Alder's Grove

"It's perfect." Ce'rilla looked around the old hotel. "It has an atrium, it has rooms, and everything else can be fixed."

"Mmm." Her sister - "sister" the way her family did family ties, at least - regarded the place thoughtfully. "I thought you wanted trees."

Ce'rilla regarded the building. Once upon a time, it had been a highway-off-ramp stop. But the world had ended when 'Rilla and her sister were barely children. Now it was abandoned, and the highway was not exactly well-used. "I see trees over there."

"'Rill, the trees are like a mile away."

"Mmm." Ce'Rilla stretched, and then stretched. Talking to trees was easy. "But they're going to come here."

---

Ce'Rilla is a character in Addergoole (Second generation), as is her sister.

Addergoole has a landing page here

Written in a quest to write a flash to every one of the icons djinni has drawn for me.

"This is the dance." Senna took Autumn's hands. "Your feet go like..." She hitched up her skirts to show her bare toes. "This and then this and then this."

"Like, ah..." Autumn tried the steps. "This and then this, and then this and this?"

"Almost!" Senna grinned and showed off the steps again. "This and then this and so on."

"This and then this..." Autumn found herself singing it. "Then this and so on. Senna, you're a genius."

"I'm a genius? It's a dance." The dance-mistress' feet moved in a more complicated pattern this time, and her skirts swished against her knees.

"You're a genius. It's a song." More than a song, it was a knot. "It's a song to the universe."

Autumn shifted her vision sideways, to the place where the strands of the world lay bright against the void. "'Like this and like that and like this and uh...'" Her steps twined in the strands; Senna's steps twisted in the lines, and together they made a beautiful macrame of connections. "Genius. This is the dance."

---

Useful setting information: The strands, in this 'verse, connect everything, and are created by connections between people or between things.

Want more Stranded World? Check out the landing page here.

Written for Friday Flash and in a quest to write a flash to every one of the icons djinni has drawn for me.

"Like this and like that and like this and uh..." is from Dr. Dre's Nuthin but a G thang.

Continuing flash series! I'm going to write one flash for every Icon I have, over 4 LJ accounts, 1 DW, and a whole bunch of not-currently-in-use, until I get bored or run out of icons.

Today's icon:

My Anthropologist, from The Planners 'Verse

Icon & Art by meeks

Before This story.

---

Late Autumn, 315 Post-Conflict

For the entirety of my decade as a scholar in the Tower, I studied Ancient Cultures. The Ancients division of the Library is one of the largest, and it is an intensive field of study.

However, the problem with Ancient Cultures is that, almost to a one, they are Ancient and thus gone, lost in the Conflict or long before that. One can read about them endlessly, theorize, study, hypothesize, but one can not actually visit these cultures. In many cases, one cannot even visit their ruins.
( Read more... )

Continuing flash series! I'm going to write one flash for every Icon I have, over 4 LJ accounts, 1 DW, and a whole bunch of not-currently-in-use, until I get bored or run out of icons.

Today's icon:


I made this icon, for this story. Names from Fourteen Minutes' random generator.

This comes after Chain 'Round her Neck.

The title comes from this song.
They’d taken her clothes weeks ago, and Basimontin didn’t give her new ones before he removed her from her cell. He led her by the chain around her neck, like an animal on a leash, through the black-steel corridors of their pirate vessel.

“Where are we going?” she asked, but he seemed to be in a sort of trance. She was pretty sure he was more shaken up than she was – but he’d believed all along that her family would cough up the money. She’d known from the moment they took her that she was never going home again.
( Read more... )

Continuing flash series! I'm going to write one flash for every Icon I have, over 4 LJ accounts, 1 DW, and a whole bunch of not-currently-in-use, until I get bored or run out of icons.

Today's icon:


I don't remember, I'm sorry, where I yoinked this from, 3 years ago, to serve as Kailani's fisrt icon ("sea and sky.") Today, I'm using it as a picture, not a Kai icon.

The sky and sea seemed to go on forever.

Their exploration ship had crash-landed on this planet, splash-landed, more like it, when a computer failure (meters and yards were not the same thing, and why had it taken this long for someone to notice the problem?) had sent it off course. Many of the crew and passengers had made it out alive, in the amphibious landing vessels that were designed for any human-habitable landing site, and now they floated along, staring out at the endless sea.
( Read more... )
Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/278156.html

New flash series! I'm going to write one flash for every Icon I have, over 4 LJ accounts, 1 DW, and a whole bunch of not-currently-in-use, until I get bored or run out of icons.

Today's icon:

Jamian, from Addergoole.

Icon & Art by djinni

This is in line with Addergoole's main timeline, and takes place around Chapter 141-2.

This is going to end badly. But I think that’s okay. Worried and stressed, Jamian didn’t want to go back to the suite yet. He might be the only empath in the crew, but that didn’t mean the rest of them weren’t observant (except Ty, but that was an issue for another day). The Library didn’t seem to like him, the Store bored him, and the Arcade would be full of people.
( Read more... )

New flash series! I'm going to write one flash for every Icon I have, over 4 LJ accounts, 1 DW, and a whole bunch of not-currently-in-use, until I get bored or run out of icons.

Today's icon:

A creepy black tower and a pumpkin, with my user name

Icon by dhamphir

Dragons Next Door has a Landing Page (LJ)

This follows directly after Over the Wall (LJ).

“What is the Black Tower?” The dragon cocked its head to the side, narrowly missing knocking over the fence.

I blinked. The Tower has such a reputation among our people that it’s hard to remember it’s not that well known outside of the community. Even most other humans wouldn’t know what I was talking about – and I imagine the dragons handled such things in their own way. “The Black Tower is…” I resisted the impulse to end that with “…the Black Tower.” “It’s an academy of magic, considered highly prestigious but also highly dangerous. Sage attended there.”

“Ah, the Sandborn.” Zizny nodded. “We have heard of that place. On rare occasion, a young dragon will study there.”

“Yes, the Sandborn.” I’d forgotten it had a proper name. “I knew they had a wing catering to the non-humans…” I offered carefully.

“You did not attend there, then?” It raised one eyeridge in another gesture I imagine was adopted from humanoids. I flushed, wishing for a slightly less-perceptive neighbor. Maybe I should have been talking to the brownies, instead.

“No.” It would have been rude not to explain further, so I tried. “I went to the Cottage.” Unwillingly, but wanting to be clear, I elaborated. “The Pumpkin, we called it. But it’s…”

“…Lady Cassidy’s Academy for Young Ladies. Yes, I’ve head of it. I’m surprised, quite frankly, that it’s still around. Aren’t you of the generation that was working on that gender-equality project?” She made it sound like a coffee klatch.

“Well…”

New flash series! I'm going to write one flash for every Icon I have, over 4 LJ accounts, 1 DW, and a whole bunch of not-currently-in-use, until I get bored or run out of icons.

Today's icon:

Baby Smith

Icon & Art by djinni

Dragons Next Door has a Landing Page (LJ)

We were having one of those really nice crisp late-October days, with the sun shining and no real wind to speak of, so Zizny Smith and I were talking over the stone wall between our properties while, nearby, Juniper and Baby played, or, at least, Juniper played and Baby gurgled back at her.
( Read more... )

Edited for naming error: Sage is the narrator's spouse, Jin her oldest child.

New flash series! I'm going to write one flash for every Icon I have, over 4 LJ accounts, 1 DW, and a whole bunch of not-currently-in-use, until I get bored or run out of icons.

Today's icon:

Ceinwen, from Addergoole Year 9

Icon from Meez.com

Directly after Three-Way (LJ)

“Well done,” Thorburn murmured, as they watched Basalt cradling Ahouva in his arms.

“Thank you,” Ceinwen answered, as a rush of unaccustomed pleasure rolled over her. He thought she’d done the right thing! She’d finally done something he liked… even if by accident.

“What prompted you to do that?” he asked, his voice still pitched for her ears only. Jeremiah looked in no shape to negotiate, but he and Basalt were talking nonetheless, the doll-like Lolly watching dispassionately. ( Read more... )

Rix has expressed interest in more of this part of this story, which would probably be about 1000-word story, maybe 1500 words. If someone else would like to pitch in $5, I will write it as double and write 1000 words on this story.

New flash series! I'm going to write one flash for every Icon I have, over 4 LJ accounts, 1 DW, and a whole bunch of not-currently-in-use, until I get bored or run out of icons.

Today's icon:

Generally used for reading-and-writing-stuff

Icon by sunlitdays

Planners 'verse, pre-apoc.

Anna set down her glasses and pushed aside the heavy leather-bound book she’d been working on. The copy wouldn’t have quite the same thick tactile feel as the original – they could take the time to scan, OCR, print, and bind copies of books that were falling into dust, but not to letterpress print them. There were too many books to save for that – but it could be read without destroying it, so its knowledge would not be lost.
( Read more... )

New flash series! I'm going to write one flash for every Icon I have, over 4 LJ accounts, 1 DW, and a whole bunch of not-currently-in-use, until I get bored or run out of icons.

Today's icon:

Addergoole, Aelgifu.

Icon & Art by djinni

This takes place in time-line about at Friday's chapter. For context: Ayla struggles through the first nine books of the story with identity issues, and has recently gone through a Change (as has her half-brother, Yngvi); see Meeks' sketch).

Ayla snuggled against Ioanna Sunday night, heedless of the occasional over-done glances of disdain Yngvi shot their way. The TV in the lounge was set to a mindless movie, they had a board game they could all enjoy without too much effort, and she had two of her three favorite people with her.

She kissed Io spontaneously, never mind who might be walking by. Her lover – wasn’t that neat? She had a lover, a girlfriend! – responded with a warm smile. “What was that for?”
( Read more... )

New flash series! I'm going to write one flash for every Icon I have, over 4 LJ accounts, 1 DW, and a whole bunch of not-currently-in-use, until I get bored or run out of icons.

(Yes, if you want to make me an icon to get me to write a flash about it, you can. In that case, I'll even write 2x as much!)

I'm starting with DW, in alphabetical order. Today's icon:

Stranded World, Autumn.

Icon & Art by djinni

Also dailyprompt "perched precariously on a ladder" and "beautiful morning".

This is the prequel to Love Letters and Colder Weather.


“Beautiful morning, m’lady.” The bard passing through waved up at Autumn, who, perched precariously on a ladder, was trying to get her sign hung. ( Read more... )