Archive | May 7, 2015

Well, This Turned out a Bit Depressing: Cya immediately after Dysmas

May7

End of Year 6 of the Addergoole School.

And now to bed.

He didn’t release her so much as he graduated.

Cynara didn’t need to pack, and she had no interest in watching Dysmas get his Name. “I’ll make dinner,” she’d told him, as if she thought he would be coming back to her, to things the way they had been. It was not a lie, but he had never ordered her to not dissemble. And she was cy’Drake.

She finished dinner and packed it up, stacking it tidily on top of her chests. Her father had made those chests. Dysmas had either never cared enough to look in them, or he’d never bothered to look past the first layer. It was unlikely he would have let her keep the weapons, if he’d really looked. He might have noticed how murderous she sometimes got.

She felt the bond break as she finished packing up dinner. She caught her breath, just for a moment. Professor Drake had said it would feel unpleasant. “Rather like falling of a ten-story building,” he’d said. She thought he’d underestimated the impact.

She lifted her chin. She was no longer oro’Dysmas. The collar was locked but it was easy enough to Work. Tempero was her best Word, after all, even if Unutu was not by far a favorite. She took it with her; it had been a gift, after all, and with a little bit of effort, it might make a suitable memento.

There was pain. There was a lot of pain. But it was unimportant. It was something that had happened to Cynara oro’Dysmas. She didn’t have to be that anymore. She walked, slowly, as if under a huge weight, carrying behind her the two trunks that carried all her possessions. And supper.

It seemed to take her a long time to get to the room that had once been hers. It didn’t matter. There was nobody else in the halls. And as she went, her back grew straighter and her chin rose. She was Cya, Cya cy’Drake, and she didn’t have to cry about the prince that had turned out to be a toad. Because, after all, she’d never been the sort of girl to be squeamish about slimy things.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/935811.html. You can comment here or there.

Hurt/Comfort Meme Answer 3: Regine and Ghosts

May7

To wyld_dandelyon‘s prompt to my H/C prompt here

Mid-Autumn Year 8 of the Addergoole School.

Regine looked at her files again, hoping for some other information than what she was reading. She flipped through, pulling older files, staring at the information before putting those files, too, aside.

“Auriel–” she began, and stopped herself. Her throat was tight.

Mike took her hand. “Auriel died young, Regine. We don’t know what would have happened.”

“He lived to be twenty.” Her first son have lived long enough that they had known he would not Change.

“Maybe it comes with the Change.” Mike fingered the folders gently. Liliandra was his daughter, too. And while Agatha was… something… there was absolutely no denying that the girl who called herself Lolly was insane. “What are you going to do?”

Auriel wasn’t insane. But she couldn’t hope her children wouldn’t Change. “I don’t know.” Her voice cracked. “I don’t know.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/935443.html. You can comment here or there.

Posted on Patreon: The Storm Prince of Death, a story of Doomsday/Fae Apoc

May7

Posted here.

This is a story of Doomsday and Fae Apoc, written much-belatedly for January, whose theme was “I’m writing a lot of Doomsday.”

The village Damson had grown up in had three scars which were never painted over, never repaired, never hidden, and it had four portraits in the Village Center which, unlike the portraits of Mayors and short-term heros, were never moved or rotated to less prominent positions.

read on!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/935180.html. You can comment here or there.

Prince Rodegard Considers His Situation

May7

First: Prince Rodegard Visits the Imperial Capital

Previous: The Merger of Railways

To [personal profile] thnidu‘s commissioned continuation.

Rodegard knew he wasn’t considered the brightest candle. He was big, enthusiastic, and sometimes clumsy – “like an overgrown puppy,” his father liked to say. His skills didn’t help, either: even though their nation desperately needed it, being good with the earth was considered a low skill, a dumb skill.

But he could read which way the river was flowing, and he could see the spaces where his minder wasn’t saying things. He let the train roll by. He let his breath steady. He watched Kneginja Esedora watching him.

“So you’re preparing me to be Empressina Nadia’s consort.” He found the idea neither terrified him nor thrilled him nearly as much as it should.


If you want more – and I’m pretty sure this wants to be a full-length romance novel – drop a tip in the tip… handcuffs šŸ˜‰

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/935069.html. You can comment here or there.

The Storm Prince of Death

May7

This is a story of Doomsday and Fae Apoc, written much-belatedly for January, whose theme was ā€œIā€™m writing a lot of Doomsday.ā€Ā  Posted to WordPress as part of my ongoing “cross post everything to WordPress for archiving” project.

~~

The village Damson had grown up in had three scars which were never painted over, never repaired, never hidden, and it had four portraits in the Village Center which, unlike the portraits of Mayors and short-term heroes, were never moved or rotated to less prominent positions.

Damson had grown up with the stories: the Warrior That Comes With the Wind, the Storm Prince of Death, the Judgement On the Lightning. He had grown up with the old fighters – Galston and Tamera, Corby and Rodin – and their scars and their stories. He had taken classes in the Village Center, under the shifting and changing face of the Demon Prince, the the devil’s own smile constant,Ā  the rest shifting with the painter and the era.

And he had grown up with the deep scar across the town square where lightning had struck, the bite out of the outer wall where a dragon had landed, and the long scorched line of fire across the general storeā€™s front. ā€œThe Storm Prince fought here,ā€ heā€™d heard, more times than he could count. ā€œFour times he has visited – one in his aspect as the Harbinger of Doom, the Woman on the Wind. Four times he has visited. And, while he has pulled our bacon from the fire many times, he has found us wanting many more. Beware the Storm Prince, because he will see the sin in your soul and scourge it clean.ā€

There were bodies in the local graveyard, too, Damson knew, who had been found too wanting by the Wind-Warrior. Those were graves with small stones and apologetic epitaphs. There were families who cursed the portraits of the Demon Prince – and Damsonā€™s widowed mother and grandmother were among them. You had to whisper your curses, but Damson had picked them all up nonetheless.

And now he was standing in the center of the much-vaunted Doomsday Academy, in Cloverleaf, the City Built from Dirt. And he was staring up at the chin of the Demon Prince, while Professor Doomsday introduced him.

ā€œAnd this is Leofric, Professor Inazuma. He teaches science, math, and combat. Leo, this is our newest student, Damsonā€¦ā€

Damson kicked the Demon Prince square in the knee and took off, running as fast as he could.