Archive | April 2019

Visit the Lady’s Garden

Apr16
Visit the Lady's Garden
This is just a fun Addergoole ficlet, and I swear it really is fun.

🌳

“So you get your own garden?” Gernot walked around Pihla’s room slowly.  “This is pretty nice.  But – no bed?”

“There was one, but I talked them into giving me more dirt instead,” Phila admitted.  “I sleep in this part, here.”  She toed the dirt as she watched the upperclassman and his assessing looks.

“You were raised down here, in the Village?”

“Sort of?  I was sprouted in the Meadow.  But when I was old enough to go walking,  my… parent took me and we explored the world until it was time to come here.”

“Sprouted.  Parent.”  Gernot took a step backwards towards the door.  Pihla found herself smiling, although she was a little sad, too.

“Yeah.  Unless you’re a tree, too-”

“You haven’t Changed yet, you can’t have!”

“I haven’t, that’s the very strange part.  I don’t know what my Change will be like.  But, ah.  One of my aunts managed to fertilize with a Tree Change.”

“How do you know all of this?”  He looked at the door and then glared at her.

Pihla sighed.  She flopped down on one of the few chairs in her room-slash-garden and gestured at another one.  “You have to know what not to say fast, when you spent your first ten years of life as a sapling.  So I know a lot more than a lot of people coming here.”

Gernot sat down slowly.  “Were you, were you leading me on?”  He sounded less angry and more confused.

“No.  No, not really.  I mean – Unless you’re a Tree Change, like I said, we probably aren’t cross-fertile?”

“I’m a siren.”  He watched her carefully.  “Not a tree, not even seaweed.  So-”

“So you have a very, very tempting voice.  I noticed that.”  She winked at him.  She was smiling, not angry.  “And I thought you were cute.  Handsome.  And I’ve waited a while to come here, to learn about this whole – this whole school thing.  Trees grow up slower,” she explained carefully.

“So you’re – you’re-”  Gernot huffed and tried to gather his thoughts.  “You were – you wanted – you -”

“I probably can’t give you your child.  And I don’t really have a bed here, or anything like that.”  Her smile was patient but, more than that, interested.  “But, if you want to, say, roll around in the dirt with me…”

Gernot’s eyes went to the place she’d said she slept. “I, ah. I-”

“Or, if you’d rather, I hear there’s a pool.”  Now, now she was grinning.  “Just maybe don’t sing while we’re at it, okay?”

He had no idea what was going on.  On the other hand, he thought maybe that might be all right.  And he had to admit – “Maybe.  Maybe, uh.  After you show me your garden?”

Pihla giggled.  “It’s a deal.  Come on, here, I’ll show you my favorite plant.”

🌲

Although not really referenced. Pihlas grandparent/parent and aunt are found here:

Year Nine Chapter 31
Year Nine Outtake: Kheper & Curry
Hiatus Fic 5: Sprouting

Want more?

Been to Middle Earth; Do you speak my language?

Apr16

Okay, this is entirely because DaHob sent me the link to Talk Nerdy to Me. 

Woman Elf: Medium Skin Tone on Twitter Twemoji 12.0

When Nat first saw the ads shouting  “win a trip to Middle Earth,” she assumed it was just another studio amusement park, like “spend a weekend in the Wizarding World” or “Cruise on the Black Pearl.”

It wasn’t until she was lured by a clickbait article that she caught a clue as to what was really going on.

“Portal trips to other universes: are they as safe as they seem?”

It turned out that the answer was a firm no, something hammered home as Nat’s native guide physically moved her out of the way of a swinging mace and dropped her onto the back of a sturdy pony.  “Tourist gold, they said,” he muttered.  “Bringing fresh eyes and fresh treasure to Middle Earth!  Nobody said they’d be idiots without the sense to come in out of the rain!”

“Hey!”  She shifted on the pony and let it carry her away from the orcs.  “Let’s see you come to my world and see how you do in a strange place with strange dangers, hunh, Gladrin son of Gladuil?”

“Maybe I will, maybe I will,” he retorted.

“Good!  I look forward to it!”

Then, because she didn’t want to be the reason that the Ugly American trope was carried to another universe, she added, much more politely, “thank you for saving me.  Do you think, for the rest of this trip, you could perhaps show me the things that you like the best about your land?”

She thought from the expression – the beard made it hard to tell – that she’d surprised Gladrin.

“That I will, little human,” he consented.  “That I will.  And perhaps we can return you to your land intact, mmm?”

Hidden Mall 64: Selling for Information

Apr15

Abby was about to step in front of her friends when she found ‘Via stepping in front of her.  “You leave her alone.  We’re not selling anything, we’re not buying anything, we’re not giving anything.  We’re just passing through. That’s it.”

“Oh,” the woman clucked, “but I have information.  And I am willing to give it in exchange for something – if you have something you want to sell me.”

“That sounds-” Now Olly, too, was in front of her “-a lot like buying something, and we don’t want to do that.  Not here.”

“And that’s wise.  It is always wisest to never take anything that seems like too good a deal at the moment.  So let’s see. Well, or too dear a deal, of course.  If you want information-“ Continue reading →

We Meet Again (Strangers in the Stream)

Apr14

For my birthday weekend, I challenge(d) people to leave me prompts that would be fun for me to write and also that the prompted would enjoy reading enough to give me fun feedback on. 

Tall order, right? 🙂

🎂

“Shit, Dorian.”  Gianne eyed the bank of the overflowing river and then stumble-skipped down it, holding on to every branch and rock study enough to be a handhold; Dorian, an oversized golden retriever, stood at the top of the bank and barked helpfully.  “Shhh.”

The river was flowing fat and high, clearly over its normal banks, full of detritus, but none of that was what had caught her attention. The black hair with the single streak of white and the ashen face under it, barely held out of the water by the fork of a branch; it could be a corpse.  She was hoping it was still alive enough to save. Continue reading →

Haunted House 45: Plans and Present

Apr13

First: A story featuring a male keeper and a female Kept.
🌳

“Listen.”  Jasper leaned forward towards Kearney. “In about a week, I’m going to have a job.  It might be tricky and it might be dangerous, but I’ll be watching your back, and I’ll pay well. I can’t tell you more right now – but can I find you if I come around here?” 

The kid shifted a little from foot to foot.  “Old barn, about a mile out of town that way,” they gestured.

“Okay.  I won’t show up unless I have some work for you and I won’t invade your space, but I might have something I need help with.  One thief to another, as it were.” Continue reading →

Running in the Bear Empire 41: Discovery

Apr12

First: Running in the Bear Empire
Previous: 40: Spies
Next: 42: Home
🐻

Carrone was staring at Deline.  She didn’t care; she had a whole pack to go through. “Seriously,” he complained,  “why are we looking for a pebble in our packs? Do you know how long I’ve been carrying this pack?”

“Possibly as long as I’ve been carrying mine?”

“Probably longer!  What are you looking for?”

“Something larger than a pebble that isn’t something you packed,” she reiterated.  “Carrone, I will go through your whole pack myself if I have to.” Continue reading →

Ladies Who Garden

Apr11
Ladies who Garden

🌱

It was Whitney’s second spring working on the Crossroads park, so she had gotten used to some of the more surprising help – not just the fae and ghosts, the strange-people and the occasional mysterious work done between when she left one night and when she returned the next, but vagrants and rebellious kids, cops and neighbors of the area and, once, the entire local chapter of the Pagans motorcycle club.

She was, still, a little bit confused when seven women – all wearing pastel straw hats over their well-coiffed grey hair, sporting gloves with flowers on them that nevertheless looked as if they had seen use at some point, and carrying brightly-coloured caddies full of gardening tools – walked up to her while she was taking a water break.

“Gwendolyn Marcus.”  The lead woman – yellow hat, yellow gloves, pink caddy – held out a gloved hand. Continue reading →

Camp NaNoWriMo – Autumn Lightning

Apr11

As I described last week, my Camp Nano project is a continuation/hopeful finishing of the Autumn Lightning project, a story about (three-people-in-one-body) following Leo around, sometimes accidentally, throughout the years after the apocalypse.

While one of the appeals of this story was being able to bounce around – it’s actually something like 40 connected short stories – I’m still on Cabin in the Woods.  This is part III – where Leo and Nathan (At this point being steered by The Other, the protector-face who uses They pronouns) go to get Leo’s weapons back from the slavers who’d captured Leo – and to deal with said slavers, too.

 

A man fell with a thump at the Other’s feet. They looked down at the man and then back up at Leo, twice, before deciding that Leo was done with this one.

They’d reached the third floor of the place and left it christened in death. Leo moved like a panther; three times the Social One had needed to remind the Other that they were not there just to watch, because Leo seemed to move like he required an audience, like the world itself said he should be watched.

You’re not normally this poetic. Are we killing this one?

The Other looked down at the man at his feet, back up at Leo, who was toying with a woman who didn’t realize she was being played with, and down at the man. “Slaver?” they snarled, quietly enough that it shouldn’t interrupt Leo.

The woman yelped as Leo caught her by surprise. The Other smiled broadly.

The man gulped and tried to scoot backwards, although he seemed dazed, one of his legs broken. “N-no, No, of course not. I’m – I’m-”

Lying, Social offered, as if the Other couldn’t figure that out for themselves.

Words so far this month: 7690

Goal thru yesterday: 7400

Hidden Mall 63: Vapors and Myths

Apr8

After the mom dig, Abby was half tempted to let ‘Via go do her own thing, but it wasn’t like it was the first time Liv – or someone like her – had called Abby mom after all, and it probably wouldn’t be the last (if they survived this mall).  She held firmly to the hands she had, images of Liv and that awful candy coming back to her. Continue reading →