Archive | May 2012

Eggshells and Lineman’s Hopes

May15

For flofx‘s second prompt.

Long before Guarding the Church and referencing Strange Neighbors.

Tia Lian was born, as her kind were, in an eggshell watered with the tears of an unmarried woman and fertilized with the hopes of an unemployed man.

Or so she liked to tell people… and in her childhood, she was so small, so clearly fay, so touched by the other, that people tended to believe her.

The truth might have been more prosaic, but it was no less magical. Born to a fairy mother in the doorway of the Stanton Arms, gotten on that mother by a goblin line worker who couldn’t find work (the unions were going through an era, back then, where they didn’t like the fay), left on the doorstep of a church and from there taken to an orphanage, Tia was a midsummer baby, touched in magic and born in the mundane.

Although her mailing address was the Antwerp Orphanage, the place was only two blocks from the Stanton Arms in one direction and three from the church where she’d been left in the other, and a young Tia Lian ruled all and the places in between, running the small gangs of children and fay by the time she was old enough to spin a lie.

“Born in an eggshell,” she fibbed proudly, “blessed by my father’s hopes and my mother’s tears. As fay as they come and as wild as they can’t cage.” Her elders, fay, priest, and state, despaired of teaching her discipline. Her peers despaired of ever being as cool as she was. Soon, boys despaired of the chance of a kiss. She was as she’d made herself, fay and wild.

And then she met Bao Bao.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/340941.html. You can comment here or there.

C.A.K.E., a superheroes story for the May Giraffe Call (@Rix_Scaedu)

May15

For Rix_Scaedu‘s second prompt. After Creation Story and When the Storm Came.

Names from Fourteen Minutes and Seventh Sanctum, human name from @Anke

“…and the rest was cake.” Fusefauna leaned back in her chair, making an expression they had learned to interpret as a smile.

“C.A.K.E, she means.” Chloroshining had never really gotten over being paternal over his daughter, which, at the moment…

“Which sounds exactly the same, spoken, unless you’re being an asshole.” Switchphase glared over his wife’s head at his alien father-in-law. “Seriously, Chlor. Give her a break.”

“Do not presume to tell me how to…”

“Father. #’$hi*sth.” Fusefauna clicked out the short Thundesitioni admonition. “Daniel, please.”

Modificationnaut listened to the three of them and silently vowed to never marry. “So C.A.K.E?” he prompted. “It’s an interesting acronym.”

“It is a very arrogant acronym,” Fusefauna allowed, “but it was the seventies, and we were very arrogant at the time. This was of course before the explosion of altered beings, when there were only a handful of us on the planet. It stands for Combined Altered Kyrie Elite.”

“Combined…” It didn’t take Modificationnaut long to piece that together. “The altered gods, more or less.”

“Lords.” It was almost nice to know Chloroshining was an ass to everyone, not just his daughter. “The Amalgamated Lords of the Altered Genome… but that was too arrogant even for us.”

“And now… it’s just the three of you?”

“The two of us. Switchphase belongs to another group.” He seemed very firm on that one. “Yes. The others retired, as much as one can do that, or died, or went off-planet.”

“And we are left.” Fusefauna click-churred a Thundesitioni laugh. “To be our C.A.K.E., just us two.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/340552.html. You can comment here or there.

May Giraffe Call with Extra Second Prompt Winner!

May14

My May Giraffe Call is open (and on LJ). The theme is Origins and Creations.

For every $25 donated, I will choose at random a prompter and write an additional prompt for them.

We are $9 from the $50 level!

For the $25 level, the winner is [personal profile] becka_sutton!!

I am still taking prompts!


Donate below

Art by Djinni!
I also take payment by Dwolla

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/340339.html. You can comment here or there.

When the Storm Came

May14

For flofx‘s prompt.

After Creation Story. Thanks to @Anke and @inventrix for help coming up with the idea.

“And when I came to, well, I was kind of part of the machine…”

Cobalt Deus, who called herself Eve at home, listened to the young members of her team talk about their so-called origins, how they had gotten the “sparks” that kept them going.

Silently, from the corner where she watched most things, she shot blue sparks between her fingers, the sparks that gave her both her “superhero name” and her power, and thought about the storm that wouldn’t end.

She had been young, barely past her menses, and mankind had likewise been in its early teenaged years, struggling with the concepts of reality, morality, permanence and transcendence. The storm had been, she had later learned, the product of sorcerers in the next town over, working not out of malice, but in a desire to bring water to their own valley’s fields.

Weather magic was then, and continued even into the modern age to be, the most dangerous and most volatile of the high arts. Cobalt Deus had spent millenia quietly eliminating those who refused to learn this.

There had been nothing left of the next town over except one scared child, and very little more left of “Eve’s” village, when the storm passed. It had rained for weeks, thundered, and shot lightning at every raised thing, poured until the rivers flooded, until the buildings burned, until “Eve” and her few surviving family could no longer count the time, because there was no light through the clouds to tell the day from night. It had rained until they had given up the thought of life altogether… and then the lightning had touched them.

There had been five of them holed up in a cave high on the hillside. Of them, only “Eve” had survived the lightning, making her and four who had been on another hill the only members of their town alive. And Eve had been marked by the storm.

Cobalt Deus stared at the lightning between her fingers. The children spoke of their creation stories, embarrassed that they weren’t dramatic enough. Cobalt, who had been living under the storm that would not end for longer than mankind kept records, wished, herself, for an origin and a life that had been less marked, and less dramatic. She hoped the children never reached the point where they, too, wished that.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/340009.html. You can comment here or there.

Being First, a story for the May Giraffe Call (@shutsumon)

May14

For [profile] shutsumon‘s prompt

This, ah, came out a bit odd. Sorry!

Ayam was lonely.

Lonely, that was a new word. Ayam had made it up, sounding out things until it found something that worked. Lonely, the feeling of being alone in the world.

There were the others, of course. The long-limbed creatures from who Ayam had been born certainly thought of it as one of theirs. But Ayam could not talk with them, could not share ideas with them. Ayam needed a companion.

The going was hard. Ayam first tried taking a baby from the creatures when newborn and raising it, talking to it, trying to teach it. Whatever had happened in Ayam’s case, however, didn’t hold true. The stolen babies could not learn to do more than parrot speech, and that awkwardly.

Lightning? Lightning was an early memory of Ayam’s, but when exposed to the bright flashing shockiness, the children – or the older creatures, Ayam tried everything – only ran away, or died, or sat there twitching for several days before dying. And Ayam was still alone, and still lonely.

Ayam made up writing, to scratch out everything h’ was feeling, to scratch out all of its experiments. And then Ayam had to create paper and ink, because the rocks h’ drew on were not easy to carry around. And then a way to put the paper together into books, long tubes wrapped in hide. And then came tanning, to make the hides last longer. Ayam was keeping busy, slowly busy, but Ayam was still, at its core, so very lonely.

And then, into the valley where Ayam had retreated when the creatures grew too loud, another creature walked. This one had fur that was pink-streaked, in a way Ayam had never seen before. It stood upright, the way Ayam had learned how to. And it was carrying in its paws a pile of tools, which Ayam had never seen any creature but itself use.

And foremost in that pile of tools was a spear. Ayam, muttering to itself, began to create a new word. Oh, Shit.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/339882.html. You can comment here or there.

Sick Kitty

May14

My Draker has a fever. :-/ We took him to the vet’s on Saturday, and they said his kidneys are fine, his heart is fine. They gave him fluids and gave us an appetite stimulant and an if-this-is-an-infection drug.

But he’s not eating barely at all, barely drinking… so we’re going to take him back to the vet’s to let them take care of him until he gets better.

People, I’m worried. I’m beside myself with worry. I know the vets will take good care of my cat… but I’m terrified it won’t be enough.

Keep him in your thoughts, please. :-/

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/339622.html. You can comment here or there.

Using what we have

May13

We have, right now, a lawn service for mowing (cheaper in the short run then buying a mower, and we have a rather large yard). We also had a delay in getting them to mow this spring, so we then had a need to rake because our lawn was drowning under the cuttings.

We have, also, a small garlic garden by the loading dock (doesn’t everyone have a loading dock?) which T. planted from Chinese-food-store garlic last autumn. The garlic is doing very well, but it was getting a bit choked with weeds. It needed mulching.

A=B = garlic bed mulched with grass cuttings. Using what we have. I love it.

This weekend, I also planted some alyssums, a bay tree, and a lavender plant in pots on my patio. And I finished planting the butternuts. Meanwhile, T. raked grass and played with his new sickle, knocking down weeds the mowing service didn’t get to.

We still have a double handful of plants to put in the ground that we bought this weekend: we gave [personal profile] capriox our little play house for her goats, so we’re going to plant the resultant square of dirt with raspberries, pansies, groundcover, and alyssums.

Having a yard is a lot of fun!

Unrelated: I am going to have reason to send a bunch of letters/postcards soon. I am looking for small-business greeting cards that are pretty and $5/less a card. Want to sell me some? Know someone I should look at? Drop me a line.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/338872.html. You can comment here or there.

Breeding Plan

May13

For [personal profile] clare_dragonfly‘s Prompt.

Addergoole has a landing page here.

Ambrus brought sandwiches to the table, listening as Regine and her brother pored over her charts and notes.

“The idea, in each case, is to find individuals who are, although half-breeds, exemplary of certain characteristics of each ‘breed.'” Regine pointed at a series of symbols on one page. “Thank you, Ambrus. Falk, don’t forget to eat. So we have, for instance, this gentleman…”

“You can hardly call him that.”

“I need his services. I will call him whatever it suits him to be called. His Name is ‘The Traveling Salesman,’ and it appears that he has made a life and a reputation of, ah…”

“Ah, indeed.” Ambrus might not be able to read much off of his mistress, but her brother was not as blank. He was embarrassed, and mildly titillated.

“Housewife’s helper?” Ambrus offered his former Master’s term.

“Exactly, thank you, Ambrus. Yes. He’s a very popular salesman on his route, I’ve been told.”

“What, exactly, does he sell?” Falk scrambled for safe conversational footing and found quicksand.

“Ah, marital aids, among other things. I’m not certain he bothers with a pitch or a product, these days.”

“And he is…”

“…exemplary of certain Daeva traits.”

“Traits you want to replicate?” Falk was, Ambrus was learning, more than a bit of a prude. He sat down to watch the show with a half a sandwich.

“Well, yes.” Regine deigned to show an emotion – amusement. “I’d say that would be a very useful trait for our project, if it breeds true.”

“And… Jezebel, Regine? I met her last night at Lady Maureen’s. She’s…”

“Exactly what we’re looking for. She will have no problem spreading her legs for money, after all.”

“And so you want to breed the child of a whore and a gigolo.”

“I’d be careful where you use those words. You might offend somebody. Yes. The gigolo and several different women of negotiable virtue, as well as… have you met Aza?”

“Aza?” Falk pursed his lips. Ambrus smiled around his sandwich. He’d met Aza. She was a beautiful, quiet, artistic woman – a florist and a painter. “She seems shy” was Falk’s opinion.

“She is an artist. I believe their child will be something special.” Regine smiled at her charts. “But I believe many of these children will be something very special. I am eager to see how they turn out.”

Edited to add: I meant to put a footnote on here and then I forgot.

Jamian of Addergoole is Aza’s son by the Travelling Salesman. Ivette is his daughter by Lady Maureen; Joff is his son by Jezebel.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/338433.html. You can comment here or there.

Making Friends, a story of Science! for the Giraffe Call (@Anke)

May13

For [personal profile] anke‘s Prompt.

After Re-Engineered and Engineered.

“Jason’s up to something.”

Liam paced back and forth across the command center of their base, his cane thumping angrily.

“I can tell he’s up to something.”

Cara and Alex shared a glance. Of course Jason was up to something. He’d taken over an island. He had carnivorous roses. They were waiting for him to gengineer sentient seaweed and start expanding his one-man empire.

Jason had, before he defected, been Liam’s fair-haired boy, his protégé. Cara and Alex, perpetual hard workers, perpetual second fiddles, could do nothing but watch their boss now, as he paced and obsessed. And they couldn’t touch Jason…

“I, ah.” Cara wasn’t like the shiny people who came through. She didn’t shout “eureka.” She didn’t brag. She tried not to laugh maniacally. “Well, a couple of my birds made it in, and brought back some genetic samples, boss.”

“You have genetic material? How did you get it?”

Wordlessly, his senior assistant pointed at her “birds.” The sandpiper, which was sitting in its cage, pecking at clover, was her most efficient model – half bird, half courier device.

“We modified her primary courier to shunt fifty percent of all gathered material to its carrying pouch, and then we modified it to prefer foliage, especially sap.” Viji, her favorite intern, was new and very enthusiastic about everything. He’d learn, she hoped. He’d have a lot of potential if he survived his first year with the team.

Liam stared at the bird, with its transparent stomach. “And what did you learn?”

“He’s still breeding his plants.” She pointed at a series of DNA maps on her light box. “He’s gotten rudimentary brains into some of them.”

She stepped on Viji’s foot before he could reveal what else she’d gotten from Jason’s work. They almost had the duck-footed cottage ready, and now it would have its own floral armament. They could wait to show it to the Boss until it was complete.

“We think he’s trying to breed friends.” She pointed at one particular sequence. “Kind of like Namae Sauter’s tree-girl, but with less free will.”

“And I know what’s missing from his formula… so we should probably watch out.”

“What’s that?” Liam leaned forward over his cane. “Ah… shit. I see.”

Cara nodded. Namae had started from human zygotes. Jason would probably need the same.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/338257.html. You can comment here or there.