Bodyguard

Jan26

First: http://www.lynthornealder.com/2017/12/03/negotiation/

Previous: http://www.lynthornealder.com/2018/01/18/purchased/

💰

“I want my daughter safe.  I want her safe no matter what.”

Leander was not the sort of guy to shiver, but something about his employer’s – Owner’s – words made him want to.  He studied the man’s face.  “You’re serious.”

“Deathly serious.  You are not my life insurance, because I’m not that vain, and because I’m old enough to look after myself.  But you’re my insurance for her.  Understand?”

“Yes, sir.  Crystal clear.  Keep your daughter alive despite herself.  Even when the shit hits the fan.”

“You don’t seem bothered.” Continue reading →

After a Warm Meal

Jan25

“MDom Not Asshole” continues

First: A story featuring a male keeper and a female Kept.
Previous: Into the Woods, Into the House

🌳🏚️🌳

When she had filled her belly with soup and her mind had calmed down a little, Mélanie looked up at her new owner.  “So. Sir.”

“Jasper.  or Fox.  Or Crazy.”

“So, Jasper.  What is it that you want me to do for you?  Since you wasted valuable stolen goods on m-”

“Not wasted.”  He steepled his fingers and looked at her  “Spent, yes. I spent maybe a quarter of what you are worth, half because I cheated the slave-monger as a matter of course and half because he had no idea what you’re worth-” Continue reading →

Cats Have Nine Lives

Jan25

This is not fanfic for the anime Mahou Tsukai no Yome/the Ancient Magus‘ Bride, per se, but it is inspired by something in an episode, a reference to the nine lives of cats in a different angle than I’m used to seeing it. 

It’s also sort of Real People Fic.

It also involves pet death, be forewarned.  Also, I made myself cry.

🐈

Continue reading →

Conlang (Extra Lexember?) – Put Some Clothes On

Jan24

Post 1: http://www.lynthornealder.com/2017/12/25/lexember/

Post 2: http://www.lynthornealder.com/2018/01/05/conlang-extra-lexember-syllabary/ 

Post 3: http://www.lynthornealder.com/2018/01/08/conlang3/

Post 4: http://www.lynthornealder.com/2018/01/15/conlang3-2/

Post 5: http://www.lynthornealder.com/2018/01/18/conlang/

Part 6: http://www.lynthornealder.com/2018/01/22/conlang-2/

Today’s topic is… Clothes

Okay, let’s see.

We need people who weave, which means we need something to weave.

vinkin is a sort of linen-like fiber which grows easily in their environment.  vinken is the fabric made from it, and vonken is to weave or to make fabric.

rortlon is to sew; rirtlin is a sewn garment, rertlen is “sewn.”

in most cases, rirtlin has come to mean clothing as a whole.

lenlen is a sewing needle; hinlon is thread.

hinhin is embroidery, which is often done with beads made of wood, metal, or clay.

oh, yes, beads.

Ishji, ishin, jijin. (wooden, metal, clay beads).

The main garment worn is a folded sheet of fabric joined at the shoulders and often belted (kedvel; kidvil, a belt) around the waist; when the weather is cold, a tube that would probably be considered a shrug in modern terms is worn under or over this main garment.  The garment is a tilri (telren, folded; tilren, fold; tolren, to fold); the sleeve/shrug is a nini.

(none, to give someone the shoulder, to turn your back on them).

Continue reading →

Plants

Jan23

DialMforMara suggested that I blog about plants, and here I am.

Plants.

I bury my toes in loam-dark soil; 

I walk barefoot through the dirt my ancestors farmed. 

That is the part I easily remember of a poem I wrote in high school, when the assignment was roots.

Yeah, but it took me more than 20 more years to really internalize why my ethnic heritage – German on my mother’s side – was something we never really talked about.  And on my father’s side I was Good Old Mutt, so my roots were, well.  Farming.

My pen name is a tree.

If you look at my twitter, my background image is a vineyard.

When I dream of going home, I dream about my grandparents’ home, the old farmhouse, or gardening with my grandma.

I like things with very deep roots.  Old things with their structure going way down.  I like things with their feet buried in the soil and their arms lifted up to the sky.

Like me.


Conlang (Extra Lexember?) – The Village, Part II

Jan22

Post 1: http://www.lynthornealder.com/2017/12/25/lexember/

Post 2: http://www.lynthornealder.com/2018/01/05/conlang-extra-lexember-syllabary/ 

Post 3: http://www.lynthornealder.com/2018/01/08/conlang3/

Post 4: http://www.lynthornealder.com/2018/01/15/conlang3-2/

Post 5: http://www.lynthornealder.com/2018/01/18/conlang/

Today’s topic is… Village

Within a village, there are usually several people of importance:
You have the head person, mayor or dispute-reckoner.

Oh! Fight, a fight is rrig. To fight is thus rrog and fight-attitude is rreg.

Okay, so Jirregji. The head-of-village.

And you have the wise-folk: zindi (both Is are as in in)

And the clever-folk: ridi.

di itself means thought, mind.

In this case: the wise folk are usually older people who have proven themselves to have a great deal of knowledge to share.

And the clever folk are generally past adolescence and into an age of innovation.

Oh! Plurals.

=da, -sa, -ya, -kwa

-more-than-one, indeterminate
-two
-a triad
-too many to count

so the wise-folk and the clever-folk are usualy zindiya, ridiya.

There is the Hunt-leader, redi. Like the jirregji, there is only one of them at once.
And the farm-leader, ledi.

And there is the diplomat, (the foreigner-leader), jijidi, of which there is usually be one, but might be several.

People of the village are likfrikwa

(fri is a person)

(Yes, village-people).

(well, TECHNICALLY, people of the green)

A larger village will have a child-leader as well, zizdi, one who thinks about the children.  But in a smaller village, this is handled by the wise-ones.

This is a level just barely beyond subsistence farming. Some people focus on root- or seed-crops, some focus on hunting, some on the animals.  Some make things from the things they can hunt or harvest – wooden things or foods or stone things or things made from bones, and so on.

And some people gather specifically those things that are unique to their own area, for trade with other areas.

Continue reading →

Last Night’s Writing

Jan20

Last night, I was feeling like I was running on one cylinder and running out of gas, but I play this writing game, 4theWords, and I really wanted to move up one step on the leaderboards for battles.

Which meant 4 130-word (or so) battles.

So I asked for suggestions on Mastodon, and this is what  came of it. 

Well, technically, two of these weren’t even from suggestions…

But anyway!  Words!

📝

Filling the Boots

He woke and shook out the cards. Continue reading →

Exploit

Jan20

Okay, content warning, I creeped myself out. 

🤖

“Kelly, he’s a person, he’s not a robot, you can’t just – Kelly, what are you doing?”

“So there’s this line of – okay, they’re not robots, but they’re programmed, aren’t they?  They’re the Zero-One-Seven line out of Detroit, and they’re, ah,  They’re beautiful, for one.”  Kelly gestured at the man in question, a handsome, tall, twenty-something dressed in a simple tunic and pants that looked too sterile and antiseptic for the city street.  He smiled back, a wooden expression that did not reach his eyes.  “And they have an exploit in them.”

“Kelly,” Susan repeated, “he’s a person.  People don’t have – they don’t have – really?”

“Really.  And the thing is, he wasn’t purchased – there’s this loophole, you can’t actually buy a person, even someone from on of the programmed lines.”

“Good!  Good, Kelly, that’s awful.”

“But indentures are still legal.”  Kelly stroked the back of the man’s neck affectionately.  He did not move, except his eyes, which half-closed.  “And what’s more, there’s this clause in the programming that is suppose to ensure obedience.  But what it ends up doing—”

“I’m going to be sick,” Susan muttered.

“Oh come on.  They sell these Programmables, they’re supposed to be — well, programmed.  It’s what they’re sold for.  They volunteer.  Anyway.  There’s this thing where they’re supposed to imprint on the person to wake them up, who is supposed to be their indenture-holder.”

“:That’s pretty horrible.”

“They’re programmables, Susan,” Kelly repeated.  “It’s not like they have feelings until they’re programmed in.  Anyway. That means that whoever wakes them up essentially holds their indenture. They can’t be re-imprinted without a full factory reset.

“You stole a programmable human?  A person.  Kelly.  How did you?”

“I hacked a Programmable, using a really obvious exploit in their system.  And those training screens they use?  They have no security at all.  I hacked him, Susan.  And now he’s mine.”

She stroked his hair again, paying no attention to the way his jaw twitched at her touch.

🤖

Written to yesterday’s Thimbleful Thursday’s prompt: Zero Hour.


Want More?

Conlang (Extra Lexember?) – The Village

Jan18

Post 1: http://www.lynthornealder.com/2017/12/25/lexember/

Post 2: http://www.lynthornealder.com/2018/01/05/conlang-extra-lexember-syllabary/ 

Post 3: http://www.lynthornealder.com/2018/01/08/conlang3/

Post 4: http://www.lynthornealder.com/2018/01/15/conlang3-2/

Today’s topic is… Village

Village!

We have a rertivel, the house-bowl with a central green – liklek, in a style they often use (It’s a green-green)

And wid, originally a meadow or other wide stretch of land, becomes a field for planting crops in.

We have the thit, a cattle-like creature (and thet, bovine, usually used to mean lazy and sleepy, and thot, to act in a bovine matter).

The thit and the yin, an egg-laying creature (ducklike) are kept in kid, a corrale (ked, square, kidden, square, kod, to corralle).

And the food is often cooked in a central area, which is usually a kidden, the word square, moved out to mean a central cooking-place.

Those who cook are didden. (okay, technically, that’s One-who-cooks.  Must do plurals next) Continue reading →