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From "Out of the Loup"

We are Unseelie. We were once worshiped as gods. So were cats. And, like cats, we’re at our best when we remember this. Kinsey had mentioned a few times she was raised by humans, but I didn’t get how much of a difference that made.

“I just don’t want to make people uncomfortable,” she drawled in that lovely mezzo-soprano full of unholy overtones and the grating of rusted chains, guileless as a naked blade.

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@crtaxon

From "Out of the Loup"

This isn’t supposed to happen, but a new shark moved to the area. He wasn’t up on the protocol, so he destroyed a selkie. Now, selkies are the skin, not the body they form a symbiosis with. The body was shot to hell, and the skin was going to take a few months to heal. Mara -- the selkie in question -- was the assistant engineer on an alternative to magnetic resonance imaging for metallic paranaturals I was developing.

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"So, loser pays the tab?" I asked.

"Sure, Sam," David said. "Best of three?" He picked out a set of darts from the bar. "Want me to grab yours?"

"Oh, you're not playing me. Tavi?"

Tavi extricated themself from smooching my sister and got a black case from her bag. Inside were three darts they'd milled on their own.

I sat back to watch the massacre. "Tavi in twelve throws. Total, for both games."

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@crtaxon

From "Changeling":

And, worse, Marie interpreted “staying out of my business” as “call before she came over to hang out”, and -- I couldn’t blame her. Girl really, sincerely, could not cook.

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@crtaxon

From Changeling:

The two of them filed past; Jane first, giving me a kiss on the head, followed by Marie, who gave me a proper kiss and a good Moth which was about the best thing I could hear on a given evening. I waved to them as they got on Jane’s motorcycle to head to the market, then went inside, took off my apron, and got ready for my work.

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Kinsey shifted in bed, then again, and finally let out a tremendous belch.

"Sorry, y'all, my tummy is in turmoil," she said, right before the smell of digesting meat hit everyone.

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From "Changeling":

Duchess Margaret held the other one. They made quite a pair -- a superhero and a death goddess. The other side of the chuppah, well, Marie had reconciled with her parents, and suffice to say that’s a story of its own, and ain’t mine to tell.

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"What the fuck is a rouse check?" Marie asked, flipping a quarter into the swear jar with practiced ease.

"It's how you determine if your vampire got hungry in their sleep," I said from behind the storyteller screen.

"Hell with that, Tav," Marie scoffed. "Vampires wake up fucking hungry, this is bullshit, take it as read I failed the goddamn thing." She folded a dollar into an airplane and glided it into the jar. Impressive.

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@crtaxon

"You're asking for a //boon//?" Molly asked, one eyebrow arched. "That's positively quaint. Fine. I'll help, but you will owe me... Let's say a literal pound of flesh. It doesn't have to be yours, but if I have to force the issue it will be repossessed," the Raven Duchess chuckled, then added, "with interest."

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"Immortality is far from monotonous," Molly said, her tendrils falling over the scrimshawed bone exposed on each side of her head. "The world and everything in it is forever changing. Though I admit I miss velociraptors. Beautiful beasts."

She scooped up a passing kobold, smiling at the terrified creature. "And despite a superficial resemblance, /you/ just aren't the same."

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@crtaxon

From "Changeling":

We laid there in companionable silence for a while. I listened to her heart. I didn’t have a pulse anymore. I didn’t breathe except when I needed to talk either.

“I don’t want you to go,” she said, tears suddenly springing to her eyes.

“I don’t wanna,” I said. But I had to.
That part of the bargain was older than Macre itself, and the safety of everyone I loved rode on me holding up my end of it.

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May smiled and adjusted her cravate. "Let's try this again: You //will// kneel."

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"Don't look --" I started.

Marie opened my chest freezer and her face went pale. She all but slammed it close before turning wide eyes towards me. "Kinsey..."

"You know what I am. Ain't gonna...justify my dietary preferences to you," I said, folding my arms defensively.

She sighed. "Okay. From now on, no storing leftovers, baby. That feels too high risk."

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"Okay...you can't fit a square peg in a round hole," Tavi said.

"Depends on the size of the hole," I answered, "and how much you care about the structural integrity of the peg or hole."

Tavi nodded, and wrote that phrase under "Illogical" on the whiteboard.

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@crtaxon

Docile wasn't a word I'd ever use to describe our household, but this Saturday the Unseelie were napping in a moonbeam, Marie was sipping a glass of wine and reading, and Anna and Kee were cuddling together.

Time to introduce some chaos.

"Would you all still love me if I was a worm?" I asked.

"You basically are, Tav," Marie answered, not looking up. "Of course I would."

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"Hey, Marie? Can you help cinch my bodice?" Anna asked, coming down the stairs with the ties streaming behind her.

"You and Kee going somewhere with a dress code?" I asked. The distraction from writing was welcome.

"Heorot," she answered, turning around. "Good food, but traditional clothing required."

I pulled her bodice tight. "Looks good on you." I stole a kiss before returning to my work.

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#WritingWonders Day 21

Kinsey struggles with her inherent nature; she's a predator and a monster.

Marie is balancing being a vampire, a rabbi, and a 30 year old trans woman.

May is trying to acclimate to change.

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@crtaxon

From Changeling:

Molly smiled and gestured for me to continue. I growled. “This... corruption. It’s the twisting of the Dark. It’s a --” I hesitated to use the word blasphemy, because I ain’t a goddess “-- sin. God will forgive. But that don’t mean I have to.”

I tapped my fingers on the table. Funny, I hadn’t filed my nails in a while, and I’d certainly never filed them to points. “Can I use his blood to find him?”

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"I need to get the alignment on my van checked," May said, grabbing her keys.

"Why?" I asked.

"It's been handling funny since I hit that ramp down the street," she explained.

"What ramp?"

She gave me a patient smile. "The one with the white arrows, Anna."

"That's a speed bump," I corrected.

"Then they shouldn't make it so I can get air," May shrugged before leaving.

"Lord," Kinsey said from under a blanket. That summed it up.

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#WritingWonders Day 20:

Kinsey is a solid 6; she makes allowances for her faith and that she's possibly ontologically evil.

Marie is a 10. You don't get where she is with anything less.

May is a 10 in matters of alchemy and necromancy, and an 8 otherwise.

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