Archive | August 2013

The Hardest Part… A story for the Giraffe Call

Aug21

For ellenmillion‘s prompt.

“The hardest part of…”

The hardest part of anything was never what anyone said it was, because, Yaminah knew, the hardest part was whatever you were doing at the moment. One foot in front of the other; the marathon is no harder than a single step, but that single step can be the hardest thing you’ve done in your life.

Right now, the step over the threshold was her “hardest part.” She’d shucked pieces and parts of her job during the train ride, the bus ride, the subway ride, and the walk, but stepping over the threshold required her to remember that she was, indeed, Yaminah.

Right now, that was harder than it sounded. She ran her fingers over the beads in her pocket – she kept them in this jacket, in the locker at the bus station, so that she always had them before she got home. Not a rosary, but they served a similar cause.

This bead, carved like an hourglass, told her about the time she’d beat the world speed record in distance running and told no-one except her trainer. Yaminah could do that. Sophia couldn’t.

This bead, textured all over like sandpaper, told her of the time she’d scaled a limestone wall – not for a test, not for training, but because she could. Yaminah could do that. Sophia couldn’t.

Bead after bead, memory after memory, she pulled herself back. Yaminah was the girl who trained because it was fun. She was the girl who scaled mountains. She was the woman who made her first kill and spent the night retching, then went out and made her next kill.

The nights were Yaminah. The kills… those were Sophia, or Gloria, or Hannah. She had never killed aside from a mission. She had never climbed a mountain on a mission.

She ran her finger over the last bead, the one shaped like a cat, and let herself in to her apartment. The hardest part… Right now, the hardest part was remembering if she’d dumped the milk before she went on her mission.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/564528.html. You can comment here or there.

Transformation, a story of Cali Catpeople for the Giraffe Call

Aug20

A couple people asked about the species change. I don’t think this piece really addresses either prompt well, but I wrote it, so I thought I’d share it.

“Test subject seven-one-five-three, through here, please.”

A week ago, she had been Antoinette Abaster, a mid-level secretary at a Indianapolis research firm. She’d been saving for a vacation to Paris and planning her church rummage sale.

Now she was Test Subject 7153, and she was walking through a blue door into a very sterile-looking room. She was having trouble focusing on anything except the door and the orders she was given, but the cables linked to her restraints didn’t give her a lot of choice either way.

“You have been selected for the Agency’s Transformative Project Eighty-three.” The voice was coming from behind her. She twisted, pulling her restraints to their limits, but there was nothing anywhere except white. Even the door had vanished. Her cables were connected to white ports in white walls. “Your conversion will begin now. Please describe any physical sensations you encounter.”

There were a number of physical sensations, which she described in tones from calm to hysterical. There were a number of emotional sensations, which she described only once, near the end. “This feels weird, and I’m scared.”

“Fear is to be expected. Fear is one of the three emotions we expect you will undergo in the first process.”

“First?” The words were coming out oddly through lips that felt numb. “First?” What’s the second?”

“The second will begin tomorrow. Please exit through the open door.”

She didn’t remember falling asleep, but she would remember forever waking up, because the first thing she did was stretch and yawn. Her back arched in strange ways and she pawed at the bed for a moment.

Pawed at the bed… and looked down at her hands, which had more in common with paws than they had the morning before. She rubbed her nose and eyes and looked again.

Paws. Paws, and something on her head felt strange. She yowled, confused and unhappy.

“Easy, Subject seven-one-five-three. What is the problem?” The voice came from the ceiling, or possibly the walls. She twitched an ear at it.

“I’m a caaat.”

“You have been put through stage one of the Transformative Process, yes.”

“I’m a cat.” She wiped at her face with a hand again. “I can’t stop acting like a cat. And I’m hungry.”

“Food will be provided.”

“Now? Now?” She put her face in her hands. Paws. “Why can’t I… what’s wrong with me?” She focused on a memory. The office. Typing in endless data, eating rice cakes and punching in formulae. The church raffle. A sound between a sob and a wail escaped her.

“You are partially transformed. Your personality remains unchanged, but your body and your instincts are now felid-hominid. The transformation goes bone-deep and has affected your brain as well as your body.”

“I’m a cat girl?” She scratched behind her ear. “You turned me into a cat?”

“You are partially transformed into a felid-hominid, yes.”

She stared at the wall. “But what does that mean for me?”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/564459.html. You can comment here or there.

Sharp Bits

Aug19

For [personal profile] elliemurasaki‘s prompt.

Shut up shut up shut up.

It was one of those moments where you just have to grit your teeth and bear it. Her voice was high-pitched and whiny. Her sales pitch was self-centered and useless. Her clothes fit her badly. She kept looking straight at me whenever my attention wavered.

Shut up shut up Shut the fuck up! It was one of those times, where everything was just a little too clear. I looked her back in the eye and smiled. I could feel what She, not this miserable pitch bitch but the One Inside, what She wanted.

We all have a dark side. That’s what my mother told us.

Shut the fuck up shut the fuck up shut the bloody fuck up! She was still droning on. She’d asked me a question, one of those horrid trap questions designed to make the listener look and feel stupid.

I answered her question, trying to keep the inside voice internal. “It seems like the product wouldn’t work in that situation.” It was the answer she wanted. She wanted to pounce.

She wanted to say “Wrong!” And she did, smirking.

Shut the bloody fuck up shut your fucking yap shut up or die.

The voice was getting louder. I could feel my canines lengthening. I dug my nails into the table, glad it was her furniture and not mine.

“So, you see, the Miracle Machine is perfect for situations like yours.” She was oblivious. They always were. The Voice Inside liked it that way.

We all have a dark side. That’s what our mother told me. We all have a sharp edge somewhere inside.

Sometimes, however, it’s someone else’s sharp bits that end up in us.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/564164.html. You can comment here or there.

August Giraffe Call: Identity

Aug18

It’s time for a Giraffe Call!

August’s theme is Identity!

Leave one or many prompts, and over the next weeks, I will write at least one story to everyone’s prompts.

(If you posted in the pre-Giraffe Bus call last week, you can post again and get two stories, or reference your earlier prompts)

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.

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

Donations are earmarked towards our foyer right now: It’s currently stripped-down drywall. I want to make a new bench, a storage area, and a slippers-for-guests arrangement. It’s an 8×4 space; budget is $300.

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

At $20 in donations, I’ll order take-out!

At $40 in donations, everyone who donated will get an additional microfic written to their prompts. I will choose 1 non-donater at random to receive an additional microfic as well.

At $50, anyone who donated $7.50 or more will have a copy of “Alder by Post” mailed to them if they wish.

At $50, I will buy the hardwood boards for the front of the storage area and post my plans for such.

For every $50 donated, I will do a one-hour livewrite on Etherpad or googledocs during the next month.

At $80, I will write two extra 500-word continuations – chosen by prompters picked by random number generator.

At $100, I’ll buy the accessories for the storage area. And post pictures!

At $120, everyone who donated will get an additional (3rd) microfic written to their prompts. I will choose 2 more non-donaters at random to receive an additional microfic as well.

If we get to $120, I will take suggestions for further incentives!

For more information on Giraffe Calls, see the landing page.


Donate below

I also take payment by Dwolla

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/563723.html. You can comment here or there.

Learning and Lies

Aug18

This is the first of Rix’s requests from the What I Want What You Want Fundraiser. It ties in with Hatred and is on the darker end of Dragons Next Door, as much of the self-hating Dweomer stories are

Belinda had not, for a long time, questioned Cathal, his motivations, his cause, or his methods.

He was an immensely charismatic figure, which might excuse her from some of this, and his cause resonated with her upbringing, which excused a little more.

But for five years, she – along with a small group of dedicated hunters – followed him and took his lead. She hunted with him – they hunted with him – tracking down the deviants from humanity and eliminating them.

It seemed a noble cause. They hurt humanity. Not only did Cathal say so, but she’d seen it with her own eyes. They damaged humanity when they pretended to be part of it, they tainted the bloodlines with their blood, and they blurred the line between other and human until there was no line at all anymore. And none of this could be accepted.

“Please…” Her recent target had woken up sooner than expected. Sooner being at all. Bound in iron and wrapped in silk, they didn’t normally do much except end. They’d never plead with Belinda before.

Manners pushed her into answering. “I can’t untie you.”

“I’m not asking you to. I know what you are. I know what your people to do my people. It’s too late for me.”

It sounded far too human. Belinda moved to tape its mouth shut, but it hissed out another plea, so quiet and so urgent that she had to stop. “No, please, please… my daughter.”

Belinda stopped, her hand inches from the thing’s mouth. She’d never thought about them having daughters before. Children. “Your daughter?”

“She’s upstairs. She’s in her bedroom. Please… please don’t let her see me like this.”

“Is this a trick?” Her hand still hovered. They could be tricky. They could fool you.

“No, No, I swear it on iron and stone.” The thing winced as the iron wrapped around it burned it. An oath made like that normally had to be tortured out of them.

“Why?” Belinda had to ask. “Why swear?” Why did she…

“It’s my daughter.”

“Dweomers don’t have family.”

“I can’t lie to you, I swore by iron and stone. Whatever they told you about dweomers, that part is true.”

“You’re saying someone lied to me.”

“Everybody lies.” The thing twitched and winced. “Except, right now, me. Or anyone else you bind with iron and stone.”

“Any dweomer, you mean.”

“Anyone who can be bound. You’d be surprised how many humans aren’t as human as they think they are.” The thing pulled against its bonds. “Promise me. Promise me that she won’t see me like this. Take her away, give her to a foster family. but don’t let this taint her.”

“If you have a daughter…. won’t she be a dweomer as well?”

“Not always.” The woman struggled. “Please. Please, not for me. But for her…”

“You have a daughter. And you care about her.”

“Yes. Yes, I love her.” And she did not flinch. “More than anything in the world, I love her.”

“Dweomers can’t love.”

“You have been lied to. You have been lied to so much.” On the floor, the mother rolled her shoulders. “You have been lied to. But I will not lie to you. By blood and stone, iron and flesh.” She twitched and winced on the floor. “I will not lie to you. As long as I live. I have a daughter and I love her.”

“Speaking of love doens’t burn you.” Belinda looked down at the woman. “It’s supposed to burn you as bad as iron does.”

“As I said, you have been lied to. My daughter… I beg of you. My daughter.”

Belinda took a long breath. “I need you to promise me something else.”

“Anything. Anything, for my daughter.”

She needed to stop saying that. Belinda could hear someone moving upstairs. She could hear sounds that sounded like her own daughters. She could imagine a child walking downstairs and seeing its mother dead… finding its mother gone, never to return.

“Promise me no retaliation for this day.”

“No…” The woman’s eyes had shut. Now they flew open again. “I swear to you that I will bring no retaliation down on you for your actions of this day. I swear it..”

“That’s enough.” Belinda put her hand over the woman’s mouth. “No need to burn it into your flesh. You are a mother and so am I.”

She cut the silk bindings loose and unlocked the iron shackles. “I have to run. I have to run, before they find me. And you do, too, you and your daughter. They won’t forgive either of us for this.”

“Take your child and run.” The woman, the dweomer mother, stood and shook out her limbs. “Now that I know that they are after me, I will be able to stall them quite a while before they think to come after you.”

They met each other’s eye, and then the dweomer woman winked. “If I do it right, they’ll never know you survived.”

“Thank you.” Belinda picked up her kit. She could use the tools for something, she was sure.

“What will you do? Besides run?”

She looked down at her kit and considered. “Learn. I have been lied to, you said. So now I will have to learn.”

“A noble goal. But first…”

“First, we run.” And she ran.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/563690.html. You can comment here or there.

A Welcome of Sorts

Aug17

After Carrying, which is after Any Port

No tour of Baram’s house was complete without seeing three things: the bolt-hole in the basement, the hawthorn trees around three sides of the property, and a pile of children climbing up the furniture to greet you.

Pocket-Claws-Neska took in the bolt-hole with wide eyes and a small smile, especially when she saw the preparations the children had helped with. Baram wasn’t sure child-sized riot shields were really adorable, but the kids liked them, and so did this small person.

She took in the hawthorn trees about the same way. “So, this Briar-Rose, she really is like you and the Spear.”

Not, Baram noted, anything about him. She looked in fear at Via, not at him.

“Briar-Rose is like us. Maybe a little harder, maybe a little softer, but like us.” Viatrix shrugged. “If you last long enough, you’ll meet her. She’s off right now.”

“Last long enough.” The girl shook her head. “You sound like you think I’m afraid of a little hard work.”

“Well, many people are. And it’s crowded conditions and hard work and a lot of people think that’s just too much.”

“You’ll keep my kids safe. I don’t see how anything could be too much in that case.”

“Like her.” Baram rumbled it. “Like her, Viatrix.”

“I like her too, Boss. Okay, Pocket-Claws, you’ve got the first vote of approval. The second one’s the hard one.”

“Second one?” She was still looking at the trees, and at the back yard. “An addition shouldn’t be too hard…”

“You’re good with those words, then?” Via actually cracked a smile at that. “Good. None of us are, and the last things-Worker didn’t stay long enough to do much at all.”

“As long as someone else can excavate the foundation…”

“I can.” Baram nodded. “Easy.” It was like caves, and Baram liked caves.

“Ah, here comes the welcoming party.” Via’s voice had the pre-combat sound to it. Baram noticed how Pocket-Claws-Neska pulled her hands out of her pockets – ha – and shifted her stance, legs spreading a bit, center of gravity dropping.

And then the kids were everywhere. “Are you new? Are you staying? Are you magical? You’ve got to be okay, Dad’s smiling. Are you from the school? How come we’ve never seen you before? Where are your kids?” The questions bounced around from all of the kids, but they seemed as if asked with one voice while the children climbed up Baram, Via, and Pocket-Claws-Neska.

She’d handled the bolt-hole and the hawthorn. But, buried in children, the short woman froze.

Baram watched her carefully. Via, moving as if she wasn’t weighed down with offspring, shifted behind the visitor. This had gone badly before – not usually after they’d handled the defenses, but sometime.

The woman took a breath. She carefully lifted a child off of her hip and placed it on the ground, and then another. Baram watched the way she moved her hands, compensating for a sudden twitchiness.

“Hello.” Her voice was very quiet. The children stilled to listen.

“Hello.” Gerulf was their designated spokesperson when things were being serious. He was one of the oldest, after all, and he had the best voice.

“I may be moving in here.”

“People do that.” He patted a smaller child before she could speak up, and shifted another child off of Pocket-Claws-Neska’s leg. “You don’t like kids?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“We’re not stupid… ma’am. You don’t like kids touching you.”

The small woman shook her head. She sat down – already the height of some of the bigger kids, this brought her down to all the kids’ level.

Gerulf paused a moment, and then sat. Baram hid a smile with a cough. The boy was smart.

“It’s not kids touching me I don’t like. I have two kids of my own, of course…”

“Everybody does. At least two.” Gerulf shrugged. “Not here yet? ‘Sides, having kids doesn’t mean you like kids. Lots of people don’t like kids. Like Sergio’s mom.”

“Hey.” Sergio’s complaint was faint. Baram patted the kid on the head – Gerulf was right. There was a reason the kid was still here and the mum wasn’t.

“I like kids. I get along okay with most kids, at least.” Pocket-Claws-Neska looked around the group. “I just don’t really like being touched at all, by kids or by taller people… heck, some of you are taller than me.”

Gerulf looked around at the other kids. After a minute, he nodded. “The little ones won’t get it.” It sounded like a warning. “But the older kids understand.”

Baram wasn’t watching the kids. Neither was Via; Baram was splitting his attention between Via and Pocket-Claws-Neska. Viatrix’s eyes were firmly on their newest visitor.

And that visitor’s eyes were on the children. Her throat worked a few times. Swallowing? Gulping. “You… just like that?”

“We’re not stupid.” The boy’s voice had a little impatience in it this time. “Sometimes people don’t like being touched. Or shouted at sometimes, or they don’t like strawberries. It’s not rocket science.”

The girl made a sound like a stifled sob. “Not rockest science.”

“It’s not.” Now Gerulf didn’t sound so sure. “Right, dad?”

Baram turned his attention to the boy. Not his son by blood, but his son nonetheless. “Right.” He nodded. “Hard for lots of people to get, but not rockets.”

“See? Oh. Is this one of those things where grownups are dumb all the time?”

Baram barked out a laugh. It was quiet enough that he could hear the little noise the new girl made as well. He thought it was probably a laugh.

“Yeah. Yeah, this is one of those things.” She held out a hand, now, to Gerulf. “My name is Neska. Your… Viatrix says that I can stay here for a while, with my kids.”

“Aunt Via.” Gerulf shook her hand. “I’m Gerulf sh’Jaelie. Welcome to not-a-safe-house.”

And now, they all laughed: Neska, Baram, Via, and the children.

“That’s quite a name.”

“It’s better than ‘dad’s cave.'” Gerulf sounded pleased with himself.

“It’s a good name.” Baram tousled the boy’s hair. “It’s a good thing.” And they still weren’t, really, a safe house.

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This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/563294.html. You can comment here or there.

Hatred

Aug15

To [personal profile] kelkyag‘s prompt

Content warning… fantasy bigotry

It’s not something you can say ‘no’ to, Cathal.

So his mother had challenged him, at the tender age of eleven.

It’s just something we are.

Cathal had shaken his head. “No.” Her repudiated it. His mother wheedled.

That’s like centaurs saying they aren’t a four-legged hooved being, Cathal. It’s ridiculous.

Cathal had been unmoved by his mother’s ridicule, by her later logic, by her even-later yelling. his answer had been No, and that was that.

Nobody thought to ask him why – not his mother, not the others in the far-flung community. Let him pass, they advised his mother. It will be easier for everyone.

Slowly, reluctantly, Cathal’s mother accepted this advice. By the time her son was seventeen, she had ceased speaking to him about his heritage. By the time he was twenty-five, she’d stopped mentioning her own.

She’d always passed, living in the suburbs, keeping her gifts quiet. Now she just passed… more. Her son, after a few pointed remarks, kept the bigoted comments away from her house and her table.

By the time Cathal was thirty – and married, to as normal and white-bread a girl as was ever dreamed up – the two of them, mother and son, hand managed to delude themselves into believe there was no problem at all.

By the time Cathal started hunting, his mother was dead. His new friends asked no questions, either, and his victims weren’t often in a state to do so.

The one who knew had long since forgotten.

Cathal himself had internalized the hate long ago. By the time he was teaching his son how to kill dweomers, the words he’d heard in childhood were as long gone as his mother’s pleas.

You can’t be a dirty dweomer. Everyone knows they’re horrid cheats and filthy liars.

No.

It’s not something you can say ‘no’ to, Cathal.

Watch me.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/562970.html. You can comment here or there.

LAST CALL -Closing at noon EST – What I Want, What You Want

Aug14

I have opened a What I want What You Want Fundraiser to raise funds to throw at Djinni’s latest Icon Day.

General premise: I want to buy the 24-icon perk. You want fiction (I assume). I will write what you want, whatever it is, for tips.

Click through for more information!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/562897.html. You can comment here or there.

Talking to…

Aug11

To @Dahob’s prompt here – http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/561317.html – written on the bus yesterday.

Farrah came home from work to find herself already there.

Under cover of an umbrella, she unlocked the door to her small cottage. She was humming So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish as she dropped her purse on the table and popped open a beer. The rain was till pounding as she turned around to find herself looking herself in the face.

“What-”

“Who-”

Farah shook her head. “Okay, no, forget who. How?”

“That’s what I’d like to know! How’s you get into my house?” The doppelgänger’s voice sounded… squeaky? Strange, anyway.

“Your house? This is my house.” Farrah set down the beer on her kitchen counter. “Where did you come from? Is this some sort of joke?”

“Again, exactly what I’d like to know. I used a key. My key, since it’s my house. You?”

It was about then that Farrah realized what was wrong with the other woman’s voice. It sounded like listening to a recording of herself. And her face – the doppelgänger even had a zit, just where Farrah had gotten one this morning, only on the right side of the nose, not the…

…no. No, that was the mirror talking. Farrah’s was on the left side of her nose, and so was this woman’s zit.

“Even if someone had some reason to replace me,” she reasoned out. Who replaced mid-management at libraries, even in sci-fi stories? No one, that was who. “They wouldn’t have bothered with the zit.”

“If replacing me was even possible.” Her double picked up a similar line of thought. And no surprise at all, there. “It wouldn’t be… well, yeah, it wouldn’t be me. So… are you a clone? No, the zit. Evil twin?”

“Zit. Also: no goatee. Fetch?” It was like talking to herself. It was talking to herself.

“I don’t think so. Check me for seams?”

Seams… stitching… trousers. Trousers of time? “The fork?”

“Fork?” Her alternate self raised her eyebrows. “Flatware? …Oh. Oh. With the lightning?”

Thundered rolled outside, as if to punctuate the point. There were two routes to Farrah’s house from work; she’d taken the left-hand one today, just as the storm had broken. “Shit.” She shook her head. “I guess the right turn really is faster.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/561923.html. You can comment here or there.