i am made of spines and claws
but my skin turned inside out
i berate myself
for others’ failings
one day when the sun is bright,
the wind is fierce,
the time is right—
i will molt; and then
watch out.
The Ghost-Queller
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Blood and violence, dark themes, mild internalized homophobia
Summary: When Feithlyn moves from her tiny village to the big city to study veterinary medicine, she’s expecting some things to change. She is not expecting to become embroiled in a ghostly murder mystery, at the center of which stands an enigmatic figure known only as the ghost-queller. As Feithlyn’s world expands, she fights to keep her footing–and her life.
The bird cocked its head and tapped on the glass.
“Stop that! Shoo!” It wasn’t that Feithlyn didn’t like crows, it was just that the last few times she had turned her back, this one had managed to open the window and sneak inside, dropping feathers everywhere for her to clean up. Crows did not belong in a café, and if the owner found out, Feithlyn feared for her employment, which meant fearing for her tiny one-room apartment, which meant fearing she would have to complete her veterinary degree while homeless. Which sounded difficult.
Continue reading “The Ghost-Queller”
A Love Like Water
Summary: Sheriff Solshemshesh and his sheriff-in-training Lekni try to stop a rash of violent deaths in the little desert town of Saplapelanka.
Rating: Teen and up
Warnings: Some violence
Notes: Genders: male, female, trine (third gender), quine (genderfluid).
Kimah was setting and the sun rising as Lekni set off at an exasperated trot southwards of Saplapelanka. Someday, she thought, people would stop being idiots. And someday, she would stop being the sheriff’s errand-runner and instead be able to delegate someone else to go lead those idiots back to the town.
She spotted the group before she’d gone three miles, squatting embarrassedly half-naked around a large campfire in the lee of a sand dune. Lekni waved tiredly as she arrived. “I did warn you,” she said irritably to the first of their group, a merchant named Peltlin, if she was remembering correctly.
They scowled at her. “The woman sounded like she knew what she was talkin’ about,” they muttered sulkily.
“Well, I’ve brought you shoes, blankets, and horses. Courtesy of Sheriff Solshemshesh. So you’ll be able to get back to town easily.” She received a highly ungracious grunt that might have been a thanks and rolled her eyes. “Do you need me to lead you back?”
“We’ll be fine,” Peltlin muttered. A young woman patted their arm gently and gave Lekni a sudden smile. “Don’t bother about my parent,” she said. “They’re just frustrated at getting fooled. Thank you for helpin’ us.”
Lekni felt her cheeks warm, like a fool. “Let me know if there’s anythin’ else,” she mumbled, turning her horse back towards Saplapelanka.
She had plenty of time on the way back to curse the person who kept running this stupid con. She could, she supposed, also have cursed Shem for constantly making her deal with it, but that seemed less fair. After all, he was trying to train her to take his place someday, so she should be the one dealing with the routine annoyances. And it wasn’t like he knew this was going to be happening.
Continue reading “A Love Like Water”silence
It’s never fun to not have words
Or when the words build up and build up in your chest like sobs
desperate to be let out like heavy wet stones
But you can’t because you’d hurt people
Because you believe you already have
and the voiceless words that soak and sink are your punishment
You stare and stare at the page, you can read but what good is it
Those words just fill up inside you and don’t come out
You swell painfully, your heart too heavy with all the words
It hurts and you have no outlet
It hurts and you feel that you need to be Doing
But there is nothing to be Done but wait
Wait and hope
That eventually
The words will flow again
Like ink, like blood
The Story of Bragi and Iðunn
Rated: General
Summary: Before Bragi, the long-bearded god, came to Valhalla, he met a beautiful woman in a deep forest, who asked him to judge a contest between herself and her brothers.
A/N: This story is largely fanciful, based on a few tantalizing hints. First: the notion of a connection between Iðunn and the sons of Ivaldi is attested, and the description of the story of Kvasir is well-known. There have been previous suggestions of Bragi’s connection to Kvasir, but as far as I know, this is nothing more than speculation. I have made up most of this, though I have tried to make it sound Norse mythology-ish, at least.
Many thanks to kimikocha and Husband, for beta-ing!
For Bragi, first maker of poetry
When gods die, sometimes they return in new ways. Kvasir was a god created from the spit of the Aesir and Vanir, or perhaps he was a man. He was not an ordinary sort of fellow, at any rate, but he was murdered by two dwarfs who cut his throat to make mead from his blood and that was the end of his first story, or at least his part in it. The story keeps going, and as he was a god of stories or of poetry or skaldishness, this shows you that he cannot have died the way a mortal might, to pass out of touch with this world.
In the rest of the story, it is told how Odin All-father made love to the giantess Gunnlod and stole the mead of Kvasir from Suttung her father to bring it back to the gods. The mead of poetry was returned to them, but Kvasir himself returned in a different form, nine months later, when Gunnlod gave birth to Odin’s son Bragi, who is called first maker of poetry; and who could he be but another form of Kvasir, with a sobriquet like that?
Continue reading “The Story of Bragi and Iðunn”
Mertiya Writes (and Draws) 