Alder's Grove

I write a lot. Some of this is because I like writing drabbles and short fic; 250 words isn't that hard to pop off.

Much of my writing is in established settings; those that don't have landing pages will soon.

These include:

Stranded World (LJ Link), modern fantasy seen through the eyes of 4 siblings who work the webs of the world, each in their own way.
Reiassan (LJ Link), high fantasy in a world just recovering from centuries of battle.
Tir na Cali (LJ Link); technically modern fantasy, alternate-history timeline, primarily lifestyle-kink erotica.
Faerie Apocalypse (LJ Link), a dystopic modern and post-modern fantasy/apoc world. Faeries and gods live among us, disguised as humans, their culture underground.
Addergoole (LJ Link) is a school within the Faerie Apocalypse setting.
Vas' World (LJ Link): the team was sent to explore the planet for colonization. They could never have guessed what they'd find.
Dragons Next Door (LJ Link)is a fun high-fantasy-in-the-burbs setting with a few good-with-ketchup crunchy dark bits.
(without landing pages so far:)
Facets of Dusk (LJ Link) is a mystery waiting to be revealed; come along for the show!
The Planners (LJ Link): When the Apocalypse came, they were prepared. Very Prepared.
Unicorn/Factory (LJ) of the costs of progress.
The Aunt Family (LJ) - a mysterious family with some very strange magical artifacts.
Space Accountant (LJ) All Genique wanted was a nice vacation.
Shadow Rebellion (LJ) It all started with the shadows moving...
Science! (Lj) Why haven't Mad Scientists taken over the world yet?
Setting Nursery - these one-off stories may blossom into settings some day (incomplete)

All of my writing here is crowdfunded and crowdsourced; comments and suggestions keep the gears spinning and donations keep the power on.
My Donor landing page is here (and on LJ); you can tip (tips go in a general pool to sponsor longer stories, voted on monthly), sponsor an already-written story, or commission a story to be written.

Once a month I open up a call for prompts; the Giraffe Call's landing page is here and on LJ.

I hosted a 30-days of flash fiction meme: its landing page is here (LJ Link)

I have been published:
An Electric Tragedy
Addergoole, my ongoing webserial
Tales for the Sugar Cat, my ebook

Wikis of setting information currently exist in various stages of completion:
Addergoole
Addergoole Year Nine
Reiassan
Faerie Apoc

After Decision, after ID.

Ora watched the decision flow over Silas' face and body, his fangs vanishing, his smile coming back. There wasn't that much to watch, but after this many years, she knew her mate well enough to see the shift.

A blind man could have seen the possessiveness as he welcomed her former Kept into their house. Ora didn't mind. Silas had a right to be possessive when someone was challenging his right to their family.

She looked Adder up and down as he entered their property. The boy looked thin, wan, grubby. Worn down. "You said the world was falling to hell." She would never have the arch skill with language that Silas and his late family did, but she could put make herself sound calmer and more innocent than she was. "What about yourself?"
( Read more... )

This may require more context than is available; it comes out of a couple different Addergoole-based RP's .

Bracken is a former Addergoole student. not a good one, either, rebellious and difficult. She's, at the point of this story, going through a heartbreak, trying to fix the damage in her heart and her psyche, and trying to make amends with people she's harmed. Nick is her Kept. Alexi was, at one point, Bracken's last year of school and Alexi's first, Bracken's Kept.

Sometime around Year 21 of the Addergoole school; 5 years after the world ended

There had been easy pieces of Bracken's recovery journey.

Talking to the teachers at school had not been comfortable, but she'd been able to yell, to lay blame, to explain I wasn't a bad kid, not really. I was terrified. And then you yelled at me.
( Read more... )

To kelkyag's commissioned continuation of Sidekick. For the complete story, see here.

The Aunt Family has a landing page here.

"Tragic." Eva was finding her voice, although it was taking effort. "Aunt Rosaria, what are you talking about? There's nothing tragic about Uncle Arges, unless you mean those horrid Hawaiian shirts. And who's Willard?" She flapped her hand. "I know that Willard is Aunt Ramona's son. And I think you've said that he's like Stone, or he was, but he left the family. I didn't know people could leave the family." She frowned. "Aunt Rosaria, I don't normally sound this silly."

Her aunt patted her leg. "I know, dear. Believe me, I really do. I remember when my aunts had this effect on me. It's as if you are feeling the whole weight of the family staring down at you from one old lady, isn't it?"

"I wouldn't have put it quite that way..."
( Read more... )

Chives in my Invasives Garden. :-)

Spring is Here.

And we will have apples this Autumn!

As offered in April's Giraffe Call, I got enough prompts & donations to bring us past the 26 letters of the alphabet (all the way to J again!). So now we are open for prompts for non-English letters.

If you left a prompt in the original call or in Twitter, I already have it, no need to prompt again.

Over the next 5 days, I will post 3 stories to non-English-letter prompts. For every additional donation I receive, I will post another story, in addition to the donor continuation already offered.

At $80, I will write two extra 500-word continuations - chosen by prompters picked by random number generator.

Buy an Extension

500 words $5.00 USD 750 words $7.50 USD 1000 words $10.00 USD 1250 words $12.50 USD 1500 words $15.00 USD 1750 words $17.50 USD 2000 words $20.00 USD 100 words $1.00 USD

A discussion in several parts of the near-extinction of humanity in my Faerie Apocalypse Setting.

( Read more... )

Part II - http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/534355.html / http://aldersprig.livejournal.com/668348.html / http://addergoole.livejournal.com/236978.html

With thanks to moonwolf

The Planners (and on LJ)
Charlie Estes
Ward Hudson
Vince Howe
Jannie Howe
Ida (Hudson)
Diana (Estes)
Anna
Janelle
Rick
Kerafena
Ashley
Aaron
Mrs Taylor
Jasmine
Theresa/Tess (Down, Down, Down; Inside the Walls);
Letty;
Tarver;
Eustace;
Grandmother Ellen
Matthew;
Sonia; The Cathedral; Forbidden)
Jonah
Bauer (Keys)
Oliver
Eugenia
Thomas (Forbidden)
Cassius (Cash)
Anemone
Roma
Ona
Ursa
Cynthia
The Anthropologist (Wedding)
Lore Speaker (Wedding)
Inosati
Jalar
Huna
Revan

For Rion's Prompt "A hello in a goodbye," along with some others for color.

"So this is goodbye."

He lingered by the door, hand on the doorknob. Waiting for... he wasn't sure for what. Something.

She nodded. That hadn't been, not really, what he wanted, but he supposed it would have to do. "Goodbye. Sayonara. Hasta la Never. Au re-not."

He flinched. "I get the point."

"Are you sure? You've always been hard-headed."

"I just don't understand why." He had meant not to sound plaintive, not to beg.

"And you never will. I could carve it in hieroglyphs on your forehead, and you would still not understand. Save us both the trouble, and leave."

~
He left.
~

The door swung open, and he stepped out of her life. "Good-bye."

She didn't answer; he hadn't expected her to. He turned his back on her, her room, and everything she entailed, turned around to face the hall and a new life.

"...Hello."

She could have been the twin of the woman behind him, dressed in black instead of white, her eyes blue instead of brown, the same nose, the same hair, the same chin.

"Hello." Her voice, too, was the same. "Can I help you?"

"I was just leaving." He gestured at the door behind him, only to see that, where the door had been were only hieroglyphs on the wall. He looked back at her. "But this could be hello."

Another take on cluudle's prompt. I didn't want to start another Facets story when I have so many hanging out there, but this just called to me.

"That. Looks ominous."

The team stared up at the gate.

"It looks beautiful."

It had to be at least a hundred feet tall at its apex.

"It seems rather expensive."

It was either made out of solid gold - unlikely - or gilded over the entire edifice.

"It seems rather gaudy."

The whole thing had been sculpted or molded with flourishes, pineapples,
arches, and scrolls. There was not more than a six-inch span of straight line anywhere in the entire structure.

"Not to mention shiny."

There were cabochons set into the gold, mostly yellow stones, reflecting light even more brightly than the metal did.

"And imposing."

It was, after all, a gate. The doors were not solid, but they were made of some sort of woven mesh. The largest holes through the mesh were the size of Alexa's fist, the smallest not wide enough to allow a hair through. The gate was set into an equally-shiny but black-silver fence, every bit as tall and every bit as impassible.

"Not to mention impossible." Peter's instruments did not seem to like the thing.

"Well." They stepped up to the gate, studying it. Glaring at it. Contemplating it, as were their wonts. Cole cleared his throat. "I say we knock."

If you donated to this recent Giraffe Call, you are entitled to (donation in US$)x100 words of continuation on anything written here.

Please let me know what you'd like to see.

I keep plugging away at the April Giraffe Call. At this rate, I'm not sure there'll be a *May* Giraffe Call... but the April one keeps going!

My Signal Boost Poem awaits more signal boosts (or art).

I have written so far:
A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M - N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z
- A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J

Continuations:
I

Prompter Count: 23
Extra Prompt count: 1
Donator Count: 6
Total letters to be written: 36/26

And we've reached $70 in donations!



Just $5 from being able to get the accessories for the foyer; just $10 from 2 people getting extra 500-word continuations!
( donate )

I'm excited! This is a much more energetic call than I've had in a while. And, once I get through all the prompts owed to people... on to the non-English letters!

This is for, I believe, Friendly Anon's "E" prompt, "Emrys.

It comes after/concurrent with -
Toy Soldiers
With Friends Like These...,
Cleaning Up and
this scrap (http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/398701.html)
Monsters
Mimosas.
S for Shahin



There had been any number of hard things in Emrys' life with Shahin.

Many of them had been, in retrospect, a very soft level of "hard," teenage drama, teenage angst and jealousy and anger.
( Read more... )

For @dahob's Prompt: Dungeon, Dragon, Demon, Dinosaur.

I could use prompts for D, G, H, and J, pls.

"I told you this was a dungeon crawl." Drew ran her gloved hand along the left-hand wall. "There's a demon - "

"That's not a demon, that's Damon."

"Take a good look at him and tell me he doesn't suit the role. Besides, he's between us and the treasure." Drew smirked triumphantly at D.D. "See? Dungeon crawl." Joking about it almost covered the tremor in her voice.

"Okay. So allowing that there's a Damon-demon, it's still just a bunch of passages under a building."

"With a dragon."

"That's got to be a dinosaur."
( Read more... )

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.

To @daHob's prompt "creation."

They started with the earth and the sky.

They had a hemisphere, a blank, seven miles in radius, of force-shield, set upon one of the most blasted places, where the air, the ground, even the stone was blasted and useless. They set the hemisphere there, and they sent in their radiation-scrubbing nanites and their rubble-breaking-down machines and their chemicals, until the ground was level dirt, arable and fertile, and the air in there was breathable.

The sphere had been opaque; now they made it transparent, to let in the light. They set their machines to digging up a lake and a river, creeks and streams, to funnel the water of the sky in. And they set into all these tributaries filters, so that the water would be potable.
( Read more... )

To stryck's prompt. Antlers will always remind me of @Inventrix's Addergoole character Leofric, and then of his son Vidrou, and so I took it out one step further to his son, by the girl in the icon.

Ce'Rilla sh'Orlaith by Accalon and Vidrou sh'Cynara by Leofric

Anyway! Forward to Year 41...

"He has antlers. Antlers, Eleri, isn't that adorable? Well, antler buds." Laufeia ran her hand over her new Kept's skull, pushing his sandy hair out of the way to reveal the little nubs that would be antlers in a year or two.

He didn't pull away, because he'd been ordered not to move. But he hadn't, yet, been ordered not to speak. "You should let me go."

"Oh, that's silly." Laufeia smiled indulgently at the boy and spoke over his shoulder to her crew-mate. "Isn't he adorable, El?"

"He might be right, Fei. You now that there's people you shouldn't mess with. He could be, especially if he has antlers." The redhead brushed her hand through the boy's hair.

He once again did not pull away. His eyes were fixed on Laufeia. "Your grandmother and my grandfather have a history. You should let me go before my grandmother finds you." He thought about that for a moment, and then altered his sentence a bit. "My grandmothers."

"And what about my grandmother, mm? And how do you know my lineage?"

"I made a hobby of lineages, before I came here. And I asked my family a lot of questions." He seemed to stretch, even though he still could not move. "You should let me go."

"I'm not going to let you go. That would be silly." Her laugh belied her nerves, trilling up too high. "Besides, I'm sure your parents were Kept, and their Keepers survived it, didn't they?"

"I'm not sure my sister's dad did, actually." The boy sounded more thoughtful than anything.

"Fei..." Eleri was backing away slowly.

A for Aelfgifu, for Audrey, and Autumn,
Addergoole, and Aelfgar's myriad daughters.

What happened to Ayla¹, with her glowing light?
Three kids, PhD, and a beautiful wife.

Mrs. S.² keeps her magic in rows of black jars.
With herbs that can woo, can charm, can stop hearts.

And Autumn³ can read all the strands of existence,
'Cept those of the heart, where she meets some resistance.

For Affection, Attachment, near and apart,
A for the Answers, Academics, and Art.



B is for Basil, for Begley, for Beryl,
For Bugs whose invasion is sorely imperiled.⁴

Begely⁵, the Beagle brought low by a thug,
His attack's cause? Unanswered Brotherly Love.

While Beryl⁶, she struggles, 'twixt magic and teen'hood,
Not yet an Aunt, nor child, between "could" caught, and "should."

And Basil⁷, who watches, trying at love and life,
Summer's friend is a good one, through her blessings and strifes.

B is for brothers, and battles, and buds.
For blossoming, blooming, biting, and blood.



C is for Cole, and Cyanara, and Cxaidin,
For the Cracks⁸ in the world where the boogeymen came in.

Sgt. Cole Hampton⁹, so brave and so very bold,
Who'd think that his night could be lonely and cold?

Cynara¹⁰ has tasted the cold and refused it
Or at least - Kept du Jour - somewhat confused it,

Cxaidin¹¹, the dragon, pair-bonded with Zizny,
Knows of the loneliness as a distant cold mystery

C is our clutch, our cadre, our crew.
C for what comrades can shape you into.



D now for Doug, and for Deborah, for Daisy,
For Doors¹² through the worlds, op'ning strange and hazy.

Daisy went to the river, the unicorns' bride.
Ready to give, they instead took her life.

The Brontosaurus sits there, glaring at the world.
Wishing for wings he could proudly unfurl.

Deborah is stuck in an impossible strait:
The maiden Aunt, pregnant, and magic must wait.

D for the dolors, the deaths and distractions,
For Durability born out of sadness' subtraction.



E for Evangaline, Eluned, and Eralon,
For evidence of cultures that have come and then gone.

Evanagline, Aunt to a family of women firm;
Herself just a strong, determined to make them squirm.

Eluned, the moth-girl, whose Keeper is mean -
She means well, but can't from the past break clean.

And Eralon¹⁹, the god, comes down from the skies
to speak through his oracle when things go awry.

There's strength in silence and strength in a voice,
Strength in standing firm, and in making your choice.



F is for Fuchsia, for Fallon, Fusefauna,
For the Factory²⁰ making a hell of nirvana.

Fuchsia²¹, with Pepper, is learning of Keeping,
The hard way, the only way, with love and with weeping.

Fallon²², a sister, a mother, an aunt,
But not Aunt, trying, the best that she can.

Fusefauna²³, of C.A.K.E., a Thundesitioni hero,
Living here, on Earth, keeping our streets clean.

F is for fame, and for figures so tall,
Paragons, role-models for few or for all.



G for Garfunkel, for Girey, and Genique.
For the goats that they ride ‘cross terrain steep and bleak.

Garfunkle, so angry, so tight, and so tense,
Holding in all his anger for fear of the mess.




( footnotes 1-10 )

( footnotes 11-20 )

( footnotes 21-30 )

This is the signal boost poem!

Let me know here if you signal boosted The April Giraffe Call.
For each platform boosted, I will post 2 couplets.
For each new prompt to the Giraffe Call, I will post 2 couplets; if they reference a signal boost, I will post four.
Signal boosts to new/unique/uncommon platforms will also get 4 couplets.
If you wish to draw an art of any stanza, I will post Two Whole Stanzas. <3 art.

Boooooooooooost!

My Giraffe Call is still open!

At the moment, I've written
A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M - N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y

My counts so far:
Prompter Count: 24
Extra Prompt count: 1
Donator Count: 6
Total letters to be written: 37/26

Which means I have open for prompts: - A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - k
(and, for every new prompter/donation, another letter)

I've been combining a lot of prompts, and counting the prompt for either the primary theme or, if it's a shared theme, splitting it 50/50 between prompters and counting it as half a story for each, but I'm really short on Z's, only one of my donators left me a Z and I've already written 1000 stories to his prompts. And I have a Z, folks!

So please signal boost! (I need to update the poem with current-count 6 couplets) Or, if you haven't prompted yet, go prompt.

Or there's always ( donate )

We're $10 from being able to afford the accessories for the foyer, and $15 from two extra continuations. If we get to $80, and/or if the letters get up to M again, I'll do a second (or third!) non-English letter once I get all those done!