Tag Archive | character: luke

Education and Collars, a further continuation

A Change in Routine
inventrix‘s Let’s Pretend
Class is in Session
A Brief Reunion
inventrix‘s Unexpected Visitor
Lessons in the Dojo
inventrix‘s from RP logs

Dinner with Leo had been… Interesting. Educational, Luke decided, like every visit to the Ran- to Boom’s place. Wherever Boom’s places were.

For one thing, it had taught him that he needed to visit Howard, or maybe talk Shira into doing so.

For another, it had taught him he owed Apollo an apology. So, sitting in Cynara’s living room while Cynara and Leo made small talk about their students, he looked Apollo in the eye. “I shouldn’t have split your crew up. I’m sorry.”

There was a pause while Apollo processed that. Then, “Yeah. No biggie, I guess.” Apollo tugged on his collar and looked away.

Luke coughed. That. “I’m not going to apologize for asking jae’Red Doomsday to Keep you.”

Apollo glanced at him sideways. “Why not?”

“Because you needed it. Because being here is good for you.” He could see Apollo readying a scoff. He kept talking. “I failed you as a Mentor. But I’ve seen what Cyna- Cya can do as a Keeper.”

“Yeah? Have you seen her collar collection?”

Luke snorted. “I’ve watched her pick her Kept for the last sixty years. If I were Regine I could tell you their survival percentages…”

“Please don’t,” Cynara murmured. When Luke glanced over, she was once again chatting to Leo about something one of their Students had done.

“…I can’t. I’m not that good at numbers. But I’d bet you anything it’s higher than that of the rest of the Addergoole grads.”

“Anything?” Apollo leaned forward, a fierce twist of an expression on his face. “Would you bet a year under this collar yourself?”

Cynara and Leo stopped talking. For a moment, it seemed to Luke that the entire city stopped talking.

It was a fair question. He glanced over at Cynara, only to see that she was studiously watching a patch of wall over Leofric’s shoulder.

“Well,” he started to hedge, “there’s the problem of my teaching job…” No. He needed to give the kid a fair answer. “Yeah. Yeah, I’d be willing to gamble that.” Mike would kill him. Slowly. But it wasn’t like there was much danger of it. “But are you sure jae’Doomsday is interested in being gambled with?”

Apollo glanced guiltily back at his Keeper. “Um. Well. She Keeps someone every year. You said it.”

“All students just out of Addergoole, all of them. Hell,” he added with some frustration, “there was a good chance she would have picked you up without my intervention.” The boy certainly had the look, and that was something Luke wasn’t going to say out loud in front of any of the three of them. “I’m not exactly her type.”

“She doesn’t need a ‘type’,” Apollo retorted with some frustration. “She has Leo and Howard.”

Oh. Well. Luke coughed. “Anyway. Yes. I’d be willing to gamble on that if jae’Doomsday would be willing to be gambled with.”

And the dead gods help him if he was wrong.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1038122.html. You can comment here or there.

Lessons in the Dojo, a continuation of a continuation

Dec31

A Change in Routine
inventrix‘s Let’s Pretend
Class is in Session
A Brief Reunion
inventrix‘s Unexpected Visitor

Luke had been curious who this Nanaya was that could get Apollo training against haybales. As it turned out, she was an Amazonian strawberry-blonde woman with an easy smile and a mischievous lift to her eyebrow. Watching her run through kata with the other students, Luke was willing to bet she was deadly in a fight.

He noted, too, that although most of Leo’s students managed to hide their surprise when he called Leo jae’ – as was right, he reminded himself; he still had a couple centuries on Lightning Blade – Nanaya just smiled more broadly. She’d be an interesting one to hunt alongside.

That was a thought for another day, and probably for some other world. He was here to see Apollo and Leo, and he was talking to Leo.

“I’ll be starting class in a few minutes; would you like to stay and watch?” Leo had grown up somewhere along the way. Luke had seen it the last few times he visited Cloverleaf, and yet he still found himself surprised by it every time.

“I’d love to.” Luke smiled. “I hear you’ve got some interesting tricks here.”

“Oh, well-“

“They’re sneaky,” Apollo interrupted, half in awe and half in complaint. “You think they’re coming up to your left and then all of a sudden, boom.”

Luke chuckled ruefully. “Sounds like a hunt, doesn’t it?” He raised his eyebrows at Leo. “It doesn’t usually work well with my Students, but I remember when you were training with Ciara.” His expression slipped. He wanted to be proud of her, he really did, but…

…another day, another world. “It’s a good thing to learn.” He pulled the conversation back to the dojo. “The Nedetakai and the monsters don’t usually fight fair, do they?” He was talking to Leo, but his words were still aimed at Apollo.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1036114.html. You can comment here or there.

A Brief Reunion, a story bit of Doomsday

Dec31

A Change in Routine
inventrix‘s Let’s Pretend
Class is in Session

Regine had sent Luke for the kid because he was in a bad neighborhood, as far as their data could discern, he was a descendant of Aelfgar, and he was male.

It made as much sense as most of her decisions, so Luke had armed up, tapped their current staff teleporter, and headed into the wasteland that had once been St. Paul.

It had been surprisingly easy to find the kid; Luke had followed the shouting and found a scrawny, filthy, sunburnt kid holding a stick in each hand and fending off three grown men. Not from himself, Luke quickly noticed; the kid was protecting three smaller children who were, it seemed, roasting a pigeon over a small fire.

“Hey!” Luke had absolutely no problem getting everyone’s attention. “Let’s even this fight up!” He noticed the moment where the kid thought he was going to attack him, and the way the boy’s stance, untrained as it was, shifted.

Me or Shou, he decided, although they were supposed to let the kids choose their own mentors. This one would need training if he was going to survive more fights like this.

When the boy – who everyone called Pony – refused to leave until Luke promised not only to find a safe place for the kids he was protecting, but also to help Pony find his mother and the kids’ mothers, if they were still alive, Luke amended the decision to mine. The kid had Mara instincts. They were going to need a lot of honing.

Maybe he should have let the kid go with Shou.

Luke had been chewing that thought over for well over a year now; by the end of Apollo’s third year, it’d been clear that there were some holes in his education that he had no interest in filling. By the end of his fourth year, Luke had on his hands an Adult – but an Adult it would be a crime to send out into the world.

Cy’Luca had taught Apollo how to fight – but every heroic, stupid, suicidal impulse had just been reinforced by the cy’ree and, unfortunately, by Luke himself. The kid was too full of himself, and any lectures otherwise came out as hypocrisy and worse.

So Luke had asked Cya Red Doomsday to clean up his mess.

It had been a few months, and the guilt was beginning to eat at him. So Luke visited Cloverleaf – walking in, like a normal person – and asked around until he found Red Doomsday’s Latest Kept.

He found him in the pasture, sparring with a haybale. Luke watched for a minute or two, noting that the kid’s technique had improved, that the frown of concentration was the same, that he was putting on color and keeping his muscle tone, and that his tempero huamu was definitely getting better. The haybale moved almost like a person.

“Keep your guard up, you’re leaving your left open,” he barked, both because he couldn’t help himself and because he wanted to let Apollo know he was there.

Apollo nodded, lifted up his off-hand dagger-stick, and lunged into a tricky stab-and-roll that Luke definitely hadn’t taught him. When he came up to his feet again, the haybale settled into an unmoving pile.

“Nanaya keeps doing this thing with her off-hand weapon. It’s tricky, and I haven’t quite figured it out yet.” He pushed his hair out of his face and settled into a more still position. “Sa’Hunting Hawk.”

There was a quietness to his body language that Luke certainly hadn’t managed to teach him. “jae’Sun-fire.” He nodded politely. “Nanaya?”

“She’s cy’Inazuma, one of his best students. I’m still figuring out how to beat her.” Apollo shifted hie weight from his front foot to his back. “Why are you here, sir?”

Luke sighed. “I wanted to check up on you. See how you were doing.”

Apollo tugged on the collar around his neck. “Still Kept.”

“She has only once in her entire history Kept someone for more than a year, and she’s never Kept anyone for less than a year.”

“There’s always another chance to be an anomaly, then.” Apollo smirked. “She might get sick of me, or she might decide I’m hopeless.”

“Last time, the world was ending.” Luke allowed himself a grim smile. “Let’s hope that doesn’t happen again.”

“We found Olindo.” The change in topic came with a shift in posture. He sheathed his wooden practice weapons.

Luke fought down the instinct to move into a combative position and stayed casual, wings folded, hands loose. “Yeah?” The kid’s crewmate had been less than happy with Luke over Apollo’s Keeping.

“You shouldn’t have split us up.” Apollo twisted his lips in something almost like a smile. “We’re too stupid on our own.”

Nanaya cy’Inazume
BASICS
The character is female.
6 ft. 3 in. tall
slim build
cropped short perfectly straight strawberry blonde hair
blue-grey eyes
light skin
Their eyes is notable in some way.

CHANGE
They have a large feline Change.
Significant physical Changes include: eye color
Their innate ability allows them to attract weather in some way.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1035741.html. You can comment here or there.

A Change in Routine, a story (beginning) for @InspectrCaracal

Jul2

Luke was waiting for Cya at the fence around Lady Maureen’s.

She was, she’d admit, predictable, but never in the sixty years that she’d been doing this had Luke stopped her. Talked to her, yes. Chatted, asked questions, sometimes even second-guessed her choices.

Something was different in his posture this time. There was something about the set of his feet and the spread of his wings that told her he wasn’t going to wait patiently, and he wasn’t here to chat.

Cya shifted her own posture, making sure she could feel the weight of every weapon she carried. She couldn’t win a fight with Luca Hunting-Hawk, certainly not on his territory. But she could make sure she got away and survived long enough to call in Boom.

He stepped forward. “Cya.”

“Sir.” She noticed, then, that he had his body and wings angled oddly. Hiding something? “Nice weather this year.”

“I have something for you.”

That’s what I’m worried about. “Sir?” He never had been great at small talk.

“I’m not something!” The complaint came from behind Luke; he shifted, folded his wings, and hauled a young man in front of him.

He was blonde, with a look Cynara recognized well – the chin, the nose, although the eyes were different. He looked more like Howard than like Leo, but they often did. And he looked not very close to either of them — but that made sense, because it’d been generations, and not every child of Aelfgar could’ve managed to have children with a sibling.

Unlike any of her favorite Aelf-get, he had a crown of horns radiating out of his blonde curls like a sunburst. Like many of them, he was wearing a seemingly perpetual scowl.

“Cya Red Doomsday, this is Apollo the Sun-fire. Apollo, this is the woman I was telling you about.”

Cya raised her eyebrows. “I don’t really do unwilling, Luke.” She couldn’t miss the way the Hawk’s fingers were pressing into the boy’s forearm.

“You used to.”

“I used to be a child. We were all children, once.” This conversation was not going where she’d thought it would. “I grew up.”

“That’s the problem.” He pushed Apollo forward; the boy tried to resist, but Luke was a force of nature. “This one didn’t. He managed to sit through four years of Addergoole and I don’t think he learned a damn thing, not the important stuff. He’s going to get himself killed out there.”

“He’s right here.” Apollo shifted as far away from Luke as the grip on his arm would allow. “And I’ll be fine. Look, I know how to fight. I’ll be able to take on anything I run into out there.”

Cya sighed quietly. “I see what you’re saying. But the thrill of the fight got old a long time ago, Luke, and I have my hands full.”

Apollo leered at her. “I’ll give you a fight, Lady.”

“Red Doomsday.” Luke’s voice grew soft and formal. “I am fond of this idiot, and he was my student. I am asking you a favor, that perhaps you might succeed where I have failed. It is not a small favor, and I pay my debts.”

Cya let that hang in the air. She looked the boy, pout, spikes, blonde hair, up and then down again.

“You.” She nodded at the kid. “You Belong to me for the next year.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/957294.html. You can comment here or there.

I Should Visit, a story of Regine/Addergoole/Doomsday

May20

The one date reference in this currently sets it in 2053, year 59 of the Addergoole School and 11 of Doomsday Academy. However, I may move it a little later, to coincide with a project Inventrix & I are considering, one said Inventrix wakes up to consult. 🙂

Regine had a tendency to come to decisions slowly – not because she was in any way stupid, but because she liked to consider all angles of an issue and, on non-critical matters, saw no reason to go quickly. (In that, she was much like the old Grigori that had raised her, a fact Luke would not mention out loud or even think loudly where anyone might overhear it.)

Because of this, she often took long enough to reach a decision that Luke, having already gone through a much more blunt-object style of thought, was taken by surprise by the time she announced her results.

“I believe I should visit this ‘Doomsday Academy’, she announced, over a dinner shared between their crew.

Luke nearly choked on his beer. Regine raised her sculpted eyebrows at him.

“You have visited several times by now, haven’t you? And Michael here has visited so often that they have named a new drink after him. It is a project by an Addergoole graduate, and thus I have a vested interest in visiting.”

Luke looked to Mike for help. Mike was laughing too hard to even try. “It’s a lovely idea,” he managed. “I think Regine should definitely visit Cloverleaf. I think she’d find it very enlightening.”

“It’s not your territory, Regine, and you were not exactly kind to her. She’s not going to be patient with you.” You’re going to get your nose bent out of joint, and you’re going to ask me to do something about it. Or, worse, you’re going to try to do something yourself.

She simply looked calm and unflappable. Of course. “Cynara is hardly going to attack me and risk bringing the wrath of Addergoole on her descendants. Even Boom is not that unstable.”

Luke spoke very carefully. “The problem is, Regine, that Cya has never, ever, been unstable. And–” He felt mildly hypocritical, considering how long it had taken him to figure all of this out. But perhaps she could learn from his stupidity. “–they’ve had fifty-three years since they first attended Addergoole.”

“That’s hardly anything compared to three centuries. Or… more.” She nodded at Mike.”

Luke sighed. “No. But it’s quite a bit compared to sixteen years. Regine, you insulted Cya quite deeply. And–“

“Surely, if she’s so sane, she’s gotten over the insult after this many years?”

“Regine, how long did it take you to get over a minor slight?” He was beginning to get very irritated. It was beginning to show. And she was just watching him, as if she didn’t understand the problem. “Look. Right now, because Mike and I have been friendly and respectful, Doomsday and Cloverleaf do not entirely hate Addergoole and the Village. Do you really want that to change?”

“I simply want to see this school which a graduate of my school has managed. I really fail to see the problem.”

Luke glanced at Mike. The Daeva had mostly sobered, but he nodded, so very faintly. Well, thanks, that was a load of help. “You are purposefully ‘failing’ to see the problem. At least let her know you’re coming.”

“Well, then, it wouldn’t be a very good assessment, would it?” Curse her, she was enjoying this. What was wrong with the woman?

Having one straw left, Luke grasped it. “Then, if you’re going to pretend this is some sort of academic test, take her Mentor.”

“I cannot see any reason not to do that.” She nodded, as if she was giving some great concession.

“Good.” Luke left the room before he did something someone would regret. Hopefully, Drake could keep things from getting too out of hand. Hopefully, Boom really had grown up as much as he thought they had.

Hopefully, Regine would grow up sometime soon.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/943967.html. You can comment here or there.

Answering, a continuation of Luke/Doomsday

Jan18

First: Visiting Doomsday
Previous: Some Perspective

Contains discussion of rape in the context of Addergoole..

It had been a good class. Leo’s kids had a lot of good questions, and Luke found that he really enjoyed answering them. It made him want to teach – not gym, not combat, not the earnest questions about the Right that some of his Students had, but an actual class.

Well, they had experts in their subjects for that. Luke was mostly an expert in skull-breaking.

Too soon, the class bell rang. Luke braced himself and nodded at the young, angry girl, LaKeziah. “You wanted to speak with me?”

“You bet I did!” She stood up, not having to rise up on her toes much to look Luke in the eye, and poked at his chest with one aggressive finger. “You have a lot to answer for, Mister.”

By now he’d been looking at her long enough to take a guess at her ancestry. “You’re Ilta’s daughter.” He paused for a moment, pulling up the memories. She hadn’t been Kept her first year, that hadn’t been… ah. “Your mother had some bad experiences at school, and, I admit, we didn’t catch the problems as soon as we should have.” He sat down again. “We try hard, but-”

“Don’t talk to me like I’m a child!”

Despite himself, Luke smiled. “I’m nearly three hundred years old. The people who built and run this school, I saw them as infants. I’ve seen your mother, her parents, and her grandparents as infants…”

“And you let them be raped and tortured? How can you do that!?”

Luke let his wings flare. “Let me assure you, I’ve never ‘let’ anyone be tortured.”

“And what about raped? Are you going to tell me you don’t condone rape, either?”

Luke took a breath, and then let it out, thoughtful. Finally, he spoke more quietly, and very carefully. “First, I’m not saying this to treat you like a child – but because you are younger than me. You understand the difference?”

LaKeziah looked like she wanted to argue, but gave him the honor of thinking about it. “All right. Yes.”

“In order to answer your question – really answer it – I need you to have context you don’t have right now.”

“I understand rape just fine!”

“I hope that’s not true.” Luke searched for inner calm and found it with more than a little difficulty.

“Either way, the definition – even the way it’s been thought of – has changed a lot in the last three hundred years. So I’m going to ask you to do something unpleasant.” He leaned forward. “Research the way the definitions have changed during that time.”

“What, you think that will change my mind?”

“No, I hope it doesn’t. But if we’re going to talk about this, I want to talk about it right.” He found his wings flaring uncomfortably. “You deserve an honest, complete answer.”

She leaned back. “Hunh. Why? I’m just a kid.”

“You asked a valid question, and it deserves and answer.” Luke pulled his wings in. “Even if I don’t like it.”

“Okay.” She nodded abruptly. “I’ll do it. When’ll you be back?”

“Two months from now.” He was pretty sure Cynara would let him back in the door. “I’ll bring my own research, too.”

She’d been ready to turn around; her head snapped back to look at him. “You? What do you need to research?”

Luke gave her a grim smile. “The way the definitions of rape have changed since I was a young man.” He folded his wings close. “Also – some things about ends and means.”

“Hunh.” This time, her look was far less sharp. “You’re a weird one.”

“I know.” He nodded his head to her. “It helps if you think of me as being out of my century.”

“No, no, it’s not that. I’ve met old fae before – even older than you.” She shrugged, brushing it off. “I’ll figure it out.”

“I’m sure you will.” He made a note to ask the rest of the staff about Ilta, when he got home. Then again, he had a lot to talk to his fellow teachers about. Cynara. Doomsday. What else had he missed?

Nehara settled her hand on his arm. “Would you like to see the rest of the grounds?”

He stretched his wings. “I think I could use some time to clear my head,” he agreed. “But you’re missing all your classes.”

“Oh, I’ll be fine. Everyone misses a little time now and then.” She flapped her hand. “It’s almost required.”

“This place seems more and more like a reaction to Addergoole,” he muttered.

Nehara turned to look at him, a little startled. “Well, of course it is. Why would you think it wasn’t?”

That was a good question. “Regine,” he said, piecing it together as he spoke, “said that Cynara wanted to be part of the Addergoole system.”

“Well, if the first two of every generation of my children had to go somewhere, I’d want to be involved, too. Wouldn’t you?” The smile she shot him was, for once, not friendly. “Of course, you are.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/886350.html. You can comment here or there.

Some Perspective, another part of Luke at Doomsday (@inventrix)

Jan7

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.

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Science & Getting Schooled, another part of Luke at Doomsday (@inventrix)

Dec17

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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Put me on a dollar cause I’m who they trust in, Doomsday/Addergoole (@inventrix)

Nov30

I can’t seem to quite put these in smooth sequence, but here by request is a piece after She’s a good sport I can spring her/for a Fin or even a sawbuck.

Bonus points if you can name the sources of lyrics for all three pieces in this series.

“They… they’re certainly doing well for themselves.” Luke flopped into one of Mike’s overstuffed armchairs, for once happy for the ridiculous luxury of his friend’s office. “The school seems stable. They seem to have thought of everything.”

He thought about Nehara saying If there’s one thing everyone knows about Red Doomsday, it’s that she’s prepared for everything and found himself smirking. “Mike, do you know why Drake named her Doomsday?”

“Red Doomsday? Cynara? I always figured she was the calm at the heart of the storm that was Boom. Is Boom.” Mike grimaced. “Who would’ve thought they’d last decades?”

“We’re still together, the three of us.”

“You two are too stubborn to change, and I like you both too much to leave. Besides, there’s the school.” Mike shrugged. “So, they’re doing okay?”

“They’re doing phenomenally. They grew up while we weren’t looking, Mike.”

“Kids do that.” Mike paused in the middle of a flippant hand gesture to study Luke’s face. “You mean it, don’t you? You really expected them to be the same?”

“Some people… some people really don’t change much. Like me.”

“Look, bird brain, if you think you haven’t changed, it’s only because you haven’t been paying attention. And the same thing with the kids – with any of the Students. They grow up after they leave here. All kids do.”

Luke flapped his wings. “When did you become so smart?”

“Somewhere while you were becoming a curmudgeon.”

There was nothing Luke could say that wouldn’t just prove Mike right, so, instead, he passed her crewmate the stack of bills. “They made currency.”

“Hey, they put you on the fifty.”

“Keep going.”

“That’s a good likeness of Howard on the twenty.”

“Keep going.” He found he was grinning. If he was going to be completely knocked off his feet by Boom and Cloverleaf, maybe he could at least get a smirk out of Mike.

“And… ah. Heh.” Mike snorted, then giggled, then guffawed. “The girl has balls, I’ll give her that.”

“I’d say it’s a good likeness of you.”

“And it’s on a booze bill, too. Lookit that.” Mike flipped over the Three-clover bill bearing his likeness to look at the depiction of a foaming mug of beer on the back. “Maybe I’ll have to go spend it.”

“I’m sure they’d be… pleased… to see you.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/856519.html. You can comment here or there.

She’s a good sport I can spring her/for a Fin or even a sawbuck (Doomsday, Luke, @inventrix)

Nov30

Directly after Similar Features, with longer hair. Notes:
We finally named the town. It’s Cloverleaf. That makes a lot more things make sense.
The mention of Regine comes from I Have This School
Leofric’s Change is… antlers,etc.

Luke shifted uncomfortably. He was, he noted, doing a lot of that on this visit. It made him feel young again, like he was dealing with Mike, back before he’d hit his first century. “It seems,” he said, trying to sound dry instead of nervous, “like you’re going out of your way to let me know that this place is a threat.”

“A threat?” Cynara raised both her eyebrows. “No. Sir, if we’d wanted to threaten Addergoole, we would have threatened Addergoole. But, as Director Regine so kindly pointed out, our great-grandchildren, and theirs, and so on, are still promised to that place.”

“You’ve made it clear you have no fondness for the place.” He found himself sitting very still, pressing down on the balls of his feet.

“I’ve made it clear that there are people who would rather have children that weren’t promised before they were born to a place they didn’t particularly enjoy.” Cynara was still smiling. Luke found that particularly discomfiting. “Remember, every one of us who went there, our parents – or grandparents, great-grandparents, and so on – signed us up. Not one of us had a choice.”

Luke relaxed fractionally. “I’ve heard that before. It – well, there are reasons, and there are excuses.”

“And those don’t change the facts. There are a good number of students who had a particularly shitty time at Addergoole, and I’ve met a good number that had a pleasant time, even good. Many of your cy’ree, for one.”

HE felt as if he was being thrown a bone, and couldn’t bring himself to pick it up. “And yet you’re populating your school with the children of those who didn’t like Addergoole.”

“Partially, partially. And, really.” She smiled brightly at him. “The ones who did like it send all their kids to Addergoole, or to Addergoole East. Look.” She reached into her desk drawer. Luke tensed again. He could take Cynara Red Doomsday, he was certain of it. But the cost would likely be astronomical.

She pulled out a small piece of paper and slid it across the desk to him. It was blue, about the size of an old American dollar bill… it looked a lot like paper currency, actually, with a complex engraved border. The denomination, he noted, was 50. Fifty whats?

Cloverleaf, the bill read, fifty clovers.

And then he finally got to the picture in the center.

“I think our mint got a pretty good likeness, don’t you?”

Luke flipped the bill over. A lovely picture of a stack of clothing – shoes included – greeted him.

“We call it the jeans, or the pants. The one-clover is still a buck.” She was grinning so widely, she had to be near exploding from not laughing.

Luke turned the bill back to the obverse. There was no denying it was a portrait of him, wings and all. “You’re not hiding your fae blood at all, are you?”

“No. No we’re not.” She was suddenly serious. “Look. That’s you on the fifty. Here’s Drake on the five hundred. And here.” She passed him a rose-colored three-clover bill, from which Mike’s – Michelle’s – smiling face greeted him. “The thing is….” She waited politely while Luke stifled a chuckle at the Mike bill. “The thing is, we had some bad at Addergoole, some of us. But we get it, too. We survived the apocalypse in large part because of what you taught us. We were together because Addergoole put us together. And we want to teach others what we learned, everything that helped us get that far.”

She passed him a small stack of multi-colored bills. The gold-colored “buck,” he noticed, featured Leofric, complete with rack of antlers. “We’re just trying to avoid the rape and mind control, as much as possible. I’d say, building on what you taught us, not threatening it.”

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Alder's Grove Fiction

The Worlds of Lyn Thorne-Alder