Alder's Grove

Chapter 21: Leofric
by Inspector Caracal

Tuesday, October 31, 2000

Leofric studiously took notes as Professor Pelletier wrote another equation on the board. Physics was a good class for not thinking about what was going on. And even if some of it had been pretty cool — he was growing antlers, Dr. Caitrin said, and now he had some kind of awesome electricity powers — most of it was… Well, he was trying not to think about it.

He’d gotten the worrying thing sorted, at least, after spending a few days convincing himself that a desire to help was not worry — and if he had to abatu his hugr every now and then, well, nobody had told him not to do Workings on himself. And using magic to destroy the feeling was the only reliable way to stop worrying that he’d figured out.



read on...

Chapter 17: Leofric
by Inspector Caracal

Wednesday, October 11, 2000

Eriko was busy doing her homework. For anything else, it would've been a bad time — it was a bad time, if he was being honest, but it was almost impossible to find a good time when it was just the two of them. And Leofric really wanted this to be a private conversation.

Leofric had chosen a spot on the floor that was clearly visible from her desk (but not in the way; he didn't want to be in the way, she didn't like that) and knelt there. He didn't want to interrupt her; he couldn't interrupt her, even if he wanted to, not since that one time he had and she'd ordered him not to. So instead, he settled into his spot and waited.


read on...

Chapter 9: Leofric
by Inspector Caracal

Tuesday, September 19, 2000

The clothing, Leofric had to admit, didn't look bad. It wasn't very comfortable, though: the long sleeves and cuffs, the shirt collar, the way he kept catching his backpack on the buttons down the front, the stiff new shoes. And the collar, of course. The clothes were just dress clothes, nothing too weird, but the collar was a different story.

He resisted the urge to fidget with it again; Eriko didn't like fidgeting, so he was trying to avoid building a habit. But the leather sat snug up against his neck, reminding him it was there every time he moved. Every time he breathed.


read on...

Chapter 5: Leofric
by Inspector Caracal

Thursday, September 14, 2000

Leofric squinted one eye, the other still buried in his pillow, and peered through his hair at the digital clock across the room. A seven, a five, a one... which blinked over into a two as he watched. Seven fifty two.

First period started at eight o'clock.

“Shit!” In a flurry of limbs, blonde hair and blankets, Leofric scrambled out of bed and hastily threw on clothes — shirt, change of pants, socks that don't match but who cares, one shoe — and spent a good minute frantically searching for his other shoe. No time to brush his teeth; if he made it out of the labyrinthine dormitory level in only five minutes, he'd be lucky.


read on...

A double-crack alternate universe in which Leo gets an army and then takes over the northwest.

inventrix: Only a Flesh Wound
Black Knight
inventrix: House Arrest
White Queen
White Knight
Red Queen
Domination
Captured Knight
Captured Knight continued
inventrix: Keeping Up Appearances
inventrix: Reversal
inventrix: All According to Plan...?
Chessboard
Other Pieces
Chessmaster
Knocking Over Pieces
inventrix: Uncomfortable Developments
Leash
No Title
Movement
Phase II (and a bonus intro to something later)
inventrix: Chain of Command
Blonde Bishop
inventrix: (no subject)
Flight
Punished
Flightless

A double-crack alternate universe in which Leo gets an army and then takes over the northwest.

comes tangental to:
Black Knight and White Queen from the 9th and White Knight from yesterday.

---

It was possible, Cya admitted, that Leo was getting a little bit carried away.

She watched him in front of his army; she watched him in front of his newly-conquered cities and villages and small states. He was soaking it in, reveling in it; he was glowing with the power and the pleasure of their worship.

She watched as he seemed to get taller, as his antlers seemed to get wider. He wasn't growing, but his image was. They doted on him; they loved him. They praised him and expected him to fix their problems.

It was more than a little possible that he was becoming a god.

It was nearly certain that she ought to stop him. The Council would notice. Addergoole would notice.

She stepped up behind him and began the paperwork and bureaucracy of bringing another town under the Cloverleaf banner.

She wasn't going to stop him yet.

Part I - http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1082356.html
Part II - http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1082751.html
Part III - http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1091513.html
Part IV - http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1095923.html

Regine pulled up the computer program that kept all of her student data, glad once again that she had upgraded her machines just before the catastrophe. You could still buy computer parts in a few select enclaves, but their methods left something to be desired and they almost always included as much spyware as actual computer.

She performed a search on extant and incoming students into the school, and then performed the search two more times. “That…” She stared at the screen with a decidedly unpleasant feeling before finally raising her voice. “Hayley!”

“Yes, Director Regine?”

“Call in Luca Hunting Hawk and Michael VanderLinden. Now.”

~( Read more... )

Part I - http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1082356.html
Part II - http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1082751.html

Regine barely managed not to gape at Cya like a fish. But the fiend was still going. “In addition, I want access to all of the data you access in this manner.”

Regine could not help a supercilious eyebrow raise, no matter how many times Mike had told her Do not raise your eyebrows at her. Do not. “Do you think you can follow the genetic data?”

“Well, if I can’t, my house geneticist can.” Cya shrugged as if a lifetime of studying genetics was nothing.

Regine cleared her throat. “Well. Be that as it may, I’m not going to allow your descendants to skip out on the Addergoole school. That might be as much as half of my population by this point.”

“Skip out?” Cya laughed. “No, I can’t imagine you’d agree to that. No. Just an agreement that, while attending Addergoole, each and every one of Boom’s descendants gets a pass. One time, when they’re in over their heads — bad Keeper, bad promise, the current big-bad-wolf — you, the staff, will help them out of it. The Keepings aren’t real, the promises aren’t real, you’re not damaging the Law by doing so.”

“But what lesson do we teach them, if they can get out of trouble at the first drop of a hat?” Regine had conducted this argument several times over the decades. She didn’t flinch.

And neither did Cya. The smile grew, as a matter of fact, and got sharp. Her voice was edgy now. “You’d be teaching them that the adults who Mentor them are their backup, are there to protect and guide them. You’d be teaching them to have allies.”

“We teach them to have crews, to find help and allies in their cy’ree, to be friends with their former Keepers and Kept.”

“After their first year. You isolate them from other first-year students, do not push the idea of a Mentor until they are either already collared or soon to be, and sometimes allow the interference of the Keeper in Mentor choice. The staff generally frowns on the idea of first-year students finding crews, and, while you may pretend to like and encourage them, you discourage crews actively standing up for one another.” Cya was still lounging against her couch, but her words were anything but casual.

And they were accurate. “It’s proven beneficial to encouraging the Keeper-Kept relationship…”

“Which you encourage, I assume, to ‘encourage’ the production of more little babies for your project. A point which is pretty moot when you do not allow students to leave until they’ve provided you with those babies.”

“Students also need to understand the dangers of Keeping and the problems inherent in both sides of the relationship before they are out in the world,” Regine insisted. Now Cya was no longer smiling. Regine was not sure that was an improvement.

“I’m certain you’re aware that you and I will never agree on that point. Be that as it may, there are other ways to encourage Keeping, and by encouraging good Keepings and allowing the possibility that the ‘trapped’ Kept could ask for a reprieve, you allow students to understand what a healthy Keeping should look like, before they go out in the world and perpetuate bad habits.”

Regine opened her mouth and closed it again, her lips curling into a frown. “Surely you’re not insinuating that Addergoole is responsible for the actions of its students once they’ve graduated?”

“No. I’m saying that you and your choices are responsible for a great deal of misery in the world. However,” Cya plowed on blithely, “that doesn’t matter. You’ve done some awful things, and now you want a favor from me. Does that about sum it up?”

Regine bit her tongue and counted to ten. “I come asking a favor of you, yes,” she answered levelly.

“Therefore, your justifications really don’t matter. The question is: will you agree to my terms?”

Part IV: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1095923.html

Part I - http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1082356.html

Regine sat uncomfortably on Cya’s rather-comfortable couch. She had brought papers; she ignored them. Instead, she cleared her throat. “You two have had several children together over a large span of years. This makes you not quite unique but very rare, not only among Addergoole graduates but among Ellehemaei couples in general. There are some emerging genetic theories about children born to Ellehemai early in their life vs. after a century or more of life, and your children…” Luke had told her not to do it. Mike, on the other hand, had advised her. Do not say test subjects. “If I could study their DNA, I might be able to better pursue these theories.”

Cya coughed. “Most of our children are Adults. You’ll have to ask them yourself — which I’m sure you knew. So I imagine you’re coming to ask about Tama.”

“Ljótama, yes. Although,” Regine cleared her throat, “if you would be willing to put in a good word for me with Viðrou, and possibly with Kouveig, it might make them more willing to speak with me.”

It looked as if Cya was trying hard not to laugh. She coughed again instead and nodded, at least trying to look solemn. “If we can reach an accord, it can include me encouraging — those two in specific?”

“I don’t expect you’d be willing to encourage all your children to cooperate with me. I’ve met both Viðrou and Kouveig, and as your first and third of five, they make for convenient data points,” Regine explained. She noted that Cya had not at any point numbered her children. She wondered if she’d given away too much information by admitting she knew the number.

Or if she was wrong about the number. Cya might be another step ahead of her in this case. It seemed to happen when Regine least expected it, especially in the last fifty years.

Either way, Cya was smirking. “Those two specifically. It’s possible you’d find one of the others more cooperative, but we do not tend to raise compliant children.”

“I can’t imagine you would.” Regine ahem’ed. “Nor was that my experience when your children, or your grandchildren, were in school.”

“I can’t imagine it would have been,” Cya echoed back at her, smiling. “So. You want a genetic sample from — or a genetic study of — Ljótama, and help coordinating such from two of our sons, as well.”

Regine nodded slowly. “Yes. Having access to such would allow me to delve deeper into the study of Ellehemaei genetics..”

“Which, as we all know, is your great love. Of course.” Cya’s interruption was dismissive, but Regine did not allow herself to show any irritation or anger. This data would be more than a little bit useful to her. It was worth a bit of irritation. “All right.” Cya leaned forward. “I’m willing to agree to this, under a couple conditions.”

“Of course. What are your conditions?”

Cya leaned back in her seat. Regine noted that her hand settled on Leo’s back possessively. “I want a ‘get out of jail free’ card for every single one of our descendants to attend Addergoole, from now until the school closes its doors permanently.”

Part Three: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1091513.html

A Change in Routine
inventrix's Let's Pretend
Class is in Session
A Brief Reunion
inventrix's Unexpected Visitor
Lessons in the Dojo
inventrix's from RP logs


Dinner with Leo had been... Interesting. Educational, Luke decided, like every visit to the Ran- to Boom's place. Wherever Boom's places were.

For one thing, it had taught him that he needed to visit Howard, or maybe talk Shira into doing so.

For another, it had taught him he owed Apollo an apology. So, sitting in Cynara's living room while Cynara and Leo made small talk about their students, he looked Apollo in the eye. "I shouldn't have split your crew up. I'm sorry."

There was a pause while Apollo processed that. Then, "Yeah. No biggie, I guess." Apollo tugged on his collar and looked away.

Luke coughed. That. "I'm not going to apologize for asking jae'Red Doomsday to Keep you."

Apollo glanced at him sideways. "Why not?"

"Because you needed it. Because being here is good for you." He could see Apollo readying a scoff. He kept talking. "I failed you as a Mentor. But I've seen what Cyna- Cya can do as a Keeper."

"Yeah? Have you seen her collar collection?"

Luke snorted. "I've watched her pick her Kept for the last sixty years. If I were Regine I could tell you their survival percentages..."

"Please don't," Cynara murmured. When Luke glanced over, she was once again chatting to Leo about something one of their Students had done.

"...I can't. I'm not that good at numbers. But I'd bet you anything it's higher than that of the rest of the Addergoole grads."

"Anything?" Apollo leaned forward, a fierce twist of an expression on his face. "Would you bet a year under this collar yourself?"

( more )

after inventrix's Let's Pretend, which is after my A Change in Routine.

When Leo walked into Cya's front yard carrying her Kept over his shoulder, she found that she wasn't surprised, and that she was more than a little relieved.

It wouldn't be enough, of course. Apollo was the most stubborn, ridiculous, arrogant man she had had the misfortune to deal with...

...since Leo and Howard were that age, a thought she was doing her best to suppress, especially considering how Leo's fierce smile vanished when he caught her looking at him.

He set her Kept down on her porch as Cya opened her door and deftly avoided the angry punch Apollo attempted to throw.

"I see you've met Professor Inazuma. Come in." She made it an invitation for Leo and an order for Apollo. "Leo, I see you've met my new Kept. I hope he wasn't too difficult."

"He wasn't difficult at all!" Leo was having fun, a smile flashing onto his face before he remembered he was supposed to be feeling bad. "Ah, we got in a bit of a fight..."

"You kicked his ass, you mean." She watched Apollo's face; she didn't need to watch Leo's to know what was going across it. He'd be hang-dog for a moment, and then proud of himself again.

Apollo was warring with something simpler: pride and fear. He'd noticed, then, how much stronger, how much more skilled than him Leo was. Good. "Are you just going to let him manhandle your Kept like that?" He spat out the word Kept. He always did. But the end of the sentence was more like a plea. "Or--"

"We were playing a bit of Let's Pretend." The pride was clear in Leo's voice, and the anger and fear were sparking in Apollo's face again.

"You were playing! I was--"

"You were saying you could handle yourself." She could hear the sharp smile in Leo's voice. "If I'd been a slaver, you'd be in chains by now."

It was hardly a fair challenge. They had great-grandchildren older than this boy.

Slavers wouldn't be fair, either.

"Leo was cy'Luca, too, Apollo, back when we were kids. A lot of kids have been, through the years, if you do the math." She kept her eyes on him. "One or two in every Cohort... One or two cy'Fridmar, too, and they're just as vicious in a fight, more likely to cheat, and more likely to turn evil. Never mind the cy'Sakamoto; nobody knows which way they'll go. And most of the cy'Doug would rather kill you than look at you."

"I get it!" He flung his arms upward violently. "Yeah, sure, there's lots of assholes out there. But I'm good, okay? This jackass got the jump on me, that's all."

He didn't believe it, or Cya would have been more harsh with him. Instead, she raised her eyebrows and waited for the moment where he shifted from foot to foot and dropped his arms and his gaze.

She glanced back at Leo, wondering if he remembered when he was that young and stupid. Time enough for that conversation later.

"By the time I'm done with you, it will be a lot harder for anyone to get the drop on you. And step one is realizing that somebody can and will."

And, because he was her Kept and this one, damnit, she could protect, she kept going. "In the meantime, this is my city. If anyone other than Leo here attacks you, you tell them that you Belong to me. If that doesn't stop them, you can feel free to tell anyone who can hear you that you're mine. For this year, at least, that ought to keep you safe."

inventrix wrote a piece here around the beginning of Cloverleaf, and it's continued in the comments (and is still going on) as a story between Cya and Leo.

Written to inventrix's and Kuro-Neko's request/commission after I Should Visit, Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV and Part V; 2500 words

---

“...you might consider, in due time, why some people’s children seem to know so much more, coming to Addergoole, than others’.”

Regine watched the woman walk down the stairs, her mink tail bobbing. She watched her open the back door and head out into the back yard, where Feu Drake was telling the toddler some convoluted story.

It was a question she had not given too much thought, she was forced to admit, if only to herself. Some students came in with basic or no educational background; some came in nearly college-educated. Some knew what a Kept was, what a promise was, what hawthorn was. Some learned those things the hard was during the course of their time at Addergoole.

It did make it harder to shock them into Changing, but the tight, Ellehemaei-full environment did what surprise did not.
( Read more... )

If you enjoyed inventrix's piece Thank You and my response piece, you might want to check the DW comments of my response for the continuing story.

Transcribed as best as I could manage from talking-to-myself on the way home last night. All new students.


"Well, I'm going to be cy'Lightning. It's obvious I'm meant to have Professor Inazuma as my Mentor." Hadley leaned forward, her elbows on her knees.

Her friends were not quite as charmed.

"Because you want to stab people with sharp things?" Farina giggled at the idea.

"Because you're going to be really good with lightning?" Aquilo raised sculpted eyebrows.

"Because you're really fascinated by Old-Japan history?"

"No!" Hadley sulked. "No, because he's lovely and I am destined to be closer to him, that's why."

"Oh, come on." Aquilo tsked, smirking. "It's obvious he's gay."

"You don't know that! Just because you like him...!"

"No, he's not my sort. And come on, it's - you know. You know know, when you're gay."

"Oh, good. More of your magical gay powers." Farina grumbled. "Next thing we know, you're going to be levitating the professors."

"Well, I might," Aquilo tsked. "I haven't Changed yet. But look, he's gay."

"That's ridiculous." Keala shook her head. "Haven't you seen him with Professor Cynara? They're obviously together."

"No. They're not. He's gay." Aquilo sighed irritably. "Why can't you accept that?"

"Haven't you met Maihallr? She's Professor Inazuma's daughter with Professor Doomsday. And it's not like Sweetbriar is quiet about her family, and she's Professor Cynara and Professor Inazuma's granddaughter. They have two generations of children together. Two Generations. They're obviously in love." Keala shook her head, as if at everyone's idiocy.

"Uh! What does this have to do with me being cy'Lightning? I mean, come on. It's not like the rest of you don't like professors, too." Hadley threw herself backwards in the chair in frustration. "Come on, Farina. Admit it."

"Well... I mean. Yeah. Professor Chthon. Have you seen him? Or heard him?"

"Mmm." It was a group sound: Professor Chthon was gorgeous, with a deep, throaty voice.

"And Aquilo?" Hadley pushed.

"Oh, you all know. Professor Aegislaw." He shook his head sadly.

"But isn't he..." Farina's gesture was unclear, but everyone knew what she meant.

Aquilo sighed. "Yes. So very very straight. But that doesn't mean I can't lust after him. I mean, come on, it's not like either of you have a chance for anything serious, either, with the Professors - even if Professor Inazuma somehow isn't gay. Or in love with Professor Doomsday." He shrugged defensively and flailed in the only direction left. "What about you, Keala?"

"Not a professor." She hunched her shoulders. "Not into that. Too old. I mean, come on, you said it. Professor Inazuma and Professor Doomsday have two generations of kids. They're a bit older than we are."

"Then who?" Hadley was still sulking, but she was leaning forward again. "Come on, Kee, everyone else told, and you always keep so many secrets. Come onnnn."

It was Keala's turn to flop back in her chair. "Ejnar," she muttered under her breath. "Ejnar cy'Underground."

---

inventrix wrote this piece "as a thematically similar partner" to the above story. :-D :-D :-D

First: Visiting Doomsday
Previous: Science & Getting Schooled.

“You teach there?” The girl was staring at him. Luke twitched his wings and met her gaze. She was maybe thirteen or fourteen, a bit of baby chub on her cheeks, and a face shape he'd seen before.

Addergoole had had something like two thousand students; he'd seen any number of faces, even if a tenth of them had looked like Aelfgar and another tenth like Ambrus. He couldn't place the face. But the glare was definite and right here in front of him.

He flapped his wings again. “I helped found Addergoole.” There was no point in denying it.

“You made that - that - that torture-hole, and they let you walk around like a person?”

“LaKeziah.” Leo cut in, sounding adult and stern. “You can talk to sa'Hunting Hawk after class.”

“Oh, I'll talk to him.” She gave him a nice long glare before turning back into her seat, muttering things about torturers and baby factories.
( Read more... )

I hope I got him right I hope I got him right

"Solon? Solon Dragon-Chaser?" Leo was leaning over Cya's shoulder, looking at her list of parents-of-potential-students. "Solon Dragon-Chaser, hunh. Surprised he's still alive."

"The people in the town he's in called him Scholar Solon."

"Yeah. Heh." Leo leaned back, smiling. "We called him that, too, or Doctor Solon. He had always read a book on something, whatever we were fighting."

Cya resisted taking notes. "What happened to him?"

"He went off to one of those enclaves, you know, the ones in the middle of the old cities? Up north somewhere, I think. Something about a woman." Leo trailed off, staring off into space.

Cya didn't know what to do when he did that, had never known, so she did what had served her well for decades: ignored it. "The clerk in their town - it's a farm town now, one of the ones that stayed out of the war and pretty much didn't change except the walls?"

"Mmm." Presumably, Leo had seen those, but, just as presumably, some place that bordered itself against gods and bandits alike had not been high on his visiting rota when he'd been monster-hunting. Cya didn't like to ask, and so she didn't.

"Well, the clerk was very helpful. I told him I was looking up family that had gotten scattered." It was a story that served her well in some towns, the ones less scarred and thus less suspicious. "She'll be ten in July."

"Solon Dragon-Chaser's daughter?" Leo grinned. "Yes!"