Archive | October 2018

A New World 28: Dangers of Distraction

Oct4

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Kael made her way carefully back towards her Tower.  She had imbibed more than she’d intended to, and the world was even more different than it had seemed upon waking.  Louder, for one.

She had Gemma’s “number.”  She was pretty sure that she could figure out what to do with it, but she was also fairly sure that she would end up back at the museum where Gemma worked, trying to figure out the mysteries that made no sense.

Where was Joaon? He had to know what was going on.  Where had the potions go? Where were all the potion-masters, all the knowledge that she had so carefully studied and documented?   Where was everything she had worked so hard for?

Had she abandoned the world and left it without knowledge?  It couldn’t be – she tripped over a bar that seemed to be put in the middle of the sidewalk just to annoy her and caught herself with a curse word that was definitely no longer in the local tongue. Continue reading →

Funerary Rites 25: Marked

Oct3

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Senga showed Ezer the back staircase for his side of the rooms, made certain Allayne was doing something reasonable and not fighting with anyone, and then, after a couple deep breaths, headed back to what had been her grandmother’s suite with Erramun.

After a brief reconnaissance, Senga opened up the room next to her newly-redecorated bedroom.  “It’s not the biggest room, but I think it will hold your things and anything else you want to bring here.”  She gestured in. “All yours.”

She was not expecting Erramun to freeze, nor the very slow movement he made towards the room after searching her face for – for something she couldn’t quite guess at.  After a moment, he growled quietly. “Three exits.”

“Two.  And the windows.  That door is a closet…. no, three,” she corrected.  “The closet has a stairway up to the attics.”

“Four exits.”   He moved slowly into the room, as if trying to keep an eye on her, and opened the windows.  They opened – it made a little noise of protest, but her family had always been pretty good at Preserve Workings – as all the second-floor windows did, more than wide enough for his wide shoulders and lanky body.

He left the window open and went to the door on the far side of the room.  It opened into, as she had said, a closet. He found the stairway and left that door open as well.  Then he paced to the door to the hallway, opened that, and left it open. Continue reading →

Turn, Turn, Turn

Oct2

Originally posted on Patreon in October 2018 and part of the Great Patreon Crossposting to WordPress.

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Something about Autumn tends to lean towards long stories, I suppose.  

Here’s Autumn in autumn.

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By the nature of her travels, Autumn tended to see places, if she saw them repeatedly, during the same season every year.

So she might have been forgiven for missing this particular place, since for five years, she saw it only in the stage when spring slides into summer.

She thought it a particularly bright place then, cheerful and full of excitement and a little bit too chaotic for her tastes, even when she was feeling a little excited and a little eager.  She would stay a night, dance in their party – there always seemed to be a party – and move on with a smile, leaving behind one more drawing in their bustling bar.

It was autumn now, coming into the time when she would have to go further south or find a warmer place to settle for a few months, and a broken part in her van had pointed her in a direction she would not normally have taken. Continue reading →

A New World 27: Burning Books

Oct2

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After a moment, Kael realized that Gemma was staring at her.  She cleared her throat and, when that didn’t stop the staring, took a long sip of her drink.

“You know….” Gemma said slowly.  “The first thing you said to me started with idiots.  But I don’t see how making a plant extinct is a good idea.  And ah -” If she had been irked about the bar, she was trying not to be angry now.  “Is that how you see everything? Beautiful painting, oh, look, a potion ingredient. Lovely landscape, look for potion ingredients”

“Pretty girl,” Kael offered dryly, “either talk too much about potion ingredients, take her looking for potion ingredients, or think about the forbidden potions where a lock of her hair would be the final touch.”

“There aren’t- those are fairy tales, aren’t they?  Drop of blood, lock of hair, that sort of thing?” Continue reading →

Hidden Mall Thirty-Eight: Open Air ☁️

Oct1

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Abby’s heart was pounding and her stomach was churning.  She sternly told both of them to calm down.

“I want air.”  She glared at the doorway.  “I want open air and rain and nature.  I want out.”

Vic-French murmured to one of the Livs.  The Liv responded in French. Vic started to pull back.

“I don’t know if she can get back to her own mall from here,” Abby admitted.  “Or even go through a door without help. She might be better off staying with us.”

One of the Livs translated that, just a murmur.  Abby caught a word here and there, enough to be pretty sure Liv was actually relaying her message.  Then she glared at the door again.

The Liv on her right released her hand and grabbed on to her belt loop.  Abby wondered if, when they got out of here, she’d ever stop needing to know where Liv was all the time.

They had to survive, first.  She grabbed the door, turned the handle.   Continue reading →