Worldbuilding Month Day 10: Worlds of Difference

March is Worldbuilding Month! Leave me a question about any of my worlds, and I will do my best to answer it! (I need more questions, guys)
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This tenth one is from ladyRowyn: Do you have any worlds that aren’t Earth-like in general shape/climate/vegetation? why/why not?

Okay, I have to think about that one!

Okay, so something like 9/10 of my worlds are immediately out of the running because they’re “in a world much like our own;” i.e., urban fantasy, for the most part, the sort of thing where it’s very familiar to readers because it’s Earth (and usually America), just with magic: Aunt Family, Stranded World, Fae Apoc, Planners, Facets, Shadow Rebellion, Tír na Cali, Bug Invasion, Fairy Town, Cracks, Science! (okay, Science! is Earth, just with Science!), Inner Circle.

Then there’s settings where we never really see the world - Dragons Next Door, Unicorn/Factory…

Okay, things actually set on a different world: Reiassan, which is goats and linen and rice and parsnips, just after a little ice age. That’s pretty earth-like. I mean, the continents are different…
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Drive Home (more M/m)

First: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1280186.html
Previous: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1285402.html
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“Down three stairs here, right - now. There you go. You’re quite good at this.” Sir guided Ctirad down the stairs, his arm very warm and his grip pleasantly firm.

“Would you believe practice?”

“At the moment, from you, I’d believe any number of things, my handsome dear. Did Ermenrich know what you are? How good you are?”

“He…” Ctirad considered his answers. “Didn’t really care, sir. He was interested in what he wanted, and that was about as far as it went.”

“A short-sighted man in many ways. Ah, well. Door here, hold on.” The sound of a door being opened was followed by faint traffic noises. Not on the road they were on, then. Ctirad wondered where, exactly, they were. One of Sir’s buildings? One of Ermenrich’s? He didn’t think even his former master would have left him in an abandoned building helpless to wait for his new owner.

Not, at least, if it would cause the deal to fall through.

“All right, we’re going to get into the car. Here we go, mind your head.” Sir’s hand was very firm on the back of Ctirad’s head as he steered him down and into a car. It smelled like leather and cleaner, like it had very recently been detailed.

He scooted over and felt Sir’s leg next to his, and then the door closed firmly. “We’re going home, please.”

“Yes, sir.” The voice was a warm alto. Ctirad could tell almost nothing from it about the speaker, except that they were in front of him, in the driver’s seat, and that there wasn’t glass.

“Now.” He could feel Sir shifting, his knee leaving contact only to brush against Ctirad’s leg again. “We’re not in private, but we’re not in public, either, so what happens for the next half hour is, at least in part, up to you.”

That was new. Ctirad wanted badly to open his eyes, if only to see what sort of body language went with that. “Sir?” had to suffice instead.
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Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1290889.html

MARKED - An uneventful day of almost dying!

MARKED - 5.13

Nilien slipped carefully off the table, testing her weight on her feet. The pain had settled in to a very dull ache that could be ignored with impunity.

“Be careful on that ankle,” Dr. Alaroq reiterated, “and come back if you feel any new symptoms. In the meantime, do try to stick to a walk when wandering places you’re not supposed to be.”

“Yes, Doctor.” Nilien smiled at the doctor and then looked down at Ember. “Where’s Lorque?”

read on...

Luke Tries to Apologize

(this one comes before yesterdays’ Luke’s Homework (http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1285682.html) story. That’s what I get for writing before we finish the RP…)

“I’ve been thinking.” As intros went, leaning in the doorway of Mike’s office with his feet still planted on the hallway floor, it left something to be desired. But he had been, and that had been the best he could come up with.

“I can tell.” Mike smirked up at him. “Come in, feather-brain. Keep doing that and we’ll have an audience in no time.”

Luke came in, closing the door behind him. “It’s summer,” he muttered, before letting himself get back to the topic. “You can tell?”
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Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1291012.html

Luke Tries to Apologize

(this one comes before yesterdays’ Luke’s Homework (http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1285682.html) story. That’s what I get for writing before we finish the RP…)

“I’ve been thinking.” As intros went, leaning in the doorway of Mike’s office with his feet still planted on the hallway floor, it left something to be desired. But he had been, and that had been the best he could come up with.

“I can tell.” Mike smirked up at him. “Come in, feather-brain. Keep doing that and we’ll have an audience in no time.”

Luke came in, closing the door behind him. “It’s summer,” he muttered, before letting himself get back to the topic. “You can tell?”

“Your wings twitch when you’re thinking.”

Luke spread his wings, catching himself after only a hand-spread, and pulled them back in close. “They twitch a lot.”

“But not so much when you’re not talking to people. What’s on your mind, Hunting-Hawk?”

There was something formal about the way Mike used his Name. Luke fought to keep his wings still and his voice level.

None of that mattered if Mike decided to read his emotions, but Mike usually avoided that.

“I owe you an apology.” He let it hang in the air just long enough to know he had Mike’s attention, and then continued quickly, before the Daeva could blow it off with a joke. “For the time when I Kept you.”

“You really have been thinking. Luca, that was lifetimes ago. Centuries ago.”

“You always said I was a bit slow, didn’t you?”

“But Luca…” Mike sounded nearly plaintive. “What for? You got my bacon out of the fire. Not the first time, not remotely the last time.”

Luca was worse than Hunting-Hawk. Luke took a couple breaths. “Because I was an idiot, and I got all messed up about – about you being a Daeva. And it meant I didn’t Keep you as well as I could have.”

“Oh, that.” Mike flapped a hand at him. “Come on, I figured it out a long time ago. Back then, I just didn’t know you’d been raised by Mara and humans. It makes everything make so much more sense. Besides,” Mike grinned at him, “if I got upset every time you were an idiot, I’d always be mad at you.”

“Damnit, Treesap, can’t you take anything seriously?” He didn’t mean to bellow, but he was feeling like everything fit wrong, and Mike just kept smiling at him.

And now the smile got a little sickly around the edges. “No, Feathers. Because if I take it seriously I’ll weep, and then you’ll bellow, and we’ll both be miserable, and that’s not what either of us want. You’re sorry. I hear you. But I don’t know why, and I don’t know what it means.”

“What it…” Luke sat down – there were always backless stools in Mike’s office, even though Mike’s Students almost never had wings – with a heavy thump. “It means I was a moron to push you away.”

“You were a Mara. I mean, I know it’s nearly the same word for a reason, but it’s not like I expect any different. Look, Luca.” Mike leaned forward, chin in hands, elbows on knees. “I accept your apology. I mean, it’s nice you finally realized you were kind of a jerk. But I’m not kidding. You saved my life that time. You’ve saved my life loads. And I appreciate that more than I’m worried about you being sort of, uh, brusque and unwilling as a Keeper all those years ago.”

“But…” Luke sighed. This was not what he’d expected, not at all.

“Think some more,” Mike advised. Somehow, Luke couldn’t even take offense from it. “When you figure out what you want, let me know.”

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1291012.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1287580.html. You can comment here or there.

Mirrored from Alder's Grove Fiction.

Cya Yells at a Kept

Okay, so the premise of this is thus: in this timeline, Cya has a small meltdown when she realizes that Leo is never going to love her the way she loves him. This has always been true. She’s always known it to be true. But she’s got a lot of practice at denial.

Anyway, her poor Kept has to deal with sobbing Cya and… in a move proving why her power thought he needed to be in a protective Keeping for a year… punches Leo in the face.

Leo gamely DOESN’T attack him back, although he scolds him, yells at him, and tells him to get out of his sight.

And then Cya comes home.
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If I Die Old...

Okay, so a long time ago Cal wrote a piece about Leo dying and Cya finding his reincarnation. This is something of a companion piece.

Content warnings for major character death, AU, violence, more violence, angst, and orders.

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