Alder's Grove

After A Couple Helping Hands, Littermate, and Strange Favors, for the Finish It! bingo

Begley was out of the doctor’s office in an hour, an hour Cúmhaí had spent pacing the waiting room and irritating all of the other nervous or unhappy people who’d filled and over-filled the room. Some she recognized as other new students, others were upperclassmen. One of those, Brontes, leered cheerfully at Cúmhaí and reached out for her, only to find his hand slapped down by an invisible force.

“He’s got ideas,” she faux-apologized. “Whoever he is.”
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Support the Thorne-Author

For rix_scaedu's commissioned continuation of Laziness as an Art Form and Laziness X4.

"So, my Master wants to know, if you are concerned about the number of Kept he's taken in, what you would bid to take one of them off of his hands." By the third upperclassman Roanna talked to, she had the words down pat.

She was also getting used to the look of disbelief, although every person had a different reason for the disbelief.

"Concerned? No, I'm just impressed. I never managed more than three, and I had to set someone on fire for that one." The draconic-Change Yisachar smirked down at Roanna. "You can tell your Master, if I want one of his Kept, he'll know when his pants are on fire."

Roanna gulped. "I'll tell him, sir..."

"Just Zak is fine."
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This is written to rix_scaedu's commissioned prompt.

"I think you should know that I'm going to hate you forever." Sullivan shot off an Abatu working, one that had taken some practice to perfect. The collar he'd been wearing for a year vanished in a spray of fireworks.

"You're more than welcome to hate me for as long as you want." Vilhemina's voice displayed irritation for the first time in the entire year. "I, for one, am not going to miss our relationship at all."

"That's two of us." They shared a child. That would make things awkward, anywhere but Addergoole. Anyone but the fae. Being in Addergoole, being fae, they had a creche and the Law to handle that.

What did make things awkward for them, however, was that their parents, Sullivan's mother and Vilhemina's father, were chatting, chatting, as if they didn't have a care in the world. As if they didn't now share a grandchild. As if they hadn't set their kids up for this awkward situation.
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For imaginaryfiend's commissioned continuation of A Couple Helping Hands and Littermate

That yelp. That sound. It wasn't human, wasn't barely alive-sounding, but she knew it. She'd know her brother anywhere. Cúmhaí peeled off the last hand holding her, and, when it wouldn't move, started breaking fingers, fast and nasty, until the hand vanished.

"Nobody touches my brother. Nobody. Touches. My. Brother." She could feel everyone in the room and, what was more, she could feel how much of the creature fighting her was illusion and misdirection. She dove straight for his center of mass, right there, and below there was where the Beagle had already tenderized the bastard...

She was rewarded with a long screaming yowl. "No-one hurts my brother, damn you." She snarled it at the whole room, at the bastard growling at her and pretending she hadn't just added injury to injury, and at the three others she could feel, even if she couldn't see. "And I'll kill every goddamned one of you if I have to, to prove it."
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Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1159682.html

For kay_brooke's prompt. Set in Addergoole in a later year; @Inventrix's lovely random AG-character generator gave me Cumhai and Begley, and the rest was easy.

"What. The. Hell?" Cúmhaí darted through the halls, bouncing off of walls that weren't the right shape or size anymore.

She could smell the shapes of the halls, that was the thing, and, one, being able to smell walls pretty much freaked her out, and, two, they weren't the same shape as they'd looked yesterday.

Also, her ears hurt, for a much larger value of "ear" than she was used to.

And she thought the floors might be moving.

"Oh, look, a pupp... bir... puppy bird. Come here, pup." The floor was moving, moving because someone was thudding towards her with the biggest feet she'd ever seen on a human being.

Then again, this place seemed to defy the definition of "human being" she was used to.

"Back up," she snarled. "Back up and leave me alone."

"Fraid I can't do that, little pup. Not today."

"Stop calling me pup!" He was a lot bigger than her, and he was blocking the hall. And the hall was moving, which was totally unfair.

"Coo!"
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