Tag Archive | giraffecall

The Rescue? Continues? – a continuation for the Giraffe Call

Oct7

Previous: A Rescue, of Sorts

Daxton had dealt with mercenaries before – there had been the month of assassination attempts, and then there had been the border skirmishes, since his father’s Duchy butted up again the Red Queen’s land. He had learned, unpleasantly but quickly, that you did what you were told by the people in armor, or, Duke’s son or not, they made certain you did what they wanted. He fell quiet and held still.

“This’ll just take a minute.” She pulled a leather roll from her belt and, from there, pulled a set of tiny tools. “Just hold still…” One slim tool went into the key-hole of Daxton’s shackles, followed by another, this one at an angle. “Hold still…” Daxton hadn’t moved, but, then again, she wasn’t looking at him, she was looking at her work.

Three clicks later, the shackles had released. “Can you walk?”

“Yes.” He was fairly certain he could, at least. “But-“

“Hsst, come on.” She hauled him to his feet and shoved her shoulder under his arm. “We’ve got to get out of here before – well, we’ve got to get out of here.”

He couldn’t very well let her go back to his father and tell the Duke that his son had refused to leave the Red Queen’s dungeon. “Very well. I can walk…”

“And I can support you. You’re a year’s wages on legs, man, come on. I expected this.”

It turned out that “I can walk” was slightly more of an exaggeration than Daxton had believed, but, luckily, he supposed, the mercenary’s claim that she could support him was completely true. They headed out of the dungeon, the hair on the back of Daxton’s neck prickling.

They were moving quietly, but slowly. Daxton was sure that at any moment, the Red Queen’s guards would jump out and resc- and capture him back. He’d feel bad about the nice mercenary woman, of course, but she’d known it was a high-risk job. Dukes do not give out rewards like the one Daxton’s father was reportedly offering for cakewalks.

“Almost there. Hsst, gotta hold yourself for a moment. Can you do that?”

“Where… yes.” They were in a dusty, musty corner of the white-stone castle. He hadn’t seen much of the place in his captivity, but he was pretty sure that nobody had seen this room in years, possibly decades. Certainly nobody with a mop.

It had some old papers, a lot of mud – and most importantly, a door. It looked stuck; the mercenary leaned heavily on it, shoving it one finger-width at a time.

The guards were going to be here any minute. They were going to hear the soft scrape of the door on the wood, or follow some trail or some track. They couldn’t just lose him. Could they?

And they’d put an arrow through her, right off, but if the Red Queen was telling the truth, they’d make sure to only cripple her. She liked thieves to die slowly, very slowly.

“Can you hurry a little?”

“If I hurry, it makes noise. It makes noise…”

“Okay. Okay. Quiet is good.” He leaned against a wall. The guards would find him. Nobody had even got as far as the dungeon before. He wasn’t even sure the stories the Red Queen told him were true. But if they did find him – if they didn’t find him –

“There. Come on, the horses are right outside.”

“This is insane.” He hobbled through the narrow opening into a courtyard as disused as the room had been. “How did you-“

“I do my prep work. Here.” She dropped to her knees and gave him a leg up into the saddle. Daxton found that muscle memory took over, even if his strength was lacking. “Now, now is the time where we have to really run.” She mounted her own horse much more quickly, grabbed the reins to Daxton’s horse, and, in a moment, they were bent down over their mounts’ necks as they sped towards the border.

They were really leaving. They were really going home. Daxton closed his eyes and concentrated on not falling off. They were really out of the Red Queen’s palace. He squeezed his eyes a little tighter and clutched the pommel.

The mercenary didn’t stop them until they were up in the foothills, past the Red Queen’s territory and almost to Daxton’s father’s duchy. A tiny hunting cabin stood waiting for them. “You can clean up here, and rest. We’ll go back to your father in the morning, and I can collect my reward.”

Her reward. Daxton swallowed. “I really appreciate all the trouble you went to, but I-“

“-have as much interest in rutting as you do in learning how to be a pig farmer. I know.”

“You… what?” Daxton gaped at her.

“I do my prep work. And my research.”

“But my father offered my hand in marriage to the merc – or woman of the merc’s choice – that rescued me.” He could, he supposed, run back to the Red Queen’s dungeon. But that would be pretty obvious.

“So?” The mercenary grinned at him. “You’re not the only one who’d rather do anything else than rut.”

My Dungeon & Cave Call is open!

If you want more of this story – and there is still more just dying to be written – drop a tip in, ah, the tip handcuffs:

This story written as [personal profile] ysabetwordsmith‘s commissioned continuation

Next: Probably a Rescue.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/824624.html. You can comment here or there.

Other Duties As Needed, a story for the Giraffe Call

Oct7

“Miss Myers, when you I said I was willing to do anything…” Danny wiped sweat from his brow. He should just shut up. He kept talking. “I suppose the tone of your voice led me to think that, maybe, since you were looking for a ‘personal assistant’ and it was going to be work in my degree field…”

“You thought perhaps the work would either be sexual or related to business. I understand.” Lilliam Myers sat down on stone wall with a practiced skirt-smoothing gesture that did not help Danny’s concentration. She was fifteen years older than him and a thousand times richer and more successful. And he worked for her, and she was talking about sex. “You weren’t expecting to be laying walls and mowing my lawn. It doesn’t appear to be forwarding your position any, am I right?”

“Exactly.” He picked up another brick and slotted it into place.

“But you did say you’d be willing to do anything.”

“I’m doing it, I’m doing it. It’s just – “

“Not what you expected.” She was laughing at him, wasn’t she? He should have stayed quiet. He should shut up now.

“Not really, no.”

“So what you want is the ability to climb in society, not to build the walls that holds society’s lawns together. But in reality, all that we do is build walls for other people to sit on.”

Danny finally listened to his inner voice and shut up.

“We do a lot of dirty work. Yesterday, while you were working on the bushes, I know you heard the entire conversation between Mr. Donaldson and myself.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He hadn’t known that she’d noticed him.

“And did you learn anything?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“There will be a quiz later. For now, go use the bathroom next to my bedroom and clean up. The wall will still be here tomorrow… and, in a couple hours, we have a charity ball to go to.”

“In a…” The look in her face was unmistakable. “Yes, ma’am!”

My Dungeon & Cave Call is open!

If you’d like to see more of this story, I bet there’s more to be written. Just drop a tip in the the tip handcuffs:

Written to [personal profile] thnidu‘s prompt.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/824469.html. You can comment here or there.

Putting Down the Burden, a story for the Dungeon-and-Cave #promptcall

Oct6

“It’s the stereotype, right?” He shed his jacket and ran a hand through his hair, tousling it. The woman smiled encouragingly and let him talk. “Powerful guy, has it all.” His shirt joined his jacket; his fingers and his speech slowed. The woman didn’t mind – he was sculpted under the shirt, sleek, and clearly a bit nervous. “But he doesn’t have any place to put ‘it all’ down. He doesn’t have any place to not be in charge.” His fingers lingered on the button to his pants.

The woman counted silently to three, waiting for the moment when he looked at her, when he looked for an answer. One, two… there. She stepped forward, gently moving his hand away from his waistband so that she could take over. “Yeah, it’s the stereotype. And that’s for a reason.” She unbuttoned him, unzipped his fly, and with the same slender fingers pushed his pants down to his ankles. “But every theme has variations. Mmm, every song has a bridge.”

“Every rose has its thorn?” he teased.

“And every night has its dawn.” From her knees at her feet, she smiled up at him. “And sometimes, a powerful man needs to let go. Yes?”

He let out a noise that was somewhere between a groan and a plea. “Yeah. Yeah… yes.”

“Then… let go. I’ll be here to catch you, and I’ll be here to put you back on your feet.”

As the fireman sank slowly to his knees, the woman reached out, both hands, to hold his shoulders. Sometimes, they needed her to put out flames.

My Dungeon & Cave Call is open!

If you’d like to see more of this story, I’m sure I could come up with some;-) Just drop a tip in the the tip handcuffs:

Written to wispfox‘s prompt.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/821974.html. You can comment here or there.

Strong Enough?

Oct3

“I’m telling you, man, she’s something else. She’s in here like she’s on the prowl, on the huuunt.” Ted drew the word out like he was tasting it. “When’s the last time you saw a chick in here like that?”

“Well, a),” Rick ticked off on a finger, “we haven’t seen her yet, and 2), I haven’t seen a chick in here at all, except Patty the bartender, since Donnie’s wife came in after him. This is a sports bar, bro, and there’s nothing here but a giant sausage fest.”

“And beer.” Donnie demonstrated by slinging his beer back in one giant swig. “And my good friends Jack and Johnny. Think you’ve had too much to drink, Teddy boy.”

“What about you?” The whisky contralto snuck up on them, the sort of voice that tightened their pants and sped up their heart rates. “Are you strong enough?”

To a man, the Tuesday poker club turned to look. She was leaning over some poor slob at the bar, Craig, wasn’t it, the one whose wife had vanished. She wasn’t dressed sexy – white button-down and blue jeans – but she made it sexy anyway, made it deathly hot. “Are you?”

Craig belched blearily at her. “Babe, I’m strong enough for whatever you want.”

“I don’t think you are.” She straightened up, giving them all a glance of her white lace bra. Her eyes landed on Rick. “What about you, sweetheart? Are you strong enough?”

Rick had learned a thing or two from his older sisters. He met her gaze and held it, never mind how the jeans were hugging every inch of her thighs like he’d like to, never mind the white lace bra. “Miss, if you put a challenge before me, I’ll do my best to meet it.”

“Well then.” Teddy was right. Her smile was predatory. “Maybe you will be enough.”

My Dungeon & Cave Call is open!

We all know where this is going, but if you want to see more, drop a tip in, ah, the tip handcuffs:

This story written to @dahob’s prompt.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/821122.html. You can comment here or there.

Rock, Hard, Now what? (A story beginning for the Dungeon Call, @rix_Scaedu)

Oct3

“Well.” The princess looked at the man kneeling in front of her. He, in turn glared up at her. “This is certainly a situation.”

“No.” His voice was harsh. “This is an inconvenience. What happens when you let me out of the chains – that’s a situation.”

“It certainly could be.” She perched on an upholstered stool and studied him. He was all over muscle, fighter-style, and all over bruises and cuts. He was kneeling because he’d been chained that way, and even the chains, thick as her wrist, looked as if they were straining to hold him. “But here’s the problem. I don’t want to be here, you don’t want to be here. And any solution that leads to one of us not being here leads to us both ending up dead.”

“How do you figure, princess?” He sneered her title like an insult.

She didn’t respond in kind. “You heard my father. I have to survive you for a year. And you have to survive me – which, I admit, should be easier for you.” She ran her fingers over the hilt of her belt-knife. She wasn’t helpless – but she had to sleep sometime.

“Like he’d kill his precious daughter.”

“He is the King, and he gave his word. Emotion is secondary to honor.” She needed to move. She stayed sitting down. “And if you kill me, you won’t make it out of the city.”

“I might.”

“But you probably won’t.” She leaned down until she could look him levelly in the face. “So. Neither of us want to be here. How do we get through this?”

My Dungeon & Cave Call is open!

If you want more of this story – and this one could go on for a while!! – drop a tip in, ah, the tip handcuffs:

This story written to [personal profile] rix_scaedu‘s prompt. It is, I have to admit, a story I’ve tried to write several dozen times – however, this is the first time in quite a few years. So it’s new, right?

Next: Two Rocks & a Bunch of Pebbles

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/820967.html. You can comment here or there.

Aftercare

Oct3

“Come back to me. Anton, come back to me.”

The words swam into focus slowly. The boy squeezed his eyes more tightly closed. “N-n-nooaw.”

“Yes, Anton.” Her voice was soft, patient, but implacable. That was how she always was. “Come back to me, Anton O Gwydion. Wake up to yourself, Anton.”

She was stroking him, running her hands through his fur – no, through his hair. The boy liked it when she petted him. It made everything feel a little more real. “No?” he tried again. This time, it came out as a word and not a meowl.

“That’s my boy. How does your tail feel?”

“Gone.” That was the saddest part of coming back. “Missing.”

“There will be time for a tail again.” Her hand rested at the small of his back. “How do your ears feel?”

“Inadequate.” He jerked up one paw – hand, hand – to scratch at his short, round, naked ear. “Short.”

“Good. There will be time for those ears. How are your words?”

He ran the back of his hand over his mouth. “Sufficient.” Losing the tail sucked. Getting his words back felt like buckling himself back into a straightjacket. “Do I have to?”

“Not yet, kitten. Not if you don’t want to.” She kneaded at the small of his back. “You can sit here in the sunbeam as long as you need to.”

“Thank you.” He rolled onto his back, exposing his naked belly. “You’re nice.” They both knew he could only stay here a little while – eventually, his responsibilities would notice he was gone – but it was nice to be able to sit between the cat and the man for a while and be petted.

My Dungeon & Cave Call is open!

If you want more of this story – and I’m sure I could come up with more of this! – drop a tip in, ah, the tip handcuffs:

This story written to Sky’s prompt and is set in my Tír na Cali universe.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/820320.html. You can comment here or there.

A Rescue, of Sorts (A story for the Caves-and-Dungeons #Promptcall)

Oct3

He would never admit it if you asked, but Daxton found something relaxing about being chained up in the Red Queen’s dungeon. There was regular, if boring, food, a nice hour of full sunlight every day, and the expectations were amazingly simple: all he had to to was continue to say “no” to the Red Queen, which wasn’t as hard as she’d like to think it was, and the food would keep coming and the bucket-of-tepid-water-baths would keep him from stinking too bad for her royal nose.

It wasn’t an ideal situation, of course, but Daxton had found that there were few situations in life that were ideal. Farmers were at the whim of the weather and the magic storms. Merchants were at the whim of their supply and the demand. Daxton was either at the whim of his Ducal father, or he was at the whim of the Red Queen.

The Red Queen had informed Daxton that his father had hired mercenaries to rescue him, and had then, rather cheerfully, told him every time they failed. Daxton had been Outraged Of Course and secretly a little bit relieved. It was thus with some dismay that he found his early-afternoon sunbath being interrupted by a few very quiet thuds from outside his cell door.

He sat up, because it wouldn’t do to be rescued looking like he wanted to be here, but kept his legs in the sunbeam. The stone walls were cold, and he liked the warmth.

In a surprisingly short time, the door to his cell swung open. A merc – the light leather armor was good-quality but not government-issue and almost hid the fact that she was, under it all, probably a woman – slipped through, closing the door almost all the way behind her.

A woman. Well, that explained one of the things the Red Queen had been joking about. And his father did, after all, have other sons. “I’m very grateful for your rescue-“

A gloved hand slapped over Daxton’s mouth before he could get to the but. “Speeches later. Unchaining and running now.”

My Dungeon & Cave Call is open!

If you want more of this story – and there is more dying to be written – drop a tip in, ah, the tip handcuffs:

This story written to [personal profile] ysabetwordsmith‘s prompt.

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/824624.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/820052.html. You can comment here or there.

Cave & Dungeon #Promptcall: dominant women, submissive men

Oct2

This prompt call is all about Lyn comfort writing. *cough*

I want to write a bunch of fun, self-indulgent pieces, and I’m raising money to make my “cave,” the room where I write, prettier and more comfortable to write in. So: caves and dungeons.

I noticed, looking at pretty pictures on Deviantart the other day, that there were lots of pictures of collared women, submissive women – and very few of collared, submissive men. So this prompt call is all about captured men, enslaved men, kidnapped men, submissive men, trapped men.

(Note: I will default to non-sexual-explicit content unless you ask for explicit stuff, to avoid discomfort all around. There will, otoh, be lots of slavery and tying up and kink, probably).

Leave a prompt, and I will write a micro/flash-fic. Leave as many prompts as you want; I will try answer at least one for each person (although I may use more than one prompt in a fic) and I WILL write at least to the first 10 people to prompt.

Want more words, or just really like something you read? Drop some money in the tip jar!
(The cuffs are the tip jar)

For every $1 you donate, I will write 75-100 words on the Giraffe story of your choice. Donate more than $1, and I’ll write a second fic to your prompts.

And the more money donated, the more I’ll write!


At $25, T. & I get take-out. Thai, I think, though it may be Indian. Reached!

at $40, I will commission a piece of character art from a crowdfunded artist Reached!

At $50, I will write an extra fic for everyone. One prompter chosen at random will get an extra 500-word story. Reached!

At $75, three prompters chosen at random will get an extra 500-word story written to their prompt Reached!

At $100, three more prompters chosen at random will get an extra 500-word story.

At $120, I get a rug for my cave!

Have fun! Prompt!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/819607.html. You can comment here or there.

The Ship that Visited, a story for the Giraffe Call

Oct2

To [personal profile] rix_scaedu‘s prompt.

When the space ship hovered over Earth, everyone feared the worst.

We’d all seen the movies, so many movies about alien invasion. War of the Worlds. Independence Day. Signs. The list went on. They were doing to alien-a-form our planet. They were going to enslave all of us and kill the ones that couldn’t work. They were going to eat us.

When the ship just – stayed there, people started to wonder. The best linguists and the small-stipend-retrainer xeno-specialists started working on communication. Planes circled the ship, trying to find an entrance. The subject of bombing was debated endlessly. Meanwhile, the ship – stayed there, doing nothing.

The scientists went over it with every instrument they could come up with. There was some exhaust, mostly water vapor, but the ship wasn’t sending out radio waves, x-rays, infared – anything. It was just sitting there.

We’d almost started to get used to it. We’d gone back to farming – those of us who farmed – to office crunching – those who worked in offices – to vacations and TV watching and whatever our lives had been like BS, Before Ship. We just didn’t look up, if we lived in the northern hemisphere, or, if we did, we didn’t look too far up.

And then, five months to the day after the ship had appeared, we all heard the noise. It was something like a squeak of a gate, but much louder, and something like the squeal of tires, but lower-pitched. And in the bottom of the ship, ten circles opened up and beams of – oh, I don’t know. Not sure anyone knows, to this day. But we called it steam and it felt like fog, like very thick fog.

Beams of this stuff began sweeping the hemisphere, one three-foot-wide swath at a time. And when they passed by, things had… changed.

My goats were walking on two feet (but only some of them) and I’d found myself with hooves. Cattle farmer down the road had the same problem, and the horse farmer across the street doesn’t really talk right anymore.

Anywhere there were animals, some of them turned out to be a bit anthropomorphised. And anywhere there was humans – everywhere – some of them turned out a bit more animal.

The way I figure it, the aliens had been spending all this time trying to figure out what we wanted – and they’d been doing it by watching anime.


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This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/817964.html. You can comment here or there.

The Manticore

Sep30

She lived in the center of the Rebuilt City, in an apartment high in a tower that had once held offices. Although the city was called Rebuilt, the place where she lived was still more ruin than reconstruction, and few people ventured that deep into the former metropolis.

She was not often seen, not by people who reported back to others, of course, but there were rumors of her from time to time. Sometimes, adventurous people did not bother her, and thus could sight her and leave without danger. Other times they simply escaped.

She could fly, some said. She could run faster than any human ought, others whispered. She could rend flesh effortlessly, with claws or teeth: they showed the proof of that, sometimes, in wounds that festered and rotted. She could poison you with a flick of her tail.

And yet they also said she was a beautiful girl, a young woman who looked small and vulnerable, who would be found sunning herself high on a balcony, overlooking the ruins.

They said she ate people – those who escaped, those who had never been there. They said she devoured them whole, unhinging her jaw like a snake. They said she was a monster. And it was true that those who vanished into her territory were never heard from again, nor were any signs ever seen – not hide nor hair nor clothes nor weapons.

They called her the manticore. And they either loved her or feared her, but none knew her true.

Written to [personal profile] anke‘s prompt

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This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/816857.html. You can comment here or there.