Tag Archive | baram’s elves

Unwelcome Guests, Part the Third

Feb27

To [personal profile] rix_scaedu‘s commissioned continuation of Unwelcome Guests & Unwelcome Guests, Part II

(I should pay a little more attention to my list; this was for longfic)

Baram and his family are part of the “Baram’s House Elves” sub-series of the Addergoole ‘verse, which can be found here; Baram is also a background character in Addergoole.

“Girls.” Baram nodded at Via and Aly the second he heard the “basement” door shut.

“On it already, boss. Jaelie’s down with the kids and Aloysius. And Aly’s been waking up the rest of the defenses. Now she can swap with Jae and Jae can get the trees ready.”

“Good.” Baram paced out onto the front walk. There wasn’t much to pretend to do here, but he could still pace.

Behind him, the girls moved. This was not their first attack, not by far. They knew what they were doing.

The walls shifted. They weren’t awake, whatever Viatrix had said, but they were ready, braced, and stronger than they normally were.

“Precious cargo tucked in.” Jaelie touched Baram’s shoulder. “Aloysius has rear guard.”

“Good.” Baram didn’t have to like the useless thing to admit he could come in handy. “Trees?”

“They’re good trees, aren’t they?” She stroked the trunk of one of the front-gate flanking plants. “My favorite trees.”

Baram suppressed a shudder. Hawthorn trees weren’t supposed to be that big, and they were not suppose to /purr./ “Good trees,” he agreed. “Almost here.” The dust was rising on the horizon. “Inside.”

“Boss…”

“Inside. Might not be a fight, best to find out.”

She sighed. “Inside, yes, boss.” She slipped out of sight just as the motorcycles roared into view.

Baram did his best to look casual. There was a bolt that needed fixing on the gate, anyway.

There were six of them, four males, two females; four warriors, two bitches, if Baram was reading them right, but they didn’t split along gender lines. They were wearing leather, which might mean they were young – or might mean they were pragmatic. Baram had met Aelfgar and his soldiers; Baram sometimes remembered, in dreams, flashes of being a soldier.

Take nothing for granted. They could even, he supposed, be just wandering through. Since the world had started ending, they had definitely seen odder things.

“Afternoon.” He nodded at them, doing his best to seem normal-and-human. Normal-and-human was not an easy setting for him, but these were people riding large motorcycles and hung with weapons. Their bar was a little lower than people in suits in glassy offices.

“We’re looking for a pair.” The leader – probably female, hard to tell, didn’t matter much in this case anyway – snarled it out without even bothering with the pretense. “One male, one female, skinny. They came this way.”

Baram shook his head. “Haven’t seen anyone like that.”

The leader narrowed her eyes and glanced, briefly, at the man Baram had tagged as her bitch. He paled, closed his eyes, and murmured incoherently.

“They’re near. I promise it, I swear it.”

“You lie.” It wasn’t clear whether the woman was talking to the man or to Baram. It didn’t matter; she was drawing a weapon. “You. Tell me again. One man, one woman.”

Baram shook his head. “Bad idea. Ride away now.”

“You, you are not going to tell me what to do.” She dismounted, and took steps towards the front gate. “Tell me. One man, one woman. And I might let you live.”

“Last chance.” He still hadn’t drawn steel. He didn’t need to. “Ride away. Now.”

“You fucking deaf or just stupid? Give us our prey and we’ll let you live.”

Baram found himself roaring, just as the trees by the gate found they could reach the woman. “This. This is a Safe. House.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/681233.html. You can comment here or there.

Unwelcome Guests, Part the Second

Feb21

To [personal profile] rix_scaedu‘s commissioned A continuation of Unwelcome Guests.

(I should pay a little more attention to my list; this was for longfic)

Baram and his family are part of the “Baram’s House Elves” sub-series of the Addergoole ‘verse, which can be found here; Baram is also a background character in Addergoole.

Delaney snaked her way in front of Ardell, grinning, all sweetness-and-light and innocence. Baram didn’t budge, and he didn’t miss the three weapons she was carrying openly. Spear, sword, gun.

“We heard you were running a safe house, Baram. We heard you had some Addergoole girls working for you. We heard you had weapons, had food.”

Ardell slunk to the side of Delaney. No smile, more weapons. He often pretended, but he wasn’t pretending to be sweet, at least. “We heard you were living the sweet life here, surrounded by pretty things. Like the girl who answered the door. And we figured we’d pay an old friend a visit.”

Baram looked at the two of them. He glanced over his shoulder – very briefly – at Alkyone. He looked back at people who had been, if not his friends, his allies.

The next words came easily to him. “Who are you?”

They shared a look. A look, and then Delaney’s shoulders shifted, and Ardell took a step backwards. “We’d heard…” Ardell frowned. He looked actually bothered. “We’d heard you forgot things.”

“Did you really forget us?” Delaney did a believable pout. “After everything we went through together?”

Ardell picked up on the cue. “Yeah, man, all that time together in school, we were like crew. We were solid friends. And you forgot all of that?”

How much of it did they mean? Baram shrugged. “Forgot most things. Jaelie remembers for me.”

“This is Jaelie?” Delaney waved her fingers. “Hi. We’re old friends of Baram’s, like we said.”

“No.” Alkyone’s voice was hard. “I’m Alkyone. Jaelie is elsewhere.”

“Elsewhere.” Delaney sneered the word out. “Aren’t you cute? And I bet you think you’re smart, too. Move over, chica. We’re here to visit our old friend, Baram.”

“Alkyone is a new friend.” Baram spoke slowly, the way he could remember talking, sometimes, when he was having a bad day, “one of those episodes,” Jaelie called them. “Alkyone lives here.”

“Well, of course she does.” Ardell took Delaney by the shoulders and pushed her out of the way – carefully, Baram noted; there was no violence in the way they handled each other. “And you do, too, right, buddy? Remember how we said we’d always open our doors to each other?”

“Don’t remember you.” He remembered the conversation Ardell was talking about. Ardell and Del, Ib and Rozen and Baram. Baram remembered saying nothing, shaking no hands, just sitting back with someone pretty curled on his lap and watching them talk.

Baram wondered how much of the rest of his Addergoole experience he remembered differently, like the spider-girl and her horrified memories of him. But this was different; this was lies.

“Of course you remember us.” Ardell’s voice was getting sharp. “Of course you’re going to let us in. Baram, come on, think of all the things I’ve done for you. How much fun you had with my Kept over the years. How much fun you could have with my Kept now.”

“You have Kept?” That was a different matter.

“Boss. Trouble on the horizon.” Viatrix came up on Baram’s other side. “Looks like bad trouble, too. The alarms caught seven.”

The alarms had been the girls’ idea and mostly their implementation; Baram’s house wasn’t the only group of people still living here, but they were the most combat-ready and, in other ways, the most vulnerable. Kids made you weak, but in weird and strong ways.

“First alarms?” The first alarms were four miles out. Plenty of time.

“Second.”

That was harder; the second were two miles out.

A glance back at their unwelcome guests showed Ardel’s shoulder’s tense and Delaney trying to press herself as close to the threshold as possible. “Come on, Baram, you’ve got to let us in. For old time’s sake. For when we were friends.”

“Boss. They’re trouble.” Alkyone’s voice held warning. “And they’re bringing trouble here.”

Del’s voice shifted to nasty again. “And do you think they’ll care if you have actually helped us? No, they will take you down one way or the other.”

“You brought enemies to our door?” Baram didn’t need to look to know that Via and Alkyone were now holding their weapons. Via’s voice told him everything he needed. “You brought hunters here, to our safe haven?”

“It’s not yours, bitch.” Ardel had lost the last semblance of courtesy and niceness. “It’s our friend’s. Baram’s.”

“I think you’re under a misapprehension-” Alkyone began, but Baram had had enough of the back-and-forth, especially with potential hunters on the way.

“Their house, my house, our house. Not yours. Get in back. Basement doors by apple tree.” Baram pointed. “Stay there if you want to live.”

“So you remember us, buddy?” Ardel’s smile was back as fast as it had left.

“No.” Best to keep up the lie. “Get in basement. Fast.”

The door by the apple tree didn’t lead to the house basement, but the hidey hole there was safe, protected by Baram’s threshold…

…and a bit of a trap. Another thing Ardel and Delaney didn’t need to know until they were in there.

Luckily, nobody expected that sort of thing of Baram. They moved – fast.

On the horizon, Baram was beginning to be able to make out an oncoming enemy.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/675139.html. You can comment here or there.

Unwelcome Guests – a story of Baram’s House Elves/Addergoole for the Giraffe Bingo Call Card

Jan4

To [personal profile] clare_dragonfly‘s prompt to my Orig_fic Bingo card; this fills the “Unwelcome Guest” square.

Baram and his family are part of the “Baram’s House Elves” sub-series of the Addergoole ‘verse, which can be found here; Baram is also a background character in Addergoole.

There wasn’t so much a war anymore, as far as they could tell.

They didn’t get any TV anymore, local or cable or anything else. The radio they heard these days was sporadic at best, and there would be weeks where there wasn’t anything at all.

But they hadn’t seen a returned god in several months, they hadn’t seen an army soldier in the last month, and they hadn’t seen another Ellehemaei in a couple weeks. They had gotten a couple human refugees – they were a standing house with a standing wall and hedge, burning lights and smoke in the chimney – but the girls fed and equipped them and sent them on their way, if they were over eighteen, and added them to the child collection, otherwise.

Baram liked it that way. He liked the quiet, and he’d found that he didn’t mind all the kids around. Liked them, actually, if he was going to be honest… and he had space in his head to be honest, now.

(Which might have been because of the children, actually, something else he said only in his own head.)

There wasn’t so much of a war anymore… but there wans’t so much of a world anymore, either. That bothered the girls, Baram’s angels, and it bothered the children, but it didn’t really bug Baram all that much. He had his family, he had his house, and nobody bothered them here.

“Boss! Someone’s at the door!” Alkyone’s voice echoed through the house. “Trouble, I think.”

“Trouble.” Baram liked his armchair. It was soft, and comfortable, and normal. But he levered himself out of it before he was finished saying Trouble? “Kids?”

“Got ’em.” Viatrix slapped the Swish-boy on the ass. “Aloysius, get the kids and take them down to the safe room.”

“Yes ma’am.” Jaelie’s boy did have some use, at least in a pinch.

“Sword.” It wasn’t the first time they’d had unwanted guests. Baram took the sword from Viatrix’s hand. “Jacket.” He shrugged it on. He was tough, all the way through, but there were things, they’d found, for which it didn’t hurt to have an extra level of protection. “Stake.” They weren’t vampire hunters… but they’d hunted vampires. “Okay. Door.”

Via swung the door open… and Baram shifted the sword into a guard position.

“Oh, come on, is that any way to greet an old classmate?” Ardell and Delaney stood on his stoop, leaning on each other’s shoulders and looking like they’d stepped out of a leather magazine.

Barm shifted his feet a bit further apart. “Yes.”

Continued: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/675139.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/628825.html. You can comment here or there.

A Welcome of Sorts

Aug17

After Carrying, which is after Any Port

No tour of Baram’s house was complete without seeing three things: the bolt-hole in the basement, the hawthorn trees around three sides of the property, and a pile of children climbing up the furniture to greet you.

Pocket-Claws-Neska took in the bolt-hole with wide eyes and a small smile, especially when she saw the preparations the children had helped with. Baram wasn’t sure child-sized riot shields were really adorable, but the kids liked them, and so did this small person.

She took in the hawthorn trees about the same way. “So, this Briar-Rose, she really is like you and the Spear.”

Not, Baram noted, anything about him. She looked in fear at Via, not at him.

“Briar-Rose is like us. Maybe a little harder, maybe a little softer, but like us.” Viatrix shrugged. “If you last long enough, you’ll meet her. She’s off right now.”

“Last long enough.” The girl shook her head. “You sound like you think I’m afraid of a little hard work.”

“Well, many people are. And it’s crowded conditions and hard work and a lot of people think that’s just too much.”

“You’ll keep my kids safe. I don’t see how anything could be too much in that case.”

“Like her.” Baram rumbled it. “Like her, Viatrix.”

“I like her too, Boss. Okay, Pocket-Claws, you’ve got the first vote of approval. The second one’s the hard one.”

“Second one?” She was still looking at the trees, and at the back yard. “An addition shouldn’t be too hard…”

“You’re good with those words, then?” Via actually cracked a smile at that. “Good. None of us are, and the last things-Worker didn’t stay long enough to do much at all.”

“As long as someone else can excavate the foundation…”

“I can.” Baram nodded. “Easy.” It was like caves, and Baram liked caves.

“Ah, here comes the welcoming party.” Via’s voice had the pre-combat sound to it. Baram noticed how Pocket-Claws-Neska pulled her hands out of her pockets – ha – and shifted her stance, legs spreading a bit, center of gravity dropping.

And then the kids were everywhere. “Are you new? Are you staying? Are you magical? You’ve got to be okay, Dad’s smiling. Are you from the school? How come we’ve never seen you before? Where are your kids?” The questions bounced around from all of the kids, but they seemed as if asked with one voice while the children climbed up Baram, Via, and Pocket-Claws-Neska.

She’d handled the bolt-hole and the hawthorn. But, buried in children, the short woman froze.

Baram watched her carefully. Via, moving as if she wasn’t weighed down with offspring, shifted behind the visitor. This had gone badly before – not usually after they’d handled the defenses, but sometime.

The woman took a breath. She carefully lifted a child off of her hip and placed it on the ground, and then another. Baram watched the way she moved her hands, compensating for a sudden twitchiness.

“Hello.” Her voice was very quiet. The children stilled to listen.

“Hello.” Gerulf was their designated spokesperson when things were being serious. He was one of the oldest, after all, and he had the best voice.

“I may be moving in here.”

“People do that.” He patted a smaller child before she could speak up, and shifted another child off of Pocket-Claws-Neska’s leg. “You don’t like kids?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“We’re not stupid… ma’am. You don’t like kids touching you.”

The small woman shook her head. She sat down – already the height of some of the bigger kids, this brought her down to all the kids’ level.

Gerulf paused a moment, and then sat. Baram hid a smile with a cough. The boy was smart.

“It’s not kids touching me I don’t like. I have two kids of my own, of course…”

“Everybody does. At least two.” Gerulf shrugged. “Not here yet? ‘Sides, having kids doesn’t mean you like kids. Lots of people don’t like kids. Like Sergio’s mom.”

“Hey.” Sergio’s complaint was faint. Baram patted the kid on the head – Gerulf was right. There was a reason the kid was still here and the mum wasn’t.

“I like kids. I get along okay with most kids, at least.” Pocket-Claws-Neska looked around the group. “I just don’t really like being touched at all, by kids or by taller people… heck, some of you are taller than me.”

Gerulf looked around at the other kids. After a minute, he nodded. “The little ones won’t get it.” It sounded like a warning. “But the older kids understand.”

Baram wasn’t watching the kids. Neither was Via; Baram was splitting his attention between Via and Pocket-Claws-Neska. Viatrix’s eyes were firmly on their newest visitor.

And that visitor’s eyes were on the children. Her throat worked a few times. Swallowing? Gulping. “You… just like that?”

“We’re not stupid.” The boy’s voice had a little impatience in it this time. “Sometimes people don’t like being touched. Or shouted at sometimes, or they don’t like strawberries. It’s not rocket science.”

The girl made a sound like a stifled sob. “Not rockest science.”

“It’s not.” Now Gerulf didn’t sound so sure. “Right, dad?”

Baram turned his attention to the boy. Not his son by blood, but his son nonetheless. “Right.” He nodded. “Hard for lots of people to get, but not rockets.”

“See? Oh. Is this one of those things where grownups are dumb all the time?”

Baram barked out a laugh. It was quiet enough that he could hear the little noise the new girl made as well. He thought it was probably a laugh.

“Yeah. Yeah, this is one of those things.” She held out a hand, now, to Gerulf. “My name is Neska. Your… Viatrix says that I can stay here for a while, with my kids.”

“Aunt Via.” Gerulf shook her hand. “I’m Gerulf sh’Jaelie. Welcome to not-a-safe-house.”

And now, they all laughed: Neska, Baram, Via, and the children.

“That’s quite a name.”

“It’s better than ‘dad’s cave.'” Gerulf sounded pleased with himself.

“It’s a good name.” Baram tousled the boy’s hair. “It’s a good thing.” And they still weren’t, really, a safe house.

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Carrying

Aug8

After Any Port

Baram looked between the short girl and his… his Viatrix. “You want her in here?”

“I don’t know if she wants to be in here. But she’s better in than out.” Via frowned for a moment. “Neska, right? I wasn’t there when you were Named.”

“Pocket Claws.” The girl shrugged; Baram didn’t blame her. “I, ah, someone pointed me in this direction.”

“Come in, if you mean me, mine, no harm.” Baram was managing to make that sound more and more coherent. He was getting far too much practice. “Not a safe house. But…” He let Via handle the rest.

“But if you don’t mind sleeping stacked or can help us build an addition, if you can work and will work, and if you’ll do what the Boss tells you with no orders, promises, or bond – then you can stay as long as you’re useful.” Via shrugged. She always shrugged at that part. Almost nobody stayed longer than a week. “It helps if you’re good with kids – where’re yours?”

Everyone who left Addergoole had kids. Some of them just didn’t have them. Baram’s house appeared to have more kids than anyplace else. He was drowning in children.

“Safe.” She stepped inside, keeping Baram between her and Viatrix. “With my mother.”

“Smart. You have a safe place already, then…?” Via stepped out of the way. “Let me give you the short tour.”

“I have a place I can keep them safe for a day or two. People… someone said that this place could be safe long-term.”

“Not a foxhole.” Baram fell in behind the girl. “Yes.”

The girl glanced back at him. Neska. Pocket-Claws-Neska. He would probably forget, but the more he worked at remembering the more bits he could hold on to.

“You don’t like people much, do you?” She had that quaver in her voice. Baram didn’t understand the quaver. He didn’t think it was fear, and it didn’t really sound like disgust, probably. He glanced over her shoulder at Viatrix.

Via snorted, and shrugged. “Baram doesn’t do people well. That’s part of why he has us.”

“Us?”

“Me. Jaelie, she left before your time, I think. Sa’Briar Rose. And Alkyone.”

“Alkyone? The Spear?” Her skin was pale all over again. “This place is run by the Life and the Spear…?”

“And the Briar. But no. This place is run by the boss.” She patted Baram’s shoulder in the way he only ever let her do. “It’s just managed by the three of us.”

“I thought you said this was a safe house.”

Now, Baram laughed. He could remember the skinny spider-girl – Callista-Bladed-Dervish – could remember her saying that.

“No. Not a safe house. Just a house that is safe.”

“..is it?” She looked around her; she was in a narrow hall between Via and Baram. No real exit. “For who?”

“For people who help out and carry their weight.” Via was big on that. Baram agreed.

“For people.” He put his hand on her head, splaying the fingers so that he encompassed the top of her head. “What I do. What I do is protect.”

She swallowed hard and stepped forward, so that his hand slipped to the back of her head. To her neck. “You’ll protect my children?”

“Yes. You carry your weight, I will protect your children.” Baram shrugged, and tried again. “Will protect children no matter what. Will protect you if you carry your weight.” His hand encircled most of her neck. She didn’t move. He glanced at Viatrix; she nodded.

Pocket-Claws-Neska made a quiet noise, like a hum. “Then I’ll pull my weight.” It sounded like an oath. She glanced up at Viatrix, and then back at Baram. “I’ll do what I have to.”

“Good.” Viatrix sounded just as serious, like she was collaring someone. “So will we.”

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Any Port

Jun5

To [personal profile] clare_dragonfly‘s prompt.

After Signal Fire, which is after Safe House (LJ), which is right after
Company LJ) )

They were not running a safe house.

Baram was firm on that. They were running, if anything, a refuge for children, a place for those that had no parents anymore or couldn’t find them.

They were not running a safe house for every wandering fae. He protected his vassals, but that was what he did. Those people, his people. Not everyone who came by.

And many came by. The skinny one and the small one hadn’t stayed. For them, Baram had offered, but their memories of the monster he had been – had been known as – were too strong, and they could not bear to stay.

The others came in many flavors. They all saw the tall walls, the thorny plants, the happy children playing. Some wanted to own; some just wanted to shelter. Some wanted both; some just wanted the warmth of companionship.

“We are not running a safe house.” Baram looked at the latest of them. She was short, her skin tan and her hair black, and she was looking up at him with no fear at all. No fear of him; when she glanced over her shoulder, she was clearly worried.

“Boss.” Viatrix stepped up to one side of him. “Boss, there’s something on the horizon.” She looked at the girl on the step. “You’re a Thirteenth, aren’t you?”

“And you’re The Life.” The girl bowed; now she looked scared of what was in front of her. That was a new one. “I didn’t know you were here.”

Via grinned. Baram liked that grin; it was her hunting smile. “Maybe you’d better let her in, boss?”

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V for Vindicated

Apr29

For @KissofJudas’ prompt. Fae Apoc, Addergoole Grad.
Via is a character in the Baram’s Elves sub-series; this takes place after she graduates and before she ends up at Baram’s.

Via left the body where it fell, cleaned the weapons with three cloths and a quick Working, and left those sitting on the body’s chest.

The man wasn’t dead, yet. He wouldn’t be dead, if someone got him to a hospital. And he was Faded, with enough strength to be held to an oath, so the chances were, in time, long enough time, he might heal. He might, however, wish he was dead.

“You’ve gotten a vindictive streak lately.”

She should have been surprised to see the man standing at the mouth of the alley, but she found that she wasn’t. “Could we take this conversation somewhere else?”

“Probably best.” If she hadn’t known better, Via would have thought the man sounded amused. “There’s a cafe down the road with the sort of sense of time that’s useful in cases like this. I know the owner.”

“That works.” He probably knew where she lived, but that didn’t mean she wanted to bring him there. “You took longer than I expected.”

“Your graduating class is more active than most.” He tilted his head down the road and, not wanting a fight, not here, Via followed.

The cafe was exactly the sort of place she’d expect him to pick, with deep booths and ambient noise that covered casual conversations. They sat across the table from each other, drinking beer and eating fries, both waiting for the other to speak.

“How many?” He broke first, or perhaps accepted the role of inquisitor.

“Seventeen.”

“You have a reason?”

“Rapists. Monsters. Torturers and creeps.”

The man across the table looked, she thought, as if he was contemplating her list. “We didn’t educate you to be a vigilante.”

Viatrix raised her eyebrows. “You could have fooled me.”

At that, the man across the table laughed. “You’re doing a good job of it, Via. And not even a whisper of chance you’ll get caught. Well done.”

Vindicated. Viatrix smiled. “Thank you, Luke.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/523210.html. You can comment here or there.

Signal Fire

Oct15

For Rix_Scaedu‘s commissioned prompt.

After The Life You Make (LJ) and Memories (LJ), and directly after Safe House (LJ), which is right after
Company LJ)

The guests were skittish, the taller one barely perching on the edge of her chair while Viatrix brought them all tea. She didn’t trust his promise. She wasn’t seeing him. She was seeing – what, a memory? Somebody he’d been once before? Jaelie called it his legend, his notoriety. She told him, over and over again until he could not forget, “I came for the legend.” Later, she told him, more times than the first thing, “I stayed for the man.”

This girl was staring at the legend. Baram found he wanted her to see the man.

“Gonna get the kids,” he grunted. Maybe she – and her very-quiet friend – could relax if they saw there were small people here. Happy small people. Before Via could say anything, he lumbered to the basement door. “Aly.”

He was pretty sure the little one didn’t mean him to hear her squeak. “In the basement?”

He was more sure that Via wanted him to hear her response. “Safety drill. Stranger danger; people at the door means get out of sight.”

“That makes sense.” That was the taller one, with a voice as sharp as her bones and her blades looked.

The kids tumbled out, picking up where they’d left off, leaving the dining room alone. They were learning fast. One of them climbed up Baram again, a little one, a girl. “Grr! Argh!”

“Grr,” he agreed. “Play castle later?”

“Awwwwww.” She slipped down his back like it was a slide and was off, chasing after one of the boys.

The visitors were still staring at him. He was going to have to deal with this. Baram rolled his shoulders uncomfortably. He knew he was a monster. He knew sometimes he earned that title. But he protected women and children. That was what he did.

“You trust him?” The small one thought she was whispering.

“With my life. With our kids.” It still made him feel warm to hear Via say that.

“But he’s…”

“We all graduated from Addergoole.” Aly cut the skinny one off, as if she was protecting Barem’s feelings. “Can you say that any of us are clean?”

“Still…” The skinny one looked at him like she was trying to look into his brain. Really, he needed to look into hers.

“Aly. I need…”

She knew what he needed. It wasn’t the first time she’d done it, although she never liked it. “Are you sure, Boss?”

“I am. Can you…” How to say it?

Via knew already. Neither of them were as smooth at this as Jaelie, but they knew him well. Better than he knew himself.

“Miss, he really doesn’t remember. And he’d like to understand. He’s been… he’s been changing, lately, since we’ve all been here, I think. But he can’t make amends for what he doesn’t remember.”

“Make…” The skinny one stared at him. “How can you think you can fix what you did?”

“Not fix.” He knew he was sounding more and more like a monster. He couldn’t seem to do better than that right now. He put his hands down on the table, carefully. “Understand, and make amends.”

“You. You, Baram cy’Fridmar, you want to make amends for what you did to me?”

“Me. Baram, the Shield.” He liked it better than any other Name he’d been given. “Yes. If you’ll let me.”

She sank back in her chair, staring at him. “You promise?”

“I promise I want to make amends.” It was an easy promise. “To you.” He was sure there were others, but today, it had to be her.

“What do you want to do? To… to what, understand?”

He tilted his head at Via. She talked better than he did.

“You still have all the memories. With your memories, miss-”

“Callista. The Bladed Dervish.”

“sa’Bladed Dervish. With your memories, I can trigger his. They’re locked away, otherwise.”

“You want to touch my mind?” Her throat bobbed up and down. She was far too thin. Baram wanted to feed her. Surprising that Aly or Via hadn’t brought her something already. “Will I have to relive it?”

“No. You can sleep, if you want, or just rest here. I won’t bring them to your conscious mind.”

She swallowed again. “And this will – he really doesn’t remember, otherwise?”

“He really doesn’t. As far as we can tell, he loses almost everything past six months. It’s all in there, somewhere, he just can’t access it.”

“That’s horrible.” The little one frowned at him. “You really don’t remember?”

“Really. Sorry.”

She shrugged. “I don’t have… I don’t have quite such bad memories.” She thought about that for a moment, and added, “I mean, not just not as bad of memories of you. You were the boogeyman, but you were never my boogeyman. But not as bad of memories all around.”

“Some people get off more easily than others.” Aly sat down next to the little girl with a tray full of snack foods. How she’d manage to get that together without leaving the room, Baram didn’t know. He assumed magic. “And some people just slide around the bad stuff.”

“Oh, I had a bad Keeper. It’s just that Callista’s Keeper was… something else.”

“Aaah. Relative horror. If you were there with our employer, you must have been there during the bad years. I’ve heard stories.”

“The stories are usually twice as bad and not a third as horrible as it really was.” She shrugged again, and made a handful of cheese vanish into her mouth. “Callie, I think you should do it.”

“Yeah?” Her taller friend looked down at her. “Why?”

“You need to close something. You won’t track down the bastard who hurt you, and you’ve got this guy here willing to make amends. Close a door, put something behind you.”

The bastard who hurt you. Baram suppressed a growl. When he was done, when Jaelie was back and he could leave the house for a little while, then he would find this person who had hurt this guest, and he would pay him back in kind. People should not hurt women. Certainly not women who had carried Baram’s children.

“All right.” The woman – Callie? Callista? – nodded. “All right.”

Via, sensitive as always to Baram’s moods, glanced at him for permission. “Both of you close your eyes, please. Callista, sa’Dervish, please relax as much as you can. If you know how to blank your mind, please do that. Boss, you know what we’re doing.”

“I do.” He breathed until his mind was clear, emptying everything with each breath. It was always a little frightening, putting himself under. There were so few memories to begin with; he always wondered if there’d be anything at all left of him when he came back.

He had hurt this woman, whether or not he’d meant to. He could risk his Self to make amends.

Down, down. He breathed out the trappings of modern day, breathed in quiet.

Further down.

The children were gone, the house, the women.

There was nothing but dark, and quiet.

Further down.

The monster was gone.

There was nothing here but silence, nothing but cool darkness.

We need something from you. A demon spoke to him out of the darkness. We need someone to back us up. Shad and Mesh are getting too strong, and it’s going to come to a fight. We need your muscle.

Memory-self rumbled in response. That crew is nasty. Memory-self had no crew, just a friend he trusted to watch his back, and this demon, who asked things sometimes, and gave things in return.

They are, and they’ll run everything if someone doesn’t remind them they’re not the only game in town. Look, Callie will make it worth your while.

Another memory intruded on the first.

Make him happy. You know we need him. You know he needs you. Smile and be a good girl for him, Callie, and I’ll reward you when we get home.

The reward, the promise of a reward, might have kept her going without the order by that point. She needed the little things he gave her. She needed the moments where she could feel human. Even if it meant taking a monster to her bed.

Make him happy. She didn’t know if he could be happy. She’d barely ever seen him smile. He almost never talked. Rozen? Rozen had emotions. Rozen laughed. But Baram was just a thug, a golem, a creature made out of lumpy clay.

Callie knew what she was supposed to do in bed. It wasn’t the first time Ib had lent her out. Whored her out. She knew what to do, to make a guy feel like she was holding up her end of the deal. But she didn’t know if it would work with Baram.

A memory that might be his came back, over Callista’s worries.

He knew what it meant, when someone said they’d make it worth his while. He’d never had much luck, getting women in his bed normally. He had the graduation requirements to contend with, here. He had the fact that, while his brain might be a mess, while his Change might be monstrous, much of him was still a teenaged male.

She smiled when she came into his room. She never wore much, little shirts and tight jeans. Today she was wearing less. “Ib said you wanted me?”

She was going to scream, when he took his pants off. They all did. Even Isra. Even Ivette. He braced himself, and stripped.

And she smiled. It was a small smile, but she smiled.

Via…? Baram flailed, not understanding.

Make him happy. What was she going to do with that thing? What… that was what Ib had meant. She smiled, so he wouldn’t get unhappy, and walked towards him, murmuring under her breath. She had permission to do all the Workings she needed to make sure she held up her end of the deal. She could do this. She could take him in, and she could make him happy.

“You’re a big one.”

Baram remembered her saying that. He actually remembered, in the memories he could still get to. Not her, not the context, but that voice. Jaelie had said something similar, years later, and it had brought it back to him, the way memories almost never did: awed, a little bit scared, but ready to try.

He remembered a surge of uncommon affection when she had said that. Via’s touch on his memories brought it all back to him: the willingness in her voice, the little smile he’d never seen on her lips before. The way she closed her eyes and arched back against the pillows, while all six of her arms touched him.
She said son… Could Via get that for him, too? He knew, because the girls had told him, that he must have fathered two children to get out of Addergoole. But he had no memory of either child, no memory of naming them, none of holding them.

Brace yourself, Boss.

She didn’t want to let go of the tiny baby. She was afraid if she let go, Ib would never give him back. Somehow, her little boy would vanish like her little girl had, and she would be alone with Ib again.

The big oaf was waiting, quietly – he was usually quiet – staring off into the fake horizon. She wondered if there was enough going on upstairs for him to do a naming. Was there anything at all in there, except meanness and violence?

“Give him the baby, Callista.” Ib’s order left no room for argument. “Say the words.”

He voice cracked, but she got the words out. “This is the son you have given me, Baram cy’Fridmar. I give him into your hands to be named.”

Son.Son. Her son, and this monster was handling him. She was surprised at how careful the big hands were. She didn’t want to remember that his hands had been gentle with her, too. He was a monster, and he had raped her. What did it matter if he’d been trying not to leave bruises? He was Lenny, a big oaf. She knew what happened to girls around oafs like that.

But Ib wasn’t going to let her not hand over her son to him.

“I take this son that I have given you, Callista cy’Pelletier. I will return him to you in the morning with his name.” She’d never heard him say that many words at once. And then, while she choked on tears, he turned and was gone, gone with her son.

“Brand.”

The memory-trance was gone. Baram blinked at the women, skinny and hard-edged, and tiny and sharp. “I Named him Brand.” He could remember more than that, although he felt it fading already. “Like the fire. Like a beacon. Is he like that?” He could not quite find the words. “Like a … signpost?”

Viatrix, her fingers still in his mind, tried to translate. “A signal fire, a sign that danger is coming, or a sign that safety is there. He saw Brand as a light in the night.” She smiled, then. “A safe house?”

“A… oh.” Callista blinked. “Is that…? You never said.”

“Did you ever ask?” Via’s voice was very soft. “The man who Kept you, sa’ Bladed Dervish, he deserves pain and more pain, over and over again, for what he did to you.”

Callista flinched. “I don’t want to see him.”

“The time will come. We have all been hurt, you know.” Via stretched out over the table, placing her hand just inches from the skinny woman’s. “In our time.”

Baram knew the words, now. He didn’t know how long he would hold them. “Sa’ Bladed Dervish, Callista. I did not know I was being used to hurt you. I did not want to hurt you. I am sorry I did.”

She stared at him like he’d taken all her foundations out from under her. Maybe he had. She clutched Viatrix’s hand, and her short friend’s hand in another, and, before Baram could try to figure out more words, she burst into tears.

It’s okay, boss. Via’s voice was careful in his mind. Baram did not like tears. I’ve got this.

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/538505.html

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Being the Monster

May30

For rix_scaedu‘s Commissioned continuation.

Addergoole has a landing pagehere.

After Cursed.

Barypos ended. Ended, in a way he had never imagined possible, Ended, Name and name and soul and memories. He ended in a twist of pain and a gut-punch, air lost, while the world burned around him.

He dreamt of death, of spears, of the lamentations and screams of women following him through the years. He dreamt of blood and pain, and of fire, and more fire, and more.

When he awoke, Barypos was gone. He woke to consciousness of a sort, remembering nothing but pain and fire.

Slowly, he stood, and brushed the sand off of his skin. White skin, skin like a dead thing, rippled with muscle and lined with scars that were, as he watched, vanishing into the whiteness. He looked around; sand, and the long-gone remains of buildings. To the north, sand, to the east, sand. To the south, sand, and to the west, sand and the sun.

That was a direction, at least. Not knowing what else to do, he walked into the sun.

A caravan found him, some endless time later, coated in dust and parched. “Where do you come from?” they asked, and he could not tell them. They gave him water, and asked his name.

“Buh-” was all he could remember, so Buh he became, for the few moments before the women brushed the sand off of him, before the men saw what he was.

“Monster,” the youngest woman screamed. “Beast, corpse-eater!”

Those who had welcomed and rescued him drove him off again, screaming monster, beast, creature! and, confused, Buh ran off into the dessert.

Baram woke sweating and swearing and reached across the bed for the girl. There was a girl there. That was the deal; there was always a girl there.

The girl pressed against him in her sleep, stroking his back, her hands firm. Viatrix. Vi’s hands were the strongest. Like Etheldreda. Like Joan.

The memories were beginning to sneak back in, around the edges, when he was sleeping or nearly so, when one of the girls was holding him, and, sometimes and most painfully, when he was holding one of the children. Ethldreda, who had been able to stand him the longest of anyone before these girls, who had stayed with him when the torches lit, stayed with him until the very end. Joan… Joan who had gritted her teeth and tried.

That wasn’t him. That was some other guy, some monster in his nightmares.

He looked down at his body, at the slabs of muscle, at the pale, corpse-like skin. This didn’t change. He died and was born again, died and died and died again, and this returned, white and death-looking. Monstrous.

“I’m here,” Via whispered in his ear, and he clutched her closer. He had never understood what had brought them to show up on his doorstep, Jaelie and then Via and Alkyone, nor what, aside from his protection, drove them to stay, but he knew their warmth and their – he wouldn’t call it love. Nobody could love him. He’d never Kept anyone, that he could recall, to not force the imitation of affection – their friendship seemed to push back the dark.

He knew he would die again. But until that death came, he could be their monster.

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Cursed

May12

For rix_scaedu‘s Prompt.

Addergoole has a landing pagehere.

Before Monster.

“Monster.” The witch twisted in Barypos’ arms and spat in his face. “Monster. Cretin. Beast.”

He lay his knife at her throat. “Soldier.” Her language wasn’t his, but they were close enough, and a warrior learned what he had to, fighting in these lands that weren’t home. “Father. Son.” He shrugged in apology. “I fight where I have to.”

“You killed my husband. My son. My baby.”

“They would have killed me. There is a war going on.” He was not very good with words, in any language, but she should understand that. Instead, she clawed at his wrists, trying to get free. “Hold still, and I won’t have to hurt you.”

“Won’t have to hurt me?” She stared at him in naked pain. “You’ve taken everything. What do I care what you do with this body, when you’ve already taken the heart from it?”

“Widows live.” He knew this. “Your people will need their sons and daughters. Stop fighting, and live again. The war will end eventually.”

It did no good. She fought and spat against him and, when that did no good, she began swearing, cursing him. It was only when she had gone deep into her own language that he recognized Words in the curses. By then, it was too late.

“What you have taken, you will lose. What you have stolen, I’ll steal from you.” He dropped her, but he had no Words against this. He hadn’t know this could be done. She was Working against his future. Against his soul. “No love. No kin. No home. No warm memories of fire. No hearth to sleep near. No wife to keep you warm. All this, monster, I take from you. All that you have taken… until you have paid for every life of my people you have stolen.”

She kept speaking, but it was lost on Barypos. Her curse was already twisting his mind, and her words were like the jibbering of beasts to his ears.

“Never more will any man want to call you brother,” she hissed in his unknowing ear, sealing her curse for the millenia.

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