Archive | October 17, 2013

Learning the Sira, a setting Fic

Oct17

This story takes place some time (generations) before the Rin/Girey tales.

“There is more that we do not know about the sira than we know.”

Instructor Birtelnyū was a short woman, with steel-grey braids longer than her spine. She was also one of the most terrifying instructors in the Edallee Acadamy; she had spent much of her life flinging sira.

“What we can say, definitively, about the sira would fill this cup.” She held up a tin mug. “And what there is left would fill the room. But I will teach you what I know, and that cup should be enough to fill your minds.”

Instructor Birtelnyū was not a kind woman, not by any definition, but the students still leaned forward at their tables.

“The sira,” she began, “is the force that powers all magic, and perhaps all life itself.

“It is found in the rocks of the earth – not in all rocks, but in certain ones – in currents in the ocean and the wind – and in certain living plants. Humans and animals sometimes have a current of sira within them, too, but we do not use that sira.”

She paused. Inevitably, a student raised their fingers. “Why not, Instructor?”

And just as inevitably, another student answered. “Because it’s forbidden.“

“We do not use that sira,” the instructor raised her voice, “because it is as wild as the wildest of the natural sira, and it burns to use it.”

“What about the sira of fire?”

“That one burns a little more literally. And yes, there is sira in many other things I have not named yet today. But you will begin as all students begin, with the sira in rock.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/583838.html. You can comment here or there.

Calenyena language – ack, vowels

Oct17

Okay,

This is what the vowels in Calenyena look like right now:
(Those in green are the most common transcriptions)

    English examples
ī ai "eye," as in light aɪ
i i as in sit, shit, hit ɪ
a ah, aa as in car, lob, off, mosque ɑː
â a as in cat, stab, mask æ
e eh, e as in let, enter, set ɛ
ē ie, ee as in reed, mead, sheet iː
u uh, u as in mud, usher, uncle ʌ
ō o as in note, road, roast oʊ
ū oo as in roost, newt, lute uː

Note: My accent is northeastern US.  These words sound right in my accent; I understand they won’t work for everyone. Recording to follow someone in the next few days.
 

The main problems are twofold:
One: the line-over-the-vowel; I can’t find the high ascii number cheat for these, meaning they’re a pain in the butt to put in any word. 
Two: I have trouble remembering some of them, because my default is to spell things with two vowels in place of one vowel sound, a la english.  Having a long E with one letter on the page is just sort of weird for me. 

Looking for potential other options, pls. 

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/583543.html. You can comment here or there.

Prepared, a story for my Real World Prompt

Oct17

To [personal profile] lilfluff‘s prompt: Prepping being useful in a non-apocalyptic crisis

The radio had been hollering about snow for days, and it had gone from hollering to hysteria in the last 24 hours.

Albert and Madeline checked their water supplies, brought in a few more loads of firewood, trimmed a few branches off the trees nearest the house. They made a thick casserole for dinner and watched a couple sitcoms.

Madeline’s mother called; she talked for a couple minutes and made sure everything was okay at home. Albert’s sister called; they gossiped for a couple minutes. The wind was starting to pick up when he got off the phone; they checked the front and back doors and closed the blinds.

They woke to a power outage and eighteen inches of snow. Albert built up the fire in the wood stove while Madeline shoveled the way to the road. They melted buckets of snow over the wood-burning stove – and boiled water for coffee.

Casserole reheated nicely over the stove, too, and then they sat back on the couch, warm in the glow of the fire. “Finally.” Madeline smiled over her coffee. “I thought the damn blizzard would never come.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/583249.html. You can comment here or there.

Friend to Friend, a drabble of Addergoole for @Kissofjudas

Oct17

Sometime after year 30 of the school but before year 45.

“If anyone should know, Luca…”

This was by a long stretch not the conversation that Reid wanted to be having right now. It wasn’t a conversation he wanted to be having ever.

But it was the conversation he was having.

Mostly, he was trying to have a conversation, and Luca was growling at him.

“If it was Caitlin…”

“If it was Caitlin, I would wish you the best of luck and possibly offer you some armour. My daughter is a tough nut to crack, Luca, and with her twin in tow, you would need all of your Mara endurance to survive. But it’s not my daughter we’re talking about. Nor is it yours.”

“My daughter isn’t old enough.”

“I think we both know that’s not the point, Luca. That aside… this is Mystral we are speaking of. The daughter of one of your former students.”

“And one of my former students herself.”

“As Nyx was mine.” Reid was not a snarly sort of guy, but right now he wanted to snarl back at the stubborn, rock-headed Mara.

“Nyx wasn’t the child of a student.”

“No.” It was getting harder and harder to not snap. “Perhaps I am a little bit quicker about this than you are, Luca. And, considering that your daughter almost is old enough… perhaps you should learn how to be a bit faster.”

That got a wing flap and a frustrated noise. But Reid knew he was getting through. “You. You and Mike and ‘Fina…”

“And everyone else, I’m sure. Luca. We want to see you happy, that’s all.”

“I’l talk to her.”

“Good.” Reid let out a breath. A tetchy Mara made the whole school anxious, and Luca had been tetchy for far too many years. “Good, Luke. You need it.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/583049.html. You can comment here or there.

On This Date: Addergoole Drabbles of Kendra

Oct17

October 17, 2004
“It’s all right,” Kendra reassured the scared-looking boy – man, legally – in front of her. “I have a trust fund.”

It, in this case, was the little pink lines on the stick in front of her, which would bring her number of children to something between eight and 11, considering her luck.

And add that much more money to the “trust fund.” Regine liked babies. Luckily, so did Kendra.

October 17, 2012

There wasn’t supposed to be anyone out here. There weren’t supposed to be any threats like this within a hundred miles of this city.

But the human at her door had suddenly grown fangs and started spitting out Workings.

“Get inside.” She snapped it to her youngest child’s father, who was probably old enough to know better. “Falke. Get the youngers and get them under cover.”

She grabbed her walking stick – 6 feet of hawthorn, with the thorns still in the top foot – and blocked the door. “You’re not getting anywhere near my kids, you bastard.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/582744.html. You can comment here or there.

This was going to be about the setting but then I spent 300+ words on the architecture…

Oct17

Unnamed Kink Setting Worldbuilding 1

Envision elaborate architecture – arches, steeples, towers – all of it built with an eye to defense.

These are cities which have been under siege before; which have been attacked by human foes and by monsters, by magic and by war engines. War isn’t a constant state, but someone might be coming next week is a constant mindset.

Start with the walls: any city in this land is surrounded by at least three tiers of walls; even the smallest town has two tiers. The largest cities have seven to ten, added onto as they have grown over the last hundred years.

Inside the outermost ring is grazing land, crop land. There are these things outside the walls, too; what’s inside the walls is a refuge when attacks come.

There are always houses on this land, unless the wall has just been built. When there is no more grazing land, work begins on another wall outside the last one.

Inside this level is cheap housing. These houses, like ancient Pueblo dwellings, have no doors on the first floor – often on the second floor, either. Access is from the third floor and up, via ladder from below.

There are so many wards around a city that, even if you can fly, flying in a city is almost impossible. Almost everyone uses a ladder.

Back to the buildings. These buildings are often adobe-covered. Deeper into the rings, the buildings have often been joined together; three or six one-family homes are used as the foundation for a taller multiple-family dwelling. The further towards the center you get, the more elaborate the buildings get, and the taller. The houses of the elite in the center are said to touch the sky (although generally no more than 13 stories tall, in modern terms).

As you look at the construction, you will easily note that both buildings and walls appear to be made out of a mish-mash of building materials. A great deal of effort has been made to unify the mish-mash into attractive patterns – sandstone spotted with brick in some sort of checkboard, for instance – but the materials themselves, on very close inspection, have very likely been used for something before.

Indeed, the gates that stud each wall look as if they are built from I-beams and odd slabs of wood, shaped into a pleasing form.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/582574.html. You can comment here or there.

What Have I Been Up To, A summary of the below page of Blog

Oct17

Things in red kindly request your attention

Meta!
Current Long-Form Story (50K+plus words) Projects
Dragons Next Door: Updated Landing Page
A week of Settings – Day One: Fairy Town
A week of Settings – Day Two: Blizard
A week of Settings – Day Three: Stranded
A week of Settings – Day Four: Superheros

Steam!Reiassan
Character Notes – Saydri
Character Notes – Enarēnarē
Character Notes – Tīrrēkkē
Magic Notes
Market Research – what do YOU want to see?

Kinnk!
Preliminary Market Research – what do YOU want to see?

Misc: Alien
One Year Ago / Fuze Surprise
Tir na Cali
Sport (One Year Later)

Real-World
The Prompt Call
Kitty, Kitty, Kitty
Cult

Addergoole
Rozen: His First Year
Basalt: His First Year
Nyyrikki: Her First Year
Orliath: Her Second Year
Cynara: Her Second Year
On This Date: Addergoole Drabbles of Jamian
On This Date: Addergoole Drabbles of Anatoliy
On This Date: Addergoole Drabbles of Aviv
On This Date: Addergoole Drabbles of Niassa
One Year Ago/Hello Tradition – Addergoole Year 12
The Cup Part III
The Cup Part IV
The Cup Part V
A Thing with Ribbons

Rewrite Character Notes: Shahin

Icon Days!
[personal profile] itsamellama is hosting an Icon Day!
[personal profile] mousibaldq is hosting a pet/animal icon day!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/582312.html. You can comment here or there.

A week of Settings – Day Four: Superheros

Oct17

Super-heroes, super-villains, aliens, altered beings, mutants; this story has it all… even reincarnation.

These stronger, tougher, faster metahumans live their lives on the stage, living out the stories they have created for themselves.

These aren’t those stories. These aren’t the high-flying exploits, these aren’t the daring rescues, these are the lies they tell the press nor the lies the press tells about them.

These stories are the superheros at home. Uncloaked, unmasked. These stories about about humanity… no matter the planet of origin.

<a href="http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/tag/verse:+superheroes
“>Superheroes is a tongue-in-cheek look at the super-powered genre.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/582135.html. You can comment here or there.

Orlaith: Her Second Year

Oct17

Eleventh 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)

September, Year 11 (2005) of the Addergoole School

If there was one thing her former Keeper had said to her that had stuck in Orlaith’s mind – and there had been far more than that, as Accalon was prone to talking quite a bit, and saying words like remember this while he did so – it was what he’d said about Silas.

Accalon saw things. He saw people’s futures, their worst, their best. Sometimes he saw what they wanted, or what could be done to change their path.

He’d seen the way Ora looked at Silas. Nobody else had really noticed, but Accalon, well, he saw things.

“That one. That boy you look at out of the corner of your eye.”

She’d felt guilty, but she hadn’t tried to deny it. “Silas.”

“Him.” His voice had shifted tone, into that odd sound he used when he was seeing some future somewhere. “He’s going to fall, far, Orlaith. He will fall into darkness and into evil. He will fall as far as any of Addergoole’s children has ever fallen, and, being an over-achiever, he will then fall further still.”

She’d tried to make some protest.

“Remember this. He will fall, and you will need to kill him. It will be your hand on the blade that ends his existence, Orlaith, or the world will fall instead.” His eyes had opened and he’d pinned her with a gaze. “Or.”

“Or?” It was either her nickname or another option. She grasped at it either way.

“Or you will bring him to the light. It will be a hard road – possibly harder than killing him – but you can do it. But you’ll need to be prepared.”

That was when her lessons had begun in earnest. And now… now her mission began. Accalon was gone. She was free, as free as any Addergoole student could be.

“So.” She had been talking to the table of students for a few minutes. Long enough to not be suspicious. “What do you think about Silas?”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/581760.html. You can comment here or there.