Archive | November 2016

Weekend, with Car Repairs, weighty conversations, and deer

Nov15

It’s, in theory, Autumn, although the weather has been very up and down lately. We’re getting 10-degree shifts for a day at a time, 3 days at a time, and then dropping back a little bit lower and lower every time it drops.

This weekend, on a pleasant day, I drove up to Rochester (about 2 hour drive, half Thruway and half 2-lane roads) to visit my parents, and to have my dad help me fix (replace) my rear wheel bearing.

This, it turns out, is not exactly more complicated than fixing/replacing brakes, but it does involve a lot more swearing, a tool called a slide hammer that looks like a ShakeWeight’s more obscene older cousin, and a lot of Thrust (or some other lubricant, but hey, there’s a theme here).

It also involved puppy kisses from my two “kid brothers” the lab-mix doggies, a vegan “Reuben” sandwich (with homemade bread! also homemade vegan “cheese” and homemade sauerkraut!) from my mom, and a couple uncomfortable conversations.

All I’m going to say about the political discussion is: we managed not to have a fight. I’ll take it.

The other conversations were harder — talking to my dad about things I’d been holding on to, talking to both parents about end-of-life plans. I don’t want to know, I didn’t want to confront Dad…

…but I’d rather do it in the garage where I can hug them both and move on than do it later, in a hospital, or be shouting at a gravestone some day.

On the way home, feeling thoughtful and pensive and a little bit pleased, a little weight-lifted, I saw about a dozen deer in the Seneca Army Depot (but no white ones! Sad)… and then, in my front yard, two deer snacking on our apple tree.

They don’t symbolize anything, the deer, but they’re there, because it’s November and they’re always there, and it’s not like we needed all the apples, anyway.

Oh, and there was a supermoon. Which was just about gorgeous hanging over the Finger Lakes.

Little disjointed today, but that was my weekend. Hugs to you all.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1199929.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Captured Knight, Continued

Nov14

A double-crack alternate universe in which Leo gets an army and then takes over the northwest.

After:

Black Knight and White Queen from the 9th and White Knight from the 10th and
Red Queen from the 11th,
and Domination and
Captured Knight, which read first, because AU, and several pieces by [personal profile] inventrix, and now I’m going to need a TOC for this.

The position was not exactly comfortable; Luke was kneeling on the stone floor of Cya’s house, and she was standing behind him, between his wings, where he couldn’t quite see her, where he couldn’t quite move his wings properly. Luke wasn’t sure he could move if he wanted to, and some part of him wasn’t sure he wanted to. He had to see this through, he insisted to himself. He had to do this properly, if he was going to keep sending his students to this.

Cya’s fingers settled on Luke’s collarbone; she leaned over him until he could feel her pressing against the back of his head. “Hold still a moment,” she murmured.

The order seemed to shoot straight down his spine. He made an involuntary noise as he tried to shift and couldn’t, tried to flap and most definitely couldn’t. He thought he heard her chuckle, but then she was doing a Working and he was too focused on that to think about what a laugh meant in this context.

It was an Eperu Working, earth, stone… silver? She was holding something against one of his collarbones, he realized, something cold and hard, like a stone or a pebble.

The Greek was complex, and she threw in Latin and at least two languages he didn’t recognize, but Luke was good with Eperu – it was his best Word, after Kwxe, fire, force, and he could follow most of it. She was transmuting, shaping, controlling. She was changing the pebble…

…into the collar, he realized, with a stab of panic. She was really going to collar him. The metal was already sliding around his neck. She was going to show him off, like… Like…

His mind flickered back to her first year, to Leo’s collar (after collar, after collar), to Yoshi’s first year, to Kept he had seen standing by Cya’s side over the years. She was wrapping the metal around his throat, of course she would. He snorted quietly to himself. He was being ridiculous. He’d agreed to twelve years. He agreed to be Kept. Of course it was going to come with a collar, not a necklace like some…

He snorted again. Like a cy’Luca Keeper might do.

“Funny, is it?” She’d leaned over; her voice was right against his ear. If he’d been able to move, Luke might have jumped. She was screwing with his situational awareness. This whole thing was screwing with his head.

“It’s just…” he cleared his throat. “It’s just… uh. You’re not a cy’Luca.”

She chuckled. He wasn’t sure that was a good sign or not. “No. Never have been.” She patted his shoulder. “There. You can move. You can stand up, if you want.” Her fingers slid over the back of his neck, tugging the new collar against this throat. “Maybe go check the collar out in the mirror.”

Luke shifted, but she was still holding the collar. “I think… I think that can wait.” Maybe if he was clever, it could wait twelve years.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1199847.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Captured Knight, an AU story of Cya and Luke

Nov14

A double-crack alternate universe in which Leo gets an army and then takes over the northwest.

After:
Domination and
Black Knight and White Queen from the 9th and White Knight from the 10th and
Red Queen from the 11th, which read first, because Au.

When he’d woken up, his mind had been circling. Things he hadn’t thought of in years had kept popping up, then vanishing before he could consider them properly.

“Of course I won’t let anyone hurt you if I can stop it. I promise it, Mike.”

“I swear to you I’ll do what it takes for this project to succeed, Regine.”

“Of course I’ll follow the rules of your school.”

“Promise it?”

“I swear to it, not that you need it.”

He had sworn to so much over the years, and, more than that, there were places in his mind where it felt like there had, at one point, been an oath — but he couldn’t remember making any oath that could relate to the scattered memories or the feeling of a wall no longer there.

This morning, it had been enough to leave him feeling drunk and uncertain. Now… now he was kneeling in front of a girl he had once taught, and he felt drunk and uncertain all over again.

She threw around orders with a confidence Addergoole students didn’t have, and yet, she also talked in a way that left no casual orders laying around. So when she’d said “kneel,” it had hit Luke like a ton of bricks, and then, on his knees, he’d felt a sudden peace and pleasure.

She was standing behind him, having placed herself between his wings, and her hands were on his neck. Luke ought to feel vulnerable. He felt at peace.

“I’m going to collar you now.” Her voice was very quiet. “And then I’m going to go digging in your brain.”

“Wh..” His voice was hoarse. He coughed and tried again. “Why?”

“Because I want to find out what pit traps Regine left, before I fall in them. And,” her voice went from gentle to firm without missing a beat, “because I can, and you, I think, are going to need more reminders than most that you are Mine.“

He twitched, his wings trying to fold in, but she was there, standing between his wings, and they still didn’t want to work quite correctly. She caught the tip of his left wing in her hand. “Easy. No need to grumble. You knew what you were getting into.” She paused, and Luke heard doubt in her voice when she continued, a strange thing for her. “…Didn’t you?”

He found his voice with effort. Her hand on his wing felt strange, too warm. People didn’t just handle his wings. Not even his lovers had done that. “I’ve never been Kept before.”

“Well, then, this will be interesting.” She stroked the flesh of his wing, her fingertips feeling as if they were leaving trails of flame behind them. “First, the collar. And then I suppose we can do Keeping 101.”

“That sounds like it should be a class back at Addergoole.” He forced the joke out, but she didn’t laugh. Instead, her fingers stilled on his wing, near where Leo’s sword had torn a ragged hole.

“You know, it really ought to be.”

There wasn’t any humor at all in her tone, and her fingers were nearly through the holes in his wings. Luke held very still.

“Oh, well, we’ll see what we can do, you and me.” She patted his back, between his shoulder blades. “Let’s get that collar on you.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1199266.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Two Beginnings of Stories

Nov14

Because (for *cough* SOME reason), I was suddenly feeling the urge to write slaves and magical schools.
These are bare intros, of course.

Slaves, School

There was a collar, of course.

Desmond hadn’t exactly been expecting it, but somehow, when it was there that morning in the middle of summer, pressed around Des neck and already body-temperature, it wasn’t a surprise.

Every year, on Aleriaon the 1st, 28 citizens between their fourteenth and nineteenth birthdays woke up wearing a collar. It was chosen entirely at random — or so it was claimed, by those in charge of claiming such things — and you never knew if you would be the one to wake up like that.

And absolutely nobody knew what happened after that. The collar meant something, of course. You would, if you traveled in the right circles, run into people who wore collars — adult people, people at least past their twentieth birthday. They worked for other people, the sort of people that were recognized when they walked down the street and the sort that made a point of not being recognized at all. And they never, ever spoke about what the collar meant, or what had happened. Rarely, unless they were serving as Herald or Voice, did they speak at all.

Des had only once even seen someone with a collar. They had been at the Court building for something his father needed to do, and the collared person had been standing behind the judge, saying nothing, doing nothing, as if they were simply a part of the scenery. Something about that had spoken to him: being on display, being rooted to the spot, being voiceless. The image had stuck with Des: like a lucky rock, brought up and caressed and studied until the edges have worn off and it’s shiny with use. He couldn’t remember the warmth of the Courthouse or the noise, the way people had been shoving and unruly, the expression on the judge’s face. But every detail of the collared person’s expression, their stance, their clothing, their collar – every inch of that remained ingrained in memory.

He woke early, the pressure of the collar startling him. Both hands went to his throat. The metal there — when there had been nothing of the sort when he went to sleep; Des didn’t even own a necklace, much less wear one to bed — could only be one thing. It wasn’t all that wide, not like the one on the collared person in the courthouse, maybe the width of Des’s thumb. It was warm, not too thick, a few sheets of paper together, no more, and it had no closure. It had no embossing, either; he had read that the collars often were embossed although you had to be up close and personal to see the pattern.

Presumably, someone got up close and personal with collared people, but Des had never figured out whom.

He hopped out of bed and hurried to a mirror. The collar was pale rose gold, looking redder against his olive skin. it had enough room for him to slip two fingers under it, but no more. It was unmarked, as far as Des could tell, and it didn’t seem to do anything.

::Report to the Central office at 1 First street at 11 a.m. today::

The voice seemed to echo against the inside of Des’ teeth somehow.

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1201991.html

Slaves, School 2

“There’s a girl in my room. In our room. In the room. A girl. Kneeling.” Austin skidded into the dorm’s common space. He wasn’t exactly alarmed, but this wasn’t… normal.

Well, it hadn’t been normal back home, at least. Austin wasn’t sure what was normal anywhere, anymore.

Up until a week ago, Perekatta University had been a story, a feature in several of Austin’s childhood storybooks and then the backdrop in a dozen more “chapter books” and more grown-up novels. The books had come from his Aunt Karen, a courtesy-title Aunt who’d been a schoolmate of his parents. Austin had read them all, at first dutifully and then with more interest and enthusiasm as the stories expanded.

There had been no girls kneeling in the boys’ dorms in the books, however.

“A girl,” Austin repeated. He’d gotten the attention of a couple of the upperclasmen.

“Not exactly.” Randy was sitting sideways in the biggest armchair, legs over one arm. He set down his magazine languidly and grinned at Austin.

Austin wasn’t sure what the joke was. “Exactly, yes. A girl, in the boys’ dorm.” Austin was the first pre-frosh here. He wasn’t sure this was going to work out in his favor, even if he had been about to pick exactly the bed he wanted. “She called me sir.”

“That–” Randy swung his legs down onto the floor and leaned over his knees. “It wasn’t in the books, was it?”

Austin took a step backwards. “No.” He didn’t ask how did you know about the books?

Randy answered anyway. “Everyone here either grew up attached to the Uni somehow, or they ended up reading the books. I mean, once every, maybe, ten, fifteen years we end up with a wild talent. You know, someone completely a mystery. But you didn’t have that look.”

“What look?” Austin was beginning to get offended.

“Your hair wasn’t on fire. Nothing was on fire. So. You didn’t know about the girl, well, the creature in your room.”

“Creature?” There was a certain inevitability to this conversation, like Austin was reading an invisible script. Well, if it got him answers, he’d read the script.

“She’s a Fah. An elf, if you will. They signed a treaty with the Incantara Primus, oh, centuries ago. Maybe millennia.” Randy flapped his hand, clearly un-interested in the details. “So they serve us for a period of time. Anyway, there’s three things to keep in mind about the elves.”

Suddenly, Randy looked serious. Austin wondered if he was being pranked. Still, he looked attentive.

“First, you don’t give them your full name and, preferably, you don’t give them your real name at all. Use a nickname.

“Secondly. if they get any of your bodily fluids – yeah, even that–”

Austin stared blankly. “That?” What was “that?”

Randy didn’t seem to notice. “–Be certain you get some of theirs in turn. And thirdly, do not ever shed their blood over live earth, and try not to shed it over any sort of earth at all. Water or fire’s best, and if you use water, dump in a lot of bleach before you send it down the pipes. Understand?”

“Don’t use a real name. Don’t give them bodily fluids without a trade of same. Don’t — do people really have to be told not to bleed them over bare earth? Who’s going to bleed them at all?”

Randy’s expression shadowed. “You’d be surprised. Go on, kiddo. Meet the Fah. Just remember what I told you.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1199078.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Domination, an AU story of Cya and Luke

Nov12

A double-crack alternate universe in which Leo gets an army and then takes over the northwest.

After:
Black Knight and White Queen from the 9th and White Knight from the 10th and
Red Queen from the 11th, which read first, because Au.
Title from – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domination_(chess)

She watched the gears turn in his mind. She wondered how much self-control he actually applied to his wings, and how much of that was failing because they hadn’t fully healed his wings.

It hadn’t been her kindest decision, but she wanted him off-balance, because she was about to knock his feet out from under him. Cya didn’t believe in fighting fair when she had a chance to build an advantage.

Right now, his wings were twitching, the tips of them moving as he considered folding them closer to his back and considered opening them. She thought it might be distracting him.

“Twelve.” His voice was harsh, but he was smirking, albeit tiredly. “But I want terms.”

“My Mentor raised me well.” She passed though the meal slot a single piece of paper. There weren’t many items on it; she had the upper hand, after all.

He raised his eyebrows at her. “There’s already a clause about not attacking Addergoole.”

“I’m not stupid. You wouldn’t sign away your freedom if you thought you were putting Regine and VanderLinden at risk. Besides, while it would be a lie to say I have no quarrel with Addergoole… my grandkids are there. I have no desire to have a battle with Addergoole.”

Yet.

He read the paper twice. “I should ask for a lawyer,” he muttered.

“I could call for a cy’Law, if you want. We have a few.”

She was laughing at him, and he knew it. Strangely, he smirked back at her.

“Wouldn’t help. All right. Twelve years, under these terms. Then what?”

“You do what you want with your life, having promised not to attack me, Leo, Boom, or Cloverleaf.” The answers were easy. She was on familiar ground, here.

“You sound like you think I’ll want to?” He was tired, and his words were slurring. But he kept trying.

She sighed at him in exasperation that was more affectionate than she meant it to be. “I sound like the woman who has plans to make plans. I cover my bases, sa’Hunting Hawk.”

“Sa? Still?”

“You deserve it, even when I’m furious with you.”

“Because I beat up Leo.”

“Because you escalated a situation before I was prepared to properly deal with it. And because you beat Leo into a pulp.”

“He wouldn’t stay down.” His wings spread, and he hardly winced. They weren’t unfolding all the way, though. She’d have to make sure that was treated before it healed wrong.

She quirked her eyebrows at him. “Stay down, sa’Hunting Hawk. Twelve years.”

He took a breath, sighed, and bowed his head. “From now until this day twelve years from now, I Belong to you, … sa’Red Doomsday. You will shall become mine, and what I have shall come from you.”

It had been easier than she feared. “From this day and for twelve years, you Belong to me, Luca Hunting-Hawk. My Name shall encompass you and my will and hand protect you. You are mine.”

He took a breath. “Yours.”

She stood up and moved to the door, unlocking it. “Come here. Get out of there before it scrambles your brains.”

It took him a moment to move, startled, perhaps, by her tone, or maybe just exhausted. He had been dazed and out of it since Regine had released him; that would take some digging. While he moved, she rattled off her standard orders: no attacking her, no attempting to run away, no trying to use magic or coercion to free himself… “If you attack Leo again in anything other than a sparring situation, I am going to make you regret the day you were born and every choice that lead to your presence here before me. Do you understand?”

He didn’t flinch, but she could see in his eyes that she’d startled him. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Come on. You need some fresh air, you need a change of clothes, and you need a Healer.” She walked briskly to the stairs, knowing he would follow her. “I’m going to give you a couple days to recover, and then I’m sending you to Leo, to be his aide.”

She heard his footstep falter behind her. She didn’t slow or turn around. “His…” his voice was even more hoarse now. “You really are pissed at me, aren’t you?”

“If you think I’m pissed at you, Luca, you might imagine how angry I am at Leo.” She softened her voice, just a little. “But this isn’t a punishment, not for either of you. I think he could use your expertise. And, if he turns out not to want it… I have a school full of children who need combat training.”

Now, she turned, and touched Luke’s cheek. “I’m going to keep you busy, very busy, for the next twelve years.” She smiled gently at him. “I think you’ll like it.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1198768.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Red Queen

Nov11

A double-crack alternate universe in which Leo gets an army and then takes over the northwest.

After:
Black Knight and White Queen from the 9th and White Knight from yesterday, which read first, because Au.

“Ten years.”

She was sitting on the other side of a glass window that Luke couldn’t break — not that he’d tried all that hard. They were speaking through a telephone. The resemblance to a pre-war prison did not escape Luke.

“That’s a long time,” he stalled. It wasn’t, really. Not to creatures as old as they were. “You can’t send me to attack Addergoole.”

“I can,” she countered, “without your assent, without you agreeing to a collar. Regine has some pretty nice blocks on your mind — but I’m better than she is.”

The ache in his wings reminded him why he wasn’t flapping temperamentally. He pulled them close to his body. He should have been healed already. This place was getting to him. “You’re arrogant.”

“I know how good we are. I know how much we practice our skills. Ten years — and I will choose not to send you to attack your friends.”

Luke forced himself to keep his wings still. “I let you put me in here.”

“You didn’t make us fight to put you in here,” she agreed. Or didn’t agree. It was hard to tell with the damn cy’Drakes. “I won’t send you to fight Addergoole. I’m a bitch, but I’m not a monster. Ten years.” She ticked it off on her fingers. “You get four years to teach — under my collar, but under your own aegis and with no orders about your teaching — at Addergoole, but most of the summer and half of your weekends are mine.”

“That will make Mentoring hard.” At this point, he thought he might be arguing just so he didn’t give in. He thought about Leo. He thought about breaking Leo’s ribs and telling him “just stay down, damnit.”

He wasn’t ready to stay down.

“You can bring them with you. It might do both Doomsday and Addergoole kids good to mingle.”

“You mean that? Bring my students to weekends you said were yours?” He couldn’t help but sneer the words.

She smirked at him. “I’m not about to have a romance with you, Luke. And I’m not sure how sex would work out, but I suppose we’ll figure that out later. In case you hadn’t noticed, I already have a romance.”

“You already have Leo, you mean.”

There was a pause. She leveled a look at him. In a less vulnerable position, Luke might have found it interesting. Cya was cold. She was steady, she was emotionless.

Not this time.

“He is the love of my life,” she said, her voice calm but her expression anything but. Her eyes were half-lidded, one hand flat on the table and the other white-knuckling the phone. “And now would be an unwise time to suggest otherwise.”

Luke thought the expression on her face was familiar, but he could not place where he had seen it. What he could tell was that she was entirely sincere. He held up his hands in surrender. “You have Leo,” he agreed carefully. “I don’t expect to get in the way of that.” Truth be told, he had no idea what to expect.

“So bring your students here on the weekends, if you want. Cloverleaf is safe. The Kept ones will probably appreciate the break. If they don’t, then you know they either have a really good Keeper or you have to really look into their Keeping.”

Luke found himself startled at her stark assessment. She twisted her lips in something like a tired smile at his expression.

“We had a few get past us. Bad Keepers, sneaky bad Keepers.”

“It’s awful, isn’t it?” Luke thought back through the years. “The feeling when you were looking and missed it anyway?”

“It’s horrible.” She sat quietly for a minute. “I try to be a good Keeper. It will be weird, because it’s you, but I’ll do my best.”

“Ten years…” Luke considered. “You were very angry.”

“You and I both know it had to be long enough to make Regine think it was worth as much as her not attacking me.”

Luke considered that. He thought about the oaths he’d been freed from and raised his eyebrows at her. “You planned this.”

“I did not plan on you beating Leo nearly to death.” The fierceness was back. “That fucked up every single thing I had in place for dealing with this, ah, army. And everything that goes along with the army.”

“Everything that–?”

“That’ll wait until you’re under my collar and my orders. You fucked up my plans considerably. But… of course I had back-up plans.” She smiled crookedly. “Even Addergoole should have figured that out by now.”

“You always have back-up plans.” He nodded slowly. “You didn’t plan on me attacking Leo. But you had a plan if I did. And…” he spoke slowly now. It almost didn’t seem real. “Your plan included getting me out of my promises to Regine.”

“Ten years sounds like a long enough break to decide if you want to go back, doesn’t it?” Her smile was sharp. “Maybe we ought to call it eleven.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1198369.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Abuse, for the Hurt/Comfort Bingo Card

Nov11

Fae Apoc, for my Hurt/Comfort card. Pretty much what it says on the tin. The aftermath of a bad Keeping being handled by a new Keeper.

“Dumb, dumb, stupid, dumb.” Valla had been repeating the refrain for three nights, ever since she fell into the stupid trap from the stupid trappers with the stupid mind-fuddling haze and the stupid, stupid, stupid moment where she’d agreed to be theirs.

Well, his.

She knew better. She knew so much better. And this time, there wasn’t going to be any convenient rescue. There wasn’t going to be any time limit. She was well and truly boned.

…except she wasn’t, yet, which was confusing. Well, they were on the road, as it were. The trappers were actually trappers, hunting for fur and meat in what had, at one point, been a city. The brain-fuzzing mess she’d stepped into had been intended for one of the big mutant monsters. So had the pit trap it’d been in. “Stupid, stupid, dumb-ass, stupid.”

“I know.” The voice made her freeze. “But it’s not really nice to point it out.”

“Sir?” She didn’t want to move. She didn’t want to ignore him, either. “I’m sorry, I…”

“Are you done hauling water?”

“I filled the cask,” she answered carefully.

“And what’s stupid?”

“I am, sir.” She could answer that one easily!

“You’re not the first person to get caught in a trap, you know. That’s why they’re traps.”

“I know, sir.”

He sighed. Valla winced. He had been somewhere between patient and negligent since he caught her, letting the rest of his team give her chores and mostly ignoring her. “Come here.”

“Sir.” She hurried over to him, looking at the ground. What had she done? What was he going to do? What was–

“Here, sit here.” His wagon had an old van seat in the front; he patted the cushion next to him.

Cautiously, still not looking at him, Valla sat down.

“All right. Good. That’s a good first step. Can you look at me?”

“Sir?” It wasn’t an order. She didn’t know what to do with it.

“Please?”

Valla peeked up at him nervously. He didn’t look angry. He didn’t look anything except maybe a little bit worried.

“That’s a good start. All right. So. You said you’d been Kept before.”

“Yes, sir.” Some people didn’t like leftovers…

“Your former owner, they had standing orders for you?”

Oh, no. “Yes, sir.” She didn’t look away. He wanted her to look at him. But she tried to let her eys drift downwards towards his lips instead of his eyes.

He was frowning. She tried not to wince away. “Could you give me a couple examples of standing orders?”

“Yes, sir.” She cleared her throat. “There was, uh. ‘speak when you’re spoken to and not otherwise,’ and, um, ‘don’t fight, don’t fight back’ and…” she sorted through the rest of them, not wanting to give him ideas. “‘Do what the crew tells you to do without argument.’”

“I see. You’re drawing me a picture, here… tell me one of those standing orders you were avoiding telling me, just now.”

That one was an order. She swallowed and spoke fast and quietly. “‘Wear only what you’re given and, if you’re not given anything, don’t try to cover up.’”

“…And now you’ve colored that picture in. Thank you, Valla. That’s enough.” He patted her shoulder very gently. “All right. Here are you new standing orders.”

Valla tensed. Here it came.

“You already do what the crew tells you; you don’t need an order for that. But if they tell you to do something you don’t understand, or you find unpleasant or unconscionable, either tell them to check with me, or tell them you have to check with me, and then do so. Understand?”

“…Unpleasant?” She must have heard him wrong.

“Unpleasant. Now… if you really dislike doing the dishes or something, you may have to do some things you don’t want to do, but we can negotiate a lot of that.” He looked at her face. “…at some point, I may need to track down this former Keeper of yours and beat them up. But that’s later.” He shook his head. “Valla, you Belong to me now.”

Of course she did, because she’d been stupid enough to get herself trapped. “Yes, sir.”

“And, yeah. I want you to work hard and be an extra hand around the camp. I want to use your expertise – once you trust me enough to let me know what that is. I want you to be an asset to my team. None of those things are orders, Valla, please… You look like you’re taking mental notes. It’s okay.” He patted her shoulder. “You’re doing very well. I’m very pleased with you.”

She closed her eyes. It felt good. It felt strange, and warm, like being wrapped in a warm blanket. “Thank you, sir.”

“But…”

The panic set in, and she opened her eyes. “Sir?”

“But… and Valla, I cannot stress enough that these aren’t orders… I don’t want you to be miserable. I’d like it if you could be happy.”

Valla stared at him. “Why? … Sir?”

“Well… I do?” He shrugged uncomfortably. “Look, it makes me happy when you’re happy. So… you have to tell me if something makes you unhappy.” He tapped her collar lightly. “I know this, being collared at all, being Kept, makes you unhappy. You don’t have to tell me that. But… I’m serious. If someone in the crew asks you to do something and you think it’s a bad idea or just, I don’t know, don’t want to… I’ll stand up for you, all right?”

Valla tilted her head. “It’s happened before?” she guessed. “When you were… younger? Sir?”

“It happened before,” he admitted. “You’re a smart one, Valla.”

“I know what Keeping is like, sir.” She was being very forward. But he didn’t seem to mind, at least not too much. “Someone… hurt your Kept?”

“Nobody in the crew now. But I didn’t know, not for months, because she thought I’d wanted it. And you, you look like you think any awful thing must be exactly what your Keeper wanted.”

Valla didn’t know what to say to that. She ducked her head and looked abashed and hoped that was enough.

“Sweetness, Valla… that wasn’t a criticism. Look.” He touched her cheek as lightly as he’d touched her collar a moment ago. “I’m serious, okay? Is anyone doing anything you don’t like?”

Valla swallowed. He was worried, he was really worried, about her. No, about… “What happened to the other one, sir? Your other Kept?”

“She…” He frowned; he clearly didn’t want to talk about it. “She attacked the, the guy, my crew-mate, who’d been hurting her. And he fought back, really hard. She survived, but it was a close call. When she was healed up, I freed her. I found her a place to stay and all the supplies I could afford. But I couldn’t, well, he attacked her with hawthorn.”

Valla swallowed. “I wouldn’t attack a crewmate.”

“I know. I do. But then, well, I’d never know if something was wrong, either.” He touched her cheek with his fingertips. “Is anyone doing anything you don’t want them to?”

“I don’t want to be collared. I don’t want to be a slave.”

She wanted to cover her mouth, but he was still touching her, and she didn’t want to knock his hands away. Valla flushed, though, and let her eyes slide away, looking off into the distance. He was going to punish her now. He was going to have to.

He laughed. The sound was startled and startling, pleased and confusing. “All right, I asked for that one. I got that, believe it or not. And I understand it. I’m not going to free you right now. I’d apologize for it, tell you I was sorry, but that would be kind of hypocritical. So… here, Valla, please look at me.”

Please or not, that was an order. She looked into his hazel eyes. He looked serious. He looked gentle. He didn’t look the least bit annoyed or angry. “I know you don’t want to be collared. But…” He frowned. Valla tensed and tried not to pull away.

“It was a dumb thing to say. I’m sorry, sir.”

He sighed yet again. “All right. I’m not a big fan of words-unspoken sort of orders, but I’m going to give one. For the next week, Valla, you’re not allowed to call yourself dumb, or stupid, or any variation thereof. And I’d rather you not apologize for being unhappy, but that’s not an order.” He put his big hands on her shoulders. “If you can be happy here – and it’s possible, I think, that you could be – then you’re going to have to help me find things that you do like doing, and help me avoid some of the things you dislike the most. All right?”

Valla offered him a cautious smile. “Is that an order, sir?”

“Will it help you do it, if it is?”

“I… um. Yes? Things are definitely easier to do if they’re orders?”

“Then yes.” He kissed her cheek. The touch felt strange, pleasant. It was a chaste kiss, and yet Valla found she liked it. “Yes. That one’s an order. Find things you like doing, Valla, and tell me what they are.”

It would make him happy, she realized. He would be happier – and happier with her – if he knew she was doing things she could enjoy. “Yes, sir.”

She still didn’t know what he was up to, but maybe she wasn’t quite as boned as she’d feared.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1197981.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

A Patreon Repost: Lab Rat

Nov11


 Repost Story: Lab Rat 

This story was written to a Mini-Giraffe Call for Transitions back in 2013.  It’s set in the furry sub-setting of Tír na Cali – "Cali Catpeople," as I usually call it and is meant to be light-hearted. 

"Engage in some scientific experimentation," the Agency guy had said. "Earn your freedom," they’d said. "Just two years in our scientific facility, and you can go free," they’d promised. 

They’d strapped Robert and Eric to tables, at which point they’d both started complaining. 

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1197607.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Black Pawns, an AU story of Cya, Leofric, and an Army

Nov11

A double-crack alternate universe in which Leo gets an army and then takes over the northwest.

comes tangental to:
Black Knight and White Queen from the 9th and White Knight from yesterday.

It was possible, Cya admitted, that Leo was getting a little bit carried away.

She watched him in front of his army; she watched him in front of his newly-conquered cities and villages and small states. He was soaking it in, reveling in it; he was glowing with the power and the pleasure of their worship.

She watched as he seemed to get taller, as his antlers seemed to get wider. He wasn’t growing, but his image was. They doted on him; they loved him. They praised him and expected him to fix their problems.

It was more than a little possible that he was becoming a god.

It was nearly certain that she ought to stop him. The Council would notice. Addergoole would notice.

She stepped up behind him and began the paperwork and bureaucracy of bringing another town under the Cloverleaf banner.

She wasn’t going to stop him yet.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1197318.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

White Knight, an AU story of Cya, Regine, Mike, Luke, and an Army

Nov10

After This Story and this story from yesterday, which read first, because Au.

“Just do it.” Luke knew his voice was shaking, but he held out hope that Regine wouldn’t notice. “Regine. Mike’s right. She has the cards here.”

“Luca, I am not going to leave you to be Kept by this, this… woman.”

“I don’t see why not.” He found himself chuckling a little bit. Regine would not understand. Hopefully, Mike would, and he’d be able to explain it. If not, well, Regine could hold a grudge for a very long time. He’d have plenty of time (he hoped) to explain himself later. “Look, Regine, we’ve been letting her Keep Addergoole graduates – and by that I mean not stopping her, let’s be honest – for decades now. What’s wrong with letting me see what my students went through?”

“You are not a student.” Regine was livid. This was not going to help matters; Cya could see that sort of opening and she wouldn’t hesitate to take it.

“No. But neither are they when she Keeps them. Look, Regine. Take the offer.” He stretched his wings carefully, feeling the place where things were still healing. “She’s got you — us — in a tight place, and it’s not going to get any easier by you huffing and puffing.”

“I am not ‘huffing and puffing.'”

“…Much,” Mike muttered.

Luke snorted. “Regine, I know you.” He was tired. His brain was clouded. He tried to make his voice gentle anyway. “I know what you do. Take the offer. I’ll get back to you when I can.” He snorted again. “We live forever, ‘Gene, and you’ve got my kid there with you. You’ll be fine for a couple decades.”

Cya cleared her throat. He could hear the difference between her a-hem and Regine’s. “You have four years to find a replacement for him, Director Avonmorea. Whatever deal I make with him, it will give him the time to teach for the next four school years. That should let him clear his current roster of cy’ree.”

Luke stared at the phone as if he could see her expression through it. What was she doing? Why was she doing it? “That’s very generous.”

“Leo is very fond of you. That buys you a lot of leeway.”

His wings twitched in frustration. He knew why she irritated Regine so much. But he wasn’t in a position, at the moment, to indulge himself.

You put yourself in this position, he reminded himself. He cleared his throat and looked at the phone again. “Thank you.”

“Luca, you can’t mean to…”

“Luke, come on, we need you…”

Luke sat down hard on the divan. “‘Gene. Mike. I’m not going that far away. And you’ll be fine without me, and so will the school. It’s been a long time.” He was so tired, and he didn’t think it was just the injuries and the hawthorn. “You have lots of students of mine who could take my place for a little while.”

There was a moment where nobody spoke. Luke imagined Regine attempting to stare Cya down. He imagined the way she’d looked when she’d come up to them, Leo laying bleeding out on the ground. He remembered that look. It was more frightening now than it had been her first year of school.

Regine cleared her throat. “Very well. Luca Hunting-Hawk, I release you from all oaths you have sworn to me. I release you from your oaths to the school. I release you from your promise to the crew. You are free of your ties to me, Hunting-Hawk.”

Mike’s voice came in the rushing of Luke’s ears. “Luke… I release you from your promises to me. You are free of me, Luke, Hunting-Hawk.”

He did not so much lay down as he fell over. There was weight lifted from his mind he hadn’t known was there. He gasped, and again, but the pressure behind his eyes was too much.

Unconsciousness took him.

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