Tag Archive | giraffecall

Bound, a story of Addergoole Year 9 for the Giraffe Call

To thesilentpoet‘s commissioned continuation of Catch and Formality, the story of Gregori and Speed.

Erotic domination, no sex, but nudity.

If I am going to continue to write these guys I really need a m/m d/s icon/

The kiss was every bit what Gregori had been hoping. So far, this boy was everything he’d been looking for. It seemed too good to be true.

While holding the boy up in the air by his collar was not the time to worry about that. Gregori didn’t want to have to explain asphyxiation to Caitrin before they’d gotten through the first day. It was nice to note, however, that Speed’s erection was not flagging.
He set his Kept down and stroked his hair. “You are my good boy.” He had learned, through trial and error with Damaris, how much good a little praise could do – and how much a lot of praise could do, too.

“Yes, Master.” From the expression on his face, his new boy was learning that, too. He was smiling beatifically, his eyes half-shut. “How may I be good for you next?”

“How obedient can you be?” He circled the boy once, looking at the position of his shoulders – back, proud – the tilt of his head – to one side and thoughtful – and the little smile on his lips. He hadn’t learned yet, how real this was going to be, or he thought he had a loophole. Gregori pondered how long he should let the waif remain misinformed.

“I can be as obedient as you want me to, master.” Speed’s eyes found Gregori’s, full of amused insolence. “Do you want me to fight so that you can punish me?” He caught his error in the barely-shown press together of Gregori’s lips. “I mean, of course, to give you an excuse, if you want one, to punish me. Master may of course punish his slave for anything he wants.”

“Thank you for the permission.” He made his voice dry enough that the boy actually looked worried for a second.

He ducked his head and shrugged his shoulders forward. “I only want to please, master.”

“And that pleases me, slave. So, I wish you to be obedient without orders to bind you. Do you think you can do that?”

The boy risked another glance at Gregori’s face. “I will try my best, master.”

“That will have to do for now.” He made it dismissive, to watch the boy’s flinch. He’d circled his new slave once and a half now; he grabbed the boy’s arms and pulled them behind his back, crossing his wrists just over that lovely ass. “You understand?”

“Yes, master.” He wiggled his butt a little, getting comfortable, his wrists staying as if pinned.

“That’s good.” He tossed a pillow from his bed onto the floor, and pushed the boy, gently, supporting his shoulders so his reflexes didn’t take over. Slowly, he pressed the boy’s head into the pillow, until his ass was high in the air, inviting. “Beautiful.” The wrists stayed where they were. “You are good.”

“Thank you, master.” It was harder to tell if he was being smug, in this position. His expression was pressed into the pillow and his voice was muffled. “I live to please you.”

“Good boy. My very good pet.” He spread Speed’s knees further apart, and then stood, walking away. He wanted to admire his new possession for a bit… and he wanted to watch him squirm.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/424131.html. You can comment here or there.

Norm and Mode, a continuation for the Giraffe Call

Nov29

This is for rix_scaedu‘s commissioned continuation of The Norm, from the October Giraffe Call.
The secretary was really quite cute. More importantly, and possible more unfortunately, she was bright. She caught the pun, there.

“And are you?”

“I can be. Certainly more people have called me that.”

“Well, there are worse things to be.” She looked me over. Again. I wondered what she was seeing, what she was looking for. How bad it would end up being for me – and thus for her. “You know, for all the five-ten, eyes of brown, you don’t look middle-of-the-road.”

She wanted to play. Oh, dear. “Well, the Median isn’t always the same as the Mean.”

“And neither are the same as the Norm, are they… Norm? After all, the Norm and the average aren’t the same thing. So, are you normal, then? Norm?”

“I’m certainly accepted as such by the majority of people I encounter.”

“And that’s what ends up mattering, isn’t it, for Norms?” She smirked at me. “And tell me… do you have a very wide range?”

Quite wide. All over the country, although only in average-length trips or things so far under the radar that nobody noticed. Not being noticed was a large part of the job (the other job), which was why this pretty secretary with the stunning blue eyes was disturbing me.

Not the only reason. She looked like I’d seen her before. Common chin, or something, maybe the haircut, which was all the rage on girls about her age recently. Was I being stalked?

My other job leads to paranoia, but that was a bit insane, even for me. “I have a pleasantly large repertoire, ma’am.”

“I’m sure it’s not just your repertoire that’s pleasantly large.”

Oh, she was flirting with me. Well, that had happened before, even with my average looks. I winked at her. And then she continued.

“A man like you must have hobbies too, no? Perhaps a pleasantly large… garage? Power tools?”

As a matter of fact, I did, but I’m not sure my hobbies were what she had in mind. “Ma’am, miss, you are certainly not your average…”

“Bear? No. I’m smarter, too. Nor am I your average secretary. I’m off by at least a couple standard deviations.”

“You sound proud of that.”

“You sound proud of being the average. Are you? It can’t be easy to maintain something that specific.”

“Is maintaining the deviation any easier?” I was no longer certain what dance we were doing, and my appointment was ticking closer. I didn’t know what game this woman was up to, but it was making me very uncomfortable all of a sudden.

“Of course it’s not. Any attempt to skew the statistics of a population will be tricky. Or, sometimes, I suppose, bloody.” She licked her lips at me. She said bloody and she licked her lips at me.

“Miss, I think you’re off by more than a couple standard deviations.”

She laughed at me. “Of course I am. And you?”

“I already told you. Normal. Mean, average.”

“Exactly average? That can’t be all that common.”

“Not on a scatter chart, sure, but someone has to hit it. Why not someone named after it?”

“Norm, why don’t you tell me why you’re really here?”

“Why don’t you tell me what your name is?”

“Why, are you thinking it’s Deviation?”

“I have to admit that the thought occurred to me.”

She leaned forward over her reception desk, showing me a nearly-perfect pair of B-cup breasts. “Mode. My mother named me Mode.”

“Mode?” I admit, I was more than a little startled. My eyes went to the little nameplate. Yes, yes indeed, her name was Mode Aver. “That had to be an interesting name, growing up.”

“No more awkward than Norm, I’d imagine.” There was an edge in her voice. Had she made me? “Now. “ This was not one of those good situations. As a matter of fact, it probably managed to be the exact opposite. I kept smiling at her.

“Now?”

“Now, you said you were here to see Mr. Williams, who is, I’d say, boring and average but not, perhaps the norm.”

Certainly not in his income bracket, he wasn’t. “Yes, ma’am – Mode – miss? I did.”

“Miss Mode, yes. And the nature of your business with Mr. Williams?”

“I’m here to talk about a contract.”

I never lied if I could avoid it. It just made things messy in the long run, and you had to remember all those lies. Easier to be what you said you were; easier to do things in such a way that you didn’t have to lie.

And I had a contract to explain to Mr. Williams.

“He doesn’t have you on his appointment book.” Something about her smile told me I was either going to have an appointment down here, or make it up to my appointment with Mr. Williams just fine.

“He doesn’t know I’m coming. It’s a surprise visit.”

“He’s not generally at home to cold calls.”

She knew, didn’t she? And she was so friendly, and so obvious, and so… extra-ordinary.

“Well, I’m sure he’ll be at home to this one. Please, Miss Mode?”

“Mmm.” She pursed her lips. “On one – no, two – conditions, Mr. Norm.”

“And what would those be?”

“First. When you are done with Mister Williams, I want a date. I want you to take me to someplace extraordinary.” She said it like two words, five syllables. Extra-ordinary. Like she was tasting every sound of the word. “On an average income, you ought to be able to afford that.”

“You want me to take you on a date.”

“Tonight. You can pick me up…” She curled her lips in a smile. “I’m tempted to say here, at the front door. But why don’t we say my house?” She scribbled down an address. “That’s my first condition, Mr. Normal.”

“And your second?” I pocketed the number. This isn’t the sort of job where you pick up girls while working. Well, most days it’s not.

“My second condition? Whatever you’re here to ‘talk to’ Mr. Williams about? Take your time, Mr. Normal. Take a good, long time about it.” She flapped her hand like she was talking about nothing all that serious. “Take a siesta in the middle, even. He’s got a four o’clock meeting and I Do. Not. Want. To take notes for it.”

“So. You want me to get you out of a meeting and take you on a date.” Now I was smiling. “Where do those fall on the Cosmo quiz?”

“Numbers one and three. We’ll worry about two, four, and five later.”

Later sounded both promising and ominous. I didn’t know what to make of this woman, with her so-common chin and her so-uncommon everything else. “You have a deal, Miss Mode.”

She smirked, and pushed a button on her phone. “Mistah Williams, there’s a Mister Norbert to see you. I’m sending him up.”

She took her finger off the intercom. “You have a good time with that, Mr…” She looked down at my business card. “Mr. Eames.”

“And I’ll see you at eight, Miss… Aver.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/423752.html. You can comment here or there.

Formality

Nov19

To cluudle‘s commissioned continuation of Catch, the story of Gregori and Speed.

Erotic domination, no sex, but nudity.

“There’s a ritual to this.” And the ritual would not only allow him to regain control, it would remind his new Kept exactly what he was stepping into. “Take all of your clothing off. Put it in my laundry hamper.” He gestured lazily behind himself.

“Yes, master.” The boy didn’t look frightened. He didn’t look worried, or even concerned; he looked happy.

Happy would be a nice change, after Damaris’ crying. If it lasted. He stood, arms crossed over his chest, and watched the boy strip. T-shirt. Pants. Tank top under the t-shirt, covering a chest so skinny he could be on a Starving Children poster somewhere. Boxers under the pants, blue silk, revealing an erection nearly as big as the boy.

He was going to be an absolutely entertaining Keeper for someone, if he chose to top next year. Or the year after; Gregori still had two years here.

The socks were the last to go, and then the boy was brushing past him to drop all of his clothes into Gregori’s clothes hamper. “Very good. Kneel where you were standing.” He pointed at the floor in the place he wanted him, just for clarity, and watched the boy fold himself up as if he’d been born to kneel like that, his hands folded perfectly at the small of his back, his eyes on Gregori.

“Very good.” The boy was the hottest thing to slink into Gregori’s life. “You come to me naked, with nothing but your self. Everything you have, from this day until the day I release you, will come from my hands. Everything you give, you will give to me. Everything you are is mine.”

“I come into your hands naked.” Speed couldn’t have seen the ritual; he had to be making it up. He made it up beautifully. “I have nothing to give you but myself, and I give all of that to you. From now until you release me, everything I have is yours, and everything I receive will come from you.” He glanced up at Gregori through a fringe of hair. “And what does it please my master to give me?”

“First, your collar.” He circled the boy’s neck with his hands. He was skinny, skinny enough that Gregori’s hands fit with room to spare. And he shivered beautifully when Gregori pressed his fingers against his throat. “Meentik Unutu με Panida με Eperu kloiós.” He knew what he wanted, so it was easy enough to bring it into existence around his new Kept’s throat. A leather collar, a thick and wide one, with a single large ring dangling in the front and a smaller one pressed against the back of the boy’s neck. A collar with no closure, or, more importantly, no opening. This was not coming off until he wanted it to.

Let Luke chew on that.

“There.” He grabbed the ring in the front and tugged upwards, pulling the boy off his knees. “Now. To do things properly.”

Speed was dangling, not trying to put any weight on his feet. He had been ordered to kneel, after all. “Yes, my master?”

So delicious. Gregori was going to enjoy this one. “Kiss me.”

Next: Bound (LJ)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/421051.html. You can comment here or there.

Equipping, a sequel for the Giraffe Call

Nov13

To Flofx’s commissioned continuation of The First Quest

Equipping

It was still, technically, summer, at least. That was their main saving grace.

They’d been prepared for a field trip, maybe an hour outside, wandering around a creek bed. Sancha’s shoes weren’t as impractical as a lot of their classmates’ had been – sandals with a flat heel – but once they’d gotten wet, they were pretty much useless. And after “Sancha’s little incident,” they’d gotten not only wet, but a little bit ripped up.

“You can’t have turned into the sort of monster that gets really thick paw-pads or anything, could you?” Fritz examined her feet critically. “You don’t have any cuts, just a couple shallow scrapes.”

“I’m not a monster!” The fact that she had to lisp that around new, long, sharp teeth made it a little weaker a protest than she’d have liked.“Well, at least you’re not a vampire. That would have been the shortest vampire-lifespan ever. What with the burning sun and all.”

“Still not a monster.”

“Mm-hrrm. Well, we need to add finding you shoes to our equipment list. I wonder… hey, up there.” He pointed up the bank. “See, grasshopper, you were right. The river led to shelter.”

“Those are just camping cabins.”

“Roof and a fireplace, probably running water.”

“Probably locked?”

“Pshaw. Don’t worry about locks.”

It turned out they didn’t have to. One of the cabins was wide open, its door swinging on its hinges. The car was gone, but they’d left the radio going and food burning on the stove.

“…York City appears to have vanished, we repeat, vanished. It is not our belief at this time that this was a nuclear attack. We repeat, we do not believe this was a nuclear attack. It is believe that this is the work of the so-called Returned Gods.”

“Oh, shit, them again?” The Returned Gods had been getting louder and louder since mid-June. Chaos in the streets, demanding tribute, demanding to rule cities or even countries. But this was the first time things had gotten that bad.

What was worse was the expression on Fritz’s face. “Yeah. Things are just going to get worse. Okay, grasshopper, this just went from a get-home quest to a survival quest. Let’s see what they left, assume they’re not coming back, and take everything we might be able to use.”

“Fritz… you’re scaring me.” The whole day had been scary. Her new teeth and her new monster-claws were pretty terrifying. But up until now, Fritz had been treating the whole thing as a game, and that had made it endlessly more bearable.

“I know, grasshopper, and I’m sorry. If I could have let you float along longer, I would have. But if they’ve taken New York… the world just got really, really messy.” As unexpected as his seriousness, the hug he wrapped her in was tight and warm. “So.” And then, just as quickly, he was smiling. “What do you need to equip for a quest?”

She could handle this like a game. She really could. She glanced around. “Food. Clothing. Shelter. We still need shelter, if we assume we can’t stay here. And a weapon, right?”

“There you go.” Fritz patted her shoulder. “You’re going to level up any day now.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/418674.html. You can comment here or there.

What was Right

Oct28

This is a continuation of The July Linkback Story and its continuation here by rix_scaedu‘s commisioned request.

She thought it was right.

Bowen chewed over that while they went through the checkpoints – those were new, or maybe they were just there because they were entering through the Village and not through Luke’s elevator – and parked the car in front of the motel.

“Addergoole has a motel?”

“Addergoole has all sorts of things they don’t bother telling you about.” Phelen tilted his head at the tidy little two-story motel. “This thing. The crèche. The cake shop.”

“Crèche… no.” Bowen shook his head. “I don’t want to know.”

“Happens to guys here more often than you’d think.” Rozen wandered up beside them and doled out four room keys – actual keys, each with a room number painted on it.

“They get used as a turkey baster and dumped?”

Rozen snorted. “Lots do, here. And lots of women take off with the kids as soon as they can.”

“Addergoole isn’t exactly known for fostering loving long-term relationships.” Phelen was a mass of drippy shadows. Bowen glowered at him anyway.

“You got a pretty good deal out of it, didn’t you?”

“I did.” He clearly saw no point in arguing it. “But it’s not like I haven’t seem other people fuck up, or get fucked up.”

“Enough girl chat.” Baram laid a meaty hand on each of their backs. “She’s this way.”

Rozen followed their not-entirely-willing progress with a deep laugh. “That man has radar for pretty girls.”

“It’s Addergoole.” Even being shoved along the road, Bowen felt brave enough to try a joke. “Finding a pretty girl is mostly like ‘walk out door, point.’”

“Or just ‘point.’” Phelen was inordinately proud of himself. Just because he’d gotten a girl his first year – and his second year. Okay. Bowen would probably be proud of that, too.

“You got lucky, squid butt.” Rozen punched Phelen in the arm. Bowen had to be a little impressed at how much Phelen didn’t flinch. Being punched like Rozen was like being hit by a Mack truck.

“I got skills, Drow.”

“..what?”

“Nobody’s ever called you a dark elf before?”

“People don’t call me a fairy.”

“Kai.” Baram punched them both in the arm, which made both of them, it looked like, struggle not to flinch. Baram was the whole train. “Be fairies later.”

Rozen grumbled a few choice insults, but it looked like talking about Kailani was enough to shut him up. Bowen made a note of that. The big man had a weak spot.

“Everyone,” Professor Fridmar had taught him, “has weak spots. Trick is to learn where yours is, and guard. Not to not have weak spots. That would be stupid.”

Bowen had been determined never to be trapped again. He still was determined: nobody would ever collar him. Nobody would ever have that sort of power over his emotions, over his mind again. Nobody would ever cut his tail off again.

Professor Fridmar had given him quite a few words on the subject. “Don’t be rock. Rocks get broken. Be tree, bend.”

Bend. Bowen didn’t want to bend anymore.

“Come on, lambkins.” Rozen grabbed his shoulder, shaking him out of his memory. “Time to go. You can moon off at the scenery later.”

“I wasn’t…” He didn’t want to explain that to these guys. “Coming.”

The Village was as ridiculous as it has always looked.

Bowen didn’t get it. Regine and her people could have made it look like anything; they chose to go for as close to Norman Rockwell bullshit as they could. "Normal Americana." Right. They were anything like normal. They were even anything like human.

The motel was just off Main Street, with its little storefronts and its freaks pretending they were normal. Nobody Masked out here, not in the summer. There were no new kids to scare, nobody but the denizens of Freakville.

Bowen liked the word denizens. Professor VanderLinden had taught it to him, perhaps in an attempt to apologize for the monster that was its Student and Bowen’s Keeper. Professor VanderLinden had taught Bowen a lot – and Bowen had, for the first time, discovered he could enjoy English class.

Denizens. And any of another handful of words Aggie hadn’t thought to forbid.

"I wouldn’t have figured you for a space cadet. Reminiscing?" Phelen’s voice was soft, barely more than a whisper.

"Kinda." Bowen shrugged. "Guess it wasn’t all bad. Magic. Good teachers." Something like honesty compelled him to add, "Tolly and Dysmas weren’t all bad. They just wouldn’t do anything to stop her. ‘Just go along with what she wants and it’ll be easy.’" He shook his head. "Always wondered if she had some sort of mind control going. Couldn’t have been Keeping them, right, since Dysmas had Nydia and Tolly got collared? But maybe some sort of Working…?"

"People are sometimes loyal for really stupid reasons. Shiva being loyal to Ty, for example." Phelen shook his head. "I’m not saying it wasn’t magic, just that maybe it was just stupidity. We’ll see what Dysmas is like without her around." His shadows imitated a shrug. "What Shiva’s like, too."

"Hunh." Bowen wondered about that, but what was he going to say? Not his business, really.

"Are you two ladies having fun back there?" Rozen had plenty to say. Then again, Rozen always had plenty to say. "Come on, we’re almost there."

Rozen was a little funny about Kailani. Bowen had never seen the big guy looking that impatient, or that – it couldn’t be nervous. Rozen would never be nervous. Would he?

Baram, at least, just looked like Baram. And Phelen was back to looking like a creepy cloud of shadows. Bowen elbowed the shadow-mass. "The creepy look is totally going to ruin my thanks."

"Bah, it’ll just make it all the more cool." Phelen pulled the darkness back in, though. "You gonna try to make this good?"

"I dunno?" Bowen shrugged. "I mean, I gotta do it." He nodded his head at the impatient mass of Rozen ahead of them. "And she did…" Shrug. He didn’t like saying "she pulled my mutton out of the fire," but it was true.

"All right. Here’s what you do then. I might be cy’Fridmar, but I barely missed being cy’Drake, and you learn a lot about the formalities." Phelen continued in a low whisper as they walked across the Village.

It was formal all right. But Bowen knew, too, that it was the right thing to do. Like Kailani rescuing him because she thought it was the right thing. Like him helping her stop Aggie later, although that had been at least fifty percent revenge.

"Here we are." It was a pretty cottage, like most of the things here, made to look like something safe and innocuous – another VanderLinden word, innocuous – and human. This one had a moat, which was a little different, at least. And a wide wooden door with a lion’s-head knocker.

Maybe she wouldn’t answer. He knocked anyway. Some things, you really didn’t have any choice about.

Knocked, and then, when she opened the door, knelt on one knee. "Kailani cy’Regine, I owe you a debt of honor." The words were awkward, but they were right. "I owe you deeply, for the good you did me. I humbly request that you tell me what I can do to repay this."

He really didn’t expect her to start crying.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/413875.html. You can comment here or there.

Unicorn Strokes

Oct28

To flofx‘s commissioned continuation of Stroke the Unicorn.

Unicorn/Factory has a landing page here.

100 words to the first person to guess my favorite line in the entire story 😉

Content warning: discussion of maiming & rape

The woman with the thick waist and the black dress cradled the drink as if it were a lifeline – or, nobody wanted to think, and everyone did, a child.

“Unicorns don’t – traditionally – touch men, or allow themselves to be touched by men or males.” She stared into the depths of her drink for a moment, and then swallowed it down in one long gulp.

The rest of the tavern looked at Jakob. Jakob picked up his mug and swallowed it down. The rest of the tavern gulped theirs down or, in the case of the teetotaler and the two who believed in moderation, they drank a long swallow of water.

The bartender filled their mugs without question. The woman was silent for another minute, but nobody thought to prompt her to hurry. Nobody wanted her to hurry, truth be told.

“In most villages, they want virgins. Everyone knows that.” Her lace sleeve flapped like the lips of an open wound. “And everyone knows that sometimes they…” Another flap. “They turn down the girls sent to them.”

They all nodded. Like Jakob, many of them had sent daughters to the river. One of two of them stared down into their mugs and said nothing. The rest let them back. Fost’s daughter hadn’t come back. By’s had raked her wrists across the unicorn’s horn. Sometimes that happened. Sometimes they just pretended it had.

“They have standards.” Her lip curled in what looked like aristocratic disdain. “What they think of as ‘pure.'”

To a man, boy, and child, the tavern tried not to shrink backwards. The matters of purity were not things they touched – not tavern wenches, not pot-boys, and certainly not the men of the Villages. Purity was a matter they left to the women, the grandmothers, mostly. They said yay or nay to a girl going to the river, yay or nay to a girl stepping out with a young man,and no man would think to naysay them Not a man who valued having a house to come home to, at least.

It was Jakob again, who remembered that this wasn’t about them. He lifted his drink in toast to the woman in black. “That’s beyond our ken, Lady.”

“The secret is, it’s beyond even the grannies’ ken.” She pinned the skinny barmaid with a glance for a moment, as if daring her to say something. The girl, wiser than that, blanched and stepped back behind the counter. “Certainly, a wise woman can learn from trial and error and nosy questions what will satisfy the unicorns who frequent their riverbeds. They can learn what will clean the waters, and what will…” They always spoke of such things in euphimisms. You sent the girls to the river. The unicorns cleaned the water. “It all cleans it, did you know that? Whether they send the girl back whole or broken.”

The room was transfixed. The room, however, also needed a drink. They lifed their glasses. They drank. They stared at the woman, never saying a word.

She lifted her glass. She drank. “I thought I was pure. The grannies certainly thought I was pure. That’s what you have to remember. No girl, no girl will go to the river willingly, if she doesn’t believe herself pure. We all know the cost. We’ve all see the price paid.

I asked.” She continued so quietly that they had to lean in to hear her. “I asked, when it was done with me. I asked it what I’d done wrong.”

Even Jakob could not have spoken, waiting to hear the unicorn’s answer. But the Lady only sobbed, and, more drinks in her than a grown man could handle, sank gently to the floor.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/413445.html. You can comment here or there.

Newcomers, a story of Fairy Town for the Giraffe Call

Oct24

to flofx‘s prompt.

Fairy Town has a landing page here

“I don’t know.”

“It’s a little strange.”

“It’s more than a little strange is what it is.”

“No, it’s just fucking weird.”

Three boys turned and looked at the fourth. His hair was shaped into a foot-high mohawk, his nose, lip, and both ears pierced, and, although it didn’t show right now, he had a tattoo covering his entire back. He looked back at them, just as levelly. “What? It is.”

“Olin, you’re a, a, uh…” Judson trailed off. Olin was a lot bigger than him, among other things.

“So? I can’t say something’s weird? Just because I’m a, a, uh,” he imitated the younger boy. “It’s not like you’re not an uh, too.”

“We’re all uhs, okay?” Joe interrupted, before it could get out of hand. Olin was big, but Judson was sharp. “And Olin’s right. Even if we’re Strange and Wyrd, that… is just fucking strange.”

The new house on the block had a white picket fence. Most of the houses had white picket fences; nobody around here wanted to be the guy with an iron fence, or even an aluminum one that looked iron. It had a concrete sidewalk and an asphalt driveway, like most of the houses. It had a white metal roof and two adorable dormers like eyes, looking like the same floorplan of every house on the road. It looked, to whit, ex-actly, down to the tilted brick chimney, like the house that had burned down there, two years prior.

And the new family, moving in? Looked like clones of the dead or gone Fouriers, lost in the same fire.

“…Fucking weird,” Judson agreed.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/412661.html. You can comment here or there.

Thank you! Arm warmers and other Incentives

Oct23

The recent Giraffe Call reached the get-takeout incentive level.

This month, instead of get-takeout, I decided to get-warm: armwarmers!

Thank you for your support!

We also reached:

* Alder by Post – if you donated and would like a copy mailed to you, send me your address (If I don’t have it already).

* Livewrite – one one-hour session: please let me know, if you’re interested in watching me write, when would be good for you.

* Setting piece – what would you like to see? What setting? Anything in specific?

In Addition

A lovely anonymous donor donated 3 500-word continuations to three random prompters. Random.org gave me:
cluudle
thesilentpoet
YsabetWordsmith

Please pick up your prizes at the courtesy desk!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/412249.html. You can comment here or there.

Family Matters, a story of Fae Apoc for the Giraffe Call

Oct22

To Tix_Scaedu‘s prompt.

Fae Apoc has a landing page here

The city’s counter-culture had never been so counter.

Unfortunately for Gillian, what it was being counter to, this month, was her wishes.

All right, large portions of the social circle she called home were often counter to her wishes, but she’d never had trouble before bulling her way through, reshaping things (and people) to what she needed.

Until this. Reegan was a good kid, and it wasn’t a bad Change, such as things went. Toothy, but then, the person Gillian had always assumed was Reegan’s father had been pretty toothy.

So what if she’d given another man Naming rights? The creep who’d probably fathered Reegan was, well, a real creep, and Matt had as much of a statistical chance of being the dad as Mr. All Mouth.

That had been fifteen – nearly sixteen – years ago. Now Reegan had Changed, and was looking, as was proper, for a Mentor.

Matt turned him down first. “Sorry, kid. But it’s just…” He wouldn’t explain more than that, although Reegan seemed to understand something Gillian didn’t out of this.

Then Connell, Sharp-Hands-Flying, who also had had some time with Gillian back around then. He could have taught Reegan combat as well as the Law – but he wouldn’t even answer Gillian’s calls.

Then Kit, Maria, The Doomchaser, Abbot and the Monk, Red Rhoda and Blue Betty all turned Reegan down. Lame excuses or no excuse at all, and no amount of haranguing on Gillian’s part would sway them.

“It’s ridiculous. I’ve been part of this group for years. Decades.” Gillian paced back and forth, muttering and swearing. “It’s a disgrace, an outrage. Horrible.”

“Mom. Mom. Mom!” She didn’t know how long Reegan had been trying to get her attention. “Look, I’ll handle it.”

“I’m your Mother. This is my last duty as your Mother.”

“Well… as my Mother, maybe you ought to trust me. I can handle this better on my own, okay?”

Gillian didn’t know what he meant, but she was willing to let him screw up on his own if it would make him listen. “Fine, go ahead and try. Then I’ll move on to plan B.”

He didn’t need her approval or sign-off to choose a Mentor, not by the Law. She should have remembered that before she sent him out the door.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/411653.html. You can comment here or there.

Giraffe Call Closed!

Oct22

My Giraffe Call is closed!

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This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/411452.html. You can comment here or there.

Alder's Grove Fiction

The Worlds of Lyn Thorne-Alder