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First thanksgiving – a Tale of Addergoolians for Patreon

Nov23

In which we prove that I am lousy at naming things, oops.
Luke and Mike are from Addergoole. Luke is Seneca Indian; Mike is a gender-swapping Dutch minx.

This story is set in 1864, one year after Abe Lincoln made Thanksgiving a national holiday. Parties take time to plan, dontcha know?

🍁

Luke knew Mike had set him up the minute he walked into the party.

The way the fancy people in their expensive dresses turned to stare, the whispers that he couldn’t imagine he wasn’t supposed to hear:

Isn’t he supposed to be on a reservation?

Do they eat real food?

They let them serve in the Armed Forces? Oh, as scouts, of course — but that rank can’t be real. Continue reading →

Followed, Anticipated- a story of Fae Apoc for Patreon

Nov21

If you are new to my Fae Apoc setting, Kai(lani) and Rozen are from my Addergoole series.

This story takes place 50 years past the original story, nearly 40 years after the apocalypse, after the Retirement stories.

Short summary: Rozen, a “big bad wolf” in school at Addergoole, managed to finally piss off Regine, the school’s Director, enough that she mind-controlled him into a Belonging (magical slavery; “Keeping”) and shipped him, literally, to Kailani, her protege, ignorant of or uncaring about the romantic/sexual/violent tension that had existed between those two in school. 

Since Kai was growing too old to pretend to be human in her current locale, she chose to go on the road with her new, somewhat violent, companion. 

đŸ‘»

Kailani and Rozen were being followed.

Not exactly followed — more like followed-in-front-of — and not by a person or people.  Rozen would have been able to deal with people.

(If he was allowed to, of course.  He had no physical collar, because in the places they were travelling, sometimes having a collared person with her would get Kai killed and sometimes it would get him killed and, either way, it was a dangerous luxury.  He wondered sometimes if having a physical collar would have helped him get used to the uncomfortable feeling of being on a leash. )

They were being anticipated by rumor and legend, and Rozen didn’t like what they were saying.

He was Masked, of course, and Kai’s disguise was to go back to the way she’d looked at sixteen and seventeen, fresh-faced and not that much like the aging Dean Storm.  So when people told them about the midnight-skinned man with white hair and red eyes, he was pretty sure they weren’t seeing his middling-brown skin, hair, and eyes and thinking they were talking about him.

“I swear, Kai, I’ve never been through that town before.”  She was frowning, had been frowning since they left the town — in more of a hurry than they normally did, almost enough to bring attention to themselves. “Any of these towns we’ve been through.  I—”  He shifted.  “I stuck to the northwest and, uh, the Lakes, you know that.” Continue reading →

Regine Dreams

Oct31

This is a dream, and thus its relevance to canon is, as always, questionable. 🙂

🎃

Regine was having a lovely dream where the gathered Grigori scholars were praising her genetic studies of half-breeds.

“Fascinating,” one murmured, and

“Brilliant.  To get such done in such a short scope of time!” and

“How clever.  And to wrap it up in teaching them and bettering the world, so that these half-breeds can be useful, for once.”

Something was a little off about this dream.  Regine’s smile, of course, did not shift.  She would not be Grigori if she allowed a little discomfort to get to her.

“And look, you have some actual pure-breeds in there.  How did you manage that?  Yourself, of course, it’s easy to provide your own – oh, but I see you have very little of your own genetic material.  Well, wouldn’t want to improve the stock too much, now would we?”

“And do you know,” murmured a woman near her, “what happens when a particularly strong line of pure-bred mixes with a weak line?”

Regine didn’t recognize the woman.  That happened, from time to time.  People would come in for a forum, then leave for another decade or three or seven to pursue their work.  Regine herself had done that, before-

Before-

She looked at the woman again.  “I believe the stronger line takes hold, yes?  If the line is strong enough-”

“It is just like breeding with a human, indeed.  Sometimes you end up with a trait or two of the other line, but they are most often discarded as being something of ‘nurture’, as they say, rather than ‘nature.’  The very interesting cases are when, say, a Hunter breeds with a ‘Mara’.  Then what do you have?  A half-breed?  A Hunter?  Or a Mara?”

“It would depend on the strength of both bloodlines
” Regine answered slowly.  That had been, as far as she was aware, the case with Feu Drake.  Then again, with Drake everything was speculation.  He gave nothing away but genetic material.

“Indeed.  And if it is a Shepherd and a Grigori, where almost all of the Changes are mental, it becomes even harder to tell.  You end up with something that, as they say, ‘looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck
’ but has the sensible disregard for anything outside of itself and its crew of a falcon.  Ah, I miss your mother.”

“My-  I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”

“That daughter of yours.  Liliandra. It’s a pity she’s slightly unstable.  Otherwise she’d be the splitting image of her grandmother.  And how very clever of you, to blame her violent tendencies on the father!”

Regine shook herself awake and stared, unseeing, at the ceiling above her.  It was said you never dreamed of someone you didn’t know. 

Of course, she reassured herself, it was also said that you should not eat right before bed.  She would have to remember to avoid those lovely cookies, nice as they were.  That had to be it.  The cookies. 

She lay back down, but found that she was unwilling to sleep more that night.

Finish It: Let Him Go

Oct19

The last Finish It! before NanoWrimo: Tilden, from This Story


Ce’Rilla sh’Orlaith by Accalon and Vidrou sh’Cynara by Leofric, Tilden’s parents

inventrix: (leo by djinni)

Cya Red Doomsday and Leofric Lightning Blade, two of Tilden’s Grandparents.  All icons by Djinni. 

It had been two weeks.

Tilden had repeated, calmly but insistently, “you should let me go.” Every night.  Every time Laufeia ordered him to do something unpleasant – and Laufeia had a taste for rather unpleasant things.  Every time she ordered him naked.  “You should let me go.”

Eleri, whose own Kept had walked into the collar willingly and who had not nearly the taste for cruelty as her friend, found herself in a bit of a tight spot.  She could advise Laufeia to release Tilden – but every time she did, Laufeia got a little nastier, a little angrier.  She didn’t just take it out on Tilden, either, but on Eleri and on Caetano and on their third crew-mate, Manlius, who took it all in without seeming to notice or care.  Then again, Manlius took in everything.  Only at dawn did you get a sense for how stressed he’d been, as the “sun rose” in his room with intense heat or nothing at all. Continue reading →

Patreon Posts!

Oct3

Originally posted August 21, 2011 and, would you believe it, the only thing to show up in a Google search for “harvest” of my Dreamwidth blog.

đŸŒœ

The Aramob had not been expecting resistance when they went against the Village. Town people were soft, and folded easily. That was the wisdom of the elders, that was what the young warriors preached. Especially water-towns, where their food came easy and they could waste their time in games.

Read On

This is Viddie (ViĂ°rou, but his mother didn’t want to call him Vitthie.), the son of Cynara and Leofric from, among other things, Addergoole: a Ghost Story.

🎃

In theory, it should have been easy.

Viddie knew pumpkins.  He’d grown up eating pumpkin pie from scratch, and he knew all of the ins and outs of what made a pumpkin a pumpkin.

Read On!

This turned out a little strange…

đŸ”„

Sub-bureaucrat Azenia had her hands full and her lamp was burning far past closing time.

She knew, of course, that the over-bureaucrats liked it that way.

Open to all Patrons!

The Great Pumpkins- a bonus story of Fae Apoc for Patreon

Sep29
This is Viddie (ViĂ°rou, but his mother didn’t want to call him Vitthie.), the son of Cynara and Leofric from, among other things, Addergoole: a Ghost Story.

 🎃

In theory, it should have been easy.

Viddie knew pumpkins.  He’d grown up eating pumpkin pie from scratch, and he knew all of the ins and outs of what made a pumpkin a pumpkin.

He had a book with diagrams and a list of the appropriate – or close enough to appropriate – Greek and Old Tongue Words.

And he was in the grotto, kneeling in front of a little patch of dirt, alternately muttering words and spitting out curses his mother probably didn’t know he knew.

The vines were growing, sure.  They were even putting out little flowers.  But there wasn’t – right.  He needed to pollinate them.  He couldn’t remember if this sort of plant was self-pollinating, so he started another one. Continue reading →

Lightning in Autumn

Sep13

My Giraffe (Zebra) Call is open!

Written to Inspector Caracal‘s prompt.

Set after Addergoole Year 10 but before the 2011 apocalypse. 

🩌

There were tourists in the bar again, the sort of people that made what was normally a pleasant place feel like the back of the locker room.   Nathan felt his shoulders tensing, felt his grip on his drink getting tighter.  “Another?” he asked Patti.  

The bartender shook her head. “Not yet, son.  Nurse that ice a little longer, and then I’ll pour you another.”  Then she was gone, tending to the New People at the other end and the other regulars in between.

“Shit.”  How Patti did that and kept in business, he never knew.  He turned slowly on his stool, taking in the tourists at the pool table, the regulars at tables further and further away from the tourists, Liza the bouncer at the front door…

He turned back around in time to see Leo strutting up to the tourists and getting in the tallest one’s face.  Nathan’s heart did a little twist.  Leo.  That blonde hair, that arrogant, playful smirk, that – that body.  It wasn’t just Nathan’s heart that was twisting.

The tourist took a step back.  His friends were jeering.  Leo didn’t seem to notice, stepping back in to the tourist’s personal space, running a hand over the man’s cheek.  Nathan felt a stab of jealousy.  My cheek is right here!

“There’s a reason they call him Lightning, you know.”  

He hasn’t heard anyone sit down next to him, but now there was someone there, sipping a drink and watching the same scene Nathan was.  “I’ve never heard anyone call him that.”

“Yeah?”  The guy was, unfortunately, undeterred.  “They call him Lightning because he never strikes the same place – or the same person – twice.”

“I’m not the same person.”  Nathan chewed on his ice and watched Leo work.  He was louder than he normally was, and he seemed to be – from the words that wafted over the music and the conversation – suggesting that the tourist ought to come back to his place and show him exactly what his sort was worth.

“It doesn’t matter if you’ve changed,” the peanut gallery continued.  “He doesn’t care.  He just hits once and he’s gone.”

Nathan glanced over. His helpful new friend looked, in a  general sense, kind of similar to Nathan: dark hair, dark eyes, not all that tall.  “Not what I meant – ooooh!”  Leo had somehow ducked a punch the now-beset tourist had thrown and instead tossed the tourist on to the floor.  “You saw it, Patti, you saw it!  The asshole threw the first punch!”

“That’s not gonna save my furniture, now is it?  Liza!”

The fight was in full swing, as it were, when Liza waded in and hauled the tourist out of it, and then hauled his friends out.  “Parking lot!  All of you! You, too!”  She glared at Leo.  It might have been Nathan’s imagination, but he thought Leo looked a little sheepish for a moment.

They allowed themselves to be herded – tourists, Leo, two other regulars who had gotten involved – out past the pile of broken furniture they’d left in their wake and through the side door, but the swinging door showed the tourist spinning around with a punch the minute his feet hit the asphalt.

“Looks like he’s going to hit someone more than once,” Nathan muttered, not particularly generously.

“Ha.  Good one.  Yeah, he’s plenty violent, isn’t he?  But he don’t come back, kid.  Like I said.  Never the same person twice.”

“But I’m not the -”  Nathan gave up.  He didn’t want to explain to this stranger.  Hell, he didn’t even want to explain to Leo, who would probably scoff and walk away, no matter how different this could be, Nathan could be.

The front door swung again and a redheaded woman walked in.  Another tourist, Nathan thought, noting the dyed-crimson of her hair and the clothes that wouldn’t have fit in here even if she were male.  Then she kissed Liza with an intensity that suggested comfortable familiarity and an intimacy that said maybe she wasn’t all that out of place in a gay bar after all and plopped herself down at the bar next to Nathan’s new buddy.

“Telling the same old lies, Trev?” she teased.  “Don’t listen to him, kid, whatever he says.  Patti, my love.  The usual and one of whatever these nice boys are having for them, too.”

Maybe that was supposed to cover exactly HOW big the wad of money she was passing over the counter was, or how two of those top bills would probably cover the furniture damages.  

“They’re not lies, and anyway, how would you know?  You’re not exactly his type!”  Trev – if that was New Friend’s name – looked put out.  The woman just laughed.

“I know because I know Leo.  And I know you.  Like I know I’m not your type but I might
 sometimes
 be this guy’s type.”  She sipped her whisky – neat – and grinned at them, a grin that looked more hungry than cheerful and, Nathan had a feeling, was covering over a seething kettle of pain.  

She saw through him, he knew that much.  “Doesn’t matter.  Lightning never strikes the same place twice.”  He finished the drink Patti passed him in one gulp and laid his money on the counter.  “I gotta go.”

The redhead’s voice followed him out the door. “Don’t believe that old lie, kid.  Lightning strikes wherever he damn well pleases.”

🩌

See stories about Leofric/Leo (that have been migrated) here.

See stories about Cya(the redheaded woman) here.

🩌


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Falling Out Of The Noose

Sep8

This story is part of the Addergoole: The Original Series backstory/Sidestory

It comes after Loose Ends and Tying Off; if you are following Addergoole: a Ghost Story, Shad and Meesh are Abednego’s older brothers, Eris and Joff’s former Keepers, and all around bad guys.

It is written to chanter_greenie‘s prompt.

🔒

Shadrach had last track of how many times they’d gone through this.  Keeper, Kept, Keeper, Kept.  They went through whole months where they were both as gentle as they knew how, hoping the next month would be kind back to them.  They went through seasons where they were rough, violent, nasty.  He’d almost died at least four times.  He’d almost killed Meshach at least twice.

Once, Professor VanderLinden, Professor Solomon, and Professor Pelletier had taken turns living with them for two months.  It had made those two months very tense, but it hadn’t fixed anything. Continue reading →

Half-breed of Heart

Aug29

Written to clare_dragonfly‘s prompt. Doug is a character from Addergoole (The Original Serial), Addergoole: Year Nine, and the current Addergoole: a Ghost Story.

đŸ’Ș

Doug was not a Mara; he was not one of the pure-blooded Warriors, the Protectors of the fae.

He had been aware of that since the moment he Changed – if he hadn’t been pretty sure of it long before that.

His father was a Mara who did not have Mara children.  His mother was the halfbreed daughter of a Daeva (the Inspirers, the succubi, the pleasure-givers and pleasure-takers); said Daeva did not bear Daeva children any more than Doug’s father could have Mara.  The chances of Doug being Mara were about as slim as the chances of him being elected president of the world.

His Change had just cemented that: his wings that would never sustain flight, his body that could not take damage the way that a Mara’s could.

The thunder that rumbled out of him when he was particularly irritated.

The fact that he was, when touching someone, when touching someone with his feet on the ground, stronger than his father or than any other Mara he’d ever gotten to spar with him.

He wasn’t a Mara.

Right now, he was damn glad of that.

His student Hestia – his newest, his youngest, his smallest student, Hestia – had felled the monster.  She had done a damn good job of it, especially for someone whose Change was not warrior-related.  But then the monster had made one great final heave – and landed on top of Hestia.

Hest weighed maybe 110, most of it muscle – but there was only so much muscle could do for you without any leverage.  Her spear was still in her hand, but she’d dropped her blade.

And the monster weighed almost as much as three elephants combined, and was twice as fat.

Doug grabbed the nearest long thing – part of the building they’d been fighting in, a beam or something.  The building probably needed it.  He needed it more.  He set his feet in the dirt, let his toes feel the ground below him, and pulled on the thunder.

He shoved the stick under the monster, aiming carefully, not wanting to hit Hestia, and he pushed.

Three counties away, they were closing their windows.  The sky flashed and sparked.  The ground  flashed and sparked.

The corpse of the monster lifted, an inch, a handspan, a foot, two yards.  Doug heaved, the world sparked, and the monster flew a couple feet through the air and landed with a wet thump.

He scooped Hestia up into his arms, muttering healing Workings and curse words at her indiscriminately.

 

 
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EAT ME

Aug22

Two takes on sauergeek‘s prompt, and continuing to work out the kinks in cross-posting

🌿

None of the plants in Addergoole’s grotto were, technically, toxic.  That is, they might cause you to have convulsions, visions, insomnia, narcolepsy, or possibly just a warm and fuzzy feeling, but they would not kill you — or, at least, they wouldn’t kill an ordinary human or Ellehemaei child.  Some of the Changes, normal air would kill them, and Valentina could not speak for her plant life in those cases.

She enjoyed encouraging experimentation and enjoyed more watching the results of the experimentation.  After all, every plant in the grotto was the result of“hey, what happens if
?” — Hers and Laurel Valerian’s, mostly, although students other staff had put in their ideas from time to time.  Isabella Even-hand in the kitchen had the most brilliant ideas.  Most of her plants lived up in the orchard or the sunlight gardens, but there were a couple, including the Angry Peach, that deserved their place in the grotto — and made the most aggressive desserts.

“Hey.”  One spikey-haired first-year student flopped down on the soft moss next to another first-year, lanky and dark-clad and serious-looking.  “Have you tried chewing on the purple leaves?  They make sort of a tingling feeling, and then you just don’t feel anything at all for a while.”

Emotional numbness, Valentina wrote, in her unseen perch up in a prickly-pear tree. She’d been growing the purple-leafed plant for its bark and the bast fibers in its stem.

“Don’t feel anything at all?  Sounds better than those yellow berries.  Give it here.”

Long-term effects?  She’d have to keep an eye on these two.

đŸ„— Continue reading →