Via Candlemark & Gleam’s twitter feed…
Minimalist, Futuristic Library, although my experience with libraries locally makes me question their shock at OMG! Books!
This library reminds me in part of The Planner’s Library, seen in this icon by ![[personal profile]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meeks.
Original article has more pictures & details.
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From Wyld_Dandelyon‘s prompt: “Final Exams.”
This comes after Frying Pan, Fire (LJ Link).
Despite rather constant warning from their teachers: “Don’t bond. Don’t get to close. You will be sold when school is over, and it is exceedingly unlikely you will be sold to the same household,” they had gotten close.
They had been picked up on the same run, Steve, Carl, Debbie, Jill, Jakub, and Seth, and before they’d come to the school, they’d already spent several days together in a cell just big enough for the six of them. By the time their final exams rolled around, they were close enough to know what the others were thinking.
Not that it was hard, right now; they were all thinking variations on the same thing: What happens next? What happens if I don’t do well? What happens if I do do well? Is this really happening to me?
They knew, in theory, what came next: either they passed their exams, or they were sent to work camps. They’d even had a field trip to the fields, to see what it would be like. To scare them into obedience, Seth assumed; the work camps were pretty much exactly what American propaganda said being a slave in California was like: hard, constant, dehumanizing labor.
If they did well, they had been assured they would be placed well in high-ranking households. It rankled, or at least it bugged Seth – they never talked about this part, as it sounded too much like sedition, and sedition had, they’d learned fast, painful consequences – to be working hard to get a position licking someone’s boots. But better licking boots than picking grapes.
“I’m worried about the titles and terms of address in Civics,” he admitted. They were crowded into the dorm room he shared with Carl and Jakub, trying to cram for exams.
“Sommelier and barrista testing,” Steve muttered. “I can never tell the reds apart, and that whipped cream trick…”
“Law,” Jill murmured. “The little nitty gritty laws that change with every Barony.”
“We’ll done fine.” That was Carl, who had nothing to worry about. “Chin up, and just try to sleep tonight. We’ll all do fine.”
“And then what?” Steve muttered. For that, Carl didn’t have an answer. None of them did.
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From clare_dragonfly‘s prompt: “Fae-apoc: the first planting.” Fae Apoc, clearly. Hob, I swear I got Dree from your name. (It’s actually Adriana Moreau, “dark one/little dark.” Um, she’s a bit dark. 😉
***
Dree surveyed the ruins of the city with a critical eye. Most of the people had left when the gods started fighting overhead. Of those who hadn’t, most had trucked out when the power plant had gone offline, or when the food stopped coming in. Dree and her small crew had lasted through that by building their fence up the moment trouble started, boarding up their windows when things got really bad, and moving into a nearby apartment building when the fires ruined their old neighborhood.
The winter had been hard, and they’d done their share of covert cheating to keep alive. The building hadn’t originally had a chimney, but who was left that knew that? A city of over a million now had maybe three hundred inhabitants, a good third of those refugees from larger nearby cities who hadn’t made it any further. They knew each other, their tiny conclave, only by what they chose to share, and, in Dree’s case, as in many others, that was precious little.
They’d made it through the winter on willpower, burnt furniture, and canned goods, but now the frost was gone, and something you could call spring was here. The yard near the apartment building had been a museum, once, and, inside, some art, mostly statues, still remained. But what mattered to them right now was the long stretch of ground which had been unplowed, mowed, fertilized, and well-tended for over a century.
They peeled off the sod, Dree and her crew and their team of fellow refugees, plowed up the lush, fertile soil, and planted scrounged seed after seed, watering with hoses and cans stolen from the houses of the dead and gone, muttering Workings when there were no humans to see.
Like the seeds, they had landed in a small corner of hospitable land in the midst of a burned-out wasteland. Like the seeds, they would grow and flourish. Like the seeds, they would live.
***
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This is from @Inventrix’s prompt for “a Pookah;” @DaHob picked species and name. Um, I might have just put pookah in Planner ‘Verse.
The world looked different down at 3″ from the pavers. More importantly, to Cynthia’s point of view, SHE looked different to the world at three inches from the pavers.
If she wasn’t careful, what she would look like was dinner, but she could work around that. Work under it, really; her small form was very good at burrowing, and there was a lot of space where the dirt was bare, space that, from her dim memories, would have been covered over, the last time she was through this city.
She’d eaten her way through a book, once, that had in it voles that really had to be called supervoles. Giant creatures that could dig through anything. While she wasn’t quite that impressive in her small form – she was under a foot long, after all – she could make mincemeat of loam or even hardpack clay.
And once she was there, under the lines of the wild gangs, under the places where the dirt tasted unhealthy and smelled like poison, she could pull back up, dirty and tired after an entire day but safe, into the small gardens at the heart of the city. She could pop her head up, and then the rest of her, traverse the rose garden while still tiny and furry, and then, with a shake to dislodge the dirt, she could stand.
The other girls in the chief’s harem wondered why she was his favorite. She was, they said, mousy (she didn’t correct them), small and a bit stout and brown. Her nose was pointed. But she, unlike them, got information to the chief that nobody else could and, while she lived, he would pamper and protect her, for that.
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I’m taking prompts ’til 6 tonight; this is lilfluff‘s prompt”The beach, overnight in winter.” Unknown ‘verse.
It had been snowing, so June and Tyler bundled up, layer after layer, then wrapped up together in a blanket.
They pitched their tent on the edge of a beach nobody went to. Once, it had been busy, overpopulated, but there wasn’t anyone living in the city areas nearest anymore, and so it was empty in the summer and totally abandoned now, the shortest day of the year, the longest night. They weren’t going to get driven off. They weren’t even going to get noticed, even with the fire they’d lit.
That suited them. This vigil was a private thing, between the three of them. They set the tent as the sun began to fall beneath the edge of the lake, brushing the snow out of the way so that they were staked out on sand – just as cold, but less wet – then lit their fire and wrapped up to watch.
“Do you remember…” Junie started, once or twice.
“Mmng,” Tyler would answer, and she’d fall quiet. But she knew he remembered. The scenes were acid-etched behind her eyes; how could they be any less behind his? Besides, what else were they sitting out here for, but a memory?
The moon rose, clear in a cloudless sky, and their fire burnt down slowly, to embers, while Tyler grunted his avoidance to any conversation and Junie, without the buffer of words to help, fell into those memories. The sparks brought back visceral images of the last fire, the one that got a capital F, like it was the avatar of flame. The waves lapping against the sand reminded her of footsteps, slowly dragging out into the ice-cold water. A year. Two years. Three years. And every winter solstice, they would come out here.
The night reached its nadir, and they stared, silent, out at the water, waiting for the footfalls. Waiting for Cay to walk back to them.
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I’m taking prompts ’til 6 tonight; this is both halves of Rix’s prompt, asking for Aviv & Rozen post-apoc. This takes part before Into the Woods, available in Tales for the Sugar Cat
Aviv:
There were times when doing what needed to be done meant strange partners and uncomfortable partnerships. He trekked alongside what had once been a highway, chewing over those thoughts. Some people, he’d never have to deal with again: Ardell and Delaney had gone over to the Nedetakaei and, while he would miss Del, he wouldn’t miss the partnership of them.
Baram had died. Ib was off somewhere hunting with Eris, speaking of strange partnerships. The Thornes… He hadn’t seen them in decades. He knocked on a tree for luck at that. Most of the baddies from Addergoole were gone, one way or the other, and yet here he was, weeks from home, looking for one of the baddest.
“You made it.”
And the big bad wolf had found him. He nodded acknowledgement at Rozen. “I told you I would.”
“Things get in the way, sometimes.” His tone said: for other people. Not for me.
“They move,” he shrugged in response. “So, you got my message.”
“I did. Safe haven for the likes of us?”
“Not everyone is as strong as you are. Some of them need protection.”
“From humans.” The disdain was thick; Aviv boggled, again, that this monster was still among the Shenera Endraae.
“From mobs,” he agreed mildly. “From humans.”
“And you’re the guy to provide that.”
“My team can provide that, yes,” he agreed. Stay mellow. He’d learned that lesson a long time ago, when he was far weaker than he was now.
“So what do you need from me?”
“Your hunting range is out of our current zone. Keep an eye out. Send them our way if they need it. Provide safe passage through your territory to those who just want to keep moving.”
“And what’s in it for me?”
This was the hard part. This is where you made deals with devils. “What do you want?”
Rozen:
“What do you want?”
He loved it when it came down to that. Then you got to set the terms of the engagement.
Truth be told, however, Aviv’s plan wasn’t all that bad of one. Not everyone had been gifted by a Change as nice as his, and the hatred the humans had for them was as broad and unthinking as any predjudice. Little things like Mea, like Dita, they had never done anything to deserve the mob hatred.
He smiled, letting the squiddy boy squirm on the hook a little bit. “Ah, now, that’s the question. Everyone wants something, right?” Though he really didn’t want for much. He had a nice set-up here. “So what I want is a hand with a little hunting.” Come down and play on my level, Saint Squid. You’ve never been as good as you thought you were.
Aviv was frowning; good. “Regine’s going to catch you at this eventually, Rozen. You can’t keep farming these people like your own personal crop of entertainment. It’s practically Nedetakaei.”
“Practically, but not. I abide by the terms of our arrangement,” he answered smoothly. “And as for Regine, she never fusses for all that long. She needs me guarding her flank too dearly.”
“Mmfg. So, what help do you need?” Seemed Regine wasn’t the only one that needed him to watch her back.
“They send me girls. But if they truss them up and send them like some sort of sacrifice, everyone cries and the girl doesn’t stop yelling for months. If I track them down in the forest and snatch them… it goes smoother.” And he’d never really liked the screaming.
“So if you kidnap them, they take it better than if their parents sell them?” Aviv frowned cynically. “You know, that makes a sick sort of sense. And you want me to help?”
“Hell, you know you’re good at it. Scare them a little. They’ll run right into my arms.”
This also takes part before Retirement
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…between now and 24 hours from when I began (18:32 EST tonigh), I will write to requests. Anything I can get done in a 10-minute writeordie (approx. 250 words, or a standard flash fic drabble in this journal).
Request away!
Original prompts post (LJ Link); what I’ve written so far:
Joff Gets a Pony (LJ Link)
Bringing Home the Bacon (LJ Link), Autumn, Stranded World
Frying Pan, Fire (LJ Link), Tir na Cali
Coming of Age (LJ Link), fae apoc
I will start working on prompts again in the next hour or so.
Tips are appreciated but not required; as always, a tip will get you more story (300 words per $5)
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This is from eseme‘s prompt asking for goddesses.
Fae Apoc in its early history.
***
Ακανθα bowed before her father. Head to the stone, weapon at her side, wings swept back, she prostrated herself in front of a god she had never presumed to believe she would meet in person.
“So you are the child I begat so many seasons ago,” Ares rumbled. “You are meet and fine in my sight, child.”
“Thank you, Lord,” she murmured. She knew the forms well enough; her mother and the priests had drilled her as surely as she’d ever been drilled in combat.
“More than that, however,” he continued, “I have seen you in battle. I have seen you protect your people, and your land. Do you know the ban I have set upon My children, little prickly one?”
She did not bristle at the translation of her name, because she wished to live to see the sun rise again. “I have heard of it, Lord Ares,” she answered cautiously.
“I’m sure you have. The poets speak of it in so many words, but none seem to understand how simple it is. The children of Ares, my child, are those who protect.”
“Yes, Lord Ares?”
“You have proven that this task you can do without fail, without faltering, without concern for your own well-being, despite the disadvantage of your sex. I am well pleased with you, and it suits me to give you a gift.”
Beware the gifts of the gods. “Thank you, Lord Ares.”
“There is a city near your village, a city which has of late been under siege. Take your mother, and your siblings. This city is yours now, Thorn of Ares, Prickly Sword. They shall worship Ακανθα there, as long as you remain worthy.”
She dared raise her head, now, to look at him. “You would place me as a goddess, Lord Ares?”
The god was smirking. “Your conception did that, Ακανθα. I give you your birthright.”
Ακανθα. Lily’s ancestor? And Acacia’s?
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I am taking prompts tonight; this is from lilfluff‘s prompt regarding new Tir na Cali captives
Tir na Cali, and seems to be an intro.
They got pants, at least. And shirts. Well, the girls got skirts, but the idea was there: after what was probably over a week with no clothes, nothing to their names but the ugly plastic collars their captors had locked around their throats, they had pants, shirts, and underwear.
And ugly plastic collars, but Seth, at least, had learned not to complain. Since they had been stolen into California (while, irony of ironies, celebrating their freedom from school), the six of them had been stripped, collared, processed, beaten, starved, and half-drowned – but they’d also been trained. Maybe their training had been harsh enough to make the basic training he and Jakub were (had been) heading to look like a week at the beach, but the lessons had been straight-forward and clear. Lesson one was: don’t complain.
Lesson two was don’t mouth off, of course. Which was why he was keeping his mouth shut as their handler – the third such, the tallest, the oldest, and the sternest so far, passed them each stacks of clothing. Steve hadn’t quite gotten that, yet, but, then again, only Seth and Jakub had been planning on heading somewhere where they barked orders at you all day anyway.
“This looks like a uniform, ma’am.” Jill commented, quietly, politely. Jill had learned how to ask questions without getting hit; she’d been the quickest of them all, at that.
“It is,” the matron agreed. “You will not be the only ones at this training facility. There will be approximately twenty-five other slaves here training with you.”
“Training?” That was Steve. “Like what? Ow!”
The ow was, of course, another thwap with the crop. Steve got a lot of those.
“You know nothing about our world, or our culture. You will be going to school here to learn how to fit in, how to be proper slaves. You will take eight classes a day, and have time in the evenings to complete your homework?”
“Homework!” Seth was mortified to realize that that had been him this time. He quickly added on a “ma’am,” and was grateful when Debbie picked up his slack by filling in with another question.
“Like school, ma’am? Like high school?” She didn’t have to say all over again; they were all thinking that.
“Exactly like a school,” the matron nodded. She seemed to understand; she didn’t thwap them at all for the collective groan.
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I am taking prompts tonight; this is from kc_obrien‘s prompt “Brining home the bacon”
Stranded World, Autumn
Autumn chuckled to herself every time she picked up bacon for dinner.
“Bringing home the bacon,” she murmured, although most nights, it was only to herself and the quiet walls of her van/RV/studio/home. “I’m such a good husband.”
It was a private joke, between herself and the thing that served her in lieu of a conscience: she was the good housewife, the good kid, the good husband. She was bread-winner and bread-baker and, in the end, bread-eater and crumb-picker too.
It wasn’t her only one-person inside joke, of course. She spent a lot of time, most of her life, really, alone with her own thoughts. On the road all the time – she spent, on average, a week with each of her siblings each year, and a week with Mom around Christmastime – she rarely had company with any staying power. Most people liked to have roots, a roof, a solid foundation. Most people liked to know what their role was. Autumn shook all that up.
She snipped the bacon into her pan, still chuckling, albeit ruefully. She’d made the bread-winner bacon-home-bringing joke to her last lover. Adam, although that hadn’t been the name she’d met him under. Her Gawain. He had bristled and tried to hide it, sulked (his busking wasn’t all that profitable) and tried to use that. He’d been lovely, friendly, and willing to throw his rucksack in the back of her van and travel with her. She was glad she hadn’t harbored any illusions beyond that. She wished that he hadn’t, either.
The bacon crisped and popped, making the place smell delicious and her mouth water. She toasted some bread and sliced a fresh tomato over her craft-fair mustard. The company was nice, once in a while, but she’d always be her own breadwinner, her own bread-maker… and probably her own crumbpicker, too. And that was just fine with her.
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