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A Change of Pace, a story of Tír na Cali for the OrigFic Bingo

Dec26

To thnidu‘s prompt to my orig-fic card. This fills the “Change of Pace” slot.

This is set with new characters in my Tír na Cali setting; its landing page is here.

This is a Cali storywith no slavery. 😉

The Duchess’ family did not often eat together.

Her children were, all but the twins, grown adults, and since they were all but the twins male, they were mostly married as well.

Niles, who still lived at home, helped his mother’s head of household plan the meal; Jeriel and Lauriel, the twins, helped the head of the maids arrange the seating. The Duchess had seven children, five daughters-in-law, and eight grand-children; the seating arrangements took a bit of planning to get everyone where they needed to be. Add in that Achishar wasn’t speaking to Emlen’s wife (nobody could remember why anymore) and a half-dozen other feuds, and seating the family for dinner became rather good training for some day running a fractious and wild Duchy.

“Do you think it’ll work out?” Niles was the twins’ go-to for questions. He had far more free time than the Duchess, and was old enough that he knew everything.

“I think…” He folded several napkins while he considered his answer. “Whatever our Lady Mother is wishing to work out here will work out. The informal place settings are a cue, and the mid-week date. She’s looking for a ‘family dinner,’ not something states-like.”

The twins shared a look. Jeriel led for the next question. “Why?”

“I don’t know.” Niles almost never admitted that. It was enough to shut his sisters up.

~

“I thought we could use a change of pace.” The Duchess looked around her assembled children, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren. “I thought all of us could use an hour or two where we were not statespeople but simply family.”

Boone’s wife Lady Dorseigh, the Countess of South March, said what many of them were thinking. “I don’t understand how that can be, your Ladyship.”

“Hannah. Today, for the next hour, I’m just Hannah, or, if you want to be very informal, you can call me ‘mom.'”

Lady Dorseigh, finding herself the designated spokesperson for the table, sounded as perplexed as most of them felt. “…Why? Why… Hannah?”

“As I said, I think you could use a change of pace. I think I could use a change of pace.”

It was Niles who finally figured it out. “Think of it,” he offered, “like taking your shoes off and falling down in your private sitting room. This is that, only with a handful of other people who understand. A breather.”

“A breather.” Lady Dorseigh nodded slowly; the others followed suit, in time with their ability to understand. “This is a lovely Yule gift. Thank you… mom.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/621255.html. You can comment here or there.

A Week of Settings – Day Six: Tír na Cali/Harem

Oct24

Tír na Cali is a monarchical nation that takes up the west coast of what, in the real world, is the United States, plus Baja California. It is ruled by a matriarchal triple bloodline of people who call themselves the children of the goddess, and have psychic powers to prove it.

Slavery not only exists but is prevalent, including in its use as a long-term hostage-taking effort; the Californians steal people, generally teenagers and twenty-somethings but sometimes older professionals in desired field, from the U.S. and enslave them in California.

Most slaves serve as one of a few to a small household, as domestic staff on a larger estate, or, if otherwise intractable or useless, as field workers.

However, at least one elderly-by-normal-standards Lady of some repute has opened up a harem in her family estate, where many attractive young men are kept cloistered and in top physical condition, awaiting anything their mistress or her many female relatives might want of them. A key is their ticket out of the harem and into personal freedom…

…but they have to want it.

The Harem sub-story starts here: Gifted

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/588639.html. You can comment here or there.

Sport, a story of Tir na Cali

Oct10

After Sport

Leopold’s new owner’s name was Caoilinn, as if her parents had tried to give her as Irish a name as possible, in hopes of doing something about that hair and those eyes. Caoilinn ni Caradian O Istvia, the Baroness of Lone Pine, “call me Kay when we’re alone.”

“And when we’re in public?” He hadn’t really expected her to take him in public. She didn’t have that “indulging in trivialities” sort of face, and he was, by his very nature, a triviality and a frippery.

“Is this a test?” She’d smiled at him, and he’d hoped she was amused. “In public, call me as you would any other Baroness. ‘Your Ladyship,’ or, if you’re feeling brave, ‘my lady.'”

“Brave, my lady?” Leopold knew better. His position was tenuous at best, and shaky under any circumstances. She’d read his pedigree; she knew what he was. She couldn’t be planning on keeping a sport around, not with her own tenuous position, even if Lone Pine was not a highly contested Barony. But he couldn’t stop himself from testing the waters.

“It usually suggests a level of intimacy.”

“I belong to you, Lady Caoilinn.” Leopold had bowed, because he wasn’t sure what else to do. “Whatever you wish of me is what I will give.”

She’d said nothing more at the time, and that was at the beginning of a three-hour drive. Now, while they were nearing the end (or so he hoped), she finally spoke. “Even with a Baroness that’s a sport?”

“My lady?” Leopold had, he was mortified to realize, drifted off. He didn’t know quite what she meant. “I know I’m a sport, mistress.”

“I wasn’t talking about you, Leopold. You’re willing to suggest – or to have – a level of intimacy with a sport of a Baroness?”

I’m a sport, too. But that didn’t seem to be the right answer. Leopold glanced over at her, at the angry line of her lips, and tried for honesty.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/577200.html. You can comment here or there.

Transformation, a story of Cali Catpeople for the Giraffe Call

Aug20

A couple people asked about the species change. I don’t think this piece really addresses either prompt well, but I wrote it, so I thought I’d share it.

“Test subject seven-one-five-three, through here, please.”

A week ago, she had been Antoinette Abaster, a mid-level secretary at a Indianapolis research firm. She’d been saving for a vacation to Paris and planning her church rummage sale.

Now she was Test Subject 7153, and she was walking through a blue door into a very sterile-looking room. She was having trouble focusing on anything except the door and the orders she was given, but the cables linked to her restraints didn’t give her a lot of choice either way.

“You have been selected for the Agency’s Transformative Project Eighty-three.” The voice was coming from behind her. She twisted, pulling her restraints to their limits, but there was nothing anywhere except white. Even the door had vanished. Her cables were connected to white ports in white walls. “Your conversion will begin now. Please describe any physical sensations you encounter.”

There were a number of physical sensations, which she described in tones from calm to hysterical. There were a number of emotional sensations, which she described only once, near the end. “This feels weird, and I’m scared.”

“Fear is to be expected. Fear is one of the three emotions we expect you will undergo in the first process.”

“First?” The words were coming out oddly through lips that felt numb. “First?” What’s the second?”

“The second will begin tomorrow. Please exit through the open door.”

She didn’t remember falling asleep, but she would remember forever waking up, because the first thing she did was stretch and yawn. Her back arched in strange ways and she pawed at the bed for a moment.

Pawed at the bed… and looked down at her hands, which had more in common with paws than they had the morning before. She rubbed her nose and eyes and looked again.

Paws. Paws, and something on her head felt strange. She yowled, confused and unhappy.

“Easy, Subject seven-one-five-three. What is the problem?” The voice came from the ceiling, or possibly the walls. She twitched an ear at it.

“I’m a caaat.”

“You have been put through stage one of the Transformative Process, yes.”

“I’m a cat.” She wiped at her face with a hand again. “I can’t stop acting like a cat. And I’m hungry.”

“Food will be provided.”

“Now? Now?” She put her face in her hands. Paws. “Why can’t I… what’s wrong with me?” She focused on a memory. The office. Typing in endless data, eating rice cakes and punching in formulae. The church raffle. A sound between a sob and a wail escaped her.

“You are partially transformed. Your personality remains unchanged, but your body and your instincts are now felid-hominid. The transformation goes bone-deep and has affected your brain as well as your body.”

“I’m a cat girl?” She scratched behind her ear. “You turned me into a cat?”

“You are partially transformed into a felid-hominid, yes.”

She stared at the wall. “But what does that mean for me?”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/564459.html. You can comment here or there.

Flight Rising/Tír na Cali Crossover – an Introduction

Aug7

A bit of an xover between Flight Rising and my Tír na Cali setting. If the slavery/breeding aspects of either bother you, this is probably not your story.

Technically, it was illegal.

Even more technically, it was legal, although you had to squint at the laws and sort of bend-and-fold them a little bit to make it work.

Nether the technicality or the really, really bendy technicalities bothered Maximilian and Delilah, or any of their little group of friends. They did it, and thus it was legal enough for them, especially if nobody outside of their island ever found out. They did it, because it was entertaining, and because their island was cut off from the rest of the world for four months of the year, but most importantly, they did it because they could.

Today, they were introducing one of Maximilian’s little sisters to the game.

“All right. You start out with a breeding pair. You can pick three characteristics you want – gender, fur color, basic type – for one of them, and we’ll pick you a second one more or less randomly.”

He handed her the breeding book. Inside, there were beautifully drawn pictures of their stock – Modified Creatures, moddies, human-and-Tuathan slaves whose genes had been magically altered to suit this group’s sense of aesthetics.

Claudette – like her brother Maximillian, a titled noble with no land and nothing to do with her time – flipped through the pictures. “I’d like this breed. The dragons.”

“You have good taste, little sister. The dragons are my favorite, too, although of course you’ll want to diversify a little once you’ve had time to get used to the game. What colors, and what gender?”

“Female. I want a matriarch.”

The girls always did, Max noted. None of the actual matriarchs, first-daughters, played the game. There would be no plausible deniability if they did. “And colors?”

“So it’s her scales, here,” her finger traced the picture, “and her crest?” Her brother nodded. “Blue, then, and purple.”

“Azure and royal. I’ll talk to the breeders, and we should have someone for you in a day. In the meantime, let’s get your lair and nests set up.”

They might get caught eventually. But it wouldn’t be in winter, when nobody risked the storms. And it wouldn’t be today, for sure.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/560131.html. You can comment here or there.

R is Running Away, a Continuation of Tír na Cali for the Giraffe Call

May23

For Rix_Scaedu‘s commissioned continuation of R is for Runaway.

If you dislike the Tír na Cali setting, this is going to be everything you dislike and more.

Rique woke up in a cold room, half-covered by a blanket.

He remembered the woman, the hot dog – he knew better, damnit, he knew better – then falling over into her arms. He remembered waking briefly, tied up and in some sort of moving vehicle. He remembered the prick of a needle.

Drugs. He’d done his damndest to avoid anything remotely drug-like in the three months he’d been out on the street – not so much as an aspirin had crossed his lips, and he hadn’t let a needle get anywhere near him. After his dad… that wasn’t important now. What was important was getting out of here before things got really fucked up.

More fucked up. A quick peek told him he was naked under the blanket, a quick exploration of the room told him that there was absolutely nothing in there except him, the bed, and a dresser. No clothes. Not even a water glass. And no window.

The door was locked, but it took him five minutes to take apart a bed spring enough to make a lock pick. The bedroom outside the first room – which could have been a closet, really – revealed clothes, women’s clothes but they would fit, and he wasn’t in any state to be picky.

They also revealed that his head had been shaved while he slept. Not just his head – his hair was a finger-thickness long now, but he had no hair at all from the neck down anymore. Not even stubble.

What kind of sick fucks had he ended up with?

A glance in a mirror answered that, too. In addition to his stolen clothes, he was wearing a collar. A metal collar, skinny, light, and locked around his neck.

Five minutes with his lock pick left him shaking his hand, swearing, and convinced that fucking with the collar was going to take different tools and a pair of rubber gloves. He was also damn certain that he was in California.

California. He stared at the mirror. Shaved head. No beard, but he’d barely had one of those to start with. Slave collar. It all looked like he was getting sold into the sex trade.

But he was in someone’s fourth-floor walk-up, which really wasn’t the place you tended to stash sex slaves, as far as he knew. And he’d been left unguarded and unrestrained.

The collar would be tricky, but the woman’s closet revealed a supply of high-necked things, including one that didn’t make him look quite so much like he was covering up a collar. He slipped on the shirt, stole her jacket, and tried the front door.

Unlocked. These people had to be the most inept kidnappers ever. Rique bopped down the stairs, took the back door, and headed out onto the street. He could lift some cash, get a set of bolt cutters and be in the wind before they even noticed he was gone.

~

Reggie glanced at her phone. “He’s on the street. We’ll give him twenty minutes.”

“You are one sick fuck, Reg.” Roberts was grinning at her; he liked this as much as she did.

“Of course I am. Do you think I made it too easy?”

“Maybe a little. Next time make him work for it.”

And, taking a page from Rion’s book:
If you want to see more of this scene (And there’s more just itching to be written), it can be unlocked for a $5 donation!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/535800.html. You can comment here or there.

R is for Runaway, a story of Tír na Cali for the Giraffe Call

Apr26

For Rion’s prompt.
“You have a thing for runaways, don’t you?” Roberts leaned back against the wall of the van and smirked.

“I don’t know what you mean.” Reggie tried for prim innocence, but didn’t manage to pull it off, ending up grinning instead. Prim really wasn’t her thing. “I haven’t picked up more than six or seven of them this month.”

“Nine, counting the red-head.”

“The redhead was a special case.”

“There’s always special cases, Reggie.”

“This one is…”

“If you say he’s different, I’m going to hit you.”

“If you hit me, I’m going to break your arm. No. Well. I suppose.” She looked down at the unconscious boy, draped across the floor, arms bound, feet bound. She hadn’t hooded him; there was no need. Identifying her would do him no good at all. “He’s interesting.”

“That’s just a fancy way of saying different.”

“Would you two shut up?” In the front seat, Sirocco was getting cranky. “Yay, you picked up your load. Now can we get home without your bickering? Because otherwise I’m going to pull over and break all of your arms.”

They fell quiet; Roc could do it, and would. Reggie looked down at the boy, and at the other three in the van, all unconscious. The blond runner Roberts had taken was blindfolded; she would make good ransom money, and ransoming off every third or fourth kidnapee confused the authorities. The American authorities, at least. The Californian ones probably knew what they were up to.

The other two were hooded and bound out of normal expediency – a junkie and a skater-boy, neither of them weighing more than a hundred pounds. Reggie found her gaze settling again on the runaway. Runaways were fun because they tended to run again, among other reasons.

“Different.” She mouthed the word, rather than saying it out loud. There was something different about this one, no matter how many times she’d said this.

Reggie reached down and stroked this one’s cheek, ignoring the mock-gagging expression on Roberts’ face. This one was going to be different.

Continued! http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/535800.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/520206.html. You can comment here or there.

Will That Be All, a story of Tír na Cali

Apr3

Written to @Dahob’s commission after I made a comment about… characters with very similar names in this setting. This is Tir Na Cali: Standard Warnings include slavery and mild d/s.

It was a truism within Californian society: a titled male should beware taking a woman, slave or no, as his Companion; there would endlessly be questions about who was in charge.

Anthony ap Howard Ó Gwydion didn’t need to be told that. He had absolutely no question about who was in charge in his House.

“Will that be all, my Lord?” His Companion stood in his doorway, all business.

“That will be all, Miss Pepper.” Pepper ran his House for him; she ran his business for him. If she’d been born to a noble mother and not a slave, she’d be running the country. She looked, more than Tony did,every inch the Californian noble: red hair, grey eyes, fair skin. She looked delicious. “Oh. One more thing.”

“Yes, my Lord?” Her lips were quirking. She was trying not to smile at him. That was the game: could he get her to smile while they were still, technically, in public?

“Close the door.”

He was going to lose that game today. Pepper had been gone on business for days.

“Behind me or in front of me, my Lord?” Ooh, almost a smile. But it was because she teasing him, points off.

“In front of you, Miss Pepper.” He set down the piece he was working on. He didn’t want it to get broken, and…

The door shut, and Pepper’s eyes blazed green. “Tell me, Tony, have you been good?”

If Tony had wanted to be in charge, he never would have bought a slave sired by the queen’s favorite lover. He swallowed as her power washed over him.

One swallow, and then another. He’d try to fight it, of course. “You’re terrifying, you know that, right? I mean, not normally. Normally you’re a beautiful specimen of womankind. But when you do that… no. No I have not been good, unless you’re willing to stretch your definition of “good” quite a bit and maybe take into consideration extenuating circumstances.”

“Tony, unless those extenuating circumstances are ‘being Tony Ó Gwydion-‘”

“Which, you have to admit, is something of a circumstance!”

“-I can’t think of anything I’d believe.” She strode forward, her heels clicking on the hard floor of his workshop. “Tell me.” Her eyes were glowing again, shit, why did she never leave anything to chance? “How were you bad today, Tony?”

“What, you’re not even going to consider the extenuating circumstances? I have proof!”

“I will consider them after you answer me, Tony.”

“Oh. Well. If you’re going to be that way, then Her Ladyship the Countess of San Diego was visiting this afternoon while you were out. With her even lovlier mother the Dowager Countess. And well, I might have been a little bit blissed out of my mind, medicinally, you understand.”

“Tony. What. Did. You. Do?” Pepper frowned at him, clearly trying to hide the edges of a smile. It was no less terrifying that she was amused. Tony swallowed, and tried to remind himself that he owned her, not the other way around.

“I may have told her High Bitchiness that she would have the Barony over my dead body.”

“Perhaps I should arrange that for her, then.”

He owned her. Tony swallowed hard. “You wouldn’t want to do that, now? Then you wouldn’t be able to have any fun with me. And I know you like having fun with me, don’t you, Miss Pepper?”

She stomped one foot. Tony checked the door again – yes, closed and bolted – and the one behind him – also bolted – and his phone – off. “Don’t you like to play with me, Mistress Pepper?”

“You know I like to play with my boy. Very well. I won’t kill you today.” She crossed the room in a slow cadence of clicking heels. “Say thank you, Tony.”

“Thank you, Tony. I mean, thank you, Mistress Pepper. I really think my dying would be inconvenient for both of us, all things considered.” She was standing directly in front of him, perfect suit, perfect body, perfect smile. He was doomed.

“Tony.” And yet again, her eyes glowed green. “Shut up.”

Tony shut up. The thoughts babbled on. And you know if you really wanted to kill me, you could just do this out on the front lawn and the Agency would do the job for you and this, Tony, is why you get shut up whenever she does that and what is she doing now?

She was taking his shirt off, is what she was doing, meticulously unbuttoning every button. “Pants.”

She didn’t need to make that one an order. He peeled off his pants, his mind still babbling. And what is it going to be this time, how badly did I piss her off, shit, shit. His pants and shoes joined his shirt on the floor.

“Ankles.”

And that answered that question. That, and the thin metal ruler Pepper was holding in her hand. Tony covered himself and shook his head. No, not the ruler.

She didn’t like it when he made her use orders. Her eyes glowed again. “Grab your ankles, Anthony.”

Tony spread his feet and grabbed his ankles. As the ruler hit, he reminded himself that, if he’d wanted a Companion that didn’t boss him around, he shouldn’t have picked Pepper.

Of course, both he and she knew that was why he’d brought her home.

Naming conventions within the Tír na Cali royalty: Except for the Gwydion line, royals are named [name] ni/ap [mother] Ó [line]. The Gwydions follow a male line.

Slaves take de [owner’s name] as their surname, thus Pepper would be Pepper de Anthony.

“My Lord” indicates any royal male.

“Miss [name]” is a polite title for a female slave.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/505853.html. You can comment here or there.

More Please: Kit Town Maybe? A continuation of Tir na Cali

Mar23

After Down in Kitty Town and Entering Kitty Town.

The big man was warm. Warmer than a human. Rrrina settled in his arms, since she couldn’t get away anyway, and sniffed him as surreptitiously as she could.

He smelled, under everything, of a bit of musk. Like holding her was making something happen in his pants. Like… She twisted upwards to peer at his face. “Skin job.”

She was quiet about it. She didn’t want to make him angry: he wasn’t wearing a collar and she was; he was bigger than her and clearly stronger; and he smelled like a tom cat that wanted to mate. Every instinct she had told her not to piss him off.

Still, he pulled her tighter against his chest, squishing her in all sorts of nearly-uncomfortable manners. “What did you say, little kitty?” His hiss was warm and angry in her ear.

She peeked up at him. “You’re a skin job.” Her ears were raked back but she kept her voice as quiet as she could. “You look human, but you’re cat.”

“Technically leopard. You’re good, little kitten. You’re going to be really useful.”

“I’m good at being useful.” The well-trained answer slipped out of her mouth, followed by a soft mewl. “But then he sold me. Are you… “

“Shh, little one. We’re almost there. Then you will understand it all.”

Rrrina fell quiet again. He smelled nice. Too nice; her body wanted him, and she wasn’t in a position to do anything at all about it. And then he slipped a hood over her face and not only could she not see anything, she couldn’t even smell anything.

She started with “hey!” and ended with a long hiss. The hood stank of menthol, like a cough drop factory. “Hey,” she repeated.

“Shh. This part’s a secret, little kitten.” He pulled the hood tight, and she could no longer hear much of anything, either. It sounded like he said “sit tight.”

Not that she had any choice.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/496067.html. You can comment here or there.

Magic Mondays: Magic in Tír na Cali

Mar12

Magic in the Tír na Cali world is held almost entirely in the bloodlines of the royal family of California, and is more rightly called psychic powers than magic.

Every grey-eyed royal member of the family has one psychic power. Examples include telepathy, mind control, Love, teleportation, telekinis, and rapid healing, but many variations exist; while “families” of powers run in bloodlines, the specific manifestation of any given child, even within identical twins, is still very hard to predict.

Power level is thought to be determined by the strength of the royal blood in one, and this is often but not always accurate. Thus, royal women are often unwilling to carry the child of any but another royal.

Powers manifest in early teens, and with manifestation, begin a slowing of the aging process that continues through puberty; post-pubescence, empowered royals age immensely slowly, and the pubescent period itself is prolonged in royals.

A millenia ago, the powers of the Californian royalty’s ancestors – who were neither Californian nor royal at that time – could barely lift pennies or sway thoughts. Today, they can move tanks. Their powers are continually evolving and growing.

What tomorrow may bring is terrifying and wonderful.



This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/491654.html. You can comment here or there.