Tangling isn’t just a walk in the park, a Donor-Perk story of Stranded World

Jan28

Spring needed a story. This follows Tangled and Day Job

Stranded World has a landing page here and here.

“Anyone?”

“That one. The one in the blue shirt.”

“With the Pomeranian?”

“That one.”

They made a good pair, when they chose to work together. Lance could point out the places where someone’s map had stopped touching other people’s, where it had gone into being a one-star-constellation, and Spring could nudge them, a little or a lot, to shake their world up.

People needed tangling. They tended, if they were left to their own devices, to just truck on straight ahead, staying in the same rut, stagnating, calcifying. Sometimes, life provided enough chaos to keep them changing, adapting. But when it didn’t, they tended to grow stiff and rigid, unable to bend with the wind, more likely to snap.

So Spring tangled them, tugged their strings, added a little randomness to their life. She reached out with her mind, grabbed the strands of their life, and, carefully – don’t hit that one, it’s a bit raw, that one is holding her life up, leave that alone – braided and knotted.

“It’s like macramé,” Lance murmured. “You’re an artist, Spring.”

“If you’re not an artist,” she murmured, finding the best strand, the one with the highest chaos for the least damage, and tying it off to another strand, over… there. There looked right, “you can do a lot of damage. I was trained very well.”

“I thought tanglers defied training.”

Across the park, the Pomeranian’s leash broke, and it went running top-speed towards a jogger with a Doberman Pinscher. The woman in blue went after her dog, the man with the Pinscher went down in a tangle of leash, and the woman went after him. Spring smiled, satisfied with her work.

“Someday, you might meet my brother. Then you’ll understand.” There were forces that could organize even a tangler.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/247859.html. You can comment here or there.

City Holiday, a story of the Fairy Town for the Giraffe Call @EllenMillion

Jan28

For [profile] ellenmillion‘s prompt

I think this is in the same setting as Loaves (LJ), which, then, I think is in the same setting as Strange Neighbors (LJ) and the Fairy Road (here on LJ) and thus The Beggars (LJ).

This, ah, wasn’t *supposed* to be creepy… eep. Sorry?

In June, every June, for a week (the same week every year, whatever Sunday-through-Saturday had the 21st in it), the City went on vacation. The whole city. Everything shut down. The busses didn’t run. Trash wasn’t picked up. The radio stations played “best of.” The libraries and parks were on skeleton staff, getting time-and-a-half. Even the police and firemen were down to minimum numbers, but that was okay. Crime didn’t happen during The Holiday. If it did, the goblins dealt with it.

It was hard to get used to, for new people. People who had lived there a couple years knew to plan for it, knew to leave their garbage in and not expect the bus to pick them up, took the extra week of paid vacation and ran with it. But every year, there’d be some new guy in the neighborhood, some poor lost family that didn’t understand.

Judy and Mark got in the habit of wandering the neighborhoods, especially once their kids were grown, looking for the lost people with their cans on the curb, waiting for the pick-up, not understanding. They were third-generation themselves, born and raised in the City and, to hear Mark tell it, with a bit of goblin blood on his side, and some fairy wandering around in her bloodstream. They’d knock on the doors, carrying a casserole dish, a nice retiree couple, and when the family let them in, they’d explain the way things were.

The city shut down for a week every June. Everything shut down. Even crime. If you didn’t respect that, the goblins and the fairies got you.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/247755.html. You can comment here or there.

The Beggars… a story of the Fairy Road for the Giraffe Call

Jan28

For [personal profile] skjam‘s prompt

I think this is in the same setting as Loaves (LJ), which, then, I think is in the same setting as Strange Neighbors (LJ) and the Fairy Road (here on LJ)

“I’ve just realized…I haven’t seen any homeless people or beggars on the street for at least a month. Where did they all go?”

The words where hardly out of Andrew’s mouth when he regretted them. His partner, Cary, was eying him strangely.

“What do you mean, Andy?” he asked, cautiously, Andrew thought. Like there was a secret he wasn’t supposed to know. There were a lot of those in the City Police Force. Too many.

“Well, there used to be the blonde lady down on Castor Street, the one that you could see the spark in? Like ‘man, this woman must have been hot in her heyday?’ I haven’t seen her in… since the day I got the promotion,” he realized, and then, more to his chagrin, realized he was still talking. Verbal diarrhea. It had cost him comfortable promotions and raises before, before he and June moves to the City. Was it going to lose him another one?

Cary was certainly still looking at him oddly. “I know her,” he answered slowly. “And the old black man down on West Indes Street…”

“..the one who would sing with the sweetest voice, every time you dropped a dollar in his cup?” Andy nodded eagerly, half hoping that this was going somewhere positive and half not caring, because these things needed to be said. “I remember him! The day after I got the promotion, I bought him a sandwich, and he sang for me for twenty minutes.”

Cary’s look was changing. “This city has a lot of beggars.”

“Had, it looks like. Man, is something happening?” He was always the last to know. “Bussing, or a serial killer no-one wants to tell me about, or something?”

“Something’s happening all right,” Cary answered slowly. “Get your coat. We’re taking a walk.”

Wishing that didn’t sound so much like “wandering into a back alley,” Andy slipped his coat on. “You knew something was going on?”

“You’re new, you see. No-one knew if they could trust you, so they gave you to me. But if you’ve heard Old Tyler sing, that means you passed.”

“I passed?”

“You passed. And now, Andy… well, there’s more to our City than meets the naked eye. Come on, and I’ll show you.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/247353.html. You can comment here or there.

“So”

Jan28

For @Theladyisugly’s commissioned prompt from the December Call.

Yngvi and Sigurd are characters in Addergoole (Sigurd only shows up, so far, in the Halloween story Tricked, as an 8-year-old.

Addergoole has a landing page here and on LJ.

“So.”

“So.”

Yngvi looked over his son – his only son, and likely to remain that way, and also, although he tried not to think about it too much, his nephew – and tried not to curl his lip.

They’d done a very good job of keeping in touch, up to a point. And then school had happened, the way it did, and the sweet teenaged boy he’d known had, like so many before and after him, vanished.

Vi wasn’t sure he knew this kid; worse, he thought maybe he did know him, from the dark places in his mind, from the monsters that had forced him to learn how to fight. From the mirror.

“So,” he said again, looking at the boy half an inch shorter than him, lean to his muscular, his hair cut short and fashionable. They could be brothers. The horns, of course, added to the similarity; Sigurd’s were twisted like corkscrews.

“So.” The boy’s smile was every bit as sharp as his horns. “You wanted to see me.”

“We hadn’t talked in a few years. I do try to keep up with my family.”

“I remember. Christmas and Fourth of July.” He pulled a small pocketknife out of his pocket, one of the first gifts Yngvi had given him. “And sometimes we’d go to the park. Do you want to go to the park today, Dad?”

Yngvi felt his shoulders tighten, looking down at his son. Sometimes, the animal inside took over, and then there were contests of will, butting heads. Sometimes, as his father had told him, you couldn’t have two strong men in the same room; it just didn’t work. Autumn was worst, and it was summer now.

He didn’t want to butt heads with his son. He called on every bit of his innate power, every ounce of knowing-the-right-words that he’d ever needed, and said, a little bit to his surprise, “the park would be nice, Siggie. There’s one right down the road.” He tilted his head. “It’s still pristine. These people keep their land pretty well.”

Something in Sigurd’s demeanor shifted, twisted, relaxed. “I’d like that,” he admitted quietly, and pocketed the knife. Ynvgi started walking, and, slowly, Sigurd fell in next to him.

“You came,” he said after a while. “I didn’t think you would.”

“It’s your birthday, Sig. I’ve never failed to show up for your birthday. I wasn’t sure you’d come, though.”

“I wasn’t sure I would, either,” he admitted. They had dropped their voices, until they were near-whispers, as if hiding this from someone. Who? Yngvi wished he knew. Next to him, Sigurd shrugged out of his leather jacket. “I wasn’t sure I’d get permission.”

Permission. Yngvi’s head whipped around so fast, his horns whistled in the air. Permission? Yes, by all the blasted returned gods, there was a collar around his son’s neck, small, leather, black to match the jacket.

“I thought you graduated,” he hissed angrily.

“I did.” The tightness was back in the boy’s expression. “I graduated in June. Earned my Name.”

Cautiously, Yngvi touched the collar, assuring himself it was there. It wasn’t, as pieces of wardrobe went, ugly, but it was a slave collar on his son’s neck. “Do I have to kill someone?” he asked flatly. “Who do I need to kill for you, Sigurd?”

His son looked, for a moment, frightened, and then something else. Touched? Worried? “I… I took this on, Dad,” he offered, very nervously. “I wasn’t tricked into it.” He was talking fast now. “I needed a favor, a couple little favors, and he’s a nice guy. We worked out a deal. Please don’t kill him? I kinda like him. Liked him before the collar,” he added hurriedly, stepping back as if afraid Yngvi was going to flip out.

Took it on. For a moment, Vi wasn’t certain he wouldn’t do something stupid. Then he found a calm place and, very carefully, hugged his son. “All right,” he murmured, as reassuringly as he knew how. “I won’t kill him. But I would like to meet him.”

Crushed against Vi’s chest, his horns brushing his father’s hair, Siggie sounded like a child again. “You would’ve? If I didn’t want this? If I was stuck?”

“Siggie, I’d move the world to help you or your sisters. I’d ruin the world for you.” Yngvi smiled faintly at his only son. “So.”

Sig smiled cautiously. “So.”

Siggie from another point of view – by Inventrix, at the beginning of his first year of school.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/246906.html. You can comment here or there.

So I’ve Started Out

Jan27

To Anonymous’ commissioned prompt, a continuation of this story (and on LJ).

Addergoole has a landing page here and on LJ.

Flying, Arundel was learning, was hard work, and exhausting. Even though Mr. Hawk told him that it wasn’t all in the muscles – “If you were doing this all with physical strength, you’d never get off the ground. Your flight is as much a part of your magic as, well, whatever you innate power is going to be,” – there was certainly a lot of something going on with his body, moving these new, strange, massive wings, keeping himself going.

And, of course, there was the falling. He wasn’t, he discovered, frightened of falling, but it hurt, and he liked to avoid the pain, not in the least because it made Sylvia tut-tut at him, which made him wriggle in uncomfortable ways and made Porter glower and sulk.

He wanted to ask his friend about that, but they didn’t seem to have a lot of time to talk. There was class – they had a couple in common, but there were always other people around. Then there were magic classes, and then sessions with their Mentors, and then they were in the suite that Sylvia had finagled for them, despite the objections of the Director’s secretary, who seemed to think that Arundel and the otter girl ought to be sharing a room.

He wasn’t entirely stupid. He’d seen other kids in their class Kept, just like Porter had. He’d seen the collars before Sylvia had put one on him, and he had some idea of how those relationships went, or at least how some of them went, controlling, uber-power-dichotomy sort of things that were still a lot like high school dating. But he wasn’t, as far as he could tell, dating Sylvia, and he wasn’t entirely certain why not.

Luke had said he could come to him with anything. Arundel wasn’t sure that this was the sort of thing he meant – the PE teacher seemed like the “how do I break the bully’s nose” or “how do I not fail math” sort of guy, but “anything” meant anything, and, besides, he wasn’t sure who else to ask. So, at the end of a long, exhausting flying session, stretching his shoulders and wings on the ground, Arundul cleared his throat and, very nervously, asked.

“Sir… this ‘Kept’ thing?”

Luke got an uncomfortable, gassy expression. “What about it?”

“It’s real? I mean… of course it’s real.” He could feel the effects. “But it’s okay?”

“Okay is relative,” Luke grunted. “But it’s allowed by school rules, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“This school is a little messed up, sir. Sorry…. but it is.”

“I’m not arguing.”

It looked like Luke would have been comfortable leaving the conversation there, and Arundel really couldn’t blame him for that. But he still had questions, and he had to start somewhere.

“The collar…?”

“That’s part of larger Ellehemaei society. Not required, but common. Tells other people ‘hands off.'”

“Okay, I can get that. But, um.” He pulled some grass unhappily. “Everyone else I see wearing a collar, they’re all, cuddled up to their… their owner?”

“Or Keeper.”

“To their Keeper. And a couple even say ‘my boyfriend’ or ‘my girlfriend,’ like they’re dating. And Sylvia…”

“Well, Sylvia’s always been a bit…” Luke paused, frowning. “Reserved. Ask her about it?”

Arundel blanched. “No, thank you!” He wasn’t scared of Sylvia. But she didn’t like questions a whole lot, and she didn’t like personal questions at all.

“Hunh, like that, is it?” Luke shook his head. “Do those stretches I showed you. I’ll think on it a little bit. But as to what you’re asking – it’s not always ‘dating,’ whatever that means this decade. It doesn’t have to be sexual.”

“Ack.” The grass was very, very fascinating. “Ack,” he muttered again. “Okay. Um. Sorry I asked?”

Luke stood up. “Stretch. Worry about Sylvia on her time. And on my time, we’re going to go through those flight positions.”

Worry about Sylvia on her time. It seemed like reasonable advice, and also seemed less likely to get him assigned more push-ups for making his Mentor uncomfortable. Arundel waited until he was back in their suite, showered, dried, and patiently drying his wings before he went back to worrying about Sylvia, under the theory that time that wasn’t for classes or Luke belonged, for good or ill, to his Keeper.

He was still chewing it over when Sylvia walked into his room – she did that, without knocking, and he really couldn’t figure out how to complain – and started drying his wings for him. The touch felt, as her touch always did, nicer than it ought to, nicer than anything. “Sylvia,” he started cautiously. Half the time when he started talking, she just shushed him.

This time, she just said, in her so-very-mild neutral voice that left him a little anchorless, “Arundel?”

“Isn’t Keeping generally… I mean, doesn’t it usually sort of act like dating?”

“It often does,” she agreed, her neutral getting a little colder.

“But you and me…?” Why did Hayley think I’d need a shrink?

“You and I are not dating,” she answered, setting the towel down. “I would not force dating on you.”

He turned to look at her, folding his wings in. He was beginning to learn how to not hit people or low-lying objects or walls or irate professors with them, but only recently. He really, really didn’t want to hit her with his wings. Certainly not now.

“You wouldn’t… force… dating on me?” he repeated, carefully, to make sure he had heard her right. “You think it would be force?”

“I Own you,” she answered, stepping backwards a half-step. “I could tell you we were dating, and we would be. I could tell you to take your clothes off, and you would.”

He sat down on the bed with a thump. “Sylvia, you’re a pretty girl who’s been nice to me since you met me. You could tell me to take my clothes off without this Keeping thing, and I would.”

“But the Bond takes away your choice,” she explained, a little plaintively.

He shook his head, more than a little disbelieving. “Well… so does not asking me, wouldn’t you say?”

Next: Trying (LJ) (Arundel/Sylvia Year 8)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/246592.html. You can comment here or there.

Mother-Son bonding, a story of Boom!Post-Apoc for @Inventrix

Jan27

After Separation Anxiety (LJ) Parting Advice, and Mother Bears (LJ), in the Boom!/RP timeline. I believe this is part three of four.

Yoshi was waiting in the Village when Cya came to get him. Driving separately was a waste of gas, especially with the world falling to pieces, but she liked the time alone with her son; she’d freed Ankara on the way and enjoyed the rare quiet of the rest of the drive.

She Found her son with no trouble, leaning against a fence by Maureen’s where she’d Found more than a few of her yearly Kept. Her heart twisted in her chest a little, until she saw the boy he was standing next to, a tall strawberry blond with long, narrow antlers, which made an entirely different set of twists start happening.

She had, rather pointedly, not thought about what would happen to her Kept du jour habit when her boys went to school, not thought about picking up a boy while picking up her son. The fae stayed young for a very long time, but that didn’t make her feel much better about picking up boys her kids’ age.

Still, seeing the boy – those antlers! – with her son, she shifted her Mask to that of a woman old enough to be Yoshi’s mother instead of his younger sister, and pulled her car up to a nearby parking spot.

She was just in time, as she got out of the car, to see a lovely petite girl walk up to her son, her ocean-blue hair swaying with her hips like the tide coming in. The girl set her hands on Yoshi’s shoulders – it was only then, focusing on the webbed fingers, that Cya noticed her son looked the same as he had when she dropped him off ten months ago – and kissed him proprietarily, then, as Cya took her sweet time closing in on them, did the same for the antlered boy, leaving both of them looking dazed and uncertain.

The girl swayed off, to the protective arms of a woman Cya recognized, in a vague sort of way, as a Seventh Cohort girl. Hrrmph. She swallowed her over-protective indignation (It went in the same oubliette as many of her other unhelpful emotions, like jealousy, and completed her walk to her son, giving him time to see her, time to wipe the lost expression off his face.

“Mom,” he grinned. The grin started out forced – she recognized the expression, from his father’s face and her own – and was entirely genuine-seeming by the time she got within hugging distance. Would he… boys grew distant from their mothers, she’d been told, to leave the nest properly. But he hugged her, tightly, as he had when he was a child and needed comfort.

She patted his shoulder and pretended not to notice. “Ready to go home for the summer?” she asked instead. “Uncle Howard has a list of chores already started for you.”

“Even if shoveling cow shit is on the list,” he murmured feelingly, and Cya felt the urge to kill rising – dampened, in the next moment, by her son’s entirely disingenuous, “Mom, this is Panlong. Pan. He was in a crew with my Keeper this year – Tethys, with the hair? – and when his dad didn’t show, I told him you could give him a ride home. I hope you don’t mind.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/246296.html. You can comment here or there.

Burning Summer Quest, a story for the Giraffe Call

Jan26

For moon_fox‘s prompt

Probably goes with Strange Neighbors (LJ) [After the Fairy Road (here on LJ)]

It was the hottest summer on record. It may have been the hottest summer ever. The sidewalk was melting. The roads were sticky. Even the devout were wearing bikinis, and you don’t want to know what the sinners were wearing. Fry an egg? You could cook a roast on the hood of the car.

And our air conditioner was on the fritz. We had six so-called adults, two cats, three rats (the domestic sort), and one small child in a four-bedroom house, we had eaten all the popsicles, and our air conditioner was spitting out lukewarm air.

So Jordan and I went on a quest.

We went to Wal-mart: sold out. K-Mart: sold out. Target? Mobbed AND sold out. Ames, the corner store, the grocery store, the overpriced appliance store behind the carpet place. We drove around the city in shrinking concentric circles (at least the AC in my old Ford still worked), stopping at every place that might, possibly, in some universe, sell us an AC unit. I cried at the Rent-a-Center guy (he was unimpressed). Jordan threatened the pawn shop guy (likewise unimpressed); we offered to buy one off an old lady with three sticking out of her windows (in our defense, she was at least holding a garage sale).

And then, as we were heading home in defeat, wondering how we were going to tell the roomies (never mind the toddler, the cats, and the rats) that we had failed – Failed! on our epic quest! – Jordan slammed on the brakes.

There, right there in the heart of the third-worst neighborhood in town, in a place I swear was a braid joint just yesterday, was a small store with a smaller sign: “Mr. Ting knows what you need.”

“Well,” Jordan shrugged, “at this point, anything is worth a shot, right?”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/246121.html. You can comment here or there.

Consequences

Jan26

After Three-Way, the Duet.
3-Way originally posted here and on LJ,
continued here (LJ)
and then here (LJ
and then
Here (Duet) and Here on LJ
And the “Preferences” (LJ) and
“9 Things I Hate About You” (LJ)

For cluudle, for being awesome.

Content warning: this relationship borders on emotionally abusive.


Thorburn released Ceinwen slowly from the hug. It seemed as if he’d been holding her forever, since he’d agreed that now was not the time to talk about the elephant in the living room, since he’d said they had room for negotiation. She’d thought he’d forgotten. She wasn’t quite sure he hadn’t fallen asleep; she wasn’t sure she hadn’t, either. It had been a long day, and it was late.

“You were right. I said you could earn your clothes back, your things. And I never told you how. I admit, I didn’t think about how much.” He stroked her arm. “I like the things I put you in. And I like you naked next to me.”

She wasn’t sure if now was still the time for talking, but she tried. “I wouldn’t mind, if it didn’t feel so demeaning.” Like she wasn’t a person enough to get clothes.

He nodded slowly. “If I don’t wear anything to bed…” He stopped what he was going to say, but she could see the shadows around him. “then you will be getting more waking up in the middle of the night than I think you’d prefer. Boxers and panties?”

“Am I getting a say?”

“I do want you to be happy. And I’d say for helping Basalt out, you deserve a reward, wouldn’t you?”

“I…” She twisted her lips. “‘Good girl, have a gold star?'”

He frowned at her. “You’re not a child, Ceinwen, but you are Mine, and that does mean I get to reward and punish you as I choose. I’d rather work out rewards, give you things for pleasing me. Would you prefer I punish you when you irritate me?”

“The way it seems lately, you’d be punishing me all the time and never rewarding me anyway,” she muttered. She had just a second to realize she’d pushed him too far before he picked her up and bent her over his lap, her wrists pinned at the small of her back. He pulled her skirt up – always skirts, he’d taken all her pants – and his hand came down hard on her ass, one cheek and then the other.

She yelped at the first hit, struggling against his hands, and then whimpered at the second. After that, she froze, hoping he’d stop. She could feel his erection against her stomach and ribs, which made the whole thing more humiliating, more terrifying, more arousing.

He leaned down until his lips were near her ears. “I’d like doing that every time you mouthed off,” he whispered. “But I don’t think you would. So I’ll reward you, and I’ll tell you what will earn rewards. And maybe, sometimes, then, I can just spank you for fun.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/245865.html. You can comment here or there.

Tea with /HER/, Continued More, a story of Tir na Cali for the Giraffe Call

Jan26

For @daHob’s prompt, in continuation of :
Tea with HER (continuation 2) (LJ)Tea with HER (continuation) (LJ) and Saturday’s Tea with HER (beginning) (LJ)

Tir na Cali has a landing page here on DW and here on LJ

I bid him a quiet, respectful, tearful goodbye, and sold him to the best broker in town, demanding – and getting – promises about his well-being and the type of place to which they’d sell him. He’d do well. He was so very well…trained.

I was angry at the Ice Queen all over again after that – for being right. For winning, again. For being my Countess. For calling for me when my mother was dying. But I went. She was my liege, and she’d been right.

The conversation was tense, unhappy, and stressed for the first half hour, until she set down her cup and stared at me. “Let’s stop beating around the bush. You sold Michael, and it makes you miserable.”

“My mother is dying,” I countered tensely.

“My the Goddess hold her close and move her on,” she murmured devoutly. “There will be a time for the funeral, and there will be a time for mourning. And I will be there beside you for that, Treanna, you have my guarantee.”

That, I’ll admit, took me quite by surprise, but I just nodded. “Yes, your Ladyship.” It’s something you get very good at saying.

“But right now,” she continued, as if she was flipping the page to the next item on her agenda – and she really could have been, for all the expression she had – “I have a gift for you.”

“I’m sorry, Your Ladyship?” I asked blankly. She’d shifted gears too fast on me this time.

“It’s not really…” she gestured, and, for the first time in my life, I thought she might be nervous. “Well. I could wait, if you prefer, until you are installed as Baroness.”

“I would rather,” I said, rather stiffly, “rather not discuss my installation as a done deal. My mother is still breathing.”

“But you will inherit. And likely you will do so soon. I can release you from this tea, and call for you again when the suitable mourning has been done. Or we can continue to talk now.”

It was clear from her tone which she wanted. But my mother was dying. “I would like that, your Ladyship. To come back later, at your leisure.”

“And at yours.” She gestured, smiling gently. “Tend to your mother, Lady Treanna.”

It wasn’t much longer. The healers and doctors had done everything they could for her, and all that was left was the horrible waiting. Alone, because I had sold Michael. Alone, because, with Michael there, I had never bothered to look for a partner, a companion, a Consort.

I held her hand through her last breaths, and I called the priests and the priestesses to lay her to the Goddess’ hands. I spoke the words I needed to say, and did was what required. I, like every child of Tír na Cali, am very good at doing what is required.

And then I went home, where I could be more alone, and sat, pondering my next step.

And there, wrapped in a ribbon over his perfectly-tailored suit, sitting on my front porch, a leash from his golden collar to my front door (my mother’s front door, my front door), was a boy. A man. A slave.

I’ll keep writing this in increments until @Dahob thinks it’s done… 😉

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/245705.html. You can comment here or there.

Loaves, a story for the Giraffe Call @Rix_Scaedu

Jan26

For Rix_scaedu‘s prompt

“What we need,” Katydid declared, “is a place to eat.”

Jorge looked over at her dubiously. “Like a dining room table? ‘did, I’m sure you’ve noticed, but this is a shanty.”

“No, no.” Her gesture took in the small jury-rigged building. “This is a place to sleep and not freeze. We need a place to eat.”

“Okay, you’re repeating yourself. Have you gone to the clinic recently?”

“No,” she frowned. “They make my brain buzz. This place, Jorge, this shanty-town, Hoover-ville, cardboard city – we need a place to eat.”

“We’re all starving, yeah, Katydid. I know that. We ALL know that, ‘did.”

She bit her lip. “Why don’t you ever listen?”

“Because you never make sense! You come down here like you belong with us, but you don’t, and then you say things like you’re making fun of us. Why don’t you go home?”

“I don’t have a home.” Her knees went up to her chest, and her hair covered her face. Jorge expelled air loudly.

“Whatever happened, there in the ‘burbs, it can’t be worse than starving.”

“We’re not going to starve.” She stood abruptly and hurried out of the hut, leaving Jorge to stare in her wake.

When he didn’t see her for several days, he thought she’d gone back to the ‘burbs, drama or not. Not that he KNEW that was where she came from, but good, clean shoes, sturdy clothes that were nevertheless the latest fashion, and hair that had been cut in the last month, plus teeth so straight and even as to look fake, did not look like city-poverty to him, much less shanty-town poor. He wished her luck, said a prayer for her, and moved a warmer girl into his shanty.

It was the girl, Annie, who told him what Katydid had done. “There’s a kitchen. They’re giving out food”

“A what?”

“In the middle of the ‘Ville. Follow the smoke.”

So follow the smoke he did, ’cause his stomach was trying to eat itself, and there, in the squarest shanty he’d ever seen built, with three banners for a tarp, Katydid had laid out tables, and over an oil-barrel stove, complete with chimney, she was dishing out soup and dumplings.

“Where…?” Jorge started, but the wildness was running high in the girl’s eyes, and he fell quiet.

“Jesus had fish,” was all she’d say.

Hooverville, non-Wiki Hoovervilles, shanty-town

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