Beating Around the Idiom Bush, a story for Thimbleful Thursday

Sep8

Thimbleful Thursday is a new microfic prompt site (mine!). This week’s prompt was “Beat Around the Bush” and the word limit was 200 (180-200).

I barely made it in at 467.

“Look, I know you guys like the social padding and all, but I don’t have time to beat around the bush…”

Reyn knew the phrase was a mistake the moment it was uttered, but the “don’t have time” part was true, and hurry tended to make Reyn slip into old habits, childhood habits.

The Jesharian clicked a blue tongue-equivalent and tilted her head in the manner that had originally made human explorers call the Jesharian
“Cat-people.”

“What is this ‘bush’ you speak of? Is it the vestigial fur-remnant some humans have between their legs?” The Jesharian – Koyl, her name was Koyl – shifted the head-tilt to the other side. “Bush can also mean tired, exhausted, but I do not know why you would beat either of these things. A strange sexual ritual, perhaps?”

Reyn choked back a laugh. “No, no.” Koyl’s eyes narrowed, and Reyn dropped quickly into a bow of apology, with three hand gestures that suggested – as much as a human(esque) body could approximate a Jesharian female’s gestures – that the humble personage of Reyn had meant no offense, none at all, from the involuntary spasm that the humans used in place of a proper laugh. “No.” This time, Reyn’s tone was suitably sedate. “No. I don’t know why we use the same word for so many different idioms, but what this one means is to move around a subject instead of tackling it directly, or to avoid the main point of a subject.” Reyn had a lot of experience translating idiom for the Jesharian, especially for Koyl and her sister-clones.

“So you wish to get directly to the point, instead of properly doing the social dance? Why did you not say so?”

“I – I thought I had.” Reyn facepalmed with both hands, a gesture that was helpfully very similar in Jesharian body language. “Sorry. This one apologizes for the miscommunication. When I am stressed – experiencing unpleasant levels of stress, that is – I start talking like my parents. And my parents used a lot of figures of speech, that is, idioms.”

“I do not mind idioms. They are lovely and color your language, much as the social dance does for ours.” Koyl bowed, a similar gesture to Reyn’s earlier apology-bow. “If you are rushed, the gesture-of-Jeshar we would use is like this.” She planted her feet very close together and clasped her hands at her upper hips. “In our land, this suggests ‘I do not have time for the dance; please forgive me but may we be hasty?'” Koyl winked, closing three of her eyes. “And, since that is what you meant to imply, perhaps we should save the rest of the conversation on idiom for another day?”

“Yes.” Reyn adopted the body posture Koyla was demonstrating. “Yes, yes please.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/805428.html. You can comment here or there.

A Heritage Earned

Sep8

This is to [personal profile] librarygeek‘s prompt and comes after The Heritage that Wasn’t

“Kitsune are believed to possess superior intelligence, long life, and magical powers.”

The dictionaries were not helpful. The online databases were not much more useful. The only place – other than the letters, which were clearly not enough help – where Jen could find any information at all was an old, old, pre-space database which someone had reconstructed as a school project.

Kitsune were benevolent, or mischievous, or even malicious. They were spirits, or they weren’t, they shifted form, or they simply appeared to sometimes be human. The information was all over there.

But that one line: “…believed to possess superior intelligence, long life, and magical powers.” That, Jen grabbed on to. She could not lengthen her life, not on her own. But she could learn magic.

Of course, “magic” did not exist. Of course, “superior intelligence” was a matter of genetics and pre-birth implants and careful training. Of course, kitsune were a myth.

But Jen had been living off-planet just long enough to have learned that Central Bureaucracy had its lies that it needed to tell, and that colonists, settlers, the Modified, and the true aliens all had their own truths, truths which had more to do with what Jen needed than the Central Bureaucracy Registered Facts ever would.

Superior intelligence came from a series of illicit implants, a longer series of sleep-learning in an Earth-banned procedure used everywhere, usually to bone up on a specific subject, and an ever longer series of sessions with a Modified shaman.

The same shaman taught Jen the preliminaries of magic, and set her on the path to a second teacher, and then to an alien, native of the planet on which she & her father were now residing, who taught Jen things Central Bureaucracy had never even thought to forbid.

Kitsune were myth, but on her twenty-third birthday, Jen found herself staring in the mirror at a fox-fairy.


Want more words, or just really like this post? Drop some money in the tip jar!


(the tip jar is a kitty for reasons)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/805169.html. You can comment here or there.

Timehop of my own: Four Years Ago today

Sep8

(I find the concept of the timehop ap adorable, but I don’t have a smart phone AND I don’t use Facebook enough for it to find anything reliably. Sooo)

Four years ago today I posted: Two by Two, a story in the post-apoc Fae Apoc world very strongly inspired by the “Two by Two Zoo,” a petting zoo we had just seen at the Trumansburg Fair.

(The one and only time I went to that town fair. It was… okay).

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/805080.html. You can comment here or there.

Edally Academy web page up & suggestions wanted:

Sep7

The Edally Academy has a web page!

http://www.edallyacademy.com/2014/06/29/start/

And, now that it’s up, I’m remembering that Project Wonderful wants 100 (30) pages before they let you have ads on the site.

Which means, since I have 8 chapters and 2 interludes up, I’d like to add a few short metafiction pieces, outtakes, descriptive scenes, worldbuilding lists, whathave you.

They shouldn’t be more than 250 words a pop, so they’re easy enough to do, but I could use some suggestions.

Alternately, do you think any of the demifiction listed here: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/781726.html might be useful to readers of Edally who aren’t familiar with the world as a whole?

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/804759.html. You can comment here or there.

A Week In Alder

Sep7

The Highlights

Some Stories
Cats and Grandmas – a Story of Aunt Family
Meeting the Archmage – a story of the Circled Plain
Oil & Water for Thimbleful Thursday

Feedback Requested
Ladies Bingo – Prompt a Square!

My Life, My Brain
Micro-Housing becoming a trend fascinates me
Gone Sailing!
Taughannock Falls

My Serial(s)
Edally Academy: The Angry Aetherist – Chapter Eight: Far From the Best

Other People
Signal Boost: LB-Lee’s Writeathon
K Orion Fray’s September Prompt Call

Stories
Doomsday
If You Want to Be A Samurai
Gonna Be a Samurai… Kitty?
Baram’s Elves
There Are Always Choices
Fae Apoc
Safety (After Wildlife Refuge)
Stranded World
Like This & Like That A [personal profile] djinni Icon Fic
One-Off
The Heritage that Wasn’t
It’s not the Prom for Three-Word Wednesday
Better Left Unsaid, for #fridayFlash

News
September’s Theme Has Been Chosen
The Aunt Family: A Welcome
Landing page updated:
Fairy Town

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/804291.html. You can comment here or there.

Gonna Be a Samurai… Kitty? A continuation of Doomsday for the Giraffe Call (@rix_Scaedu)

Sep6

This is written to Rix_Scaedu‘s commissioned continuation of the “Samurai” thread:
Gonna be a Samurai
Gonna Learn how to be a Samurai and
Being a Samurai Takes Work
If You Want to be a Samurai….

Fourth Year

“Austin, you don’t have to fake a headache. Seriously. If you don’t want to come to the recital, just say so.”

“No! …No.” Austin had burrowed as far under the blankets as he could go, but he had to peek out so that Sianna could see he was sincere. The light seemed to stab at his eyes, but Sianna had to understand. “No, I promise-”

“You’re not supposed to promise.”

“Not unless you really, really mean it. I promise I really do have a headache. I – I wanted to see you dance.”

“You see me dance all the time Austin what’s going on with your head?”

“Not like – what? My head hurts. I told you that.” He was seeing spots, which had to be why he didn’t dodge Sianna grabbing him. “Ow, ow, my ears… wait.” He blinked up at his friend. “What?”

“You’re Changing, it’s not fair, it’s awesome, I mean, but it’s not fair. Come on, what did Miss Ascha say about Changes?” She finally released her grip on – on his ears? It still didn’t feel right, but those things at the top of his head had to be his ears. At least that explained why everything got louder when Sianna let go. “Come on. You’ve got to go see Nurse ’Adne.”

“What? No, it’s just a headache.” Samurai didn’t need to worry about a little pain, did they? What would Professor Inazuma say? “I’ll be fine.”

“Austin!” Dancers had strong arms; Sianna grabbed his arm and yanked. “Come on. You’re going to see Nurse Meliadne. Now.”

Having a tail was totally going to get in the way of being a samurai. Austin stared miserably at Nurse Meliadne’s three-way mirror. “I have a tail.”

“You have a tail, yes. It looks as if it’s some sort of cat, maybe a domestic cat, a house cat.”

“A cat?” Austin spun around again. “Not even a tiger or a lion or something cool, I’m turning into a house cat?”

“Not ‘turning into,’ not really. You’re going to get some physical characteristics of a cat – the tail, the ears, as you can see, maybe claws. And you’ll get some – I’ve heard them called emotional characteristics. Some people call it ‘the animal.’ For some, it will be something like wanting to take a lot of naps, or chasing small objects – or prey, so I’d watch yourself around mouse-like Changes. Or an urge to mark your territory – be careful with that, or Miss Ascha will be very irritated with you.” The nurse smiled.

“Oh, good.” Austin wrinkled his nose. “So I might act like an idiot, and I’m all messed up for being a samurai.”

“Why do you say that?” Nurse Meliadne settled into her chair and put her chin in her hands. “After all, cats are known for their balance.”

“Who’s going to take me seriously looking like this?”

“Meliadne, I heard Austin was Changing… Ah, there you are!”

Oh, no, it was Professor Inazuma. Austin hid his face in his hands, but couldn’t help peeking out to see the professor’s expression.

He was… smiling. Almost grinning, really.

“A cat change? Great! Now we get to figure out your balance with that tail.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/804011.html. You can comment here or there.

September’s Theme has been Chosen: Gender-Funkery!

Sep6

I had a lot of votes for the September Theme Poll – which is awesome, because it means that a lot of people donated/tipped/commissioned in August, on top of my Patreon donor at the $5 level.

The votes were:
1 – Stranded
Gender-funkery
DND
Gender-Funkery
10 – DnD
Stranded
Love stories

So that’s two votes each for Stranded, Gender-funkery, and DND (Dragons Next Door).

I assigned these each a number (1,2,3), opened up my handy-dandy Random.org, and rolled.

And got 2! The theme for the month is gender-funkery, and now I get to figure out how to make a theme theme (one that isn’t a setting) work! Yay!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/803701.html. You can comment here or there.

Gone Sailing!

Sep5

It’s almost the weekend again, but oh, wow, was last weekend fun!

I went on a boat! And Drank Wine! And ate Tapas! And drank more Wine! And then it was Christmas!

My dear friends E.Mc & Pivin gave T & I, for Christmas, a gift certificate for two people’s ride on the Schooner True Love – they also got themselves two tickets, as a promise to come visit sometime in the summer.

And, sliding in just under the wire, they came to visit last weekend!

So we went out on this lovely sailboat – about 60-something feet – for about two hours, tacking back and forth across Seneca Lake.

It was awesome. (My new icon for [twitter.com profile] thornewrites is me on the boat, just before I lost the hat). I haven’t been on a sailboat in probably a decade, and it was the most soothing feeling. Also, the best day for it – warm, no rain, but not oppressive, plenty of breeze.

The rest of the weekend was just as awesome. We checked out a new-to-us tapas place: Mia and ate lots of tasty food, then unwound at Autumn Leaves, a used book store on the Commons – I bought Eats, Shoots and Leaves, which I’ve been wanting to read for ages!

Then it was “Christmas” – technically a mutual celebration of birthdays that took place in April, April, May, and June. All the gifts!

And then there was wine, but this post is already dragging long. More for next time! Cheerio!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/803330.html. You can comment here or there.

K Orion Fray’s September Prompt Call: Back in the Saddle

Sep5

The-Writer-Formerly-in-My-Attic, K Orion Fray, has a Prompt Call open!

The theme is Back in the Saddle, and proceeds go to help Ri resaddle (defray car expenses) after a recent move.

Prompting is free; tips open up incentive levels and get you more words.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/803210.html. You can comment here or there.