[ID: a digitally drawn banner. On the left, a man with light brown skin and dark curly hair holds a lute. Glowing blue flowers grow out of the lute’s sound hole. On the right, the text reads “The Stray Spirit.” End ID]
I’m editing and re-posting some old Stray Spirit drabbles over the next few weeks! Here’s the first one.
Safety Check
Synopsis: Marley swindles Emry, as is her right as his little sister. (pre-book 1)
Word Count: 223
TW/CW: none
Emry stood at the edge of the river dock and sighed. “It’s one thing to steal my spot, but did you also have to steal my cloak?”
Marley beamed up at him. “Yours is nicer than mine.”
“Because you snagged yours against a stalagmite last week—“
“Don’t you want your baby sister to be warm and happy?”
The diminutive jerk did look warm and happy, sitting in his favorite boat, wrapped in his new cloak. Emry rubbed his forehead and picked up her abandoned cape, piled inches away from the lapping cave water. “Fine. You can wear it on the way there, but I get both the boat and the cloak on the way back once we’re done checking the route, understood?”
“Fine.”
It was too eager, too easy of a response. Emry frowned, then clambered into the boat and realized what else she had done. His was loaded with the safety check equipment.
All of the safety check equipment.
He whipped his gaze back to Marley. “No, no—I’m not doing all the safety checks myself, too!”
“Hmm.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully. “I seem to recall someone covering for you when you snuck out to play the other night…”
[ID: two digital sketches in one image. On the left, a girl in a skirt and vest (Georgie) is pushing on her brother’s face while her brother is trying to hug her. On the right, a girl is riding on her brother’s back (Marley), smushing his face. end ID]
Oldie but goodie. The Karic sisters, pre-book 1! They love Emry, I swear. 💗
Blame my husband for this one. He specifically requested it.
Synopsis: Post book-1 climax. The Karic kids are stuck inside and demand a song. It devolves into Loving-Cal-Breslin hours. Honestly, I should’ve just named this “Emry ‘Heart Eyes’ Karic.”
Word Count: 704
TW/CW: alcohol mention, snow mention
It was another snowy night in Senne, and Tessa Karic had begged her children to stay inside for once, if only to soothe her nerves. So naturally, they all chose to drape themselves over various bits of furniture and complain loudly.
“We don’t have any ale in the house.” Georgie sat upside down on a couch, swinging her legs. “Why don’t we have any ale in the house?” She pointed at Cal. “Cal, did you drink the rest of it?”
“You know I didn’t.” Cal smiled over her book. She was the only one sitting normally in the room. “Aspen must have.”
“Not me!” Aspen was out in the hall, hanging from the banister for fun. “I can’t even drink, you know that-”
“We know, silly.” Marley batted their dangling feet as she walked by, then poked at Emry’s head, which lolled off the side of the armchair by the door. “I’m bored, play me something.”
“Oh, am I in the employ of the court of Marley Karic, now?” Emry swatted at her hand, but she dodged him easily.
“Always and forever. Now, play me a song.”
He feigned a prolonged sigh and reached down for the lute at the foot of the armchair.
“What would you like to hear, Princess Marley?”
“Hmm.” Marley collapsed onto the other end of the couch and snuggled up against a throw pillow, squinting at the ceiling as she thought of a title. “What about Morning Rose?”
Emry grinned and sat up.
“Oh, so you’re volunteering to sing with me?”
“I didn’t say that!”
“It’s a duet, Mar, who else am I going to sing with?”
They both looked to Georgie, who glared.
“I’ll kill you.”
They twisted their heads to look at Aspen, who somehow managed a shrug while hanging from both hands.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know that song.”
Their gazes landed on Cal. She bit her lip and focused very hard on her book. Mar smiled.
“Can Ms. Breslin sing?”
“No,” Cal said quickly.
“Yes,” Emry corrected. “She’s just shy about it, is all. I’ve only heard her sing a handful of times myself.”
Marley grabbed another throw pillow, hugged it, and peeked up over its corners with large doe eyes. On Cal’s other side, Emry propped his chin on his hand and tilted his head, batting his lashes at her in a dreamy, loving gaze. Cal worked hard to fight back a smile.
“I told you, I can’t sing, I’m not good at it-“
“Emry disagrees,” Marley said.
“I disagree,” Emry said. “I love your voice almost as much as I love you. And have I mentioned how much I love you? I love you so much-“
Georgie slapped her hands over her face and groaned.
“Cal, please sing before he continues, please, for the love of Shiro and Hara and-”
“All right, all right!” Cal laughed, slid a ribbon across her page, and set the book side. “Morning Rose, you said?”
They all settled in- Marley resting against her pillows, Emry sitting back in the chair, Aspen dropping from the banister and leaning against the doorway.
Cal was quiet at first. Though Emry kept his voice and the strings soft, they could hardly hear her over him. But as the first verse passed, then the second verse, her voice gained confidence. It wasn’t deep like Ella Sorman’s, or clear like Emry’s, but it was light and steady. Like listening to a friend read a familiar story. The first time Emry had heard it, he wanted to capture it somehow, so he didn’t have to stop feeling so…warm. It was almost unfair, he thought- that voice, paired with that face, paired with that mind- gods, and she had chosen him, of all people-
The song was over before he was ready for it to be, before anyone in the room was ready for it to be. Emry heard Aspen sniffling somewhere behind him.
“That was really nice,” the spirit mumbled, trying to hide the tears tricking down their face. “I- I like it when you sing together.”
Cal’s cheeks flushed, and she gave Emry a modest smile that made him melt all over again.
[ID: a scene of four kids drawn in a Calvin and Hobbes style, playing in the snow. On the far left, a boy in a jacket and scarf winds up to throw a snowball, pile of snowballs next to him. In the middle, a kid in a scarf with long curly hair creates a snowman, with too many carrots on the head, pieces of coal stuck everywhere, and sticks with leaves and flowers for arms. On the right, a girl yells at the first boy atop a snow fort. To her right, another girl creates a pile of snowballs. end ID]
I am forever in @theramwrites’s debt for the prompt snowball fight, and making me think:
Who would get in a snowball fight? The Karic kids & Aspen, obviously.
But why do I keep thinking of Calvin and Hobbes?
What if I tried...drawing them like Calvin and Hobbes?
So, there you go. Emry on the left, Aspen in the middle, Georgie atop the fort, Marley on the right.
The Stray Spirit Taglist, if you...happen to like Calvin and Hobbes, I guess: @crystallized-ink, @little-boats-on-a-lake, @semblanche, @theramwrites, @wordsbycreed, @pretend-im-normal, @mel-writes-with-her-dragons, @wildswrites, @ladywithalamp, @ettawritesnstudies, @mj-comics, @cecilsstorycorner, @write-your-own-stories, @chayscribbles, @storytracks, @lightningmastertrilogy, @magic-is-something-we-create, @authortango, @thegoldenseries, @lunewell, @vellichor-virgo, @writeblrfantasy, @blindthewind, @weaver-of-fantasies-and-fables
Another bout of self-indulgent TSS writing thanks to @flashfictionfridayofficial!
Bar Fight
Word Count: 882
TW/CW: violence, alcohol mention, cursing
Synopsis: The post-book 1 Karics have chosen violence tonight. (Mentions a book 1 climax spoiler).
It was one of Emry’s favorite nights in Senne- which was to say, it was as cold as hell.
Snowflakes drifted lazily downward, melting on his shoulders and on Marley’s gloves as she walked with him along the frozen canal. The frigid air, thankfully undisturbed by any sharp wind, refreshed him with every breath. Between the snow, the chill, and the stars above, he had half a mind to take another lap around the canal before heading home.
If only his legs were up to the task.
“How are you feeling?” Marley frowned up at him as he winced and grabbed the snow-dusted stone barrier that ran along the canal. His grip tightened on the cane he had borrowed from Nana.
“Fine.” The word came out automatically. Marley sighed.
“No, come on, we’ve talked about this. How are you actually feeling?”
He leaned against the stone to take some weight off the ache in his legs.
“It all still hurts,” he muttered. “Thought I would’ve recovered by now. S’been, what, a month?”
“Well, you were asleep for the first quarter of that.” Marley hugged his arm. “And no one else has been possessed by a spirit and lived. Cut yourself some slack.”
“Hm.” He pushed himself back up onto the support of the cane. He hadn’t cut himself any slack in three years. “Think we can head back? I’m sure Georgie and Aspen have beat us home from the tavern, with how slowly I’ve been walking.”
Marley was about to turn him around when a frenzy of shouts, glass, and cracking wood careened out of the building ahead of them.
“Out!” someone boomed. Both Emry and Marley flinched when an empty glass bottle crashed through the window and shattered on the cobblestones, glittering shards skidding along the ice.
“Yeah, out!” A vine of thorns whipped another bottle through the hole in the window.
Emry and Marley looked each other in horror.
“I don’t think they beat us home.”
They both rushed for the door at the same time. Marley got there first and yanked it open, revealing what Emry had dreaded- Georgie standing on top of the bar, a chair in one hand and a bottle in the other. Aspen stood next to her, gripping two thorny vines in both of their hands.
“Georgie!” Emry shouted. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Defending the family name!” Georgie slammed the chair against the bartop and snapped it in half. “Get in here and help me!”
“More Karics!” a blonde man yelled and pointed one angry finger at the newcomers. Marley grabbed an umbrella by the door and pointed it right back.
“You wanna go, Halberg?”
Emry slumped.
“Oh no, not this again-“
Someone took advantage of the distraction to grab Georgie’s ankle, and it was all over after that.
The stupid sap who laid one finger on Georgie’s boot quickly got that boot smashed in their face. The blonde man- patriarch Halberg, surrounded by a smattering of shorter, blonder Halbergs- raised a bottle to Marley, who immediately whipped him across the cheek with the umbrella.
“Mar-“ Emry began to plead, but Marley just pointed behind him.
“On your left!” she shouted. Emry turned and ducked under a woman’s clumsy right hook. Without thinking, he hauled up the cane and yanked on her leg with the curved handle. As the woman went down with a thud, her partner snatched a stool from a nearby table and threw it at Emry’s head.
“Shit-“
A wall of vines shoved the stool away from Emry’s nose and threw it out the open door. It clattered onto the stones alongside the broken bottles.
“Don’t you touch him!” Aspen roared. With a single whip, they took out the three men to their left, then leapt into wolf form atop the stool-thrower. Emry jumped to tackle Aspen off their victim before their jaws had a chance to open.
“Aspen, stop being a wolf- it’s time to go, Georgie!” Emry tried- but someone dragged him backwards by the collar, choking off his words. As his heels lost purchase on the floor, he threw his fist behind him, hoping to catch at least a nose- but the assailant ducked and hurled him against the bar. Emry flinched against the rounded edge meeting his back, and found himself face to face with a bruised and battered Halberg patriarch.
“Give Edward my regards, will you, Karic boy?” he sneered and reeled back a fist.
Behind him, Georgie sighed, took the man’s outstretched elbow, and tossed him like a sack of potatoes into the street.
“Come on.” She handed Emry his cane. “Let’s go.”
Aspen shifted back into human form on her left. Marley sidled up on her right, hardly a hair out of place. All around them, Halbergs groaned on the floor.
“How’d I do?” Aspen beamed. “Did we defend the family name?”
“You did great, Aspen.” Georgie tossed a bag of coins onto the bartop. “Though we’re going to work on your speed with those whips. Emry, can you walk?”
“Can I-,” Emry wiped sweat from his brow. “You get into a fight with the entire Halberg contingent, and you’re asking me if I can-“
“All right, you old man.” Georgie took his left arm, Marley the right. “Let’s just get you home.”
Synopsis: Emry’s recovering at home after certain harrowing events- but he’s not content to just sit around and do nothing.
Word Count: 597
TW/CW: food mention, pain mention
The Lost Month - Part 1
After Cal’s departure, it only took a few days for a restless malaise to settle into Emry’s bones. Sure, he still required a cane to get around some days, and his walks into town with Marley left him exhausted more often than not- but he also couldn’t spend his entire day sitting around the house and hearing the latest gossip about his actions in Dawnstone. He had to do something.
“You mean you don’t like our walks?” Marley pretended to pout when he voiced his concern to her. He rolled his eyes as they trudged about the snow in the garden, picking the winter berries Aspen had grown for their mother.
“I didn’t say that. I just need to get a job, that’s all.”
“But you’re still recovering.”
“I’m not useless, Mar.” Emry plucked a berry and flicked it at her. “Cal comes back in three weeks. If I’m still leeching off Mum and Dad by that time, she’ll leave me again.”
It was Marley’s turn to roll her eyes.
“No, she won’t.” She popped a berry into her mouth. “Just take your time and rest. I’m sure there will be work when you’re ready.”
Emry frowned and continued picking berries in silence. He anticipated this sort of kindness from Marley- but the rest of the family had been the same way, ever since he had returned home. All of them were strangely gentle, as if they were tip-toeing around him. He supposed he should be thankful- it was better than the anger and disownment he had expected. But something about it was making him uneasy.
Not that that was the only thing making him uneasy.
“Emry!” Aspen called from the front door just as they were coming in from the back, baskets full of berries ready to be rinsed and tossed into a pie. “You home?”
“In the kitchen, Aspen,” Emry called back. The determined patter of bare feet on wood gave them a moment to prepare before the spirit burst in, a dozen words already falling out of their mouth.
“I saw the Castaics on my walk, and I mentioned that you were going to teach me the lute, and-“
“Slow down and have some water.” Marley smiled and handed Aspen a glass. Spirits didn’t eat or drink, of course- but holding the glass helped them stop and breathe a little.
“So I mentioned that you were going to teach me the lute,” they started over, “but see, you don’t have a lute- because I broke it- well, the wave broke it- or someone stepped on it- I don’t know- but they said I could borrow their lute, so you can keep teaching me!” They beamed. “Isn’t that nice of them?”
Something twisted Emry’s insides.
“That is nice of them,” he forced out, staring hard at the berries as he washed them. Aspen bounced on their heels as they leaned over the table.
“So can I go over and borrow it?” they asked.
“No.” The word came too quickly out of Emry’s mouth. He felt Marley’s eyes shift to him, but he didn’t dare look up. “I mean- I don’t know if I’m feeling up for it yet. Maybe later, Aspen.”
“Oh.” Aspen stopped bouncing, and the smile fell off their face. “I’m sorry. Do you need me to grow any moonflowers for the pain?”
“No, that’s all right. But thank you.” Emry reached over and dropped a few berries into their hand. “Here, take these to Mum- she’ll want to taste-test them before she bakes them into a pie.”
Emry found himself alone in the parlor that night, with nothing to distract himself but the embers in the fireplace. He had relented, in the end, or at least given his family an inch- he’d agreed to declining the clerk job. Well, not declining- considering declining. If only so his mother wouldn’t worry about his ability to walk back home each night.
He massaged the ache in his leg and half-collapsed onto the sofa, desperately wishing Cal were here. She’d know what to do- or at the very least, she’d listen to him ramble about it, and that was half the battle.
“Emry?” Marley whispered from the entryway. “You want any pie?”
“Hm? Oh- no thanks, Mar.”
She noticed him handling his knee gingerly.
“Willow bark tea?”
“…Yes, please.”
She made to leave, then turned back, rushed in, and gave him a hug.
“I’m really glad you’re here,” she murmured. He squeezed her shoulders.
“Me too.”
As she left, she tossed one last thought over her shoulder.
“Hey, I need to go to the post office tomorrow. You have any letters you want me to send?”
Emry swore as he recalled Cal’s letter.
“Yes, um- I’ll write it tonight and get it to you tomorrow, if that’s all right?”
She nodded and padded down the hall. Emry forced himself to stand so he could retrieve the ignored missive from the side table. He re-read it, then laughed to himself.
Even miles away, Cal knew what to do. She always knew what to do.
He dashed out a response, paused, then scribbled out the last few sentences before he could think about them too hard.
Haven’t forgotten about Aspen’s birthday. You’re brilliant as always, love. A lute for Aspen is a great idea.
