Archive | February 25, 2014

The Collar Job, Part VII (Tír na Cali/Leverage fanfiction)

Feb25

Part I (and on LJ)

Part II (and on LJ)

Part III (and on LJ)

Part IV (and on LJ)

Part V (and on LJ)

Part VI (and on LJ)

This is … what happens when you let me watch an entire season of Leverage in a week and a half. *cough* Tír na Cali/Leverage fanfiction crossover.

It’s written in an experimental style for me, and, well, it’s fanfic, so pls. be kind.

Luck of the draw pulled it up twice on my list in a day, after being off rotation for over a week!

Fade in from commercial to Eliot’s face and the back of Anastasia. Her red hair is in a loose ponytail that hangs all the way down her very-straight spine, and her hands are tight at her sides.

“Before you kill me, there’s something you should know.”

Eliot looks up at her, his hair falling in his face yet again. “Who says I’m going to kill you… my Lady?” His eyes drop to her bare hands as he tacks on the honorific.

Her voice is soft as she answers, and rushed, but each word is clipped off with military precision. “You’re an angry black ops operative my darling sister gifted me. There’s only one reason to do that.”

“You can’t know I’m black ops.” His feet shift.

“It’s a very distinctive stance.” She smirks faintly. “So – before we get to my rooms. Before you kill me, you need to know that my will does not, as Alessia believes and probably told you, leave everything to her. Any slaves in my possession are willed to the Agency.”

Eliot stills. “Assuming I was here to kill you – I’m not saying I am – why would that stop me?”

“Because if my sister convinced you to put on a collar so that you could get close to me, she probably told you that you’d go free when the job was done. And you won’t.”

Despite everything, Eliot laughs. “Lady, your sister couldn’t convince me of anything.”

She doesn’t shift much, but she does manage a little bit of a smile. “Then we have something in common. Let’s get to my room where we’re less likely to be overheard.”

The Airport

“Charlotte Prentiss, Duchess of Hanover.” Sophie is dressed to the nines, the very picture of a travelling Duchess. Behind her, the remaining members of the team appear to be her retinue; Hardison and Parker in well-tailored suits, presumably her bodyguards, Nate as her secretary. Nate passes over the paperwork to the customs agent. “I’m here to visit my good friend Lord Lorcan ap Malaney, Baron of Red Bluff. These are my… assistants.”

Flash back to the office

“The problem with running a con in Tír na Cali – well, there’s a lot of problems, for one.” Hardison looks as if he’s neither bathed nor shaved in days. “Start with the nearly – I did say nearly – unhackable computer systems, then add on their secure borders and top it off with they do not like Americans and we don’t like them. This is not difficult, this is impossible.”

“Lucky for us.” Sophie’s accent has already begun to shift to something more urbane and aristocratic. “We are not Americans.”

Cut to Commercial

Part VIII – http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/685164.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/679176.html. You can comment here or there.

February is World Building Month. Day Twenty-Four: Unicorn/Factory

Feb25

[personal profile] piratekitten has declared February world-building month.

Every day in February (or most days), I will answer one question about any one of my settings.

The question post is here, please feel free to add more questions!

The twenty-fourth question comes from Kelkyag and is for Unicorn/Factory

How and why were the unicorns chained?

There is a bit of an answer in this story.

The Silver Road is a major magical artifact, created by the application of a great deal of very dark and horrible magic, most of it fueled by blood and by lives.

The creators of the Factories knew from previous experiments that they needed a way to clean the air and the water; their current scrubbing technology was pretty much non-existent, and their first factories sickened the nearby villages and poisoned the food, thus denying them of a source of workers, people to buy their products, or a reason to exist at all.

The unicorns were there. They were, before the Factories, before the Silver Road, far more wilds, and their attacks were far much more… attacks, and less an unwritten contract with villagers. They were much like tigers or bears, living where they would and venturing out when they needed or desired prey.

(In that time, unicorns often left their seed in other creatures, which led to some truly horrifying beastlike beings.)

The makers of the Factory tried other solutions first, bribery (leaving virgins on stakes), hunting, domesticating, but, just as their normal stone roads were ripped up and destroyed, every attempt they made to bring the unicorns over to their side failed.

(There are many who believe that even then, the unicorns were too tied to the villages, and vice-versa. If one was against the Factories, both would be.)

The Silver Road, paved with the blood of unicorns and villagers alike, ended the rebellion, at least for the time being. It chained not just the unicorns, but the towns, the villages, and the factories – as well as those who made the factories.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/678923.html. You can comment here or there.

February is World Building Month, a Summary to Date

Feb25

February is World-Building Month
The Questions! (still need 4 more)
Other People Playing!
Day One – Planners
Day Two – Aunt Family
Day Three – Addergoole
Day Four – Fae Apoc
Day Five – Vas’ World
Day Six – Tír na Cali
Day Seven – Stranded
Day Eight – Dragons Next Door
Day Nine – Unicorn/Factory
Day Ten – Aunt Family
Day Eleven – Addergoole
Day Twelve – Stranded
Day Thirteen – Tír na Cali
Day Fourteen – Space Accountant
Day Fifteen – Worldbuilding Meta
Day Sixteen – Space Accountant
Day Seventeen – Aunt Family
Day Eighteen – Fairy Town
Day Nineteen – Fae Apoc
~
Day Twenty-Four – Unicorn/Factory

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/672815.html. You can comment here or there.

Sporting, a story of Fae Apoc for the January Giraffe Bingo (@Rix_scaedu)

Feb25

To [personal profile] rix_scaedu‘s prompt to my January orig-fic card. This fills the “Sports & Games” slot.

This is probably in my Fae Apoc setting; its landing page is here.

“Run.”

She hissed it in his ear, and the man had no choice but to run.

“Flee!”

She called it after him, and so, of course, he fled. She’d given him pants, at least, a shirt, and shoes, although all were too thin for this forest, for the trees that lashed at him and the rocks that caught his feet.

“Escape!” It echoed through the woods, an order; it echoed through the man’s body and self, an imperative. It echoed in her dogs’ barks, a taunt. It echoed in the pounding of his feet, a song.

Run.

His feet hit the ground, hit the ground again. He could run quickly; when there had been tracks, when he had had a name, he had been a track runner, a good one, a prize-winning one. Now, he was nothing but the running, and so he did it with every ounce of his being.

Flee.

Behind him, the hounds were baying. Behind him, the chase was beginning. A little bit of a head start, of course; it wasn’t sporting otherwise. And then they would come after him. They would chase him, unless he could flee.

Escape.

Somewhere, deep inside him, the man knew what happened to the runners. He knew he wasn’t the first; he knew that most of them never came back, and those that did never came back more than once. This was his third run. He had to escape. He had to find a way out of here.

Run. Flee. Escape.

The man’s feet caught on a vine and he stumbled, but there was no pause, no option but to keep running.

A branch hit him in the face; a thorny vine ripped at his shirt. His lungs burned. He kept running.

Sun shone through the forest ahead, sunlight; he had not seen sunlight in his memory. Sunlight meant freedom. He kept running.

Run, flee, escape.

The woman followed, the hounds followed. The man kept running.

Run-flee-escape.

Feet pounded.

Feet bled, and kept pounding.

Feet shuffled in a run that was mostly stumble.

The man tripped on a root and fell, hanging at the edge of a precipice.

Run.
Flee.
Escape.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/678670.html. You can comment here or there.

The Collar Job, Part VI

Feb25

Part I (and on LJ)

Part II (and on LJ)

Part III (and on LJ)

Part IV (and on LJ)

Part V (and on LJ)

This is … what happens when you let me watch an entire season of Leverage in a week and a half. *cough* Tír na Cali/Leverage fanfiction crossover.

It’s written in an experimental style for me, and, well, it’s fanfic, so pls. be kind.

Fade in from commercial to Eliot kneeling on the floor in front of two redheaded women.

“Stand up and come with me.” The redheaded women are both looking at Eliot, but it’s the one in yoga pants that speaks.

Eliot looks at her; he doesn’t move, not yet. Lady Alessia is still holding the remote; she jabs her finger at the button. This time, it’s a long shock, nearly enough to knock him out.

“That’s enough.” Anastasia holds out her hand for the remote. “He’s a lovely gift, Alessia, thank you. But if I’m going to control him, you’l have to give me the remote.”

There’s a moment where Alessia hesitates, frowning. Then she nods. “Of course, dear sister. Here. And the keys as well, although I’d be careful with unlocking him. He’s a bit… feral.”

“You always give me the nicest presents.” The remote goes into Anastasia’s back pocket, and her arm goes under Eliot’s shoulders. “Stand up,” she repeats, in exactly the same tone as before, “and come with me.”

The Office

“So this is the ‘intake database’ for the slave markets of Tír na Cali.” Hardison’s air quotes seem to cut the air. “And they’re very thorough. Everything about every slave they ‘intake’ comes into this system. It’s one of the most secure in the world. One of.” He pokes the screen. “It took me almost half an hour to crack it, and I only have about fifteen minutes before they notice I’m here.”

He flips through photographs of naked people, one after another. Most of them are young, many of them are handsome. “This is the intake for the week Eliot and King went missing. And here is Brendan King.” Their mark – their former mark – looks lost and sad, standing against height markers like a prisoner, wearing nothing but handcuffs and a plastic collar.

Hardison takes a breath. It has none of his usual dramatic flair; his hand hesitates on his remote.

“And here is Eliot.”

There are stats, lines and lines of information and notes. None of them are looking at that. They are all looking at the photo of their friend and teammate, handcuffed, shackled, and collared, in the process of lunging at the camera already.

“Right.” Nate puts his hands on the table. “Let’s go steal an Eliot.”

“Any Eliot?” Sophie’s lips purse. “I’ve found myself rather fond of the one we had.”

“There are no other Eliots. Nobody else is an option.”

“I’m teasing, Parker. I’m just teasing. Of course we’re going to steal our Eliot. “

“Because he’s the best.” Parker is trying to smile; it’s obvious she’s not quite getting there.

“Because he’s ours.

Tír na Cali

Lady Anastasia walks Eliot down the hall. Her arm is still wrapped around his shoulders, although his footsteps, even shackled, are growing more steady.

They turn down a quiet, dimly-lit stretch of hallway, and she releases him. She takes three steps away; her stance shifts, feet spread, hands lazy at her sides. Eliot, bound as he is, still gives the impression he’s ready for a fight.

“Before you kill me.” Anastasia’s voice is rough but certain. “There’s something you should know.”

Part VII: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/679176.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/678175.html. You can comment here or there.