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Shoot the Moon, Pow, Bow

Jul12

For flofx‘s Commissioned Continuation of Eggshells and Lineman’s Hopes.

Long before Guarding the Church and referencing Strange Neighbors.

He came around the Stanton Arms and the park like he owned the area, walking in with a swagger like he was the strongest guy in the place.

Tia Lian hated him immediately. This was her street, her neighborhood. She didn’t need some big sleek guy with slicked back hair and a shiny smile coming in. She didn’t need no fairy who screamed fey from every line of his body to take over when she was just sort-of-fey-around-the-edges. She didn’t need him.

So she ignored him, while the others flooded around him. “Who are you? What are you doing here? Where are you from?”

And he just smiled.

“What kind of fairy are you? Are your family from around here, did you come from the Other Place? You’re fey, right? You’ve got to be fey, tell us you’re fey.”

And he just smiled.

“Do you play? You like games, right? We’re playing Cowboys and Indians and the Wild Fey, come on, you can be an Indian.”

And he just smiled, and made a hand gesture like he was pulling guns out of his pockets, pointed at the two in front, and said, “Bow, bow. Dead.”

“That’s not how you play!” Tia Lian jumped up as the two staggered, playing dead very convincingly. “The Indians don’t get guns. The Indians get bows and arrows and the wild fae get spears and the cowboys, they get guns!”

He just smiled, and holstered his invisible guns.

Tia was enraged. “That’s not how you play!”

He wouldn’t answer, which just made her angrier. Nothing but “bow, bow.”

“Let him play a cowboy, then,” one of her friends urged. “He can have my hat. I bet he’d make an awesome cowboy, with those guns.”

“Those are just his fingers!”

“Your spear’s just your hand, what’s your point? Come on, he’s new, let him be the cowboy.”

“That’s not how it works! I’ve been here longest, I get to be the cowboy!”

“You get to be the fairy, you’re the best fairy we have.”

That almost placated her. “I do pretty good at the fairying thing,” she admitted.

At that, the new stranger nodded. He pulled out his invisible gun and shot up into the air. “Bow, bow. The moon.”

“He thinks you hang the moon! See, come on, let him be the cowboy this time!”

Tia had already determined that they would never let her be the cowboy, but that didn’t mean she had to take it in good grace. Besides, she knew that “shoot the moon” wasn’t the same as “hang the moon,” but she wasn’t sure it was a compliment either way.

“Fine.” She couldn’t sulk without looking like the bad guy, which just made her want to sulk even more. “He can be the cowboy. But you know what they say, cowboy. Watch out for trech’rous fairies.”

“I thought the Indians were supposed to be trech’rous!” Her minions were beginning to grate on her. She gave them all her best evil-girl smile.

“That’s what we want you to think.” She made a stabbing gesture, aiming for the new guy’s armpit. He caught her imaginary spear in his heart, and staggered backwards, falling to the ground.

“Bao, bao,” he whispered. Under the shadow of a borrowed hat, he winked at her. “Right in the heart.”

Tia Lian felt an echoing stab in her own heart. “Tia Bao,” she corrected him.

Everything after that was just formalities.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/369935.html. You can comment here or there.

Paradox and… a story of Superheroes

Jul1

For [personal profile] imaginaryfiend‘s commissioned continuation of Returned Paradox

I was born to death.

I was born to the memory of a dead woman, forty weeks to the day after Paradox Maverick died, and I was told so, in whispers and glances and blasted macaroni and cheese on my birthday every year. I was born, it seemed when I was younger, to echo her back to my mother’s companions, to look like her in every way I could.

Sometimes I think that she did it on purpose, Paradox, tinkered with my genetics in the womb to put them off the scent, as it were, to make them keep looking in the wrong place and never think to look where they should have. I wonder, if she did that, if she had any idea how well she would succeed?

Here I am, now, exactly what they created, exactly what I created, and not what they would have had me be. Nothing, nothing, I might add, like Paradox Maverick, may she rot in a cold cell in the darkest corner of Hell.

I am Order. And today is my eighteenth birthday.

There will be macaroni and cheese. There will always be macaroni and cheese. And my mother will buy me a pretty dress, and I will wear it. It will be the last thing I wear that I did not choose myself. And it will be the last time I eat macaroni and cheese. Today, I am going to start my plans. Today, I am going to begin my empire.

~

“Bit serious, are you?”

The window was open. The window was not supposed to be open. Marciana looked up, frowned, and then felt her frown deepen from mere irritation to true anger.

“You don’t belong here.”

“Oh, but let’s be honest, neither do you.” The girl in the window was green, her hair blue, her wings – she had wings, humans did not have nor need wings – purple. She looked like she’d been dropped in a tye-dye pot. “You know it. All those tidy little notes in your journal. Didn’t anyone tell you that the primary flaw of villains is monologuing? Get in the habit and they’ll never stop. I’m Arsenic, by the way.”

“Lovely villain name. And I’m not a villain. I’m a hero. See,” she gestured at the tower they were in. “The Tower of Truth? Heroes live here.”

“Heroes and their kids. And Arsenic isn’t my villain name, it’s my given name.”

“Who names their kid Arsenic?” Because she was a kid, as much as Marciana was, maybe-eighteen, probably-less.

“Who names the daughter of two heroes Marsha?”

“It’s Marciana.”

“It’s Marsha with a flourish. Seriously. They knew they were going to let you grow up in the public eye. They knew they were already thinking of little Parry when you were born. Why in the world would they name you Marsha? Did they want you to turn evil?”

It was too much like her own thoughts. She squinted at the tye-dyed fairy. “Are you another one like Szec Mzip Wrisverhmersl?”

“Szeccie? Little pink goblin? No, Marsha, I’m not reading your mind. I’m not a mirror of your conscience – not like that, at least.”

“Then what are you? I mean, other than a green intruder.” She should be hitting the panic button. She should be calling in the Truth Troops. But she wasn’t panicked, and she didn’t want to see the Troops. Not now. Not with what she was planning.

“I’m you.” She waved both hands, making a blur and whirring noise like a flying bug. “Not like that. Not like Szeccie or any of the mirror-universe imposters.”

“Imposters, what?”

“Nevermind that. You people in the Truth Tower are awfully bad at telling truth, that’s all I have to say on the matter. No, I’m what you were supposed to be.”

It only took a second. Marciana was bright, after all, and her entire life had been haunted by the specter of what she was supposed to be. “You’re Paradox Maverick.” Her hand was on her blaster before she finished the sentence.

“I was. I’m Arsenic right now.” The green girl shrugged, looking entirely undisturbed. “Did you get any powers?”

“I did.” She didn’t want to admit that. “You know I haven’t told anyone else?”

“Neither have I. Of course, I haven’t told anyone I’m their enemies’ favorite troublemaker, either. You think I ought to?”

“Will they believe you? Nobody believes that I’m not.”

“Which is funny, all things considered. They think I’m…well, half of them think I’m Szeccie’s kid. Including my mother.”

“Wait, your mother thinks you’re a world-shifter’s kid? Your mother…?”

“I might be. It would suit my other me. Look, are you going to shoot me or what?”

“Your other you, what?” She set the blaster down but kept her hand on it.

“I’m not all Peri. I’m Arsenic, but there’s this little voice in the back of my head that is, or used to be, Paradox. I mean, sometimes it’s the other way around and she takes over. But for the most part, I’m me. Sennie.”

“Sennie?”

“Well, ‘Arse’ is a stupid nickname, isn’t it? Marsha?”

“Marciana. Yeah.” She was smiling. When was the last time that had happened? “So… why are you here?” Quick, think about business.

“Well.” She sat down on Marciana’s clean desk, one foot on the journal, leaving a smudge of dirt over Marciana’s declaration of self-hood. “Half of me was homesick. The rest of me was sick of being there, not being what they wanted. Watching their confused faces…”

“While they try to figure out who this cuckoo in their nest is, what she’s planning, why she doesn’t fit in.” The words tumbled out. She was half-standing. She sat down again, mortified. “Oh, Fillzbot.”

“No, no, you’re right. Exactly. They know about you. They think you’re me, too. Or sometimes they think you’re her, one of theirs, that died.” She paused. “Are you?”

“As far as anyone can tell – and everyone has looked – there’s nobody in here but me. It might have been easier if I really was the enemy.”

“Well… my folks are the agents of world domination, and yours want to protect truth and light. How do we go about being enemies of both?”

“We?”

“Well, who else have we got?” The green girl’ smile was pink, very, very pink. “And maybe if you have someone to talk to, you’ll stop monologuing.”

“So we become…” She thought about it for a moment. “Chaos and order. Paradox and reason. We’re monkeywrenchers. We’re the ones who tell them when they’re all being stupid. We crash wild schemes and stupid plans and bad press conferences.”

“Awesome.” She held out one long-fingered hand. “You have a deal, partner.”

~

I was born to defy expectations.

We were. We were born to be nothing our parents wanted. We were born to be trouble in their sides. We were born to legends we didn’t ask for, habits we didn’t have. We were born to ask questions. All the questions.

We are Order and Chaos. We are Madness and Reason. We are the Wrench in the Machine, and today is our eighteenth birthday.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/363365.html. You can comment here or there.

Faries in the Church

Jun9

For flofx‘s commissioned prompt, a continuation of

⛪
“There are fairies in your church.”

Bishop Macnamilla was of an older school of thought, practically antediluvian. Most of the time, Father Nehemiah avoided conflict by avoiding the Ninth Street house where the Bishop kept his residence. The Father’s church was new, and not entirely conventional, and not near Ninth Street, and the Bishop’s body as well as his mind were old, and did not move easily.

But someone had said something, the Father was certain. The jowls on the Bishop were shaking in the way the once-fat man only did when he had been being yelled at by a parishioner who Didn’t Like Something. Probably not one of Nehemiah’s regulars. But sometimes the gossips from the other churches liked to stop in and visit.

“There are fairies.” Sometimes he could get away with just agreeing with the Bishop until he went away. “Margaret and LaKeisha are in there now. They’ve been helping Mrs. Bao with the cleaning, as it’s almost Easter time.”

“You have fairies in your church services, Father Nehemiah.”

He wasn’t going to be able to dance around this. “Better than having them standing outside the gates, glaring.”

“Do you know what happens when you allow – INVITE the fair folk into consecrated ground?” He was bellowing, or trying to. He must have been an impressive man before the long waste of age started eating him away.

“I’ve heard the stories. Mrs. Bao told me some of them. The kirkevaren told me others – and the fairies told me another set.”

“Ruin and ruination is what you get. Sin and sinners. Filth and the filthy.” The Bishop shook his head. “It leads to nothing but badness.”

“And blood?” Nehemiah drew himself up. He was tall, taller than the Bishop’s shrunken form by nearly a foot. “I know why there were no fairies in the church before, sir.”

“There are no FAIRIES in the church,” the Bishop shouted the word as if it were an obscenity, “because to allow them into out sanctified ground taints not only the ground but the entire city.”

Father Nehemiah was boggled enough by this to lose the edge of his anger, although he did remain standing straight, staring down at the top of the Bishop’s head. “You are aware, sir, that you live in the densest population of fae in the country, correct? The city is teeming with fairies.”

“The city is rotten with them. The elders did not listen to me. They were squeamish.” The older man’s voice finally dropped. “No. It was me. I was squeamish. I knew what needed to be done, and I could not do it. I failed my superiors. I killed them, Nehemiah, I killed those fairies you have heard of. I spilled their blood in the name of the city and its sanctity. I scrubbed the floors with the blood. I blessed the altars with it. But, in the end, I could not do what needed to be done.”

He didn’t have to ask, although he wished that he did. He’d already heard enough to put the rest together.

“You killed them before you buried them, you mean.” It hadn’t been meant to be another lamb under the church at all. “You blessed their deaths, instead of leaving them to roam.”

“I could have saved us all. I could have protected us all from what’s in the wind. But they look human, Nehemiah. They look human. And that was my undoing.”

Being the Monster

May30

For rix_scaedu‘s Commissioned continuation.

Addergoole has a landing pagehere.

After Cursed.

Barypos ended. Ended, in a way he had never imagined possible, Ended, Name and name and soul and memories. He ended in a twist of pain and a gut-punch, air lost, while the world burned around him.

He dreamt of death, of spears, of the lamentations and screams of women following him through the years. He dreamt of blood and pain, and of fire, and more fire, and more.

When he awoke, Barypos was gone. He woke to consciousness of a sort, remembering nothing but pain and fire.

Slowly, he stood, and brushed the sand off of his skin. White skin, skin like a dead thing, rippled with muscle and lined with scars that were, as he watched, vanishing into the whiteness. He looked around; sand, and the long-gone remains of buildings. To the north, sand, to the east, sand. To the south, sand, and to the west, sand and the sun.

That was a direction, at least. Not knowing what else to do, he walked into the sun.

A caravan found him, some endless time later, coated in dust and parched. “Where do you come from?” they asked, and he could not tell them. They gave him water, and asked his name.

“Buh-” was all he could remember, so Buh he became, for the few moments before the women brushed the sand off of him, before the men saw what he was.

“Monster,” the youngest woman screamed. “Beast, corpse-eater!”

Those who had welcomed and rescued him drove him off again, screaming monster, beast, creature! and, confused, Buh ran off into the dessert.

Baram woke sweating and swearing and reached across the bed for the girl. There was a girl there. That was the deal; there was always a girl there.

The girl pressed against him in her sleep, stroking his back, her hands firm. Viatrix. Vi’s hands were the strongest. Like Etheldreda. Like Joan.

The memories were beginning to sneak back in, around the edges, when he was sleeping or nearly so, when one of the girls was holding him, and, sometimes and most painfully, when he was holding one of the children. Ethldreda, who had been able to stand him the longest of anyone before these girls, who had stayed with him when the torches lit, stayed with him until the very end. Joan… Joan who had gritted her teeth and tried.

That wasn’t him. That was some other guy, some monster in his nightmares.

He looked down at his body, at the slabs of muscle, at the pale, corpse-like skin. This didn’t change. He died and was born again, died and died and died again, and this returned, white and death-looking. Monstrous.

“I’m here,” Via whispered in his ear, and he clutched her closer. He had never understood what had brought them to show up on his doorstep, Jaelie and then Via and Alkyone, nor what, aside from his protection, drove them to stay, but he knew their warmth and their – he wouldn’t call it love. Nobody could love him. He’d never Kept anyone, that he could recall, to not force the imitation of affection – their friendship seemed to push back the dark.

He knew he would die again. But until that death came, he could be their monster.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/349081.html. You can comment here or there.

First Nesting

May29

For fflox‘s commissioned continuation of First Wind.

Yilly was falling, dropping like a rock, every attempt of his to fly, to find the air, falling, failing, freaking out. He had always been going to learn the feel, going to try the short drops with his high-level classmates, but there’d always been something more interesting, something more fun. Now there wasn’t any more time, and he was dropping from the high levels, right down to the flood zone and the river.

And then, there were his friends, his crawling-in-the-catacombs and splashing-in-the-river and staying-up-dancing friends, and there they were, just below him. Yilly cupped air and tried to slow himself. He didn’t want to hurt them, didn’t want to bring them down with them. But they were getting closer, closer. Mirro and Tanny swooped under Yilly and came up under him, grabbing his hands, pulling him up into a wind with them, while Lonoll did something complicated so she was standing up, looking Yilly in the face.

“Feel the air, Yill-ne-yill, find it in your face and your vents. Right there, right… there.”

As always, Lonoll could make sense when nobody else could, and Yilly found, for the first time, the way the air whispered across his vents and pushed up against his glides. “Oh…” It was more a prayer than an exclamation, as he suddenly understood what his parents had been speaking of. “Oh… I’m flying!”

He deserved the chittering Mirro and Tanny gave him, teasing him mercilessly for that one. “You’re flying me,” he allows. They were flying him. “You saved my life.”

“We need you.” Lonoll’s smile was broad, and her vents were tinged with red. Was she…

“Oh.” Another prayer. “But we don’t have a nest.”

“We do.” Mirro’s vents were turning red, too. “We found one. While you were in your high-classes.”

Yilly twitched his vents guiltily. “No more of those for me, not after today. You…” He could feel the wind, now, and shifted his glides and his vents to allow for the warmth of the updraft.

Lonoll took the opportunity to talk over him. “You brought us books, and those worksheets.”

“You went swimming with us, and showed us the secret caves.” Mirro picked up the thread. “And we didn’t mind your high-classes. You brought all that fun stuff back with you.”

“Besides.” Tanny was always more pragmatic. “We need a fourth to be a proper nest-group, so we couldn’t let you fall.”

Yilly laughed, dropped a body-length, and managed to restore his balance. “Good to know you’re thinking of me.”

“Flutter-brain.” Lonoll rubbed against him in a very pointed manner. Yilly swallowed an egg-sized lump of panic; he wasn’t up to that sort of flying yet, even if everyone was getting very red in the vents. “we’re always thinking of you.”

“And our nest.” Mirro rescued him, more or less, tugging him towards the cliff-face. “And our nest-group.”

“Come on.” Tanny fluttered and chattered in amusement. “Let us show you.”

Yilly managed to roll onto his back, catching the drafts as his friends – as his nest-group – tugged him towards the cliff face. Far above, he could see his parents’ nest, up in the highest levels.

He turned back to his nest-group, watching the girls’ vents flutter redder and redder. This was home now.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/347907.html. You can comment here or there.

House-Schooling, a story of Addergoole-Apoc for the April Giraffe Call (@Rix_Scaedu)

May26

This story contains magic and references to Addergoole but no slavery, sex, or violence.

For rix_scaedu‘s Commissioned Prompt.

Faerie Apocalypse has a landing page here here (and on LJ).

After These Walls Can Talk, Housewarming, and As Safe as Houses

Dodger is from When the Gods Attacked..

Bethseda hadn’t meant to eavesdrop; it was just that the eaves and everything under them were her, and, like anyone, when her name came up, she paid attention.

So when Clare and Tobias started talking about her, and about houses that might bite (She would have been offended, but that grandmother who had become a castle? She’d heard some disturbing rumors about Grandma), and, more than that, when they had started hinting at what they thought they might be, she had devoted a little attention their way.

When they had mentioned Dodger, she knew she had to pay true attention. He had stopped by her place a time or two, the itinerant Crime Dog, and she always welcomed him with open doors and a warm bed. He had, learning what she was, tried to Mentor her – only to be pleasantly surprised to find out she was already an Adult, with her own Name and her own responsibilities.

(He had suggested she Keep someone to handle the sweeping and the errands. She was still considering it, but, unlike some of her classmates, she couldn’t very well go out to the bars looking).

If these two were “Students” of Dodger’s, they were going to need help. He did a good enough job at slapping down the basics, but basics was all he handled. And with a war going on… no wonder these kids were a little lost.

“I believe I can be of assistance,” she suggested. She thought probably Sana could as well, but it wasn’t her job to out people.

Tobias answered the door, uncertainly and very cautiously. “There’s no-one out here.”

“It seemed rude not to knock.” As a shrugging would be very disorienting for everyone, she settled for a sound like a chuckle. “I’m sorry. I know it can be disorienting to not have a face to talk to.”

“Do you have a face?” Clare glared at Tobias when he tch’d her. “It’s not a rude question. I don’t think it is…”

“I had one, once; this is my Change, after all. But now… not that you would find comfortable to look at, I’m afraid.”

“I knew it. You eat people.”

“No, I really don’t. I generally take in sustenance from the rain and the ground, more like a plant than a mammal. It was strange to get used to.” It had hurt, and she’d been sick over and over again. But she’d gotten used to it. “But I adjusted.”

“When you put it that way…” Tobias was clearly thinking of something. “It makes our Changes really not seem all that bad.”

“To!” Clare was half on her feet. “You can’t tell her that!”

“I think she already knows. And she did say she could help.”

“We don’t need any help.”

“We need something. We know how to not die. Barely. I think we can do better than that. Think about the fight we saw, when we were leaving Philly… if the monsters and the angels are the same sort of thing…”

Now they were beginning to understand. Bethseda made a noise of agreement. “Then you can learn to be an angel, yes. And I can help you learn.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/347359.html. You can comment here or there.

Eggshells and Lineman’s Hopes

May15

For flofx‘s second prompt.

Long before Guarding the Church and referencing Strange Neighbors.

Tia Lian was born, as her kind were, in an eggshell watered with the tears of an unmarried woman and fertilized with the hopes of an unemployed man.

Or so she liked to tell people… and in her childhood, she was so small, so clearly fay, so touched by the other, that people tended to believe her.

The truth might have been more prosaic, but it was no less magical. Born to a fairy mother in the doorway of the Stanton Arms, gotten on that mother by a goblin line worker who couldn’t find work (the unions were going through an era, back then, where they didn’t like the fay), left on the doorstep of a church and from there taken to an orphanage, Tia was a midsummer baby, touched in magic and born in the mundane.

Although her mailing address was the Antwerp Orphanage, the place was only two blocks from the Stanton Arms in one direction and three from the church where she’d been left in the other, and a young Tia Lian ruled all and the places in between, running the small gangs of children and fay by the time she was old enough to spin a lie.

“Born in an eggshell,” she fibbed proudly, “blessed by my father’s hopes and my mother’s tears. As fay as they come and as wild as they can’t cage.” Her elders, fay, priest, and state, despaired of teaching her discipline. Her peers despaired of ever being as cool as she was. Soon, boys despaired of the chance of a kiss. She was as she’d made herself, fay and wild.

And then she met Bao Bao.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/340941.html. You can comment here or there.

To the Gate, a story of Fairy Town for the April Giraffe Call

May11

For flofx‘s Commissioned Prompt. Fairy Town does not yet have a landing page.

After “Spring”

Anton Barren moved slowly in front of his students. “Fade, look around. Do you see a doorway?”

“None.” He was back to sounding bored. That was good. Anton didn’t want the girls to freak out. He didn’t want Fade to freak out, either… or himself.

“How about an arch or a gate?”

“Over there.” That was Lilah, bouncing a bit. “Mr. Barren, what’s going on? Why are the animals looking at us?”

“I chose an imperfect time to bring us here.” He had chosen an imperfect locale, more accurately, hoping for a small amount of danger to shake them out of their complacency. This was not going to be a small amount of danger, not if the Animals were looking at them the way it seemed they were.

He focused his sight. He could see their shadows, if he looked hard enough. There would be a cost. But he would pay it. He always did.

“The bobcats…” Anya whispered. “Mr. Barren, the bobcats…. they look hungry. And it was a long and cold winter, wasn’t it?”

“Coldest in decades,” Lilah answered. “I was shoveling snow every day and… oh. The deer looks hungry, too. I thought deer were herbivores.”

“Deer are. These are not, exactly, deer.” He reached for their hands, school regulations be damned. “Fade, take Anya’s other hand. You can worry about cooties later.”

“I’m not five.” He could sense the boy moving to obey him, complaints aside. “How bad is it?”

“If we are lucky, even a little lucky, it won’t be too bad. Lilah, where did you say you saw this gateway?”

“It’s an arch. About … mm… thirty feet? To my right.”

“All right.” The deer seemed to be milling closer in their interrupted dance. The bobcats? Probably pacing back and forth in front of them. “When I give the word, children… run.”

“But I don’t understand. I thought they were celebrating.” Lilah did far too well as complainer.

“They are. But every celebration needs food. Now run!”

They ran, Anton herding them in the direction Lilah had pointed, while the bobcats gave chase, lazily, not wanting to catch them yet, and the deer shifted their dance, running ahead, cutting in front of them, only to double back. The Animals were playing with them. Anton could only hope that they would get distracted in the game and forget the gate.

“So, let me get this straight,” Fade panted. “You brought us into another world. To be dinner for a bunch of animals. What kind of Biology teacher are you?”

“The kind that believes in realism?” Lilah joked. She was closer to the mark than Anton wanted to admit.

“The kind that believes in field experience,” he countered. He couldn’t see the gate, but, then again, he never had. If he didn’t know where they were, he had to rely on younger eyes than his to see. “Lilah, that arch…?”

“Just ahead, Mr. Barren. Just ahead. Hee, I always thought that was funny.” Her breathless giggle sounded a bit hysterical. “Barren, the guy teaching about life.”

“Ironic.” Fade’s mumble sounded like he was losing energy quickly.

Anya hadn’t paused, but she was watching Anton’s face far too clearly. “No.” She shook her head, and a bit of panic began to cross her face. “No… it’s not irony. It’s just honesty. The Fae call themselves what they are, don’t they, Mr. Barren?”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/336818.html. You can comment here or there.

As Safe as Houses, a story of Fae Apoc for the April Giraffe Call

May11

AfterHousewarming, from stryck‘s commissioned prompt. Dodger is from When the Gods Attacked..

“We need a place to stay.”

“We don’t need a place that talks to us.”

“Better than a place that bites us. Or a place where the other people stab us.” They were keeping their voices at a low hiss, hoping that Bethseda was busily distracted talking to Sana and her children about her garden.

“What’s to say she won’t start biting?”

“I don’t think this is like Hansel and Gretel, Clare.” Tobias flopped into the far-too-comfortable armchair in his room- his room! and sighed in exasperation. “Running water. Food. A door that locks. A bed all to yourself.”

“What’s the point of a lock when the house is alive?” Clare shook her head. “I mean, she says she’s not like those monsters…”

“Come on, Clare, you know we’re not that different.” That, he barely mouthed out loud.

“We are NOT like those things!” Clare didn’t have a quiet setting, not when she was upset. “I’m not!” she insisted, her hands clenching into fists. Tobias imagined what those hands looked like, under her Mask, and hurriedly crossed the room to force her hands open. Small lines of blood dripped down her fingers.

“So maybe neither is she.” He wrapped his already-stained handkerchief around one of Clare’s hands, and patted at the other one with a tissue. “What do we know about any of that?”

“The monsters came and turned everyone crazy. Crazy enough that a talking house sounds sane. What else do we need to know?” She batted his hands away. “What else do we even need to think about?”

“What we are. What she is. What it has to do with the monsters.” He shrugged, as always on the defensive when it came to Clare and… what they were. Whatever they were.

“Look. Dodger told us what we were. He told us to hide from the monsters. What else do we need to know?”

“Everything?” He stood to pace. Maybe he could think better that way.

“Well, I know that we’re not hiding very well from the monsters inside a talking house.” She stood up. “Come on. I’m leaving.”

“Claaaarre.”

“Look, don’t you want to know if we even can leave?”

“Clare, what I really want is a warm meal and a bed to sleep in. If she’s not going to let me leave, well, at least I’m not dying cold in an alleyway. Which in my book puts this place one hundred percent above any other place we’ve stayed in the last three years.” He stood anyway. Once she got her mind on something, there was no stopping her.

“I don’t like feeling trapped, Toby.” She threw the rest of her clothes into her backpack. “You know that. It’s why we didn’t stay in that shelter.”

“In any of the first seven shelters we had as an option. The eighth and ninth had the creepy people and the tenth had fleas. Clare, we’re down to sleeping in doorways – or this house. I like this better.”

A knock at the door startled both of them. “Excuse me,” the house’s voice called. “Perhaps I can be of assistance.”

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Bounty

Apr9

After this story, this story, this story, this story (LJ), and this story (LJ), from kelkyag‘s commissioned prompt.

The catch had been so close, so damned close. Orin had practically had his hands on the kid.

She wasn’t the most expensive kid in the neighborhood, but that’s because she lived next door to dragons and down the road from pixies, harpies, and centaurs. She was, however, the priciest kid per ounce and risk factor, at least in this city.

The amount of time he was having to spend on her, though, this damn thing was turning out to be the lowest hourly rate he’d pulled in over a decade. And what was worse? Now he had base calling, breathing down his throat, telling him to come in. And he’d almost had his hands on her.

Olin packed his gear into his car and headed back to base, grumbling to himself the whole time. This kid would be pure gold, but every minute spent away from the hunt was one more minute that he risked somebody else grabbing her. His team weren’t the only ones interested in her, and it wasn’t just for the payday, either.

He’d caught one of the religious creeps around the kid the other day, and driven the bastard off with a stick and a few well-placed threats. The church guys were the worst, the spooks nearly as bad. Olin didn’t want to think about what would happen if either of those got their hands on this particular target. All that power, all that potential, but she was still in a tiny, fragile package.

Fragile, but either supremely lucky, or surrounded by the best secret-ops team of weirdos he’d ever seen. Every opportunity he’d had had somehow glitched out or gotten ruined, often by the most obnoxious, irritating series of coincidences. It was almost as if…

Olin stopped the car. “Fuck,” he muttered. He hadn’t dealt with those little shits in decades. “Fuck, fuck…” He picked up his phone. Dead. Turned over the car engine. Dead.

He turned to his gear bag, wondering if there was a bounty on gremlins.

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/629631.html

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