Alder's Grove

How can I help?

Yarrow Tallum had said those words all her life.  She’d grown up in a family that had helped. She had gone to a church that had helped.  She had moved to this city working with a not-for-profit that, above all things helped.

When the not-for-profit had turned out to be not qu

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My Giraffe (Zebra) Call is open!

Written to ysabetwordsmith‘s prompt.


🛋️

Every payday, Edrio very carefully opened the Sears catalog and very carefully placed an order.

It wasn't always Sears; it wasn't always a catalog.  Sometimes it was Penny's, although their catalog wasn't as

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“The idea,” Ron explained, “came from putting a fake egg into a nest to encourage the bird to lay there. So…” He put $50 and a ceramic egg in the safe-deposit box.

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Iva complained. “It’s all about saving money, encouraging YOURSELF to put more cash away. Not just… hoping someone else will lay eggs in your safe-deposit box.”

“Well, if I’m wrong, we move it all to the savings account and go from there. But if I’m right…”

Both of them were surprised when, upon opening the box a month later, they found $100 and 15 ceramic eggs.

---

Written to April 20's Thimbleful Thursday prompt and also tootfiction - 500-character-or-less fic for Mastodon

Katydid tried not to think about it.

The thing about her tricks was, they didn't work if you focused on them - you being her, them, anyone. Lots of her brain worked - or didn't work - that way; the minute you tried to pin something down, it was gone. Home? No, nothing there. When she was thinking about something else, she could remember the smell of the kitchen, or the feel of the old leather couch, or hugs. She remembered hugs the most often. School? Chalk dust and notebook paper and exactly how to fold a note for maximum cuteness and pass-ability.

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The support group met in the basement of a building that had, at one point, been a school. No church would accept them, no current school, no Y or rec center or even town hall - and it wasn't like they had any question about why. They all knew why they were there, and it wasn't like the name of their group, Over-eaters' Anonymous, was actually fooling anyone.

They slipped in from separate entrances: through the floor, through the vents, a couple through one of the three doors into the old classroom....
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* The next time an icon day comes around, someone remind me I need a good icon of some sort for Fairy Town?
* Written to flofx's commissioned prompt: A continuation of Old Stories and old Fates.
* Fairy Town has a landing page here..

There were things those people in their tainted church would never say. There were things that no-one in this tainted town would even whisper, not even Bishop MacNamilla. There were things that you didn't even think.

And one of those things was this: there were fairies and fairies. There were the things that looked like people, that you called "fairies," or didn't really even call that so much as shape the label around the space they filled. They went to work with you, if you were a lay person. They owned houses and shopped and, to a casual tourist, looked human. But they were a little strange, a little eccentric, a little tainted.

And then there were the demons that were actually fairies, the spirits and sprites, goblins and boggarts, monsters and mice, and they hid in the wild spaces, lurked around the gateways, lingered anywhere there were too many of the first sort, anywhere there was belief, anywhere the god had touched.
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Written to flofx's commissioned prompt.

The Kirkavare can be found in Fairy Town stories, starting with Re-blessing the Church.

The was a boy in the church yard.

There were three boys in the church yard, but two of them were human. The third shone like starlight when Mirandabelle looked at him sideways, and glared like a demon when he caught her looking.

They were making a snow fort. It seemed strange, a fae boy making a fort in the church yard, but he was laughing along with his friends and seemed to think nothing of it, nothing of the iron so close. She set her mittened hand on the fence, and felt the soft burn even through the heavy wool.

A snowball whizzed past her ear. Mirandabelle jerked up her head, and say the demon-eyed boy grinning at her. Without thinking about it, she scooped up a handful of snow and lobbed it right back at the boy.
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This comes after The Church in the Park and is written to a more-please request.

It is part of my Fairy Town setting.

Some things could only be written in blood and etched in stone.

Some fates could only be erased with sacrifice, changed with pain, altered with devotion and the strongest of emotions: love, terror, aw.

Some stories could be moved from their place in the Book of Life, but only if one had the proper needle, the proper sinew, the proper glue to settle them in their new place.

Bishop Macnamilla knew these things, more than most and definitely more than a man of faith in any other city might know. He knew where the tools could be found, for those things that had tools. And he knew what elements were needed, when it was not something one could change with tools.

There were things he had not learned, however - stories that had been taught to him wrong, pages that had been left out of his book.

All of those things that he had not learned were coming to a head.

It took the fae very little time to find him, a Bishop, a Man of Faith standing at the Godsplace. They slunk and skittered, snuck and slipped up to him, whispering to each other, whispering to him.

Is this the one that killed so many? Is this the one who shed so much blood?

Is this the one come back to us? Does he know where he is? Does he know what that is?

Does he know? It this him? The whispers swirled around the Bishop like a storm, brushing against him, ruffling his clothes but never quite getting through. It didn't matter. They didn't matter. Nothing mattered now but the task in front of him.

Does he know? He did not, not the way the faeries meant it. But he knew this spot - this stone that looked as if it were a table, the stones that looked like a doorway. He knew the crosses set in the ground around it.

And he knew that if he shed the right blood onto the stone, the world would change forever.

For kelkyag's prompt to my December Bingo Card - it fills the "Disability: Chronic" square.

Fairy town has a landing page here on DW and here on LJ

I do believe the beggar Kelkyag was referring to was this guy. It fits, at least.

Aston had learned years ago that there were some things magic couldn't cure.
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piratekitten has declared February world-building month.

Every day in February (or most days), I will answer one question about any one of my settings.

The question post is here, please feel free to add more questions!

The eighteenth question comes from kelkyag and is for Fairy Town

What made Fairy Town different?

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In some cities, mothers have stopped telling their children to watch out for ogres in the park. Grandfathers don’t tell about the ways you can kill a goblin, if you have to, and the better ways to make it friends. The hobo on the street corner is just a hobo, and you might lose your life or your wallet, but you won’t lose your soul.

Some cities keep on knowing that the people next door may be annoying, but, in the end, they’re still just human. They know that magic is a lie and miracles don’t happen.

Not this city.

~

A week of Settings - Day One: Fairy Town
A week of Settings - Day Two: Blizard
A week of Settings - Day Three: Stranded
A week of Settings - Day Four: Superheros

For clare_dragonfly's prompt.

They came to town in the late autumn, riding in on Harleys, a rumble so loud that it could be heard through the whole city.

They took up residence in Tom Morgan's, a bar on the west side of town that catered to the rough, the poor, the wild. They simply strode in, looked around, and took over the best corner of the place.

Nobody stopped them. Nothing short of a full-grown troll had a chance, and the city, while it had plenty of the fae blood, did not lend itself to trolls and other Large Creatures.

Tom Morgan himself took one look at them and sent his wife out to deal with them. In his defense, this was not so much out of cowardice as out of prudence: the pride had far more women than it had men, and the men that were not the clear leaders were jittery and nervous around other men.
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Next: Moving In

to flofx's prompt.

Fairy Town has a landing page here



"I don't know."

"It's a little strange."

"It's more than a little strange is what it is."

"No, it's just fucking weird."

Three boys turned and looked at the fourth. His hair was shaped into a foot-high mohawk, his nose, lip, and both ears pierced, and, although it didn't show right now, he had a tattoo covering his entire back. He looked back at them, just as levelly. "What? It is."
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From my secret project:

“Be a good girl and I’ll get to keep being a good girl?”
“If you’re a bad girl, you won’t get a chance to do so much as pee without permission; if you’re a zombie, you’ll get someone who wants zombies.” She released Elisabeth’s chin and patted her shoulder. “How are your ankles?”

From my Tir na Cali novel:

What did I care what happened to Keva? She was just another Californian.

The Californian who had been, so far, willing to put up with me being a really bad slave, a voice that was pretending to be my conscience reminded me.

Yeah, but… it wasn’t like she treated me like an equal or anything. She still bossed me around like it was her right.

From the continuation to "Fairies in the Church:"
You know the ones that work, truly work.”

Nehemiah had nodded, although he hadn’t wanted to. He’d listed those off like a catechism. “Holy ground and the faith to hold it. A salt circle drawn by an unwavering hand. A nail of cold iron through their hand.”

For flofx's second prompt.

Long before Guarding the Church and referencing Strange Neighbors.




Tia Lian was born, as her kind were, in an eggshell watered with the tears of an unmarried woman and fertilized with the hopes of an unemployed man.

Or so she liked to tell people... and in her childhood, she was so small, so clearly fay, so touched by the other, that people tended to believe her.

The truth might have been more prosaic, but it was no less magical. Born to a fairy mother in the doorway of the Stanton Arms, gotten on that mother by a goblin line worker who couldn't find work (the unions were going through an era, back then, where they didn't like the fay), left on the doorstep of a church and from there taken to an orphanage, Tia was a midsummer baby, touched in magic and born in the mundane.
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For flofx's Prompt. Fairy Town does not yet have a landing page.

"Right down this alleyway, kids." Anton Barren led his students between the looming buildings, past the garbage cans, around the sleeping bum. They followed, heedless of the danger, curious as to the adventure. "Here. Lilah, you go first." He opened an old, rusty, creaking gate and, starting to worry, the youngest of his students stepped through.

There were times that the walls between worlds were thinner, the doorways easier to find. The iron gate normally led to a strip club; you had to twist the handle just right to step between lands instead. Anton ushered his kids through, then closed the door behind them.

"Mr. Barren?" Fade asked first, breaking his untouchable facade. Anton didn't blame him. They were standing in knee-deep lush, green grass. With pink flowers.

"Is this the otherworld?" Anya asked, before Anton could answer.

"That's a grandma-story." Lilah was his complainer. She was very good at her role.
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For @inventrix's commissioned continuation of Burning Summer Quest (LJ)
In Mr. Ting's (LJ)
Mrs. Gent's Lemonade (LJ) and Differences of Opinion (LJ) and The "A" Shelves (LJ)
Meeting Mr. Ting (LJ)and
About the Want (LJ)
Part 7-7.5 of 7.5

Mr. Ting was beginning to creep me out and, what was more, I was worried Mt. Jordan was going to blow any minute now. "We really need an AC unit," I put in, trying not to stare at the silver whatsits. Or the tin with the tentacle thing on it. "An air conditioner. We have a kid at home, and cats and rats..."
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For @inventrix's commissioned continuation of Burning Summer Quest (LJ)
In Mr. Ting's (LJ)
Mrs. Gent's Lemonade (LJ) and Differences of Opinion (LJ) and The "A" Shelves (LJ) and
Meeting Mr. Ting (LJ)
Part 6 of 7.5
"You have quite a bit of interesting stuff here," I countered. "I mean... stuff I've never seen before. Languages I've never seen before."

"That is because, my dear, you have never traveled, have you?"
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Next: What You Need (LJ)

For @inventrix's commissioned continuation of Burning Summer Quest (LJ)
In Mr. Ting's (LJ)
Mrs. Gent's Lemonade (LJ) and Differences of Opinion (LJ); Part 4 of ?



The tension in the store was thick and uncomfortable. Jordan was unhappy, and Mrs. Gent was getting back-straight and glowering, like our neighbor down the street that liked to count heads as we left and frown at the number of people who lived in our three-bedroom house.

I didn't know what to do about it, either. Jordan was in charge of smoothing situations over. I was pretty good at putting my foot in it, but that was about it. Making it better generally involved lots of apologies. I didn't think I had anything to apologize for, but it was worth a try, wasn't it?( Read more... )
Next:
Meeting Mr. Ting (LJ)

For @inventrix's commissioned continuation of Burning Summer Quest (LJ) and In Mr. Ting's (LJ); Part 2 of ?


"Lemonade sounds nice, thanks," Jordan said, and stepped out of my way, finally letting me see the shop. Shop? This place was a space-time warp. This place was unbelievable. This place was...

Okay. Imagine the estate sale of the most obsessive hoarder you can picture. Then imagine this being curated by the most OCD guy you know. There was everything on those shelves, shelves filling up all but the center of the store, and every single thing was labeled. Everything.
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