Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: Mishke — Shadowydreamer @ 12:08 am

Can’t sleep - the penguins will get me.

* * *

Mishke poked at the campfire with a stick. Starting the fire was just about the only thing she was allowed to do. Well, that and blow up anything that attacked their camp, but really, as responsibilities and work went, it wasn’t a lot. Arconius seemed to want to do *everything* else. He wouldn’t even teach her how to do stuff, just gave her a hairy eyeball and said he didn’t live this long by living dangerously, only by fighting in an unending war. Then he laughed. She had to say one thing, Death Knights had very weird senses of humour. Or maybe it was just him, it wasn’t like she’d met another.

“Not that I object to the company, of course, but what’re you doing here anyway? I mean, I’d have thought you’d be off on the front lines.” Mishke looked up through her pink lashes to where the soldier in question was carving into a stick.

“A priestess of Elune said my soul was heavy and dark and I needed a rest.” He replied with a roll of his eyes.

“Elves!” Mishke agreed in disgust. It didn’t matter if it was the magicless Night Elves or the ravenous Blood Elves, they were all stark raving nuts. Trees didn’t have souls, birds didn’t talk. One you used for fire, the other was dinner cooked over the former. Elves had to make a big deal out of everything and they didn’t even think it was funny when you asked them to pray for the soles of your boots.

“So, I got kicked to the rear, then kicked to guarding Ironforge, and then told to go guard the tavern, then you found me and dragged me off to Gnomergon.” Arconius continued, not looking towards her.

Mishke flipped a coin between her knuckles and fingers. It was very hard to sit still, even though she knew her fidgiting annoyed the dwarf to no end. “How long were you guarding that tankard?” Mishke teased, hoping to lighten the dour mood. She knew he could laugh, she was just not sure what would make him laugh at any given time.

“Seventeen days.” He replied.

“Ohhh.. so just after the tertiary explosion of the secondary mago-energy conduit in c sector.” Mishke said, knowingly. “That’s about when I got to Ironforge.”

He gave her a hairy eyed look with one eye closed, “As you say,” he agreed warily.

“So what’re you gonna do now?” Mishke asked, “I thought about heading up to the front myself and seeing if I could help out. As you know, I’m pretty good at making things go boom.”

Arconius’ knuckles clenched around the hilt of the knife, “Lass, you wouldn’t last a minute up there.”

“Hey..!” Mishke started to protest and then saw the grey tinge to Arconius’ skin, she scampered around the fire to stand behind the knight, wrapping her arms around his neck. “I can take care of myself y’know.”

He looked down and kissed her clasped hands, “No, no you can’t.” He said with a smile. “You’re the most helpless, and hopeless, dangerous person I’ve ever met.”

Mishke rolled her eyes and started to remove her hands in a sulk, but he was quicker taking her hands in his own and pulling her around him to sit across his lap. “I mean no insult, but you’ve a lot to learn before you wade into that depths of darkness.. and I’d rather you not learn them.”

Mishke wasn’t quite sure what any of that was supposed to mean, sometimes Arc got off on weird tangents and she just had to humour him. He’d not touched her, nor let her touch him, since that kiss in Gnomergon, he’d just kept muttering ‘one problem at a time.’ So, she wasn’t going to rock the boat if she actually got snuggle with him, putting her cheek against his collar bone. Well, at least, it was where his collarbone probably was buried under all the layers of armour. Strangely, the metal wasn’t cold, but warm against her skin.

Arms around her, Arconius went back to his carving, humming tunelessly under his breath as he worked. Mishke just closed her eyes and listened to him breath. For a man who said he didn’t know how many pieces his soul was in, he seemed awfully strong. Or maybe that’s why he survived when so many other paladins hadn’t.

* * *

Mishke woke, hand grabbing her staff in reflex. She blinked and rolled over, realizing she was alone in the tent. She could hear gruff voices outside. She felt the bedroll beside her and it was cold. Stupid chivalrous knight, he’d obviously slept out in the dirt. If he was going to be so silly, he should have just bought a second tent! She was about to go smack him with her staff when she spotted his carving on her pack. A polished wooden rose on a necklace made of links of wood. She marvelled at the craftsmanship, wondering not only how he’d managed it but how he’d managed it in one night. She also wondered at his sanity of giving something that burned so easily to a fire happy mage.

She managed the clasp and to get the necklace on before shrugging into her robe and pulling on her boots. It sounded like dwarven was being spoken outside and her dwarven wasn’t the greatest. She got the feeling Arc spoke half a dozen languages easily, but her ability only went as far as reading and writing languages and glyphs long dead and moldering. She’d been very surprised to learn Arc couldn’t even read Dwarven very well and didn’t write at all. Apparently, only dwarven nobility learnt that stuff, and he was a knight chosen by the priesthood from the commonborn. With male dwarves outnumbering the females three to one, it wasn’t too surprising that so many became warriors of one sort or another. She chewed on her lip before opening the tent, if it WAS dwarves out there, what would they think of one of their greatest heroes hooking up with a gnome? Not that they’d *actually* hooked up, damn stubborn sod, but still..

She hopped from foot to foot in indecision, the human sized “pup tent” leaving her plenty of room to do so. In the end she decided it was just too much to figure out and stepped out into the sunshine to find a small patrol of dwarves munching their way through rations. The Captain of the patrol, a fierce, bristly fellow with one eye, was punctuating his story with waves of his eating knife.

Arconius nodded to her as she stepped out, surprised that the sun was several finger lengths above the mountains already. He’d let her sleep in quite late, unusual since he seemed to want to race the sun most morning. The new dwarves turned to look at her and then obviously dismissed her as irrelevant. She would wham them on the heads with her staff for that, but they were wearing helms and besides, they might be friends of Arc’s and she didn’t want to start a brawl.

Arc seemed to be explaining to them the defenses of some fort and really didn’t look happy doing it. It was weird, he’d talk about his childhood, and his adolescence, but anything after he was picked to be a paladin to a few weeks before his return to Ironforce he refused to discuss. Mishke didn’t want to press, after all, who’d want to remember all that stuff anyway? But it seemed to her, these dwarves were grinding the knife pretty deep in old wounds. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and make that pain go away.. but knew it wasn’t that easy OR that he’d particularly appreciate such displays infront of his kin folk. Dwarves could be pretty silly about that stuff.

The discussion continued, growling, gruff voices. She could pick out a few words here and there, but they were going much to fast for her. Arc finally snarled something and slammed his hands down on the ground before standing and stomping off. She stared after him, wide-eyed. She turned back to the patrol. “What the fire did you say to him?” she asked in trade-tongue.

The captain mumbled into his beard while the others just continued to finish their rations.

“Well?” Mishke asked, thumping the end of her staff against the hardened, frozen, ground.

“It’s none of your business.” The Captain said, getting to his feet and brushing crumbs out of his beard. He gestured for his patrol to follow suit.

“Damn straight it’s my business!” Mishke said, jumping in front of the leader. “That’s MY friend that just stomped off and I want to know why.”

The Captain looked down at her from under drawn brow, “Then I suggest you ask your friend.” He finally said and walked around her.

Damnit, didn’t anyone take her seriously? That is what she got for being so gosh, darn, cute!

She watched the dwarves continue on down the road and sighed. She wanted to go after Arc, but abandoning the camp didn’t seem too smart. Besides, she probably couldn’t find him anyway. And if he wanted company, he could find her.. and.. She sighed and picked up one of the ration packs the soldiers had left behind. She didn’t want to sit her, Arc needed taking care of whether he knew it or not, she just wasn’t quite sure how to go about it.

It seemed hours before he returned to find her going through a tome on the history of humanity. He grunted and sat down on the log beside her. Mishke stuck a feather in to bookmark the page and looked to him. “You okay?” she asked, not really sure where to start.

He wasn’t one to preamble. “They are planning to invade Kiragard Keep.”

“Yeah?” Mishke said warily. She was pretty sure where this was going in a hurry and she didn’t like the destination!

“They’ll get slaughtered.” He said, studying his boots.

“So you want to wade in and help them, but you want to ditch me to go do it.” Mishke finished for him since he’d probably take five years to get around to the point at the rate he was going.

“Aye.. no..” He sighed. “You’d get slaughtered too.”

Mishke grabbed his beard and tugged his face around to look at her. “Arconius, I am an adult. It is my choice where I go, what I do and who I do it with and why. My home is destroyed, my race half-slaughtered, and for whatever reason you need me and I need you. So if you think I’m going to just let you dump me off by the side of the road while you go off and try to kill yourself, you’re not thinking at all!”

He blinked at her and took a deep breath in. Mishke was preparing arguments for the counter argument when he just let the breath out again and took her hand. “You’d just follow me anyway, wouldn’t you?”

Mishke grinned, “Damn straight I would! You need me.”

He looked down at her hand and kissed it, “Aye, I suppose I do.” He turned her hand over in his, “But I’ve lost so many that matter to me.. I don’t want to lose you too.”

Mishke put the book on the ground and clambered over Arconius’ leg to straddle across his lap - mostly. He was a lot wider than she was. “Put me in a tower, wrap me with silk and try to prevent me from being with you when you risk, and you’ve already lost me, because that’s not who I am or want to be.” She wasn’t quite sure that made sense, but he seemed to grasp it.

“Aye, I suppose.” He said and wrapped arms around her to pull her against him, mouth seeking her’s. It was almost a kiss of desperation as much as passion, but Mishke was more than happy to return it, her hands digging into his beard.

Just when things were starting to get interesting and she was wondering how exactly one undid plate mail anyway, he broke off the kiss and stood up, putting her on her own feet. “We’d better get on the road and catch up with Captain Myur.” He said, voice gruff, the strange echo reverberating more than usual. His eyes were hooded, but the smolder deep within them seem stronger than usual.

Mishke managed to not quite stare at him open mouthed as he started to take down the camp. Fricken’ knights! Was he going to be spending the next however-many-nights sleeping across the threshold and holding her at arm’s length? Maybe she’d have to spike his ale..

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Filed under: Uncategorized — Shadowydreamer @ 11:29 pm

Normally I charge 1 cent per word for requests - but Thomas is cute and Mishke is fun to write .. so a freebie
* * *

Mishke wandered into the tavern in Ironforge, thinking it looked pretty much like every other dwarven bar she’d been in. She missed Gnome bars with their servos and servers, their flickering mago-energy lights, their chairs that actually fit the behind properly.. She sighed and looked amongst the bearded and non-bearded faces. Really, dwarven women weren’t much better than their men!

Everyone seemed determined to forget there was a war on and find the bottom of their tankards quickly. A group, of what looked to be miners, was in the corner with their own keg. She sniffed, everyone had friends here, but her. Well, sure, she could go up to Tinkertown and drink with gnomes, but drinking wasn’t what she was here about anyway. Not that she’d mind a tankard of the frothy, nutty, dwarven ale, of course.. but only to be social.

Thinking of social, there was a dwarf sitting at the side of the bar by himself. Plate armour scarred, sword in a well worn scabbard, and a scowl on his face that would make an ogre think twice. That looked to be just about what she was looking for alright!

Dwarves had this funny thing about not sitting in chairs with their backs to the room. Maybe it had something to do with how often fights erupted, but it meant she could easily bounce through the smoky room to the bar and smile up at Mister Crankypants. “Hi there!” Mishke chirped, with a bob of cotton candy pink hair as she leaned her precious staff against the aged wood of the bar. She held out her hand, “I’m Mishke Goboom.”

The dwarf turned to look at her like moving was an effort unto itself. He looked down at her, he looked at her hand, then back up to her face, snorted an unimpressed and grumpy snort, and turned back to his beer.

Mishke wasn’t deterred. She’d been living with dwarves for almost three weeks now. They were *always* grumpy. You just had to manoeuvre past their grumpiness. So she grabbed her staff and hopped up on the stool beside the crabby grass before propping said staff up once more. “You look just like the kind of person I’m looking for!” Mishke continued, happily, as she absently traded some coin for a tankard of her own from the harried looking serving wench.

His Most Cantankerousness ignored her.

“You see, I left something very, very, very, very..” she paused and gave it thought and then added, “VERY important thing in my house. I thought that my house had been blown up with the rest of everything, but no, it’s still there according to the damage surveyal team, so I want to go get it. BUT the King is being most silly and won’t let me go!” she looked very indignant about it. “HE says I have to get an escort. Can you imagine that?” The dwarf didn’t look like he was trying to imagine anything. “I’m a perfectly good third circle magi, I’ve passed two of my trials with flying, if explosive, colours, and I’m more than able to take care of my zombified kin. But nooooo..” she sighed and took a mouthful of ale. “Damn that’s good.” The dwarf grunted an agreement without looking at her. She took that as a sign of encouragement, “So, I’m looking for a warrior of skill, talent and ability to put up with me for a week to be hired for a short little trip to Gnomergon.”

The Dwarf turned to look at her once more, raising an eyebrow before looking her up and down. “Good luck.” He muttered, his voice with a strange hollow-echo to it.

“Oh.” She breathed. He was one of THOSE. One of those who’d been corrupted from the holy light, who’d been forced to serve the Lich King himself, slay their own kin, turn on their families.. “COOL!” she added, eyes wide and sparkling with delight. She’d never actually gotten to meet a real live Death Knight before. Though, she didn’t think she could afford to hire one, they were pretty darn powerful and power was expensive.

The Dwarf rubbed the bridge of his nose with one of his meaty hands, looking like he was in pain. “It is not “cool,” no matter what you may have heard.” The echo sent delighted shivers down Mishke’s spine.

Mishke stopped swinging her legs to kneel on her stool. It was a fit of acrobatics that would confuse any who knew how she could trip over dust on the floor. She put a hand on the warrior’s shoulder, and then retracted it at his dangerous glower. “Look, sir, mister.. I can’t claim to understand all the stuff you’ve had to deal with. But I DO know what it’s like to lose hearth, home, and kin. I know what it’s like to find yourself adrift with nowhere to call home and wondering what you’ll do next and nothing feeling or fitting quite right. And I know what it’s like to want that piece of familiarity, that safety and HOME you once had.” She sighed and looked down at her knees. “That’s why I’ve got to go back, you see.”

The Dwarf sighed and finished of his ale. “I’m Arconius.”

“Nice to meet, ya!” Mishke said holding out her hand again.

He looked down at it and shook his head as he got off his stool, “Alright, let’s go.”

Mishke took her turn to sigh, “Well, we can work on the whole friendliness thing.” She hopped off her stool and grabbed her staff once more, “Wait, now?”

He turned, raising an eyebrow, “Do you have better things to be doing?”

“Er, no.. But, I don’t have my supplies or anything..” Mishke said not quite trotting to keep up with the taller dwarf’s stride as he left the tavern.

“You’re a mage, aren’t you?” he gruffed, not looking at her.

“Uh, duh!” Mishke exclaimed. Really, you’d think the big sparkly staff and the pretty blue robes would SORT of hint at that!

“So summon what you need when you need it.” Arconius told her as he shoved his way through the district’s crowds.

“Uhm..” Mishke said, trailing in his wake, “I’m not so good at the summoning stuff bit. I mean, you want something frozen, burnt, or basically blown up, I’m your girl.. but protected, created or fetched? I’m still kinda working on that..”

“Practice makes perfect.” He said to her, “I have everything *I* need.” He added, patting his sword.

Mishke told herself that he was a dwarf, and dwarves were a bit funny upstairs. She told herself he’d been corrupted by the worst evil she’d ever heard of before winning his freedom. That meant he’d be even funnier upstairs than the average dwarf. She’d just have to be patient with him. “Right. Practice.” She hoped he didn’t mind craters from exploding fruit..

* * *

He’d finally taken pity on her panting and stopped his march through the mountains and allowed her to set up camp. Well, mostly it was him building a lean-to after her tent was created the size of a handkerchief, and then him hunting when the soup she tried to summon landed in the snow because she’d not summoned a bowl first, and she didn’t even want to think about what a death knight looked like after he had apple explode over him and his armour. He’d not even let her summon some water. He’d said the snowy, ice covered waters were safer and told her to sit by the fire he’d built and not move.

She wasn’t quite sure how literal he’d meant the ‘not move’ but he’d sounded really, really, cranky when he said it, so she sat by the fire and picked bits of apple off her robes to eat. She’d TRIED to tell him, really she had! But he was like most men, only heard what he wanted to. Dwarven men seemed even worse about it than gnome men. Well, okay, most gnome men had their heads in some contraption when you tried talking to them, this dwarf just sort of looked through her like he wasn’t quite on the same plane of existence as her. Which was kind of creepy, actually.

She was just about to decide ‘don’t move’ didn’t include not going off into the bushes to do a bear impression when he returned with several lumps of meat. He started to give them to her and then saw her mystified expression. “You don’t cook, either, I take it?”

Mishke dug her foot in the snow and shrugged one shoulder, “Well, I can *overcook* just fine..”

She’d never actually heard the full recitation of the prayer of Brell before, but she was pretty sure she was hearing the first stanza as Arconius muttered it to himself, eyes closed, gauntleded fist strangling some very dead animal.

“Uhm.. but I can try anyway?” she asked quietly, hopefully.

“NO!” he not-quite-shouted, and then repeated, calmer, “No, It’s fine.” He shuddered with a clanking of armour. “I suspect it’s safer to cook it myself.”

“I’m good with dishes!” Mishke tried to assure him as she edged towards the woods. She really, really, did need to go potty.

“Watch out for wolves.” Arconius said, not looking up from his preparations. Which, really, was also quite creepy.

* * *

The death knight had stopped even bothering to sheath his sword. The leper gnomes weren’t terribly subtle or smart, but they did tend to wander in small packs. Mishke was still pretty sure she could have blown them all up with a few spells, but since Arconius seemed to be getting some much needed therapy in slaughtering her ex-kin, she was happy to leave him to it. She just burnt the bodies after he was done and wished their souls on to the great machine. Assuming they weren’t already there, that was up for debate in the magus’ guild.

It almost seemed like the little green men were getting more aggressive the further they got into the underground city. “They let you have your house this close to the court?” Arconius asked as he stopped to give her a breather.

“Oh sure.” Mishke replied. “My lab’s outside though. The commute sucked.”

One bushy eyebrow got raised, “Why am I not surprised?”

She was *pretty* sure that was one of the rhetorical questions the death knight seemed so awfully fond of, so she didn’t answer him. Even though she had a darn good answer and everything.

“What the dreth is THAT?” Arconius asked, pointing towards the center of the courtyard with his sword.

“Oh COOL, they DID finish it!” Mishke said with more enthusiasm than sense, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

“Finish WHAT?” Arconius growled, grabbing the front of her robe and pulling her towards him, his voice echoing through Mishke’s chest.

Mishke leaned forward and planted a friendly kiss on the dwarf’s lips, “I don’t think we have time for that, it’s probably seen us if we’ve seen it.”

He dropped her in surprise, eyes wide. Fingers touched lips and then he growled and turned away from her, eyeing the monstrosity of mechanics. “What IS it?”

“Oh, well, it’s from the chicken processor plant originally-” she had to raise her voice because the creation was lumbering towards them, she was fishing around in her pocket for a spark. She wasn’t really good at magic spells, especially in the mana-poor Gnomergon, but fire wouldn’t do much. Hey, maybe some ice underfoot.. No, she’d tried that with the dire wolves and Arc had gotten upset when he’d slipped and fallen on his butt.

“I don’t care what it’s from *originally!*” He yelled as he ducked a buzzsaw that tried to remove his head.

“Oh, well, anyway - when the war started, we converted most of the utility stuff into defenses. That’s the .. uhm.” She paused as she tried to think of a good name, “Chickenchopper 3000.”

“How do you turn it off?” He didn’t seem to be listening to the details.. *again*.

“Well, let’s see..” She chewed on her lip as she fired off several explosive bursts. The Chickenchopper didn’t seem to notice. “Y’know.. I have no idea! I never worked with chickens!” Mishke said after careful thought, “I assume you’d turn it off like anything else though.”

“WHICH IS?” Arconius snarled, slashing at the monstrosity.

“Oh, beat the shit out of it or blow it up.” Mishke said with seriousness as she tried an extra large iceball up the exhaust pipe.

Arconius turned to look at her, “Why am I not surprised at that, either?” he grumbled and then got knocked head over heels by the arm attached to said buzzblade. Well, the second arm, the bot had six after all.

Mishke fired off several fire bursts and ran to the dwarf’s side, but he was already back on his feet and charging the robot with a strange cold glow in his eyes. She wanted to help him, she really did, but he was swarming every which way as he seemed determined to chop right through the chickenater. He didn’t even to notice the dents and slices his armour was getting. Mishke hopped from foot to foot trying to decide what she could do besides pull out some pom-poms and cheerlead. The manic grin on Arconius’ face kind of told her he was having fun and she didn’t want to ruin his fun.

She was leaning on her staff admiring the growing pile of scrap metal when the death knight found the power core. She realized she probably should have warned him about it as he was sailing through the air from the resulting explosion. Mishke ran to where the dwarf lay, not quite twitching. He smelt of electrified blood. Mishke started patting him down, trying to find a source of injury to apply medical attention to. He was making the most awful noise.

She stopped her panicked pat down when she realized the dwarf was *laughing*. She stood over him, hands on hips to glare down at him. “You scared the fire out of me! What’s so funny?”

“That was fun,” Arconius said, rolling to his feet and patted her on the head, ignoring her resulting protest at her hair getting messed up with soot and dwarf blood.

“You’re a mess.” She observed.

He turned to look at her, eyebrow raised. “Did you, or did you not, say that one had to blow it up?”

“Well.. uhm,.. sure. But normally we’d employ dynamite.”

“Do you HAVE dynamite?” he asked in what she’d learnt was his ‘endlessly patient’ voice.

“NO! Because you didn’t let me pack!” Mishke said, hauling on his hand to get him to her house before more leper gnomes showed up. The explosion would send them scurrying for a while, but they’d come investigate soon enough.

* * *

Her house was much as she’d left it - a mess. It was clean enough, but scrolls and books were stacked up everywhere. It looked like her cupboards had been scavenged through. She ignored her belongings to scramble over the debris on the stairs to get upstairs to her loft. As she’d thought she would, she found what she’d been desperate for. Her pet rat.

“A RAT?” Arconius spluttered, “We came all this way for a RAT?”

“Not just any rat! Fuzzy McFluff!” Mishke said, petting the squeaking creature.

“Damn, you better be good in bed.” He growled.

“What?” Mishke said, for once startled into near-speechlessness.

He strode across the room and grabbed her around the waist, crushing her against his chest plate to plant a very enthusiastic kiss on, and in her, her mouth.

Untangling tongue, Mishke’s lavender eyes met the dark, “Wow.” She breathed.

“That’s for reminding me I’m alive.” He said, dropping her lightly to her feet. “C’mon, let’s get you and your rat out of here.” He looked over his shoulder at her, “I assure you, MY house is in a lot better condition!”

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Filed under: Uncategorized — Shadowydreamer @ 9:34 am

“The thing to understand about Rameriz is he’s bug nut crazy.” Spanners said as he handed Michelle’s duffle into the small craft. “Loyal, friendly, happy, manic even, but bug nut crazy.” A pause, while Michelle’s tail switched back and forth, “Oh, and likes to blow stuff up. Have a safe trip!”

~Irony, your name is Spanners.~ Michelle thought as she thanks the marine and got into the craft where Rameriz was already going through the checklist. Apparently his squad mate hadn’t said anything that offended him. ~Or he didn’t already know.~

She stowed her duffle into storage and sat down in the co-pilot’s seat while Rameriz hummed to himself.. off key. Michelle was trying not to crawl the walls as he hit flat notes every third beat.

“Okays - so, avoiding da checkpoints and da patrols, we should be in Romulans space in tree days.” Rameriz announced, detached the ship and took off from the station - much to the profanity of lane control over the comm.

Michelle wondered what a tree day was. She knew the humans had a day where they offered presents to trees, but it was only once a sol-year. She didn’t think even Rameriz could get them lost enough that it would take three sol-years to reach Romulan space.

“Heys, do you mind musics?” he asked, and before she had a chance to answer, loud, obnoxious, bass thumping music started to fill the cabin.

Michelle yelped, covering her sensitive ears, and tried to escape the barrage.

She’d made it to quarters before the noise came down several decibles. “Oops. Sorries!” came his voice. Michelle took several deep breaths and decided that Spanners hadnn’t been kidding. If she survived this it would be a miracle of the gift tree proportion.

Her marine friends had INSISTED that Rameriz was the best choice to help her find Paul. Not just because he was currently on mandatory off-duty for blowing up an ambassador’s toilet faucility for ’smelling bad and being an eye sore.’ Spanners had said ‘Trust me, NO ONE will miss him!’ where as the rest of the marines would have to justify their absence.

She sighed and put a paw-like hand on the plasglas view window. “Paul, I’ll find you.” She told the stars.

The racket from the control cabin got worse as Rameriz started singing along to the ‘music’.

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Filed under: Uncategorized — Shadowydreamer @ 11:32 pm

The waves splashed up against the concrete of the wall. Sanda leaned against the metal bar of the fence stuck into the wall and stared out into the shifting waters. A wind was whirling around, driving her hair every which way. She could see one of the old fishing boats turned patrol boat turning to approach the docks. She couldn`t even get on with a sea crew.

Mutiny was a dirty word, and no matter how good your reason for it, no matter what had caused it and that the whole crew was against a Captain, the officers were branded with that word ever again. She`d been let go from Earth Patrol with a hearty pension and wished luck. Luck to find another job, she supposed. She`d drifted home to the island, tossing ideas about what to do. She`d never been one to stay in one place long, and it was starting to gnaw at her she had no where to go and nothing to do.

“Holding the fence down?” a voice asked from behind.

Sanda turned to look up at an old childhood friend smiling down at her. Aran sweater, jeans, work boots were standard uniform, but Chi stuck out like a sore thumb being so tall and lanky. “Still can’t find a boat you fit on?” She asked stepping forward to embrace him in a hug.

Chuckling the Asian man hugged her in return, “The last Captain offered to fold me in quarters with the sail. I’ve decided best to stay ashore and just teach.”

Sanda took a step back, pulling auburn hair out of her mouth in a futile attempt to bring it under control. She should go back to shorter than short. “You? Teaching? Teaching what, artistic pride on protest signs?” she teased.

A few years younger than he, Sanda had been gone before he’d graduated. The stars had been in her eyes. He smiled and took her arm to guide her back towards the town square. “I, young lady, am in charge of middle form.” The school rarely had more than sixty students, they tended to be broken into large age groups. “It’s just me and Ms. Mac-K these days.”

“What happened to Mr Stevens?” She didn’t care she was more than of age to call her previous teachers by their first names, it still didn’t feel right. Sanda allowed herself to be guided towards the pub. At least it would be out of the wind.

“His wife passed of a heart anurism, he went fishing and never came home.” Chi explained, seeming relieved to get out of the wind and autumn cold. He followed Sanda to a table, seeming grateful that she remembered to take the booth by the fireplace so he’d have room to stretch out. “To be honest, your brother sent me searching for you fearing you were going to try and do the same.”

Sanda gave a short bitter chuckle, “That would require me being able to set foot on any sort of ship. Mutineers aren’t allowed that, you know.”

Meela, a daughter of one of the previous waitresses plunked down a coffee in front of Chi and an O’Keefe’s in front of Sanda. She then said “You wanting to eat today?”

“I’m good.” Sanda said with a shake of her head, her stomach was in knots.

Chi gave the waitress a rueful smile, “I was having lunch when I got shanghai’d.”

Meela rolled her eyes and gave Chi a pat on the shoulder, “Well, if you need refills giver a holler.”

Chi waited till Meela was out of ear shot, stretching a leg out. “What happened?”

Sanda sighed, “I was serving as ship’s medic and cook, lowest ranking officer on the ship. I was taking night watches so I was sleeping on first day shift when suddenly the ship’s alarms started ringing.” She could remember waking up the red strobe effect, head already pounding from the unholy noise. “I ran to the bridge to find the door locked at our XO pounding on the access hatch trying to get Captain Lesof to open up. Hartley, our engineering officer returned with a cutting torch, apparently this had been going on for a while.”

She took a swig of the beer, not giving it the proper attention it deserved. Chi just sat, listening. “Well, it seems our Captain had decided to explore a black-rated system.” Chi cocked an eyebrow, something she wished she could do, “It means someone, sometime, considered it dangerous as hell and don’t go near it.” He nodded, and she continued, “Well, the Captain decided that the system hadn’t been looked at in over two hundred and thirty years and there might be prime estate going to waste.. and changed course to investigate. When the XO and engineer protested this, he kicked them off the bridge and locked them out of the computer. What the alarms were wasn’t a mutiny alarm, but gravitational alerts. The system was black-rated because it had an unexplained gravity well that had eaten a few early ships.”

She stopped and fiddled with coaster.

“Then?” Chi finally said over the murmur of voices in the pub.

“Then the XO and Hartley realized I was there and I could remove the Captain from command pending medical review.” She chewed her lip, “The fact of the matter is, I only had their word to go on, I *should* have called up to the Captain and gotten his side and THEN made a decision, but.. I didn’t.” She sighed and looked up at Chi, “I just ordered the computer to turn over the ship to the XO. That probably saved our lives if not careers, but..” she shugged and turned to look out the window, back towards the sea. “But.. it was mutiny all the same.”

“The whole crew got washed?” He asked, brow furrowed in concerned.

She waved a hand, “Just us officers; the enlisted had no clue. They were just broken up and sent to other ships. I got cashed, try to find a berth on a private vessel, failed miserably and came home to regroup. Then I couldn’t even get on a harbour crew, and I’ve been moping ever since.”

“Seems a bit rough to punish you for one bad choice.” Chi said.

“Captain is captain, the law is the law. He could have had orders we didn’t have, he could have had information we didn’t. As it was he’d gone bug nut crazy for whatever reason, I wasn’t exactly in a position to get a copy of his eval, but.. I should still have followed the book. Even if I had never thought to need the proper procedures, I still knew what they were. ” She took another mouthful of beer, this time appreciating it properly. “And I don’t even know what all the danger was about.”

“The gravity well?”

“Yeah. It’s not that Earth-far, I’m surprised it hasn’t been investigated long before this. I’m damn curious as to what’s going on in that system.”

“Maybe you should just hire your own ship and find out,” Chi teased.

Sanda looked up at him with a smile, “Maybe I should.”

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Filed under: Uncategorized — Shadowydreamer @ 11:46 pm

Shadow is a Star Trek character created for a writing group. She’s based on Janet Kagan’s “Uhura’s Song” novel and used under her ‘just don’t make money!’ clause. She’s a felenoid, a bipedal cat.

* * *

This was bouncing around my brain while I was hiking the Chilliwack River Trail.. It doesn’t really fit into current timeline, so, y’know..

* * *

Shadow ducked behind the tree and scrambled up as the pounding of feet came down the trail. She scurried past the welcome homes that were now raising a ruckus.

She shouldn’t be surprised at the reception she’d received after failing her third walk. She supposed she should expect to be handed gifts of knives to take the other trail, harassment, bullying and jokes that weren’t very funny. The latest round of assailants were a pack of youth almost ready to Walk. She’d been picking berries for her kits when they’d came up on her, slapping the berries out of her hands and out of the carrysack. She’d reacted in typical child fashion of leaping at the eldest and leader and dragging him to the ground in a typical pounce-tackle. They’d rolled on the ground as she applied claws and teeth until he squawked.

That should have been the end of it, but with no elders within hearing, one of the females had reached around her and yanked her tail. Hissing Shadow had turned to pounce on the newest antagonist when someone else had yanked her tail. She wasn’t very familiar with this camp, she had been thinking of moving but her mate wanted to stay for the season; he liked the hunters. Unfortunately, with him out on the hunt she didn’t even have his shadow to hide in. Seeing herself outnumbered and a group of aggressors spoiling to get her out of camp she’d done the sensible thing and run.

The downside was that while she was taller and longer of limbs, she didn’t know the trees as intimately as the children of the camp. She might have some speed in the trees, but they knew which branches met where. She had to jump down several meters and catch herself on a branch more than once. An ominous crack as she caught herself told her she’d have to come up with a new plan soon. Her retreat had taken her down towards the river. It wasn’t a deep river, but it was fast and rocky.

With a glance over her shoulder where she could see Stormclaw catching up, she took a deep breath and dived into the waters. Chances were and even those children that were able to swim wouldn’t want to follow into the cold depths. The water was a slap of glacier temperatures and had her push against the bottom to come up for air. The current was already trying to drag her down the way. Digging her back claws against the rocks she managed to stay in place, eyes narrowed at the bank. The children were picking up rocks to throw. Growling in frustration as a better answer to mewling in despair, she bounce-swam her way to the far shore. They’d have a long run to get to the bridge to come find her. On the bank of the river she wiggled past the bushes and shook off as much of the water as she could from her fur. Climbing up into the Y of a nearby tree gave her a safe vantage point to groom the water off.

It seemed hours before she was dry and walking her way back to the bridge. She knew it wouldn’t take much intelligence for them to realize she’d rather take the bridge back than swim a second time. She could only hope that they’d become bored with their games and gone home to mooch dinner from their kith and kin. She wanted to be buy a nice warm campfire herself at the moment, but at least the kits were safe in SoftSong’s tent. She took some satisfaction in scooping some fish out of the waters even if it had gotten her feet and calves wet a second time. She’d walked shaking off feet for several minutes.

The bridge was empty in the growing dusk of the night, though Shadow didn’t let her up guard until she was back in the camp. Stormclaw hissed to his best friend, “Looks Hides in Shadows should get a new name of Hides with the Fish.”

She flicked her tail in his direction but didn’t bother looking in his direction. As far as the adults were concerned if she took offense she should challenge him, but any challenges she made were apparently going to be repaid in numbers when he found her alone. Easier to just ignore and have him not need to bandage his ego at the first opportunity.

SoftSong was sitting beside her tent with the kits. Both were sleeping when Shadow arrived, but they quickly woke at the scent of their mother. She sat down to licking and cuddling them. How could anyone think she would be so selfish as to take the Long Walk when she had kits to care for? Perhaps when they were old enough to chew food it would be different, but for now, she was needed and that was almost enough.

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Filed under: Uncategorized — Shadowydreamer @ 4:45 am

My Writing blog : http://www.shadowydreamer.com where I throw up scribbles and thoughts of writing. Sometimes I finish the story, most of the time I don’t.

My webcomic: http://www.tuxandbunny.com Five days a week you get what amuses me attached to pictures of plush toys. On the weekends its a picture stolen from the web that amused me somehow.

My bunny blog: http://itsagoodthingyouarecute.blogspot.com/ Where I tell tales about my bunnies. Rarely interesting to the non-bunny person, but I do try to be entertaining as I relate being a pet to two rabbits.

Ask a Canadian: http://asklorna.blogspot.com/ Where I answer questions about Canada - typically from Americans. It’s updated sporadically since I only get questions sporadically!

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Filed under: Uncategorized — Shadowydreamer @ 9:41 pm

Mishke bounced up and down in spot, pink pony tail counter bouncing to her heels. “Okay, so he’s MY orphan for the week?” she asked the too tall human woman eagerly.

The Matron was starting to reconsider the wisdom of this decision, “Well, yes, but.. it’s more like a brother-sister relationship and..”

Mishke tuned out everything after the affirmative. “GREAT!” she squeeled and turned to pump the orphan’s hand. “I’m Mishke the Fabulous, who are you?”

“Er, I’m Ricky, the Orphan, I guess..” He looked up at the Matron but before his responsible caretaker could save him, Mishke had hauled him off and down the steps of the orphanage.

“I’ve never met a human my size before!” she gushed. “Normally they’re all so tall and bulky and their chairs don’t fit any decent being. At least the girls aren’t hairy like dwarves I guess!” She stopped by the fountain, “So, whatcha wanna do?”

“Do?” Ricky echoed, feeling more than a little bit wide-eyed.

“SURE! Wanna go bungee jumping off the dam? Wanna go fishing for griffons? Wanna go put berries on the guards in Dalamaar?”

“Dalamaar?” he echoed, once again looking to his now very worried looking matron.

“SURE! The Elf guards are all so stoic and sticky. They won’nt make faces at you or ANYTHING, so it’s fun to try and plink berries in their ears. Normally I miss and it catches in their armour, but they don’t get mad or nothing. They just mutter about patience and younger races. Sometimes they’ll even give you cookies.” Mishke didn’t have much use for the pointy eared tall people, but they had really good cookies.

“Cookies?” Ricky asked, perking up.

“Yeah! I like their cookies too!” Mishke hadn’t let go of his hand, so it wasn’t hard to haul him off in her wake towards the docks. “Oh, lets take the BIG boat, the really really big one, then we can kaplunk!”

Ricky was warming up to the manic gnome, “What’s a kaplunk?” he asked a little breathlessly since Mishke’s path seemed to be straight between two points, be darned the barrels, fences and people in her way.

“OH! It’s where you take the cannon balls and you toss them off the back of the ship and it goes KAPLUNK! It’s GREAT fun!” Mishke stopped to look around and refocus before chasing off in a new direction down the canals.

“Don’t the humans -” Oh, now he was starting that, “sailors get mad?”

“Oh sure, but they can’t toss us off or nothing. It’s a free service for all warriors of the allaince and defenders of the faith or some such nonsense. Since *I* am a warrior of the allaince in my blow up murlocks with fireballs kinda way, they have to be nice.” Mishke stopped about a foot short of the end of the pier and grabbed Ricky before he would have tumbled in.

He had been paying more attention to keep his feet underneath him than where his feet had been going. “Isn’t it .. well.. kind of a waste of cannonballs?”

“Naw, I have a druid friend who’s always happy to go spelunking for cannonballs. She’s an elf, she’ sa bit weird. I just tell her about all those metal balls at the bottom of the ocean confusing the fish and off she goes.” Mishke looked solemnly up at Ricky, “Elves are weird. As if fish are ever anything other than confused?”

Ricky didn’t know much about fish other than it’s what they ate entirely too much of so he decided to just wait patiently for the ship.

“Hey, after berry picking and kaplunking, wanna go get some ice cream and watch the goblins crash their toys? It’s way fun!”

Ricky was starting to think that maybe the Matron had the right of it when she complained about him having too much sugar in his diet. But at least the gnome was way funner than a bunch of dopey human adults. “I like ice cream.” he said firmly.

“Who doesn’t?? I like ice cream for breakfast, lunch AND dinner.” Mishke saw some guards heading down with the human woman from the orphanage. She wondered what they wanted, but fortunately the ship arrived and was already preparing for turn around. “YAY! Off to Elfyland we go!”

She dragged Ricky onto the ship, wondering if humans in plate mail could make it down the ramps with any kind of speed. She thought about waiting to find out, but there were cannonballs to toss..

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Filed under: Uncategorized — Shadowydreamer @ 7:17 am

I was joking with Wonda last night that I wanted to write a kid’s story - she said maybe I should write one about Hailey and Fraser. This is somewhat what I came up with .. a two view story overview.. two novellas rather than one novel. I just don’t do twining views well.

* * *

Hailey’s Story

- Hailey is in her back yard bored and grumpy because her brother is at Lacrosse Camp and she’s BORED.
- She is startled to find a butterfly buzzing her head and she tries to convince it to land on her hand. Surprised it does, she sees the little fairy warrior.
- The fairy says he’s looking for Fraser (”the mighty child warrior”) and Hailey is most put out. Fraser, Fraser, why’s it always about Fraser? She says he’s not here but SHE can help.
- The fairy is doubtful about a little *girl’s* help, but offers to take her through to Faeland. Hailey runs to ask her mother for permission. Wonda says no, she can’t leave the yard right now, but if she wants to go out for dinner later.. Hailey huffs and runs back to the fairy. Mom’s are just so inconvenient! She tells the fairy she’s not allowed to go, the Fairy disappears.
- Hailey is miffed. Why does her BROTHER get to have all the fun and cool stuff happen? She’s the elder, she should get some cool stuff too!

- A female fairy appears the next day when Hailey is once again in the backyard and asks for Hailey’s help. Hailey is very happy to offer her help and asks what she can do.
- The fairy asks if she has any spare food or blankets, there’s lost of evacuee’s during this time of war and they’re running out of *everything* Hailey says they (her family) have LOTS of stuff and why don’t the injured and scared come here? She remembers the evacuation ’cause of all the flooding and that was No Fun and everyone needs somewhere warm and dry to go.
- In after thought she asks her Mom if it’s okay to host the fairy injured and families. Mom says whatever dear. Hailey decides not to extrapulate and works on clearing the loft of the barn for her visitors. The fairies arrive in various states of injury and emotional disarray, Hailey quickly fetches the first aid kit and starts helping the fairy healers.
- Over the next few days Hailey battles injuries, fairy dispair, comes up with games for fairy children and even delievers a couple of fairy babies!
- The fairy messangers bring word that the goblins are in retreat and maybe everyone will get to go home soon.
- That evening a couple of goblins come out of the portal and Hailey wades into teach those nasty bullies what for! Her brother appears through the portal to find the goblins to save her .. and she’s already saved herself and those in her care. The fairies all pack up and go home while Hailey asks what Fraser thinks he’s doing leaving his lacrosse camp without his parents permission.

..More on the other side after I finish tidying my house.

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