Family and Cocoa, a story of the Aunt Family for the Giraffe CAll

Aug26

For [personal profile] kelkyag‘s prompt

“There’s something to be said for being an orphan.” Beryl stared into her cocoa mug; cocoa, by all that’s sacred, please, not tea. “Or being raised by wolves.”

“I hear you.” Evangaline stared at her own mug – coffee, for much the same reason the Beryl was drinking cocoa. The whole family to come to to complain, and her niece had come to the Aunt. “They can be a bit of a double-edged sword.”

“They have another edge?” She rubbed her knuckles with her thumbs; Eva found herself wincing in empathy.

“They do.” She reached across her kitchen table to brush her fingertips against Beryl’s hand. “It’s hard to tell sometimes. But they – they made us who we are, Beryl.” And that was its own sword, now wasn’t it?

“The ancestors made us. Great-great-great-great grandmothers and, more importantly, Aunts.”

“And uncles and grandfathers.” She stared at her coffee. “Don’t forget, they may have made us, but they made them, too.”

“What do you mean?” Bery’s shoulders shifted and her spine straightened a bit. One of her hands uncurled from around her mug. “The grannies?”

“All of us. Every woman who got married at seventeen to avoid being the Aunt, every one who stayed single until forty to be the Aunt, every choice they’ve made about who to marry and where to live and where to let their kids go to school. Every one of them was cut from the same cloth that we are.” She patted Beryl’s hand again. “And every one of them had the same hard decisions.”

“Then why are they making all of mine harder?” Beryl’s hands clenched again.

Eva had heard this before. She had said it before, although it hadn’t been Asta (it had been her uncle Kevin, actually) to whom she whined. “They’re trying to help. They aren’t always succeeding, but it’s good to remember that they’re actually trying to make the choices easier.”

Beryl looked up at her Aunt. “And what about you?”

It was a fair question, and Eva gave it the consideration it deserved. “I’m trying to give you space to figure out who you are. We do better – all of us, humans, family or not – with space to be ourselves.”

“And drink cocoa and not tea?”

“And drink cocoa and not tea.” The lessons about reading the grit at the bottom of a cocoa mug could be saved for another day.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/565372.html. You can comment here or there.

Paint it Blue

Aug22

to an [personal profile] anke’s prompt. thanks to @theladyisugly, Sky, and @AlphaRaposa for helping me create Clarisse.

The first thing Clarisse Martin did when she came to school was cut her hair short and dye it blue.

The upperclassmen found this a little bit amusing – after all, changing yourself when the school Changes you so much, so quickly, seemed a little overkill – but the teachers said nothing, and none of the other students actually said anything to her about it.

Clarisse found the lack of commentary strange, but, since she hadn’t done it for them, was unworried by it. She found the few giggles from older students completely understandable, and ignored them.

When the Reveal on the first Friday of classes showed Clarisse and the rest of the Tenth Cohort some of what they’d gotten into, Clarrise walked slowly to the doctor’s office, running her fingers through her hair. It explained a lot – but she liked her hair blue.

Her Change knocked her off her feet only literally, fusing her legs together from the ankle down into a sort of tail. “I believe there is more coming,” Dr. Caitrin theorized. “In the meantime, getting around might be a little tricky. We’ll work something out.”

It was the kind of situation that could get you down. It was the kind of situation where being stared at wasn’t so much a matter of why as which of the myriad of reasons are you noticing? Clarisse tried to keep her chin up and a smile on her face. It wasn’t about them, she reminded herself. This was her thing to deal with.

When the man with the terrifying blue eyes managed to convince her to be his – it was Hell Night, her wheelchair had gotten thrown across the hall, and he had a voice like a heavenly melody – she accepted the collar, the oro’ at the end of her name, and the rules without argument. They weren’t, in the end, about her; like a school uniform, they hung on her like accessories.

But when, angry after a bad day at school and frustrated over her wheelchair and her slow-as-molasses change, he began shouting at hr, Clarisse shook her head and met her Keeper’s eyes.

“You’re a no-good, stupid bitch…”

“No.”

“You don’t get to tell me no.“

“You get to tell me what to do.” She touched the collar around her neck with three fingers. “You don’t get to tell me who I am.”

He stared, stunned into speechlessness.

Clarisse kept talking. “You get to decide where I go. What I say. What I wear, if you’re so inclined. You don’t get to decide who I am.”

He said nothing, but touched her hair – still short, still blue, almost the same color as his eyes – with three fingers. His other hand touched the place where her ankles had fused together.

He didn’t have a hand to touch her self with.

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1267957.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/565158.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Had to be Done

Aug21

This is [personal profile] rix_scaedu‘s commissioned continuation to What was Right, which was a continuation of Bowen’s Summer, Continued, which was a continuation of July Linkback Story. It takes place between Years 5 & 6 of the Addergoole School

…Bowen knocked anyway. Some things, you really didn’t have any choice about.

Knocked, and then, when she opened the door, knelt on one knee. “Kailani cy’Regine, I owe you a debt of honor.” The words were awkward, but they were right. “I owe you deeply, for the good you did me. I humbly request that you tell me what I can do to repay this.”

He really didn’t expect her to start crying.

Crying girls were not something Bowen had a lot of experience with. From the looks of the rest of his cy’ree, neither did they.

He bowed again, a little lower, and then looked up at her. “What…?”

“Kai, honey, what’s wrong?” Conrad appeared behind Kailani in the doorway of their cottage. “…Oh.” His cold expression took in all four of the cy’Fridmar on the porch. “It’s summer time, guys, don’t you have a hobby?”

“No, no, it’s okay.” Kailani patted Conrad’s arm a few times. Bowen noticed the flummoxed look on Conrad’s face before he noticed that the guy was still wearing a collar. “They’re not doing anything wrong.”

“Kai. You’re crying. You don’t cry.”

“He said… he said…”

“I said thank you.” Crying girl. Okay. Bowen could deal with this, really. “Well, I said that I owed her, but ‘thank you’ was part of that.”

“Took you long enough.” Conrad’s glare was not being at all mitigated.

“Conrad.” Kai patted his arm again. “It’s okay.”

“You weren’t expecting anything, were you?” Phelen had slurked up behind Bowen while he watched this so-awkward interchange.

Kai shook her head. “No. Everyone…” She glanced at Conrad and fell silent.

Phelen filled in the blanks. “Addergoole is full of takers. You broke the script, and that made many people angry.”

Kailani nodded. Conrad’s frown slowly faded. “She played with the big dogs.”

“We know.” Rozen’s rumble of a voice was almost a laugh. “We were there.”

Bowen watched Kailani look over his head at Rozen and Baram. “I remember.” There was something in her voice, and then it was gone when she looked at Bowen. “You look… you look good.” She somehow made that a question.

Conrad looked back at Bowen, sharply now. “You do. Happy, and you’ve got your color back.”

Bowen shrugged. “Lots of time outside. Nice to see the sun.” He didn’t realize he was smiling until he felt the way “sun” tasted on his lips.

Kailani smiled, too. “It is. It’s hard to go back inside at the end of the day.” She tilted her face upwards for a moment, eyes closed.

When the moment had stretched from reasonable to a little-too-long, Conrad coughed. Kai looked back at Bowen. “What brings you to Addergoole in the middle of the summer, then?”

“Uh.” He glanced back at his cy’ree. “Rozen brought me.”

“Oh. Oh?”

“I brought him to say thank you. Then we’re going to take a road trip.” Rozen was speaking a little more slowly, Bowen noticed, and enunciating carefully. Kai wasn’t stupid – she was supposed to be the smartest person in their Cohort.

“Oh.” Right now, she looked like she needed smaller words. “Well, have fun.”

Phelen laughed. “Yeah.” Yeah? “Yes, Kailani, it was that big of a deal. You faced down Agatha to get Bowen out of a bad situation.”

“He repaid the favor.”

“He repaid the favor, but not the bravery.” Phelen bowed. “Now he’s repaying it all.”

“That.” Bowen nodded. “You did a bigger thing than I did.”

Kailani made an expression that was probably a smile. “Somebody had to.”

“And you did it.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/564874.html. You can comment here or there.

The Hardest Part… A story for the Giraffe Call

Aug21

For ellenmillion‘s prompt.

“The hardest part of…”

The hardest part of anything was never what anyone said it was, because, Yaminah knew, the hardest part was whatever you were doing at the moment. One foot in front of the other; the marathon is no harder than a single step, but that single step can be the hardest thing you’ve done in your life.

Right now, the step over the threshold was her “hardest part.” She’d shucked pieces and parts of her job during the train ride, the bus ride, the subway ride, and the walk, but stepping over the threshold required her to remember that she was, indeed, Yaminah.

Right now, that was harder than it sounded. She ran her fingers over the beads in her pocket – she kept them in this jacket, in the locker at the bus station, so that she always had them before she got home. Not a rosary, but they served a similar cause.

This bead, carved like an hourglass, told her about the time she’d beat the world speed record in distance running and told no-one except her trainer. Yaminah could do that. Sophia couldn’t.

This bead, textured all over like sandpaper, told her of the time she’d scaled a limestone wall – not for a test, not for training, but because she could. Yaminah could do that. Sophia couldn’t.

Bead after bead, memory after memory, she pulled herself back. Yaminah was the girl who trained because it was fun. She was the girl who scaled mountains. She was the woman who made her first kill and spent the night retching, then went out and made her next kill.

The nights were Yaminah. The kills… those were Sophia, or Gloria, or Hannah. She had never killed aside from a mission. She had never climbed a mountain on a mission.

She ran her finger over the last bead, the one shaped like a cat, and let herself in to her apartment. The hardest part… Right now, the hardest part was remembering if she’d dumped the milk before she went on her mission.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/564528.html. You can comment here or there.

Transformation, a story of Cali Catpeople for the Giraffe Call

Aug20

A couple people asked about the species change. I don’t think this piece really addresses either prompt well, but I wrote it, so I thought I’d share it.

“Test subject seven-one-five-three, through here, please.”

A week ago, she had been Antoinette Abaster, a mid-level secretary at a Indianapolis research firm. She’d been saving for a vacation to Paris and planning her church rummage sale.

Now she was Test Subject 7153, and she was walking through a blue door into a very sterile-looking room. She was having trouble focusing on anything except the door and the orders she was given, but the cables linked to her restraints didn’t give her a lot of choice either way.

“You have been selected for the Agency’s Transformative Project Eighty-three.” The voice was coming from behind her. She twisted, pulling her restraints to their limits, but there was nothing anywhere except white. Even the door had vanished. Her cables were connected to white ports in white walls. “Your conversion will begin now. Please describe any physical sensations you encounter.”

There were a number of physical sensations, which she described in tones from calm to hysterical. There were a number of emotional sensations, which she described only once, near the end. “This feels weird, and I’m scared.”

“Fear is to be expected. Fear is one of the three emotions we expect you will undergo in the first process.”

“First?” The words were coming out oddly through lips that felt numb. “First?” What’s the second?”

“The second will begin tomorrow. Please exit through the open door.”

She didn’t remember falling asleep, but she would remember forever waking up, because the first thing she did was stretch and yawn. Her back arched in strange ways and she pawed at the bed for a moment.

Pawed at the bed… and looked down at her hands, which had more in common with paws than they had the morning before. She rubbed her nose and eyes and looked again.

Paws. Paws, and something on her head felt strange. She yowled, confused and unhappy.

“Easy, Subject seven-one-five-three. What is the problem?” The voice came from the ceiling, or possibly the walls. She twitched an ear at it.

“I’m a caaat.”

“You have been put through stage one of the Transformative Process, yes.”

“I’m a cat.” She wiped at her face with a hand again. “I can’t stop acting like a cat. And I’m hungry.”

“Food will be provided.”

“Now? Now?” She put her face in her hands. Paws. “Why can’t I… what’s wrong with me?” She focused on a memory. The office. Typing in endless data, eating rice cakes and punching in formulae. The church raffle. A sound between a sob and a wail escaped her.

“You are partially transformed. Your personality remains unchanged, but your body and your instincts are now felid-hominid. The transformation goes bone-deep and has affected your brain as well as your body.”

“I’m a cat girl?” She scratched behind her ear. “You turned me into a cat?”

“You are partially transformed into a felid-hominid, yes.”

She stared at the wall. “But what does that mean for me?”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/564459.html. You can comment here or there.

Sharp Bits

Aug19

For [personal profile] elliemurasaki‘s prompt.

Shut up shut up shut up.

It was one of those moments where you just have to grit your teeth and bear it. Her voice was high-pitched and whiny. Her sales pitch was self-centered and useless. Her clothes fit her badly. She kept looking straight at me whenever my attention wavered.

Shut up shut up Shut the fuck up! It was one of those times, where everything was just a little too clear. I looked her back in the eye and smiled. I could feel what She, not this miserable pitch bitch but the One Inside, what She wanted.

We all have a dark side. That’s what my mother told us.

Shut the fuck up shut the fuck up shut the bloody fuck up! She was still droning on. She’d asked me a question, one of those horrid trap questions designed to make the listener look and feel stupid.

I answered her question, trying to keep the inside voice internal. “It seems like the product wouldn’t work in that situation.” It was the answer she wanted. She wanted to pounce.

She wanted to say “Wrong!” And she did, smirking.

Shut the bloody fuck up shut your fucking yap shut up or die.

The voice was getting louder. I could feel my canines lengthening. I dug my nails into the table, glad it was her furniture and not mine.

“So, you see, the Miracle Machine is perfect for situations like yours.” She was oblivious. They always were. The Voice Inside liked it that way.

We all have a dark side. That’s what our mother told me. We all have a sharp edge somewhere inside.

Sometimes, however, it’s someone else’s sharp bits that end up in us.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/564164.html. You can comment here or there.

August Giraffe Call: Identity

Aug18

It’s time for a Giraffe Call!

August’s theme is Identity!

Leave one or many prompts, and over the next weeks, I will write at least one story to everyone’s prompts.

(If you posted in the pre-Giraffe Bus call last week, you can post again and get two stories, or reference your earlier prompts)

Prompting is free! But Donations are always welcome.

For each $5 you donate, I will write an additional 500 words to the prompt(s) of your choice.

Prompts can be related to one of my extant settings (See my landing page-landing page) or they can be for something completely different.

Donations are earmarked towards our foyer right now: It’s currently stripped-down drywall. I want to make a new bench, a storage area, and a slippers-for-guests arrangement. It’s an 8×4 space; budget is $300.

If I get two new prompters or one new donator, I will write a setting piece (setting chosen by poll) explaining something about one of my universes.

At $20 in donations, I’ll order take-out!

At $40 in donations, everyone who donated will get an additional microfic written to their prompts. I will choose 1 non-donater at random to receive an additional microfic as well.

At $50, anyone who donated $7.50 or more will have a copy of “Alder by Post” mailed to them if they wish.

At $50, I will buy the hardwood boards for the front of the storage area and post my plans for such.

For every $50 donated, I will do a one-hour livewrite on Etherpad or googledocs during the next month.

At $80, I will write two extra 500-word continuations – chosen by prompters picked by random number generator.

At $100, I’ll buy the accessories for the storage area. And post pictures!

At $120, everyone who donated will get an additional (3rd) microfic written to their prompts. I will choose 2 more non-donaters at random to receive an additional microfic as well.

If we get to $120, I will take suggestions for further incentives!

For more information on Giraffe Calls, see the landing page.


Donate below

I also take payment by Dwolla

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/563723.html. You can comment here or there.

Learning and Lies

Aug18

This is the first of Rix’s requests from the What I Want What You Want Fundraiser. It ties in with Hatred and is on the darker end of Dragons Next Door, as much of the self-hating Dweomer stories are

Belinda had not, for a long time, questioned Cathal, his motivations, his cause, or his methods.

He was an immensely charismatic figure, which might excuse her from some of this, and his cause resonated with her upbringing, which excused a little more.

But for five years, she – along with a small group of dedicated hunters – followed him and took his lead. She hunted with him – they hunted with him – tracking down the deviants from humanity and eliminating them.

It seemed a noble cause. They hurt humanity. Not only did Cathal say so, but she’d seen it with her own eyes. They damaged humanity when they pretended to be part of it, they tainted the bloodlines with their blood, and they blurred the line between other and human until there was no line at all anymore. And none of this could be accepted.

“Please…” Her recent target had woken up sooner than expected. Sooner being at all. Bound in iron and wrapped in silk, they didn’t normally do much except end. They’d never plead with Belinda before.

Manners pushed her into answering. “I can’t untie you.”

“I’m not asking you to. I know what you are. I know what your people to do my people. It’s too late for me.”

It sounded far too human. Belinda moved to tape its mouth shut, but it hissed out another plea, so quiet and so urgent that she had to stop. “No, please, please… my daughter.”

Belinda stopped, her hand inches from the thing’s mouth. She’d never thought about them having daughters before. Children. “Your daughter?”

“She’s upstairs. She’s in her bedroom. Please… please don’t let her see me like this.”

“Is this a trick?” Her hand still hovered. They could be tricky. They could fool you.

“No, No, I swear it on iron and stone.” The thing winced as the iron wrapped around it burned it. An oath made like that normally had to be tortured out of them.

“Why?” Belinda had to ask. “Why swear?” Why did she…

“It’s my daughter.”

“Dweomers don’t have family.”

“I can’t lie to you, I swore by iron and stone. Whatever they told you about dweomers, that part is true.”

“You’re saying someone lied to me.”

“Everybody lies.” The thing twitched and winced. “Except, right now, me. Or anyone else you bind with iron and stone.”

“Any dweomer, you mean.”

“Anyone who can be bound. You’d be surprised how many humans aren’t as human as they think they are.” The thing pulled against its bonds. “Promise me. Promise me that she won’t see me like this. Take her away, give her to a foster family. but don’t let this taint her.”

“If you have a daughter…. won’t she be a dweomer as well?”

“Not always.” The woman struggled. “Please. Please, not for me. But for her…”

“You have a daughter. And you care about her.”

“Yes. Yes, I love her.” And she did not flinch. “More than anything in the world, I love her.”

“Dweomers can’t love.”

“You have been lied to. You have been lied to so much.” On the floor, the mother rolled her shoulders. “You have been lied to. But I will not lie to you. By blood and stone, iron and flesh.” She twitched and winced on the floor. “I will not lie to you. As long as I live. I have a daughter and I love her.”

“Speaking of love doens’t burn you.” Belinda looked down at the woman. “It’s supposed to burn you as bad as iron does.”

“As I said, you have been lied to. My daughter… I beg of you. My daughter.”

Belinda took a long breath. “I need you to promise me something else.”

“Anything. Anything, for my daughter.”

She needed to stop saying that. Belinda could hear someone moving upstairs. She could hear sounds that sounded like her own daughters. She could imagine a child walking downstairs and seeing its mother dead… finding its mother gone, never to return.

“Promise me no retaliation for this day.”

“No…” The woman’s eyes had shut. Now they flew open again. “I swear to you that I will bring no retaliation down on you for your actions of this day. I swear it..”

“That’s enough.” Belinda put her hand over the woman’s mouth. “No need to burn it into your flesh. You are a mother and so am I.”

She cut the silk bindings loose and unlocked the iron shackles. “I have to run. I have to run, before they find me. And you do, too, you and your daughter. They won’t forgive either of us for this.”

“Take your child and run.” The woman, the dweomer mother, stood and shook out her limbs. “Now that I know that they are after me, I will be able to stall them quite a while before they think to come after you.”

They met each other’s eye, and then the dweomer woman winked. “If I do it right, they’ll never know you survived.”

“Thank you.” Belinda picked up her kit. She could use the tools for something, she was sure.

“What will you do? Besides run?”

She looked down at her kit and considered. “Learn. I have been lied to, you said. So now I will have to learn.”

“A noble goal. But first…”

“First, we run.” And she ran.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/563690.html. You can comment here or there.

A Welcome of Sorts

Aug17

After Carrying, which is after Any Port

No tour of Baram’s house was complete without seeing three things: the bolt-hole in the basement, the hawthorn trees around three sides of the property, and a pile of children climbing up the furniture to greet you.

Pocket-Claws-Neska took in the bolt-hole with wide eyes and a small smile, especially when she saw the preparations the children had helped with. Baram wasn’t sure child-sized riot shields were really adorable, but the kids liked them, and so did this small person.

She took in the hawthorn trees about the same way. “So, this Briar-Rose, she really is like you and the Spear.”

Not, Baram noted, anything about him. She looked in fear at Via, not at him.

“Briar-Rose is like us. Maybe a little harder, maybe a little softer, but like us.” Viatrix shrugged. “If you last long enough, you’ll meet her. She’s off right now.”

“Last long enough.” The girl shook her head. “You sound like you think I’m afraid of a little hard work.”

“Well, many people are. And it’s crowded conditions and hard work and a lot of people think that’s just too much.”

“You’ll keep my kids safe. I don’t see how anything could be too much in that case.”

“Like her.” Baram rumbled it. “Like her, Viatrix.”

“I like her too, Boss. Okay, Pocket-Claws, you’ve got the first vote of approval. The second one’s the hard one.”

“Second one?” She was still looking at the trees, and at the back yard. “An addition shouldn’t be too hard…”

“You’re good with those words, then?” Via actually cracked a smile at that. “Good. None of us are, and the last things-Worker didn’t stay long enough to do much at all.”

“As long as someone else can excavate the foundation…”

“I can.” Baram nodded. “Easy.” It was like caves, and Baram liked caves.

“Ah, here comes the welcoming party.” Via’s voice had the pre-combat sound to it. Baram noticed how Pocket-Claws-Neska pulled her hands out of her pockets – ha – and shifted her stance, legs spreading a bit, center of gravity dropping.

And then the kids were everywhere. “Are you new? Are you staying? Are you magical? You’ve got to be okay, Dad’s smiling. Are you from the school? How come we’ve never seen you before? Where are your kids?” The questions bounced around from all of the kids, but they seemed as if asked with one voice while the children climbed up Baram, Via, and Pocket-Claws-Neska.

She’d handled the bolt-hole and the hawthorn. But, buried in children, the short woman froze.

Baram watched her carefully. Via, moving as if she wasn’t weighed down with offspring, shifted behind the visitor. This had gone badly before – not usually after they’d handled the defenses, but sometime.

The woman took a breath. She carefully lifted a child off of her hip and placed it on the ground, and then another. Baram watched the way she moved her hands, compensating for a sudden twitchiness.

“Hello.” Her voice was very quiet. The children stilled to listen.

“Hello.” Gerulf was their designated spokesperson when things were being serious. He was one of the oldest, after all, and he had the best voice.

“I may be moving in here.”

“People do that.” He patted a smaller child before she could speak up, and shifted another child off of Pocket-Claws-Neska’s leg. “You don’t like kids?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“We’re not stupid… ma’am. You don’t like kids touching you.”

The small woman shook her head. She sat down – already the height of some of the bigger kids, this brought her down to all the kids’ level.

Gerulf paused a moment, and then sat. Baram hid a smile with a cough. The boy was smart.

“It’s not kids touching me I don’t like. I have two kids of my own, of course…”

“Everybody does. At least two.” Gerulf shrugged. “Not here yet? ‘Sides, having kids doesn’t mean you like kids. Lots of people don’t like kids. Like Sergio’s mom.”

“Hey.” Sergio’s complaint was faint. Baram patted the kid on the head – Gerulf was right. There was a reason the kid was still here and the mum wasn’t.

“I like kids. I get along okay with most kids, at least.” Pocket-Claws-Neska looked around the group. “I just don’t really like being touched at all, by kids or by taller people… heck, some of you are taller than me.”

Gerulf looked around at the other kids. After a minute, he nodded. “The little ones won’t get it.” It sounded like a warning. “But the older kids understand.”

Baram wasn’t watching the kids. Neither was Via; Baram was splitting his attention between Via and Pocket-Claws-Neska. Viatrix’s eyes were firmly on their newest visitor.

And that visitor’s eyes were on the children. Her throat worked a few times. Swallowing? Gulping. “You… just like that?”

“We’re not stupid.” The boy’s voice had a little impatience in it this time. “Sometimes people don’t like being touched. Or shouted at sometimes, or they don’t like strawberries. It’s not rocket science.”

The girl made a sound like a stifled sob. “Not rockest science.”

“It’s not.” Now Gerulf didn’t sound so sure. “Right, dad?”

Baram turned his attention to the boy. Not his son by blood, but his son nonetheless. “Right.” He nodded. “Hard for lots of people to get, but not rockets.”

“See? Oh. Is this one of those things where grownups are dumb all the time?”

Baram barked out a laugh. It was quiet enough that he could hear the little noise the new girl made as well. He thought it was probably a laugh.

“Yeah. Yeah, this is one of those things.” She held out a hand, now, to Gerulf. “My name is Neska. Your… Viatrix says that I can stay here for a while, with my kids.”

“Aunt Via.” Gerulf shook her hand. “I’m Gerulf sh’Jaelie. Welcome to not-a-safe-house.”

And now, they all laughed: Neska, Baram, Via, and the children.

“That’s quite a name.”

“It’s better than ‘dad’s cave.'” Gerulf sounded pleased with himself.

“It’s a good name.” Baram tousled the boy’s hair. “It’s a good thing.” And they still weren’t, really, a safe house.

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This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/563294.html. You can comment here or there.