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In Which the Kissing Continues

Mar3

First: A beginning of a story which obnoxiously cuts off just before the description,
Previous: In Which They Have Nerves.
🐝
The kiss was meant to be a promise, but it turned into an invitation. She liked the way he kissed, like he was taking he time with it, tasting her. She liked the way it felt when he put a hand on the center of her back to steady himself.

She twisted the rest of the way around, hands on his shoulders for support. His shoulders were tense; his brow was furrowed. His hands slid down her wet sides to her hips and held her there, delicately, like he was holding an egg, like he was afraid she might break.

She hadn’t lived this long in the end of the world to break easily. She ran her hand up the back of his neck, pulled him to her, and kissed him again. There was nothing delicate about her grip, and from the sound he made, he approved.
🐝
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In Which they have Nerves

Feb28

First: A beginning of a story which obnoxiously cuts off just before the description,
Previous: In Which They are Dirty.

🐝

Some part of Amrit’s brain was still trying desperately to remind him she bought you at a slave market. She kept you chained and gagged and collared. She wants you to be her slave. Her Kept.

The rest of him was being pretty clear that those things were irrelevant. Certain parts of him — not his brain, no matter what the jokes said — were very intent on everything being irrelevant.
And some part of him was tied up in knots that made him feel young and stupid and very out of his element again. But he had her in his arms, he was not going to drop her, and he wasn’t going to conk her head into anything.

Her hallways were narrow. She was not a short woman – compared to him, sure, but not compared to other women he’d encountered and the one he’d carried once. He held her close to him and tried to ignore the way she was grabbing on to him. Holding his neck. Holding his shoulders, yes, that was far safer to think about. Amrit swallowed a noise like a growl, not wanting to frighten her again, and maneuvered her into the bathroom.

There was a water pump. He glared at the pump as if that would make it start working.

“Tempero Yaku,” Mieve started, and then followed it with a string of Greek he barely followed. Control Water, though, that he knew, and it quickly became obvious, as water gushed out of the faucet. The tub appear to plug itself, so Amrit took advantage of the moment to start heating the water up as it poured in.

“Eventually you’re going to have to put me down,” Mieve pointed out, when he had completed the Working. “Since you can’t take your clothes off while you’re holding me, and vice versa.”

“I might be able to,” he admitted, “but not and still have clothes when I was done. All right. I suppose I should put you down.” He was surprisingly reluctant to do so. It wasn’t like she was going anywhere, he knew, and yet… Slowly, he set her on the feet.

And now he had to strip in front of her. He turned his back a bit, not sure where this modesty was coming from. He had nothing he was ashamed of, nothing he wanted to hide. He pulled off his clothes slowly. He wanted to turn and look at Mieve, but somehow that seemed like it would be wrong.

He growled. He wasn’t fifteen, damnit.

“You can turn around.” Mieve’s hand landed on his shoulder. “It’s not like we’re not going to be in the tub together in a minute or anything. I’m not going to be offended.”

“I know,” he grumbled. “I just… this is. It’s new. Different.” He twitched his shoulders. “Don’t want to end up fighting again.”

She made a small noise, a worrisome noise, and that was enough to finally make Amrit turn around. She had her hand over her mouth, and it was a moment before he realized she was laughing.

“It’s not funny,” he grumbled, but he couldn’t bring any real heat to it.

“It’s not,” she admitted, still laughing, “and… yet… it’s a little funny?”

“It’s a little funny,” he grumbled agreement. Under the clothes, she had a much more shapely figure than he’d thought. A little skinny — they were all a little skinny, and anyone who wasn’t, you had to wonder a bit at their secrets — but gorgeous nonetheless.

He bit back whatever noise wanted to come out of his throat, not entirely sure what it would be, and only then noticed that she was looking him up and down too.

“Liking your purchase?” Some bit of ridiculousness made him lift his arms and suck in his stomach — not that he had a gut anymore; he was skinny like the rest of the world — and pose for her.

She ran her hand over his chest, sending shivers through his body. “Quite a bit,” she murmured. “Forgiving me for buying you?”

“Better you than Fineus the Whoremonger.” He leaned down and kissed her forehead tenderly. “But there’s this tub waiting for us…”

“It looks kind of tempting, doesn’t it? I’m glad you can heat water up. I haven’t had a properly hot tub in quite a while…”

“The tub isn’t what looks tempting.” He swung her up into his arms again and kissed her. He was fiercer than he meant to be, but he wanted to get it in before she stopped him. Before she came to her senses and remembered that she’d bought him.

“Mmm. Well, both you and the tub are pretty hot,” she teased, when they came up for air. “So let’s combine the two and see if it multiplies hotness.”

“Now you’re just being silly,” he murmured. “I’m not all that good-looking, you know.”

“I suppose I shouldn’t point out how rarely I see another sentient being, should I?”

“No… no. Let me have some of my pride, please.”

She chuckled. “You have nothing to worry about when it comes to your looks. But if you don’t get in the tub soon, I might second-guess the second half of this plan.”

“There’s a second half? There’s a plan?” He stepped into the tub and very carefully sat down, setting her in his lap.

“Maybe more of a concept or a hope,” she admitted. She shifted around for a few moments and leaned back with her head on his chest. “Although this is quite a nice result, I have to admit.”

He touched her arms cautiously. “You wanted this? Really?” What was wrong with him?

“You’re… yes. Let’s just go with yes, all right? You may be mulish, but you’re kind. Also,” she teased, “you really need the bath.”

“Well, I wasn’t going to say anything, but so do you.” He picked up a sliver of soap she’d left on the side of the tub and started washing her neck and shoulders. “You know how good you’ve got it here, right?”

“Half of that is magic. I mean, if everyone could make water flow with their minds, they wouldn’t need running water quite so badly. And… ooh. That feels nice.” She leaned forward as he soaped up the back of her neck up into her hairline. “If everyone could heat things up like you can…”

“They wouldn’t need firewood. But you’re safe here, you’ve got food and water and shelter and, oh, man, I can’t tell you the last time I took a bath.” Much less one with a lovely woman. He moved his hands up into her hair. “It’s a pretty sweet set-up. I don’t blame you for not wanting to lose it.”

“I got lucky.” Her voice was quiet, and she seemed stiller, almost stiff. “A lot of people didn’t.”

“I know.” He kissed the top of her head. “I know. Me, too. I won the Change lotto, and then even when I was stupid enough to get caught by slavers – I got bought by you, and not by some asshole.”

“You could’ve gotten free from some asshole.” She looked as if she wanted to relax, but her shoulders were still stiff. He ran the washcloth over her shoulders gently.

“Not if he kept me in hawthorn. And anyway, this place is better than – well.” It was his turn to go still, his hand on her shoulder. “…This place is the best place I’ve been since the world ended, and maybe before it.”

She twisted in his lap to kiss him. “Just you wait,” she murmured. “It gets better.”

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In Which They Are Dirty

Feb9

First: A beginning of a story which obnoxiously cuts off just before the description,
Previous: In Which There is a Kiss.

🐝

“So,” she murmured, her head against his chest, his heartbeat pounding in her ear, “what next?”

“You’re asking me?” She could hear the way his chuckle rumbled and then caught. “Well. I think we could start with another kiss.”

“That sounds very nice.” She sat down on the floor and tugged on his arm, encouraging him to sit next to her. The carpet was soft here – two layers of throw rug criss-crossed. It made for uneven walking but kept the place warm.

Not what she should be worrying about at the moment, either. She looked at Amrit, considered the logistics, and squirmed until she was sitting in his lap, straddling him.

He pressed his hand against the small of her back, holding her close, and gave her a wry smile. “This, I admit, I never thought would happen. Not with you, maybe not ever again anywhere. Not that I’m complaining…!”

“Well, that’s a first,” Mieve teased. She saw his expression start to darken, his nose wrinkling, and ducked in to plant a kiss on his lips. “I’m glad you’re not complaining.”

“Me too.” He looked a little startled by that, enough that he repeated himself, a little more slowly. “Me, too. I’m glad I’m not — I’m glad I’ve got nothing to complain about.”

“There will still be work tomorrow,” she warned him — reminded herself, same thing, in the end.

“I’ve never minded the work. Keeps me busy. I mean, if you wanted to keep me busy some other way…” He grinned down at her.

“I imagine I could manage a little bit of that,” she allowed. “If you think that would hold your attention.”

What was she doing? Well, she suggested to herself, maybe she was kissing him. That sounded like a good idea, so she twisted in his lap and kissed him again.

He made a warm, throaty noise in the back of his throat that she found sent little shivers up and down her spine. His hand snaked inside her shirt and for a very brief moment, Mieve had a very pre-war sort of I am not dressed to be undressed sort of feeling.

Neither was he, and still a bit stinky from the exertion and the woods, she reminded herself. WHich gave her an idea. “You said you needed a bath… I could use one, too.”

“You can go first.” He sounded a little hurt. She suppose it sounded like she was trying to cut things off here. “I’ll get the water all heated up for you.”

“I was thinking… it’s quite a large tub. Bigger than you’d expect, in a cabin this size.” She forced herself to sound casual, even as worried as she was that he’d take that wrong, too.

“I can heat up a lot more than a tub… oh.” He looked at her face, and then looked again. “Oh, really?”

“Even for your gigantic height, yeah. Plenty of room for two.” Now she grinned at him, because his expression looked anything but reluctant.

“I’d like that.” His voice had gotten husky again. “If you would…?” He brushed his hand lightly against her cheek. It was a surprisingly tender gesture from him, and it made Mieve’s stomach flip-flop oddly.

“It’s not the sort of thing I’d offer if I didn’t want it.” She didn’t want to sound snappish and forced her voice level and friendly again. “So… shall we?”

“Yeah. Yeah, let’s do that.” He scooped her up in his arms and stood up all in one movement. Mieve clung to his neck.

“Amrit!” She did not squeal. Her dignity insisted that it wasn’t a squeal. “What are you doing?.”

“Going to the tub.” His grin was far too mischievous for her liking. It made her cling just a little bit more tightly to his neck. “I would’ve thought that much was obvious.”
🐝

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Beekeeper bonus interlude: In Which there is a Kiss

Jan30

First: A beginning of a story which obnoxiously cuts off just before the description,
Previous: In Which Amrit Explains Something..

🐝
She was doing it. She was really doing it. She was…

Her lips touched his and her hand went around his back to steady herself — when had he gotten so tall? Was that part of his power? Magical healing, grow an inch every time he broke a bone?

His lips were chapped, but after a moment, that didn’t matter. His hand found her back and splayed there, fingers leaving five warm places just below her neck.

He kissed like he was going to fuck her, rougher, more intent than anyone she’d kissed in a long time, maybe ever. He kissed like she was the only thing in the world, and, for a few moments, he was the only thing in hers.

She pulled back ruefully only when her toes complained. “You,” she murmured affectionately, “are far too tall.”

“I could be shorter,” he offered. “But I like being tall.”

She chuckled and, much to her surprise, hugged him, arms around his waist, pulling him in as tight as she could. He grunted once and then hugged her back, not loosening his hold until she released hers.

“I think,” she whispered, “I like having you here.”

“I think,” he admitted quietly, “I like being here.”
🐝
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In Which Amrit Explains Something

Jan26

First: A beginning of a story which obnoxiously cuts off just before the description,
Previous: In Which Mieve Actually Says Something.

🐝
Amrit wasn’t entirely sure what he was doing. A couple hours ago, they’d been arguing. He’d been angry, fed up with her. She’d been angry, hurt that he didn’t give in enough.

She should have known, some part of him still wanted to point out. She should have had a pretty good idea that he wasn’t the sort to give him. He’d been gagged and chained when she bought him; it wasn’t like he’d come willingly.

Here they were. They’d eaten turkey leg and casserole for dinner, and the meat had tasted better than any turkey he could ever remember eating. They’d had cake for dessert — cake! Before he’d come here, Amrit couldn’t remember the last time he’d been anywhere that had the luxury of regular desserts.

And now they were sitting in front of the fire, her reading, him staring out the window at the night and ignoring a book, and he was thinking about what happened when they went to bed.

He’d told her he would stay until the winter was over. That should be enough. He didn’t need to go getting tangled up.

He looked at her over the book he was pretending to read and found himself growling.

Brilliant, asshole, that’s exactly the right thing to do.

“I’m sorry, did you say something?” She looked up from her book, looking for all the world like she hadn’t heard him.

He shook his head. “Just thinking…” He trailed off.

“Oh. Sorry.” She looked back at her book, and the moment where he could say something was lost.

Amrit stood up, far too abruptly. He was going to spook her. He didn’t want to spook her, and not just because she might gag and shackle him again. He moved more slowly, walking over to the window.

He could feel her eyes on him. Was she going to tell him to sit down?

Was he going to sit down if she told him to?

“I miss the world, most of the time,” she said, so quietly he wasn’t sure she was talking to him. “But the stars – it’s nice to be able to see them. As long as I don’t think too hard about why I can.”

Amrit thought about that for a minute. He stared out at the stars. “It’s so much darker now. When — so, the last place I was living, they, well, me and them didn’t get along that great. So I left. I was looking for another place when I got snatched. But I remember thinking, when I was a teenager, there was almost nowhere you could walk where it was truly dark. And I was trying to stay out of sight, and walking the roads at night was almost impossible.” He smiled crookedly. “Broke my ankle twice and my knee once.”

“Your healing power really is impressive.” She didn’t have any tone to her voice. What did she mean by that?

“I’d be dead without it.” He said it easily, but his heart pounded a bit anyway, remembering when he’d found out how fast he healed. “Spear through the heart tends to do that.”

“Spear through — oh, departed gods, that’s…” She stared at him, actually lifting out of her chair for a moment like she was going to rush over and hug him. Then she sat down slowly. “You really can heal anything.”

“So far? Nobody’s attacked me with hawthorn or rowan except the slavers, and that’s healing a lot slower.” He touched his neck, where the hawthorn had touched. “But I’m pretty durable, yeah.” He found himself smiling crookedly at her. “So, careful. If it’s cozy here in winter I might just tie myself to a tree and stay here until you knock me out.”

She raised her eyebrows and smirked back at him. “I don’t see how that follows, but I’ll take it under advisement.”

“Well, it’s just…” Amrit stalled. “I guess it doesn’t really follow. But I might do it anyway?”

What had he been thinking? …shit. He was flirting with her. Had she noticed? Why was he… Amrit looked back at the window and hoped he wasn’t blushing or anything else quite that stupid and childish.

“Well, if you’re going to tie yourself up, you might as well do it someone cozy, is all – since you would be doing it to get to stay nice and comfortable, right?”

“Nice and cozy…” Oh, departed gods, she was flirting back, wasn’t she? “Like that chair I was sitting in?”

Way to go, Amrit. Take a perfectly good opening and ruin it.

“Well, I know you haven’t tried it yet, but my bed is a lot more comfortable than that chair.”
Amrit turned slowly to stare at her. “You’re flirting with me.”

She looked nervous. “I’m making an offer,” she countered. “If you were making one.”

Amrit found his shoulders relaxing. “You’re not scared because you’re worried I’m going to hurt you, are you?”

“I wouldn’t be inviting you into my bed if I was scared you were going to hurt me,” she snapped. Oh, good, he was back to her yelling at him.

He took a step towards her, hands in front of him in as non-threatening a position as he could manage. “You’re not worried about me hurting you. So you’re worried…”

“Who said I was worried at all?”

“I’m not an idiot, you know. I can read body language well enough. Facial expression. Tone of voice. I’m saying you said you were worried.”

Shit, his voice was getting louder. That wasn’t helping at all. And he had actually moved closer to her again. He moved his hands back into a calming position and smiled crookedly. “I guess you being worried worries me,” he offered.

“And you’re not even Kept.” She stood up. Amrit did his best not to wince, but he couldn’t help thinking oh, shit, now what? “I think I’m beginning to grow on you. Either that or you’re scared of little old me.”

Amrit went for broke. “A little of both. You cheat,” he added without heat, even smirking a bit. “You can beat me in every fight, ‘cause you don’t have to have a fight at all. You don’t need the collar, you don’t need the gag, even.”

“When I’m awake and around you,” she pointed out. He thought she’d probably given that way too much thought.

“Hey, you stopped me from running away when you were on the other side of the clearing talking to your bees. Anyway, I just mean — I’m not Kept, but you’re, um. You’re still in charge.”

His hands went up to the collar. If this place had laws, they would probably say that the collar meant she was in charge legally. But she and he both knew that he could get this thing off without much effort. If he wanted to.

“I’m in charge.” She smiled at him. It was a more open expression than he’d seen on her, perhaps ever. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me that didn’t start with ‘I promise.’”

Amrit shifted a little. Was that… good? Did he want her to think it was nice? “You’re welcome.”

He hadn’t noticed she’d stepped closer until she did it again. That put her right in front of him. “Thank you.”

She stood on her toes and kissed him.
🐝

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In Which Mieve Actually Says Something

Jan18

First: A beginning of a story which obnoxiously cuts off just before the description,
Previous: In Which Neither Amrit nor Mieve Communicate.

🐝

If there was any forgiving to happen, you have it.

She didn’t know whether to feel dismissed, pleased, or worried. She felt a little bit of each.

“I had a Kept. I had a lot of Kept, but I had one, well.” She caught her breath, counted to ten, and tried again. “I thought things were fine. I treated him well and we were even sharing a bed. But when I released him, he attacked me.” Her lips twisted. “That was the last Kept I released here. After that, I took them miles away first.”

For a minute, he didn’t say anything. Then Amrit smirked at her – which had not been the reaction she was expecting at all.

“You know, that makes it sound as if you took them off and shot them in a field somewhere.”

Mieve was startled into a chuckle. “No.” She shook her head, trying to make the giggles go away. “No, nothing like that.” It wasn’t really funny, but she snorted again. “More like ‘go now, you’re free, fly, you’ — oh, I can never remember the quote.”

“Something like ‘magnificent creature’ or something.” He smiled crookedly at her. “So catch-and-release?”

She found herself snorting again. “Catch and release, yeah. Because…” Just like that, her good mood was soured.

He looked serious. “Because the one attacked you. You don’t mean ‘said bad things’, do you? Swore at you, called you a bitch, that sort of thing?”

“No.” Mieve bit her lip, thinking about it. “No, I don’t. He tried to kill me. Nearly succeeded, too.”

Amrit gave her a considering look. “You didn’t sleep with ‘em again after that, hunh?”

“Ha.” This time the laugh had no humor. “No. Well, for warmth, sometimes, but not like regularly. Not as a lover.” She looked out the window, thinking about it.

“What did you do? To the one that tried to kill you?”

Mieve winced. “Something stupid.”

“Stupid would be slapping him on the hand and sending him away.”

“Sort of. Knocked him out, drove him hours away,and left him there with a day’s worth of food.” She remembered the way she’d felt, the knot in her gut, driving away with him still unconscious.

“Why didn’t you just kill him? It would have been fair. Would have been safer.”

She gave him the answer she kept telling herself. “There’s too few of us left to go killing them.”

“That didn’t stop him, did it?”

“Yeah, well.” She rolled her shoulders and sniffed at the turkey. “Cooking nicely. I…” She made herself look at Amrit. “I was fond of him, okay? Couldn’t bring myself to kill him.”

“That’s not stupid, you know. It’s just human — well, it’s part of existing, I guess.” He patted her hand a little awkwardly. “Okay. I promise you that, unless you attack me with intent to cause me real damage, I won’t ever attack you.”

Mieve stared at him. “Really?” She processed that. “… wait, ever?”

“Ever.” He nodded solemnly. “You have my word.”

She sat, stunned, for a moment, watching the turkey in the pan, watching his face. He looked uncomfortable — nervous? No, he had no reason to be nervous. Did he?

Mieve licked her lips. “If I promise not to attack you, I don’t have any defense against you trying to run away, you know.”

“I guess I’m just going to have to not run away, then.” Amrit gave her a crooked smile. “Okay, look. I’ll stay — I’ll stay here with you, under your terms, until the last snow has melted — here in this clearing — from this coming winter. I promise it, okay?”

Mieve just stared at him. “I wasn’t…” She worked her throat and dug for words that made some sense. “Thank you. I — why?”

“You always ask that,” he complained.

“You keep doing strange and wonderful and completely surprising things! And acting like — I don’t know. You’re angry and you hate being here but you promise not to attack me, you promise to stay here, you’ve promised not to run off once already. It can’t just be because you hate the gag…”

“It helps,” he admitted, looking embarrassed. “I don’t like the chain, I don’t like the gag. But come on, I was never going to attack you more than I had to, to get away. I’m not that sort of ass. And you’ve been fair and kind when you didn’t have to, and you don’t treat me like a thing.” Suddenly, he glowered. “You would not believe how many people can’t say the same.”

“I probably would, actually,” she admitted. “The people out there, well, there’s more than one reason that I don’t go out all that much. And a lot of it is just people.”

“It’s a nice place, here.” He frowned. “Your Kept, did you ever find out why he attacked you?”

“He was, uh. He was angry that I’d Kept him. He didn’t like the idea of being enslaved.” It sounded a lot like Amrit, enough that she eyed him sidelong. “He said he wasn’t a thing. And that putting a collar on him meant I thought of him as a thing.”

“Did you? Consider him a thing? Like your footstool or your shovel?”

He looked alarmingly intense. Mieve met his gaze. “No.” She gave the question a little more consideration, still looking him in the eye. “I considered him a subordinate. Some people, I know that’s how they treat their Kept. Maybe he’d had a Keeper like that before me. But I, heck, I live out here all alone.” She smiled at him, feeling it stretch her mouth with a sort of humor she hadn’t felt in a while. Maybe that was unwise, with him staring like he was trying to read her soul, but she couldn’t help it. “If I wanted someone to help out and not be a person around me, I’d have gotten a dog. I mean, I have the Words for animals.”

He smirked slowly. “That’s really why you took the gag off every night.”

“A little,” she admitted. “But it motivated you to work harder, didn’t it?”

“You’re kind of clever, in a scary way,” he admitted. “So, you get lonely? That makes sense, just you and your bees.”

“That sounds a little bit pitiful.”

“No.” He shook his head, a thoughtful, considerate gesture. “No, I don’t think it makes you sound pitiful. I think it sounds reasonable, all things considered.”

🐝
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In Which Neither Amrit nor Mieve Communicate

Jan11

First: A beginning of a story which obnoxiously cuts off just before the description,
Previous: In Which Mieve is Uncertain and Unhappy.
🐝
Amrit stalked to the garage behind her — behind his captor, because she refused to be something else. She was scared. He could tell. He ought to be happy about that, but it was just making him more angry.
He handed her the turkey piece by piece and snarled the Workings at the fridge that would keep the inside cold for a while, adding three large blocks of ice to the freezer. The thought made him smirk, even through his fury. “Icebox,” he muttered. “Height of Betty Boop technology.”

(https://youtu.be/uCIYIhDRTG0?t=294)

She snickered. “At least you don’t have to carry it up the stairs.”

“Yeah, well.” He shifted his weight uncertainly. “What now?”

“Now, I’m going to cook up the leg I put aside, and we’re going to have that with dinner. And cake.” She sounded defensive about the cake. Who was defensive about cake? Who was defensive to their slaves? “Thanks… for the turkey. It’ll be good food.”

“Yeah, well.” Was she mad at him or happy with him? Amrit rolled his shoulders. “What do I need to do for dinner?”

“Just clean up. Unless, uh. Unless you want to play heat source for the pan?”

“You’ve got the stove, right?”

“I have a limited amount of stove fuel. I could heat up the wood stove, but…”

It wasn’t that cold out, not really. “I can do it Just give me a couple minutes to clean up?”

“Yeah, of course. I’ll get everything prepared.”

What was up with her, anyway? She was pleased with him, she was apologetic, she was angry, she was… Amrit eyed her sidelong. She had hormones, he was sure, but he was pretty sure this wasn’t some sort of fae PMS.

He washed his hands like he was prepping for surgery, and then washed them — and his arms, all the way to the shoulder — again, just to give himself something to do. His shirt wasn’t all that dirty, but he left it off to let his arms dry off.

She had everything waiting for him, so he sat down at the table, ignoring her far-too-thoughtful gaze on him. “Low, medium, high?”

“High at first, and then the best all-over medium you can do. Do you need a new shirt?”

“What, you keep a clothing store in your garage?” He’d been in her garage. He hadn’t seen anything of the sort.

“I have a few shirts and such in my closet. There’s some in your closet, too,” she answered, a little uncertainly. “Most of it ought to fit you okay.”’
Amrit didn’t want to think too closely about that. He did the Workings to make the pan hot just where he wanted it hot, and held it in the air, the turkey leg sizzling.

“You have people just run out naked?” The more reasonable answer was she killed them and buried them in her garden, but that didn’t really seem like her.

“Not naked. But.. Sometimes they don’t stop for a change of clothes.” She looked away. “And, uh, sometimes I trade for stuff and it doesn’t fit me well or at all, but I know there’s going to be someone new that it might fit eventually.” She swallowed. He watched her throat work, and wondered what she was worried about.
“And… when people attack here, I mean, it doesn’t happen often, but I make sure they don’t tell anyone else about this place.”

Amrit looked at her over the crackling turkey leg. “I’m not going to be bothered by wearing dead man’s clothes,” he told her levelly, “as long as there’s not still blood and bullet-holes in them. It wouldn’t be the first time. Hell, these pants, I got them out of someone’s house. Not sure if they’re alive or dead. It’s the end of the world, you know?”

“I know. Most of the stuff I trade for, it’s about the same, you know, might be something from a store, more likely something from a house. I don’t ask where the scroungers get their stuff. And they don’t ask me questions, either.”

She was babbling. She was nervous. Amrit stared at the pan for a moment and muttered a series of fine-tuning Workings. He didn’t need to do them, but it let him concentrate on something other than her worried voice.

He rolled his shoulders, stared at the pan some more, and did a couple more Workings. “I’m not great at, you know, repairing Worked things. If I was, I figure I’d either be set for life or chained up in a sweatshop somewhere, which, I suppose, is also set for life.” He smiled crookedly at her. “I could use a shirt. I could use a shower,” he admitted. “Or a bath. I kind of smell.”

For some reason, that got her to smile. She turned away for a moment, as if she didn’t want him to see her smile – did she ever make any sense at all? “You get used to it. But bath, that’s easy, especially seeing as you can do the whole heating thing.” She settled down into a chair and seemed to force herself to look at him. “Thank you. For the turkey.”

He rolled his shoulders. “You said that already.”

“Yeah, well. It’s important?” She took a couple breaths. What was wrong with her? “Thank you for the promises, too. I know you didn’t have to do it. And I know you didn’t do it just to get the gag off.”

“Not gonna keep the gag off anyway, is it?” She was making him antsy. He made himself look at her.

“Well.” She smiled crookedly. “I could ask you to be Mine again.”

“You know what I’d say.” He knew what he’d say, too. Didn’t he? He cleared his throat. “I’m not the rules sort. Not the Keeping sort.”

“I know. But you’ll make promises?”

“Easy to make promises not to attack you.” The turkey was almost done. Good. That would give them something else to talk about.

“Even though…” She looked down at her hands.

“Look.” Amrit sighed. “You didn’t enslave me. You bought someone you expected to be already Kept, nice and wrapped up in a ribbon for you. I wasn’t, and I’m not going to be sorry for that but I get why you kept the gag on and the chains and stuff. And the leg – relax about the leg. I’ve had worse than that. Seriously. I forgive you, if there was any forgiving to happen, you have it. You don’t need it; you told me exactly what was going to happen and then you did it.” Now he was babbling. What was wrong with him?

She looked at him for a minute. “Time to take the turkey down to a very low heat, okay?”

“What… yeah.” He did the Workings and surrounded the turkey in a ball of heat before setting it, carefully, on the stove. “That should hold it.”

“Thank you.” She shifted in her seat, staring at him.

Amrit sighed. It might just be easier for her to put the gag back in.

🐝
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🐝

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In Which Mieve is Uncertain and Unhappy

Dec22

First: A beginning of a story which obnoxiously cuts off just before the description,
Previous: In Which Amrit sulks Usefully.
🐝
Mieve had done her best to stay busy, even if she was being a bit more violently busy than she needed to be. She weeded, she sorted through her food stores, she cleaned the kitchen, she washed all the sheets and hung them in the brisk breeze. She made a list of things she’d need for the winter — they’d need for the winter — the stuff they could make here, and the things they would have to trade for.

She should find out his Words. Meentik, yes, and obviously tempero and Tlactl. Not Panida. So he could make things — what things? Making flesh didn’t seem all that useful — and he could control bodies. Good if they were attacked. Didn’t happen all that often, but sometimes roamers came upon her little hide-out, and she didn’t like attacking with the bees if she could avoid it.

Could he work with earth? More importantly, could he do that very nice Working her last Kept had, to turn earth into fuel oil for the stove and the back-up furnace? Could he work with heat and make the cooler into a fridge, so they could store leftovers in the summer?

She put some lentils on the stove with the last bit of sausage she’d traded for. Rice, she missed rice, and while she could grow legumes just fine here, rice wasn’t happening. She wondered how good he was with Huamu, with plants.

All of this was moot if he was just looking for his trick, for his way out. She ought to put the chains and gag back on him before he could attack her, before he could steal her tools, steal her honey or her stores of winter food.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, the beehive buzzed. She quieted the noise with something human, the way she always tried to do – a crossword puzzle. She was running out; she’d need to find a new one the next time she went out trading. Or get Amrit to start playing board games with her.

Again, could be a moot point. She put a lid on the lentils-and-sausage and started looking around for something nice for dessert. Not more apples, she was sick of apples. Maybe something like a cake? Or brownies – no. Chocolate. Another thing she missed more than she cared to admit.

She distracted herself with the trivial and the long-gone for a good hour while the sun slowly sank behind the trees. Crossword puzzle, cake, check on dinner, fret about stove fuel, crossword puzzle. She paced, walking down a groove she’d paced many times before. She sorted her books, putting back the few that had fallen out of place.

He was never coming back. He had run, somehow, despite all his oaths. She was going to have to move, or put up wards that would exhaust her, or…

He walked back into her clearing carrying a dead turkey. It was already field-dressed, she saw, and he looked both proud and abashed.

Mieve made herself walk, not run, out to the clearing. “That is a big bird.” She couldn’t help a smile, and not just because he’d come back. “That will feed us for quite a few days.”

“I missed meat,” he admitted. “But I forgot about uh, blinds, for a while. Sorry it took me so long.”

“Most of the meat out there is crepuscular anyway. Next time… maybe go out there just before the sun is going to set?” She looked him over. “You’re wet all over.”

“It’s summer, I’ll be fine.”

“It’s spring, and still cold. Let’s get this thing into the kitchen and decide what we’re going to do with it.”

“You have that fridge in the garage… we could probably use that as a cooler. It’ll hold a kwxe Working nicely, pull it down to zero super fast and put it in the freezer area. Surround it with blocks of ice, maybe?”

“I, we. One of my old Kept, he did that. It’s a good idea,” she agreed. “It’s why I kept the ‘fridge.”
He eyed her thoughtfully. “You haven’t asked me about my Words.”

“The gag sort of made that moot.” Past tense? Why had she used the past tense?

“Planning on putting it back in, then?” His shoulders tensed. Mieve couldn’t blame him.

“Depends,” she answered, even though she wanted to say Of course not. “Your promises will run out.”
“They will.” He stalked into the cabin, leaving Mieve to trail along behind her. “And you haven’t asked for new ones,” he called back over his shoulder.

“I didn’t need to, the first time.”

“I was feeling generous, the first time.” He dropped the turkey on the table. “How do you want to handle this?”

She studied the bird. “I’ve got it, just give me a second.” A series of long Panida Workings — it might be dead, but it was still an animal — and a couple judicious cuts with a cleaver later, the bird was ready for the freezer. She wrapped it carefully in butcher paper — another thing she would miss badly when it was gone. Like running water, like new clothes, like grocery stores. “There. Ready for flash-freezing.”
“Are you going to answer me?”

“You didn’t ask a question. But I’ll give you an answer anyway — after we get this turkey dealt with.” One leg quarter she left out, tossed into a pan for dinner.

“So these Workings are fine but then you’ll gag me?”

“You want your hard work to be useful, don’t you?” She should have told him she didn’t plan on gagging him. She should have assured him she wanted to know his Words. But that’s what he wanted, wasn’t it? For her to trust him?

“What do I have to do?” he snarled. “For you to believe I actually want to stick around? For you to trust me?” He slammed his fist down on the table, making the pieces of turkey bounce. “No, don’t answer that. I don’t really want to know how many more hoops I have to jump through. You line ’em up, I’ll jump. I told you I was here through the winter, and I’ll do that. But, let me tell you, I never liked-” he cut himself off with a wave of his hand and started freezing the turkey with angry, spat-out Kwxe Workings, pulling out all the heat in quick movements.

He was good, Mieve had to give him that. As a combat tactic, that would be terrifying. And he hasn’t started with that, any time he’d tried an attack.

She didn’t know what to say. He was furious… and she was a little bit scared.

“Thanks.” She gathered up the turkey and helped him carry it out to the freezer. “This’ll.. this’ll be good.”

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In Which Amrit Sulks Usefully

Dec13

First: A beginning of a story which obnoxiously cuts off just before the description,
Previous: In Which Amrit Reaches and Mieve Backs Up.
🐝
Amrit glared after Mieve in frustration. So, fine. She didn’t want to trust him. She didn’t want him to help her.

If you want to go hunt, she’d said. But that was as far as she was willing to let him go. He snarled and slammed the ax down into another piece of wood. What was her problem? He’d been polite – okay, recently. He’d been helpful – the whole time, nobody could say he hadn’t. He’d even been chill about the whole leg-breaking thing. Nothing got through to her. Nothing mattered. She wanted a nice little slavey, and that was that.

He finished the pile of firewood aggressively, knocking it into tiny pieces and throwing it into the wood pile. Fuck her. If she wanted to be a bitch, he could be an asshole right back at her. He worked his mouth, feeling where the gag had been, where the thing the slavers had put in had cut him up. He was healed, now. His leg was pretty much healed, too. He pulled off the splint and tried it. Yep, it held his weight. It was a little tender, still, but he could work with tender.

If you want to go hunt. Of course he wanted to go hunt. Hadn’t he been offering that for days? Was she even listening? He stomped off to the garage and rooted around, looking for the bows.

He found the keys, first. He paused with his hand on them, looking at her car, looking back at the keys. He couldn’t leave without being forsworn, but the temptation was very heavy right now. She didn’t want him here. She didn’t even like him, she just needed a body to boss around.

He picked up the keys, stared at the car, and, with a huffing sigh, put the keys back down. He’d said he’d stay through winter. And this place was nicer than any other options he had for the cold that was coming, anyway.

He found the bow – a very nice one, looking like she’d picked it up from a sports-ware store before everything fell to shit – and the arrows, half of which matched the bow and half of which were Worked or whittled from wood. He slung the quiver over his shoulder, strung the bow, and checked everything out. He hadn’t done all that much bow-hunting, but he’d gone a few times with his uncle when he was a kid, and a few times with whatever came to hand after the world went to shit. He knew he could manage to catch something if he put his mind to it.

Three hours later, as the rain started to come down, he wasn’t so sure. He’d seen a few things; he’d even loosed two arrows. The best he’d been able to catch was a fat squirrel.

He’d thrown a Preserve Working on the squirrel, just to keep the meat fresh, but he’d managed to spook three deer and a turkey without catching anything else.

He was clearly going about this wrong. All wrong, and now it was raining. He needed – well, wanted – shelter, but he didn’t want to go back until he’d caught something big enough to count as a couple meals.

He needed an umbrella, no, that would just get in everyone’s way.

He needed… something. “Fuck,” he muttered, slapping his forehead with his palm. “Idiot.”

His uncle had hunted from a deer stand, a little box in the middle of the woods with a supply of beer and, more importantly, walls and a roof. Amrit didn’t have anything like that, but if he nestled down under that pine tree that he’d just passed, he could be almost invisible from the outside and, if he was lucky, maybe a deer or a turkey would wander by.

“Deer stand. Duh.” He made his way back to the tree and snuck underneath. After a minute, he found a position where he was out of the rain and could see clearly, see clearly and aim decently out of his shelter. He was going to need to build something out here.

If she let him. If she even let him go hunting again. She’d only done it because she was mad at him – for whatever reason; he hadn’t figured that out yet and didn’t know if he cared enough to try.

Well, cross that bridge when he came to it. He hunkered into a comfortable position and waited.

And waited.

And waited. It was getting dark. If he didn’t head back soon, she’d think he had run off, despite his oath.

She would panic, wouldn’t she? Someone who she didn’t really like, who, he supposed, didn’t have all that much reason to like her, someone she’d bought as a slave and then gagged and chained up… and he was gone, and he knew where she lived.

How had she handled that with her other Kept? Driven them off all blindfolded like she’d brought him here? Knocked them unconscious and left them in a ditch somewhere?

For a moment, he considered the possibility that she just killed them all when she was “done” with them, but that didn’t strike him as anything like what he knew about her. There probably wasn’t a line of unmarked graves under the carrots or something.

And if there was, well, he wasn’t going to let her kill him. There wasn’t anything about that in his promises, and he’d make sure there wasn’t.

He was so engrossed in his thoughts, he nearly missed the turkeys strolling by. He pulled, took aim, loosed with a very quiet Working.

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In Which Amrit Reaches and Mieve Backs Up

Dec6

First: A beginning of a story which obnoxiously cuts off just before the description,
Previous: In Which Amrit Makes Sense.
🐝
Every night, she sent Amrit to his bed, in his bedroom, and even though she wasn’t chaining him to his bed anymore, she still locked him in.

He wasn’t gagged and he wasn’t chained. It was a useless move, and she knew it. And yet, there she went, every night, and then slipped into her own bigger, more comfortable, softer bed.

He wasn’t swearing at her recently; he wasn’t arguing (much) with the chores she gave him, and even without the motivation of losing the gag for a couple hours, he was still cooperating and doing he work she set in front of him.

She lingered by his doorway this time. His leg was paining him less; she could tell by the way that he swung it when he moved, and by the way he wasn’t gritting his teeth as much when he didn’t know she was looking. He’d said five days; it’d been four. Pretty soon he’d have the splint off.

And then? She still had his promise, that was good for a few more days. And there was no reason to chain him up if she had all those promises. So why was she nervous?

“Something you need?” His eyes were closed, but he could hear her, of course, and the fact that the door hadn’t closed yet.

“No… no. Good night, Amrit.” What she needed was someone to grab her by the back of the neck and shake her, and even if he was going to volunteer for that, she didn’t think she wanted him to.

She closed the door, locked it, and went back to her bed. It had been warmer and more pleasant with Jerome there — but he’d left without a good-bye or a backwards glance when she’d freed him. Every other slave or Kept had done the same — except the one that had attacked her. She was better off keeping Amrit locked in his room and she in hers.

She stared at the ceiling for a while, the shadows dancing in the dark, before she managed to fall asleep, no matter how tired her body insisted she was.
🐝
“You know I can haul water,” he was insisting, early enough the next morning that the sun was still tinting the trees instead of hanging in the sky. “Come on, you don’t have to do all the hard labor around here. Isn’t that why you brought me here?”

“You’re still injured,” Mieve argued. “And it’s not easy to keep your balance while hauling buckets of water, much less while limping.”

“There’s only so much I can do about anything while I’m injured, and it’s driving me bonkers. Come on,” he wheedled. “There’s only so much firewood a guy can chop. There’s only so many seeds I can stand sowing.”

“There’s a lot to be done,” she countered, but her heart wasn’t in it. “All right. Watering the garden is fine.”

“Maybe you can talk your bees into a little honey for the bread?” he offered, with a playful smile she’d never seen from him before. “That was really tasty the other day. You don’t sell all of it, do you? Your honey?”

“A lot of it. But no, I keep some.” She couldn’t help but smile in response to his look. “We can have toast and honey with lunch today.”

“You’re the best.” He graced her with yet another smile. “Show me everything that needs watering? I want to be sure I don’t water your weeds.”

She pointed out the beds of dirt and tiny seedlings that held plants, and he nodded and repeated it back to her. “Buckets, well, watering can. I can do that.” He glanced at her, then seemed to make a decision. “Do you sell your honey very often? You haven’t gone anywhere since you, uh, brought me here, and I didn’t see you bring back anything but me, then.”

Mieve frowned. “That could be useful information, couldn’t it?”

He held his hands up. “I’m just saying, if you need to make a run, I could help — or you could tie me up with chains and promises.” He huffed quietly. “I want to run, okay? I’m not going to lie. But in the meantime, I don’t want to screw up your whole routine.”

“Why not?” She twisted her lips; that hadn’t been the smartest thing to say. She followed it up with… well, she hoped it was an explanation. “You weren’t exactly happy to be here. What changed?”

I broke his leg.

That was not a reasonable thing to change someone’s entire attitude towards the positive.

“I, uh…” He frowned, and seemed to be arguing silently with himself. “Well, it’s like this. You could’ve done a lot of things when I broke the chain and ran — tried to run. You could’ve enjoyed the chance to punish me. I mean, you weren’t even all that bad before, even when I was being rude and miserable. You still fed me, you kept all your bargains.”

He coughed and shifted most of his weight to his good leg. “So, you know. You kept your word. I knew what that meant; I knew that if I ran, you’d keep your word again, you’d break my leg. Right? I knew I couldn’t get caught, I knew what I was getting into. I mean, yeah, I hoped if you caught me you wouldn’t…” He flapped both his hands at her in frustration. “You’re getting that expression again. Don’t, please don’t, okay?”

Mieve cleared her throat. “What, uh. What expression.”

“The one that says I’m a horrible person, I tortured him. You’re not – I think, I mean, I don’t know you that well yet, and you didn’t. You kept your word, which is what I expected. But you let me do it myself when I explained, so you weren’t, uh. You didn’t need to hurt me, you didn’t need to damage me, you just had to keep your word, no matter how much you hated it.”
“I’m not a monster.” The words went out of her mouth without consulting her first. She ducked her head, knowing she was flushing, feeling the heat in her cheeks, and sighed.

“And someone said you were, didn’t they? The humans, they all think all of us are monsters, and, you know, I see why. If you first experience with the fae is, like, the bastard calling himself Zeus or that bitch Hera that took over New York City, or some Nedetakaei monster that took advantage of the chaos, yeah. They’re gonna hate every fae they see for a while after that. But that’s nothing to do with us.”

She cleared her throat. He was trying so hard to be kind, and it was doing anything but helping. She didn’t want to stop him, but she just couldn’t listen. “It wasn’t a human,” she whispered. “Wasn’t even one person.”

“You’re not hiding out here because nobody spooked you,” he pointed out dryly.

“No. No, I mean. There’s always humans saying things like ‘the only good fae is a dead fae.’ I mean, I don’t know, they could be fae saying it, just to fit in. I knew I couldn’t risk being out in public too much, and I’m not strong enough to take on a whole hunting pack of Nedetakaei or anything. But that’s…” She shrugged. “Like you said. They’re scared, and they’re lashing out. That’s different.”

“Then who… shit.” She looked up in time to see Amrit lean against the wood behind him and sigh. “Shit. Your former Kept? Shit. Because, what, you buy slaves?”

“Well, you weren’t exactly happy with me for that,” she pointed out.

“Yeah, well, I suppose an argument could be made that you’re supplying the demand so they’re supplying the slaves, but it’s not like, uh. Well, you’re not that bad, you’re not bad at all.” He shrugged. “You’re not a monster. You’re right. And, you know, that’s why I don’t want to screw up your life here. I’ll stay through winter, okay? I’ll make sure I’m doing my share, because I don’t want to just be mooching off of you and then leaving. And you can have all that in a promise, if you want… and, yeah. Yeah,” he sighed. “I was pissed. I was really pissed. I’d been stupid enough to sleep where I could be grabbed, because I can’t be attacked all that well unless you cut off my head— hell, for all I know, I’d grow a new body, but let’s not try that, okay?” He grinned suddenly at Mieve; she smiled back, although less enthusiastic than his wide, open expression.

“I…” He shrugged and his smile twisted a bit. “I was pissed. And, uh, like I said. I don’t take orders well. And I really, really hated that gag. The one they put on me,” he added hurriedly. “The one you put on me was, well, pretty good, for a gag.”

“That was the idea,” she admitted. Hesitantly, because they were getting along so well and she didn’t want to ruin it, but she needed to know, she asked, “why are you telling me all this?”

“In a blatant and probably-futile attempt to get you to trust me a little bit,” he admitted. “And, uh. Well, I can talk to you.” He worked his jaw. “I can talk. So I’m feeling talkative? I figure sooner or later my promises will run out and you’ll put the gag back in, and then we’ll be back to where we were.”

The thought filled Mieve with disappointment. She frowned, puzzling over it. “Maybe?” she offered. “I mean…” She shook her head. Like he said, he was trying to get her to trust him. He was just playing all the cards he had at his disposal for that, and guilt was probably one of those. “Nah. Forget it.” She shrugged. “You’ve got a couple days left in your promises. If you want to go hunt, the bows are in the garage.”

She stomped away, doing her damnedest not to examine the emotions roiling around in her.

I just want you to trust me. She’d certainly heard that before. She had even believed it a few times. And, to be fair, the people she’d believed it from had wanted her to trust them. She still had some of the scars.

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