(no subject)
1) I Touch Myself [Penelope Thompson, Klara Karmelv]
Klara is far and away the most dominant person Penelope has ever met. Even as a child, she always got her way. She listened to no one, and if she did what was asked of her, it was only because she wanted to, because there was some carrot waiting for her at the end of the stick. No one told Klara Karmelv what to do.
She could be sweet as sugar, but in the end, she was a hassle unless you did what she wanted, and only what she wanted.
Klara commands, she orders, but she does not obey. Penelope knows she should feel awful about the things she does, imagining Klara. She has raised the girl since she was small enough to be cradled in one arm.
But, Klara is a big girl now. Big enough to fall.
"Shut up. You'll do exactly what I say, when I say it. If I say you touch only yourself, then that's what you do." Penny barely recognizes her own voice, staring at those wide, disobediant eyes.
2) Star trek Rhapsody [Crew of the Shakti]
They are identified by position only. The captain, the mate, the navigator, the scientist, the tactician. It took months before he knew everyone's names, but by then, he already knew his part in the complex song and dance of the Shakti.
3) Ready steady go [Absinthe Revlis, Alyssa Edgecombe]
Ready.
Steady.
Never look back.
Hold your breath.
Run away.
They won't find you.
You will be okay.
She'll keep them held up.
Kalte is stong
Corinth is on your side
The facility is headed down hill anyway.
It's time to go.
Run.
The.
Hell.
Away.
Am I really that out of shape?
I have to sit down.
No.
Airport first.
Then I can sit.
God, I hope she's good enough...
What about the kids?
Can I leave them there alone?
Absinthe can barely think, as he runs away from the only life he's ever known. But, that's okay. If he'd been able to focus, he would have seen the forgein girl sitting on the sidewalk, picking at the grass.
He would have avoided her, instead of barreling into her, crushing her beneath him, and nearly breaking his nose.
She wouldn't have asked him, with complete nochalance if her knew where the airport was, and told him her name was Alyssa.
"Call me Lyss."
4) Dirty deeds done with sheep [Pan Kaleps, (new character)]
He'd seen every imaginable breed of Lycan. Dingos and wild city dogs. Tigers and Ocelots. Rabbits, squirrels. During his years in school, Pan had met every possible variation of Wolf, Wildcat and Rodent he could think of.
This... was new.
Her name was Mary, to boot. As if her mother had been so shocked by the birth that she hadn't known what to name the poor girl.
"You have horns."
"Pssh. You have a tail. Get over yourself, kid."
"I'm fifty years your senior, little girl."
"No one's my senior. I'm new."
5) Tainted love [Aamon ---, Fiye Scura, Kalte Vergess]
He watches his wife, walking around this so called hospital with a familiarity that makes him nervous. He thought he was prepared to come back here, to the place that killed his mother. Akira deserved a childhood among people like herself. Fiye could never bring herself to survive in any place but this one. Aamon even had to admit, he had a strong draw to the place his father had once ruled.
But, he wasn't prepared as well as he thought. He could handle the tortures inflicted on other, living beings. Mist had been preparing him for that, for years.
He was not ready for the way his wife changed. Suddenly, Fiye was distant, far away, scared or angry all the time. Except, sometimes she cam eback to their room, dazed and with a glazed look of euphoria.
Eventually, that look came to have a name.
Kalte.
6) Show you how [Klara Karmelv]
There is nothing that anyone can do to reason with the vampiress. She demands the stupidest, riskiest, most absrud tasks. Klara is one of their most valuable agents, but she insists on being cannon fodder. She wants to die, everyone knows that.
But she doesn't want it to be her choice.
She isn't suicidal, in the usual way. She doesn't want to kill herself, she wants someone else to do it for her. Suicide is beneath her, suitable only for the lower classes: humans, bastard vampires, lycans. She thought her pets were better than that.
Apparently not.
7) Pussy song [Pan Kaleps, (New character, same one)]
"Really? Aren't they supposed to be your superiors, your predators?"
"Meh. I don't get scared of them like I should. Mum says that since my dad doesn't feel pain, and all she ever felt was fear, then I don't feel fear."
"That's the stupidest logic I've ever heard."
"I'm a lab mouse born of a lab rat and a wood mouse, who shouldn't even be able to breed. I'm sterile, and I've got the best sex dirve of anyone I know. Logic doesn't go very well with me."
"Heifers are sterile, and they're horny as all fuck."
"You'd know, wouldn't you. Mary had a little lamb, got raped by transgender cows..."
"..."
"What?"
"I'd like to state for the record that I was never raped, especially not by a cow."
"Never said you were."
"Bullshit."
"Whatever."
"Well, I wanna meet these pussy cats of yours. You'll have to take me to see them sometime."
"I'll show you mine, if you show me yours."
"I don't have any cats."
"..."
"Oh fuck you, and your sterile hornball-ness, Pan."
8) Walking in the sky [Aramina]
Aramina has a thousand sisters, and million brothers. All the Djinn call themselves family. It disconcerts many of their visitors, to see 'brothers' and 'sisters' wed and having broods of a dozen baby god-children.
In fact, every Djinn is, in a sense, an only child. There are rare cases of twins, but as a general rule, only the second born child of the family will survive into adulthood, and only one family of every dozen will have even that. The sibling titles they hold for eachother are, perhaps, surrogates for the relationships that formed and were destroyed.
As for the other young ones, for every couple seems to birth at least six children, and brace themselves for the loss... They are rinsed of flesh by the water clans, charred to ash by the fire clans, and by the Weather clan, the ashes are lifted into the atmosphere, to forever walk the sky.
9) Shout
When she was young, Horatio was high strung and verged on psychotic. Her tantrums were legendary, her fits brilliant as the sun.
She would scream for hours, for days. The story at the commune was that she hadn't stopped wailing from her birth until her second month, no matter what anyone did to calm her.
She would run, flail, break things and demand her answers.
Then, she turned fifteen, and awoke one day to find her skin dark, and her elders surrounded by multi-shade lights, beautiful to the point of pain.
The Red ones had taken her to try to learn the fight. Nothing had happened.
The Blue ones had taken her to learn the art of repair. It had not worked.
She had pitched a fit that had taken out the power of the two human cities closest to the commune for weeks.
That was the last time she ever screamed.
10) Temptation
She had never wanted anything but the blood of humans. It had been her only hunger, since her birth. Her mother had nursed her on the blood of her elders, on the blood of Vampires such as herself, but humans were so much more fragrant, more delectable.
Klara had only wanted them, to hunt them, capture them. Feed from them, and make them into pets, into toys.
She never lost her control, but every time one past by her, there was such painful want. So, her mother had gotten one for her, when she had turned ten years old. And another, every birthday since then. On her twentieth, a beautiful young woman, strong and powerful.
"This is Penelope, Klara."
And her blood had been wrong. Klara never drank from her.
Then, the war. Her addictions were twin: death, and drugs. Not cocaine, like the humans, but otherfolk blood.
---------------------------------------
Ten short stories, written in the time it took for the title songs to play.
Klara is far and away the most dominant person Penelope has ever met. Even as a child, she always got her way. She listened to no one, and if she did what was asked of her, it was only because she wanted to, because there was some carrot waiting for her at the end of the stick. No one told Klara Karmelv what to do.
She could be sweet as sugar, but in the end, she was a hassle unless you did what she wanted, and only what she wanted.
Klara commands, she orders, but she does not obey. Penelope knows she should feel awful about the things she does, imagining Klara. She has raised the girl since she was small enough to be cradled in one arm.
But, Klara is a big girl now. Big enough to fall.
"Shut up. You'll do exactly what I say, when I say it. If I say you touch only yourself, then that's what you do." Penny barely recognizes her own voice, staring at those wide, disobediant eyes.
2) Star trek Rhapsody [Crew of the Shakti]
They are identified by position only. The captain, the mate, the navigator, the scientist, the tactician. It took months before he knew everyone's names, but by then, he already knew his part in the complex song and dance of the Shakti.
3) Ready steady go [Absinthe Revlis, Alyssa Edgecombe]
Ready.
Steady.
Never look back.
Hold your breath.
Run away.
They won't find you.
You will be okay.
She'll keep them held up.
Kalte is stong
Corinth is on your side
The facility is headed down hill anyway.
It's time to go.
Run.
The.
Hell.
Away.
Am I really that out of shape?
I have to sit down.
No.
Airport first.
Then I can sit.
God, I hope she's good enough...
What about the kids?
Can I leave them there alone?
Absinthe can barely think, as he runs away from the only life he's ever known. But, that's okay. If he'd been able to focus, he would have seen the forgein girl sitting on the sidewalk, picking at the grass.
He would have avoided her, instead of barreling into her, crushing her beneath him, and nearly breaking his nose.
She wouldn't have asked him, with complete nochalance if her knew where the airport was, and told him her name was Alyssa.
"Call me Lyss."
4) Dirty deeds done with sheep [Pan Kaleps, (new character)]
He'd seen every imaginable breed of Lycan. Dingos and wild city dogs. Tigers and Ocelots. Rabbits, squirrels. During his years in school, Pan had met every possible variation of Wolf, Wildcat and Rodent he could think of.
This... was new.
Her name was Mary, to boot. As if her mother had been so shocked by the birth that she hadn't known what to name the poor girl.
"You have horns."
"Pssh. You have a tail. Get over yourself, kid."
"I'm fifty years your senior, little girl."
"No one's my senior. I'm new."
5) Tainted love [Aamon ---, Fiye Scura, Kalte Vergess]
He watches his wife, walking around this so called hospital with a familiarity that makes him nervous. He thought he was prepared to come back here, to the place that killed his mother. Akira deserved a childhood among people like herself. Fiye could never bring herself to survive in any place but this one. Aamon even had to admit, he had a strong draw to the place his father had once ruled.
But, he wasn't prepared as well as he thought. He could handle the tortures inflicted on other, living beings. Mist had been preparing him for that, for years.
He was not ready for the way his wife changed. Suddenly, Fiye was distant, far away, scared or angry all the time. Except, sometimes she cam eback to their room, dazed and with a glazed look of euphoria.
Eventually, that look came to have a name.
Kalte.
6) Show you how [Klara Karmelv]
There is nothing that anyone can do to reason with the vampiress. She demands the stupidest, riskiest, most absrud tasks. Klara is one of their most valuable agents, but she insists on being cannon fodder. She wants to die, everyone knows that.
But she doesn't want it to be her choice.
She isn't suicidal, in the usual way. She doesn't want to kill herself, she wants someone else to do it for her. Suicide is beneath her, suitable only for the lower classes: humans, bastard vampires, lycans. She thought her pets were better than that.
Apparently not.
7) Pussy song [Pan Kaleps, (New character, same one)]
"Really? Aren't they supposed to be your superiors, your predators?"
"Meh. I don't get scared of them like I should. Mum says that since my dad doesn't feel pain, and all she ever felt was fear, then I don't feel fear."
"That's the stupidest logic I've ever heard."
"I'm a lab mouse born of a lab rat and a wood mouse, who shouldn't even be able to breed. I'm sterile, and I've got the best sex dirve of anyone I know. Logic doesn't go very well with me."
"Heifers are sterile, and they're horny as all fuck."
"You'd know, wouldn't you. Mary had a little lamb, got raped by transgender cows..."
"..."
"What?"
"I'd like to state for the record that I was never raped, especially not by a cow."
"Never said you were."
"Bullshit."
"Whatever."
"Well, I wanna meet these pussy cats of yours. You'll have to take me to see them sometime."
"I'll show you mine, if you show me yours."
"I don't have any cats."
"..."
"Oh fuck you, and your sterile hornball-ness, Pan."
8) Walking in the sky [Aramina]
Aramina has a thousand sisters, and million brothers. All the Djinn call themselves family. It disconcerts many of their visitors, to see 'brothers' and 'sisters' wed and having broods of a dozen baby god-children.
In fact, every Djinn is, in a sense, an only child. There are rare cases of twins, but as a general rule, only the second born child of the family will survive into adulthood, and only one family of every dozen will have even that. The sibling titles they hold for eachother are, perhaps, surrogates for the relationships that formed and were destroyed.
As for the other young ones, for every couple seems to birth at least six children, and brace themselves for the loss... They are rinsed of flesh by the water clans, charred to ash by the fire clans, and by the Weather clan, the ashes are lifted into the atmosphere, to forever walk the sky.
9) Shout
When she was young, Horatio was high strung and verged on psychotic. Her tantrums were legendary, her fits brilliant as the sun.
She would scream for hours, for days. The story at the commune was that she hadn't stopped wailing from her birth until her second month, no matter what anyone did to calm her.
She would run, flail, break things and demand her answers.
Then, she turned fifteen, and awoke one day to find her skin dark, and her elders surrounded by multi-shade lights, beautiful to the point of pain.
The Red ones had taken her to try to learn the fight. Nothing had happened.
The Blue ones had taken her to learn the art of repair. It had not worked.
She had pitched a fit that had taken out the power of the two human cities closest to the commune for weeks.
That was the last time she ever screamed.
10) Temptation
She had never wanted anything but the blood of humans. It had been her only hunger, since her birth. Her mother had nursed her on the blood of her elders, on the blood of Vampires such as herself, but humans were so much more fragrant, more delectable.
Klara had only wanted them, to hunt them, capture them. Feed from them, and make them into pets, into toys.
She never lost her control, but every time one past by her, there was such painful want. So, her mother had gotten one for her, when she had turned ten years old. And another, every birthday since then. On her twentieth, a beautiful young woman, strong and powerful.
"This is Penelope, Klara."
And her blood had been wrong. Klara never drank from her.
Then, the war. Her addictions were twin: death, and drugs. Not cocaine, like the humans, but otherfolk blood.
---------------------------------------
Ten short stories, written in the time it took for the title songs to play.