aldersprig | Entries tagged with prompter: b

Began here.
Chapter 2 here
Chapter 3 here.
Chapter 4 here.
Chapter 5 here.

Malina’s feet were tired; her eyes were tired. Her head was tired. Yet she was exploring again.

The inner wall and the outer wall of the castle still appeared intact, at least in this corner. Sand drifted heavily enough in several places that Malina couldn’t see more than 1 or 2 dozen cubits in either direction from the L intersection where she stood, the corner of the castle from which the tower grew.

She was being led by a fishlike sprite that had appeared to her request – no, to her demand.

She had seen stranger things, but then again, she was being followed around an abandoned castle named for her ancestor by a talking cat.

The sprite was taking her away from the entrance she’d come in, down the branch of inner-outer wall space she hadn’t explored yet. This could be a very bad idea – but yet, the cat was following her. It seemed entirely unworried about any of this. Of course, being a cat (although she did not know the rules for sand-cats, she supposed), it would likely seem unworried by anything at all.

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Mirrored from Alder's Grove Fiction.

Began here.
Chapter 2 here
Chapter 3 here.
Chapter 4 here.
Chapter 5 here.

There was a girl named Malina Serafina Anastazja Dominika Naveed Jeleń nic Cecília O Alexandre, and because she had been named this, or at least that was what she’d been told, she sat down on a throne.

The throne was in a tower which had been left as if its inhabitants planned on coming back any moment.

But they hadn’t, and Malina, led by a talking sand-cat & carried by a mustang, had.

She sat down gingerly on the throne, worried it might crumble to dust, even though it had held the cat fine.

The throne held her weight; the cushion was so soft and comfortable that she could see why the cat had wanted to stay there. It was too large for her, as if it had been meant to hold a very large person, but if she scooted forward, she could see how the arm rests had been carved to fit hands, so they’d rest comfortably and royally while the person there did whatever they did in this room.

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Mirrored from Alder's Grove Fiction.

Began here.

Chapter 2 here

There was a tower in a castle in the sands on the edge of the border Malina had never seen before, certainly not like this.

There was a room at the top of the tower, a room high up in an intact tower in a half-ruined castle.

There was a throne in the room, a cat on the throne, a sand-cat, who had not signed the Last Treaties.

And in the middle of the room was Malina.

There was only one chair, something Malina’s feet were protesting loudly. She considered the floor. She considered the cat.

She considered the windows – the glass was wavy and speckled, so that she couldn’t see through them – the piles of documents, the map in sand.

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Mirrored from Alder's Grove Fiction.

Warning: Dark. Discussion of death and dying, although mostly a bit sideways.

👻

They lived, if you wanted to call it that, down by the river, the Trade Street Bridge providing the roof and a back wall to their residence , the steps of the Riverside Inn down to the water providing another wall. Their floor was the gravel and slate of the river-shore and the river was their front porch, their food provider, the road they took out of there where they needed to and the barricade that kept most others away.

There were generally four or five of them there; on the coldest nights, there were fewer, and on the full moons, sometimes as many as twenty. The one with the long, long hair (black as a raven’s wing) and the one with the piercings (eighteen of them), they were always there.

Under the bridge, there weren’t names and there was rarely talking, but the one with the long, long hair, others called Godiva; the one with the piercings, some of them called Nails, because the nose-piercing was a nail.

When nobody else was there, they existed wordlessly. They’d collect the interesting debris the river provided and sort it out – Gloves could use this and Hammer could use that; Blue might want that photo but Clacker would definitely want that sock. They fished and smoked the results, muddy bottom-feeding fish that were far better once you’d gotten them full of some stolen mustard – and they might not steal, but someone did. They bribed the gendarmes which could be bribed and scared off or hid from the other ones.

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Mirrored from Alder's Grove Fiction.

Began here.

Chapter 2 here

Malina, who was a Princess of a very long name and had until very recently been lost in the desert, regarded the castle before her. She looked over the door hanging off its hinges; she looked at the lovely, ornate doorframe.

She took a breath. She’d come this far, let the cat and the mustang lead her. She was letting the cat rush her. She was still lost in the borderlands, even if she now had a destination.

She held her breath and stepped forward through the doorway, moving the door aside.

The door moved slowly under her hand, the bottom corner dragging in the sand. Malina glanced at the cat, who was walking very close to her, and then pushed the door again.

She made it through the doorway; the door was far easier to urge back closed than it had been to open. She latched it, feeling silly – there was nobody around, for one, and for another, it was still missing a hinge & only half connected to the other.

Still, she felt better for having it shut and latched.

“The tower.”

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Mirrored from Alder's Grove Fiction.

Written over 23 posts/toots for my friend B – beginning here.

The girl, who had been named Malina Serafina Anastazja Dominika Naveed Jeleń nic Cecília O Alexandre (for several reasons beginning with but not limited to the little bubbling noises she made as an infant, several grandmothers, a grandfather, two prophecies, & three bequests with very specific qualifiers), who was called Princess or Your Highness by most people and ‘Lina only by her mother and her nurse, was lost.

She hadn’t intended to be lost. She’d intended only to wander off a little ways, since the party was so loud and the people were so… people.

Malina liked people fine, in small doses, but when it was a Royal Party, a birthday party for her sister, it just went on & on & on, and the people just went on & on & on as well. So, eventually, when enough people had shaken her hand & patted her shoulder & asked for her blessing, Malina wandered away from the crowd.

Lady Rosário threw a great party – this one was at her desert estate on the border – & was a friend of the crown –

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