Archive | July 2012

Dirigible, a continuation of Steam!Callenia for the June Giraffe Call

Jul8

For [personal profile] imaginaryfiend‘s prompt and @dahob’s prompt Sequel to “Goatless:” http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/359150.html

The dirigible was a thing of beauty.

Syadaia caught her breath. The others wouldn’t want her to give away their bargaining position by gushing. They’d been very firm on that; they’d been very firm, in general, on the idea that she ought to keep her mouth shut unless told to talk.

Syadaia was beginning to believe that she needed better friends. On the other hand, these friends came with the promise of profit, which was better than the last bunch had.

The artificer cleared his throat. “This, fine folk, would be the dirigible. It’s neither as practical as the river-boat nor as lovely as the goatless carriage, but it meets and exceeds all your specifications.”

Gunyung cleared his throat. “It will do. We agreed on…”

“Seven hundred fifty Rei.” The artificer’s voice left nothing to question.

Gunyung tried anyway. “Of course, that was before we saw the finished product…”

Syadaia had trouble covering her expression. The dirigible was beautiful; it was trimmed in brass, its banners were brightly colored, the patterns exotic and strange, like something from the southern isles, and the covering was striped in a beautiful sky blue. It was the most gorgeous piece of machinery she had ever seen.

The artificer knew it was a steaming pile of goat dung, too. “Seven hundred fifty Rei. Or I sell it to my next customer, and you can swim to your – ah, what did you say? – vacation destination.”

Behind Gunyung, Kezhya coughed. They had done their best to look like wealthy businessmen, but Syadaia and Kezhya knew, if Gunyung didn’t, that they looked like what they were – thieves in stolen finery. Syadaia’s colors were all over the rainbow, and the patterns in her tunics and scarves covered the last seven years of fashion. It was possible, of course, that the artificer didn’t know that…

“This other client of yours?” Kezhya spoke up, having gotten the cough out of her throat.

“The West Lannamer constabulary .” It was impossible to tell beneath the enormous beard, but Syadaia thought the artificer was probably smiling. Possibly even laughing at them.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/366886.html. You can comment here or there.

Rest between Runs, a story continuation for the June Giraffe Call

Jul5

For [personal profile] ysabetwordsmith‘s prompt. Set in the same era as the Lyuda stories, after Run for It

The cabin had three things that Engot would have paid any amount of money for: a functioning stove, set into the wall; a pump inside a half-enclosed back porch, that still provided clean water, and a bed platform with the springs still mostly intact, in a room whose roof still worked. “It’s not the Imperial Palace…”

“It’s not either royal palace.” Krynia wrung her dripping cloak out and hung it near the fire. The long-gone tenants had taken almost everything, but the hooks were, like the stove and the pump, built into the building. “Which means we’re safe and comfortable, two things we would not be there.”

Engot smiled. “There’s no tub, but there’s a basin big enough water to heat. We can wash.”

“And I have some rope to repair the bed. This is almost cozy enough to call home.” Their outermost tunics and trews went the way of their cloaks, and the went about the preparations of an evening as if they had been doing this together for years.

“Will they come after you?” Kyrnia pulled a bar of soap from her bag, wrapped in oiled leather.

“Will they come after you?” Engot provided a soft piece of cloth, unfolded from the middle of his bedroll, and a horn comb. “May I…?” His hands hovered near the complex braids of her hair, her veil pushed back nearly to her neck.

“If I may. I don’t know. With luck, they won’t think it worth it.” She pulled four long pins from her hair to free the ends of the braids, and reached for the cord holding the end of his beard-braid.

“Same here.” He finger-combed her hair, slowly working it out into a damp, frizzy cloud. “Your hair is so curly. It’s not just the braids, either, is it?”

“No, it’s like that fresh from a swim, too.” She brushed out the long, braid-kinked curls of his beard and reached for his hair, touching her nose to his beard. “You smell different.”

He pushed her veil the rest of the way down, releasing the last of her curls. “You smell… lovely.” He plucked a few dried leaves from the underside of her hair and sniffed them. “Sage and mint. That’s a good idea.”

She took the comb he’d left neglected and began working it through his hair. Close-toothed for his people’s straight hair, it wouldn’t work so well on hers, but it smoothed through his and plucked out tangles and briars with ease. “I don’t think nettles do the same,” she teased.

“No, but maybe I could stick some sweet herbs to the nettles.” He hesitated, his hand on the back of her neck, where the weight of her veil and braids had sat.

She paused, as well, her hand stilling on the top of his back. “They might come for us.”

“Let them.” His smile nearly covered his own worry. “We’ll be ready.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/366836.html. You can comment here or there.

Excerpts 8, 9, 10

Jul4

From my secret project:

“Be a good girl and I’ll get to keep being a good girl?”
“If you’re a bad girl, you won’t get a chance to do so much as pee without permission; if you’re a zombie, you’ll get someone who wants zombies.” She released Elisabeth’s chin and patted her shoulder. “How are your ankles?”

From my Tir na Cali novel:

What did I care what happened to Keva? She was just another Californian.

The Californian who had been, so far, willing to put up with me being a really bad slave, a voice that was pretending to be my conscience reminded me.

Yeah, but… it wasn’t like she treated me like an equal or anything. She still bossed me around like it was her right.

From the continuation to “Fairies in the Church:”
You know the ones that work, truly work.”

Nehemiah had nodded, although he hadn’t wanted to. He’d listed those off like a catechism. “Holy ground and the faith to hold it. A salt circle drawn by an unwavering hand. A nail of cold iron through their hand.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/366418.html. You can comment here or there.

Mid-Heat Festival, a story for the Giraffe Call (@Anke)

Jul4

For [personal profile] anke‘s prompt.
The priests were dancing in the square, the drumbeats so loud they seemed to rock the streets, and Toka wanted to see them, needed to see them.

The mid-heat festival was in full-swing, the press of people in the streets almost unbearable, vendors shouting about their wares, people singing off-tune, water-bearers pumping small portable fountains, dousing the finely-decked crowd with water to cool it off.

Around the legs of the crowd, under the tables of the vendors, behind the backs of the water-bearers, Toka darted, her darting its own dance, her steps in rhythm with the heavy drums in the center square.

“Rub a coin,” she heard a boy tell his sister, and while they were distracted, she stole the rest of his purse. Too light. She dropped it at his feet and kept going. Throw the little fish back… and she was in a hurry, anyway. She had to see the priests.

The drum beat sped up. Bum-bum, bum-bum-bum-bum. Toka sped up. Over the water-sprayer, under the table. Around the rich man, behind the constable. Bum-bum-bum-bum, bada-bada-bada-bada. She landed in a slick patch of water and skidded, turned the skid into a controlled slide, and slipped under a goat-carriage, landing at the edge of the square, between a very rich-looking woman and her very handsome bed-warmer.

“Your honors.” She bowed, and wiggled to the ground in front of them. The nice things about the mid-heat festival was that even the finest and richest sometimes stripped down to their undertunic. One more girl in her linens was not all that remarkable – and Toka’s linens had been stolen off a very posh clotheline.

Bada-bada-bada-bada, ba-Dum-ba, ba-Dum-ba, ba-Dum-ba, ba-Dum-ba! The Priestess of Reiassanon stomped out the beat with heavy-soled shoes on the cobblestones, ending with a flourish, head bowed, arms out, green robes flapping. The priests of Tienebrah turned their buckets and fountains on the crowd, dousing the first few rows. The Priest of Veignevar stepped forward, fire in both hands, his eyes raking the crowd. He was reading the síra. He was reading the crowd. He was reading her, Toka, Gotokoya of the South Dock.

His red-tinged eyes met hers, and he nodded. A heartbeat, nothing more, and the drums thudded to their conclusion, the Red priest tossing fire in the air like juggling balls. But it had been enough. It had been what she’d come here for.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/366164.html. You can comment here or there.

Fishbowl Time Again!

Jul3

And Guys this one is so cool I want to do it myself some time!!

YSabetWordsmith is hosting her monthly poetry Fishbowl. The theme is “alternate histories.”

My prompts included:

What if, say, the Iroquois or another East-coast tribe developed sea travel first?
What if the Cold War hadn’t ended?
What if we hadn’t stopped the Space Race?
What if we’d focused on physical health advances and prosthetics the way we focused on smaller more complicated cell phones?
What if the Dark Ages hadn’t happened?
What if they’d never ended?
What if WWII had lasted longer?
What if Christianity had never spread?
Tír na Cali is based, in part on a what-if: what if the US had fractured in more than one direction during the Civil War?
What if there were really wizards and witches running things?

Go prompt! Go tip, if you’ve got it to spare! 🙂

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/366035.html. You can comment here or there.

(on the) Offensive, a story of Rin & Girey for the June Giraffe Call

Jul3

For [personal profile] kelkyag‘s prompt(s)

This story comes after:Meat of the Matter (LJ)
Bare Bones (LJ) [Beta]
Skeleton Key (LJ) [donor perk]
and Ambush {Donor Perk}: Girey had foiled an attempt to attack Rin and kidnap himself, at the sacrifice of the first escape plan he’s had that might actually work.

Chapter X: Offensive
Leaving the scene of battle is neither fleeing nor cowardly; it is simply gaining a better footing for the next attack

They rode for about an hour, until the moons were high and fat in the sky and the air was chill, and then Rin led them off to the side of the road, into a small cove half-roofed by rock. They were clearly not the first to camp here; the area had a fire pit, a stone basin collecting the runoff of a small rivulet, and a platform built up of rocks and sodded over, keeping the tent out of the lowest areas if the rain came.

“I hope you’re in no hurry to get to Lannamer.” Rin’s smile, in the pale moonlight, looked grim. Girey didn’t blame her; he was feeling irritated, grim, and tired himself.

“None at all.” Anything but, and she knew that. She had to know that, after what she’d overheard.

“Good.” She tossed him her goat’s reins as she dismounted. “Get them settled while I pitch the camp, would you?”

She hadn’t chained him to the saddle, presumably because they’d been running. He could flee now, easily. If he took her goat with him, she’d never be able to catch up.

He hesitated, holding both sets of reins. “What are you planning?”

She met his gaze evenly. “I’m planning on ambushing them, and explaining to them exactly why one doesn’t try to attack me in the middle of the night. I don’t like being threatened and snuck up upon.”

He paused, for one heartbeat and then another. “I don’t, either,” he admitted quietly. He led the goats to a convenient tie-off, and began stripping their tack.

In the bustle of getting camp set up, she paused, studying him. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.” If she didn’t, he wouldn’t have to think about why he’d done it.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/365630.html. You can comment here or there.

Icon Flash: Courting, a story of the Aunt Family [donor perk]

Jul3

Continuing flash series! I’m going to write one flash for every Icon I have, over 4 LJ accounts, 1 DW, and a whole bunch of not-currently-in-use, until I get bored or run out of icons.

Today’s icon:

Beryl and That Damn Cat/Radar

Icon & Art by Djinni

The Aunt Family has a landing page here See Boy Trouble for an earlier piece about the cat and the necklace.

Beryl’s cat didn’t approve of her new boyfriend, but her necklace did.

This was not a problem she’d imagined herself in, a few short months ago. Then again, she hadn’t really imagined herself en-boyfriended at all, much less also en-catted and en-jewelled with a talking specimen of all three.

At least the boyfriend couldn’t hear the cat or the necklace – yet – and didn’t appear to think it strange that Radar didn’t like him. He had brought treats – a catnip mouse, a small fish, chicken livers – to ply the cat with, along with games and cookies for Beryl’s siblings and flowers for her mother.

“Are you courting me or them?” she teased, as they left the house for their fourth date. She tried to make it sound like a joke, although she wasn’t entirely certain she felt joke-y about it.

“Well…”

That wasn’t helping at all. Only the voice of the necklace-Joseph, the necklace in her pocket and the voice whispering in her ear, reassured her.

::He knows the family. He’s heard of the family, at least. He knows he’s on shaky ground. Be nice to him. Being a man in this family isn’t easy.::

He couldn’t be a man in the family at all, if Beryl was going to be the Aunt. But that was another problem, and one Joseph seemed gleeful about. Right now, her problem was the boy, the flowers he’d brought her mother, and the kiss she wanted from his lips.

“I want your family to like me.” He leaned across his truck slowly, one hand inching up her thigh. “I don’t think flowers will bribe you, though. I think I’ll have to work harder for you.”

::He can stay:: Joseph was pleased; for once, Beryl agreed completely.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/365374.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Contemplating the Gods, a story of Reiassan’s history for the Giraffe Call

Jul2

For [personal profile] clare_dragonfly‘s prompt.

Set approx 750 years before the Rin & Girey novella

Ektatkya studied the holy book. The Tabersi had, she’d discovered, a lot of gods. Lots and lots of them, herds of them, packs of them. No wonder they needed so many priests. No person with a field and herd to attend to could keep track of all of these.

And they’d left so many of the Tabersi priests behind. The tribes had their own, of course, priests and god-chasers, gods (but not that many. Not enough to needs books, just enough for a statue here, a carving there, a token off a saddle somewhere else). But this was a new land, and they were no longer going to be the goat-tribes. They were no longer going to be a different people from the Tabersi.

For that to happen, both peoples had to change. And a place to start would be these books. She looked up at the Tabersi priest; he looked at her solemnly.

“Can it be done?”

“Of course it can be done. The question is, will you pay the price?”

“The price?” He was offended. Of course he was. The Tabersi’s god-chasers were not the same as the tribes’. They had Position. They had Status.

“Both will have to move. Your god-people must let someone else rule. Ours must learn to stand forward in the town, not at the back edge of the encampment.” The tribes-people who were here had been living in Tabersi cities and towns for generations, but they still acted like, thought like, nomads. That would need to change, too. This was not the warm pastureland of their home.

“Let someone else rule?” He nodded, slowly and reluctantly. “Yes. I see. To take a role that will not seem so strange to your people. And the gods?”

She would not rip pages out of a book. They had too few left. But she made the gesture as if to. “You need less. We need more. We take these, and make them less-and-more.” She flapped one hand negligently. “Make prayers a dirt-grubber can remember.”

“And still fancy enough for a money-counter?” The priest’s expression had changed. Ektatkya knew this one; it was that of someone seeing a challenge. “It will take time. But we can do it.”

“We must do it.” She nodded, but she was smiling as well. “The peace demands it.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/365239.html. You can comment here or there.

In The Tower, Continued

Jul2

After In the Tower

Amanda liked her room. She didn’t know why, sometimes, her Aunt Tanta warned her against wanting to leave. She had everything she ever needed here, and it was warm, and safe, and comfortable – but most of all, safe.

She watched the television, and it told her about wars and rapes and murders. None of that happened here, in her tower. Nothing bad could happen to her at all, here in her castle. She was the protected princess. She was the safest maiden of them all. And she had everything she wanted.

Aunt Tanta told her she’d been found on the doorstep, a foundling. She told Amanda she was special, for she alone of the five children in the towers had been given Tanta’s personal care and personal visits. She alone had been bottle-fed by the ancient woman, she alone met with her for tea three times a week, rain, snow, or sunshine, summer and winter.

Amanda called herself, Amandianna, Princess of the Southermost Tower. She wrote long and involved stories about herself, about Amandianna, which involved a miniature horse and adventures in and around the tower, being wrested from it by force only to find a way to return, being pulled out into the world and fighting her way safe, back here, to her tower, to her safety, to the dragon who protected them.

—

Fred had been trying to send messages to the other towers.

Nothing else had worked so far, and he’d been trying for 584 hash-mark group-of-five days plus three.

He’d been growing out his hair for most of that eight years, thinking of the Rapunzel stories his sister had loved, back when he had a family. (He still didn’t have a beard to grow out. He wondered if that would grow faster). His hair dragged on the floor, now, when he didn’t braid it, but the tower was a lot taller than that.

Ripped sheets had just ended up with him not having a bed for a week, after an unseen hand had plucked him back into the tower from halfway down. Messages in balloons vanished into the wind and never came back.

He’d tried to take the dumbwaiter apart for the rope, but they’d just left him all alone and foodless for two days while they replaced and repaired it. “They:” the invisible keepers. He assumed they weren’t machines, but he wasn’t certain. He’d asked for seeds and started growing linen, but his rope had vanished overnight. They hadn’t stopped him from practicing climbing up and down the stairwell walls, but a fall on a slippery patch of rock (Moss, damn it) had left him with a broken ankle (set by maybe-robots while he was unconscious) and second-guessing that plan.

So now he was sending letters in schoolbooks, written in the margins of the boring sections, slipped between the pages, anywhere he could. How long have you been here? Why do you think they want us? Have you ever seen a person, since you got here?

Sometimes he just wrote I’m lonely. What about you?

He wrote one every day, and then did his homework, assigned the same way food was delivered, by dumbwaiter, read a book, ran up and down the stairs, maybe played some games, drew the few out his window, and then wrote another letter. The TV showed him a world so far away, so long ago, it might as well be another planet. The letters, at least, seemed like they might contact someone.

And then, thirty-five hashmarks later, a poetry book arrived with a note in the margins.

I was here for twelve hundred days when I lost count. I’m lonely, too.

Next: In the Tower, Continued

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/365052.html. You can comment here or there.

Goat-riders, Stone-riders, a story of Reiassan for the Jun Giraffe Call (@lilfluff)

Jul2

For [personal profile] lilfluff‘s prompt. Reiassan has three seasons: wet, hot, and cold. A dohdehr is essentially a large domesticated weasel.

Lannamer in the short hot season was stinky, crowded, and loud. People lived atop each other in stacked apartments, hardly reaching the land or the síra, hardly spending time with the goats that had been their ancestral cornerstone, with the animals they’d lived beside and with.

Epyena was sick of it. She was tired of the constant politicking and the constant noise, the people everywhere and no place for the gods. She needed to get out of the business-and-Army hustle and bustle, before she became just another cog in the endless machine. She was moving to the mountains.

She got together three of her like-minded compatriots, two cousins and a child of industry from her days at University, spent half of her family-gifted stipend on land and goats, and headed East. They would raise goats and ride them, raise dohdehr and hunt them, raise the short-season crops their ancestors had raised and eat like true goat-riders, and not soft stone-riders.

That was the plan, at least. They moved in the end of the hot season, so there was no planting to be done until the next rainy time. The house on the land was old, decrepit, the roof half fallen-in; they pitched tents inside the walls, making jokes about living the true life of goat-riders. Until the goats started eating the tent-walls.

Then it was time to repair the roof of the stables, a skill none of them had gone to college for, and the roof of the house, even harder. Engineering was a nice theory, but it didn’t do as well getting tiles on the roof.

The day the dohdehr ran off with what little they’d managed for dinner, Epyena broke down crying. Her goat-rider ancestors, she feared, had been horribly stupid. Only the stone-riding made any sense.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/364714.html. You can comment here or there.