rix_scaedu

I wrote this to aldersprig's prompt "They picked up a sprig of [flower] and tucked it in their hat band." This is actually my third attempt and second story for this prompt and it came in at 1,112 words when I owed aldersprig 1,000. It follows on from Kith and Kin 5.


“Tobia,” the headmaster looked up at the schoolgirl standing in front of his desk. Her school blazer sported a wolf’s head and the grey pleated skirt brushed the top of knees. She looked like an ordinary fourteen, almost fifteen, year old school girl from an expensive private school. Someone had decided that her dark brown hair should be pulled tightly into an unflattering wreath around her head, and her expression was pale and tight. “As you’ve been told, you’ll be staying with us for most of the summer holidays this year. Your father intends to collect you for a few weeks just prior to school resuming but you’ll be with us until mid-January.”

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I wrote this to kunama_wolf's prompt "Your angels setting. Something involving a round knob-like object and the colour purple." This story is probably some years after The Man With The Bucket.

I would also suggest that this story should be rated Parental Guidance Recommended for adult concepts.

“Purple is the magistrates’ colour,” said Ordestia Prima. “It’s the colour of imperium, the power over life or death. Where is it you come from again?”

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I wrote this to zianuray's prompt request "How is Rensa doing?". This piece comes in at 1,241 words thanks to a paid extension and the signal boost I think I saw at the beginning of the month and now cannot find. (It doesn't matter if that was a figment of my imagination, because this is how long the story is.) This story follows on from both Looking For Needles In The Haystack and Gifting.

Yannic had built his wife a gazebo in a flower garden. After he’d explained to her why he wanted to give her a present, and some further negotiation, Rensa had agreed both that it would be desirable for her to have a private space to invite guests to that wasn’t part of their shared quarters, and that she liked the gardens. There were various other advantages to the scheme as well, but Yannic had gotten his reward when Rensa had been so happy that her pregnancy support group friends had come to visit that she’d burbled quietly for days. He took that to mean that either she’d been worried that her friends wouldn’t visit her home, or that she asked and they’d made excuses.

Yannic wasn’t quite sure why Kollec had been involved in that first visit, but now he seemed to gravitate into the general area whenever Rensa’s baby friends visited. Being Kollec, he was always carrying a clipboard or a data pad, but there was a betting pool running on his intentions. Yannic was splitting his money between complete obliviousness on his friend’s part, and a certain redhead.

The gazebo was both sheltered and in the open air, so Rensa spent a lot of time there with her baby even when she didn’t have outside visitors. She and Mirren would sit in the pleasantly mottled shade and watch their babies lying on their rugs and playing. Gathoc was a chubby little blond boy who mouthed everything, especially his favourite orange and grey splotched lizard huggy, while Tyreba was a mottle-haired, dapple-skinned wriggle-pot who’d already discovered that rolling over could get her to new and interesting things. Rensa was sure that Tyreba watched Gathoc to find out what she was supposed to do next. Yannic was personally convinced that his tiny daughter was beginning to try to talk to him, even if everyone else said she was far too young. Rensa simply smiled and said that he should encourage her, because how else was she going to learn to have a conversation?

All in all, things were going well. Rensa’s nightmares had retreated with therapy, friends, and no-one trying to take her baby away from her. Yannic saw no reason to mention to his wife either the several petitions he had received from groups who had thought that they were better placed to raise the tiny princess than her parents, or the steps he had taken to tell those groups to mind their own business. One particularly vocal woman had found herself transferred to a new administration hub in the subarctic/polar transition zone, and the Emperor’s Office had received no more suggestions that she should take over the care of the Imperial daughter.

Yannic almost wasn’t there when the head of the program trying to find other descendants of the, well, gods wasn’t the right word despite the temples, who’d been part of the colony’s founding population called upon his wife. The colonial support and development specialists had been loaded up with beneficial genetic variations to help make the colony successful. Entire sets of genetic advantages that some of Yannic and Rensa’s particularly short-sighted and self-entitled ancestors had done their best to wipe out. Having committed his own errors by helping kill off the former Imperial family before finding out that this was a bad idea, Yannic was sponsoring a program to find any other descendants of the colony’s first leaders because, frankly, the colony could do with all the advantages they could get. He was present at the meeting because he’d wandered out to the gazebo, an anxious secretary in tow, to get away from his desk for a while. Besides, time with his daughter was always a good thing.

Thus he, Mirren, Rensa, the babies, and the anxious Ballen were present when Director Pollgroc, who answered to Head of the Health Secretariat, arrived with his little entourage and a small escort from palace security. The security people waited at the garden gate while the Director and his companions, a younger man and woman, walked up the path to the gazebo. The younger man was carrying a baby. When they reached the top of the steps Rensa, who’d risen to meet them, said, “Please, won’t you all come in and sit down? It’s Director Pollgroc, isn’t it?”

Pollgroc appeared distressed. “I apologise for this intrusion, Your Majesties, but an ethical matter has arisen that had to be brought to Her Majesty’s attention.”

“Oh?” Rensa looked at him blankly.

“Your Majesty donated a sample for genetic comparison,” began Pollgroc.

“But I stole some and used your mitochondria for our pregnancy,” interrupted the younger man sheepishly. “My wife has a mitochondrial disease and we didn’t want our child to inherit it too.” Rensa continued to look at him blankly and he added even more sheepishly, “It was a breach of trust, and I have to apologise, and if you are offended and don’t forgive me it could be really messy….” He trailed off into silence.

“You only had to ask,” answered Rensa kindly. “I mean, everyone from your program has been telling me how wonderful my mitochondria are – every time I meet any of you that’s the first thing they say to me. Yes, you have my permission in retrospect to trial my mitochondria and see if they’re up to the task. Did the treatment work?” She looked at each of the adults and then expectantly at the baby bundle.

“Oh, yes,” confirmed the baby’s father.

“Then you want permission to do it again so you can have more healthy children?” Rensa looked at the two parents and added, “Please all of you sit down. Especially you,” she added to the baby’s mother. “I shouldn’t keep you standing around like this if you’re not well and looking after a new baby.”

All three sat down, the younger man still holding the baby in his arms and the woman leaning gratefully against the chair back.

After a glance from the Director the younger man took a deep breath and replied, “Thank you, Cerron and I would like very much to have more children, Your Majesty. The other thing we really came to see you about is that when our daughter, Glennen here, was born we discovered that your colouration distribution must be tied to your mitochondria somehow.”

“How? Oh!” Rensa sat up straighter, and asked eagerly, “Can I see her?”

Glennen’s father stood and walked over to the Empress to carefully put the baby in her arms. Rensa unwrapped the sleeping infant just enough to see the serious sleeping expression and her arms. The tiny, creamy skinned face had fine alternating gold and olive horizontal lines marching down the nose, more fine olive lines around each eye, and a flash of gold along each cheekbone.

“She’s very beautiful,” said Rensa quietly. “I assume you’re not asking me to be co-mother, so that would make her my demi-niece, wouldn’t it?”

“Well, yes, it would,” agreed Director Pollgroc with relief.

“Excellent,” said Rensa as she carefully handed the baby back to her nervous father. “It will be good for Tyreba and her future siblings to have cousins from both sides of their family. Just as it will be good for Glennen and her siblings to know that other people look like them.” She looked around brightly and added, “We should set up visits, shouldn’t we? Do you have a mothers’ group you go to, Cerron?”

Firstly, I have updated Clancy and Pae'kura over on Patreon. Encouraging me to write this story and beat it into shape is my first tier reward over there. :)

Secondly, I will stop taking prompts for the February Prompt Request when I wake up on 24 February my time, so that will be sometime on 23 February for most of you. That will give me time to finish the writing before March starts. If you haven't yet prompted me this month, now would be the time to do it.

This follows The Cadet: Part 21 and was written to my Patron M.B.'s prompt of "Parthi Gens please!"

Parthi Gens asked curiously, “How many people am I allowed to have at this presentation?”

The Warrant Officer Ceremonial said, “Usually there’s no limit on current spouses, children, parents and siblings. Extended family can depend on how many other people are receiving awards on the day. How many did you have in mind?”

“Well, my only living blood relatives are my grandparents so that’s four but there’s my foster family who looked after me during the war.” Parthi twitched her mouth a little, “That’s a whole ship’s company, really. I mean, the Anchor of the Morning isn’t a big ship by naval standards, but….”

“Now, the Anchor of the Morning is the ship you are due the unit citations for and where you were stationed when most of these qualifying actions took place, correct?” The Warrant Officer Ceremonial flicked open a reference manual so that Parthi could see the relevant section. “That makes any attendance from her crew not only very correct from a ceremonial point of view, but completely separate to your personal allowance of attendees. The numbers and composition of their delegation would be subject to negotiation between their Captain and the Commandant – not your problem to arrange at all.”

“But I could have them there? If they want to come and can get here, of course. They might have a contract that has them somewhere else.” Parthi was unconsciously sitting on the edge of her chair in excitement.

“Of course you can,” replied the Warrant Officer Ceremonial kindly. Zir paused and asked carefully, “Is there anything the Commandant needs to know before approaching Captain Sarharmudi?”

“I lost my contacts data in the shemozzle of being taken from the Anchor and placed with my grandparents,” replied Parthi equally carefully. “Some chronic obsessive deuces with child protection responsibilities tried to check my personal data files when I was being repatriated. They used the factory settings and my device self-wiped. I had backups but those got left behind in the rush to get me off the Anchor and onto the ship coming here. Everyone was a bit embarrassed about that, but no-one seemed to be able to do anything helpful.” She added, “I had no idea that the Captain didn’t know how to find me either.”

The Warrant Officer Ceremonial made a note on the pad in front of zir. “Which gender is the Captain?” The Warrant Officer Ceremonial’s own choice of pronoun indicated not a personal gender. but rather that zir’s gender was none of anyone else’s business.

“Captain Sarharmudi is male, of the abodna, and, when I left the Anchor, he was entitled to three captain’s pins – gold, carnelian, and jade.”

This is now followed by The Cadet: Part 23.

I wrote this to cluudle's prompt "A story from a previous incarnation of someone in the main Nai story.". It occurs quite some time ago....


The learned scholar was sitting in a tea house Xindong Village.  He had before him a teapot, two cups and a mahjong set.  What he wanted was someone to talk to who was not the village headman.  Zhou Mang was a good man but there were things that he wasn’t telling the official from the provincial capital.  Said official was glad that he hadn’t told the headman, in whose large family farmhouse he was billeted, that his commission came in fact from the Solar Emperor himself.  As a supposed representative of the provincial governor he was receiving hints that one of the Zhou nieces was a sensible, good looking girl who would make him a fine concubine – he was too much the coward to want to know how they would react to his actual rank and circumstances.

“Is anyone sitting here or are you hoping for company?”  The speaker was a well set up man of about the scholar’s own age whose clothing was flashy but worn.

“I was hoping for company,” replied the scholar easily.  “Would you care for tea and a game of mahjong?  My name is Ju Lee.”  He bowed without rising.

“Ah, the man from the provincial capital come to look at bridging the river!”  The newcomer smiled and added, “You’re the subject of gossip for li around, you know.  I am Gou Hu, and I do a little of this and that to keep body and soul together.”

“A necessity,” agreed Ju Lee pleasantly.  “So, tea and a game?”

“If I may,” said Gou Hu as he sat on the stool opposite the scholar.  “I admit that I am happy to be your guest for the evening.”  He accepted the cup of tea from Ju Lee, saluted his host with it and drank a little before he put it down so that he could help shuffle the tiles.  The two men worked quietly to build their walls until Gou Hu asked, “So, what’s it like building bridges?”

“A little more complicated than this,” admitted Ju Lee.  A roll of the little stone dice made Gou Hu the dealer for the first hand and as the other man dealt the tiles he went on, “Mahjong doesn’t involve land ownership and property rights while bridge building frequently does.  Also, people don’t seem to realise that the best place for the bridge might not be where the ford is.”  He set up his hand of tiles in front of him.

“So the road to the river crossing might be through the woods instead of the town?”  Gou Hu grinned then said apologetically, “I’ve heard that the salt merchants petitioned for a bridge so that they can still trade when the river is in flood.  I’ve also heard that there have been riverfront acquisitions in the village.”

“I’d gathered that,” remarked Ju Lee as he laid out the first Pong of the game.

His opponent laid out a Kong, saying, “My connections tell me that Ju Lee is the personal name of the current incarnation of the Radish Seed Scholar.”

“And you would be the bandit known as Dog Fox,” replied Ju Lee as he picked up one tile and discarded another.  “I’m not going to send salt merchants through the woods for you to plunder, you know.”

“And you’re not going to let said salt merchants impoverish a bunch of peasants whose land they’ve forcibly purchased, are you?”  Gou Hu added apologetically, “I’m a professional bandit and I can do without an influx of desperate need-to-bes.”

“I quite understand,” said Ju Lee gravely, then the two men clinked their cups and drank in another salute before going on with their game.

Time for a prompt request for the month of February. It is my natal month and I am aiming for a posting a day, at least. 

Because I have The Day Job, other things that need/want to be posted, and etcetera, there is a limit of one prompt to be written per prompter this month.

This month’s prompt request is themeless so within the rules below give me a character, a phrase or a setting so I can write you 300 to 500 word piece of fiction.

Signal boosting will get you a 200 to 250 word extension to the piece of your choice.

Certain levels of patron over on Patreon will get a 250 to 500 word extension on a piece of their choice.

You may throw some money at me for an extension through the Paypal button below.

There are some rules.

• Please don't ask for main story Nai as your prompt - more Nai writing will happen each weekend;

• One prompt per prompter; and

• No erotica (I need to be in the mood) and no fanfic (I would mangle your favourite characters to no satisfactory result.)

Thank you for your participation and let’s go have some fun with this.

Prompt Extensions

100 words $1.00 AUD 200 words $2.00 AUD 300 words $3.00 AUD 400 words $4.00 AUD 500 words $5.00 AUD 600 words $6.00 AUD 700 words $7.00 AUD 800 words $8.00 AUD 900 words $9.00 AUD 1000 words $10.00 AUD