Archive | September 2016

Weekend! With Cap and Morn, Sledgehammers and firewood

Sep14

I have to say, I get a kick out of walking in to a hardware store in my girliest outfits and buying, say, a sledgehammer…

It’s been a lot of yardwork and then some more yardwork lately. Moving firewood around, re-organizing the barn to better fit more firewood in there – and to be able to cut large piece of plywood and 2x10x10s, so as to make a bedframe…

And also, I got to smash a toilet to bits. That was fun. 😀

Somewhere in there, though, I drove to Rochester to see [twitter.com profile] capriox_b and [twitter.com profile] psygeek at Capriox’s house! (Also, there were cows, dogs, kitties, and a cow-milking robot!)

It was awesome to see old friends (Cap) and new friends (Psygeek) and to actually meet up with interwebs people. Also, in a nice coincidence, Cap lives just a couple blocks from my parents and my aunt & uncle, so I squeezed in a little extra visitation while I was in town. It made for a very very nice weekend.

Also, I discussed the definition of “necessary shoes” and “ridiculous boots” (https://www.instagram.com/p/BKMBtO3BFqT/), thought about winter wardrobes, and fixed my clothes steamer whilst researching water softeners. Anyone have one they really like?

This weekend, we’re going to The Big E. No idea what to expect, but I hear it’s fun!

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LadiesBingo: Enemies – Cynara and Regine

Sep14

Written for my [community profile] ladiesbingo card.

2030, approximately 19 years after the end of the world.

Cya had maps.

She had a lot more than maps, actually, enough that she’d ended up building herself another room to store it all. She had reports and charts, headcounts and vulnerability assessments, crop yields and even religious and linguistic demographics, assessing everything she could of their ruined world.

But most of all, she had one big map, and on that map was a circle labelled Addergoole and a carefully-shaded area labelled as Addergoole influence. Outside of that was a rough 50-mile circle that she’d labelled DMZ.

That was where her information stopped. She would walk herself right up to that line — and did, both literally and figuratively — find every piece of information she could, and make sure that she left with a positive relationship whenever possible. She fought monsters — rarely — fed people — far more frequently — and cleaned up roads and fallen buildings right up to two inches shy of that line.

The other side of the line was Regine’s territory, and there she would not tread, not now.

Regine had agents.

Some were former students; some were people she or her crew had helped out in the past, who owed her favors, formal or informal. Some were those who didn’t know who or what they were working for, but liked the steady pay of food, shelter, and barter goods, all rare to find in the disaster of their crumbled world.

Her agents went out into the world, looking for people and things, bringing back information and goods. They brought reports of the ruins of civilization: some places had fallen into disarray and barbarism and even two decades later had not settled into peace. Some had formed tiny city-states, boarded up and unwilling to talk to outsiders, even outsiders bearing rare trade goods. Some had turned their city-states into trade hubs, or into despotic mini-empires, or into quiet imitations of Eden, some more successful than others.

And in Wyoming, the group called Boom and the woman called Cynara were doing a little bit of all of that.

Regine sent only her best agents in that direction — the cleverest, the most subtle, the ones with the best escape abilities. She assumed Cynara did the same. She was not ready to go to war with Boom nor with Cynara herself; if her agent was caught on Boom’s territory, the volatile, explosive group might take it in their heads to start that war prematurely. Thus she drew out a three-quarter circle where she was very nearly blatant, and towards Wyoming she stayed subtle, sneaky… surreptitious.

———

Regine had agents, Cya knew. Every time she found one of them, she marked their position on a map. Some of them were obvious, the sort of people you only sent into territory you were certain of. Some tried to be sneaky. Some… Some Cya found only because she already knew Regine had agents. She was known for her ability to find things and people, after all. Regine should have known better.

When she caught one a mile from the Ranch where her crew lived, Cya decided polite ignoring was no longer the order of the day. She sat down with the woman for a pleasant conversation over scrounged tea and did a series of long and complicated Workings on the woman’s mind, the sort that left nearly no trace and would not be noticed until a specific person — perhaps, the person who had taught Cya Mind magic in the first place — went looking.

Then she sent the woman back to Regine with a very polite note.

I found this. I thought you might want it back.

———

Regine stared at the woman. She stared at the note. She stared back at the woman. “How were you detected?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The woman could no more lie to Regine than she could fly — and flying was not her particular magic skill. “Nobody detected me. I got in, I got out, I came back to report.”

The paper note was proof enough. The fact that the agent was staring at the note with no realization that she had just handed it to Regine was, as the saying went, icing on the cake. Nevertheless, Regine engaged in an invasive search of her agent’s mind.

And there it was. The work was so tidy Regine doubted anyone else could have found it. The girl, she had to admit, was skilled. She’d written in dots and dashes of missing time and changed memories:

Stay off my lawn and I’ll stay off yours

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1172824.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Conlang all year round – JuLECTURy in September

Sep13

I’m going through 365 Conlang thingies beyond #Lexember one month a day (or so) until I get bored.

Here is the Julectury (“Write a lecture, lesson or 140 letter pedagogical tweet each day explaining how your language works”) which I wrote last week.

Calenyen is an agglutinating language with a habit of dropping syllables and an immensely casual attitude towards parts of speech (nouning verbs and so on).

It is also a language — like the culture itself — full of borrowing and thus loan-words, which, like most of the things the Calenyena borrows, it puts its own spin and flavor on.

So, for example, learnis see-do, dok, get, doket.

Child is Leroo; plural Leroone.

That makes school Learn-kids, doket-Leroone (and sometimes doket-oone
Or:
heleva is a Bitrani word from the Tabersi goddess Heleviaria, Deity of lines and boundaries. It means a meet and proper boundary, usually a property line, but also the lines between countries.
Teleba is the Calenyen word with the similar concept, agreed-upon border; but tol-tyeleba, toleba, is a border dispute over a bad border, something not allowable in the original Bitrani word.

Sentence Structure.
Old Tongue plays fast and use with sentence structure poetically, although in scholarly documents it tends to stick to one structure for the body of the text.

Most common is [Verb] [Subject] [Object], with modifiers coming directly after the modified object.

It is written from left to right.

Morphambruary 1
Febmanteau 1
Polysemarch 1
DisMayCourse
Juneme 1
Julectury
Augovernust 1
Morphambruary 2
Febmanteau 2
Polysemarch/Juneme2
Juneme 2/2.5
AugGOVERNust 2
✒️
SeNTAXember

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Funfic (of Addergoole post-apoc): A Stalking

Sep13

I’ve been wanting to do this as a roleplay for years but here it is as the beginning of a story.

She had been tracking him since she left Addergoole.

Neither her innate nor her Words led to tracking, so she went by rumor and hearsay, following breadcrumbs. She left her children at Maureen’s and what crew she’d had had crumbled, so it was just her, her and her grudge, moving across the remains of the countryside, chasing hints.

He was moving, too. He’d graduated three years before her; he’d had a lot of time to make trouble. She’d stop at a town and ask: have you seen him? Dark hair, broad shoulders, he always wears this leather jacket? And they’d say, why do you want him?

She’d had to tell one town she wanted to kill him before they’d tell her where he went. Another one, “justice” was enough of an answer.

She’d traded in favours and gone into debt with her former classmates for three items. She didn’t know how she’d pay them back yet, but they were immortal, and she could worry about that once she’d had her revenge.

It took her six months to get close enough to his trail that she could see the wreckage for herself. When she reached an enclave where they flat-out refused to say anything, she knew she was, if not there, very nearly so.

She found him standing on a hillside just outside the enclave, his camp everything she expected of him. His back was to her, but she knew that jacket, the way his hair fell in ragged braids, the set of his feet, as if he owned the whole world.

She snuck up behind him and triggered her first magical item. “You belong to me,” she told him.

“I belong to you,” he agreed, because the magical item compelled him to. His voice sounded strange. She didn’t care.

“Sit down with your hands behind your head and say nothing.”

He’d said the same thing to her, when he’d trapped her. She thought it was fitting.

He turned around as he sat down; she hadn’t told him not to, after all. His hands were behind his head. His eyebrows were lifted.

Her heart was in her throat. He looked almost right… but this wasn’t her guy.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1172477.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Conlang all year round – Augovernust in September

Sep13

I’m going through 365 Conlang thingies beyond #Lexember (which is missing October…) one month a day (or so) up to September.(?) I just realized I wrote a Julectuary last week and never finished filling things in, so that will come soon.

In the meantime… Augovernust. Today I thought I’d write my “quotes and excerpts” policy, especially pertinent in light of sites like (link) that like to strip your blog content and repost it.

For published works, please see the publisher in question for excerpt rights.

For works published online — on my blogs or one of my serials, for instance — you may quote up to 50 words or 10% of any given piece*, whichever is smaller, without permission — simply provide a link to the site the piece is posted on and give credit to Lyn Thorne-Alder.

Please do not post longer excerpts without explicit written permission from me, which you may request via PM or via e-mail. In all cases, please provide a linkback to the original work and credit to Lyn Thorne-Alder, or an appropriate bibliographical listing.

* For the purposes of this policy, a “piece” is considered the entirety of a story, regardless of the number of posts. Edally Academy is a piece; Fourth Husband is a piece.

Morphambruary 1
Febmanteau 1
Polysemarch 1
DisMayCourse
Juneme 1
Julectury 1
Augovernust 1
Morphambruary 2
Febmanteau 2
Polysemarch/Juneme2
Juneme 2/2.5
✒️
Julectury 2

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1171979.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Hidden History and Misplaced Beads – a continuation of Aunt Family for Finish It! Bingo

Sep12

After Estate and Three Glass Beads, Peacock Blue for my second Finish It Bingo Card for [community profile] allbingo

Myrlie knew she wasn’t supposed to be in the attic without adult supervision, but Aunt Lilyah had been squirrely about the whole thing ever since Aunt Kelly went missing, and Aunt Lavey was trying to pretend everything was normal, and her mother was the sort that ignored the Aunt House unless she needed something, and then it was all about what the Aunt could give her, right there, right then.

Besides, the house’s wards liked her, they always had. She’d been five years old when she’d first snuck over to have tea with Aunt Kelly, and the wards had let her in even then. She didn’t want to stop sneaking over just because Aunt Kelly was missing, and as long as she was sneaking over unsupervised, she might as well go into the hidden corners of their Aunt House, which, despite not being all that old (so said everyone), was still sufficiently creepy and mysterious for her.

She’d heard the Root Family had attics bigger than the house itself. She wasn’t sure if that was exaggeration or truth, but what her family’s Aunt House had was a very nice office-like room that just happened to have an archive hidden in what looked like a closet on first glance.

She’d been six or seven when she’d first discovered that Aunt Kelly’s house had secret passages, and nine before anyone else had realized she knew. They were useful for getting out of a room you weren’t supposed to be in, that was for sure. And they were useful for finding things you weren’t supposed to know about, too — like the archives.

She knew there were diaries in there. There were even a few carefully hand-written copies of The Really Old Diaries (That was how Aunt Kelly talked about them, like they had capitals in them) and a few photocopies, folded into journal-sized pages and sewn together with robin’s-egg-blue embroidery thread.

Myrlie liked those best, the old diaries that weren’t so old that she was worried about handling them, the copies where you could still see the specks and ink-blots. She had known just where they were, but the archive looked like someone had been in here since she’d last snuck in. The old chest had been moved, the old file cabinet had been unlocked.

It had to be Aunt Lilyah. She hadn’t seen any of the other grown-ups come and go since Aunt Kelly had disappeared, and she’d heard her great-aunt Sylverie mention how the wards had seemed “temperamental” lately.

She knew that word. It meant “not doing what we want,” and she’d heard it applied to Aunt Kelly, Aunt Lilyah, and herself more than a few times.

Myrlie squatted down on the floor to open the chest Aunt Lilyah had moved. It was unlocked and the books inside had been moved — not disordered, just piles shifted around a bit. The topmost book was one of her favorites, a photocopied journal from an Aunt-in-waiting in the Civil War era. She picked it up, and something slid from under it, falling deep into the chest between stacks of books and hat-boxes.

Why the Aunts needed so many hats, Myrlie had never figured out, but Aunt Kelly had told her in no uncertain terms that she was never, ever to undo the ribbons that held boxes closed, never, unless there was an Aunt present and telling her to do so.

She couldn’t reach to the bottom, and she wasn’t sure even her hand could get into the little crevice where something had fallen. So she moved the boxes carefully as she unpacked the chest, keeping her fingers off of the ribbons.

The oldest books had been wrapped in newspaper or butcher paper, folded up like she covered her school books or wrapped like presents, some tied with loop after loop of silk ribbing. She avoided those ribbons, too; when she slipped and her fingers brushed against a faded yellow bow, she could feel the tingle of magic leaking out of the book.

Her uncle Fred, in a moment of irritated drunkenness, had once muttered that the Aunts kept more power “locked up away, tied up in pretty bows” than most people would ever dream existed in the whole world. Myrlie had thought he was angry. Now she wondered if he was right.

She wasn’t supposed to know about power, now, and Aunt Kelly’s tolerance of her snooping and sneaking ended anytime she started poking at the things of magic, no matter how nice it smelled or how good it felt. Myrlie kept moving books and boxes, ignoring — or pretending to ignore, at least — all the little suggestions that were travelling up her fingers.

Down there, way down at the very bottom, lodged between two packages wrapped up in paper and silk, Myrlie found the little envelope. She dumped the contents into her palm, but all it turned out to be was three glass beads in a sort of bright blue.

Oh, there you are. The voice brushed against her mind like a purr. Not Tansy, though. You’re new. How interesting!

🍃

Lilyah had spent an informative hour downtown in the central library. The book she’d been looking for, Limits on and Protections from Witch-Craft, had actually been available, much to her surprise. She had learned quite a bit about Burke, Rhoda from her style of writing and the points she chose to make — no wonder someone in the family had called her out!

The biographical note in the end matter had given Lilyah even more material, and a good half of her time had been used perusing the local history section, from birth notices to obituaries.

Rhoda Burke had lived a quiet life, if the history was to be trusted, no matter what her book suggested. She’d never married, never had any children, and gone to her grave quietly and alone, her fortune unspent.

Lilyah found that unlikely. There were parts of Burke’s book that were directly in conflict with the family’s ideals and motives, and there were parts that would quite effectively foil any number of plans the family had made over the years. That sort of thing — readily available in a book printed by a well-known publisher — would not have gone unnoticed or unpunished.

But exactly how? The card had said something about three beads from a fringe. There hadn’t been any beads attached but, knowing the family, the beads had to exist somewhere in the vast archives — either in Aunt Kelly’s attic or in the root family’s, or lost in some branch family. The question was: which one? And were three beads significant enough to go looking in all the family archives?

We really ought to computerize, she was thinking as she let herself back into Aunt Kelly’s house. The wards tingled at her; maybe they didn’t like computers? She’d certainly heard crazier theories.

Three beads. Three beads from a fringe. And a biography that was completely innocuous, after a book that was nothing but. Lilyah let herself be drawn back to the secret rooms of the attic, not quite knowing what she was looking for. More information on Burke, Rhoda? The beads, lost among the floorboard cracks?

She opened the door on her niece Myrlie, sitting among the journals and the hat-boxes. Her eyes were glowing an eerie peacock blue. She opened her mouth, and a cheerful, malicious, adult voice came from her child’s lips.

”Oh, and you must be the adult, the proper Witch. I was hoping you’d get here soon. Myrlie and I have been having such a nice chat…”

Support the Thorne-Author

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Lady Taisiya’s 4th Husband, Chapter 6 – a fantasy/romance fdomme story

Sep9

Chapter 5 in my answer to the “guy has umpteen wives” trope
Find Chapter 1 here
Chapter 2 is here
Chapter 3 is here
Chapter 4 is here
Chapter 5 is here

“You really are lovely, aren’t you?” Lady Taisiya put her arm around Sefton’s shoulders. She was a couple centimeters shorter than him, if that, not enough to make the gesture awkward. “And young.”

Sefton swallowed. “Yes, ma’am. I’m old enough, though,” he hurried to answer.

“Oh, I know. Your mother sent over all the paperwork when we were working up this deal. Besides—” Her voice took on a rueful tone “—I remember when you started school. The same year as my oldest son.”

Sefton felt his cheeks warming. “Yes, ma’am,” he repeated. That seemed safe enough.

“And now I’ve gone and made everything awkward. Come on, darling. I promise I’m not an old withered husk.”

“What?” Sefton stared at her in horror. “No, of course not! I mean, you’re beautiful!”

He couldn’t take the words back, and he wasn’t sure if he should or not. Sefton ducked his head, cheeks hot. She was beautiful, her eyes sparkling with life, her smile broad happy, her shoulders broad and yet delicate-seeming. She was more than beautiful; she was stunning. But did you say things like that to women? Did you say things like that to your wife?

She chuckled. “Oh, I knew I’d like you.”

Sefton risked a glance at her face; she looked pleased. Indeed, there was even a little warmth in her cheeks.

She took the chain between his wrists and tugged on it, pulling Sefton against her. “You’re sweet, and, what’s more, you look honest. Thank you, Feltian.”

Feltian. That was him. “Of course I’m honest with you, my Lady—”

“Come, come, what did I say?”

“Taisiya. I have been pledged to serve you.” He started to hold up his chained wrists, the classic gesture of submission, but she was already holding the chain.

She smiled, a look that seemed almost playful, and gave a tug on his chain. “You have, and I accepted the pledge, and here we are. In my chambers.”

Sefton nodded slowly. “Yes… Taisiya.” Years of being told always treat your Lady with respect and honor was running headlong into always be obedient and never give her cause to be upset with you. Sefton settled for saying her name as if it were a deity’s name, careful and reverent.

He was rewarded with a very warm smile. “Are you nervous?”

All of Onter’s advice vanished from Sefton’s mind. He answered as honestly as he could. “Of course, Taisiya. I want to please you.”

“Would it surprise you to learn that I’m nervous, too?”

“My Lady? I mean… I mean…” Sefton bobbed an awkward bow, since she was still holding his chains. This wasn’t going well!

“Look at me, Feltian.”

Feltian. Right. Sefton looked into her eyes. They were jade and malachite, three hues warring for dominance in a bright, regal pattern. She was smiling, too, one eyebrow raised in what he hoped was amusement.

“Taisiya?” he tried.
“Of course I’m nervous. There’s so much to a new husband — everyone’s different, you know, and what makes Onter pleased might freak you out — and juggling four husbands means four personalities to handle besides my own. But, more than that, we’ve had no chance to find out if we’re compatible. Most people don’t, of course. I suspect some people don’t care.”

Sefton gulped. “Compatible? He didn’t even know what she meant by the word. “I mean… my genes are good, ma’am.”

“I didn’t mean genetically. With fourth, fifth husbands, one can allow for less egglings anyway.” She smiled crookedly. “I have quite a few children already, as I’m sure you’ve seen. No, I meant… Well, I meant personality-wise. Will we get along? Can we stand each other? And, of course, there’s also sexual compatibility.”

“Ma’am?”

“Taisiya.” This time, her voice was a little more firm. “If you make me tell you again, I will spank you, and you don’t seem like the sort to enjoy that.”

Enjoy… punishment? Sefton’s cheeks grew hot and he ducked his head. “I’m sorry, Taisiya, it’s just that, my Lady, I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

“What do they teach boys in school?”

He wasn’t sure if it was a question actually aimed at him or not, but Sefton answered, carefully. “Math, figures. History, child-rearing. Basic combat skills and basic literature. Biology and some chemistry.”

She chuckled at him and patted his head. Sefton resisted an urge to snarl or snap at her, like a dog who hadn’t been well-enough trained. “I’d forgotten how raw and fragile new husbands are. Thank you, that was a very thorough answer. Come here, my dear, sit down next to me and try to relax.” She led him to a low couch which overlooked a magnificent view of the coast — her coast, Sefton realized. “So, the questions end up being: what do you like, what do I like, and where do the two intersect?”

“M… “ Sefton shut his mouth and just blinked.

Taisiya sighed. “…They just told you to do what it took to make me happy, didn’t they?”

“Well, yes,” Sefton blurted out. “You’re in charge.”

“Yes,” Taisiya answered patiently. Sefton would have been far more concerned about her tone if it didn’t seem like she was annoyed at someone that wasn’t him. “And what it pleases me to have, as the one in charge, is lovers who wish to be in my bed and partners who wish to spend time with me — and vice versa. So, compatability.” Now she smiled, and Sefton thought she looked playful. “Don’t worry so much, Feltian. It’s not something you need to do, it’s something we need to find out. Together.”

Sefton swallowed around the dryness in his throat. He was worrying. She didn’t like worrying, was that what Onter had said? “How — How do we do that, Taisiya?”

She smiled at him. It seemed as if he’d finally said the right thing. “Well, my dear Feltian, we get to know each other. Then we go from there.”

Chapter 7: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1175837.html

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Over-eaters’ Anonymous, a story of Fairy Town for Patreon Patrons

Sep8

The support group met in the basement of a building that had, at one point, been a school. No church would accept them, no current school, no Y or rec center or even town hall – and it wasn’t like they had any question about why. They all knew why they were there, and it wasn’t like the name of their group, Over-eaters’ Anonymous, was actually fooling anyone.

They slipped in from separate entrances: through the floor, through the vents, a couple through one of the three doors into the old classroom….
read on…

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1170922.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Starting a New Setting (yes, again)

Sep8

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The idea is more or less a project written in the vein of Dystopic YA stories, with a heavy dose of [twitter.com profile] broodingYAhero. I’m not doing nano, just doing a project I start writing in November… or something. It’ll be derivative, of course: that’s the whole plan.

Anyway, above is poll question #1: Where is it?

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