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Brothers and Brotherhood, a story of Tir na Cali, for the Giraffe Call @lilfluff

Nov14

For LilFluff‘s prompt.

This is in the Tír na Cali Setting, which has a landing page here (and on LJ), with characters I have not used before.

“Have you seen your brother around here?” The majordomo had his someone’s-getting-in-trouble face on and his face twisted in a scowl. Caleb gave him an innocent smile. “Simeon? No. I haven’t seen him all day.”

“Hrmph. If you see him, tell him to come find me. Your lordship.”

The ‘lordship’ was brusque, cursory, and entirely insincere, but Caleb didn’t mind. He nodded at the man, and let him storm on his way out.

Caleb wouldn’t be in his brother’s shoes for anything – either of his brothers. Their mother was constantly on Simeon to do better in school, to be nicer to the young Ladies he met on her whim, to clean up and look nicer all around. And Cye…

“Is he gone?”

Both Caleb’s brothers were half-brothers. Simeon shared a mother with Caleb and a father with their sister Marianne. Caleb, on the other hand, shared a father with Cye, whose mother was the head cook.

“He’s gone. I’d ask what you did this time, but he was looking for Simeon.” Cye had only been serving above-stairs for a couple weeks, but some things didn’t take long at all to learn.

“Her Ladyship is on a ramp… I mean, she seems like she’s in a bad mood.” Cye tugged on his slave collar uncomfortably; like Caleb, he was going through a growth spurt, and nothing fit. “Seems like it runs in the family. When I saw Lord Simeon earlier, he was pretty cranky, too.” He eyed Caleb carefully. “Everyone but you.”

“Well, someone has to be in a good mood,” Caleb shrugged. “Besides, shit flows downstream, and by the time it reaches me…” It was divert it or let it hit Cye and the other slaves. But saying that would just make Cye uncomfortable. He shrugged. “Not so much left, since it’s all over Marianne and Simeon.”

“Must be nice, being the youngest,” Cye murmured. He was still getting the feel for what his half-brother-slash-Master would put up with, and Caleb was still getting a feel for how much he could let his new responsibility get away with, so when the younger boy flopped across the bed, they both eyed each other uncertainly.

“It has its advantages,” Caleb allowed. “Mostly invisibility.”

“Doesn’t sound that different from being a slave.” He sat up, cross-legged, clearly uncertain about the lack of reprimand.

Caleb shrugged. “There are advantages,” he repeated. As long as he kept his nose clean, he could look after those beneath him… like Cye. It wasn’t much of an advantage, but it was something. It was almost a purpose in life.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/174553.html. You can comment here or there.

Revenge of the Pumpkins, a sequel of Tir Na Cali for the Giraffe Call

Oct24

For Ankewehner‘s prompt.

Tir na Cali. Cali has a landing page here (or on LJ)

After When in Rome (and on LJ), which is after Too Hot for Prime Time (and on LJ) from September’s Giraffe Call.

Commenters: 3

A costume?

“Yes, Mistress,” Jason managed. “What sort of costume?” Some of the stuff out the window was ridiculous, some of it was beautiful, and some of it was risqué or straight-out pornographic. It looked a little like Hallowe’en at home, he guessed – brightly-colored costumes, at least – but the grown-ups seemed just as involved, if not more, than the kids.

“You’ll have to wait and see,” she chuckled. “Don’t worry. It’s just for the little party we put on at the estate; you’re not going out in the streets.”

“Okay, mistress,” he choked. That was supposed to be good? Not going out in the streets? He hadn’t tried running away in a while, and in the press of costumes, it wouldn’t be that hard to get lost – but she seemed like the sort of person who’d have thought of that already. He couldn’t do anything about it, so he watched the scenery.

Feathers, there were a lot of feathers, and rich, elaborate robes, animal skins, antlers, lots of antlers, and some that looked really, really real. He could hear them laughing and shouting and singing even inside the car, stopping traffic with processions across the roads, dancing on the back of trucks.

Then a scream echoed through the crowd, the sort of thing where one person started screaming, then those near them, and then further out, like the wave. Even the people he could see screaming looked as if it was part of the game, though, some sort of ceremony? As the crowds parted in mock-fear, he could see people wearing giant papier-mâché pumpkins on their heads stomping forward, wielding large staffs that they were swinging back and forth. Every so often, someone unfortunate or slow would get hit with the staff, paint splattering all over their costume.

“What…?” Jason asked, staring in awe.

“Oh, that?” his Mistress laughed. “That’s the Revenge of the Pumpkins. It’s supposed to be a teaching lesson, about wasting food; they’re supposed to be the ghosts of pumpkins smashed or left to rot, and food left on plates uneaten.”

“People seem to really want to get out of the way of the stick,” he noted, as one woman brushed at the paint dripping down her, tears streaking her face.

“Well, yeah. Wouldn’t you? Considering, I mean,” his owner answered offhandedly. As she drove away, he saw two of the pumpkin-heads pick up the sobbing woman and carry her off.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/155948.html. You can comment here or there.

When in Rome…. – a story of Tir Na Cali for the Giraffe Call

Oct24

For Lilfluff‘s prompt.

Tir na Cali. Cali has a landing page here (or on LJ)

After Too Hot for Prime Time (and on LJ) from September’s Giraffe Call.

Commenters: 6

Jason was still trying to figure out what was going on, but the tall woman who has just bought him was, comments about babies or not, still better than the work camps, as far as he could tell, and he didn’t want to give her any reason to change her mind, so he didn’t ask any questions, or give her any trouble, as she steered him by the back of his collar out of the auction hall.

He hadn’t been outside, except in the back of a van, since he’d been taken; the sun was bright and the air chill on his skin. He tried to keep walking anyway, relying on his Mistress’s hand to direct him. Mistress. She might not be a work camp, but she’d still bought him, like a piece of property. He struggled against the uncomfortable gratitude that someone, anyone, had turned out to want him and the unhappy feeling that he was letting this place get to him.

“Here,” she murmured, and, like putting a prisoner in the back of a cop car, pressed down on the back of his head until he bowed and folded into the back of a car. “Try to get comfortable,” she suggested, as she belted him in. “It’s a long drive.”

And, it seemed, she was driving it herself. Jason let his eyes adjust to the sun as she maneuvered the big, expensive-looking car onto the road; by the time she was in traffic, he could study his surroundings.

The city buildings looked, more or less, like a city – a little brighter, a little taller, a little less square than he was used to, but still city-shaped. The roads had less cars than he’d expect, but maybe it wasn’t a high-traffic time? And the people…

He stared at the people going by in awe. He wasn’t even the least-dressed person around, although the lady with the feathers at least had paint. And most of them weren’t wearing slave collars, although he saw one lovely redheaded girl in an expensive-looking gold collar, wearing a high, gold crown to match her collar and an elaborate kimono and geisha face paint.

It wasn’t until he passed three people in a dragon costume, dancing around a man dressed like Uncle Sam, that Jason found his voice. “It looks like Mardi Gras,” he marveled. Mardi Gras with no morals; there were three people having a very fun naked time on the base of a statute while a fourth took pictures. “It looks like…” Like the things in the anti-California pamphlets that made the country seem so interesting.

His Mistress chuckled, looking back at him in the rear-view mirror. “It’s Samhain,” she told him. “I think it’s called Hallowe’en in your country? And, lucky you, I even have a costume for you.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/155757.html. You can comment here or there.

Refurbish and Sell – Criminal Minds/Cali Crossover

Oct16

For the [personal profile] clare_dragonfly‘s prompt

This is more of the Reid/Cali crossover fanfic, directly after the last piece.

The stories before this:
Never Been Caught (and on LJ): First written, last in sequence.

Shots Fired (and on LJ): First in sequence

“Well, Crap, Where am I?” (and on LJ), after “Shots Fired”

Sweet Iced Tea (LJ), after “Well, Crap…” and before the story below.

Commenters: 4

Their captive sipped his iced tea slowly, watching them. “You’re the team that’s been beating the BAU to the punch.”

“We are,” Morrigan re-affirmed.

“What have you been doing with the victims?”

“We’re slave runners. We’ve been cleaning them up, dressing them up, and selling them.” There was no point in sugar-coating what they did; it wasn’t like he wouldn’t find out soon enough anyway.

He studied her while he drank the saccharine tea. “You rescue them from serial killers just to sell them into slavery. It seems like a cruel joke to pull on them, doesn’t it?”

Them, still. She wondered when he would figure it out.

“It’s kinder than leaving them there and letting hem be raped, tortured, and killed, isn’t it? That last one – the guy with the birds-nest beard. Did your people get everyone out of his crawl space yet?”

He shook his head. “When we left for Georgia, they were still exhuming bodies. They had pulled out twenty-seven full remains, and three partial sets, one of them just the fingerbones from a left hand – they believe that was his first victim, due to the age of the remains. But the evidence suggested there had been two living victims there as well, one of whom who had been pretty severely injured.”

“We treated his injuries, and gave him several sessions with a very skilled therapist.” See? We can be nice, too. Morrigan would have laughed at herself, if Cym wasn’t doing such a good job of it in the other corner. “We’ll treat your injuries, too, when we’ve evaded pursuit sufficiently.”

“My injuries?” He squeaked when he was upset. It was adorable. “That’s not necessary. You can drop me at any hospital; I have very good health insurance. I appreciate the rescue, but I don’t need to burden you any longer.”

Aaaw. She almost felt bad for him as she patted his shoulder. “I think you’ll be with us for a while, Agent Reid.” Cleaned up, refurbished… but she wasn’t sure she’d sell him.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/149520.html. You can comment here or there.

Giraffe Call Story – Ninja Kitty (Tir na Cali catpeople)

Oct15

For ankewehner‘s prompt.

Tir na Cali, catpeople. Cali has a landing page here (or on LJ)

Commenters: 10

“I don’t mean to sneak up on people, I just forget to make a sound sometimes.”

Cob looked at Lea, her ears raked back, her tail limp, everything in her body language saying “I’m cute, please don’t hurt me,” and sighed. This adorable little kitty had been trained in combat since she was old enough to walk. The mods she’d inherited from her parents had given her sharp teeth and sharper claws, and, whether it was nature or nurture that had made her predatory, she had turned out bloodthirsty either way.

“Lea,” he said patiently. “That’s a very good skill to have when you’re in the field.” If she was ever sent into the field. For all the training, he wasn’t sure the Agency would ever use their hybrid cat-people for their ostensible purpose. They looked too cute, even licking blood off their hands, and were too human-cat creepy, even by the standards of pet-shop moddies. They, Cob’s fellow trainer Jac had muttered, were firmly in the Uncanny Valley, and, being there, were too damn freaky to send out into the general population.

Even to their trainers.

“I’m very good at it, too,” she answered sweetly. “Aren’t I? Seen and not heard, right, that’s what Lady Pia said, but I’m not seen, either, am I? Unless I want to be.”

“Aaah. Come here, sweetie. One. I’m sorry about Pia. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about – but don’t quote me on that. Two. Don’t take out your frustration with the higher-ups on me, Miss Kitty.”

She blinked at him, all innocence, but her tail was lashing. “But Cob,” she complained sweetly, “you are my higher up.”

Cob studied the charming teenaged assassin-in-training who was his primary responsibility and realized, perhaps for the first time, just how human the hate in her eyes was.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/146698.html. You can comment here or there.

Donor Perk Story: Slave School – a Vignette without a name

Oct4

Tir na Cali Slave School – needs a name.

The tall, lanky kid from Ohio had had it out from Steve from their first day in class. He didn’t know why… all right, he did know why, but it seemed kind of petty. So he’d made the guy move at lunch. He was taking up a whole big table by himself, and Steve wanted to sit with his friends. And, okay, he’d snickered at him once or twice – but the guy was such a suck-up, seeming to buy into the shit they wanted to force-feed them.

So he’d been a little shitty to – Fred, that was his name – the Ohio kid, and then it turned out that Fred had a temper that just had a really, really long fuse. And Steve had made one comment after Religion class – all right, one comment after comments pretty steadily over the last three weeks, but they weren’t big comments or anything. It was just that he couldn’t say anything to the teachers without getting hit, or, once, when he’d been really mouthy, gagged, and Fred seemed so much like everything the teachers wanted. So he mouthed off to Fred for selling out.

This time, they’d been studying the ways one could honor the Goddess, and the way service to a Mistress should echo one’s service to the Goddess. Sickening pagan shit. Steve had turned to Fred as they left class and muttered, too quiet for the proctors to hear, “you’re gonna love it, aren’t you? Praying to your goddess-mistress, down on your knees?”

He hadn’t seen the punch coming, at least the first one. The second one he saw, but not in time to do anything about it, and after that, it was a bit of a blur. Steve thought he was a pretty tough guy – but even soccer didn’t prepare him for the pummeling he was getting, and the kid was all fists and elbows, no way to get away from him. He thought he got in one good punch. Two, maybe. He was going for a third when the proctors showed up and pulled them apart.

It took, as far as Steve could see through vision gone blurry and a bit red, four people to pull Fred off of him, and a fifth to keep Steve from kicking the lanky kid back once he had room to breathe. They dragged them to the infirmary, where Steve found himself restrained to a cot.

The nurse worked over him patiently, her gloved hands cool but gentle, though the antiseptics stung. Steve closed his eyes and tried to think of anything else. He’d gotten his ass handed to him. That was pretty humiliating. But more than that, the kid – he hadn’t been going to stop. He had been trying to kill Steve. That… that was something else altogether.

“Frederick claims you provoked him.” The voice was not the nurse’s; he opened his eyes to see their Civics teacher sitting next to him.

Steve opened his mouth to say something snide, and then closed it again. Even though she wore a slave collar, Miss Svetlana had been harder on them than any of the other teachers. Why would she be any better after he’d started a fight?

She pursed her lips unhappily anyway. “Was Frederick correct, Steven?”

Was he? “I might have said a few things,” he admitted, hastily adding on, “Miss. Okay, I said a few things.”

“That will mitigate his punishment, then,” she nodded. “Would you mind telling me what sort of things?”

“I’d kinda mind, yeah.” He squirmed against his bonds. “I mean, come on, I already got my ass handed to me, miss. I’d rather not get beaten on again just yet.”

She frowned faintly at him. “Is that your concern?” Seeing him pause, she gestured imperiously with one hand. “You may feel free to speak freely for the duration of this meeting, and will be punished for nothing you say here. Immunity.”

She really wanted him to talk? If she was going to open herself up for it, he was certainly going to let her have it. “Well, come on, every time I open my mouth around here,” he said, twitching again against his restraints as he tried to gesture, “I get hit or beat or, if someone’s feeling really generous, sent to go sit in the corner like a five-year-old. So yeah. I figure I’m going to get punished for this somehow.” He yanked hard on the cuffs. “Why else would I be tied down to a bed?” He might be the dumb one of the group, but Steve could think of some “why else’s,” and was trying hard to ignore those options. He hadn’t been that mouthy, had he?

“Aah.” Miss Svetlana’s frown deepened, and he began to think he really had gone too far. “And it wouldn’t occur to you that we were worried about your well-being?”

“Well, I guess you have to protect your investment. I’ve got to be worth a couple grand to you, don’t want me getting all banged up, right? But what’s that got to do with tying me to a bed?”

The teacher stood, pacing rapidly around the small room, her heels beating an angry staccato on the tile floor. When she turned to him, finally, she was glaring, and her voice was sharp and high.

“How could you think that was all you are to us? A number, a product? I know being captured has been hard on you, but do you really think I’m the sort of monster that cares only for the numbers?” She tugged roughly on her own collar. “Do you really think I’m that crass and inhuman?”

“You sure as hell act like you only care about obedience.” He wanted to shout it, but she was nearly crying, and it took the heat out of his anger. “Every time any of us fuck up, you come down like a ton of bricks.”
“And that’s half as hard as an owner would come down on you,” she snapped back, the tears flowing for real now. “Do you think we want to see you sold into service unprepared, whipped or beaten because you didn’t know how to behave?”

He gaped at her, not sure what to say. “Why not just tell us?” he asked sullenly, his whole body aching.

“We do!” She sat down on the edge of his narrow bed. “We tell you, over and over again, but some of you are so hung up on how it’s ‘wrong,’ how you’re better than born-slaves, that you won’t listen unless we pound it home. And some of you don’t listen even then.” She glared at him through tear filled eyes.

“What?” he sputtered, although, guiltily, he knew she had a point. “Aw, come on, I don’t think I’m better than you.” Crying was cheating, but she was sniffling on his bed, and he’d made her cry. “Come on, miss…” He patted awkwardly in her direction. “I don’t…”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/138877.html. You can comment here or there.

Little Lost Kitty Girl: Tir na Cali

Sep26

For [personal profile] lilfluff‘s commission and [personal profile] ysabetwordsmith‘s prompt, from the most recent Giraffe-Call-for-Prompts

Original post here.

They couldn’t have unlocked her collar if they wanted to; she wasn’t, legally, theirs. The girl they called Patches was a foster-kitty of sorts, placed with them to learn what a household was supposed to be like, and what a slave in that house was supposed to act like.

Where they were moving, however, was a small gated community, a step up the social ladder and the sort of place where a moddie slave would be hard to explain, so they left her behind. They made sure she had plenty of water and food, but packed up around her and set her to her room as they left, so she wouldn’t see them leaving her behind. The youngest petted her behind her furred ears for a while, and cried, forgetting, the way the family often did, that their kitty-girl could speak and understand English as well as any human.

The girl they called Patches, whose mother had called her Tanya-Marie, listened to all of it, and murrowled cutely, because her foster-owners were more comfortable with her miawing than speaking, and waited in her room until they were gone. She wondered, for a while, if she’d done something wrong. Raised in the Agency, she didn’t have the slave instincts that the other servants did; raised by other modified beings, cat-people, she sometimes gave in to feral behaviors. But she’d done everything they asked her to, and, despite all the jokes, she’d never peed on the carpet.

They’d left her her clothes, along with maybe a week’s worth of clothes, but they’d also left, by accident, a small laptop. Tanya-Marie hooked into the internet and began searching.

The walk, once she’d found her route, was long, and hurt her feet, used to indoor living. People stopped her, either for the novelty of talking to a cat-girl or for the concern of seeing a runaway slave, but her tags said she had free rein to wander (she was an Agency cat, after all) and there was nothing they could really do to stop her.

Three weeks later, a hungry and slightly bedraggled Patches showed up, miawing sadly, at her foster-owners’ new house.

She went to the back door; that had been one of her first lessons. Slaves went to the back door unless they were escorting their master or mistress. Slaves weren’t seen in the public areas of the house unless they were doing their job.

The cook-and-housekeeper, Ashley, answered the door, and tsk’ed unhappily when she saw Tanya-Marie. “Oh, you poor thing. Come on in here, no, right into the mud room with you. I told them they shouldn’t leave you behind, but, of course, no, they wouldn’t listen. Where have you been?”

Her throat parched, the cat-girl answered only with a weak “miew.” The older slave made a chagrined noise in the back of her throat.

“You’re a mess, aren’t you? All right, sit down, there, shower yourself off. I’ll bring you some clean clothes.”

The mud-room was equipped with a large utility sink, and it was there that Ashley had directed her. Ears flat – she didn’t like showers – Tanya-Marie did as directed. She showered until the water ran clean and her fur and hair were plastered to her, by which time Ashley had returned.

“That’s a good kitty,” she praised her, and, as Ashley always had, fed the girl a couple treats in a flat-palmed hand. Grateful for the food, Tanya-Marie lipped up the treats and swallowed them, then miawed cutely for more.

“Don’t try that on me, kitty. I know better.” Despite the scold, Ashley was gentle as she toweled off the younger slave. “Where have you been?”

Her throat wetted by the shower-water, she managed an answer. “Walking.” She held up one foot to show the old calluses and new blisters. Maybe she’d get another treat?

“Tch. They shouldn’t have left you, really shouldn’t. Why didn’t you go back to the Agency?”

The Agency was a lot harder to track than her foster-family had been. She had done some looking, of course, trying to find a facility to return herself to. In the end, though…

“This is where I was placed. I am supposed to stay with these people.” She headbutted gently against Ashley and the towel. “This is my home.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/135879.html. You can comment here or there.

Too Hot to Handle: Tir na Cali, Jason.

Sep23

For [personal profile] lilfluff‘s commission and prompt, from the most recent Giraffe-Call-for-Prompts

Original post here.

They’d caught him at a bar, and that had been bad. Jason had been far drunker than he ever wanted to admit to when the pretty blonde girl had lured him into her car and, from there, it seemed, into slavery. When he sobered up, he’d made his opinions on the matter endlessly clear, until the girl had drugged him into submission long enough to sell him.

The boutique she’d sold him to had done much the same, once he’d started hollering, but he was edgy and angry even drugged to the gills, and they couldn’t sell him, no matter how hard they tried. After a while, the proctor had pulled him aside and explained to Jason, punctuating the lesson with some discrete blows, that a slave who could not be sold was no use to anyone, and a slave with no use would be gotten rid of.

Jason wasn’t sure he believed him, but as his bruises healed, he began to notice that some of the other mouthy slaves had just… vanished. One of the older, more well-behaved slaves told him, in a frightened whisper, that they’d gone to the work camps. The boy made it sound like being sold into hell.

That got Jason’s attention, enough that he started trying, but it was too little and too late. No matter how hard he tried to play good, he couldn’t get the anger out of his system, and his fear only fueled that. Pretty ladies and their fluffy boy toys took one look at him and moved on to someone tamer. Even the big, rich businessmen wanted someone they didn’t have to worry about turning their back on. They were frightened of him, and they wouldn’t buy what they feared. The boutique passed him off to an auction house.

And here he was, chained to a post, between a girl who’d lost three of her fingers in a mechanical accident and a runaway who kept swearing and spitting at all comers. The girl sold, for a discount, but still, she sold. The boy on the other side of her sold. The old man past him, and the narrow probably-a-girl on the other side of the runaway sold. The runaway sold, to a tall blonde girl who stuck a gag in his mouth and leash on his collar – but he sold.

“Come on,” Jason complained, though noone was listening. “Nobody wants me?”

—

“I’ll take you.”

The voice came from behind him, a rumbling alto that could have been a man or a woman. He couldn’t turn around, not the way they had him chained, so he froze, and then, slowly, tried to make his body posture like the good slaves, the ones that sold. Eyes down. Mouth closed. Shoulders straight. He’d have knelt if he could have, but his collar and wrists were bolted behind him.

A blow fell on his shoulder and he winced. “I said I’ll take you.”

He should respond, but he didn’t want to get the title wrong, and he still couldn’t tell from the voice. “Thank you,” he answered, and then, going for always-call-your-professors-doctor, “your highness.”

The chuckle was behind his other shoulder. “Points for trying. You’re the mouthy one from Adele’s store, aren’t you?”

“Yes?” The laugh grated on him, though he tried not to show it at all. Damnit, they got mad when he didn’t try, laughed when he did…

“She told me she’d given up trying to sell you. You’re lucky she didn’t just send you straight to the work camps. You do know that, right?”

“Yes.” Now his teeth were gritted, and he was having a hard time keeping his head down. Why did everyone keep rubbing that in. “Although if no-one buys me…” he couldn’t help adding.

“I already said I’d buy you. The work camps aren’t going to get you. You’re too… well, too something for them.”

“Thanks, I think.”

Another light blow hit his shoulder. “You are going to have to learn some manners, but that should be easy enough; you’re a smart boy.”

“Thank you,” he hazarded a guess, based on intonation rather than the alto voice, “your ladyship.”

“Very good.” She stepped out from behind him, a woman as tall as he was, broad-shouldered and long-legged, her blouse dropping to her deep cleavage. Her black hair was cropped short and, despite the business outfit, she didn’t seem to be wearing makeup; the only thing she had in common with the Ladies who had refused to buy him was her grey eyes. “But you can call me Mistress.”

She gripped his chin, muffling any answer he might want to make, and looked over his face. “Nice jaw, nice eyes. Good teeth?” She stuck her fingers in his mouth; Jason barely resisted the urge to bite down. “Very good teeth. And you’ve got spirit.”

“Yes… Mistress,” he agreed, once she’d released his mouth. “That’s why I’m here.”

“That’s why you’re coming home with me, too.” She tilted his head forward until the wide collar bit into him, and did something behind his neck, then something more complicated behind his wrists. “They’re scared of you, the pretty little Ladies. I, on the other hand, am not.”

She was also not taking the handcuffs off, but Jason, for once, didn’t argue. She stood at least a head taller than the petite royalty he’d met, solid, built, and gorgeous. He might still be able to take her in a fight, but he didn’t tower over her. “Yes, Mistress.”

“Smart,” she smirked. She was clipping a leash onto his collar, but it was still better than a work camp. “You’re going to make such lovely babies.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/133906.html. You can comment here or there.

30 Days Second Sem, Waiting Uncomfortably, Tir Na Cali Harem

Aug29

For the 30 Days Meme Second Semester, for the prompt “21) Roll a d20 twice. Combine the themes of the two previous stories for those numbers.” I got #14 & #17; this follows after #14, Preparing the Stage.

Tir Na Cali, in the Harem sub-setting – landing page here (and on LJ)

Content warning: bondage and mild violence

Stephan squirmed uncomfortably against his bindings, wondering what he’d done this time. He and Lady Ursula had, he thought, been getting along relatively well this week. He’d been trying – his pride squirmed, too, at how much he’d been trying, but she was the boss – to live up to her occasionally-cryptic and frequently-foreign expectations, had been sure to only mouth off in private, and had a long notebook of orders she’d given him, which he did his best to obey (although their sometimes-conflicting nature made that tricky).

But he still found himself strapped to a St. Andrew’s Cross (not what they called it here, but what he knew it as, and damned if he needed another word for “thing he got tied to when they wanted to whip him”), his toes barely touching the ground, more weight than was comfortable hanging from his shoulders, facing the plain white wall while, behind him, the sadist who took care of the leather gear tested her whips, cracking them in the air.

“I…” he tried, even though he knew it was stupid. Bettie casually flicked the end of the flogger against his inner thigh: a warning that left his skin stinging. He fell silent. What had he done wrong? If he was going to be punished, it would be nice to know why. “Please,” he said hurriedly, before she could hit him again, “do you know why I’m here today?”

Bettie patted his shoulder. “Sometimes,” she said gently, “they’re just having a bad day.”

The List:
1a) the story starts with the words “It’s going down.” (LJ Link)
1b) the story starts with the words “It’s going down.” (LJ Link)
2) write a scene that takes place in a train station.
3) the story must involve a goblet and a set of three [somethings]
4) prompt: one for the road
5) write a story using an imaginary color
6) write the pitch for a new Final Fantasy styled RPG (LJ Link)
7) prompt: frigid (LJ Link)
8) write a scene in the middle of a novel called “The Long, Dirty Afterwards” (LJ)
9) prompt: mourning dead gods (LJ)
10) write a story set in three different time periods. (LJ)
11) Write a movie trailer style trailer for a story, existing or not-yet-written. (LJ)
12) prompt: sweet iced tea (LJ)
13) re-write a story that everyone knows (LJ)
14) write a vanilla story dealing with kinky subject matter (LJ)
15) prompt: ascension (LJ)
16) write a scene that takes place at the end of a long road trip. (LJ)
17) write an uncomfortable story (LJ)
18) prompt: a step too far (LJ
19) write a story in which something goes BOOM. )LJ)
20) Write the end of the story ‘The Purple Bag. (LJ)

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Rescue into Slavery, to ysabetwordsmith’s prompt

Aug21

This is to ysabetwordsmith‘s prompt in my call for prompts: “What happens when the abduction IS the rescue?”

Author’s notes a and b:
a) This is set in the Tir na Cali (LJ Link) ‘verse, where slave raiders from the West Coast country of Tir na Cali often steal American youth.

In this alternate-history world, the US is a much more rigid place in answer to what they perceive to be the godless heathen ways of their neighbor-enemy. Think stereotypical 1950’s midwest morality.

b) As per the prompt, there is implied abuse in this story. The kid has not had a good life.

The underground bondage clubs could be, if played right, a decent place to pick up new slaves. A heavy air of tolerance and anonymity permeated these places, and one more pretty set of tits in a mask and a corset really didn’t stand out all that much.

Morrigan walked up to the boy she’d been casing for three hours and four Cosmos, a skinny waif whose ID was probably fake, wearing a skintight shirt, vinyl pants, and a jingly leather bondage collar. Some of them that wore collars like this proved to adjust better to Cali’s true collars; others couldn’t hack it and broke. She grabbed the three rings in one hand and tugged, hooking a leash on the front one before he could complain, her eyes on his lips and shoulders, gauging his reaction.

He moved forward gracefully to her hand, one shoulder twitching and his lips tightening as he forced a lazy smile. “Fifty dollars for ten minutes. A hundred if you leave marks.”

Ah. She almost recoiled, but he was in her hands already. She palmed the bill and passed it to him as she took the fur-lined leather cuffs off of his belt, let him pocket the money before she bound his wrists behind his back, and lead him out to the back alley and, from there, into her van.

She thought she caught a twinge of panic as the van doors closed, but by then, he was trapped. She peeled his shirt up and off him, leaving it hanging off his cuffs, and studied his pale chest, the burns, the old bruises, the place where one rib hadn’t healed right. She pursed her lips. Not even the worst brothels in her country treated their slaves like that.

“Another fifty if you’re going to make your mark,” the boy said, his nervousness showing clearly now. She pulled a Californian c-note from her other wallet and let him see it before she tucked it in his front pocket. “Keep that,” she said gently. “You’re going to need it.”

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