Tag Archive | character: leofric

Camp NaNoWriMo – Autumn Lightning

As I described last week, my Camp Nano project is a continuation/hopeful finishing of the Autumn Lightning project, a story about (three-people-in-one-body) following Leo around, sometimes accidentally, throughout the years after the apocalypse.

While one of the appeals of this story was being able to bounce around – it’s actually something like 40 connected short stories – I’m still on Cabin in the Woods.  This is part III – where Leo and Nathan (At this point being steered by The Other, the protector-face who uses They pronouns) go to get Leo’s weapons back from the slavers who’d captured Leo – and to deal with said slavers, too.

 

A man fell with a thump at the Other’s feet. They looked down at the man and then back up at Leo, twice, before deciding that Leo was done with this one.

They’d reached the third floor of the place and left it christened in death. Leo moved like a panther; three times the Social One had needed to remind the Other that they were not there just to watch, because Leo seemed to move like he required an audience, like the world itself said he should be watched.

You’re not normally this poetic. Are we killing this one?

The Other looked down at the man at his feet, back up at Leo, who was toying with a woman who didn’t realize she was being played with, and down at the man. “Slaver?” they snarled, quietly enough that it shouldn’t interrupt Leo.

The woman yelped as Leo caught her by surprise. The Other smiled broadly.

The man gulped and tried to scoot backwards, although he seemed dazed, one of his legs broken. “N-no, No, of course not. I’m – I’m-”

Lying, Social offered, as if the Other couldn’t figure that out for themselves.

Words so far this month: 7690

Goal thru yesterday: 7400

Camp NaNoWriMo – Autumn Lightning

So, a year and a half ago or so, I wrote this story – Lightning in Autumn – to Inspector Caracals (Cal’s) prompt.

This story features Leofric Lightning-Blade, from Addergoole: Ghost Story (before he was Lightning Blade), the Princess and the Elf AU/Fanfiction, approximately 8 million stories in 7 million AUs on my blog, and probably half that many or more on Cal’s blog. In addition to prominently featuring Leo,  it’s from the point of view of a man named Nathan, who is actually three people in one body – Public Face, Social Face, and The Other (though that doesn’t really come up in that story).

Then I… kept writing the story.  Through the apoc and out the other side and I kept going until it was 100000 words of a gay romance post-apoc travel journal exploration of Addergoole.

For Camp Nano this year, I’m trying to finish it! Continue reading

A scribble and a doodle of a story map

Originally posted on Patreon in March 2019 and part of the Great Patreon Crossposting to WordPress.

So I’m writing a particularly moving-around-heavy portion of a story.

Nathen saw the stairway down between two stoops going upward…. There was a closed and locked door in front of them.  Nathen glared.  Sure, opening it wouldn’t be hard – but it would be obvious.

Oh.  The Social one perked up.  Turn.

Nathen turned to the right.  The door there was almost invisible – no knob, hidden hinges, painted the same color as the wall.  He gave it a careful push.

The door swung open into a narrow hallway.  He pushed the door shut behind him and whispered a dark-sight Working just as the light from the entryway vanished.  Forward….

…He made his way down stairs that were half-gone…

…”You don’t want to go out the front.  This way.”…

…They were out the back door, up another set of stairs, and into a narrow strip of yard quickly after that.  Their guide took a quick look around and headed straight back, towards the next row of yards.  There was a gap in the fence – the Other mended it behind them – and a narrow alleyway between two buildings.

They zig-zagged through three more blocks in quick succession, leaving subtle obstructions where they would seem coincidental, until they reached a semi-collapsed row of brownstones.

So, of course, first I had to figure out this weird layout, which I did during a rather long meeting.

And then, when I started writing them fleeing, well, yes, I Excel’d up a whole set of like 6 city blocks of brownstone-style houses.

And then I figured out how to draw Nathen’s route (and then with Leo) through this neighborhood to the place where they end up.

Which, no, doesn’t have a floor plan yet.

Red dashed line on the Excel map is their route; grey is roads, green is yard and alleyways, black dotted lines are fences, and house-shapes that are in dashed lines are in a state of broken, half-falling-apart, maybe-a-dragon-landed here.

Big dragon.  Small Godzilla.  You know.

Want more?

Safety Lesson – a story for Patreon

Originally posted on Patreon in August 2018 and part of the Great Patreon Crossposting to WordPress.

It wouldn’t be a “Thunderstorms” month without a story about Leofric Lightning-Blade, my absolutely most favorite god (sometimes) of lightning.This is set in the Cloverleaf Era – i.e., more than 50 years after the 2011 apocalypse. 

Azule watched from the shelter of a nearby tree, although that was less and less seeming like shelter and more like lightning rod.

The man she had been sent to scout was doing her a favor, although she was certain that he didn’t know it.  He was standing in a ragged circle of children and a few adults, all of them watching in rapt attention as he explained to them what lightning could do if you weren’t careful.

No, not lightning.  He was showing them electricity.

“Like this.”  He murmured a Working and turned towards the forest.  For a moment, Azule thought she’d been found.  But he headed off at an angle from her, all of the children following.  “Give me some distance,” he warned them.  “This might get messy.”

A few moments later, as Azule shifted from tree branch to tree branch, the little group came upon a very, very large boar.  The thing was rooting up trees that were taller than the ones Azule was sitting in, and from the looks of things, it had been doing similar damage for a while.

“Not the sort of thing you want around?” The man seemed to be asking the children, but Azule could see several of the adults nodding their agreement. “All right, kids.  Now, the thing to remember is that these creatures, they are a lot bigger than you.  And they’re going to be able to take a lot more damage than you can.  Like-”  He moved out of the way of the children as the boar noticed him.  Azule could barely catch the Working he did that made the bystanders invisible to the boar, but the creature charged straight at him, ignoring the humans.

“This!”  In a move that was far showier than it needed to be, he sent lightning down into the creature, electrocuting it – and yet it still stumbled to its feet again.

“Now, it’s the size of all of you put together.  So maybe one bolt won’t do it.  But when -”  he zapped the creature with a much smaller-looking bolt  and took a step back, like a docent leading a tour.  “-you touch a wire, your muscles lock up, and all of that lightning is going to hit you all at once.  Got it?  And since none of you are nearly as tough as this boar…”

He finished off the boar with a last zzzap of lightning and a grin.  Azule took the moment to slip away.  She had the information she needed.

 

Want more?

The Princess and the Elf now on AO3

Cal and I are writing a fanfic of a story that…. Cal and I wrote.

Summary:

Year Six: How things might’ve gone, if things hadn’t gone the worst way possible.

A much lighter AU-treatment of a couple characters from Addergoole: A Ghost Story, where Cynara’s dad successfully hid and Leofric got dumped. (Because who says you can’t write fanfic of your own stories? )

You can read it here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15423672/chapters/35798619.  Cal will be posting a “chapter” a day until we run out.

 

 

I was lightning before the thunder

Okay, I guess you shouldn’t let me listen to Imagine Dragons’ Thunder anymore. 

This is 100% self-indulgent and I have no idea what timeline it fits in, or anything but that it’s well after the founding of Cloverleaf but before Cya decides it’s time for a new project. 

 

There was a god at the gates of Cloverleaf — floating a little above the gates, to be accurate  — and he was declaiming in a loud and booming voice that he was the god of thunder.

The Guard force did not laugh at him, mostly because they had been trained to be polite to visitors, but when the mayor of Cloverleaf arrived, she had no such training and no such manners.

She looked the would-be God up and down  — somehow managing, although he was hovering above her position on the wall, to make it look like she was looking down on him.  “Boy, you want to be a god of thunder? You have no idea what you’re dealing with.”

She smiled.  She had already put a lock on his powers while she walked up here, and she found it was fun to be able to posture a bit.

“Here in Cloverleaf,” she informed the would-be god, “we have the Lightning.”

It needed a proper power chord intro, because she was rock and roll and not anime.  One of the far guards indulged her.

Guitar music screamed from nowhere.  Someone handled the percussion.

And, as if on cue, Leo arrived.

 

Cya, Leo, and Boom – untangling the timelines

So, it turns out, when you get [personal profile] inventrix and I together, what you end up with is a whole lot of different timelines for the same characters.

This is as comprehensive as I can come up with a list of Cya-Leo-Boom timelines we might have posted stories for.

[personal profile] inventrix, if I’ve missed something, misrepresented something, or mislaid something, please let me know!

It appears that the turning points are:

1) When Leo (and thus Cya) gets sane. In canon, and in timelines that could be canon, that happens after Cya builds Cloverleaf, which itself is ~40 years after they attend Addergoole (see Ghost Story).
2) Whether Cya Keeps Leo or he swears an oath of obedience and service to her.
3) If/When they come to the realization that what Cya wants from Leo is not what Leo can provide

“Cya cried,” he says, a little too matter of fact, “because she’s accepted I’m not going to love her back.”
“…The fuck you say?”
“Not the way she wants, at least.”

“So, the basics are simple enough, you’ve got me,” he holds out one hand, “and Cya,” he holds out the other, “and we both care about each other way too much. The problem is, Cya has like a tragic romance thing going on because she wants me to be in love with her back, but like… whatever the hell I feel, it’s not that, and I don’t care what that stupid kid says,” he adds in an annoyed mutter, “I’m not going to go pretending to feel something I don’t when it’s just going to fuck everything up in the end and it’s none of his fucking business anyway.”
Leo pauses and clears his throat a little awkwardly. “…anyway, so. Her side, nice, fairly straightforward, normal romantic obsession. My side, some kind of weird martyr Kept knight thing. Which would be fine except like, the one thing Cya wants more than anything in pretty much the whole world is to be attached to just one guy who will actually, you know, love her back? You’d think after–” He stops himself from tangenting this time. “So since I’m obviously not that guy, I talked her into trying dating so she’s at least meeting people who aren’t fresh Addergoole grad Kept with issues.”

4) Whether they all flip the F out and kill everyone their first year.

Is Absolutely Canon
Addergoole: Year Nine
Addergoole: A Ghost Story

Probably Canon
That story about Cya ordering Leo not to die.

Could be Canon but aren’t Yet.
The Sword and Lady Timeline — this includes most of the currently-posted stuff on DW/LJ, where Leo gets punched by Carew, Luke tries to apologize to Mike, etc.

The Thistle Timeline — hey, it couldtotally fit within canon! This is the one in which Cya dies but resurrects(reincarnates) and Leo has to cope with all of that while Thistle-Cya copes with being 10 years old with memories of a 100-year-old in love with Leo.
I’d just re-read Thief of Time.

Definitely Not Canon
Sane!Cya Timeline — I think the only thing posted of this is something called “Sane!Cya and Panlong,” in which the man who unwittingly participated in Cya’s son Yoshi’s torment as a Kept, Panlong, actually doesn’t end up getting TOO horrid of a deal…
This is the timeline where Leo has a psychotic break after Cya locks him in the barn (this is a fixed moment in time) and comes out the other side sane.

Black Knight/Chess Timeline — In which Leo gets an army, starts taking over the West Coast, and achieves godhead. Also in which Luke ends up Kept by Cya, flappy wing bongage, and such things.

Expelled Timeline — in which we’re not entirely sure what happened but Boom gets expelled in their first year, their memories wiped, and sent home, or in Cya’s case, to a foster home.

Leo Dies — in which we misread Inventrix’s rp, Leo suicides, Cya tries to blow up the earth with Abatu Eperu (destroy Earth), and in the end Howard talks her down and she and Zita heal Leo’s body, find his soul, and shove it back in.
Cya feels strongly about Leo dying, okay? 🙂

Fixed Moments in Time
These happen in pretty much everything but Expelled

  • The Ranch: As the end of the world looms, all of Boom, their kids, and their closest allies (and some allies’ kids) go to live on a ranch in wyoming and slowly take over the territory.
  • Cya Locks Leo in a Barn: She has a cell for such things, because Cya believes in being prepared. So when delusional!Leo decides he’s going to leave them all so he can go fight monsters and probably die but they’ll survive, the crew tracks him down, literally force him into the van, and tie him up in the cell until he promises not to do that
  • Cloverleaf and Doomsday: Cya gets sick of putting Addergoole people back together after the fact and builds her own school in what was once Montana. Because she’s like that, she also builds a city around it. And then starts trade routes. And then…

I might add links later. I might bribe people to add tags to things later – I’m totally willing to do that! But for the nonce, this is what I’ve got.

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Chapter 1: Leofric
by Inspector Caracal

Tuesday, September 5, 2000

Leofric pulled his backpack out of his gym locker, slinging it over his shoulder with a cheerful smile at one of his classmates (kinda tall, muscular, and answering his smile with a glower that practically said “what’re you looking at”) before making his way past and out the door. It was the end of the school day, which normally he didn’t care about much — but this school day was only the second at his new school, Addergoole. His new boarding school. New, underground boarding school.

Plus, he had PE last, which meant that he got out earlier than the other classes and could avoid the usual packed halls. Leofric had been surprised how such a tiny school — barely even a hundred students! — could get such crowded halls, but as he’d realized yesterday after classes ended, the halls were really narrow.

read on…

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Addergoole Is Back! Ghost Story, Chapter 1: Leofric

Addergoole – Chapter 1: Leofric

Leofric pulled his backpack out of his gym locker, slinging it over his shoulder with a cheerful smile at one of his classmates (kinda tall, muscular, and answering his smile with a glower that practically said “what’re you looking at”) before making his way past and out the door. It was the end of the school day, which normally he didn’t care about much — but this school day was only the second at his new school, Addergoole. His new boarding school. New, underground boarding school.

Plus, he had PE last, which meant that he got out earlier than the other classes and could avoid the usual packed halls. Leofric had been surprised how such a tiny school — barely even a hundred students! — could get such crowded halls, but as he’d realized yesterday after classes ended, the halls were really narrow.

read on…

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1264623.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable