Archive | January 17, 2013

The Second Restriction

Jan17

For Rix_Scaedu‘s prompt.

Thanks to @Skysailor99 for the country & god names.

“There’s a problem with the second restriction.”

The country of Foros had a lot of gods, and, like any good nation with a lot of gods, it had a lot of priests.

Several dozen of them were, at the moment, staring at their holiest of holy oracles.

The oracles were not supposed to say things like that. They weren’t, for one things, supposed to be capable of that much coherence. The ones who could hear the god Eralon – or any of the gods, but Eralon liked to talk the most – they tended to go mad very quickly. And the rest could be induced to simulate madness with the right smoke.

The Lesser High Priest of the Evening was the first to recover. “Ye who is blessed with the voice of the gods, ye who sees the truth to save us weaker vessels from that which would break us, say again, please?”

The oracle looked at the Lesser High Priest of the Evening. He was a clever man, brighter than his superiors, and did not flinch when he felt the eyes of divinity looking back at him. “The second restriction of Eralon. There is a problem with it.”

Eralon, of all of their myriad gods, had given them the most stringent restrictions and the most elaborate requirements. “Oh voice of the gods, please tell us what the problem is, that we might correct it.”

He had never been all that fond of the second restriction, after all. Several of the others made sense, and, of those that didn’t actively help make Foros a better place, only the second and the seventh seemed to make it worse.

“It’s wrong.” Her eyes rolled back in her head, and when they focused on the Lesser High Priest of the Evening again, the oracle’s gaze – and her voice – were her own again. “It’s not a restriction at all. The girl who relayed it just had an allergy to frogs.”

The temple erupted into shouting. Showing wisdom that would probably save his life on more occasions than this one, the Lesser High Priest of the Evening grabbed the oracle and the duty scribe, and got them both out of the temple before someone could erase this conversation from the records.

Possibly someone with an allergy to frogs. Or someone with a bridge-making business.

Eralon Explains

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/455232.html. You can comment here or there.

Giraffe Mini-Call Three: 7 Deadly Sins

Jan17

Today’s Giraffe Call Theme is 7 Deadly Sins

The Call for Prompts is now Open, and will remain so for about an hour!

The call is “closed,” but the first commenter each in DW and LJ after this point can sneak in a prompt! (after me on LJ, after Clare on DW)

Leave one or many prompts, and I will write (over the next week) at least one microfic (150-500 words) to each prompter (prompts may be combined)

Prompts can be related to one of my extant settings (See my landing page-landing page) or they can be for something completely different.

Prompting is free! But Donations are always welcome.

For each $5 you donate, I will write an additional 500 words to the prompt(s) of your choice.

If I get two new prompters or one new donator, I will write a setting piece (setting chosen by poll) explaining something about the prompts.

Because this is a mini-Call, there will be mini-perks!

* For every $15 donated, one prompter chosen at random will get an extra fic written – Got to two!
* For every $30 donated, one random prompter will get a 500-word continuation. – Got to one!
* Every-$60 level open for suggestions!!

Incentives will carry over the three mini-calls in January.


Words
500 $5.00 USD
750 $7.50 USD
1000 $10.00 USD
1250 $12.50 USD
1500 $15.00 USD
1750 $17.50 USD
2000 $20.00 USD

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/454952.html. You can comment here or there.

Mini Giraffe Calls Day Two

Jan17

Yesterday’s Theme was Transitions, and a little over an hour, I received five prompts:

Falling (LJ) (misc. May be Fairy Town)
Lab Rats (DW) Tír na Cali
Strange Favors (LJ) – from the December Giraffe Call, Addergoole Yr16 (this one doesn’t count, but I wrote it in the last day)
Teaching for the Future (LJ) – unknown Apoc ‘verse
Transfer of Power (DW) Addergoole: the next Generation
Into the Doorway (LJ) – Facets of Dusk

edited to add: An An Unnamed fragment

The last Giraffe Call of this month will be up in about half an hour! Stay Tuned!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/454674.html. You can comment here or there.

Falling

Jan17

For [personal profile] kelkyag‘s prompt

I remember falling.

They’ll tell you I can’t have possibly remembered anything. They’ll tell you that I was too young.

They’ll tell you there wasn’t any falling involved. It was a one-story house, and the windows were low to the ground.

But then again, how did a 2-year-old survive when nobody else did?

I’ve never wondered.

They’ll tell you that was because I was too young to have formed attachments. They’ll tell you that’s because I don’t really remember my family.

They’re going to tell you a lot of shit about me. And you’re going to listen, aren’t you? Because you’re the grown-ups. And I’m a kid.

But I remember falling. I remember the first fall. The second fall. I remember every. Single. Time.

They put me on a train at the end of the autumn. Comes this time every year. The families can handle me in the spring, in the summer. But when the leaves start to change, they get nervous.

I can’t say I blame them. All they have to go on is stories, after all. Whispers. The things that they’re told, the lies that they’re fed to comfort them. But even the slimiest grown-up knows, somewhere, when they’re being lied to.

So they put me on a train. City to country. Country to burbs. Burbs to… well, where am I going this time?

And what have they told you about the fires?

I remember falling.

But I remember flying, too. The flying always comes before the falling. And the fire comes in between.

And they’ll tell you I don’t remember anything at all.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/454475.html. You can comment here or there.

Lab Rat, a story of Tir na Cali for the Giraffe Call (@lilfluff)

Jan17

For [personal profile] lilfluff‘s prompt.

Tir na Cali has a landing page here.

“Engage in some scientific experimentation,” the Agency guy had said. “Earn your freedom,” they’d said. “Just two years in our scientific facility, and you can go free,” they’d promised.

They’s strapped Robert and Eric to tables, at which point they’d both started complaining.

“This isn’t what we meant by ‘experimentation.'”

“Weren’t we supposed to be lab assistants?”

“Lab assistants! We’re supposed to be helping you guys!”

The skinny ginger guy had just tightened the straps. “You are helping. Now sleep.”

The drugs had slid into their veins, pushing away the last of the panic and replacing it with sleep.

Robert woke twitching, jittering. He wasn’t tied to a table anymore. He was back in his room, back in the little cell he shared with Eric and two other lab assistants.

Lab assistants, ha. Assist by being a lab rat. What kind of freedom was that, if there wasn’t anything left of him after two years? Cancer? Was that what this was about? AIDS? Something worse?

They were in California, after all. There had to be something worse. Anybody as evil as the Californians had to have come up with some nastier disease.

He looked at his hands. They seemed to be oka… wait. Wait. Had he had that many knuckles before? Had he had white hair, no, not hair, white fur on the back of his hands before?

His ears twitched. That wasn’t right. That wasn’t right at all. And something was moving behind him. He darted, twisted, and…

“Hey!” He pounded on the door to their cell. “Hey, let me out. You got the wrong guy! I wasn’t supposed to be a lab rat! I wasn’t supposed to get a tail!!“

“You think you’ve got problems?”

Eric’s voice was wrong. Too high. Nerves? Robert turned around, slowly. He hadn’t seen Eric when he came to. He hadn’t seen…

Erica? “You think you’ve got problems?” His oldest buddy repeated him – her – self. “They just turned you into a rat. They turned me into a girl.“

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/454306.html. You can comment here or there.

Teaching for the Future, a story for the Giraffe Call

Jan17

To EllenMillion‘s prompt.

The apocalypse was the last thing I was expecting when I went back to school.

Let’s be honest, I really wasn’t expecting much of anything except an escape from reality.

I liked being a student. I was good at it, I enjoyed it, and, unlike the work world, it enjoyed me back. So, when I got sick of grunt jobs, miserably low-paying crap, and all the bullshit that went along with the Real World, I went back to college. No better way to get out of planning for the future, right?

You’d think that being a Perpetual Student would have ill-prepared me for the apocalypse, but, as it turned out, you’d be wrong. I like learning, too, you see. And classes only fill so much of your time. And college campuses are full of people who like to teach you things.

All of which combined to turn me into sort of a post-apocalyptic Jane of All Trades.

Step One: Fail at the Real World. Check.

Step Two: Drop back into college with a vengeance. Check.

Step Three: End of the world. Check.

The Botany department has a cabin out past the edge of the town where they do field studies. By the time the armies overran the town, I was already out there, with two Botany students and a pre-med guy who tagged along.

We did some shopping first, of course, and then some more shopping, afterwards. It’s interesting the things people will leave behind when they’re panic-shopping. It’s interesting how much use you can get out of those things.

Now the four of us are running a school. It amuses me, a little, that I’ve gone from real-world dropout to teacher, but those that remain need a lot of teaching. And they have a lot to teach, too, or they wouldn’t have made it through the first three passes.

Everyone takes turns, teacher and student. And everyone – everyone – takes notes.

We’re planning for the future, here, after all.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/454050.html. You can comment here or there.