Tag Archive | verse: tirnacali: au

Delivery, a continuation/story from yet another viewpoint (@cluudle)

Aug13

“My Lord?”

Lord Padraic’s aide-de-camp had been out for weeks, combing the hills, searching all of the places runaways usually ended up, looking for a single runaway American slave.

Now he came in, looking more lost and confused than Padraic had ever seen the man. He bowed low, head to the ground.

“If you’re going to tell me you can’t find him, I obviously know that already. Try harder.” He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “It’s not that big of a country, Ciaran.”

“It’s not that, my Lord. It’s…” Ciaran twisted to look at the doorway. “It’s him.“

Padraic wasted a perfectly good disbelieving expression on the top of Ciaran’s head. “Him?” he imitated. “What – or who, I suppose, is he?”

“That would be me, sir.” A quiet, deep voice was followed in the doorway by a slender Tuathan man. His hair was cropped short and he’d allowed a short goatee to grow, giving him a strange look for their people. He dropped to his knees next to Ciaran, making the gesture look like a dance move. “I am Arlen, sir, and I am for you.”

“For…” Padraic found himself on his feet. “What do you mean, for?“

“For you, sir. If you’ll stop looking for Seth.”

“You’re a bribe.” Padriac rose to his feet. “I have been sent a bribe. By whom?”

“By me, sir. I am well-trained…” The man lifted his face to stare Padraic in the face. “But I can fight if you prefer.”

This comes after Walk Away and On the Hook, set in [profile] cluudle‘s Cali-ish AU.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/971420.html. You can comment here or there.

On the Hook, from another point of view (#ThimblefulThursday)

Aug13

On day 373 since his kidnapping, Seth found himself once again aimlessly pacing the caves. He really ought to –

“Hey, Seth, right?” A tiny woman – he was pretty sure she was the cook – flagged him down. “Can you give me a hand with this? We just liberated a shipment of rice and stuff.”

“Sure. Lead me to it.” Sitting around waiting wouldn’t do anything but drive him nuts.

“You look stressed.” She led him to the truck, backed up into the mouth of the main cave. “I mean, more than everyone here does.” Being part of a slave rebellion, as quiet and polite as this one was, wasn’t exactly relaxing.

Seth shrugged it off. “It’s nothing.” He looked away, using the bags of rice as an excuse. “Ooof.” He hauled one to his shoulder. “Are you sure these aren’t lead?”

“Hopefully. Is it too much?” She picked up a small crate labelled “spinach.”

“Of course not.” He’d lost a lot of weight and muscle in the last year, but he could still carry around some grain. “I’m fine.”

“You said that already.” She hip-bumped him gently. “You can tell me. I’m practically the bartender.”

Seth took a moment to rearrange his load of rice. “Look. I had, you know, an owner, I guess?”

“Usually slaves do,” she agreed gently.

“Yeah, well, American. I’m not made for this shit. So my former ‘owner,’ he’s getting way too close. They’ve actually sighted his, uh, overseer guy in the hills a couple times.” He shrugged. The rice was sitting funny, so he shifted it again. These people, native Californians and Americans who’d gone native, they had no reason to help him. He didn’t belong here. “He’s going to find me.”

“Take it you don’t like him?”

“I-” Seth closed his mouth. People here, they didn’t think being a slave was wrong. “Yeah. I didn’t like him.” Damnit. She didn’t need to know the gory details.

“It happens like that sometimes. Some people just shouldn’t be allowed to own slaves.” Her hand settled on his arm, just for a moment. “We’ll fix it. That’s why we’re here.”

Seth smiled, allowing himself to relax for a moment. “Thanks.” They couldn’t, but it was nice to say.

“Hey kid.” A Californian guy a foot shorter than Seth patted his other shoulder in passing. “You’re off the hook.”

Seth stared at the guy as he walked away. After a moment, he noticed the cook was staring, too. “What-“

“At a guess…” Her voice choked up. Seth wanted to hug her, but his arms were full of rice. “…He just put himself on the hook.”

This comes concurrent with Walk Away, set in [profile] cluudle‘s Cali-ish AU.

It’s written to Today’s Thimbleful Thursday prompt

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/970972.html. You can comment here or there.

Walk Away (a story… beginning)

Aug12

Arlen hadn’t so much run as he’d walked. His owner had died with no children and no nieces, and it had taken over a month for the Crown to find an appropriate heir.

Arlen had been fond of the old bitch, but one of the lovely things about her was that she was old. He had no interest in dealing with a new mistress, bitch or no, particularly not someone young. So he found the key to his collar in a box of the her Ladyship’s jewelry, guessed the password — he had served her since infancy; there was very little he didn’t know about her — and walked.

He brought with him Anje, the cook’s daughter, who was pregnant and did not want her baby to be born a slave. They took the oldest, most broken-down of the old lady’s cars, the sort of thing she might have passed down to a slave on freeing them, had she lived.

The slave revolt found them. They were both lifetime slaves, and did not know how to look free, even if they were now, technically, free. The authorities would have found them if the revolt did not; all things considered, Arlen decided they had done all right being found as they had.

Anje found a place for herself right away. Everyone needs cooks, and she had learned at her mother’s feet. Arlen… Arlen was having more trouble. He was trained in personal service. Sometimes, they had “spa days” for visiting nosy government officials, and Arlen had moments where he could shine. But that had all of the disadvantages of personal service and none of the advantages.

There came a slave, terrified and angry and entirely unsuited, and a master who would not let go, would not give up. The dogs were coming and the psychics, the hunters with their tranq guns and their whips.

Sometimes, they had to give the former owners something. Someone. Sometimes sacrifices had to be made.

Arlen looked at the runaway, at Anje and her little girl. He looked, lastly, at himself in the mirror.

And then he walked away from the revolt and back into slavery.

So, cluudle has been writing some stories today in an AU based off of Tir na Cali.

And in return, I wrote a piece based off of her AU. 🙂

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/970050.html. You can comment here or there.