Archive | April 2, 2015

Leaving the Swamp

Apr2

Written to [personal profile] clare_dragonfly‘s question here: How did sa’Skin-Taker end up at Addergoole?

After A Vision to Purchase.

~1895

The visions wouldn’t leave her alone.

It had been three years since the woman had visited her. The payments had come as promised, quality stuff, and with some planning Chantal could have lived for years on the largess of her client. But the visions wouldn’t stop.

She had moved out to the swamp because she did not like touching people anymore. Touching people led to visions; visions led to nightmares and that worrisome time when she couldn’t separate the vision from the reality in front of her. But she was touching no-one, speaking to nobody but the man who brought her goods and took her furs, and yet the visions kept coming.

She knew what she had to do. The Fur-taker packed up the things she would need, leaving much of the cabin’s supplies where they were. Either someone else would find the cabin and use it, or she would be back.

The man who brought her food was willing enough to take her to dryer land. The fur-taker assumed he’d probably gotten rather rich on her over the years, but she hadn’t been interesting in accumulating wealth, and she’d been less concerned about his honesty than his reliability.

He proved half her suspicions correct and the other half slightly less correct when he handed her a leather bag at the edge of the water. The bag jingled quietly as she took it; the fur-taker raised her eyebrows at the man.

“I’ve put it aside for you over the years. You’ve done well by me and it was the least I could do.” He handed her two pieces of paper. “That, and these. Train tickets. You said you were going to San Francisco.”

The Fur-taker was rusty on her human manners. “Thank you,” she said, more cautiously than gratefully.

“We’re each given to do what we may. Do what you can, Fur-taker.”

“I will,” she assured him. That was why she was leaving the safety of her swamp, after all.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/917874.html. You can comment here or there.

April Theme Poll – open to everyone!

Apr2

I will write at least one public story, as well as the two for the Patreon rewards, this month or early next month, based on the chosen theme.

This poll will remain open until 4/5/15, 10:00 p.m. EST. If you do not have a DW account, you can vote in the comments.

My Patreon is here.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/917617.html. You can comment here or there.

April A-Z Blogging Challenge: A is for Apocalypses

Apr2

The Meme Master Post

A is for Apoc burning bright…

It’s hard for me to say anything about apocs that I haven’t already said. After all, I’ve written about apocs here, here, and here.

I grew up with the vague feeling that the world might end any day. My parents had some feelings that way, although I don’t think they were well-articulated, more the general sense of dread of the Cold War. I also grew up in a house where the power would go out and stay out for hours, maybe as long as a day – and when I was thirteen, the power went out all over the city for an entire week. Combine that with almost all family vacations involving camping – possibly all vacations; I can’t remember any that didn’t – and I have this comfortable foundation need to be prepared for any off-the-grid sort of emergency.

That’s my personal background on apocalypses. Even though our current rural property is close enough to a major line that it rarely loses power for more than ten minutes, I’m still more comfortable having the wood-burning stove (It’s cheaper!) and would be happier still if I had a way to make hot water/make the water run (Yay well water if the electricity went out. In that sense, I’m prepared for small emergencies much more than the apocalypse. Then again – small emergencies are a lot more likely. (And, considering my habit of buying food in bulk when it’s most on sale, we have Way More than the recommended three-day supply of food.)

I think one of the reason post-apoc settings have always appealed to me in fiction boils down to my feeling of disconnection with the modern world. There are myriad marvelous wonders – but there’s also the daily grind and the social rules that seemed to rub me the wrong way. If there was no more modern world, a little voice sometimes whispers, there’d be no more nine-to-five.

Apocalypses are as much a fantasy/speculation as dragons in my mind, and I’m comfortable with that. (Though it’s a bit easier to plan for the former than the latter!)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/917481.html. You can comment here or there.