It’s time for the theme poll!
This poll picks the theme for the three stories posted each month on Patreon, as well as reposts and possibly other such things.
If you don’t have a DW account, you can vote in the comments.
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This weekend, we worked on the garden beds!
We moved something like 6 square feet of walking onions from various garden beds into the hedgerow, where we hope they will fight it out with the goldenrod and emerge victorious.
We then started to repair the bed most of those onions had been living in, noticed that we had two 3-½” bolts instead of the 4” we needed, and were about to go out to Lowes and then dinner…
…when we remembered that it was graduation weekend for the largest college in the area.
So we went for bolts the next day, bolted that bed back together, amended and turned over the soil, and planted asparagus roots and strawberries. This is now a perennial bed for something actually intentional, as opposed to a perennial-onion bed.
We had a little time left, so we turned over another bed, planted the cabbage starts, and planted two milkweed (fancy milkweed) and two fancy day lily starts.
So our garden so far:
[cabbage] [kale, needs work ] [sweet potatoes] [asparagus/strawberries]
[tomatoes][peppers, eggplant]][~needs work~ [ ~needs planting~]
And then, off to the left, a wide hilly section that has held/will hold various squash, and on the patio, a whole range of pots holding herbs, tomato, and peppers.
And so far we’ve only lost one pepper plant to the rabbits and, darn it, 1 pack of squash plants to the cat.
How was your (long, in the US) weekend?
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It was telling, humiliating, and sensible. Do you know what you like to do for fun?
He ought to. He ought to know things that were enjoyable. Everyone did, right?
Ctirad swallowed around a keening sound that refused to quiet itself. He wanted to bow until his forehead was on the floor, but he’d been told to lean back, so he stayed leaning back.
“Hey, hey.” Timaios stroked his shoulders gently. “Hey. Ctirad. Come on, kitten, come on.”
Kitten? The nickname drew him out of his panic for a moment. “Kitten?”
“Sounds better than ‘puppy’ and I don’t think you’d like ‘pet’,” Timaios admitted. “So you’re my kitten.”
“Yes… yes sir. I’m your kitten.”
“So, kitten. Do you like team sports?”
“I’m good at soccer, sir. And okay at volleyball.” He could remember that. Playing volleyball on the beach at sunset. With… With… no. No, those memories weren’t allowed.
“But not enjoyable. Hrm… Weapons?”
“I’m proficient at any number of weapons, sir. At least fifty, depending on how you count.”
“But do you enjoy any of them?”
Knives. It was an image, a feeling, rather than a word. Tossing a knife up in the air and catching it. The way it felt when he threw it. The way it felt cutting into skin. “Knives, sir.”
“Good. Very good, kitten, thank you.” Timaios leaned down and kissed the back of Ctiard’s neck.
Ctirad tilted his head forward, baring more neck, finding he wanted more of that contact.
“When Ermenrich left you alone, what did you do?”
Whine.
No.
“When,” Ctirad asked very carefully, “he left me and didn’t cage me or restrain me?”
“Did that happen? That is, were you given time to yourself?”
“Sometimes.” More in the last few months.
“Then yes. What did you do?”
“Sometimes I just walked. Whatever my um. My leash was, the distance I was allowed to go, I walked that. Usually just laps of the house or the office. Sometimes I read, if there was anything around to read. A lot of times I just did push-ups or sit-ups until I couldn’t anymore. I don’t like being idle for too long. I like having something to do.”
The last surprised him, but he found it was true. “I liked reading the best,” he admitted more quietly. “A couple times I managed to jog on the treadmill while reading, and that was very good.”
“Good.” Timaios kissed the top of his head. “Very good, kitten.”
Ctirad moaned very quietly at the praise. “Thank you… um. Thanks, Tim.” He glanced up at Timaios nervously.
“It’s good to have some idea what you like to do when you’ve got idle time. I don’t need you for household chores, but I might need you to be out of the way of the people doing that work. So it’s good to have things you want to do during that time.” He looked down at Ctirad thoughtfully. “Did you like being caged or restrained?”
Ctirad found himself blushing. He looked away, because he could, and struggled with an answer. “I didn’t like it when he left me alone that way.”
“I see.” Timaios’ voice was a soft rumble too close to Ctirad’s ear. “Interesting. Well. I’m going to have to make sure we draw some lines before we get to that point, but I won’t ever leave you caged or restrained alone for more than… half an hour, okay?”
“Even – even when I’m being punished, sir?”
“Things that are done for fun should not be used for punishment,” Timaios replied firmly. “So yes, I won’t do that as a punishment.”
“Sir?” A tall man stuck his head into the living room. He was tall, although maybe not as tall as Timaios, with his curly blue-black hair pulled back into a tight ponytail. “Mr. Talbot and Ms. Tansure are here to see you?”
“Of course they are.” Timaios’ tone was dry. “Send them in, and bring in the Chateau Kamine ‘92, if you would, the Riesling, and have Danny whip up a cheese platter.”
“Of course, sir.” The man bowed deeply and departed.
“Well, I guess we’ll see how you fare with company.” Timaios patted Ctirad’s hair. “Please don’t be too concerned; you can consider this a practice run. That’s Tristin, by the way. My… butler, I suppose.”
“Ah.” The man looked intimidating. He moved in a way that was a lot more common for a hired killer than a butler. “Do you want…” What was he supposed to even ask?
“You can be yourself, but remember to call me Tim. Ah, here they are.” He patted Ctirad’s head and rose to his feet.
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They lived happily ever after.
But that’s not the tale, is it? First you have to have the wedding – a posh affair, because he was a prince and she was a…
Well, anyway, he wasn’t all that much of a prince. You could ride across his princedom in a leisurely day, even if you stopped to take a nap around noon, and it was mostly rocks and the wastes of what had once been a fine land. But he was still a prince, son of a king and a queen – and because of the nature of this little area where our story is, both of them had royal blood. He had a cousin who’d been eyeing him speculatively since he’d reached his full growth – but she has her own story.
Continue reading
Part I
Part II
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“…I was going to buy that skirt…” Abigail complained.
“No, you weren’t. You would hem and haw about the price and in the end you would’ve left with nothing.” Liv patted her on the shoulder. “We could go into the bookstore there, or we could go to that place that looks like it’s selling herbs and spices?”
“Herbs and spices first. Once we get in a bookstore, we’re going to be there ‘till it’s time for your mom to pick us up.”
Liv giggled. “Like that one time, when she came in to get us…”
“Or that time she had the store page us.
“Or that time she texted us bits of War and Peace until we came out on our own… Yeah. The herb and spice place first.”
The place in question had rows and rows of jars in one window; the other one was so full of plants that you couldn’t see into the store at all. There was no sign, but there was a young person with long black hair standing in the doorway.
“All the fine things in the world, all the best tastes and best sensations. Come in, I’ll give you a free sample to take home. Come on in.”
They were dressed, this shop-keeper, in four layers of clashing batik, flowing pants and tunic and vest and something between an apron and a skirt. They gestured Abigail and Liv into their shop, which smelled of a medley of herbal aromas that somehow didn’t quite clash. “You seem like you’re new to our little neck of the woods. If that’s so, here.” They handed Liv a circular wooden box, small enough to fit in the palm of her hand. “That’s just a little something for when you’ve got the doldrums or the dum-dums, that is, life or some idiot are getting you down. because, as they say, non illegitimus carborundum.”
“Don’t…” Liv stared at them. “Let the outlaws make you carbide?”
“Close enough! All right, here’s your free samples! Ginger candy! Because ginger is a spice, you see.” The strips of yellow were coated in sugar. “Careful, they have a bite. Now. What brings you here?”
Something about them put Abigail’s back up. “A door.”
“…And a bully,” Liv pointed out.
“Aah! Well, those are a good start. That’s a place for a story to begin, isn’t it? Once, two young girls fled a bully through a door in the back of the mall. There, they found…
“Strange and wondrous places!” Liv put in. “…but no fauns.”
“Ah, but as the faun was working for the Winter Witch, perhaps not who you want to find, mm? Perhaps a beaver instead?”
Abigail had pocketed her candy, but Liv was chewing on hers. “Wow, this is… Wait, what?”
“Well, obviously not literally. But let me show you a place you might have missed.”
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I haven’t done one of these in a while, but it’s the season to get back into them, I suppose: What I Did on my Summer Vacation Weekend.
Although in this case, it’s a bit of vacation, too, since I started with taking Wednesday and Thursday off, worked Friday, and then took the weekend.
So this extended weekend was all about gardening — or, more accurately, gardening prep. We went two two nurseries, pulled out all our nice ceramic pots to outline the edge of the “patio”, and then went to a plant sale at the local high school.
(Our “patio” is a slab of concrete filling in the space made by an L in house construction. It’s amazing how much MORE patio-like it looks with the addition of a line of pretty pots (Ollie’s Discount Outlet; one’s a little rhomboid, one has a flaw in the glazing, but they cost for five of them what one would cost non-seconds) does to make it look like an intentional outdoor space. Add in the nice plastic-decking-wood deck chairs and table we got last year and it’s a proper patio.)
We have something like six tomato plants, a pepper plant, seed potatoes, a variety of herbs, including our constants, flat-leaf parsley and columnar basil, eggplants (one small and white, the other tiny and orange), and crookneck, butternut, and zucchini squashes. We also got a couple landscaping plants, which kind of feels like growing up, or at least like paying attention to our yard.
(There are so many icky houses on my commute – cars on blocks in the yard, junk in the yard, no mowing – that I consciously DON’T want to be one of them. Not that I think T. would ever stand for that sort of mess.)
So once we GOT all those plants, then we had to address the issue of the garden beds.
If you look at a map of NY, you can see where the glaciers dug these long trenches (Finger Lakes) and then… stopped.
Where they stopped, they left all their gravel. Which is just about in my side yard.
So we have 8 4’x6’ raised beds (nothing longer than 6’ locust boards easily fits in my Yaris, sigh). But I screwed them together a few years back, and I didn’t use long enough screws. More Sigh.
Which means that a few of them have started to look more like _/ than |_|.
So we pulled off those sides, shoveled the dirt away from the side, drilled holes, inserted bolts with big washers, and bolted them back together.
We can has planting now?
Not yet.
So, first, we have to loosen the soil, add some more soil (peat, compost, coffee grounds, ground eggshells, ashes), then we have to lay down weedcloth, cut some holes in it.
THEN we can has planting.
As of this posting, I’ve got 5 tomatoes (4 plum tomatoes, 1 black cherry) and one eggplant (“ghostbuster”) in. And tonight’s the next bed over.
And THEN we have to deal with the walking onions…
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Ctiard struggled to finish eating. Finally he had to admit, “I’m full. I’m sorry.”
Timaios frowned, and Ctirad’s stomach dropped. “Fuck. I hope you didn’t stuff yourself too much?”
“What?” Ctirad stared at him in confusion. “No, sir, you said ‘finish eating’ and…” He was panicking. This was mortifying. He swallowed and tried to get control of himself.
“Come here, please.” His voice wasn’t angry anymore. Ctirad dropped to his fours and slunk across the floor to Timaios, trying not to whimper and trying not to hate himself for the urge to whimper.
When had he started feeling shame again? Shame wasn’t something he had the time for or luxury of.
The table was too short. He was at Timaios’ feet far too quickly. He sat down on his heels and looked at his owner’s toes.
“Ctirad, I apologize. I keep underestimating how badly you’ve been brutalized, and I’m not sure how to reinforce actual free will without just giving you more orders. Do you have any ideas?”
“Sir?” Ctirad remained looking at Timaios’ toes. “I don’t have free will. I’m Owned. I belong to you.”
“Yes. But you are allowed to make independent decisions. That’s not outside the realm of being Kept. Are you with me so far?”
Ctirad nodded. “Yes, sir. Some Kept are allowed to make independent decisions.”
“All right. I’ll make you an actual physical list. But once I do that, it’s up to you to remember that that li- no, I’ll make it an order. You can ask if you want clarification, and otherwise you’ll know that those things you can decide on your own. All right?”
Being ordered into free will seemed just about on par with most of Ctirad’s experiences being Owned. “Yes, sir.”
“All right, if you’ve over eaten, we’re going to have to rest for a while before we can do anything entertaining. You comfortable in the public parts of the house like that?”
“Like- oh, without a shirt? Yes, sir.” He had pants. “How public is public?”
“This time of day, it should just be other staff, but sometimes we end up with someone coming by. If we do – are you comfortable playing sated boyfriend?”
“If you tell me the role, sir.” It sounded a lot like obedient boytoy from that title, but he was learning not to assume anything with Timaios.
“Lounge quietly against me as if you’re too sleepy and content to do anything else, speak when spoken to but as if you’re half-asleep or fucked senseless.”
Ctirad couldn’t help but smile. “Housecat, but human. I can do that, sir.”
“Good. All right, downstairs with us… stand up for that, Ctirad. I have faith in your ability to crawl down stairs, but you neither need to nor have to.”
Ctirad, who had not quite so much faith in his abilities when he was overfed and a little fuzzy about everything, was more than happy to stand and be led down another hall, down another set of stairs, and into a wide-open living room space. Timaios sat down in a large overstuffed chair – more of a small loveseat than an armchair – and considered Ctirad.
“Tell me the truth: would you be more comfortable sitting next to me or at my feet?”
“I-” Ctirad tried to come up with an answer and couldn’t. He swallowed a whine. “I don’t know, sir.”
“That’s a truthful answer, Ctirad, you’re fine. That’s good, my boy.”
Ctirad ducked his head and let the praise wash over him. “Sir?”
“It’s okay to not know. Preferences are not easy, I understand that, especially when you think there might be a right answer, especially when you have been trained to not express preferences, as I’m beginning to guess you must have been. So sit here at my feet, and I’ll turn the tv on and brush your hair. All right?”
“Yes – Timaios.” The name sounded strange still, like it ought to be forbidden.
“In public spaces, ‘Tim’ is fine. After all, that’s who I am.” Timaios’ smile seemed a little self-deprecating. It almost distracted Ctirad from the twist of guilt in his stomach.
“Sorry, sir… Tim.”
“No need to be sorry. You didn’t know.” Timaios sat down in the center of the big chair, and Ctirad sat immediately down, a few inches from his Owner’s feet. It was a pet’s position, a submissive position. If he could only lean back, it would be safe and comfortable, the way he hadn’t felt in quite some time. But he knew better than to try.
“Here, scoot back.” Timaios spread his legs. “Lean against the back of the chair so you can get some contact. I want to get you acclimated to my touch early, so you don’t get too mazed by it when we’re in public. You’re going to be getting touched a lot – I hope you don’t mind the contact.”
He did as he was told, feeling the knees on other side of him, the hand on his hair. Touched a lot. “I don’t mind at all. I… I think I might like it?”
“We’ll find out, won’t we?” Timaios’ hand was in his hair, tugging it lightly. Ctirad let his head loll back into the touch. It was like fire, like sunlight, like being wrapped up in a blanket fresh out of the dryer. “So. Can you tell me something about yourself?”
Ctirad’s eyes had fallen closed; it took him a moment to pull himself back to the world around him enough to think of an answer. “I – um. There’s not all that much to know, not really. There’s… “ He blinked a few times. “I don’t know,” he admitted quietly. “So much of it is gone.”
So much of the rest, he’d held in a quiet part inside of himself, where it couldn’t be tainted or taken from him.
Timaios’ hand was gentle in his hair. “All right. Do you know anything you like to do for fun?”
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The sky was black and red, and in the distance an unearthly howl echoed through the city. But the squash would not forgive her skipping their bug treatment and the weeds in the pepper garden were unseemly.
Damkina muttered wards against bugs as she slammed her hoe into the ground with more force than was strictly necessary. They had been here, the week before last, asking her to fight. She had pointed at the ruins of Chicago, smoking on the television. “That is what happens when you fight. Like every other time. When you have remembered how to banish them, come find me.”
They had called her last week, asking her to fight. She had pointed to the mess they had just made of Minneapolis. “You’re doing more harm than good. That was no returned god that shattered their downtown, that was your warriors. I am a gardener. I have always been a gardener. Leave me to my garden.” Continue reading
As mentioned here, I want to map more things. So…
(Note: Yeah, I borked up “One of the museums in the Dragons Next Door ‘verseMore of the Things Unspoken map?” It was meant to replace the first half with the second half.)
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