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Character Study: Melinda
So way back here, I said I wanted to get into the heads of two non-Addergoole side characters.
I asked Cal to pick a setting, and Cal picked Stranded. Which doesn’t have a LOT of background characters.
So we have Melinda, who is dating Summer and Bishop.
Melinda woke up early.
She usually did – Summer liked to sleep as if she’d been running marathons one after another, and Bishop didn’t like to go to bed until practically sunrise. That meant Summer got the middle and Bishop got the outside, and Mellie slipped out of bed while the sun was still just thinking about getting up itself.
She snuck out of the bedroom on bare feet, grabbing a robe as she went. Their roommates wouldn’t be up for another hour or two either, which meant that she had the place to herself, just for a bit.
She settled on the back porch with her History of the Americas textbook, a big mug of tea, and her favorite highlighters. Truth be told, this was half of what she liked about waking up early: this was her time, to be shared with nobody.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1080899.html. You can comment here or there.
The Autumn of her Discontent (a ficlet of Stranded World/Autumn)
After Tangles and Knots, Snarls and Combs. Stranded World has a landing page here.
Autumn took a long, hot shower, paying for a motel room to do it in, taking the time and the soap and a brush from the dollar store. It was the end of Faire season. It was the end of her and Tatters, and she still hadn’t quite processed that. It was… it was time to clean up all the old marks.
She washed every piece of ink off of her skin, scrubbed the skin raw where the ink had stained, washed herself until she felt, should she do more, she would have to start quoting MacBeth.
She dressed herself in clothes cleaned every bit as thoroughly although, because it had been at the laundromat, with slightly less soliloquy. She left her van with a friend she still trusted, rented the smallest car she could find, and started driving.
It did not occur to her until quite some time later that she was running away. But, skin bare of connections, clothing bare of scents and memories, she had detangled herself from both the heartache and the embarrassment and now she felt she just had to keep going until the strands shook loose from her.
When she reached the Pacific, she finally felt as if she could breathe again.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/998193.html. You can comment here or there.
Date Night, a drabble of Summer/Stranded World for Eseme
It was only Applebee’s, but they were on college student salaries, after all, the food was good enough, and they could take the bus.
Summer sat between Bishop and Mellie, but they’d gotten one of the small round bar tables, so everyone was, technically, between everyone else: best of all worlds.
As a rule, they weren’t that unusual: three college kids, out on a Saturday night. It wasn’t until Summer stole a small kiss from Mellie that anyone looked askance at them, and it wasn’t until Bishop responded by stealing his own kiss from Mellie that someone whispered to someone else at their table.
Summer didn’t mind the stares. She was nineteen, she wasn’t famous or looking for a Professional Job, and if people wanted to stare, it wouldn’t be likely to hurt her at all.
But Mellie, the stares made her uncomfortable. Summer stole another kiss and pressed a blessing into it. Nothing to see here.
If making your girlfriend comfortable wasn’t using your powers for good, she didn’t know what was.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/984031.html. You can comment here or there.
A Tangled Knot
A Tangled Knot, the last of the April Patreon stories, has been posted:
The sun was out and, therefore, so were the students.
They sprawled across the quad, some of them making an attempt at reading, but many of them soaking up the first real warmth of spring without any concern for academics…
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April’s theme was Stranded World. May’s was Love Stories. And June’s was Tír na Cali.
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This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/955395.html. You can comment here or there.
A Tangled Knot – Patreon Story
A story of Stranded World for the April 2015 Theme – this is more the beginning of a story (possibly a novel) than a stand-alone tale, and introduces a new character.
~
The sun was out and, therefore, so were the students.
They sprawled across the quad, some of them making an attempt at reading, but many of them soaking up the first real warmth of spring without any concern for academics.
Isaac was out, too, skipping Sociology 101. He wandered aimlessly through the quad, following the most interesting Strands.
Everyone had Strands, everyone. They made up every connection, every place people rubbed together with each other or with things, every stressor and every happy moment. Many people had very boring Strands straight and smooth and direct, and, because it was in his nature to Tangle things up, Isaac liked to reach into those Strands and add a little chaos.
“Let me guess.” A pretty girl, not someone he recognized from Freshman seminar, sidled up to him. “Art major, minoring in Theatre.”
Isaac smiled. “Math Major, minoring in poly sci.”
He was going to have to find either a new look or a new major soon; the O-face of surprise was getting less and less exciting.
“Hrrm. And you…” She was wearing short-shorts and a thin tank top, carrying a kindle, with a very big backpack. “Education, minor in… Nutrition.”
Now THAT was a fun one. Her mouth opened up and she squeaked. “You’re awesome. How did you do that?”
“Elementary, my dear Watson.” He tapped the air three inches from her nose. “For one, you have that harried look only education majors can truly manage. It’s practice, I suppose, for when you have all those little students wandering aroun-”
Something was wrong with her Strands. She had plain, direct Strands, and he’d been just about to tangle up the three closest to her roommate and best friend.
But there was a knot tied up in something very close to her heart, and, hidden in the knot, at least two cut ends.
“—wandering around making a mess of your life.” Isaac managed a smile at her, and tangled up a couple things just to muddy the trail. “I’m sorry, I do believe I’m going to be late to class.”
He hared off before she could notice that, at twenty minutes after the hour, he was already unforgivably late to any class he might have.
Tanglers made messes of people’s lives, it was true, but Knotters bound them up, played puppets with them. And Snippers… Snippers were just plain evil.
On a campus this size, there might be one or two other Strand-Workers. Isaac had to find them, and he had to do so while making sure they weren’t the Snipper.
School had just gotten interesting.
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Tangles and Knots, Snarls and Combs
Tangles and Knots, Snarls and Combs, a story including Tangles and Knots and Untangling Knots has been posted on Patreon.
A Patronage of just $1/month will let you read all Patron-only posts! Check it out!
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/929252.html. You can comment here or there.
Tangles and Knots, Snarls and Combs – Patreon
This story includes portions originally posted http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/665445.html and http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/697268.html to make a complete story.
❄️
There was something amiss with Winter’s sister.
With the oldest of Winter’s sisters and the most steady, the most easy-going, the least likely to have things go amiss.
Spring had warned him first, in that way that she did, a riddle tied up in a knot, the sonnets are slanting sideways and the seeds are falling all wrong. Then Summer, just something’s wrong with Autumn.
When their mother had called Winter, do something, he had known things had gotten out of hand. But because it was not he who had seen the problem first but Spring, he went out of character for himself and did things indirectly, looking not for the tangle but for its cause.
He had been young and cocky when he’d taught Spring; it hadn’t occurred to him until much later how much she had taught him. Continue reading
Strands and Connections, a story of Stranded World, posted on Patreon
Post here: https://www.patreon.com/creation?hid=2217655&rf=200475
Reading the Strands was all about connections: connections between people and events, people and places, people and other people. It was all about feeling and understanding those connections…
Autumn muses over a broken friendship and the way connections change over time, approx. 250 words.
Read this an all other Patreon stories for a donation of just $1/month!
https://www.patreon.com/aldersprig
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/922827.html. You can comment here or there.
Strands and Connections – a Patreon story
Reading the Strands was all about connections: connections between people and events, people and places, people and other people. It was all about feeling and understanding those connections.
Autumn walked quietly away from her faire booth. There was a feeling in her heart like lead and an ache in the place where she kept her own connections. She knew better than to check her e-mail while she was in persona, while she needed her smile and her best fake medieval accent. She’d kept the smile on, even after checking her phone. She might feel empty – but she also felt free.
She climbed up into a tree and pulled out her pens. The lines from this morning were already beginning to fade – it had been a sweaty day, a mid-July scorcher, and the rain that was promising hadn’t broken yet. She found a blank space on her leg, around her calf, and began drawing. Every line had a significance. Every Strand had a meaning. Every word had power.
“…if you’re just going to be crazy…” She drew, link by careful link, a broken chain, wrapped around her leg, the chain pieces ricocheting as they cracked.
You did not sever Strands. Connections made to other people didn’t go away. They faded, sometimes, they stretched and changed and twisted.
She set the pen down on a flat piece of branch and picked up her phone.
Delete, she clicked. Delete message. Delete contact. Block all messages.
The Strand would always be there, although it would fade to a memory in time. Autumn ran her fingers over the broken chain and smiled, feeling the loss like a missing weight on her chest. Having connections didn’t mean she had to drag them like Marley’s ghost.