling from everyone who was here, every bit of love they poured into the building, and making it a tangible, knowable thing: this house was built with love. Enter it with love as well.

While she watched them place two stained glass windows, she painted a design that would be hidden by the doorjamb, a secret series of imps: Don’t forget the humor. Come here with a smile.

They put up an interior wall, and she got to work on the art that would show while, behind her, three people carefully installed a hidden door and three hidden compartments. Into her mural, a tree reaching for the sun, with three trunks woven together, she added: respect one another’s secrets, and keep them.

Tired at the end of the day, and drinking a beer with the trio and Calgary, she sketched them a doodle: Chance encounters are the best sort. Smiling, she bid them a good night, and kissed their doorway in benediction as she left.

🔨

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For eseme‘s prompt

Stranded World has a landing page here on DW and here on LJ

Autumn didn’t like the city.

She thought, all in all, it was a fair dislike. The city was noisy, crowded, smelly, loud, and foreign; the traffic impatient, the people worse.

She had grown up near people like those she chose to live with now – people who were sideways-of-normal enough that they didn’t judge, or, at least, when they did, there was someone else to call them on it. Walking into the city was walking back into the normal world, as her mother would say, “Mundania.” It was remembering how to put on a face that felt stiff and uncomfortable, like a suit, like a mask.

There were times, however, when the cities were unavoidable. Paperwork. Downtown craft festivals. Her brother calling. A mysterious message from someone who might be Tattercoats and might not be (The handwriting had been all off, but the wording had been perfect). And so into the city she went.

Craft fair meant she could shirk conventional appearance rules; paperwork meant she could not. Winter meant she had to look nice, but a little odd, to tweak him. Tattercoats meant she had to look pretty. She had spent more time getting dressed today than she normally took in a week, and ended up looking, to the naked eye, quite a bit like Autumn-dressed-down, or perhaps a Victorian Gypsy.

The paperwork people did not notice, which, after all, was the whole idea. She filed her forms, paid her fees, and left poorer and more knotted into the system, but less likely to become far more poor and far tighter knotted. Her father had taught her that: “‘Render unto Caesar,’ honey, means ‘make sure the guards have no reason to look at you.'”

Her father, she pondered, had been more than a bit of a rebel.

Winter had noticed, if only for the many-times-touched lines of her clothing, but had simply said, “you look very nice today, Autumn.” Winter was only a rebel in having gone as smooth and orderly as was humanly possible.

And then she was in the park, waiting for someone who might or might not be Tattercoats, and a man walking by looked at her, looked at her and didn’t say anything, but tipped his hat at her as if it was 1890, and Autumn felt something twist. She reached for the connection to Tattercoats, found it, as always, elusive and uncooperative, and found instead the heartstring of the city.

She was sitting on the bench, reading songs in the heart of the metropolis, when her alarm rang an hour later to remind her of the festival. She left humming, new songs in her heart and a new design for a picture already presenting itself. She might prefer the wild roads, but the city, it seemed, would have its own song for her, too.

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For rix_scaedu‘s commissioned prompt.

Stranded world, after The Unexpected Gift (LJ) and A Christmas of Melancholy (LJ)
🎁
Autumn turned to Gregor, still reeling. “If you,” she said firmly, “have any world-shaking gifts, could you, I dunno, wait until July or something?”

He chuckled. “I’m flattered, luv, but I’m not the man in your life the way the Tattered one or your late father are. I’m just a friend.”

“You shouldn’t say that,” Autumn’s mother tsk’ed. “There’s no ‘just’ about your friendship, Gregor, not when you’re here with her, supporting her through all of this, when you could be doing holidays with your own – well, I know you have trouble with your family, but surely there’s a young man?”

“I have about as much luck in love as your daughter does,” he answered dryly. “If there was someone…”

“Then you’d be welcome to bring him here for the holidays. I hope you know that, Gregor.”

From the look on his face, he hadn’t. “I, uh.”

“Gregor,” she said, a little exasperated, “do I have to name you a season to have you believe me? Fine, Gregor-the Equinox, you are counted as family here.”

“An Equinox isn’t a season,” he protested weakly.

“Well, it is now.” She bapped him gently on the nose, while Autumn watched bemusedly. “You’re part of the family, son, get used to it.”

“I, ah.” Autumn hugged him tightly, silencing his uncertain protests.

“You,” she told him, glad to have something else to focus on, “are family. You’ve known that for years, Gregor.”

“But my parents…”

“Are not me. Clearly.” Autumn’s mother joined in the hug. “Since I haven’t said it yet, welcome to the family, Gregor. Equinox. And, while my late husband may not have left you a present – well, I got you a couple, and Spring and Summer each sent one.”

“Winter…?”

“Sends his regards, which is about all he does for anyone. You’re family,” she repeated firmly.

“Wow.” He looked down at the two of them uncertainly. “Well… Merry Christmas, every one,” he misquoted. “I guess now I gotta get a boyfriend and make Autumn bring a real boy home?”

“Well…” Autumn’s mother’s gaze fixed on her again. “There is this young man sending her jewelry.”

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