Tag Archive | giraffecall

The Heritage that Wasn’t

Sep4

To [personal profile] silveradept‘s prompt

It was supposed to work. It was supposed to be right.

Jen’s mother was a kitsune. Her grandmother was a kitsune. Her grandmother’s mother, and her mother, and her mother, they had all been kitsune, as far back as history went and further.

There were no fathers in the history, which Jen had always felt unfair. Her father had, after all, raised her, as her mother’s father had raised her, and so on. The women in Jen’s family did not stay. They weren’t tame, after all.

They didn’t stay, and they didn’t teach. They left a letter. At least, Jen had been given a letter when she turned fifteen. In the envelope – which her father had been saving since he first discovered he had a daughter – was not only the letter her mother had written her, but the letter her mother had written her, and so on, and so on. The letters went back not nearly as far as the history, of course, and the last ones were crumbling and yellow. but they all said almost the same thing.

Your mother is a kitsune, and that means you will be as well… The kitsune are wild and do not stay, but we always pass on our genes… one daughter and one daughter only… do well, my daughter. Thrive.

The letters had come with her when she & her father went off-planet; they took up less than 4 oz. of her weight allowance, but weighed her down with the expectations of ages. “…One daughter and one daughter only…” Kitsune found their fox by the time they were sixteen or seventeen, maybe eighteen or nineteen.

Jen’s twenty-first birthday was on her, and there was no fox, nothing but a girl with an envelope full of ancient letters.

Next: A Heritage Earned

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Safety, a continuation of Fae Apoc for the Giraffe Call (@rix-Scaedu)

Sep3

To [personal profile] rix_scaedu‘s commissioned Continuation of Wildlife Refuge

“Why did you decide to go with the whole… ah… half-humanoid theme?” The faun-showing had been enough to get Capri in the second gate, as a temporary member of the Refuge. The walls looked sound, and the people inside – none Masked, so Capri, pants back up, also stayed sans Mask – seemed relaxed, so it was possible that either the Fomoire hadn’t made it this far south, or they just couldn’t get into the refuge. For the moment, Capri was safe.

Even more of a relief, the giraffe-taur at the gate hadn’t cared what else Capri had under the pants, as long as the legs were – as they were – animal. Capri had gotten a bracelet that was supposed to be a gate-pass, and then the ’taur had called over an Urmahlullu, Holly, to act as tour guide.

The parts of Holly that were human – her torso, her arms, and her head – were beautiful, with olive-brown skin and long black hair. The rest of her, the lioness body and legs, was… very differently beautiful.

Not like Capri could talk, not with the lower half of a goat. “I mean… I’m not sure who decided, but I guess the sign at the door is pretty clear.”

Holly twisted her whole human torso to look at him, while the lion legs kept walking forward. “Have you lived among humans?”

“Yeah? Of course?” Capri found that slowing was inevitable. Something in the brain couldn’t cope with someone going two directions at once.

“Then you understand how cruel they can be.”

“I… yes.” Capri had encountered cruel humans, although generally the half-goat-half-human part had not been their first target.

“You have lived among purebreeds?”

“What, me?” Capri swallowed a laugh. “Just ’cause they think the fauns and satyrs are descended from the Daeva doesn’t mean they want to be our friend.”

“Then you definitely understand how cruel they can be.”

“There are other half-breeds, though…” Capri could already see where this was going.

“And they, too, have their cruel moments. Or would you tell me that they do not?”

“No, no. I haven’t met any group yet that isn’t sometimes cruel.” Capri thought fast. “And especially ’taurs, it’s got to be tricky getting people to understand.” I skid on linoleum, thanks had been hard enough for Capri to thump into people’s heads.

“So here we are.” Holly gestured around the complex. “A place where being half-human, half-beast, and entirely Ellehemaei is understood. Cabins that are built to accommodate us. A no-taunting rule strictly enforced. Meal schedules that allow for issues such as four stomachs or a hibernatory pattern. This is a refuge.” She sounded so beatific, Capri expected to see a halo over her head. “And we can truly be safe and protected here.”

“From, ah, things like the monste-”

“We don’t use that word here.”

“Of course not. Things like the – can I say Nedetakaei?” If that one was out, Capri better think about running, and hoping ’taurs couldn’t run faster than fauns.

“That’s acceptable.”

“Nedetakaei, then, the creations the returned gods left behind, human hunters…”

The look the Urmahlullu was giving Capri was… worrisome. “We’re safe here.” Something about the way she said it rang of finality.

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Meeting the Archmage, a story (Of the Circled Plain) for the Giraffe Call

Sep3

To Skan’s Prompt

“Hello? Hello, Archmage? I’m Tad, I’m here for my apprenticeship…”

The cabin was, the way things were, a hermitage, stuck halfway up the side of a mountain. Tad’s family had dropped her off this morning at the base of the stairs, if you could call them stairs. Once she stepped on the first uneven cut of stone, she was no longer theirs. She belonged to the Archmage now.

Except that the Archmage was supposed to be here, in this cabin, and as far as Tad could tell, there wasn’t anyone here. The fire was still going in the stove, but you could do that with magic, couldn’t you? “Hello? Archmage, sir, ma’am, ix?”

“Here.” The voice was coming from near the fire. From the fire itself? Tad had heard of those who got devoured by the Flow, but not like… not like that, surely? “Look down, child.”

Tad looked down – and jumped back, grabbing for a shepherd’s crook she no longer carried. There was a mountain lion staring at her from the fire-rug.

The mountain lion yawned. “Surely you have seen a mountain lion before?”

The cat… was talking to her. Tad slapped her forehead with her palm. “Sir-ma’am-Ix…” Was that what she would become?

“Sit down, child. The Flow changes everyone differently, and there are many stories I will tell you about that, as our years together continue. But at this moment, I want you to tell me a story.

“Archmage, sir-ma’am-ix?”

“Ma’am will do. I haven’t thought about it in a while… so tell me, Tad, how you got old enough to be an apprentice with a name as short as Tad.“

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Giraffe Commission Rate Window AND September Theme Voting Window Almost Closed…

Sep2

I have three prompts to go on my Giraffe Call, after which the Giraffe-Call discounted rate (1 cent/word) will be closed until the next Giraffe Call.



Tips currently stand at $14 from the commission-a-piece-of-art level.

AND

The September Theme Poll will close Thursday the 4th at noon EDT. If you want a vote, you have to be a be a Patreon Patron at the $5 level or higher or donate (or have donated in August) $5 or more via paypal.

Want to kill 2 birds with one stone? Commission a piece of fiction from the Giraffe Call, get a vote, AND gets some nice, cheap fiction!

Closed!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/800172.html. You can comment here or there.

If You Want to Be A Samurai, a continuation of Doomsday for the Giraffe Call

Sep2

2 continuations were anonymously paid for; this is [personal profile] alexseanchai‘s requested continuation of the “Samurai” thread
Gonna be a Samurai
Gonna Learn how to be a Samurai and
Being a Samurai Takes Work.

First Year

“Dancing is a good idea, Austin, Sianna. It teaches balance, rhythm, and a sense of where your body is n relation to your partner.”

It turned out that almost everything was useful to learning how to be a samurai, at least to hear Miss Ascha tell it. But the weird thing was, everything was also useful to learning how to be a dancer, like Sianna – even swords-training – or a teacher, like Ethelwin wanted to be – even the meditation exercises – or even a bounty hunter, which is what Sweetbriar wanted to be this week.

Austin wasn’t sure if Miss Ascha was right; he wasn’t even sure if she was being honest or if she was just encouraging them to learn their math and dancing and meditation. But Professor Inazuma and Principal Doomsday agreed with Miss Ascha, yes. Dancing was useful for being a samurai. Addition and subtraction were useful for being a samurai. And science and history were very very useful.

They were his teachers, and Austin was going to have to listen to them if he wanted to be a samurai.

Second Year

“I don’t see why Sianna and Sweetbriar can’t run with you, Austin. You all need an escort, after all.”

“They’re going to run slow.“

“Well, isn’t that the point?” Miss Ascha could sound so reasonable when she was being so stubborn and difficult. “To see the city and understand it?”

“And to run.“

“Well, I’ll tell you what. You try it for two weeks, and if it leaves you miserable, then I will come up with another solution. But Ammon is willing to take the time to run with the three of you, and not many on the staff have that time or inclination.”

Austin had run all over his home town alone, before he came here. But he understood that he’d have to follow rules if he wanted to be a samurai. “Yes, Miss Ascha.”

Third Year

“And then the pre-collapse Americans… Yes, Austin?”

“Were they really shipping food all over the world?”

Professor Lily pulled another map down. This one had lines drawn all over it. “Many times they were shipping food to another country, like this, another continent,” she pointed at the map, “and then shipping a very similar food back from that continent. But most Americans in those days didn’t farm. Most people in affluent nations had never seen a farm, much less worked on one, as you have.”

“You’ve worked on a farm?” Sweetbriar had to know that already, didn’t she? But she turned around and stared at him.

“Yeah? Where’d you grow up?”

“Fishing boats.”

It explained a lot about his classmate, but Austin was more interested, right now, in what Professor Lily was talking about. “Didn’t anyone tell them how to do it more reasonably?”

“What sort of authority do you think would have done that, Austin? What sort does it now?”

“Well, whoever runs the town, right?”

From the look on Miss Lily’s face, Austin could tell that he was going to have to be a samurai farmer to make anything work out sensibly.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/799478.html. You can comment here or there.

Cats and Grandmas, a story(beginning) of Beryl and Radar for the Giraffe Call

Sep1

To eseme‘s prompt

The Grandmothers, as Aunt Eva tended to call them, had been on Beryl’s case recently about The Cat.

They didn’t all have the Spark, they didn’t all know first-hand what The Damned Cat was, but they all knew, and they all seemed to think that, since Beryl could talk to (or hear) the Cat, then it was her sacred duty to do whatever it was they wanted her to do about the Cat.

She’s stopped listening after a while, and when that had gotten her full-name-scolded (and reminded that she was not currently the Aunt, no matter what the cards seemed to hold, and would thus be respectful, thank-you-very-much), she had tried dodging questions.

When that hadn’t worked, she’d decided to take the problem to the source and ask Radar and Lam what she should do.

Lam was, predictably, no help at all. “Bite them.” The tiny Siamese kitten groomed herself between answers. “Then growl and hiss until they go away.”

Radar, more surprisingly, gave the matter some thought. “They want to know what I am, and why Lam exists, yes?”

“What you want, yes, and ‘why you made Lam.'” Beryl petted Radar behind the ear, where he best liked being petted. “They don’t listen when I say that you didn’t make her.”

“They wouldn’t want to. It means someone else is doing something they’ve forgotten how to do.” The orange tabby (today, at least, he was an orange tabby) sighed, an angry huff. “Well, child-kitten, I suppose we’re going to have to go into the attic.”

“Aunt Eva’s attic?” Aunt Eva’s attic was a terrifying place.

“No.” At least this time, he didn’t sound as if she was being stupid. “Aunt Bea’s attic. I’d suggest you bring gloves.”

Next: Cat’s in the… Attic

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Being A Samurai Takes Work, a drabble of Doomsday Academy for the Giraffe Call

Aug29

A commissioned continuation from (I believe) [personal profile] thnidu.

After Gonna Be a Samurai

and Going to Learn How to be A Samurai.

Being a samurai took a lot of discipline. That’s what the books had said. Discipline and hard work and kimono and…

And apparently it took math classes, too, history classes, watching tv shows called anime from before the collapse, and, peh, being nice to all his fellow students. Even the silly ones.

And it took listening to Miss Ascha as if she were his sensei. Which, Austin supposed, she really was. And that meant more math and history and geology and, well, more being nice to his fellow students.

He bowed very politely to Sianna. If she wanted him to learn how to waltz, well, he guessed he was learning the waltz with her.

I don’t have a strong mental image for Austin yet (except touseled light-brown hair), but Sianna looks more or less like this

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Going to Learn How to be A Samurai: continuation of Doomsday Academy for the Giraffe Call/@inventrix

Aug28

To [personal profile] inventrix‘s commissioned continuation of Gonna Be a Samurai.

Austin was going to be a samurai.

He was going to a samurai school, and he was going to have a samurai teacher, and he was going to learn how to be a samurai.

“It says in the letter that they gives you a full education, Austin. Math, science, history, literature, life skills. I wonder what they mean by life skills?” His mother shook her head. “Nothing about being a samurai.”

“But you saw him! You saw Professor Inazuma!”

“And I saw Director Doomsday. I must say, that’s an ominous name for the head of a school.”

“Wasn’t there a note on that, too?” The welcome letter had come with quite a stack of welcome-information, including a small bio on each of the teachers. “She was… what’s a prepper?”

“Something from the before world. But that’s okay, she’s probably from the before world, too.” Austin’s mother shook her head yet again. “Are you sure you want to do this, Austin? I don’t think it’s going to be all samurai training.”

“I don’t care! I’m going to be a samurai! Please, mom? Please? I’ll work extra hard all summer!”

“Well, let me talk to your father…”

Austin was going to be a samurai.

He looked at dismay at the uniforms available. “But what about hakama and kimono?” Kilts and pants and plain white shirts were so boring. Especially compared to Professor Inazuma’s clothes… “Do I have to wear boring clothes?”

“Austin, they’ve nice clothes. Don’t be rude.”

“We have kimono.” The nice lady behind the uniform counter smiled at both of them. It took Austin a moment to realize that that was Principal Doomsday, the head of the school. The weasel ears had thrown him off for a moment.

So had the strange smile. She continued, as if unaware of the panicked surprise on Austin’s face. “That’s one of the things I actually did prepare for. Here are your kimono,” she added a hefty stack of black, just like Professor Inazuma’s, to Austin’s pile of uniform clothes. “And Miss Ascha is waiting for you over there.”

Austin was going to be a samurai.

He was going to be a samurai, even if he had to take classes in math and reading – some of the kids here couldn’t even read! – and how plants grew, and poetry. Even if he had to share a room with girls – and other boys, including the ones that couldn’t read. Even if everyone else thought this school was about growing up to be a teacher or learning how to be a doctor or even, in Sianna’s case, a silly ballerina. (Were there even ballerinas anymore? At least they knew teachers still existed!)

He was going to be a samurai, after eight years of classes and then, Professor Inazuma told him, maybe more classes still. But he could start learning right away, not just the math and reading and farming and stuff, but really learning.

“I’m going to be a samurai,” he informed Sianna. And he got to start today!

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The Goat Legacy

Aug28

To [personal profile] kelkyag‘s prompt(s).

::You know how to do this. You know how to win this.::

“So does everyone else here.” Liezhta strapped the talking stick to her back – talking stick, ha, her ancestors had possessed a horrible sense of humor – and tried to ignore its whispers.

It didn’t work, of course. Ever since her aunt had passed down the family goat-crook (and what family had goat-crooks they passed down? Liezhta’s of course, the family that produced more goat-wives and goat-husbands than any other three families on the mountain), ever since she’d first wrapped her hand around the ancient, twisted root-wood stick, the blasted thing had been talking in her head.

::You have several advantages that nobody else here has. One, you have me.::

It turned out the stick was an ancestor – or, at least, that was what it claimed. There was a family member named Ketkez or Ketkezhie, long back in the history, who had been, not a goat-spouse, but a herder and breeder of goats nonetheless. And, if such a thing was possible, the few notes in family records suggested Ketkez/hie was the type of person who would, given an option, live forever to nag their descendants.

::In another sense, you also have me; you have the blood passed down to you. Your family. You’re strong, fast, and clever::

“But I’m working with an unknown team. It’s only me from the family.” Liezhta checked the lacings on her boots, checked the braiding on her hair, and settled her hat snugly over everything. She’d have to stop arguing with a talking stick soon, and get on with it.

::And that’s a pity. In the old days, the whole family would compete, and we almost always won::

“Well. This is the new days.” With the way things were going, they might not even need goat-wives much longer. But for today, there was the race. She waved at the others, gathered by the shallow sledge. “Hello.” Liezhta bowed, while in her head Ketkez/hie grumbled about changing times. “I’m Liezta, and I’ll be your third runner in the human goat race today.”


Goat-bride information: here & here.

Information Liezhta does not have, but is useful for setting here.

Liezhta is pronounced LEEZH-tuh.

ZH stands for the buzzy sound of the “s” in our words “pleasure” or “casual”.

Ketkez/hie is pronounced ket-KEZH-(ee)

A root-wood shepherd’s (goat-herd’s) crook might look like this

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Two Continuations Anonymously Paid For (GiraffeCall)

Aug28

So, I got a lovely donation to the Giraffe Call to pay for two non-donors get get a 500-word continuation.

I rolled the dice, and the results are

(Drumroll please)

[personal profile] alexseanchai
and
[personal profile] thebonesofferalletters

Please collect your 500-word continuation at the customer service tent!

(drop me an email (thornealder/gmail), send me a PM, or comment on this post)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/793915.html. You can comment here or there.