Archive | August 2015

Angelic Visitation

Aug14

This comes after The Storm Prince of Death and @inspectrCaracal’s response here. It is set in the Fae Apoc, at least 60 years after the 2011 apocalypse.  Yoshi is the son of Cynara, often mentioned.  

⚡

Yoshi loved his parents, he really did, but sometimes he just needed to get out into the world and get away from them. The same was true of Dáirine, with whom he had a strange sort of on-again, on-again relationship that neither of them quite understood.

To get away, he’d taken to wandering the world — a family trait, it seemed. There was a lot of world out there to see; Yoshi had a feeling that he could travel for a century and not see half of it. But he made a point of checking in every year or so. There was nothing more embarrassing than having your mother appear out of nowhere because you hadn’t remembered to visit.

It was on the way back “home” — to Cloverleaf, which had never been home but was the place his family lived — that Yoshi encountered the little village. It was friendly to a passing stranger, something not all towns would do in this rough age, but their friendliness had a cautious edge to it. Continue reading →

Iconic Stories

Aug14

Iiiiii don’t know if anyone can answer this, but it’s worth a try.

Think of your favorite of my settings.

Now, is there a story you can remember as “this, this is a good intro to [setting]?”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/971913.html. You can comment here or there.

Delivery, a continuation/story from yet another viewpoint (@cluudle)

Aug13

“My Lord?”

Lord Padraic’s aide-de-camp had been out for weeks, combing the hills, searching all of the places runaways usually ended up, looking for a single runaway American slave.

Now he came in, looking more lost and confused than Padraic had ever seen the man. He bowed low, head to the ground.

“If you’re going to tell me you can’t find him, I obviously know that already. Try harder.” He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “It’s not that big of a country, Ciaran.”

“It’s not that, my Lord. It’s…” Ciaran twisted to look at the doorway. “It’s him.“

Padraic wasted a perfectly good disbelieving expression on the top of Ciaran’s head. “Him?” he imitated. “What – or who, I suppose, is he?”

“That would be me, sir.” A quiet, deep voice was followed in the doorway by a slender Tuathan man. His hair was cropped short and he’d allowed a short goatee to grow, giving him a strange look for their people. He dropped to his knees next to Ciaran, making the gesture look like a dance move. “I am Arlen, sir, and I am for you.”

“For…” Padraic found himself on his feet. “What do you mean, for?“

“For you, sir. If you’ll stop looking for Seth.”

“You’re a bribe.” Padriac rose to his feet. “I have been sent a bribe. By whom?”

“By me, sir. I am well-trained…” The man lifted his face to stare Padraic in the face. “But I can fight if you prefer.”

This comes after Walk Away and On the Hook, set in [profile] cluudle‘s Cali-ish AU.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/971420.html. You can comment here or there.

Proposal, a drabble of Maihallr (@inspectrCaracal)

Aug13

So Maihallr is Cya and Leo’s second kid, born a few years before she starts Doomsday/Cloverleaf

“Marry me, Maihallr.” He dropped to his knees, holding up a ring he must have scrounged from some dead city. “Marry me?”

His hair was falling in his eyes, a common occurrence Mai had found endearing up until now.

“Why?” she asked, more than a little alarmed. Everything had been going so well.

“I love you!”

“…and?” She blinked at him.

“And I want to live with you.” He was beginning to get a frown. Mai had a feeling she’d gone off-script. But he’d done it first!

“My mom and dad have been in love for decades. Centuries, maybe. And they don’t even live in the same house.”

“I want to have children with you.”

“I’m really not ready for kids.” She was barely forty, and there was still way too much world in front of her.

“I want to be by your side forever.”

She blinked at him, at his ridiculous hair and his tarnished ring. “So… you want to be crew?”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/971227.html. You can comment here or there.

On the Hook, from another point of view (#ThimblefulThursday)

Aug13

On day 373 since his kidnapping, Seth found himself once again aimlessly pacing the caves. He really ought to –

“Hey, Seth, right?” A tiny woman – he was pretty sure she was the cook – flagged him down. “Can you give me a hand with this? We just liberated a shipment of rice and stuff.”

“Sure. Lead me to it.” Sitting around waiting wouldn’t do anything but drive him nuts.

“You look stressed.” She led him to the truck, backed up into the mouth of the main cave. “I mean, more than everyone here does.” Being part of a slave rebellion, as quiet and polite as this one was, wasn’t exactly relaxing.

Seth shrugged it off. “It’s nothing.” He looked away, using the bags of rice as an excuse. “Ooof.” He hauled one to his shoulder. “Are you sure these aren’t lead?”

“Hopefully. Is it too much?” She picked up a small crate labelled “spinach.”

“Of course not.” He’d lost a lot of weight and muscle in the last year, but he could still carry around some grain. “I’m fine.”

“You said that already.” She hip-bumped him gently. “You can tell me. I’m practically the bartender.”

Seth took a moment to rearrange his load of rice. “Look. I had, you know, an owner, I guess?”

“Usually slaves do,” she agreed gently.

“Yeah, well, American. I’m not made for this shit. So my former ‘owner,’ he’s getting way too close. They’ve actually sighted his, uh, overseer guy in the hills a couple times.” He shrugged. The rice was sitting funny, so he shifted it again. These people, native Californians and Americans who’d gone native, they had no reason to help him. He didn’t belong here. “He’s going to find me.”

“Take it you don’t like him?”

“I-” Seth closed his mouth. People here, they didn’t think being a slave was wrong. “Yeah. I didn’t like him.” Damnit. She didn’t need to know the gory details.

“It happens like that sometimes. Some people just shouldn’t be allowed to own slaves.” Her hand settled on his arm, just for a moment. “We’ll fix it. That’s why we’re here.”

Seth smiled, allowing himself to relax for a moment. “Thanks.” They couldn’t, but it was nice to say.

“Hey kid.” A Californian guy a foot shorter than Seth patted his other shoulder in passing. “You’re off the hook.”

Seth stared at the guy as he walked away. After a moment, he noticed the cook was staring, too. “What-“

“At a guess…” Her voice choked up. Seth wanted to hug her, but his arms were full of rice. “…He just put himself on the hook.”

This comes concurrent with Walk Away, set in [profile] cluudle‘s Cali-ish AU.

It’s written to Today’s Thimbleful Thursday prompt

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/970972.html. You can comment here or there.

Ask Me Something… About the Addergoole Characters

Aug13

In one or all of the following periods: After year 5, after year nine, at the beginning of year 6, after year 8.

Any Addergoole character who exists in either The Original Series or Year 9.

(please, no smartass stuff.)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/970721.html. You can comment here or there.

A Poll! Addergoole Year Six!

Aug12

A Poll! For…. reasons.
Please pick 3 Addergoole Sixth Cohort Characters.

Characters with an * are other people’s characters. I won’t say you can’t vote on them but I have varying levels of not-complete comfort writing them.

If you need more than three characters, you can leave up to three more in the comments.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/970271.html. You can comment here or there.

Walk Away (a story… beginning)

Aug12

Arlen hadn’t so much run as he’d walked. His owner had died with no children and no nieces, and it had taken over a month for the Crown to find an appropriate heir.

Arlen had been fond of the old bitch, but one of the lovely things about her was that she was old. He had no interest in dealing with a new mistress, bitch or no, particularly not someone young. So he found the key to his collar in a box of the her Ladyship’s jewelry, guessed the password — he had served her since infancy; there was very little he didn’t know about her — and walked.

He brought with him Anje, the cook’s daughter, who was pregnant and did not want her baby to be born a slave. They took the oldest, most broken-down of the old lady’s cars, the sort of thing she might have passed down to a slave on freeing them, had she lived.

The slave revolt found them. They were both lifetime slaves, and did not know how to look free, even if they were now, technically, free. The authorities would have found them if the revolt did not; all things considered, Arlen decided they had done all right being found as they had.

Anje found a place for herself right away. Everyone needs cooks, and she had learned at her mother’s feet. Arlen… Arlen was having more trouble. He was trained in personal service. Sometimes, they had “spa days” for visiting nosy government officials, and Arlen had moments where he could shine. But that had all of the disadvantages of personal service and none of the advantages.

There came a slave, terrified and angry and entirely unsuited, and a master who would not let go, would not give up. The dogs were coming and the psychics, the hunters with their tranq guns and their whips.

Sometimes, they had to give the former owners something. Someone. Sometimes sacrifices had to be made.

Arlen looked at the runaway, at Anje and her little girl. He looked, lastly, at himself in the mirror.

And then he walked away from the revolt and back into slavery.

So, cluudle has been writing some stories today in an AU based off of Tir na Cali.

And in return, I wrote a piece based off of her AU. 🙂

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/970050.html. You can comment here or there.

Chase the Fox II, a continuation of Fox Hunt, continues again, free on Patreon!

Aug12

The first part of the story: Fox Hunt
The second part: The Hunt Continues
The First Continuation, part of @dahob’s commission: Chase the Fox Part One

And yet more Fox! Chase the Fox Part II

Hitchhiking had gotten old pretty quickly. George hadn’t thumbed a ride in years, not since his college days, and he found that all the things that had made it so unpleasant back in Maine were almost identical in California — the road splashing and the traffic noise, the hours you’d go by with nobody picking you up, the odd juts out of your way when you did get a ride, the talking. The endless uncomfortable chatter….

(read on!)

A Patronage of just $1/month will give you access to everything posted on Patreon.

Want input into the story prompts? A Patronage of $5/month lets you prompt in the monthly prompt calls. For $15/month you get your own personal story!

Check it out!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/969392.html. You can comment here or there.