Tag Archive | weeklies

That Guy Thursday: Kheper

Aug1

Kheper

Rich, entitled… beetle.

Kheper is a handsome, strong-willed and strong-chinned young man who comes from privilege; he is well-dressed and well-spoken, with expensive tastes and very strong views on almost everything.

He’s a short, slight young man as he enters Addergoole, at about 5’7″ tall. In his first year he gains three inches; in the subsequent three years in the school he gains another inch a year. He has black hair that he keeps shaggy and shoulder-length because it offends his mother (his first-year Keeper, Cynara, is amusingly not at all offended by it), chocolate brown eyes, and slightly-too-shaggy eyebrows. His skin is dark tan, and his features show his Egyptian/Arabic heritage.

Being Kept subdues his temper and views not at all, although a year in the battlefield of Addergoole does begin to mellow him very very slightly.

There is a longer description of Kheper here

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/558351.html. You can comment here or there.

Tasty Tuesday: Asparagus Soup

Jun26

It’s asparagus season! And, while I can eat spear-grass steamed with lemon juice pretty much forever, T. wants a few different options.

So we made Creamy Asparagus Soup, from Cook’s Country, April/May 2010

(This is a magazine worth subscribing to, by the by).

We split this in half:
2 lbs asparagus
3T butter
2 small leeks, white and light green portions*
salt & pepper
3-1/2 c low-sodium chicken broth
1/2 c frozen peas (these make it actually green)
2 t grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 c heavy cream
1/2 teas lemon juice

The recipe calls for reserving the tips, sauteeing them first, and using them as a garnish. Next time we will skip this step

Add vegetables, chopped into 1/2″ pieces, to the butter in a dutch oven or saucier. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are softened (about 10 mintues)

Add brother and bring to a boil; reduce to simmer until vegetables are tender (about 5 minutes). Stir in peas & parm.

Puree in a blender in batches, or with a stick blender. Stir in cream & lemon juice and cook until warm, just about 2 minutes.

This was very tasty, and very very asparagus-y. It’s also not a meal (we went out for ice cream afterwards. That worked). But it would work well as a side with something meaty.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/545300.html. You can comment here or there.

That Guy Thursday: Lucian

Jun20

Ah, yes, the bad guy. Every story needs a few, right?

Lucian didn’t start off as a bad guy, but that’s another story. Today, we’re looking at Lucian in Year Nine.

He’s a tall guy – six-four or so – and lanky, with hair that’s sandy-blonde, headed more towards true blonde in summer and early fall and darkening to almost brunette in the winter. He’s got a permanent sneer, an angry frustration with life, and handsome blue eyes that match the feathers on his wings.

Although they get called Team Rocket, he has very little physically in common with Thessaly except an innate athleticism and the hard bodies to match it.

And a streak of entitlement that puts themselves before anyone else in the world, but, then again, they are the bad guys.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/543524.html. You can comment here or there.

Way Back Wednesday: Maureen, the Lady Foxglove

Jun19

Late 1980

The woman known only as Foxglove slipped out of the Senator’s office unseen. He paid well for that discretion, although exactly how well he was going to pay, he did not know yet.

She wrote a brief letter in a language only a handful of the world’s population would recognize, encoded in a code only seven people knew, and posted it to a drop-box. It wasn’t, exactly, espionage, but old habits died hard.

The senator wasn’t her only visit today. He wasn’t even the most important, although he certainly thought he was. Schools needed accreditation. They needed recognition. They also needed funding, in order to run properly.

Fortunately for them, the accreditation board and those who made recognition of the proper sort happen were all – if not necessarily human – fallible and with exploitable flaws.

Foxglove bore no illusions about the nature of the organization she had joined, or about their opinion of her. She knew they would use all of her skills to the fullest and still hesitate to invite her to dinner.

Luckily for them, she not only agreed with their goals, she heartily enjoyed using her skills.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/542978.html. You can comment here or there.

That Gal Thursday: Æowyn

May23

Some people are just born to be social; Æowyn is one of those.

She’s a people-person, a social butterfly, a maven and a sometimes gossip; in a normal school, she’d be the head of her own clique. In later years at Addergoole, she probably will be the head of a crew.

This year, she’s Kept, and not very well-Kept at that. Her relationship with Fafnir (such as it is) restrains just how social she can be; all of her friends also being under a collar restrains it even more.

Æowyn is a slender blonde girl with bright blue eyes who stands barely 4’9″ tall. Her Change gives her scales down her chest and back, and poisonous fangs. It also gives her a temper to match the poison.

Only on one point has Fafnir given up: Æowyn doesn’t dress the way he’d like her to. She wears men’s button-down shirts and vests, newsboy caps and men’s slacks; only at the dances does she give in enough to wear skirts.

When un-Kept, she’ll probably wear tuxes to the dances.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/536116.html. You can comment here or there.

Magic Mondays: Faerie Apocalype – Tlacatl

May13

[personal profile] rix_scaedu Asks:

Okay, if you have Meentik Panida, you can make a sheep, right?

If you have Meentik Tlactl and you’re strong enough, old enough, etc, can you make a person?

Sort of.

Panida covers all aspects of animals: their thoughts (such as they are), their emotions, their flesh.

However, Tlacatl only covers one portion of people (human or Ellehemaei*), the flesh. So, with Meentik Tlacatl at a high enough level (a student could not do this, certainly not a first- or second-year student), you could create a human body.

It would be a soul-less, mind-less zombie however, with no will, no heart and no thought. In order to create an actual person, you would need to use Tlactl in conjunction with Intinn (mind) and Hugr (emotion); this would be an immensely complicated Working.

* Technically, Tlacatl is “Flesh of Makers;” i.e., sentient tool-using beings. So, if you had Tlactl as a Word and encountered aliens, you would be able to Work them.

I am not entirely certain if Tlacatl works on dolphins…

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/532902.html. You can comment here or there.

Way Back Wednesday: Shira Pelletier

May8

1702

The woman stalked through the forest.

She had not worn a name in many years, and could not, precisely, remember what she had been called when she had landed here.

She spent her time, her attention, worrying about more real concerns: She had to eat, and to eat, she had to hunt. She needed shelter, sometimes, and for that she needed to build. She needed, more rarely, companionship, and for that she needed to speak to the fur-hunters who also worked her forests.

“Wild girl,” they called her, and chasseuse sauvage, and fourreuse de forêt, and more pleasant names. They paid her in trinkets and good food for the furs she brought them, and gave her company without asking questions.

And none of them asked about her ears, which perked above her twisted hair like a deer’s.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/528106.html. You can comment here or there.

Magic Mondays: Faerie Apoc, Unutu

May6

In the Faerie Apocalypse ‘verse, there are 11* Domains and 11 Manifestations – Domains being Things You Can Affect and Manifestations being How You Affect Those Things.

Of the 11* Domains, Unutu is my favorite.

Unutu is the word that covers “Worked Objects” and can be anything from a stretch of cloth to a steel girder. At its purest, Unutu is plastic-like – if you are using the Manifestation Meentik (Create) and have none of the other object-like Domains, you are likely to end up Creating something that seems mostly plastic.

However, if you have, for instance, Huamu (plants), you can then more easily create, say, hemp or cotton cloth. Eperu (earth) and you can make those steel beams. Panida (Animals) and you can make a wool jumper or a leather collar.

Of all the Words, thus, Unutu is the one most often combined with another Word. And it can be, in today’s day and age, the most versatile.

Recent discussion on Twitter gives me another example: You can use Jasfe (repair) to repair a pitted, pot-holed road, or you can use it to repair your car once the road has done it damage. Or your tire, once it gets a flat.

With Meentik Unutu and a sufficient knowledge of how things need to work, you can make just about anything you might need.

Well, except food. You still need Huama and/or Panida for that.

And no, we’re not going into Tlacatl here.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/527170.html. You can comment here or there.