Archive | February 2013

Fathers, a story of Addergoole/Fae Apoc (@kissofjudas)

Feb28

Just for fun.

Year 28 of the Addergoole School

Hunter-Hale was just barely fourteen, and all his sisters and one of his brothers had headed off to school, when the man with a face like his rang the bell at the front gate.

(The world had started ending more than ten years ago, but his mother was a doctor and both his parents rather clever, and in their little corner of the city, the electricity still ran, most days.)

It was Hunter-Hale’s turn on the gate, so he answered it, his gun ready but not aimed. Standing on the sidewalk, rucksack over his shoulder, was the face he saw in the mirror every day.

“Hi. I’m here to see my son, Hunter-Hale?” He even had the same sideways smile Hunter-Hale had borne his entire life.

He did not shoot the interloper, although it was tempting. He pushed the intercom button, instead.

“Dad!” He hollered. “There’s a guy at the gate who says he’s you!”

While he waited for his father to show up, he stared at the stranger. The stranger, clearly confused, stared back.

“You look like me.” The other man broke the silence. “But you’ve got Ora’s eyes.”

Hunter-Hale coughed. “Look. I know, reasonably, that my dad can’t be my biological dad. I remember meeting him, sort of, when I was a baby. But even if you look like me – that’s a pretty simple Working, isn’t it? – you’re a stranger. Who happens to know my name and my mom’s. Which makes you a creepy stranger.”

“And your mother taught you not to talk to strangers?”

“My mother taught me not to invite strangers over our threshold, and to shoot if threatened. Actually.” He grinned, because it felt good. “My father taught me that part.”

“But I’m…”

“Sit tight. My dad’ll be here soon.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/483827.html. You can comment here or there.

The ClockWork Collar, or The Princess of Al-ben, a kink-bingo mini-story in 25 (27) parts. Part 27

Feb27

First: The Collar (LJ)

Previous: Pretend (LJ)

She played out the game with her master as the mechanism did its work. When it wrapped around his throat, she ramped up the roleplay, groaning and writhing as he narrated whipping her.

“Princess.” His eyes opened, and his words came tight and raspy. “You really are, aren’t you?”

“I really am.” There was no place more suited for that admission than here. “And you really are the Lord Daran.”

“Why are you wearing a slave collar?”

She rested her hand on his wrist, while his breathing labored and caught. “To be caught, of course.”

“To…” She had to lean in. “To catch me?”

“To catch you.” She nodded, as his eyes closed. “Yes, master.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/483560.html. You can comment here or there.

Tasty (Wednesday): Two-ingredient Cake

Feb27

Last week, we tried a 2-ingredient cake.

Super simple:
Box of Angel Food Cake Mix (one-packet sort, not two-packet sort)
20oz can of Crushed pineapple

Mix, including the juice in the can. Cook at 350 for 25-35 minutes. Enjoy (or frost, but we didn’t).

We then tried cooking it with strawberries instead, but the fluid level got weird and we ended up with sort of cake-mush. We shall try again!.

It’s tasty (even the strawberry mush version), and without a frosting, it’s pretty low on calories and pretty much fat-free.

<3<3<3

I’ll let you know when we figure out the strawberry version.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/483290.html. You can comment here or there.

Educational

Feb27

This was supposed to be for @dahob’s prompt, but it really ended up somewhere else. Enjoy it anyway!

Ambrus/Ambrose and Phillipa are Addergoole: Yr9 characters. Phillipa has shown up in previous stories as well; see her wiki page for details.

“You should try Keeping someone.” His Mentor was gentle but insistent; he gave Ambrus-called-Ambrose this speech at the beginning of each year.

“I like being a bottom. And it’s not like I need to provide more kids to the program.”

“Still. You should understand what it is to top.”

“But I…”

His third year there, he finally gave in. Understand what it is to top. Fine. Fine, he’d Keep someone. At least then his Mentor would stop pushing him.

It wasn’t hard to grab someone. It wasn’t hard for the normal students to grab people, and he had a generation and more on them. In the end, he simply walked up to her and made the offer. He layered it with enough flowery words and enough silly affection that the prickly girl with the thorns in her hair to match her personalty stepped into his sugar-sweet trap.

It was almost shameful how easy it was.

On the other hand, it got hard really quickly after that, and just kept getting harder.

“This is sick. I got through six weeks. Six weeks! And then you had to come and… trick me.”

“Don’t cry.” He wasn’t ordering her, he was pleading with her. And to his horror, she stopped crying with a strangled choke. “Shit. That wasn’t an order.”

She looked up at him through the tangled vines of her hair. “You’re not very good at this, are you?”

“No.” He sank down on the bed. “No, not really.”

“They why did you do it? Why catch me? Why…” She tugged on her collar in a gesture he recognized all too well.

Dryly, he gave he an honest answer. “My Mentor thought it would be a good idea.”

“I wonder if he talked to my Mentor about it.”

“Valerian, right?” His memories of Laurel were an interesting and heady mix. “I’m sure I could convince her it was a good idea.”

“I bet. You could probably convince people up was down.”

“Thank you.”

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

He sighed. “Are you going to spend the whole year hating me?”

“Depends. Are you going to spend the whole year ordering me around?”

“Well, that is, generally, the point of having a Kept, as I understand it.”

“Kept? Is that what this is called? Better than ‘pet,’ I suppose.”

“That’s a specific sort of… never mind.”

She pushed her vines out of her face and looked at him. He was startled to find how pretty she was, under the thorns. “Tell me.”

Ambrus responded well to direct orders. He sat down on the bed, near Phillipa but not touching her, and began to tell her about pets, and toys, slaves, and lovers, and all the permutations of being a sub that he had encountered.

“You know a lot about this from the other end, don’t you?” She wasn’t angry anymore, and he hadn’t had to lean on his power to get her there.

“I do.” He shrugged. It wasn’t anything he was ashamed of; if anything, trying to Keep someone was the embarrassing part.

“Teach me.” She shifted to sit a little closer to him, took his hand in hers, and put it on her collar. “It could be educational.”

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/495078.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/483009.html. You can comment here or there.

Signs of Love

Feb26

For [personal profile] itsamellama‘s Prompt.

Moore is from a story I’m working on for Addergoole: Year 9, although he’s a Yr. 16 Student.

Cumhai is from A Couple Helping Hands and Littermate and Strange Favors

Addergoole has a landing page here

“Found anyone you like yet?” Cúmhaí tossed Moore a beer and flopped down in the chair across from him.

He shook his head. “Nah.” Being an upperclassman was still a little weird to him; he wasn’t sure how Cúmhaí was adjusting as quickly as she was. “They all talk too much.”

She snorted, her face twisting while she doubled over in what he assumed had to be laughter. When she looked up at him again, she’d gotten it down to a smirk. “Such a guy.”

“Hey.” He gestured at his ears. “No fun when they can’t slow down enough to make themselves understood.” Much to his frustration, his Change nor his Words had come with an easy fix for the deafness that had plagued him from childhood.

Cúmhaí’s smirk slid off her face. “Okay, for you, I can get that. But…” One of her doggish ears twitched. “I don’t think you’ve met all the new students yet. I’ll be back in a little bit.”

“Coo…” It was too late; she was already gone. Moore leaned back against the couch and prepared himself for a blind date.

~

“Right in here, no, he doesn’t bite. Well, my brother does, but I’m not introducing you to my brother right now. Here. This is Moore. Moore, this is Janoah.”

Cúmhaí ushered the slender girl in and half-pushed her at the chair that was normally her own. She looked straight at Moore. “You two make nice, now.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He rolled his eyes at her. This was not going to end well, was it?

Across the coffee table from him, Janoah was looking at him with wide eyes. Deaf? she signed.

He stared at her. What?

Sorry, sorry. You deaf?

Yes. He found his hand gestures getting excited. You?

She shook her head, color coming to her pale cheeks. She had very nice cheeks. Moore shook his head. Distracted. He didn’t need distractions right now.

Mute. Her signs were better than anyone he’d signed with in a long time. She added a complex sentence that meant, more or less, “as long as I’ve been aware.”

He spared a glance for Cúmhaí, who was watching from the corner. “You win.” He spared his crew-mate a grin, and turned back to the pretty girl with the eloquent hands.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/482752.html. You can comment here or there.

The ClockWork Collar, or The Princess of Al-ben, a kink-bingo mini-story in 25 (28) parts. Part 26

Feb26

First: The Collar (LJ)

Previous: Whipping (LJ)

“That’s it, lord. Be there.” The needles were piercing other places on his body now, not just his fingers. The little grunts he made told her how much it had to be hurting. “That’s it. You’re whipping the Princess. Why?”

He had trouble focusing on her face. “Because she… you ran away from home, Princess. You were naughty. Bad.“

She groans, as if the lash had hit her. “I didn’t mean to be bad, Lord Daran.” She let the next groan trail to a whimper. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re a good girl, Princess Stavanna. When you’re good.” His eyes slipped shut.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/482330.html. You can comment here or there.

Partnership, a drabble of Luke & Mystral (@kissofjudas)

Feb26

After Planning the Strirke, after Hunting Hawk, and so on.

::Tell me what and where I can strike, and not be in your way.::

There was more than one reason he loved this woman. Luke sent her the map again, gesturing in their minds. ::Over there. I’ll be over here, taking out the leader.::

He shut off the mind connection as he broke the man’s spine in three places. Even if she was a hunter herself, he didn’t need to share such things.

Old-fashioned, the memory of an ex-wife taunted him. He ignored her. She wasn’t important right now.

“Boss?” One of the men whispered. Breaking discipline already. Sloppy. “Count?”

“One.” Luke whispered it as he killed him. “Two.”

He left most of his half mostly-alive. He wanted questions answered.

::How goes?::

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/482276.html. You can comment here or there.

(no subject)

Feb25

First: The Collar (LJ)

Previous: Princess (LJ)

“Everyone wants to screw a princess, right?”

“…yes, Princess. What is this thing doing to me, Stavanna?”

“It’s using you as fuel. Look at me, Lord Daran. That’s it. Tell me what you’d do to this naughty Princess.”

“You’ve bypassed naughty, I think.” He twitched, but the bonds just tightened. “Princess…”

“Play the game, Lord. What will you do to me?”

“I’ll take the horsewhip to you.” His voice broke, and he recovered. “I’ll tie you to the bed again, and whip you. Whip you until I drew blood. Until you cried.”

“And then?”

“Whip you just a little more.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/481928.html. You can comment here or there.

Doug gets a Hug, a story for the Giraffe Call

Feb25

For [personal profile] imaginaryfiend‘s prompt. Doug and Ana are Addergoole characters. Addergoole has a landing page here

“She’s a dancer.”

That’s what Luke had said.

Doug looked at the girl. She was short, muscular, and lush, her black curls tied into a ponytail. She’d shown up ready to dance.

“Dance.” If she couldn’t handle him being short, she wasn’t going to be able to handle him.

She set down her MP3 player, turned up the music, and started….

It was dancing, Doug had to admit, but it was just about having sex with an invisible partner. He found his pants getting tighter. Shit. “Not this bump and grind shit,” he snarled. “Dance.”

She turned around and stuck her tongue out at him, then bent down and changed the track.

She could dance. This was going to be an interesting four years.

~

“Who’s the new girl?” Willow was one of Doug’s fourth-year Students, not a dancer, not a monster hunter. His half-brother’s former Kept and current beloved.

“Be nice.” Doug didn’t snarl at her. That would have been sillier than even he felt.

“I’ll be nice, but who is she?”

Ana was coming out of the locker room. “Ana. Willow. Play nice.”

~

He expected Willow to Keep Ana, and he was right. It took some of the stress off of him; it put Ana firmly off-limits. His brother’s girlfriend’s Kept. Only Willow herself was more off-limits. It kept him – ha – from making a fool of himself.

She was a good dancer, a wonderful dancer. Training her was actually fun, actually challenged Doug to remember moves lost in his memory. He was rough with her, harsh; he always was, when he was training. She laughed at him, stuck her tongue out, and kept dancing.

When she fought with Willow – every couple fights – she cried it out in dancing in his studio. When she was freaked out by her powers, by her Change, she danced it out in his studio. It made sense; he was her Mentor. It made him want to protect her. It made him go home and drink.

~

“Doug, I, ah.” Willow wanted to ask him something. Doug waited; he was feeling particularly cranky. “Aleron is coming to visit this weekend.”

He grunted. Aleron did that. It was good for him that he was still connecting with Willow after he’d graduated. That didn’t mean Doug had to smile about it.

“Ana doesn’t want to stay in our room while Aleron’s there.”

“Don’t blame her.” Ana was very straight-forward about being second fiddle.

“She wants to spend the night with you, Doug.”

“…what?”

“I let her choose. She chose you.”

“…okay.” What else was he going to say?

~

He queued up some of his favorite old movies, chilled down some good beer, and paced. Why him? Was she just trying to thumb her nose at Aleron? Doug didn’t think his little brother would even notice.

“Cowboy movies.” She smiled, contentedly, drank his beer, and slowly snuck closer to him on the couch. By the end of the second movie, she was cuddled against his side.

“Ana…”

“I asked Willow. Tonight… anything’s okay.”

“Is that what you want?” He was holding his breath, holding his arm just an inch above her shoulders. She nuzzled his chest.

“Yes.”

“…you’re sure?”

“Yes.” She raspberried into his chest. “Doug. Sa’Brontosaurus. Yes.”

Doug stopped arguing. At least, for the moment.

She could dance, oh, departed gods. This was going to be an interesting four years.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/481688.html. You can comment here or there.

Laziness X4

Feb24

After Laziness as an Art Form. From [personal profile] rix_scaedu‘s commissioned continuation.

They said the words. If they had a choice, it wasn’t a good one.

Then to add insult to insult, their captor – Segenam, she supposed – spit on their faces. Somehow, this dissolved the sticky webs, and left them sitting on the floor, rubbing their eyes.

Then he explained what they’d just agreed to. How they Belonged to him. He gave a couple demonstrations. Roanna only needed one.

“So now what?” She was trying to gain some equilibrium. She wasn’t sure, given the situation, that that was possible. But she’d adjusted to everything else so far. She could adjust to this.

“First, the four of you get in my room and clean it.”

Roanna sighed. Of course. Kidnapped by a spider-man and she ended up doing housework.

Tamberlain, she discovered, was a whiner. Zuleyma turned out to have never cleaned anything in her life, but Merton surprised Roanna by being better with a scrub brush than she was.

Cleaning was the start. Then laundry. Then cooking dinner. Zuleyma was better cooking than she was cleaning, but Tamberlain was hopeless.

“It’s a pity.” Segenam shook his head. “You’re the prettiest of the lot.” He was pointing at Tamberlain. He’d already established that he wasn’t going to bother learning their names. “But you’re useless.”

“Are you going to just let me go, then?”

Roanna thought that was decidedly unfair – if it were true. But that seemed unlike their… guy-who-controlled them, there had to be a better word than that.

“Of course not.” Roanna wasn’t sure she wanted to be validated on that one. “I’m going to sell you to the highest bidder. I can’t really Keep all four of your all yeah.”

“Sell… um. I am good at some things.”

Roanna snuck a glance at Tamerlain. He was blushing. “Are you really…”

“Shush, you.” Tamerlain’s blush only got redder, but he still managed to defend himself. “You’re good at this stuff. I’m good at… other stuff.”

Roanna let it drop. She didn’t want to know, didn’t want to be involved, but if it made him happy and made there… ugh… Owner happy, well, good for him.

She’d thought “and by the way, we have an Owner now” would be weird, when they got to class, but it turned out a large portion of their Cohort was in the same situation. The weird part turned out to be Segenam’s “hoarding.”

“People keep yelling at me for what you did.” She had managed to corner her Owner in the hall between classes.

He frowned. “I hate yelling. Tell them … tell them something about fair and square, I guess. And, I mean, if they want to talk about buying from me…”

With a sinking feeling, Roanna realized where he was going with that. “If they’re thinking about purchase, I’ll take down their name and credentials, and what they want to offer, how’s that? Then we can see how people’s offers add up.”

Segenam smiled. He didn’t do that often, and Roanna was a little creeped out at how good that made her feel. “Smart girl. I like that idea.”

“Thanks, sir.” She was not certain how many of the other Kept Segenam was sleeping with, but he wasn’t sleeping with her yet. She didn’t like how that made her feel yet, either.

“You’re a good Kept.” He patted her shoulder. “Go ahead and get that all together. All four of you are open for sale, so take any offers and don’t commit to anything.”

“Yes, sir.” She found herself squirming again, but she wasn’t give into the feeling and actually ask, even me? when he’d already answered it.

Notebook in hand, she went out to go about the process of auctioning herself off.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/481380.html. You can comment here or there.