* What sort of settings do you enjoy reading when I write them? What sort do you wish I’d write more of?
* what length stories do you enjoy reading when I write them?
* What plots do you enjoy/wish I wrote more of?
* What characters do you enjoy?
Feedback bribe: 50 words in your choice of setting if you answer at least two of these with more than one-word answers! 🙂
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/319982.html. You can comment here or there.
After this story, this story, this story, this story (LJ), and this story (LJ), from kelkyag‘s commissioned prompt.
The catch had been so close, so damned close. Orin had practically had his hands on the kid.
She wasn’t the most expensive kid in the neighborhood, but that’s because she lived next door to dragons and down the road from pixies, harpies, and centaurs. She was, however, the priciest kid per ounce and risk factor, at least in this city.
The amount of time he was having to spend on her, though, this damn thing was turning out to be the lowest hourly rate he’d pulled in over a decade. And what was worse? Now he had base calling, breathing down his throat, telling him to come in. And he’d almost had his hands on her.
Olin packed his gear into his car and headed back to base, grumbling to himself the whole time. This kid would be pure gold, but every minute spent away from the hunt was one more minute that he risked somebody else grabbing her. His team weren’t the only ones interested in her, and it wasn’t just for the payday, either.
He’d caught one of the religious creeps around the kid the other day, and driven the bastard off with a stick and a few well-placed threats. The church guys were the worst, the spooks nearly as bad. Olin didn’t want to think about what would happen if either of those got their hands on this particular target. All that power, all that potential, but she was still in a tiny, fragile package.
Fragile, but either supremely lucky, or surrounded by the best secret-ops team of weirdos he’d ever seen. Every opportunity he’d had had somehow glitched out or gotten ruined, often by the most obnoxious, irritating series of coincidences. It was almost as if…
Olin stopped the car. “Fuck,” he muttered. He hadn’t dealt with those little shits in decades. “Fuck, fuck…” He picked up his phone. Dead. Turned over the car engine. Dead.
He turned to his gear bag, wondering if there was a bounty on gremlins.
Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/629631.html
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The April Giraffe Call is nearly upon us!
The Poll for April & March Giraffe Themes ended in a tie for April, so this is our run-off poll!
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/319254.html. You can comment here or there.
For Friendly Anon’s commissioned prompt, after Up Shit Creek (LJ), Shit Keeps Coming (LJ), and Shit, Fan (LJ)
Fae Apoc has a landing page here on DW and here on LJ.
He knew how to use the sword. He’d been practicing since he was old enough to hold one, and with a wooden sword not all that different from this one – except his had been pine and then apple-wood, not, as he hoped this one was, rowan.
Knowing how to hold the thing probably saved his life, or at least his virtue. These creatures were nasty, violent, and far rougher and stronger than anything Pyry had ever seen, much less fought.
Desirée, on the other hand, was an astonishing fighter. If he hadn’t been busy ducking punches and swinging balls of thorns, Pyry would have been amazed. She ducked and wove and jumped, using the walls, the ceiling, the bar, and the floor all as landing surfaces, taking one troll’s head clean off with a long swing of a sickle-like blade and injuring the second one on the back swing. She was doing all right for herself until the third guy grabbed the chain of her weapon and yanked.
Pyry manged to avoid getting hit by her by tucking under the table, but it looked as if she was stunned. The rhino-like troll in front, the one whose arm she’d banged up, was going straight for her. He was going to hurt her. He was going to mess up Des’ lovely skin.
Pyry didn’t think, he charged, head down, sword held in a guard position. He plunged forward as fast as he could, determined to gore the troll before he got to Des.
His horn went into the thing’s chest as the creature grabbed his sword arm, wrenching his wrist and slamming his hand against the wall. But the horn was already in, piercing the thing’s heart. Pyry tossed his head, sending the horn deeper, and thought about piles of shit and piles of hay.
The man screamed. Screamed, screamed, and screamed some more. He grabbed Pyry, trying to dislodge him, but the horn appeared stuck, and his hands skidded off of Pyry’s skin.
He couldn’t see anything but the creature’s stinking shirt, but that began to smolder and smoke, and his forehead was getting uncomfortably warm. The thing kept slapping ineffectually at Pyry, kept swearing, kept screaming, backing up until he ran into something, then scrambling up onto the bar, pulling Pyry with him.
His screams slowed, turned into whimpers, and then from whimpers into tiny moans. “Gods,” he muttered, “thirteen fled gods. Save me. Save me…. shit.”
With a pop, Pyry’s horn pulled out, and he fell to the floor. His arm was broken, but he hauled his sword back into block position anyway.
He could have saved himself the trouble. Des and her opponent had both stopped, staring at the troll on the counter.
At the man on the counter, much smaller, much paler, swimming in his clothes, who had fallen into a position of prayer and was whispering over and over again “i’ll do better, I’ll do better. I’ll be good. I’ll follow the Law, Gods, please don’t forsake me.”
Pyry felt his mouth curl into a feral grin as he turned towards the blue one. “Your turn.”
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/319035.html. You can comment here or there.
For the meme I posted Wednesday night here and here (feel free to leave pairings now if you want; I’m having fun.
“Come on, man.” Rozen grabbed Baram by the arm. “Party tonight.”
“Party? It’s Tues…” He shut up, but not before he saw the look the bigger guy shot him. “Right. Party. Whose place?”
“Ardell’s. His Keptie seems to like cuddling with you.”
“No-one likes cuddling with me.”
“Hey, man, Annie’s not bad, and everyone knows you’re not as rough as you look.” Rozen punched his shoulder. “You’ll do fine. You always do.”
more here: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/493490.html
(Year 2)
Shad and Meshach had Ib up against the wall and were doing their best to break every bone in his body one at a time. Every time he tried to get away, one of them muttered in his ear, and he found himself squirming in pain, his feet rooted to the ground.
“Say you’re hers and it’ll end,” the older of the two whispered. “All you gotta do is say you’re hers.”
“Luke ain’t gonna find you down here, and he hates you anyway, little bastard. Say you’re hers.”
“Trouble?” The rumbling voice was a new one – might be Baram. Ib couldn’t see.
“None of your concern, freak.”
Something happened. Ib was never sure what. But when he woke up, he was in the doctor’s office, Baram was looming in the doorway, and he didn’t belong to Liza.
(2040)
Agmund was hunting.
He’d been hunting for a long time. Other obligations kept getting in the way, but he came back to this one over and over again. This was his failure, this was his mistake. He would fix it.
Meshach had been his Student. Meshach had done this to his daughter. Everything since then – what Ardell had done, what being cy’Valerian had done, what being abandoned by the Thornes had done – came back to Fridmar’s failure as a Mentor and a father.
And now he would resolve that issue.
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“And then I said… pow! That’s what I’m going to do!”
“Excuse me, miss. We’re the hand gesture police. I’m afraid that’s an illegal gesture.”
“What? You’ve got to be kidding me. That? That’s nothing but…”
“Miss, miss, please stop. I’m willing to let you off with a warning, but you’ve got to keep your body language in check.”
“My body language, not just my hand gestures now? What’s this world coming to?”
“Anne, just drop it, please. You’ve always been a bit… exuberant. Especially on Mondays.”
“Illegal touching, Miss, do you have a signed consent form?”
“What, wait, what?”
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/318640.html. You can comment here or there.