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Two Beginnings of Stories

Nov14

Because (for *cough* SOME reason), I was suddenly feeling the urge to write slaves and magical schools.
These are bare intros, of course.

Slaves, School

There was a collar, of course.

Desmond hadn’t exactly been expecting it, but somehow, when it was there that morning in the middle of summer, pressed around Des neck and already body-temperature, it wasn’t a surprise.

Every year, on Aleriaon the 1st, 28 citizens between their fourteenth and nineteenth birthdays woke up wearing a collar. It was chosen entirely at random — or so it was claimed, by those in charge of claiming such things — and you never knew if you would be the one to wake up like that.

And absolutely nobody knew what happened after that. The collar meant something, of course. You would, if you traveled in the right circles, run into people who wore collars — adult people, people at least past their twentieth birthday. They worked for other people, the sort of people that were recognized when they walked down the street and the sort that made a point of not being recognized at all. And they never, ever spoke about what the collar meant, or what had happened. Rarely, unless they were serving as Herald or Voice, did they speak at all.

Des had only once even seen someone with a collar. They had been at the Court building for something his father needed to do, and the collared person had been standing behind the judge, saying nothing, doing nothing, as if they were simply a part of the scenery. Something about that had spoken to him: being on display, being rooted to the spot, being voiceless. The image had stuck with Des: like a lucky rock, brought up and caressed and studied until the edges have worn off and it’s shiny with use. He couldn’t remember the warmth of the Courthouse or the noise, the way people had been shoving and unruly, the expression on the judge’s face. But every detail of the collared person’s expression, their stance, their clothing, their collar – every inch of that remained ingrained in memory.

He woke early, the pressure of the collar startling him. Both hands went to his throat. The metal there — when there had been nothing of the sort when he went to sleep; Des didn’t even own a necklace, much less wear one to bed — could only be one thing. It wasn’t all that wide, not like the one on the collared person in the courthouse, maybe the width of Des’s thumb. It was warm, not too thick, a few sheets of paper together, no more, and it had no closure. It had no embossing, either; he had read that the collars often were embossed although you had to be up close and personal to see the pattern.

Presumably, someone got up close and personal with collared people, but Des had never figured out whom.

He hopped out of bed and hurried to a mirror. The collar was pale rose gold, looking redder against his olive skin. it had enough room for him to slip two fingers under it, but no more. It was unmarked, as far as Des could tell, and it didn’t seem to do anything.

::Report to the Central office at 1 First street at 11 a.m. today::

The voice seemed to echo against the inside of Des’ teeth somehow.

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1201991.html

Slaves, School 2

“There’s a girl in my room. In our room. In the room. A girl. Kneeling.” Austin skidded into the dorm’s common space. He wasn’t exactly alarmed, but this wasn’t… normal.

Well, it hadn’t been normal back home, at least. Austin wasn’t sure what was normal anywhere, anymore.

Up until a week ago, Perekatta University had been a story, a feature in several of Austin’s childhood storybooks and then the backdrop in a dozen more “chapter books” and more grown-up novels. The books had come from his Aunt Karen, a courtesy-title Aunt who’d been a schoolmate of his parents. Austin had read them all, at first dutifully and then with more interest and enthusiasm as the stories expanded.

There had been no girls kneeling in the boys’ dorms in the books, however.

“A girl,” Austin repeated. He’d gotten the attention of a couple of the upperclasmen.

“Not exactly.” Randy was sitting sideways in the biggest armchair, legs over one arm. He set down his magazine languidly and grinned at Austin.

Austin wasn’t sure what the joke was. “Exactly, yes. A girl, in the boys’ dorm.” Austin was the first pre-frosh here. He wasn’t sure this was going to work out in his favor, even if he had been about to pick exactly the bed he wanted. “She called me sir.”

“That–” Randy swung his legs down onto the floor and leaned over his knees. “It wasn’t in the books, was it?”

Austin took a step backwards. “No.” He didn’t ask how did you know about the books?

Randy answered anyway. “Everyone here either grew up attached to the Uni somehow, or they ended up reading the books. I mean, once every, maybe, ten, fifteen years we end up with a wild talent. You know, someone completely a mystery. But you didn’t have that look.”

“What look?” Austin was beginning to get offended.

“Your hair wasn’t on fire. Nothing was on fire. So. You didn’t know about the girl, well, the creature in your room.”

“Creature?” There was a certain inevitability to this conversation, like Austin was reading an invisible script. Well, if it got him answers, he’d read the script.

“She’s a Fah. An elf, if you will. They signed a treaty with the Incantara Primus, oh, centuries ago. Maybe millennia.” Randy flapped his hand, clearly un-interested in the details. “So they serve us for a period of time. Anyway, there’s three things to keep in mind about the elves.”

Suddenly, Randy looked serious. Austin wondered if he was being pranked. Still, he looked attentive.

“First, you don’t give them your full name and, preferably, you don’t give them your real name at all. Use a nickname.

“Secondly. if they get any of your bodily fluids – yeah, even that–”

Austin stared blankly. “That?” What was “that?”

Randy didn’t seem to notice. “–Be certain you get some of theirs in turn. And thirdly, do not ever shed their blood over live earth, and try not to shed it over any sort of earth at all. Water or fire’s best, and if you use water, dump in a lot of bleach before you send it down the pipes. Understand?”

“Don’t use a real name. Don’t give them bodily fluids without a trade of same. Don’t — do people really have to be told not to bleed them over bare earth? Who’s going to bleed them at all?”

Randy’s expression shadowed. “You’d be surprised. Go on, kiddo. Meet the Fah. Just remember what I told you.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1199078.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Planning Rescue, a continuation of Daxton and Esha

Aug10

This is the next post in the ‘Rescue, of Sorts’ storyline, which can be found at this tag: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/tag/character:+daxton

It is written to a donation by [personal profile] thnidu after Rescued Indeed…

It took them a week to escape the castle, although their eventual bid for freedom was far less dramatic than the first time they’d met. “Just want to scout the countryside,” Daxton assured his parents, and, “they want us to rule something, we ought to see what we could rule,” Esha told her captain.

Nobody believed them, of course. The beauty of it was that it worked whether it was considered truth or lie — let their friends and family think they were off working on the next generation of Ducal heirs. In a sense, they were.
The manor house they found had been carved from a mountainside and built outwards from the stone they’d pulled. Aside from a population of wild mice and some small mountain foxes, it hadn’t been tenanted in a while, but the walls, built when the world was a stronger, stranger place, were still true and strong.

There was a barracks on site that, with some work, could house a mercenary troop in far more comfort than they were used to. And there was a village nearby that could use the protection of a strong force so close.

“It’ll take work,” Esha pointed out. “A lot of work.”

Daxton’s smile was crooked, more amused than pleased. “Still better than a dungeon.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1154556.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Rescued Indeed…

Aug1

This is the next post in the ‘Rescue, of Sorts’ storyline, which can be found at this tag: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/tag/character:+daxton

It is written to a commissioned present for [personal profile] clare_dragonfly, as well as to kelkyag‘s prompt here for my Summer Giraffe Call and a very-requested line item to my Finish It? request.

The wedding was the sort of pomp-and-circumstance affair you’d expect from a nation in the middle of a long peacetime, not one that was attacked on nearly a weekly basis. It was rich and extravagant, and if the coffers of the Duchy and some of the King and Queen’s own money had been plundered to pay for it, so had many people donated time and materials to the event as well.

The bride was stunning, in a confection whispered to have been designed by the groom. You could see the lines of armor in the design of the bodice, and she carried her sword proudly. They were still a nation at war, after all, and she was a soldier.

The groom was handsome, walking tall, recovered from his ordeal in the Red Queen’s dungeon. He wore a suit no less fancy than the bride’s gown, and he, too, carried a sword. They were accompanied by seven warriors, all of them armed to the teeth.

They wore white, all of them, even the priests, the Duke, the Duchess. Most of the guests gave some nod to the white as well, if even just a sash. There was no red to be seen anywhere in the temple or around it. The Red Queen had been driven back but not defeated, and they would not give her quarter here, in their most intimate of celebrations, even in showing her color.

The bride was nervous, but she walked straight forward, her back straight, a smile on her face that would have been beaming had it not been quavering a bit on the edges. The groom smiled almost shyly as he looked around the gathered guests: so many people, his smile seemed to say, although he and his bride both understood. This was only about them in a very small part; this was about not being defeated.

Daxton reached his long march down the left of the temple as Esha finished walking down the right. There his parents, her captain and first lieutenant, and the three highest priests of the duchy awaited them. Daxton reached his hands out to Esha and she, in turn, clasped his wrists.

There were words said, of course. The Duke and Duchess began, speaking of the deal they had made, should anyone rescue their son. There was a moment of silence, because many people had died in attempting that rescue, and so many more people had died in this awful war against the Red Queen. Daxton and Esha bowed their heads no less sadly than anyone else in the temple; they, too, had lost people, and they, too, wanted to remember those people.

Then there were homilies and vows, promises and quiet jokes, input from the crowd — loud input, in some situations, and a few snickered whispers that were probably still louder than intended. For all of the solemnity, marriage was a fun affair and a public one; Daxton and Esha joked right back along with their guests, as did the priests and the Duke and Duchess, the Captain and the attendants.

The ceremony segued naturally into the feast, with the jokes growing louder and more wild, the shouting sliding into group songs. “Let the Red Queen hear what she’s missing!” was a common refrain. Nobody was surprised to hear Esha joining in; the bride, after all, was a mercenary, even if she had been catapulted into nobility by her exploits.

Almost everyone was surprised when Daxton joined in on one of the crudest songs, even presenting a verse nobody had heard before. When Esha elbowed her new husband, he blushed. “The Red Queen’s guards sing, too,” he whispered to her, before providing yet another verse of the ridiculous song.

Eventually, the party died down. The bride and groom slipped away — snuck away might be more accurate — to Daxton’s suite up in the castle.

A few weeks from now, they might head out to the country, to find a piece of land they could grow comfortable on. For tonight, they locked and barred his door and pulled the curtains tightly closed.

“They’ll be expecting…” Daxton began.

Esha shook her head. “Let them expect. We are alone together and it is our wedding night. What happens here is our business and ours alone.”

It wasn’t — not in some sense. They belonged to the Duchy, their returned son and their hero, and they knew it. But for tonight, they could pretend.

“Did you expect this, when you came to rescue me?” Daxton lay on the wide bed and stared up at the ceiling.

“I barely expected to survive.” She lay on her side studying him. “No, let’s be honest. I expected to die. But someone had to try, we were going to keep trying, and I wanted it to be me dying, not someone more important.”

Daxton rolled over to look at her. “You’re important to me.”

Esha smiled crookedly. “Well, then… I’m glad I lived.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1147424.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Searching for Answers, Chapter 3 of The Portal Closed

Jul19

After: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1007793.html and http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1007910.html – for the Finish It! Bingo. Not technically a finish, per se, but another chapter.

“If there are other portals, it stands to reason that someone has heard of them.” Clarence came into their hide-out with his arms loaded down with books and his backpack heavy with more.

Barbara set up the camp light and cleared the main table to give them a workplace. “Like that old woman, oh, dear…. Dorothy. Dot Garrington. The one who told us when she had been to Ombrion, and we thought she was putting us on for the longest time?”

“Or,” Diane said more softly, “Donald Jackson, the one that Verdana told us about. Went missing here — I still have the clipping. Because he died in Ombrion.”

“Do you think there’s another portal here? In [town?] If we have to go further out, it’s going to take some doing, especially with the school administration getting so concerned about us.” Barbara wrinkled her nose. Mr. Richardson was doing his best to intervene on their behalves, but the school administration had started paying far too much attention to the four of them.

“Well, that’s the first thing to look into. We know about Mrs. Garrington, and we know about Donald Jackson. Verdana confirmed those. So we have to find anyone else. I’ve got twenty years of old newspapers from old Mr. Dellard’s garage, and gloves, because old Mr. Dellard is not the tidiest.”

“How is that not going to bring suspicion?” Ralph demanded.

“Because Mr. Dellard paid me to clean out his garage,” Clarence shot back. “Because we need spending money, and we’re not old enough for jobs — and besides, I’m too short for the counter of anything retail here, and I don’t think they’d hire me as a fencing instructor.”

Barbara did not giggle, although she did smile a little bit. They were all shorter than they had been, but Clarence, they had discovered, did not have his growth spurt until eighteen or nineteen. He, of course, found the entire thing completely unfair, but there was not much one could do about biology in Ombrion, and less here on Earth.
“Jobs are a good point. I could pick up some babysitting work. The Hardessy triplets are nothing after dealing with…” Barbara trailed off softly. There were things they never talked about. That was one of them. “Well, anyway. I could babysit.”

“I think the branch library needs someone to work afternoons,” Diane offered, “and there’s more research time. After we read through Clarence’s papers here.” She slid on a pair of gloves and picked up a notepad.

Barbara did the same. “So, we’re looking for Dots and Donalds. Strange stories and missing people?”

“And maybe missing time. You remember when we made the paper and all got grounded for a month and a half?”

“Urgh. Yes.” Barbara glared at the paper. That one had been Clarence’s fault, but it was ancient history in so many ways now.

Ancient or not, it probably didn’t stink as bad as these papers. Barbara opened a window after the first thirty-year-old paper, but that didn’t help much until Ralph opened another one on the other side of the building. It meant they had to be quieter — their little hideout might be out of the way, but people did still walk by here — but since all they were doing was reading, that wasn’t all that difficult.

“Got it!” Ralph crowed out. “Look, here…” he dropped his voice to a whisper as all three of them glared at him. “Here. I mean, probably not the only one, but Millie Dioli, here. She was missing for a week, and they assumed she’d fallen in the river.”

“People fall in the river all the time,” Clarence argued.

“Yes, but they don’t come back talking about strange things she saw in the library. The Dolan library,” Ralph added, with heavy emphasis. They looked around the building they were in — the “old, abandoned library” that had “Dolan” carved very clearly above the front door. “She said she’d been in the library the whole time, and that she’d only been gone for an hour.”

“Nnng.” Barbara curled her knees to her chest. “They didn’t institutionalize her, did they?”

“No, although she was, um, ‘soundly punished for her lies’ and eventually told them she’d been off playing pirates and lost track of the time.”

“If she’d been ‘playing pirates’ in the Bay of Sorrows…” Clarence pursed his lips. “That would explain the time shift.”

They all shuddered. The Bay of Sorrows seemed to work differently from the rest of Ombrion in all ways, and it was infested with pirates that they had never been able to get rid of. “So what happened to her?” Barbara leaned forward. “If she didn’t get institutionalized…”

“I brought some phone books.” Clarence pulled them out of his bag. “Although if she married…”

Diane shook her head. “After ‘playing pirates’ with those pirates?”

They all shared another shudder, and Barbara pulled Diane close to her in a sisterly hug. “Probably not,” Clarence allowed. “Dioli… Dioli… All right, she’s in the phone book. But we should keep looking, too. If she’s only been to Ombrion, she won’t be able to help us find someplace else.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1143339.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Kind of a Rescue, a continuation of Daxton for More, Please

Nov13

First: A Rescue of Sorts
Previous: A Rescue In Kind

Esha was not quite locked in her room, but Daxton had to coax his way past three maids and a very very burly valet. Once there, he found her surrounded by three seamstresses and one milliner, all of them draping her in yards of lace and satin.

She was plucking at it helplessly. “This is… This is lovely. But it’s so expensive, and I don’t know how I’m going to move in any of it.” She hadn’t quite noticed Daxton yet. He stayed quiet and watched.

“You’re not supposed to move. You’re supposed to glide quietly down the center aisle and then stand, lovely, staring into your groom’s eyes.” The head dressmaker tch’d. “There are princesses that would kill for a dress like this.”

“The problem is that I’m not a princess. I’m a soldier.”

“I’m aware.” She squeezed Esha’s bicep rather more firmly than Daxton thought was necessary. “It’s making all sorts of difficulties in fitting you.”

“What if you tried to fit her?” Daxton stepped forward and took a sketch pad from an unresisting junior dressmaker.

“That’s what I just said. And what are you doing here?”

“No, no. Fit the dress to the bride. I’m not marrying her because she can glide nicely, after all.” He studied Esha for a moment, then sketched out a few lines on the paper. “Like this. A dress. Silk and lace. But a bit of white leather here, and then here, like a sword belt. She earned her title and her sword. Far more than I did, and there’s supposed to be one in my uniform. Let her carry them.”
He passed the sketch over to Esha before the dressmaker could snatch it, and was graced with a slow smile creeping across her face.

“Oh,” she said, pleased, “I’m keeping you.”

“That was the deal.” Daxton leaned against the wall and grinned. He was already managing to rescue her, and he’d just gotten here.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1009563.html. You can comment here or there.

In the Real World, Chapter Two of The Portal Closed

Nov11

Chapter One

“I’ve been delegated to ask what the four of you think you’re doing.” Mr. Richardson, the school’s guidance counselor, looked more than a little amused as he stared at them over folded hands. “So: what, exactly, do the four of you think you’re doing?”

What they had been doing was sorting out life here on earth at the same time as they tried to prepare themselves for their next adventure. It hadn’t occurred to them that the staff of their school would notice. They stared at Mr. Richardson, attempting to slot a staff that paid attention into their plans.

Barbara recovered first, if weakly. “College?” she tried. “College entrance reports.”

“It was you, I believe, who told me three months ago that you couldn’t give a fig about college, that it was years away. And after that you, Clarence, added that ‘who knew if you’d get to college anyway,’ which seemed more than a bit fatalistic for such bright children, I might add.” His bushy eyebrows went up. “So something has changed. I repeat: what are you doing?”

Ralph sat up a bit straighter. “There comes a time when the doors of childhood slam shut in your face and you must face adulthood, whether or not you’re ready.” Ralph had spent five years as a troubador, and his turn of phrase brought him no end of romantic attention – when he was in a body which could grow a beard and had a voice which didn’t still sound like a girl’s. “We’re simply stepping forward as adults now. Which requires some preparation.”

Mr. Richardson looked down at his notes. “Fencing club. Heavy weapons club. I’ll note that both of these are new – no, pardon me. Fencing club was reinstated.”

Barbara had done the research; Diane had convinced Mr. Prewitt, their gym teacher, to reinstate Fencing Club. Clarence had done his best Hurt Masculinity act and gotten Mr. Prewitt to also start a “proper swordfighting” club. They were finding the clubs helpful, if occasionally frustrating. Diane had this habit of attempting to run the targets all the way through.

“Don’t forget trying to restart debate club,” Clarence offered helpfully. “It’s not like we haven’t done that one before, it’s just that we had a little… conflict… about how it should go.”

“You mean that you and Barbara trounced everyone and were insufficiently apologetic about winning.” Mr. Richardson’s mustache moved in what had to be a concealed smile.

Barbara jutted her chin forward. “We were good. I don’t see any reason to apologize for being good.”

“And you shouldn’t.” Mr. Richardson nodded approvingly. “However, I understand that not everyone in the school feels that way.”

“What, exactly, are these unknown people concerned about, sir?” Diana was sitting very primly, her hands folded in her lap. Barbara couldn’t help but wonder if Mr. Richardson had seen Diane’s fencing targets. Or her archery targets. “We’re not doing anything wrong.“

“I don’t suppose you could?” He brushed the request off with a hand, smiling widely enough to show beneath the mustache. “No, no. Of course not. But when four bright students who have been actively disengaged change all of a sudden, and all together, I suppose the administration worries they’re missing something.”

“If they are,” Ralph offered, “it is only that we have always worked as a team, and so we’re… well, we’re growing up as a team. Paying attention to our physical and mental health together, that sort of thing.”

“Mmm.” Mr. Richardson made a note in his folder. “I’ll tell them that. And if you’re planning on starting any more clubs, come talk to me first, all right? I’m sure I can find a way to soften the blow to the Administration. Children being active. Heaven forbid.”

Barbara found herself smiling at the man. They should have engaged his help years ago; he might not be a sorceress, he might not be Verdana, but he seemed plenty wise enough for them.

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1143339.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1007910.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

The Portal Closed, a beginning/introduction/Prelude

Nov10

“It’s all your fault!”

They were fourteen – except Ralph, who had always been the baby of the group and was just turning thirteen – when the portal into Ombrion stopped opening for them.

They had known it was coming. Only children could enter Ombrion through the portals. And for the past year, the openings had been rarer and rarer. Two months had passed when the four of them huddled around the door in the old abandoned school library and called out toVerdana, who had guided them. They lit the candles, even though they knew the candles weren’t necessary. They wished on the fullness of the moon, all of it the way they had the first time.

The gates stayed closed. Verdana did not answer. And to all of them, the gates felt more sealed, more dead, than they ever had before.

“It’s got to be you.” Clarence glared at Barbara. “With your…” He flapped his hand in vague disgust.

She sneered back at him, uninterested in his squeamishness. “What about you? With your voice changing, with all the squeaking through the calling there?”

“Maybe it’s Ralph…” Clarence flopped against the old wooden doors that had, until so recently, been their portal to Ombrion. “No. They’re just done with us.”

They’d been seven and eight the first time, full of the books they were reading and playing make-believe, no matter what the other students said about growing up, when they’d first opened the portal. They’d tumbled through the door again and again, only to come back with only a few minutes, a few hours having passed.

Until now. No matter how many times they grew up in Ombrion, today they’d grown up too much in America.

“Maybe if we…” Ralph moved the candles despondently. “I can’t believe that’s it. Just – ‘thanks for saving us, go back to your world now and be teenagers.'”

Barbara put her face in her hands. “I can’t believe Verdana just abandoned us. I mean.” She held up her hand, because Clarence liked to poke at everything lately. “I can believe it, I know, she always told us she would. But it makes me angry.”

“Guys…” Diane had said nothing at all, which was, for Diane, not that uncommon. But she was staring off into the shadows with a look that had, once, presaged her saving an entire nation. “The way I see it, we have a few options.”

The rest of them settled in to listen. Of the many things they had learned over their decades in Ombrion, “listen to Diane” had been one of the first lessons.

She ticked off on her fingers. “We can sit here and complain. We can go out there and live our lives. Come on, how many teenagers have the experience we have? I tried; I don’t have the muscle memory but I have all the knowledge of swordcraft, for example. It would give us a leg up, whatever we decided to do.”

She paused, and despite the fact that dramatic pauses were far more Ralph’s purview than Diane’s, they all leaned forward. “Or we can do one better. We can find magic here. We can find other portals.”

“The portal’s closed.” Clarence’s voice was harsh and angry.

“This portal is closed. Only this one. What did Verdana say? The portal led to that world, and always has. Oh, what was it?” She closed her eyes.

Barbara picked it up. She’d had nightmares about that part. “‘I shudder to think about what would have happened, if you four had found some other door, some world that ‘needed’ you for some far more nefarious purpose.”

The words hung in the air, but it was Ralph who picked them up. “There are other worlds.” The conclusion was inescapable.

“There are other words.” Clarence breathed it out slowly. “And we aren’t the children we were, back then.”

“If you count experience,” Diane added dryly, “we’re ancients. And I do count experience. You guys remember that debate club debacle last year.”

They’d been disqualified, Barbara and Clarence. The teachers had been certain they’d gotten outside coaching. In a sense, they had – in the small room behind the throne room, in Ombrion, before the ambassadors from Fregoran visited.

Barbara nodded slowly. “Let’s do it. Let’s find another portal. Let’s find all the portals.”

If the portals needed people, let it be them, who already knew how to live two lives at once. If they needed soldiers, generals, diplomats, let it be them.

She had no desire to spend her entire life remembering what it was like to be a Warrior Queen.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1007793.html. You can comment here or there.

The Prisoner was Filthy (A continuation)

Oct10

after The Prisoner Would Not Relent, and he Would Not Speak

The bath attendants moved around the prisoner, their cloths wiping off layers of dirt and blood. The woman stood in front of him, unmoving, her gaze locked on him.

It seemed to the bath attendants that the two of them stayed like that, in silence, for forever. By the slow removal of the filth from the prisoner’s skin, it was less than a quarter hour.

She spoke first. That was both meet and unsurprising. She spoke in her own language, too – also as was correct. The building they were in and everyone and everything in it, all of that belonged to her.

“I understand why my father failed.”

He said nothing, simply tilted his head to one side. She smiled in response, a humorless expression her attendants knew well.

“Strength. Your people value strength.” She held one hand above his bicep, and then pushed away in negation. “To look at you, to look at your family – my father assumed that you valued strength of body. I imagine you do. It is one road to true strength.”

The bath attendants did not pretend to understand, but they listened nonetheless. They were not forbidden to gossip, after all.

The prisoner smiled. At first, it was a small thing, but it grew into a grin. He made a noise, and all but the bravest attendant jumped back. He might be bound and collared, but they had seen what had happened to those who had bound him.

The noise turned into a chuckle. The bath attendants waited, cautiously, until their liege gestured them forward. Then, although they were all still frightened, they resumed their long job of cleaning the grime off the prisoner.

The prisoner’s laughter stopped. He spoke three words in his own tongue, and then, with a polite nod at the attendant in front of him, spoke again in their language. “Strength, indeed, Queen Quedra.”

She nodded her head, the closest to a bow a Queen should ever make. “So, there will now be peace between our nations, King Hadrio.”

The prisoner nodded. “It is all in your hands.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/992287.html. You can comment here or there.

The Prisoner Would Not Relent, and he Would Not Speak (a ficlet)

Oct9

Content includes unwilling capture, allusions to violence, broken bones, blood, and gore.

In the end, it took three guards to hold him down and two more to force the collar around his neck. He broke seventeen bones, only one of them (a pinkie) his own, knocked one of the guards unconscious, and came within a hair’s-breadth of killing a second – and that with his teeth.

Once the collar was on, however, he seemed strangely docile. He stopped fighting the guards at all, allowing them to put on the manacles and shackles, to take what was left of his clothing, and to lock the chains binding him to a loop in the floor. He spoke, quietly and constantly, from the moment the collar locked around his neck, in a language foreign to most of those in the cell.

“Leave us.” One woman had stayed distant from the act of binding him and thus remained unscathed, although a long splatter of blood decorated her robe. “Count to three hundred,” she aimed this order at the sole uninjured guard, “and then send in the attendants.”

The cell door closed behind the last guard. She took the prisoner’s chin in her hand, heedless of the tangle of beard or the trickle of blood. In a voice that would not carry and yet still filled the entire cell, she spoke back to him in the staccato syllables of his own language.

There was no-one to record the conversation, and neither of them would ever speak of it. But when the bath attendants came in with their basins and their scented soaps, they heard him say six words, the only words anyone had ever heard him say in their language.

“My life is in your hands.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/991739.html. You can comment here or there.

A Rescue in Kind posted on Patreon

Jul27

A Rescue in Kind

a story of captivity, continued: the ongoing story of Daxton and Esha, begun here:

Daxton was captive again, struggling not to take it in ill grace. This time, it seemed unlikely that Esha could rescue him…

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This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/962275.html. You can comment here or there.