Tag Archive | giraffecall: result

Some Say Life

Nov14

For stryck‘s prompt.

This is in the Fae Apoc Setting, which has a landing page here (and on LJ).

Luke is a character from Addergoole, as is Doug; Arundel is a Year Nine character who shows up in Changed. He was born from a sketch of @Inventrix’s – here.

Luke’s first son is mentioned here.

Addergoole, early Year 8

Luke had never had a child of his own with wings.

Theron had barely Changed at all, and his Change hadn’t been one that could fly. Doug – well, Doug didn’t have functional wings, and the less said about that the better. That was two sons out of three, and the third, well, Ké couldn’t keep Aleron from him forever, not with Addergoole to contend with, too, but the boy wasn’t grown yet, and only time would tell there.

He contented himself with Students. He’d taught Ib how to fly – and never mind his personal opinions there, how much it stung to see Ké’s son by another man with the wings his sons didn’t have – and Alisha how to maneuver her tiny, semi-useless pixie wings. He’d taught seven years of cy’Lucas how to fight, how to stand up for themselves, and how to be good, honorable men.

When Arundel showed up in Caitrin’s office with wings exploding out of his back, however, he had to bite back a cheer. The boy wasn’t really, the way they sorted things, cy’Luca material, but that was beside the point. Wings! Real wings, albeit feathery ones instead of the bat-wings that would indicate a full-blooded Mara, but wings that looked functional.

The rest was a foregone conclusion, although both Mike and Laurel put in their bids for the boy, and a week later, when Caitrin judged the wings had come in properly, the two of them were out on the ledge behind the school, tasting the wind.

“Easy,” Luke counseled. “The first few times, just glide, let the air carry you. Don’t worry about falling; it’s not far enough to hurt much and, anyway, Caitrin can patch up anything you do to yourself. Side effect of being nearly-immortal,” he grinned. And the benefit of teaching Ellehemaei kids, since all teenagers thought they were nearly immortal anyway.

“Easy for you to say,” the boy muttered, but he was spreading his wings anyway. The wide wings seemed to owe more to eagles than angels or demons, but Luke was confident the actual flying would work out much the same. “Just… Jump and glide?”

“You have a little skill with kaana, right? Feel the wind, let it tell you where it’s going… and then jump.” Luke demonstrated, and then turned in mid-air to watch his new Student.

“Jump,” the boy muttered, but he did it, feathers at the tips curling to catch the wind. And just like that, he was gliding.

And, just like that, he panicked, flapping hard, flailing. Luke hid a smirk and banked to catch the boy before he hit the ground. “Easy, easy. Everyone does that the first time.”

“Everyone?” he muttered, cautiously finding his feet.

“Even me, kiddo.” Luke patted the boy’s back. It was good to have a kid to take care of again.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/174677.html. You can comment here or there.

Brothers and Brotherhood, a story of Tir na Cali, for the Giraffe Call @lilfluff

Nov14

For LilFluff‘s prompt.

This is in the Tír na Cali Setting, which has a landing page here (and on LJ), with characters I have not used before.

“Have you seen your brother around here?” The majordomo had his someone’s-getting-in-trouble face on and his face twisted in a scowl. Caleb gave him an innocent smile. “Simeon? No. I haven’t seen him all day.”

“Hrmph. If you see him, tell him to come find me. Your lordship.”

The ‘lordship’ was brusque, cursory, and entirely insincere, but Caleb didn’t mind. He nodded at the man, and let him storm on his way out.

Caleb wouldn’t be in his brother’s shoes for anything – either of his brothers. Their mother was constantly on Simeon to do better in school, to be nicer to the young Ladies he met on her whim, to clean up and look nicer all around. And Cye…

“Is he gone?”

Both Caleb’s brothers were half-brothers. Simeon shared a mother with Caleb and a father with their sister Marianne. Caleb, on the other hand, shared a father with Cye, whose mother was the head cook.

“He’s gone. I’d ask what you did this time, but he was looking for Simeon.” Cye had only been serving above-stairs for a couple weeks, but some things didn’t take long at all to learn.

“Her Ladyship is on a ramp… I mean, she seems like she’s in a bad mood.” Cye tugged on his slave collar uncomfortably; like Caleb, he was going through a growth spurt, and nothing fit. “Seems like it runs in the family. When I saw Lord Simeon earlier, he was pretty cranky, too.” He eyed Caleb carefully. “Everyone but you.”

“Well, someone has to be in a good mood,” Caleb shrugged. “Besides, shit flows downstream, and by the time it reaches me…” It was divert it or let it hit Cye and the other slaves. But saying that would just make Cye uncomfortable. He shrugged. “Not so much left, since it’s all over Marianne and Simeon.”

“Must be nice, being the youngest,” Cye murmured. He was still getting the feel for what his half-brother-slash-Master would put up with, and Caleb was still getting a feel for how much he could let his new responsibility get away with, so when the younger boy flopped across the bed, they both eyed each other uncertainly.

“It has its advantages,” Caleb allowed. “Mostly invisibility.”

“Doesn’t sound that different from being a slave.” He sat up, cross-legged, clearly uncertain about the lack of reprimand.

Caleb shrugged. “There are advantages,” he repeated. As long as he kept his nose clean, he could look after those beneath him… like Cye. It wasn’t much of an advantage, but it was something. It was almost a purpose in life.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/174553.html. You can comment here or there.

Mother Knows… a story of Rin & Girey, for the Giraffe Call @inventrix

Nov13

For kelkyag‘s prompt.

This is in the Reiassan Setting, which has a landing page here (and on LJ). It comes after everything else I’ve written in timeline for Rin & Girey.

Short version of the story – Rin has been at war, acting as a healer in the Callanthe army. The Callanthe beat the Bitrani (this time), and she took as a prisoner of war the Bitrani noble Girey. Hijinks ensue.

Rin’s father had pulled Girey out of the room the minute they’d arrived, with something that sounded like “I want to ask you about this ancient Bitrani artifact.” It had left Rin and her mother alone, sipping tea and staring out her parents’ large picture window at the city below.

“What was it like?” Watching her mother’s face, Rin was reminded that the older Princess had never left Lannamer, much less gone to war. She’d come of age in a rare time of peace and been married before battle was declared again, busy producing heirs for the throne.

“It was… dirty,” she offered. “Busy, dangerous, sometimes too cold and sometimes too hot. But mostly it was dirty.” She wondered if she was trying to make it sound more unpleasant than it had been for her mother’s benefit.

“But you stayed long past your first tour of duty.”

“They needed me. They needed healers, and I’m a very good healer.”

“You could have led them.”

“I could have, but there were other people suited to leadership. There weren’t that many suited to healing.”

“And what are you going to do now?”

Rin plucked at her formal qitari. “I’m going to attend Elin’s wedding, and smile, and wish her well.”

“That will do for the next three days. Are you going to rejoin the army?”

“I thought about it,” she admitted. “But…”

Her mother smiled at her. “I know that expression. Forgive a mother meddling, dear, but I have some suggestions for you.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/173935.html. You can comment here or there.

Uh-Oh… A story of #Addergoole, for the Giraffe Call

Nov13

For cluudle‘s prompt.

Wren is a character in Addergoole, a Fourth Cohort student who, last year, was Kept by Phelen, also a Fourth Cohort student. They have a small story, “Poaching,” in Other Sides, the weblit anthology.

For more on Wren and Ray’s father before their birth, see Too Human

Addergoole Year 5, not at Addergoole
Life wasn’t as fun since Wren had gone away to school.

Raylan wandered around the neighborhood, watching the leaves fall, mumbling incoherently to himself. A reputation for being just as crazy as his sister had kept the bullies off of him, even if, unlike her, he had to fake it.

He wondered if she’d come home for the holidays this year. She hadn’t, last year, and Dad had made a couple closed-door phone calls and come back to say, seeming content, “your sister is very involved with her new boyfriend. I’m sure she’ll snap out of it eventually.”

“Eventually” had been the last week of summer break, with a small baby in tow she didn’t want to talk about – and Wren who was self-possessed, sad, but comfortable in her skin in a way she hadn’t been before she left school. Ray wasn’t sure what he thought of all that, either, but Raven was pretty adorable for a nephew. If he had to have a nephew when he was fifteen, and all.

And Dad thought it was fine. Ray stomped around another block, trying to figure out what was going on with Dad. And with everything. No boarding school for Ray, though Dad was pushing him to pick a good college. No worries about Wren’s pregnancy, or the new boyfriend her letters went on and on about. No worries as to how Raven’s unnamed father was going to help Ray’s sister raise a kid, or how Wren was going to juggle the kid and college. No worries…

“…Well, hello, aren’t you handsome?”

That was not what he’d expected to hear, eight blocks from home at the edge of the suburbs. Ray looked up, then up some more, to find a very, very pretty woman who looked very, very dangerous looking down at him. She tch’d and brushed her hand over his chin. “No stubble yet, not even all the way ripe. But handsome.”

He found his voice. “…Excuse me?”

“No excuses needed. You’re not the one I was looking for, but you look good enough to do as a bonus. Come with me.”

“Um… no?” he backed up quickly. “No, thanks, ma’am.”

“So sweet,” she chuckled. “But you’re coming with me.” She reached out her hand, and he found that he was floating a few inches off the ground, floating towards her.

“Hey!”

“None of that,” she smiled. “Stay quiet, and this won’t hurt much.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/173366.html. You can comment here or there.

Thicker Than… A story of Stranded World, for the Giraffe Call

Nov13

For rix_scaedu‘s prompt, combined with ankewehner‘s prompt

This is in the Stranded World Setting, which has a landing page here (and on LJ).

Mellie’s roommate was fighting with her mother again. They could hear it from the other side of the room, easily, so the three of them had headed into the hallway.

“I’d say it gets worse around the holidays,” Mellie murmured, “but it’s hard to tell. I’d need a decibel meter to get an accurate read.”

“That’s…. pretty awful,” Bishop frowned. “How long has it been going on?”

“As far as I can tell, since the first week of school. I’m not sure what’s going on, exactly, but it seems like her mom has a new complaint every week.”

“Damn.” Bishop shook his head. “My roommate fights with his folks, too, but it’s not that bad.”

Summer pursed her lips thoughtfully. “I have an idea.”

“You always have ideas.”

“Callie’s a nice girl. And Jacob has been really patient with us all year long. I know we’re going to Melinda’s family’s house for Christmas – but the rest of the vacation. Let’s make a holiday here for them. Jacob and Callie, my roommate doesn’t really like me, but I know Basil’s having a hard time, and the Californian twins.”

“What about their families?” Melinda offered cautiously. “Won’t they be mad they’re not coming home? Family’s important.”

“Blood’s thicker than water, etc,” Bishop murmured.

“Well, they can be mad all they want. What it comes down to is that we like these people, we’re nice to them, and they like us, or at least they’re nice to us. Let’s give them a family dinner the way we know it ought to be.”

Bishop nodded, slowly, Melinda echoed it. “We can do that.”

“Yeah. The dorm kitchens should be pretty empty. We can make this work.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/173138.html. You can comment here or there.

The family kudzu – The Aunt Family – for the Giraffe Call

Nov12

For the_vulture‘s prompt.

This is in the Aunt Family setting, which has a landing page now here (and on LJ).

I imagine the speaker to be one of Evangaline’s nieces or cousins.

“Your family is insane.”

“My family is prolific. My family is also insane, but the problem you’re dealing with right now is an entirely separate one.”

“What is this thing?”

“Cheat sheet. It’s not going to help, in the long run, but at least you’ll have some idea what you’re getting into.”

“How do you keep track of all this?”

“I really don’t. I remember a couple salient points – Anshabet, there, just had a baby, so that’s important to remember – and my mother keeps me up to date on those sorts of things, but mostly I just smile and nod and listen to the ‘eee you’ve gotten so big.'”

“You have… four aunts and three uncles.”

“No. My mother has four sisters and three brothers. They’re all married, so double those numbers. And then there’s their kids, and my mom’s the youngest, so some of those kids are old enough to be my aunts and uncles themselves. Add in my mother’s mother’s family, that’s another six aunts, two uncles, then the ones married in, and then there’s my grandmother’s family.”

“Okay, you said prolific. I didn’t think you meant…”

“That’s why there’s the chart.”

“What do you do when you forget a name?”

“Smile and hope to death they’re going deaf and didn’t hear me mess it up?”

“And you’re going to introduce me to all of them.”

“That’s why the chart, yes.”

“Is it too late to elope?”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/172604.html. You can comment here or there.

Talking it to death – Unicorn/Factory setting, for the Giraffe Call

Nov12

For YsabetWordsmith‘s prompt.

This is in the Unicorn/Factory setting, which has a landing page now here (and on LJ)

“You’re not old enough,” her father protested weakly. They all knew it wasn’t true. They all knew it didn’t matter if it was true.

“You’re not well enough,” her mother protested, more strongly. They all knew that, too, was not true enough to matter.

“It should be me,” her brother muttered softly. “Tisa, it’s not safe.”

“It’s never safe, Farold. It’s never safe for any of us.”

She slapped her hand over her mouth the moment the words were out, but it was too late. All of them – her parents, her older brother, her younger sisters, her maiden aunt, especially her maiden aunt – reeled as if she’d hit them.

She supposed she had, in a way. She only had to bear it, and die, or not. They had to live with sending her, and live with whether or not she came back. Watching her friends’ families, she wasn’t sure, truly, which was worse. Watching her friends who had come back, she wasn’t sure which she wanted.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and hugged them all, first Farold, who was the most stung, Farold who had always protected her from everything, then her parents, and then, and perhaps most importantly, Aunt Eunice, who had come back… who had, at least, come back in body. “I’m sorry, all of you,” she said, more loudly this time, as she hugged her little sisters. “I’m just scared.”

“We’re scared, too,” her mother admitted. “We’re frightened for you, Tisa.”

“I know.” She rubbed her wrists under the tooo-short sleeves of the ritual robe. “But there’s no use in it. I’m scared, you’re scared, we’re all scared and angry. And…”

“And there’s nothing we can do but talk,” her father agreed. “So let us talk.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/172044.html. You can comment here or there.

Revelations

Nov12

For natalief‘s prompt.

After Generations, and on LJ, written for this Call as well.

Chandra had never been quite certain about her grandmother’s misapprehensions about her mother, but she had been content to leave things as they were, for fear of rocking a boat that had been sailing uncomfortably for longer than she’d been alive.

It wasn’t until her daughter [daughter] was ready to go to Addergoole, along with her half-brother and her uncle, and her mother was back home, disconsolate and miserable after another relationship had gone to hell, that Chandra decided she needed to intervene. For one, she’d realized that her mother and grandmother’s relationship was barely older than her. For another, now in her thirties, the under-two-decades between her and Megan didn’t seem like such a wide gap.

She cornered Grandma Shira first, while Mom was out in the Village shopping, uselessly.

“We need to talk about Mom.”

“She’ll be done flighting around in a week or two and settle down, once Marco is in school,” Shira answered her tiredly, “and we can get back to life as usual.” She set her head against the window tiredly. “My other kids turned out all right.”

Chandra sighed. “Your other kids weren’t abused, Grandma. I did okay in Addergoole, and Carrig had me watching out for him, and our kids will have each other. But nobody knew about any of this back then, did they?”

“Megan never said anything…” Shira murmured.

“You know better. They still call your cy’ree the support group. You know why Kept who aren’t happy don’t say anything,” Chandra pressed. It wasn’t the same reason she hadn’t said anything when mom had gotten out of line, but it had its similarities.

Something in her voice had gotten her grandmother’s attention. “There’s something you’re not saying, isn’t there? Something else. Not just Shadrach the monster, may he rot.”

“Not just my father, no.” She emphasized “my,” and watched her grandmother’s eyes narrow in understanding.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/171953.html. You can comment here or there.

Generations

Nov12

For ankewehner‘s prompt.

Shira Pelletier is a professor in Addergoole, whose youngest daughter Megan (a 1st Cohort student, and thus no longer in school in Year Five, when the story starts) is a constant disappointment and frustration to her. Chandra and Carrig are Megan’s children.

For more on these characters during Year Five, see Motherhood

Addergoole, Year 21
Shira had had one year of quiet, true quiet, in her house.

Megan came and went, flitting back and forth to her mother’s house when the latest job or boyfriend or get-rich-quick scheme failed, when her father got sick of her, or when she just wanted to hide and cry. Her children stayed with Shira, growing up into, she hoped, decent human beings despite their mother’s choice in fathers for them.

Chandra was seventeen when she “left” for Addergoole, moving out of her grandmother’s house and into the school next door; when her brother left two years later, he was sixteen. Shira’s granddaughter, who had learned to be responsible very early, struggling against Megan’s flightiness, managed to stay childless for those two years, and Shira, for the first time, had spent some private time getting to know her quiet, introverted grandson.

As much as she’d enjoyed that, she’d reveled in the quiet. Megan had moved into her house like a whirlwind after school, her two young children and all her trains of drama in tow; for sixteen years, Shira had worked her life around the stranger she’d given birth two and her children. She couldn’t help but celebrate the peace and quiet.

She held parties. She invited over new lovers and old, including a couple former students who, now in their thirties, were reasonably safe lovers for her (she wasn’t VanderLinden, to sleep with children. She’d never stoop to that. Thirty, thirty-three, that was a different matter, never mind when they were younger than her daughter). She’d managed to get pregnant, again, something she’d been fairly certain she’d never do.

She was staring at the stick (try technology first, then ask Caitrin. No need to alarm the nice Doctor if it was nothing but a mood swing out of nowhere) when her youngest daughter pounded on the door, a tiny son in her arms.

She was balancing her latest grandchild – he had a lovely head of curly black hair and, although Megan was staying mum on the topic of fathers, his name at least wasn’t Shad or Chad or anything like that. Marco she could live with – and talking quietly with Dr. Caitrin when Chandra came home early for their Sunday dinner. She had that pale green-tinged look that Shira recognized from the mirror.

Seven months later, juggling a daughter, a grandson, and a great-granddaughter, Shira decided that peace was overrated. For the first time in her life, she also decided to hire a nanny.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/171497.html. You can comment here or there.

…in Foxholes

Nov7

For [profile] ysabetwordmith‘s prompt

Commenters: 0

The war in Afghanistan had been getting really tricky.

Carl heard it was worse over in Africa and other parts of the Middle East – even down in Western Europe – where every mass grave for the last forty years had been dug up from inside. The unhallowed dead were rising all over the world, and they were, it seemed, really, really hungry.

Here, the worst problem was the MIA. They hadn’t been laid to rest with proper rites because they hadn’t been laid to rest at all, and they’d come back when nobody was expecting them, slipping into their old units and wreaking havoc. Their chaplain was working overtime, and he’d enlisted the help of an imam from a nearby village and a rabbi they’d had to smuggle in.

And now they were being shambled towards by seventeen dead Afghanis – all but three of them young women – two French soldiers that had gone missing years ago, and a guy from their unit.

“Shit,” Carl grunted, “sorry, chaplain. That’s Joe Ellis.”

“How can you tell?” The poor guy sounded like he was about to lose it, and Carl couldn’t blame him. There wasn’t much left of Joe’s face to identify him.

“The boots. And the tattoo on the hand. I don’t know how you’re going to deal with this one, father. He’s an atheist.”

“What ever happened to ‘no atheists in foxholes?’” the chaplain muttered.

“Joe used to go on about that. Said that that was because people have been trained to pray when they’re scared, not because they suddenly believe. ‘Everyone is afraid,’ he’d say, ‘it’s part of being human.’” Of course, what was left of Joe wasn’t anywhere near human, but Carl was trying hard not to think too much about that.

“Fear.” The chaplain nodded thankfully. “Cover me?”

“I’ve got your back.” Hoping that the little man knew what he was doing, Carl followed him on his crab-skitter across the field. The imam was laying the girls to rest, but Joe, or what was left of him, was trying to chew on someone who had once been his best buddy. While Carl helped the kid hold him off, the chaplain prayed.

“We come to the end of our life as a release, as a respite. We come to the end of our lives as a chance to lay down our burdens, to set aside fear. For in the time after death, truly there can be no more pain, and no more fear. There is nothing left to be afraid of.”

Slowly, and at first uncertainly, the zombie that had once been Joe lay down on the ground. As the chaplain kept talking, Joe’s body reached for a lighter, and, with a beatific smile on what was left of his face, set himself on fire.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/168426.html. You can comment here or there.