Tag Archive | giraffecall

Linkback, Prompting, & Donating incentive story!

Jul21

This is the linkbacks, etc. incentive story for the June mini-Giraffe-Call. I will post 25 words for each linkback, 50 for each prompt, 75 for each donation.

This is set in Steam!Callenia, some 750 years after the Rin & Girey tales.

“Are you sure that’s what the aetherometer reads?” Alsoonalla leaned over the seat back separating she and Teriana from the boys. “East?”

“I’m sure, Soon.” Onton shook his head, shook the aetherometer, and looked back at the road. Their goats were making a fair clip on the paved roads near the city, but once they hit the mountains, it might be a different story entirely. “Due East. It’s reading a deep vein of the good stuff.”

“I’ve never heard of any veins of wild aether in the Eastern mountains.” Teriana flipped through her notebook, finger running down the edge of the script. “Some small bits of the earth-energies, of course, although most of that is further south. But nothing of what we’re looking for.

“Well, if you’d heard of it, it would have been tapped by now. That’s part of the problem.” Doanisad had his own charts – old mining charts, older priestly documents. The aether, what had been called síra in the ancient days, had been pulled and torn and mined from every inch of this continent. There was little left, and what there was was hidden.

Doan’s father and mother were historiologists, scholars of the past. Teri’s were miners, using concentrated aether to pull ore from the hills. Soon and Onton were dabblers, avoiding a career in the priesthood by studying at University. For nine years, ever since that incident with the goat and the stone necklace, they had been working and plotting together.

The culmination of their friendship, their Ninth-Year thesis, was the aethometer Onton was currently pointing down the road. In theory, and in the controlled environment of the classroom, it had done exactly what it was supposed to. For some students – most, perhaps – that would be enough. But not for the Dreadful Four, the Stone-Eaters, the Back-Room Brigade. Not for them.

“I understand the theory behind the device and the project.” Teri defended herself, as always, with an affected upper-class accent far more formal than Onton or Soon’s. “I’m simply doubting your ability to read it properly.”

“The dial was of your design.” Soon and Onton would put up with Teri’s airs. Doan saw no point in that.

“Then I would be able to read it, of course. I was casting no aspersions on my abilities.”

“Of course you weren’t. We all know that…”

“Rock!” Onton interrupted the growing argument with a quick and ostentatious swerve to one side, guiding the goats around a large boulder and, of course, showing off his own skill in handling a carriage.

For a moment, they were all too distracted holding on to argue.

Then Soon clucked her tongue. “The roads in this district are falling apart.”

“It’s not a militarily important route.” Onton frowned at the road.

“Really, at this point, what is? We’re not at war on the continent anymore.”

“This year.” Doan ran a hand pointedly through his blonde hair – mark of the southern Bitrani people, who had been conquered and re-conquered.

“All right, all right. I surrender.” Teri held up both hands. “Could we please not fight? Doan, I believe your ability to read a dial unquestionably.”

Soon settled back into her seat, smoothing her hair with both hands and not looking at anyone. Onton did much the same, pulling his driving gloves straight and clucking at the goats. Doan stared at his charts for a moment, and then, reluctantly, nodded.

“I know, it seems beyond strange.” He ran a finger over the glass face of the dial. “But it’s East we’ve been pointed, and it’s East we’re going.”

“Roughly,” Onton warned.

“Directly,” Doan countered.

“No, I mean…” He steered the carriage hard to the left. “The road’s getting really rough. We’re definitely out of safe territory.”

“Oh… oh!” Teri grabbed the arm-rest and braced herself as they hit a particularly rough patch. The four-goat team seemed entirely unconcerned, prancing along as if they were in the meadow at home. Goats would, of course, cheerfully pull a cart up a mountainside, never mind the riders behind them.

“Pass me the crossbow under your seat?” Doan reached a hand back towards them, his eyes on the roadside. Soon set one in his hands, carefully, and took the other herself.

“I’ve got the right, Doan, you take the left. Teri, if you would watch our rear?” Unsafe meant bandits.

Bandits, and deserters, and other, less savory sorts. There was always a rebellion going somewhere. There were always dissatisfied northerners, or southerners, or easterners. Soon sighted along her crossbow and watched for danger.

“Oh!” It was Teri who squeaked, half an hour and a thousand bumps and jolts later. “Uh-oh!”

“Teri?” Doan turned first. Soon kept her eye on a bush that seemed to be moving improperly for foliage.

“It’s…”

“Just me.” Their cargo was moving, and a deep, rumbling voice was coming from underneath the tarp. “Have no fear, I’m not a bandit.”

“No…” Teri’s voice was rising higher. “No, you’re not. You’re worse, aren’t you?”

“Now, that’s unkind. Sir, if you wouldn’t mind putting down that crossbow…”

“I don’t think I will. Teriana?”

“I know him,” she confirmed. “I mean, we’ve met. More than once.” She gestured with one hand, flicking her fingers as if trying to dislodge something unpleasant. And, slowly, the tarp rose, exposing a hat that nearly covered the face of their stowaway.

Wide-brimmed and purple, with bands of yellow and gold decorating its brim, it was not the hat of any but the most affluent bandit, and it was not a stealthy sort of hat. Nor was the face underneath, the beard smooth and braided, the nose long and prominent, the lips glossed, the sort of face you expected to see on a bandit, or, really, anywhere in the outlands like this.

Of course, it bore quite a resemblance to Onton’s face, but none of them would mention that, not yet. It wouldn’t be polite, not until one of them said something.

“I know him,” Teri repeated. “Not willingly.”

“That’s a fine thing to say!” The man sat up, revealing a felted waistcoat in a brilliant shade of plum. “After all I’ve done for you.”

“I’d hardly say any of that was done for me, Beelang.” She was putting on airs again. She must be very upset by their guest. “Any more than a harness is for the goat’s benefit.”

“Teri…”

Doan waved the crossbow, and Beelang fell silent. “That’s enough.” Doan shifted his grip, but didn’t move his aim of their guest. “Leave Teriana alone, and tell us what it is you’re doing in our wagon, on our expedition.”

“Well, that’s a problem. You see, I can’t do both at once, because I’m on the expedition of yours, if that’s what you’re calling this little jaunt, with the express purpose of not leaving Teri alone. After all, she can’t just bound off into the wilderness with no chaperon!”

“This isn’t an Empress’ reign, and she’s not a wedded wife, anyway.” Soon wasn’t looking at their interloper, yet; she was still watching the road. “Doan, can you truss him up? I think there’s something in the bushes over there, and I don’t want the distract…” She ended her last word with an arrow shot into the bushes.

“Hey, hey!” Beelang’s complaint was cut short as Teri gentled him across the skull with a blackjack. She caught him before he could slump out of the cart, while Doan was still gaping and the wounded-whatever in the bushes was making startled, unhappy noises.

“Give me the rope,” Teri snapped, which finally goaded Doan into action.

“You hit him pretty hard, didn’t you?”

“I hit him precisely hard enough to render him unconscious… I hope.” She tied their unwelcome guest up with tidy, strong-looking knots. “Soon, whatever did you hit?”

“Well, I’m hoping desperately that it’s not a wild goat. That would go poorly. Or a mountain lion.” She hopped down from the cart, still pointing her crossbow into the trees. “Onton, if you wouldn’t mind…?”

“Coming.” He passed Doan the reins and followed her, a long metal spear in one hand and its aether-storage pack in the other.

“Oooh, oww…” The sounds had gone from animal to human, or a clever facsimile of such. Soon moved even more cautiously. “Bitter water and rotten stone!” That was probably human. She nodded Onton forward, minding his flank. There could be more than one.

“By the whirlpool of Tienebrah, they shot me!”

“You threatened me.” Soon kept her crossbow pointed levelly at the sound of the voice; Onton flanked the invisible complainant slowly.

“I’m hiding in a bush. What sort of threat is that?”

“The sort you learn to pay attention to.”

“I don’t want to know where you grew up, do I? Ow, whirlpools, you really shot me. This was supposed to be a frolic, just a spot of fun. Nobody was supposed to get hurt!”

His consonants were awfully soft, his vowels long and trying to be two or three sounds. “Are you Southern?” What was taking Onton so long?

“No.” Suddenly the whining was gone. There was someone coming up on her right, and where Onton had gone there was a rustling and shaking in the bushes. “I’m Bitrani.”

She swung the crossbow to her left, fired, and dropped it, drawing her longknife. “Ware,” she shouted, as the whining Bitrani dove out of the bushes at her.

“You have a funny idea of a frolic.” He was shot, at least, his somber waistcoat pierced with half of her bolt, but that wasn’t stopping him from coming at her with a back-curve blade.

“You have a funny idea of a school project. Fully armed, carrying munitions. Does your advisor know your brought explosives?” He was going for her throat; she was suddenly glad for the hidden armor in her collar.

“Of course she does.” An armpit wound would distract him. She stabbed quickly. “The roads are dangerous, you know.”

“Behind you, Soon, down!” She dropped and whirled as a sword went singing over her head. The sword was followed by a loud thump and a spurt of blood, the spray coloring her sleeves red and splashing over her face.

“Blasted mountains.” Her first attacker sat down hard. “You killed him.”

“He had his weapons inches from Soon’s face. It seemed reasonable.” Onton wiped his blade on the dead man’s tunic – very dead; his head was several feet away. “I’d suggest you surrender now before it appears that you’re threatening an Imperial Princess.”

“And if I kill your precious Imperial Princess?”

“Well, it appears that she’s pierced you once already with an arrow. You’re probably going to leave a trail, and Soon’s been known to poison her arrows. That means you’ll make it maybe a day’s travel before I catch up with you, at which point…” Onton’s voice dropped an octave, and his eyebrows furrowed. Suddenly, he sounded like a much older man. “I will destroy you utterly, and make you beg for it while you bleed.”

“I didn’t realize you two were going to the grassy hills.”

“You didn’t realize anything about us.” Onton’s voice was still rumbly, giving no indication that he and Soon were, in fact, doing nothing at all on the grassy hillsides. “I’m sure your capture will give you plenty of time to think about rectifying that.”

“Capture? What?”

“Surrender, and I’ll see that the poison in your wound is treated, and that you’re well-cared for. Attempt to harm us…” He left the threat unspoken. Since he’d entirely fabricated the poison, Soon was impressed he was leaving anything at all up to the imagination.

She cleared her throat. “The same,” she added, in a regal, grown-up voice of her own, “goes for anyone else hiding in the brush.”

Nobody came forward. The man at the end of Onton’s blade sighed. “I surrender. You were supposed to be a bunch of students.”

“Then why attack us?” Soon took the leather thongs from her purse and began trussing the man up, mindful of his wounds.

“Well, for what you were carrying.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/356901.html. You can comment here or there.

July Linkback, Donor, Prompter story

Jul20

This is the linkback incentive story for the July Giraffe Call.

Bowen et al are characters in Addergoole.

Bowen’s Change (and his father’s) are as sheep.

Summer after Year Five

Bowen had been home for a week when his cy’ree showed up.

It hadn’t been a comfortable week, all things considered. His father had been – well, Dad. The way Dad always was, kind of sheepish.

Sheepish. Ha. He’d yelled that at him, his second night home. Bowen had been yelling a lot, since he got home. “How can you just go along with what you’re told? How can you be such a goddamned part of the herd?”

And all Dad had managed was “we are what’s in our nature.”

Which was a pile of crap. Bowen had been mutilated by a rabbit. But he wasn’t going to tell his father that. Instead, he’d shouted at him.

“Be a goddamned ram, then. Grow a pair.”

They hadn’t talked much since then. It was going to be a long summer if it kept on like this.
And then the doorbell rang.

At first, Bowen was afraid it was his friends from high school. He almost didn’t answer the door; he didn’t have anything to say to those guys. He couldn’t even begin to talk about school, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to talk to those morons anyway.

But the doorbell rang again, and again, like someone was mashing on the button. Grumbling, fantasising about punching Jack or Eddie or Judy or whoever it was until they stopped ringing the damn doorbell, Bowen hauled himself out of his chair and yanked the door open. “What do you… oh. It’s you. Ah.”

He wasn’t really sure what to say other than that. It wasn’t every day two of the biggest baddies in the school – and one of the creepiest guys, just for good measure – showed up on his doorstep. Then again, they were his cy’ree.

“What’s up?” He tried to sound casual, but this was Rozen and Baram at his front door. And Phelen, he mentally amended. Forgetting Phelen could be a fatal mistake.

“We’re going on a field trip.” Rozen’s tone left no room for argument. “Grab your stuff, tell your folks we’re leaving.”

His father probably wouldn’t notice. “How long?”

“Enh, couple weeks at the most. I’ve got a thing starting in August and Phelen’s got babies to worry about.”

“Come on in, if you mean me and mine no harm.” He’d learned that phrase his second week in Addergoole. It was a useful phrase. Even if Baram did laugh.

“Not now, at least.”

“Not today is fine,” he allowed. You never really got a free pass with the big dogs. Bowen was okay with that; some day he was going to be a big dog. A ram.

“Dad, going out with my friends. I’ll be back in a week or two.” He called it from his room as he threw socks and underwear and a couple T-shirts in a bag, the word friends slipping off his tongue with only a tiny hesitation. They were cy’ree. That was better than friends, right?

“So, where’re we going?” He plopped into the back seat of Rozen’s big car, wondering if he ought to be being more cautious.

“I told you, field trip. First stop Addergoole.”

Yeah, he really should have been more cautious. “Um, man, I… Just drop me off here, okay, I’ll walk home.”

The big man laughed. They all laughed.

“Come on, kid, do we look like the Addergoole Gestapo to you? Relax, nothing bad’s going to happen. There’s just a couple people I want to see before we head off to stop two and three.”

Rozen’s grin was wide, white, and a little bit scary. Bowen eyed the door, but Phelen had a shadow wrapped around his ankle. “Relax, man. You’re not in any trouble.”

“Cy’ree,” Baram grunted.

Bowen leaned against his seat. “Cy’ree.” He wasn’t going anywhere, he might as well trust them.

~
It wasn’t that far to Addergoole. It had seemed farther, on the way home, but then again, on the way home, he’d ridden in silence. Phelen and Rozen spent the ride cracking inappropriate jokes, Baram laughing along and sometimes grunting in a word or two. And, in something that was new, they talked to him, too. Included him.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/371274.html. You can comment here or there.

Three Summers

Jul18

For Imaginary’s prompt. Warning, the middle bit with Shad has suggestions of abuse and overuse of the word “pussy.”

Sharach, Meshach, Agatha, and Acacia are characters in Addergoole

Nine years before Addergoole Year 5

“And then we’ll head to Italy, and you’ll go to the college prep summer camp.”

“Mom, I want to go to Italy with you and Dad.” Ten-year-old Agatha frowned at her mother, not pouting: pouting was unattractive. “The camp has bugs.” And everyone was bigger than her there. Everyone was bigger than her everywhere, but it was worse at summer camp.

“Agatha, you went with us to France and Spain. We need some alone time, and you need to starting thinking about college.”

“But I don’t like it there.”

“I suggest you learn, young lady.”

Two weeks later, Agatha tucked the last of her belongings into her billet – the worst bunk, in the back of the cabin, but the other girls had gotten there first – and headed out into the well-manicured grounds. Perhaps she could find a place to hide, before the other kids got settled in.

She stopped just short of running into a tall, broad-shouldered boy. A bully-sort, but he wasn’t smiling meanly. “Hello,” she offered.

“Hi.” His smile looked real. If he liked her, everyone else would leave her alone.

“I’m Agatha.” She offered him a hand. “Do you want to be my friend?”

Eight years before Addergoole Year 5

“Come on, Shad, don’t be a pussy.” His older brother Meshach was halfway up the edge of the gorge. Shad glanced back behind him, then back up at the wall of rock. He cleared his throat, and called back.

“Come on, Neg, don’t be a pussy.” He reached out an arm for their little brother Abednego. “We’re going up the wall, there.”

“It looks awfully high, Shad.” Trust Abed to voice it, so that Shad had to think about the damn thing. He punched the little whiner in the arm.

“It’s not that high. Maybe as tall as our house. We jumped off that last year.” He wished his voice would stop squeaking. It made him sound like a pussy. Meshach’s didn’t to that.

“You broke your leg doing that.” And then their dad had broken his arm, for good measure, for being stupid enough to jump off the roof.

“Look, just shut up and let’s climb the damn thing, okay, before Meshach has to come back down and get us.” He grabbed his little brother’s arm, and hoisted him to the first ledge. “Hold on tight, and don’t let go. We can do this.”

“We can.” It killed him, sometimes, how much Abednego trusted him. But he trusted Meshach… and Meesh trusted Dad. He wasn’t sure any of it made sense.

Seven years before Addergoole Year 5

“I’ll be home by dark.” Acacia threw the lie over her shoulder as she ducked out the screen door.

“Don’t do anything wild and reckless.” It was her mother’s joke, although it had never been quite a joke.

“Nothing tooooo wild.” She grinned at the door and then took off running. She would have to hurry to be back before Mom started to worry, even if that was long after dark.

Several hours later, on top of the abandoned Terrance Building (Rumor had it, it had once been a psych warn, but too many people had died), she grinned at her friends. “We did it. Now all we have to do is get down without getting caught.”

“That might be problematic. I think I see a police car in the distance. Get down.” Geoff grabbed her neck and pulled her down under the low saftey wall; Acacia rolled and kicked him in the nuts in a move she’d been practicing for months.

As the cop circled the base of the building, 15 stories down, and Geoff rolled in pain, she grinned. “Nothing too wild.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/374410.html. You can comment here or there.

Callenan poetry, a brief treatise, for the July Giraffe Call

Jul18

This is the donation-level perk for the June Giraffe Call.

Callenan poetry falls into several different categories, but the largest division, describing all else, is spoken vs. written poetry.

Written poetry originated with the priesthood, and before them with the gods-chasers1 of the original Home Valley. The Callenian language, written, lends itself to artistic forms and decoration.

In the early days of the written word, the god-chasers would mark short prayer-poems, often calling out to longer spoken-poem works, onto the skin of the tribe’s Riders, onto the leather of their saddles, and onto the fur of their goats. As time went on, the artistic forms became more complicated; the holy texts of Callenia are written in formed poetry.2

Spoken poetry existed long before the written, and was first used to pass on stories and lessons from one generation to the next. In the style of epics, spoken poetry tends to rely heavily on repetition, rhyme, and a strong rhythm to carry mnemonic cues.

One common form of spoken poetry, dating back to the original Tribes of the Valley and continuing even into the Steam era, is called an “around;” usually consisting of seven parts, and often of seven speakers, the poem moves “around” a cycle of life, and around the seven mountains that ringed the Home Valley.

Examples of similar works in English poetry include the country song “Don’t Take the Girl3,” where a repetitive chorus means something slightly new in each verse, and the children’s rhyme “The Farmer in the Dell4,” where each verse builds on the next.

Hear now I tell you when I last went home
The Reeve5‘s oldest daughter, she danced all alone
Her lover had left her, gone off to the fight
They burned up his body and gave her his knife6.
Hear now I tell you when I last went home
The Reeve’s oldest daughter, she danced all alone

This poem continues for six more verses, detailing the soldier’s courtship of the Reeve’s oldest daughter, their eventual consummation, and the soldier’s inevitable return to the front.

The final verse calls back to the first verse:

Hear now I tell you, when you next return
To the Village I left, to the place I call home,
Dance with the daughter, hear of her plight.
They’ve burned up my body and sent home my knife
Hear now I tell you, when you next return
The Reeve’s oldest daughter will dance all alone.


1. The Callenan left the original gods when settling Reiassan. See http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/365239.html
2. For examples see http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=1001
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don’t_Take_the_Girl
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Farmer_in_the_Dell
5. A Reeve is the political and law-enforcing head of a small village or town, appointed by the Emperor
6. Bodies in wartime are burned, although bodies in peace-time are often buried in stone tombs. A soldier’s widow, lover, or parents would be given his war-blade as a memorial.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/373898.html. You can comment here or there.

Monster Camp

Jul17

For @DaHob’s Prompt

Finnegan is a character in Addergoole

Efrosin, Niassa, and Arna are characters in Addergoole Year Nine.

After Ghost story (LJ) and Seeing Ghosts (LJ).

Doug was waiting at the gates when the last campers had been packed off.

“Did good,” he told them, in a rough grunt. Finnegan and Efrosin shared a glance, and then looked back at the man.

“Thanks,” Finnegan offered. “Even…”

“Very good.” He nodded sharply. “So. How long before college?”

“Three years.” Efrosin was, Finnegan had noticed, a bit of a smartass. Then again, being Shiva’s brother, he supposed that made sense.

“Three weeks. I go back just before Eff goes back to Addergoole.”

“Got more camp for you two.”

“I was kinda hoping for a vacation…” He wasn’t sure what the younger kid had been hoping for. Maye more camp was perfect for him.

Doug shrugged. “Don’t want to kill monsters? Fine with me.”

“Oh,wait!” He stepped forward, almost reaching for the man. “Monster hunting? Like…”

“Yeah. Like them. Running a training session, you two, couple others. Figure you know all the book stuff already, considering.”

“Yeah. Considering.” Considering his first-year Keeper and her sisters had been Addergoole’s primary monster hunters while they were in the school. Efrosin, he wasn’t so sure about, but the kid had potential. “Who else?”

“You’ll see. You in or out?”

Efrosin was, he realized, looking at him to answer first. Finnegan weighed the idea in his head, comparing spend three weeks monster hunting to spend three weeks reading bad books and playing in the water.

“Yeah, I’m in.” He’d have his whole life to play in the water.

“Me, too.” The way Efrosin moved closer to him made him wonder if the boy had a crush on him. He’d Kept another guy last year, after all, thanks to his sister’s interference. “Shiva…”

“She’ll be there. Come on, you’re all packed.”

~

Efrosin hadn’t realized how out of shape he was until he was put up against Doug’s training camp. Leo would love this; maybe next year he’d talk Doug into letting Boom – or part of Boom, maybe one at a time? – attend. Efrosin… well, he was a lazy tomcat, to quote his mother, his sisters, and anyone else who knew him. And compared to the rest of the people here, he was a scrawny out-of-shape runt.

“Come on, midget, keep running.” Niassa grabbed his arm and urged him over the obstacle course. “Look, once you get through Dad’s Basic Training, nothing will ever look like a real challenge again.”

“I’ll be dead, I won’t need challenges.” He let her haul him over one hurdle, and then, pride pricked, took the next two on his own. “I don’t think I belong here.”

“Move your feet, Arna!” Doug’s shout echoed over the course. “Finnegan, it doesn’t care if it can’t see you!” He took his eyes off the course to stare at the others, or at where Finnegan ought to be, at least.

“Watch out!” Niassa gave him a shove; Efrosin jumped four feet in the air, missed the water trap, and landed on a tree branch, looking down at her, resisting the urge to hiss in indignation.

The lean girl only laughed. “We’ve got our skills and you’ve got yours. You’ll do fine, once you stop whining and pay attention. Come on, I’ll race you to the end.”

“No fair, you’ve got wings.” But he was already going, skittering down the tree branch. Maybe he’d manage to get another “did good” before the summer was over.

Maybe even from Finnegan.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/373270.html. You can comment here or there.

Seeing Ghosts

Jul17

For wyld_dandelyon‘s prompt

Finnegan is a characters in Addergoole

After Ghost Story (LJ)

Finnegan was woken in the middle of the night by a hand on his shoulder. For a brief moment, he forgot where he was, who he was, everything but the sensation of a midnight wake-up. He expected to hear Allyse’s purr in his ear: Trouble. Back later. Stay here; waiting orders.

Instead, it was a soft whisper, gentler than his Keeper had ever been. “Finn? Finnegan, wake up. I can’t find Brenna.” That was Aimee’s voice. Aimee, not Allyse. A world apart and then some.

He blinked into wakefulness, hoping he hadn’t gone invisible, or, if he had, that the other counselor hadn’t noticed. “I’m awake.” He tilted his head towards the cabin exit, counted his own campers – six, good. Six heads, six beds, and a heat signature to match each head. Brenna had been getting friendly with his camper Jose; that’s probably why the other counselor had come for him.

She was waiting outside for him. Barely older than the campers herself; last year, she’d been a camper, making wide flirty eyes at Finnegan. He’d been too broken last year, to even contemplate it; this year, they were too busy to have time to flirt. Funny how life did that.

“She was there when I checked at ten, but when I woke up at midnight, she was gone. The rest of my girls are sound asleep, but I thought maybe she’d gone off with Jose.”

“He’s still in his bed. Doesn’t mean he didn’t set her up, though.” Finnegan felt like a heel, especially at the hurt look on Aimee’s face. “It’s not the first time one of them’s done something like that – tell the other girl or guy they’d meet them somewhere at midnight, and then blow them off or forget all about it. I can see Jose doing it.”

“They’re just kids, Finnegan.”

“Trust me, fourteen isn’t a kid anymore. Not when it comes to sheer manipulation and cynicism.” He decided not to mention how barely past that she was herself. “I’d try up at the top of the hill.”

“By the fence?” She was scared, bless her heart. Finnegan sighed.

“There’s not really a heart-eating monster up there, you know.”

“I know! It’s just…”

“Come on. I’ll hold your hand.” He’d been kidding, but was unsurprised when she clung to the hand he offered like it was a lifeboat. “This happens all the time, Aimee. Didn’t you used to wander off at night?”

“I know what I was doing, too.” He could see her blush even in the moonlight; the Kwxe Working he had up meant he could feel it, too.

“So let’s see who she’s doing it with.”

The hike up the hill was treacherous even in daytime, miserable at night, but the moon was full, and clever Aimee had brought a flashlight. It didn’t stop her from leaning on his arm, but, then again, he hadn’t expected it to. He didn’t mind; she had a sort of softness and neediness that seemed even more appealing when compared to his nightmares of Allyse and her sisters.

“Oh, god, oh, help…” the voice was thin and reedy, panicked sounding but as if the speaker was trying not to be too long. Whispering for help? “Someone, please…”

“That’s Brenna.” Aimee pulled ahead, turning to make sure Finnegan was keeping up. He followed dutifully, muttering a whole series of Workings under his breath as he went there.

He didn’t need to have bothered. The girl was there, all right, in just the place where generations of campers before her had found a loose spot in the fence and made it bigger, right on the other side from the foundation of the old cottage. She was crouched low to the ground, her heat signature way higher than it ought to be. And she seemed to have done something very weird with her hair…

No. Finnegan stopped, staring carefully at the girl. No. That wasn’t a weird hair-do, that was a crest. Three rows of crest, as a matter of fact, like some sort of fish. And she wasn’t whispering, she was gasping for air.

“No,” he groaned. How was he going to explain this to Aimee? She was as mundane as you could get; all she was going to see was an unhappy girl, not one drowning on dry land.

Explain later, he decided. He scooped up the girl. “We have to get her into the water. Tub in the counselor’s bathroom is closer than the lake. Move!”

She moved, running faster than he’d thought possible, especially in those stupid flip-flops. She jetted down the hill, Finnegan muttering desperate little Meentik Yaku Working at the girl, wishing he could handle more than an alpha-level when it came to Create.

And then she was in the tub, and they were pouring water over her, and then, only then, bless her heart, did Aimee ask, in a shaking voice, “does she have…gills?”

Brenna is a character in Addergoole Year Nine!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/373141.html. You can comment here or there.

A cy’Linden Summer

Jul17

For rix_scaedu‘s prompt

Jamian and Manira are characters in Addergoole

Summer between Years 5 and 6 of the Addergoole School

“Come on, it’ll be fun.”

Jamian had to admit, the situation was a bit surreal: him coaxing Manira out with those words?

They had been hanging around the Village for a month, spending time near each other – at first by accident, and then, as he realized how despondent Manira was getting, on purpose, at least from Jamian’s end.

“I should stay here with Caprice.”

“You should get out, before you go all post-partum depression on me. Come on, it’ll be fun.”

This time, at least, he got a small smile. “Isn’t that my line?”

“So use it. Manira, I love my kids, but if I spend every minute of the day staring at them, I’m going to go bonkers.”

“I… what if I do something wrong? I haven’t… I mean, I… damnit.”

He’d figured out that there was something strange about Manira, something she couldn’t or wouldn’t tell, but he still hadn’t figured out what. Right now, it didn’t matter. “Look, I’m the same Cohort as you, so I’ll be around for the next three years. You’ve got me to help – and you’ve got our Mento… okay, never mind that. But you’ve got Maureen, and Caitrin, and Mendosa, and together, we can figure this out.”

“Really? You’d help me?”

He grinned at her, finally feeling like he was doing something right. “You helped me, didn’t you? Come on, the daycare is expecting Caprice – and Dommie and Carey.”

“You nicknamed your kid Dommie?”

He couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah. Wishful thinking, maybe? Look, the rest of the cy’ree – Mags and Anwell, Mea, Joff, and ‘Vette, they’re all waiting for us.”

“Well, all right. But what is there to do around here?”

Now his grin was stretched wide. “They put in a water park the next town over.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/372923.html. You can comment here or there.

Giraffe Call & PayPal Problems

Jul16

My Giraffe Call is open (and on LJ) until 11 p.m. EST tonight.

The Theme is Addergoole Summer Camp; stop in and leave your summer-based prompts about my Addergoole Setting!

I know at least one person has been having trouble getting a PayPal Payment through. I offer last month’s button, to see if that helps.


Art by Djinni!
I also take payment by Dwolla

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/372371.html. You can comment here or there.

The Ropes

Jul15

For [personal profile] clare_dragonfly‘s prompt

Rozen is a character in Addergoole

Warning: bondage, but no sex

“And to think, I nearly went to the Police Academy.” Rozen tied another knot, immobilizing the slim, naked girl hanging in front of him. She could still wiggle, and she was doing quite a bit of that, but the most she could do would be to set herself to swinging, as she was, swaying lightly back and forth. “Plenty of time for that in the fall; this is so much more fun.” He grabbed her by her raven hair. Raven, sadly, not red. But there would be redheads later. “This is a lot more fun.”

He had gagged the girl with another knot of rope, so she couldn’t answer coherently, but she mumbled something around the gag anyway, sounding deliciously stuck. There were benefits to playing with humans; one of those was that he really had no concern she’d ever come gunning for him.

Of course, she had walked into this willingly, which was another plus.

He pulled her face around until she was looking up at him, her scalp at his navel. “You are loads of fun.” He meant it, too, although he missed the drunk look that the bond could give a girl when you praised her. Maybe he needed a Kept.

Maybe he needed a bullet to the skull.

She mumbled up at him, and he pinched her nipples happily. “Comfortable? I could really get into this, you know.” He fiddled with the ropes around her ankles, changing the angle of her suspension, dropping her head down a couple more inches. “This is really the best thing I could have done with my summer.” He reached for his belt, and watched her eyes widen.

“We’ll see how you feel about that tomorrow, why don’t we?” The voice behind him stopped him dead.

“Tomorrow?” He turned around, the raven-haired girl suddenly forgotten for another dark girl. Annissa, the woman who’d invited him here. And she was smiling. For a moment, he thought he saw fangs flicker as if she’d let a Mask slip.

“You have to take your turn in the ropes, too, Rozen. It’s in the contract.” This time, he was sure her teeth were inhumanly sharp. “You should really learn to read things before you sign them.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/372078.html. You can comment here or there.