Tag Archive | character: cya

Red Queen

Nov11

A double-crack alternate universe in which Leo gets an army and then takes over the northwest.

After:
Black Knight and White Queen from the 9th and White Knight from yesterday, which read first, because Au.

“Ten years.”

She was sitting on the other side of a glass window that Luke couldn’t break — not that he’d tried all that hard. They were speaking through a telephone. The resemblance to a pre-war prison did not escape Luke.

“That’s a long time,” he stalled. It wasn’t, really. Not to creatures as old as they were. “You can’t send me to attack Addergoole.”

“I can,” she countered, “without your assent, without you agreeing to a collar. Regine has some pretty nice blocks on your mind — but I’m better than she is.”

The ache in his wings reminded him why he wasn’t flapping temperamentally. He pulled them close to his body. He should have been healed already. This place was getting to him. “You’re arrogant.”

“I know how good we are. I know how much we practice our skills. Ten years — and I will choose not to send you to attack your friends.”

Luke forced himself to keep his wings still. “I let you put me in here.”

“You didn’t make us fight to put you in here,” she agreed. Or didn’t agree. It was hard to tell with the damn cy’Drakes. “I won’t send you to fight Addergoole. I’m a bitch, but I’m not a monster. Ten years.” She ticked it off on her fingers. “You get four years to teach — under my collar, but under your own aegis and with no orders about your teaching — at Addergoole, but most of the summer and half of your weekends are mine.”

“That will make Mentoring hard.” At this point, he thought he might be arguing just so he didn’t give in. He thought about Leo. He thought about breaking Leo’s ribs and telling him “just stay down, damnit.”

He wasn’t ready to stay down.

“You can bring them with you. It might do both Doomsday and Addergoole kids good to mingle.”

“You mean that? Bring my students to weekends you said were yours?” He couldn’t help but sneer the words.

She smirked at him. “I’m not about to have a romance with you, Luke. And I’m not sure how sex would work out, but I suppose we’ll figure that out later. In case you hadn’t noticed, I already have a romance.”

“You already have Leo, you mean.”

There was a pause. She leveled a look at him. In a less vulnerable position, Luke might have found it interesting. Cya was cold. She was steady, she was emotionless.

Not this time.

“He is the love of my life,” she said, her voice calm but her expression anything but. Her eyes were half-lidded, one hand flat on the table and the other white-knuckling the phone. “And now would be an unwise time to suggest otherwise.”

Luke thought the expression on her face was familiar, but he could not place where he had seen it. What he could tell was that she was entirely sincere. He held up his hands in surrender. “You have Leo,” he agreed carefully. “I don’t expect to get in the way of that.” Truth be told, he had no idea what to expect.

“So bring your students here on the weekends, if you want. Cloverleaf is safe. The Kept ones will probably appreciate the break. If they don’t, then you know they either have a really good Keeper or you have to really look into their Keeping.”

Luke found himself startled at her stark assessment. She twisted her lips in something like a tired smile at his expression.

“We had a few get past us. Bad Keepers, sneaky bad Keepers.”

“It’s awful, isn’t it?” Luke thought back through the years. “The feeling when you were looking and missed it anyway?”

“It’s horrible.” She sat quietly for a minute. “I try to be a good Keeper. It will be weird, because it’s you, but I’ll do my best.”

“Ten years…” Luke considered. “You were very angry.”

“You and I both know it had to be long enough to make Regine think it was worth as much as her not attacking me.”

Luke considered that. He thought about the oaths he’d been freed from and raised his eyebrows at her. “You planned this.”

“I did not plan on you beating Leo nearly to death.” The fierceness was back. “That fucked up every single thing I had in place for dealing with this, ah, army. And everything that goes along with the army.”

“Everything that–?”

“That’ll wait until you’re under my collar and my orders. You fucked up my plans considerably. But… of course I had back-up plans.” She smiled crookedly. “Even Addergoole should have figured that out by now.”

“You always have back-up plans.” He nodded slowly. “You didn’t plan on me attacking Leo. But you had a plan if I did. And…” he spoke slowly now. It almost didn’t seem real. “Your plan included getting me out of my promises to Regine.”

“Ten years sounds like a long enough break to decide if you want to go back, doesn’t it?” Her smile was sharp. “Maybe we ought to call it eleven.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1198369.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Black Pawns, an AU story of Cya, Leofric, and an Army

Nov11

A double-crack alternate universe in which Leo gets an army and then takes over the northwest.

comes tangental to:
Black Knight and White Queen from the 9th and White Knight from yesterday.

It was possible, Cya admitted, that Leo was getting a little bit carried away.

She watched him in front of his army; she watched him in front of his newly-conquered cities and villages and small states. He was soaking it in, reveling in it; he was glowing with the power and the pleasure of their worship.

She watched as he seemed to get taller, as his antlers seemed to get wider. He wasn’t growing, but his image was. They doted on him; they loved him. They praised him and expected him to fix their problems.

It was more than a little possible that he was becoming a god.

It was nearly certain that she ought to stop him. The Council would notice. Addergoole would notice.

She stepped up behind him and began the paperwork and bureaucracy of bringing another town under the Cloverleaf banner.

She wasn’t going to stop him yet.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1197318.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

White Knight, an AU story of Cya, Regine, Mike, Luke, and an Army

Nov10

After This Story and this story from yesterday, which read first, because Au.

“Just do it.” Luke knew his voice was shaking, but he held out hope that Regine wouldn’t notice. “Regine. Mike’s right. She has the cards here.”

“Luca, I am not going to leave you to be Kept by this, this… woman.”

“I don’t see why not.” He found himself chuckling a little bit. Regine would not understand. Hopefully, Mike would, and he’d be able to explain it. If not, well, Regine could hold a grudge for a very long time. He’d have plenty of time (he hoped) to explain himself later. “Look, Regine, we’ve been letting her Keep Addergoole graduates – and by that I mean not stopping her, let’s be honest – for decades now. What’s wrong with letting me see what my students went through?”

“You are not a student.” Regine was livid. This was not going to help matters; Cya could see that sort of opening and she wouldn’t hesitate to take it.

“No. But neither are they when she Keeps them. Look, Regine. Take the offer.” He stretched his wings carefully, feeling the place where things were still healing. “She’s got you — us — in a tight place, and it’s not going to get any easier by you huffing and puffing.”

“I am not ‘huffing and puffing.'”

“…Much,” Mike muttered.

Luke snorted. “Regine, I know you.” He was tired. His brain was clouded. He tried to make his voice gentle anyway. “I know what you do. Take the offer. I’ll get back to you when I can.” He snorted again. “We live forever, ‘Gene, and you’ve got my kid there with you. You’ll be fine for a couple decades.”

Cya cleared her throat. He could hear the difference between her a-hem and Regine’s. “You have four years to find a replacement for him, Director Avonmorea. Whatever deal I make with him, it will give him the time to teach for the next four school years. That should let him clear his current roster of cy’ree.”

Luke stared at the phone as if he could see her expression through it. What was she doing? Why was she doing it? “That’s very generous.”

“Leo is very fond of you. That buys you a lot of leeway.”

His wings twitched in frustration. He knew why she irritated Regine so much. But he wasn’t in a position, at the moment, to indulge himself.

You put yourself in this position, he reminded himself. He cleared his throat and looked at the phone again. “Thank you.”

“Luca, you can’t mean to…”

“Luke, come on, we need you…”

Luke sat down hard on the divan. “‘Gene. Mike. I’m not going that far away. And you’ll be fine without me, and so will the school. It’s been a long time.” He was so tired, and he didn’t think it was just the injuries and the hawthorn. “You have lots of students of mine who could take my place for a little while.”

There was a moment where nobody spoke. Luke imagined Regine attempting to stare Cya down. He imagined the way she’d looked when she’d come up to them, Leo laying bleeding out on the ground. He remembered that look. It was more frightening now than it had been her first year of school.

Regine cleared her throat. “Very well. Luca Hunting-Hawk, I release you from all oaths you have sworn to me. I release you from your oaths to the school. I release you from your promise to the crew. You are free of your ties to me, Hunting-Hawk.”

Mike’s voice came in the rushing of Luke’s ears. “Luke… I release you from your promises to me. You are free of me, Luke, Hunting-Hawk.”

He did not so much lay down as he fell over. There was weight lifted from his mind he hadn’t known was there. He gasped, and again, but the pressure behind his eyes was too much.

Unconsciousness took him.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1197224.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

White Queen, an AU story of Cya, Regine, Mike, Luke, and an Army

Nov9

After This Story from earlier today, which read first, because Au.

Regine, Again

She did not want to be here, sitting in Cya Red Doomsday’s office like a petitioner. But Luke was in danger, and Regine would not have it said that she did not value her crew.

Michael was with her. She didn’t know how Linden-Blossom felt about this, but she knew that the Daeva loved Luke, and she knew that she would not walk alone into the den of her enemy if she could avoid it.

“Lady of the Lake. Sa’Linden Blossom.” Cya bowed politely to both of them.

“Jae’Red Doomsday.” Regine was not in the mood for games. “I will meet with Luca before we discuss
anything.”

“No. You won’t.” The woman leaned forward, hands on her desk. “We meet and sign an agreement first.”

“I don’t think you understand your position–“

“My position?” Cya raised her eyebrows. “I have Leo, Leo has an army, and we hold the northwest. I have twenty Addergoole grads, in addition to Boom, all of them 11th Cohort or older, who have plenty of reason to hate you and more reason to be fond of me. Possibly of more relevance to you, I have Luke in a hawthorn cell. What’s your position, Director?”

“You will let us meet with Luca before this meeting continues!”

“No. I won’t. And if you continue to push the issue, you’re going to be leaving here without discussing anything.”

“Regine.” Michael cut in with a quiet, diplomatic tone. “She has the cards here.”

Regine sighed. “Very well.”

“I will, however, allow you to speak to him.” She pulled an ancient phone out of her desk and dialed a number. “Put him on.” A moment later, she continued, “sa’Hunting Hawk? Please hold for the Lady of the Lake.”

She pushed a button, putting the phone on speaker. Regine glowered at the indignity of it, but Michael had a point. “Luca?”

“‘Gene?” Luca sounded tired and strained.

“Luca, we’re going to get you out of there. Is everything all right?”

“It’s not the Hilton. But they’re not treating me poorly. Regine… don’t goad her.”

“Too late,” Michael murmured. Regine ignored him.

“I… I won’t, Luca.”

“And don’t let her goad you.”

“Too late,” Michael repeated.

Luca sighed. “Regine… just be careful, all right.”

“So.” Cya leaned forward over her desk. “These are my terms. sa’Hunting Hawk serves the same as anyone else who attacks me and mine: one year under the collar. All three of you swear oaths never to attack my city or my people again.”

“Preposterous!” Regine sputtered.

“Or,” and here Cya smiled, a slow and humorless expression, “you release sa’Hunting Hawk from any and all oaths he has sworn to you, and he pays the fine for his attack on his own. That would be more than a year, of course, because I, Director Avonmorea, am not an idiot.”

Regine raised her eyebrows. “Out of the question.”

“Then I suppose you don’t want him back too badly, do you?” Cya looked amused. Regine wanted to banish that expression from her face. “There are other ways, of course, but here I thought you’d be open to reason.”

The nerve…! Regine quirked her eyebrows at Cya. “You ask for quite a bit when you have an army at our door.”

“Technically, it’s at my door, at least at the moment. And no. The point isn’t the army. The point is that your man attacked my man and, well, that can’t stand. So. Release him and let him pay the penalty, or sign off on the whole not-attacking-us thing and let him pay the penalty.”

Regine stared at her. “You don’t seriously think–“

“Regine,” Luca cut her off, “just do it.”

Next: White Knight

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Black Knight, an AU story of Cya, Leofric, Luke, and an Army

Nov9

The AU is Cloverleaf-Era, and Leo has gathered an army around himself and is, uh, taking over the northwest.

Luke is sent in to deal with it, but underestimates Leo’s style of fighting and has to nearly kill him to get him unconscious….

…all while Leo’s army watches.

The messenger had been pounding on her door for nearly a minute before Cya made it down the stairs. She’d been taking a bath, the sort of long, quiet luxury she only did when she had a full hour or more to herself, and she hadn’t been in the mood for company.

He took a long moment to catch his breath when she yanked the door open. She recognized his uniform – one of Leo’s, with the blue and the lightning-bolt – and she recognized the look on his face. “Slow,” she told him. “Single words.” It wasn’t good news. It wasn’t good news at all. She drew herself up a little straighter.

“Lightning-Blade,” he gasped. “Short guy, Mara-wings. Fight.” He swallowed and took three careful breaths. “sa’Lightning Blade found himself in, in single combat with this Mara. Both alive. Lightning-Blade down.”

“Take me there.” He wouldn’t be at her door if he wasn’t a teleporter.

“Ma’am, sa’Red-Doomsday, your robe?”

She was wearing one of Leo’s kimono. “It covers. Take me.”

“The army…?” He had a point. She hated that he had a point.

“Come in, bedroom, now.”

He obeyed. He was too good at obeying, but she’d worry about that later. She threw off her robe, threw on her best red dress – which, conveniently, was nearly as easy-on as Leo’s kimono – and held out her hand to the teleporter.

He was blushing brightly. It was a good look on him. She might care, later. Then they were twisting through the void, and there was no room for such things.

Some day, maybe when she was 200 or 300, Cya might get used to the feeling of being teleported, except it was different with every teleporter. This one seemed to bend space by folding his passengers up.

When Cya had been young, before the world had ended, there’d been a book called Flat Stanley, about a child who had been flattened and learned to live that way, including being mailed to relatives for a visit. Cya felt like that right now. It did not add to her general mood in a positive manner.

The teleporter dropped them out of his folded-space between Leo – on the ground, breathing, unconscious, missing an arm, bleeding badly, one ear gone, attended by a healer in the Leo’s-Army uniform – and Luke (the short guy, the Mara) – missing three fingers, half of a wing, and, it looked, three teeth, bleeding, but conscious, “restrained” between two army guards.

It took Cya less than a heartbeat to assess all that. She spun around while those on the ground were still realizing that she was there and punched Luke in the uninjured side of his face. “You fucking asshole,” she spat. “I had it handled. And you had to… abatu eperu. You fucker.” She waved at the ground and it opened up, her Working leaving a hole just about the size of Luke and 20 feet deep as she Destroyed the dirt and stone under him. “You fucker.” She turned to Leo and dropped on her knees. “And you, you bleeding idiot, what made you be such a fucking ridiculous man? Why on earth would you keep fighting? It’s Luke, he wasn’t going to kill you, you bastard.” She touched his shoulder, the one that still had an arm attached, and raised her voice to a bellow. “Where are the rest of the healers? If there are not two more healers here in the next five minutes, I’m going to start burying people. Come on, you assholes, he’s your general!“

The healer shot her an insulted look. She returned it with a calm and un-budge-able expression. “There’s more damage than anyone but a god can repair quickly,” she murmured, quiet enough that only the healer and the unconscious Leo could hear it. “And if I know Leo — and I do — there’s a whole lot more unseen damage. You’ll need back-up.”

She stalked away before she pissed off the person saving her beloved’s life. She stared down the hole at Luke, who did not appear to be inclined to argue with her. “You asshole,” she muttered. “This is going to fuck everything up.”

Luke didn’t answer, simply stood there, damaged wings folded tightly in the cramped space, and bled.

Flat Stanley: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Stanley

Cya

Cya was not talking to Leo, nor was she listening to him.

The good thing — not the only good thing, but at the moment the most useful thing — about Leo having sworn to obey Cya was that, when she was furious with him, she could ground him.

Right now, he was grounded, while the healers continued to work on repairing all the damage to his body.

The fact that she had grounded the general who had won the northwest did not escape Cya, but neither did she particularly care. He had been bad (never mind that Luke had started it), and until she calmed down, he was going to be grounded.

Hopefully, unlike her more mischievous sons, Leo didn’t try to climb out the window.

Luke

Luke had, at one point, wanted to see the cells Cya kept beneath her city.

He had not wanted to see them quite this close-up.

He’d surrendered as a gesture of goodwill, but now, locked into a hawthorn-lined cell, cut off from his magic and with his mind tingling with the effects of being surrounded by that much poison, he was beginning to regret the choice.

He sat gingerly on the provided divan. His wings had been mended, but he was still more injury than not.

He’d underestimated Leo. He’d underestimated both of them.

Regine

The letter was short, and she recognized the handwriting.

It had been delivered to her by a courier she didn’t recognize, in a uniform she was beginning to hate — blue, a lightning bolt, a sword.

Director Avonmorea, Lady of the Lake,

You have misplaced your Mara. I have him here — alive, and injured only by his attack on my people.

Meet me at the Tower in Cloverleaf to discuss terms.

Cya Red Doomsday

Next: White Queen

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LadiesBingo: Enemies – Cynara and Regine

Sep14

Written for my [community profile] ladiesbingo card.

2030, approximately 19 years after the end of the world.

Cya had maps.

She had a lot more than maps, actually, enough that she’d ended up building herself another room to store it all. She had reports and charts, headcounts and vulnerability assessments, crop yields and even religious and linguistic demographics, assessing everything she could of their ruined world.

But most of all, she had one big map, and on that map was a circle labelled Addergoole and a carefully-shaded area labelled as Addergoole influence. Outside of that was a rough 50-mile circle that she’d labelled DMZ.

That was where her information stopped. She would walk herself right up to that line — and did, both literally and figuratively — find every piece of information she could, and make sure that she left with a positive relationship whenever possible. She fought monsters — rarely — fed people — far more frequently — and cleaned up roads and fallen buildings right up to two inches shy of that line.

The other side of the line was Regine’s territory, and there she would not tread, not now.

Regine had agents.

Some were former students; some were people she or her crew had helped out in the past, who owed her favors, formal or informal. Some were those who didn’t know who or what they were working for, but liked the steady pay of food, shelter, and barter goods, all rare to find in the disaster of their crumbled world.

Her agents went out into the world, looking for people and things, bringing back information and goods. They brought reports of the ruins of civilization: some places had fallen into disarray and barbarism and even two decades later had not settled into peace. Some had formed tiny city-states, boarded up and unwilling to talk to outsiders, even outsiders bearing rare trade goods. Some had turned their city-states into trade hubs, or into despotic mini-empires, or into quiet imitations of Eden, some more successful than others.

And in Wyoming, the group called Boom and the woman called Cynara were doing a little bit of all of that.

Regine sent only her best agents in that direction — the cleverest, the most subtle, the ones with the best escape abilities. She assumed Cynara did the same. She was not ready to go to war with Boom nor with Cynara herself; if her agent was caught on Boom’s territory, the volatile, explosive group might take it in their heads to start that war prematurely. Thus she drew out a three-quarter circle where she was very nearly blatant, and towards Wyoming she stayed subtle, sneaky… surreptitious.

———

Regine had agents, Cya knew. Every time she found one of them, she marked their position on a map. Some of them were obvious, the sort of people you only sent into territory you were certain of. Some tried to be sneaky. Some… Some Cya found only because she already knew Regine had agents. She was known for her ability to find things and people, after all. Regine should have known better.

When she caught one a mile from the Ranch where her crew lived, Cya decided polite ignoring was no longer the order of the day. She sat down with the woman for a pleasant conversation over scrounged tea and did a series of long and complicated Workings on the woman’s mind, the sort that left nearly no trace and would not be noticed until a specific person — perhaps, the person who had taught Cya Mind magic in the first place — went looking.

Then she sent the woman back to Regine with a very polite note.

I found this. I thought you might want it back.

———

Regine stared at the woman. She stared at the note. She stared back at the woman. “How were you detected?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The woman could no more lie to Regine than she could fly — and flying was not her particular magic skill. “Nobody detected me. I got in, I got out, I came back to report.”

The paper note was proof enough. The fact that the agent was staring at the note with no realization that she had just handed it to Regine was, as the saying went, icing on the cake. Nevertheless, Regine engaged in an invasive search of her agent’s mind.

And there it was. The work was so tidy Regine doubted anyone else could have found it. The girl, she had to admit, was skilled. She’d written in dots and dashes of missing time and changed memories:

Stay off my lawn and I’ll stay off yours

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1172824.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Whatif…a very AU story Continued, Continued

Sep2

Goes with this: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1166887.html
and then this: http://inventrix.dreamwidth.org/29367.html
And then this: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1167521.html
and then this: http://inventrix.dreamwidth.org/29645.html

He was handsome. That wasn’t the first thing she noticed; the first thing (after how worn he looked) was ahh. He wasn’t all of what was missing, but he was definitely some of it.

(If only she had any idea who he was).

Then he grabbed her hand and started running. Cynara’s first feeling was one of immense satisfaction: this was right. It was perfect.

Then someone shouted behind them, and she realized they were actually running from something immediate.

They needed a way out. They needed a safe place to talk where nobody would bother them. She needed to know why he was exactly what she’d been looking for and yet not quite right.

“Left!” She yanked them into an alley. She hadn’t known it was there a moment ago, but somehow she knew it was perfect, and… yes. They reached its end and found themselves facing a small back road — with left, right, or an open door as options.

Right seemed the best, so she yanked them that way. He was stronger than her, a lot stronger — and how did she know that? — so she had to trust that he’d come along.

She trusted, and ran. Down another series of crooked streets, through a building — nobody noticed — and then they were at a worn-down little park, where a stone maintenance building waited, its lock long since broken.

“Here.” Inside it was picked clean, nothing but a few unredeemable bottles left. She sank down on the floor and looked at the boy.

“Hi,” she offered, suddenly shy. What if he thought she was crazy? What if she was crazy? “I don’t know you, but I’ve been looking for you.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1168324.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Whatif…a very AU story Continued

Sep1

Goes with this: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1166887.html

and then this: http://inventrix.dreamwidth.org/29367.html

Cynara had been on the move for a week. She’d woken up every morning and tried to figure out where she should go, and for some reason, answers had kept coming to her.

She’d found unattended food and a surprise stop at a sidewalk sale (the clerk was in the alley, making out with her boyfriend), toiletries and even and unlocked motel room. She’d found bus after bus that had a spot open for cheap or a soft spot for the sad look, and money seemed to appear when she really needed some.

She’d also nearly been found by police three times, police who were clearly looking for her. She had run away, she supposed, but neither her foster parents nor her father should’ve expected her to stay put for too long.

She hopped off the latest bus and looked around. The feeling in her gut, the empty hole, tugged, and she looked around.

There. He looked tired and resigned. He looked lost.

She had no idea who he was, but she needed to talk to him.

She crossed against traffic in a bee-line straight for him, not caring how it must look.

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Whatif…a very AU story

Aug31

What if Boom got expelled from Addergoole their first year? What if they had their minds wiped? What if…

Addergoole AU

Something was missing.

Cynara wasn’t sure what it was. Her father, of course – he’d finally screwed up one time too many, and she’d gotten placed in a foster home near a nice private school. But he wasn’t so much missing as he was gone.

Her new foster parents were decent, attentive – way too attentive, far more than Cya’s father ever had been, far too concerned when Cya stayed out or wandered off. They hardly left her room to think, but there was enough time – when she woke in the middle of the night, when she wandered off to take long, looping walks around the neighborhood – when Cynara could feel at the empty place in her memories and in her emotions.

It felt like a missing tooth. Something had been there, and then it was gone. There had been a – a warmth, a place where she could care about someone. There had been a wall she could lean against. There had been a pleasant wildness to make her feel.

She found the paperwork while looking for something else – she wanted to find her transfer to this school, because she kept getting confused on the date, and that had never happened before. The words at the top of the paper said Addergoole, but it was the wings on the crest that gave her the poke in the gut.

She found the anime while she was looking for something to spark a memory – a blond hero with a big weapon, a tiny girl with a large smile. She took it home and watched five episodes before her foster-parents took it away.

They were angry, and under the anger, they were worried. They grounded Cynara, which fazed her very little. She had no friends here. She’d never had friends anywhere; she moved too much. She’d never stayed in the same school more than…

Her dreams were colored in splatters of blood and the shouting of strange words.

More than a couple weeks…

She woke feeling a warmth just to one side of her, a wildness to the other, the loss deep in her gut.

…she’d never had time to make friends…

She dreamed of the shocked look in someone’s eyes and the cramping feeling of poison in her own veins.

She dreamed of Words that could change the world.

Her foster parents had locked the window and the door, but Cya’s father was a thief, and she’d been his apprentice.

She looked for the best way out of town, and a bus driver took pity on her. She looked for a safe route towards the loss in her chest, and she found a wallet someone had forgotten. She looked for the right train, and slipped on when nobody was watching her.

She didn’t know she was heading to Leo; all she knew was that she was heading home.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1166887.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Finding the Target

Aug23

a story of Doomsday/Cloverleaf

Directly after Passing the Torch.

Sunny left Red Doomsday talking to Luke – Luke! He was a legend! – and wandered over to the group of kids – students, barely younger than she was – loitering by the picket fence.

Not Howard-, Leo- or Cabal-type, Cya had said, and Luke’s eyes had drifted over to the tall blonde with the cow horns and something had looked like relief in his posture. So not the cow-blonde that looked a bit like Howard. She looked through the rest of them.

Cya had talked her through this part. “You do what you can with your Find power, and then you try to do more than you can. So…. start with Finding the guy you can live with or the guys you can help and live with. And keep adding on qualifiers until you’re looking for a left-handed elf ranger who’s good with his tongue and knows when to shut up.”

But what if I ask the wrong thing? Sunny had asked, and Cya had smiled, a little tiredly, perhaps, and answered Then you’ll be in good company. And a year later, you’ll know what not to ask.

Lady Red Doomsday had been doing this for a long time, Sunny knew, since before that mystical End the old fae talked about. Maybe she’d forgotten how nerve-wracking it would be the first time.

“Hey,” she greeted the loiterers, while she let her power do a little walking. She had been learning finesse in the last couple years, but it was still better for, as Aron liked to say, finding Cloverleaf, not finding a particular clover-leaf..

They gave her a range of nervous and uncertain expressions, some distrustful, some almost hopeful. One of them — a redhead, tall and lanky and uncertain – was looking over at Red Doomsday.

Her power was saying him or maybe the short dark-skinned girl standing in his shadow. She decided to try her gut.

“She doesn’t do that anymore,” she said, gently, answering the unspoken question and hoping she had the right question. “I mean, it’s her, yeah, but she retired.”

“Yeah?” He eyed her, taking her in and clearly not sure what to make of what he saw. Sunny didn’t look much older than them — she wasn’t much older than them — but, then again, neither did Red Doomsday, and she was old enough to own a nation. “That’s her, though? Red Doomsday? The Lady Who Takes ‘Em?”

“Not the fanciest of her titles,” Sunny laughed, “but that’s her. Mayor of Cloverleaf.”

THe title meant nothing to him, Sunny could tell. “But she doesn’t do the taking anymore? That what you came over to tell us?”

“Well, I think of that more as a prelude,” Sunny offered. She might have her Mentor’s innate power, but she had nothing like Cya’s skill in Tempero Intinn, Control Mind. She was going to have to talk her prey into coming with her. “Because she doesn’t anymore… but I do.”

“You?” He looked at her again. “You’re gonna feed me and keep a roof over me and find me a place, after? You’re gonna Keep me?”

“You volunteering?” She shifted forward, putting herself in his personal space. He reminded her a little of Kerr, but just enough to be interesting.

He was still over a head taller than her. He looked down at her thoughtfully. “You can get me out of here?”

“Oh, that part’s easy.” She gestured at Kurt, Cya’s teleporter this year. “The question comes afterward. You want to go to Cloverleaf, or you want to be mine?”

“I want to go to Cloverleaf,” the cow-horned one put in. “Don’t particularly want another collar, though.”

“I can get you to Cloverleaf. I can probably get you all to Cloverleaf.” She looked up at her target. “So?”

He looked away for a minute, but Sunny could already tell she’d hooked him. He nodded slowly. “Yeah. I want assurances, but give me those and I’ll be yours for a year.”

Sunny nodded solemnly. It hid her grin of triumph. “I brought some paper so we can write something up.”

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