Alder's Grove

Chapter 20: Cynara
by Lyn Thorne-Alder

Wednesday, October 25, 2000

“Ugh.”  The lights flickered out with a crackle.  “Leofric!”

Eriko’s expression needed no light.  Cynara could see the tired twist of her face already, the exasperated way she looked when she dealt with her boyfriend.  She could see Leo’s cringing apology too, the way his shoulders would shrug forward and he’d try to make himself smaller.  It made Cynara want to hug him; it made her want to punch Eriko.

“It wasn’t me,” Leo protested weakly.

read on...

After:
Unrepentant
Eriko
Revenge
Knowing Doomsday
Celebrity, and
inventrix's Under Arrest


Dysmas’ jaw was broken, a shattered mess of pain. And his ankles were itching with the particular irritation that suggested hawthorn. He was blindfolded, his hands bound, and he was stuck - well, he didn’t know where he was stuck, but the chains tethering his ankles had very little give.

He wondered how Leofric had caught him - or if the dumb cy’Luca even had bothered looking for actual offenses. Either way, he’d been ready for Dysmas. The blindfold, the broken jaw... the kid might not have even been able to handle being Kept for a year, but Luke’s lessons must have done some good.

And now - now what? Dysmas squirmed. He couldn’t get out of the bindings, couldn’t Work anything. He tried to speak, only to find that he couldn’t even properly shape a Word soundlessly right now.
( Read more... )

After:
Unrepentant
Eriko
Revenge

Cya was not used to people not knowing her.

She was used to people not knowing her name went with her face - not here, not in Cynopolis/Boom Town/Her City. It was, after all, her city. But she was not used to people not knowing that her name went with her reputation. Not anymore.

There were a few, of course. Boom were big, but they weren't actually the biggest crew in the world, and they weren't the only crew of fae out there, doing things.

But they were loud - explosive, even - and that meant that most people, at least in this corner of what had once been the United States, had heard of Boom. They hadn't always heard of Cynara, Red Doomsday. But when she said, "Cya, of Boom," most people knew who she was.

Dysmas was an odd case - Dysmas, and, now that she had her in a box, Eriko. They knew Cynara. They knew that her face - which had, after all, not changed in fifty years - went with the name Cynara, although they were more likely to put cy'Drake with it than Doomsday.

It was like a loose tooth. She couldn't help wiggling it.

Eriko was - not all that fun, not really. She was too stuck in her own little world, even now, even neck-deep in Cya's world, to really understand to whom she was talking - or, more importantly in Cya's way of thinking, to what.

So that left Dysmas to talk to. And she found, thus, that she kept seeking him out.

It took him a couple times to notice that she always seemed to be where he was. The third time she tracked him down - Found him, really - he was at a local market, looking over a tailor's wares.

"You seem to have a knack for finding me." He sounded like he was complaining. The tailor - who knew who was standing in his shop, since Cynara had Found him and offered him a place and custom - giggled nervously.

Dysmas didn't understand. "What?"

"You were joking, yes, sir?" Dysmas carried himself like one of the Returned Gods, like he expected tribute. The tailor - Sania, his name was, John Sania - must have assumed, thus, that he was a friend of Cya's. "She's Doomsday. Of course she can find you."

"Yes, of course." Dysmas was not very good at hiding it when he was confused. "She's... Cya, what is he talking about?"

She noticed the way the tailor found a way to be behind his counter, just then. She didn't blame him. She coughed, politely. "I'm Doomsday," she said, trying not to giggle. "I find things."