Archive | February 2014

Treacherous Sister, a drabble of Aunt Family (Zenobia) for the Random Bonus Card

Feb6

This is to [personal profile] kelkyag‘s prompt to this bingo card.

It fills the “Treacherous Sister” square.

Zenobia is the post-American-Civil-War Aunt in the Aunt Family; her tag is here and the family landing page is here.

The Icon (in DW) is of another Aunt, Ruan. I don’t have one for Zenobia yet.

This is semi-concurrent with Securing One’s Own Legacy.

It was odd things that tipped you off.

The way your sister Alexandra wore her hat when she went out; the way your sister Bernadette tried not to giggle when Alexandra stepped out, the way your mother was more fierce than normal with the knife, preparing dinner, and more generous than usual with your portions.

It was odd things that saved you – the necklace your grandmother had given you, that whispered warnings, the flowers an uncle had shared, that gave off a dangerous odor, the way Alexandra never could learn to step lightly, even when she was plotting murder.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/659011.html. You can comment here or there.

What Happened After School? Pania and Efrosin

Feb6

This is a brief summary of the after-Year-9 lives of two of my characters from . I may do more of these, if there is interest.

After this

Let me be your boyfriend, Efrosin had suggested, and Pania had, in all honesty, really considered it. He was a nice guy, when he was trying to be. He was the father of her son, which was another argument both in his favor and against him. After all, she hadn’t asked for that.

In the end, what killed his chances was simple. “Figure out who Efrosin is,” she told him, as gently as she could. “When you can tell me that, with a straight face and in full honesty, then we can talk.”

She felt like a hypocrite as she said it, knowing full well that she didn’t really know who Pania was either. But she said it, and he left, like a weight off her chest.

She tried being Good Keeper Pania, and found that it was harder than she’d expected (and that Terach also found it difficult to be Good Kept, and had no interest in making it easy for her to be Good Keeper).

Efrosin came to visit from school, and she told him, gently, that College Party Boy was a nice role, but she didn’t think it was him.

She tried being Older Role Model Pania, and found that frustrating, and the Eleventh Cohort difficult to mentor. So she tried being Nobody’s Ever Going to Victimize Me Again Pania, and that, at least, was rewarding, although she had a feeling Doug didn’t buy the act.

Efrosin’s Good College Student role was even harder to believe than the party boy.

She moved on to Sharpshooter Pania on a whim, and found that there, there was something she really enjoyed. Her Mentor was surprisingly unsurprised by this, and brought in an ancient fae to teach her proper use of bow and arrow and a young fae to teach her better gun skills.

By the time she graduated, she’d found that Mom and Deadly Aim Pania was a comfortable fit… but Efrosin was still trying to figure out something better to be than Tom Cat Eff. She made sure he saw his son every month or so, and made no further effort to try to change him.

~

Pania graduated and moved to college, taking her two sons with her. Efrosin… still didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life. Everyone else liked the roles, why couldn’t she?

He made sure he saw his sons every chance their mothers gave him, difficult as Reese and Pania had not settled close to one another. He went from college – high honors, but what did it matter – to the Peace Corps, because maybe there he could figure out something he wanted to do with his life?

Pania picked the college with the best preschool program, picked a major that gave her plenty of time with her children and the chance of a high-grossing career, and practiced both gun and bow every weekend.

Efrosin came back from the Peace Corps with the realization that he liked the rush he got from helping people, and got a job as an EMT in a city equidistant from Reese and Pania.

The world ended three years into Pania’s college career, when her sons were seven and six.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/658757.html. You can comment here or there.

The Cat in the Window, a story for Wordless Wednesday #5

Feb5

This is written in response to Wordless Wednesday #5, from Roc Nano, a Nanowrimo writing group based in my hometown.

“It’s a snow cat.” Dorothy leaned on the windowsill, looking placidly at her creation. “See, there’s her tail, and her ears.”

“She has a very short tail.” Adam was less impressed. Adam was less impressed by most things, though.

“It’s a Manx snow cat. They exist, you know.”

“You just couldn’t make a tail properly, could you?”

“I didn’t make it.” She didn’t even bother looking at him when she said it. “It just appeared.”

It took her brother a moment to decide to ignore that. “What’s it doing in the window, anyway? Aren’t snowmen -“

“It’s a snow cat.”

“-snow creatures supposed to be out in the yard where people can see them?” Adam got the smug look that he always did when he’d made a point.

“I suppose it wants to come in.” Dorothy breathed on the window and drew cat ears in the condensation.

“It doesn’t even look like a cat.” Adam shook his head. “And now you think it wants to come in?“

“Well, it’s rubbing against the window, look.” The snow-thing seemed closer, now, the snowy globe that served as a head pressed against the glass. “I’m going to let it in.”

Adam’s lip wobbled. “I’m telling mom!”

He fled before Dorothy got the latch on the window open.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/658681.html. You can comment here or there.

Balancing Odds

Feb5

For [profile] kunama_wolf‘s prompt to my December Bingo Card – it fills the “evening the odds” square.

Addergoole has a landing page here on DW and here on LJ; the original series lives here.

1800, somewhere in England

Feu Drake eyed the woman in front of him over his tea. “You are an interesting woman.”

“Thank you.” She sipped her tea in turn, decorous despite the shackles on her wrists. “And you are an interesting young man… Ignazio, was it?”

“That’s as good a name as any.”

“‘Fire,’ jae’Fire-Drake. You are not interested in subtlety, are you?”

“I am not certain jae is appropriate here, Miss… Attwater, was it?”

“Du’Nicor.”

“Ah, yes. Maya Attwater, named the Nicor. You liked that better than knucker, or you were Named when the word was still nicor?“

“You’re a well-educated young man, aren’t you?”

“I endeavor to be. Although I would argue the young in any company but yours.” He sipped his tea again – it was a very nice blend – and smirked at the woman.

“Are you calling me old, Ignazio?”

“Far be it from me to impugn my elders.”

“At this rate, I’m going to believe you don’t actually like me.” Her shackles clattered as she sipped her tea. “You do get such good tea. however do you do it?”

“I own a tea room, Miss Attwater. It comes with the territory.”

“And such an interesting occupation that is for one of your lineage…”

“But you presume again.”

“I am known to be presumptuous. Now, tell me, are these silly shackles really necessary?”

“Miss Attwater, you are known to be several things. One of them is, indeed, presumptuous. Another is that you are almost universally fatal to the men you spend time with. And, as you have expressed some interest in spending some time with me, in, I believe you said, seeing what there was to see when you got this suit off of me, well, yes. I believe they are necessary.”

“They wouldn’t stop me, you know.”

“I am simply evening the odds, Miss Attwater.”

“Do you really have to call me that?” She set her tea down with a thump.

Finally, Feu Drake smiled. “Miss Attwater, there are any number of things I could call you. considering your situation, I think, if I were you, I would be satisfied with the niceties.”

Her shackled hand raised halfway to the collar around her neck – like the rest of the chains holding her, it was made of wood – and then dropped back to her lap as her chains pulled her short. “You are quite unfair.”

“That, my lovely Maya, is the point.”

See wiki here, for Nicor/knucker, and wiki here for tearoom.

Feu Drake teaches Law at Addergoole.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/658304.html. You can comment here or there.

Snowed In

Feb5

Technically, I might have been able to make it to work. It’s not a state of emergency, just a state of “Hrrm, might be inadvisable to travel.”

I stayed home.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/658165.html. You can comment here or there.

February is World Building Month. Day Five: Vas’ World

Feb5

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

Every day in February, I will answer one question about any one of my settings.

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

The fifth question comes from [personal profile] clare_dragonfly and is for Vas’ World

Are there other colonized planets in this universe?

Yes. 🙂

The feeling I have for Vas’ World is that the team comes from a densely settled grouping of worlds which is engaged in the slow and steady exploration and colonization of worlds further and further away, including engaging in diplomatic relations with other sentient species.

They have been working on colonizing worlds long enough that the original drop team that accidentally landed here has had time to adapt, evolve, and create a new society; at least a century, no matter what Lord of the Flies tells us.

(This might actually go along with my “colony” subcategory of Misc: Space stories).

Vas’ team’s job is to scout out the world for possible colonization; they are the preliminary team. Had everything been normal, a smoothing-and-starting team would have come in, and then, after that, the colonists. The organization they work for has this down to an artform, with procedures and rules for every experienced situation – this is part of the problem; they have never before experienced a lost colony (somehow).

In terms of extant sci-fi universes, this feels like Heinlein, Asimov, Star Trek – humanity started spreading out and just kept spreading out. Losses of a single colony ship here and there were, like losses of a wagon on the Oregon trail, sad but to be expected.

My feel is that Vas’ world is far enough off the beaten path that it was not slated to be explored until many closer planets had been colonized. How the original team ended up there is still a mystery (unless that story floating around about a planet that popped out of nowhere is in this world…)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/657588.html. You can comment here or there.

Gone Rummaging

Feb4

To [personal profile] meridian_rose‘s prompt to my other bingo call.

I didn’t know what I needed; I just knew something was lacking. Rummage sales were perfect for that, so I went… rummaging.

The third sale on the block was something different, an old house I didn’t remember seeing, tables all over the yard and in to the garage, boxes all over the tables and onto the ground. Old almanacs in foreign tongues, old gizmos with foreign faces, old dresses with antique laces.

In the back corner of the garage, I found it: a door frame with door, both carved all over. Something about it – of course I stepped through.

Next: Through the Door

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/657026.html. You can comment here or there.

He Couldn’t Fail, a microfic

Feb4

This is to stryck‘s prompt to this bonus-round call to the [community profile] dailyprompt prompt “I can’t fail.”

It would probably have come out better if I knew anything about football… sorry.

There was a witch in the stands. There had to be.

Ernie was trying to miss throws. He was trying to fumble the ball. He’d even tried to run into the opposing team’s biggest guy: in short, he was trying to fail, because if he didn’t…

There had to be a witch in the stands.

He grabbed at the point of the ball and suddenly found the whole thing in his hands, threw it haphazardly, and found it flying true towards his teammate, tripped into the opposing team and ended up getting in their way just enough to tangle them up.

There had to be someone jinxing him. He couldn’t fail.

He made his second touchdown of the night and tried not to cry. Grown men don’t cry, certainly not football players, even college players. The team was cheering. They hadn’t done this well in years. They hadn’t done this well ever.

Someone was messing with him. There had to be someone in the stands.

Ernie made a last-ditch effort. He’d seen someone do this by accident, once, slip, fall just the right way, and fracture their leg. He found the muddiest patch of ground – it was a wet day after a wet week, so there was a lot of that – and let his heel slip out from under him.

The ball flew at him as he dropped and, on instinct, Ernie caught it.

There might be a witch in the stands. There had to be.

But there was also, front and center, the mafioso who had told him he had to fail today.

There had to be someone jinxing him.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/656850.html. You can comment here or there.

I really need a “Bingo” Icon

Feb4

So… [personal profile] ysabetwordsmith just linked to a Bingo Generator, including lists she made, including:

Chromatic Characters
People with Disabilities
Asexuality & Demisexuality
Gentle Fiction (No Sex, Violence, or Foul Language)
Emotions
Themes
Genres
Kinks
Characterization Tropes
Setting Tropes
Plot Tropes
Motif Tropes

This, this is awesome.

I made a card. *looks innocent*

Born of a Fish 705 Foolish Wishes 750A(French) A Locked Trunk Biting the foot [The Three Languages] 671
[World Tree] Cherry Blossoms [Butterfly of Transformation] [Divine rewards and punishments 779 ](German; German) [Fear]
[Worry] Accidental Marriage FREE SPACE [The theft of fish 1] [Tom Thumb] 700 (German)
[Music lessons for wild animals 151] (German) Rummage Sale / Antique Shop Patchwork World [Odd Couple] [Mother / Father Knows Best]
[Primal Instincts] The Treacherous Sister 315 Greed 68A (The Boy and the Filberts; Aesop) The Magic Bird Heart 567 (German) [I Yam What I Yam]

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/630173.html. You can comment here or there.