Archive | November 2011

“Self-Hating”

Nov20

For meeks!

Meeks has posted a sketch (and on LJ) of the beginning of this story.

This is part of a continuation of the series –
Over the Wall (LJ Link),
The Black Tower (LJ Link,
The Pumpkin (LJ Link,
Skeletons (LJ)
Rule Three (DW)
and
Dwimors (LJ)

Zizny lowered its whole body into a crouch, until just its eyes and nostrils were regarding me over the wall. “You’re telling me,” it rumbled, “that your mother’s family are dwimors, and that, as well, that they are poachers.”

I could not meet its eyes at once – its head was simply too big. So I settled for looking it in one eye – and was suddenly thrown by the pronoun I was using to think about this creature, this person, my neighbor. “I’m sorry,” I asked abruptly. “You used ‘cx’za’ as, I believe, a pronoun for Jimmy. What pronoun is appropriate for you?”

The large head lifted, and Zizny showed me more teeth (very clean teeth; the ogres had had horrible dental hygiene) than it-she-Zizney had ever revealed to me before. “You are asking about appropriate grammar?”

“Well,” I shrugged uncomfortably. It would be very nice, right now, to back up, rub away, something. To put more distance between myself and this rather-irritated-seeming dragon. But Zizny was my neighbor. “I’m a student of the relations between the races,” I explained nervously.

“Academic curiosity, then?”

“Not at all! It’s really not academic to want to be polite to other people, is it?” For a moment, my pride was pricked, and I forgot to be nervous. “It’s not some scholarly study when these are the people you deal with every day!”

“‘People.'” Zizny settled back down. “For a grown adult dragon, the pronoun is ‘thez.’ But I do not object to you using ‘she’ for me and ‘he’ for Cthaiden. We have taken on those roles here, after all.”

“Aah.” I smiled ruefully at thez. “Thank you. It seems proper to use, well, the proper terms. It makes me feel more comfortable.” I took a long breath. “And it’s not a comfortable subject, Zizny. I can’t do anything about my grandparents and their family. I can’t do anything about their actions. Because, yes, they were poachers, hunters, and, I’m afraid, probably still are.”

Thez pinned me with a long gaze. “You are angry.”

“I am angry,” I agreed, “and Mortified.”

“Why?”

“I’m mortified that I have family that are… bigots. Worse than bigots. Relatively horrible people. And I’m angry about that, too.”

“And at the perceived assumption that you are like them.”

“And at that,” I agreed, very quietly.

“Anyone who would assume that, Audrey, has obviously not met you.” Thez set a finger on top of the wall, the claw curled around the stones. “If you were, indeed, a ‘monster hunter,’ you would be the most stealthy, hidden one ever. You have friends, as I have seen, with every race you have encountered.”

“Almost everyone.”

“Well, some people make it very hard to be their friends. But I do have a question for you.”

“Yeah? Yes?”

It tapped me on the shoulder very gently with a claw. “You call your family ‘self-hating.’ And you call them dwimors. You, I believe, are a dwimor?”

“I am,” I agreed. “We are.”

“Do you not risk, yourself, becoming a ‘self-hating dwimor,’ with the hatred and anger you are evidencing?”

“I… oh.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/181376.html. You can comment here or there.

Encyclopedia Californica: The Modified Humanoid in Tir na Cali Culture

Nov20

This is the comment perk from the October Giraffe Call, a setting piece on the Tir na Cali cat-people. For whom I really need their own icon.

The Modified Humanoid in Tir na Cali Culture

History

The trend toward today’s Modified Humanoid, or “Moddies,” began as a fad for cosmetically altered slaves in the early sixties.

The first on record were a set of three cat-girls, triplets who were modified to have pointed cat-like ears, tails with some mobility, and dental work to look like sharp, cat-like fangs. The trio belonged to the tycoon Madison Arthur, a man who took great pleasure in appearing as eccentric as possible.

Others soon followed, modified with ever-increasing skill from a small cadre of experienced cosmetic surgeons and the empowered, to look like everything from house pets – dog-girls and mouse-boys – to predators – crocodile-men and wolf-women – to the fantastic – dragon-beings and, once, a failed pair of centaurs.

These slaves, altered through a combination of internal power and surgery to appear in some way inhuman, were genetically and biologically still completely humanoid. Their brain chemistry was still entirely “normal,” and their children, when they were bred, were of course still humanoid. They were no stronger, no more aggressive, no quicker than a normal human, either, and thus the purpose of their modifications was entirely cosmetic.

The trend towards owning “moddies” came and went, as with any fad, and, as with the sad accessories of any fad, the modified slaves were left by the wayside when the trend passed. Some were consigned to fieldwork who have been pampered house slaves; a few lucky ones were modified further to suit the new trend, or returned to their “natural” state. With each surge of the trend, the technology, science, and skill of the innately powered modifiers became more refined, and with each surge, the modified humanoids looked more and more realistic.

The second true wave of modified humanoids have only recently come into existence; the first genetically modified humanoid was made known to the general public in 2002. There are, of course, rumors that the Agency had been working on these genetic changes for as long as a decade earlier, and the rumors of second-generation genetically altered beings seems to lend credence to this theory.

These modified humanoids, better described, perhaps, as “scientifically produced hybrid species” are created by manipulation at the genetic level. At this date, the only producer of said hybrids is the Agency; all known attempts to make genetic hybrids outside of the Agency’s labs have resulted in, at best, failure, and, at worse, death. As such, all such experiments are illegal, save on volunteer free subjects.

The hybrids produced by the Agency are to their predecessors what a real tiger is to a children’s drawing of one. While a well-modified cat-girl might ape the behaviors of a cat, and, in modern times, have catlike ears, tail, and sometimes whiskers and claws that move naturally and serve as part of her body, the Agency’s well-protected hybrid cat-humanoids have brain chemistry and behavior patterns that, in many ways, are more feline than human.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/181097.html. You can comment here or there.

Creeped Right Out

Nov19

From rix_scaedu‘s commissioned prompt.

A continuation of Creeped, originally posted here and on LJ

Faerie Apoc, Addergoole Year 9 – landing page here (or on LJ)

Ceinwen scrambled for a handhold, anything to grab onto, her fingers finding nothing but water and more water, her feet finding nothing at all, even though she’d been on solid ground just a second ago. A pond. A sinkhole? This was ridiculous. She scrambled some more, flailing and trying to keep her head above water. She couldn’t see anything except the water and, what looked like a long way away, the hall. She couldn’t see the man like a tree at all, even though, even now, she wasn’t sure she wanted his help.

A strong hand, nothing like branches at all, grabbed her wrist and pulled her out. She flailed, trying to get her other hand around the wrist, managing just as she felt as if her arm would pop out of its socket. Thus hanging from a very strong-feeling wrist, dripping, over the impossible endless pool, she looked around.

She knew the guy holding her. Unlike everyone else around here today, he still looked human, normal, for a certain definition of normal; Thorburn was a big guy, especially for someone still in school, tall and broad-shouldered. In a school with sports teams, he’d probably have been a football player. Right now, he, dressed in a long-sleeved button down rolled up past his elbows, appeared to be playing fisher, with her as the fish.

“Easy, easy,” he murmured, pulling her to solid ground and setting her down next to him. Paying no attention to how wet she was, he held her against him, his hand settling across her lower back. “The halls aren’t safe during Hell Night.”

“I’m beginning to see that,” she panted. The guy with the pine needles was coming closer, walking around what looked like a very small sinkhole. Just small enough to nearly drown her.

“She looks tasty, Thorburn. Let us have a nibble?”

“Come on, Curry, you’re a herbivore. You’re not gonna chew on the girl.” Nevertheless, he was holding her tighter.

“I never said I’d eat her, but I might like a bite. She looks tender…”

“I’m not dinner,” she protested angrily, glaring at the guy… tree… thing.

“You’re already marinated and everything,” he leered. “Good thinking, wearing white.”

“Oh… Oh!” She clutched her arms over her chest, blushing, backing against Thorburn’s safe, human warmth.

“She does look good enough to eat.” And this was another voice altogether, gravelly, rocky… yes. She glanced up to see another big guy, and didn’t this school have any nice, skinny, small guys? She’d seen them, in her classes; they couldn’t have all Changed into monsters. She shrank further into Thorburn’s big-but-human strength as a walking statue, rough-cut of some black stone, thumped towards them. “Come on, Thorburn, cut us a piece.”

“No.” His voice was so very loud, this close to his chest. “No. Ceinwen is mine.”

“I’m what?” She twisted to look up at him; he was looking down at her very solemnly, very seriously. “Um… Ceinwen is Ceinwen’s.” Ug smash. Barbarian take girl. No thank you.

“You heard the girl,” the tree-man urged. Was that really Curry? He hadn’t seemed that nasty before. She stepped carefully away from Thorburn – the water was still right behind her – and glanced at the other men. Creatures. Maybe their nastiness was just hidden along with their weirdness.

“Yeah,” the stone guy agreed. “You heard her. If ‘Ceinwen is Ceinwen’s,’“ he quoted with a sneer, “then Ceinwen is fair game.”

“Fair game,” Curry echoed. “Come here, pretty girl. I wanna show you my cones. Then Basalt can show you his stones.” He giggles as if the horrible rhyming pun was the cleverest thing he’d ever said. Maybe it was.

“Um, no.” She stepped back towards Thorburn, just a little. “Not interested. Not big into the landscape features thing, sorry.”

Thorburn pulled her close again. “She’s mine, guys,” he repeated. More softly, he murmured to her, “It’ll make them go away. They’ll leave you alone if you’re mine.”

Basalt laughed loudly. “She doesn’t want to be yours, big guy. She wants us. She wants a real hard man.”

“A real guy,” Curry echoed, “not some cy-” the second man’s hand hit him hard across the jaw. “Ow, goddamnit! A real man. Send her over this way, big guy.”

Basalt glared at his friend for a moment, then turned back to Ceinwen, leering, beginning to come closer. “You’d have fun with us, pretty girl. And when we were done with you, well, there’s plenty of creeps wandering the halls. Plenty of guys who’ll want to have fun with you.”

“And some of the girls,” Curry leered, moving closer and closer, reaching out for her with an arm that seemed to grow.

“Leave her alone,” Thornburn rumbled. His hands were heavy on her shoulders. “I’ll take care of you, Ceinwen. Protect you from these creeps. From all the creeps.”

She turned to look at him, putting more distance between herself and the encroaching monsters. “Yeah?” she asked nervously. “You won’t let them touch me?”

He stepped forward, not sheltering her, but putting himself between her and them. “You’re mine,” he murmured. “I’ll keep you safe.”

“Aaw, don’t do that,” Curry whined. He was just a pine-needle away from her now; she backed up, scrabbling away from him, and found herself between Basalt and the water. Her foot slipped, and Basalt and Thorburn both grabbed for her.

Pulled between their two arms, she swung, scrabbling, over the pit. “Come on, pretty girl,” Basalt leered through a face like a landslide. “Come play with us.”

“She’s mine,” Thorburn yelled. “Let her go, Basalt.”

“I don’t hear her saying that.” Basalt tugged a bit, pulling her arms wide apart. Ceinwen bit back a whimper. “Come on, Thorburn, let go. Let us have our fun. You can have her when we’re done.” He licked his lips, even his tongue black and rocky. “Unless someone else outbids us.”

She lost control of the whimper, and it slipped out of her lips. “You’ll really protect me from them?” she asked, in a tiny voice. This was the twenty-first century; she wasn’t supposed to need a freaking chaperone. “I mean, I should be fine after today, but I’m… ow… sort of stuck.” She bit her lip, humiliated.

“I’ll protect you from all the creeps,” he assure her. “You’re mine.”

“I’m… ew. Ug Tarzan, me Jane.”

“You can swing from my vine,” Curry sniggered.

“Nothing like that,” Thorburn assured her. “Just… you know, think of it like an upperclassmen taking care of a younger student. Sort of a big-brothers little-sisters program.”

“Yeah, I’ll.. nevermind.”

“It’s not brotherly you’re looking for,” Basalt laughed. “But we sure as hell aren’t looking for a sister sort, either.”

Ceinwen, her arms beginning to go numb, looked between the two of them. “Thorburn,” she gasped, feeling his grip on her slip and fail. “I’m yours!”

Basalt swung her into his arms with impressive strength and surprising gentleness, her feet barely touching the water. Just as gently, he passed her over to Thorburn. “All yours, bro.”

Thorburn gathered her into his arms. “Now,” he murmured, “let’s you and me go have a talk.”

“I’d really like to eat first,” she protested. “I appreciate the rescue and everything, but breakfast…?”

He smiled gently, but it seemed to have an edge to it. “Shh,” he warned her, and put a finger over her lips. “we’ll talk, and then you can have lunch. But there’s some things you need to understand first.”

“…” It looked like she really did. Her mouth wouldn’t open; sound wouldn’t come out. She struggled upwards in his grasp, staring at him, gesturing angrily: what the hell?

He patted her arm. “Calm down and stay still until we’re in my room. You’ve said you’re mine. Now I have to explain to you what that means, and what it will entail.”

She calmed down, her lips still pressed together, and settled in his arms, still. Her mind was running in little circles, but they refused to be even all that upset of little circles. He had told her what to do, and she had done it. There hadn’t been any choice involved. There hadn’t been any… anything involved. She was… his? What the hell did that mean?

Two of the older students had been having a talk the other day, just them and her in the beginning of a class. The words “be careful what you say” had come up no less than four times. At the time, Ceinwen had thought it odd. Now, she wondered if it had been a warning.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/180816.html. You can comment here or there.

Giraffe Call Summary!

Nov18

This is a summary, in total, of the November Giraffe Call. I have left to write the donor stories and one final prompt for [personal profile] lilfluff, but the prompts are done.

This month I received prompts from 17 people, one back-channel, and wrote 21 stories, as well as finishing last month’s call’s donation-incentive extra story.

I finished the linkback incentive story, although I had a very hard time keeping track of the linkbacks this time around, so in the end I just made it up. :-/

Still pondering themes for coming months!

Addergoole Yr5
Uh-Oh (LJ)
Family ties (LJ)

Addergoole yr8
Some Say Life (LJ)

Addergoole Apocalypse
The Life You Make (LJ)

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

Fae Apoc
Budding (LJ) – in the Internment Camp
Leaving the City (LJ) – the Linkback Incentive Story – Done!

Unicorn/Factory
Talking it to Death (LJ)

The Aunt Family
The Family Kudzu (LJ)
Difficult Relations (LJ)
What to do About Auntie X (LJ)

Stranded
Thicker Than… (LJ)
The Family that Knots Together (LJ)
Nanovel part Vii (LJ) [not part of the Giraffe Call]

Rin/Girey
Mother Knows… (LJ)
Encountering Dad (LJ)

Tír na Cali
Brothers and Brotherhood (LJ), continued in:
And Sisterhood (LJ)

Dragons Next Door
Family Planning (LJ) (not part of the Audrey/Juniper/Baby Smith story)
Dwimors (LJ), after the Over the Wall–> Rule Three series
Parent-Teacher Conference (LJ) The follow-up to Rule 2, and the $35 inventive for last month’s Giraffe Call

One-Off
Of Clay and Salt (LJ)
Othel (LJ)


Total from Giraffe Calls to Date
And this month

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/179908.html. You can comment here or there.

Linkback Incentive Story

Nov18

This is my linkback incentive story for the November Giraffe Call (Dreamwidth.

The first part of the story was originally posted here (DW); I am continuing it with an additional 50 words for every linkback to the Call or the stories from the call.

The city lay in ruins. Nila didn’t know when, if ever, Michael was coming home. Power had gone out a week ago, and the looters had come through the neighborhood like locusts. She’d held them off when she could, hid with the children when she knew she couldn’t, but it was time to leave.

She settled Susan in her Kevlar sling and from there into her car seat, and made sure Allan’s backpack was balanced and light enough, taking the far heavier pack for herself. She checked all of her weapons and both of Allan’s, stared for a while at the note to Michael, and led her children out of their home.

The highways were buckled and bent, twisted like a ribbon in ways that would be unbelievable, if you didn’t know that god-monsters walked the earth now. Nila took the back roads near there, keeping an eye on the gas gauge. If she’d planned this right – yes. The car ran out of gas just as they reached the edge of the worst devastation, past the mobs and the crazy people, past the banks of less fuel-efficient cars and the toll-takers.

She settled Susan on her back and held Allan’s hand with her left, and sited a path south. South, she’d heard, the devastation was less complete. South, the winter would be warmer and more survivable.

She focused on the path in front of her, on her children, and tried to ignore the ruins around them that had been home.

~

They had been walking now for three days. They had to take it slow; Allan was sturdy for his age, but he still tired easily, and Nila couldn’t carry him, not and Susan, too. The kids were taking it like champs, but she could tell, as the sun began to inch downwards, that it was time to stop.

She was focused on the children, ignoring her training in a way that would have horrified her former Mentor, ignoring the surroundings, when they rounded a bend in the long country road and found it blocked.

There was a long awkward moment when she stared at the man-creature and he stared back at them. “Creature” because he was clearly not entirely human, “man,” because the part of him that was looked like a boy in his mid-twenties. “Awkward…” because the thing was clearly trying to decide if they were a threat. Them, a twenty-two year old girl and her two young children. She took a long look over him, cataloguing his injuries, noting that he wasn’t Masking the things that marked him as inhuman – or perhaps no longer had the energy to?

His doglike ears canted in her direction, and she dropped her own Mask, letting him see the flower-like patterns that swirled across her skin, and the blue “petals” of her ears. “We just want to pass,” she told him carefully.

He stepped out of the way awkwardly. “I won’t stop you.” From the way he was swaying, he couldn’t if he wanted to.

Nila sighed, and set her pack down. “Swear you mean me and mine no harm.”

The man-creature stared at her. This clearly wasn’t what he’d intended, and she could tell he was looking for the trap. With some people, it would be a bear trap, quick to snap shut. Nila’s ways were – if not gentler, at least a little bit slower. This would bite him – not that he’d notice, at least.

He seemed to be reading her body language . She, for her part, was too worn for dissimilitude. What he saw – a tired girl, concerned about her children and worried about the potential threat in the road – was all her.

He nodded, reluctantly but, she thought, seeming no other choice. “I swear that I will do no harm to you or to your children,” he gestured at Allan and Susan, who were being very good and very quiet.

It was more than she’d asked for. Nila nodded brusquely. “Shirt off. Sit down.”

“What?”

“Take your shirt off,” Allan helped. “And sit down. Mom’s in business mode.”

Nila smiled appreciatively at her son, as the stranger sat down uncertainly, trying to pull off his shirt while watching her the whole time. “I notice you didn’t promise.”

“I’m a young mother with two small children. What can I do?” she asked innocently.

He coughed. “You’re an Ellehemaei. They’re baby Ellehemaei. And I’m out of power.”

“Well, then, you’d better just relax and trust me, oughtn’t you?” She smiled sweetly at him. “Allan, here, take your sister. Watch protocol.”

“Check.” Her son sat down with his back to a tree, watching the road in both directions, cuddling his baby sister.

“That’s my boy.” With a proud smile, Nila sank into lotus and began chanting a healing over the man.

After his first startled gasp, she looked up at him, smirking. “Name?”

Despite the good faith shown in the initial healing, he hesitated now.
She tch’d impatiently at him, and touched the part of him he was still Masking – the injuries he’d hidden under a glamour, to look less wounded, or to protect her children’s theoretical tender sensibilities. “I either need to see this, or to have your Name, to do this properly.”

Still, he hesitated. “Promise you won’t laugh?”

“What are you, seven?” The setting sun and her own impatience made her short. “I will not laugh at your Name. I can’t Work a healing while laughing.”

“You don’t want to promise anything at all, do you?” he grumbled.

“Nope,” she agreed.

The man sighed, those dog-like ears going flat. “I’m Tros, Named Ganymede.”

“Thank you, Tros.” There wasn’t time to giggle. She dove back into her Working, pulling out only when she was certain he wouldn’t fall over in the next day. “You were pretty badly damaged.”

“Nedetakaei and returned gods. It was a nasty fight.”

“It must have been. But you walked away from it.” She left the question unspoken.

“They didn’t. But there were four of them, and six of us, and as far as I know, now there’s just me.”

“Aah.” She studied him for a moment. “I’m sorry for your loss.” They’d all lost someone.

“Everyone loses people in battle.” His ears canted unhappily; she took the cue and dropped it.

“I’ve healed you well enough to get away from here. I’ll heal you fully – for a price.”

He watched her uncertainly, as he tested out her repair job. “What’s your price?”

“Swear to help me watch and protect my kids and my own back for the next-” she did quick logistics in her head – “twelve days, and I will heal you and help feed you for that long.”

“Seven days,” he bargained.

“Ten,” she countered. “Starting at sunrise.”

“You have a deal.”

“Your oath?”

He nodded slowly, not entirely willingly. “If you promise to heal me completely, and to keep me healed and help feed me for the next ten days, beginning now but counting from sunrise tomorrow, I will watch your back and help you protect you and your children.”

She smiled crookedly at him. “I knew you were one of the good guys. I promise to heal you as completely as my ability allows, and to keep you healed and fed for the next ten days, beginning now but counting from sunrise tomorrow.”

The air settled around them with a pop.

Tros nodded, a little uncertainly, his ears twitching at the feel of the oath. “The sun’s going down,” he pointed out. “Do you have shelter for the night?”

“Girl scout, always prepared. Is there a good spot around here?”

“Just off the road, there’s a decent overhang out of sight.” He pointed. “Be a bit hard for the kids to get down it, but I can carry your son if you carry your daughter.”

Allan bristled. “I can manage a hill!”

“Calm down, little man,” Nila murmured. “Let the man help.” Her son subsided unwillingly, and Nila turned back to their new companion. “All right, show us.”

He was still limping, she noted; how bad was the rest of the damage? Not for the first time, she wished for more strength in the diagnostic Words. But he picked up Allan with no apparent strain, and gestured down the steep cliff.

“All right, kid, just hold on tight, kay?”

“I know how to do this,” Allan complained.

“Your kids do basic training on the weekend?” Tros was studying Nila with amusement as he started descending.

“Watch your footing,” she muttered.

“Yes, ma’am.”

They made it to the bottom in silence, Tros still watching Nila uncertainly. “You seem like you planned for this.”

She shrugged, and pulled out the pop-out tent from her backpack.

“That’s… a little small.”

“Well, it packs better that way.” She muttered a complex working around the miniature tent, and it expanded into a shelter suitable to fit the four of them, albeit tightly.

“You… really are prepared.” He looked at his feet, abashed. “I was lucky to get out with a weapon and the clothes on my back.”

She patted said back, shooing him into the tent. “It’s all right,” she assured him. “I’m prepared enough for all of us.”

~fin~

Next: A New Flower

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/171652.html. You can comment here or there.

Parent-Teacher-Conference, a story of Dragons Next Door for the Giraffe Call

Nov17

This is the follow-up to Rule Two (LJ), which won the poll from October’s Giraffe Call to be continued.

There was a dragon in the school parking lot, between two busses.

This would not normally have surprised or dismayed Juniper. She was used to dragons – not at school, of course; dragons, like most of the very large and very small races, had their own schools. But it was Jimmy, who had been so cranky about Miryam, sitting there on the asphalt looking like a very large decoration. And next to the Smith’s oldest-in-nest, Juniper’s big brother Jin. What was going on?

“Hey, peanut,” Jin called, before Junie could make her escape onto the bus home. “Come over here.”

Peanut. She glared at him, but he was in charge when there wasn’t a parent around. Not that that was in any way fair, but, of course, parents didn’t look at it that way. “I’m going to miss my bus, Jin.”

“It’s all right. Mom and Dad are inside talking to your teacher.”

“To Miss Milligan?” She quailed. “What did I do?”

“Relax, kiddo. It’s not you. I mean… c’mere.” He hugged her suddenly. “Look, I went through the same thing. The parents just don’t pay attention, because things were so much different when they were kids.”

“Oh. My. Gawd.” The voice came from somewhere behind Juniper. Miryam. Miryam, and, from the sounds of the giggles, Ashley and Ally, two of Miryam’s friend. Junie did her best to ignore the girl, but Jimmy was snorting steam clouds. “What. The Hell. Is that?”

Juniper stiffed. “Jimmy…”

“It’s all right,” Jimmy rumbled. “They’re hatchlings. I understand.” The dragon lifted its head to regard the bullies over the top of Juniper. “But your parents said I could give you a ride.”

“A ride?” Miryam and her friends were still behind her, staring at the dragon they swore didn’t exist, but a ride? “In the air? A real ride?” That was more important than being proven right. That was more important than anything in the whole wide world.

“In the air. Not a low-earth-orbit or anything, but a real ride.” Jimmy’s jaw dropped in what only looked like a smile if you knew what you were talking about.

Behind them, Miryam was talking about Juniper being a horrible show-off. But it sounded as if she and the others were backing away, too. Jimmy laughed.

“Hop on, Junie. It’ll be fun, and we won’t even get in trouble.”

She glanced at Jin. He wasn’t going to be sad, was he? Jin was no fun when he was sad.

He was grinning at her, though. Grinning was good. “Go on, Junie. We worked hard to get Mom and Dad to agree to this – don’t waste it. Here, I’ll give you a hand up.” He picked her up like she didn’t weigh anything at all, and set her up on Jimmy’s back, into a sort of leather car-seat-like thing. “Buckle up, here, and here, and here.” He was buckling her in, even as he said it. “And hold on tight, okay, Junes? Don’t let go.”

“I’ll be fine,” she muttered. Miryam was still watching, Miryam and her stupid friends.

“Thinks she’s too good for the busses, silly little trash girl and her trashy friends,” Miryam-the-perfect was sneering. Juniper paid lots of attention to the buckles and handle, so that she wouldn’t cry. Or shout. Miss Milligan got very upset when she shouted.

Jin smacked Jimmy’s flank gently. “She’s all set, bro. Be careful with her.”

“Don’t worry one bit. Hold on tight, Junie.” Jimmy’s wings flapped hard against the air, and he took off. Below them, as the school dwindled away, Juniper could see Jin walking very slowly towards Miryam and her friends.

~~

Audrey and Sage allowed Miss Milligan – “please, call me Samantha” – to lead them into her tiny office and try to seat them before they disabused her of the illusion that she was in charge.

Sage started. He refused, politely, the seat that was offered, preferring to stand, like a retired officer, hands clasped behind his back, between the women and the door. In his long duster, with his long goatee, Audrey imagined he must look rather intimidating.

As she had done more than a few times before, she set out to counter the image, pulling a tea pot and a thermos of hot water from her bag, as well as a tray of cookies. She unwrapped the cookies and, carefully making sure the young teacher could see her hands the whole time, measured the loose-leaf tea into the pot and added the pre-boiled water.

“Tea?” she offered, smiling benignly.

“Ah, yes, I suppose. Mrs…”

“Please, call me Audrey. Audrey and Sage is fine. Cookie?”

“Yes, please. Audrey, then, this is about Juniper. She’s a very bright girl, when she applies herself. But she has a very overactive imagination – these are very good cookies, thank you.”

“An overactive imagination? I’ve never found it excessive when she’s at home.”

“Oh, it can be easy to miss things like this if you’re not trained in it, but when we see her every day, the way a teacher does, it because much more evident. Juniper has been making up stories, making her life seem more interesting than is feasible, for attention.”

“What sort of stories?” That was Sage, in his cool, calm, investigator voice. It clearly ruffled Miss Milligan.

“Stories about eating dinner with ogres, about discussing politics with pixies…”

“You do know,” Audrey interrupted, “that we live in Smokey Knoll?”

“Well, I know Juniper goes home on the Smokey Knoll bus route. But lots of families live in the hills around the Knoll. It’s a big neighborhood.”

“Not around the Knoll,” Sage explained, with quiet precision. “In the Knoll.”

Miss Milligan, in the process of picking up her cup of tea, set it back down again, carefully. Audrey, to encourage her, picked up her own tea and sipped it.

The teacher was still staring at them. Her hands shaking, this time she did sip her tea. And then gulped it.

“Humans don’t live in Smokey Knoll,” she whispered.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/179530.html. You can comment here or there.

What to do about Auntie X, a story of the Aunt Verse for the Giraffe Call

Nov17

For Rix_Scaedu‘s prompt.

This is in the Aunt Family setting, which has a landing page now here (and on LJ).

Beryl is one of Evangaline’s nieces.

“But Mom…”

“Don’t argue. You know it’s your Aunt Beatrix’s turn to host Thanksgiving, and you know we can’t very well not show up only on her years.”

“But Moooom,” Beryl’s younger sister Amy picked up the complaint, “it smells funny there.”

“It’s the cats,” their older sister Chalcedony added. “Mom, come on. Someone needs to tell Beatrix that her house smells like cat pee.”

“Well,” their mother pursed her lips, “we do have a new Aunt in the family. Perhaps we can convince her to do the honors.”

Beryl faltered. “Now that’s just mean. Maybe we could call that TV show?”

“The last thing we want is some tv cameras in a Family house. Who knows what they’d find? Beatrix never had any kids, after all.”

“They’d find cats,” Chalce answered succinctly. “And who knows? She could have a kid in there somewhere, and nobody would be able to tell.”

“All right, you girls are just being silly. Sit next to someone with a cold for a couple days before the holiday, and I’ll let you have the Monday after the holiday home sick.”

“You know…” Their brother rarely spoke up. Men in the Family tended not to, after a while. Beryl had heard her father refer to them as the silent minority; personaly, she thought they stayed quiet mostly out of self-defense. Now, they all looked at Stone. Waiting. Stunned. He coughed. “Forget TV. The five of us could manage an intervention on our own.”

“An…”

“Five…”

“Seriously?”

“Awesome! Mom…!”

Their mother shook her head slowly. “An intervention. Well. It would make Thanksgiving awkward…”

“But it would make it smell so much better!”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/179401.html. You can comment here or there.