Tag Archive | iconflash

Icon Flash: Facets of Dusk & Ekwara

Dec6

Continuing flash series! I’m going to write one flash for every Icon I have, over 4 LJ accounts, 1 DW, and a whole bunch of not-currently-in-use, until I get bored or run out of icons.

Today’s icon:

A Jaunx, from Ekwara

Icon & Art by Djinni

This icon was drawn at the same time as my Alexa icon, so it’s always been rather Facets-of-Dusk for me. This story crosses the Facets multiverse with Djinni’s comic Ekwara.

Facets does not yet have a landing page (whoops!) but it does have a tag, below

It was beginning to be old hat. Take a hand, wait for the chain to form, open the Door, step through. Alexa was getting very good at it. The rest of the team was getting good, too, at all the things they had to do when they reached a new location, recon and integration and information-gathering. They were, after so many false starts, acting like a team.

Alexa swung the door open, holding Josie’s right hand with her left, and stepped through. One step – the ground was soft, squishy grass. Two steps – it held her weight, and Josie’s, without buckling or sinking. Three steps – the terrain around them was wooded, bright green. She saw no buildings, which was odd. Normally, in order for there to be a door…

She looked around, a strange thought occurring to her. She’d seen those trees. She’s seen that cat-like creature over there, the one doing something that looked like casting a spell, opening a… a vortex of stars, much like some of her own Doorways. She’d read about this place.

She looked behind her, hurriedly. There was no door, just as slowly shrinking portal that Aerich was stepping through. That left Peter on the other side. Ignoring all protocol, she shoved Josie into Aerich, pushing both of them into the portal, and grabbed Xenia and Cole’s hands. “Back, back now!”

They had had enough close calls. They let her push them all back in. As the door shut behind them, Cole asked, mildly, “Alexa, what the hell?”

“I’ve seen that place before,” she told them, and then, because she had seen a number of worlds that they hadn’t, she clarified, “in a comic, a web-comic.”

“A comic,” Aerich scoffed. Peter looked up, curious.

“If we can prove that worlds that are fiction to us…”

“Ekwara,” she cut him off, “is where lost things wind up. And there was no door on that side.”

“Oh.” Aerich blinked. “A one-way Door?”

“Exactly. And, while it’s a lovely comic…”

“…we don’t want to get trapped there,” Cole agreed. “Good call, Alexa.”

She ignored the rush of warmth, mostly because, with that Door off-limits…

“So,” Xenia asked, “where do we go now?”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/192102.html. You can comment here or there.

Standoff

Oct14

New flash series! I’m going to write one flash for every Icon I have, over 4 LJ accounts, 1 DW, and a whole bunch of not-currently-in-use, until I get bored or run out of icons.

Today’s icon:

Jamian, from Addergoole.

Icon & Art by Djinni

This is in line with Addergoole‘s main timeline, and takes place around Chapter 141-2.

This is going to end badly. But I think that’s okay. Worried and stressed, Jamian didn’t want to go back to the suite yet. He might be the only empath in the crew, but that didn’t mean the rest of them weren’t observant (except Ty, but that was an issue for another day). The Library didn’t seem to like him, the Store bored him, and the Arcade would be full of people.

That left the Village – also full of people, many of them small people and far too many of those Ty’s offspring – and the grotto.

The doors to the grotto were still nearly-invisible, even when the doors to the outside were cooperating, but he managed to find a knob after three tries – and thank god there weren’t any invisible students wandering around, or he’d have run the risk of accidentally groping them – and stepped into the lush rain-forest atmosphere of the indoor garden.

The vines liked to reach out for the unwary, but he found if he stuck to the middle of the path, very few could reach. Perhaps they were pruned that way? Someone had to take care of this place, after all.

Focused on the foliage and the path, the first he saw of the other person was his shoes – black, combat boots, scuffed around the edges. That could be any number of Addergoole students; he looked up further – black pants, no help there – and further up still. The long, dour, Masked face of Aviv greeted him.

Okay, I got to that, and it was 250 words exactly and I said… well, poo, that’s mean, even for me, but I don’t have another Jamian icon coming up any time soon… hey. I just got an Aviv icon. So this one is out of sequence.


Aviv, from Addergoole: this isn’t quite how I see him, but not far off (he had more mouthy squid bits, but, of course, he always Masks them, so maybe he’s half-Masked?

Icon & Art by Catfaice

Aviv glowered at the interloper. He just wanted a few minutes of peace, not to deal with more Fifth drama. Especially not Fifth drama attached to Ty, who was notorious for going overboard in protection of his Kept. There had been that one time someone had made a grab for Shiva… no, not the sort of thing he wanted to get embroiled in, much less be the one responsible for starting a crew war.

From the look on the kid’s face, he was having a similar train of thought. Good. He held up both gloved hands, palms facing the little Daeva. “I’m just looking for some peace and quiet.”

The kid looked him up and down – Jamian, that was his name, right? In Ardell’s cy’ree. And Ty’s. – and clearly noted the guitar, although what else he was noticing – damn succubi – was anyone’s bet. He nodded slowly and showed his hands, mirroring Aviv’s gesture. “Me, too,” he confessed.

A heartbeat passed, and another. They were blocking each other’s path, on a route too narrow to step aside without risking the poisonous vines – and whose idea, Aviv thought sourly, had it been to put poisonous vines in a student hide-out?

Aviv opened his mouth to say something – anything, even, “so, are you going to move?” – to find that Jamian had done the same. Well, let him talk first. Aviv had done his turn on the bottom rung.

“Quipia Tlacatl Jamian oro’Tya(*),” he murmured, and stepped off the path. “It’s a big grotto.”

(*)Preserve the Flesh of Jamian, owned by Tya

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/145542.html. You can comment here or there.

Icon Flash – The Pumpkin – Dragons Next Door

Oct12

New flash series! I’m going to write one flash for every Icon I have, over 4 LJ accounts, 1 DW, and a whole bunch of not-currently-in-use, until I get bored or run out of icons.

Today’s icon:

A creepy black pumpkin and a tree, with my name

Icon by dhamphir

Dragons Next Door has a Landing Page

This follows directly after The Black Tower (LJ), which is after Over the Wall (LJ).

Well, indeed. “That was my mother’s generation, mostly,” I stalled. Here I was, a home-maker in the new millennium, a graduate of The Pumpkin. I wasn’t really the one to ask about that.

But I was the one Zizny was asking.

“It’s always surprised me,” it mused, “that you would try for ‘equality.’ Gender is so important to the differentiated species, isn’t it? It’s why Cxaidin and I have always attempted to approximate a bi-gendered couple.”

Ah, so that had been intentional. I took a moment to feel better about our misread, then got back to the crux of the questioning.

“‘Equal’ has never meant ‘the same,’ at least not to me,” I pondered. “It certainly doesn’t, the way it was taught in The Pumpkin.”

“I was under the impression that Lady Cassidy’s Academy taught home-keeping skills?” Zizny waved one claw vaguely. “Cleaning, cooking, that sort of thing?”

“Well, that’s the impression The Pumpkin likes to give,” I said slowly. Zizny wasn’t human; it wasn’t quite the same as telling secrets out of school. Quite. “But this is the modern era, and most of that is automated; it takes up very little time in a day, especially once your children are in school.” Or gone to the Black Tower.

“Hence the impression of outdatedness, yes. But you said it’s a misimpression?”

“Well,” I smiled, fondly remembering a few of my midnight lessons, “there are things that the Black Tower likes to keep to itself. And The Pumpkin has its secrets, too.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/143459.html. You can comment here or there.

The Black Tower

Oct11

New flash series! I’m going to write one flash for every Icon I have, over 4 LJ accounts, 1 DW, and a whole bunch of not-currently-in-use, until I get bored or run out of icons.

Today’s icon:

A creepy black tower and a pumpkin, with my user name

Icon by dhamphir

Dragons Next Door has a Landing Page.

This follows directly after Over the Wall (LJ).

“What is the Black Tower?” The dragon cocked its head to the side, narrowly missing knocking over the fence.

I blinked. The Tower has such a reputation among our people that it’s hard to remember it’s not that well known outside of the community. Even most other humans wouldn’t know what I was talking about – and I imagine the dragons handled such things in their own way. “The Black Tower is…” I resisted the impulse to end that with “…the Black Tower.” “It’s an academy of magic, considered highly prestigious but also highly dangerous. Sage attended there.”

“Ah, the Sandborn.” Zizny nodded. “We have heard of that place. On rare occasion, a young dragon will study there.”

“Yes, the Sandborn.” I’d forgotten it had a proper name. “I knew they had a wing catering to the non-humans…” I offered carefully.

“You did not attend there, then?” It raised one eyeridge in another gesture I imagine was adopted from humanoids. I flushed, wishing for a slightly less-perceptive neighbor. Maybe I should have been talking to the brownies, instead.

“No.” It would have been rude not to explain further, so I tried. “I went to the Cottage.” Unwillingly, but wanting to be clear, I elaborated. “The Pumpkin, we called it. But it’s…”

“…Lady Cassidy’s Academy for Young Ladies. Yes, I’ve head of it. I’m surprised, quite frankly, that it’s still around. Aren’t you of the generation that was working on that gender-equality project?” She made it sound like a coffee klatch.

“Well…”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/142562.html. You can comment here or there.

Icon Flash: Bed-Warmer (Rin & Girey)

Oct10

New flash series! I’m going to write one flash for every Icon I have, over 4 LJ accounts, 1 DW, and a whole bunch of not-currently-in-use, until I get bored or run out of icons.

Today’s icon:

Girey

Icon & Art by Djinni

Reiassan has a Landing Page (LJ Link).

Rin was whistling as they left Ossulund, clean, well-fed, and clothed in things that fit, or at least mostly fit. She’d forgotten how fun it was to spend time with her friends, how relaxing it was to be on common ground with the people she was talking to.

Girey was, she noticed, in a better mood, too, although in his case, she had a feeling it had more to do with leaving Ossulund than being there. The crowds of Callanthe had made him tense enough that he’d barely enjoyed the luxuries of civilization he’d been missing so much, although he’d probably be back to missing them soon enough.

She turned to look at him in his custom-tailored Callanthe qitari, sitting comfortably, finally, in the wider saddle. The left-buttoning on the tunic had been her own petty joke, since all he seemed to do was whine, and whining counted as unskilled labor. But talking with Noni during their stay in Ossulund had gotten her thinking.

“He’s pretty enough,” her old friend had agreed, “especially when you clean him up. Dress him up in silks and he’d make you a fine bed-warmer, Rinny. No shame and no harm in that – until you want to get married. Then what are you going to do with your grumpy Bitrani pet prisoner?”

“Plenty of people have both a bed-warmer and a spouse,” she’d argued. She’d already seen the point, but she let Noni say it; she needed to hear it.

“Their bed-warmers aren’t foreign nobility. Yours is.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/141598.html. You can comment here or there.

IconFlash – Over the Wall – Dragons Next Door

Oct7

New flash series! I’m going to write one flash for every Icon I have, over 4 LJ accounts, 1 DW, and a whole bunch of not-currently-in-use, until I get bored or run out of icons.

Today’s icon:

Baby Smith

Icon & Art by Djinni

Dragons Next Door has a Landing Page (LJ)

We were having one of those really nice crisp late-October days, with the sun shining and no real wind to speak of, so Zizny Smith and I were talking over the stone wall between our properties while, nearby, Juniper and Baby played, or, at least, Juniper played and Baby gurgled back at her.

“How do you handle it, when your children leave home?” Zizny asked, inadvertently – or perhaps intentionally; the Smiths were very perceptive neighbors (and I was still inwardly cringing over how non-perceptive I’d managed to be) – hitting a nerve I’d been trying to ignore.

“Jimmy?” I asked, rather than answer right away. The dragon nodded, a gesture I was fairly certain they’d adopted for talking to humans. Since her – its! – head was as big as I was, it made for an impressive agreement.

“Not yet, of course,” it continued, “but when they start getting to that size, you start thinking about the day they’ll fly away, don’t you?”

“Is Jimmy your oldest, then?”

A dragon smile is a terrifying thing. “No, oh, no, but it’s been quite a while since Cauzna left the cave. Is Jin your first? I know humans tend to have their children rather close together.”

“We have a shorter breeding period.” No getting around it, then. “Jin is my oldest. It will probably be a few years until he leaves the nest, but it’s been on my mind.”

“Probably?” Zizny saw too much. I bit the bullet and answered.

“The Black Tower has contacted him.”

Edited for naming error: Sage is the narrator’s spouse, Jin her oldest child.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/140450.html. You can comment here or there.

IconFlash – Facets of Dusk, Josie – Still Falling

Oct6

New flash series! I’m going to write one flash for every Icon I have, over 4 LJ accounts, 1 DW, and a whole bunch of not-currently-in-use, until I get bored or run out of icons.

Today’s icon:

An open doorway onto clouds

Icon from http://www.myknownbuzz.com/doorway/

Directly after Falling Falling Falling Down (LJ)

The fear Josie never spoke of – and she knew they all had one – was that they would step through the Doorway someday and be trapped in a deadly situation with no way back through the door.

It was an entirely rational fear on the surface of things, tainted by the acid-trip echoes that colored it, twisted by her deep conviction, down in her hidden places, that the team would abandon her in such a situation, rather than risking another member to save her.

When they stepped through into sky, she felt – no, knew – her worst fears were coming true. They tumbled down the side of the building, twisting and turning as they fell, plummeting down towards – towards what? Even in her worst nightmares, they never landed.

But she knew this fear, knew this scenario, having played it out a thousand times in her head. The team would not save her, but she could save herself, could save all of them. The building was not too far, all things considered, and there were things that looked like doorways spotting it. If she could manage…

She was not Aerich, with his world-warping magic. She was not Alexa, with the doorways. But she was Josie, and the wind and the rain spoke to her, the earth and the trees and the birds. And if the earth and trees would cooperate…

She pulled the rope from her pack with some difficulty, losing her change of pants in the process. She could save them all.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/140184.html. You can comment here or there.

In the Audience

Oct5

New flash series! I’m going to write one flash for every Icon I have, over 4 LJ accounts, 1 DW, and a whole bunch of not-currently-in-use, until I get bored or run out of icons.

Today’s icon:

Ceinwen, from Addergoole Year 9

Icon from Meez.com

Directly after Three-Way (LJ)

“Well done,” Thorburn murmured, as they watched Basalt cradling Ahouva in his arms.

“Thank you,” Ceinwen answered, as a rush of unaccustomed pleasure rolled over her. He thought she’d done the right thing! She’d finally done something he liked… even if by accident.

“What prompted you to do that?” he asked, his voice still pitched for her ears only. Jeremiah looked in no shape to negotiate, but he and Basalt were talking nonetheless, the doll-like Lolly watching dispassionately.

“Kendon was going to back out, and then Ahouva would be stuck with him all year. He’s… well, not a nice guy,” Ceinwen whispered. She’d seen Ahouva crying in the locker room, and she’d seen the bruises.

“And Basalt?” he prompted.

She tilted her head at the big guy. “He’s got his rough edges,” she answered carefully. Basalt was, after all, one of Thorburn’s crew. “And he can be really scary. But I heard how he was with Penny, when she went into labor. I think he’ll be nice to her…” she hesitated, looking up at her Keeper, her master, her owner, but he was still smiling, so she risked continuing, “even if it’s like you and I, where it’s not the nice she’d prefer.”

“Aaah.” A heartbeat passed where he said nothing, and then another, and another. Lolly was kneeling between Jeremiah and Basalt, face on Jeremiah’s shoulder. Basalt was walking away, still carrying the limp red-headed Ahouva.

“Come on.” Thorburn scooped Ceinwen up into his arms. “Let’s talk about preferences.”

Rix has expressed interest in more of this part of this story, which would probably be about 1000-word story, maybe 1500 words. If someone else would like to pitch in $5, I will write it as double and write 1000 words on this story.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/139357.html. You can comment here or there.

Icon Flash: Aftermath, Tir na Cali, Harem

Oct4

New flash series! I’m going to write one flash for every Icon I have, over 4 LJ accounts, 1 DW, and a whole bunch of not-currently-in-use, until I get bored or run out of icons.

Today’s icon:

Generic Tir na Cali noble-lady

Icon & Art by Djinni

In the Harem sub-setting of Tir na Cali, after Preparing the Stage (LJ Link) and Waiting Uncomfortably (LJ Link)

Stephen’s body had passed the point where he could feel the sting of each blow; now it was one long ache. He was crying, he knew he was, biting down hard on the gag Bettie had thoughtfully provided, trying to take the blows quietly and only sometimes succeeding.

If the leather-mistress was right, and Ursula was having a bad day, it must have been a very bad one. She rarely took the flogger to him herself, and she’d never punished him this hard. He couldn’t ask her, even if he could catch his breath, so he tried to keep his weight on his feet – toes, really – and not his shoulders.

When it stopped, the silence was almost as much a shock as the constant noise of the flogger had been. Worse was his Lady, very gently patting his hip. “I had Bettie send for Wensleydale. He’ll be right here to help you, and take you back to the harem for tonight.”

Back to the harem? He grunted his distress against the gag, forcing out words, or trying to. “y’ aa-ee, oh… eese, ooh..” Please no. What had he done? Why would she send him away? “eese…” But the door was shutting, leaving him along in the room.

He sagged against the cross, panting softly. What the hell was going on? Why Wensleydale? Why – all this?

The door opened and closed again, and soft hands began untying him. “She wanted me to say,” Wensleydale whispered, “that it will be all right.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/138696.html. You can comment here or there.

Icon Flash: Bookstore

Oct3

New flash series! I’m going to write one flash for every Icon I have, over 4 LJ accounts, 1 DW, and a whole bunch of not-currently-in-use, until I get bored or run out of icons.

Today’s icon:

Generally used for reading-and-writing-stuff

Icon by sunlitdays

Planners ‘verse, pre-apoc.

Anna set down her glasses and pushed aside the heavy leather-bound book she’d been working on. The copy wouldn’t have quite the same thick tactile feel as the original – they could take the time to scan, OCR, print, and bind copies of books that were falling into dust, but not to letterpress print them. There were too many books to save for that – but it could be read without destroying it, so its knowledge would not be lost.

She ran her thumb over the gold-leafed spine. Somewhere, someone in the Family thought that this information was worth saving, worth her time to bind and Janelle’s to scan and edit. But after hours dealing with rich leather and dry text, she was craving something a little more juicy and a little less weighty. She stretched, popping her back in three places, and, with a silent apology to the text on windmill construction, headed for the door.

A twenty-minute walk (and a cup of coffee and two doughnuts; it had been a hard day) later, she was nestled in the back corner of her favorite second-hand book store, surrounded in piles of paperbacks and gleefully searching for the trashiest supernatural romance she could find. The proprietor, a grubby, grumpy man named Rick who usually set aside centuries-old wrecks for her, was cheerfully pulling trash from his shelves.

“This one should be good,” he offered, handing her a cover with a leather-pants-clad woman with a tramp stamp and decorative claw marks. “Enjoy.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/137767.html. You can comment here or there.