Tag Archive | 3-word wednesday

3WW: Turning, Tables, and Other Things – could be rather triggery all over the place

Apr3

Three Word Wednesday is a once-weekly 3-word writing prompt.

This week’s three words were Loud, Persuasive, Riches.

The naming conventions of the Tuathans in Tir na Cali, where this story is set, are … weird. Suffice it to say, it’s okay that he’s both ap Gwydion and ó Gwydion.

The ap Gwydion boy was loud. Not surprising in a line who had bought their title and position with riches; most ap Gwydions were loud. This one was young, barely an adult (but he was an adult, old enough to be tried; that was important), spoiled rotten, and had no idea how much trouble he was in.

“You have no idea how much trouble you’re in,” he shouted at Sulleigh-who-he-believed-was-Susan. “I don’t know what you were thinking, spilling that tea all over my favorite shirt, but you’re going to pay!”

“I’m sor…”

“Shut up! No-one said you could speak.”

Sulleigh/Susan hid her smile by touching her forehead to the ground. She’d made him lose face in front of a woman he was hoping to marry and a man he was hoping to sleep with. She wasn’t surprised he was angry. If she had truly been what she was pretending to be, if she had even been embedded long-term in the position, she would have been nervous, close to terrified. Tyrion ap Talbot ó Gwydion was known, not just in the household but amongst his peers and the press, as a hothead with a violent temper. He’d already hit Sulleigh more than once, and she’d only been in his mother’s household for a week. For this embarrassment… yes. She dared peek, to see him going for the strap.

“Hold still,” he snarled, “or it will go badly.” That it was going to go badly even if she held still went without saying. She held still. She had to time this properly, and that meant she had to take a little abuse.

He pulled her pants down around her ankles with a rough tug. She listened for the sound she was waiting for, but no, not yet. They’d wait until…

… the strap landed on the back of her thighs with a loud thwap, bringing with it stinging pain. Sulleigh swallowed a whimper; under the noise of the next stroke, she heard the bodyguards walking away.

She let another two strokes land, whimpering under each one. She didn’t have to fake it; the ap Gwydion had a strong arm and practice in dealing out pain efficiently.

“Stop,” she gasped, and he stopped. She could tell by the grunt he made that he was surprised, and by the second grunt that he was offended when she stood and pulled her pants back on.

“Silence,” she commanded, before he could draw a breath to shout. “Did you know,” she added conversationally, “that your bodyguards leave when they hear you start beating the house slaves?”

His eyes grew wide, but the boy couldn’t say anything. Sulleigh continued. “They can’t stand to hear it. I can’t say I blame them. Now, you and I, Tyrion, are going to have a little conversation. But not here.” She opened the drawer he kept his toys in, and dropped a few choice items into a bag. “Don’t attack me,” she added, without turning to face him, and was rewarded with the sound of him stopping abruptly.

“We,” she continued, turning now to look at her erstwhile master, “are going to take a drive. You’re going to drag me out to the car like you did with Judy last week, and we’ll take a little trip.” He was scared now; his eyes wide and his mouth opening and closing like a fish. He shouldn’t have been all that surprised by the word-of-command trick; his mother had a variant of the same power. Perhaps no slave had dared use such things on him before. Of course, Sulleigh wasn’t really a slave.

If he was a little extra-rough in manhandling her out to his car, she couldn’t really blame him; if she kicked him in this shin while fighting him, well, could he blame her for that? Once he’d stuffed her in the back seat and started driving the direction she wanted, she let him talk again.

He was, of course, rather predictable. “Why are you doing this?” he demanded.

“You’ve been up to some pretty questionable stuff lately, Tyrion ap Gwydion, and my employers want to know exactly how questionable, and with exactly whom.”

She could tell, just from the set of his shoulders, that she’d hit the mark. “I’m not going to tell you anything, you bitch,” he quavered, torn between fear and anger.

“I assure you,” she smiled, “I can be very persuasive.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/29214.html. You can comment here or there.

3WW/Dailyprompt Story: Reunion

Mar23

Three Word Wednesday is a once-weekly 3-word writing prompt.

This week’s three words were Dual, Identical, Volley.

[community profile] dailyprompt is a once-daily writing prompt. Today’s prompt was not a secret any more

Reunion

It’s not a secret anymore, so I suppose it won’t hurt to tell you the whole story. They can’t reclassify stuff, spilt milk and all that, but sometimes they try to contain the mess or mop it up, so if they come after you for me telling you this, well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Still want to know? Okay. I’m not Karla Velazquez. I’m not even Hispanic, no, not even on my father’s mother’s father’s side. I’m, man, it’s been so long I’ve forgotten, but I think mostly Greek, with a good dose of French thrown in for good measure.

I couldn’t tell you what my real name was, even if I wanted to. I went so far beyond dual identities that I lost track back before I entered college – although I know, that freshman year, I was not seventeen. I think I was twenty-four.

What? I don’t look thirty-five now, either. I’m small and I hide my age well, what can I say?

I mean, that’s only part of the story. I was in deep cover in college, which, I’ll admit, is weird. But They had their goals – you have to have heard some of it, even if only on the Daily Show – and they’d already owned me for six years, so I went where I was sent and I did what I was told.

The day I managed to buy my contract back was the happiest day of my life. Our lives, our contracts.

What? You didn’t expect this was going to be a one-volley game, did you? I told you it was complicated.

I’m not only not Karla Velazquez, about a third of the time you were talking to Karla, you weren’t talking to me, either.

They spit out five of us, as far as I know, that year. Identical clones, quintuplets I suppose, and we were raised together and everything, so we were pretty much sisters. We split roles between us, usually only two of us on a role, so it was sister-Beta and I being Karla, Beta covering for me while I was also being, oh, man, usually Jennifer Torqueta, I think. Yeah, that Jennifer Torqueta, I know, you always said she looked like me.

Why? Damned if I know. We’re just the grunts. Like I said, we go where we’re sent. Anyway, I wanted to tell you about buying off our contracts.

That’s the dream they sold us. We were bought and paid for before we were ever implanted, but if we did a good job, we could earn enough money to be free agents. Pick a life and live it, just one life, one face, you know, normal people. Well, as normal as you can be when you’re a clone.

I thought it would work, more than that, I thought it’s what I wanted, what all five of us wanted. So we saved our pennies and we did everything we were told, and when we turned thirty-three, we bought off our contracts.

Problem was, we’d gotten used to it, you know? The money, the personas, changing who we were, sharing identities between us. Even in school, we’d traded places all the time. Being pinned down to day jobs that didn’t change, to one name each… it was maddening. We went back to Them.

You asked why we were in deep cover in college. I think you know why, Tammy.

But I lied a little bit about that, too. Gamma was the one who roomed with you most the time, and she and Beta kind of liked you. So this one’s on me – and I’ve never been Karla Velazquez.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/27232.html. You can comment here or there.

Three Word Wednesday: In her Song

Mar9

This comes after Curriculum, which came after Learning Curves,, which came after Flattery, but it can stand on its own.

It’s in my fae apoc setting, in the same locale as Walled Flowers and Slipping the Trellis

Three Word Wednesday is a once-weekly 3-word writing prompt.

The three words are dainty, haunting, tantalize.

In Her Song

Flowers and herbs are, by nature, mute, pretty, to be savored, adored, enjoyed; and thus was it with most of the Flowers in Lady Alouetta’s Garden: they might converse, but only as an echo of the patrons’ conversation. For the most part, pleasure was taken of them without engaging them except as a decoration, a receptacle, a delicacy.

One Flower was different from all the other pretty things in the Garden: rarely touched, and never without her consent, rarely spoken to, her presence in high demand but, unlike the other Flowers, almost never privately, almost never for the bedroom or the grotto.

Her name was Zinnia; her name was always Zinnia, and that alone set her apart, when her fellow Flowers changed name with the day, with their handlers’ moods, with their patrons’ desires. It was, of course, not her birth name, but no-one but the Lady herself, and Zinnia, knew who she’d been before she’d come to the Garden.

She was slender, dainty even in comparison to the others there, who tended towards a slim fragility favored by many patrons, with tiny hands and feet and an ethereal speaking voice that she rarely used. Clothed in lavender and cornflower, she brought to mind more a lily of the valley or a forget-me-not than a hearty, bright Zinnia, but Zinnia she was, last in the alphabet, last in line, last in the bunkhouse. Newcomers puzzled over her, chin high, smile faint but perpetual, until the first Saturday night.

When she stepped up onto the small stage and the room quieted around her, granting her the courtesy of attention they granted no other Flower, even the densest newcomer began to understand something was afoot. When she opened her mouth, it all became clear.

She had a haunting voice, unearthly, fae; she drew people out with a note, with a measure of a melody. She pulled at their hearts, at their bodies, at their wallets; she could tantalize an aesthetic into dance and bring stoic businessmen to tears. When Zinnia sang, everyone listened.

The boy who was sometimes known as Jason was serving tables today, a jonquil tucked behind his ear in lieu of a name tag; it was the first day Lady Alouetta had seen fit to allow him in public, and the first time he had heard Zinnia perform. He watched the patrons around him struggle with their emotions; he watched them lose the battle, one after another, like dominos falling, and he worried. If he cried like that, would the Lady understand? The other Flowers were smiling, moving among the tables as they were called for, seeming oblivious to the song’s tug.

He chewed on his lip, knowing he wasn’t supposed to do that, either, but too concerned not to. The song was pulling at him; she was singing of home, which was just cheating, a home he could barely remember. Weren’t the others bothered by it? Hadn’t they been torn from their lives, too?

Jason-Jonquil glanced up at the stage, at the singer, just as she looked at him. She threw in a trill that sounded like a flamenco dancer twirling, and winked, very deliberately, at him. Her melody changed, a tug and a tear, ripping the song from home to prison, ripping the listeners with her. The Flowers, who already lived in prison, who had already been torn from home, swayed with the music and were unhurt; the patrons reeled.

He stifled a chuckle and moved on to the next table, to the next patron scrubbing surreptitiously at tears, understanding, for a moment, why the other Flowers smiled at Zinnia’s songs.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/21035.html. You can comment here or there.

A Rather Silly Pantoum for 3ww

Feb10

Three Word Wednesday is a once-weekly 3-word writing prompt.

This week’s three words were dare, essence, practical.

That it’s a poem is partly inspired by [personal profile] ysabetwordsmith‘s recent fishbowl, and partly by a discussion of poetic forms with Inventrix, and the poem she got out of that.

It’s a bit silly,but I like it.

“She’s nice, I guess,” Lenora sighed;
“My son and her, they get on well.
“She’s pretty, charming, dignified,
“But if there’s any sense in her, I can’t tell.”

“Jackson and her are getting on well,”
Lenora felt she could confide,
“But there’s no sense in the silly Nell.
“If it weren’t for me, they’d both have died.”

Lenora felt she could confide
In the women at the market dell
If it weren’t for her, they’d nigh on have died –
Her tales had served all of them well.

The women at the market dell
Listened, nodded, to Lenora’s sighs
They knew her tales; they’d served them well
But the essence-seller had the prize

They’d listened to all Lenora’s sighs
When the dark-haired woman began to sell
Her wares; she dared to price the prize
Quite dear; she knew its worth full well.

The dark-haired woman pitched her sale
“She’s pretty, charming, dab this in her eyes,
“Just four gold, to make her practical.”
“She’s worth the gold,” Lenora sighed.

Drakeathon 2/19-2/20/11

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/6125.html. You can comment here or there.

Restraint, a story of TirNaCali for #3WW #weblit

Jan26

Three Word Wednesday is a once-weekly 3-word writing prompt.

Last week’s three words were descent, kill, surreal.

This is a sequel to Keyed Up and Gifted, and thus completes the triptych.

Restraint

She’d never admit it to anyone, but as she tried to pretend she wasn’t waiting for word, Ursula, granddaughter to Duchess Lemaria but heir to nothing more than the family temper, was nervous.

It was novel, almost thrilling, to be a bit frightened of a man, of a male slave. He was bigger than her, stronger than her – sure, the other harem slaves might be a bit taller than her, but very few of them seriously outmassed her – and he saw no reason why he should be obedient. It made him dangerous, and that made him exciting.

She was self-aware enough to know, then, that being miffed with him for taking his time to come visit her was silly, but still, she was both impatient and a bit annoyed. He’d gotten her gift days ago. Wasn’t he at least curious?

It was more than a little ridiculous, but she had been turning down invitations to go out, staying close to home in case he decided to grace her with his presence. She’d also declined three requests from Efran in as many days, the poor puppy. So very well-trained, she didn’t think he’d ever understand why she’d passed him over for the American.

Then again, her sisters and cousins wouldn’t understand, either. They liked their easy harem-slave bed partners. They liked their lives, in general, easy, and their lady grandmother loved to provide it.

Ursula wondered if she was the only one who noticed that, while the Duchess provided all of this, the men she took to her own bed were almost invariably Americans.

The phone startled her out of her sulk; she picked it up before the first ring had ended.

“He’s on his way.” She knew the voice at the other end – Toma, the harem mistress. “As you wished, Lady Ursula, he’s not restrained.” The woman’s voice was etched with disapproval.

“Thank you, Toma.” Now she was really nervous. It would take, what, ten minutes for him to walk here from the harems? More if he gave the guards trouble, less if he was in a hurry.

If he’d been in a hurry, he would have been here three days ago when he unwrapped her present. She brushed her hair, changed her shirt, and made sure the papers she wanted were at hand. She’d just started considering doing all of that again when the knock came.

She needed a personal assistant, but she didn’t like the constant crowding of having someone else in her living space. College and two years in military service had cured her of the need to be waited on hand and foot, anyway. She answered the door herself, be damned how it looked.

He stood there, Stephen, next to the guard, neither of them smiling, but without the violent tension they sometimes showed when she opened her door for them. His hands were clasped in front of him; he looked the most placid Ursula had ever seen him.

The guard bowed; belatedly, Stephen remembered to bow as well. “Your Ladyship, as requested by the harem, I’m delivering this slave to you.”

“Thank you, Emmund. You can leave him.”

Emmund was too gracious to glower in her presence, but he bowed and left stone-faced.

“Come in.” She wasn’t paying any mind to Stephen’s expressions yet, not until she could get her own emotions under control. She was alone with him, unchained, in her bedroom.

“You gave me a key,” he accused her, but he stepped into her room and shut the door.

“I did. Kill the lights and come over here.” The light on her nightstand would be enough, and it was an order he wouldn’t think twice about following.

“They forgot the chains.” He flipped the light switch off and followed her across the room, to the chair by the side of her bed. “Think you can get me to play footstool without them?”

“If I asked nicely enough.” She sat down on the edge of the bed and gestured at the chair.

He looked between her and it, looking for the trap, but sat, gingerly, glaring at her. “Why?”

She didn’t waste time dissembling or pretending she didn’t know what he meant. “You don’t seem to enjoy harem service.”

“You don’t seem to care all that much about my enjoyment.” She could see from his expression, though, that he knew that wasn’t entirely true. She’d hoped he’d noticed that.

“I enjoy your company, too,” she admitted. She didn’t want to see him broken by one of her harsher aunts.

“Are you going to lie to yourself if I move in? Tell yourself I was a good little boy and serve me dessert for yelling at you?” He sounded, she realized, confused. She’d changed the game just when he’d figured out the rules.

“I might.”

“I don’t want to be a lapdog like Efram. I won’t do it, Lady, no matter how much you whip me. Use me as a footstool all you want, you won’t break me.”

She smiled wickedly, crossed her feet at the ankles, and held her legs out in mid-air. “All right.”

He stared at her incredulously. “You can’t be serious.”

“And if I am?” A little thrill ran up her. She wouldn’t call the guards, not unless she thought her life was in danger. He could hurt her a lot without endangering her life.

“What’s in it for me?”

Ursula reminded herself forcefully that she’d wanted the untamed slave, the argumentative one, that she’d encouraged his bad attitude. “Answers. You want to know why I gave you the key, what I want from you. I, at the moment, want a footstool.”

He shook his head. “You expect me to curl up and act like a lapdog just because you want me to?”

“No.” This was fun! “I expect you to kneel and act like a footstool – you’re too big for my lap, anyway – because you want information.”

A moment paused, and another, and another. He was going to say no. He was going to threaten her. He was going to stomp out of the room. He was…

Kneeling in front of her, crouching, really, ass to heels, elbows and forehead to the floor, like she’d had him bound, that first time. “Yes, Lady Ursula.”

She set her feet down on his back and lounged. It was a bit silly, wasn’t it, having him like this? She didn’t even do things quite this bad with the born slaves (but, then again, they rarely needed reminding of their status). She picked up her files from the nightstand and flipped through them, although he couldn’t really seem them.

“This is a detailed lineage report I had worked up on your bloodline.” It hadn’t been cheap, or quick, but she had both money and time to spare. “You’re of Irish descent.”

“So are you,” he grunted, twisting to look up at her. “So?”

“Exactly.” She tapped the folder. “You come from the same ancestors as my people do, if you go far enough back. You’re, very, very distantly, my cousin. And Efran’s,” she added thoughtfully.

“Ha,” he snorted.

“Exactly,” she repeated. “You have a strong – strong being the imperative word – Irish bloodline. And strong men breed strong children.”

Under her feet, he froze. “Oh, hell no. No fucking way, you crazy bitch.”

She toed him gently in the kidney. “None of that.”

He settled, but his tone was not much more civil when he continued. “I won’t give you my kids to be raised as slaves.”

“I’d be bearing them, so they wouldn’t be slaves, they’d be royal. I’d be willing to allow you to share in their rearing, as well. It’s a better offer than anyone else would give you – you know most of them would just say ‘lay back and grab the headboard’ and consider that sufficient warning.”

He looked back up at her. “You’re serious. You want to have my kids.”

“It’s that or take your chances with the harem,” she pointed out, wondering which he would chose. How would she handle the stigma of being rejected by an American slave? Her sisters and cousins would never let her live it down.

“But I hate you. I hate everything about this place.”

“No-one said you had to like me, Stephen. You don’t even have to enjoy the sex, although it’s more fun all around if you do.” Gods below, had she just said that?

He sat silently for long enough that she began to wonder if she really hadn’t said it. “I’ll do it,” he agreed. “But I’m not going to be a very good pet for you, not like Efran would. Should have given him the key.”

She leaned over to stroke his cheek, loving the way he shuddered, trying to hold still and wanting to shy away. “I didn’t want Efran. I want you.”

3WW: Not Interfering #FridayFlash #weblit

Jan14

Three Word Wednesday is a once-weekly 3-word writing prompt.

The three words are harmless, moist, yelp.

The yelp caught Allie’s attention, drew her out of the book she’d let herself become engrossed in. High-pitched, terrified, and loud, it penetrated the thick walls of her shop. It had come from somewhere out back; a second yelp, louder still, confirmed the direction and had her running for the back door.

June-next-door’s latest boyfriend was standing in the narrow passageway behind their buildings, looming over the dumpster? No, over a skinny boy standing near the dumpster; the yelp had come from the kid, presumably.

What was his name? Jack? No, no, Fred. “Leave him along, Fred,” she called, hurrying over to the pair. “He’s harmless.”

“He was digging in the dumpster. Freaking little rats will steal anything not nailed down.” He lowered his arm halfway, eliciting a whimper.

Allie looked the kid over quickly. Grey bandanna, grey hoodie, but the signs she was looking for… “He’s not a rat, Fred, he’s a pup. Leave him alone.”

The kid snarled at her. “Not a pup,” he complained, but it had little heat behind it.

“What’s that, some sort of gang? I’m telling you, Alison, what you want to do with these kids is show them who’s boss. Do that, and they won’t give you any more trouble. If you let them steal whenever they want, they’ll walk all over you.” He grabbed the kid’s arm again, ignoring the little whine the boy made.

“Fred, let it be. There’s no need to go messing with him; there’s nothing in the garbage worth stealing, it’s why it’s garbage.” She kept her voice calm, soothing. June didn’t pick the brightest boyfriends. “This isn’t the neighborhood to go starting trouble in, Fred.”

She knew it was a mistake the moment she’d said it, but she’d known it needed to be said, too.

“I keep telling June, and I’ll tell you, too, Alison. You can’t give in to thugs and creeps. You’ve got to show them who’s boss.”

She looked at the boy again, knowing it was a lost cause. He looked back at her with eyes a pale, icy blue she’d seen before in huskies, the whine high-pitched and, she thought, entirely unconscious. “I don’t want to be a witness to this,” she told him.

“Go inside, Alison,” Fred snarled. “I’ll deal with this.”

She sighed, wishing there was another way, and walked inside. “Come on in for some cocoa… later,” she threw over her shoulder, before she shut the back door, making sure it clicked locked.

The door wasn’t thick enough to completely muffle the pained yelp, nor the bone-cracking sound that followed it. The scream that came next was very short, even less silenced by the door, and cut off with a quiet, moist sort of crunching.

Allie wandered back to the front of the store before the magpies could rob her blind. The pup would be in, in a while, for his cocoa, and she had to figure out how to tell June she’d need another boyfriend. At least the wolves rarely left a mess.

At this rate, she mused, as the noises in the back faded away to nothing, there wouldn’t be a thug or bigot or creep left in Animal Town.