Archive | January 2012

Mother-Son bonding, a story of Boom!Post-Apoc for @Inventrix

Jan27

After Separation Anxiety (LJ) Parting Advice, and Mother Bears (LJ), in the Boom!/RP timeline. I believe this is part three of four.

Yoshi was waiting in the Village when Cya came to get him. Driving separately was a waste of gas, especially with the world falling to pieces, but she liked the time alone with her son; she’d freed Ankara on the way and enjoyed the rare quiet of the rest of the drive.

She Found her son with no trouble, leaning against a fence by Maureen’s where she’d Found more than a few of her yearly Kept. Her heart twisted in her chest a little, until she saw the boy he was standing next to, a tall strawberry blond with long, narrow antlers, which made an entirely different set of twists start happening.

She had, rather pointedly, not thought about what would happen to her Kept du jour habit when her boys went to school, not thought about picking up a boy while picking up her son. The fae stayed young for a very long time, but that didn’t make her feel much better about picking up boys her kids’ age.

Still, seeing the boy – those antlers! – with her son, she shifted her Mask to that of a woman old enough to be Yoshi’s mother instead of his younger sister, and pulled her car up to a nearby parking spot.

She was just in time, as she got out of the car, to see a lovely petite girl walk up to her son, her ocean-blue hair swaying with her hips like the tide coming in. The girl set her hands on Yoshi’s shoulders – it was only then, focusing on the webbed fingers, that Cya noticed her son looked the same as he had when she dropped him off ten months ago – and kissed him proprietarily, then, as Cya took her sweet time closing in on them, did the same for the antlered boy, leaving both of them looking dazed and uncertain.

The girl swayed off, to the protective arms of a woman Cya recognized, in a vague sort of way, as a Seventh Cohort girl. Hrrmph. She swallowed her over-protective indignation (It went in the same oubliette as many of her other unhelpful emotions, like jealousy, and completed her walk to her son, giving him time to see her, time to wipe the lost expression off his face.

“Mom,” he grinned. The grin started out forced – she recognized the expression, from his father’s face and her own – and was entirely genuine-seeming by the time she got within hugging distance. Would he… boys grew distant from their mothers, she’d been told, to leave the nest properly. But he hugged her, tightly, as he had when he was a child and needed comfort.

She patted his shoulder and pretended not to notice. “Ready to go home for the summer?” she asked instead. “Uncle Howard has a list of chores already started for you.”

“Even if shoveling cow shit is on the list,” he murmured feelingly, and Cya felt the urge to kill rising – dampened, in the next moment, by her son’s entirely disingenuous, “Mom, this is Panlong. Pan. He was in a crew with my Keeper this year – Tethys, with the hair? – and when his dad didn’t show, I told him you could give him a ride home. I hope you don’t mind.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/246296.html. You can comment here or there.

Burning Summer Quest, a story for the Giraffe Call

Jan26

For moon_fox‘s prompt

Probably goes with Strange Neighbors (LJ) [After the Fairy Road (here on LJ)]

It was the hottest summer on record. It may have been the hottest summer ever. The sidewalk was melting. The roads were sticky. Even the devout were wearing bikinis, and you don’t want to know what the sinners were wearing. Fry an egg? You could cook a roast on the hood of the car.

And our air conditioner was on the fritz. We had six so-called adults, two cats, three rats (the domestic sort), and one small child in a four-bedroom house, we had eaten all the popsicles, and our air conditioner was spitting out lukewarm air.

So Jordan and I went on a quest.

We went to Wal-mart: sold out. K-Mart: sold out. Target? Mobbed AND sold out. Ames, the corner store, the grocery store, the overpriced appliance store behind the carpet place. We drove around the city in shrinking concentric circles (at least the AC in my old Ford still worked), stopping at every place that might, possibly, in some universe, sell us an AC unit. I cried at the Rent-a-Center guy (he was unimpressed). Jordan threatened the pawn shop guy (likewise unimpressed); we offered to buy one off an old lady with three sticking out of her windows (in our defense, she was at least holding a garage sale).

And then, as we were heading home in defeat, wondering how we were going to tell the roomies (never mind the toddler, the cats, and the rats) that we had failed – Failed! on our epic quest! – Jordan slammed on the brakes.

There, right there in the heart of the third-worst neighborhood in town, in a place I swear was a braid joint just yesterday, was a small store with a smaller sign: “Mr. Ting knows what you need.”

“Well,” Jordan shrugged, “at this point, anything is worth a shot, right?”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/246121.html. You can comment here or there.

Consequences

Jan26

After Three-Way, the Duet.
3-Way originally posted here and on LJ,
continued here (LJ)
and then here (LJ
and then
Here (Duet) and Here on LJ
And the “Preferences” (LJ) and
“9 Things I Hate About You” (LJ)

For cluudle, for being awesome.

Content warning: this relationship borders on emotionally abusive.


Thorburn released Ceinwen slowly from the hug. It seemed as if he’d been holding her forever, since he’d agreed that now was not the time to talk about the elephant in the living room, since he’d said they had room for negotiation. She’d thought he’d forgotten. She wasn’t quite sure he hadn’t fallen asleep; she wasn’t sure she hadn’t, either. It had been a long day, and it was late.

“You were right. I said you could earn your clothes back, your things. And I never told you how. I admit, I didn’t think about how much.” He stroked her arm. “I like the things I put you in. And I like you naked next to me.”

She wasn’t sure if now was still the time for talking, but she tried. “I wouldn’t mind, if it didn’t feel so demeaning.” Like she wasn’t a person enough to get clothes.

He nodded slowly. “If I don’t wear anything to bed…” He stopped what he was going to say, but she could see the shadows around him. “then you will be getting more waking up in the middle of the night than I think you’d prefer. Boxers and panties?”

“Am I getting a say?”

“I do want you to be happy. And I’d say for helping Basalt out, you deserve a reward, wouldn’t you?”

“I…” She twisted her lips. “‘Good girl, have a gold star?'”

He frowned at her. “You’re not a child, Ceinwen, but you are Mine, and that does mean I get to reward and punish you as I choose. I’d rather work out rewards, give you things for pleasing me. Would you prefer I punish you when you irritate me?”

“The way it seems lately, you’d be punishing me all the time and never rewarding me anyway,” she muttered. She had just a second to realize she’d pushed him too far before he picked her up and bent her over his lap, her wrists pinned at the small of her back. He pulled her skirt up – always skirts, he’d taken all her pants – and his hand came down hard on her ass, one cheek and then the other.

She yelped at the first hit, struggling against his hands, and then whimpered at the second. After that, she froze, hoping he’d stop. She could feel his erection against her stomach and ribs, which made the whole thing more humiliating, more terrifying, more arousing.

He leaned down until his lips were near her ears. “I’d like doing that every time you mouthed off,” he whispered. “But I don’t think you would. So I’ll reward you, and I’ll tell you what will earn rewards. And maybe, sometimes, then, I can just spank you for fun.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/245865.html. You can comment here or there.

Tea with /HER/, Continued More, a story of Tir na Cali for the Giraffe Call

Jan26

For @daHob’s prompt, in continuation of :
Tea with HER (continuation 2) (LJ)Tea with HER (continuation) (LJ) and Saturday’s Tea with HER (beginning) (LJ)

Tir na Cali has a landing page here on DW and here on LJ

I bid him a quiet, respectful, tearful goodbye, and sold him to the best broker in town, demanding – and getting – promises about his well-being and the type of place to which they’d sell him. He’d do well. He was so very well…trained.

I was angry at the Ice Queen all over again after that – for being right. For winning, again. For being my Countess. For calling for me when my mother was dying. But I went. She was my liege, and she’d been right.

The conversation was tense, unhappy, and stressed for the first half hour, until she set down her cup and stared at me. “Let’s stop beating around the bush. You sold Michael, and it makes you miserable.”

“My mother is dying,” I countered tensely.

“My the Goddess hold her close and move her on,” she murmured devoutly. “There will be a time for the funeral, and there will be a time for mourning. And I will be there beside you for that, Treanna, you have my guarantee.”

That, I’ll admit, took me quite by surprise, but I just nodded. “Yes, your Ladyship.” It’s something you get very good at saying.

“But right now,” she continued, as if she was flipping the page to the next item on her agenda – and she really could have been, for all the expression she had – “I have a gift for you.”

“I’m sorry, Your Ladyship?” I asked blankly. She’d shifted gears too fast on me this time.

“It’s not really…” she gestured, and, for the first time in my life, I thought she might be nervous. “Well. I could wait, if you prefer, until you are installed as Baroness.”

“I would rather,” I said, rather stiffly, “rather not discuss my installation as a done deal. My mother is still breathing.”

“But you will inherit. And likely you will do so soon. I can release you from this tea, and call for you again when the suitable mourning has been done. Or we can continue to talk now.”

It was clear from her tone which she wanted. But my mother was dying. “I would like that, your Ladyship. To come back later, at your leisure.”

“And at yours.” She gestured, smiling gently. “Tend to your mother, Lady Treanna.”

It wasn’t much longer. The healers and doctors had done everything they could for her, and all that was left was the horrible waiting. Alone, because I had sold Michael. Alone, because, with Michael there, I had never bothered to look for a partner, a companion, a Consort.

I held her hand through her last breaths, and I called the priests and the priestesses to lay her to the Goddess’ hands. I spoke the words I needed to say, and did was what required. I, like every child of Tír na Cali, am very good at doing what is required.

And then I went home, where I could be more alone, and sat, pondering my next step.

And there, wrapped in a ribbon over his perfectly-tailored suit, sitting on my front porch, a leash from his golden collar to my front door (my mother’s front door, my front door), was a boy. A man. A slave.

I’ll keep writing this in increments until @Dahob thinks it’s done… 😉

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/245705.html. You can comment here or there.

Loaves, a story for the Giraffe Call @Rix_Scaedu

Jan26

For Rix_scaedu‘s prompt

“What we need,” Katydid declared, “is a place to eat.”

Jorge looked over at her dubiously. “Like a dining room table? ‘did, I’m sure you’ve noticed, but this is a shanty.”

“No, no.” Her gesture took in the small jury-rigged building. “This is a place to sleep and not freeze. We need a place to eat.”

“Okay, you’re repeating yourself. Have you gone to the clinic recently?”

“No,” she frowned. “They make my brain buzz. This place, Jorge, this shanty-town, Hoover-ville, cardboard city – we need a place to eat.”

“We’re all starving, yeah, Katydid. I know that. We ALL know that, ‘did.”

She bit her lip. “Why don’t you ever listen?”

“Because you never make sense! You come down here like you belong with us, but you don’t, and then you say things like you’re making fun of us. Why don’t you go home?”

“I don’t have a home.” Her knees went up to her chest, and her hair covered her face. Jorge expelled air loudly.

“Whatever happened, there in the ‘burbs, it can’t be worse than starving.”

“We’re not going to starve.” She stood abruptly and hurried out of the hut, leaving Jorge to stare in her wake.

When he didn’t see her for several days, he thought she’d gone back to the ‘burbs, drama or not. Not that he KNEW that was where she came from, but good, clean shoes, sturdy clothes that were nevertheless the latest fashion, and hair that had been cut in the last month, plus teeth so straight and even as to look fake, did not look like city-poverty to him, much less shanty-town poor. He wished her luck, said a prayer for her, and moved a warmer girl into his shanty.

It was the girl, Annie, who told him what Katydid had done. “There’s a kitchen. They’re giving out food”

“A what?”

“In the middle of the ‘Ville. Follow the smoke.”

So follow the smoke he did, ’cause his stomach was trying to eat itself, and there, in the squarest shanty he’d ever seen built, with three banners for a tarp, Katydid had laid out tables, and over an oil-barrel stove, complete with chimney, she was dishing out soup and dumplings.

“Where…?” Jorge started, but the wildness was running high in the girl’s eyes, and he fell quiet.

“Jesus had fish,” was all she’d say.

Hooverville, non-Wiki Hoovervilles, shanty-town

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/245336.html. You can comment here or there.

Reveals _Something_? a drabble of Vas’ World for @clarekrmiller

Jan26

After “I said, Further Exploration reVEALS,” (no xpost), [personal profile] clare_dragonfly‘s reward for feedback here.

Vas World has a landing page here on DW and here on LJ

“Answers would be nice,” Paz muttered petulantly. “This place gives me the creeps.”

“How did you ever end up in the Corps?” Malia slipped through the door and swept the beam of her flashlight over the room – not a library, as she’d hoped, but some sort of office, in more disarray than anything they’d found yet.

“Really good test scores. And I can hit a bullseye at 500 yards, which squeaked me by the psych.”

“…Our psych eval needs evaluating.” She picked the smallest desk and sat down, carefully, in the chair.

“Well, what about you, Miss Loves-Everything?”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/245072.html. You can comment here or there.