Archive | October 2011

Carrying in the Spirit – Reiassan – for the Giraffe Call @inventrix

Oct26

For [personal profile] clare_dragonfly‘s prompt.

Thanks to @inventrix and @Anke for the names.

Reiassan, some generations before Rin & Girey. Reisassn has a landing page – here (or on LJ).

After Giving up the Ghost (and on LJ)

Commenters: 5

::We’re almost there.::

Ostovin found it more than a little creepy to be carrying his grandmother sheathed at his hip.

It wasn’t her, quite, not the woman he remembered; the soul in the sword had been, the High Priestess told him, distilled, hardened. The Empress Ellanasia had been a loyal and wild devotee of Veignevar, and it was that part of her, the wild red woman, that had survived death in the sword. But it was still his grandmother, the woman he remembered best as an ancient, cadaverous figure on the throne, passing him candies and advice about his fighting stance.

The advice had not stopped. ::If you want to win this war, grandson, you’re going to have to do something about your footwork. You sword-fight like a farmer.::

The truth of the matter was, while Ostovin was a loyal servant of the threefold, and strong enough in the red to please the temple, he had never expected to inherit the throne. He was rather far down the line, or had been, but the war his grandmother had instigated had served to winnow the numbers down, until it had been just Ostovin and a cousin. The cousin had slipped and fallen in a rainstorm within hours of their grandmother releasing her ghost, and thus, the would-be-ranger-and-tracker found himself cleaning up his grandmother’s mess.

“We’re there, Os. Your Majesty.” The look his lanky, lifetime-soldier cousin Erenya giving him was half assessment and half concern. He didn’t blame her. He’d be giving himself nervous looks, too, if he had to follow his own orders.

::You ARE nervous.::

“Of course I am,” he muttered. Bad enough to have to live up to your grandmother’s legacy. Worse to have to do it with her watching.

He nodded to Erenya to his right, Igerial (another cousin, another one more suited to this role than he) to his left. “Onward.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/159879.html. You can comment here or there.

Eat, prey, live – for the Giraffe Call

Oct26

For KC_OBrien‘s prompt.

after “On Top,” (Dreamwidth link)) from the gender-funky-giraffe call.

Commenters: 3

I couldn’t deal anymore.

I’d set myself up a perfect situation, or so it had seemed, but here I was, in my happy little pack with my happy little alpha who did what I said… and I hated it.

I hated his passive-aggressive bullshit. I hated being everyone’s mommy. I hated hearing everyone’s. Fucking. Complaints. Because, well, everyone knew the alpha’s bitch was who you went to when you had a problem. Everyone knew I’d listen to their problems without ripping out their throats for it, listen and be compassionate and pat their shoulders and tell them it would be okay.

And I was beyond sick of it.

It took a night sleeping on the floor, because Chris was sick and tossed and turned, followed by the world’s whiniest werewolf having a bad day all over my tiredness, for me to snap. I threw the cur out of my room – and I do mean threw – threw some clothes in a bag, and left. Just left. Out the door and gone.

I shifted to wolf form as soon as I made it out of the city, the backpack one of the doggie sorts modified for this, and ran. Ran and ran and ran.

I chased some hikers down into a ravine and terrified them for a little bit, ate rabbits and deer and, once, a raccoon that sassed me. Never humans, but it was fun to make them run. Fun to listen to them stop whining and focus on just living for a little bit. Even a wolf in a backpack is still a wolf, and I was a damn big werewolf.

I came across the human version of my whiney cur in a truck stop in Nevada. He was trying to tell me his problems. I guess I have that face.

“Sorry, I don’t care,” I told him. It was the most liberating moment of my life. Better than my first Change. Better than making Chris win the alpha challenge. Better than my first kill. The look on his face – sweeter than blood.

“You…” he sputtered.

“You might ask, the next time,” I suggested. “The last guy that whined at me without asking is still trying to find all his teeth. And I’m sure your wife-” there was a ring “-doesn’t like it either.”

“You…”

“Just. Don’t. Care.” I grinned at him, and I’d been spending a lot of time in wolf form. My teeth were still pretty damn sharp on two legs. “Not sorry, either.”

“I…” He ran away… and I stopped running away from myself. I’d never felt better.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/159452.html. You can comment here or there.

Giving up the Ghost – Reiassan – for the Giraffe Call @inventrix

Oct26

For Lilfluff‘s prompt.

Thanks to @inventrix for the name.

Reiassan, some generations before Rin & Girey. Reisassn has a landing page – here (or on LJ)

Commenters: 1

“It’s getting close to time.”

Ellanasia lay comfortably on the slab in the back room of the temple, no companion, now, except the High Priestess of Veignevar. Her family had come and gone. Her courtiers had come and gone. The healers and herb-mongers and attendants, maids and bed-warmers and chroniclers had all stepped in and out in their due time, but now, at the very end of her life, there was time only for Veignevar, and for herself.

“This is going to hurt,” Tabyna warned her. Ellanasia choked on a laugh.

“Everything hurts, most honored one. Everything has hurt for a long time.” The scars from a lifetime of service to the red god ran tracks over her body like a map of her conquests, and every one of them ached with the cold of the coming snows, and the cold of the slab beneath her. “I will welcome the rest.”

“I know you will, Elle.” The Priestess set a kiss on her lips, a thing far more tender than either of them were known for. “I can’t say I’m sad you’re choosing this. I’d miss you.”

Ellanasia smirked, trying not to show how much effort even that cost her, now. “The most complicated ritual in all of the threefold faith, and you’re doing it out of sentimentality.”

“No more than you are, Your Most Exalted Majesty,” her old friend retorted. “I’m doing it out of necessity.”

“Then do it.” She leaned up, struggling, for one more kiss, then set her head on the slab with a thump. “We’re nearly out of time.”

“We are. With Veignevar’s blessing, then, Ellanasia.” The sword slid into her, hurting like nothing she’d ever felt before as it split her ribs and pierced her heart, and then, as the chanting of her priestess slowly faded into whispers, and then into dark silence, the Empress of Callanthe slid into the sword.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/159168.html. You can comment here or there.

Wednesday, yes?

Oct26

[personal profile] eseme asked how Drake was doing, and, as I just made his semi-annual blood-test appointment…

Drake is doing wonderfully! He loves the stairs, and loves running up and down them over and over again. He’s eating well, happy, and generally content with his humans (although the noises of house renovation bother him, and T. being outside but in sight of a window makes him yowl. A lot).

He seems to be maintaining a healthy weight, and does well enough with the shots – he’ll come ask for them if we forget them.

Happy kitty! He also does not think apples are food.

~~

[personal profile] meeks has updated the Rin Sketch again! (and on Livejournal).

<3<3

~~

Pondering nano & Autumn, as well as autumn-the-season. More on that later.

~~

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/158746.html. You can comment here or there.

Skeletons – Dragons Next Door – for the Giraffe CAll

Oct26

For kelkyag‘s prompt.

Dragons Next Door Verse. DND has a landing page – here (or on LJ)

This comes after Over the Wall (LJ Link),
The Black Tower (LJ Link
and
The Pumpkin (LJ Link.

Commenters: 3

Zizny gave me a look that I couldn’t really read; this one had nothing of humanity in it. It tilted its head at an angle, to look at me with one bright eye, its nostrils widening and its jaw dropping just a little. “The Pumpkin and the Black Tower have secrets. This I can understand. But what of Sage and Audrey?”

I felt my cheeks warming; dragons did not blush, but I was sure that this one knew what the coloring meant. “We’ve been together for a long time. It’s hard to hide anything from anyone for that long… it all comes out in the wash.” Human idiom on top of human body language; I knew better. I blamed it on my nerves.

“Like stains.” The jaw dropped a little more. “And so you have no secrets from one another?”

“Mm…” I hedged, wishing for a tall hedge and not just a short wall between us. The look Zizny was pinning me with seemed entirely predatory, and its front claws were twitching. “There are Pumpkin and Black Tower things, I’m sure. We don’t tend to poke there much. And there’s my family – but Sage knows most of that now.”

“Most? Now?” Zizny’s wings flared a little bit. I regained my calm, surprising myself at how quickly it came back when I felt threatened.

“Most. My family are – well, not the sort of people you talk about in polite company. I had to explain quite a bit of that right off – right from the beginning. Human weddings are family affairs, after all, and not having any family to stand up with you is a little unusual.”

“Yes,” Zizny nodded. “That would be so in a dragon ‘wedding’ as well.” Its wings settled down on its back. “So you are ashamed of your family?”

“Oh,” I sighed, looking down at my toes. “Oh, by the seventh iteration, yes.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/158512.html. You can comment here or there.

Loophole

Oct25

For rix_scaedu‘s prompt.

Dragons Next Door Verse. DND has a landing page – here.

This comes after Fears (LJ Link).

Commenters: 4

They didn’t think Juniper was listening, but, then again, the grown-ups rarely did. Even Cxaidin and Zizny, who were normally so much more rational than her own parents (or the teachers in school, who were either stupid or mean), talked right over her when it was something they thought she shouldn’t understand. Of course, it was a lot easier for them to talk over her; they were huge.

Today it was all four of them, her Mom and Dad and Jimmy’s parents, while she sat with Jimmy and Baby and Cthannie and the erbiss, oiling Jimmy’s scales, burping Baby, and listening to every word.

“What are you going to do?” Dad was asking quietly. “That sort of threat…”

“If we were back in the old country, it would be easy,” Zizny rumbled. “But here, the humans are – no offense – but they’re very thin-skinned. If we dealt with this … interloper… in the traditional way, the police would be beating down our door.”

“Yes, they would be,” Mom murmured. “I can see where making poacher flambé would be bad for PR.” PR, Juniper had learned, was the art of looking better than you were, or at least of convincing people you were better than they thought you were. Jin said she needed better PR for school.

“Rather,” Cxaidin sighed. “I’d love to be able to roast everyone who tries to hurt our children.”

“I’m with you on that,” Sage agreed. Juniper snuggled Tay-tay closer. Her Daddy loved her and wanted to protect her. It was a wonderful feeling. And Jimmy’sparents wanted to protect him. But what were they going to do about the bad guy?

Seemed like Mom had the same question. “So what will you do?”

“We have called the police,” Zizny grumbled. “But they told us that it would take a while before they could investigate, because we chased him off.”

“Mmm. That can happen,” Dad agreed. “And in the meantime, he’s out there chasing down whatever it is he or his employers want, all over the neighborhood. You know, Cxaidin, Zizny, the public will be very upset if they see that you have taken the law into your own claws.” He said it funny, like there was a meaning in there he didn’t want to say out loud.

“True…” Zizny puffed smoke, which usually meant deep thinking or irritation. “True.” The dragon sounded, Juniper thought, rather pleased.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/158337.html. You can comment here or there.

Linkbak Incentive Story: Rule Two

Oct25

(I’m already writing Rule One, just not done yet)

This is the linkback incentive story for today’s Giraffe Call. Let me know you linked to the call, and I’ll post another 50 words.

I’m going out for a couple hours now, but will be back to post this afternoon!
When Juniper came home crying from school for the third time, I brewed her my special sweet tea and started baking her a batch of cookies while Sage tried to get the story from her. Since they were in the breakfast nook and I was in the kitchen, I thought I could get away with a little addition to the tea. She’d been so frustrated lately, and it was hard to watch my baby girl suffer – especially knowing how that had colored the way my oldest had grown up.

I reached for the special herbs, the ones I kept in the black jars, up on the shelves only Sage and I could reach. I should have known better – the hinges on that cupboard make a distinctive lack of sound, almost an anti-sound, after a little too much no-squeak got squirted on their hinges. You could always tell when that cabinet – or the one next to it, where Sage keeps his work tools – is opened. We’ve used that to our advantage more than a couple times, when the kids were feeling either inquisitive or murderous (they’re our children; both were to be expected). Today, it served as my conscience – and not for the first time, either.

“Aud?” Sage poked his head into the kitchen as I was opening the smallest of the black jars. “Aud, that isn’t for Juniper’s tea, is it?”

“She’s so frustrated, Sage,” I countered, not really answering him. I don’t lie to him.

“Rule Two, Aud,” he counter-countered. To my exasperated sigh, all he added was “It was your rule, remember.”

“It was,” I agreed. “I assume you mean the codicil? I wasn’t putting it in your tea, after all.”

“Sweetie, the day you dose my tea is the day, well…”

“Well.” No more to say about that; Sage, at least, had a good idea of what a Pumpkin graduate could do, and I had a very very good idea of what a Black Tower alum was capable of. We did not practice our homework on each other.

Or on our children. I frowned at the tea, and put the black jar back in its place. “Her tea is ready. Is she all right?”

“As far as I can tell without really poking, she wishes her dad would butt out of her life and stop making everything such a big deal already.”

“And you’re not going to poke, not really.” I pulled the cookies out of the oven to give him a chance to look innocent. “Rule Two, Sage.”

“But she’s so frustrated, Aud…”

“And we don’t want the problems Jin had. Well, why don’t we get Jin to talk to her?”

“Sometimes, my lovely wife, you have brilliant ideas.”

“And sometimes, my handsome husband, you’re bright enough to listen. Where’s the oldest?”

“Last I saw, he was helping Jimmy Smith fix the wall.”

“The one the ogre’s kid sat on? Good for them.”

“Well, it wasn’t entirely their idea,” he admitted.

“Ah-ha. This have something to do with the mess last weekend?”

“Just a little bit,” Sage nodded. “I told them they could do some yard work, or they could pay me to hire a contractor to do it.”

“They do know you’d do it yourself, right?”

“Irrelevant to the matter,” he smirked. “But I’m sure if you go out with a plate of cookies, Jin would be glad for the excuse for a break.”

“Funny, I made some dragon cookies, too,” I mused.

“I thought those were for Jimmy’s parents?”

“I can always make another batch. Our daughter needs her brother.” I packed up the cookies and headed out to the stone wall, where Jimmy and Jin were, to my surprise, actually being very effective in their yard work. I wondered exactly how much Sage had told them it would cost if they didn’t?

“I’m here to bribe you into taking a break,” I told them, offering the cookies. “Jin, Juniper came home crying again…”

“Thanks, Mrs. S. It’s the bully again, isn’t it?” Jimmy asked, taking the cookie. “That horrid girl Miryam? I told her I’d come to school with her, but she thought that would be a bad idea.”

“I agree,” I told him solemnly. “Crisping Juniper’s problems won’t help her learn to deal with them.” Even if I did empathize with the urge. “So, tell me about Miryam?” I passed him another cookie.

“She’s been calling Juniper names, telling her that she’s funny-looking, that her clothes are stupid. Telling her that she’s making up stupid stories – that’s why I wanted to go to school with her, Mrs. S. Because Miryam’s one of those stupid humans whose never met a dragon or anything interesting.”

Stupid clothes. Funny-looking. I felt a pang of guilt; was this my fault. “There are still people out there that don’t believe in dragons?” It seemed unthinkable, but then, I knew we lived in a bit of an echo chamber.

Jimmy was polite enough not to laugh, but Jin had no such need for manners; I was his mother, after all. “Ogre turds, Mom, there are people who don’t believe in the Black Tower. They think it’s all, you know, whack jobs and conspiracy theories. One kid at school actually told me ogres had been made up by the C.I.A. to suppress homesteading in the mountains.”

I shook my head. Sometimes I was too sheltered. “So this Miryam,” I tried to get us back on topic. “She’s been… what?” I would have been more chagrined about my ignorance if Jin didn’t look as lost as I was.

“Telling Juniper she’s making stuff up. Tattling on her to the teachers.” Jimmy snorted flames. “Lying.”

“Well, no wonder she’s upset.” And she couldn’t tell me, why? “We’re going to have to do something about that. I haven’t been getting any letters home from her teachers, either.”

“Those are easy,” Jin muttered. “Your signature is pretty easy to forge, Mom.”

I shot him a look. “We’ll talk about that later. So she’s been hiding it from me.”

“Well, yeah.” That was Jimmy, surprisingly. “Don’t take it personally, Mrs. S. She doesn’t want you to think she’s messing up, is all. But that little brat keeps making things hard on her, and her teachers… stuck in the last century.”

“Seems like much of the world still is. Well, thanks for telling me, boy… Jimmy, Jin.” They politely ignored my slip. “Jin, do you think you could coax a little more of the story out of her while I call her school?”

“Sure, Mom,” he agreed. “C’mon, Jimmy.”

I watched them go, son and dragon, and wondered what I was going to do. Forging notes. Being bullied at school for things that were simple truths at home. Keeping things from their father and I. I needed to talk to Juniper’s teacher.

And Rule Two did not apply to her.

~fin~

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/146601.html. You can comment here or there.

Night Terrors

Oct25

For Cluudle‘s prompt.

Faerie Apoc, Addergoole Year 5 – landing page here (or on LJ)

Commenters: 0

Content warning: implied/remembered sexual assault.

November 24-25, Year 5 of the Addergoole School
(After Chapter 145)

“I know what to do with a little bitch like you.” The giant threw Yngvi to the ground, ripping his clothes off with a single gesture. “That’s where you belong anyway, and you know it, don’t you? You’re never going to be anything more than a pitiful little piece of shit. Can’t stand up for yourself, can’t even manage to make the loudmouth little shit act like a decent human being, and notice how your friends don’t argue? They know I’m your best option.” The foot landed hard on his back, knocking the wind out of him. “They know you’re better off under me.”

Yngvi woke with a start, dragging himself out of the dream, and stared at the dimly-lit ceiling, trying not to hear the voice of his nightmares sneering at him. He’d been training with his Mentor, Professor Solomon, every day, and Solomon had managed to talk Luke into taking him on as a self-defense and combat student twice a week, but it didn’t stop the dreams. It didn’t stop him flinching when he saw Ardell in the hall, or when Emrys made a stupid joke, or when he saw Aneislis’ collar and the nervous-infatuated-terrified way the boy looked at Ardell. It didn’t stop him from wondering what it would have been like, if it had been him who had gotten trapped into the collar.

Kneeling in front of his master, terrified, starving, bruised, leaning into any attention, even violence, because it meant his master had noticed him, begging for scraps of attention, begging to be allowed in bed with him at night… Yngvi had seen the Kept in Addergoole. Better to be alone forever than to risk that.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/157816.html. You can comment here or there.