Tag Archive | prompter: rix

Worldbuilding Month Day 3: The Roots of the Aunt Tree

Mar8

March is Worldbuilding Month! Leave me a question about any of my worlds, and I will do my best to answer it!
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This third one is from [personal profile] rix_scaedu:
If the Family in the Aunt Family occasionally splits off anew Family with a new Aunt, where was the original Family? Is it still there? Is there some Family version of “the old country”?

That’s complicated!

Because sometimes branches die out. It requires at least two sisters, after all (or sometimes in rare occasions, brothers, but that’s, as said, rare, and very frowned on, and such), one of which (again, in most cases), remained unmarried, childless, and near her sister’s family. It requires that unmarried sister to at least have the strength to carry the power, and the family branch to have enough power to invest in her.

Sometimes branches are actually wiped out, but that is a rare occurrence in the modern day.

Let’s see.

The original Family came out of England and Germany, and for a long time (legends notwithstanding) was not nearly as formalized an arrangement as it is in the modern day. When the family that believed itself to be the root family moved to the US, they left behind no other sibling groups, but there were several members of the family who were related, carried the spark, and eventually had children of their own.

Note: Not everyone who has power is related to the Family, but they are a broad and deep family-grove with many scions over, by the point, most of the world.

The “original” family at this point would be considered the one that can trace its ancestry back in an unbroken line of Aunts to the first Aunt in America. That actually is Evangaline’s line. It was an aunt of her line who came up with the ritual that collects the power of an already-psychically-skilled family and concentrates the larger portion of it into one person, allowing the family as a whole to have more power than they would otherwise, and allowing the power to be used and directed for bigger and bigger uses.

That happened prior to coming to the U.S., but it was believed, when they moved, that they had brought their entire family and thus their entire power structure with them.

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January by the Numbers 22: xerographing xanthiums (ficlet)

Jan29

January by the numbers continues (now seven days off but I’ll get there).

From [personal profile] rix_scaedu‘s prompt “xerographing xenophobic, xanthophyllous xanthiums;” a fiction vignette of sorts.

Did you Know:So I grew up in Rochester, home of Xerox, and I always thought that xerography came from Xerox, and not the other way around… Nope!
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“So, tell me again why exactly we want to photocopy a noxious weed? It’s not exactly pleasant to handle, it’s no fun to look at, it doesn’t taste good, and it’s all over the place.”

“Well, one.” Xavier had his lecture-face on, which was not his most pleasant expression, but Xadrian found that he liked it. “It’s not exactly photocopying. Xerography is just making a reproduction of an image…”

“Right, right. I mean, we could just take pictures and copy that, and it would probably be less unpleasant.” It had fallen to Xadrian to gather the stuff, and even with gloves involved, his hands were not pleased with him. “Wouldn’t that be a lot better?”

“The problem is, as unpleasant as the xanthium is, it has an advantage nothing else on this blasted island does. It’s xanthophyllous.”

“It loves yellow?”

“It makes a yellow pigment. And that may not seem like such an important thing to you at the moment, but the thing is, we don’t have any yellow anywhere else here. Nothing but clothes we brought with us, and those are fading. Not to mention, they protect eyes from ionizing blue and ultraviolet light… anyway, this noxious mess is important.”

“So we’re photocopying it.” The thing was, Xadrian might have been a xenozoologist rather than a xenoherbologist, but he knew what he was talking about. He just loved teasing Xavier. It got him this lovely lecture-face reaction, and sometimes increasingly detailed explanations until Xavier figured out he was being put on. “This nasty thing.”

“We’re dupli – yes. And maybe you should be the one to pull it apart for the duplicator, too. And then you can make the yellow dye we’re going to use, and feed the rest to the chickens, and…”

“Next time I want to play dumb,” Xadrian muttered, “I’ll go bother Xena.”

“She’d have you xerograph the proto-xenops. And those things hate outsiders.” Xavier’s smile was far too pleased with himself. “Now, take your gloves off. You’re going to need your dexterity to get these thorns into the machine.”

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Helping a Friend Out, Part Two

Dec20

Part One
Addergoole-verse, Early 2012 (in the middle of the Apocalypse)
Written to [personal profile] rix_scaedu‘s commission.
I do not have an Agmund icon. But here’s Luke looking uncomfortable about the whole thing.

The boy was not happy about Agmund’s presence, but he was more than willing to lay out the details of the attack. The Nedetakaei nest had at least ten human hostages, was in the middle of what had been a very populous area before the gods came to town, and had been lain with booby-traps, Worked wards, and at least three explosive trip-lines.

“They don’t want anyone coming in to them, but they’re not going out much, either. They come out just after dark, about every fourth day — no set pattern, but it’s been three days with nothing, so hopefully today’s the day — but they always bring at least two of their hostages, and they go out in two-person teams. If we want to wipe out all three, we have to get the two when they’re out —”

“And then beard the third in the lair or hope they come out. Da. Roof attack?”

“Booby-trapped.” Dominic smiled grimly. “It’s almost as if they expected combat-ready opponents with wings.”

“Always said, Mara’s greatest failing was predictability. But you.” Agmund tapped the boy’s shoulder. “You are not a Mara, no?”

The boy folded up a bit. “Don’t need to rub it in,” he muttered.

“Who is rubbing in? I am not a Mara, either.” Agmund dropped his Mask for a moment, letting the bearishness of his features show through. “So we are not so predictable. What about up from underneath?”

“Under… never thought of that.” The boy’s wings twitched in a habit he’d probably picked up from Luke. The fliers that didn’t study under him didn’t get that habit of nervous telegraphing in quite the same way.

“Then we should look, no, and hope they did not think of it either. Think of it this way,” Agmund offered, with a large grin, “it is much cleaner now than it would have been a year ago.”

Dominic made a face. “Sewers. I hate sewers, even clean ones. But it’s not a bad idea.”

“If back-up had come, what would your plan have been then?”

“Like I said, wait for the two to come out, then storm the place. I don’t want any hostages to die… but the Nedetakaei have to be taken out. They’re too dangerous otherwise.”

“Willing to try it my way, this time?”

Dominic studied him. “Well, you’re the grown-up, and you came to back me up.”

“You are a grown-up too,” Agmund reminded him. “I was there when you received your name, Shifting Shield.”

“But you’re the one with the experience,” Dominic countered. “So your plan wins this time. We go from below?”

“We go from below,” Agmund agreed. “And we go quietly, when the first ones leave.” He growled an Idu out, sending his senses through the street below, and was pleased to hear Dominic do the same.

The boy didn’t appear to have the words for Earth or Worked things, but with a mutter to himself (“Everything has air and water;” he sounded as if he was quoting someone), he did a Working to Know the air and water beneath their feet. The two patterns together would tell them where they were going.

“There,” they pointed at the same time. The manhole cover was just a few yards from their feet. And, as if on cue, the back door to the warehouse opened and two Nedetakaei exited.
Agmund nodded to the boy, and they got to work. It might be messy, but the Bear could go back to Addergoole and tell Luke that one more of his Students had survived. That, in Agmund’s opinion, was worth far more than wading through a sewer.

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Helping a Friend Out, Part One

Dec10

Addergoole-verse, Early 2012 (in the middle of the Apocalypse)
I was thinking about Luke during the apoc, his oaths, and… his friends

Agmund Fridmar was, of course, not unaware that his cy’ree, his Students, and those called cy’Luca, Luke Hawk’s Students, were in a bit of a cy’ree battle, and had been since there were more than three of them to glare at each other across the Dining Hall.

But his Students’ animosity toward Luke’s Students – and, sometimes, he supposed, towards the man himself – did not mean that Agmund had to feel anything of the sort, nor did the cy’Luca’s animosity towards cy’Fridmar and towards Agmund mean that he couldn’t help out Luke in a tough spot.

And the fact of the matter was, Luke was in a tough spot right now, although he would probably have preferred that Agmund and the other professors didn’t take notice. There was a war raging – or, at least, there were dozens and dozens of battles raging, and if you shook them all out, you could see two or three sides that were relatively consistent. There were cy’Luca, former cy’Luca but still the same wide-eyed, eager Warriors for Good, out there fighting against ancient would-be gods. They were losing, on average, but there were doing far more good than one might imagine they would have, and their wins were spectacular.

They were, however, dying, slowly and quickly, in singles and en masse, and Luke was trapped here, in Addergoole, staring at the walls and pacing like a caged tiger. Regine had him wrapped up in orders, and she had no sympathy nor concern, it seemed, for all of those cy’Luca out there dying in a battle she herself had seen coming, had planned for, had engineered them conceived for.

Agmund had his own oaths, but Agmund had always been better with words then Luke, their ins and outs, particularly their outs. His oaths left him a lot more room, and today, the room he was taking from them was a field trip of sorts.

This particular cy’Luca had no fondness at all for him. Dominic, the Shifting Shield. His demonic-looking Change — purple skin with black points, horns, claws — had led the cy’Fridmar during his time to try to recruit him, aggressively. But he’d always been cy’Luca material, and he’d gone to the winged White Knight side in earnest.

Tonight, he was going up against three Nedetakaei who were taking over a neighborhood under the aegis of a chaotic would-be god who’d taken over a northern city, and Agmund had reason to believe his expected back-up wouldn’t be showing up. One of them was dead, one of them had gotten captured, and the third one had been lying.

Agmund walked up to the young man. He didn’t bother to try to be sneaky. He was not here to test Shifting-Shield; he was here to aid him.

“They’re not coming,” he said, before Shifting-Shield could say anything. “So I am here. Stand down,” he added, and let his accent thicken. They did believe him more when he sounded like a bad Russian Boris and Natasha imitation. “Am here for backup, not to fight you.” He gave his best scolding-professor expression. “Nedetakaei is the enemy, da, not me?”

The boy relaxed and bristled at the same time, shifting from ready for a battle to ready for an argument. It was good he knew the difference. “Yeah. The Neds are the enemy, yeah.”

“Very good. Now tell me what we’ve got.”

Part II: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1215458.html

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Ch-ch-ch-changes… (A continuation for the Summer Giraffe Call)

Aug5


It is written to a commissioned present for rix_scaedu as a continuation of Insta-Cure and Soul Fire from my Summer Giraffe Call.

Betsy and Aspen looked at each other again, then looked back at Topher. They looked at each other, then at Topher. On the third look, they tackled him, Betsy with a pillow, Aspen aiming for the tickle offense.

Topher fell back, trying to fend off both of them without grabbing anything inappropriate. “What?”

Betsy wrinkled her nose at him. “I’m glad you’re all confident and everything, but there’s a thin line between confident and being a jerk.”

“Well, that’s what I was trying to tell you. Well, I suppose I wasn’t trying so much as hoping you’d read it from my mind,” Topher admitted slowly, “but I mean, I don’t, say, hit on the two of you because I didn’t think I had a chance. But that’s because I thought I was a schlub.”

“You’re not a schlub, Topher! See, that’s what I was talking about! You’re always putting yourself down.”

“I get it, I get it. I said I thought I was, remember? That’s like in the isn’t now-tense or something. So now… well. I still think you’re both beautiful. And I still think I could hit on you. But well… you’re both beautiful. And nothing we did there with the fire did anything about my powers of decision-making. So, uh. I’m going to go to the gym. I think I know where it is. And maybe, hunh. Betsy, you’re super fast but maybe if I worked I could keep up with you if you jogged at a reasonable speed? Get some running in.” He was grinning, but for once he looked happy rather than goofy.

Betsy stared at him. “And this really isn’t about getting into a threesome with Asp and me?”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong. I would totally go for a threesome if I had a chance. But mostly, I just wanted to see if you’d hit me.” He leaned back with his hands folded behind his head. “You are lovely, awesome women, and I think I have some catching up to do before I can seriously proposition either of you. And, well… I’m not the only one used to thinking of me as kind of a schlub, am I?”

Betsy coughed and looked away. Aspen leaned forward, her fists clenching on her lap. “Now, you… you listen here, mister,” she blustered, “I don’t put up with anyone describing my best friend that way!”

“Yeah, but there was never much we could do about the jocks and the football players, and, come on, I knew I couldn’t take them all in a fight and after a while, neither of even tried. We just learned how to work around them, how to hide and how to keep them off our backs, right? Not exactly brave heroes.” He held up both his hands. “We’ve gotten a lot better. And, while we’re being honest: neither the jocks or the Queen bees would be that much of a challenge now, would they? It would be like swatting flies — ha, or bees — with a sledgehammer.”

“I can’t… magic… someone just because they’re a little rude!” Aspen glared at him. “That would be like, like, well, it would be wrong.”

“And I’m not saying magic them. I’m saying, you fight monsters every weekend and most school nights. Betsy, sure, she was picked for this, she’s got the powers. But you, me? We’ve been doing this for three years with just what we got from being born. I know you don’t use your magic normally, you just wale on them with that big old stick, just like I do.” He was leaning forward again, looking intense. “I’m not the only one that has to stop doubting myself in this group, guys. And I’m not saying we should beat the bullies into a pulp… but maybe it’s time to stop being shoved into lockers, hey?”

Betsy and Aspen were both staring at him as if he’d grown a second head.

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Rescued Indeed…

Aug1

This is the next post in the ‘Rescue, of Sorts’ storyline, which can be found at this tag: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/tag/character:+daxton

It is written to a commissioned present for [personal profile] clare_dragonfly, as well as to kelkyag‘s prompt here for my Summer Giraffe Call and a very-requested line item to my Finish It? request.

The wedding was the sort of pomp-and-circumstance affair you’d expect from a nation in the middle of a long peacetime, not one that was attacked on nearly a weekly basis. It was rich and extravagant, and if the coffers of the Duchy and some of the King and Queen’s own money had been plundered to pay for it, so had many people donated time and materials to the event as well.

The bride was stunning, in a confection whispered to have been designed by the groom. You could see the lines of armor in the design of the bodice, and she carried her sword proudly. They were still a nation at war, after all, and she was a soldier.

The groom was handsome, walking tall, recovered from his ordeal in the Red Queen’s dungeon. He wore a suit no less fancy than the bride’s gown, and he, too, carried a sword. They were accompanied by seven warriors, all of them armed to the teeth.

They wore white, all of them, even the priests, the Duke, the Duchess. Most of the guests gave some nod to the white as well, if even just a sash. There was no red to be seen anywhere in the temple or around it. The Red Queen had been driven back but not defeated, and they would not give her quarter here, in their most intimate of celebrations, even in showing her color.

The bride was nervous, but she walked straight forward, her back straight, a smile on her face that would have been beaming had it not been quavering a bit on the edges. The groom smiled almost shyly as he looked around the gathered guests: so many people, his smile seemed to say, although he and his bride both understood. This was only about them in a very small part; this was about not being defeated.

Daxton reached his long march down the left of the temple as Esha finished walking down the right. There his parents, her captain and first lieutenant, and the three highest priests of the duchy awaited them. Daxton reached his hands out to Esha and she, in turn, clasped his wrists.

There were words said, of course. The Duke and Duchess began, speaking of the deal they had made, should anyone rescue their son. There was a moment of silence, because many people had died in attempting that rescue, and so many more people had died in this awful war against the Red Queen. Daxton and Esha bowed their heads no less sadly than anyone else in the temple; they, too, had lost people, and they, too, wanted to remember those people.

Then there were homilies and vows, promises and quiet jokes, input from the crowd — loud input, in some situations, and a few snickered whispers that were probably still louder than intended. For all of the solemnity, marriage was a fun affair and a public one; Daxton and Esha joked right back along with their guests, as did the priests and the Duke and Duchess, the Captain and the attendants.

The ceremony segued naturally into the feast, with the jokes growing louder and more wild, the shouting sliding into group songs. “Let the Red Queen hear what she’s missing!” was a common refrain. Nobody was surprised to hear Esha joining in; the bride, after all, was a mercenary, even if she had been catapulted into nobility by her exploits.

Almost everyone was surprised when Daxton joined in on one of the crudest songs, even presenting a verse nobody had heard before. When Esha elbowed her new husband, he blushed. “The Red Queen’s guards sing, too,” he whispered to her, before providing yet another verse of the ridiculous song.

Eventually, the party died down. The bride and groom slipped away — snuck away might be more accurate — to Daxton’s suite up in the castle.

A few weeks from now, they might head out to the country, to find a piece of land they could grow comfortable on. For tonight, they locked and barred his door and pulled the curtains tightly closed.

“They’ll be expecting…” Daxton began.

Esha shook her head. “Let them expect. We are alone together and it is our wedding night. What happens here is our business and ours alone.”

It wasn’t — not in some sense. They belonged to the Duchy, their returned son and their hero, and they knew it. But for tonight, they could pretend.

“Did you expect this, when you came to rescue me?” Daxton lay on the wide bed and stared up at the ceiling.

“I barely expected to survive.” She lay on her side studying him. “No, let’s be honest. I expected to die. But someone had to try, we were going to keep trying, and I wanted it to be me dying, not someone more important.”

Daxton rolled over to look at her. “You’re important to me.”

Esha smiled crookedly. “Well, then… I’m glad I lived.”

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Soul Fire… (A continuation for the Summer Giraffe Call)

Jul18


Written to rix_scaedu‘ commissioned continuation of Insta-Cure from my Summer Giraffe Call.

Aspen pulled the candles and fake logs from the fireplace and whispered a quick spell, unstoppering the chimney. “Fire,” she murmured, pleased with herself. “All right, Toph, Betsy, there are eight candles in there. Arrange them in a half-circle around the fireplace, and then we’re going to put you in the middle, Toph, and we’re going to focus on the problem.”

“No, uh-unh.” He shook his head emphatically. “That’s how we end up with the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.”

“No, no. That’s how we ended up with the nice shield over this block, remember? It’s not always like Ghostbusters, bub.”

Topher sighed loudly. “All right, all right. We can focus on the problem. Which is me, yeah? Me is the problem?”

“Your lack of self-esteem is the problem, Toph.” Betsy frowned at him. “You keep acting like you’re somewhere down below the totem pole, and it’s ridiculous.”

“Hello, have you met you? Either of you? You’re like the most impressive women in your class, probably in the state, and likely in the world. Me, I’m… I’m me. Topher George, loser extraordinaire.”

“You see? That. That’s what I’m worried about. Okay. Here’s the last candle and here’s the actual flame. And here here’s where we write it on parchment.”

“So we, like, we’re literally burning up my flaws?” Toph stared at the parchment in unwilling awe. “And this actually works?”

“Well, the book I found it in says it works, and it’s a good one. Not the kitties-and-puppies book,” Aspen hastened to add. “So yeah, I thought we’d do all three of us, but we can focus on Toph first. And then Betsy and I will be clear-headed if we need to fix something really fast. All right.” Aspen lit the fire in the fireplace and lit the candles. “Topher, you do the writing. Betsy and I will do the chanting and the focusing. Ready?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” he allowed.

“Good. Betsy, you come in on the second repeat.”

“Got it, boss.”

The chant was easy, repetitive, the Sumerian coming smoothly to their tongues after the number of rituals the three of them had performed. They closed their eyes as Topher wrote a word on the parchment and tossed it into the fire.

The flames surged, dancing higher than they had fuel for, and then vanished. Only Topher’s eyes were open, so only he saw the flames actually dart up the chimney.

“Asp? Were the flames supposed to become a little pixy thing and run off with all my flaws?”

Aspen finished the chant. “‘The flames will take them’ is what the ritual says.” She opened her eyes. “How’re you feeling?”

“Mostly… like I want some donuts.” He stretched and wiggled his fingers. “What? Don’t look at me like that, Asp. It’s not like hating myself colored everything I did. I mean, okay…” He trailed off thoughtfully. “Hunh. Well. I guess it feels a little different.”

“Oh, good. I mean, I was thinking maybe it didn’t work or maybe it really was like the Stay-Puft marshmallow man and now you were going to crave donuts all of the time, and that would have been awful, I mean, at least kind of awful…”

“Well, to be fair, I already craved donuts all the time, it was just that I was… hunh. I wonder what a gym membership costs. I wonder if I can get a part-time job that doesn’t suck. What d’ya think, Asp? Barista, maybe? Someone around here has to need someone to work for them, and why not me? I mean…”

Betsy and Aspen shared a look. “Well,” Betsy allowed quietly, “this isn’t too bad, so far.”

“You know… I’ve wanted to know something for a long time, and I figure, you can both kill me for this if you want, but you only live once, right?” Topher looked between the two of them and grinned. “And you two are the only two I’ve ever really wanted, but I guess I figured I wasn’t strong enough for you or smart enough for you, but I’m not all that dumb and I’m crafty where I’m not strong and, well…” His smile got sly and mischievous. “Threesome?”

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1153016.html

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Invasive, a story for the Summer Giraffe Call Round 2

Jul6


Written to rix_scaedu‘ prompt here to my Summer Giraffe Call Round 2

The sun was up. It had been raining for a week, and the plants did not need any more water.

Patrice suited up in leather, long gloves and shit-kicker boots, and risked stepping out onto her front porch.

She could hear sirens in the distance. She wondered if they’d cleared Main Street yet. She wondered what had happened with their “controlled burn.” She’d told them it was too wet for that. She was told them they needed to find the source, but the thing was too good at distracting them from the core.

The vines had grown up all around her fence, sealing it shut. Fruits the size of a mango hung off it, dripping tantalizingly. She could smell the magic from here. And that was the problem.

It had been a bad summer after a bad winter, and the economy was so far in the basement it was digging to the core. People were hungry. People were tired, desperate, and lost.

She grabbed a fruit, keeping the rest of her body far from the vines, and bit into it. They would not starve… if they could remember not to let the vine get them.

The vines had shown up where it was needed – abandoned lots and crack houses in the worst parts of the city. The fruit was rich, tasty, fatty like an avocado and just sweet enough to want you to eat more and more.

And then normal people started seeing the sideways world, the magical. And then normal people starting vibrating with power… exploding with power.

Patrice stepped back into the center of her yard and let the power wash over her. It was a rush, no matter how bad it was. It would keep them fed… and it would keep them happy.

It had been two weeks before the vines were found cradling the husk, barely alive, of a witch. Of a goblin. Of a werewolf. Or someone that was, as far as anyone could tell, human. The vines had been found reaching out for people, snatching them off the streets.

The fruits were richer, sweeter than they had been, and as the vines took over the city streets, they grew even tastier. Fire wouldn’t kill it; you couldn’t burn the thing without burning the city down. And it set down roots everywhere it could find dirt.

The power roiled through her. Patrice rolled her shoulders and unsheathed her machete.

They were running out of space. They were running out of time. She let power tingle down to her fingers and through her blade. She was going to chop down vines until they killed her or she reached the center.

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