Tag Archive | giraffecall: donor

Strange Favors

Jan16

For [personal profile] imaginaryfiend‘s commissioned continuation of A Couple Helping Hands and Littermate

That yelp. That sound. It wasn’t human, wasn’t barely alive-sounding, but she knew it. She’d know her brother anywhere. Cúmhaí peeled off the last hand holding her, and, when it wouldn’t move, started breaking fingers, fast and nasty, until the hand vanished.

“Nobody touches my brother. Nobody. Touches. My. Brother.” She could feel everyone in the room and, what was more, she could feel how much of the creature fighting her was illusion and misdirection. She dove straight for his center of mass, right there, and below there was where the Beagle had already tenderized the bastard…

She was rewarded with a long screaming yowl. “No-one hurts my brother, damn you.” She snarled it at the whole room, at the bastard growling at her and pretending she hadn’t just added injury to injury, and at the three others she could feel, even if she couldn’t see. “And I’ll kill every goddamned one of you if I have to, to prove it.”

“Never let it be said there is not some honor among the wolves, miss Pup.” The voice was nearly part of the wall, and when she tried to look in that direction, it hurt her head. “Take your brother. Nobody will stop you, as long as you go directly to Dr. Caitrin’s.”

Begley. She felt for him with her power, and found him hidden in a pool of shadow, barely breathing, not moving at all. “Beagle.” People with back injuries shouldn’t be moved. Leaving him here was not an option.

“Gods who’ve come and gone blast it all, Beagle, why are you not moving?” She was going to have to pick him up. She was going to have to carry him. “Fuck it all, Begley John, wake up.”

But he wasn’t waking up, so she picked him up, as carefully as she could. “Invisible voice?”

“I am watching your passage, Miss Pup.”

When the voice spoke, she could feel where he was. She carefully didn’t look that way.

“Where’s Dr. Caitrin’s, from here?”

The voice chuckled. Another time, that might have irritated Cúmhaí. Right now, she would take it. She could feel the others, and she had a hunch the invisible voice was holding them off. “Walk straight forward until you reach a fork. Turn left there, and the continue until the stairs. Upstairs should be clearer and more obvious.”

She’d already started walking. Manners, a voice in her head whispered. Her brother? Maybe. Once upon a time, he’d been her big brother. “Thank you, invisible voice.”

“When your brother has been tended to, Miss Pup, then you and I may have a talk. But not before.”

“You little shit. All of you little shits. I’m going to…”

“She won, Sir Thing. Let her go.”

“She didn’t win, Begley-shit cheated.”

“Defending your crew is never cheating, or your Marthin would never win anything. Let. Her Go.”

In the echoes of that conversation, Cúmhaí followed Invisible’s directions. Forward, and keep going until she got to a fork. She showed teeth every time she felt someone get near, and growled if they came within touching distance. Nobody tried to stop her. Nobody got in her way.

She wasn’t sure if that was her, truly, or the shadow she could feel following them. There were times when she felt someone get yanked away, times when she heard a hiss of “do not touch them.”

She might have to pay the piper when they were done, but she’d worry about that then. Right now, she had a Beagle to take care of.

“Damnit, Midget.”

~

“Damnit, Midget.” It was like being home again. Begley opened his eyes to his sister’s frowning face. They were moving, he realized, no, she was moving and he was being carried in her arms.

“Nice to see you, too.” His voice was thinner than he meant it to be. “Where are we?”

“About twenty feet from the doctor’s office. You took your sweet time waking up.”

“Sorry, I had a case of /being thrown into a wall. How did you get away?”

“She broke every finger of Mr. Thing’s hand, and then broke some more important parts.”

He knew that voice, even if he couldn’t see it. He reached for his knife, hoping it wasn’t too late.”

“Easy.” Cúmhaí squeezed him against her chest. Begley tried not to think about that too closely. She was his sister. This might be Addergoole, but…

Bigger problems right now. “Coo, this isn’t the counter, this is the fire.”

“It looks like the doctor’s office to me. Look.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “He might take it out of me later but he’s the only reason we got past the creeps in the halls, so I’m not going to look his gift horse in its invisible mouth right now, okay?”

Later. “Shit. Coo, you didn’t agree to anything, did you?”

“I extracted no promises for my service, because I offered it unasked-for. I do have some honor, young Beagle.”

“I’m not that much younger than you, you…”

“Keep the mystery, if you would. Your sister will come looking for me soon enough. I’d appreciate there being a bit of a challenge in the looking.”

“She’s my sister. I’m not going to let you hurt her.”

His sister, looking very amused, damn her, was opening the door to the doctor’s office with her foot. “Beagle..”

“Coo, don’t call me that. Look, this is important.”

“It is.” Their invisible stalker had followed them into the doctor’s office. “Begley cy’Akinobu, I promise you these two things. First, if you respect my wish, and allow your sister to discover who I am on her own, then I will consider any debt between us for my part in her escape today to be settled.”

“You bastard, you said it was free.”

“Well, it is. But I’d appreciate if it you let me play out this little game.”

Begley sighed. “All right. I won’t tell her. But…”

“And the second half of my promise. I will not extract, nor seek to extract, through torture nor through any Working or use of magic at all, any promises or other binding words, from your sister Cúmhaí during the rest of this calendar year.”

“…” That was, Begley thought, the best he was going to get. “Why?”

“Gift horses and invisible mouths,” the voice scolded. “Suffice it to say she impressed me.”

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1159682.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/453665.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

The Light World and its Shadows

Jan11

For [personal profile] ysabetwordsmith‘s commissioned continuation of Day Twin, Night Twin, after The Dark and Light Mirror.

This really needs at least 500 words more, perhaps 1000, and it would be, like, a real story.

Life in the dark was everything Ella had imagined it would be, everything the stories had told, and all of that times a thousand.

It was darker, for one. The daylight people had no concept of true darkness, true night. Their stories spoke of the shadows, the echos, the hidden places. Their stories told of a little bit of mischief, like boggins and boggarts. People who dogged their steps and put salt in their coffee, soured their milk and sometimes made easily-foil-able plots.

And maybe that was the nature of the Evil Twins. But those who never crossed over, and the land in which the sinister-born lived… that was another story altogether.

That was a story of night time, where the sun shone through only in cracks. It was a story of trouble, where goodness-to-your-fellow-beings was not a watchword but a way to get mugged. It was a story of caution, of being the strongest of the strong or the canniest of the canny.

And Ava’s foster mother was all of those things.

In her own land, she wasn’t the bumbling, easily-fooled twin that she’d seemed in the daylight. In her own shadows, she wasn’t a sketch of a boogeyman; she was the boogeyman. She was the darkness. She was, Ella found, more than a little bit terrifying.

At first, Ella thought she had been caught. “Ava!” her foster-mother shouted when she returned home, home that was an echo, a mirror, a dark-shadow of the home she’d just left. “Ava, where the hell have you been?”

“I’ve been out.” She was used to being rebellious, being snotty. She was not used to having her mother – her foster-mother, though they looked just the same – be snotty right back. “Well, isn’t that good. Come here and help me with this bomb.”

“This what?” Ella’s heart jumped. She was in the right place, all right.

—

Life in the dayside was so much brighter than Ava had ever imagined. It was cleaner, for one. Cleaner and sweeter, and everyone wore such lovely things, as if they were in an ancient, forbidden fairy tale, and everyone spoke so very kindly and politely. Nobody turned up their nose at her. Nobody shook their head at her pretty white dress, nobody tried to get it messy.

The nighttime people had no idea how much smoother things could go if they were only nice to each other. She smiled and nodded and tried out her pleases and thank yous, and found that they were fun to say, when people said back to you.

It was so sweet. She’d heard a rumor, here and there, of the things the Evil Twins saw. They thought the daylight was foolish, born to be taunted and bothered, born to have every step that they took dogged by the mischief of the dark. They thought that only their little petty troubles kept the world stable.

And maybe that was true of the Good Twins. Maybe that was the nature of the those that had a bit of evil in them. But those who never came near the dark, and in the land where the daylight thrived… that was another story altogether.

And it was a story Ava was born to be the star of. She threw back her head and laughed, and laughed, and laughed. She had come into her own… and she was going to rule it.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/446985.html. You can comment here or there.

The Dark and Light Mirror

Jan9

for [personal profile] avia‘s commissioned continuation of Day Twin, Night Twin

Those born to the sinister did not have children; it was impossible, or forbidden, depending on who you asked. Thus the daylight people were able to carefully control the number of sinister who were born, making certain it was always far lower than the number of daylight.

Ava was the only child her foster mother had, and was likely to remain so. The others were left in portals just big enough to allow an infant through, and given to sinister would-be-mothers by lottery; motherhood in the dark world was a very cherished thing.

Ella was the only child her mother had, and was likely to remain that way. She had a busy life, as mayor of the city (for some reason, those born the light side with dark twins tended to be important people, or rise to important places). She had lost her first husband to the plotting of someone else’s evil twin. She had her Ella, and did not want to lose her.

And yet Ava and Ella had other plans. They were just past their seventh birthday when they learned of each other’s existence; they were staring into a mirror, the portal that only twins could pass that existed in both their mothers’ rooms. Ava was doing her best to get her hair properly into pigtails. Ella had teased her curls into a rat’s nest. They stared at the mirror, willing themselves different, willing themselves…

“Like that. Only with better hair.”

Ella touched the mirror. It had never spoken back before. “Like that. Like the dark lady that came by yesterday.”

“Like that. Like the princess in the book. Like the proper ladies.”

“Like the ones that don’t have to go to school.” Ella stroked the mirror. She ought to be surprised, she thought, to feel it touching her back. But it was already talking to her; what was a touch in addition?

“Like the ones who get to live in the sunlight.” Ava could feel the portal. She could feel the sister on the other side of the portal. But she couldn’t get through anything but her fingers. “There has to be a way.”

“There has to be away,” Ella sighed. “There has to be. The twins do it, the evil twins.”

“The trouble-makers, the monkey-wrenchers. If they can cross…”

“Then why can’t we?”

It became their quest, dark twin and light, day twin and night. They read the forbidden books, and told their mothers’ mirrors of what they learned. They followed the twins, and took notes on where they crossed, and how.

They watched their mothers, when they played our their endless script of good twin and evil twin. “It won’t be like that.”

“Of course it won’t. We don’t need to follow the script. We were born on the wrong sides of the mirror.”

“We won’t spend all our time making easily-foiled plots.”

“Being gullible and easy to capture.”

“Leaving the keys to the city on the counter.”

“Leaving the map to the portals out where anyone could get it.”

Ava waved the map, and, with a great deal of effort, held it so Ella could see it.

“Leaving the map… no. No, we won’t do that.”

They were seventeen, then. Old enough to wander on their own. Old enough to cross through on their own, too, in the portals with the weakest gates.

Like the one in the old subway station, where the sun hit the shadows just so Old enough to cross through there, with a twin handshake and never a glance back.

But that was just the beginning of their story.

Next: The Light World and its Shadows (LJ)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/444505.html. You can comment here or there.

The List, a story of AU!Addergoole Second Generation

Jan7

To [personal profile] rix_scaedu‘s commissioned continuation of Twin Study. This is non-canon, set sometime after the apoc, well into the second gen of Addergoole.
“I don’t get it.” The halls of their institution were painted a probably-supposed-to-be-calming blue; the floors were carpeted. It was nice, almost cozy, if you ignored the complete lack of exits and the prison atmosphere.

“What’s there to get? I mean, it’s pretty self-explanatory. List. Guys. Lather, rinse, repeat.” Fili pulled his list out of his pocket and looked at it. “I mean, if you don’t think about it, it’s pretty easy.”

“Easy for you to say. You don’t have to do anything except insert tab A into slot A.” Molly was staring at her list, but Ted didn’t think she’d seen anything on it.

She stared at her own. “Okay. So Albern isn’t too bad. And Gibson is kind of handsome, although he doesn’t talk a lot. But Davis is a flat-out creep, and Stonewall is… well, a stone wall. And I wouldn’t let Caledon touch me if he was the only guy on my list.”

“He’s on my list, too.” Molly stared at her list. “Nobody else in common, though. Unless you have Ether?”

“No. Lucky you, I kind of like him.”

“There’s nothing lucky about ‘choose one of these five to seven guys and have a child with them. Or else, cue ominous music.’”

“No. Maybe we could escape?”

“Shhhh.” Homer, who had been staring silently at his list, suddenly spoke up with a whispered urgency. “Shhh, they can hear you.”

“What, the Doctor?”

“No, worse. The demon. He has cameras everywhere. Sage told me.”

“Everywhere?” Ted crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s nuts. Really everywhere?”

“Everywhere that matters.” Luke was suddenly behind them. “You have nothing you need to hide from the Administration.”

“Uh, why don’t you let us decide that?” Ted stepped forward protectively, putting herself between the PE teacher and Molly.

“That decision has already been made.” His wings flared. “I’m sure you have somewhere to be.”

“Not really.” Fili stepped up next to Ted.

“We’re done with class, and we’ve had our meeting with Dr. Regine.” Fili held up his list, almost in Luke’s face. “See? We got our fuck-or-die list.”

“Nobody’s going to die.” The idea actually seemed to offend Luke. Ted wondered, a bit, why. It wasn’t as if he treated them like people. “And the good doctor has… ways. If you don’t want sex.”

Ted glanced down at her list again, and back at Luke. “You’re on my list.”

“Professor VanderLinden is on mine.” Homer had finally caught up with them. “So’s Professor Valerian.”

“I don’t have any Professors. Um. Although there is someone here I don’t know.”

Luke peered at Molly’s list. “That’s the goblin in the basement. He fathers very good children.”

“He… This is absurd.” Ted knew she was sputtering again. “You seriously expect us to just go have sex with someone we don’t know? Or, I don’t know, let them knock us up by artificial insemination?”

“There is a war going on, in case you haven’t noticed.” Luke’s voice never changed cadence, but his wings flared. “There is a war destroying your planet, and your race, and hundreds of millions of humans and Ellehemaei have died. Yes. Yes, I expect you to carry two children to term. And I expect you to show up to drill tomorrow at 8 a.m., regardless of if you have cramps.” His voice turned into a sneer and he glared over Ted’s shoulder at Molly.

Ted muscled her way a little more firmly in front of her friend. “This being on students’ lists things. Does it ever get you laid?”

“That’s not why I’m on there.” Good, she’d managed to offend him. Again.

“Then why? ‘Cause I wouldn’t sleep with you otherwise. And I figure most other students wouldn’t, either.”

“For the same reason everyone else is on your list: the Director and the Doctor believe that you’d make a good genetic match with those people.”

“Why not just clone?” The word tickled at the back of her mind. Clone. Clone. Twin?

“Cloning takes longer and doesn’t work as well as the old-fashioned way. Now, unless you’re going to invite me into your bed, go. Go talk to someone on your list, or something.”

“Why aren’t any of us on each other’s lists?”

Luke shrugged at them. “You got lucky, I guess. If you can be friends and still obey the rules, be friends. Not many people can.”

And that was a very weird thing to say. Ted glanced at her list, and then peered over her shoulder at Molly’s list. “Hey, Moll. I think one of mine and one of yours room together. Let’s go bother them. Come on, Fili, Homer.”

“Why are we coming?”

“Because we’re going to go talk to upperclassmen in their dorm. You’re coming along for protection.”

“Protection?” She thought Homer squeaked. Fili just laughed. “You think we’re going to be able to help?”

“Not really. Sorry. But I think the more people we have, the less likely we are to get jumped.”

“Well then.” Fili glanced at his list, and shook his head. “I still don’t believe this.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/442005.html. You can comment here or there.

Sister’s Keeper

Jan7

This is to @dahob’s commissioned continuation of Sister Trouble

Content warning: This is a story about a succubus and her half-brother incubus in a magical dom/sub relationship. Implied incest, sex, and domination throughout.

Ivette, it turned out, was sitting in their shared apartment, reading.

Joff stifled the entirely unfair I didn’t know she could read; she’d graduated from Addergoole, same as him. She was literate and educated, more than most of their peers in in college. Just because she generally didn’t show it…

“‘Vette, what are you doing?”

She glanced up. She was holding a fat highlighter in her mouth – not, the way some girls might, between her lips, but down her throat, as if she was giving it head. Joff felt a tightening in his pants and ignored it.

“Mmm..” She pulled the highlighter slowly out of her mouth. “I’m studying.”

“Don’t lie to me, Ivette.”

She pouted. “I hate it when you do that, Joffie.”

“I hate it when you call me Joffie. Don’t lie to me today.”

She tugged on the thin gold chain around her throat. “But I am studying. See? Highlighted and everything.”

He sat down next to her and looked at the book. “Abnormal psychology? I didn’t know you were taking this class.”

“I sort of snuck into it when you weren’t looking.” She shrugged eloquently. “I was bored in the other classes. Fashion. Bah. So I dropped out of Fashion and Health and started taking Business and Abnormal Psych.”

“…why?”

“I told you, I was bored. You’re not the only one who can, you know, study and stuff. I like learning things, too.”

Joff pursed his lips. “Ivette, stop the poor-me act. For now, at least. Why are you really doing this?”

She sulked, but she pulled back on her power enough that Joff could breathe. “You told me to go to college.”

“No.” He shook his head. “I told you that I was going to college, and that you should come up with a plan.”

“You Kept me, remember?” She tugged on the tiny gold chain. “Being yours is my plan.”

Oh. Was this… no, this was a distraction. He glared at her. “Ivette, tell me what you’re up to.”

“Right now, I’m trying to distract you from asking why I’m studying… damnit, Joff. I don’t like it when you do that.”

“Well, I don’t like it when you leave people half-alive bloody piles of whimpering. So you’re going to have to deal with being told what to do once in a while. Ivette, what is your plan?”

“Well, so, I have to do something. You said. And I’m not really even bad at numbers, but I figured, most of the stock market, most of business, is all a giant scam anyway, right? It’s all psychology.”

“…So you want to go into business? Or into businessmen?”

“You told me I needed a real career first. I still don’t understand why.”

“Because I said so.” Sometimes having Kept his sister seemed like the worst decision he’s ever made. “So. Business.”

“Business.” She waved the book at him. “I am going to slay in the boardroom. It’s going to be so much fun.”

“And where does saving yourself for marriage come in?”

He was almost afraid to find out the answer.

“Reputation.”

“Reputation?”

There were odder things she could have said. If she’d said she actually was concerned about her immortal soul, that would have been weirder. If she’d said she wanted to redeem herself for everything she’d done in Addergoole, that would have been the weirdest. but this… this was pretty weird. “Reputation?” he repeated.

“Reputation. in Addergoole, everyone knew what I was. Everyone knew I was Ivette, the succubus. Ivette, the slut. Ivette, the man-eater.”

Joff had heard far worse than that, so he didn’t argue with her assessment. “Addergoole is small. It doesn’t take much to get a reputation there.”

“Joff, the pretty. Joff, the victim. Joff, the amazing chef.”

“Yeah. That.” He shrugged uncomfortably. “We all had them. We all had the names.”

“And the Names. Don’t forget those.”

“Vette, is this about…?” Her Name. What Mike had saddled her with, damn him. As if being his sister’s Keeper wasn’t hard enough on Joff without giving her that.

“No.” She shook her head angrily. “No, because I refuse to make it about that. Absolutely refuse. I am not going to be the door that is always open, Joff, the ride everyone’s been on. and nobody, nobody is going to know me that way. I’m not going to let it happen.”

“So you’re… saving yourself for marriage? You’re still a succubus, ‘Vette, how’s that going to work? How long can you hold out?”

“I don’t have to hold out. I just have to not let anybody know.” She ran her hand up Joff’s thigh. “You won’t tell anyone. You love me.”

Joff caught her wrist and lifted her hand off of his leg. “Ivette.” He hated being mean to her, more than most things. But he knew if he didn’t, she’d never get any better.

She sulked. “Joff, you wouldn’t turn me down, would you?”

“I would, and you know it.” He used his best stern voice and the expression that matched. It felt foreign, but it worked. “Behave.”

She sat up a bit straighter and wiped the smirk off her face. “Are you mad at me?”

“I don’t like it when you succubus me.” He released her wrist.

“But you’re not mad about the business thing?”

“That? No. That’s a good idea, actually.”

She preened despite herself. “You think so?”

“Yeah. But.”

“There’s always a but.”

“That’s why I’m Keeping you, big sister. You never think about the but.”

They shared a giggle – entirely inappropriate for the serious conversation, but they were succubi, after all. Then Ivette tilted her head and put on a good business-woman face. “Okay. So what’s the but, master?”

“You call me that just to get punished.”

“Of course I do. Joff, seriously.”

“You’re never serious, Ivette.”

“I’m not normally collared by someone who can handle me, either.”

He sighed. She was back to flattery. “Wrists behind your back. Stand up.” He stood as he gave the orders, and got a handful of her hair. She didn’t focus without this, once she got it in her head that she deserved it. “Up to your room. The but, sister…” He steered her up the stairs, one hand in her hair, one on her wrists. “It’s a good plan – but you’re going to have to stick to it.”

“Really stick to it? Joooooooff, you know you’ll help me.”

He pushed her to her knees, ignoring the waves of lust coming off of her. “Help you? Sure.” He leaned over and whispered in her ear. “No sex for you without my permission.”

Keeping his sadist of a sister, he mused, was likely to turn him into a sadist himself. This was almost fun.

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/456615.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/441413.html. You can comment here or there.

Bound, a story of Addergoole Year 9 for the Giraffe Call

Nov30

To thesilentpoet‘s commissioned continuation of Catch and Formality, the story of Gregori and Speed.

Erotic domination, no sex, but nudity.

If I am going to continue to write these guys I really need a m/m d/s icon/

The kiss was every bit what Gregori had been hoping. So far, this boy was everything he’d been looking for. It seemed too good to be true.

While holding the boy up in the air by his collar was not the time to worry about that. Gregori didn’t want to have to explain asphyxiation to Caitrin before they’d gotten through the first day. It was nice to note, however, that Speed’s erection was not flagging.
He set his Kept down and stroked his hair. “You are my good boy.” He had learned, through trial and error with Damaris, how much good a little praise could do – and how much a lot of praise could do, too.

“Yes, Master.” From the expression on his face, his new boy was learning that, too. He was smiling beatifically, his eyes half-shut. “How may I be good for you next?”

“How obedient can you be?” He circled the boy once, looking at the position of his shoulders – back, proud – the tilt of his head – to one side and thoughtful – and the little smile on his lips. He hadn’t learned yet, how real this was going to be, or he thought he had a loophole. Gregori pondered how long he should let the waif remain misinformed.

“I can be as obedient as you want me to, master.” Speed’s eyes found Gregori’s, full of amused insolence. “Do you want me to fight so that you can punish me?” He caught his error in the barely-shown press together of Gregori’s lips. “I mean, of course, to give you an excuse, if you want one, to punish me. Master may of course punish his slave for anything he wants.”

“Thank you for the permission.” He made his voice dry enough that the boy actually looked worried for a second.

He ducked his head and shrugged his shoulders forward. “I only want to please, master.”

“And that pleases me, slave. So, I wish you to be obedient without orders to bind you. Do you think you can do that?”

The boy risked another glance at Gregori’s face. “I will try my best, master.”

“That will have to do for now.” He made it dismissive, to watch the boy’s flinch. He’d circled his new slave once and a half now; he grabbed the boy’s arms and pulled them behind his back, crossing his wrists just over that lovely ass. “You understand?”

“Yes, master.” He wiggled his butt a little, getting comfortable, his wrists staying as if pinned.

“That’s good.” He tossed a pillow from his bed onto the floor, and pushed the boy, gently, supporting his shoulders so his reflexes didn’t take over. Slowly, he pressed the boy’s head into the pillow, until his ass was high in the air, inviting. “Beautiful.” The wrists stayed where they were. “You are good.”

“Thank you, master.” It was harder to tell if he was being smug, in this position. His expression was pressed into the pillow and his voice was muffled. “I live to please you.”

“Good boy. My very good pet.” He spread Speed’s knees further apart, and then stood, walking away. He wanted to admire his new possession for a bit… and he wanted to watch him squirm.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/424131.html. You can comment here or there.

Formality

Nov19

To cluudle‘s commissioned continuation of Catch, the story of Gregori and Speed.

Erotic domination, no sex, but nudity.

“There’s a ritual to this.” And the ritual would not only allow him to regain control, it would remind his new Kept exactly what he was stepping into. “Take all of your clothing off. Put it in my laundry hamper.” He gestured lazily behind himself.

“Yes, master.” The boy didn’t look frightened. He didn’t look worried, or even concerned; he looked happy.

Happy would be a nice change, after Damaris’ crying. If it lasted. He stood, arms crossed over his chest, and watched the boy strip. T-shirt. Pants. Tank top under the t-shirt, covering a chest so skinny he could be on a Starving Children poster somewhere. Boxers under the pants, blue silk, revealing an erection nearly as big as the boy.

He was going to be an absolutely entertaining Keeper for someone, if he chose to top next year. Or the year after; Gregori still had two years here.

The socks were the last to go, and then the boy was brushing past him to drop all of his clothes into Gregori’s clothes hamper. “Very good. Kneel where you were standing.” He pointed at the floor in the place he wanted him, just for clarity, and watched the boy fold himself up as if he’d been born to kneel like that, his hands folded perfectly at the small of his back, his eyes on Gregori.

“Very good.” The boy was the hottest thing to slink into Gregori’s life. “You come to me naked, with nothing but your self. Everything you have, from this day until the day I release you, will come from my hands. Everything you give, you will give to me. Everything you are is mine.”

“I come into your hands naked.” Speed couldn’t have seen the ritual; he had to be making it up. He made it up beautifully. “I have nothing to give you but myself, and I give all of that to you. From now until you release me, everything I have is yours, and everything I receive will come from you.” He glanced up at Gregori through a fringe of hair. “And what does it please my master to give me?”

“First, your collar.” He circled the boy’s neck with his hands. He was skinny, skinny enough that Gregori’s hands fit with room to spare. And he shivered beautifully when Gregori pressed his fingers against his throat. “Meentik Unutu με Panida με Eperu kloiós.” He knew what he wanted, so it was easy enough to bring it into existence around his new Kept’s throat. A leather collar, a thick and wide one, with a single large ring dangling in the front and a smaller one pressed against the back of the boy’s neck. A collar with no closure, or, more importantly, no opening. This was not coming off until he wanted it to.

Let Luke chew on that.

“There.” He grabbed the ring in the front and tugged upwards, pulling the boy off his knees. “Now. To do things properly.”

Speed was dangling, not trying to put any weight on his feet. He had been ordered to kneel, after all. “Yes, my master?”

So delicious. Gregori was going to enjoy this one. “Kiss me.”

Next: Bound (LJ)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/421051.html. You can comment here or there.

Equipping, a sequel for the Giraffe Call

Nov13

To Flofx’s commissioned continuation of <span style="font-size:12.5pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Garamond","serif";
color:#3A312D;background:white”>The First Quest

<span style="font-size:12.5pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Garamond","serif";
color:#3A312D;background:white”>

 <span style="font-size:12.5pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Garamond","serif";
color:#3A312D;background:white”>Equipping

<span style="font-size:12.5pt;line-height:115%;font-family:
"Garamond","serif";color:#3A312D”>It was still, technically, summer, at least.  That was their main saving grace.

<span style="font-size:12.5pt;line-height:115%;font-family:
"Garamond","serif";color:#3A312D”>They’d been prepared for a field trip, maybe an hour outside, wandering around a creek bed.  Sancha’s shoes weren’t as impractical as a lot of their classmates’ had been – sandals with a flat heel – but once they’d gotten wet, they were pretty much useless.  And after “Sancha’s little incident,” they’d gotten not only wet, but a little bit ripped up.

<span style="font-size:12.5pt;line-height:115%;font-family:
"Garamond","serif";color:#3A312D;background:white”>“You can’t have turned into the sort of monster that gets really thick paw-pads or anything, could you?”  Fritz examined her feet critically.  “You don’t have any cuts, just a couple shallow scrapes.”

<span style="font-size:12.5pt;line-height:115%;font-family:
"Garamond","serif";color:#3A312D;background:white”>“I’m not a monster!”  The fact that she had to lisp that around new, long, sharp teeth made it a little weaker a protest than she’d have liked.“Well, at least you’re not a vampire.  That would have been the shortest vampire-lifespan ever.  What with the burning sun and all.”

<span style="font-size:12.5pt;line-height:115%;font-family:
"Garamond","serif";color:#3A312D;background:white”>

<span style="font-size:12.5pt;line-height:115%;font-family:
"Garamond","serif";color:#3A312D;background:white”>“Still not a monster.”

<span style="font-size:12.5pt;line-height:115%;font-family:
"Garamond","serif";color:#3A312D;background:white”>“Mm-hrrm.  Well, we need to add finding you shoes to our equipment list.  I wonder… hey, up there.”  He pointed up the bank.  “See, grasshopper, you were right.  The river led to shelter.”

<span style="font-size:12.5pt;line-height:115%;font-family:
"Garamond","serif";color:#3A312D;background:white”>“Those are just camping cabins.”

<span style="font-size:12.5pt;line-height:115%;font-family:
"Garamond","serif";color:#3A312D;background:white”>“Roof and a fireplace, probably running water.”

<span style="font-size:12.5pt;line-height:115%;font-family:
"Garamond","serif";color:#3A312D;background:white”>“Probably locked?”

<span style="font-size:12.5pt;line-height:115%;font-family:
"Garamond","serif";color:#3A312D;background:white”>“Pshaw.  Don’t worry about locks.”

<span style="font-size:12.5pt;line-height:115%;font-family:
"Garamond","serif";color:#3A312D;background:white”>It turned out they didn’t have to.  One of the cabins was wide open, its door swinging on its hinges.  The car was gone, but they’d left the radio going and food burning on the stove. 

<span style="font-size:12.5pt;line-height:115%;font-family:
"Garamond","serif";color:#3A312D;background:white”>“…York City appears to have vanished, we repeat, vanished.  It is not our belief at this time that this was a nuclear attack.  We repeat, we do not believe this was a nuclear attack. It is believe that this is the work of the so-called Returned Gods.”

<span style="font-size:12.5pt;line-height:115%;font-family:
"Garamond","serif";color:#3A312D;background:white”>“Oh, shit, them again?”  The Returned Gods had been getting louder and louder since mid-June.  Chaos in the streets, demanding tribute, demanding to rule cities or even countries.  But this was the first time things had gotten that bad.

<span style="font-size:12.5pt;line-height:115%;font-family:
"Garamond","serif";color:#3A312D;background:white”>What was worse was the expression on Fritz’s face.  “Yeah.  Things are just going to get worse.  Okay, grasshopper, this just went from a get-home quest to a survival quest.  Let’s see what they left, assume they’re not coming back, and take everything we might be able to use.”

<span style="font-size:12.5pt;line-height:115%;font-family:
"Garamond","serif";color:#3A312D;background:white”>“Fritz… you’re scaring me.”  The whole day had been scary.  Her new teeth and her new monster-claws were pretty terrifying.  But up until now, Fritz had been treating the whole thing as a game, and that had made it endlessly more bearable.

<span style="font-size:12.5pt;line-height:115%;font-family:
"Garamond","serif";color:#3A312D;background:white”>“I know, grasshopper, and I’m sorry.  If I could have let you float along longer, I would have.  But if they’ve taken New York… the world just got really, really messy.”  As unexpected as his seriousness, the hug he wrapped her in was tight and warm.  “So.”  And then, just as quickly, he was smiling.  “What do you need to equip for a quest?”

<span style="font-size:12.5pt;line-height:115%;font-family:
"Garamond","serif";color:#3A312D;background:white”>She could handle this like a game.  She really could.  She glanced around.  “Food.  Clothing. Shelter. We still need shelter, if we assume we can’t stay here.  And a weapon, right?”

<span style="font-size:12.5pt;line-height:115%;font-family:
"Garamond","serif";color:#3A312D;background:white”>“There you go.”  Fritz patted her shoulder.  “You’re going to level up any day now.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/418674.html. You can comment here or there.

Bad Puppy, a continuation for the Giraffe Call

Oct31

This is for [personal profile] lilfluff‘s commissioned request for a continuation of this story.

Davyn was quiet. Good puppies were quiet.

Good puppies were also lost, squished, and confused, not to mention terrified. He couldn’t completly stop himself from whining, a terrified little noise at the back of his throat. As long as he didn’t get too loud, the pain didn’t come again.

Even without the punitive jolts of pain, his situation pretty much sucked. The kennel he’d locked himself into was upended, leaving him mushed into the bottom, leaned against some sort of cart, rolling…

…well, he really didn’t know where they were going, which was more than half of the problem.

He curled up the best he could in the tight space, nose to knees, and tried not to cry. Not only was crying loud, maybe loud enough to get zapped again, it was embarrassing. He was sixteen, not a kid anymore. Adults didn’t go crying like that. Even if they were trapped.

It really had been a dumb plan. What sort of jerk locks himself in somewhere and doesn’t remember the key? But his parents were pretty stupid too. What sort of parents wander off and leave their kid, time after time? Was he a bad kid? Was that why they’d rather have the dog?

This time, the whine surprised even him. He was a bad kid. He wasn’t a very good puppy, either, but he was definitely a bad kid, or his parents would have come to find him by now. Even the nanny hated him. She had to have noticed he was gone by now… so his parents had to know he’d stowed away. And they weren’t doing anything at all! They were letting him get taken!

His parents were getting rid of him. They had finally decided he was a horrible, rotten kid and they were taking advantage of this stupid prank of his to get rid of him. He whimpered, and turned around again, trying to get comfortable. He’d been thrown away.

“There, there, puppy. It’s all right. We’re almost home.” Her voice was strange. She was trying to sound soothing, he thought, and it almost worked. He felt better and worse at the same time. A crazy woman had kidnapped him, but she said it would be better. His parents had thrown him away, but someone was making calming sounds.

“Where…”

The punishing pain came again before he remembered he wasn’t supposed to talk. He yelped, yelped again as the pain redoubled, and then settled into whimpers at the bottom of his cage. He’d be good. He’d be a good puppy. Please? The last was almost a sound, a long whine. She didn’t zap him when he whined.

“There, there. I know you’re trying to be good, but you have to be quiet a little bit longer. This isn’t a good neighborhood, and I don’t want anyone to steal you. You don’t want that either, do you?”

He didn’t want to have gotten stolen once! He settled down. They were going to be home soon. Once they were home, she would let him out of the cage. Once he was out of the cage, he could figure out how to get home. Or, if not home, somewhere where someone didn’t zap him randomly, somewhere where someone didn’t think he was a puppy. He was at the very least a full-grown dog!

Where had that thought come from? Adult. He was a full grown adult person. Davyn held on to that thought as tightly as he could. He was a person, and people – what did people do that dogs didn’t? They did math, right?

Davyn was not very good at math, preferring classes that weren’t so much like the stuff his parents did, but he tried. Algebra. Trig? Maybe he could remember some of his trig. figure out… the hypotenuse of the kennel door. If every cage grid was an inch…

…He had come up with three answers, and started scratching numbers on his skin, when the kennel stopped moving and thumped back into a flat-on-the-ground position, sending him tumbling. He yelled out, “hey! Watch it!” and then slammed his hands over his mouth.

It was too late, of course. The pain ripped through him, toes to nose and back again, worse than it had been ever before, until all he could do was curl up and whimper, all math forgotten.

The cage door opened, but Davyn didn’t have it in him to move. He was still in pain, every single one of his toes hurting with separate agony. The girl had locked something around his wrist before he even noticed she was touching him.

And then the pain stopped. “There, puppy. Come on out of your kennel like a good pet.” Her voice was cooing, soft, almost incomprehensible. “I have a nice sandwich for you if you’re good.”

The pain tapered off, enough for Davyn to make out her words. Sandwich. His stomach rumbled. It had been a long time since breakfast. “Food?” he offered.

“Food,” she agreed. “Come on out of there, puppy.”

It was only as he was slinking out of the stupid kennel – it really had been a horrible plan – that he realized what she’d done. There was some sort of shackle around his wrist, and it was attached to a chain. The chain was attached to something else – his eyes followed it until he found the bolt in the floor – and gave him about six, seven feet of room.

“There you go!” She was unceasingly chipper, so much so that it hurt his ears. “All nice and settled in. And I have a nice collar all waiting for you. It says ‘puppy!’” She picked up the collar – it was pink, pink – and showed it to Davyn for a moment, before wrapping it around his throat. “All set. Now, puppy, you settle in and meet your new family, and I’ll go get you that sandwich.” She skipped off a few steps, then skipped back to pick up the kennel. “You won’t need this. Go on, puppy, be friendly.” She prodded him lightly with a toe. “I’m Circe, by the way.”

Circe. Circe. He knew that name. Davyn whined quietly, and heard the whine echoed from around the room. His new family, she’d said. Circe, she’d said.

It really had been a horrible plan.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/414930.html. You can comment here or there.

What was Right

Oct28

This is a continuation of The July Linkback Story and its continuation here by [personal profile] rix_scaedu‘s commisioned request.

She thought it was right.

Bowen chewed over that while they went through the checkpoints – those were new, or maybe they were just there because they were entering through the Village and not through Luke’s elevator – and parked the car in front of the motel.

“Addergoole has a motel?”

“Addergoole has all sorts of things they don’t bother telling you about.” Phelen tilted his head at the tidy little two-story motel. “This thing. The crèche. The cake shop.”

“Crèche… no.” Bowen shook his head. “I don’t want to know.”

“Happens to guys here more often than you’d think.” Rozen wandered up beside them and doled out four room keys – actual keys, each with a room number painted on it.

“They get used as a turkey baster and dumped?”

Rozen snorted. “Lots do, here. And lots of women take off with the kids as soon as they can.”

“Addergoole isn’t exactly known for fostering loving long-term relationships.” Phelen was a mass of drippy shadows. Bowen glowered at him anyway.

“You got a pretty good deal out of it, didn’t you?”

“I did.” He clearly saw no point in arguing it. “But it’s not like I haven’t seem other people fuck up, or get fucked up.”

“Enough girl chat.” Baram laid a meaty hand on each of their backs. “She’s this way.”

Rozen followed their not-entirely-willing progress with a deep laugh. “That man has radar for pretty girls.”

“It’s Addergoole.” Even being shoved along the road, Bowen felt brave enough to try a joke. “Finding a pretty girl is mostly like ‘walk out door, point.’”

“Or just ‘point.’” Phelen was inordinately proud of himself. Just because he’d gotten a girl his first year – and his second year. Okay. Bowen would probably be proud of that, too.

“You got lucky, squid butt.” Rozen punched Phelen in the arm. Bowen had to be a little impressed at how much Phelen didn’t flinch. Being punched like Rozen was like being hit by a Mack truck.

“I got skills, Drow.”

“..what?”

“Nobody’s ever called you a dark elf before?”

“People don’t call me a fairy.”

“Kai.” Baram punched them both in the arm, which made both of them, it looked like, struggle not to flinch. Baram was the whole train. “Be fairies later.”

Rozen grumbled a few choice insults, but it looked like talking about Kailani was enough to shut him up. Bowen made a note of that. The big man had a weak spot.

“Everyone,” Professor Fridmar had taught him, “has weak spots. Trick is to learn where yours is, and guard. Not to not have weak spots. That would be stupid.”

Bowen had been determined never to be trapped again. He still was determined: nobody would ever collar him. Nobody would ever have that sort of power over his emotions, over his mind again. Nobody would ever cut his tail off again.

Professor Fridmar had given him quite a few words on the subject. “Don’t be rock. Rocks get broken. Be tree, bend.”

Bend. Bowen didn’t want to bend anymore.

“Come on, lambkins.” Rozen grabbed his shoulder, shaking him out of his memory. “Time to go. You can moon off at the scenery later.”

“I wasn’t…” He didn’t want to explain that to these guys. “Coming.”

The Village was as ridiculous as it has always looked.

Bowen didn’t get it. Regine and her people could have made it look like anything; they chose to go for as close to Norman Rockwell bullshit as they could. "Normal Americana." Right. They were anything like normal. They were even anything like human.

The motel was just off Main Street, with its little storefronts and its freaks pretending they were normal. Nobody Masked out here, not in the summer. There were no new kids to scare, nobody but the denizens of Freakville.

Bowen liked the word denizens. Professor VanderLinden had taught it to him, perhaps in an attempt to apologize for the monster that was its Student and Bowen’s Keeper. Professor VanderLinden had taught Bowen a lot – and Bowen had, for the first time, discovered he could enjoy English class.

Denizens. And any of another handful of words Aggie hadn’t thought to forbid.

"I wouldn’t have figured you for a space cadet. Reminiscing?" Phelen’s voice was soft, barely more than a whisper.

"Kinda." Bowen shrugged. "Guess it wasn’t all bad. Magic. Good teachers." Something like honesty compelled him to add, "Tolly and Dysmas weren’t all bad. They just wouldn’t do anything to stop her. ‘Just go along with what she wants and it’ll be easy.’" He shook his head. "Always wondered if she had some sort of mind control going. Couldn’t have been Keeping them, right, since Dysmas had Nydia and Tolly got collared? But maybe some sort of Working…?"

"People are sometimes loyal for really stupid reasons. Shiva being loyal to Ty, for example." Phelen shook his head. "I’m not saying it wasn’t magic, just that maybe it was just stupidity. We’ll see what Dysmas is like without her around." His shadows imitated a shrug. "What Shiva’s like, too."

"Hunh." Bowen wondered about that, but what was he going to say? Not his business, really.

"Are you two ladies having fun back there?" Rozen had plenty to say. Then again, Rozen always had plenty to say. "Come on, we’re almost there."

Rozen was a little funny about Kailani. Bowen had never seen the big guy looking that impatient, or that – it couldn’t be nervous. Rozen would never be nervous. Would he?

Baram, at least, just looked like Baram. And Phelen was back to looking like a creepy cloud of shadows. Bowen elbowed the shadow-mass. "The creepy look is totally going to ruin my thanks."

"Bah, it’ll just make it all the more cool." Phelen pulled the darkness back in, though. "You gonna try to make this good?"

"I dunno?" Bowen shrugged. "I mean, I gotta do it." He nodded his head at the impatient mass of Rozen ahead of them. "And she did…" Shrug. He didn’t like saying "she pulled my mutton out of the fire," but it was true.

"All right. Here’s what you do then. I might be cy’Fridmar, but I barely missed being cy’Drake, and you learn a lot about the formalities." Phelen continued in a low whisper as they walked across the Village.

It was formal all right. But Bowen knew, too, that it was the right thing to do. Like Kailani rescuing him because she thought it was the right thing. Like him helping her stop Aggie later, although that had been at least fifty percent revenge.

"Here we are." It was a pretty cottage, like most of the things here, made to look like something safe and innocuous – another VanderLinden word, innocuous – and human. This one had a moat, which was a little different, at least. And a wide wooden door with a lion’s-head knocker.

Maybe she wouldn’t answer. He knocked anyway. Some things, you really didn’t have any choice about.

Knocked, and then, when she opened the door, knelt on one knee. "Kailani cy’Regine, I owe you a debt of honor." The words were awkward, but they were right. "I owe you deeply, for the good you did me. I humbly request that you tell me what I can do to repay this."

He really didn’t expect her to start crying.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/413875.html. You can comment here or there.