Beginning of a Winter story, per ClareDragonfly & @Inventrix’s request

Jun13

There were times when Winter thought his mother had chosen to have him first, to be there for the girls when their father died.

It wasn’t a possibility he ever talked about; Mom, who would know, he’d never ask. Other people would either think he was crazy for at least three facets of that thought, and the ones who wouldn’t, well, were either just as close to the situation as he was, or would have reactions to it he wouldn’t like.

Pre-planned or not, he had been the father figure to his sisters since he was seven years old and now, as an adult with his “daughters” grown up and out of the house, he found the habits hard to put aside. His nature, the way the strands of the world reacted to him, was either created by that situation or exacerbated it, and either way seemed to solidify it.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/56094.html. You can comment here or there.

30Days Meme, Kink_bingo (sort of), #SmutSunday: Kitty!

Jun12

Content warning: this creeped me out writing it, a little bit.

[community profile] kink_bingo – free square – from my card

Day 8 of 30 days of Fiction: “8) Write a scene as a cat”

I wake up when the bright warmth moves off of me, roll over, lick my belly a few times, and move into the bright warmth again, one arm over my face.

For a moment, in the sleepy place that isn’t quite awareness, everything feels strange and wrong. I know that the tail lashing just out of the light should not be there. I know that the fingers on my hand, that the claws on my paw… that they are wrong. Short and stubby and sharp. I know that I used to be different.

Then the warmth urges me back into sleep. I sleep a lot more, now. It gets harder and harder to hold thoughts in my mind for any length of … oh, a dust mote. My eyes open wide and I bat at the ghost swirling in the brightness. It’s taunting me, slipping through my claws like it’s not there. But I can feel it, just at the edges… there! I pounce it to the ground, pin in there, one claw through a gossamer wing.

I swallow it in three quick gulps, leaving a tiny foot to remind myself. While its thin non-substance is in me, I can think. I can focus again. I sit upright, cross-legged – the master stopped observing me regularly weeks ago – and focus.

I can’t read anymore. My eyes can’t track the characters, and whatever he did to my brain makes focusing that fine impossible. The lack of thumbs makes writing nearly impossible, even if I could see the letters. Even if I had paper and pencil. Nor can I speak. But I can, for a few minutes a day, remember. Remember what it’s like to be human.

The thought escapes me again, and I lick my chops, nose at the tiny foot bone, and make my way down to the sandbox.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/55839.html. You can comment here or there.

Kink_Bingo, #SmutSunday, TirNaCali(harem): Learning to Serve

Jun12

Rating: PG-13 for sexual innuendo

Stephan was learning how to serve.

Against the frowning disapproval of Toma the harem mistress, Wensleydale, the softest of the born slaves, had agreed to give him a few pointers.

“Look,” Stephan had said, in that low, conspiratorial whisper they all got used to using in the harem, “she might want me because I fight back, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t know what I’m supposed to do. You said you all thought I knew what I was fighting against. I don’t. And that means she starts out reading from a script I’ve never even seen.”

He’d come back to the harems to pack the few belongings that he could call his, at least by courtesy if not in reality (Slaves were themselves possessions and couldn’t thus own anything. That lesson, at least, had been hammered home very thoroughly). But, more than the tie-tack he’d gotten as a Yule gift or his spare pair of soft-soled slippers, he needed knowledge. He’d gone to Wensleydale because he’d been there, while many of the others had been called out to service, and because he’d been willing to explain things in the past. Of all the prim, proper, well-trained born-slaves in the harem, he’d seemed the most sympathetic to the prisoner-of-war kidnapped American slaves like Stephan.

“So you want to know what script you’re ignoring.”

“Not just that. If, when, I go off-script, I want it to be on purpose. And if I’m going to do this thing,” now that he’d been given a choice, at least, “well, I ought to do it right.” Even if that thing was being a lapdog. If he did it with finesse, if he did it as a choice, it became his thing, and not something done to him.

That argument, at least, had convinced the skinny, beardless harem slave, and he’d been the one who’d convinced Toma to give them a private room. “Service,” he said to Stephen’s doubtful expression, “is a private thing, even when done in public. And Americans are so shy.”

“Shy?” He choked out a laugh, and then swallowed a noise that wasn’t a laugh as Wes shut the door behind them and stripped off his pants. “Hey now, that’s not what I asked for!”

“Shy,” the slender boy agreed, with a small smirk. “Relax. I’m not going to try to seduce you.” As if intentionally giving lie to that sentence, he dropped gracefully to his knees at Stephen’s feet. “We were talking about shyness. I’ve seen Americans come and go in the harems, and nudity is one of those things that seems to matter to you – and it doesn’t to us, not in the same way. I was making a point.”

“Um. All right. Point taken.” He looked down at the boy. “Service?” he asked uncomfortably.

“Service,” he nodded. “After all, you’ll spend a lot of your service nude. And on your knees.”

“C’mon, get up,” he urged, but Wensleydale shook his head, smirking, and grasped one wrist with the other hand behind his back, his hands nearly resting on his ankles. He tilted his head up with an expression of hope and entreaty.

“How may I serve you, my lord?”

Stephen got it, and nodded slowly, although he knew his reluctance was showing on his face. “You’re awfully vulnerable like that.” His hands twitched, looking down at the too-pretty face.

“That’s the point.” He grabbed his toes, arching his back, his head tilted back. “From here, I’m completely open to you. You could grab my collar with one hand, or my hair… go ahead, do it.”

“No way.”

“You wanted to learn.”

“Damnit.” The face was pretty enough, but there was no pretending that wasn’t a guy kneeling in front of him. He waited, but the boy clearly wasn’t going to continue unless he did as he asked. “Damnit!” he repeated, and got a rough handful of sandy blond curls in his left hand, the jangling O-ring of the collar in his right.

“Yes.” It was almost a moan. “And I’m helpless. Completely in your hands.”

“And that’s a good thing, is it?” It was tempting to tug backwards on the hair, or forwards on the collar; he did both just a little bit, to see the rough arch of the boy’s body expand like drawing a bow.

“It is.” His voice came out thready and a bit ragged, but his eyes were firm on Stephen’s. “It’s a metaphor.”

“This-” he drew the bow a little more “-this is a metaphor?”

“It is. Because right now, you can do anything you want to me. You could have tied my hands and my ankles, but you didn’t; I chose to put myself here, on my knees in front of you. I choose to move where you put me.”

He nodded, releasing tension on the boy without letting go of his dual grip. “I see. So what happens is in my hands, because you put it there.”

“Yes.” In that position, there was no hiding or ignoring how turned on they both were right now. Wensleydale kept his voice level anyway. “We kneel in service, not to put ourselves lower than our mistresses, but to put ourselves in their hands. So…” Now, he licked his lips, and Stephen didn’t think the flush of his cheeks was just from the positioning. “How may I serve you, my Lord?”

[community profile] kink_bingo prompt I-1 from my card, “Service.”

Stephen is from a triptych of stories set in a TirNaCali harem:
Gifted
Keyed Up, and
Restraint.

Tir Na Cali has a landing page (LJ Link).

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/55785.html. You can comment here or there.

30 Days Meme: Forbidden

Jun11

Day 7 of 30 days of Fiction: “7) Write something dirty (take that how you will)”

This comes after Hello, and before The Cathedral, and I believe the Foundation/Library/Academy setting is The Planners.

Tess had found herself fascinated with Thomas from the moment he walked into her Academy. He was young, far younger than she was, the age she’d been when the world had fallen apart. But there was something in his eyes… if she had believed in reincarnation, she would have thought he had come back with the full knowledge of some ancient sage. He had that feel to him, that tired worldliness. She wondered if he’d ever been young.

She tried not to stalk him. She paid him no more attention than she did any other student, for his first months, his first year at her school. She said nothing untoward to him, nothing that could cause any eyebrows to raise. She shot him no steamy glances, spent no time reading his file other than as her position as Dean demanded.

But he seemed intent on coming to her attention. He questioned policy, loudly, in the atrium, three crimes all in one. He questioned the facts in the old texts, another crime, and, once, was found making margin notes in a book that had been a century old when the Library was built. He argued science with his teachers, and wanted to test the theories in the books. He questioned everything.

And the more he questioned, the more she wanted him. Illicit as it was, forbidden in so many ways, Tess could no stop her desire. She was past child-bearing, his ultimate authority figure here at the school, 4 times his age. He was her student.

And she wanted him.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/54845.html. You can comment here or there.

Guest Post:Characterization

Jun10

The following is a guest post from Sharon T. Rose, a fellow weblit author. Sharon can be found on Twitter at @sharontherose

Characterization

If you want to write, you have to be paying attention. This goes for anything you want to write, whether it’s a novel, a comic, a game, a song, or what-have-you. Pay attention to real life, because your experiences are the best research you could ever do.

Now, this is not carte blanche to put all your friends and family into your writing; odds are that someone will be upset at how you choose to portray them. However, the way that your acquaintances do things will be invaluable to making your writing more realistic. Every person has unique mannerisms and habits that make them who they are. Does your writing have its own idiosyncrasies to make it come alive?

Say you’re writing something that’s supposed to make the reader feel anger. It’s a scene of betrayal, treason, stupidity, violence, whatever. It’s an intense scene, but how do you make sure that the audience really gets into the heart of the action? Maybe it’s the grin on one person’s face. Maybe it’s a peculiar word choice. A change in body language. A gesture. An attitude, a glance. What does an angry person look like? Pay attention to how real people express themselves.

Example: A friend of mine was going through a horrible situation. As I gave her friendship and comfort, she poured out her heart. Anger, fear, pain, and determination filled her voice, creased her brows, flavored the tears on her lashes, trembled her voice, shook her hands. She slumped in her seat, gripped her fists, worked her jaw, pierced the night with the fire in her gaze. She ranged from terror to despair to rage to acceptance to resolve. So much poured through her heart and mind that she became physically exhausted, yet her hands twitched whenever she thought about it.

Of course, I stayed focused on my friend and on being with her through the event, but a corner of my mind couldn’t hold back from thinking about ways to apply this observation to my writing. If I don’t give my readers a figurative knife, writing that “the air was thick with tension” won’t cut it. The best fiction is based in reality, founded on things that we know and can experience. The more variation in the experience, the more realistic it is and the more the audience will identify it.

Everyone has a different approach to life. Some people are head-on, no-nonsense. If you’re writing that character, add detail to emphasizes that. Not “He was a no-nonsense kind of person”. Tell us how he’s no-nonsense, show us how he becomes impatient with emotion or excessive details or disorganization. As you spend time with a real person who is “head-on”, observe how that disposition becomes evident. Does the person talk about it all the time, complaining or offering advice? Does the person simply act, straightening all the french fries and ordering them by size? What proof is there of the attitude?

Another example: Artwork. Ever use a coloring book? Pages of printed line art just waiting to be colored in. The lines give us definition, tell us what the image is and where to apply our crayons. But it’s boring. It lacks depth and life. Once you started shading, adding colors and hatchmarks and scribbles, the picture suddenly becomes more real. Line art is like pure logic, setting boundaries and giving basic definition. But it isn’t complete. Shading and colors are like emotions, making a picture or situation more real. Yet it’s hard to understand an image that’s just a bunch of colors and squiggles. You need both.

The audience needs to know that the character is so tall with this hair and that attitude. That’s the logic, the outline. But it’s the mannerisms, the choice of words and the little motions that color in all the detail and bring the readers right where you want them to be. Yes, you can get the picture with just lines or just colors, but it’s better with both.

And remember to never use 10,000 words when 10 will do. A few carefully chosen details often give more punch than a chapter’s worth. Make every detail count; make the most of every word. And make the most of what life offers you.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/54713.html. You can comment here or there.

30daysmeme, Arguing

Jun9

Day 6 of 30 days of Fiction: “6) Write a scene with people talking, but without any actual dialog”

This is the direct sequel to Visiting the Neighbors.

My middle child was very persuasive.

I shouldn’t be surprised; she’s her father’s daughter as much as she’s mine. But she, the best and worst of both of us, was leaning every single bit of her not-inconsiderable inherited charm on me. Wheedling. Arguing. Bargaining.

My darling husband, who might have stood a chance, had ceded the field to me, claiming that this counted, in division of labor, as a “mom argument.” Bless him. And I, who was never the charmer they were, was stuck using cold hard logic against all the convincing powers a ten-year-old could put forth.

She wanted to babysit the neighbor’s newly-hatched baby. Not the Halflings down the road, or even the harpy-people, no, my baby girl wanted to babysit a baby dragon. And she was pouring on the pleases and promises and coaxing and sulking.

I’d been married to her father for twenty-five years. I stood there, the immovable object, telling her no. No. It wasn’t safe. It wasn’t even feasible. How could she change a diaper she couldn’t touch? How would she deal with acid spit-up? The thing had a siren cry that made those harpies sound quiet. And her schoolwork was just getting really intense. She was going to need good grades now to get into a good academy.

Still she pled. She’d be good. She’d do the dishes. She’d give half her earnings to charity. It would be good for her applications, inter-species work. After-school job. Responsibility and civic duty. The baby was so cute.

Still I balked. It wasn’t safe, it wasn’t healthy, and she wasn’t equipped to handle the needs of a dragon infant. She might hurt the baby. She might get hurt. I might have a heart attack. She could start this Friday.

I mentioned she was very persuasive, right?

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/54017.html. You can comment here or there.

30daysmeme, Visiting the Neigbors

Jun9

Day 5 of 30 days of Fiction: “5) Write a scene entirely in dialog.”

This is the direct sequel to Hatching, and references “Damn dragons, get off my lawn!”

“I hope the noise isn’t bothering you.”

“Not at all. We were just curious; we’ve never seen a baby dragon before.”

“Oh! Well, come on in, the hatching is nearly over. Mind your step, little Cthannie is teething. Right through here…”

“You’ve done wonders with the place.”

“Oh, well, it had good bones. The ogres didn’t leave much but bones. But it had good bones. And here’s our little darling. Don’t worry, the asbestos diaper will protect you.”

“Oh, eee, adorable! Such tiny little claws and teeth! And those ears!”

“They grow into the ears.”

“And the scales? You two are both such warm, fiery colors, and your baby is blue? I’ve never seen a blue dragon.”

“Darling, you’re being rude.”

“No, not at all. The blue fades after a few months into purple, and shifts to red when they’re nearly grown-up. The middle stage can be a little awkward, though.”

“Oh, you mean like Jimmy? Oh, my, I’m sorry, that was horribly rude.”

“Like Jimmy, yes. Scales peeling, shifting colors in spots. He’s nearly done with the awkward stage now.”

“…”

“…”

“Burrrrrrrraaaap!”

“…”

“…”

“Your baby really is lovely. Do the acid belches last for long?

“Oh, hardly any time at all. Here, let me get that for you. Sorry to be so familiar, but dragon spittle has an acid neutralizer.”

“Somehow, I am not surprised. Congratulations on the newest addition to the Smith family; I think perhaps we should be heading home.”

“Thank you, thank you, and do come over any time.”

“Mommy! Mommy, oooh, ooh, so adorable can I hold it can I please?”

“Ah. Hem. This is our daughter, Juniper. Terribly sorry about that.”

“No problem at all. They seem to be getting along quite well, don’t they?”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/53801.html. You can comment here or there.

DailyPrompt: Missing

Jun7

From [community profile] dailyprompt

Her lips lingered on his, her hands on his hips, memorizing his taste (salty), his scent (just a bit sour, as it was after a long day of work), the way his eye crinkled at the corners, the way his hands felt on her back. “I’ll be back,” she murmured.

“I’ll be here,” he replied. For the moment they said it, it was the truth. For the moment of their farewell, it was complete, and real, and more than a little touching.

Science and trial and error had shown that humans needed the emotional stepping stones of farewells, of leave-takings. Experience on the long liner trips, though, had shown that things left behind, memories, roots to the earth, did nothing but hamper the pilots and explorers. They needed to be free to fly, and they needed their nest when they returned.

And so there were those like him, and like me, who minded the home fires. Who were there to be lovers and spouses and anchors when the explorers were on earth. Who were there to be forgotten when they left the planet. Loved but never missed. And never knowing what we missed, either, because we, as much as they, forget when our backs our turned.

We cannot waste our time in pining any more than they can. There are few of us, and many of them.

Prompt: what we miss because we forget

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/53112.html. You can comment here or there.

30daysmeme, Hostage Situation (Dragons Next Door Setting0

Jun7

Day 4 of 30 days of Fiction: “4) Prompt: a hostage situation”

I came home from the library to find my husband and our oldest child watching what we affectionately called “the grown-up TV,” the one we didn’t allow the younger children to watch. They were both frowning, their shoulders curled forward in identical postures of unhappiness (if I didn’t have the evidence of my own senses to rely on, I would doubt that our oldest had any of me at all, so close was the resemblance to my husband). They had been fighting a lot lately, so it had to be something monumental to get them this close, this mutually tensed.

“What is it?” I asked, already dreading the answer.

“Hostage situation downtown,” my husband answered tensely. “The baddie’s claiming if they don’t meet his demands, he’ll eat the hostages.”

“What are his demands?”

“Ketchup,” my oldest answered darkly. My glare got a shrug and an aggrieved “what? I mean, it’s not what they’re saying, but even the ogres didn’t like to eat raw meat without some sort of flavor.”

I turned my attention to my spouse, who is generally more rational than our children. “They’re not telling us, actually. I have a feeling it’s bad.” There was a keening in the back of his throat, like a dog eager to hunt. He might have retired from the force, but they tell me the urges and habits never really fade.

“It’s not a dragon, is it?” I liked the Smiths, and they took that sort of thing hard.

Both of them looked at me oddly. It was my oldest, voice choked, who answered me.

“It’s a human.”

Next: Ketchup 

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/52939.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable