Pralines & Cream 10, White Chocolate 12, Watermelon 13
Title: Strangers
Story Continuity: The Lethean Glamour
Author: darkfaerieclaw
Prompts: Pralines & Cream #10: nest egg, White Chocolate #12: compassion, Watermelon #13: don't talk to strangers
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 850
Summary: A snapshot of Holly's daily life at the Librarian convent, or at least the bits that involve babysitting the younger sisters-in-training.
It was days like these, when for no reason at all the young sisters-in-training swarmed her like excitable, literate bees, that Holly wondered why she didn't move out of the Arethusa Library Convent and get herself a nice place in Amlaine, or some likewise distant locale. Then she remembered: psychically interactive porn novels. A place to read in guaranteed quiet, when you bothered stepping out of the attending living quarters and entering the Great Library. And, of course, there was Sofia and Arnadia and Inlarie, who were just as much points against as for, but who were essentially, when you got right down to it, family. Holly didn't have that with her mother.
It also helped that she was Branded for a Great Destiny and there was a grand war going on, the kind epic heroes were made in and, this was the important part, killed during, and hiding away in a library and living in squalor seemed like a preferable living arrangement than having a Destiny foisted off on her during these times. Holly had read plenty of war epics. She knew how Destinies and Wars tended to end, and if she had to forsake luxury and entertain a battalion of ecclesiastical brats, well - she also had a kick-ass selection of books, most of them interactive and with the gorgeous prose intact, so who cared?
Also the porn. Oh, the porn.
Obviously, Sofia hadn't sussed out that part of her reason for staying yet, or she'd be on an iguanon off to live with her mother in the holy city in three blinks.
"Holly, can I keep her?" The naturally whiny voice of Rienne, one of the older of the children sisters-in-training, said. Holly looked up from her painting - she'd been working on a dreamscape for several weeks now - to see Rienne holding out an oval-shaped blue egg. She frowned. "You know the eggs in the frigidaire are all as barren as Sofia's cold black heart, right?"
"Not from there," Rienne said. "From a nest I found on the ground outside town."
Holly's eyes narrowed disapprovingly. There were reports of a gang of goblins roaming around outside Arethusa that neither Holly nor anyone else had been able to exterminate. Holly didn't know what it was about Rienne that turned her into a nagging mother figure, but she suspected it was located somewhere deep in the rotten core of the foulest part of her brain.
"I know you know-"
"The sisters are always saying I need to practice compassion," Rienne said.
"I happen to know Arnadia has been on your case about your rashness lately," Holly said. "Which part of "sadistic killer monsters" escapes your comprehension, exactly?"
"The part where it's my problem," Rienne said, tartly. "And anyway, there's some mystic man in the Library asking for you. Green hair, two different colored eyes, cool glasses, wearing a collar like a puppy. I know the sisters keep telling me not to talk to strangers, but he looked interesting and cool, so I listened to him."
"Oh, god. I know who that is. Fuck me."
"Now who's inappropriate!" Rienne squealed, reminding Holly acutely of why real men were off-limits. She entertained a wild fantasy of life as a housewife and mother to a hoarde of screaming Riennes, and wondered where she'd hidden the pain-killing draughts. "Strangers may be interesting and cool, but remember Juliet thought Romeo was interesting and cool, and look where that got her."
"In love?" Rienne said, scrunching up her nose and her entire face with it.
"No, you little fly. It got her married at fourteen. There's nothing worse than that. One day you're fawning over the hot, attractively older dreamboat you've bagged, and ten years later you've got like five kids, a deadbeat husband who single-handedly killed the last spark of your supposedly deep and true relationship in an argument over cow-tipping, and an ever-increasing collection of alarmingly late welfare checks. It's in, like, every Virginia Welles novel ever."
"Who's Virginia Welles?"
"Tell you what: you're here when you hit eighteen, I will personally recommend her best book to you," Holly said, smiling, and made a big show of standing with great dignity, stretching, and walking towards the Library's entrance.
"I thought you just said talking to strangers was bad!" Rienne said. Holly turned to look over her shoulder, her eyebrows raised just so, and said, "Adults so seldom follow their own advice, honey. I'll be in the Library for the rest of the afternoon. Finish your meditations, and don't do anything I wouldn't do."
Rienne smiled widely - Holly was the one who taught her to read between the lines, after all. She ran straight past the other girls playing jacks and hugged Holly. "Oh, hell, don't hug me. Rienne, I thought I told you to study? Don't make me nag at you any more than I have to, it's disconcerting."
"Holl-y!" Rienne said, in the high-pitched, elongated whine that always set said woman's teeth on edge.
"Oh, fine, fine. Go set up your rigged betting pool on the jacks game. Pest."
Story Continuity: The Lethean Glamour
Author: darkfaerieclaw
Prompts: Pralines & Cream #10: nest egg, White Chocolate #12: compassion, Watermelon #13: don't talk to strangers
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 850
Summary: A snapshot of Holly's daily life at the Librarian convent, or at least the bits that involve babysitting the younger sisters-in-training.
It was days like these, when for no reason at all the young sisters-in-training swarmed her like excitable, literate bees, that Holly wondered why she didn't move out of the Arethusa Library Convent and get herself a nice place in Amlaine, or some likewise distant locale. Then she remembered: psychically interactive porn novels. A place to read in guaranteed quiet, when you bothered stepping out of the attending living quarters and entering the Great Library. And, of course, there was Sofia and Arnadia and Inlarie, who were just as much points against as for, but who were essentially, when you got right down to it, family. Holly didn't have that with her mother.
It also helped that she was Branded for a Great Destiny and there was a grand war going on, the kind epic heroes were made in and, this was the important part, killed during, and hiding away in a library and living in squalor seemed like a preferable living arrangement than having a Destiny foisted off on her during these times. Holly had read plenty of war epics. She knew how Destinies and Wars tended to end, and if she had to forsake luxury and entertain a battalion of ecclesiastical brats, well - she also had a kick-ass selection of books, most of them interactive and with the gorgeous prose intact, so who cared?
Also the porn. Oh, the porn.
Obviously, Sofia hadn't sussed out that part of her reason for staying yet, or she'd be on an iguanon off to live with her mother in the holy city in three blinks.
"Holly, can I keep her?" The naturally whiny voice of Rienne, one of the older of the children sisters-in-training, said. Holly looked up from her painting - she'd been working on a dreamscape for several weeks now - to see Rienne holding out an oval-shaped blue egg. She frowned. "You know the eggs in the frigidaire are all as barren as Sofia's cold black heart, right?"
"Not from there," Rienne said. "From a nest I found on the ground outside town."
Holly's eyes narrowed disapprovingly. There were reports of a gang of goblins roaming around outside Arethusa that neither Holly nor anyone else had been able to exterminate. Holly didn't know what it was about Rienne that turned her into a nagging mother figure, but she suspected it was located somewhere deep in the rotten core of the foulest part of her brain.
"I know you know-"
"The sisters are always saying I need to practice compassion," Rienne said.
"I happen to know Arnadia has been on your case about your rashness lately," Holly said. "Which part of "sadistic killer monsters" escapes your comprehension, exactly?"
"The part where it's my problem," Rienne said, tartly. "And anyway, there's some mystic man in the Library asking for you. Green hair, two different colored eyes, cool glasses, wearing a collar like a puppy. I know the sisters keep telling me not to talk to strangers, but he looked interesting and cool, so I listened to him."
"Oh, god. I know who that is. Fuck me."
"Now who's inappropriate!" Rienne squealed, reminding Holly acutely of why real men were off-limits. She entertained a wild fantasy of life as a housewife and mother to a hoarde of screaming Riennes, and wondered where she'd hidden the pain-killing draughts. "Strangers may be interesting and cool, but remember Juliet thought Romeo was interesting and cool, and look where that got her."
"In love?" Rienne said, scrunching up her nose and her entire face with it.
"No, you little fly. It got her married at fourteen. There's nothing worse than that. One day you're fawning over the hot, attractively older dreamboat you've bagged, and ten years later you've got like five kids, a deadbeat husband who single-handedly killed the last spark of your supposedly deep and true relationship in an argument over cow-tipping, and an ever-increasing collection of alarmingly late welfare checks. It's in, like, every Virginia Welles novel ever."
"Who's Virginia Welles?"
"Tell you what: you're here when you hit eighteen, I will personally recommend her best book to you," Holly said, smiling, and made a big show of standing with great dignity, stretching, and walking towards the Library's entrance.
"I thought you just said talking to strangers was bad!" Rienne said. Holly turned to look over her shoulder, her eyebrows raised just so, and said, "Adults so seldom follow their own advice, honey. I'll be in the Library for the rest of the afternoon. Finish your meditations, and don't do anything I wouldn't do."
Rienne smiled widely - Holly was the one who taught her to read between the lines, after all. She ran straight past the other girls playing jacks and hugged Holly. "Oh, hell, don't hug me. Rienne, I thought I told you to study? Don't make me nag at you any more than I have to, it's disconcerting."
"Holl-y!" Rienne said, in the high-pitched, elongated whine that always set said woman's teeth on edge.
"Oh, fine, fine. Go set up your rigged betting pool on the jacks game. Pest."