Archive | April 19, 2016
Cali, Femdom, Catgirls, Part III (@dahob)
After Cali, Femdom, Catgirlsand Part II.
“So.” The cat-girl, the woman who owned him, Lady Sharanna (all of that in a petite and terrifying package), slipped behind the wheel of the car and started the engine with a button-push. “Why did you fight them?”
Daniel swallowed his first response, and then decided maybe it was the best answer. “They kidnapped me. They took my clothes. They stuck a collar on me.”
After a moment that had gone on long enough that Daniel had begun to worry, “Those are,” she said thoughtfully, “rather good reasons to fight. But it got you…”
“Bruised. Chained.” Daniel shrugged defensively. “It made a point.”
“Ah.” She let the silence drag on again. “So… what point are you making now?”
“Now?” It was his turn to hesitate, giving it more thought than he’d thought he’d have to. “Now… I guess I’m proving that if you treat me like a person, I can act like a reasonable hu- a reasonable being, too.”
She pulled the car out of the parking garage, a smile growing on her face. “Good.” It was still a very sharp smile, but this time Daniel actually felt a little reassured. “I like that point.”
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1091621.html. You can comment here or there.
A Deal is Made, Part III (finally)
Part I – http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1082356.html
Part II – http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1082751.html
Regine barely managed not to gape at Cya like a fish. But the fiend was still going. “In addition, I want access to all of the data you access in this manner.”
Regine could not help a supercilious eyebrow raise, no matter how many times Mike had told her Do not raise your eyebrows at her. Do not. “Do you think you can follow the genetic data?”
“Well, if I can’t, my house geneticist can.” Cya shrugged as if a lifetime of studying genetics was nothing.
Regine cleared her throat. “Well. Be that as it may, I’m not going to allow your descendants to skip out on the Addergoole school. That might be as much as half of my population by this point.”
“Skip out?” Cya laughed. “No, I can’t imagine you’d agree to that. No. Just an agreement that, while attending Addergoole, each and every one of Boom’s descendants gets a pass. One time, when they’re in over their heads — bad Keeper, bad promise, the current big-bad-wolf — you, the staff, will help them out of it. The Keepings aren’t real, the promises aren’t real, you’re not damaging the Law by doing so.”
“But what lesson do we teach them, if they can get out of trouble at the first drop of a hat?” Regine had conducted this argument several times over the decades. She didn’t flinch.
And neither did Cya. The smile grew, as a matter of fact, and got sharp. Her voice was edgy now. “You’d be teaching them that the adults who Mentor them are their backup, are there to protect and guide them. You’d be teaching them to have allies.”
“We teach them to have crews, to find help and allies in their cy’ree, to be friends with their former Keepers and Kept.”
“After their first year. You isolate them from other first-year students, do not push the idea of a Mentor until they are either already collared or soon to be, and sometimes allow the interference of the Keeper in Mentor choice. The staff generally frowns on the idea of first-year students finding crews, and, while you may pretend to like and encourage them, you discourage crews actively standing up for one another.” Cya was still lounging against her couch, but her words were anything but casual.
And they were accurate. “It’s proven beneficial to encouraging the Keeper-Kept relationship…”
“Which you encourage, I assume, to ‘encourage’ the production of more little babies for your project. A point which is pretty moot when you do not allow students to leave until they’ve provided you with those babies.”
“Students also need to understand the dangers of Keeping and the problems inherent in both sides of the relationship before they are out in the world,” Regine insisted. Now Cya was no longer smiling. Regine was not sure that was an improvement.
“I’m certain you’re aware that you and I will never agree on that point. Be that as it may, there are other ways to encourage Keeping, and by encouraging good Keepings and allowing the possibility that the ‘trapped’ Kept could ask for a reprieve, you allow students to understand what a healthy Keeping should look like, before they go out in the world and perpetuate bad habits.”
Regine opened her mouth and closed it again, her lips curling into a frown. “Surely you’re not insinuating that Addergoole is responsible for the actions of its students once they’ve graduated?”
“No. I’m saying that you and your choices are responsible for a great deal of misery in the world. However,” Cya plowed on blithely, “that doesn’t matter. You’ve done some awful things, and now you want a favor from me. Does that about sum it up?”
Regine bit her tongue and counted to ten. “I come asking a favor of you, yes,” she answered levelly.
“Therefore, your justifications really don’t matter. The question is: will you agree to my terms?”
Part IV: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1095923.html
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Sight And Sense, a continuation story of Autumn
After/concurrent with Nothing could possib-lie go wrong, Places One Doesn’t Go, At Home, and A Wink.
The man with the eyeball tattoo was looking at Autumn when his eyebrows went up. His gaze slid off of her; Autumn glanced briefly, but he wasn’t looking at anything obvious in the physical world.
She stepped inside her tent while his attention was elsewhere and shifted her own vision Strandward, looking for the disturbance that had clearly caught his attention. Just as she opened her vision, her own Strands yanked at her.
The tug was tangible and sudden, pulling her from three points like an off-balance marionette. She didn’t need to look to know: the cool blue of Winter’s
strand pulled from her right temple, where she’d painted his arrow under her hairline. The green-yellow of Summer’s strand pulled from her breastbone, where she’d painted a mask. The orange-and-blue of Spring’s strand yanked from down lower, where she’d painted the chaos sign just below her navel.
Her family was here, and they were doing… something. Autumn called to the woman in the next booth over to cover her till. Something strange was going on.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1091102.html. You can comment here or there.
The Facility, a story of Doomsday Academy, available on Patreon for patrons
“Almost… almost.”
Milana should not have been their entry specialist. Helji talked to machines. Signy broke things. But Milana had delicate, clever fingers, Helji was busy figuring out the archaic and terrifying building system, and Signy had both hands full of guards, rather literally.
So Milana was here, crouched in front of a nice door lock that seemed to be purely mechanical, muttering quiet Workings at it…
(read on…: Available to all patrons.
Pledge just $1 a month to gain access to all these stories; pledge $5 or more a month to prompt these tales!
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1091066.html. You can comment here or there.
Commission Slots open!
I’m now taking up to four $5 commission slots!
$5 will get you 250 words on any given topic of your choice – if you’re not sure if I want to write it, ask first, but, for instance, anything tagged “morepls” is a fair bet.
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| How Many Words? |
| 250 Words $5.00 USD 500 Words $10.00 USD 750 Words $15.00 USD 1200 Words $20.00 USD 1800 Words $25.00 USD |
Bonus!
If all 4 slots are filled by the close of day on the 23rd April (Say 9 pm. Eastern time), I’ll write an additional 250 words to a prompt chosen by the donors.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1090766.html. You can comment here or there.
Mentor… and Student
Rix_Scaedu‘s commissioned continuation of Mentor-Student. Her name is Eurydice; it just never comes up in conversation.
“Well,” Doug admitted to the angry young woman in front of him, “we’re stuck with each other. They think we can work together.”
His Student – or so it seemed it was going to be – raised her eyebrow at him. “You sound so thrilled. Don’t go throwing me a party or anything.”
“Well,” Doug grunted, both embarrassed and annoyed, “you’re right. It’s not how it’s supposed to go.”
“Wait.” She leaned forward. “Say that again.”
Doug didn’t bother asking which part she wanted to hear. He could guess. “You’re right.”
“Awww, yeah.” She lit her lighter again. “I could get used to that. So you don’t like ‘em screwing with the system, either. So why’d they stick you with me? We can ‘work together?’ What’s that code for? You can brainwash me better?”
Doug barked out a laugh. “Not the brainwashing sort.”
“So what then? Are you the arsonist sort?” She flicked her lighter again. Doug imagined that had made some adults flinch, back out in the world. Maybe here, too, considering the fires she’d already lit.
Doug wasn’t worried. He muttered a Working and flicked up a small flame in the palm of his hand. “Sometimes.”
Her eyes widened. “Woah.”
Doug felt his lips curling into a real smile. “Woah,” he agreed. He closed the hand to vanish the fire and gave himself a moment to think about the words he’d use.
“Forget why they wanted us together,” he started slowly. “They are not responsible for this. I can teach you.” He watched something in her face start to close up and he made a wild guess. He smiled the way he might at the start of a battle — a little fierce and a lot ready. “And I’m not afraid of you.”
| How Many Words? |
| 250 Words $5.00 USD 500 Words $10.00 USD 750 Words $15.00 USD 1200 Words $20.00 USD 1800 Words $25.00 USD |
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1090377.html. You can comment here or there.