September 22, 2010
Love Bite.
Nathan walked over to Ekion and, in a rare display of affection, rested his head on his husband’s shoulder. Ekion pulled him into a loose embrace and flinched a split second before Nathan sank his fangs into his flesh.
Teleika’s eyebrows shot up. Jetta grinned, and Lia started cackling.
“I thought I broke him of that habit,” she said.
Nathan opened his eyes and stared at his mother, his teeth still buried in Ekion’s shoulder.
Lia grinned back at him, entirely unperturbed. “You were what, six, before you stopped greeting everyone you liked with the biggest bite you could muster? You even told me once that kisses were for wimps who lacked decent teeth.”
“If you’ve got ‘em, use ‘em,” Teleika remarked absently as she watched Ekion’s attempts to pry his husband off grow less and less subtle.
“Oh, he does,” the guardsman remarked, then blushed.
Nathan grinned against his shoulder.
The Flowers.
It must be hard, Lia often thought, to go from being a sentient piece of landscape to a human-ish being. Talk about culture shock.
So when Dag cheerfully informed her that he’d finally found something similar between human culture and landwight culture, and presented her with the sickliest looking bouquet she’d ever seen (wild rose and foxglove and some dying daisies and random sprigs of pine), she ignored the thorns and gladly accepted it, dropping them into a glass on her windowsill as fast as was kind.
He kept giving her … “flowers” was too narrow a word, but the thought was there, even if they did end up having some interesting conversations on what constituted “safe” when it came to botanicals. (Dag was floored to discover that plants could be harmful to humans, and for weeks afterward gave her nothing but herbs and the occasional carrot.)
He passed it on, too. When Nathan was five, he dropped a handful of weedy buttercups on her lap, roots, dirt, and all, and solemnly informed her that that was what you were supposed to give a lady if you liked her, and she was a lady and he liked her very much. He was not quite as … prolific a giver as his father (who, after all, was still showering her with random garden trimmings every time he realized the last batch was wilting), but every so often she’d be sitting at her desk, and she’d catch a glimpse of the glass out of the corner of her eye, and notice a new flower or two tucked neatly into place. (Nathan’s gifts, she was happy to say, were all nonpoisonous and generally lacking in stickies, though he was more inclined towards random greenery than his father.)
And then Nathan went journeying and was lost, and Dag died before even getting the chance to see his daughter, and Lia quietly pruned the last bouquet of anything likely to rot and left the rest there to dry in the strong semitropical sun. And when little Teleika found the preserved flowers and asked, gingerly touching one wrinkled brown petal, what they were, Lia set her on her knee and told her. (Lia thought she’d rarely seen anything sadder in her life, outside of open battle. Teleika thought she’d never seen anything prettier.)
And then Nathan was found, dragged back from his own special hell by one of those suspiciously nondescript people who ended up in the Guard occasionally (though Lia never did quite figure out how someone that damn pale managed nevertheless to be overlooked), and he met his sister and re-met his mother and realized his father was nowhere to be seen, and he was back in body and even mostly in mind, but he wasn’t really back at all.
And then one day a couple years later, Teleika came running in at some ungodly hour of the morning, giddily yet gently waving a sunny yellow daisy around and beaming ear to ear, and as Lia grumped out of bed to help her daughter find her own flower-glass, she thought that it might take some time, and probably more visits from that guard (who twitched so nicely when startled), and probably also being dropped into some sort of work if he didn’t do it on his own, but Nathan would be rather all right, in the end.
When she got to her office, there was a tiny budding rose, perfect and just a touch more yellow than copper, nestled amid dried holly leaves.
Family (Thaziazhsta).
Teleika opened the door, walked in…
“So…”
…And spun to glare at her brother, who was leaning back in an armchair pointedly reading a thick book.
“Late night?” he asked cheerfully (well, for him, anyway), ostentatiously turning a page. Teleika glared harder and absently swung the door shut. “The glares work better when Mom does ‘em,” Nathan remarked absently, not-really-reading with great deliberation.
“Do you always have to do this?”
“You would prefer Mother to be the one to greet you?”
“I’m eighteen. I don’t need either of you to wait up for me!”
“Oh, but this way we get a head start on tomorrow’s gossip,” Nathan replied. “So who was it this time?”
“Oh, no. I’m not telling either of you.”
“Hm.” He flipped another page.
“No. I know what you’re up to. You keep … showing up at my dates’ houses and being attentive,” Teleika said, scrambling for word, “…and, it’s creepy. And then they won’t go out with me anymore.”
“Well, that’s their lookout, isn’t it? And what’s wrong with wanting to know just who my sister’s spending time with? You did the same thing to Ekion.”
“Yes, but I was nine. There’s a bit of difference between a nine-year-old staring at you and a thirty-year-old.”
“Hm.”
“I’m going to bed.”
“Okay.” Nathan turned another page.
That was suspiciously mild. “Okay?”
Nathan glanced up. “What, would you prefer I try to forbid you to sleep?”
“Nooo… Never mind.” Teleika turned to leave.
“Good night.”
“Good night,” Teleika responded, voice laden with suspicion. Slowly, with many glances back, she shuffled off down the hallway.
Nathan turned another page as he heard her door slam, then extinguished the light. Ekion shoved open the window and clambered inside.
“You were right. It’s that Henry fellow.”
“Hm. Good.”
“So… Going over bright and early tomorrow, then?”
“Mm.”
“There’s a bakery that opens there pretty early. We can stop in there before you start your overprotective-brother rounds.”
If there had been more expression there, that would have been a glare. “If they bothered to properly state their intentions beforehand, I wouldn’t have to go ask now, would I?”
“I never properly stated my intentions…”
“And both Great-grandmother and Mother accosted you to ask.”
“Hmpf. Are you coming to bed yet?”
“Maybe. Have you properly stated your intentions yet?”
Ekion leered. “Do you really want me to?”
Nathan gave him one smoldering look, then slinked off down the other hallway. Ekion, laughing, followed.
And there was a faint gleam of metal in the moonlight as Lia, grinning, popped another needle in her mouth and strolled away.
Lia and Dag.
There was something just kinda …. wrong about a landwight in human form. The proportions were just slightly off – not anything you could put your finger on, exactly. They moved just a little oddly, like someone not quite used to having limbs. Expressions registered just a bit off beat: smiling a hair too late, frowning almost as an afterthought. And their coloring always seemed slightly different – always earth-toned, but sometimes shading into mossy green, say, or the peculiarly bright pink found in bands in some desert canyons.
It was somewhat disconcerting.
Fortunately for Dag, Lia found disconcertion hot.
The first time they’d had sex, Lia had found herself in the highly unusual position of continually misjudging his location in space and misreading his body language, like some kind of multiform illusion. She’d started giggling uncontrollably, and fortunately he’d not realized that was not a generally desired reaction during sex, and they’d had rather a fun time of it.
She’d learned with typical rapidity how to read him, and compensating for the optical illusion of his body had not taken much longer.
Then it happened again.
And again.
And he’d finally picked up a repertoire of wicked expressions all his own, and she’d realized he was altering his body deliberately – and subtly enough that she’d not noticed.
Lia contemplated this as she watched him gleefully making a muck out of some poor sap’s cornfield, and waited for him to get bored with circles. Catching her eye, Dag tromped over and extricated himself from the bedrock, his legs rubberbanding back to more typical manly proportions as he sat on the stoop next to her.
“What?” he asked, shooting her a wicked grin full of too-straight teeth.
She looked him over for a minute, confirming her initial impressions. Yes, he’ll do, Lia thought. “Do you want to get married?”
“What, now?” he asked, a slow, lazy grin curling across his face.
Lia shivered. “Sure, why not?”
Dag bounced to his feet. “I’ll go snag Kaezia, and you can go roust Jetta. She’d never forgive you, otherwise.”
Lia rose, dusting herself off. “Well, this’ll be fun.”
“And I’ll snag some alcohol too, while I’m at it.”
Lia grinned. “I knew I loved you for a reason.”
Dag stilled, face falling into blankness, then rapidly leaned forward and kissed her. “Same to you,” he said, and was off.
Carnival Dream.
From where she sat on the ridge, she could see the ghosts.
She doubted very much that the people down in the carnival proper could tell there were ghosts there. Idly, she wondered if the living visitors just couldn’t see them, or if the magics of the carnival made the dead indistinguishable from the living.
It didn’t really matter, she decided. Besides, she was here to watch the lights, not the ghosts.
Werelights, witchlights, ghostlights, firebugs, even more mundane things like good old fashioned fireworks. And someone down there was doing something really weird with a string of tree lights, and she was pretty sure there were some lights floating about that she’d never heard of before.
She wanted to be down there so bad. It was just her luck that she’d gotten grounded for the whole week the carnival would be in town. Dammit. If she’d known they’d be here, she’d've held off on pranking the staff room.
But that was the carnival for you. They never advertised their presence in advance; they barely advertised when they were actually present. You found them by being drawn there, or being pixyled in, or by keeping a weather eye open. Or by being sucked in by default, when they set up around you, or by word of mouth.
Weird way to advertise, but it worked.
Well, more or less. It was grossly inefficient, though, and they probably ended up putting far more energy into their spellwork than they’d have to, if they were more there.
And they needed a better drummer. Whoever was down there now was passable, but she could do rhythms like that in her sleep.
Too bad they didn’t take people under sixteen. Ah, well; it was only a four-year wait. She wondered how she’d find them again, when she was old enough to join.
Come to think of it, they probably had a magic for that, too. They had to recruit people somehow.
And when they did, she’d be waiting, and one day she’d be the master of the lights.
Lia could hardly wait.
An Urban Legend.
There. Up there. Yeh see that road up yonder? The caravans go down that road. In the old days, they’d go in a great clatter, and yeh could sit here and watch ‘em. Nowadays, they still go, but they go quiet and hidden-like, and yeh can’t see ‘em even when they pass at noon.
But they ain’t the only things that go down that road. Ain’t never been the only things that go down that high road.
There was ghosts first, back when there warn’t no proper road, just a muddy track the deer’d run down. Then them roadbuilders came up over them hills and paved it, and then there warn’t no ghosts no more, and there warn’t no monsters that could snatch yeh, either. Not if yeh stayed on the road.
Ain’t nobody ever seen a roadbuilder, either. They just came and went, and left a nice stone road behind. Yeh can see the cobbles movin’ on their own whenever they need to. Or maybe yeh just can’t see the roadbuilders. Dunno.
And then there’s what yeh can see on a night like this. If yeh just sit here like this, watchin’ the road, and yer patient-like and don’t spook, yeh might see a glow, like a lantern bobbing. And if yeh wait, it might get bigger, and just when yer thinkin’ it’s a ghost ready to snatch yeh, the person comes up to yeh and yeh realize she’s this bright tall thing, all over fire.
And if yer real careful and real polite and don’t run off screamin’, she might hold out ‘er hand, and if yeh hold out yers, she’ll tip some o’the fiery light from ‘er palm to yers. But if yeh flinch, she’ll vanish, and yeh won’t get yer light.
But if yer calm and yer steady, yeh can get a palmful of liquid light. Like this.
Watch the high road, boy. And be polite to them that travel down it.
November 7, 2008
Perfect Memory.
“Wow, that’s a weird star.”
“It’s not a star.”
Meshu looked down at his daughter in surprise. “You know this how?”
The six-and-three-quarters!-year-old flopped back on the hillside. “I’ve watched the stars for a year and a half, now. That one has never shown up before. Besides, I’d've seen it last night. It’s not a planet, comet, meteor, or stellar anomaly, either.” Small fingers stabbed at the sky in punctuation.
“Satellite? Plane?”
“No and no. There are no satellites visible in the sky at this time, and a plane or helicopter would show up differently.”
“Lia, how do you know all this?”
Lia blinked up at her father. “I just remember it.”
There was a pause.
“Weather balloon?” Meshu said, hiding a grin.
Lia shot him a look of withering disdain.
Up in the sky, the UFO blinked twice, and vanished.
October 8, 2008
Running.
She ran as fast as she could, stumbling a bit over the uneven terrain. The hot sun beat down; her breath came in ragged gasps. The muscles in her legs burned.
She kept running. If she could only make it to her house…
Her mother swung the door open just before she reached it, and she staggered to a halt, panting.
Lia raised one eyebrow. “Have a good workout?”
Teleika nodded, wiped the sweat from her forehead, and made a beeline for the kitchen.
April 10, 2008
The Bread You Break.
“There’s something special about food,” Lia said, throwing some peas in the pot.
“There is?” Teleika asked. She leaned across the counter, trying to read the cookbook upside-down.
“Yes,” Lia said, gently nudging her daughter out of the way. She checked the stove, then turned back to Teleika. “All food is sacred.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that. It’s sacred just by being food, and eating food, any food, just by yourself is inherently a sacred act.”
“Whether you know it or no.” Teleika fidgeted with a loose bread recipe.
“Just so.” The pot bubbled, and Lia moved to stir it.
“And if you eat it with someone else, is it more sacred?” Teleika asked.
“Sort of. It’s more like it’s sacred for two reasons.” Lia looked at her daughter expectantly.
“Well, because food and eating are sacred. But what’s the other reason?”
Lia grinned. “Because community is also inherently sacred. Come on, soup’s ready.”
Teleika sat for a moment, watching her mother take the soup out to the others, then carefully slid the loose recipe in her pocket before jumping off the stool and joining her family.
The General and the Killer.
The last thing Lia heard before being knocked unconscious was a cheerful “Hello, General” in a sarcastic voice she’d hoped never to hear again.
The first thing Lia saw when she woke up was Heizhan sitting on a pile of rubble, grinning at her. The second thing she noticed was that he wasn’t actually holding a knife this time.
“Couldn’t find a decent kitchen?” Lia asked, raising one eyebrow.
“You’re clearly okay, if you’re making snide comments about my cutlery. I was starting to think I’d hit you too hard.”
“How long did you intend to knock me out for?”
Heizhan shrugged. “Long enough for me to drag you out of that cellar. I got you out in ten minutes, but you’ve been out for two hours.” He eyed her for a moment, then handed her a small bottle. Lia took it gingerly. “It’s pain medicine,” Heizhan said, looking hurt, as Lia sniffed the contents.
Lia eyed him, shrugged, and downed the dose. Her headache vanished, though some dizziness remained. “And which apothecary brewed this up for you?”
“None of them. I made it myself.” Heizhan grinned again at Lia’s look. “Did you think I was always a mad serial killer?”
“Yes.”
“Well, maybe so, but it doesn’t pay the bills. And before you ask, I didn’t poison anyone.”
“Really.”
“Too boring,” the killer commented. Lia grinned.
“Why are you being so helpful?” the General asked after a moment. “They let you out so you’d turn on us, you know.” She watched Heizhan, her gold eyes sharp.
“I know.”
Lia waited. Three, two, one…
“It’s my country, dammit. I’d kill myself before I’d kill on the command of some terrorists.”
There it is, Lia thought. The pride of the Anunnaki.
Out loud, Annwn’s General said, “And on my command?”
Heizhan looked her over, dark eyes serious, then grinned.
