Archive | August 9, 2014

Robot, a story-test of Clockwork Apoc

Aug9

“You’re a robot,” they’d told him, “an automaton. We made you, we created you. You are a steam-powered device. You have no feelings, you have no emotions. You do what you are told.”

They clothed him in metal until he forgot he had ever had flesh. They told him what he was, and told him nothing else. They fed him a sludge they informed him would lubricate his joints, and they taught him that to fail to obey meant sharp pain – that, in essence, his programming would not allow him to disobey.

“You are our robot,” they told him, and parade him before tin-hat dictators and penny-ante princes. “You are our robot.”

They taught him to be their robot, until one day, he taught them that humans, unlike the robot they’d made him, could die.

This came from a 7th Sanctum prompt: The theme of this story: metaphorical conflict. The main character: neurotic robot. The start of the story: service. The end of the story: education.
It sort of wrote itself from that.

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Reiassan Demifiction – Shoes & Fashion (@inventrix) (Steam Era)

Aug9

The Lannamer Chronicle1

Fashion Stories

The mid-summer2 festival is always a great spectacle and a wonderful time to see what the fashion world holds, and this year was no different.

The Lady Etaememevvyo3 made, as is her wont in recent years, the most impressive splash with her details. You may remember the hat she wore last year, done in an ancient Bitrani-esque fashion but with decidedly Calenyena notes?

This year, of course, Etaevyo4 was under obligation to out-do herself, especially with her elder sister’s wedding so quickly upcoming. And outdo herself she did!

Her headpiece this year was a more sedate thing, hearkening back to the ancient styles of her ancestors. It had to be; she presumably wanted nothing to draw attention away from her footwear.

And, for the first time in many a mid-summer festival – or perhaps in her life – everyone was staring at Lady Etaememevvyo’s toes.

The boots she wore – they have to be called boots – went up to her knees, as a riding boot or a campaigning boot might. However, the soft felt of their nature – dyed in streaks and swirls to complement the solid colors of her dress – was attached to a hard wooden sole, which had a wedge heel of at least a hand-span.

What’s more, the felt had been cut away strategically, so that Etaevyo’s toes, the arches of her feet, and her ankles remained bare.

Rumor has it that she will be auctioning off these boots at Kaidebbee’s. Last year, the affectation she called a hat sold for enough to finance the Pyietnaazh Orphanage for an entire year.

1. After some consideration of newspaper titles, I decided, short of making up the Calenyena word for “talking stick (which I should do), “Chronicle” was the closest to a Calenyena concept while still very clearly saying “newspaper.”

2. Lit. “Hot and Wet season.” The Calenyena recognize three seasons – Cold, Hot/wet, and Harvest.

3. Etaememevvyo: Ee-tay-meemeev-vyoh

4. Etaevyo: as is common in this era, the newspaper is shortening the Lady’s name to the familiar first couple syllables+last couple syllables.

5. This newspaper is contemporary with Edally Academy.

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Reynard Spills his Story – a new story taking place in Fae Apoc/Addergoole ‘verse

Aug9

First: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/753621.html
Previous: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/763771.html

The woman – the woman it appeared Reynard might belong to – was staring at him. Her eyebrows were raised in clear doubt, and her expression was nothing he’d call a smile, no matter how generously he wanted to color the truth.

He shifted again. He knew that was a bad idea; every time he did it, another thorn pricked him. But he couldn’t help it. He’d never been all that good at sitting still.

“It’s not that exciting of a story.” It was a weak protest, in part because he was pressing against the orders and suggestions she’d put on him, in part because his brain was fogged and his thoughts were moving slower than molasses.

But it was a protest because of those things, too, and so he stalled for time while he tried to come up with a plausible coloring of events he barely remembered.

She gave him three heartbeats to believe he’d gotten a break. “At the moment, fox-boy, it is the most important story of your life, because it determines what happens next. Considering your current situation, I’d tell it carefully, concisely, and well if I were you.”

Was there a single woman who’d graduated Addergoole with a sense of humor?

Well, if he’d gone through Addergoole as a girl, he might not have, either. Reynard shrugged, despite the prickling of poison in his arms, and gifted his probably-Owner with the best smile he could muster up.

“Yes, ma’am. It was something like this…” He dropped his voice, and tried for the storytelling cadences he’d learned from his Mentor.

    Know, oh Mistress (he began), that I am not an evil man, not as aught but the book people would have you believe.

    (The woman leaned back, and something that could have been a smile crossed her lips.)

    But I was Named truly, and truly I lived up to my Name, ever since the day that the school released me…

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