Tag Archive | character: winter

Family Distancing

Why, no, I’m not going through all my settings and seeing how they’d reacting to a pandemic.  I mean, well, maybe a little.  Any you want to see?

😷

 

Winter, Autumn, Summer, and Spring.

😷

“6 p.m. Eastern,” Summer was saying as Autumn logged on.  “You were early, Winter, of course.  Spring’s late, of course.”

“She is on the West Coast,” Winter retorted mildly.  He was wearing his work shirt and tie sans jacket and he’d loosened the tie.  The whole image looked very professional against his home bookshelf, if you ignored the fact that he was holding Tortuga, his half-grown cat, while Myrrh, his ferret, climbed the bookshelf and Dehradun, his kitten, napped on the laptop keyboard. 

Autumn giggled, even though it might not be kind. Of all of them, she’d have expected Summer to be the pet owner, not Winter. 

“She is,” Autumn agreed, “and being on time would disagree with her.  How are you both?” Continue reading

Torte Law and Myrrh Gifts

Originally posted on Patreon in October 2019 and part of the Great Patreon Crossposting to WordPress.
Torte Law and Myrrh Gifts
Winter had not meant to have pets.

He was not – any of his-coworkers, his family, his contacts, or his very few friends would agree – generally what one would consider a pet person.  Pets were inherently messy, disorderly, and noisy.  A woman at a previous job had once suggested he might have a very pure-bred sort of cat, like a Siamese, or perhaps a greyhound (“Long and sleek, like you,”) but he had never seriously considered it.

The cat had come first. Torte (“Tortuga”) had been stuck in a newspaper box on the side of the road on Winter’s commute.  The cat – then barely more than a kitten – had been clearly miserable, terrified, and starving.  Winter had paid for a paper, used a little bit of Strand-smoothing to get the box to actually open, and taken the kitten and the rather soiled paper out.

The kitten had come with him to work; the paper had gone in the nearest recyling bin.  When none of his co-workers expressed interest in a kitten, Winter had to admit he was a little relieved (if only to himself, and possibly to Autumn, when she called).  He’d already grown fond of the little thing, feeding it on little containers of half-and-half and packets of tuna.

The ferret had been even more of an accident.  A neighbor downstairs had moved out but somehow lost their ferret in the move.  When Winter found the ferret several days later – Torte found the ferret; Winter just convinced the cat that it wasn’t just a strange mouse – Winter had fed it, bathed it, put it in a ferret-safe (Strand Working had its uses) box, and tried to reach the former owner.

Who, inexplicably, did not want their ferret back. No, they’d moved on, they had a new place, they didn’t need a stinky fur-snake anymore, thanks.  Winter was welcome to the thing.

He renamed the stinky fur-snake Myrrh  (it didn’t seem to mind) and took the time to make sure Myrrh and Torte could get along.  He also called his sister Summer and suggested a few things she might do with her ability to curse people and places she might aim those curses.

He called their mother about some Strand-spells for the smell (which wasn’t all that bad, as long as Myrrh was taken care of) and for the fur (which was always going to be an issue, called a vet he’d done a favor for about what he should be feeding them, and learned how to keep his suits immaculate and his animals healthy and happy.

When the parrot showed up on his doorstep (more or less literally), however, he found someone else who was looking for a pet.

Two was enough, he told himself.

Until another little kitten appeared in his path, shivering in the snow.

Three was enough, he told himself, wrapping the creature up in a handkerchief and tucking it in his jacket pocket.  Three, and no more.

Want more?

January 2018 Stranded World on Patreon

Hello my friends!  It has been an immensely weird month, but I did post a lot on Patreon.

Below is everything Stranded World I posted in January – some stories, some meta, a little more meta, and some links.  Winter featured heavily this month.  I find that interesting.

Free Posts

Mending Strands
The room felt wrong.  His sisters, Winter thought, might have said that it was creepy or oogy or sick, although sometimes sick was a good thing.

This Guy and Autumn could compare notes…
 5 Tips for Planning (and Surviving) a Mega Road Trip

Talk about a quest. Two years ago, Mikah Meyer set out to become the youngest person to visit all 417 U.S. National Park Service sites. Since then, the 31-year-old…

Metaphor for Stranded World?
There are not really enough pictures out there of strings of light or strings connecting people, so when I’m looking for pictures for Stranded World, I come up with some pretty interesting things.
All right, let’s talk about Summer’s clothes….
Winter’s Clothes
First, two notes:

One:  I think that Winter engages in a combination of actually knowing how to tailor his own clothing and using strand-working to make everything lie Just So, because I do not picture any of the RoundTree siblings particularly rich (Summer might be, eventually, but who knows?) but damn, the man dresses like a million bucks.

Autumn at the Ren Faire
I was playing around a little with Pinterest and Image Search today. 

Here’s some pictures that are pretty close to Autumn’s garb at the Ren Fest, although her costumes are almost always in red, orange, gold, and brown. 

The Stranded World
If you’re new to my settings, you may be wondering what this Stranded World is all about.

So here are a couple worldbuilding reposts talking about the magic of the Stranded world!

Small Town, USA
Autumn spends a lot of time in really small towns.  I mean, some of that is just that’s what she seems to like, but you’d think she’d spend more time in big cities that have big craft festivals, wouldn’t you?  I mean, she’s trying to make enough of a living to pay for the occasional inn or motel or Bed N’ Breakfast room, and those aren’t cheap.

I like small towns.

A long, long time ago
I can still remember how
Maggie’s Ell Jay made me think
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make words sing and dance
And maybe make them think, too, for a while
.♪♫♪

Ahem. 

A long time ago, M.C.A. Hogarth posted something in her LJ about tropes she’d like to see.  One of them – which I have tried more than once to write – was about the young male (it might have been a mage?) recruiting the older female (fighter?)

Everyone gets their inspiration from somewhere; every setting has its seeds in something.Stranded – well, Autumn – came out of the book Blue Highways.

According to Wikipedia, this book came out in 1982.  I don’t think I read it that early at all – I would’ve been six – but someone recommended it to my father, and I read it.  I was probably in my early teens.

Locked Posts

For a portion of every year, Autumn lives out of her van, travelling from Craft Fest to Ren Faire to City Historical Days, selling her art and sometimes solving mysteries.

The first time Byron RoundTree saw the strands, he thought he was tripping.To be fair to By, he had been partaking in some interesting substances for the last forty-eight hours in a mostly-peaceful tribal gathering of people deep in a national park.

Curtains
🎭
Winter wasn’t surprised when he came in to find the new temp crying.

Their job wasn’t the sort of place that lent itself easily to short-term or temporary help, and yet their supervisor, intent on getting caught up on her filing, kept trying.

 

Continue reading

Patreon: A trunk story and a repost~

It’s not quite a kaiju story… but it involves Aliens, at least? According to the address on this, I submitted it at over five years ago, at my last apartment.
🛋️
The Center was slow today; in three hours, Amy hadn’t seen more than half a dozen refugees pass her desk. Maybe – though there was faint hope of it – the war was finally winding down?
<a href=https://www.patreon.com/posts/trunk-story-for-11894099Free for all “Trunk” Level Patrons!



Originally posted Mar. 7, 2012
💐

“I do not know what this is.”

Winter frowned at the glass rose that had appeared in his office mail cube; behind him, Latricia laughed.

“It’s a rose. It’s not going to bite you.”

Read on!!


This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1341567.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Two old Patreon Stories: now open for everyone to read

After discussing it with my Patreon patrons, I’ve decided that any Patreon story written as a continuation of an extant public story will be made available for general consumption after three months. Here’s the first two.


This story includes portions originally posted http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/665445.html and http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/697268.html to make a complete story.
❄️
There was something amiss with Winter’s sister.

With the oldest of Winter’s sisters and the most steady, the most easy-going, the least likely to have things go amiss.

Read on!!


This is written to Clare K. R. Miller ‘s request for More Daxton & Esha.
~~
Daxton was captive again, struggling not to take it in ill grace. This time, it seemed unlikely that Esha could rescue him.

It was a captivity far more posh and sometimes far less comfortable than his time in the Red Queen’s dungeons.

Read On!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1341151.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Hazards of Sisters – a ficlet of Winter/Stranded

In the past – when Winter is in his late teens
❄️️
Winter leaned forward, his lips only a millimeter from Karen Schneider’s.

He could feel the place where the Strands were about to be disturbed. He could see the disturbance, even with his eyes closed.

He kissed her anyway. Kissed her and then wrapped an arm around her and rolled them both to the side.

“What!” she gasped and tried to pull away, but Winter had practice with this, if not with Karen.

The water balloons hit the tree behind them, right where they would have been if he hadn’t rolled them.

Winter released Karen and rolled off to his side so she didn’t feel the least bit restricted, just as his little sisters ran up to him.

“Winter!” Summer complained. “You cheated!

Karen was finally catching up with what was going on. “You saw them coming?”

“Heard them,” he temporized. “I like this shirt. I imagined you didn’t want it getting soaked.”

It was a nice mint-green top, thin enough that even dry, he could see the lines of her bra strap through it. Wet, it would have left nothing at all to the imagination.

She blushed. “Thanks. Thanks, it’s just… you startled me.”

“You cheated,” Summer repeated.

“No.” Winter had far too much practice not getting irritated with his sisters. “As I recall, you three promised not to bother Karen and I for at least an hour. So I’d say you cheated.”

“Come on.” Autumn took Summer and Spring’s arms and steered them away. “He’s not any fun when he has company.”

Winter appreciated the gesture, but he could see that it was already too late for this particular date.

Want More?

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1270515.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Leftovers, ficlets of the Stranded World, are available on Patreon for all to read

The story that began with this little series…

The RoundTree Siblings Prepare for Thanksgiving

The Family That Knots Together

A Family Tree

…is completed here on Patreon.

“Your mother is something else.”  Marina glanced at the back seat of WInter’s sensible and spacious sedan, where Mila and Henry were sleeping.  “Your family is… is something else.”

Winter smiled, because he thought it would make her uncomfortable if he frowned.  “Is that a good thing?”… (read on…)

Pledge now and read all my stories!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1114434.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Leftovers – A Patreon Story

This is the requested continuation of the following stories:

The RoundTree Siblings Prepare for Thanksgiving

The Family That Knots Together

A Family Tree

“Your mother is something else.”  Marina glanced at the back seat of WInter’s sensible and spacious sedan, where Mila and Henry were sleeping.  “Your family is… is something else.”

Winter smiled, because he thought it would make her uncomfortable if he frowned.  “Is that a good thing?” Continue reading

Private Party, a story of Stranded World, now up on Patreon for patrons

The story that began with this little series…

A Wink…
Nothing Could Possib-lie Go Wrong (Summer)
Places One Doesn’t Go (Winter)
At Home (Spring)
Sight and Sense (Autumn)

…is completed here on Patreon.

The man glared at Summer through the tilted fence panel. He wasn’t a pleasant-looking man; he had stringy hair and a weedy beard, a greasy, pallid complexion and notable body odor. But he was an important man, at least at the moment. “This is a private party!”

Summer’s cheeks were flushed and she was just about ready to die. She’d gone through this fence before — with her mother, when she was very young, then later with Winter and Autumn, and later still, all five of them together. She’d stepped a little sideways, and… what had gone wrong this time?

She coughed. “Sir, I’m sorry… (read on…)

Pledge now and read all my stories!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1108032.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable