Archive | April 13, 2017

The Wall- a story for Patreon

Apr13
History and memory did not go past the wall.
It was as tall as anyone could imagine, an unknown width, and it surrounded the Community, giving them room enough to live and grow but no more.

It could not be climbed, being smooth to the touch and unpleasant to be in contact with for any length of time.  It could not be drilled through, nor broken.  It could not be dug underneath.

The people of the Community asked themselves what the wall was for, and they came up with many stories in answer: it was to protect them from something big and deadly outside.  It was to protect something small and fragile from them.  It was the edge of the world.  It was a portal into another space.
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Cats – a story piece/outtake/worldbuilding from my Camp Nano novel

Apr13

[personal profile] rix_scaedu asked for cats. Here’s some cats, with my camp nano protaganist.

This ‘verse really needs a name.

Jen liked cats, always had.

Face families weren’t allowed to have cats. They weren’t allowed to have pets at all — it was a point of change, a point of interest — but sometimes if the “host family” had kept a dog, they would have a dog for a little while.

If you used magic around dogs for too long, you ended up with a dog who was a lot more… dog. They were cleverer, more loyal, the sort of dog that waited weeks for their masters or learned how to open the doors and fetch the beer.

If you used magic around cats for too long, they ended up… strange. They were the sort of cats that slipped outdoors when no doors were open, seemed to be talking back to you (and sometimes were), trailed good luck or bad behind them like a flag and waved it at anyone who annoyed them — or sometimes at random passers-by.

Sometimes, she’d heard, you ended up with cats who would eat up a sign or a design, just rub against it and it was gone, and then spit it out later on a whim. You had cats who really, really liked their person, and those cats just vibrated with magic.

Jen wanted a cat.

The Stepford Angels didn’t have regulations the way Face families had, but they still had pragmatic rules. She was on the road more than she was “home;” she spent much of her time blending in, being invisible, much like she had when she was a Face. There wasn’t a lot of room for any sort of pet, much less one that might suddenly set off fireworks.

But it didn’t stop her from wanting the cat, staring every cat that wandered by, and, sometimes, leaving good-luck charms for the cats to rub against and take with them.

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Luke’s Rescue Mission 2

Apr13

After Exclamation Points. Sword/Lady timeline, so maybe 50-75 years after the apocalypse, probably canon.

When Luke got back to Addergoole with Heraclea, Patronus, and the kids — Mike had shown up after two days with a teleporter and a clairvoyant, looking miffed and clearly trying to hide a worried expression — he sent Cynara a fruit basket full of the most exotic fruits Addergoole’s magical greenhouses could grow, a brief note telling her who he’d found, and what he’d rescued them from, and copies of all of Addergoole’s most recent survey maps of North America.

She sent him back one of the maps — Texas-area, he noted, where the third of her original “trouble spots” had been — with eight color-coded dots listed as “need rescue or help, soon; might be in trouble in the next year; they’re doing something hinkey, keep an eye on; and “you might want to deputize.”

Along with that was a list of three other people who might be interested in helping him rescue or check on alumni — all of them Addergoole grads and two of them people Luke had enjoyed teaching — along with their locations and a note that said if you don’t have a teleporter, I can loan you one.

Luke might have thought she was trying to keep him occupied, distracted even, but by the time he got her package, he had already gone to the second spot on her map.

Ehud had been at Addergoole twenty-five years ago, and prone to getting in trouble even then. Now, he looked as much abashed as relieved as Luke waded into the slave market and bought up his contract.

“Anyone else from Addergoole here?” he snarled. He hated slave markets, but this one was too far from Addergoole — on the edge of the Appalachians — for him to start making a point about taking it over.

“Um.” Ehud shifted. “No. But there’s a fae girl who’s never heard of it, and one from Doomsday. She’s super embarrassed,” he added, “but it makes her angry. And then she fights the slavers…”

“Right.” Luke was glad that Ehud had come cheap. “Show them to me.”

He sent Cya all three fae, once they’d been freed, cleaned up, and fed, a box of chocolates Maureen only made for special occasions, and, after a little shouting, a list of Addergoole students and their children, as comprehensive as they had.

She sent him back the list with several annotations, the Florida-quarter quadrant marked up — this time with names — and some very nice whisky.

She also sent a note: if you can’t kill the bad ones, the really bad ones, I know someone who deals in justice.

When he got back from Texas with his newly-recruited posse, he sent her (at Laurel’s suggestion) some samples of fiber plants they’d been working on, and a student of theirs who appeared very good at Finding with a note They need summer study. Teach them what you do?

He wasn’t at all surprised when her next package included a contract on behalf of the Finder. He didn’t think twice before he signed it — though he did ask Drake to read it over first.

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