Tag Archive | prompter: jeriendhal

Give ‘Em an Apocalypse, a story of Fae Apoc

Nov14

Written to jeriendhal‘s prompt and set very early in the Faerie Apocalypse, maybe late 2012.

“Seriously, Ann?” Ted let his eyes trail over the concoction of leather and rags in front of him and the corresponding leather and rags set in two piles in front of him. “There was a major war. That’s all.” He picked up the shirt-like item, which looked like it had been mistakenly rescued from the rag bin, or possibly from a mechanic’s back pocket. “Sure, things fell to crap. That doesn’t mean we have to dress like extras from a Mad Max movie.”

“Hear me out.”

Ann and Ladry had been Ted’s crewmates back in Addergoole. They’d shared a room – and a few other things – for a couple years, but once they’d graduated, they’d split.

He’d woken up a week ago to find Landry on his doorstep, and this morning Ann had appeared, carrying duffle bags in which, it appeared, she’d stashed the entire costume department of several post-apoaclyptic movies.

Some part of Ted, some part of him that didn’t want to think too hard about this whole thing, acknowledged that in an outfit that was more straps than shirt, Ann looked really good. Better than she had in school. Better than she had when they’d first met, on the plane, back when there were planes. Better than she’d looked that one time he saw her in college.

The rest of him wondered how long she’d been insane, and how he’d missed it. And how she’d flipped, when they’d all always figured it would be Landry. Landry, who had been almost done with a doctorate when the colleges stopped holding classes and had, to all appearances, stabilized completely.

Whereas Ann..

“No, really, hear me out.” She sat down, the stiff leather of her pants moving far more easily than it ought to. “I know the world didn’t really end, right? There’s been a few problems, there’s some supply line issues right now. It can all be straightened out. But everyone’s panicking. Everyone’s completely and utterly out of their element. But I thought, well, what if we gave them something they understood?”

She gestured outside, where she had what looked like an ancient RV with armor riveted all over it. “So I figured, let’s make it like the end of the world everyone grew up expecting, right?”

Ted picked up the rags of his T-shirt again. “Complete with costuming.” He glanced over at Landry, who had been studying the “clothes” rather too intently for his liking.

Landry looked up, looked out at the RV, and looked back at both of them again. The smile, that smile, that had been the look on Landry’s face the day they’d all gotten free of their Keepers, the day Landry took over their crew.

“Cool.”

Ted sighed. He’d never been able to win when the two of them had agreed. “I’ll go dig out my hair gel.”

Want more? I’m open for commissions!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1009925.html. You can comment here or there.

Outrunning the Fireball, a story of Fae Apoc for the Giraffe Call (@jeriendhal)

May23

Written to [personal profile] jeriendhal‘s prompt here to my Giraffe Call.

Aiden is the grandson of Shahin and Emrys from Addergoole, via their son and daughter Morganna and Arturo. So when he thinks about his grandparents, ah, there’s only two of them. (And only three great-grandparents).

Year 53 or so of the Addergoole School, 2047

The problem with leaving the family business, Aiden was discovering, was that it didn’t really leave you.

He was trying, trying very hard, to be a good guy. Which, he supposed, his mother and grandmother and so on had as well, but let’s be honest, his grandparents were the sort of people who would take over a city for its own good and take ten percent off the top for living expenses and wardrobe before they worried about the starving children in the streets.

Aiden was trying not to be that person.

The problem was, when your only tool was a hammer, as the saying went — or, in Aiden’s case, a fireball — everything started to look like potential targets.

In this case, he had been moving through a small town when he found out that something or someone had been stealing livestock. “I can help with that,” he’d said, because right, that’s what he did, Mysterious Stranger who wandered through towns and helped fix problems.

And he’d found himself sitting up in a tree, watching for the something or someone, all ready to scorch a wyvern or tiger or whatever and save the city. He’d literally had a fireball to hand – well, of course he did. He was named Fire. He always had a fireball to hand.

The zip of motion that went by was too fast for him to catch. It was too fast for his fireball to hit; it had ended up lighting a portion of the pasture on fire, which had further delayed Aiden as he tried not to set the town alight. That would not be helping.

He was pretty sure the unknown… whatever… had come back twice more while he was doing that, but at least they’d only taken the one sheep. It was only when he was done with the fire and beginning to spin an actual tracking Working – dead gods alone knew if it would work on something that fast – when he actually saw her.

She was skinny, wild-looking, probably-blonde with a dark, burnt-in tan, wearing scraps of rawhide and not much else. She was staring at him, or, at least, he thought she was. She was also vibrating.

“Don’t follow me,” she hissed, and she was gone, very literally outrunning Aiden’s thoughtlessly-thrown fireball.

He stared at the streak where she had been, and thought, a little desperately, that he might be in love.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/944921.html. You can comment here or there.