Archive | July 2014

Knowing Doomsday, a drabble of Boom/Cynara/BoomTown

Jul19

After:
Unrepentant
Eriko
Revenge

Cya was not used to people not knowing her.

She was used to people not knowing her name went with her face – not here, not in Cynopolis/Boom Town/Her City. It was, after all, her city. But she was not used to people not knowing that her name went with her reputation. Not anymore.

There were a few, of course. Boom were big, but they weren’t actually the biggest crew in the world, and they weren’t the only crew of fae out there, doing things.

But they were loud – explosive, even – and that meant that most people, at least in this corner of what had once been the United States, had heard of Boom. They hadn’t always heard of Cynara, Red Doomsday. But when she said, “Cya, of Boom,” most people knew who she was.

Dysmas was an odd case – Dysmas, and, now that she had her in a box, Eriko. They knew Cynara. They knew that her face – which had, after all, not changed in fifty years – went with the name Cynara, although they were more likely to put cy’Drake with it than Doomsday.

It was like a loose tooth. She couldn’t help wiggling it.

Eriko was – not all that fun, not really. She was too stuck in her own little world, even now, even neck-deep in Cya’s world, to really understand to whom she was talking – or, more importantly in Cya’s way of thinking, to what.

So that left Dysmas to talk to. And she found, thus, that she kept seeking him out.

It took him a couple times to notice that she always seemed to be where he was. The third time she tracked him down – Found him, really – he was at a local market, looking over a tailor’s wares.

“You seem to have a knack for finding me.” He sounded like he was complaining. The tailor – who knew who was standing in his shop, since Cynara had Found him and offered him a place and custom – giggled nervously.

Dysmas didn’t understand. “What?”

“You were joking, yes, sir?” Dysmas carried himself like one of the Returned Gods, like he expected tribute. The tailor – Sania, his name was, John Sania – must have assumed, thus, that he was a friend of Cya’s. “She’s Doomsday. Of course she can find you.”

“Yes, of course.” Dysmas was not very good at hiding it when he was confused. “She’s… Cya, what is he talking about?”

She noticed the way the tailor found a way to be behind his counter, just then. She didn’t blame him. She coughed, politely. “I’m Doomsday,” she said, trying not to giggle. “I find things.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/753230.html. You can comment here or there.

Volunteer, a drabble of Tir na Cali

Jul18

I asked people here what their favorite Cali things were. This came from a backchannel prompt

“I hear you volunteered.”

The woman – girl, the girl – was looking at Tom in a way that left him feeling naked and exposed.

Of course he was naked, except the steel collar locked around his neck. He raised one hand to it. It was light, lighter than he expected, but it was still metal, around his throat. “Um. Yeah. Err. Ma’am.”

Her laugh sounded like bells. It had to be an affectation. Or she was really All Star Cheerleader of the Kinky Slave-owning Club. “I’m not the one you’re going to have to ma’am. And I believe you’ll be glad for it?”

“Ah?” Thomas coughed again. “And why is that?” He kept his eyes on her. It was best to keep his eyes on her.

“Because.” She gestured, florid and flowery, and he had to look. “These are mine. And, while they enjoy it, I doubt you would.”

In the shade of a marble awning, in the midst of the biggest garden-type-thing Tom had ever seen, four slaves posed languidly. By some definition, they were wearing more than him – they had tinkly little chains around their wrists and ankles, an they were smiling, hapy, mellow smiles.

Thomas coughed. “No. Ah, no, ma’am. Probably not.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/752643.html. You can comment here or there.

Moon Landing – Addergoole-Style

Jul18

Today’s news covered the 45th Anniversary of the Moon Landing, which, in my Addergoole-centric way, made me realize it’s been five years since I wrote the Addergoole story of the Moon Landing.

If You Believed…, titled from the R.E.M. lyrics, is set in Addergoole, 25 years after the moon Landing.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/752456.html. You can comment here or there.

Escape from Rochester – Camp Nano Day Seventeen (slow day)

Jul18

First Line of yesterday:

The world was on fire. Ahead of us, where Syracuse would be, the pre-sunrise sky was lit up with orange and shadowed with grey.

Last Line of yesterday:

“She shouldn’t be moved,” Lewis sighed, “but we shouldn’t’ stay here, either.”

Current Word Count:
25143

Words Yesterday:
1002

Par:
25500

Death Count:
6+

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/751998.html. You can comment here or there.

In Which Physics is not my friend (Gardening)

Jul18

We have 8 4×6 raised beds against the garage in two 4-bed rows, made of 1×8″ locust boards.

We bought – late in the season because of shenanigans – locust enough to raise 4 of the beds up to 16″ (The posts were left tall last year for that purpose) and – even later in the season – compost/topsoil mix to fill them.

Saturday, I hauled approx. 100 gallons of dirt (mostly in 5 gallon buckets) to get one bed filled up to the top & transplanted a couple of plants that had been waiting (one poor little tomato plant is like 8″ tall and already giving me one solitary tomato).

Yesterday, I was working on leveling the back beds up to their first boards before adding in the second row. I stood on the front board to smooth out some dirt…

…and the board tipped backwards out of its screwholes, neat as you please.

Whoops.

Longer screws, more screws, board replaced. But seeing all the roots there was kinda neat. Maybe my next project, I’ll make clear plexi raised beds.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/751683.html. You can comment here or there.

Escape from Rochester – Camp Nano Day Sixteen

Jul17

First Line of yesterday:

I don’t think we’ve ever acted so fast; we turned, we dove, as a team, taking him to the ground.

Last Line of yesterday:

I started to pry myself out of my seat, and then realized I didn’t really have to; I could see it out the side windows, too.

Current Word Count:
24141

Words Yesterday:
1487

Par:
24,000

Death Count:

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/751488.html. You can comment here or there.

Revenge? a continuation of Boom/Cynara (For @inventrix)

Jul16

After Eriko

It was tempting to some small, vindictive part of Cynara to leave Eriko down there.

The cells she had built were two stories underground, encased in solid rock and paneled in thick enough hawthorn to make any Workings pretty much impossible. They were connected to the city’s grid – there was electricity, and water, and air – but they were, rather than under her house, under a warehouse in a completely different sector of the city. If she wanted to, she could close the outside door, seal the earth over it, and pretend there had never been anyone there at all, and nobody except her and Eriko would ever know the difference.

They – Boom – were, however, theoretically the good guys. It would take a fae a long time to starve to death – very long, if the things Cya had learned were any indication – and it was a horrible way to die. Not among the worse, but certainly not among the easiest ways Cya knew.

Thus, she had one of the City employees detailed to sending food down three times a day, and once a week, she visited the bitch herself.

“I brought you some books.” She slid them through the door slot. “I remember you liked foreign studies, back then. There’s some modern pieces from France and Germany, Italy and Russia – or, I mean, where they used to be.”

“How did you get these?” It had been three weeks, and those were the first words Eriko had said to her.

“I’m a Finder.” Dysmas hadn’t even known who Boom were. It was possible that Eriko didn’t know the third-most famous thing about Cynara.

“What, you find lost keychains?” The woman was locked in a hawthorn box and she still managed to sound like she was sneering.

“I find everything.” She knew she sounded cocky; when it came to her Finding, she was cocky. “I found you. I found these books.”

“Yeah, great, Nancy Drew. But these books – they’re from another continent. How did you get there?”

“I didn’t.” Not that it hadn’t occurred to her to try – but that was a long, long time to be away from her crew. “I found the books.” She decided to spell it out, just in case Eriko really was that stupid. “It’s my innate, Eriko.”

“You didn’t have that when you were in school.”

“Not so much my first year. And what I had, I didn’t have much call to use.” She had always known where Zita and Howard and Leo were. It was just that she couldn’t do anything about it. “But you know, powers develop over time.”

“Mine didn’t.”

“You have to work it, like a muscle – not that I’d recommend trying, in there. It’ll give you a hell of a headache to even try.”

“You know this is going to drive me insane, right? It’ll drive anyone insane – any fae – if you leave them in here.”

Cya tapped the door. “I’m rather counting on it. It’s the only fair punishment I can come up with.”

~

“I brought you some puzzles.”

“Why?”

Eriko had been in there for three weeks. Cya hadn’t done mind Workings – couldn’t do mind Workings through the hawthorn and rowan – but she had enough experience with insanity to recognize signs without magic.

“Because human beings aren’t meant to be alone, and being alone without stimulation is likely to drive you crazy.”

“We’re not human.”

“I’m not human. I’m not so sure about you.”

“What’s that supposed to me?”

“Look at yourself for a moment. Look in a mirror.”

“I don’t want to.”

“And why not?” Cya kept her voice calm.

“I don’t want to, that’s all.”

“Your Mask is down.”

“Of course it is. In here…”

“In there, it would take constant, endless effort to maintain a Mask. Easier to just not look in the mirror.”

“What would you know about it? What would you know about being human? You haven’t changed, you haven’t aged…”

“And neither have you. But that’s not what you want to believe, and it’s not what you want the world to believe.” Cya pushed the puzzles through the food slot. “You want to be human. And humans – and fae – do badly in isolation.”

“You put me here. You locked me in this box. I thought you wanted me to go insane.”

“I did.” Cya chewed on her lip for a moment. “I put you in there to punish you. To hurt you.”

“For doing the same goddamned thing as everyone else did, back then. For doing the same thing as was done to me. For hurting your precious Leo, when I’m sure he went and hurt someone else in his time.”

“You know what the worst of it was?” Cya tried not to think about Leo and Gabi, about Gabrielle’s broken belief that he’d ruined everything. “For all of us? It was watching our friends be broken, be hurt, be lost and confused, and not being able to do anything about it.” It was being told we weren’t supposed to care. It was being helpless to do anything.”

Eriko scoffed. “Tell me another one about how bad you had it. Tell me another story about how your lives sucked so bad.”

Cynara stood up. “I think I’ll wait until you can tell me yourself.”

“Wait!”

Cya left.

~

“I brought you some magazines.”

“Magazines, seriously? Where do you – no, don’t tell me. You Find things. Some somehow, you found magazines. Because you’re fucking Wonder Woman.”

“Give me your word.” It wasn’t planned, this time; the words were out of her mouth and then Cynara wondered what she meant.

She had just enough time to think about it before Eriko asked.

“Excuse me?”

“Give me your word that if I open this door, you won’t try to escape.”

“Why? And don’t give me that shit that humans aren’t made for isolation yadda, yadda. Why?”

“Because I want to talk to you.”

“You’re talking just fine.”

“You’re saying you don’t want to see another face?”

“I’m saying you’re cy’Drake and you don’t do anything without a nice complicated reason and seventeen loopholes.”

The laugh surprised Cya. When was the last time she’d laughed like that? When her grandson’s youngest had spit up on her shirt, that was when – and the whole family had been a little confused about that.

“What?” The woman on the other side of the wall was suddenly cautious.

“It’s just…” Cya pulled herself back together. “It’s nice to hear. I’m going to open the door. Don’t try to escape.”

“I’m… you’re insane, you know that?”

Cya muttered a set of Workings under her breath, hanging them on her like weapons, and swung the door open. She found she was grinning until her cheeks hurt. “Insane?”

She pulled up a chair, blocking the exit, and pulled up a second for Eriko. They were down here, in case she wanted to do this.

“Yeah. Insane. Certifiable.”

She found she was trying to stretch the grin further. “Nobody left to certify me. You’re showing your age.”

She sat, cautiously, just inside the door of her cell. “I’m old. Why are you laughing?”

“Because.” Cya snorted again. “Because it’s funny.”

“That I’m old?”

“Oh, that’s hilarious.” She giggled, relishing the sound of it, the feel of it in her mouth. “You’re old. No. No, it’s funny that you see it and you don’t even know what you’re seeing.”

“You’re nuts. Insane.”

“Yes.” Cya giggled again. “Yes, yes I am.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/751289.html. You can comment here or there.

Escape from Rochester – Camp Nano Day Fifteen

Jul16

First Line of yesterday:

“Hey!” Mary managed to force the door open the rest of the way. “I wasn’t the one who screamed!”

Last Line of yesterday:

And by Remembered, I mean he grabbed Dorian by the back of the neck.

Current Word Count:
22,654

Words Yesterday:
1511

Par:
22,500

Death Count:
6?
3 otherwise out of action
unknown wounded
Plus several dozen weasels, hamsters, and terriers dead.
And one dead Swamp Thing

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/750643.html. You can comment here or there.

I think this is my favorite 10-cent description of Tír na Cali yet

Jul15

me: During US Civil War, California said “no thank you,” West coast split off into its own country.
me: modern era, except that the “US” – the rest of the country IRL – never quite got out of the 50’s morality – rather prim, rather prudish, except underground – and Tir na Cali is known as a place of sexual licentiousness – run by a woman! – and sin. And they evil Californians like to steal away teenagers to California and sell them into slavery. Debauched slavery!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/750534.html. You can comment here or there.