Archive | February 2016

Attrition

Feb2

The table in the middle of the Dining Hall was empty.

Corneille had been been at Addergoole for three weeks. His first day here, the table had been over-full: eight of them at a six-person table, the four of them that had caught the flight in from Philly, two they’d met at the airport, two more they’d met at the first assembly…

read on…

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This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1059967.html. You can comment here or there.

Groundhog Day, Faerie Apocalypse, Part II

Feb2


Part One: Dreamwidth ~ Live Journal

Fran woke before the sun to the distinctive creak of polyester bedding. She pried herself up onto an elbow… ugly curtains from the 80’s. Uglier bedding from the same.

She checked her arms for needle marks, her head for lumps. Nothing. She’d fallen asleep high in a tree twenty miles from Jackson, on her way to get reinforcements and make a report.

She slipped out of bed, nearly landing on her gear bag – exactly where she’d left it. She wouldn’t make that mistake twice. From the sounds of things, the town was already awake. She snuck out of the motel the back way.

She could hear people talking, just on the other side of the motel. “…gates can’t hold…”

How were the gates still holding? How had they lasted a day?

“…trade the Ranger…”

No, still not doing that. She moved quietly, sticking close to the building. She couldn’t get to the weak spot in the wall from here, and they’d probably protected it, but there was an overhanging tree on this side…

“Franciszka! Give us Franciszka the Denier!”

They were still shouting for her? She shimmied up the tree as the townspeople started to yell.

Next: DW ~ LJ
Tip Jar ~ Patreon

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1059767.html. You can comment here or there.

Trouble in Cloverleaf, Continued, for @InspectrCaracal, 379 words

Feb2

First part here
Second part here.

This story is of questionable canonicality – it probably happened, probably about 100 years after Cya & Leo graduate from Addergoole (or about 93 years after the end of the world) – but the exact date is up in the air, as well as some details.

It follows the Apollo/Boom stuff you can find on top on the Boom tag by about 2 years.

There were students everywhere in Leo’s dojo, and yet everything seemed both calm and happy. Leo was in his normal kimono and pants, the gold of the collar even more glaringly obvious in real life than it had been in the picture. He was in the middle of instructing a young student; several others were sparring or working on forms with each other.

Another student was being held off at the end of Luke’s outstretched arm, and two more were trying to stop him from entering and failing completely. He moved them out of the way as gently as he could.

Leo looked up, noticing Luke’s entrance. “sa’Hunting Hawk.” He wasn’t smiling anymore. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

You should have been.

“I imagine you weren’t,” he growled instead. Leo never thought ahead. Cynara had probably been expecting him.

“And definitely not expecting you to come frighten our students. Maybe we should talk somewhere else?” Leo glanced around the room.

Luke followed his glance. Some of the students looked frightened. A lot of them – this was a dojo, after all – looked ready to fight. Luke tamped down the part of him that wanted to fight all of them, just to take a little of the edge off.

“Sounds lovely.” It came out as a snarl. That was fine. He felt like snarling, and he wanted Leo to know exactly how pissed he was.

“Just a second, then.” He stalled, calling over one of his students and giving him instructions. The student’s eyes moved between Leo and Luke and back again, but Leo didn’t seem to notice.

Luke shifted his weight. He was in the heart of what might be enemy territory. It made his back itch. It made him want back-up.

He reminded himself forcefully that the reason he had come was to be certain Cloverleaf weren’t becoming enemies. If he’d brought back-up, it would have been seen as aggression.

Leo took the time to gather his shoes, then and only then gesturing to the door. “After you, sir.”

Somehow, telling himself to calm down just made Luke more on edge. “Where can we talk that isn’t hers?”

It was rude. It was against protocol. And if it was going to start a fight, he’d rather know now than later.

Next part: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1062426.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1059494.html. You can comment here or there.

Groundhog Day, Faerie Apocalypse

Feb2

The sun rose. Fran woke to the dim glare coming in through curtains that would never rot. There was something to be said for the way cheap motels had used polyester for almost everything. Ten years after the End, and this one was still running.

She wasn’t here to rate hotels, though. She headed into the fortified town, barely missing an angry guard dog. Something was wrong; she could smell it. She was a stranger, sure, and everyone here hated strangers, but the Rangers were legitimate and she was legitimately here on Ranger business.

“…Gates…” she heard someone say. The town was walled, and not badly-done, either. Any town that had wanted to survive was walled. “…Trade the Ranger…”

Shit! That was it. It wasn’t distrust, it was betrayal. Fran started running. Somewhere on the gate, someone was shouting “Franciszka! Give us Franciszka the Denier!”

She skidded up to the weak spot she’d seen in their walls before anyone managed to catch up to her and clambered over. Rangers helped the townspeople, sure. But they could only do that alive.

Next: Dreamwidth ~ Livejournal

Tip Jar ~ Patreon

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1059146.html. You can comment here or there.

Languary Catch-up!

Feb1

I continue to work on translating a quote into Whispers Drop

I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. —Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle (1948)

Write this – (I am) sitting sink kitchen while in – I

Here, I started with:

Hunsharn din, write this.

To Sit, shima

Present tense continuous, first person singular: -orn

Sink, noun, tishor

cha, chea, choe, chi: for, of, at, in…. chur, while (conjunction)

Hunsharn din shimorn tishor [kitchen] chur-chi – [I]

Almost there!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1058787.html. You can comment here or there.

Attrition

Feb1

A story of Addergoole, sometime between year 12 and Year 17.

The table in the middle of the Dining Hall was empty.

Corneille had been been at Addergoole for three weeks. His first day here, the table had been over-full: eight of them at a six-person table, the four of them that had caught the flight in from Philly, two they’d met at the airport, two more they’d met at the first assembly. This place was weird, they all agreed, but it was a hundred percent better than the reform school, the military school, the nerdy prep school they thought they’d been going to.

It had been Einar that asked the question. “Why do you think they all made up different stories? I mean, what’s so strange about this place that they had to lie?”

Einar had been the first one to disappear from the table, too. He’d been there one day, and then the next, he’d started spending all his time with this older girl. He sat with her, off in the corner of the Dining Hall with a bunch of other older girls, and when they’d tried to talk to him, he’d gotten squirrelly and weird about it.

Folami had sat down at the Table Of All The Girls to see what was going on with Einar, and never come back.

Celinda had gotten in a big fight with a guy, and then ended up sitting between him & his twin brother at meals. She still talked to Corneille and the rest of them, but if anyone asked about her twins, she just blushed and looked away.

One after another, they got picked off. Last Friday, they’d been down to five. The lights had been out Saturday… and Sunday it was just Corneille and Elissa.

Today, Elissa was nowhere in sight. Corneille sat down, trying not to look as exposed and obvious as he felt. It was like the moment in a horror movie when you realize the monsters have just grabbed your last surviving friend and…

“Hi.” A fey and beautiful person plopped themselves in front of Corneille. “You look lonely.”

 

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