Archive | February 2012

“But the regulations clearly say that we can grow plants on our balconies, so long as we stay within the weight regulations. There’s no call on what sort of plants, the aesthetic value thereof, or if Mrs. Taylor upstairs can’t spy on me anymore.” Ashley’s arguments were by necessity well-reasoned-out and backed up by facts, which wouldn’t stop the super, of course, if he decided he really had an axe to grind. She was hoping the Mrs. Taylor thing would swing it, though.

“She says the thorns pricked her.”

“She was leaning over trying to push them out of the way if they did. Look, Aaron, sir, you and I both know how she is. And the roses…”

“They make a very nice screen, I agree. And they’re very pretty, and they hide everything else you’re growing here.” He looked over the three by ten balcony with raised eyebrows. “Quite an impressive set-up. You could feed a family of five with this.”

“Nah, but it does help.” She looked over the set-up with a smile, the roses trained up on nearly-invisible rope trellises to create a screen against the neighbor on the north, the compact compost pile masquerading as a table, the vegetables growing in planters hung four high in a complex PVC frame. Beyond her garden, the city, with all its crowded urban stink, stared back at her, but the garden helped mask that. “It helps remind me of home.”

“You’re a long way from it, aren’t you?” He patted her shoulder in a way that she should have minded but really didn’t. “All right. I’ll tell Mrs. Taylor to stuff it. You can keep your garden, honey.”

“Thanks, Aaron.” She decided today was not the day to tell him about the angora rabbits living in the second bedroom or the mushrooms in that closet. “You’re a great guy.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/284926.html. You can comment here or there.

Planting Seeds

Feb26

For stryck‘s prompt.
Addergoole has a landing page here and a wiki here.

Content warning: mayyyybe implied heavy flirtation?

Two weeks after Thorny Disposition (LJ)

Phillipa sat in Professor Valerian’s office, very carefully picking the rose hips from her hair and popping the seeds out of them, dropping the roses into a tall bottle.

“There was a student,” the Professor told her, “a few years back. Nikita. A similar Change to yours – he grew grapes. I know that he and his Keeper made wine from his grapes, but it was, for them, an intimate affair.”

Keeper. She had heard that word a few times in the last couple weeks, but she hadn’t quite gotten the gist of it yet. Her new friends seemed to shy away from the topic whenever she brought it up, and so did others, people in class who were so forthcoming about other things, other Eighth Cohorts who were suddenly shy and not talking at all… “Keeper?” Maybe her Mentor would tell her something.

The Professor pursed her lips. “His girlfriend,” she qualified. “Shiva. You know Efrosin? His half-sister.” She reached over and carefully plucked one of Phillipa’s berries. “It can be, I’m told, an immensely intimate experience.”

Phillipa blushed hotly. Intensely intimate… It was as if the professor was reading her mind, her daydreams and fantasies. “I can imagine?” she offered cautiously. “I mean, this is part of me, right?” She stripped the fruit and offered the meaty bits to the older woman, studying her Mentor’s lips and not her eyes.

“It is,” the professor agreed, licking the berry from Phillipa’s fingers. “I wonder what would happen if we planted the seeds?”

Now, she could manage to look her teacher in her amazingly-green eyes. “Let’s find out.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/284439.html. You can comment here or there.

Passing the Cat, a story of the Aunt Family for the Mini-Giraffe Call

Feb26

For rix_scaedu‘s commissioned prompt, after That Damn Cat (LJ) and Bless the Cat (LJ).

Aunt Family has a landing page here on DW and here on LJ

Zenobia had held on to a hundred and ten, not because she really was enjoying life anymore, not even with every charm she could come up with, but simply to irritate her family.

This also meant that her niece was not young and, possibly, Zenobia considered, rather irritated as well, which hadn’t really been her point. Of the seventeen potentials, Elenora had always been her favorite niece for the position, and she’d made an effort, as much as she did with anyone, at least, to be friendly with the girl.

Girl. She chuckled into her tea. The girl in question was now in her mid-seventies, hale and hearty but prone to be a bit crotchety. And Zenobia was at the end of her ability or desire to hold on any longer, so she was having a long talk with her niece.

“This,” she said, about two hours and four cups of tea in, “is The Cat.” The Damn Cat allowed himself to be picked up in a way he never would have tolerated in her younger days. “You will find that he neither likes to tell you about himself nor to be talked about.”

“Yes, Aunt Zennie.” Elenora had taken on the family’s annoying habit of talking to her as if she was a little gone in the brain. Zenobia whacked the woman over the knuckles with her tarot deck as if she was a wayward child.

“If you’re going to be the next Aunt – and you are – you might as well know what you’re doing,” she scolded. “Pay attention and stop acting as if I’ve gone batty.”

“And what if you have?” she snapped back. “Talking to your cat? What’s next, talking to your tea? Having conversations with the lawn furniture?”

“Your Aunt Fabiana talked to her settee quite frequently in her mid-thirties. It told her all sorts of things her husband was up to behind her back. My point is, young lady, you might be a little more willing to believe things when you’re a member of this family and have been for seventy-three years.”

Elenora glared back at her. “I’m perfectly willing to believe normal things like demons and ghosts, the tarot and charms, but Aunt Zenobia, you’re talking about talking to your cat!”

“Yes I am,” she hissed, “and you would do well to listen.”

“You would,” The Damn Cat finally deigned to say. “I have helped your Aunts more than you can imagine.”

“My… Aunts. Plural.” Elenora studied The Cat thoughtfully. “You are, then, not an ordinary cat.”

“I should say not.” He groomed himself pointedly. “Not in any way. But I am still, miss, a cat. I like cream, and chicken. And the occasional slice of beef.”

“He is a very pampered cat,” Zenobia admitted, “but he has more than earned his keep and, Elenora, I think he will do the same for you.” She looked her niece in the eye. “There are many things I will leave you, because you will be the Aunt. The Cat, I am leaving to you because you are my heir.”

Next: Legacy Cat (LJ)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/284206.html. You can comment here or there.

Thorny Disposition

Feb26

For clare_dragonfly‘s prompt.
Addergoole has a landing page here and a wiki here.

Addergoole, Hell Night Year Eight

The halls were dark and creepy, and Phillipa had gotten horribly turned around. She didn’t know where she was, or even how she had gotten there, and she didn’t really know, now, where she wanted to go.

Some giant minotaur had been bearing down on her when she’d slipped and gone twisting down some sort of slide. She’d barely avoided something that looked like a mechanical monster and gotten hit with three squirt guns of stinky, gooey something, and now she was sitting in a tiny box that had the pleasant advantage of being quiet and well-lit but the disadvantage of letting her know exactly how badly she’d gotten drenched. Her heart was still pounding, and her palms and butt felt as if she’d scraped them really, really badly. She really should move, but she knew, if she went back out there, it would just get worse.

The door to her box opened, and a short, cheerful girl stuck her head in. “Phillipa, right? I’m Caity. We’re in the same PE together, remember?”

Caity, unlike a lot of the students here, still looked mostly like Caity, if a bit sharper-edged. Phillipa nodded uncertainly. “Yes? What’s going on?”

The tiny girl was looking at her sharply. “Are you in pain?”

“I think I scraped myself a little bit…”

“I’d say so! Here, stand up, you look like you’re bleeding.” Caity took her hand, very gingerly, and tugged her out of the box. “You’ve fallen into our protective custody trap. I hope you don’t mind too much, but it looks like it stressed you out a bit?”

“A bit,” she winced. “It shows that badly?”

“Well, here.” She reached behind her and took a mirror from… Phillipa wasn’t really sure from where, actually. “Look for yourself.”

“What? I know I’m all coated in goo… oh.” In the mirror, she saw a stranger. Her eyes, but greener than hers had ever managed except with contacts. Her nose, but narrower, her lips, but redder, her hair, but… tangled with vines, somehow. And her fingers were longer, sharper, or something, and along her arms…. “Are those thorns?”

“Technically, on a rose, they’re called prickles. I wonder if you’ll be able to hold onto things better with them?”

“I… rose, what?”

“Well,” the tiny girl smiled, “it makes sense. You’re pretty, with a bit of a thorny disposition.”

“I am not…. am I really?”

“A little.” Caity patted her shoulder. “But it’s okay. we’re all a bit victim to our biology.”

next! Planting Seeds (LJ)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/284018.html. You can comment here or there.

Call for Call Ideas!

Feb26

I am, unless I want to do something about the misappropriation of cultural heritage or the evolution of holidays over different cultures for March or April, out of seasonal ideas for Giraffe Calls!

So, my fine readers: please give me suggestions, here, for Giraffe Call Themes.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/283875.html. You can comment here or there.

Wolf in the Circle

Feb25

After Wolf at the Door (LJ)

Warning: contains violence.

“This is insanity, you know.” Tynan and Ellen followed Ciara from their suite to the gym, Tynan scolding her the entire way. “Key, if you lose this challenge, there’s not going to be anything we can do to help you.”

Ciara shook her head. “If he decided he was sick of waiting for me to give in and dragged me off into his room, what could you do?” she countered. “Ty, El, I have a plan.”

“Does it involve cookies?” Ellen asked, eying the platter Ciara was carrying.

“They’re the backup plan,” she admitted. “Stay away from the ones with the red sprinkles.”

“Right. Avoiding Ciara’s cookies.” Ellen rolled her eyes. “Tynan is right. This is crazy.”

“I know,” she agreed, keeping her voice quiet. “But so is he, so is this entire school. The only way to get through it is to be as crazy as everyone else.”

“Or, you know, just keep your head down and get through your first year. He’ll be gone and you won’t have to worry.”

“I’ve got this, guys. It’s too late to back out, anyway.” She set the cookies on the table at the side of the gym, and walked towards the circle Luke had drawn for them.

“Are you sure, Ciara?” the PE teacher asked quietly.

She wished everyone would stop asking her that, but totally understood why they were. “I’m sure,” she agreed. “Besides, here he comes.”

Amadeus looked a little bit lost. He came surrounded by his own friends, and yet, while they were talking to him, he wasn’t talking back. He barely seemed aware they were there. Ciara swallowed a smile. If she had knocked him off his game, even a little, she might stand a chance.

A tiny chance.

She stepped into the circle and bowed to her opponent.

“It’s not too late to concede, you know,” he grinned at her. “I’ll be gentle.”

“You could concede, too,” she reminded him. “I’d be gentle.”

That made him snarl. “You can’t win. Whatever trick you think you have, I’m still older and stronger than you are.”

“Then you have nothing to worry about, do you?” she smiled back at him. “Ready?”

“Ready,” he growled, dropping his Mask. “No Workings, first one to leave te circle loses.”

“Exactly. Luke?”

“Just remember everything you break Caitrin has to put back together,” he grumbled. “Begin.”

Amadeus’ eyes seemed to be flashing red flames. “You’re going to pay for this, little girl,” he snarled, and attacked.

She’d been expecting violence, and knew her own combat skills, while she’d been practicing, were probably not up to par with an upperclassmen. But getting hurt was part of her plan anyway, so all she had to do was dodge as much as she could without stepping out of the circle.

And he looked like he wanted to take his time. Break her down, break her… ow. Bones. She fell to a knee as he landed a sharp kick on her spine. He wanted to make her…ow. He kicked her in the shoulder, snapping something. He wanted to make her flee the circle, not to throw her out. That might mess with her plans a … ow. She managed to get back to her feet, just in time to catch his fist with her ribs.

“Think about it,” he hissed, “when you’re Mine…”

Oh, he was good and pissed now. She smiled through a cracked lip. “When you’re Mine,” she teased, and, finally, he rushed her.

He got her again, once in the face, once in the kidney, once in her ribs, snapping something inside of her, and then grabbed her, clearly intending to throw her out of the circle.

She was barely conscious. She hadn’t planned on that. Weakly, hurriedly, she pulled on her innate power – not a Working, not forbidden, any more than his
strength was – and sent most of the force he imparted in the throw back at himself, saving and redirecting just enough to send herself downwards, hard, still inside the circle.

“Done,” Luke shouted, as Amadeus landed against the gym wall. “Done, with Ciara the winner. Good job, girl.”

She looked up, weakly, as the promises they had made before the match made Amadeus say “Ciara – damn you, bitch – I Belong to you.”

“You do,” she agreed. “Grab my purse, don’t touch anything or anyone else, and…” that was all she had energy for. She let the pain take her away.

Next:
Ciara: Wolf in the Hand

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/283238.html. You can comment here or there.

Meeting Mr. Ting

Feb25

For @inventrix’s commissioned continuation of

🐙
We were still staring at the tentacled thing – it was just a prop, right? Just something from some sort of Lovecraftian movie or game or… something, right? – when the building shook again. I caught one of the adzes as it swung uncomfortably close to Jordan, and thus was turned in the right direction to see one of the shelves… swing. Rotate, really, like a Scooby-Doo secret door.

Nobody came out or anything, though; we just got another shelf. This one looked like it was in the end of the alphabet, or, at least, the end of our alphabet.

Xylophones, first. A whole shelf of the things, big ones with wooden bars, tiny ones, a few glockenspiels thrown in, the bright kids’ ones. Then a few model yachts, some small enough to fit in my hand, one fitting half a shelf on its own.

I don’t know what the #^^#(275)^ were, but they seemed to be shiny silver pointed tubes with a lot of fancy scrollwork.

I was staring at them and trying to ignore the fact that half the yardsticks were neither a yard long nor marked in anything I recognized as numbers when a Jordan hissed. “JJ….”

I turned around, half expecting to see something with tentacles. Instead, I saw…

“Ah, hello. My apologies, I came in through the back door. You must be the guests Mrs. Gent was telling me about.”

“I think they’re in the front, actually?” I said uncertainly. He looked entirely like my seventh-grade shop teacher, if Mr. Daniels had been sporting seven-inch ears and ten-inch eyebrows on a five-foot-nothing frame.

“Mrs. Gent can handle the Delorians just fine. But she said you two were an interesting pair.”

Jordan coughed. “We are?” We were used to hearing that, fair enough, but not in a place like that. “In this place, in this time,” the quote was rather inappropriate, but sometimes Jordan is like that, “we’re interesting? Mister, we just want…”

“I am not about what you want,” he interrupted. “I am about what you need, and that, dears, I already know. Didn’t you read the sign? Did I get the language wrong again?”

I winced, worried that we’d managed to tick him off already too. Not what we needed. Definitely not what we needed. “I’m sorry, sir…”

“Why are you sorry for your friend’s words? There is nothing to be sorry for, and you are not responsible for other people.”

“Jordan is my friend,” I flared, suddenly irritated myself. “We came here together, so I can be sorry if I want to.”

I immediately regretted it – we really needed that AC – but the little man was smiling. “Indeed. Jordan is your friend. It is such a lovely, concept, isn’t it?”

“Why did you say we were interesting?” Jordan cut in. “I mean.. this store, this is interesting. All this stuff you have…”

“Stuff, as you put it, is here because someone will need it some day,” he answered calmly. “You two are interesting because of yourselves”

🐙

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/283039.html. You can comment here or there.

Love and Hospitality

Feb24

For

rix_scaedu

‘s prompt.

Addergoole has a landing page here

This prompt pinged on a conversation I was having with inventrix about Nydia’s life after school and her son Corentin.

This take place near the end of Year Eight – Wren is living in the Village, as she graduated at the end of Year Seven.

Icon (in DW)is a clip of this lovely art of Wren.

Followed by Graduation Plans

"We could do this, you know."

Nydia looked over at Wren uncertainly. "This?" She looked down at the cake they were making. "You mean, the planners idea?"

"Exactly." She piped another rose onto the edge of the second tier. "Cy’DJ, cy’Maureen, we’d make a good team. We could go into business together in a small city, use the stipend Regine gives us as seed money, and raise our kids together." She tilted her head towards the penned-off playroom where her two and Nydia’s two were playing together. "They get along, and we get along…"

Nydia blushed furiously, a lovely indigo color over her unmasked complexion. "I don’t like girls, like that," she whispered.

Wren smiled reassuringly. "I don’t either, not really," she whispered back. "But that’s not what I meant. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with two friends living together, is there?"

"No, of course not," Nydia answered hurriedly. "It would be nice to have someone else to help with the babies." Dysmas had expressed some interest, when he was still in school, but since he’d graduated, all he’d done was send cash-filled cards for holidays and Cory’s birthdays. "But… boys? I mean, it might be nice, once in a while, to have a man around."

"I know," Wren nodded wistfully. "To have someone to take care of the heavy lifting, literal and figurative."

Nydia thought about that for a moment. "And figuratively," she echoed. Was that what she’d been missing? Wren had seemed rather happy, the year Elfred Kept her. And then with Kellagh the next year, but…

"I don’t want to be Kept again." She’d loved Dysmas. She still loved Dysmas. But she didn’t ever want to be under the collar again.

"Me, neither," Wren agreed thoughtfully. "But there’s nothing saying we have to. Look," she said, putting the last touches on the cake. "We can do this. We can offer love, and hospitality. Both as a business…"

Nydia was beginning to understand. "…and at home," she nodded slowly. A man didn’t have to be Keeping them to take care of, as Wren had said, the heavy lifting. "I like this plan."

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/282449.html. You can comment here or there.

Pure Snow White

Feb23

For avia‘s prompt.

He was pure, pure in a way that was hard to come by in this day and age, cloistered, sheltered, and entirely untouched by sex, by pornography, by initiating fiction or racy photography.

His education, up in the tower built for him, was thorough, complete, in the subjects of history, mathematics, sciences, linguistics, politics, and literature. His penmanship was exquisite, his debate skills sublime, his Latin and Greek perfect, even his embroidery enviable.

The only hole, as it were, in his education was in the arts romantic and sexual. Every reference to sex, every kiss in every story, every love poem, every bawdy joke was cut from his reading. As carefully as he had been educated, he had been allowed to remain ignorant, nay, intentionally kept as pure as was possible.

Society can only hold back nature for so long, however, and there came a time when the young student, the snow-white pure boy began to have thoughts, feelings, that he had no words for.

His tutors pretended, for the moment, not to know what he was speaking of. They kept him chaperoned at all times, giving him no opportunity to explore his urges, giving him no outlet for his desire. They kept him lily-white, snow-white, pure. They kept him chaste, utterly chaste, while the urges he had no words for rose and rose.

They taught him fencing, boxing, martial arts. They gave him ways to tone his body, to give his urges an outlet. They taught him massage, yoga, t’ai chi. They shaped his body as they shaped his mind: perfect, innocent, and pure. And Wanting.

And then they restricted his physical activity for a month, stopped his fencing lessons, kept him from boxing, refused to fence with him, would not let him even do yoga.

And it was in that state, tense, innocent, and shaking with a desire he didn’t understand that they delivered him, finally, to the one he’d been prepared for… for Snow White to become, as they said, Rose Red.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/282250.html. You can comment here or there.

Alder's Grove Fiction

The Worlds of Lyn Thorne-Alder

Archive | February 2012

Giraffe Update!

Rose of the City, a story of the Planners Verse for the Giraffe Call

Planting Seeds

Passing the Cat, a story of the Aunt Family for the Mini-Giraffe Call

Thorny Disposition

Call for Call Ideas!

Wolf in the Circle

Meeting Mr. Ting

Love and Hospitality

Pure Snow White