Tag Archive | character: mike

Linden-Flower Tea

Dec18

This came about because of a box of tea my roommate just showed me. 😉
It helps to know that Mike is Mike VanderLinden, whose original use-name is Linden-Flower.
Shira is Professor Pelletier; Maureen is Lady Maureen Foxglove. All three are staff at Addergoole.

It had started as a dirty joke between Shira and Maureen, shared over their third or fourth beer one late night in Mau’s Tavern.

“Well,” Shira had been laughing, “if all else fails, there’s Linden Flower tea for what ails you.”

“Unless it’s lindens that ail you, of course.” Maureen had smirked over her beer and they had moved on to more tree metaphors.

Shira had forgotten the whole thing until Christmastime, when a box of linden-flower tea had shown up under her tree. Once that had been done, though, the gauntlet had been thrown and it was on.

Linden scented oil. Linden sachets. Little linden-leaf-embroidered towels. “Good for what ails you.”

“Unless the lindens are ailing you.” Not that Mike was ever what actually ailed them, Maureen and Shira. They had their weaknesses, neither would deny it, but vain and vapid Daeva were not on either’s list.

After a while, it creeped into Shira’s everyday vocabulary. She had a student who was having some issues with body image, and, in speaking to Caitrin, suggested the boy might want some linden-flower tea for what ailed him. Another year, she suggested it to Laurel, when she and Wysteria were having a falling-out in their invisible relationship. Once, she even said it to a student.

“I don’t know. It’s just the whole idea is a little nerve-wracking. I get all the urges, but then I start getting scared and over-thinking everything…”

“Have you considered some linden-flower tea?” In Shira’s defense, it had been a long week. She covered it quickly, segueing into something else before coming back to the suggestion more directly.

But in all those years, it never occurred to her – and possibly not to Maureen, either – that the target of their joke was aware of it.

Until she found a box of tea under her tree again that Christmas, with a note attached:

Don’t bother with the infusion, come straight to the solution. ~M~

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Inflicting Change

Dec11

To Sky’s request to this call for Addergoole prompts.

Between Years 19 and 20 of the Addergoole School

Luke’s voice still wasn’t up to par, but he had gone to the wedding, of course. His Student had invited him – and she and Hayden deserved this, more than Luke had words for, even when his voice was properly working.

When he came back, Mike was waiting for him. “I’ve been thinking.”

It had been the years for it. Regine had been meddling more than normal; she had pushed them to meddle more than normal. What had resulted was a cluster fuck that, if they were lucky, the students affected would eventually forgive them for.

“Me, too. I’ve got an idea.”

They didn’t need much more conversation than that; they had known each other for quite a while. A few more words, a plan, and then it was Mike (who still had a voice, who had not been shouting at Regine until he was hoarse) who presented it.

“You need Students.”

“I have had Students in the past.” Regine’s normally-calm-and-collected voice and still body posture did not change much, but there was a tilt in her head and a minute quaver in her voice.

“You had one Student, Regine. We mean a full cy’ree – at least four students – every year.”

“This will take time from my other projects.”

“This school is your project.” Mike’s voice rose up a little louder, a littler firmer. Luke watched with interest. It hadn’t been the Daeva doing the shouting – but he had a feeling he’d missed some things along the way.

He’d missed a lot, this year; he’d gotten enmeshed in one Student’s concerns.

He coughed, and tried for a quiet voice, because nothing louder was going to work anyway. “You need Students because you’re too far from the problems. You need to be emotionally invested.” He sounded like Maria. Well, there were worse people to sound like.

“I do not become emotionally invested. It is part of my strength.”

Mike fielded that one. “It’s become the school’s weakness, Regine. You focus on the theoretical and ignore the human.”

“We are none of us human.” Her voice was beginning to have inflection, and Mike’s was losing it.

“And that, Regine, is the problem in a nutshell. Students. A real cy’ree, four or more. Every year.”

“And if I do not?”

They had been expecting this. Neither of them answered. A heartbeat passed. Another. Another.

“Very well.” Regret and something that Luke could not identify tinged her voice. “Four or more Students. Every year, beginning this September.”

It was only a beginning, but it was that, at least.

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Positions A through “Speak,” a drabble of Addergoole post-apoc

Nov10

After Present.

Um, this was supposed to be kink but turned out to be a little disturbing.

Post-apoc Addergoole, Mike VanderLinden

“Kneel.”

The boy fell to his knees, looking at the floor. His face wasn’t so much slack as it was carefully without expression. The only way Mike could find anything in him was to read his emotions.

“Good boy. Pose A.”

With just as little expression, he shifted his body, arms folded behind his back, forehead down to the ground. It rose his ass up in the air beautifully. Mike had used that, on occasion, over the last couple weeks.

“That’s a good boy. Fours, Pose B.”

As if he was doing a dance, the boy – Laudanum, he had a name, and it would do Mike good to remember it – shifted his ass um, his hands to the ground, until he was straight-backed and perfectly posed in that position.

“Stand on your head.” Mike was feeling a little bit silly.

Laudanum was not. He kicked his feet up, over, caught himself on the wall and managed a nearly-perfect handstand.

“You’re a very good boy. Come down, and at ease.” It was easy to say at ease. There was something about Laudanum that made it a lot harder to be at ease. “Come down.” Mike patted her lap, and, obediently, as always, the boy pillowed his head there. “You’re a lovely boy.”

The boy said nothing.

“Speak freely.”

“Mistress?” He tilted his head to look at her. “Thank you, Mistress, but… freely? About what? I don’t know what you’d want me to speak on. I don’t know what would make you happy.”

“It was not an order, Laudanum.” She stroked his hair. “It was an offer. To speak about whatever pleased you.”

The boy pursed his lips. A moment later, and clearly, even without her power, obviously uncomfortable, he tried something else. His voice, she noted, cracked. It usually did, actually.

“I prefer to remain quiet, Mistress. It… it pleases me to be quiet.”

And there, there was what made it hard to be at ease.

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Present

Mar12

There were things Mike expected to come home to during the summer.

Students, sometimes – the trusted ones, with the invitation to his public home areas.

Desserts and other treats.

Once in a while, a co-worker, who needed stress relief or a shoulder or just wanted to hang out.

Flowers, some times, when said stress relief, etc., had been very appreciated.

What Mike did not expect to find – on the floor, just inside the doorway – was a boi. Specifically, a boy, bound in iron ankle and wrist and collared in the same. A naked boy, kneeling on the tile of the entryway. With a tag attached to the collar.

Mike knelt down on the tile. He contemplated Masking, but, though the boy looked human, he was in the middle of the Village. Humans didn’t come here.

Michelle,

The name was a cue. Before the boy lifted his head, Mike shifted into a female form, wishing – for at least the twenty thousandth time – that she was any good at all with shaping Unutu.

I found this on my rounds. I have no idea what to do about him. As soon as you sign this paper, he’s yours.

Treat him well, Michelle. And don’t Keep him for too long.

Luca

Beneath his signature was a scribbled transfer of Ownership. Attached to the note was a pen.

“Laudanum, hrrm?”

The boy did not look up. Mike ignored ethics and dipped into probably-Laudanum’s emotions. She had to have some idea what was going on before she signed this.

Worry. Worry, want, anticipation, anticipation, anticipation! Worry, concern.

No fear. And the impatient anticipation smelled to Mike like arousal. “Well, then.” She signed the paper. “Laudanum, you’re mine.”

He didn’t speak, yet. Was he mute? Had Luca ordered him into silence? “Speak.”

The boy’s voice was rough, as if unused for a long time. “I’m yours.” Only then did he look up, his astonishingly green eyes meeting Mike’s. “Mistress.”

Luca did give her the most awesome presents.

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Looking, a continuation drabble of Addergoole @kissofjudas

Dec16

After Love. Approx. year 30 of the Addergoole School.

Shira had turned down the first four people Mike had brought to her.

Two of them had been older students, the other two late late entries into Regine’s breeding project – with the war making a mess of their lives, Regine had started bringing in whatever new blood she could find, and Mike was happily helping her repopulate the world. One of the students had been male, the other female; one of the Project ones had been female, the other hermaphroditic.

And Shira had said – later and in private – “No. Good try, but no.”

And Luke was still obnoxiously in love, and even more obnoxiously entirely oblivious to that fact.

“Professor?”

Mike glanced up at the voice. There was unsurprisingly, a student standing there. Skylla. Mike taught her, of course, in a Literature class – American Lit, this semester – where she was quiet unless prompted but eloquent and off-beat when questioned. She was also, so far, a scruffy tomboy who hadn’t yet decided what she would be as an adult. No the sort Mike normally pursued. He’d assumed she’d end up Laurel’s or Doug’s, or possibly Sang Ki’s.

But she was standing in his doorway, radiating concern and need so badly that Mike didn’t need to focus on his empathy to understand it.

“Come on, Skylla. How can I help you?”

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Love, a drabble of Mike VanderLinden for @kissofJudas

Dec14

Approx. year 30 of the Addergoole School, a Friday-night staff party. Just about 10 years before the Myst/Luke drabbles. Yes, Luke is slow.

“Luke’s in love.” Mike stared at her drink. “I hate when he’s in love.” Her drink was, inexplicably, empty.

“You have such a wide data set to know that from?” Shira Pelletier poured Mike another drink.

“Yes.” She chugged the drink, and sulked at its emptiness again. “He’s been in love three times before, and each time it’s sucked.”

“Even when it was your daughter?” This time, Shira filled the glass with a clear liquid. Mike sniffed it: water.

“Even when it’s my daughter.” Mike flopped backwards onto the couch, her head in Shira’s lap. Shira petted nicely. It was a pity sh really didn’t want anything to do with Mike. The Daeva couldn’t figure that one out. Wasn’t she pretty enough?

“Well, Mike, I think you need a distraction. Because if the last time is any indication, it’s going to take Luke at least a decade to figure this one out.”

“I’m going to need a lot of distractions.”

“Or one persistent one. You could fall in love too, you know.”

Mike peeked up at Shira, but she wasn’t talking about herself. “Anyone in mind?”

“Nobody yet. But bring them to me, when you find them, and I’ll tell you if you’re on the right track.”

“You’re going to screen my dates?” Yes, she was serious. Smiling at him, but smiling with that just-watch-me sort of expression.

“Not your dates, Meckil. Not your bed buddies. But the one you should fall in love with? Yes, I will screen them.”

“What if there isn’t anyone?”

“Oh, Mike. You have to start looking before you can decide you’re not going to find anyone.”

“Yes, ma’am.” What else was there to say?

next (and on LJ)

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