Serial Saturday Updates and Other Adventures
You know what they say about adventures, don’t you? They make you late for dinner. At the time of this writing, it is 10 pm on a Friday night and I only just put dinner on the stove. Been a big day here at the Smomestead. Granted, my idea of a big day has changed a lot in the last ten years or so. Actually, now that I think about it, my idea of a big day hasn’t changed as much as regressed, because all the things that I now consider an ‘exciting day out’ are essentially the same things that were exciting to me when I was, like, eight or ten years old: I went grocery shopping and got an ice cream treat to enjoy on the hot ride home. After I got home, I had a little lunch (See, Mom! It doesn’t either ruin my appetite!) and baked cookies (as part of my healthy meal prepping routine for the week, which is incredibly adult of me). And after all that, just like when I was a kid, I am completely wiped out. I probably wouldn’t have bothered fixing dinner at all, except that I had to get those cookies baked, which I had to do today because I had to bake a loaf of bread anyway, which I had to do because this morning, when I was young and full of optimism, I pulled out Breadicca, my sourdough starter, and began the ritual that would transform her into bread.
She looks gorgeous, by the way. Yeah, I may not be one of those people who posts pictures of my freshly-baked bread on my blog (yet), but I’m definitely one of those people who unironically admires my loaf and wants to brag about it.
I realize this isn’t much of an adventure, but it’s quite enough for me. Used to be I dreamed of burglaring dragon hoards and fighting giant spiders. Now I dream of sitting around my cozy living room, eating cake and working on my book. The spirit is willing, as they say, but the flesh is spongy and bruised.
Anyway, enough complaining and/or humblebragging on my bread. I know I left the last chapter of my FNAF fanfic, Everything Is All Right: New Faces, Old Bones, on something of a cliffhanger, so those who have been on tenderhooks for the last few days will be happy to know there’s a new chapter. You can head on over to fanfiction.net or archiveofourown.org to check it out and decide for yourself whether things are getting better or worse.
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She was caught. She was as good as dead. It may be over, but she’d be damned if she’d grovel for him.
Blue waited, ears twitching, and finally laughed. He released her shirt, tugging it straight and brushing off shards of glass she’d picked up in her ignoble scramble across the floor. Then he took her by the throat, not crushing, not even choking, but only making sure she felt the terrible, unbreakable strength in that easy grip.
Ana didn’t flinch, but he’d startled her and without thinking, she did something even worse: She hiked her knee into his groin.
He did back off, but only to look down between his legs with an expression of astonishment that became a hearty gust of laughter. He actually slapped his thigh with the hand that was not squeezing the life out of her. “What in the chicken-fried hell was that supposed to accomplish?” he asked, still laughing.
“I don’t know,” she whispered, more embarrassed than dismayed at his reaction.
“You’re a little tense. I get it. You hurt yourself?” he asked sympathetically.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah. Well, that’s what you get for kicking and you’re lucky that’s all you get. I could snap that drumstick off and eat it if I wanted to, and next time you do something silly, I just might. I know you read the rules, I saw you do it, but let me remind you that if you don’t play nice with the Toys—” His muzzle split, showing her all his teeth. “—we don’t play nice with you. So…what do we say?”
“I’m sorry,” she rasped.
He nodded, still smiling. “And?”
“And what?” Ana’s stomach tightened. She lifted her chin, determined not to let her apprehension show, and said, “What do you want me to do, kiss it better?”
His ears snapped up. He let out a startled whoop, followed by another gust of laughter. “No! God, no! I want you to hold still! Jeez, lady, have some self-control! I don’t even know your name!” He paused pointedly, then added, “And if I don’t hear that name in the next three seconds—”
“Trinity,” she said, the first name beside her own to come to mind. It had been her stage name back at the steakhouse where she used to dance. Looking back, she didn’t know why she hadn’t just told him her actual name, except that some primal trapped-animal instinct did not want this predator to get any more of her than he already had.
One of Blue’s plastic eyebrows rose while the other slowly lowered. “Okay, technically, that’s an answer, but are you sure this is how you want to start? With a lie?”
“It’s the truth.”
He tsked, but didn’t push it. “You got a last name?”
“Bell.”
“Trinity Bell,” he repeated scornfully. “That sounds like a stripper name.”
“Tell that to my mother.”
“Maybe I will. What’s her name?”
The question was so unexpected that she nearly blurted out the truth, only to catch herself, and then silently curse because now her hesitation was screaming up the silence. “Mary,” she said, too late.
“Mary,” he drawled, stretching out the word to underline just how much sarcasm he could fit into four little letters. “See, now I’m torn. There are times when a little white lie between friends is okay, but we are not friends and this is not one of those times. When a stranger introduces herself with a fake name—and such a bad fake name to boot!—well, that tells me I will never be able to trust one word that person says, so there’s no reason to continue a conversation, is there? I should just kill you now. But on the other hand…”
He showed her Bonnie’s hand, fingers splayed wide, big enough to cover her entire face at once and just, oh, just crush it. He saw these thoughts in her eyes. His muzzle split, broadening his smile.
“On the other hand,” he said again, using that hand to smooth back the loose hairs framing her face. “I’ve been down here a long time with nothing to do except imagine what I’d do if I wasn’t alone.
