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A Rescue in Kind – Patreon Story

Jul27

This is written to Clare K. R. Miller ‘s request for More Daxton & Esha.  The Daxton/Esha story to date can be found at this tag and it begins with A Rescue, of Sorts.

~~

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

It was a captivity far more posh and sometimes far less comfortable than his time in the Red Queen’s dungeons. Nobody, as far as he knew, was dying because of him, which was very pleasant. He had his own bed to sleep in, baths as often as he wanted them — and then some — and very nice food, occasionally in excess of what he could either want or need.

It was beginning to seem, however, that he’d had more freedom when chained in the dungeon. For one, the Red Queen had often left him alone — sometimes for days on end. For another, although there had been a script to follow with the Queen, it had been an easy one, and involved very little actual lying. It had helped, too, that he hated the Red Queen.

Daxton didn’t hate his parents, and he certainly didn’t hate their staff or any of the other people complicit in this captivity. There were courtiers, hangers-on, and installations, people who might as well be furniture for all they could budge, that he felt less than entirely fond of. But even the worst of those, bumps on the log of his parents’ court, Daxton did not hate. In his life, he’d only truly hated the Red Queen and sometimes, on bad days, her guards. Continue reading →

The Warlord’s Cat – a Patreon story

Jun23

This story is written to @Dahob’s prompt to May 2015’s “Love Stories” theme. The fact that she is a warlord might have something to do with me watching Fury Road last weekend.

~

“He loves you very much.” The ambassador’s eyes followed the warlord’s slave as he left the room. He moved gracefully, like a predator. The chains around his wrists and ankles, shiny and decorative for all their strength, seemed to hamper him not at all.

“He loves me like a cat loves its human,” the warlord answered, her voice bored. “He knows where the roof and the warmth are, the food and the safety. Even predators like a safe space to sleep.” Continue reading →

Hurt/Comfort Meme Answer 2: Injured, Esha/Daxton

Apr26

To Kelkyag‘s prompt to my H/C prompt here. After A Rescue in Hand.

There were people everywhere. There were courtiers and mercenaries, guards and generals and servants, all of them pushing as close to Daxton as they dared, all of them talking at once.

Esha was holding up, standing straight and answering questions. She was the hero of the day and she was rightfully proud, but she still had an arrow sticking out of her shoulder, and she was turning a bit grey.

Daxton met his father’s eyes over the crowd. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done that. From the raised eyebrows his father was showing, neither could he.

“Son?” He pitched his voice carefully, carrying over the crowd and aimed straight at Daxton.

“You offered my hand in marriage?” Daxton used the same trick. He wasn’t as good at it; the nearby crowd hushed.

“I did. If you-“

For the first time since he was two years old, he cut off his father in a public situation. “I’d like to take my betrothed to the palace doctor now, please. She’s injured, and she got injured saving my life.”

The Duke smiled at him. “Go right ahead, son. Captain Senner, Captain Iken, please escort Lady Esharina and Lord Daxton to the doctor. My son – I am very pleased to have you back.”

Lady. They were really going to do it. He bowed, as low as he could. “Thank you.” Before anything could sneak up on them, he wrapped a careful arm around Esha and led her to the doctor’s suite.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/928725.html. You can comment here or there.

A Rescue In Hand

Apr24

Previous: Probably a Rescue
First: A Rescue, of Sorts
see also:
A Proof, Of Sorts

For the “Do up whatever story/stories suit your fancy or for whomever most wants/needs ’em.” commission and the poll here.

Daxton’s rescuer really had thought of everything. She’d packed a change of clothing for him, as well as scissors to trim his scraggly hair and a razor for his beard. When they rode away from the cabin, he was as clean, as well-dressed and as smooth-shaven as he had been on the day the Red Queen’s agents had taken him.

He was skinnier, by quite a bit, but he had a full stomach for the first time in ages. And he was a lot more nervous than he had been, right up until the moment the Red Queen’s people had grabbed him.

“You could ruin me, you know.” It wasn’t the most cheerful conversation for your prospective wife, but then again, most prospective wives didn’t pull one out of a dungeon owned by a wildly powerful despot.

“If I’d wanted to ruin you, I would have left you in the dungeon.”

“Blackmail?”

“Wedding.” The mercenary woman shrugged. “I gain nothing by blackmailing you. Nothing but – down!” She had her short horse-bow out and was wheeling her horse around before Daxton could do anything but duck. But duck he did – he hadn’t survived as long as he had by ignoring the people paid to protect him.

Heartbeats passed, his and the horse’s, Daxton’s nose in the roan mane. He could hear the mercenary’s horse shifting restlessly, and see the way the woman’s calf stretched as she stood in her saddle. Then she settled down. “False alarm. Sorry.”

Daxton rose slowly to a sitting position. “No need to be sorry.”

“If you’re going to keep being this reasonable,” she teases, “I’m going to think I got a ringer. Do your family keep doubles around?”

“We’re not nearly that important. Well…” Daxton shrugged. “I thought we weren’t that important. It’s not as if my parents are King and Queen, just Duke and Duchess. It’s not as if I’m heir.”

“And yet your parents sent mercenary after mercenary after you.”

“Put up a reward, you mean. They didn’t actually send anyone, did they?”

“It’s quite a reward.”

It was. If his parents followed through… “I don’t even know your name.”

She barked out a laugh. “I imagine you’d find out at the vowing-in, if not before. Esharina nic Myodoc. Esha.”

It seemed the thing to do, so Daxton bowed from his saddle. “A pleasure to meet you, Esharina nic Myodoc. I look forward to showing you the hospitality of the Ducal Estate at our earliest convienc-”

“Down.” Her voice never changed from a conversational tone, but Daxton ducked anyway. Three arrows whanged over his head in quick succession. “Ride, your graceiness. Ride.”

Some time later, Daxton might think to ask about “your gracieness.” At the moment, however, all he thought about was riding. They would ride, and then the mercenary would wheel around and fire another arrow past his ear. They’d ride more, and another arrow would whing past. Again and again, until finally Esharina let their sweating, lathered horses come to a walk.

“That was either the last of them, or they’ve stopped follo-” She followed Daxton’s gaze to her shoulder, where a broken-off arrow waggled with her every move. “What?”

“You have an arrow sticking out of you.” He said it slowly, in case it turned out he was somehow wrong.

“We’re a half-hour hard ride back to the Ducal estate. I’ll be fine that long.” Esha seemed entirely too casual about the whole thing.

“You don’t want me to – I don’t know, pull it out or something?” Daxton found his hands flailing and used both to grab the saddle horn.

“Not unless you have hidden talents as a medic that I don’t know about. You can help me bind it, and we’ll be good for the rest of the ride.”

With her left arm bound, she wouldn’t be able to shoot. “Give me the bow, then.”

“You can shoot?”

“I’ve hunted. I’m not a warrior, but I can hit a target.” He nudged his cooperative mount as close to hers as he could manage.

“There’s rags in my left saddlebag. They should work.”

He wasn’t surprised that a merc kept clean, wrapped rags close to hand. You had to survive long enough to get to a healer, after all. He bound her arm to her side, following her directions, and wrapped around the arrow, to keep it still. It was nerve-wracking work, all the worse with his spine itching, trying not to look behind him every two seconds. Finally Daxton let out his breath. “That should hold until we get home. Bow?”

Still she hesitated. “A merc’s weapons…”

“I will hold them as carefully as I would hold your honor. After all,” he smiled gently at her, “I may soon hold that, too, and you, mine.”

She was startled into a weak chuckle. “Nobles. I wouldn’t have put it that way. But…” She swayed a bit in her saddle. “Let’s ride. Put the pointy bit into anyone who attacks us.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He checked over the bow to be sure he knew how to use it. It was a different sort than he’d handled before, more compact, more efficient. Of course, mercenaries generally had to be more efficient than “nobles.” Content he could manage the piece, he let it rest against his thigh. “Let’s ride.”

They were close to home now, close enough for all of Daxton’s worries to come back. Esharina was right; there was a chance that Daxton’s father wouldn’t follow through with his offer. He was usually a fair and honest man – but had he anticipated getting a merc for a good-daughter, even if he had posted the offer? Had he expected to get Daxton back at all? What were they riding into? Before the Red Queen had taken him, there had been talk of marrying Daxton to the Dowager Duchess of the Blue Mountains, whose duchy bordered theirs. It would secure the border – but the Dowager Duchess had outlived three husbands and four sons and was not yet forty.

“Heads up!” Esha’s snapped warning brought Daxton out of his worries. He could see the Ducal estate on the horizon – and off to the left, he could see riders coming towards them. “Friends of yours?” He readied the bow anyway.

She squinted into the distance. “They – yes. They’re flying the troupe’s colors. Please don’t shoot my friends.”

Daxton didn’t lower the bow. “I won’t shoot your friends,” he answered, carefully. Someone had snatched him from the middle of his father’s lands and thrown him in the Red Queen’s dungeon. Now that he was free, he found he had no interest in going back and less interest in dying.

Esha made a small noise. “If they’re not friends, I’m in no shape to fight,” she warned.

“If they’re not friends, I think we can try running again. If we head straight for my parents’ estate, that’ll run us into the orchards quickly. It’s hard to shoot through trees at a running target.”

She made another noise. Daxton glanced over at her. The mercenary’s face was gray, her lips pushed together tightly. They had to hurry. He wasn’t sure what he’d do if she passed out. And he really didn’t want her to die. “You,” she spoke slowly, “are more interesting than I thought you were.”

“That’s the goal.” He looked between her and the quickly-approaching riders. “Ready to run?”

“I’m sure I can manage a couple hundred yards.” She straightened her spine. “If I have to. Daxton, if I can’t trust my troupe—”

“I hope we can. I really hope we can. But I—I’m not feeling particularly trusting right now, sorry.”

“No, no need to be sorry. But – oh!” She straightened a bit further and her color improved. “It’s Senner and Karron. We’re safe. If I can’t trust them, the world’s gone upside down.”

Daxton lowered the crossbow, even as he was considering: Esha being able to trust them and him being able to trust them were two different things.

They road towards their visitors, and their visitors rode towards them. When they were a hundred feet away, the stouter of the two shouted “Esh!” and urged her mount into a canter. Esh’s horse danced for a couple steps before settling down to a walk again; Daxton kept his hands on the crossbow and watched the newcomers carefully.

They had no eyes at all for him, not at first. “Esh, Esharina, shit, how bad is it?” The stouter woman – that had to be Senner, Captain of the mercenary troop. The leaner one – that would be Karron, then – was young, barely old enough to be wearing armor at all, but she already had three gold earrings and an elaborate silver hair-piece. “Esh, what happened?”

“Give me some space to talk, Senner.” Esha sounded like herself – as far as Daxton could tell, at least, cheerfully snappish. “They came after us. Probably the Red Queen’s people, but I didn’t stop to ask for their particulars.”

“The Red Queen’s…” Senner turned to look at Daxton. “By the mountain’s tits, that is young lord Daxton!”

Daxton found himself blushing, a situation only worsened by the way Karron was whooping. “Esha’s getting marrr-eeed, Esha’s getting marrrr-eeeed,” she crowed, like children at play.

“Maybe.” Esha’s voice was soft. “But I got him out, at least.”

“That you did, Esh, that you did.” Senner’s smile took in both of them, a small, proud thing. “And a job well done. Now let’s get you back two back to His and Her Grace, so you can claim your reward. And then, Swordslady, we’re taking that arrow out of you properly. Come on, let’s ride!”

And they rode towards home, the sun setting to their left.

If you want more of this story – and this one could go on for a while!! – drop a tip in, ah, the tip handcuffs:

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/925872.html. You can comment here or there.

Probably a Rescue, a continuation for the Dungeon Call

Oct13

Previous: The Rescue? Continues?
First: A Rescue, of Sorts.

“Was it really that obvious?” Daxton let the mercenary woman half-guide and half-help him into the hunting cabin. He couldn’t have run away if he’d wanted to and, concerned as she was with the ransom, she’d probably catch him. “I mean, that I’m not interested in…” He couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence the way she had, interested in rutting. “Um. Bedroom games? I thought I hid it pretty well.”

She opened the door with her foot. “You flirted with married women, grandmothers, great-great-grandmothers, and the occasional woman devoted to the gods. In other words, you were immensely friendly with anyone who would never take you up on it.”

“…You really noticed that?”

“I was looking.”

“I never noticed you.“

“Well, you’re not supposed to, are you? I mean, you’re the Duke’s son and I’m a mercenary. But I had reason, too.” She helped Daxton to a chair – a surprisingly sturdy one, that looked big enough to hold a bear comfortably. “I’m going to see to the horses. I’ll be just a moment.”

“But what was your reason?” He found himself calling after her back.

“We’ll get to that. Horses first.”

Daxton took the moment to look around the cabin. His first thought had been hunting cabin, the sort of place that nobility took to when they wanted to go deep into the woods. But this place was, while every bit as sturdily built as his father’s cabins, small, hardly bigger than the dungeon room Daxton had spent the last three seasons in.

It was a study in contrasts – tiny, but sturdy, everything made of humble materials and dull, faded dyes, but everything made with care and very very well. It was more comfortable, he supposed, than a dungeon, although every bit as much of a trap. But he had no chain here, and he didn’t know what she expected of him.

Bath she’d said, and he could see the big hook where a kettle might heat up over the fireplace. He couldn’t walk very well, but it was only a few steps to the hearth, and the wood was stacked – dry, split, cured wood – within arm’s reach of that hearth.

By the time the mercenary came back, Daxton had gotten a nice little fire going. It might be the end of summer, but that did not mean the nights wouldn’t be cold.

“Good idea.” She latched the door – it had a sturdy hasp, he noted, and a bar as well – and began shedding her leather armor. “You asked why I was looking. I thought you’d figured it out already.”

Daxton shook his head. “My brothers are more handsome and before me in succession.”

“Yeah. So a woman looking to marry or bed power or looks, they’ll go after your brothers. I’m not looking to bed anyone – and in a merc company, that stands out. I bet it stands out in a Duke’s son, too, if you don’t learn to hide it.”

It finally sank in, what she’d been trying to tell him. You’re not the only one who’d rather do anything else than rut.

“I thought…” He found he was staring at her as she stripped down to her underclothes, and found that he could still not look away. “I was born early, my father always said it stunted me. I thought it stunted, you know…”

“I’ve found a few others. Not many. A farmer, an armorer, another merc – and you.” The mercenary shrugged. “I figured, when your father raised the reward to your hand in marriage, that it would kill so many birds with one stone, if only I could manage to make the throw.”

Something about the way she said it made Daxton take a second look at her face. “Those people the Red Queen said had come for me -”

“Yeah.” She sank to the floor, her knees within touching distance. “I don’t know how many she told you about, or what she said, but we lost some really good fighters.”

Daxton swallowed. “Dead?”

“Some of them. I mean – we know about some. And there was nobody else in the dungeons, so if they were captured, they weren’t kept there.” She shook her head. “They were such better fighters than me, but I knew I had to try.”

“I was – “

“You were in danger, I know. And now – well, now we get to see what your father will do.”

That was a good question. “My father keeps his word.”

“But did he really expect a common mercenary to succeed? And does he really plan to give me your hand in marriage? To let us rule the little rocky earldom by the border?” She shook her head, this time more fiercely. “If he holds true on the marriage, that will be enough.”

Daxton blinked and blinked again. “You… you want to marry me?“

“That is what I’ve been trying to get across, yeah.”

“You want to…” Daxton coughed over a sudden lump in his throat. “You don’t know me yet.”

“Of course not. Neither would any noble or rich woman your father sold you to. Neither would the Red Queen. Neither would any other merc or knight or soldier or their sister or cousin or partner who found you. But what I know is that I can marry you and give us both a little respite, and that seems like a good thing all around.”

Respite. Daxton had feared marriage – and the likely-inevitable angry dissolution of such marriage – more than he had feared the Red Queen. But this had to be a trap. “You’d get an Earldom out of it, too,” he pointed out.

“We would. And I never claimed not to be a mercenary.”

“That… that is true. But you really want to, want to marry me? Me?”

“You are the one I rescued, aren’t you?” She poked his knee gently. “You’re not a spectre or a doppelganger, are you?”

“No, no, I’m me. Daxton.” He looked up at her, an unfamiliar smile touching his lips. “That was who you were sent to find, right? Daxton?”

“The one and only. Son of Duke Tebrin and the Lady Prediwan, right?”

“That’s me.” He suppressed a chuckle. “You should know them, if you want to be their kin-by-marriage… oh, dust.” His good mood soured as quickly as it had come. “What about babies?”

“Well, there’s always gritting our teeth and bearing the necessity, which I’m told works for most people. But,” and she had not stopped smiling, although the expression now was a bit more grim, “the war with the Red Queen has left a lot of orphans, many of whom are at least ethnically similar to your family line. If we time it right, nobody will ask unfortunate questions.”

Daxton found his jaw dropping. “You really have thought of everything.”

“I told you.” She bowed, as deep and as courtly as one could manage from a sitting position. “I do my prep work.”

If you want more of this story – and there is still more just dying to be written – drop a tip in, ah, the tip handcuffs:


This story written as [personal profile] technoshaman‘s commissioned continuation

Next: A Rescue in Hand

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/828828.html. You can comment here or there.

A proof, of sorts, a story for Thimbleful Thursday

Oct8

Thimbleful Thursday is a new microfic prompt site (mine!). This week’s prompt was “Cut the Mustard” and the word limit was 500 (450-550).

This piece is 547 words, and it might soon become obvious what prompted it.

“You’re never going to be able to do it, you know.”

Shut up.

“You’re never going to make it. You’re just not good enough.”

Shut up!

“You might as well face it. There’s people who can do this sort of thing – and then there’s you.”

Shut Shut Shut UP!

“Why don’t you just give up?”

“Shut UP!”

There was some merit to the nay-sayers points, of course.

If there had been no merit, there would have been no sting – no bite, as it were. If they had simply been spitting into the wind, then they’d have been easy to ignore. But they weren’t, and thus they weren’t.

The truth was, Esharina had picked a challenge that was over her head. She’d done it on purpose, with her eyes open – although she might have gone a little further over her head than she’d planned.

(There were some that would say that everything was over her head. They weren’t worth mentioning, certainly not more than once.)

It was the sort of thing that you did when you were angry, when you had something to prove, when you were so far past winning that you had to carry your whole damn life on your shoulders, make up every failure twice over, just to not come out too far behind.

But none of that, not her failures, extensive as they had been, not her choice of a target, not her need to prove herself – not one of those things meant she couldn’t cut the mustard this time, and not one of those things meant that the nay-sayers’ commentary cut any less deeply.

“Shut UP! Shut up, shut up, shut up.” Esharina glared around the barracks. “One, it’s stupid. Two, I know that Connron and Torg and Ellory failed. I know Marchiella and Red Dav never game back. I’ve seen Caslior’s skull, thank you very much. I drank at the funerals. I pitched in, when appropriate, for the widows, the orphans, and so on. I know that better mercs than me have failed. But that is, as they say, wheat from a different bag.” She looked around the room, glaring at each merc in turn. Mercs did not, per se, have friends. But they had working relationships, and she had fought at the side of every single one of these fighters.

“I know I can do this. Not because I’m better than them, but because I’m different. I’m not as strong as Connron. I’m not as tough as Red Dav. I’m probably not as clever as Torg or Caslior. But I can do this.” She let her eyes drop back to the slim pack in front of her. “I know I can do this, and if I’m wrong, nobody but me is gonna pay the price.” When she looked up, it was directly at Senner, who served as the captain of their unit. “And I’d appreciate a little bit of cheering, and less grousing.”

Senner cleared her throat. “We hear you, Esha. And… we’ve got your back. We’ll ride you to the line.”

Esha didn’t miss the glare that Senner shot around the room, daring anyone to argue with her. She didn’t mind it, either. “Thanks. Thanks… I just know I can do it, this time.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/826241.html. You can comment here or there.

The Rescue? Continues? – a continuation for the Giraffe Call

Oct7

Previous: A Rescue, of Sorts

Daxton had dealt with mercenaries before – there had been the month of assassination attempts, and then there had been the border skirmishes, since his father’s Duchy butted up again the Red Queen’s land. He had learned, unpleasantly but quickly, that you did what you were told by the people in armor, or, Duke’s son or not, they made certain you did what they wanted. He fell quiet and held still.

“This’ll just take a minute.” She pulled a leather roll from her belt and, from there, pulled a set of tiny tools. “Just hold still…” One slim tool went into the key-hole of Daxton’s shackles, followed by another, this one at an angle. “Hold still…” Daxton hadn’t moved, but, then again, she wasn’t looking at him, she was looking at her work.

Three clicks later, the shackles had released. “Can you walk?”

“Yes.” He was fairly certain he could, at least. “But-“

“Hsst, come on.” She hauled him to his feet and shoved her shoulder under his arm. “We’ve got to get out of here before – well, we’ve got to get out of here.”

He couldn’t very well let her go back to his father and tell the Duke that his son had refused to leave the Red Queen’s dungeon. “Very well. I can walk…”

“And I can support you. You’re a year’s wages on legs, man, come on. I expected this.”

It turned out that “I can walk” was slightly more of an exaggeration than Daxton had believed, but, luckily, he supposed, the mercenary’s claim that she could support him was completely true. They headed out of the dungeon, the hair on the back of Daxton’s neck prickling.

They were moving quietly, but slowly. Daxton was sure that at any moment, the Red Queen’s guards would jump out and resc- and capture him back. He’d feel bad about the nice mercenary woman, of course, but she’d known it was a high-risk job. Dukes do not give out rewards like the one Daxton’s father was reportedly offering for cakewalks.

“Almost there. Hsst, gotta hold yourself for a moment. Can you do that?”

“Where… yes.” They were in a dusty, musty corner of the white-stone castle. He hadn’t seen much of the place in his captivity, but he was pretty sure that nobody had seen this room in years, possibly decades. Certainly nobody with a mop.

It had some old papers, a lot of mud – and most importantly, a door. It looked stuck; the mercenary leaned heavily on it, shoving it one finger-width at a time.

The guards were going to be here any minute. They were going to hear the soft scrape of the door on the wood, or follow some trail or some track. They couldn’t just lose him. Could they?

And they’d put an arrow through her, right off, but if the Red Queen was telling the truth, they’d make sure to only cripple her. She liked thieves to die slowly, very slowly.

“Can you hurry a little?”

“If I hurry, it makes noise. It makes noise…”

“Okay. Okay. Quiet is good.” He leaned against a wall. The guards would find him. Nobody had even got as far as the dungeon before. He wasn’t even sure the stories the Red Queen told him were true. But if they did find him – if they didn’t find him –

“There. Come on, the horses are right outside.”

“This is insane.” He hobbled through the narrow opening into a courtyard as disused as the room had been. “How did you-“

“I do my prep work. Here.” She dropped to her knees and gave him a leg up into the saddle. Daxton found that muscle memory took over, even if his strength was lacking. “Now, now is the time where we have to really run.” She mounted her own horse much more quickly, grabbed the reins to Daxton’s horse, and, in a moment, they were bent down over their mounts’ necks as they sped towards the border.

They were really leaving. They were really going home. Daxton closed his eyes and concentrated on not falling off. They were really out of the Red Queen’s palace. He squeezed his eyes a little tighter and clutched the pommel.

The mercenary didn’t stop them until they were up in the foothills, past the Red Queen’s territory and almost to Daxton’s father’s duchy. A tiny hunting cabin stood waiting for them. “You can clean up here, and rest. We’ll go back to your father in the morning, and I can collect my reward.”

Her reward. Daxton swallowed. “I really appreciate all the trouble you went to, but I-“

“-have as much interest in rutting as you do in learning how to be a pig farmer. I know.”

“You… what?” Daxton gaped at her.

“I do my prep work. And my research.”

“But my father offered my hand in marriage to the merc – or woman of the merc’s choice – that rescued me.” He could, he supposed, run back to the Red Queen’s dungeon. But that would be pretty obvious.

“So?” The mercenary grinned at him. “You’re not the only one who’d rather do anything else than rut.”

My Dungeon & Cave Call is open!

If you want more of this story – and there is still more just dying to be written – drop a tip in, ah, the tip handcuffs:

This story written as [personal profile] ysabetwordsmith‘s commissioned continuation

Next: Probably a Rescue.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/824624.html. You can comment here or there.

A Rescue, of Sorts (A story for the Caves-and-Dungeons #Promptcall)

Oct3

He would never admit it if you asked, but Daxton found something relaxing about being chained up in the Red Queen’s dungeon. There was regular, if boring, food, a nice hour of full sunlight every day, and the expectations were amazingly simple: all he had to to was continue to say “no” to the Red Queen, which wasn’t as hard as she’d like to think it was, and the food would keep coming and the bucket-of-tepid-water-baths would keep him from stinking too bad for her royal nose.

It wasn’t an ideal situation, of course, but Daxton had found that there were few situations in life that were ideal. Farmers were at the whim of the weather and the magic storms. Merchants were at the whim of their supply and the demand. Daxton was either at the whim of his Ducal father, or he was at the whim of the Red Queen.

The Red Queen had informed Daxton that his father had hired mercenaries to rescue him, and had then, rather cheerfully, told him every time they failed. Daxton had been Outraged Of Course and secretly a little bit relieved. It was thus with some dismay that he found his early-afternoon sunbath being interrupted by a few very quiet thuds from outside his cell door.

He sat up, because it wouldn’t do to be rescued looking like he wanted to be here, but kept his legs in the sunbeam. The stone walls were cold, and he liked the warmth.

In a surprisingly short time, the door to his cell swung open. A merc – the light leather armor was good-quality but not government-issue and almost hid the fact that she was, under it all, probably a woman – slipped through, closing the door almost all the way behind her.

A woman. Well, that explained one of the things the Red Queen had been joking about. And his father did, after all, have other sons. “I’m very grateful for your rescue-“

A gloved hand slapped over Daxton’s mouth before he could get to the but. “Speeches later. Unchaining and running now.”

My Dungeon & Cave Call is open!

If you want more of this story – and there is more dying to be written – drop a tip in, ah, the tip handcuffs:

This story written to [personal profile] ysabetwordsmith‘s prompt.

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/824624.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/820052.html. You can comment here or there.

Under the Sea, a story for the Giraffe Call

Sep17

To [personal profile] alexseanchai‘s prompt

When the war came, she went, not to ground, as so many of her friends and cousins did, but to water, to the sea.

The bombs were falling all around, but she slipped on her seal skin and slid under the water, down where the Leviathan still remembered her, down where her other family, her seal family, still lived. She found the little place she had built, so long ago, where those like her – and those like dolphins and true seals, merfolk and otters – could breathe safe air, deep under the ocean and yet dry and homey. The humans were clever, but none smart enough to find this place.

It was not the first time she had gone to see, and it would likely not be her last. She was, if not eternal, near unto it, and she did not like war at all.

There she stayed, with otters and selkies, seals and merfolk, under the water, while above the rockets fell and the cities burned. They were clever folk, humans, clever at destruction, clever at building it all up to destroy it again. But she was more clever, and she had her refuge from all their brilliant ideas.

The years past, under the sea. Otters and seals, dolphins and merfolk kept her company. The true animals grew old, and died, no matter the magic she used, but the merfolk and the selkies, the naiads and the kelp-dryads, they stayed the same, as she did. Above the sea, the war raged on, and stopped, raged again, and stopped. The humans were clever, and eventually they found peace. Still she waited.

It was safe, under the sea, never too cold and never too warm. It was peaceful under the sea, no war and no armistice, no fighting and no treaties. But the humans were clever and the merfolk and selkies were eternal – but they were not, as things went, so clever.

The humans were clever. And no matter how long she was gone, there was always someone waiting, when she slipped onto the beach. There was always someone who remembered how to steal her skin.

As she pretended to fight against the farmer who had “captured” her, the selkie found herself smiling. It was safe, under the sea. But on the ground things were interesting.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/811835.html. You can comment here or there.