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In Tree Years

Oct27

Curry is a character in Addergoole: Year 9.  This is set – well, it’s got to be an AU which I didn’t think about until I’d finished writing it, or rather, until I started posting it. 

This is set in 2021 or thereabouts, which means it can’t happen the way I wrote it, because it is set 10 years after the apocalypse.  No Victoria’s Secret Angels in 2021 in Fae Apoc. 

But enjoy it anyway as a look into Curry.

🌲

“You’re.. thirty.”

“Thirty-four.”  Curry shifted.  He had kids that were older than he’d been when he’d – when – when he’d seeded. 

Which was enough time to figure out a few things, he supposed. 

He cleared his throat.  He’d thought this would be the right sort of person to talk to.  He’d called back to Addergoole and they’d suggested this woman as someone he could talk to about everything.  Continue reading →

The Mind

Jan30

The problem with half-breeds, the document read, is that they are ill-equipped to the longevity of the fae. Humanity are meant to be short-lived, and their minds and their spirits thus best survive in a more natural lifespan — sixty to eighty years, perhaps a hundred at the outside. The half-breeds are similarly equipped, being closer to humanity than to the gods who are our ancestors. At a certain point, the half-breeds simply stop forming memories correctly; their brains are full and they can no longer process new information.

It had been hailed as a piece of scientific truth for over two centuries among the Grigori, but to Regine, it read no more accurately than any other piece of pseudo-science racism of its era. Why were human brains and half-breed brains ill-equipped to longevity? What, other than the same grasp of genetics that called a panda a bear because it was roly-poly and shared a certain similarity of shape with Ursus, suggested that half-breeds were further from the ancestor-fae? And for that matter, who had reference that told anyone what the ancestor-fae were, or how specific traits which came to be equated with each of the pure-blood breeds were related to those ancestor-fae? Continue reading →

Things a Tree Knows

Nov5
Originally posted on Patreon in Nov 2019 and part of the Great Patreon Crossposting to WordPress.
The character(s) in this story are the grandsprouts of Curry, from Addergoole Year 9, especially this chapter and this outtake and this hiatus fic.
(note: as of posting in mid-January, Year 9 is temporarily down.  Sorry about that!)

Short version: Curry, and “his” children, reproduce more or less asexually, and thus produce clones.  But possibly not really.

This story is set a (short) generation after the apocalypse (2011-2012) in the Fae Apoc setting.

Quercus  and their siblings are all “they”, because gender can be interesting when you’re a magical fairy not-quite-clone tree person.

🌲

There were things Quercus knew that didn’t really matter.   Their siblings were not quite clones, but everyone thought they were; they weren’t quite clones of their parent, but everyone thought they were.

(They knew something that did matter, which was that their family line’s exact method of reproduction continued to confuse both botanists and fae geneticists, but it still seemed to work, although Quercus hadn’t been interested in trying themselves yet.)

They knew they grew up slowly, they had longer before they had to go to “school” than most people by almost twice as long, and they got to play in their garden as much as they wanted as long as they did their schoolwork and chores first. Continue reading →

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

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In The End…

Feb26

Originally posted on Patreon in February 2019 and part of the Great Patreon Crossposting to WordPress.

A story of Addergoole, Hell Night, and friendship.

~~

It came down to the two of them, back to back, the darkness and the monsters all around them.

They hadn’t even really talked before this.  They had three classes together, but Pramod had been trying to make friends with the closest to jocks that this school had, and Swanhild was trying to find the artsy sorts – easier to find than jocks, at least.  Pramod had been on the top of the heap before coming to this place, and Swan had been used to being ignored by guys like him.

Now she had her back against him literally, and the shadows were snarling at her, at them, and somewhere outside their pod someone was sing-songing “come out, come out, wherever you are,” which wasn’t creepy at all.  But Swan had seen plenty of horror movies, and had come to school with four things that didn’t really look like weapons until she needed to swing them at someone – or to have Pramod swing them, since he was bigger.  Swan had thought she was tall until she met Pramod, who was a full 8 inches taller than her and made it look surprisingly good.

So he had the baseball bat and she had the antenna from her dad’s old car – an in-joke that had already left two people swearing – and they had each other, back to back.

“I don’t even know you,” he whispered, in a moment between attacks.

“That’s all right.  I don’t know you, either, and I already know I like you better than any of these assholes.”

He laughed at that, as he was meant to, and then they were under attack again.

When the lights came back on, both of them were panting, sweating – laughing.  Both of them were aching, bruised, bleeding – smiling.  Both of them were free.

“Friends?” Swan offered, holding out her hand for Pramod.

He grinned down at her. “Friends.  Hey, that jerk with the whip.  Wanna gather up a couple others and go after him?  I bet we could take him down with enough of us.”

“How about we go get lunch, instead,” she countered.  Jocks, she thought, but it was affectionate in a way she’d never felt before. “Then maybe we can smear his name so that he never gets laid again, how’s that?”

“Nerd.”  He smiled down at her, and she felt warm at the label the way nobody had ever managed.

“That’s me.”

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One Hell of a One That Got Away

Jan9

What can I say?  Country music makes good Addergoole songs.  This one’s light and sweet, as such things go – content warning for discussed violence. 

~

He knew within ten minutes of starting to go after her that it wasn’t going to work.

Oh, he had no doubt he could get some of her time.

He was charming, he knew how to listen – or to at least look like he was listening, but he found with her he didn’t have to fake it much – he was good looking – which around here was like saying he was breathing; everyone met  certain base qualification – and they shared three classes.  He had plenty of time to chat her up. He just wasn’t going to get her.

He already knew it was doomed when she agreed to a date.

He made the plans anyway. Continue reading →

The Princess and the Elf now on AO3

Jul25

Cal and I are writing a fanfic of a story that…. Cal and I wrote.

Summary:

Year Six: How things might’ve gone, if things hadn’t gone the worst way possible.

A much lighter AU-treatment of a couple characters from Addergoole: A Ghost Story, where Cynara’s dad successfully hid and Leofric got dumped. (Because who says you can’t write fanfic of your own stories? )

You can read it here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15423672/chapters/35798619.  Cal will be posting a “chapter” a day until we run out.