Getting to School

Nov29

First: Slaves, School
Previous: Desmond Goes to School

IV

Des had been to the Central Office a few times with his parents or with Annelle. The grand entryway never stopped catching his breath, though: the marble entryway, the broad sweeping stairways leading up in both directions, the perfect people at the reception desk, looking as much a part of the decorations as the gold trim on the stairs or the broad silk carpets on the floors.

It was different, being there today. For one, there was a voice in his head telling him to bypass the reception desk and the broad stairs and go to a narrow black door nearly hidden under the left stairway. For another, there was the way that people’s eyes seems to skid off him the moment they noticed the collar. For a third, there was the terror in the pit of his stomach.

He noticed things about the marble floor and the silk carpets he never had before, like the fact that the patterning on the marble was regular, symmetrical, and almost looked like words, or the figures hidden in the broader geometrical and floral patterns on the rugs, so that each one was a frieze telling a story, a story most people probably never noticed.

Des walked slowly, ignoring the collar chivying him along. He had several minutes until it was eleven, and he might use every one of them crossing the entryway.

He certainly spent several heartbeats waiting at the tiny black door, his hand hovering over the nearly-flat door-lever. The collar said nothing, but he could feel its warmth against his throat.

It was almost like a hug. He opened the door and stepped inside.

Inside, it turned out, was pitch black. ::Forward twenty steps,:: the collar offered. ::Trust me, and I will get you through this test.::

Desmond rubbed suddenly-sweaty palms on his pants and shifted his stance a couple times before stepping forward, counting under his breath. “….eighteen, nineteen, twenty.”

::Very good. Now. Left, forward three steps, left, forward eight steps, right, forward fifty steps.::

The floor was smooth, almost slick, under Desmond’s feet. Twice he lost count and the collar reminded him gently. Once, he slipped, and it took the collar painful seconds to recalculate where he was when he stood.

::There is a doorknob in front of your right hand. Turn it, and shade your eyes with the other hand.::

The voice had gotten him this far. Desmond shaded his eyes and opened the door.

V

The light was somewhere between bright and blinding, even through the hand Des was using to shade his eyes. He moved his hand slowly, even as the door behind him swung shut with a very quiet thump.

He was standing in front of a table; behind the table were three people, all of them wearing collars, although all of the collars were far more elaborate than the one around Des’ neck.

The wall behind them was white; the table was white; they were wearing light-colored clothing, all of it cut to expose neck and shoulders. The person on the far left had dark brown skin and was tall and lean; the person in the middle had fair skin with a smattering of freckles and was round and pudgy; and the person on the far right had middle-brown skin and looked far too skinny, but all of them were wearing the same jacket, the same shirt, and almost the same collar, just in slightly different colors.

Des bowed. He made his most formal and polite bow, the one he’d practiced when he was still singing recitals. Then he straightened and waited, hands at his sides, eyes on the table. He was not going to embarrass himself, even if he had no idea what was going on.

The person on the left spoke. “You navigated the first challenge successfully. Well done.” Their voice was low and melodic, and Des thought they sounded pleased with him. “The second challenge will be a more direct–“

::Left hand up palm out:: The collar snapped the directions into Des’ mind, but he found he was obeying them before he’d heard them. A ball of green light came hurtling at him, and a ball of red light seemed to shoot from Des’ palm, intercepting the green light and surrounding it.

Des shook his hand. It felt strange – not unpleasant, but warm. The air smelled faintly of strawberries.

“Very well done. Now, you’ll find–“

::Right hand!::

Des jerked his right hand up and splayed his fingers. A globe of red grew there, just as the person on the right sent out stringy blue tentacles of light towards him. The globe seemed to collect all the tentacles, turning faintly purple in the middle, and then it vanished.

“Impressed.” The person in the middle bowed to him. Their voice was high-pitched, almost childlike. Their smile was not the least bit youthful nor innocent. “You are already working well with your counterpart.”

Desmond looked down at his hands. “What…. What in the three eyes of the Almighty and the eight arms of the Darkness was that?”

::Symbiosis:: The collar sounded absolutely smug. ::That’s what happens when you and I work together.::

Des couldn’t tear his gaze away from his hands. He waited, to see if the people in front of him had an answer, or if they had another test for him, or if they were going to send him home as uncouth and profane.

He highly doubted the last, because nobody had ever said “Oh, my son came back from his visit with his collar,” but, then again, maybe it was too shameful to mention, or maybe he would just fall down an oubliette.

“As I gather your compatriot has probably told you.” The person on the left, with the melodic voice, sounded a little amused, “what is happening is symbiosis. You and the artifact around your neck will, if you are good, work together to create things that neither could create on their own.”

“Magic.” Des’ voice was dry. “That’s a thing out of the Long Night.”

“Magic,” agreed the squeaky-voiced one. “And it has never left us; it has simply been… contained.”

Des touched the collar around his neck. “Contained.”

::I am a container::, the collar agreed. Definitely amused. The more it talked, the more tone of voice it seemed to have.

“Contained,” agreed the melodic one. “You have passed the initial tests; you and your compatriot can work together. Now you will enter training. Out the door behind you and to the left is a stairway upwards.”

Upwards! Des had always wondered about the sweeping towers of the Central Office. Now he might find out!

The melodic person was continuing. “Take the stairs upwards until your compatriot tells you that you have reached the appropriate level. There, you will begin your training.”

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1208510.html

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Movement (more Chess/Black Knight AU)

Nov28

After (no Title)
Landing Page: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1202628.html

“I do hope eventually that isn’t a negative for you.” She patted his shoulder. “But I don’t think ‘eventually’ is going to be ‘today’. Okay, the next…” she glanced at a clock over her shoulder, where it was in plain sight for Luke. “…half hour is going to be experimental. It does not reflect on you as a Kept in general, nor does it set any precedents. Understand?”

“It’s a sparring session?” Luke guessed. “Wait…” he winced. “It’s the sort of sparring session where you show the new kid he’d not as hot of shit as he thought he was, isn’t it?”

“That is a pretty close analogy. All right.” She glanced at the clock, nodded, as if to herself, and started. “I’m really disappointed in you for not coming home sooner. I know this isn’t what you wanted, but the least you could do is remember that you have a Keeper, and that your Keeper might want to see you once in a while.”

The guilt hit Luke like a punch in the gut. It’s explanatory, he reminded himself, but the part of him steering didn’t want anything to do with that. “You told me to help Leo,” he protested.

“Did I ask for excuses?” She asked it so sweetly, it was hard to reconcile the panic Luke was feeling with the tone of her voice.

He shifted, pushing himself to his feet. “I have to…”

“You have to do what you’re told. And what you were told was to kneel there and take it, darling. So…?”

Luke knelt. He brought to mind Ambrus when he’d first come to Addergoole, and he lowered his head and folded his hands in front of him. He wasn’t submissive. He wasn’t a pet. He was a warrior, a soldier. He was a teacher, a fae older than the nation that he’d watched fall to ruins.

He was Kept. He knelt and did as he was told.

Her voice was by turns sweet and scathing. She cut into Luke – his behavior, his word choices, his hair, even the way he smelled. She found fault with just about every part of him. And when she was done with that, she started reiterating points.

It was awful. It was torture, without out even the luxury of shouting. Only iron discipline kept Luke from sobbing, from trying to explain himself, from yelling at her — and he slipped in that last one, once, and bellowed at her.

She just shook her head and told him she was disappointed in him.

It lasted forever. It went on, and on, and on, while Luke clenched his jaw and clenched his wings. There was nothing left but her voice, and there was no getting away from it.

When she took a breath, Luke looked at the clock. It had been fifteen minutes. He was only halfway done.

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1204999.html

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In Which Amrit Makes Sense – a continuation of BeeKeeper.

Nov28

First: A beginning of a story which obnoxiously cuts off just before the description,
Previous: In Which Mieve thinks too much.

She was looking at him strangely.

She’d been looking at him strangely since he volunteered to break his own leg, and it had just been getting worse all day, until bedtime, when she’d told him she wasn’t going to tie him down for the night.

She’d looked like she wanted to say something else. Amrit hadn’t given her a chance — though he had managed to thank you. Sleeping with a healing leg was going to be hard enough without restraints.

It had been. In the end, he’d muttered a Working to knock himself out. He’d slept like a log, but woke groggy and still trying to shake off the sleep.

Now he was chopping wood, his splinted leg braced so he didn’t have to put too much weight on it, and she was doing like she’d been doing yesterday, looking up at him strangely, looking back at her work, circling the yard and then coming back to looking at him.

Finally, Amrit put down the ax. “I already promised not to run away and not to attack you,” he pointed out patiently. “What’s the problem?”

She jumped when he started speaking, and looked guilty as she looked away. “Just trying to figure you out.”

“Well, while you’re doing that, you’ve got seeds you need to plant, right? All that plowing and forking and turning over and…” He shrugs. “Spring won’t last forever.”

She smirked at him. “Yes, sir,” she teased. “Looks like you’ve got the firewood sorted.”

“Until I have to go get more out of the hedge, at least.”

She raised her eyebrows at him and said nothing. Amrit shifted his weight and leaned backwards a little, trying to look non-threatening. He didn’t have that much experience with it.

“Look,” he said, picking his words carefully, “I’m here for a while. You’ve clearly thought about this process. I’m not getting away quickly, and I might not get away at all.”

“This is true,” she allowed cautiously, like he’d said something momentous instead of something pretty banal.

“And, look, I’m from not that far from here.” Now why had he said that? “I know how hard winter can be, and, uh. You’re feeding me. I want to carry my own weight.”

“That is why I–” she stopped herself. “–brought you here,” she tried, as if they didn’t both know she’d been about to say bought you.. “Yeah. So you want to, what, help get ready for winter?”

“Of course. I mean, I’m not a shirker. I’m just,” he shrugged. “I’m bad at being told what to do. So, uh. Yeah. It’s your house, your land. But I can help get the wood ready and make sure the house is all warm and snug and, well, everything. I’ve done this before,” he added, because she was looking at him strangely. “I survived the last few winters, didn’t I? One of ’em I even survived on my own, but that sucked.”

She was not looking at him any less strangely. Amrit sat down on the pile of wood and looked back at her. “You’ve been doing this for years, right?”

“Yeah. Since the collapse, really.” She perched on the chopping block.

“And, I mean, most of them were Kept, so, uh, they wanted to make you happy, right?”

She blinked slowly. “Yes. The Bond does that,” she said, carefully. Again, like he’d said something strange and outlandish.

“And what about the human slave?”

“Mostly he just wanted to be free. He settled in after a while and did what I told him, especially once the snow started falling.”

If she was going with one-year cycles, that could have been as much as six months in. “Must have been exhausting.”

She raised her eyebrows at him. “Yeah. It was.” There was definitely a challenge there.

Amrit plowed on, ignoring the strange feeling in his gut at her challenge. “So uh. Nobody ever just wanted to help you out because, you know, you were giving them a safe place to stay?”

She stared at him. Amrit shifted uncomfortably. “What?”

“No,” she said slowly. “Nobody has ever offered to help in return for the safe place to stay and the meals. If they had…” she spoke like she was working her way through a minefield. Amrit wasn’t sure he blamed her, even if he wasn’t sure he liked being treated like a dangerous weapon.

Well, she wasn’t the first. He sat there looking as harmless as he could manage.

“If they had,” she tried again, “I wouldn’t have needed to buy people from the slave market.”

“Hunh.” Amrit hadn’t considered that. “Well, uh. I mean, you could put the gag and chain back on me and tell me to not help except what you order, but, um, that seems counterproductive. Besides, I’m gonna get bored just doing basic chop-and-dig sort of work.”

“Can’t have you getting bored.” She smiled at him, a cautious sort of expression, like she wasn’t sure he wasn’t going to laugh at her.

“Oh, dead gods, you don’t want to see me when I’m bored. That’s how I got in trouble, my last place. Got too bored.” He grinned at her, cocky and comfortable again. “It’s no fun.”

He could tell she’d relaxed a little by the way her shoulders shifted and her eyes crinkled a little. She shook her head. “You know, never thought I’d be worried about keeping my Kept – my sl –“

“Your prisoner,” he offered, because she was getting uncomfortable again.

“That works? Yeah. Keeping my prisoner entertained. But now I’m wondering if I shouldn’t lay in some board games and cards for when the winter comes.”

“Probably carrots and venison first,” Amrit suggested. He could think of plenty to do that would keep them both entertained and warm, but if she wasn’t going to suggest it, neither was he. “You know, once this heals up, I’m a pretty decent hunter.”

“You said. Well, you mimed.” She repeated his gesture back at him, drawing a bow. “But that would mean letting you out of my sight.”

Amrit slumped a little. “Yeah. It would.” Damnit, he really wanted some fresh meat. “I could promise, I guess.”

“You’ve been making a lot of promises, lately.”

“You’ve been doing a lot of work, lately. Costs you energy to fight me.” Amrit rolled his shoulders. “Look. I don’t want to be yours. I don’t really want to be a slave, or a captive, or a Kept. But I can help you out and stuff, and not leave until the winter’s over. I’m good at at that much.”

She wasn’t going to go for it. He knew she wouldn’t; why was he even making the offer? Why were his shoulders all hunched again? He shrugged them up, trying to loosen the tension.

“I’ll consider it.” She tilted her head. “I’ve got a couple days to think about it, anyway. You shouldn’t go hunting with your leg all splinted, at the very least.”

He thought she looked guilty. Amrit didn’t know why. He relaxed his shoulders and gave her a half of a smile. “Oh, woe is me. Three or four more days where all I can do is split wood and eat your food.”

“Careful,” she teased, “or I’m going to have you washing dishes and cleaning the kitchen instead of splitting wood.”

She was smiling, and she was teasing him. Amrit’s half-smile grew into a full grin. “Oh no, not that. Not the place with all the food.“

“Whatever will you do?”

🐝
Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1208646.html

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Weekend Blog and Thanks Giving

Nov28

Oh my, let me tell you… five day weekend. Five. Days.

The last time I had that much time off in a row, we were driving to/from Raleigh for my cousin’s wedding. It’s, uh… It’s been a while.

And I took full advantage of it in as hermitty a way as I could manage & barely left the house.

🙂

Oh, we went out a few times. we both needed a haircut. We took a last-minute Black Friday trip to BJ’s for a new tablet (mine still works, but with a cracked screen (Dropped it on the pavement at a bus stop, sigggh), I don’t know how long it’ll last, so go go Black Friday sales.

(As a note… I really like the Black Friday complex. It helps that mostly we buy online, and that we live in a very small town that doesn’t get nearly the news-worthy crowds — I mean, we don’t get crowds at all — but man, for $100+ off small electronics, totally worth it.)

And we went to the nearby (hour away) outlet mall with my Mom for Christmas shopping on Saturday, because family tradition, because deals, and because Mom. It appears I want all the sweater-dresses… 1989 me wants her wardrobe back <.<

Other than that? We hauled firewood and made turkey and dressing and gravy, we made pumpkin pudding and apple crisp and ate far more food than we needed, we watched Victorian Bakers and made bread.

In the spirit of the season: I am grateful for the times like this, when I can catch my breath. I’m thankful for all of you, for all my friends and all my readers (and all your enthusiasm and all your questions). I am thankful I live in a modern era, in a modern world, with stand mixers, oil furnaces, and, of course, the internet.

And kale. Strangely enough, I’m thankful for kale.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1203705.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Oh No Inventrix’s titling Bug Has Caught Me

Nov27

After Leash
Landing Page: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1202628.html

Luke tried to still his body, but his wings kept moving without consulting him first, twitching at the tips and unfolding just to tense up again. He closed his eyes and focused on his breathing, in-two-three-four, out-two-three four. He hadn’t been this agitated in…

“Damnit, Regine, those are my students out there. I have to go. I have to help them!” He’d just gotten a report of another one dead, and a whole team of former cy’Lucas was about to go into the most active war zone on the planet.

“No.” Regine’s voice was icy, beyond calm and into inhuman. “You need to protect Addergoole. That’s what you agreed to, and that is what you are going to do. Tempero Intinn Luka Hunting Hawk…” The Working had taken over his mind, and he’d lost both volition and memory of the scene.

He hadn’t remembered any of that until a week ago, not the time he’d actually been standing by the door with his weapons in hand. He’d remembered being angry — but he hadn’t remembered being stopped, turned around. She hadn’t wanted him to remember.

Cya’s hand was on his shoulder. “Hard getting used to the memories?” She sounded sympathetic. “It’s always tricky, when your brain’s been telling you the wrong thing.”

Luke bit back a comment that would’ve been both unkind and stupid. He was pretty sure that, yes, she did know.

“I can’t… no, the problem is, I can believe she did that. I can’t believe I let her.”

“People can be pretty blind when it comes to their crew. We’re supposed to be, I think, but sometimes I wonder if there isn’t some lost Law that helps with that.” Cya shook her head. “We may never know. The elders don’t exactly like talking to me. Not that it isn’t mutual.”

Luke cleared his throat. “I can’t imagine you’re fun for anyone to talk to that you don’t like.”

“Not really, no, not unless it behooves me to be fun for them to talk to for a while. How bad was the memory, this time?”

She’d pulled the conversation back on track so quickly that Luke thought he might have whiplash. He cleared his throat. “Not… not the worst one I have right now, but a bad one. During the war. Did you look at them, when you untangled them all?”

“Some of them. I’m holding off on some to let you choose what you want to do with them, because they’re…” she cleared her throat. “There are some places in your brain I don’t want to intrude without an invitation.”

That startled him. His wings twitched, and Cya’s lips twisted up. “You’re mine, yes, but you’re also an adult with lots of experience, and when this is done, I’d like you to still be our ally.”

“Still?” Regine had been ready to go to war with Cloverleaf.

“Still.” She nodded firmly. “You have not stopped being our ally. Leo holds you in immensely high regard, and I respect you far more than I respect most people.”

A warm feeling slide through him at the praise, no matter how slim it was. “I’m glad you consider me an ally,” he tried, “but Regine–“

“Is another matter entirely, yes. And right now, you are more than an ally.” She smiled crookedly at him. “So, I believe we were talking about being Kept.”

He shifted his weight backwards and met her eyes. “You were, yeah.”

She snorted, not missing that clarification. “You have to know the basics of being Kept; I can’t imagine even Regine would let you skip those. So you understand that you have to do what I say, that you feel badly if you disobey an order — and that that ‘bad feeling’ intensifies the more you try to ignore orders — and that you feel pleasure if I’m pleased with you. I won’t presume to instruct you on the basics of the Law where Kept are involved, or on the basics of ‘do what your Keeper says’. After all, you were my teacher for four years.”

He winced. He felt like she’d slapped him, even though there was nothing insulting at all in what she’d said. “I know the concepts,” he offered.

“Which is good. But you don’t know the reality yet, and you’re going to have to.”

He shifted position and looked at her as calmly as he could. “Am I in trouble?” The last time he could remember asking that, he’d been a teenager, insouciant and disobedient to his commander in the field. He’d done the right thing, that time. He envied that boy’s certainty.

“No.” The smile she gave him seemed to say that she knew exactly how relieved that made Luke feel. He folded his wings tightly and tried not to think too hard about it. “But that doesn’t mean this next part isn’t going to suck a bit anyway.”

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1204140.html

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Leash, a further story of Luke, Cya, and an army

Nov26

After Knocking Over Pieces
Landing Page: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1202628.html

Cya answered the door when he knocked, looking something between amused and annoyed. “You live here now,” she pointed out, in a tone of voice that, in someone else, Luke might think meant strained patience.

With Cya, he didn’t think he could assume even that. He shifted from foot to foot, hating himself for doing it but not able to stop the shamefaced way he wanted to grovel and hide at the same time.

“It’s your house,” he tried, aiming for a gruff voice.
She raised her eyebrows at him. His wings twitched and he shifted his stance to a broader, more stable one.

“It is,” he pointed out. “I don’t want to intrude.”

Cya grabbed his collar.

She moved slowly, so he had no excuse for not stopping her if he wanted to; she made her moves clear, so he could see what she was doing, and she almost exaggerated them, such that he felt a pull before she even had her fingers under the front of the metal around his neck. Luke held still and let her; the moment she had hold of his collar, he leaned into her pull a little bit.

In the back of his mind, he was mantling and scowling and growling. They weren’t in private; they were on the doorstep of the Mayor of Cloverleaf, on the front porch. Anyone could walk by and see them! He was pretty sure there were people walking by: neighbors, people who might see him again, people who might know her.

Everyone knew her, he reminded himself. His body was following the tug of the collar with a sort of self-determination that normally only happened in training routines and high-sky flying. He ought to be worried about that, probably. He might be worried about it later, probably when he was back at Leo’s, glaring at the map again.

Right now his cheeks were burning, his throat felt like it was on fire where she’d touched him, and he had no idea what to do with his hands.

“You belong to me.” Cya’s voice seemed to sear itself into his consciousness, even though she was telling him something he already knew.

He tried to protest that. “I was there, you know. I made the agreement with you.”

“I know. And yet I don’t think you’ve quite figured it out yet. You belong to me. My home is your home. My will is your will. Got it?”

He flapped angrily. “I’m not some wayward child!”

“No. But you are doing a very bad job of remembering Kept 101. And if I have to hammer it home by embarrassing you, I will, Hunting Hawk.”

Luke folded his wings tight as a surge of unhappiness washed over him. “I’m not an idiot,” he muttered.

“Not at all.” She tugged him into her living room and threw a broad throw pillow on the floor in front of her couch. “Kneel.” She released his collar. “We’re going to talk over some stuff.”

He flapped – and knelt. “This isn’t why I came back, to get yelled at.”

“It never is. Well, all right, once in a long while, someone actually likes being yelled at. Tell me, why did you come back?”

“Leo ordered me to.” The words were out before he could think about them. Luke glowered at her as she sat down in front of him. “Why did you do that?”

“Because I didn’t want you to have time to come up with a lie. All right. Thing one: This is your home.”
Luke’s wings twitched. “No. This is your home. I have a home.”

“Do you? A house that’s yours, a threshold to call your own?”

Luke started to say something, and then sighed. “Not anymore.” He hadn’t had a house that was his since before this girl had been conceived.

“Good. Step one, there we go. Step two…. this one’s going to take a while.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1203127.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Knocking over pieces

Nov24

This comes about 7 days after the last post, here: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1201555.html

Luke had been Kept for eight days, and he had spent 2 evenings with his Keeper. The rest of the time he had spent with Leo’s army, doing the job he’d been assigned to – or, at least, the way Leo had chosen to interpret the job Cya had given him.

The army was quite impressive, aside from the whole godhead issue, and there really was quite a bit Luke could do to help. He liked being out in the field again. He’d forgotten how much he enjoyed that: talking to troops, strategizing, scouting. He’d forgotten how much he’d enjoyed being a soldier.

Forgotten – or had the memories pulled out. He’d spend 2 evenings with his Keeper, and she’d spent both of them untangling memories locked up in his mind. Luke didn’t want to examine that too closely – or think too hard about why his crewmate, his friend had torn apart his memories and left him with a mind like Swiss cheese.

He glared at the map in front of him and indulged in an overblown wing-flap, knocking over a couple of the figures on the board.

“Why don’t you go home tonight?” Leo suggested cheerfully. “It’ll still be impossible in the morning.”

Luke shook his head. “I’m fine. If I just look at this a little bit longer, I’ll figure out what I’m missing.”

“No, you’re not fine.” Leo shook his head. “Come on, you know how this works.”

“How what works?” He made the effort to hold his wings in place and not flap, and very carefully put two of the pieces back upright. Pawns. Like Regine treated everyone; like Cya treated everyone.

“Being Kept. Go home, spend some time with your Keeper. You’re getting cranky.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” This time, Luke didn’t control his flap. The little pieces went tumbling again. “These people…!” Leo’s order was already pressing at him, though. He fought against it to pick up the poor little pawns. “I’m supposed to be helping you,” he tried instead, and hoped it didn’t sound too much like a plea.

Leo was looking at him oddly. He cleared his throat and finished straightening the pieces on the board. “Something with the dry creek bed, here, I think that’s the solution.”

“Go home, Luke. Be with your Keeper before you’re unbearable to be around.” Leo’s voice sounded a little too perky. Luke looked around; there was nobody else in the tent. What…

“I’m just irritated with the map,” he lied. He was irritated with Regine, and with memories that he didn’t know what to do with, and the nagging sensation that he was doing something awful.

“You know how this works, Luke.” There was the briefest hesitation. “Right?”

“Keepers.” Luke folded his wings. “You need some sort of proximity.” He’d always figured that had a lot to do with the Kept and not so much with the Keeping itself. “I haven’t done this before,” he added, defensive and not knowing why he was feeling that way.

“You haven’t… been Kept before? Cya’s your first Keeper?” Leo signaled someone outside the tent.

“Yeah?” Luke shrugged. “I never expected to be in this sort of situation.”

Leo’s teleporter came in. “Sir?”

“Take Luke here back to Red Doomsday, then return to your normal duties.” Leo wasn’t looking at Luke. “Go home, Luke.”

“Sir.” Luke bowed stiffly and let the teleporter take him.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1202208.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Desmond Goes to School

Nov24

After Slaves, School

II

::Report to the Central office at 1 First street at 11 a.m. today::

Desmond touched the collar around his neck; the voice repeated itself.

“Okay…” He didn’t know if he was supposed to talk back to the collar. How did that work, anyway? “Will do?”

He touched the collar again and got silence. Well, maybe that had worked.

“Mo-om!” He tossed his robe on over his pyjamas and hurried out into the main center of the house. “Mum. I–” He fell silent, because his mother was talking with someone in the foyer.

She’d already turned around to look, though, and stopped mid-sentence. “Oh, Desmond. Darling. Oh…” Her hands went to her face and she turned back to the person in the foyer before turning back to Desmond.

“It’s okay.” He dropped his voice to the sort of volume he was supposed to use inside. “I’ll wait. I’ll start on something for breakfast, all right?”

“Oh, honey…” She looked back and forth between the door and him again before deciding that she had to talk to the person in the doorway.

Des squashed a surge of jealousy and unhappiness. He’d just told her to go talk to the stranger in the doorway – the way she was standing, he still couldn’t see who it was — he couldn’t do that and then be upset that she had.

“What’s going on?” His younger sister bounced down the stairs, wiping sleep from her eyes…. “Oh. Oh, Des, that’s great.” She hugged him, something she hadn’t done since she turned eight and put away her dolls. “Oh, Des, you’re going to get to go somewhere fabulous! That’s what the teacher said, last week, that the collared people are the lucky chosen of the fates. You’ve been chosen.” She touched the collar gingerly. “What does it feel like?”

“Like… not much, I guess.” He patted her shoulders carefully. “I have to be to First Street by eleven. I should eat, and get dressed, and…”

“Your best suit, I hope?” She gave him an arch expression that she had copied from their father. “And your shoes should be polished, I can do that. And we’ll get Annelle to do your hair, she’s always the best at it. And — where’s Mother?”

“In the foyer, talking with someone. She saw the collar, though.” She hadn’t been nearly as happy looking as Therese had been, though. “I’m going to start breakfast. My best shoes are in the bottom of my wardrobe…”

“…collecting spiders and dust, as always. They’re not that bad, Desmond, not really.”

“You say that because you’ve never worn them. Go on, let me make breakfast.” He patted her shoulder again, not as eager as he might sound to send her away.

Collared people did not have families, as far as he could tell. Collared people did not have anything that he knew about, but nobody had ever said “my cousin, who’s collared, visited last weekend.”

Then again, he knew nothing at all about collared people, except that it appeared he was one now, and it appeared that his collar spoke to him.

That ought to be disturbing him, but Desmond found that it was all a part of the whole package — he had a collar now. He was going away in a few hours. His collar spoke to him. When he did finally have his break-down, it was going to be an impressive one, he imagined. He hoped he was there to see it.

He made breakfast by rote, although he found he put a little more cheese and spices in the eggs, a little more butter on the toast, a little more cream in his tea. He was leaving; nobody chided him on the waste.

His sisters dressed him as if he were going to meet the Potentate or the local Judge. Their mother fussed around him, not saying much, fluttering out a hand to brush against his shoulder before pulling it back. Finally, when he had pulled himself together, when his shoes were laced to Anelle’s satisfaction and Therese had declared herself pleased with Anelle’s work on his hair, when he looked as perfect as a too-thin, too-pale someone like him could manage to look, his mother tugged the collar of his shirt under his cravat, patted his shoulder, and sighed.

“Go with the eyes upon you and the hands guiding you,” she murmured. “Go as my son, and if you return, return as my beloved kin.”

Desmond felt a chill. They said the same thing when a sailor went on one of the boats leaving sight of the coastline, when a voyager went through the Bastion Pass northward, when a glider strapped on wings from the Yorthmouth Tower. It meant they expected him to return only as a ghost.

He bowed and managed the return words as well as he could. “I walk into the unknown lighter and yet steadier for your blessing. If I return, I will return as blessed kin.”

That was it. He was gone from the family; they would mourn him quietly, as if he’d vanished at sea. Des hugged his sisters again, even if it wasn’t exactly what was called for in this situation, and stepped out the door and towards whatever came next.

III

Even if he hadn’t known where the Central Office on First Street was — and how could you not? It was in front of the Potentate’s Palace! — the collar certainly did. When Des took a slight detour to wander through one of this favorite parks, the collar gently reminded him that Genderon Road was a quicker route to the Central Office. When he paused for a while in front of the giant duck pond, the collar gently reminded him of the time. When he paused across the street from the Central Office, looking at the library where he’d spent more than a few stolen afternoons, the collar suggested he turn around.

“Are you going to keep doing this for the rest of my life?” he muttered.

The collar said nothing for a moment, long enough that Des felt silly talking to an accessory. Then it answered slowly.

::There is going to come a time when I am quiescent. And you can always ask me to be quiet before that. But, for the moment, my job is not to answer to you but to the people who want you in the Central Office at eleven.::

“You sound very alive,” Des muttered. He didn’t want to be seen talking to himself. He didn’t want to be seen at all, not with a collar — and so far, he hadn’t seen a single person he knew. Still.

::That is a matter they’ll teach you later. Now, into the Central Office. There’s someone coming I don’t think you want to encounter.::

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1204597.html

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Chessmaster, more crack-Au of Doomsday, Cloverleaf, Cya, Luke, Leo, and an Army

Nov22

follows immediately after the last one, here: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1200388.html

Cya – his owner – his… she directed Luke upstairs, making cracks about Mike at his back. Luke held his wings as still as he could — the stairwell wasn’t that wide — as she teased him about Mike.

“I’m not…” He pressed his wings a little tighter to his back as he reached the top of the stairwell. “I didn’t…”

“You didn’t sign up to be Kept at all, so of course I don’t think you engineered this to get in my bed. That doesn’t mean you might not end up there.” She chuckled, and once again Luke struggled to keep his wings under control. “To the left, first door on your left. I think you’re going to find being Kept very educational, and I think that it might even be good for you.”

This time, he flapped. “You knew that already. The oaths. The twelve years.” The first door on his left opened into a spartan bedroom: giant bed, three wooden chests, two deep-silled windows with thick curtains. “You’ve already helped me out.”

“The situation helped you out. I’m talking about the actual Keeping.”

Luke turned slowly so he could look at her. She was serious, he thought, although he had a hard time getting a good read on her. “You think… being under the collar… will be good for me?”

“It often is. One, it narrows the scope of concerns. Two, it gives you a different set of feedbacks. Three, of course, it’s educational. And four, you can find yourself trying on different roles.” She gave him a somewhat sad-seeming smile. “I’ve done this a few times. I have some experience making sure I’m not the only one who gets something out of it.”

Luke narrowed his eyes at her. “And what, exactly, do you get out of it?”

He wasn’t expecting her to laugh; he certainly wasn’t expecting the delighted sound she made. “Do you really have to ask? Oh, you do, don’t you?” She giggled quietly. “I get a man in my bed, Hunting Hawk, and someone to help with the chores, help raise my children when I have them in the house, someone to help me run this city… this nation.”

“But… Leo?”

“You might have noticed I stopped taking Kept a few years ago.”

Luke glanced away. “Yes.” And now he didn’t know how to feel at all. Something like guilt was gnawing at him, which was ridiculous. She had maneuvered him into this Keeping. She had maneuvered all of them into this – might have even manipulated Leo into the godhead he was currently enjoying. So why did he feel like he was messing up one of her plans?

He stretched his wings cautiously. There was enough room in here for them; there was enough room in her bed for him to lay with his wings spread and leave room for her.

Somehow, he imagined she’d planned that, even if it hadn’t been his wings she’d been thinking of. She had to have Kept someone with wings before him…. right?

She sat down cross-legged at the head of her bed. “Lay down – take your time, get comfy – and put your head in my lap.”

Luke was moving before he really considered where he was going, and, despite her “take your time” order, was as comfortable as he was going to be in just a couple moments. His head was pillowed on her calf. It felt… intimate.

He shifted, spreading his wings out as much as he could. Part of him wanted to protest that he shouldn’t be in a bed with a student, but the rest of him shut that down as the stupidity it was. “What do you want me to do?”

It was a sign of how badly off-kilter she had him that he was just grateful his voice didn’t squeak.

Rearranging Pieces

“Close your eyes,” she ordered, and Luke closed his eyes. “Now, this is not an order, but try to relax, let your body sink into the bed. We’re safe here. Nobody’s going to attack us. Nobody is in trouble. You can let go for a few minutes.”

His shoulders tensed; he didn’t want to believe her. That was fine. Cya kept going. “Picture a place in your mind, a peaceful place. A clearing in the forest, with the sun filtering down through the pine trees. The air is crisp, but not uncomfortable. Just out of sight, you can hear a stream trickling.” She kept going, her voice mellow, the tone working as much good as the words, until his shoulders relaxed and the pinch in his forehead smoothed.

She didn’t normally need relaxation techniques when she was reading someone’s mind, but she didn’t normally have targets who were quite this tense, either.

When his breathing evened out, she slipped the Working in between phrases, fluffy clouds and meandering paths. She saw the scene in his mind, a place it looked like he’d been before. She saw him sitting on a big boulder, his wings spread, his face up to the sun and his eyes closed.

She had never seen him this peaceful. She murmured a Working to remember this, so that she could bring him back here again.

But she had work to do. First, she wanted to find the places Regine had touched. She didn’t doubt they were there; if she were Regine, and had an alarming habit of seeing people as pieces on a board, it was what she would do: ensure loyalty with oaths, and then enforce it with mind control.

Luke’s thoughts were a mess. He kept looping back to oaths he had made and been freed from: I’ll keep you safe. I’ll follow the school’s rules. He had an unfortunate habit, it seemed, of impetuous oaths… now where had she see that before? He kept poking at things she could not see — the way he’d feel guilty over something she said, or the way the orders made him feel like a puppet. The Bond was making him second-guess his thoughts and his feelings, and the thought kept popping up: should he look at this with a Working? Was that okay?

She left the chaos alone. He was going to have to adjust to being Kept eventually, and it would go better for him in the long run if he did that without her interference.

Not for the first or even the millionth time, Cya wished she could see emotions. But she wasn’t going to loop Leo in to help her with this, and Luke probably wasn’t ready to do the Working on himself for her.

Now she had to go deeper. His conscious mind showed her the way — paths he was avoiding, things he would consider and then forget before he thought too hard about them, things that seemed to hurt him when he thought about them.

His sons. She did not want to interfere if she didn’t have to with his children, so she brushed over that area of his memories gently. There were orders there from Regine, reminders of his oaths — and there was something twisted under lock and key.

She had seen Regine’s work on minds. The woman had a certain arrogance about her work. Cya brushed over that area and moved on to other parts of Luke’s memories for the moment.

The areas of locked-off memories were everywhere — anything having to do with the students, anything having to do with the Collapse, anything having to do with Mike, with Luke’s descendants, with a student he’d once looked at with affection.

Regine had been tying his brain up in knots for decades. Cya indulged in a little mental cursing and then went to work.

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In Which Mieve thinks too much – a continuation of BeeKeeper.

Nov22

First: A beginning of a story which obnoxiously cuts off just before the description,
Previous: In Which Amrit Makes a Run For It.

Her captive was sitting in the shade of her biggest tree, his splinted leg stretched out in front of him. He was fiddling with the grass and rocks within reach and looking around, shifting his weight around, working his mouth around the gag like a horse champing at the bit.

She knew all this because she couldn’t focus. Mieve had found herself working in circles around him.
He’d promised not to run off… she made another circle. The bees were fine without her. The carrots and potatoes and turnips had been watered.

He hadn’t promised not to attack her… she made another circle. The squash had recently been debugged. (One of the advantages to post-hardware-store gardening she had and others didn’t: Abatu Panida, destroy animal, did wonders with a good book of garden pests for magical fumigation).

He had broken his own leg. There were so many ways that Working could have been twisted to attack her, and he’d done none of them. She made another circle, but there was nothing left that really needed plowing and there was nothing left to weed right now.

She could chop wood, but she’d have to go into the woods to do that. She made another loop. He was braiding bits of grass into sad little pieces of rope, holding down the end with a rope. He looked, she thought, miserable.

She made herself work on the garden for a few minutes. She could keep an eye on him there. She shoved the pitchfork into the rough soil she hadn’t planted this year and turned it over. She’d nearly slammed an ax into his leg. She’d nearly slammed an ax into his leg.

“Why?” Her voice was hoarse, and she wasn’t sure if she was asking him or herself. She felt as if she’d been screaming, when she’d been silently walking in circles.

He looked up, as if he’d been waiting for her to say something, and gestured at the gag with a shrug of both shoulders.

“Yeah, yeah.” She hadn’t really expected an answer, anyway. “That’s another why for another day.” She stared at the ground and thrust the pitchfork in again. There was still time for a few short-season crops, never mind that it gave her something safe to attack. The more food she had put away, the safer they would be when the winter came. And all the signs pointed at a bad winter.

“Do you ever stop working?” one of her early Kept had asked her. Implicit in the question – he’d been unused to any sort of hard work – had been another; did he ever get to stop working?

She’d grinned at him at the time, not because it was funny but because she’d spent the first year after the fall having the same argument with herself. “Winter,” she’d told him. “In winter we rest.”

Amrit gave her an answer, probably just to prove her wrong in not expecting one: he mimed eating and raised an eyebrow at her.

“Am I going to keep feeding you?” She stabbed the pitchfork into the ground again, turned over the soil, and stared at him. He was lean – no, skinny. There was muscle on his frame, but he’d clearly seen hungry days.

Everyone had, really. The world was not a kind place.

“Of course I’m going to feed you. You’ll eat what I eat – which, some days, might be a little thin, but I haven’t starved through a winter yet.”

He considered, then, after a moment, mimed something. He pulled one hand back to his ear and held the other one out, then pointed out the pointer finger near his ear.

It took her two repetitions to see the imaginary bow he was drawing and the imaginary arrow he was loosing. “Generally, I use snares,” she admitted. “Sometimes, if things are getting lean, I’ll use Workings, but it always seems creepy.” She leaned on her pitchfork. “You know, I’m really good at calling animals, so here I am, all Snow White – do you remember Snow White?”

He shrugged. That could mean anything. She explained anyway. “All musical princess, singing to the animals or something, and then, bam, killing them. Creepy.” She wrinkled her nose. “Although I’d be thrilled if I could find some chickens. Nobody wants to sell any.”

He looked up at the sky for a moment, then made an elaborate gesture. He repeated it twice, and, finally, Mieve saw the top hat he was taking off and the rabbit he was pulling out of his hat.

“Sadly, I don’t have the ‘create’ Word. You do, though, don’t you?”

He made a so-so gesture, and then made rabbit ears on top of his head. He followed that with a negation.

“Ah, so much more the pity.” She stabbed the pitchfork into the ground and turned over a few more feet. He couldn’t make animals. She couldn’t make animals. “I suppose I’ll just have to go out looking again, then.”

She surprised a frown on his face, or, at least, what she thought was probably a frown, since the gag obscured anything he was doing with his lips – by looking up at exactly the wrong moment. He shrugged and looked away, as if to say it was up to her.

“I haven’t done much exploring,” she mused. “All the years here and I go maybe four places, and that only when I have to.” She turned over a little more dirt, not looking at him. She wasn’t sure she wanted to see his expression. She was certain she wanted to know why he’d been frowning.

Finally, she gave in. She’d turned over a long patch of dirt, all of it a little more aggressively than it really needed. She wasn’t going to get anything else done while she was puzzling over her captive. Obsessing over him, if she was going to be honest with herself. She put the pitchfork back in the garage and gathered up her basket of walnuts.

“Bored?”

He snorted and nodded.

“All right.” She sat down beside him and handed him a chisel and hammer. “This basket needs shucking. This is how you do it.” She picked up a walnut and showed him how to crack the outer shell and get the green skin away from it. “Got it?”

He studied the chisel for a minute. Mieve’s heart was in her throat. Then he made a noise through the gag. It took her a moment to identify it as a chuckle.

Curiosity took only a few seconds to overcome caution, and she used a finger of telekinetic power to unlock his gag. He snorted in surprise as the gag fell out, caught it, and set it down next to him. It was harder than it ought to be; she should take it easy for a bit.

“Coulda used this instead of the ax,” he snorted at the chisel and hammer, and then chuckled again. Mieve stared at him for a moment before letting herself giggle
.
“Might’ve been easier,” she managed, before the giggle turned into a laugh.

He grinned at her, the grin turning quickly into another laugh, and before long, both of them were laughing and snorting.

It took Mieve a good few minutes to pull herself together and catch her breath. “So…” she offered. “Maybe we can skip the walnuts ‘till tomorrow.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Chiseling some shells might be fun. You trust me with this?”

“With a chisel? Yeah. I trusted you with an ax.”

“I was chained, before. And you hadn’t worn yourself out with Workings.”

She really wished he hadn’t noticed that. She knew she went still for a moment, and she knew he noticed, because his expression softened just a bit.

“It’s not like I can do much, my leg all a mess.” He gestured at it. “But, uh. Here. I promise for, um, the next month, I won’t attack you or, like, your bee hives or other things you need to survive, and I won’t, uh, use magic to try to escape or coerce you into letting me go.”

She stared at him. That was… “That’s kind,” she managed. “Thank you.”

He rolled his shoulders uncomfortably. “Yeah, well. I figure you didn’t, like, buy me to be a drain on your resources, and you didn’t buy me to chain me to your plow and make me do all your work. It’s not like you’re an awful person.”

“…I just broke your leg.” Why was she arguing with him?

“I just broke my leg.” He shrugged. “You’re not a jerk. I don’t have to be a jerk. I mean, I still want to leave. I don’t belong to you and I don’t want to be a slave. But I don’t have to be an ass, while I’m here.”

There was something he wasn’t telling her, but Mieve had a feeling she wouldn’t find out what it was by pushing him. She picked up the second chisel and hammer, instead, and started working on the walnuts.

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1203764.html

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