Archive | April 2018

Purchased: Learning The Way Around

First: Purchased: Negotiation
Previous: Purchased: Boyfriend Experience

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Eight

She stood up like they hadn’t just been negotiating his life and held out her hand. “Okay, I don’t know much about Kept but I do know simple things like you need touch from your Keeper.”

He put his hand in hers and tried to hide his expression. Expressions. All of the feelings that wanted to move across his face, none of them really helpful in this situation and almost all of them involving the word confused. Continue reading →

The Place of Waiting

Apr13

Written from a dream, although I changed some things for narrative purposes.

They stored dead superheros here, although the only part of that sentence that was remotely accurate was “here”.

They sat or perched or lounged or lay, lined up on the wall/floor like chess pieces, their uniforms relics of bygone eras or echos of times that may have never been.

Some had been super, or would be. Some had been or might be heroes, or at least called that. Continue reading →

Reminds me of…(written for Patreon)

Apr13

Well, many of my settings.It’s a good week for links, what can I say?

Four-storey London mansion hidden almost entirely underground

The First 1/3 of April on Patreon

Apr13

This month’s theme is

Libraries and Librarians

Things marked with a * are free for everyone to read.

The Expectant Wood: Chapter 21: Worlds of Differences
Portal Bound – a beginning

A Last Conlang Word going in to April *
Cloverleaf’s Library *

Reminds me of… Dragons Next Door *
The Weather, it is a-changin’ *

Cataloged (written for Patreon)

Apr12

“But it’s in the catalog! See, right here. I can show you.”

“Just because it’s… all right, show me.”

“See?” He pointed at the computer screen. “Right there under ‘other resources’.” He had such a cute puppy-dog expression that had he been looking for – asking for – anything else, Monica probably would have bent over backwards to find it for, him whether or not it was in regulations.

“I… you’re correct. There it is.”

When the Neufield-Mason Library had been bought out by Outlanders, many of the library staff had quit in an indignant show protest – either over the Library being for sale, it being sold, or it being sold to Outlanders. Continue reading →

Waiting in the Bear Empire

Apr12

First: Running in the Bear Empire
Previous: Sneaking Through the Bear Empire

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“Shhh,” he murmured, and sat down next to her. He moved his hands for a moment in military sign she didn’t recognize, and then, with a frustrated expression, drew in the dust on the ground.

She could read Deklegi script just fine: one man, hunter or farmer.

Not a threat – but right now they wanted nobody to know they had been there, much less to be able to give a reasonable description of their appearance. She nodded and lay flat on the ground, concentrating on being as quiet as she could be. Next to her, Carrone did the same.

In the silence, she could hear the occasional twig snap as the man below them moved along. He had the quiet step of someone used to the terrain, but she had the ears of someone who was being hunted and had been many times before. From Carrone’s expression, his ears were nearly as good.

The man was tracking something – she hadn’t left tracks, had she? It was too late to fix that, if she had. If he came up here… Continue reading →

A New World: Taking Stock

Apr11

First: A New World
Previous: An Arrangement

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Caron and Hallsey had left, leaving Kael alone in her tower again but with far more to think about.

She had, she realized, spoken more words to other people today than she probably had in a week back in her old life.

And she knew nothing about the world outside. She was only managing as well as she did because of the translation potion, and when that failed her, she was going to be left looking blankly at people while they talked about matters that were ancient history to them and still far in the future for her.

She inventoried her ingredients slowly and began a list. Some of these things were incorrectly labelled; she added a tiny notation to the bottom of each label in her own script. Some of them were getting stale. A few were missing altogether. Continue reading →