Archive | March 2012

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

Mar5

For Friendly Anon’s continuation prompt, after That Damn Cat (LJ), Bless the Cat (LJ), and Passing the Cat (LJ)

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

Elenora and The Cat regarded each other on what had been, until yesterday, Zenobia’s kitchen table.

“Well,” she said thoughtfully. “I have a cat.” And a house, and a legacy, and a title, and perhaps a decade or two in which to enjoy it. Zenobia had hung on for a ridiculously long time, out of, as she’d admitted, spite and, Elenora suspected, just a general cussedness of character.

But now Elenora was Aunt. She’d made certain the funeral was everything it should be, even if there were those who wanted to slide Zenobia into the dirt as fast and as deeply as possible; she’d made the arrangements herself, and paid the florist to make it look as if her family was mourning her in proper fashion.

And then she’d come to Zenobia’s house and, among all the things that had made it Zenobia’s and not hers, the detritus of a life, she looked at That Cat.

“Well,” the cat purred back at her. “I have a human. An Aunt. A witch, they say. Do I look like a witch’s familiar?”

“Not like that,” she laughed, risking her fingers by petting it behind the ears. “Like that, you look like a barn cat.”

“I have been, on occasion, a very good barn cat.” He leaned into her hand, his purring getting louder. “Much like you will be a very good Aunt.”

She smirked at him. “Fit the role you’re given, is that it?”

“What else has your family ever done, but slide into the roles that are open?” He nipped her fingers, delicately, not breaking skin. “There are things you should learn about the family.”

“Zenobia…”

“Zenobia told you a fraction of what she knew, which was a fraction of what there is to know. It will get lost, if someone doesn’t know it. I can tell you where to look. I can tell you who to ask.”

“Why would you do that?” She busied her fingers with some of the knicknacks her Aunt had kept sitting on the table, disassembling a puzzle-charm.

The cat rolled onto his back, showing his white underbelly temptingly. “I just told you. Somebody needs to know, or the information is going to get lost. Your other aunts have almost all passed on. The diaries fade with age. If you do not know, to tell the one who comes after, then it will be lost forever – and that could be rather bad.”

“And you know, and won’t tell me yourself?”

“Won’t, can’t, don’t, shan’t,” the cat shrugged, and batted at the puzzle pieces. “There are things you have to learn for yourself. I can only point the way.”

She shook her head, and began reassembling the puzzle. It had two ways, it seems, that it could go together; Zenobia had picked the one that resembled a dragon.

If she twisted the pattern pieces correctly, however, it looked more like a unicorn. “So you’ll point the way…”

“And you’ll do what you want once you get there. Yes.” He dropped his jaw in a toothy grin. “This is what I do.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/292478.html. You can comment here or there.

Feedback wanted! A roundup of feedback requests on the Giraffe Call!

Mar5

I’ve been dropping little feedback requests in between stories; here’s a roundup list if you’ve missed them!

Poll Which JANUARY Story do you want to see continued?
“Exterminator” and “The Silver Road” are tied for first place.

Reconsidering Giraffe Incentives (LJ) in light of time crunching.

Call for Call Ideas! (LJ)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/292251.html. You can comment here or there.

In the Cards

Mar4

For [personal profile] lilfluff‘s commissioned Prompt.

Evangaline modern-era. After Unexpected Guest and Followed Me Home (LJ)

Eva tried not to have any expectations or hopes about Robby being there the next morning.

She did, however, do a little research, sending out e-mails to cousins, nieces, and nephews of about the right age, until she got back an answer: Robert Thompson, lived about two miles down the street. He was a senior at Chalcedony’s school, not a great student but not a bad student, rode the bus with the family kids. He was, Chalce said, a stoner, a burnout.

He was, Stone said, a kid with a problem.

He was, Beryl said, “Interesting :x”

Eva took in those answers, and the answers from several other relatives, and slept on them, confident that a teenaged kid was not going to stab her in her sleep and was, in this case, pretty unlikely to steal anything important.

She didn’t discount the idea that he might actually be a demon, but if that were the case, the secondary wards would kick in if he tried to enter her house and either he, the wards, or the house would light on fire.

(Which could, of course, be why he didn’t want to come in her house, or it could be a new rumour about The Witch’s House that hadn’t gotten to her yet. Or just some parental rule or law she was also ignorant of).

She slept on it, thinking about what Fallon had written about Mr. Thompson.

In the morning, the whisps of dreams still teasing at the edges of her consciousness, she drew one card from the special Tarot, and studied it, wondering at the draw she felt.

Five five-pointed stars, etched over a stone, stared back at her. Rain fell on the stone, which looked disturbingly like a grave-marker. The sky was grey and bleak.

“Wonderful,” she told the card. “I knew that already.”

The deck slipped out of her hand, another card crossing the five of pentacles: A regal woman, her crown a slim diadem. She looked, Eva thought, much like old photos of the Aunts.

“More interesting. Thank you.” She pricked her finger, feeding the deck a drop of blood, and headed down the stairs.

Before she looked, she started breakfast. It gave her some time to clear her brain, to think about the mundanities of the situation. There might be a teenaged runaway in her Florida room. If there was, his mother had died a year ago. And his father was not known as the most pleasant man in the world.

With each thought, she added ingredients to the pancake batter. Pinch of soda, dash of seltzer water. Vanilla. Extra sugar, just a tad.

Beryl thought he was interesting-with-a-emoticon. But Chalce just thought he was a stoner. He had come to her barn, but he wouldn’t come into her house. Buttermilk, walnuts, eggs, flour. He knew she was a witch. But that was common gossip – and he thought of witches like Hallowe’en, still. Tiny pinch of salt.

And the Cards had given her an extra message. That bore thought. She poured the pancakes on the griddle, and wondered if he was even still out there.

Next: Big Bad Witch (LJ)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/291919.html. You can comment here or there.

The Governors, a continuation of the Unicorn/Factory for the January Giraffe Call

Mar4

After The Grey Line (lj) and Productive, for [personal profile] anke‘s commissioned Prompt. Part Two of ??

Unicorn Factory has a landing page here on DW and here on LJ

“Ah, Antheri,” Giulian sighed. “It is sad but unsurprising that you think me a fool.” He could feel the foal’s presence near his ankles, but he needed to ignore that for a moment. “It is entirely unsurprising,” he repeated, moving slowly towards the man. “After all, so many of my predecessors have, clearly, been fools.”

“All of them! Even you! Soft! Unwilling to do what was needed! Unwilling to see what it was that had to be done! They are always asking, always writing, always peeking,” he gibbered, “those in the City, the owners of the factory, the bosses, the governors. They demand progress! They demand productivity! And you Administrators, every one of you, fools, blind sheep to be steered by whoever whined last!”

“No.” As long as he kept the man talking, he was unlikely to be shot. Giulian did not want to be shot today. “My position is to stand between the unreasonable demands of the governors and the unreasonable demands of the workers and find the balance that keeps everything working.”

“Your position,” the man sputtered. “Your position? What do you know of your position? Have you ever met the governors? Have you ever stood in a room with them for more than ten minutes? Have you ever tried to answer their questions? Have you ever disappointed them?”

It was a strange question. “No,” Giulian answered, wondering at the man’s grip on reality. “I was hired through the agent that worked with my previous posting. As were you. As was every Administrator and bureaucrat here. What are you on about, man?”

“The governors,” Antheri hissed. “The governors. Their eyes. Always watching. Always judging. And you, all you fools, all you damn fool Administrators, getting in the way, worried about the people, worried about the river. The river will be cleaned. The river will trickle through the fields and lose its taint. The people will live, or they will die, and there will be more. But the governors, Administrator, the governors. Their will is all that matters, irrational demands or not. Their will is All. That. Matters.” He jabbed the gun into Giulian’s stomach with each word, his eyes even wilder, spittle flying from his mouth.

And, finally, the guards stepped in, large, sturdy men Giulian had hired when the death of his predecessors began to look suspicious. They grabbed Antheri from behind, wrestling the gun from him.

“It is becoming clear,” Giulian told him, speaking loudly to be heard over the man’s incoherent screams, “that you have been affected by the stresses of the job and the crowded conditions of the Town and need a respite, likely in a quiet place off in the mountains. I will see to your transport there, Antheri, and go about the work of training your replacement.”

It wasn’t a quote so much as it was a compilation of Antheri’s reports on Giulian’s predecessors, but it was clear that the words got through to the man. He stiffened, a slow, mad smile crossing his lips.

“Then the governors will be yours to deal with. I wish you the pleasure of them, Administrator, you fool. I wish you the pleasure of them.”

Next: Right and Wrong

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/291767.html. You can comment here or there.

Poision, a story of the Bug Invasion for the Feb. Giraffe Call

Mar4

For YsabetWordsmith‘s prompt,

after:
Out of Their Minds (LJ)
All in Your Head (LJ), after
From the moment they breathed our air (Lj) after: Staying in the City (LJ) and Spooks vs. Bugs (DW)

Paula moved among the surviving bug-hosts, those that were still hosting a symbiote, those that were either too stable or too gone to reject their rider, those who simply didn’t want to, those who couldn’t bring themselves to kill another living being, even if it had taken over part of their mind.

There weren’t many left, fifteen of them out of two hundred in this camp, maybe more, in other camps. Her symbiote had stopped talking to her. She was pretty sure it was angry. But it gave her, still, these half-hours at a time when she was still herself, and she took every minute of them.

She sat down next to Fallon, who had found another bottle of vodka somewhere and was nursing it quietly. He blinked at her, human eyes replaced by bug pupils, and the bug belched and giggled.

“This stuffff,” it chittered in Fallon’s voice. “You humans. You humans, this stufffff, you poison-on-on yourselves so nicely. You poison yourselves so many waysss. How? How-how-why?”

It had asked that before. She had answered before. This time, instead, she handed it a cup of thick hot chocolate, the best she could find. “This,” she told the bug in Fallon’s body, “this thing is poison in large doses. Chocolate. Cacao. It’s a stimulant, among other things.”

Fallon’s shaking hand took the drink, while the bug’s eyes watched her. “It is good?”

“It is wonderful,” she assured it. “We poison ourselves, my friend, because it feels good. Because we can. Because we are allowed to do what we want to our bodies, and revel in that.”

Her half hour was nearly up; she could feel the presence of her symbiote crowding in on her consciousness. She took the bottle from Fallon and swallowed down a long burning gulp. “We poison ourselves…”

The symbiote took over “…becaussse their bodies are wired to accept it as good. These creatures. These creatures.”

“These creatures,” Fallon’s bug agreed drunkenly. “They cannot be defeated. Their biology has already done that.”

In the back of her own mind, forced into silence, Paula giggled. How little they understood.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/291504.html. You can comment here or there.

Trusting in History, a finale of Fae Apoc for the Jan. Giraffe Call (@inventrix)

Mar4

After
Scrounging for History (LJ)
Digging through History (LJ)
Delving in History (LJ)
Bringing Home History (LJ)
Singing down History (LJ)
Learning of History (LJ
Getting over History (LJ)
Making New History (LJ)
Part 7.5 of 7.5

Fae Apoc has a landing page here on DW and here on LJ

The Nightwalker led them through the ruins of the city, her tail swishing, her whole body leaned forward. “There’s a few,” she told them, “places that never got touched, places that are almost whole, even now. There’s a few that look whole, that are traps. And there’s gardens, still growing. My gardens, now.” She ducked, almost a bow, almost an apology. “Our gardens?”

“You called us correctly,” Dor replied. He was still angry, still distrusting her. Karida couldn’t blame her. “We are scroungers. We don’t plant gardens.”

“Then whose gardens will they be? If we go… you could stay here, you three and the girl, and teach me. You could stay here, and I could feed you. Show you everything I know of this place.”

She turned to look at them, a hungry look on her face, a smile that told Karida that something was seriously wrong. “And if the land betrays you, then, I have not betrayed nor hurt you, have I?”

That was all the warning they had. Karida felt the place the road below their feet would collapse as the witch said that, felt it and threw Amalie out of danger, into Dor so they both fell clear, even as under her the ground collapsed dropping her into a sinkhole, dropping her down, down, down. She twisted, trying to find up from down, trying to land on her feet, and caught her head on something hard and metal.

She lost consciousness still falling, and never felt the impact.

~fin~

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/291164.html. You can comment here or there.

Engineered

Mar4

For [personal profile] lilfluff‘s prompt, combined with [personal profile] wyld_dandelyon‘s prompt.

“I think I’ve figured it out!” Jason looked up from his table excitedly, a “eureka” sort of expression taking over his whole body. “Cara, Alex, check this out!”

Cara, who was knee-deep in bioengineering a slow, undetectable poison that would take ten or fifteen years to kill the target, and Alex, who was trying to come up with the truly irresistible scent, looked up at Jason impatiently. It was Liam, the team’s handler, who came over to Jason’s workstation.

“What is it, Jay?”

“I’ve gotten them to have retractable thorns!” He held up the length of rose stem, showing how, when he ran his hand over it, the thorns slid into the stem. “See: pet it the right way, no prickers. Pet it the wrong way;” he put on a glove and repeated it. “Bleeding all over the place.” The inch-long prickers ripped into the leather of his glove and held onto it; he pulled his hand out and let the roses keep the glove.

“Why not just make them prickerless?” Liam shook his head. Jason had a brilliant mint – one time out of ten. It was just a matter of directing him.

“Anyone can make a rose without thorns. Mine, mine only prick people who don’t know their secret. See?” He pointed to the tall hedge of them, growing around an arbor in his controlled space, the flowers a melange of rainbow colors.

Liam stared. “Jay, those are the fanciest colors I have ever seen on a rose.”

“I know,” the scientist sighed. “That, and sometimes they bite people. I haven’t figured out how to deal with that yet.”

“Forget the biting,” Liam commanded. “Once they’re cut, they won’t be biting, and those colors – we can finance another base with that. Jason, you’re… oW! Your flowers stung me!” He swayed a bit. “Jason, what’s..”

“They don’t like talking about being cut, Liam. And, ah, they’re a little bit venomous, too, but I don’t think it’s fatal. You should be okay in an hour or two.” Jason helped his boss into a chair. “I’m going to go plant these on my island now.”

“Your…”

The mad scientist smiled crookedly. “Well, it’s going to be my island, at least.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/290986.html. You can comment here or there.

Paying the Rent

Mar3

For [personal profile] rix_scaedu‘s commissioned prompt for more of the Baram-and-his-house-elves story.

Baram and his family appear in:
Monster (LJ)
Memories (LJ)
One Sharp Mother (LJ)
The Life you Make (LJ)
Safe (LJ) and
Cost of Living (LJ)

Addergoole has a landing page here and on LJ

“We’re taking a road trip,” Jaelie told her nervous Kept. “Pack enough clothes for a three-day stay, and then shower and clean yourself up. Trim anything that needs trimming, and make sure you’re well-scrubbed.”

He blanched, and nodded. She grabbed his arm, and clarified, “Clean, that’s all, don’t scrub yourself raw, Wish. I just want you to smell nice.”

“Yes, Mistress.” He didn’t look any less nervous, either heading into the shower or when he returned, half an hour later, so clean he nearly sparkled. It made Jaelie smile in exasperation at him.

“I know you’re not a virgin,” she teased him.

He flushed in return. “Of course not. But there’s a difference between… ah… my life before and serving you, and there’s a much wider difference between that and being hired out.”

She patted his shoulder. “Your job isn’t to please them, it’s just to get them pregnant. We – well, I – get paid by the baby, not by the orgasm.”

That only made him flush deeper. “And what if I don’t? I haven’t had children in… well, that I know about, several centuries.”

“Then we’ll come up with something else. Or test-tube it. Magic can solve almost anything, don’tchaknow?”

He nodded, relaxing a little, and picked up his bag. “Yes, Mistress. This – this woman, she directed the school you all attended?”

“And coordinated our births and, in a matter of speaking, the births of all of our children. Yes. She seems thrilled to have your blood to add to the mix.”

“And this is the school that taught you how to give orders to your Kept?”

“Yes, it is,” she confirmed.

“It seems like an interesting place, to have produced three women as tough and as sharp as you and your, ah, sister-wives?”

She barked out a laugh. “Sister-wives, that’s a new one!

“I hope you don’t mind?”

“No, but you might not want to try that on the others.” She led him out to her car and tossed their bags in the trunk. “Addergoole is… yes, a very interesting place. A crucible of sorts.”

“And the children that this Regine wants me to father, they would be attending this school? And raised by… well, by their mothers, I would assume?”

“If one of the mothers doesn’t want the kid – that happens sometimes – then I might ask for custody. We could handle another kid around the place, and mine are old enough to not need constant attention anymore.”

He studied her in surprise as they got in the car. “You’d raise my child?”

“You’re mine, aren’t you? That means taking care of you where you come from too, doesn’t it?”

“Well, yes, in a manner of speaking…” He shook his head. “So I’m to father children for this school. For her breeding program.”

“You sound unhappy about that.” She started the car anyway, and headed out onto the highway. The roads were still mostly clear; after Wish’s people’s first attack had been so clearly rebuffed, many of the monsters had chosen to go elsewhere.

“It’s an interesting thought, to be used as a stud horse, as an aeosthena. I suppose it hammers home how far down I’ve fallen.”

“Careful with that,” she warned him. “Your sense of superiority is going to get you in trouble.”

“Apologies, Mistress.” He shoulders slumped, and he slouched in his seat, looking disconsolate. Jaelie let him sulk for a while, while she drove, and thought about feeding more children into Regine’s grinder.

After a long while, she reached over and set a hand on Wish’s thigh. “We raise our kids good,” she told him, “tough. They won’t be in the position we were, Aly and Viatrix and I, when we went there.”

“And the children I father?” he asked quietly. “They Belong to their mother, of course. But I’ve never fathered a child before, without the mother Belonging to me.”

“Aaah.” She patted his thigh. It didn’t seem kind or useful to point out that that was what he got for trying to kill her family, so she didn’t. “I’m sure you’ll father some very tough children, Wish.”

“Thank you.” He smiled uncomfortably back at her, and then tensed unhappily as they reached the wards around Addergoole. “What the…”

She braced herself. She’d been through this before. “Sit, sit. Don’t move. Close your eyes, it helps.”

He keened deep in the back of his throat, struggling against the order as she drove them, white-knuckled, through the thick defensive wards. She’d never seen it hit anyone this hard, and wondered if it was his returned-gods-ness, his purebloodedness, or his age. “It’s okay,” she croaked. “Wish, it’s okay, I’ve got you. Almost, almost… there.” She relaxed, and felt him do so as well, as they passed the wards. “You can move now.”

“That…” he panted. “That was horrible.”

“And we’re expected. It’s pretty effective, I’ve been told, at keeping out intruders.”

“I can imagine!” He shook his head. “Well, at the very least the school is well-protected.”

“Yeah.” She fell quiet again as she drove the last half a mile. “Wish… can you do this without, without your partners knowing that it’s under duress?”

That got her a crooked, dry smile. “Are you telling me that nobody has ever ordered you to act like you’re happy?”

She winced. “Nobody’s ever whored me out,” she countered, getting a matching wince from him.

“All things considered, I’d rather this than being sold, and rather either than being dead.” He patted her thigh gently. “Mistress, this is not horrible. I’m worried, yes, but, ah, much as I hate to admit it, I’m mostly worried that I’ll let you down somehow.” He winced again, harder this time. “And there you see how far I’ve fallen.”

It didn’t seem fair to scold him for that, so she didn’t. She smiled, instead, and squeezed his hand. “You’re going to to do just fine, Wish. I know you are.” She looked over the Village, trying not to tense up at old memories. “I have faith in you.”

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/710878.html (Paying, Forward)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/290652.html. You can comment here or there.

Success, a continuation of Tir na Cali for the Feb. Giraffe Call.

Mar3

For moon_fox‘s prompt, after
Second Pressing (LJ)
Planting Future (LJ)

Tir Na Cali has a landing page here.

The end of this didn’t really seem to end for me, but I’m not sure what else to do with it, either

“Fruity, with just a hint of tar.”

Onyx enjoyed the blind taste testings at the smaller competitions the best. She could put on her best part-of-the-furniture expression and simply listen while people talked over her. If her Lord was in the room, of course, people watched their words, minded their descriptions, even around a minor lord like her master.

But when they were facing simply a row of slave vintners, the tasters felt no such need to be careful, mindful, or even polite. And the things one learned when people who had been tasting wine all day stopped being polite were… interesting. Often educational.

“Isn’t this in the fruit wine category?” one younger taster frowned. “I can’t taste anything but oak and ashes.”

“Ah,” an older matron answered, smirking and reaching for the boy’s glass. “I bet I know who that is. They have the same problem every year.”

Onyx didn’t smile, of course, but inwardly, she was giggling. She knew that one, too. Their vintner, a freed slave, was an arrogant punk who never took advice. Next to her, his assistant was trying not to squirm. Maybe she should talk to her Lord about buying the poor girl; she had a good feel for the wine and didn’t deserve her boss.

“Ah!” That was the third taster, sipping the purple wine that was Onyx’s offering from her master’s odd fruit. “This is… interesting.”

It was her turn to try not to squirm. Interesting could mean so many things.

“Interesting,” the woman repeated. “Sweet, with a nice oaky note and… boysenberry, I think. Nice.” She looked up at the three of them waiting, three very nervous slaves whose livelihood depended on her words. She couldn’t know which of them had worked on this wine, but her eyes landed on Onyx anyway. “Nice. Very nice.”

Onyx relaxed, her head bowed to hider her smile, as the others tasted her offering. “Cocoa nibs,” the boy exclaimed, smiling, and, “…campfire?” the older woman exclaimed. As she had expected, the color, and the strange fruit, brought out what they expected to taste: success at last.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/290497.html. You can comment here or there.