Archive | June 10, 2013

Deaths in the Faerie Apocalypse, Part III

Jun10

A discussion in several parts of the near-extinction of humanity in my Faerie Apocalypse Setting.
The Gods’ Return: here
The Terms Used: here.

The returned gods killed a large number of people by direct or indirect smiting; in the process of claiming the cities, they killed an exponentially larger number with collateral damage.

When those Ellehemaei who had been here on Earth all along (or been born on Earth since the gods departed) got in on the act, fighting back against the returned gods, the collateral damage only got worse.

This is important, because what the humans tended to see was simply two freaks of nature tearing down buildings in their fight (flooding rivers, changing the course of storms, lighting city blocks on fire, and so on). They had – history, at least, had – no patience for divisions of “protecting humanity” vs. “enslaving humanity,” because all of these creatures were causing damage in their fighting.

The U.S. National Guard* had begun to mobilize as the first major damage occurred, but it was not until months later, when Los Angeles fell entirely under the sway of The Green Man, that Congress declared war on the invading army of gods.

At this point, the collateral damage numbers skyrocketed once again. War is a messy thing; war on your home territory is a horrible thing. Soldiers were sent unprepared into battle against gods (and there was only so well they could be prepared, even with advisers who knew what the Ellehemaei were and how to fight them); they died by the hundreds, and then by the thousands.

Then some genius discovered that you could kill an Ellehemaei if you dropped a big enough bomb on its head.

* Now with asterisk! – I am familiar enough with the U.S. response to be able to hazard a guess what they would do; I am far less familiar with the threat/disaster response in other countries. If those with familiarity there would like to lend a hand, I’d be appreciative.

Part IV – http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/546168.html

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Orlaith, Her First Year

Jun10

Second in a series of character-building vignettes following a bunch of characters through their time at Addergoole & beyond. Orlaith we’ve seen much later in her life, in the series with her son Hunter-Hale and her later Kept Adder.

(Ora tag here)
(Adder tag here)
(Hunter-Hale tag here)

The Dreamwidth icon is Orlaith’s daughter Ce’Rilla.

Content warning: Hell Night

Hell Night, Year 10 of the Addergoole School

“Come on, come on, be mine and all the pain will stop.” Someone – she couldn’t see who – had Orlaith bent backwards until she felt like her spine would snap, another hand on her ankles like he was trying to turn her into a wheel. Orlaith made a little noise of pain, and then did the thing she did best.

“Come on,” she echoed back at him, but her tone was coaxing, harmless. “You don’t really want me, do you? You want a prettier girl. Someone stronger, someone more obedient? I’m not really your type of girl, am I?”

She didn’t know what was going on, but she was pretty sure if it involved having your spine nearly snapped to get there, she didn’t want any of it.

“Yeah, I probably don’t want you. Hurry up, get out of here.”

And like that, he let her go. Orlaith wasted no time at all in getting out of there. Sometimes, they listened when she did that. A lot of the time, after she stopped talking, they changed her mind.

“That was impressive.” The voice came out of nowhere – smooth, slick. Ora felt an urge to trust the speaker; she turned around to look at him and the urge was overwhelming. Skinny, short for a guy but still taller than her, with dyed-red hair – but all of that was almost a memory, someone she’d seen in the halls. All she could see, now, looking at him, were his eyes, amber as a cat’s and every bit as creepy.

“Thank you?”

“Of course. And now, pretty little liar… now you’re going to be mine. Tempero Intinn Orlaith cy’Valerian. Say that you’re mine.“

“I’m yours.” She couldn’t have said no if she’d wanted to, but she didn’t find herself really wanting to, either.

“Good. Now, Orlaith oro’Accalon, you and I are going to have a talk about judicious use of powers.”

His stern tone sent a strange tingling down to her toes. “What? Powers?” She looked as innocent as she could. I wasn’t doing anything wrong, really. Was I?

He tapped her nose with two fingers. “First, do not use your power on me. Secondly, if you do not learn to corral it on your own, I will corral it for you. And, so you know I’m serious… sit down.”

Orlaith found herself sitting on the carpeted hall, feeling miserably like she’d let down this complete stranger. “What…?” Judicious use of your powers.

“I think this is going to be an educational year for you, Orlaith.”

She was suddenly worried that it would be.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/539729.html. You can comment here or there.