Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Twenty, Part One

 Notes: Enjoy some family bonding time!

Title: Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Twenty, Part One

***

Chapter Twenty, Part One

 

Photo by Felix Mittermeier 

“All right.” Kieron watched the next morning as Elanus leaned on Catie’s front console like a general surveying the field of battle. “Let’s go through the facts. Carlisle told you that they got ships out during lulls in the weather, correct?”

“Right,” Kieron said.

“And yet according to my calculations, Catie’s calculations, and Lizzie’s weather data, we’re not going to be getting any significant lulls for the next month and a half. Is that right?”

“Yep.”

“Yesss.”

There was a pause. The more it grew, the more uneasy Kieron became. He knew there was lag time for communications with Lizzie thanks to the sheer distance between them, not to mention the awful weather, but this was pushing it. Elanus waited a few more seconds, then said, “Lizzie? You with us?”

“Sorry!” Her response sounded almost a bit surprised. “I was distracted. However, you’re correct, Elanus. You experienced the closest thing to a lull two days ago. The weather should continue to deteriorate for the next ten days, to the point where it will actively slow down my transmissions.”

Kieron frowned. “Are we getting a freeze?” He only remembered seeing icy rain once on the Colony, but it had been accompanied by wind so fierce that the falling crystals were turned into miniature spears. Even the general had postponed outdoor activities until the worst of the storm passed.

“I don’t know if it will freeze or not, Kee, but the wind will pick up, and the rain should increase. You might see some changes in barometric pressure that could lead to a tornado system as well.”

Elanus rolled his eyes. “Tornadoes. Of course. Wonderful. Every time I think I have a handle on the problems this place is going to throw at us, it comes up with something even worse than before. Tornadoes. Lovely.”

“I don’t ever remember a tornado,” Kieron offered.

“You might not have been told.”

“Our trainers didn’t believe in hiding bad news from us.”

“Your trainers…your fucking parents might have been smart enough to realize that spreading word of a natural phenomenon capable of ripping apart your home would only create panic that there was no good answer for.”

That was possible. Kieron didn’t really think it was likely, but he shrugged and let Elanus get them back on track. “All right, so we’re not going to fly our way out of here any time soon, not without finding some way of significantly boosting Catie’s engine power.” He frowned. “I thought I was so clever doing everything on you with renewable resources, baby, but there’s something to be said for good, old-fashioned rocket fuel too. We’d get a lot more bang for our buck if I had the right tools for tinkering with your engine and a decent high-octane propellant.”

“I don’t wannnt you to tinnnker with my engine,” Catie pouted. “I liiike it just the way it iiis.”

“You have a beautiful engine, Catie,” Kieron reassured her, stroking Bobby’s back where the little bot was perched in his lap.

“I was just thinking out loud, it wasn’t a real plausible possibility,” Elanus said. “We can’t retrofit you to that extent here, and I’d never do it without your permission. But if we could make some sort of attached rocket that could heighten our acceleration—”

“Without killing us,” Kieron added.

“Right, G-forces, I haven’t forgotten them but let me finish my thought, if we could heighten our acceleration enough to work with the storms and use them to propel us up and out of the atmosphere, we could conceivably reach escape velocity in under five minutes of flying.”

Kieron shook his head. “We’d need real-time telemetry data from Lizzie, and she can’t give us that without being here herself. It’s not happening.”

“She and Catie can come up with predictive models that take the lag time of the satellites into account!”

“We don’t have the parts to build a rocket like that!”

“We might be able to get them with a few raids.”

Aaand here it was. “Elanus, really?”

Elanus spread his hands. “What? Do you just expect me to sit here for the next umpteen weeks doing nothing but twiddling my fingers while we risk being found by the murderous assholes who raised you when we could be building a rocket to get ourselves out of here?”

“Yes!” Kieron said, not quite at shouting volume but close. “That’s what I expect, because it’s better than risking the health and safety of our family to wait a little bit instead of raiding a bunch of heavily armed mercenaries with a big grudge against me for parts that we can live without right now. Not to mention you’re basing our chances for escaping the atmosphere on unfounded speculation instead of actual data.”

“Early mathematical models indicate that I’m right!”

“You’re going to have to do better than ‘early mathematical models’ to get my buy-in for risking our children in a ridiculous escape attempt that—” Kieron quieted down suddenly when he realized Bobby was shaking. “Oh Bobby, what’s wrong?” He got a rapid-fire tapped response. “No, we’re not fighting.”

“It souuunds like you’rrre fighting.”

Elanus snorted. “This isn’t a fight, this is a casual disagreement. Catie, please, you’ve seen Kieron and I at our worst, do you actually believe that we’re fighting right now?”

“Noooo, but Bobby doesn’t know any beeetter.”

Elanus walked over, his limp almost gone, and whisked the little bot out of Kieron’s arms. “Don’t worry, honey,” he crooned, “I’m not fighting with your daddy, I love him to absolute pieces even though he has no faith in my genius, don’t worry.”

“I have plenty of faith in your genius,” Kieron said, trying to keep his voice level, “I just think that it’s reckless to try and speed up our escape when the safest thing to do is hunker down and wait it out.”

“Right, because waiting things out has worked so well for us in the past! Were we or were we not surprised by those fucking savages and nearly taken out less than a week ago—hell, less than four days ago—and now you want to prolong our exposure to a group of mentally unstable anarchists when we could be—"

“Stop.” That was Lizzie, her voice unexpectedly firm. “I was going to wait to tell you this, but now I think you have to know.”

“Know what?” Elanus blanched white. “Don’t tell me you’re a mom. You’re too young to be creating your own little sentient codes, Lizzie!”

“No, Elanus!”

Oh, thank god. “What is it, then?” Kieron asked levelly.

“Um…we’re on the way to Hadrian’s Colony.”

 

Quaint Escapes for Traitorous Bastards: Prologue

 Hi darlins!

Okay, I'm going a bit afield and dipping my feet into cozy fantasy for this one. I mean, I'll make it as cozy as I possibly can, which...you know me. How am I going to live without peril? Without fighting? Without explosions!?

I'm just going to figure it out, peeps. Have a short prologue to settle you in, then buckle up for this one ;)

 

***

 A mile outside of the village of Lollop, where the trees finally began to thin into the edges of locals’ fields and gardens, a wagon came to a halt. “This looks like a decent spot,” the man driving the wagon murmured to himself as he looked at the stump of a tree on the right. It was a broad stump, at least five feet across, and ragged like the tree had grudgingly torn itself apart as it fell. “Esmerelda.” He stroked a broad, gentle hand across the back of his traveling companion. “Esme, love. Take a look at this.”

“Mmm, fuck off.”

He laughed. “Esme, this was your idea. You can’t back out now, we’re already here.”

The little creature made a whining sound of despair but opened her eyes. “Already? It feels like we just left Galenish.”

The man tisked. “That was three weeks ago. And I know you’ve already told me that you’re sick of my constant presence, but if you’d rather head into town with Phlox and me, you’re welcome to it. You can help clean the house, stock the shelves, dig the beds in the garden…”

“Curse you and your love of physical labor,” Esmerelda said with a huff. She raised her head off the seat and crossed her lion’s paws in front of her like a little queen. “You’re considering this stump? Really?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s hideous.”

The man waved a hand. “Details, details. What do you think of the location, though?”

She looked around. “Hmm…this isn’t the main road, is it?”

“No. More likely used by locals than travelers and traders.”

“Good. I don’t want to be disturbed very often.” Her nostrils flared. “There’s decent game out there. Some deer, a few wild pigs…lots of rabbits. My goodness. There’s a brace of hares every dozen feet, it seems like.”

He nodded. “Lollop is known for its rabbits, I’m told.”

“And nothing else.” Esmerelda turned her cool gaze on her traveling companion and the man who’d held her life in his hands for the past thirty years. “Are you sure you want to settle down here, Hiram? It’s so rural, nothing like the activity of Galenish or the other big cities.”

“That’s exactly what I want,” he said firmly. “A quiet home where no one will ever think to look for me, and a trade that has nothing to do with magic.”

“But magic is your life,” she protested.

“It was, for a very long time,” Hiram agreed. “But no longer. The man I used to be has no part to play in the man I’m to become. I can live without magic.”

So you think. Esmerelda had her own ideas about how long that vow was going to last, but now wasn’t the time to mention them. Instead, she lifted her nose in the air and sniffed haughtily. “Well, I can’t. I refuse to lie one minute on that rough surface, it’s going to do terrible things to my fur. Fix it.”

Hiram laughed. “Yes, m’lady. What are you in the mood for? A platform? A podium? A plinth?”

She scowled at him. “Who has two arms, two legs, and asks stupid questions?”

“Plinth it is, then.” He winked. “Since you’re a living work of art.”

“And don’t you forget it,” Esmerelda purred. She settled in on the seat of the wagon and watched as Hiram flicked his left earlobe to get Phlox’s attention. They carried out a low, grumbled conversation that Esmerelda didn’t care about because Phlox would argue that the sun was blue if it gave them more time to use their power, and then the tree stump underwent what could only be called a “rapid renovation.” There was a flash of light, a flare of heat, and then—

“Much better.” Esmerelda hopped from the wagon over to the magic-warmed wood, which had now taken the shape of a large, decorative plinth. She shook out her head and slowly let herself grow to her original size, then laid down to test the fit. “It’s a bit tight at the edges,” she noted.

“It’s because you ate an entire pack of dire wolves last week, you chunky—”

“Phlox!” Hiram snapped. “Knock it off!”

Esmerelda glared at the glowing bit of rock in Hiram’s left earlobe. “They’re just jealous that they didn’t get a taste,” she said, and wiggled from side to side a bit. It was, all things told, a rather nice spot for a bit of rest and relaxation, with plenty of game around and avenues for escape if someone got nasty thoughts in their head and she wasn’t allowed to chastise them. Which… “Are you sure I can’t ask riddles?”

Hiram hesitated.

“It’s very culturally important to me,” Esmerelda coaxed. “Nothing fatal, I promise! Just a way to pass the idle hours when I’m missing you terribly, or it’s raining on me, or…” She trailed off suggestively.

Hiram shook his head. “You know I’ll have a place for you whenever you get tired of being our watchtower,” he told her earnestly. Ugh, she hated when he was earnest; it cut through all her most dramatic arguments. “You don’t have to be here alone if you don’t want to.”

“I already said I would do it.” And it was the most freedom she’d had ever since her “oopsie” moment all those years ago. Esmerelda wasn’t about to give it up now. “Just some little riddles, to entertain any children who might wander by?” she finally asked. Children were always safe with her, and Hiram knew that.

Sure enough, his expression softened, not that it was easy to tell with that awful beard he wore now. “Fine. Little ones only.”

Esmerelda purred with pleasure. “Excellent.”

“I’ll send a message with directions to the house later today.”

“You don’t need to,” she replied. “We sphinxes have the keenest sense of smell in existence. I’ll be able to find you on my own.”

“All right, then. Have fun,” he said, then flicked the reins. The wagon got moving again, and Esmerelda watched Hiram and his many belongings trundle out of sight toward Lollop. Once she was certain she was alone, she did a full-body stretch that would have had Phlox laughing at her contortions before settling in on her new home for the foreseeable future. On the whole, she thought she liked it.

I hope we all find something to like in this quaint little place.

 

Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Nineteen, Part Two

 Notes: I'm baaaack! We had an amazing time with my family (and without them) in Italy, and now we're back. My kiddo was such a trooper. Now it's time to get back to work, so...have some story! Also, explicit here, so read appropriately.

Title: Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Nineteen, Part Two

***

Chapter Nineteen

 

 

Photo by Goutham Binuraj

Recounting what he’d gone through wasn’t exactly comfortable for Kieron, but there was an element of consistency to it that he liked. He’d been making reports like this for most of his life—to his superior officers, aka his mother and grandfather; to the refugee board on Trakta; to therapists and counselors and lawyers…he knew how to do an after-action review.

It was interesting for him, too, to hear Bobby’s side of things. Catie translated to make communication faster, and between the two of them they got through the events leading up to their escape pretty well. Elanus, true to his word, stayed quiet throughout the whole thing. He didn’t even make eye contact with Kieron, looking contemplatively down at the ground as he described dangling one of his attackers over the reptilian pit, pretending Bobby was a nuclear device, convincing his mother to help him escape, and the fights that led to most of his injuries as they made their way out of the compound. Bobby helpfully put up a schematic he’d copied that laid out their route, complete with dramatic pauses and stick-figure re-enactments of the clashes he’d been there for.

It wasn’t until Kieron started getting into what happened right before their rescue that Elanus finally looked straight at him. “She said what to you?”

“The truth,” Kieron said evenly.

“Bullshit.”

“She believes it, and I believe her. Hard not to, under the circumstances.”

“She’s insane.”

“She’s a devoted daughter.”

“She chose her abuser over her own son,” Elanus pointed out.

“She chose to be a good soldier in the end, and I think we’re done on this topic now.” He and Elanus stared at each other in silence for a long moment before Catie finally broke it.

“Dadddeeee is riiight.”

Kieron shook his head a little. “What?”

“We neeeed to make them suuuuffer for what they did to youuuu.”

“Oh, baby.” Kieron sighed. “If I’ve learned anything from leaving this place, it’s that vengeance doesn’t solve things. If they had someone else we wanted to save, that would be one thing, but Bobby and I made it out. You found us—you rescued us. That’s the important thing.”

Bobby tapped something out too quickly for Kieron to understand. “He says he’s annngry for you too, but he thinks you’re rrright because you’re aaalways right,” Catie said. Kieron could hear the eyeroll in her tone. “He’s such a baaaby.”

“Be nice to your brother,” Elanus said, then ran a hand through his hair. He’d done it so many times now that it was fluffed up into a poof. Kieron desperately wanted to run his hand through it, but they needed to finish this. “All right, fine. I insist on monitoring that place, but you might be right about retaliation. You gave them absolute hell, and the people who hurt you the most have already paid for it with their lives.”

Well, that was way better than Kieron had expected. “Thank you,” he said genuinely. “I appreciate that.”

“I’m not ruling out constructive violence if the situation calls for it,” Elanus added. “We might need to utilize part of their facility to get off this rock, after all.”

“I understand.”

“So don’t be too smug.”

Kieron smiled. “This isn’t my smug face.” No, it wasn’t. It was his “I want to suck your dick right the fuck now” face, and Elanus knew it.

“Kids,” he said slowly, “Kieron and I need to talk alone for a bit. Catie, if you could play with Bobby outside and turn off your interior sensors, that would be great.”

“Ugh.” She opened the hatch. “Come on, Bobby, they’re going to be gross for a while.”

Bobby tapped a question.

“No, you can’t watch! Don’t you knooow what gross meeeans?”

Another question.

“No, they don’t shed their skins like snaaakes, they fuck like bu—”

“Language, Catie!”

“Sorry, Daddeee.” Bobby rolled out, still tapping questions, and Catie closed the hatch behind him.

The lights dimmed, and the ever-present hum of Catie’s functions quieted. Kieron got up from where he’d been sitting on the floor by Bobby and crossed over to where Elanus sat in the pilot’s chair. He straddled his fiance’s lap, mindful of his still-healing leg, and wrapped his arms around Elanus’s shoulders and neck. Like this, they were almost the same height, and it was easy to press a kiss to Elanus’s cheek, then his forehead, then the bridge of his nose. Kieron finally tasted his mouth, muffling the whimper that emerged from Elanus’s lips the second they parted. The sound was half pleasure, half pain.

“I’m with you again,” he whispered. “We’re together, we’re good. We’re so good, let me be good to you. Let me show you how good I can be for you.”

“Oh, fuck,” Elanus breathed. His dick was stiff through the thin fabric of his pants, pressing up against Kieron’s ass, and for a moment Kieron thought about changing his game plan, but—no. He was desperate to have Elanus in his mouth right now; he could have him in his ass later. “Kieron…”

“Mmhmm.” He slid off Elanus’s lap onto his knees in between his legs, then leaned in and rubbed his cheek against the bulge in the fabric. He mouthed it, licking, then sucking at the head of Elanus’s cock through his pants. He was so hard, so ready…he’d fill him up so well Kieron couldn’t think about anything except pleasure.

“You want it, darling?”

“Mm, please yes,” Kieron said, and was rewarded with Elanus undoing the fastenings at the waistband and quickly freeing his cock. He leaned in eagerly, but Elanus cupped his jaw and held him back for a moment.

“Go slow,” he said, and Kieron heard a world of desires in those two simple words. Go slow so I can watch you better. Go slow so I can really feel it. Go slow so I can make sure I remember it’s you and not some dream.

He wrapped his hand around the base of Elanus’s cock to steady it, then slowly, painstakingly lowered his mouth over the tip. He licked the smooth, hot head and hummed with satisfaction as the first pearl of precum rose to the surface. Kieron sucked lightly, just at the top, then gradually took more and more of Elanus into his mouth until he felt his cock at the back of his throat. Then he hummed, and relaxed, and—

“Fuck.” Elanus’s hands threaded into his hair and tightened, mussing it the way he’d ruffled up his own. He eased Kieron back, then down again, and Kieron let him have the control. Let him, hell—it felt good to give him the control, to let someone else make a decision for the first time in way too long, to do something that only felt good and didn’t come with echoes of pain. He hummed appreciatively, and Elanus’s next push was a little harder.

Perfect. Kieron sucked until he drooled, until his mouth and throat were hot and sore, until he was about to come in his own pants and then finally, finally Elanus shot down his throat groaning his name.

Kieron pulled back slowly, aware that he was a teary, swollen-lipped mess right now and careful to give Elanus time to enjoy the sight. “You’re gorgeous,” his fiancé muttered as he pulled Kieron up into his lap again and worked a hand into his pants. They kissed, and Kieron finally got his hands into Elanus’s hair and held on as he squirmed, rutting up into Elanus’s grip. It only took a few quick thrusts of his hips before he came, empty except for pleasure and exhausted way beyond what he should be. He barely noticed Elanus laying him down on the bed and cleaning them both up, then joining him.

“Mmkids?”

“They’re fine together for now, Catie will let us know if she needs us,” Elanus said softly as he pulled Kieron in close. He settled against Elanus’s shoulder blearily. “Go to sleep.”

Easiest command ever to follow.

 

VACATION!!! Which means...

 I'm taking a break from posting until we get back from out trip. I know, I left things in an imperfect place with our lovely guys, but at least they're together again and plotting murder--that has to count for something! And when I come back, I'll be working on a new story as well for the blog: a cozy fantasy. Yep, I'm giving the grimdark and death a reprieve for something light-hearted (well, lighter-hearted). I hope to return full of energy to get back to my stories after a nice, long brain break.

Where am I going with the sweet fam? Allow me to post some creative-commons pictures as I don't have my own to share yet!

 

And maybe more! I'll let you know how it goes, darlins. I hope you're well--I love and appreciate you all :)