Archive | November 16, 2011

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.