Tag Archive | Fae Apoc Vol 2

On the River

Feb13

This story is safe of all slavery and/or Ellehemaei Law, although it does include some small magic and a guy living through all of US history.

For Friendly Anon’s prompt.

This takes place from the late 1600’s through 2011

~*~

He’d built one of the first houses on the river, and tried to pretend it was his home, which he’d left so far behind.

At that time, there hadn’t been all that many people around, so he’d cut corners here and there – lots of here, and a little here, as his mother would have said – pulling up the beams, bending them from small trees into large ones with Workings, preserving those giant straight maple beams so that they would last forever.

He was no good with earth, so he’d moved the rocks for the foundation the hard way until another exile had come by, and then he’d traded favors – his skill with wood for Constance’s skill with stone. Their houses had looked like everyone else’s, but they were sturdy, solid, watertight, and built to last the ages.

After all, they were exiles in a strange land, and they didn’t know how long they’d be there.

He moved on, as the territories opened up, leaving the house to his son and Constance’s youngest daughter, with a promise of “you’re-always-welcome-Father” so he’d have a place to stay. He moved West slowly, looking for a place that felt like home, staying in a city for maybe thirty years, then heading back to visit his family and meet the newest generation, then heading out again, further west every time.

Gannon was fond of feminine companionship, and so he found himself making friends with women – usually human women – in each new territory, so that, after a century or so, making his way back to Albany took him quite a while, visiting every solid-beam house he’d built over the years, visiting each new generation of children. Telling them all sanitized stories of The Good Old Days, stories of the secrets he’d hidden in the houses, stories of their grandmothers, their grandfathers, of the way their city had been.

It took him from 2000 to 2011 to make it from Washington to Albany, and, at that, he rushed the last three family visits.

The house was still there, sitting on the Husdon next to Constance’s place, two stone-and-maple houses in tall, sturdy groves of maples and oaks. The city had grown around it, flowed around them like the river around rocks, the road bigger then he remembered it, the place a bit shabbier. There was a cemetery across the street; he remembered when there had been a church there. Down the road, there was a Kwik-E-Mart and a strip mall, but the stonework on the strip mall looked familiar. Constance? Or one of his descendants? The carving on the beams, too – Gannon recognized his own style, but not his own work.

And, he had to smile, the clerk in the gas station had eyes he remembered from what had to be her ancestress, and, he was willing to bet, probably the same tail, too. “I’m Gannon,” he told her, glad to be home.

~*~

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/267525.html. You can comment here or there.

Coming of Age

Jul9

This is from eseme‘s prompt asking for goddesses.

Fae Apoc in its early history.

***

Ακανθα bowed before her father. Head to the stone, weapon at her side, wings swept back, she prostrated herself in front of a god she had never presumed to believe she would meet in person.

“So you are the child I begat so many seasons ago,” Ares rumbled. “You are meet and fine in my sight, child.”

“Thank you, Lord,” she murmured. She knew the forms well enough; her mother and the priests had drilled her as surely as she’d ever been drilled in combat.

“More than that, however,” he continued, “I have seen you in battle. I have seen you protect your people, and your land. Do you know the ban I have set upon My children, little prickly one?”

She did not bristle at the translation of her name, because she wished to live to see the sun rise again. “I have heard of it, Lord Ares,” she answered cautiously.

“I’m sure you have. The poets speak of it in so many words, but none seem to understand how simple it is. The children of Ares, my child, are those who protect.”

“Yes, Lord Ares?”

“You have proven that this task you can do without fail, without faltering, without concern for your own well-being, despite the disadvantage of your sex. I am well pleased with you, and it suits me to give you a gift.”

Beware the gifts of the gods. “Thank you, Lord Ares.”

“There is a city near your village, a city which has of late been under siege. Take your mother, and your siblings. This city is yours now, Thorn of Ares, Prickly Sword. They shall worship Ακανθα there, as long as you remain worthy.”

She dared raise her head, now, to look at him. “You would place me as a goddess, Lord Ares?”

The god was smirking. “Your conception did that, Ακανθα. I give you your birthright.”

Ακανθα. Lily’s ancestor? And Acacia’s?

 

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/74193.html. You can comment here or there.

15-minute ficlet: Walking With Him

May9

Originally posted to 15-minute ficlets in response to the prompt “brand.”

*

Shuna held still while the tattoo artist worked the ink into her beck and back, ignoring, or trying to, her mother’s hovering disapproval.

“Shune-loon,” she began again, resorting to childish nicknames, “it’s a…”

“I know what it is,” she cut her off, the pain pricking along her spine making her shorter than was prudent with Mother Dearest.

Her mother plowed ahead anyway. “It’s a brand, Shuna. It’s marking you as his in permanent ink wrapped around your neck. It’s a collar you can’t take off. Couldn’t you just get a butterfly or something?”

“Hold still, please,” the tattooist murmured, cutting off her frustrated exclamation. She made herself relax, her forehead resting on the face pillow, and tried not to wonder what her mother was up to. She couldn’t even see her feet anymore.

It was the tattoo artist who spoke again, a few minutes later, sounding apologetic. “This glyph, miss, are you sure this is the one you want?”

She knew without looking which one was in question. “That’s his Name,” she murmured in response. “And that’s where it goes.”

“His Name?” The capital N suggested the concept wasn’t new. “That…”

“You see why I worry,” Shuna’s mother put in. “A Name like that and she wants to mark herself as his?”

“Mmmn. I see. But it’s her choice, isn’t it?” There was a challenge in the question that made Shuna smile.

“It is,” her mother agreed grudgingly. “But this isn’t how I brought her up.”

“I hear that a lot, here.” The needle was still working, avoiding the central glyph as the artist continued the pattern down her spine and around the sides of her neck.

“And what do you say, then?”

“I say…” Shuna fought not to jump as the needle hit the skin at the center of her neck, beginning the glyph, “that parents set children’s feet on a road, but it’s up to them where they walk it.”

“Even with him?” Her mother’s voice was getting hysterical as the inevitable was etched into her.

“Even with Death, yes.”

*

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/41186.html. You can comment here or there.

15 minute ficlet: Through the snow

Feb28

From another 15minfic prompt, this one a photo. It insisted on being FaeApoc. And I kept writing for 2 more paragraphs after where it wanted to end. You’re welcome. 😉

Ken stumbled, caught himself, and stumbled again. He was exhausted, no past that. Exhausted had been several miles, or at least a long time of walking, back.

He was freezing already; if he fell, the falling snow would cover him, and he would be a corpsicle for a long time before anyone found him, if anyone ever did. But there were lights in the distance; if he could get there, he could get help.

He wasn’t dressed for the weather; they hadn’t been expecting the dragons in the sky, or the wyrm-creature that ripped up the highway. They’d hit the grocery store and been on their way to the mall. Now Sarah was dead, and Aisha…

…well, he’d bandaged her wounds the best he could with his T-shirt, left her wrapped up in the back seat with his coat and hers covering her and the easiest-to-eat of the groceries. He’d taken one bag for himself, the one with the candy bars and, stupidly, the light bulbs. Couldn’t eat light bulbs. Then he’d started walking, looking for help.

The roads were chaos, the area near the highway a mess. No-one wanted to help; all they wanted to do was get away, get as far away as they could from the monsters, from the strange godlings in the sky fighting the monsters, from the lightning bolts and fireballs being thrown like bad CGI come to life. No-one worried about one skinny college kid. He wondered if they’d listen more if they could see behind his Mask, or if they’d just kill him on sight, assuming he was another monster.

He stumbled again, tripped, and fell. The snow was cold, but it was so soft under him, and he couldn’t bring up the energy to stand. He had to stand. He had to be found, or they’d never find Aisha. He reached for the last candy bar, ate it in two gulps, washing down the sickly-sweet sugar taste with mouthfuls of snow, and tried to bring himself back to his feet.

He made it four feet, maybe four yards, before his foot caught on a rock and his ankle buckled beneath him. The groceries caught his fall, the light-bulbs spilling out over the snow.

Lightbulb. He blinked groggily at the twist of glass. His feet might not move anymore, but maybe he could find a little more energy…

“Tempero hiko,” he muttered. The body had electricity in it, right? He could Control it. He could…

The bulb lit, flickered, and stayed lit. Ken put his head down on the ground and tried not to fall asleep.

The world was cold, so very cold, when he heard a voice say, “hey, hey kid. Wake up!” the hands brushing the snow off him felt like they were brushing off his skin; he tried to scream and found that he had no energy for a voice. “Oh, thank god,” the voice said. “He’s alive. Come on, kid, let’s get you inside.”

“Aisha…” he muttered, as strong hands lifted him from the snow.

 

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