Tag Archive | morepls

Derailed, Part 3

Apr30

After Part One and Part Two

He barely had time to duck before she hit him with her purse.

Luke ducked and rolled, coming up on his feet on the other side of the aisle, and missed another woman’s purse-swing by a bare inch. “Damnit, ladies,” he muttered, but they were hearing no reason. He ducked a third purse, and grabbed the man tackling him as gently as he could, even as he muttered the strongest, quickest “sit calmly” Working he could come up with.

As he fled the zombie-stares of the first car, he worried he might have gone too far. It would wear off soon – he hoped. He wasn’t all that good at emotion-control.

He had almost lost the thread of his search Working in the meantime. Where was she, where was she… there. Two cars away, he was fairly certain. And here he was faced with…

“Shit.” The gunfire started the moment he opened the car door, one bullet managing to graze his arm before he shouted up a shield. Guns! Damnit, he knew better than to be taken by surprise by these people! He was being clumsy.

No time to beat himself over it now. He plowed forward, using sheer force Workings to push people out of the way. Even if they were shooting him, they were probably normal humans, and he didn’t want to kill them if he didn’t have to. They could, after all, be their enemy’s puppets.

“Abatu kwxe,” gasped out one of the fallen gunmen. Luke whirled, just in time to see the man – woman, actually – pointing a gun at him. A gun with a wooden bayonet.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/329781.html. You can comment here or there.

Reunion

Apr14

For Friendly Anon’s Prompt.

Addergoole has a landing page here.

Addergoole, Year 16 – 10-year-Reunion for the Third Cohort

They’d left the kids at home, although the event had childcare. The longer it was until their children knew about Addergoole, the better.

Ayla would have preferred to wait five or six more years, until their oldest was called here, or, better yet, not ever return at all, but Io had classmates she missed, so they packed up, asked a favour of her brother, and headed for the damn reunion.

It was only when they were getting off the plane that Ayla realized that her unflappable wife was nervous, her hands shaking, her skin pale. “Io…?”

“Almost fifteen years ago,” she whispered. “I got off this plane with Callie. I made it out of there. She…”

“She’s walking towards you. Find a smile, honey.” She shone lightly on her beloved, helping her find her peace. “And with Rory, too!”

Her redheaded half-brother waved at her across the distance. “Look, Callie,” they could hear him trying to be quiet, “it’s Ayla and Io. It really is going to be a reunion.”

“And there’s Richard and Caity.” Callista’s voice sounded brighter, more human, than the last time they’d seen her. “And…” She trailed off, and they all turned to look.

“It’s not him, Callie.” Io broke the silence.

They could understand why she was staring. The boy bore a stunning resemblance to the asshole who had tortured and ruined her – but he was a boy. Maybe 15, 16 at the outside. A kid.

And he was entirely lost. “Hey,” he asked, noticing the four – now six – adult staring at him. “Do you guys know where Addergoole is?”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/322274.html. You can comment here or there.

Bounty

Apr9

After this story, this story, this story, this story (LJ), and this story (LJ), from kelkyag‘s commissioned prompt.

The catch had been so close, so damned close. Orin had practically had his hands on the kid.

She wasn’t the most expensive kid in the neighborhood, but that’s because she lived next door to dragons and down the road from pixies, harpies, and centaurs. She was, however, the priciest kid per ounce and risk factor, at least in this city.

The amount of time he was having to spend on her, though, this damn thing was turning out to be the lowest hourly rate he’d pulled in over a decade. And what was worse? Now he had base calling, breathing down his throat, telling him to come in. And he’d almost had his hands on her.

Olin packed his gear into his car and headed back to base, grumbling to himself the whole time. This kid would be pure gold, but every minute spent away from the hunt was one more minute that he risked somebody else grabbing her. His team weren’t the only ones interested in her, and it wasn’t just for the payday, either.

He’d caught one of the religious creeps around the kid the other day, and driven the bastard off with a stick and a few well-placed threats. The church guys were the worst, the spooks nearly as bad. Olin didn’t want to think about what would happen if either of those got their hands on this particular target. All that power, all that potential, but she was still in a tiny, fragile package.

Fragile, but either supremely lucky, or surrounded by the best secret-ops team of weirdos he’d ever seen. Every opportunity he’d had had somehow glitched out or gotten ruined, often by the most obnoxious, irritating series of coincidences. It was almost as if…

Olin stopped the car. “Fuck,” he muttered. He hadn’t dealt with those little shits in decades. “Fuck, fuck…” He picked up his phone. Dead. Turned over the car engine. Dead.

He turned to his gear bag, wondering if there was a bounty on gremlins.

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/629631.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/319698.html. You can comment here or there.

Sidekick

Apr6

For [personal profile] kelkyag‘s commissioned prompt.

The Aunt Family has a landing page here on DW and here on LJ.

“Were you taught about the archetypes?”

It wasn’t the question Evangaline had been expecting; it segued out of left field while she was still pondering the implications of someone leaving their family, of a son leaving the family.

“The tarot?” she offered, while she tried to remember things Asta and the others had mentioned to her. The archetypes, the archetypes… “No, no, not the tarot, but sometimes it seems similar. Something about the stories? Aunt Asta mentioned them, but she didn’t…”

“No, she wouldn’t have. I don’t believe she had the skill of seeing the stories. I wonder if you will.”

“I… don’t know. When Aunt Asta taught me about them, I had dreams…” Only Rosaria could make Eva feel this way, like she was being measured and judged against an invisible ruler. She shrugged, trying to shake off the elementary-school feeling. “In the Wizard of Oz, the way at the end Dorothy say ‘and you were there, and you, and you? That’s what it was like. Crazy dreams, with Uncle Arges as the Scarecrow.”

She gestured hurriedly with her free hand. “I don’t mean really the scarecrow. I mean, a sidekick, following another guy around. They were younger than I knew him, my age at the time, so late teens. I think I’d seen a picture of him at that age recently, one of the family shots? But this was much more vivid.”

“The Sidekick.” Rosaria made her “thinking” noise. “That would be Argie at that age. I don’t have the paintings with me, nor could you give them a proper look while you were driving, but the Sidekick is one of the archetypes we see a lot in our family. The Buddy. The support. That was Argie to Willard, every inch of the way. It’s what’s so tragic about the whole thing.”

More: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/534069.html
The whole story: http://lynthornealder.com/fiction/aunt-family

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/317663.html. You can comment here or there.

First Rose

Apr5

For Friendly Anon’s commissioned continuation of Twelve Roses and One

She’d heard the story her whole life. The rosebushes, the crazy Aunt that nobody wanted to admit was theirs, the twelve pink blossoms that got brighter for each daughter, the “true gift” they were supposed to receive on their sixteenth birthday.

She knew, too, that her parents had planned on stopping at four kids, or stopping after Harold, or stopping at any point that wasn’t almost-to-thirteen-children. She was fairly certain the gift had power… and she had known from a very young age that one ignore fairy gifts at one’s own peril.

So it was no surprise to her, or to the next three sisters down, when, on the dawn of her birthday, Alicia walked out to the rosebush and snipped the rose that her parents had always called “her rose.”

Her parents had been dithering. They were worried about what a “true gift” would be. They were concerned that there would be sort of booby trap. They were, she was pretty sure, concerned they might end up with a hundred and sixty-nine grandchildren spaced over thirty-something years.

None of that mattered. Alicia had decided as soon as she was old enough to remember making decisions that she would do what Aunt Edith had bade. She had planned to go out there, laid out the pruning shears…

..and then woke in the kitchen, silver blade in one hand and the rose in the other, as she placed it in the vase.

“Well.” Brandy, Celia, and Darla were watching her. “Did I…”

“Yup.” Darla looked a little spooked. “Do you remember…”

“Nothing.” She frowned at the flower. “I wonder what’s going to happen now.”

She watched the flower – they all did, including their rather-miffed parents – every day, staring for the first signs of roots. She ran her fingers over the stem every night before bed, wondering what was coming. It seemed as if she was waiting, holding her breath, like her birthday had been delayed for a flower.

The day her mother found out she was pregnant again, two months after Alicia’s birthday, the rose suddenly popped out roots all over the place.

“Of course,” Mom muttered, and pulled out a lovely pot and a bag of potting soil. “Come on, Alicia. Let’s get her planted.”

The rose went into the dirt like it was helping, grabbing at the dirt, sinking in as if relieved, even if Mom was glaring at it. They were all staring at it, Alicia, Dad, all ten of her sisters and her spoiled little brother. Waiting. Holding their breaths.

“What do you think…?” Ida whispered, but just at that moment, Alicia knew.

“Oh…” She reached out and let the thorns, the two thorns this rose had kept, near the bloom, pierce her fingers.

“Alicia!” Mom had gone from angry to horrified. “What have I told you about fairy gifts?”

“It’s okay, Mom.” Everything was going… well, not everything. But enough was going to be okay. “I understand now. I see it all now.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/317092.html. You can comment here or there.

Good Bones

Apr5

For the February continuation poll, after Love and Hospitality (LJ) and Graduation Plans (LJ)

Addergoole has a landing page here.

There was a bouquet of flowers and a dead raccoon waiting for Wren and Nydia at their new apartment.

Nydia took care of the raccoon with a muttered Working, while Wren unpacked a vase and got the flowers set. Neither of them talked about the oddness of the gift; neither wanted to admit that they weren’t sure if it was a normal sort of thing, out in the world.

Out in the world. They moved their stuff into two of the three bedrooms and didn’t quite look at each other, didn’t quite admit that they both wanted to crawl into a closet and hide.

“Lady Maureen and DJ will bring the kids in a week,” Wren said. Nydia already knew this, of course, but it was more what Wren didn’t say, anyway: we have a week to get our shit together.

“Can we…”

“Of course we can.” Wren’s smile was bright and false. “Look. The job part, we know we can do. The mom part… we have practice at that. That’s not the problem.”

“No,” Nydia agreed. That wasn’t the problem.

“And we have this list. See? And that takes care of the rest.”

“Are we…” Nydia gestured incoherently. Wren smiled, seeming to understand. Of course, that’s why they were friends.

“Of course we are. We graduated from Addergoole. But, come on, don’t you think our former Keepers are, too?”

Nydia found herself squirming, but smiling at the same time. “Vampire,” she pointed out. “I always wondered… but I didn’t really want to think about it.”

“Control freak.” Wren picked up a box of cooking things and began unpacking, lining things up in a line against the back of the tiny kitchen’s counter. “And no, I didn’t consider adding either of them to the list.”

“Good.” Nydia knew she was lying every bit as much as Wren was, but there were some lies their friendship was balanced carefully on, and that was one of the big ones. “So who do we have to interview?”

“Eight men.” Wren tilted her head at the pink file folder. “One probably-just-human, three Faded, and four half-breed Ellehemaei. No Addergoole grads, but one of the Faded is a relative. Cousin of Kendra and Callista’s.”

“How many arms. How man… you said Faded.” Nydia smiled. “Okay, that sounds do-able. When do we start?”

“Tomorrow at noon. Lady Maureen set up the first appointment.”

There was a dead squirrel and three dead roses waiting outside the apartment the next moment. The squirrel went the way of the raccoon, the roses got hung in the entryway, and Nydia and Wren began setting up a life for themselves.

Storefronts were easy. The realtors that tried to sell said storefronts weren’t quite as easy, but Wren and Nydia knew exactly what they wanted, and they weren’t as easy to bully as they looked. Whenever the men started getting pushy, Nydia pictured Rozen and Baram, and the balding, middle-aged guy in the sweater vest didn’t seem scary at all.

“No,” she explained, again, “we’re looking for something with more space. The windows we can fix. The kitchen can be rebuilt. But this looks like you could, maybe, do a cookie shoppe out of here, if you didn’t ever want to expand.”

“Space like that is going to cost you. It might be better to start small and work up to a big place.” This one wanted to be paternal. Nydia had Opinions about that.

“We need a place that will suit our needs now. If you’re not capable of giving us what we want, we’re more than willing to take our money elsewhere.”

He looked like she had slapped him. “I just don’t want you girls to get in over your heads.”

“Girls. Are we girls, Nydia?” Wren was smiling. That was not a good sign.

“Five children between us, Wren, I’d say we probably deserve ‘woman,'” she agreed happily. “When’s our next appointment?”

“About… twenty minutes. If we leave now, we can get coffee first.”

“Coffee sounds delicious.” And like that, they were gone. Nydia felt a little bad – but just a little bad, over a thrill of naughtiness and empowerment that was completely new.

“What’s his name?” she asked, when the surge of pleasure wore off and she remembered what, exactly, their next appointment was.

“Oh, good question. James maybe, Jack? Jared?”

Nydia flipped through the paperwork. “Tate.” She giggles a bit. “We’re meeting with a Tater Tot?”

“Be nice, Nydia, he looks like a nice guy.”

“I’m pretty sure nice guys are not what we’re looking for.” They’d interview him anyway, of course. He deserved the chance and, really, he could be just what they needed. Or he could be a dud-spud.

Tate wasn’t quite a dud-spud, but he had all the personality of a french fry. Nice, handsome, strong… boring.

That was the order of operations for the whole day. Nice place, no foundation. Nice guy, no spine. Creepy place with great lighting. Jerk with a winning smile.

“It’s only day one.” Wren sounded as if she was trying to convince herself as much as, if not more than, she was trying to cheer up Nydia. “We have three more places and two more guys tomorrow. And two and three the day after that. We’ll find someone, and someplace.”

“I know.” By this point, Nydia wasn’t remotely surprised by the dead blackbird at their doorstep, or the box of chocolates next to it. “We have weird neighbors, Wren.”

“We’re only in the lease for three months. We can find a better place once we have everything else settled.”

“I hope so.” She glanced around to be sure they were alone, and dealt with the bird the way she’d handled the other two “gifts.” “I’m a little wary of those chocolates.”

“Sealed box,” Wren pointed out. “From the chocolatier next to the almost-good-place.”

“Great bones, no personality? That one had potential.”

“So did the boy right after that. We can refurbish the building…”

“But we don’t want to refurbish a boy,” Nydia agreed. “Not the sort of thing we’re looking for.”

“There’s always tomorrow.” Wren opened the box of chocolate and muttered a complex Idu charm. “Try the ones with pink.”

“Tomorrow,” Nydia agreed. She popped the pink candy in her mouth and wondered how you gave a boy a coat of paint.

Next: Moving Foread (LJ)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/316053.html. You can comment here or there.

Derailed, Part 2

Apr3

After Part One

Agmund was shouting, too, snapping out workings, and then “Three, two, one, now!” At now, Luke launched the heavy man at the back of the train.

Freed of the excess weight, Luke sprang through the air, swooping down on the first car like an eagle catching his prey. The tracks would take the train where they wanted it; the trick was making sure it got there with its cargo intact.

The engineer was still trying to get the train stopped, cursing and shouting at mechanisms that were no longer listening to him. He barely noticed Luke slipping into the locomotive and from there into the first car.

Somewhere between him and Agmund were, hopefully, two things: a hostage, and a bomb. The one was powerful enough to blow up not just the other, but the train and its city of call, as well. The second was a pretty impressive stack of explosives, too. Neither one of them had a long fuse, and neither was completely under the control of the moron who had come up with this plan.

“Evening,” he grunted at the passengers, who had gone from staring out the windows in horror to staring at him in horror. “Just passing through.” He strode through the center aisle, muttering Workings. She was somewhere on this train. They knew that much. She was nearby. But she also defied most conventional Knowing.

“Terrorist!” a woman shouted at him. “I heard him! You heard him, Jim, he was praying! Terrorist!”

He barely had time to duck before she hit him with her purse.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/314366.html. You can comment here or there.

Safe House, a half-story

Mar31

For Rix_Scaedu‘s commissioned prompt.

After The Life You Make (LJ) and Memories (LJ), and directly after Company (LJ)

Faerie Apoc, Addergoole – landing page here (or on LJ)

“Aly,” he called, and gestured for the third of his employees to guard the kids. Viatrix didn’t have the kill-the-trouble-now face on, but she did look worried.

“What is it… hunh.” The two women in the doorway tickled half a memory for him. He’d seen their faces before, somewhere, the taller one more than the shorter one.

“Oh, hell no.” The taller one was carrying blades. Four of them. The shorter one was carrying a single rapier. “I heard that this was a safe house. That was a bad joke, right?”

Viatrix looked between the two women, and back to Baram. “He doesn’t remember you,” she explained. “He doesn’t remember much at all longer than a year ago.”

He remembered that look on people’s faces, though. Monster. Creature. Kill it. Not the one that replaced that – anger with no target, loss, confusion. “He doesn’t remember?” She turned to face him directly, still keeping her body between the shorter girl and him. “You don’t remember me? You raped me and you don’t remember me? I have your SON and you don’t remember me?”

“Callie,” the shorter girl murmured, “not on the street, okay?”

He looked the two girls over, and noted the children in the car. “Not on the street. I promise, if you don’t attack me, I will offer you no harm while you’re in my house. Come in.” Raped her. Had he? Monster. Creature. Kill him.

The two visitors shared a look, and then the taller one, Callie, Callie, he almost remembered a Callie, looked at Viatrix. “Does he speak for you?”

“If you don’t harm me or mine, I promise I won’t harm you or yours,” Via shrugged. “He’s my employer, not my Keeper.”

“You stay here of your own free will?” That was the short one this time, staring at Viatrix.

Via wasn’t Jaelie, but she could read a situation, better than Baram could. She stepped out of the way, letting the two women into his cave. “He keeps us and our kids safe. I guess we are a safe house, if you come down to it.”

Safe house. Baram couldn’t help a smile. The monster ran a safe house.

Next: Signal Fire

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/312898.html. You can comment here or there.

Fred, a vignette of Tir na Cali Slave School for the March Giraffe Call

Mar27

For illfluff‘s Prompt. After this vignette (lj)

Fred woke up strapped down in a hospital bed, with a nurse on one side and Jenny on the other side. Both were frowning at him. As signs went, it wasn’t the best.

He tried the restraints, not with any real force. He didn’t want to spook anyone. He really didn’t want to spook Jenny.

He worked his jaw, a bit surprised he wasn’t gagged. Then again, it hadn’t been his mouth that had gotten them in trouble.

“Fred,” Jenny said. Sobbed. “Fred, why…?”

“I…” he glanced at the nurse; she nodded.

“Go ahead, you’re not standing on protocol with me.”

“Thank you.” He reached his closer hand towards Jenny. “I’m sorry. He just got me so mad. He’s always making those stupid comments, you know…”

“He makes them to everyone. He thinks he’s better than the rest of us because he fights it. But Fred! They’re going to punish you for this. You know they are.”

“I know. I really tried not to. But… he just hit one button too many.”

“Your fighting skills are admirable.” That was from the doorway: Mr. Thurston, their home ec teacher. “But your lack of control is not. Steve backed up your story, by the way, which will mitigate your punishment. Thank you, Jennifer, back to your room now.” He hesitated, and added kindly, “I promise, if we send Fred away, we’ll give you a chance to say goodbye first.”

She swallowed another sob and fled, leaving Fred alone in the room with the teacher.

“And now the question remains,” Mr. Thurston continued, sitting down in the chair Jenny had vacated, “whether we send you away or not.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/310355.html. You can comment here or there.

Presently, a story of #Addergoole Yr9 for the (February) Giraffe Call (@Rix_scaedu)

Mar27

For [profile] rix_scaedu‘s commissioned prompt – more of “Birthday Present,” from the December Giraffe Call.

Addergoole has a landing page here

Noam has a sketch here.

He didn’t have any orders! There was nothing holding him from saying anything he wanted! Noam opened his mouth to tell Brenna exactly what he thought of “fun.”

Except, of course, as far as he knew, there wasn’t any way out of Belonging to someone except having them let you go. He closed his mouth again. Pissing her off was probably not what he wanted to do. He tugged at the ribbons a little more, though, just on principle.

Brenna’s face fell. “You don’t want to be here.”

Shit. “I didn’t say that.”

“You’re trying to get away.”

“I’m trying to get untied. Trying to get away would involve more backing towards the door and fumbling with the doorknob.” He gave her his best smile. “I’m not going to lie to you, this wasn’t my idea. Hera caught me in the halls. But that doesn’t mean I don’t think dating you would be a good idea.” Dating, please. Noam was pretty sure he could handle dating.

She touched his pectoral lightly, as if worried it would burn her. When it didn’t light on fire, she set her hand, palm-down, across his chest. “You never said anything.”

“Neither did you. I figured you weren’t interested.”

“Oh.” She looked down at their toes. At her Masked toes, he noted, even here in her bedroom, and his still in shoes. “Oh.”

He kept smiling at her. Smiling seemed good. Her touch seemed very good. “You know, if you let me go, we could date. I’d like that a lot.”

She frowned. “You’re just saying that so I’ll let you go.”

“Well, I’m hoping you’ll let me go, yeah, but I would like dating you, too.” Gods, please?

She bit her lip and shook her head. She hadn’t Masked her teeth. They were very very sharp. “Nobody stays around me long if they have a choice.”

She wasn’t going to let him go, was she? He might as well make the best of it. Noam smiled for her, hoping it wasn’t too fake-looking (Again. He was going to have to spend XP on charisma and bluffing). “Well, I’m yours.”

“You are,” she agreed. “For a while, at least. It’s not forever.”

“Well, if I had to be Owned by someone…” which he’d been doing such a good job of avoiding, thank you, “I’m glad it was you.” He gave the ribbon around his wrists a little tug. He could probably undo it now. Maybe he should wait and let her untie it instead. “What do you think about it?”

“I think…” She looked him over hesitantly, sidelong, uncertainly. “I think you’re mine?”

“Okay.” It was a starting point, at least. “And what do you want to do with me?”

She tugged on the ribbon around his neck. “Unwrap you…” Her shy look up at him was heart-rending. “If that’s okay?”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/309630.html. You can comment here or there.