Planting some Good

Jul7


Written to kelkyag‘ prompt here to my Summer Giraffe Call Round 2. This plays off of and comes after The Fairy Road

The park in the middle of the city had always been creepy. In this city, that was hardly surprising, especially for the thousands of people who had no power of their own but enough of the blood to sense what was going on. The park had power, power by the boatload, and it had danger and ghosts twice on top of twice the power it had. For a small thing, a city block crossed by stone, it was fraught with history and with meaning, and it was so overgrown as to be more of a tangle than a park.

It would take careful handling, but Whitney had found that many things did. She started in the library, reading every article the Local History librarians could find her, down to the smallest clippings, single lines in the crime blotter, short paragraphs in obituaries, mentions in the Floral Column when she went back far enough.

She got permission by submitting a form that was ignored — that being the way of city bureaucracy — and she started slow, taking the earlier bus so she could have an hour in the mornings to work, carrying tools and plants in her gym bag.

“On this spot,” she told the dandelions and the thistles, “Emory MacDonald proposed to Dahlia Stonemason. He knelt here, in the alyssum, and her tears fell on the sidewalk.” She pulled weeds and smoothed down dirt, finding, under all the overgrowth, the marble border some long-ago gardener had placed with care. Into the fresh dirt, she planted some alyssum and watered them with bottled water.

“On this spot,” she told a particularly nasty weed a few days later, “Sally Hennings vanished. They say she’d collapsed, been hit so badly she had had lost consciousness, but when the police arrived, she was gone, never to resurface.” There she planted lilies, setting the bulbs in little circles so she could dig them up for the winter if she needed.

That was a Friday; in one week she had cleared an area 2 feet deep by five feet wide. But when she returned on Monday, she found she was not working alone.

“Here,” the translucent man told her, “a woman kissed her lover for the last time before the war.” He knelt down and dug, translucent or not, and daffodils — bright and flowering and out of season — replaced the matted weeds.

“Here,” a slim creature who had never been human sang, “They buried a diary. The book is gone, but the story remains.” Ivy twined from its feet, filling the shaded area with brilliant greenery.

Whitney did not turn, but she knew the voice that had come behind her. “This place has many a story, woman of the city, and you have no debt to it nor to its denizens. You will be a long time at unearthing them all, even with the help.”

“It needs to be done,” Whitney replied, although she could not have said why. “So I shall do it.”

“Very well, then. You will have the time and the space to do it in.” His voice had the finality of fairy gifts, but still, he sounded kind.

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Superfood – a story of Space/Colony for the Summer Giraffe Call Round 2

Jul7


Written to sauergeek‘ prompt here to my Summer Giraffe Call Round 2

Names from – http://www.scifiideas.com/alien-species-generator/

“All right, the last plant is ready for the colony ship.” Gioia macDowell stepped back and wiped the sweat from her brow while her boss waited — patiently of course; the Detzuborg were always patient — for her to continue. “It’s gluten-free, it’s vegan, it’s umami, it’s got a decent healthy fats content, low cholesterol, not too high in fructose, decent in fiber and with the best protein content I could manage.”

“You made a superfood?” Zenaford’s voice raised mildly. “That is beyond the scope of the brief.”

“Considering the terrain on Zooik Four, I thought the colonists would need all the help they can get. Besides,” macDowell smirked at herself, “I’m a perfectionist. This thing will grow on Zooik-four soil, and it will take in nutrients even from Zooik Four plants, although it would be helped by having some basic modified grass or wheat planted near it.”

“Take in nutrients from…” Zenaford took a step forward. “What, exactly, did you do, Dr. MacDowell?”

“Here, I think you’d best see it.” She raised the view screen to show her Zooik-Four-contained environment.

Inside the hardened glass, a small, green sheep grazed contentedly at the end of a long stalk-like tether. Its wool looked like something like broccoli, its leaves rather like horseradish. “It’s a derivation of the Brassicaceae family, of course. Everything good is — well, that or nightshades, and they’re too tender.”

“…You made a carnivorous plant to feed the colonists?”

“Technically,” macDowell couldn’t help but offer, “I made an herbivorous plant.”

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Unicorn Truths – a story of Unicorn/Factory for Finish It! Bingo

Jul6

After Stroke the Unicorn and Unicorn Strokes, for the Finish It! Bingo

Blanket content warning for Unicorn/Factory: This setting involves unicorns using their horns for both violence and sexual violence, although none of that is directly described in this story.

Jakob took the woman to his home for the night. She deserved better than an anonymous inn bed, after the story she had given them, and, what was more, Jakob found he wanted the rest of the story.

His wife and second-oldest daughters put her to bed. They were not rich, but every home had some small corner that could be made up for guests. In the town, they whispered that the Administrators might come to visit. In the Villages, it was said that you never knew when a guest would turn out to be a unicorn in disguise.

She wore his wife’s second-best nightgown and was wrapped in a quilt Jakob’s mother had sewn for them. She seemed to fall asleep quickly, but Jakob himself lay staring at the ceiling for a very long time before dreams took him.

She ate breakfast with them the next morning, polite as a gentrywoman, appetite as small as her capacity for whisky had been large the night before. She helped Jakob’s wife Elin wash up after, and then, and only then, she asked Elin politely “May I?”

What Elin thought of this woman, Jakob might never know. She looked at this stranger, dressed in widow’s weeds and carrying such pain, and she knew what she’d wanted before Jakob did.

“Of course,” she said. There was a tone in her voice that Jakob had never heard, and it occurred to him that he was intruding on matters most often private to woman.

The woman tilted her head at Jakob. “Let us walk,” she offered, “down by the green.”

“As you wish.” She had gone to the river. She was a Village girl. What had changed in her that she carried herself so nobly? Or was it Jakob, that he wanted her to be noble, because of what she had done?

She said nothing until they were meandering the town green, sidestepping the sheep that grazed there. “You want to know what the unicorn’s answer was.”

“Lady, only if…” She cut him off with a hand.

“You were kind to me when I was being unkind. You brought me into your home when all you know of me is that a unicorn rejected me. For your kindness, I am going to repay you with harsh truths that are too much for me to bear alone. And yet, I can tell that you want me to do so.”

Jakob swallowed. “I want to know what the unicorn’s answer was,” he admitted.

“Unicorns are a mystery to men. That it was it is. They are a mystery to everyone, but the women walk to the river, and so the men think we know something they do not.”

Jakob nodded his politely, but forced the words out. “Women see the unicorns,” he offered, “and they… touch them.”

She raised an arch eyebrow at him. He thought she looked nearly amused. “Does touching someone tell you about them?”

Jakob coughed, thinking of a misspent youth. “Ah. No.”

“Indeed.” She leaned against a tree and looked pensive. “But… Sometimes, the unicorn will answer a question. Sometimes he will answer two. I asked two.”

She was leading him into the story, he knew, but he couldn’t bring himself to resent it. She had been wounded, he thought. She may be lucky to be alive. Few of those who were so wounded ever married, ever bore children.

He cleared his throat yet again. “You said you asked what you’d done wrong.”

“..I did.” She sighed. “And the unicorn told me a secret. But, you see, it’s a secret nobody wants to believe.”

Nobody, Jakob thought, meant no-one where she came from. He thought she might be challenging him, and then he thought of the days in the tavern and amended his opinion. She was challenging him.

“And the unicorn said?” he offered. He did not want to know. He did not want to hear. It was the only thing he could do, to hear.

She eyed him. “You will not want to believe.”

“Lady,” he answered, naked in sincerity and in terror, “I cannot do anything but believe, not after what you have survived.”

She bowed her head for a moment. Jakob thought, perhaps, she’d wanted him to refute.

“He said,” she whispered, so softly he had to step forward to hear him. “He said ‘sometimes the river needs the blood.’ He said,” she continued, while Jakob struggled not to rear back, “that they insisted on purity because then, then there was someone to bleed when the river needed blood. He said,” she was no longer whispering, but Jakob did not move away. “He said that he was sorry, but the unpure ones no longer came down to the river. He said,” and now she was shouting, sobbing, “he said I had done nothing wrong! And he would try to not kill me, but the river…”

Her voice broke. Jakob held her, not knowing if she wanting it, knowing only that he needed to do something. “…the river,” she whispered. “It demanded the blood. I’ve stroked a unicorn.” Her eyes went to Jakob’s. Even now he had to fight not to flinch away. He held her shoulders, feeling like he was holding so much more. “They made a bargain.” Her voice was cracking, growing weaker. “We only thought it was the one we made.”

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More people might want to… a continuation

Jul6

This is a continuation to Some People Just Want To… commissioned by [personal profile] thnidu

The news channels tried to cover it up, but the people were clamouring for news, and what the media would not cover, gossip would take care of. Yolanda was surrounded by it: the mad scientist. The murderer, hoist by his own petard.

The mystery formula that could make war impossible, if only…

The potential scientific benefits of Dr. Fidelli’s formula, if only…

The ways it could be modified to make a better execution drug, if only the formula hadn’t vanished.

He had to have written it down. He had to have kept it somewhere.

Yolanda tried not to flinch, tried not to smile, tried not to shout. She spent a lot of time hiding in her favorite bar, thinking about anything but biological systems and acidic toxins.

“Yolanda Giana.” A well-dressed man — far too well-dressed for this bar — sat down next to her, his body shielding her from the rest of the barflies. “I have a proposition for you.”

all funds now going to repair or replace the tablet I use to write on the bus: just broke the glass today

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Invasive, a story for the Summer Giraffe Call Round 2

Jul6


Written to rix_scaedu‘ prompt here to my Summer Giraffe Call Round 2

The sun was up. It had been raining for a week, and the plants did not need any more water.

Patrice suited up in leather, long gloves and shit-kicker boots, and risked stepping out onto her front porch.

She could hear sirens in the distance. She wondered if they’d cleared Main Street yet. She wondered what had happened with their “controlled burn.” She’d told them it was too wet for that. She was told them they needed to find the source, but the thing was too good at distracting them from the core.

The vines had grown up all around her fence, sealing it shut. Fruits the size of a mango hung off it, dripping tantalizingly. She could smell the magic from here. And that was the problem.

It had been a bad summer after a bad winter, and the economy was so far in the basement it was digging to the core. People were hungry. People were tired, desperate, and lost.

She grabbed a fruit, keeping the rest of her body far from the vines, and bit into it. They would not starve… if they could remember not to let the vine get them.

The vines had shown up where it was needed – abandoned lots and crack houses in the worst parts of the city. The fruit was rich, tasty, fatty like an avocado and just sweet enough to want you to eat more and more.

And then normal people started seeing the sideways world, the magical. And then normal people starting vibrating with power… exploding with power.

Patrice stepped back into the center of her yard and let the power wash over her. It was a rush, no matter how bad it was. It would keep them fed… and it would keep them happy.

It had been two weeks before the vines were found cradling the husk, barely alive, of a witch. Of a goblin. Of a werewolf. Or someone that was, as far as anyone could tell, human. The vines had been found reaching out for people, snatching them off the streets.

The fruits were richer, sweeter than they had been, and as the vines took over the city streets, they grew even tastier. Fire wouldn’t kill it; you couldn’t burn the thing without burning the city down. And it set down roots everywhere it could find dirt.

The power roiled through her. Patrice rolled her shoulders and unsheathed her machete.

They were running out of space. They were running out of time. She let power tingle down to her fingers and through her blade. She was going to chop down vines until they killed her or she reached the center.

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Giraffe Call Round Two: Open!

Jul5

Welcome to my summer giraffe Call!

The theme today is “Green Thumbs”

Please feel free to leave as many prompts as come to your mind!

You may prompt whether or not you prompted in round one.

I will write a short flash fiction or the beginning of a story (approx 150-300 words) for the first twelve prompters who post their prompts within the next 48 hours.

I will start posting stories around 8:30 a.m. Eastern time and continue until I run out of prompters/until 9:30 p.m., and then pick up again tomorrow morning with whatever’s left.


I’ll write a second (or more) story for you if:

  • You tip or pledge to my patreon
  • You are a new prompter – don’t forget to tell me!
  • Your signal boost brings in a new prompter

If you qualify for a second-plus story, I will also waive the twelve-prompter limit and the 48-hour limit for you.

Please remember to tell me if you are a new prompter, AND what/who brought you to this Giraffe Call!
If your Paypal or Patreon account name does not match your posting/prompting account name, please remember to leave a note letting me know you tipped/pledged.

Any tip you leave will buy you more words, at my reduced Giraffe Call rate of $5/300 words.


In Addition, if I receive $25 in tips, $10 in new Pledges, or 10 new followers between LiveJournal and Dreamwidth – or a combination thereof – I will run the Giraffe Call for a third day, with a third theme, and a third chance to prompt! The prompt options for tomorrow are currently tied at “Impossible Ideas” and “Summer ritual celebrations.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1137434.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Packing Some Heat, a story of Fae Apoc for #ThimblefulThursday

Jul5

The monsters were coming.

Ramona had grabbed every pistol and rifle she could carry and twice as much ammunition as a sane person ever needed, leaving behind an IOU and an apology to the departed gun shop owner. She might be able to take on an elephant.

But the monsters weren’t always stopped by bullets. She’d watched one on TV get up after an anti-tank missile. She needed something stronger.

The local Wal-Mart was still open: out of water, out of food, but open. She headed for the gardening section.

Armed with the biggest weed torch the store sold & two tanks of propane, Ramona finally felt properly armed.

Written to June 30th’s Thimbleful Thursday prompt, “Packing Heat.”

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Second Day of Summer Giraffe Call coming!

Jul4

The $25 tip/commission level was reached!

There will be a second day of prompts with a second prompt theme!

I will open the prompt call on 7/5/2016 at 9 p.m. and keep it open for 24 hours, or until I have reached 12 prompters (with the same caveats for donors, new prompters, and those whose signal boost brings in new prompters as before).

If you don’t think you’ll make it, drop me a line now and I’ll hold you a slot.

The theme will be….

Well, if you haven’t voted in the theme poll yet, please stop in http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1129688.html and vote. Right now, it’s a 3-way tie.

Yay!

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Some People Just Want to… a story for my Summer Giraffe Call

Jul2

Written to book_worm5‘s prompts here to my Summer Giraffe Call.

“Sometimes a controlled burn is good, and sometimes a forest fire is what you need.” Ted Fidelli was not what you’d think of when you were picturing evil scientists — unless you’d read his papers and happened to be his assistant. Sometimes you need to clear the world of the deadwood and let everything burn.”

Yolanda Giana, who happened to have ended up taking exactly the wrong internship, frowned at her boss. “You’re not talking about trees. You’re talking about people. About ninety-nine percent of the world’s population.”

“But not you. You’re a much better assistant than Mea Goldberg there was.” He gestured negligently at the test chamber, in which Dr. Goldberg — or what was left of her — had been the last test subject in Dr. Fidelli’s plan for world domination by survival of the meanest. “You understand, don’t you? This population surge, it’s a blight on the earth. Mother earth can’t handle what we’re doing to her, and we’re going to have to strip the population back to more reasonable numbers.”

Yolanda counted to twenty silently. She needed this job. She needed not to be the next person in Dr. Fidelli’s testing room there with Dr. Goldberg.

She took a shallow breath. “I’m sure you’re right, doctor. It makes perfect sense.” She’d gotten good at lying through her teeth since finding herself working for a madman. “I’ll just get your coffee then.”

Yolanda took three steps backwards, then, when it became clear that the doctor wasn’t going to call her back, turned and left the lab for the kitchen. She slapped the contamination-lockdown button casually on her way by and slid out as the seals ground closed.

The smoke-bomb of Dr. Fidelli’s formula she had left carefully connected to a timer went off three seconds after the door sealed shut. By the time the doctor realized what was going, he was already as good as dead.

Yolanda called the police while she carefully destroyed all record of her existence. It was just a good thing the doctor had wanted to pay her under the table. She was pretty sure it was still murder even if you did it while saving the world.

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1138150.html

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The Gentle Queen Awakens, a continuation of a fanfic of Narnia and Valdemar

Jul1

first: A Door in the Wall
Second: On the Other Side of the Door
Third: The Call Comes Again
Fourth: New Travelling Companions
Fifth: Complications and then Complications
Sixth: Stranger Things
Seventh: A Change and Changes
Eighth: But Not A Return
Ninth: The Gods Not Tamed
Tenth: The Tiny Queen Arises,

This way turned out to be into a tavern and to the darkest back corner. Peter and Edmund were waiting outside the building — the Mended Drum — for them, somehow already looking as if they belonged there. Peter had always been able to do that, step into a scene and belong there. Susan had watched Edmund learn it over their time in Narnia, and then again when they returned.

It seemed to relax Soleck. He smiled sidelong at them and held open the door, leading them far into the back.

In a shadowed corner, a figure sat with hood up, nursing a thick-walled mug of ale. She glanced up at them — Susan had only Soleck’s use of the pronoun to go on, as the cloak the figure was wearing concealed everything — and nodded. “Herald.”

“Polla. We have a deal?”

“These are them?” Her voice was deep for a woman, or high for a man, and husky. Susan caught the woman eyeing her, and did the same in return. “Well, on Valdemar’s head be it.”

The insult was clear. Susan braced herself, hoping neither her brothers nor Lucy would take obvious offense.

Instead, Edmund flopped into the chair nearest the woman and grinned. “That’s the idea, no?” He held out his hand. “Edmund.”

Susan could not see the woman’s expression, but her voice sounded pleasantly surprised. “Polla.” She took Edmund’s hand and shook it; her hand was broad and scarred, the nails trimmed short. “And the rest?”

“Oh, this is my brother Peter, Peter, say hi to the nice lady, and these are our sisters, Susan and Lucy.” Something about the way Edmund said it made Susan feel like he wanted to add on their titles, the names Aslan had called them by. It made her bow a little more regal than it would have otherwise been.

“Pleased to meet you,” she offered. “You are to be our guide, then?”

“That’s me. Bonded and paid by… them that’s hired you.”

Well, on Valdemar’s head be it. Susan did not say it, but she thought it might show in her face.

That was confirmed, or nearly so, when Polla threw back her head and laughed. “This one, I like. She has steel in her spine. Tell me, Soleck-Herald, what brought these four to you?”

Soleck cleared his throat. “The SunLord,” he muttered.

“The SunLord?” Polla’s voice shifted, dropping down into a conversational tone, and she leaned forward. “Interesting. The gods do not so often interfere directly, do they? Especially not V’kandis, and especially not here in Valdemar. Well.” She nodded to all four of them. “This will be an interesting trip. You can ride, I’ve been told. And you can fight?”

Edmund started to lean forward, as if to speak, and then leaned back, nodding at Peter.

Susan raised an eyebrow but did not interrupt. She wondered if they had been doing some negotiating of their own, while she and Lucy had been off shopping.

Peter cleared his throat. “Ed and I are fine in close-quarters fighting. We’re good with a sword or a mace. Lu and Susan are good with a short-sword, but you don’t want to get between Susan and her target; she’s a wicked shot with a bow, and Lucy’s pretty good too.”

“Girls good on distance, boys close up. Check.”

“Are we likely to see much combat on this mission?” Susan hoped she didn’t sound like a ninny; it was an important question, but sometimes she found her information requests were met with disdain.

Polla leaned back. A smile was visible from under the shadow of her hood. “Likely? Depends on you four. Is it possible? Combat is always a possibility. Once I got jumped while I was eating soup at a tavern three hours’ ride from the nearest battlefront.”

Soleck cleared his throat. “There’s no need to frighten them.”

“There is every need to frighten them, if the idea of battle makes them quake in their boots. But I don’t think they’re frightened. I think they’re measuring me up, am I right?”

Peter cleared his throat. “If you’re to be our guide… then we should know you. This is a strange land to us, and Herald Soleck and his Companion are the only ones we know apart from you.”

Polla laughed, a deep and happy sound that echoed in their small corner. “See? HE’s a diplomat, too. I see why you picked ‘em for this mission. All right. When can you be ready to leave?”

“Immediately, if necessary,” Peter answered for them. “We have little in the way of luggage and our mounts have been rested.”

“Don’t talk half fancy, does he? Well, maybe it’s for the better. Let me settle up my tab, and then we’re off, me kiddos.” Polla levered herself to her feet; it was then that Susan noticed the walking stick by her side.

Soleck put a hand on Polla’s. “I will pay. ‘Expenses’ was said, no? This is an expense.”

Polla laughed again, shorter and more clipped this time. “If you’d been my client…”

“But I am the client now, and we cannot go chasing after last year’s chickens. I will pay. You see these children on to the road.” He bowed low to Polla, and then to Susan and Peter, to Edmund and Lucy. “Bring him home,” he murmured very softly. “Sunlord’s-gift, we are all counting on you.”

Susan stood. Next to her, she could feel her family doing the same. She nodded her head to Soleck, the words and tone of Queen Susan coming back to her. “We will do all we can, Herald Soleck, to bring him home safely to you. On that, you have our word.”

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