Unforgivable, a story for the OrigFic Bingo

Jan11

To [personal profile] ysabetwordsmith‘s prompt to my January OrigFic Card.

This fills the “Betrayal” square.

Content warning: suggested self-harm, vague.

“You weren’t supposed to know at all.”

“I’m glad I did! Tory, this isn’t the sort of thing you should keep to yourself. You’ll be better now.”

“Ty, you can’t just read people’s private things. That was password-protected for a reason.”

“Well, it wasn’t like it was hard…” Ty was faltering. The staff had said five minutes. Maybe five minutes was too long.

“You hacked my computer. You read my private things.” Tory was looking around the room. The window, no, no there was no way anyone could get out the window. Ty backed towards the door. There’d be no end of it if Tory got out.

“Tory, look at it! Look at you! I did this for your own good! Come on, you have to understand that.”

Sitting in a hospital bed, in a thin gown, Tory didn’t look understanding. If anything, Ty would have to call that expression “furious.” “Come on, Tory. You understand. I did this for your own good.”

“You violated me.”

“I read your computer.”

“And I ended up here.” Tory stood up. “No. I don’t understand, Ty. No, it’s not okay.”

The window was too small for anyone to fit out of. Wasn’t it?

“Tory… Tory, I was helping you.”

“That wasn’t the help I wanted. You can go off and help someone else. Or better yet… don’t help anyone at all.”

The window wasn’t too small for Tory.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/634335.html. You can comment here or there.

Then and Now – a story of that Damned Cat and his kitten for the OrigFic Bingo

Jan11

This is to [personal profile] anke‘s prompt (on twitter) to my December OrigFic Bingo Card. This fills (for the second time) the “Then and Now” square.

That Damned Cat (Radar) and his Kitten have their own tag here – Kitten Tag. They are part of the Aunt Family setting, which has a landing page here.

Radar had been a kitten once.

It was a distant memory, a fuzzy memory he didn’t often examine.

He had not been, as this kitten was now, a sentient kitten. He had not been a sentient anything back then.

He sat grooming the kit, holding her down with one paw while he cleaned her behind the ear. You know what it was like, Beryl had said. You can help her. Under that assumption, she’d convinced the mother cat to let Radar close to his daughter. Joint custody, she’d joked.

She must have gotten the idea from her friends at school. Her Family did not do divorce, and when they did, the family kept the children, no questions asked.

“Da-a-a-a-aad.” His Kitten mewled in complaint at him. Beryl had taken to calling the kitten Lam, for no reason that she would explain. There had been worse names. He had had worse names. “You’re thinking again.”

“This is a thing that happens with us, child. You will learn that in time.”

She rolled onto her back. “You were thinking about being a kitten.”

There was no use in denying it. “Who made you, kit?”

“I was born like this. I don’t remember any time I wasn’t like this.” She nuzzles against his chest. “Do you?”

“Then…” Radar chirruped and circled his daughter until he found a comfortable spot. “Then I was a cat. A kitten, a little pile of fluff, like your siblings. Now, now I am…”

“A Damned Cat. I’ve read the book.”

“That book was destroyed fifty years ago.”

The damn kitten purred. “That was then, Dad. This is now.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/634037.html. You can comment here or there.

Woodburning Stoves – fireplace inserts

Jan10

This is mostly going to be a blather post.

The stove we installed is a free-standing woodburning stove, because what we had was a hole in the wall.

If you have an extant fireplace, however, you have a pretty hole in the wall that will vent smoke and let a little heat into the house; a woodburning stove insert will actually heat the house (And also give you a place to heat your tea)

How to install:
http://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/articles/install_insert

If you are installing it in the winter, you’re going to pay an arm and a leg for seasoned firewood, if you can find it.
Ecobricks http://ecobrick.net/ are compressed sawdust. They burn nicely, are available year-round, and come in shrinkwrapped packages.

More links coming!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/633698.html. You can comment here or there.

Reading Bingo

Jan9

(via @shutsumon)

This sounds like a fun idea, and I seem to be on a Bingo kick lately…

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/633357.html. You can comment here or there.

Bonus Round: Dailyprompt

Jan9

From: [community profile] dailyprompt

Today’s prompt is “the end of an era.”

Now accepting up to three prompts (total) for this theme. Closed!

Bonus points if they dovetail with a square of my OrigFic bingo card

The end of the Goat era? Reiassan.

The exhaustion of a supply: New world.

The last day of the shop: Closing Up

An Aunt passes on: Exhaustion

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/633248.html. You can comment here or there.

Romance was never this convenient to handle

Jan8

To Kelkyag’s prompt for here, my [community profile] dailyprompt prompt “a clone,” and here, my OrigFic Bingo card, “Hallucinations/visions.”

Paige waved at Mark Faine, although he didn’t see her, or at least didn’t respond – he never did, but being Mark Faine, he already had a girlfriend and hadn’t, as far as Paige could tell, been single for more than a day of their high school career. Which was a pity, ’cause Paige had more than made up for it by being single for their entire high school career, except that one day with Eilan Saffron, and boy had that been a mistake. It would be nice if there were two or three or maybe four Mark Faines. Maybe then she’d have a chance.

She should really get to lunch. She got a little Snickers-commercial when she didn’t eat on time, and this stupid Senior-year schedule had her lunch nearly right before she got on the bus. She headed away from where Mark Faine was totes ignoring her, around the corner, stepped away from the punks and sidled sideways around the jocks – no need to upset anyone, everyone had been on edge since the principal quit like that, all of a sudden. The new rules weren’t helping things either, and the punks all looked sad and funny without their metal.

She rounded another corner – Marmal High was full of corners, and somehow it seemed like there were more around lunch time – and ran into Mark Faine.

She was feeling fainter than she ought to be. This was just one of the demetaled punks, it had to be, Sid and Nancy T-shirt and an extra hole in the nose. She stepped away. “Sorry, didn’t mean to…”

“Hey, no worries.” The voice was Mark Faine’s. Paige knew that voice like she knew the latest Enhydra Lutris CD.

“Hey.” That was Mark Faine’s voice again, coming from the other side of her. She was hearing things. She was seeing things. Paige leaned against the wall and tried not to act totally disjoined from reality.

Standing in front of her, however, were three Mark Faines. She had to be losing it.

“Hey, you’re kinda cute.”

Nope, she was totes gone; she’d already lost all there was to lose.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/632920.html. You can comment here or there.

Victimization, a story of Dragons Next Door for the Giraffe Bingo Call

Jan8

To [personal profile] kelkyag‘s prompt to my orig-fic card. This fills the “Cunning Plan” slot.

Juniper, Kelkathian, and Azdekious are part of my Dragons Next Door setting; its landing page is here.

This story is directly after Team D.

“What’s the big deal? She’s a rich kid.”

Kelkathian stood on kel’s toes and shot Azdekious a glance. The driver still wasn’t getting it. This could be a problem. They had an unconscious kid they’d contracted to protect, an immensely important unconscious kid, a panicking backup guy, and a dumb driver.

The situation could be a lot worse, of course; any of them in the front could know what they were doing.

“The big deal.” The backup guy coughed. “The big deal? The big deal?”

“Stop saying that!”

“The big deal is that this is a kid from Smokey Knoll!”

“It’s a human kid from Smokey Knoll. Only rich humans live up on that hill.”

Kelkathian counted silently. One, two, three.

Four, five, six, seven. Wow, the passenger really was angry – or stunned. Possibly both.

“There are no humans living on Smokey Knoll.”

And now there was another silent count. Looking at Azdekious, he was doing the same thing. One, two, three…

“Say that again?” The driver’s voice had changed.

“There are no humans living on Smokey Knoll.” So had the passenger’s voice. They were both using very careful, measured tones.

And now, now it was time to make sure the driver understood. Kelkathian reached out with kel’s othersense, grabbed the electricity, and shorted out several fuses. The car went dead.

“There aren’t… but… the heck?” The driver turned the key a few times. Nothing happened, of course… and then the glue holding the cloth to the roof failed over the driver’s side.

The seat brackets failed. Something in the radio began to pop and hiss. A spring in the seat popped out and jabbed the driver in the posterior. Kelkathian had to stifle a giggle.

The passenger got out of the van. Fleeing? No, the back door opened.

The passenger, a slim man in his late twenties, was holding both of his hands in the air. “I am going to take the girl out of the van. I am going to carry her to this bus stop. I am going to call her parents and wait there, protecting her, until someone arrives to pick her up who can prove parentage.”

“The heck are you doing?” The driver was trying to extricate himself from his seat, but not having much luck.

The man appeared to be looking at Junie, who was still laying motionless. “I do not wish to be the victim of this child’s allies’ rage. I am going to do everything I can to get her back to her parents before I am.”

Kelkathian studied the man. She didn’t generally have much use for humans, but this one was showing promise.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/632365.html. You can comment here or there.

Speaking Of Projects…

Jan8

(as I did here)…

Yesterday, I started and completed (honesty compels me to add: although I will do a few touch-ups today Thursday) a project, which is a little bit of a Big Deal for me (T. pointed out: and I did so within a week of buying the material. Within 4 days, actually!).

Our house is not exactly insulated. I created and hung a curtain on the back door (to be fair, T. had already hung the rod this time) to go along with the one I made last year for the front door (here). All in one evening!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/632076.html. You can comment here or there.

Preliminary Project List

Jan8

I am trying The January Cure; the first step (which I’m late in getting to) is to make a project list

These are NOT the main house-projects (things like “insulate the attic” and “raise the ceiling by 1 foot and a half” and “drop the floor in the card room to be level.” These are one-weekend or less projects I can do, mostly in the cold.

Card Room
Cloth-covered panels for wall
Art on back wall
Carpet on floor
inbox/tidying solution

Living room
DUST
Organization system for the fire pile
fire extinguisher bracket/hang system

Dining Room
Organize/put away bags
Tidy/put away things on standing desk.

Bedroom
under-clothes storage?
Hooks!
Hang mirror

Bathroom
Shelving unit
Cloth panel to cover horrible
New medicine cabinet/light bar
Some sort of system for cat/medicine cabinet

Kitchen
New home for chest
Consistent organized storage for tools.
New home for Stand Mixer
Carpet for walkway
Plants made prettified
fire extinguisher bracket/hang system

Foyer
Everything
Overhead bin framed in
Hooks hung
Door molding installed
Baseboard molding installed
Door possibly installed

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/631935.html. You can comment here or there.

Bribery

Jan7

This is to [personal profile] clare_dragonfly‘s prompt to my December Origfic Bingo Card.

Addergoole has a landing page here. These are new characters… probably.

“I am not above bribery. I am not above blackmail, either, and you know I can come up with blackmail on you after what I’ve seen.”

His voice didn’t exactly quaver as he answered. He wasn’t quite sure, yet, if she was serious. “Blackmail? There’s nothing I’m that ashamed of.”

“What about…” even here, they could be overheard. She dropped her voice down to a whisper and murmured in his ear. It wasn’t a perfect precaution – nothing was, in Addergoole – but it was something.

His cheeks flushed. “You…” This time his voice broke. “You said something about bribery?”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/631474.html. You can comment here or there.