The Black Bean, the beginning of something Unicorn/Factory

Oct28

In Shandel’s village, the girls – the ones who were not yet old enough, the ones who had not been chosen – they spoke of going down to the river in nervous giggles, the way they would sometimes speak of a future husband, or a woman they thought particularly clever or pretty. The grandmothers, the old women, the ones that chose, spoke of it in slow tones, like an honor, or in brusque ones, like a chore. The women who had gone down and survived did not speak about it at all.

It was a surprise to many when the black bean came to Shandel at the harvest fair. She was quiet, so quiet some thought her simple. She was strange-looking, such that people would sometimes look at her mother sidelong, for while nobody questioned a first child who looked a bit strange, pointed ears or glowing foreheads, Shandel was her mother’s third child, though the first to live past infancy, and furthermore, her mother had never gotten the black bean in her dish. She had a gentle touch, and followed the village doctor around like a shadow. If she was not simple, perhaps she would be the next doctor. None of these things were normal in the one who would go to the river.

But the bean was passed by chance. Chance, even if the old ladies were very good at putting the bean where it needed to be. And because the village held true to that, they did not look very closely at the old ladies, who were as confused as the rest of the village. Only Shandel was not surprised, and those that noticed that assumed once more that she was a little simple, a little slow. Especially if they noticed her smile.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/999635.html. You can comment here or there.

Being Not Human, a ficlet of the Fae Apoc

Oct27

Set in the middle of the apocalypse.

Warning: it’s a bit dreary (It’s set in the middle of an apocalypse), and involves discussion of violence and violent death.

In the wreckage of a building, someone screamed.

Tasha pulled her hood up and kept walking.

She could help them. She and Arden had been helping people, and then someone had grabbed Arden. They’d tried to get him away, but the grabber had a gun, and all they had was…

She looked down at her fingers. They seemed to flicker: fingertips, claws, fingertips, claws. One claw was ripped clean off, and both fingertip and claw looked bloody.

She’d tried to help someone else, after she’d lost Arden. She’d lost control of her illusion-thingy for just a moment, just a heartbeat, and her would-be rescuee had flipped out. She’d gotten them mostly-unburied anyway, because she was trying hard not to be a monster.

Monster. Tasha looked back down at her claws. She’d watched another teenager like her – just another girl, maybe fifteen – start panicking when one of the invaders started throwing some sort of fireballs. It was panic-worthy, Tasha had to admit. The first one she’d seen shooting lightning from their fingertips had freaked her out.

And, just like had happened when Tasha saw the lightning lady, the girl’s body started changing. Horns, tail, and the girl was screaming in pain. That stuff hurt.

But Tasha had been in the wreck of her classroom, alone. This girl had been in the middle of a crowd of humans.

Humans. They’d killed her in seconds, beaten a girl to death while she was scared and confused. Humans.

The scream sounded in the wreckage again. Tasha hesitated. She couldn’t save them.

She couldn’t not save them.

She was trying hard not to be a monster.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/999295.html. You can comment here or there.

Let No Man Set Asunder, a story of the Aunt Family for Patreon Patrons

Oct26

Now I’m not saying this is how it happened, and I’m not saying it didn’t happen that way. If you look at the journals for that day, you don’t see anything that interesting. But a few tipsy whispers say otherwise.

~

Asta’s journal from this particular October, 1968:

Attended Corina’s wedding to a lovely young man – Anthony.

Met a wonderful woman, Anthony’s great-grandmother Margaret. Shall have to get together with her sometime to exchange recipes – and perhaps knitting patterns.

There was a bit of a scuffle at the wedding –

(read on…)

For just $1, you can read all the Patreon stories!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/998825.html. You can comment here or there.

The Kraken of World/Story Development, part Two: Conflict (For Into Lannamer)

Oct26

I found this thing: http://kittyspace.org/leviathan0.html and I’m gonna play with it because I’m finding it instructional!

4. STUDY YOUR CONFLICT

The conflict in Into Lannamer is three-tiered.

Primary is the conflict between Rin & Girey: She wants to save his life; he wants to return to freedom in the south.

Secondarily is the conflict between Rin/Girey and everyone who wants to stop them from going somewhere – or anywhere.

On the same level as this but separate is the weather. They leave the south in the middle of the rainy season and will end up in the north in the cold season. The weather’s going to be an issue.

This conflict comes about because the two nations have been at war longer than there have been nations, because Girey is very full of himself, because Rin is very bad at explaining herself and not interested in negotiation, because they both have meaning to their respective people & enemies beyond the meaning they have to themselves. Rin wants a project; Girey just wants to go home, even if home doesn’t exist anymore.

“5. OUTLINE YOUR STORY
No, seriously. Outline your story.”

Okay. 🙂 /goes off to do that/

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/998433.html. You can comment here or there.

The Autumn of her Discontent (a ficlet of Stranded World/Autumn)

Oct26

After Tangles and Knots, Snarls and Combs. Stranded World has a landing page here.

Autumn took a long, hot shower, paying for a motel room to do it in, taking the time and the soap and a brush from the dollar store. It was the end of Faire season. It was the end of her and Tatters, and she still hadn’t quite processed that. It was… it was time to clean up all the old marks.

She washed every piece of ink off of her skin, scrubbed the skin raw where the ink had stained, washed herself until she felt, should she do more, she would have to start quoting MacBeth.

She dressed herself in clothes cleaned every bit as thoroughly although, because it had been at the laundromat, with slightly less soliloquy. She left her van with a friend she still trusted, rented the smallest car she could find, and started driving.

It did not occur to her until quite some time later that she was running away. But, skin bare of connections, clothing bare of scents and memories, she had detangled herself from both the heartache and the embarrassment and now she felt she just had to keep going until the strands shook loose from her.

When she reached the Pacific, she finally felt as if she could breathe again.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/998193.html. You can comment here or there.

The Leviathan of World/Story Development, part One (For Into Lannamer)

Oct25

I found this thing: http://kittyspace.org/leviathan0.html and I’m gonna play with it because I’m finding it instructional!

1. DETERMINE YOUR SCOPE
Oh hey I know this one it’s in the title!
The personal scope of Into Lannamer is very tight – it’s Rin and Girey. It’s their struggle to cope with the world being over, and what that means for both of them.
The background, the villains – that’s three personal stories, too, thee people with reasons to want to hurt Rin and/or Girey and one person who wants to pull Girey back to the far South. They all have very intimate reasons.
The background, that’s far wider, but it’s all out of focus. That’s the struggle of peace (of losing the war/of winning the war) after generations of war. It’s shaking everything. But we’re only seeing the tremors as they shake Rin and Girey.
Geographically, the scope is most of the continent, from [City continually renamed] in Bithrain to Lannamer up in the north of Calenta.

2. DESCRIBE YOUR CHARACTERS
Rin is a career army medic faced with the end of the war. She’s a royal daughter who never sought to climb the army’s hierarchy further than the authority she needed to do her job with minimal interruption, and thus she’s an Optio (lieutenant)

Girey is the only son of the king of Bithrain, and while he has not been “spoiled rotten,” he has been pampered and spoiled more than is probably healthy. He took to the field with a given rank, and had not truly earned his way up to that rank in duty, sense, and respect before he was captured by the Bithrain.

Esnees, Esnetrennesnees, is Rin’s uncle, older than her mother and the Emperor’s second-born child. He long ago accepted that he would not inherit his father’s title, but he has been grooming a specific set of his nieces and sisters as options for rule; if they rule, he believes he has a better chance of being the power behind the throne.

[2 more redacted]

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/998038.html. You can comment here or there.