Tag Archive | giraffecall: result

Cloaked

Mar25

For [personal profile] rix_scaedu‘s prompt. Facets of Dusk has a landing page here.

The Door was hard to push, this time; Alexa held the doorknob open while she, Cole, and Xenia shoved it until it opened enough to let them through.

Once through, it was easy enough to see what had happened: rubble had fallen on the other side, obstructing the door. Most of the building had fallen, actually, leaving a single wall, braced and supported with scrap wood.

“Ruins?” Josie picked up a stone, and frowned. “No…”

“No.” Steven’s instruments were beeping. “No, this is fresh damage. Nothing here has been sitting for more than a couple years.”

“Put that away.” Cole dropped his gun in a side pocket and pulled out a knife instead. “Xen…”

“Got it. What’s up?”

In the center of this, Alexa and Aerich shared a look. The team did this, sometimes. They would wait until their skills were needed.

“How do you know you’re in a cyberpunk world?”

“Too much tech. Like that place with the blond you liked…”

“That’s real specific.”

“The one with the implants.”

“Yes, exactly.”

“There’s no tech here.” The lean really-not-an-assassin, really, looked around. Alexa had already made the connection. She grabbed her cloak out of her pack and nudged Aerich to do the same.

“Exactly. And how do you know when you’re in a sword and sorcery universe?”

“Cole, I’m not a goddamned student.”

“No tech.” Alexa stepped forward. “Dragon-claw marks on the stone. No wires anywhere. And that’s a castle in the distance.”

“What does that make us, then?” Josie, noting Alexa’s cloak, was doning her own.

They didn’t need to see Aerich’s face to know he was smiling. It showed in his voice. “Well, I do believe we’re the adventuring party of mysterious strangers.”

 

Originally posted here.

Clean, a story for the Giraffe Call (@inventrix)

Mar24

For [personal profile] inventrix‘s prompt

“…and always remember, when fighting the Hosether, is that the only true and clean way to kill is with a blade.”

Instructor Blaias had lost one arm, his off arm, in a battle with the Hosether (or perhaps the Glarth); now he taught the next generation of sword-fighters how to war properly and with honor.

They listened, the young students holding their practice swords, wide-eyed with awe. They listened as he worked them through their exercises. They listened as he showed them how to block properly, so that they would not lose an arm themselves, or a leg or their lives.

They listened as he told them the evil of sorcery. The way that a distance kill was both immoral and illegal, the way that the cleanliness of a blade finished the soul properly, the way that only sword-training gave a truly disciplined soul.

The student Gilcas listened as intently as the rest, learning the way to cut cleanly, for all that he missed his twin.

~

“…and always remember, when fighting the Rodrigerafaus, that the only true and clean way to kill is with a spell.”

Teacher Charis had lost her left eye and half of her nose in a battle with the Glarth (or possibly the Rodrigerafaus); now she taught basic spellcasting for the next generation of fighters.

They listened, the young apprentices. They watched, wide-eyed with awe, as she showed them how you killed someone without ever showing your face. How you took the personal out of the kill, how you took your own soul out of it. They watched as Teacher Charis showed them how to sling a death-spell, so that the death was quick and perfect.

They took it all in, as she showed them how a sword-death was both illegal and immoral, how the blade severed the soul from the body, so that it entered the afterworld bereft of its needed skin, the way that the death-spell finished the body and soul in one swift shot, the way that only spell-casting created a truly disciplined soul.

The student Sashlie listened intently, practicing the motions and whispering the words to herself, learning a clean death, for all that she missed her twin.

~

There was never a time when the Rodrigerafaus were not at war with the Glarth, or the Glarth at war with the Hosether, the Hosether with the Rodrigerafaus. There was never a time when those with swords were not up against those who slung death-spells.

“When you fight, the only true and clean way…” Gilcas, his sword hilt-deep in a Glarth soldier, thought the blood splatter across his face was anything but clean. He muttered a spell he wasn’t supposed to know, and watched the soul separate and fly away. There were a lot of souls leaving today, and the sun hadn’t reached its zenith yet.

“…make the death clean and perfect.” Sashlie used a forbidden knife-block to push a soldier off of her, and pressed a death spell into another soldier’s face. The look on his face was in no way impersonal; the feel of his death flooding back over the spell was intimate and dirty.

She watched the way the body twisted into the heavens. There were a lot of deaths for the gods today, and the sun was barely climbing up its stairs.

The two, half a battle-field apart, took it all in, using the motions they’d been taught and the lessons they had learn, for all that they missed their twin, for all that the cleanest of deaths left them feeling filthy inside.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/496898.html. You can comment here or there.

Short/Cut, a story of the Faerie Apocalypse, for the Giraffe Call

Mar23

For [personal profile] clare_dragonfly‘s prompt. Around Addergoole Year 33

“Ladies.”

Griselda and Solange shared a look. They turned, two petite women on two giant motorcycles, to look at the man standing in the road behind them.

“Zel?” Solanage muttered it out of the side of her mouth.

“Got it.” Griselda murmured under her breath while Solange dismounted and walked forward in short, measured steps. The man was taller than either of them, of course, broad in the shoulders and carrying at least five visible weapons. His skin had the sun-burnt and wrinkled look that means he was trying to ignore what the sun could do to him, and his hair was yellow-white like old paper.

By contrast, neither of the women had a weapon visible; the closest thing was the small jerry-rigged device Griselda was pretending to talk to.

“Can I help you?” Solange was the sweeter-voiced and sweeter-faced of the pair; people smiled at her while they eyed Zelda with distrust.

Like this one, who smiled yellow teeth down at her. “You’re little to be out all alone.”

“We do all right for ourselves. Don’t we, Zel?”

“We travel the world fair enough.” That was her code for fae, with a thrown-in twist for probably up to no good. Solange nodded; she understood.

“We get by.”

“Ah, but you’d get by better with me.”

“We like the team we have.” Zelda had moved up to stand near Solange. Her hands were empty; she’d put the device away. “Why did you call us?”

“It’s a lot easier to chase down prey on foot.” He looked startled, as the first of Zelda’s spells took hold, forcing honesty out of him. Then he grinned. “Done with the foreplay, I suppose.”

His glamour dropped, revealing him for the seven-foot-tall scaly-skinned creep that he really was. Zelda was already in the air, darting in and out of his reach while she threw off bolts of lightning.

That bought Solange the seven seconds she needed. She spat out an under-breath spell and two wooden long-swords leapt into her hands.

She stabbed the creature in the gut and throat while he was reaching for Zelda, giving the fluttering sorceress long enough to dart out of reach and set off another electricity-to-the-brain spell.

Three more stabs and seven more quick lightning bolts later, the creep was down, wrapped in Solange’s chains of hawthorn and rowan. “We heard you were around.” She sat on the man’s chest, wrapping further chains of wood and thorns around his throat. “Funny, people always think short…”

“…and don’t think fae.” Zelda laughed. “This is fun.”


For [personal profile] ysabetwordsmith: I am not good at working descriptions into short stories, but Griselda and Solange are both women of color, and this is the post of the apoc.

For AGRP characters: Griselda is Miryam and Aleron’s daughter.

And Solange had a mention in Calling in the Storm

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/496237.html. You can comment here or there.

Begin Again

Mar11

For @dahob’s prompt

Content warning: emotional abuse, motherhood, foul language

The first week was weird.

For the most part, she stayed in her bed and didn’t talk to anyone.

She replayed scenes over and over again, re-read conversations, deleted e-mails and then pulled them out of her trash bin, taped together paper notes.

You know better, seriously. I know you have trouble with this stuff but you ought to have…

Come on, you know I was just joking. Even you ought to be able to…

When are you going to wake up and…

She cried, a lot. She ate when she felt like she could. She puked, a little bit. Then she cried some more

Sometime in the second week she picked up a book. In her mind, she heard, only kids read that shit.

“Fuck you.” She said it out loud, because she could, and she read it. And then the second one in the series.

Maybe watch the movies, I suppose. If there’s nothing else on. But why bother with that crap? Come on, do something with your life.

“Fuck you.” This time it was louder.

By the third book, she’d stopped reading the old e-mails; she let the deleted ones stay deleted.

You know I want the best for you.

“Fuck you!”

It felt good. It felt really good.

She picked up her knitting. She hadn’t knit in ages, and, when she had, it had been furtive.

She went out to the park and started working on something in yellow wool.

Just buy it in a store. It’s not like you don’t have money…

“Fuck you.” She grinned down at the tiny toque. “Fuck you.”

Nobody looked at her oddly. You had to do a lot to be looked at oddly, here.

The fifth week, she’d knitted a jacket and booties, too.

You know you’re not fit. You know it’s better for everyone…

“Fuck you.”

She walked up to the door of the huge Victorian house and knocked on the door. “Lady Maureen?”

The impressive woman who ran the créche raised one elegant eyebrow. Six weeks ago, she’d said one thing. Today…

“I’d like to raise my baby, please.”

Because she could. Fuck you.

She was surprised to find she was smiling.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/490671.html. You can comment here or there.

Forever and Ever, Amen

Mar9

For [personal profile] meeks‘s Prompt

They had known each other since childhood, since infancy. Since before that, it sometimes seemed; Kody could not remember a time when she had not know Toby, not known Toby’s every line and every mood.

They were Best Friends when other kids were still throwing Legos at each other. They share playground secrets and their first furtive kiss while the other girls were playing Double Dutch and the other boys were mostly pretending to be airplanes. By second grade, when Amelia Anderson was playing Who Will We Wed, nobody had any question: Kody and Toby, forever.

In Jr. High, that morphed into K&T 4-evah, and they moved from hidden kisses to very visible necking. The question became Who Are You Going to the Dance With, and, again, nobody needed to ask them.

(One new girl tried. The entire school laughed at her. She “came down with mumps” and wasn’t seen again for over a week, by which time almost everyone had forgotten. Except Toby, who thought she was cute.)

It was in Jr. High that the dreams started. Kody got them first – Kody had done just about everything first – and it was the first secret she had tried to keep from Toby in their entire lives.

It wasn’t until Toby admitted, in a scribbled note in Trig, that he had been having weird dreams, about “really screwed up things,” that Kody was willing to write back, “me, too.”

Not “really screwed up things,” in Kody’s case, not really: just deaths, and lives, and more deaths, and more lives. They had been joking for years that they were soulmates, that they had known each other in previous lives. But these dreams…

“I dreamed about being married to you. Except we were Chinese.”

“I dreamed about talking with our grand-children. Except it was like in that history film we watched last week.”

“I dreamed I died.”

“I dreamed you died.”

They passed notes about it back and forth – not every day after that, but every week, maybe, sometimes only once a month. It became another thing they did, another T&K 4-evah secret, like the dead bird buried in Kody’s back yard or the two gold rings under Toby’s playhouse. It was one more proof that they were meant to be together.

Though high school, the dance question became the “who gets your virginity” question, and, once again nobody bothered to ask Kody. “Toby, of course.” Amelia Anderson rolled her eyes. Kody and Toby were boring, old news.

If they were old news to Amelia, they were becoming really, really old news to Kody. She’d lost her virginity in dreams over and over again, to Toby every time, of course, and she’d walked down the aisle (jumped the broom, stained the sheets…) over and over again.

She loved Toby. She had loved Toby, she had a feeling, as long as there had been such a thing as love. But as her friends talked about romance and dances and dinner, as she dreamed about a hundred lifetimes of Toby doing the same things, over and over again…

When the question turned back into “Who Will You Wed,” during their first year of college, everyone was surprised when Kody muttered, so quietly they had to strain to hear…. “Maybe I’ll just stay single.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/489889.html. You can comment here or there.

Fine Dining

Mar6

To EllenMillion‘s prompt

The hard part wasn’t getting them home.

Rosario had never had any trouble getting people – men, women, those of non-binary status – to come home. A smile, a suggestion, a wiggle of properly-toned ass, that was all it took. Everything about Rosario’s body, club wardrobe, make-up; it was all designed with the hook, the line, and the sinker in mind.

The hard part wasn’t getting them to come back.

Unlike some pick-up artists, Rosario liked second dates, third dates, long walks on the beach and expensive dinners out. Sometimes, Rosario would even be the one picking up the check. Loss leaders. It all paid out in the end.

The hard part wasn’t getting them to fall in love.

Rosario was good at the game, and good at the love part. The right look, the vulnerable face, the careful uncertain words. That was the first step, the easiest step.

Then came the opening-up. The true stories about childhood. The sleeping over, which left mornings when Rosario was most vulnerable, and, sometimes, the most confused.

Then came the whispered – always true – confessions of love. “I think I might love you,” usually. Or “I never say this sort of thing” (that part wasn’t true), “but I can’t stop thinking about you.”

That wasn’t the hard part, either. And it almost always worked.

The pay-off came then. Rosario lived on love, ate it up, devoured it. And when they fell in love, there were days at the shortest, weeks, months at the longest, where the meals just kept coming in. Like an all-you-can-eat banquet full of Filet mignon and lobster.

The hard part came when they ran out of love.

They’d stop calling. They’d stop coming by. They’d avoid Rosario in the clubs. They would avoid eye contact, change their number, change their address. They’d, in short, leave.

But Rosario, who ate love, who lived love, who loved someone new every month, Rosario loved them, even when they left.

The hard part was getting heart-broken, over and over and over again, just to get a decent meal.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/488281.html. You can comment here or there.

Enough Warning, a story of Fae Apoc for the Giraffe Call (@RealBriGang)

Mar4

For [profile] realbrigang‘s prompt. Thanks to @inventrix and @dahob for the names.

By most measures, they’d had enough warning.

They’d gotten enough advance notice, between Iesult’s spotty and erratic future-seeing and Gerauld’s contacts in the government, to know when things were going to go weird. They’d had enough time to hit the stores before everything was stripped down to lime juice and off-brand saltines. They’d even had enough time, in part due to Khalim’s money-market philandering, to get a cabin off in the middle of nowhere and stock it up.

They’d had enough time to get themselves safe, in other words. They had time to warn their friends and family, in vague or concrete terms, depending on whose kin and kin, and how close they felt to them. They had time to get five of their closest to a nearby cabin, even.

Compared to most of the world, they’d had more than enough warning. By the time the city they’d been living in was rubble, they’d been settled in their cabin for a month. Julep had started a garden, Ieseult and Gerauld had finished the wall around the cabin-area (with help from some other fugitives from the end of the world), and Khalim had stocked them up on non-perishables and paper goods. They were in good shape – them, and the little group of twenty others who were holed up on the mountain with them.

They’d had enough warning that Khalim had turned most of his money into solid assets by the time the stock market blew up. They had supplies, real supplies, and a small community of like-minded individuals, in a place that was built for off-the-grid living. They were going to survive – and they had enough weapons to make certain they weren’t overrun. They were doing pretty well for themselves.

The four of them, the twenty of them, the fifty from that mountain, all gathered in the ski lodge nearby to watch the last TV broadcast from New York.

They watched as the bridges crumbled. They watched as the ocean flooded in. They watched until the tv showed them nothing but snow and static.

They had not had enough warning for this. There could never be enough warning.

They watched, holding hands. Not just the four of them, friends since elementary school. Not just the twenty, kin and kind. All of them, everyone on that mountain.

“How can we go on?” someone whispered.

Iesult cleared her throat, unsurprised to find it was tight with tears. “Together.” She coughed, and said it again. “Together.”

They would be pretty well off. Together.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/486171.html. You can comment here or there.

Signs of Love

Feb26

For [personal profile] itsamellama‘s Prompt.

Moore is from a story I’m working on for Addergoole: Year 9, although he’s a Yr. 16 Student.

Cumhai is from A Couple Helping Hands and Littermate and Strange Favors

Addergoole has a landing page here

“Found anyone you like yet?” Cúmhaí tossed Moore a beer and flopped down in the chair across from him.

He shook his head. “Nah.” Being an upperclassman was still a little weird to him; he wasn’t sure how Cúmhaí was adjusting as quickly as she was. “They all talk too much.”

She snorted, her face twisting while she doubled over in what he assumed had to be laughter. When she looked up at him again, she’d gotten it down to a smirk. “Such a guy.”

“Hey.” He gestured at his ears. “No fun when they can’t slow down enough to make themselves understood.” Much to his frustration, his Change nor his Words had come with an easy fix for the deafness that had plagued him from childhood.

Cúmhaí’s smirk slid off her face. “Okay, for you, I can get that. But…” One of her doggish ears twitched. “I don’t think you’ve met all the new students yet. I’ll be back in a little bit.”

“Coo…” It was too late; she was already gone. Moore leaned back against the couch and prepared himself for a blind date.

~

“Right in here, no, he doesn’t bite. Well, my brother does, but I’m not introducing you to my brother right now. Here. This is Moore. Moore, this is Janoah.”

Cúmhaí ushered the slender girl in and half-pushed her at the chair that was normally her own. She looked straight at Moore. “You two make nice, now.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He rolled his eyes at her. This was not going to end well, was it?

Across the coffee table from him, Janoah was looking at him with wide eyes. Deaf? she signed.

He stared at her. What?

Sorry, sorry. You deaf?

Yes. He found his hand gestures getting excited. You?

She shook her head, color coming to her pale cheeks. She had very nice cheeks. Moore shook his head. Distracted. He didn’t need distractions right now.

Mute. Her signs were better than anyone he’d signed with in a long time. She added a complex sentence that meant, more or less, “as long as I’ve been aware.”

He spared a glance for Cúmhaí, who was watching from the corner. “You win.” He spared his crew-mate a grin, and turned back to the pretty girl with the eloquent hands.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/482752.html. You can comment here or there.

Doug gets a Hug, a story for the Giraffe Call

Feb25

For [personal profile] imaginaryfiend‘s prompt. Doug and Ana are Addergoole characters. Addergoole has a landing page here

“She’s a dancer.”

That’s what Luke had said.

Doug looked at the girl. She was short, muscular, and lush, her black curls tied into a ponytail. She’d shown up ready to dance.

“Dance.” If she couldn’t handle him being short, she wasn’t going to be able to handle him.

She set down her MP3 player, turned up the music, and started….

It was dancing, Doug had to admit, but it was just about having sex with an invisible partner. He found his pants getting tighter. Shit. “Not this bump and grind shit,” he snarled. “Dance.”

She turned around and stuck her tongue out at him, then bent down and changed the track.

She could dance. This was going to be an interesting four years.

~

“Who’s the new girl?” Willow was one of Doug’s fourth-year Students, not a dancer, not a monster hunter. His half-brother’s former Kept and current beloved.

“Be nice.” Doug didn’t snarl at her. That would have been sillier than even he felt.

“I’ll be nice, but who is she?”

Ana was coming out of the locker room. “Ana. Willow. Play nice.”

~

He expected Willow to Keep Ana, and he was right. It took some of the stress off of him; it put Ana firmly off-limits. His brother’s girlfriend’s Kept. Only Willow herself was more off-limits. It kept him – ha – from making a fool of himself.

She was a good dancer, a wonderful dancer. Training her was actually fun, actually challenged Doug to remember moves lost in his memory. He was rough with her, harsh; he always was, when he was training. She laughed at him, stuck her tongue out, and kept dancing.

When she fought with Willow – every couple fights – she cried it out in dancing in his studio. When she was freaked out by her powers, by her Change, she danced it out in his studio. It made sense; he was her Mentor. It made him want to protect her. It made him go home and drink.

~

“Doug, I, ah.” Willow wanted to ask him something. Doug waited; he was feeling particularly cranky. “Aleron is coming to visit this weekend.”

He grunted. Aleron did that. It was good for him that he was still connecting with Willow after he’d graduated. That didn’t mean Doug had to smile about it.

“Ana doesn’t want to stay in our room while Aleron’s there.”

“Don’t blame her.” Ana was very straight-forward about being second fiddle.

“She wants to spend the night with you, Doug.”

“…what?”

“I let her choose. She chose you.”

“…okay.” What else was he going to say?

~

He queued up some of his favorite old movies, chilled down some good beer, and paced. Why him? Was she just trying to thumb her nose at Aleron? Doug didn’t think his little brother would even notice.

“Cowboy movies.” She smiled, contentedly, drank his beer, and slowly snuck closer to him on the couch. By the end of the second movie, she was cuddled against his side.

“Ana…”

“I asked Willow. Tonight… anything’s okay.”

“Is that what you want?” He was holding his breath, holding his arm just an inch above her shoulders. She nuzzled his chest.

“Yes.”

“…you’re sure?”

“Yes.” She raspberried into his chest. “Doug. Sa’Brontosaurus. Yes.”

Doug stopped arguing. At least, for the moment.

She could dance, oh, departed gods. This was going to be an interesting four years.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/481688.html. You can comment here or there.

Laziness X4

Feb24

After Laziness as an Art Form. From [personal profile] rix_scaedu‘s commissioned continuation.

They said the words. If they had a choice, it wasn’t a good one.

Then to add insult to insult, their captor – Segenam, she supposed – spit on their faces. Somehow, this dissolved the sticky webs, and left them sitting on the floor, rubbing their eyes.

Then he explained what they’d just agreed to. How they Belonged to him. He gave a couple demonstrations. Roanna only needed one.

“So now what?” She was trying to gain some equilibrium. She wasn’t sure, given the situation, that that was possible. But she’d adjusted to everything else so far. She could adjust to this.

“First, the four of you get in my room and clean it.”

Roanna sighed. Of course. Kidnapped by a spider-man and she ended up doing housework.

Tamberlain, she discovered, was a whiner. Zuleyma turned out to have never cleaned anything in her life, but Merton surprised Roanna by being better with a scrub brush than she was.

Cleaning was the start. Then laundry. Then cooking dinner. Zuleyma was better cooking than she was cleaning, but Tamberlain was hopeless.

“It’s a pity.” Segenam shook his head. “You’re the prettiest of the lot.” He was pointing at Tamberlain. He’d already established that he wasn’t going to bother learning their names. “But you’re useless.”

“Are you going to just let me go, then?”

Roanna thought that was decidedly unfair – if it were true. But that seemed unlike their… guy-who-controlled them, there had to be a better word than that.

“Of course not.” Roanna wasn’t sure she wanted to be validated on that one. “I’m going to sell you to the highest bidder. I can’t really Keep all four of your all yeah.”

“Sell… um. I am good at some things.”

Roanna snuck a glance at Tamerlain. He was blushing. “Are you really…”

“Shush, you.” Tamerlain’s blush only got redder, but he still managed to defend himself. “You’re good at this stuff. I’m good at… other stuff.”

Roanna let it drop. She didn’t want to know, didn’t want to be involved, but if it made him happy and made there… ugh… Owner happy, well, good for him.

She’d thought “and by the way, we have an Owner now” would be weird, when they got to class, but it turned out a large portion of their Cohort was in the same situation. The weird part turned out to be Segenam’s “hoarding.”

“People keep yelling at me for what you did.” She had managed to corner her Owner in the hall between classes.

He frowned. “I hate yelling. Tell them … tell them something about fair and square, I guess. And, I mean, if they want to talk about buying from me…”

With a sinking feeling, Roanna realized where he was going with that. “If they’re thinking about purchase, I’ll take down their name and credentials, and what they want to offer, how’s that? Then we can see how people’s offers add up.”

Segenam smiled. He didn’t do that often, and Roanna was a little creeped out at how good that made her feel. “Smart girl. I like that idea.”

“Thanks, sir.” She was not certain how many of the other Kept Segenam was sleeping with, but he wasn’t sleeping with her yet. She didn’t like how that made her feel yet, either.

“You’re a good Kept.” He patted her shoulder. “Go ahead and get that all together. All four of you are open for sale, so take any offers and don’t commit to anything.”

“Yes, sir.” She found herself squirming again, but she wasn’t give into the feeling and actually ask, even me? when he’d already answered it.

Notebook in hand, she went out to go about the process of auctioning herself off.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/481380.html. You can comment here or there.