{"id":7221,"date":"2020-05-11T16:17:15","date_gmt":"2020-05-11T20:17:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/?p=7221"},"modified":"2020-05-11T16:17:15","modified_gmt":"2020-05-11T20:17:15","slug":"elderberries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/elderberries\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Elderberries?&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-13\" src=\"http:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/j-avatar-e1443983489508.png\" alt=\"by jen\" width=\"81\" height=\"81\" \/>also a valid tactic<\/li>\n<li>\u201cNo. I don\u2019t want anything to do with you.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>He and his family all do it together<\/li>\n<li>I guess I have some doppelg\u00e4ngers<\/li>\n<li>mink cufflinks<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Tune in next time part 491\u00a0<\/strong><strong>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/tune-in-next-time\/\">Click Here for Earlier Installments<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Elderberries?&#8221; I was incredulous. &#8220;You know what else is <em>also a valid tactic<\/em>? Actual medical care.&#8221; I grabbed the yeti midwife&#8217;s elbow and tried to pull her to her feet. &#8220;Come on.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;No. I don&#8217;t want anything to do with you.&#8221;<\/em> She curled her lip. &#8220;Or the ridiculous humans.&#8221; She pried my hand off her elbow with surprising strength, and handed me a plastic zipper bag full of tiny, dark purple berries. &#8220;Now fuck off and let me enjoy my coffee break, or I&#8217;ll report you to the union.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Whether she was talking about the yeti union or the ninja union, I wanted nothing to do with them. I snatched her rainbow-striped headband and hurried from the room. Tatiana was probably too distracted to notice that I was not an actual yeti midwife, and if I wore the uniform she would probably do what I told her.<\/p>\n<p>I retraced my route to the auction chamber. The bidding was at $2,000,682 and creeping higher. A small crowd had gathered around Tatiana as she labored while continuing her attempts to purchase my brother in the name of her sister. As I pushed my way through the onlookers, I overheard a number of them speculating about who had gotten her pregnant.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The star charts dictated that it be Jason,&#8221; John said. &#8220;But his twin was the best we could do.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Oh, you were there!&#8221; cried Maxine. &#8220;How auspicious!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;<em>He and his family all do it together<\/em>,&#8221; said a foppish man in a fur cape. &#8220;Espionage, I mean. Did you know that today&#8217;s prize, Jim, is a member of that family? It really is too much!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Two million seven hundred and one!&#8221; cried Tatiana. Then she spotted me in my disguise. &#8220;You look familiar,&#8221; she said suspiciously.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;<em>I guess I have some doppelg\u00e4ngers<\/em>,&#8221; I said, trying to imitate the gruff tone of the yeti. I held up my baggie of elderberries. &#8220;Let&#8217;s get you somewhere comfortable to deliver those babies.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll provide the skin contact!&#8221; cried the fur-cape man. He tossed his cape aside, revealing himself to be wearing only a mink speedo and crisp white cuffs held in place on his wrists by <em>mink cufflinks<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>bonus points for using them in order<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Stichomancy Writing Prompts\" href=\"http:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/stichomancy-writing-prompts\/\">about stichomancy writing prompts<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/stichomancy-writing-prompt-generator\/\">try our stichomancy writing prompt generator!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>also a valid tactic \u201cNo. I don\u2019t want anything to do with you.\u201d He and his family all do it together I guess I have some doppelg\u00e4ngers mink cufflinks Tune in next time part 491\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Click Here for Earlier Installments &#8220;Elderberries?&#8221; I was incredulous. &#8220;You know what else is also a valid tactic? Actual [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[319,4],"tags":[535,91,341,403,534],"class_list":["post-7221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stichomancy-prompts","category-writing-prompts","tag-birth","tag-bonus-points","tag-clothes","tag-tune-in-next-time","tag-yeti"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7221"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7225,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7221\/revisions\/7225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}