30 Days Second Semester: 5, The Water Knot, Stranded World (Summer)

Aug1

For the 30 Days Meme Second Semester, for the prompt “5) write a story using an imaginary color.”

Stranded World, Summer & Winter, some time before she goes off to school. Landing page here and on LJ

I think Summer and Spring are very close in age. Does anyone remember her hair color?.

“Tell me what you see.”

“The water, the boat. The sky, and fish out in the distance.” Summer kicked her feet in the water. “Splashes.”

Her brother smiled indulgently at her, with that warning note in the cant of his eyebrow that said she should stop messing around soon. Stupid Spring, using up all the messing around. She obediently stared back out at the lake.

“The water moves the way it should. The strands are mostly blue, but there are a few lines of green, and some tangles of darker green. Algae blooms? And there’s sort of an… indiburple splotch there,” she pointed at a twisted triple-braid of color. “Someone did that on purpose; the strands don’t line up in celtic knots by themselves.”

“‘Indiburple?’” Her perfectly-orderly brother wrinkled his nose at her. “‘Indiburple?’” he repeated, incredulously.

“Yeah, indiburple. You know, that dark midnight color with too much red in it to be blue or indigo, and just a hint of absinthe and snow in the flavor?”

“Indiburple.” He shook his head. “You sense more colors than any of the rest of us, anyway; if you want to make up imaginary colors, I suppose that’s your right. Tell me about this celtic knot.”

“It’s not imaginary,” she retorted. Winter could be unbearable sometimes, holding his few years’ advantage over them. “It’s just not in the visual spectrum.”

That, as she knew it would, made him pause. He was always startled when she talked science, especially about the Strands. “All right,” he allowed. “It’s an indiburple knot.”

The List:
1a) the story starts with the words “It’s going down.” (LJ Link)
1b) the story starts with the words “It’s going down.” (LJ Link)
2) write a scene that takes place in a train station.
3) the story must involve a goblet and a set of three [somethings]
4) prompt: one for the road
5) write a story using an imaginary color

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/90593.html. You can comment here or there.

30 Days Second Semester: 7, Colder Weather, Stranded/Autumn

Aug1

For the 30 Days Meme Second Semester, for the prompt “7) prompt: frigid.”

Stranded World, Autumn. Landing page here and on LJ
.


He said I wanna see you again
But I’m stuck in colder weather
Maybe tomorrow will be better
Can I call you then…

Autumn did not like cold weather, a contradiction to her name that some mistakenly found ironic (she’d given up explaining that she and her seasonal sib’s names were meant to be part of a complex allegory; it never helped). She planned her circuit of fests, fairs, and shows in a roving loop that left her in the North in the hottest parts of summer, and brought her to the South for winter. She spent the few really cold times staying with friends; her van had plenty of insulation, but it was still a van-RV, not really a cold-weather vehicle.

Sometimes the weather foiled her. Some nights, even in summer, or December in Texas, the weather dipped from cold to frigid, from extra-blanket to all-the blankets, and she found herself huddled for comfort in three layers of clothes, shivering and unable to sleep. Some nights like that, she found an all-night diner, and drew free sketches for the waitresses until the dawn came. Tonight, she huddled around a pile of letters and a cell phone, and tried to stay warm on memories and the sound of his voice.

“I want to see you again,” she murmured. Even calling was against their tradition; the request was out of bounds. But he (she hoped) understood. “I’m stuck in this snowstorm…”

“Soon, my beautiful tree,” he murmured back at her, his cadences made less lovely by the telephone, by the lack of body language or pen-flourish. “It will only be another month until our paths cross. And you’ll have a letter waiting for you in Arizona.”

Arizona, right now, seemed like a myth, a lie, a fairy tale a thousand miles away. She stared at the phone, knowing why they didn’t call. “I’ll look forward to it,” she said, feeling as if her voice was as cold as the air.

“I’ll see you in California,” he reminded her. “It’ll be warm there.”

The List:
1a) the story starts with the words “It’s going down.” (LJ Link)
1b) the story starts with the words “It’s going down.” (LJ Link)
2) write a scene that takes place in a train station.
3) the story must involve a goblet and a set of three [somethings]
4) prompt: one for the road
5) write a story using an imaginary color
6) write the pitch for a new Final Fantasy styled RPG (LJ Link)
7) prompt: frigid.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/94402.html. You can comment here or there.

Deal, a further-further-further-further-further-etc-continuation

Aug1
A continuation of the Blizzard story, of which the beginning can be found here.
❄️
Sandy gulped, and stared down at the… well, at the gnome, she supposed. “No,” she admitted. “No, I’ve never seen a gnome before.”

“And you still haven’t,” it cackled gleefully. “I’m a kobold, don’tchaknow. You tourists are all the same. Don’t know anything, expect to have life spoonfed to you, and, when it comes down to it all you want it,” it pitched its voice into a whine, “I wannnnnnna go hooooome.”

“Well,” she admitted, feeling a bit guilty about it now and a bit angry to be feeling guilty, “I do sort of want to go home. But mostly I want to know what’s going on.”

“Didn’t I say that?” the thing, whatever it was, snapped. “Want everything spoonfed to you.”

“And I didn’t say that,” she snapped right back at him. Behind them, the train whistle blew. “Oh, darn it.” She twisted to look at the steam-powered thing. It was lovely in its own way. “It costs one tech. What would a tour guide cost?”

“A tour guide?”

❄️
Note: I forgot about this bit until Ada K. pointed it out so the next bit does not quite flow.  I’ll figure that out at some point.

Kissing One’self

Jul31

kink_bingo – I-2 – Mirrors and Doubles – from my card. As this is a kink bingo story, it is smutty, and it involves doppelgangers and clones.

I like this, but honestly feel I could do more with the theme.

Author’s notes: this takes place soon after this story (on LJ) where the Team has just found themselves facing dopples of two team members, Josie and Alexa.
💋
Cole lay in bed between Alexa and Alexa, near Alexa… and Cole. His doppleganger was smoking a cigarette; Cole reached over and took it from him, leaning over what he was pretty sure was a clone-Alexa to do so.

“Well,” he grinned, “this is the most fun I’ve had today.”

Clone or not, the Alexa he was leaning over hit him.

💋

They’d encountered doppleganger!Josie (who was very, very clear on the fact that she was not a clone) and clone!Alexa (who had no such problem) first, just steps into this new world. The Josies had still been trying to work out who got to freak out first when doppleganger!Cole (probably also a clone) had come around the corner, with what looked like a third twin of their opener.

Cole had had a bad moment there – the two Josies and the three Alexas seemed rather similar in personality to each other, and he knew exactly what he was capable of, especially when dirty, tired, and confronted with an unpredictable situation. He really didn’t want to have to shoot himself in the face – almost as much as he really, really didn’t want to find out that his doppleganger was faster on the draw than him.

But doppleganger!Cole had taken them all in, grinned, and said “where the hell did you clones come from, and, wherever it was, tell me you brought booze, cigs, and a shower.”

He’d almost dodged his Josie slapping him, too, still declaring that she, of all of them, most definitely wasn’t a clone.

The ice had been broken enough, though, that they’d been invited back to their dopple’s HQ, the basement of an old Zear’s store, complete with a couple creepy mannequins and, much nicer, half of the housewares department. There were twenty of them there, all ragged and dirty and all very glad of the supplies in their visitors’ packs. Aerich had been cranky, Xenia and Peter distrustful – but their dopples weren’t there, and, to be fair, they didn’t know their teammates that well, much less their teammates’ duplicates. Josie had managed to calm herself down, and the three Alexas had compared notes over the fresh apples his Lex had thought to bring.

That left it up to Coles to suggest the inevitable.

His dopple started it, with a raised eyebrow and a head-tilt at the two cloned Alexas. “They’re a riot in the sack together,” he murmured, which got him hit by the cleaner and more in-charge of the two. “But I have to admit…”

And his Lex finished it. “…I’ve always wondered what being in bed with two Coles would be like,” she grinned sharply, the kind of thing that looked sweet until you saw all the teeth she was showing. She turned to the clearly-junior dopple-clone. “Got a bed big enough for three?”

No one should have been surprised when someone with Lex’s genes shot right back at her with “I’ve got one big enough for five.”

And, while the rest of the team might role their eyes, truth was they weren’t going anywhere until Lex decided to open a Door, so might as well enjoy themselves for a bit, right? And Cole had earned them goodwill in more than one place with what Peter liked to call “his own particular brand of Cowboy Diplomacy.”

So Cole found himself kissing himself (he tasted like salt and Josie’s homebrew), while Lex went down on one of them, then the other and the other two did a mirror act that was illegal in several states but delicious in any world. Naked, they lost the few distinctions of clothing, and in the dim light, the lifestyle differences he’d seen – his Lex had a couple pounds on her dopples, and the junior clone had a sepia tattoo over her left hip – faded, leaving them identical brown writhing bodies. He grabbed for a head of hair, not caring which it was, and kissed the girl, then kissed himself again.

All three Alexas bit, but they all had their own unique moans and cries and, more surprisingly, their own tastes under his tongue. He looked up to see dark eyes staring down at him, or felt nails in his hair, and only when the girl there called him by one of Alexa’s naughty nicknames for him (“Coal shoot” was her favorite and least sensical) did he know which girl he was licking.

Of course, when he twisted to find dopple!Cole lining up for his, ahem, coal shoot, he knew exactly who was who, but it was still unnerving to see that leer looking down at him.
💋
Some time later, he reached over and stole his dopple’s cig, earning himself an elbow from one of several lovely Alexas. “I could get used to this,” he groaned.

“Me, too,” he heard himself agree. “So, are you leaving yours, or taking mine and me?”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/92859.html. You can comment here or there.

DailyPrompt: Promising Shangri-La

Jul28

From [community profile] dailyprompt: ‘I will return to Shangri-La,’ with a side order of “elation and heartbreak.”

Of the same world as these two strange tales:
Moving In
Dancing for Joy

“I will return to Shangri-La.”

It is said that the last settler to leave the ruined alien city declared that as he left, staring back in defiance at the desolation that had destroyed so many of them. It became a war cry of sorts, Talbot’s Promise. Tal’s Cry. “I will return.” We will survive; we will rebuild.

They found places on the blasted planet that were, at the very least, less inhospitable, places where the ground itself did not try to destroy them, cities that had been abandoned for longer, or with less gruesome reminders, at least, than those in the city they had named Shangri-La. Nowhere did they find a place free of the hand of the former residents, but there were places more bearable.

A generation built, planted, harvested, married and bore and buried, saying to each other, with every elation and every heartbreak, that they would return to Shangri-La. They would get theirs back on the city that had so very nearly destroyed them. This place would do, for now. But they would return. They spoke of Talbot’s Promise – and plotted.

Their children made the alien settlement their own, reshaping the buildings to fit their bodies, working the earth until it gave up fruit that was both edible and palatable. They married and celebrated, mourned and moved on, and their numbers grew.

They explored, just a little out at first, and then further, learning as they did that, not only were they not the first sentient species on this planet, it was unlikely they were even the tenth or twentieth. Those who had studied the science their parents could remember postulated that the planet was the interstellar version of an island on a trade route (concepts learned from their parents as well, as this place had neither). Those who were merely poets suggested that it was a bear trap (the planet did, however, have something that could pass muster as a bear). Astronomy flourished, and the engineering that would be needed to build a return ship, should they ever manage the infrastructure.

They spoke of Talbot’s Promise, the children born here. They would return to Shangri-La. They would defeat the city that had killed nine-tenths of their number. They would win, and then they would leave this place. They spoke of Talbot’s Cry – and they built their own city taller.

Their children, in turn, grew up thinking of the spaceways as a fairy tale, and Shangri-La a long-forgotten place. They expanded, and grew, married and danced and gave birth, and stretched the land out further, learning more and more about those who had been here before. Xeno-archeology flourished, and botany, and crisis architecture, for the planet still had its share of ways to fight them.

They looked to the north, sometimes, where they had been told their grandparents came from, and thought of Talbot’s Cry as a sort of metaphor. “I will return to Shangri-La,” their poets said, told the story of mankind’s fall from grace, and their determination to succeed. They spoke of Talbot’s Myth, and they lived.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/90831.html. You can comment here or there.