This story is Clare K.R. Miller‘s commissioned continuation of Want Ad and follows immediately after that. To commission stories or continuations, look here.
There was a lovely woman standing on Richie’s front porch.
His first thought, before he managed to take in everything she’d just said, was I haven’t cleaned the place properly in weeks.
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clare_dragonfly‘s prompt. Before Year 19 of the Addergoole School.
Shira Pelletier was having a bit of trouble.
“No, this is ridiculous.” The girl would not come out of her house, and had settled for talking to Shira through the tiniest crack in the door. “There is no way. I’m safe here. I’ve got food, water, the people don’t hate me… If you go away soon, that is. I don’t want to stick out.
“Maressa, I’m sorry, but if you don’t come with us, in a few months you are going to stick out far too much. Your parents -“
“My parents are dead. My parents are gone. They went off to fight the war. They left me, okay? So fuck whatever they wanted for me.”
“…I’m absolutely certain they wanted you safe.”
“Yeah, well, then they shouldn’t have left me here alone. They should have stayed.”
“Your parents…” Shira sighed. There were things she couldn’t say, not standing here on a formerly suburban street. “I’ll save that for another time. I know that you are safe here at the moment, but how long do you think that can last? Food, water – I don’t see many crops being planted, and you have no meat animals.”
“This is the burbs. Nobody knows how to plant crops.” Maressa threw up her hands, the gesture barely visible through the doorway opening. “Or, like, butcher animals, or anything. But they know how to store food okay. And everyone that ran off left something. We’ll be fine for another year.”
In another year, Maressa would have Changed. Shira swallowed, and dropped her voice even lower. “Maressa, do you remember your parents telling you stories about f—
“We don’t talk about those things here. We don’t talk about anything like that. We’re all normal. Human. Here.” She punctuated that with kicking the door. Shira sighed.
“Then come with me. I can’t promise everyone will be normal, but we can teach you how to plant crops, and how to husband animals – how to take care of them, that is, how to herd them and how to use them for food. And then, if you want, you can come back here and teach these people.”
Those that would have survived.
“Why me?” Maressa’s voice was still edgy, but she was about to give in. “Why not anyone else here?”
“Because your parents are the ones who set this up. And although you may hate them, they took some measures to provide for your future.”
“Why do you sound like that?” The door opened a bit further. “All fancy, like something out of a book?”
Shira allowed herself a small smile. “Because I am a teacher. And I would be honored to teach you.”
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Evangaline clucked in disapproval at the vaguely-translucent Aunt standing between her and the fireplace; the Aunt, in turn, shook her head at her.
“Who,” Evangaline asked carefully, “thought that this particular tradition was a good idea for our family?” She should have studied more fashion in school, and her only reference on that sort of thing was upstairs. She wasn’t going upstairs right now.
Continue readingEvangaline clucked in disapproval at the vaguely-translucent Aunt standing between her and the fireplace; the Aunt, in turn, shook her head at her.
“Who,” Evangaline asked carefully, “thought that this particular tradition was a good idea for our family?”…
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1027351.html. You can comment here or there.
clare_dragonfly asked for “…writing stuff. And legal stuff,” specifically regarding Edally: The Missing Treaty.
I already have words for writing: zhiezhet, book, turnie, and words for history that I need to reconsider.
Telyen “story”, and telnyet is “truth-known.”
Pause for plurals, because I really need to figure those out, or, as we say in the conlang business, make some shit up.
We’re going to make the goat plural: pazit, and the dyohd, an obnoxious rodent.
One goat: Pazit
Two goats: Pazitte
A herd of goats: Pazitbe
An unknown plural of goats: Pazitne
One rodent: Dyohd
Two rodents: Dyohdtye
A family/nest of rodents: Dyohdbye
An unknown plural of rodents: Dyohdnye
There! Now we can make stories plural, telyenne!
The Calenyena word for a treaty is Gaaneg, from gaaven (obsolete), bound, and geg, rope.
The Bitrani word for treaty is Meniano, from meni, to think over, to consider.
Incidentally, Coffee is a loan-word to both languages, coming from the prot-Arran fega. The Bitrani call it Vegia; the Calenyena call it
vegie.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1018814.html. You can comment here or there.
clare_dragonfly asked for the Calenyen word for bunnies. So:
Lexember Day 3:
Bunnies, it must be bunnies♪
They have three variants on the rabbit on Reiassan:
The Kaler, a domesticated fur rabbit, small and generally friendly. Their fur comes in a wide variety of naturally-occurring colors and is well known to be good for baby clothes and underclothes.
The Zhyoobie, the wild version, which is about the size of a squirrel, eats plants one wants to keep, and nobody has yet made a Peter Rabbit book about. It’s known to make its nest in the remnants of other animals’ nests, and generally leaves a mess of wherever it nests.
The Natiel, a large hare, sometimes domesticated but often wild. These are the biggest of the rabbits, brought over by the Bitrani settlers, and named by them (nateo), but they do not thrive in the warm climates of southern Reiassan and have mostly migrated north.
This is not the first time I’ve shamelessly named things in Calenyen for people, as much as the language allows. The Zhyoobie and the Natiel are named after people I know/have known in other parts of my life.
Lots of days left to go! Stop in and give me something to word about!
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July’s Patreon Theme was “More, Please;” the prompt call covered anything my $5 readers would like to see continued.
A Rescue in Kind, a story of Daxton-and-Esha continued
The Hunt Continues, a story of fox hunting in Tir na Cali continued
Down, Down, Down, more of Doug and the Basement – free for all to read!
I also posted a couple other stories on Patreon:
Last Bid, a story of a worried slave in Tir na Cali
The Queen’s Councillor, a story also of Tir na Cali and a Queen worrying her people.
Check them all out here!
Not a member yet? For $1/month, you can read all patron-only stories.
For $5/month, you not only get access to the prompt calls, you will put my Patreon over the next Milestone Goal and open up a monthly serial!
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/967026.html. You can comment here or there.
a story of captivity, continued: the ongoing story of Daxton and Esha, begun here:
Daxton was captive again, struggling not to take it in ill grace. This time, it seemed unlikely that Esha could rescue him…
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This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/962275.html. You can comment here or there.
This is written to Clare K. R. Miller ‘s request for “…more Doug being awesome? More of this.” It follows after the linked story, which itself follows, in part, after Addergoole: Year 9.
~
Doug was back in a war zone. They were in the bowels of Addergoole, battling creatures that would not see reason. They’d brought Agmund down with them — three of Doug’s cy’ree, two of Luke’s, and two of Agmund’s were guarding the rear, in case anything got through — but these creatures seemed impervious to Panida Workings. Just in case, they’d tried Intinn and Tlacatl. Nothing.
“They are either animals or they are Makers,” Agmund had declared firmly. “If they cannot be read by Intinn, they are animals.”
Whatever let him sleep at night. Doug ripped his blade through another one and began to burn the body before it had stopped bleeding. These things, if you didn’t get them all the way dead on the first go, they got back up again. Whatever they were.
“That’s the last of them, I think.” Luke cleaned his blade on the scorched, ashy hide of the creature. It looked like the unclean offspring of a warthog and a wyvern by way of a platypus, and now by way of a woodchipper and a fireplace. “I hope Laurel’s figured out what the blazes they were doing down—”
“Hsst.” Doug moved forward, tracking the faintest sound. “There’s still something down here.”
They each muttered their own not-here Workings, silencing them, hiding them, and strode forward. Doug’s wing-stubs twitched with each broken wall and glass-windowed door. He wanted to cleanse this place with fire, the whole thing. He wanted to bury it.
He saw a faint shimmer as Luke — hopefully it was Luke — pushed open the next door. Doug readied a fireball and his blade.
That wasn’t a monster. He pulled the fire back so quickly it nearly scorched his throat, before he had processed more than that. Those weren’t monsters. They were people. Those were kids.
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