charisstoma

Title: Even Vampires Celebrate Christmas
Author: Charisstoma
Words: 532

“The Christmas Tree is interesting,” Evan said, I know you’re a vampire and all... so Christmas tree?” His eye brow rose, “And why is it so cold in here?”

Geof didn’t even turn to look at Evan, his gaze fixed on the tree. “Christmas transcends differences and the temperature is to keep the ornaments’ contents fresh.”

Even stepped closer to the tree hoping the semi-teardrop red decorations weren’t pieces of bloody flesh. Thank God they didn’t seem to be and then... “Bags? Blood bags?”

Geof turned his face towards Evan though his main focus was still the tree. “It will make taking the tree down more fun.”

“So, if I want to put a present under the tree for you… A bag of blood won’t be all that special.”
Evan watched Geof’s grin turn dirty.( Read more... )

Title: The Great Tree
Author: charisstoma
Word count: 933


“Climb it or don’t. If everyone honed their claws on The Great Tree there’d be no bark left on it.”( Read more... )

Title: Spells of Magic
Author: charisstoma
Word count: 193

Books surrounded her in neat piles, inside the ebook reader on the table beside her, and on the internet itself accessed through her laptop. All these stories, each begging to have their words read, to resonate inside her mind and each was more captivating than the last before being interrupted as another captured her attention in its turn. Yet still below the surface the unfinished stories tugged irritatingly for her to finish absorbing them.

“Tomorrow,” she told them, “tomorrow I’ll finish reading you. Really. I will.”

The television’s seductive song drew her attention. So many stories there too but more immediate, more important, for the feeling was if you missed even a moment it would be gone, its story unable to be recaptured.

A feeling welled inside, ‘I too have a story’ and her fingers moved over the keyboard; the letters appearing one by one, word by word upon the grey backed whiteness of the page. And for a while, all the other stories were pushed away as she created her own world and characters; her own story. It wasn’t real. But it was beautiful and it went where she guided it… usually.

Meep provided the prompt for this ficlet.

Title: The Door
Author: charisstoma
Word count: 459



“Someone had more time on their hands than was good for them.”

“Excuse me?”

Tobias gave a jerk, “Oh, sorry. My mom used to make quilts and the door,” he shrugged, “she’d call that, half square triangle blocks.. done in glass. It’s easy enough to do it in fabric,” he grinned. “Yeah, the number of quilt videos I watched as a kid growing up, does not bear thinking about.”

“So other than the amount of time it took to make the door window, what do you think?”

“It’s pretty enough but what is it, an abstract or does it hope to convey a bunch of flowers.” Tobias squinted at the window, “Two larger … sunflowers, no those are too tall, gaillardia
perhaps. maybe with some blue hmm bellflowers maybe or cornflowers and then some chamomile thrown in. Asters, periwinkle?” Tobias threw up his hands, “It’s a flower garden.”

A grin answered him. “Yes. Very good.”

“Still a lot of time and work. Would have looked good with that clear swirly glass that looks like the surface of a brook. Can’t see through it, not really, but lets light through.”

The man shook his head. “Not as interesting and then there’s the conversations that can be started with people about it.”

Tobias turned and look at the man and was pleased. The man was interesting in his many parts. “Huh. Okay, what about the bottle cap impressions in the arch? Large bottle caps. Really large, with diamonds in between.”

An eyebrow rose over the strong beak of a nose.

Tobias did a quick reassessment of his own appeal. Had he gone too far? “Umm.”

“I think you mean the coffering of the soffit intrados.”

“Um, yeah, maybe, …. probably?”

Both eyebrows rose before the man’s face broke into a grin again. “The inside curve of an arch is an intrados, a soffit is the underside of a roof formed by eaves or a cornice .. , and the coffering is the series of sunken panels, in this case in octagon shape.”

“You’re having me on.”

“No, that’s really what all of that is and I don’t know you well enough to have you in that manner or if you prefer males to females or if you’ve had anyone inside you in that manner.”

Tobias blushed. “Okay, yes, and no I haven’t.”

The grin became a smile. “Good. Would you like to go somewhere to eat, if you trust me enough I could make us a luncheon.”

“Um, introductions first?”

“Gavin.”

“Tobias.”

“Nice to meet you, Tobias. There’s a nice restaurant just up the way.” The man cocked his elbow offering it to Tobias with a smile.

“Is the restaurant any good?”

“It’s the best but I’m biased.”

“Oh?”

“My restaurant.”

Sequel

Notes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffer
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/soffit
http://www.doric-column.com/glossary_classical_architecture.html (Intrados)

Part 1. http://frogs-of-war.livejournal.com/169166.html

Part 2. http://frogs-of-war.livejournal.com/169789.html

Part 3. http://frogs-of-war.livejournal.com/170089.html

Part 4. http://frogs-of-war.livejournal.com/170398.html

Part 5. http://frogs-of-war.livejournal.com/170606.html

Part 6. http://frogs-of-war.livejournal.com/170862.html

Part 7. http://frogs-of-war.livejournal.com/171283.html

Title: The Quenching of Iron
Author: charisstoma
Word count: 611

“Hey Rufus, need some piss over here,” is what Harry heard all the time.

Just once he’d like someone to buy him some drink down at the tavern so he’d have something quality to drink and then piss out. Smith was too tight with his coin. No one was going to buy a drink for him if there was nothing in it for them or rather nothing to stick themselves into to fuck. He might as well be a monk with all the water he had to drink and a celibate monk at that.

“Waiting over here.”

With a sigh Harry took himself into the smithy to top up the urine quench tank.

The ring of iron hooves on the cobbles said that Smith had a buyer for the sword he’d finished. With a shiver Harry poured water over his head feeling its coolness wash the sweat off his chest and back. He’d brought Smith in some chopped wood for the forge; as pissing, though his primary function, wasn’t the only thing he was useful for, as Smith liked to would say.

“Beautiful.”

Looked like Smith’s talents were approved of.

“How much?”

“He’s a virgin. He stays a virgin else he’s no use for quenching the iron.”

A laugh responded, “A virgin to quench your iron for you? I’d pay for him to quench mine.”

Smith gasped. “He’s no whore for sale.”

“Pretty enough and my coin is good.”

“He’s not for sale.”

There was the sound of a blade being drawn, “Then I’ll take him for free.”

“Off with you Rufus!”

Harry ran ducking through the back of the smithy and out to take to the winding lane through into the copse. He hid under a concealing arched laurel’s boughs and waited for night to fall. When finally he left his den of leaves he carefully crept back to the smithy. The forge had been banked for the night so Smith must have escaped the knight’s displeasure.

“Smith?” he softly called.

“Here.”

Smith hadn’t escaped totally, his arm was bloodied but appeared whole.

“You escaped, did you my Rufus?
“Aye. I hid under a laurel tree.”

For some reason this set Smith off into laughter. “Well then I think it time I made an honest smith of you. Nothing like nearly losing someone, to put a person into mind of how much a fool you’d been. I expect that a no longer virgin ginger would be just as good for quenching iron as a virgin one anyway. That is… if you’ve a mind to take up with someone like me whose been tamping down his feelings.”

“I still have to tend to the wood?”

Smith went off into mirth again, “Aye, both for the forge and for the smith if you’ll have me.”

“Will you buy me some drink down at the tavern then?”

“Well as to that, thought you might like to learn how to brew our own ale. Don’t think I’ve not noticed you talking to some of the good wives about things.”

“You want me to learn the smithy, cut the wood, brew our ale… next thing I know you’ll have me cleaning the house and making the meals.”

“Thought we could share some of those chores off and on, as long as you’ll share my bed.”

“Like wedded?”

“Like wedded.”

Harry grinned, “okay but you keep calling me Rufus. M’name’s Harry.”

“Harry then, though I’ll be calling you Rufus in public. Don’t want folk to think I’ve gone soft now, do I?”

“Well I am supposed to tend to your wood,” Harry snickered, “no getting me with bairn though.”

"Think we could be avoiding that bit."

Title: Taking Steps: Date by Appointment part 5
Author: charisstoma
Word count: 304
Continues from Part 4
Short I know. *sighs*


“He’s still sleeping. We’ve the room for another 6 hours. Leave us.”

“There is a need to take a blood specimen, for the time after feeding, to access his RBC.”

“Wouldn’t it make more sense to take that specimen when he’s awake and rested before he leaves? It is unethical to draw blood when a person is unconscious.”

There was a sigh, “I need to take his vital signs as well. The blood draw can wait a few hours but the mini-exam needs to be done now and your consort called to inquire after events.”

“I’ll call Stephen later when I know more.” In exasperation,“Alright! Do your exam and then leave.”

“It would be helpful if you were not hovering possessively over your most recent meal.”

There was the rustle of clothing, before the feel of a blood pressure cuff being placed around his arm happened and then a cold stethoscope.

“Couldn’t you have least warmed up the instrument before applying it to him,” was hissed.

“I’m no more human than you are and I haven’t had the opportunity to feed or cuddle with his warmth,” was hissed back. “He’s awake,” was said with some surprise at Everett’s flinch.

Eyes still closed Everett mumbled, “m’not.” His hand sought out the blanket and encountered another hand, not as warm as his but it was pulling the blanket further up and tucking it around him.

“I still need to take your temperature,” something was fitted into his ear briefly and then, “I’ll be back to take the specimen in 3 hours.”
“How not awake are you, sweetling?” was asked in amused concern as a solid body fitted itself behind him, drawing him into enclosing arms. Everett didn’t answer, falling back into sleep as a kiss was lightly pressed in back of his ear. It was nice.

Continues with Part 6

It has been a hellish week and today I dragged myself up and down three floors through countless classrooms dunning students to return their library books, leaving notices with replacement book prices, and !Eureka! having some appear as if by magic from backpacks. Last call in for all books to return was 2 weeks ago. 30+ pages of lists of overdue books are now down to 5. Only some of the things in this drabble did happen and the truck was white. And some mysterious person has mowed my front yard while I was at work.

FB3X Drabble Cascade #63 - Errant

Title: Full Service Information Security (urban fantasy)
Author: charisstoma
Word count: 100
Prompt: Errant


Tired, he was so, so tired. It’d been a hellish day and he struggled to keep his attention on the road, not wandering into other lanes, as he made his way home.

One lane over and in front of him was a large truck, its side decorated with the words, “Document Destruction Services”. It didn’t seem to know where it was going and his tired mind latched onto it as humorously amusing, turning to amazed wonder as suddenly it cut in front of him. The car flipped spectacularly.

“We get him?”

“Yep. Satisfactory Document Destruction Services, humans included, as advertized.”

Title: The Hunt
Author: charisstoma
Word count: 1002


My Grandmam had said that long ago in the time of her grandmam’s grandmam, that one of the Faefolk had been at revelry, drunk on magic, and tupped where he wouldn’t have normally. The family had moved before the next full moon for fear he’d return and steal away that many times ago ancestor or later the child that came of it. It was a girl child that had been born, fair of face that showed her ancestry, and taught to hide what she was from everyone. Over the generations, sometimes the stolen blood came out stronger, sometimes less so and then there came me. All those generations the secret was passed down through the birthing of but one child, a girl each time, and again there happened me, caught someplace between with male parts and a female’s entrance. I’d heard the talk late in the night when they thought me asleep of whether to move to let me grow into the man my parts said or to stay and keep me in my maidenhood. In the end fate decided for them, the year the sweating sickness came, and I wrapped their bodies in shrouds for burial in the churchyard, along with the others the sickness took away that summer.

My muscles hardened from work readying for the winter; making the wood pile flourish in its growth, garnering in for storage some of the vegetables in case the ground froze solid under the protective leaf litter and herbs drying, dangling from the rafters. I’d been learned in the art of snarls and carefully nurtured the plants that the rabbits ate when the winter came on. There would be ample to feed me and keep me warm but I would need to decide what my future was before when the earth heated under Spring’s return and so would the passions of those to repopulate the village.

I’d wondered that my family had moved so close to the edge of the Great Forest, where it was said the Faefolk lived. The village lore talked of them and perhaps there I would have been noticed but for my family not being of the village, new moved from further away, and yet obviously human. And then there was me, my face coarsened from rubbing red clay into it to dull its ‘less than human’ perfection. Perhaps it was that I grew less cautious in my seclusion or lazy that I did not renew the clay quite as often with no family to remind me.

The moon shown through the window and the world did suddenly seem to magnify the sounds in the silence. Hooves caroled in the night, not of horses though at first one would think it for the shadows revealed mounts with their riders. It was only when they came into the open, silhouetted against the fullness of the moon’s glow, that the red deer with their riders could be seen for what they were and the two legged prey that they hunted. I was glad that I’d long quenched the fire and left the candles unlit, relishing the faint nip of cold of the season’s change and the clear crispness of the moonlight. My Mam would have said it was my Faefolk blood asserting itself and perhaps it was so for the riders had no heavy clothing to cosset them against the night though that might have been from the heat that burned in them for the frolic they meant to do with their prey, a male this time and not a female as had been told of in my family’s history. I stayed hidden, watching through the window, and did not know if I pitied the prey or was jealous of him or of the riders who would have him at the hunt’s end.

That choice too was taken from my hands for the next week when the night had turned chilled enough to thicken the stream with leaves that clung together with cold against the banks, there came a tapping at my door and I was fool enough to peek from behind the limp curtain at who was out there.

A red deer grazed in my herb garden, pushing the leaves with its nose to uncover the still green stems. Almost I went out to scare him away and in anger I did what had been discouraged by my Grandmam. I pushed at him with thought and watched as he startled up turning his head in reproof towards the outside of the door.

From inside the shadows I watched in horror as the fastening on the door undid itself and slowly moved inward. The shadows were not my friend, for that talent had gone missing in its appearance in my younger self. He stood in the doorway within the Moon’s path, gazing at me and smiled, then put out an upturned hand in invitation.

“Come away with me, my sweet. There is family yet for you among us of The Wood. Such as you should not be squandered on the human folk.”

There was compulsion in his words and I resisted to his amused approval but I was enough human and he not so. I placed my hand in his and we rode to within the forest where I could be what I was, both male and female, taker and taken. By the next autumn’s revelry I was with child and my lover stayed me from taking part in the hunt, saying instead that our riding should be in the comforts of our bed as was right for mated pairs. Instead we did our coupling on soft eider and thistle down. Our child, when I birthed him, was hearty and strong but like enough of his sire to be beautiful in that not human way. The child born the year after that, from my siring, was just as perfect and so did we rebuild the numbers of our clan; just solid enough of human kind, ethereally strong of magic for Fae.

FB3X Drabble Cascade #50 - Gold






Title: Dragon’s Work - Tending to the Fires (M/m, romance, weredragon)
Author: charisstoma
Word count: 400
Prompt :Gold

A cold Welch person wrote: I need cwtchy (warm, snuggly, comforting) Dragon fic! anyone?
For Meep in honor of St. David’s Day.
Follows from this The Treasure (PG, m/m, prequel*) Drabble Cascade # 51.


It should have felt cold in the inner cave as it was protected from any heat the Sun’s light might have given against the chill February season. Instead there was a moist humid feel of more temperate climes. It wasn’t until he got to the farthest room that Dafydd understood. He knew that dragons loved gold, collected it as their treasure, sometimes at great cost to those that had it and didn’t want to part with it.

Gold should have been just as cold as any metal but Auryn had made the element into a form not easily stolen.

“Actually, I know how cold you find my lair even during the summer. So what do you think? Care to rid yourself of those rags for a spate of cwtching with a warm dragon?”

“My clothing isn’t rags, they’re quite serviceable attire for this time of year,” he objected.

‘Won’t be if you continue to wear them,’ a smug smile promised as a clawed hand reached towards him.

Jumping back and temporarily out of reach, “Alright. Divesting. Disrobing. Getting na…. Eeep.”

Wrapped in the glowing warmth of dragon limbs and tail, like a mouse being cuddled by a larger than normal cat, Dafydd interrupted to the echoing purr, “You know I liked that set of clothes and how am I supposed to stay warm let alone be decently clad when I have to return to my home?”

“Treasure.”

“What?”

“My Treasure is supposed to stay; guarded, safe, cared for, hidden, loved.”

“Ran out of words, did you?” Dafydd cuddled back rubbing against Auryn’s now human body.

“Do I need words when I’ve got you where I want you or will, soon as we recover from my last warming you to the idea of staying.”

“Oh is that what you call fucking someone’s brains out through their ass, warming someone up to an idea?”

“Hmm, melting your brain. All you could do was repeat my name along with a few other words like more and faster and harder.”

“You do realize that I’m not gold that can be liquified into however you want, though recently melted gold does warm up the place.”

“With a bit of effort,” Auryn kissed, nipped and rubbed his lover, “I believe I can create a puddle of Dafydd to fit my needs or rather be fitted to my needs.”

Dafydd moaned, “Try, I might reconsider staying longer.”