Archive | August 2018

Haunted House 21: Assignment

Aug31

First: A story featuring a male keeper and a female Kept.
Previous: Girl Talk

🌳🏚🌳

She couldn’t put off the other thing forever, so eventually, once she and the house had finished putting her clothes away and she’d changed into something that seemed comfortable and cute – and made her look like a starlet pretending to be Rosie the Riveter – MĂ©lanie went back down to the kitchen table.

She found a pen  – an old ballpoint click pen – and a pad of paper waiting for her. “Thank you,” she told the house, and began writing.

She had been with the slavers for three markets, so she had seen both their holding area and their market pens.  She knew what their feeding schedule was and when they got in new food shipments. She knew when, approximately, they put everyone on lockdown for the night. Continue reading →

Not – a story for Patreon

Aug30

Originally posted on Patreon in August 2018 and part of the Great Patreon Crossposting to WordPress.
I really wanted to write TĂ­r na Cali, okay?⛈

The slaves in TĂ­r na Cali were not part of the royal bloodline.

Except sometimes they were.

They did not have the psychic powers – “witchcraft” – that the royals did.

Except sometimes they did.

Those with strong powers were not sold outside the family, if they did happen to exist (which they didn’t).

Except sometimes the song of money was stronger than the law of tradition.  Except when something was going on that the family didn’t quite want to admit to.  Except when –

-well, except when Connor.

Connor touched the collar around his neck one more time.  It was not the nice gold-traced silver collar he had been wearing for years.  It was not the smaller, plainer collar he’d worn when he’d started to “get in trouble,” as the Master of Slaves had called it.

It was the cheap plastic of the slave markets, and it meant that it was – and therefore he was – temporary.  He was in a nice cell but it was a cell; he was being sold for a decent sum of money but he was being sold; the people that talked to him were nice, but they wanted to buy him.

Connor did not want to be bought.  Connor was part of the Lady Conroi ni Reline O Istvia household.  He was not some common slave to be sold, to be purchased, to be moved around.  He was –

He reached his fingers up towards the electronic lock and he thought.

He’d been “getting in trouble” for almost a year now.  By now, the movements were easy.

Outside, a massive storm began to rage, blowing up out of nowhere.  The thunder seemed to shake the buildings.

Inside, all of the cages and all of the slaves’ collars opened.  All of the lights went out.  The thunder sounded right overhead.

Connor plucked the collar off of neck and dropped it to the ground.  If he was not going to be part of Lady Conroi’s household, then he was not going to be a slave.

“Come with me,” he told the others, who obeyed because they were deeply in the habit of obeying.  “We’re going to
 we’re going to not be sold.”

Want more?

Nineteen: “Disputes” in the Bear Empire

Aug30

First: Running in the Bear Empire
Previous: Lies and Murder in the Bear Empire
Next:  Surprises in the Bear Empire

đŸ»

They didn’t sleep well, but they drowsed for several hours, until the sun began to sneak over the horizon and Deline, at least, was tired of pretending she could rest.

The storm, which had come back twice during their restless sleep, seemed to have passed by the time they made it downstairs and into the small town.  Deline wasted a few minutes wishing over the carriage system, but even if it was safe for them to risk, the carriages wouldn’t travel if there was risk to the horses.

Their provisioning was quick, since there were only two stores in town.  It was at the second one, while Carrone was making faces at Deline’s purchases, that the shopkeeper aimed a sharp look up and down both of them. Continue reading →

What Happened?

Aug30

Written to LilFluff’s prompt to my new “WTF?” Prompt Call.  

Probably a new universe.  The last two times Fluff prompted me, we ended up with Kael’s Tower/a New World and The Hidden Mall, so…

When Emma found the door in the closet of her great-grandfather’s old house, she knew what she had to do.  

It was simply the way these things were all done in the books.

She ought to check it out first.  After all, someone always did.

But since she was staying for the weekend with her cousin, she went to get Britney first.

Britney, who was very interested in the current Seventeen magazine, did not want to come see some stinky old closet on the top floor where they really weren’t supposed to be anyway.   “Aren’t we a little old for make-believe, Em?”

“No.”  Emma’s chin jutted out.  It would be so much easier to do this without her.  And yet
 “We’ll be old for make believe when we’re old. Grey hair and creaky joints and all that.  Come on. A secret door!”

“Allll right.”  With a great show of reluctance, Britney came along.

The door, at first, did not want to open, and Emma had to once again coax Britney to stay and help her get the doorknob – a little thing, shaped like a fist – to turn.

When they finally opened it, neither of them were nearly as surprised as they ought to have been to find themselves in the middle of a forest.

Britney, who had read the same books that Emma had, took a coat from the closet, sniffed it, and slid it over her shoulders.  The camel-brown leather coat made her look older and more intense than she was.

Emma thumbed through the jackets before pulling the plastic off of a trenchcoat, a grey one that looked styled just right.  It was a wee bit long on her, but that was fine. They were just stepping into a forest…

They left the door propped with a rock that happened to be very brick-shaped, neither of them looking too closely at the way it seemed to hang in mid-air on this side.  And they started walking, both of them secretly wondering if they would encounter a faun or a talking rabbit, a sentient scarecrow or a family with buttons over their eyes…

What they encountered was a glass wall, a thick one, and, outside of it, a city of gleaming steel and shining lights.  There were pod-like things zooming around in mid-air, and the sky, far above, seemed to be covered with yet another layer of glass.

They looked behind them.  There was the forest, and, somewhere in it, a portal.

They looked in front of them.  “This
” Emma whispered. “This was not what I was expecting.”

Want More?

  

Wait, What?

Aug29

Written to DaHob’s prompt to my new “WTF?” Prompt Call.  Fae Apoc, early apocalypse.

Things had been going weird for weeks, but Tlalli had been doing a pretty good job of pretending they weren’t.

She went to classes every day, went to work after that, and screened stupid application after stupid application for a roommate, looking for someone who wouldn’t be torture to live with and would actually pay the rent something like on time.

There was some weird shit on the tv, weirder shit on youtube, and twitter was blowing up with the stuff people had seen – and the people that had died or vanished.   One person she followed posted a list every morning. Just an image, black names on white text. It was getting pretty long. Continue reading →

Beauty-Beast 42: Public

Aug29

First – Previous – Landing Page – Next

🔒

The drive was not all that long, although it went through five minutes of the sort of traffic where it would have been quicker and probably easier to get out and walk. Ctirad shifted a few times in his seat, but for the most part, he was still.  He wanted to find a place where he could be what Timaios wanted of him, even if I want you to be you was the least helpful advice ever.  

He opened his eyes when Sal pulled into an underground garage that, while not hidden, was not exactly advertised, either.  The bar that raised when Sal swiped a card was far more intense than the normal wooden gate, too, and there were two of them and a metal roll-door before they reached the actual garage.

“Secure,” Ctirad murmured.

“People who work here take such things very seriously,” Timaios agreed.  “And I admit I like it, or at least, my public persona likes it.” Continue reading →

What Next?

Aug29

Written to Clare-Dragonfly’s prompt to my new “WTF?” Prompt Call.  Aunt Family all the way.

Beulah considered the spell that had been the work of the last decade.

 

She considered young woman now leaving the property a young woman who attended the property  – an 85 year old Widow. Valise in hand, she was headed off to a new life, away from whispers of what she’d done when she was twenty (the story originally had been what they did when they were twenty, but as more and more of the children of the original miscreants told the story, rather than the people who had been there,  they didn’t wish to impugn their own parents, and so one by one the party shrank until it was only the woman leaving now and Beulah – and nobody made whispers like that about Beulah where she might be some day hear them);  she left behind two dead husbands, three dead children, eight grandchildrens and at least four great-grandchildren, one of whom was Beulah’s great-grand-niece. Continue reading →

Bad Things Happen Bingo: Scion (IV)

Aug28

Count: ~1000
Chara(s): A Scion of a Noble Line (OC)
Pairing(s): N/A
Fandom: Org Fic – Fae Apoc xover
Prompt: “Human” Shield

This continues a series of stories taking place in my universe, Fae Apoc, at the time just before the aforementioned apoc.  Portals are opening up to one other world at that time, and in this story, well, they happen to open up into a whole BUNCH of worlds. 

And from those worlds, a bunch of poor soon-to-be-victims-of-bad-things who bear some resemblances to fandom characters happen to slip through some portals.  And then bad things happen to them, because that, after all, is the name of the Bingo.

Content warnings for the series: violence, death, bondage, capture, drugging, visions. For this story: violence, wounds, loss of choice, humiliation. 

This is probably Falco from this story. 

A. Author’s Note, repeated

Author’s note: In the universe in which this is set (My Fae Apoc ‘verse), for fae, saying “I belong to you” ties one into a binding Belonging of obedience and affection.  Scion below isn’t QUITE a fae, so it doesn’t work quite the same for him, but he’s still dealing with the emotional parts of it as the universe tries to figure out what he is, and the obedience is pressing hard on our poor boy.

B. Scion

Nobody here knew who he was.

At first, he’d taken that as a plus.  His family line, the thing he’d been so proud of, had fallen miserably in the war, chosen the wrong side and then, much to his horror and frustration, not even been all that good at being on that wrong side. Continue reading →

What’s in the Garden?

Aug28

Written to Rix-Scaedu’s prompt to my new “WTF?” Prompt Call.  This is definitely a Science! story, complete with the Boss – Liam – and his plucky second-in-command. 

The raid had taken down three scientists working outside the bounds of the law, morality, or common sense, along with seven “assistants”, mostly grad students, who would probably not be charged, as having to find another research position might be punishment enough for anyone.

It had also found several references to “the farm office,” which, once the proper grad student was interrogated, appeared to be an old veterinary clinic sitting in a small farm town half an hour outside the city.

Liam, who had no official government or law-enforcement position, and Cara, who was, on paper, at least, his second-in-command, were along on both trips.  Liam had already recruited the most sensible of the scientists (along with hiring her a lawyer) and the three grad students Cara had hand-picked. Now – now they got to see what the farm office was. Continue reading →