Archive | September 2017

Autumn 2017 Giraffe (Zebra) Call: Autumn, Autumn (Roundtree)*, Fall, and Falling

Sep7

It’s time for a Zebra Call, which is a special black-and-white and stripey version of a Giraffe Call.

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The theme for the month is Autumn, Autumn (Roundtree)*, Fall, and Falling

There’s a longer post about what this call is for [here]. The short version is: We’re redoing our bathroom and the cabinets I really, really want cost $700 more than our budget.

If you’re interested in Giraffe Calls in general, check out the Giraffe Call: Call tag [here].

Leave a prompt (or several), get a short fic written. 

Tip and get TWO fics written and 100 words/$1.50 tipped

Join my Patreon and get TWO fics written. 

My goal is $500 between new Patreon Patrons and tips (Counting each $1 of Patreon-age as $3)

For every $50 in tips, I will choose a prompter at random and write another story to their prompts (so leave lots of prompts!)

For every multiple of 5 Patreon Patrons we reach (30, 35, 40…) I will do the same.  Continue reading →

Time for a (Zebra) Giraffe Call – Explanation

Sep7

All right, it’s time for a Zebra Call!

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When I first started my Giraffe Calls, they were to help defray the costs of the super-awesome giraffe carpet that I wanted  – and got!  – for the bedroom of our then-new(-to-us) house. The idea was that we would get the bedroom done “enough” to look finished, and then no matter what else we were working on, we could lay down at night and rest because the bedroom was done.

Hey, it worked, more or less.

Now we’re doing the bathroom!  And it’s going to be black, grey, and white, mostly white, and since we already have a giraffe toilet paper holder (because giraffes), we want a zebra shower curtain…

No, I’m not holding a whole prompt call to finance a shower curtain.  But it’s nicer than Cabinet Call.

You see, I have fallen in love with a certain door style and the nature of the bathroom dictates a certain (non-particle-board) carcass style and… that ends up $700 over our cabinet budget.  I can cover $200 of that on current Patreon rates (3 months, or the length of this renovation).

We ripped out the “linen cabinet” that existed because

a) the face frame & doors went up to the former ceiling, 6’8″, and the cabinet itself went all the way up to the new/oldest ceiling, 8’4″

b) The doors were in bad shape, chipped, and worn.

c) the vent for the toilet was letting out in the top of the cabinet

d) the awful old drywall went under, over, and behind the old cabinet, and it was nailed to it.

And we removed the old (really ugly) vanity and replaced it with a pedestal sink last year, which opened up the place a huge amount, but poof, storage gone.

So we’re going to get two cabinets, one a linen cabinet (full height, to replace the one we ripped out) and one a wall cabinet above the toilet.

And I really, really want the pretty doors with a ( arch at the top to match the door we bought to put in as a bathroom entrance door – which is going to be a pocket door!   – but the nice doors only come on the nicer cabinets.

So!  Time for a Zebra Call.

Desmond’s Climb: Seeing Things

Sep7

First: Slaves, School
Previous: Kayay’s Story

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So, do you know about this stairway? It was the seventh or eighth phrasing Des had tried of the same question. They were already in their next class, and his collar was not talking to him.

This was tricky, because it was supposed to be a class on clairvoyance and other scrying.

Could you at least help me with this… “Could you give me a hand with this class?” he asked weakly. “I’ll stop asking about the other thing. I will. Just please help me with this class.”

“Desmond, is it?” Their teacher, a tall and impressive person with dark skin and short curly hair woven with wire the same silver as their collar, paused by Desmond’s desk.

“Des is fine. I – sorry. My collar is annoyed with me.” Continue reading →

Funerary Rites Twenty-One: Home

Sep6

First: Funeral
Previous: Family

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“Well,” Chitter commented dryly, “that was entertaining.  And entirely unexpected.  Senga, do you have any nice family?”

“No,” Erramun answered for her.  “Mirabella eliminated all the members of Senga’s family that might be considered nice.  Except Senga, who she chose to leave alive and actually protected.”

“Well, Senga’s not nice, she’s ruthless, sweet, and staring at me like I mean murder.  Why’d her aunt leave her alive?”

“Mirabella always has her reasons but she almost never shares them.  Shared.”  Erramun frowned.  “Someone killed her.  I want to know who.”

“I do, too.  And not just because they beat me to it.” Senga frowned.  “I don’t know, but I feel like Eaven is too obsessed with this place.  I feel like everyone is too obsessed with this place.”

“Well, move in, make it your own.  That’s the first step.”  Erramun gave her a gentle push.

“Hey, Bound guy, let the lady move on her own.” Chitter glared at him.  “You’re not supposed to be pushy, you’re supposed to be pushed.”

“And you are supposed to be moving in and being a supportive crew member,” he retorted.  “So support.  The sooner the threshold recognizes her, the safer we will all be – and that includes you, little programmer.”

Senga took a step forward while they argued, and then another.  Home.  She got her feet moving and managed to push herself through the half-open gate and beyond it, down the long, wide driveway.

“Aren’t we bringing the moving van?” Ezer asked behind her.

“In a moment.”  Erramun followed her slowly down the driveway.

The grand front garden had gone to weeds and thorns.  Well, it had always been more than  a little thorny.  The circled drive between the two flanking wings was cracked.  She muttered a Repair Working at the worst of the cracks and watched it seal up under her feet.  The doors were closed, at least, and the shutters on all the windows latched.

“Clean up later?” Erramun suggested.  “Let’s get in the front door and remind the house that it’s yours.”  He rested a hand on her shoulder.  “We’re right here.”

Allayne took the cue, as she was so good at.  “We’re right here with you.”  She put her hand in Senga’s left.  “Come on.  Do you know what parties we could throw here?  How much fun we could have here?  Ooh, and I bet we could set up-  but that’s for later, come on.”

“I want to have a whole room for my computers,” Chitter – well, chittered.  There was a reason that was her name.  “A whole wing.”

“Hey,” Ezer scolded, “save some for the rest of us, eh?  It’s a big place and all, but -”

“But there are two residential wings.”  Senga started walking. “Not counting the servants’ wing.  “And there are two and a half floors each on each of those wings.  Chitter can have a floor of a wing.  We can all have a floor of a wing.  And then when we’re settled, we can decide what to do about the rest.”

Her hand was on the doorknob.  She held her breath.  She half-expected the house to reject her, the threshold to bar her entrance.

Erramun had gotten in, and by the rules of the fae, he was her.  “I’m home,” she murmured softly.  She opened the door and stepped very carefully inside.

Next: http://www.lynthornealder.com/2018/01/10/22baggage/

 
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Beauty-Beast 24: Home

Sep6

First – Previous – Landing Page – Next

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By the time Shel deposited Ctirad back at the house with a pile of clothing, Ctirad wasn’t particularly sure if he felt more or less like himself than he had in ages.

He felt different, that much was for sure.  His head was swimming.  Shel had gotten him joking, laughing, and relaxed in a way he couldn’t remember ever being.

And now he was back in Timaios’ master suite, waiting for his master to arrive home.

It was like getting off the roller-coaster.  He felt like his legs were swaying under him.  

He knelt down on the floor and tried to find his calm place.  The pants moved strangely with him, and he thought about taking them off. Continue reading →

The Mystery of the Broke(n) Church

Sep5

I rolled my story dice and ended up with this. 

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The church theatre company was hurting.

Everything about the church was almost always hurting.  It was in a town that had once been prosperous, it had tried gimmick after gimmick – including painting the church purple – to draw in attendance – and it was suffering from having been built in the early 1800s and, purple siding or not, in need of repairs, constantly in need of repairs.

The theatre company brought in a little money, but their costumes were all fifth-hand, the stage was sad and falling apart, and the only person they could get as a stage manager was going deaf.

Then Pastor Jim had a brilliant idea.

“It is going to be sad to see this church go,” he commented at the little stop-and-shop, when he knew one of the town busybodies was listening.  “We’re never going to find out what happened behind that brick wall.”

“What brick wall?”

Pastor Jim would feel bad using Trent Sheperd like this, but Trent was just the right sort of person.  And his voice carried.

“You know, in the basement.  They covered it over in the last renovation, of course…”

The next Sunday, the pews were packed – and the theatre company’s basement rendition of Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart opened to a sold-out house.

Pastor Jim kept laying clues, and spent the rest of his time getting in the way of people trying to follow those clues.

If he came up with something clever enough, he reckoned, they might even raise enough to fix the broken old wall behind the brick wall.  And maybe the ancient catacomb behind that.

 
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Quick-Thinking

Sep5

Written to kelkyag‘s prompt.

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The pay at the Lab was really good, and the benefits were literally unbelievable.

Jess reminded herself of that whenever she started feeling like she needed a Henchman t-shirt or an old lion-tamer’s whip and chair.   She had two kids of her own and a niece at home; the Lab gave them a place to live that was probably the most secure three-bedroom house on the planet, had a top-notch school, and paid Jess enough that she could take them all on a really good vacation every year.

Which she needed, because right now she was supervising a slap-fight between two interns who just happened to be handling vials of what she thought was probably a neurotoxin.  Continue reading →

The Hidden Mall: Blood, Thicker Than

Sep5

There was blood everywhere.  Abigail fell down onto the floor and yanked off her cardigan, wrapping it around her ankle quickly.  Too late, she realized she’d let go of both Livs.

“Liv-” she called, but the dirty one was chasing after the clean one, leaving a trail of blood behind her, too.

Somewhere in her bag she had something better for this than a sweater she’d actually been fond of.  She dug through her bag one-handed, holding pressure on the wound with the other hand.  There.  The scarf wasn’t the best thing, but that and the Kleenex and she had a bandage of sorts.   She pressed the Kleenex against the wound until the blood seemed to slow, then checked. Continue reading →

A New World: Artle

Sep5

First: A New World

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Kael allowed herself a small smile, even as she tried to puzzle that one out.  Hospital?  Hospes?  Something about guests.  

“Oh, that can’t be true, they wouldn’t open the place and have it be dangerous!”

So a hospital was somewhere for  – people who had been hurt?  Perhaps a place to rest after people had been taken by a sleeping potion.  There had been quite a few sleeping potion traps in those lower levels. Continue reading →