I posted This poll over the weekend, and then had a not-really-a-request for other options.
So, here’s the add-on, rather than negating the results of the original poll.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/544762.html. You can comment here or there.
So, July’s almost here, and I’m planning of writing the next Addergoole episode as a 52,000-word novella during Camp Nano. The question is, which story?
I have four in mind, and will probably, eventually, write all of them:
Year 10: She wakes up in a hotel-like room underground, with no memory of who she is, who these people are, or what she’s doing there.
As the Apoc Falls: The world is falling apart, the gods are attacking – and they are still being sent away to boarding school?
Second Generation: Their parents went here. It can’t be that bad, can it?
Cynara’s School: It’s year fourty-three of the Addergoole school, and a bunch of Addergooe alum have built their own school.
Poll is in DW, or vote in the comments.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/544389.html. You can comment here or there.
Fourth-plus in a series of character-building vignettes following a bunch of characters through their time at Addergoole & beyond.
This is a continuation of this piece by request.
Bracken had a position. She’d always had plans, she just hadn’t had the opportunity to do anything with any of them. She’d kept herself sane with her plans.
This one might not listen any more than anyone else. But, on the other hand, this one was different. Not a guy. Not a girl. Not pushing their agenda – or anything else – down Bracken’s throat. At least, not yet.
If she started talking fast enough, maybe they wouldn’t.
“So I talked to Professor Akatil about Unutu.” She loved the way the word sounded, rolling off her tongue. “But I don’t have any control about machines the way most of his Students do. I’m good at Jasfe. I’m really, really good at Jasfe so far.” That word sounded like it could fix everything in her life, instead of just fixing machines. “And I was learning how to be a mechanic before I… came here.” She shook her head. “I know, I know. You’re not a mechanic. But you’re The Procurer. Professor Akatil said that. And you could teach me how to procure things. And I bet I could turn broken things into new things again. You know, junkyard procurement?” She shrugged. “I did that, too. Turning a car into a car again?”
She’d run out of things to say, so she took a breath and watched D.J. The slim fae tilted their head and studied Bracken for a moment. “You’ve thought this through quite a bit.”
“Yeah. Well. Plenty of time to think, you know?”
“I’m sure. And you want to learn how to be a – what would we call it? – a converter of junk into like-new things?”
“Yeah.” She shrugged again. She wasn’t sure if this sounded good or bad for her.
“And what are you not telling me, dear?”
Bracken chewed on the inside of her mouth for a moment. “…and you’re not a guy.”
“Nor am I a woman.”
“I know.” She shrugged, and hoped that D.J. would let it drop.
“Well, I think you would be a very good Student for me. And I’ll try to be a good Mentor for you.”
Bracken let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. “Thanks.”
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/544077.html. You can comment here or there.
Ah, yes, the bad guy. Every story needs a few, right?
Lucian didn’t start off as a bad guy, but that’s another story. Today, we’re looking at Lucian in Year Nine.
He’s a tall guy – six-four or so – and lanky, with hair that’s sandy-blonde, headed more towards true blonde in summer and early fall and darkening to almost brunette in the winter. He’s got a permanent sneer, an angry frustration with life, and handsome blue eyes that match the feathers on his wings.
Although they get called Team Rocket, he has very little physically in common with Thessaly except an innate athleticism and the hard bodies to match it.
And a streak of entitlement that puts themselves before anyone else in the world, but, then again, they are the bad guys.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/543524.html. You can comment here or there.
Late 1980
The woman known only as Foxglove slipped out of the Senator’s office unseen. He paid well for that discretion, although exactly how well he was going to pay, he did not know yet.
She wrote a brief letter in a language only a handful of the world’s population would recognize, encoded in a code only seven people knew, and posted it to a drop-box. It wasn’t, exactly, espionage, but old habits died hard.
The senator wasn’t her only visit today. He wasn’t even the most important, although he certainly thought he was. Schools needed accreditation. They needed recognition. They also needed funding, in order to run properly.
Fortunately for them, the accreditation board and those who made recognition of the proper sort happen were all – if not necessarily human – fallible and with exploitable flaws.
Foxglove bore no illusions about the nature of the organization she had joined, or about their opinion of her. She knew they would use all of her skills to the fullest and still hesitate to invite her to dinner.
Luckily for them, she not only agreed with their goals, she heartily enjoyed using her skills.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/542978.html. You can comment here or there.
I posted, last week, a list of Recipes I want to try..
In the last week, we tried Curried Red Lentil Soup and Leek and Cheddar Cheese Tart.
The tart… needs work. We’re going to try it again with some modifications:
* We will partially pre-bake the puff pastry shell, and form it inside a pan for better structural integrity.
* Instead of using leek spears, we’ll cut the leeks into rounds, both to better rinse them and so we can integrate the cheddar and dijon topping throughout the whole leek.
Once we do that, I’ll post the modified recipe.
The soup, on the other hand, was awesome. From Ski House Cookbook:
(we cut this in half) (directions paraphrased; I can scan in the real recipe if people would like)
1-1/2 c dried red lentils
3 c chicken broth (we used leek broth with ham stock, from the leftover leek greens)
2 T olive oil (we used bacon fat, ’cause we had it out)
1 medium yellow onion, diced (we didn’t half this part)
1t salt
1/4t cayennne
2 celery ribs, diced
2 medium carrots, diced
6 garlic cloves, diced
1-1/2t cumin
1 t curry powder
4t grated fresh ginger
Cook the lentils in broth and 3 c water for 20 minutes, or until tender (we nuked them before we left for the day until hot, then left them all day).
Saute the onion in the fat until soft, 6-7 minutes. Add everything remaining except ginger; cook for 5 minutes. Stir in the ginger, remove from heat.
Add the sauteed mix to the lentils, bring to a simmer, and cook for 30 minutes. Puree with a stick blender, or in batches in a standard blender.
Serve with a drizzle of half-and-half, some cheddar cheese, or both.
The soup used half a knob of ginger root, so we made this recipe – we added cinnamon, allspice, and possibly cloves (I wasn’t watching T.) to the dough, and I doubled the cinnamon in the cinnamon-sugar topping. Delicious!
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/542969.html. You can comment here or there.
To ![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rix_scaedu‘s prompt.
After Post-Apoc Studies 101, which is after story-didn’t-work-bit. Set in the Fae Apoc ‘verse, just after/during the apoc.
Potential energy
The pebble, tipped over the edge of the building by Tomas, tumbled down a long ways. They’d climbed – sometimes on the stairs, sometimes making up their own path – quite a ways to get up here, using gifts and tricks that Armona barely understood on the hardest parts.
She listened for its eventual smash against the pavement below, tiny as it was. “I’ve got height.” She looked down, for a moment, at the empty wreck of a street below. “You’re saying my lack of having stuff, right now, is a potential to have stuff?”
“You have energy. Your food-like thing.”
“Just done.” She pulled it off the fire and tested it with two peeled twigs. “Want some?”
“I ate, thank you. You have energy, and want. Want is a very strong force.”
“Strong enough to make things happen?”
“Well, what is it that you, ah, want to happen?”
“I want food, and shelter. A door between me and the rest of the world.” She ate a few bites of pork and beans. “Real food, not just cans. And a real roof. One that doesn’t leak.”
“But not deer you bring down yourself?”
“Mayyyybe. Still working on that one. And I want to not have to be pushed around.”
“And there we get to the crux of it. Who don’t you want pushing you around? Me? Your parents?”
“Anyone!” She thought about that. “Strangers, mostly. Guys. People who think they own the place. Jackasses.”
“And would you rather push them around?”
It was a very good question. It took Armona a moment to answer. “Yes.”
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/542328.html. You can comment here or there.
A spontaneous nano-like 2-week writing spurt on Addergoole has sort of eaten my face, but I’m still alive.
And my June Giraffe Call is still open! The theme is “Finish It!” Have something you want to see more of? Prompt it here.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/542144.html. You can comment here or there.