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aldersprigThe call for prompts is now open! For the next 24 hours, I will taking your prompts on the theme of Abduction and Rescue.
I will write (over the next week) at least one microfic (150-300 words) to each prompter. If you donate, I will write to all of your prompts, and write at last 300 additional words for each $5 you donate, to the prompt of your choice.
If I reach $30 in donations today, I will post an additional 2000-word fic on the subject of the audience's choice. This has been reached!
If I reach $60, I will write at least 2 microfics for everyone, whether or not they donated.
If I reach $90, I will write to every prompt I get in the next 24 hours - if something truly bugs me, I'll ask you to re-prompt. At this point, please allow up to 2 weeks for the writing to be completed.
If I reach $120, I will record a podcast of an audience-choice story and post it for everyone to read. Also, everyone who tipped will get double wordcount.
If I reach $150, I will release an e-book of all of the fiction written to this call and the last one. At this point, please allow up to 24 weeks for the writing to be completed.
I will write (over the next week) at least one microfic (150-300 words) to each prompter. If you donate, I will write to all of your prompts, and write at last 300 additional words for each $5 you donate, to the prompt of your choice.
If I reach $60, I will write at least 2 microfics for everyone, whether or not they donated.
If I reach $90, I will write to every prompt I get in the next 24 hours - if something truly bugs me, I'll ask you to re-prompt. At this point, please allow up to 2 weeks for the writing to be completed.
If I reach $120, I will record a podcast of an audience-choice story and post it for everyone to read. Also, everyone who tipped will get double wordcount.
If I reach $150, I will release an e-book of all of the fiction written to this call and the last one. At this point, please allow up to 24 weeks for the writing to be completed.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-20 04:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-20 04:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-21 12:52 am (UTC)Davyn stared at the cage door. It had been a decently clever idea, he supposed. His parents took the damn dog along everywhere, and left him at home with the nanny. Nevermind that sixteen was too old to need a nanny. Never mind that, unlike the dog, he'd never peed on the furniture or broken a priceless vase (just the one. The dog had broken three).
It had seemed like a clever idea. They threw a blanket over the dog kennel anyway, because the stupid thing was high-strung. This way, he could ride along, wherever it was they were going, and then show up at the end and get to have all the fun. It had seemed like a brilliant idea.
It had even worked. He'd locked himself in and curled up for a nice nap, comfortable by now with the sounds of animals all around (it wasn't like the dog was even their only dog, just the one that got to come with them. He, on the other hand, was their only son). But they'd taken the kennel somewhere and gone off without a word, and here he was waiting for them to look for their precious dog and discover their son instead...
...It had been a pretty dumb idea. Since the key he was holding would have, he was pretty sure, opened the other kennel. The fancy one they used for road trips. Not this one, not the one he was locked in. Trapped in, that was the word.
"Help!" he called, feeling pretty stupid. His knees had cramped up, and his stomach was complaining. It had been a really long trip. "Help!"
"What the... ooh." A pretty girl lifted the blanket and looked at him, smiling cheerfully. "Stuck, are you?" Her accent lilted in a way he'd never heard before, and she was really, really pretty. Stunning, really, and here he was...
"Yeah," he admitted, more embarrassed than he'd ever been in her life. "Just a bit."
"Locked in, is it? Well, then..." She dropped the blanket back over the kennel. "There's a handcart around here somewhere..."
"Wait, what?"
"Hush, puppy," she scolded, as the kennel tilted backwards precariously. "Good puppies don't bark."
It had been a really, really stupid idea.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-22 04:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-22 05:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-22 07:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-28 03:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-23 02:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-28 06:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-22 01:09 am (UTC)The Aramob had not been expecting resistance when they went against the Village. Town people were soft, and folded easily. That was the wisdom of the elders, that was what the young warriors preached. Especially water-towns, where their food came easy and they could waste their time in games.
They had gone in soft, snuck in through the side streets, slide over the wall, ready to take what they needed and leave again. They didn't plan on leaving any bodies behind if they didn't have to. They were not the nasty tribes, who slaughtered when they could leave alive. The Aramob knew that if they left the villagers alive, there would be more to harvest next year.
In a moment of contemplation, Inosati thought that was what had saved their lives. The villagers had been waiting for them, the people of Johnsonport, waiting with spears and guns and, most humiliating of all, nets. Many Aramob had limped off, injured. Two had died - one on the spear of another Aramob, the other from an accidental headshot.
Seven had been taken captive, among them Inosati. The villagers, their elders had told them, did not do the civilized thing and trade captives. They could not be expected to trade prisoners, or to sell their prisoners to another tribe, from which they might later be redeemed. The captured warriors had spent the first three days of their imprisonment waiting to be roasted and eaten, for they could think of no other option, if they weren't going to be traded. They had refused all food an water, fearing poison, and had prayed and meditated quietly on their fate.
When the sun set on the third day, the weakest of their number collapsed, and the villagers took him away. By noon on the fourth, three more had been taken. Wondering what her fate was to be, Inosati had stared at the slat wall of her prison, and recited the history litanies with a cracked and parched throat.
Second 300 words
Date: 2011-08-22 02:27 am (UTC)It had been dark when Revan had come for her. She hadn't known him, or his language, but he had lifted her up and carried her into his home, spooned broth down her unresisting throat, and tied her to the bed, the softest thing she'd ever slept on, with soft ropes.
They had nothing in common but a few gestures and even fewer words, but they were both clever, and they learned each other's languages. Inosati had little else to do with her time, chained as she was in the back room of Revan's parents' house. She sipped his broth, and ate the food he provided, and he and his little brothers taught her their language.
When she learned enough words, they had told her of her fellow warriors. All but one, they said, had been traded to other tribes for the release of villagers captures. When she told them, indignant, that house-people didn't do such things, they laughed at her. "House people aren't prepared when the wild tribes come, either," they reminded her.
The only question they did not answer was "what will you do with me?"
In time, and with Revan's gentle and constant attention, the answer to that became clear anyway. Winter came, and the warmth of a body next to her was welcome, even if he was a weak town-person, a lazy wall-farmer (town-people didn't capture warriors. Wall-farmers didn't sell those warriors back to their kin). He was warm, and his hand on her were strong, almost as strong as her own.
Re: Second 300 words
Date: 2011-08-22 03:00 am (UTC)She asked him about it, as the spring bled into summer. "Why?" Words still came hard to her, but 'why' was easy enough.
"The chains?" He stroked her wrists, where the shackles had left callouses. "You're a wild thing, love. It helps you to remember to stay."
"I see." She did not ask him, because she wasn't certain of the answer within herself, if he thought he'd stay without them, or run.
Her people spent the summers in the area near this town; in the hottest nights, she could hear their singing, taste their sweet smokes on the air. She sat up in bed, wishing for the moonlight, wishing for Revan to understand the song with her, to dance with her to the drums of her sisters.
The Aramob had learned their lessons, it seemed; this year, none of the town-people heard them coming. No one was there to raise the alarm when the warriors slunk in, and none to warn Revan when they tackled him to the floor.
"We are here," hissed Inosati's youngest sister. "Will you slit his throat?"
She looked down at the man who had been her captor for so long, who stared wide-eyed back at her. She could not kill him, not the one who had nursed her back to health and held her in her sleep.
"Take him with us," she said instead, adding, as an afterthought, "He has brothers."
no subject
Date: 2011-08-20 06:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-20 08:29 pm (UTC)Tuesdays were the best, so she'd rearranged her schedule so she had Tuesday nights and all day on Wednesday free. She had done three dry runs, making sure everything would work right. He would step there, just as he unlocked her door. He would trip, fall into his room. She would follow, gag, chloroform. It would be well into Wednesday before his friends noticed he was missing, and by then they would be across state lines.
She had been thinking about this since their first semester of college. he was always her primary rival, always the one who got ahead of her. He had taunted her and teased her at every opportunity but, today, with finals and Dean's list on the line, he was going to suddenly vanish. He's be found, eventually, of course, but by then his reputation would be soundly ruined.
She triple-checked everything, and glanced at her watch. Just five minutes. Four. She took a breath, and a long drink of her sports bottle, and got into position. He's be home any moment now, turning the key...
The world went blurry, and she struggled to stay awake. Got a little bit blurrier, and she stumbled. She was so close. She couldn't fail now. She couldn't...
She woke bound hand and foot, in the back of her own trunk, pressed up against the back of her rival. His eyes were open, and he was glaring at her in confused indignation over the gag she had bought to silence him. A pop of her jaw informed her that she, too, was gagged, and a wiggle told her that she was securely bound. She struggled, panicked, gulped air and fought against the restriction of the gag, struggled again, until her rival grunted out a laugh at her.
Shit. She wasn't gong to give him the pleasure. She calmed her breathing, focused on the minutiae of her surroundings, and waited.
Her bladder began to irritate her before the car stopped; it had moved on to really-urgent by the time they rolled off onto what sounded like gravel. The sun blinded her momentarily when the trunk popped open, long enough for their captor to throw a blanket over her and her rival, but she recognized the voice: another student, a sub-par one, from their honor's seminar.
"I have to admit," he laughed, "it was a lovely plan. No ID. No money. I'll leave you a bottle of water each, and an energy bar. By the time you get back to town... it will be my campus."
She grunted helplessly against her gag as, laughing, he tossed them out of the trunk.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-22 02:27 am (UTC)Typo?
He would step there, just as he unlocked her door. He would trip, fall into his room.
Isn't he unlocking HIS door? Not hers, right?
no subject
Date: 2011-08-22 02:28 am (UTC)No, it's his door, thanks.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-28 06:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-28 07:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-20 08:00 pm (UTC)2. Somebody tries to rescue Girey
3. An Addergoole student steals another student's favorite stuffed animal (actually, this would be even funnier if they were professors, so... anybody at Addergoole)
Cradle to the Slave
Date: 2011-08-20 08:57 pm (UTC)a) a crossover between Criminal Minds (Cradle to the Grave is the episode) and my Tir na Cali Setting
B) both fourth and first in this - http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/tag/fanficreally%3F - series of crossovers between the Crim. Minds team and a Cali abduction team.
http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/22621.html <-- Cali landing page.
"Damn," Travis swore, flopping back in his seat. "I swear I just got scooped by an American kidnapper."
"Seriously?" Cymballine, next to him, laughed. "An amateur?" She shook her head at him. "Tir na Cali's finest, and your grab got snatched by an amateur?"
"I'm going after her. She was prime, Cym, beautiful. Once we cleaned her up she would have been perfect."
"Cleaned her up... you know Morrigan doesn't like it when we grab junkies."
"Screw that. By the time they're clean, they're willing to do anything. Besides, Mor... Hi, Mor."
"Where's your catch?" The lanky brown-haired leader of their kidnapping team folded her unconscious prey into the back of the van.
"He got scooped," Cym laughed.
"I want to go after her," Travis repeated. "I've got a feeling."
"Save the feelings for the grey-eyes," Cym laughed at him, but Morrigan, grey-eyed as any royal, was looking interested. "Oh, gods below, Morrigan..."
"If Travis thinks he can find them, I'm willing to eliminate the competition. They make us look bad."
~~
They make us look bad. Three days later, she wanted to eat those words. They stood in the underground bunker of a madman, staring at Travis's catch. The lovely girl looked strung-out and terrified, but it wasn't that Morrigan was staring at. It was the cages. The second girl, giving birth there with no attendant but a junkie. The nervous words the pregnant woman shouted at her unwilling midwife.
She had gotten down here under her invisibility trick while, above, her team dealt with the madman and his wife who had taken these girls. Scanner and some surreptitious spying told them that the FBI were hot on their heels; these freaks had, its seemed, been doing this for quite a while.
She waited until the birth was finished, watching implacably. They would leave the villains, take the girls and, against her better judgment, the children, and leave the FBI a note.
She'd always had a thing for taunting their American counterparts.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-20 09:30 pm (UTC)Interesting timeline-twisting :-P And now, of course, I want to know what happens between this part and the part where they grab Reid. Especially, is it a coincidence or are they stalking the BAU?
no subject
Date: 2011-08-20 11:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-22 04:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-23 06:27 pm (UTC)Request
Date: 2011-08-20 10:58 pm (UTC)Re: Request
Date: 2011-08-21 02:07 am (UTC)The summer was hot, even in the Village, the sun beating down and no wind to be had. Children played in the community pool, or ran through sprinklers; Theda sat under a small sprinkler in Cassie's back yard and tried not to think about how warm she was, or how heavy the press of the baby inside her felt. She was due soon - another month and a half, by the calendar, but Dr. Caitrin seemed pretty sure it would be earlier. She'd never been a big girl, and the Change had made her even smaller.
"Theda Anne Calmarkian!"
She ignored the voice. She'd been hearing her mother scolding her in her mind since September. Since she first kissed Asiph, that hot kiss under the waterfall.
"Theda, what are you doing out there with no clothes on?"
That one, too, she'd heard a lot. In her head, mostly. Asiph hadn't turned out to be the sweet guy he'd pretended to be - turned out his name meant "collector" and he'd already been working up quite a collection - and Goddard, after him, had been, well, Gawd, hard-headed, but she'd bought a baby-names dictionary after that, and tried hard to tune out her mother's constant concern in her head.
"Theda, are you even listening?"
She'd written home, polite, fluffy letters that mentioned nothing of Christ, Mom, nice going, sending me to a baby factory or so, um, did Dad have [wings], or was that from your side of the family?
She'd mentioned Jago, at least, as a nice boy who seemed to be more respectful than most. His name had proven true enough, and...
"Theda! I am TALKING to you!"
That, that was not a voice in her head. Theda opened her eyes slowly, to see her mother looming over her. "Mom?" She blinked sleepily. "What are you doing here? I told you I was fine for the summer."
"I send you off to school, and you don't want to come home anymore. I know what happens, when you don't come back to the world, Theda. I know what..."
"Shade's moving, They, love." Cassie, no longer pregnant and back to flat-abbed, was wearing slightly more than Theda, which was to say, something at all. Completely ignoring the imposing figure of Mrs. Calmarkian, she leaned over her lover and kissed her thoroughly. "Time to get you under the tree."
"Mom... Cassie," Theda offered, hoping the introduction would serve as its own explanation.
With Wings!
Date: 2011-08-20 11:36 pm (UTC)Re: With Wings!
Date: 2011-08-21 03:34 am (UTC)"Close your eyes."
In retrospect, when sitting alone in the middle of a park at midnight, closing your eyes to a strange voice coming up behind you was, Cade had to admit, not the most brilliant of of plans. But the voice had been female, and hadn't sounded all that old, or all that threatening, so he'd closed his eyes.
The hands wrapping around him hadn't been all that much of a surprise, but the way they lifted him off the park bench was, and the sharp blast of wind before he was lifted sheer off his feet was more than a little startling. He twisted, finding himself held around the chest, to look behind him.
"Adelinda?" The shy girl from his science class? "Ada... you have wings."
"I told you to close your eyes." She shifted, doing something that felt like dropping him, and he was facing her. "There, hold on to my waist, it will make it easier."
"Make what... Ada. One, how the heck did you pick me up? Two, you have wings."
"We were watching Superman, remember?" At this range, her sweet smile was just inches from his face. She wasn't a huge girl, but he wasn't a giant guy, either. They were just about the same height. "And you said you thought it was kind of nice, the way he flew around with Lois."
"Yeah..." The sky looked closer, which was sort of impossible, he knew. He glanced over his shoulder, to see the night-lit city laid out below them like little miniatures. From here, even the neon on the edges of the ghetto looked like fairy lights, lovely little twinkles of brightness against the black. "This is pretty cool," he allowed. "But you have wings."
"I do," she agreed cheerfully. "And you can see them, which is even cooler."
"I..." They were, after all, beautiful wings. "It is pretty cool," he admitted.
Re: With Wings!
Date: 2011-08-21 03:57 am (UTC)Re: With Wings!
Date: 2011-08-21 03:00 pm (UTC)Re: With Wings!
Date: 2011-08-22 02:57 am (UTC)Re: With Wings!
Date: 2011-08-22 01:08 pm (UTC)Re: With Wings!
Date: 2011-08-28 06:52 pm (UTC)Re: With Wings!
Date: 2011-08-28 07:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-21 06:07 pm (UTC)A bit late but...
Date: 2011-08-22 06:24 am (UTC)Re: A bit late but...
Date: 2011-08-22 12:28 pm (UTC)Wow. I shall see what I can do with this!