Tag Archive | whatiwant

Uncle, a story of the fae apoc for the What I Want Call

For [personal profile] rix_scaedu‘s donation and prompt.

“Bobby. Dolores. Jorge. Ryuu. Come here.“ Bruce stood on his porch and looked out at the yard. “Cherry. Kikyo. What part of here don’t you understand?”

“Sorry, Uncle Bruce!” The ragged chorus preceded the children to the porch. Bruce counted noses: One, two, three, four, five. “Where’s Kikyo?”

“She was playing with the kittens.” Dolores and Kikyo were cousin-twins, born within a day of each other from two of Bruce’s sisters. They were generally inseparable.

“Then go get her. Whatever she’s doing.” Kittens wasn’t something that would generally keep the kids from lunch. “Bobby, go with your sister.”

“But…”

“Go. If anything’s weird, scream.” They knew that; that was drill. But Bruce still repeated it every chance he got. “Jorge, Ryuu, Cherry, come on in and wash up. Your mothers will be…”

A scream cut him off, one scream, two screams. Two. Not three. “Ryuu. Drill two. NOW.” Bruce was running before he finished the sentence, but he muttered a quick Working, enough to see that his nephew was doing as he’d said, gathering the younger children and getting them into the center room.

The barn was too far away. The defenses covered the barn too, of course, but a barn was not the most secure structure on which to hang that sort of thing. There were always holes. And they were supposed to be safe out here, out in the middle of nowhere…

The kids were still screaming. Two screams, still, two voices, not three. Bruce loaded up every attack spell he could spit out under his breath and woke up the farm’s overall defenses. Why wasn’t Kikyo screaming? Why wasn’t she making any noise?

He didn’t waste breath on swearing, but he did plenty of cursing in the silence of his mind. He should have gone himself, damnit. He should have known something was wrong with Kikyo didn’t show right away. He should have had the defenses up all the time.

The defenses themselves attracted attention; that was why they were mostly engage-in-crisis things. But he could have, if he’d spent enough time on it, come up with something passive that kept people away. He could have come up with a better alarm system. He could have…

In the barn, his oldest nephew was holding off an intruder with a pitchfork. The intruder was… was something, Bruce could tell that much. Humanoid, naked, with canted animal ears and a snakelike pattern over its skin. It was crouched over Kikyo, who was wrapped around her kittens.

Most of her kittens. A bloody tail on the ground suggested there was one less cat around than there had been. “Behind you, Bobby. Steady. Steady.” The boy was only ten. But he was a strong kid, and he took his responsibilities seriously. Bruce grabbed a spear off the wall and began circling.
The intruder was probably-male, although the long, matted hair made it hard to tell. It covered almost everything. “You need to let my niece go and leave. You need to leave now, alone, and never return.”

Level voice was the key. Level voice, strong voice. The creature tracked his movements but said nothing.

“Back away from the girl and leave.”

“Uncle Bruce?” Kikyo’s voice was weak but firm. “Uncle Bruce, he hurt Toby. I forgot to scream, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, Kiya. Get away from him now, okay?”

“But my kittens. I can’t leave my kittens here.”

Screw the kittens. “Kiya, I’ll do my best to protect the kittens, but I promised your mother I’d take care of you. This is not taking care of you.”

“He’s scared, Uncle Bruce.” Dolores had a knack for not being seen. Now she was standing right next to Bruce, between him and her brother. “He’s like the raccoon the other week. He doesn’t know what’s going on.”

Bruce brought his attention back to the creature’s eyes. There was no comprehension there, none, just fear and worry.

“Damnit.”

“Uncle Bruce?”

“We cannot bring home a feral Ellehemaei.”

“But the raccoon…”

“This one will do a lot more than tip over the garbage. He’s already … hurt… a kitten. And he hurt Kikyo.”

“I’m not hurt, Uncle Bruce.” Kikyo peeked up at him over the kittens. “He didn’t hurt me. Just Toby, because Toby bit him.”

“See?” Before he could stop her – before it would have occurred to her that she’d do such a thing – Dolores had wrapped her arms around the creature’s neck. “We can keep him, right?”

No Keep, damnit, no… Bruce moved very slowly towards the creature. The creature, in return, held up both hands. Its eyes were on Bruce, not on the girl hanging from its neck. “Kikyo, take the kittens and go behind Bobby. Now.”

“Come on, Kiya.” Bobby reached out his hands, responding to the tone in Bruce’s voice. “Over here. Hand me the funny striped one. And the pink one.”

“He’s not pink.” When she stood up, Bruce could see the angry red marks on her face and arm. The thing had pushed her aside, then, or she’d tripped. No claw marks, and everything seemed to be working properly.

That was longer than he wanted to look away. Bruce looked over, to see the creature was tracking Kikyo’s movements as well.

“Come on, Uncle Bruce. We can’t just throw him away. Can we keep him?”

Keep again. Bruce sighed. “Deborah, it’s not an animal. It’s a person, a feral Ellehemaei. It could do a lot of damage. And, what’s more, you can’t put people in cages the way we did with the raccoon.”

“Keep.” The creature’s voice was thin and reedy, unused-sounding. It knelt, carefully, one hand hovering near Deborah. Again, its eyes were on Bruce. “Keba oronto apestla tauon. Sa’…?”

Bruce sighed. Those words couldn’t easily be denied. I am under your Name. Sir…? “Uncle Bear.” His sisters hadn’t exactly Named him, but they’d certainly helped. “You are under my name, jae’…”

The creature shrugged. The children watched, until Kikyo offered, solemnly, “Bjorn.”

“You are under my name, jae’Bjorn. Come with me.” And here was hoping the thing knew more than those words, or this was going to be difficult.

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1113051.html

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Learning and Lies

This is the first of Rix’s requests from the What I Want What You Want Fundraiser. It ties in with Hatred and is on the darker end of Dragons Next Door, as much of the self-hating Dweomer stories are

Belinda had not, for a long time, questioned Cathal, his motivations, his cause, or his methods.

He was an immensely charismatic figure, which might excuse her from some of this, and his cause resonated with her upbringing, which excused a little more.

But for five years, she – along with a small group of dedicated hunters – followed him and took his lead. She hunted with him – they hunted with him – tracking down the deviants from humanity and eliminating them.

It seemed a noble cause. They hurt humanity. Not only did Cathal say so, but she’d seen it with her own eyes. They damaged humanity when they pretended to be part of it, they tainted the bloodlines with their blood, and they blurred the line between other and human until there was no line at all anymore. And none of this could be accepted.

“Please…” Her recent target had woken up sooner than expected. Sooner being at all. Bound in iron and wrapped in silk, they didn’t normally do much except end. They’d never plead with Belinda before.

Manners pushed her into answering. “I can’t untie you.”

“I’m not asking you to. I know what you are. I know what your people to do my people. It’s too late for me.”

It sounded far too human. Belinda moved to tape its mouth shut, but it hissed out another plea, so quiet and so urgent that she had to stop. “No, please, please… my daughter.”

Belinda stopped, her hand inches from the thing’s mouth. She’d never thought about them having daughters before. Children. “Your daughter?”

“She’s upstairs. She’s in her bedroom. Please… please don’t let her see me like this.”

“Is this a trick?” Her hand still hovered. They could be tricky. They could fool you.

“No, No, I swear it on iron and stone.” The thing winced as the iron wrapped around it burned it. An oath made like that normally had to be tortured out of them.

“Why?” Belinda had to ask. “Why swear?” Why did she…

“It’s my daughter.

“Dweomers don’t have family.”

“I can’t lie to you, I swore by iron and stone. Whatever they told you about dweomers, that part is true.”

“You’re saying someone lied to me.”

“Everybody lies.” The thing twitched and winced. “Except, right now, me. Or anyone else you bind with iron and stone.”

“Any dweomer, you mean.”

“Anyone who can be bound. You’d be surprised how many humans aren’t as human as they think they are.” The thing pulled against its bonds. “Promise me. Promise me that she won’t see me like this. Take her away, give her to a foster family. but don’t let this taint her.”

“If you have a daughter…. won’t she be a dweomer as well?”

“Not always.” The woman struggled. “Please. Please, not for me. But for her…”

“You have a daughter. And you care about her.”

“Yes. Yes, I love her.” And she did not flinch. “More than anything in the world, I love her.”

“Dweomers can’t love.”

“You have been lied to. You have been lied to so much.” On the floor, the mother rolled her shoulders. “You have been lied to. But I will not lie to you. By blood and stone, iron and flesh.” She twitched and winced on the floor. “I will not lie to you. As long as I live. I have a daughter and I love her.”

“Speaking of love doens’t burn you.” Belinda looked down at the woman. “It’s supposed to burn you as bad as iron does.”

“As I said, you have been lied to. My daughter… I beg of you. My daughter.”

Belinda took a long breath. “I need you to promise me something else.”

“Anything. Anything, for my daughter.”

She needed to stop saying that. Belinda could hear someone moving upstairs. She could hear sounds that sounded like her own daughters. She could imagine a child walking downstairs and seeing its mother dead… finding its mother gone, never to return.

“Promise me no retaliation for this day.”

“No…” The woman’s eyes had shut. Now they flew open again. “I swear to you that I will bring no retaliation down on you for your actions of this day. I swear it..”

“That’s enough.” Belinda put her hand over the woman’s mouth. “No need to burn it into your flesh. You are a mother and so am I.”

She cut the silk bindings loose and unlocked the iron shackles. “I have to run. I have to run, before they find me. And you do, too, you and your daughter. They won’t forgive either of us for this.”

“Take your child and run.” The woman, the dweomer mother, stood and shook out her limbs. “Now that I know that they are after me, I will be able to stall them quite a while before they think to come after you.”

They met each other’s eye, and then the dweomer woman winked. “If I do it right, they’ll never know you survived.”

“Thank you.” Belinda picked up her kit. She could use the tools for something, she was sure.

“What will you do? Besides run?”

She looked down at her kit and considered. “Learn. I have been lied to, you said. So now I will have to learn.”

“A noble goal. But first…”

“First, we run.” And she ran.

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LAST CALL -Closing at noon EST – What I Want, What You Want

I have opened a What I want What You Want Fundraiser to raise funds to throw at Djinni’s latest Icon Day.

General premise: I want to buy the 24-icon perk. You want fiction (I assume). I will write what you want, whatever it is, for tips.

Click through for more information!

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What I want What You Want Fundraiser

So!

What I Want: Djinni is hosting another icon day and, while you all ought to go request an icon, signal boost, and, if you can, tip, I’d also like to get the 24-icon perk, to fill in the holes in my Addergoole and otherwise cast lists.
So I’d like $100 to give to djinni.

I’d also like $50 for foyer accessories, because I really want guest slippers and a nice place to put them, and I’m almost done prepping the foyer to paint. But first is $100 for Djinni.

What You Want: Well, what do you want? I won’t promise to make it canon, but I can write it. Tip me $5 and I’ll write a drabble (250-500 words); tip me $10 and I’ll write you a flash fiction (750-1000 words); if you want more, talk to me and we’ll work something out.

No Matter What the first $30 will be tipped to Djinni for this icon day. If I reach $100, the first $100 will go to Djinni.

This is only open until Wednesday. I will write these things as first priority until they are done – pre-empted only by other things people have already paid me for. <3
Donate below

Art by Djinni!
I also take payment by Dwolla

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