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inventrix‘s piece Thank You and my response piece, you might want to check the DW comments of my response for the continuing story.
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Posted here.
This is a story of Doomsday and Fae Apoc, written much-belatedly for January, whose theme was “I’m writing a lot of Doomsday.”
The village Damson had grown up in had three scars which were never painted over, never repaired, never hidden, and it had four portraits in the Village Center which, unlike the portraits of Mayors and short-term heros, were never moved or rotated to less prominent positions.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/935180.html. You can comment here or there.
This is a story of Doomsday and Fae Apoc, written much-belatedly for January, whose theme was “I’m writing a lot of Doomsday.” Posted to WordPress as part of my ongoing “cross post everything to WordPress for archiving” project.
~~
The village Damson had grown up in had three scars which were never painted over, never repaired, never hidden, and it had four portraits in the Village Center which, unlike the portraits of Mayors and short-term heroes, were never moved or rotated to less prominent positions.
Damson had grown up with the stories: the Warrior That Comes With the Wind, the Storm Prince of Death, the Judgement On the Lightning. He had grown up with the old fighters – Galston and Tamera, Corby and Rodin – and their scars and their stories. He had taken classes in the Village Center, under the shifting and changing face of the Demon Prince, the the devil’s own smile constant, the rest shifting with the painter and the era.
And he had grown up with the deep scar across the town square where lightning had struck, the bite out of the outer wall where a dragon had landed, and the long scorched line of fire across the general store’s front. “The Storm Prince fought here,” he’d heard, more times than he could count. “Four times he has visited – one in his aspect as the Harbinger of Doom, the Woman on the Wind. Four times he has visited. And, while he has pulled our bacon from the fire many times, he has found us wanting many more. Beware the Storm Prince, because he will see the sin in your soul and scourge it clean.”
There were bodies in the local graveyard, too, Damson knew, who had been found too wanting by the Wind-Warrior. Those were graves with small stones and apologetic epitaphs. There were families who cursed the portraits of the Demon Prince – and Damson’s widowed mother and grandmother were among them. You had to whisper your curses, but Damson had picked them all up nonetheless.
And now he was standing in the center of the much-vaunted Doomsday Academy, in Cloverleaf, the City Built from Dirt. And he was staring up at the chin of the Demon Prince, while Professor Doomsday introduced him.
“And this is Leofric, Professor Inazuma. He teaches science, math, and combat. Leo, this is our newest student, Damson…”
Damson kicked the Demon Prince square in the knee and took off, running as fast as he could.
Transcribed as best as I could manage from talking-to-myself on the way home last night. All new students.
“Well, I’m going to be cy’Lightning. It’s obvious I’m meant to have Professor Inazuma as my Mentor.” Hadley leaned forward, her elbows on her knees.
Her friends were not quite as charmed.
“Because you want to stab people with sharp things?” Farina giggled at the idea.
“Because you’re going to be really good with lightning?” Aquilo raised sculpted eyebrows.
“Because you’re really fascinated by Old-Japan history?”
“No!” Hadley sulked. “No, because he’s lovely and I am destined to be closer to him, that’s why.”
“Oh, come on.” Aquilo tsked, smirking. “It’s obvious he’s gay.”
“You don’t know that! Just because you like him…!”
“No, he’s not my sort. And come on, it’s – you know. You know know, when you’re gay.”
“Oh, good. More of your magical gay powers.” Farina grumbled. “Next thing we know, you’re going to be levitating the professors.”
“Well, I might,” Aquilo tsked. “I haven’t Changed yet. But look, he’s gay.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Keala shook her head. “Haven’t you seen him with Professor Cynara? They’re obviously together.”
“No. They’re not. He’s gay.” Aquilo sighed irritably. “Why can’t you accept that?”
“Haven’t you met Maihallr? She’s Professor Inazuma’s daughter with Professor Doomsday. And it’s not like Sweetbriar is quiet about her family, and she’s Professor Cynara and Professor Inazuma’s granddaughter. They have two generations of children together. Two Generations. They’re obviously in love.” Keala shook her head, as if at everyone’s idiocy.
“Uh! What does this have to do with me being cy’Lightning? I mean, come on. It’s not like the rest of you don’t like professors, too.” Hadley threw herself backwards in the chair in frustration. “Come on, Farina. Admit it.”
“Well… I mean. Yeah. Professor Chthon. Have you seen him? Or heard him?”
“Mmm.” It was a group sound: Professor Chthon was gorgeous, with a deep, throaty voice.
“And Aquilo?” Hadley pushed.
“Oh, you all know. Professor Aegislaw.” He shook his head sadly.
“But isn’t he…” Farina’s gesture was unclear, but everyone knew what she meant.
Aquilo sighed. “Yes. So very very straight. But that doesn’t mean I can’t lust after him. I mean, come on, it’s not like either of you have a chance for anything serious, either, with the Professors – even if Professor Inazuma somehow isn’t gay. Or in love with Professor Doomsday.” He shrugged defensively and flailed in the only direction left. “What about you, Keala?”
“Not a professor.” She hunched her shoulders. “Not into that. Too old. I mean, come on, you said it. Professor Inazuma and Professor Doomsday have two generations of kids. They’re a bit older than we are.”
“Then who?” Hadley was still sulking, but she was leaning forward again. “Come on, Kee, everyone else told, and you always keep so many secrets. Come onnnn.“
It was Keala’s turn to flop back in her chair. “Ejnar,” she muttered under her breath. “Ejnar cy’Underground.”
inventrix wrote this piece “as a thematically similar partner” to the above story. 😀 😀 😀
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/932438.html. You can comment here or there.
In response to inventrix‘s piece Thank You, & will make much more sense if you go there first. Cya/Leo, Doomsday era.
There were things Cya had always known, and never, ever thought about concretely enough to put into words.
There were other things she had put into words merely to stop thinking about them.
Thus: She might have said a thousand times, a hundred thousand times, that “I’m just around to keep you guys alive.” She had said it, smiled affectionately and reminded Leo of this responsibility or that facet of reality, and moved on to the next task.
But never, never in decades of saying “I’m here to keep you alive,” or “get back here before you get your stupid ass killed,” or any of the other exasperated things she’d said, never had she thought Leo was listening, and never had she allowed herself to really think about the words.
To think about Leo not coming back.
To think about him going down a path she could not follow.
She caught a sob before it came out, but the second one was too quick. “I…” She didn’t want to cry in front of Leo. She didn’t do that, she didn’t cry where anyone could see her.
She was crying. Still, she met his eyes. “I… I’ll accept your thanks for that,” she managed. He was watching her with worried eyes. She tried to pull herself together. “I -” She had known this man for almost her entire life, and she was flustered beyond belief. She sat down slowly. “Leo, you’re welcome… but.” But what? “But giving you a teaching job here…” She managed a smile. It was anemic, but she was smiling. Smiling was good. “You know I like having you around, right?” She flapped her hand, dismissing all the petty things they could say. “I like having you around. Giving you a teaching job – well, it just killed two birds with one stone.”
It turned out kill was exactly the wrong word to say to herself right then. She choked on a sob, mortified, peeking up through her lashes at Leo like they were teenagers again.
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First: Visiting Doomsday
Previous: Science & Getting Schooled.
“You teach there?” The girl was staring at him. Luke twitched his wings and met her gaze. She was maybe thirteen or fourteen, a bit of baby chub on her cheeks, and a face shape he’d seen before.
Addergoole had had something like two thousand students; he’d seen any number of faces, even if a tenth of them had looked like Aelfgar and another tenth like Ambrus. He couldn’t place the face. But the glare was definite and right here in front of him.
He flapped his wings again. “I helped found Addergoole.” There was no point in denying it.
“You made that – that – that torture-hole, and they let you walk around like a person?”
“LaKeziah.” Leo cut in, sounding adult and stern. “You can talk to sa’Hunting Hawk after class.”
“Oh, I’ll talk to him.” She gave him a nice long glare before turning back into her seat, muttering things about torturers and baby factories.
Luke pulled his wings in tight. At the front of the classroom, Leo shifted his posture. “As I was saying, Luke sa’Hunting Hawk was my Mentor, back in the Dark Ages when I was a student.” He smiled at the class, inviting them to take part in the joke.
Some of them chuckled. Some were staring at LaKeziah. One of them, a ginger boy with wide, blue eyes, was staring at Luke. He nodded politely at the boy and turned his attention back to Leo.
“He taught me how to fight.”
Leo nodded at Luke. Luke nodded back again, feeling like a bobble-head.
This was not putting on a good show. Mike would glare at him. Luke cleared his throat. “Ah. Yeah. I teach martial arts, physical education, self-defense, and basic weapons training at Addergoole. Your professor Inazuma was my student, back before the…” the world ended. But it hadn’t, had it? Not for these kids, who could have grandparents born after the conflict. Luke coughed. “Back before the Collapse.”
One of the kids, the ginger one, saved him. “What was it like? Back then?”
“Well – if it’s okay with Professor Inzuma?”
“Sure, of course.” Leofric pulled up a chair. “Chemistry will still be here tomorrow – probably.”
“Probably.” Luke took a chair from an empty desk and sat backwards in it. “You all know that fae – Ellehemaei – live a long time, right?” He saw nods, even from the angry girl. LaKeziah. He needed to remember that name. “So I was born over two hundred years before the Collapse, and my friend Mike was born more than two hundred years before that.”
The ginger boy was counting on his fingers. “So… before the discovery of America?”
“Before the white man discovered America, yes.” Luke grinned. “I think Nehara’s people – and some of mine – would say it had already been plenty discovered.”
The ginger kid coughed. “Sorry, sir. Just – that’s a long time.”
“Maybe if he’s very good, I’ll have Mike visit you.”
“Don’t you mean ‘if we’re very good?”
Luke found his grin stretching. “Nope. Not when it comes to Mike.”
“That one’s never good,” LaKeziah grumbled. Luke ignored her, in part because it too close for comfort. He nodded at the ginger kid instead. “So… what was your name?”
“Rueben, sir.”
“So, Rueben, it really is a long time. And it’s a really long time when you’re looking at the way civilizations rise and fall.” He looked around the room, both at the students and at the room itself. “I was born in a longhouse, before telephone, television, running water, or electricity. And here we are, where most places don’t have any of those things again.”
One of the other children shifted in her seat. Luke nodded at her. She had deep green eyes and dark brown hair. “You have a question, Miss?”
“Banyan, sir. It’s… was there really a time when everyone had telephones and running water? I mean, in the enclave where I grew up, they said those things had always been rationed.”
“I’m beginning to think the enclaves teach a lot of bad history.” Luke tried not to grumble it; it wasn’t the girl’s fault. “But the truth is, there was never a time when everyone in the world had electricity or running water. But when the collapse came – when the Old Gods came back through the rifts from Ellehem – there were something like seven billion people on the planet.”
He watched their faces. They hadn’t flinched at Old Gods, although some of them made various gestures of protection. One girl even crossed herself. But at seven billion people, they balked.
“No way.” Reuben shook his head. “Seven billion? Professor Lily said three hundred million.”
“Don’t be a dork, Reuben.” One of the other boys in the year punched the ginger boy in the arm. “She said three hundred million in America.“
“Oh.” Reuben sank back down in his seat. “Sorry, sir.”
“That’s quite all right.” Luke couldn’t help but smirk. “Lots of people have made the mistake of thinking America is the world. But now – the giant nations are gone. And ‘America’ isn’t a bastion of technology anymore.”
“Do you think it ever will be again, sir?” Banyan was leaning forward in her seat. Luke took a breath and gave the question the consideration it deserved.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/881337.html. You can comment here or there.
First: Visiting Doomsday
Previous: About cy’Doomsday.
Luke found his wings flattened to his back. “What does my wife have to do with anything?”
Nehara held up both her hands. “Not your wife, sir. Gabriel. It’s just that, of course Mystral talks to her father, and of course the professor talks to the rest of the teachers…” She shook her head. “I just wanted to say, you’re not as much of a cipher, sir, as you might think. I did some studying.”
“I am beginning to guess that I should have expected that.” Mike would say he’d gotten his feathers ruffled. Luke took a breath and tried to smooth himself down. “What did you learn?”
“You know,” she changed the subject with a bright smile, “I think maybe there’s someone you need to see before you see Professor Lily’s class.”
“Not Gabriel? I see plenty of him.”
She chuckled politely. “No, sir-“
Luke coughed. “By this point, I think it’s probably politer if you call me by name.”
“Certainly, sa’Hunting Hawk.”
Luke flopped against the wall, acknowledging with a wry salute that she’d won that round. “You were saying?”
“I think you ought to see Professor Inazuma’s class. He’d be very disappointed if you traveled all this way and didn’t see him.” She took his hand and Luke, startled, let her. “This way, come on.”
“Yes, ma’am.” She was going to be a beautiful terror for someone or ones. When she was old enough. He resisted the urge to snatch his hand back. “Lead on.”
“Follow on, soldier.” There was something suddenly old about her voice. Luke focused on the school uniform, the red cloak and the plaid skirt. She was a kid. A student.
‘Fina had been a Student. Mystral had been a student.
Inazuma. Think of Leo. It was as good as thinking about baseball, and had the side effect of reminding Luke why he was here. “It’s been a while.”
She glanced back at him. “I imagine it has, sir.” She sounded as if she’d been through the wars. And Luke, of all people, knew what that would sound like. “I’ve heard some of the stories, of the war.” She glanced down at the ground.
“Yeah.” Luke let out a breath in a huff. “Yeah. His class is -” The school was quiet, the students already in their next class.
“Right here. First floor. Science building. Well, science and math, though sometimes we call it the Alchemy building.”
There was clearly a joke there, from her smile, but Luke had asked for more than enough explanation already. “Onward,” he said, hoping this wasn’t going to blow up in his face.
Nehara watched him for a moment, seemed to brace herself, and opened the door.
Luke was too busy paying attention to his guide’s body language – now, now she had to brace herself? – and thus almost missed where they were.
Leo’s enthusiastic “Luke!” brought him right back. “Luke! I didn’t know you were coming!”
“Surprise visit.” He couldn’t help but smile, and, at that, he noticed Nehara was smiling as well. He turned his attention on Leo. “So, I hear Professor Inazuma has a reputation around here.”
Stupid, stupid. He wasn’t here to challenge the kid. He folded his wings and kept talking before Leo could take too much offense. “It looks like you’ve done good things here.”
Mike would have been proud of him. Well, probably not, considering he’d made the mess in the first place, but Leo grinned. “Isn’t it awesome? Nehara’s been showing you around?”
“She has.” He nodded at Nehara. “It’s been quite the education.” He looked around the classroom. “Science, then?”
“Earth science! We’re studying climate and weather today. Do you want to sit in?”
Luke glanced at Nehara, who shrugged cheerfully. “Yeah. That sounds fun.” Much to his surprise, there was a chair waiting near the back that could comfortably accommodate his wings.
“Great! All right, class, this is Luca Hunting-Hawk. He was my Mentor back in school…”
“In Addergoole?” A dark-skinned girl in the front row turned to stare at him. Luke didn’t see any Changes – but that could mean anything. “You teach at Addergoole?“
Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/881337.html
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I hope I got him right I hope I got him right
“Solon? Solon Dragon-Chaser?” Leo was leaning over Cya’s shoulder, looking at her list of parents-of-potential-students. “Solon Dragon-Chaser, hunh. Surprised he’s still alive.”
“The people in the town he’s in called him Scholar Solon.”
“Yeah. Heh.” Leo leaned back, smiling. “We called him that, too, or Doctor Solon. He had always read a book on something, whatever we were fighting.”
Cya resisted taking notes. “What happened to him?”
“He went off to one of those enclaves, you know, the ones in the middle of the old cities? Up north somewhere, I think. Something about a woman.” Leo trailed off, staring off into space.
Cya didn’t know what to do when he did that, had never known, so she did what had served her well for decades: ignored it. “The clerk in their town – it’s a farm town now, one of the ones that stayed out of the war and pretty much didn’t change except the walls?”
“Mmm.” Presumably, Leo had seen those, but, just as presumably, some place that bordered itself against gods and bandits alike had not been high on his visiting rota when he’d been monster-hunting. Cya didn’t like to ask, and so she didn’t.
“Well, the clerk was very helpful. I told him I was looking up family that had gotten scattered.” It was a story that served her well in some towns, the ones less scarred and thus less suspicious. “She’ll be ten in July.”
“Solon Dragon-Chaser’s daughter?” Leo grinned. “Yes!”
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