Tag Archive | giraffecall

Othel, a story for the Giraffe Call

Nov16

This is to The_vulture‘s prompt “Othel,” and it’s a little weird. As I looked at the rune Othel, I thought of a story, coming up and down over generations. It didn’t end up quite like what I’d first pictured, but it helps if you think of this story as 6 lines, with two junctures (there should have been four, as I look at it, but the shorter junctures are the top and middle points); the story starts at bottom left and follows the rune around to the bottom right.

Learning Memories
The farmhouse where her grandfather had been born, where her mother had grown up, was bustling with family and rocking with laughter. Feather was in the midst of it, sitting on her grandmother’s lap, listening to her uncle’s stories, “…and then the damn cow walked, backwards, all the way out.”

Inheriting a Place
Feather held her grandmother’s glass bluebird. Not a lap, not a hug, or a story. But grandma had loved it, and she could hold it.

Making Memories, I
The bluebird sat in Feather’s dorm window, the room full of laughter and friends. “…and then the damn cow backed right out of the barn. My uncle never could live that down.” She leaned against Jerome’s shoulder, basking in the warmth of her friends. “And then there was that time…”

Making Memories, II
The bluebird turned a blind eye as they came home, muddy, soaking wet, and laughing. “I can’t believe you pulled me out.”

“What was I going to do, let you drown? Here, let me get that.” Jerome pulled her sweater off, wrapping a towel around her shoulders, pressing her close.

Making a Place
“…in sickness and in health …” The dress was blue, echoing her grandmother’s; the bands just like his parents’.

“With this ring, I thee wed.”

Making Memories, III
They stood high on the side of the mountain, their kids to either side of them, looking over the valley below, the trees a rippling blanket of green spread out at their feet. Her son hugged her, briefly and impulsively. “It’s beautiful,” he exclaimed. “I’m going to remember this forever.”

Making Memories, IV
Feather wore dark blue; she always did, to weddings, and this one was more important than most. She held Jerome’s hand tightly while their daughter said her vows, surrounded by the love of her family and friends. A child whispered “she’s pretty,” and the church, as one, laughed, brightly, happily.

Leaving a Place
She wrapped the bluebird carefully with shaking hands, nesting it in layers of blue tissue paper. Her granddaughter might not understand yet, but she would.

Teaching memories
“And then there was that time up on the mountain,” Feather chuckled, cuddling her granddaughter close on her lap, “when your dad decided to slip-and-slide his way down the last hundred feet. I nearly had a heart attack.” The house rumbled with laughter, full of family and warm with love.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/178222.html. You can comment here or there.

Budding

Nov16

For kc_obrien‘s prompt.

This is in the Fae Apoc Setting, which has a landing page here.

The internment camp came into existence in
Discovery Channel, was expanded in
Invisibles; Daryl and his family were introduced in
The Pay Was Good.

***

One thing Dylan was glad for, when they’d moved into the internment camp they were supposed to be guarding and started guarding it against intruders instead of escapes, when they’d become, more or less, farmers and homesteaders, a small community against the outside world, when they’d finally armed the fae because, really, nothing but manners was stopping them from taking the weapons anyway – one thing he was glad for, when it was all said and done, was that his babies would not be old enough to date for many years, enough years that the war would, god-in-heaven willing, be done by then.

Not that he had anything against the Ellehemaei, but, when you came down to it, did you really want your daughter bringing home a boy that looked like a snake? Or, god-in-heaven forbid, what happened when your son came home, like Jose’s son Miguel had, saying, “Dad, I got her pregnant…” and you find out that “her” might be a pretty girl, but she had a peacock’s tail and wings, and Jose’s grandkids were eggs. Eggs! No, better to keep Marilyn and Jack close to home, playing with other human kids.

Miguel and his pretty bird were only the first, of course. All crammed together like that, and the internees had a lot of teens, and the guards, well, they had kids, and they had sex drives, the guards and the kids and the teens, all of them. They held weddings, mixed shindigs no less convoluted than some Dylan had seem at straight human marriages, and they had affairs, and even Dylan got propositioned by the pretty girl with the goaty bits.

He turned her down – they were at a wedding, for one, and he was faithful to his lovely Kaylee, for another – but it made him look twice, the next time he saw Miguel and his bird, or Curt’s kid Tasha with the boy with tentacles. He had a few words with Kaylee, and they started putting together baby gifts from what they could. A budding family was a budding family, after all, even if they were hatched. Or, for that matter, budded.

***

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/177958.html. You can comment here or there.

Dwimors, a story of Dragons Next Door for the Giraffe Call

Nov16

For [personal profile] meeks‘s prompt.

This is in the Dragons Next Door setting, which has a landing page here (and on LJ).

It is part of the series that includes:
Over the Wall (LJ Link),
The Black Tower (LJ Link,
The Pumpkin (LJ Link,
Skeletons (LJ)
and
Rule Three (DW)

“A lovely story.” Zizny watched me with one broad eye. “And your Sage seems like a very reasonable man, even when he was still a juvenile.”

“Very reasonable,” I agreed. “He’s a good man, my Sage.”

“But you have been avoiding telling me of your family woes. Perhaps a bargain?”

“A bargain?” I repeated dumbly. “What sort?” I’d been hoping to keep it entertained long enough to distract from the whole family issue at all.

“You clearly do not wish to discuss this, but I confess I am very curious. If you will tell me what it is that so bothers you about your family, I will tell you something, in return, that bothers me.” It paused. “About my kin-group as well, no less.”

That was, on the surface, fair. I nodded slowly. “I can do that.” Please don’t roast me. Zizny was my friend, my neighbor. It wouldn’t hold my ancestors against me, would it?

I took the longest, deepest breath I could, stalling, working up the nerve. “My father’s family are, for the most part, just poor, dirt-poor. Sometimes thieves, sometimes tricksters. There’s a thought there’s some elkin blood way back, and it would explain things, at least some things.”

“Mm. So it sounds as if they are not the ones who bother you?”

“Not really, no. As silly as that sounds.”

“It doesn’t sound silly at all. So your mother’s family? The grandmother who paid for your time at the Pumpkin?”

“Yes,” I sighed. “My mother’s family are what you’d call, or, at least, what people I know might call self-hating dwimors.” I watched Zizny’s expression, wondering if the term would be familiar… yes. Yes, that blink and all those very sharp teeth suggested that it had encountered the term before.

“Monster hunters, I believe they call themselves?”

“Yes,” I sighed. “Yes, yes they do.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/177754.html. You can comment here or there.

Hump Day!

Nov16

Yesterday was mellow, getting-over-sick and somehow writing 4025 words (woo).

We made “pumpkin” “pie” for the first time this season, one of my favorite desserts.

(make pie custard with butternut puree, then pour into a casserole sans crust and bake. Nom! Also much lower-calorie that way).

We bought a nice Dremel for T. to do some work with, and he enjoyed making wood chips all over the living room.

(The situation: the “card room” is a small former-porch-maybe, 8’x8′, off the living room, next to the bedroom. Its floor is 4″ higher than the living room, and will hopefully be lowered next year. Its ceiling was just a scoootch lower than the living room’s, the difference covered by a styrofoam wood beam. We removed the beam to find that someone had cut off the wall studs about 1″ lower than the ceiling. So to cover the hole smoothly, we needed to saw off these Very Very Firm Studs. hence, tiny Dremel saw!)

(Also? Tiny Dremel saws are awesome.)

((Also? I finally have a Dremel and now I don’t want vampire fangs O_O))

I posted 100 more words on the linkback incentive (LJ) for [personal profile] ysabetwordsmith‘s signal boost, but I have a feeling I’m missing some. 550 words = 11 linkbacks.

And, since the prompts stay open until I write the last prompt, I’ve still got two to go!

On LJ – http://aldersprig.livejournal.com/316593.html
and on DW – http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/170868.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/177469.html. You can comment here or there.

And Sisterhood

Nov15

For @daHob’s offline prompt.

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

“Cotswald told me I’d find you here.”

Caleb glanced up from his book, refusing to jump, refusing to look nervous. Marianne was not the enemy. Next to him, Cye was having less of an easy time of it. “We weren’t hiding.”

“Clearly not well enough.” She sat down near them. “You weren’t at dinner. The Lady Mother noticed.”

“I wasn’t hungry.”

“That works for you, does it?” She pulled a couple rolls out of her pocket. “I know Cye’s mom will make sure you don’t starve, but you have to leave the library for that.”

“I like the library.” He took the offered rolls anyway, and passed one to Cye. “Thanks, Mare.”

“Hey, I like to look out for you, when I can.” She pulled three cookies out of her pocket and shared them around. “She’s on a rampage, you know.”

What was new? “Cotswald was looking for Simeon.”

“He wasn’t at dinner either. Probably why she noticed you weren’t there.”

Caleb winced. It was one thing to be invisible, another thing to have your nose rubbed in it. “Does this have something to do with Baroness Jacoba’s younger daughter?”

“That squinty half-wit? For everyone’s sake, I hope not.” She filled her mouth with cookie for a few minutes, and they all sat in passably companionable silence.

“Me, too,” Cye offered shyly after a moment. “Your ladyship.”

“You, too, wha… oh, Jacoba’s daughter? Why’s that?”

“She beats her slaves. Not all of them, I mean, but her companion.” Unspoken, because they all knew it: if she beat her slaves, would she beat her husband’s slaves? Would she beat her husband?

Marianne looked grim for a moment. “Thank you for that information, Cye,” she said gently. “I’ll lean on our Lady Mother, if she is talking to Baroness Jacoba about something other than land rights.”

“Thanks, Mare,” Caleb murmured quietly. It would probably be Simeon and not him, if it was anyone, but still…

She smiled crookedly at him. “I owe you two, for what you did with Michel ó Gwydion at that dance last month. And besides,” she added, when both of them flinched at the memory, “you’re my kid brother, Caleb. And you’re his, Cye. I have to look out for you two.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/177370.html. You can comment here or there.

Of Clay and Salt, for the Giraffe Call

Nov15

For [personal profile] pippin‘s prompt.

This is a one-off.

When Ned Wharton lost his wife Amelia to childbirth, he, too beset with grief and too busy with his work to think of courting another woman, made a golem of clay mud and salt tears to serve as a nanny to his infant son and housekeeper for himself. For a heart, he gave her the glass rose he had given Amelia on their first date, and for a brain, he gave her an abacus. For her voice, he installed a music box Amelia had loved.

He named her Adamanta, and, as his son grew to adulthood, she served the family faithfully. She did not age, and did not sleep, but she could pass, for a short time, as human, and many people assumed that Ned had simply remarried on the quiet. The stone woman was entirely faithful to Ned and young Edward Junior, a devoted house-woman and a scrupulous house-cleaner. She neither gossiped nor was the subject of gossip, and was said by many to be a perfect wife.

As young Ed Junior grew up, Ned, who did on occasion notice what was going on under his roof, saw that Adamanta was becoming quieter and more withdrawn, and would often spend time in the old nursery, holding Ed’s outgrown toys. So he created for her a child, a daughter of clay mud and seasoning salts, a tiny teddy bear from Eddie’s childhood for a heart, a flute for a voice and a puzzle toy for a brain. He called her Adora, Adamanta’s daughter, and treated her as he treated his own flesh and blood.

She was a lovely girl who would never age, never grow up, a sweet thing who loved to hug people and would spend hours drawing strange mystical cities. Eddie was mystified by her – but Adamanta and Adora were invited to his wedding, and had a family’s place of honor next to Ned.

As more time passed, Ned resigned himself to the fact that he was aging. His son had children of his own, who were growing more rapidly than seemed possible, while Adamanta and Adora stayed young and fresh and loyal. As the cough set in, one late, damp February, Ned understood that he would not be around for his wife and daughter for much longer.

He built for them a man of mud clay and salt tears, with a diary for a heart, Ned’s very own journal, and a set of clockwork gears for a brain. He did not give the man a voice, for he had never found he needed to speak much at all, but he did give him a stomach of brass and copper. And with his last breath, he gave this husband of mud a name.

Attend.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/176874.html. You can comment here or there.

The family that knots together…

Nov15

For eseme‘s prompt.

This is in the Stranded World Setting, which has a landing page here. this comes after the donor-perk story The RoundTree Siblings Prepare for Thanksgiving (On LJ.)

They took a moment, the four of them, away from their respective dates (or non-dates), all feeling a little bit guilty about that, to stand on the porch and look at each other.

It wasn’t that uncommon for those who knew the strands to slide their vision sideways when looking at someone else, to see what was going on with them in a more meta sense. For an outside observer, though, those four minutes of staring not-quite-at-each-other might have seemed surreal, even creepy.

Summer reached out first, to sketch a good-luck charm in the air over the foreheads of each of her siblings. That got her three variations on their family wide-mouthed crooked smile, and then Winter took his turn, smoothing out bumps and rough spots. They were a volatile, wild set of sisters, and there were more than a few knots in each of their patterns.

He paused by a tangle near Spring’s heart, question in his expression; she moved his hand gently away, towards a tight knot of conflicted emotion in a similar spot on Autumn. She, in return, flinched, shrugging uncomfortably, but submitted, like a kitten to an older cat’s grooming, to her brother’s ministrations.

That caused Spring to make some nice little tangles in the air around them, nothing too messy, but nothing too smooth; she’d been tangling Winter’s lines since she was born. He patted her head in revenge, and they all glanced at Autumn.

She already had her pen out, and, while there was still a small knot near her heart, she was smiling warmly as she drew, on the underside of each of her siblings’ left wrist, a small pattern. Family, the sigil said. Love. Warmth. Peace.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/176596.html. You can comment here or there.

Family Planning

Nov15

For inventrix‘s prompt.

This is in the Dragons Next Door setting, which has a landing page here (and on LJ).

I’m pretty sure I know what race(s) mom and dad are, and will reveal it… later

“I’ve been thinking of having another child.”

Andromeda dropped that over breakfast, while their three kids were distracted with the busy work of devouring calories for the day and elbowing each other out of their personal spaces. Her husband studied her, eyes half-lidded, cautious.

It was a trueism that every child was a blessing, but in a mixed-race family, where having a child required magical intervention and a very very careful laying-in time, it was nothing to take lightly. The second of their three had nearly killed her in the second trimester. But now all three were in school, and she was getting broody again.

Alon, whose people did not, generally, mate for life, was more than a little uncertain what to do with his wife’s seemingly insatiable need for children. But over the breakfast table was not the time to discuss it. “Talk to your mother about finding an egg shell, then?” he offered, “if you’re sure….”

“I’m not,” she admitted. “Aloysius, stop bolting your… what are you eating?”

“Grilled oats with steak?” Their oldest looked up from his meal, grinning ear to ear with teeth that had come in sharp as needles. “Coach says I need to gain some weight if I’m going to wrestle.”

“Are they making up a class for you?” his younger sister taunted. “Scrawny nags who bite?”

“Take it back, Anna!” He poked her in the second set of ribs. “Take it back!”

Andromeda sighed, and met her husband’s eyes. “Really not certain,” she repeated, even as she reached out her third arm to tug their older children away from each other. “No biting at the table, kids.” She tugged Agnella to the other side of her. “It’s the clutching instinct, I’m afraid.”

Alon picked up their youngest bodily before he could bite his brother’s foreleg, and held Afram upside down, four legs waving wildly, a hoof nearly missing his father’s chin. “Maybe we could… get a dog?”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/176327.html. You can comment here or there.

Giraffe Call So Far!

Nov15

This has been a slow Giraffe Call, which I’m totally fine with, since I’m still working on my Nano-vel. I have, right now, three prompts left to write for the first batch.

The call is open until I finish those:
On LJ – http://aldersprig.livejournal.com/316593.html
and on DW – http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/170868.html

After that, I have an additional 5 prompts to write to finish the all donor’s prompts, and then whatever they wish me to write as their continuations. We reached $35, so there will be a poll up at the end of the week for our incentive continuation (have no fear! Last month’s continuation will be done soon!!).

I have one new prompter and no new commenters or donors, so there will be no setting-piece for this round.

Stories to date are (and there’s 11 of them):
Addergoole Yr5
Uh-Oh (LJ)
Family ties (LJ)

Addergoole yr8
Some Say Life (LJ)

Addergoole Year 21
Generations (LJ) and
Revelations (LJ)

Unicorn/Factory
Talking it to Death (LJ)

The Aunt Family
The Family Kudzu (LJ)
Difficult Relations (LJ)

Stranded
Thicker Than… (LJ)

Rin/Girey
Mother Knows… (LJ)

Tír na Cali
Brothers and Brotherhood (LJ)

The Linkback Incentive Story (LJ) is still incomplete. If you think I missed your signal boost, please let me know!

We reached the first incentive level!

Edited to add: if you are the mystery donor for whom I have an IRL name and a broken e-mail but no screen name, thank you!! What story would you like to see continued with your donation?

Image by viva_la_topknot

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/175963.html. You can comment here or there.

Family Ties

Nov14

For an anonymous prompt.

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

Regine, the speaker, is a character from Addergoole, as are all of the characters she mentions (except Falk).

For a family tree, see here.

Regine discusses fae genetics, Addergoole Year 5.

The field of Ellehemaei genetics is still in its infancy, as such things go. Human genetic codes are still, for the most part, a mystery; adding to that the complexities of our extra-terrestrial ancestry leads to a very complicated field of study indeed. One must narrow the field to hope to achieve anything within a lifetime, even our long spans.

I have narrowed my personal field to two specifics: the mysteries of the way the so-called “half-breed” genes create new patterns as they combine and recombine, and the “throwbacks:” full-blooded Ellehemaei born from two half-breed parents.

To the second, of course I’m interested in Jamian, and not just in it but in its children-to-come and in its half-siblings, who, while they all have very interesting and rather powerful Changes, have not become full-blooded Daeva by any stretch.

But to the first, I confess to an vested concern in my own family line, where, after all, my own interest in Ellehemaei genetics first sprang. My half-brother, Falk, for instance: although we have the same Grigori father, my Change was to a full-blooded Grigori and his, to put it bluntly, was not.

Nor have his children exhibited full-blooded Changes, despite the very strong genetics leaning that way in at least one case. Caity and Kailani are both brilliant young women, nearly as an intelligent as a full-blood might be, but they are not Grigori. Likewise my great-niece Sarita, Falk’s granddaughter by his first wife, Fatima, although in her case, she seems to have inherited a skill with people rather than any brilliance. I confess, I wish Sarita had found someone more intelligent to father her children, or at least split the fathering between two, but it will be interesting to see what comes of her children with Finn.

I expect more of Kai’s children, or at least her child by Conrad. He comes from very strong stock, after all, and is himself more bright than he gives himself credit for. They should create a very smart child together; perhaps, if all works out, I can combine the streams again with a child of theirs and a child of Caity and the indomitable Richard. From that line, I expect to find the leaders of the next generation, perhaps my successor to this mantle.

And from my own children and grandchildren… it remains to be seen. Agatha has not exhibited the taste in men I would have hoped for, but that seems to be a trait of my daughters. Ramona certainly did not choose the fathers for Ofir and Oralee that I would have picked, and it shows, most strongly in Ofir’s academics and paltry understanding of social mechanism. One can only hope that the repeated Grigori strain in Agatha’s child by Ofir will be enough to balance out the idiocy of the father there.

Oralee’s choices were, genetically, better. I look forward to seeing what her child by Ib will become, with the Mara and Grigori bloodlines both so strong there.

I have four more generations. In that time, I should be able to find or create the patterns I am looking for. In that time, I should be able to re-introduce a pureblooded line, a stronger, better Grigori line, to my bloodline.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/175612.html. You can comment here or there.