Archive | December 16, 2012

Sister Help, a story of the Aunt Family for the Giraffe Call.

Dec16

To [personal profile] kelkyag‘s prompt.

Aunt Family has a landing page here

After Courting.

“Bear-bear.” Beryl’s older sister stuck her head into Beryl’s room without knocking. “Take off the damn talking necklace, leave the crazy cat here. We. Are going shopping.” She wrinkled her nose. “Ugh, and put on a real shirt.”

Beryl didn’t even know where to start. “Shopping?” That seemed like a good place to start.

“Jake’s agreed to drive us to the mall.”

That didn’t help. “Jake?”

“Look, you’re getting a bit weird lately.” Chalcedony barged the rest of the way in and started digging through Beryl’s clothes. “Here, wear this. This one is good.” She tossed a green shirt at Beryl. “You haven’t worn it since you got that stupid necklace. What does it disagree with him?”

“How did you…?”

“Stone told me. Don’t worry, you’re still the spark in the family. Well, I mean, the girl spark.”

“I’m not worried! I just… didn’t know.”

::Nor should there have been anything for you to know. Your brother. That’s not supposed to hap:: Joseph fell quiet as she pulled off the necklace.

“Okay.” She slipped off the shirt that Joseph liked and pulled on the one her sister had picked. “So shopping. And Stone’s been being Stone-y. But I haven’t been being weird… have I?”

“Just a little. Ever since Aunt Evie. I mean, yay, Jake, but you haven’t even been talking to him much the last few weeks. Is it the cat or the necklace.

“…Both.” She changed her jeans and tried to do something with her hair. “Radar doesn’t like him, and Joseph likes him too much.”

“Ouch, awkward. Well, lucky for you, then, you have me and Stone, too.”

“Yeah? What do you think?”

“I think you should do something else with your hair. Look. Forget the family bullshit. Aunt Evie is really young, and you’re really, really young.”

“Thanks, I think.”

“Look, the point is – even if you’re gonna be an Aunt later, you’re not, now. you’re a kid. So why not be a kid?” Chalcedony tugged Beryl’s hair into a braid. “There. You’re almost pretty and stuff. Let’s go.”

“One second.” She dropped the necklace into her sweater drawer and made sure it was firmly closed. “Let’s go.”

next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/510365.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/433811.html. You can comment here or there.

Day Twin, Night Twin

Dec16

To [personal profile] ysabetwordsmith‘s prompt. Names from here

It happened once in a generation, or maybe twice – twins born on the cusp of the day, so that one was born to a sinister day, and one to a bright day. The one born to the sinister was taken away, to be raised by others born in the night-days. The one born to the bright-days lived in the light.

Those given to the dark lived apart from those in the bright, their business, their life, their whole existence separate. The twins were the only connection, echos who could, if they wished, cross the line.

They did, of course. The dark existed, if not solely, than primarily to vex the day. And the children of the dark who could do so directly joyed in causing trouble, in pretending to be their twin, in creating havoc and chaos. It was the way of the world.

Ava and Ella were born like any other dark-light twin pair, Ava to the night of a sinister day, Ella to the morning of a bright day. They were themselves born to a day-side twin, and so it was their mother’s sister who took Ava away, into the shadows of the sinister world. And so she raised Ava to be an evil twin, as her sister raised Ella to be a good twin.

Something was wrong about the pair, right from the beginning. Ava favored her right hand, spent as much time as she could under bright lights, and preferred light clothing to dark. Ella shunned the sun, ate with her left hand, and chose clothing the color of blood and mud.

Their mother and foster-mother watched them with concern. Some children went through these phases. Some could be corrected, some could not. The only answer, in most cases, was exile. There was no changing when you were born, to the bright or the night. The sisters did not wish to exile their children, and so they attempted to correct them.

“She won’t wear white.” The day twin put forth a token struggle as her evil twin tied her up. “She reads the forbidden writings.”

“She likes pink!” The night twin wriggled as her sister captured her. “And she writes love poetry.”

“We got them right, I know we did.” The day sister had locked her evil twin in a prison cell, and had begun to undo her hacking work. “I marked Ava’s wrist as she came out.”

“We got them right.” The night sister chained her twin back in the cell she had just escaped from. “But what if the doctors didn’t?”

Next: The Dark and Light Mirror (LJ

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/433515.html. You can comment here or there.

Big Brother

Dec16

To Rix_Scaedu‘s Prompt

All of Ashele’s friends had big brothers.

The trend when they’d been born was to select for a son first, and then a daughter, and then chose the third based on either the stars, one’s profession, or, least likely, one’s personal choice.

Ashele’s parents were Small Landers and Blue Hats – but not Les Chapeaux Bleus, or Ashele wouldn’t have been able to go to a normal school or have mostly-normal friends – and they’d gone natural on gender choice, leading to first Ashele and then one younger sister, Katina. This left both Ash and Kat at a decided disadvantage in dealing with, well, everything.

When the bigger boys bothered Jacque or Bradelli or Miko, their big brothers would jump in. When they needed help with homework, their big brothers would be there. When they needed inappropriate advice for dealing with authority figures, Gary or Deandro or Eder would be there to do whatever needed doing.

Ashele did everything she could do help Katina out, to be her little sister’s big brother. She got pretty good at fighting, punching, and, most of all, running away. She got even better at homework, and okay at bad advice. But she always wanted a big brother to help her with all that stuff.

She couldn’t have one – her parents weren’t willing to adopt one, and they couldn’t turn back time and do things properly – so she starting making one up.

Tall, taller than Gary or Deandro or Eder. Strong. Sports type. Able to block punches like in her favorite kung-fu movies.

Handsome. Other boys’ little sisters would want to date him. They’d be nice to Ashele to get closer to her brother. She could handle that.

When she got her nose broken defending Katina, she pictured him holding the hanky for her, instead of Eder. When she lost a shoe running away from another bully, she pictured him catching up with her and giving her shoe back. First dance, she imagined what he’d tell her in place of her parents’ awkward advice. When the boy got too annoying, and she had to punch him, she imagined her brother punching him instead.

And so it went. On her graduation day, when her parents were busy with a Blue Hat rally and couldn’t make it, she imagined him sitting there next to Katina, cheering for her.

She’d pictured him for almost ten years now, but when she looked up and saw him there, it was still a shock. Tall, handsome, hugging Katina close as he waved at her.

The principal caught her as she tripped. She was pretty sure nobody else noticed the brother she wasn’t supposed to have, but the principal, Mr. Ankay, whispered something in her ear as he passed her the diploma.

“You and I need to have a talk.”

The big brother was gone by the time she got off the stage, but Ashele had a feeling things had only started getting weird.

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/470615.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/433262.html. You can comment here or there.

Looking, a continuation drabble of Addergoole @kissofjudas

Dec16

After Love. Approx. year 30 of the Addergoole School.

Shira had turned down the first four people Mike had brought to her.

Two of them had been older students, the other two late late entries into Regine’s breeding project – with the war making a mess of their lives, Regine had started bringing in whatever new blood she could find, and Mike was happily helping her repopulate the world. One of the students had been male, the other female; one of the Project ones had been female, the other hermaphroditic.

And Shira had said – later and in private – “No. Good try, but no.”

And Luke was still obnoxiously in love, and even more obnoxiously entirely oblivious to that fact.

“Professor?”

Mike glanced up at the voice. There was unsurprisingly, a student standing there. Skylla. Mike taught her, of course, in a Literature class – American Lit, this semester – where she was quiet unless prompted but eloquent and off-beat when questioned. She was also, so far, a scruffy tomboy who hadn’t yet decided what she would be as an adult. No the sort Mike normally pursued. He’d assumed she’d end up Laurel’s or Doug’s, or possibly Sang Ki’s.

But she was standing in his doorway, radiating concern and need so badly that Mike didn’t need to focus on his empathy to understand it.

“Come on, Skylla. How can I help you?”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/432991.html. You can comment here or there.