Transworld: In the Ashes of our Century (UGR) (619 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.71 on 28 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Fey (View user info) at 2007-09-04 03:55:41 EDT
Prologue
Her parents named her Purity, and they did their best to love her and raise her properly. Papa was occasionally a little heavy-handed in his attempts to teach her manners and duty, but Mama was always there with her soft voice and rough hands to soothe the hurts away.
They were a small but close knit community and Purity, a bright and friendly girl, was welcome in almost every home. She was one of only two in her generation and her cousin Chastity was a weak, asthmatic child, so Purity grew up in the company of boys. In particular her cousins Abel and his older brother Elijah.
Despite her parents' desperate and sometimes violent attempts to keep her at home with women's work, she ran wild. As a long dreamt of only child, the violent attempts weren't as violent as they could have been, and the chidings not as heartfelt as they should have been.
The village, which called itself Tayshas as a tribute to the former glory days of their beloved "state", lived a harsh existence. They'd chosen the privacy of the wooded mountain slopes over the convenience of a civilisation rebuilt, so that their values and beliefs wouldn't be questioned. Despite the rough conditions and the hard lifestyle, Tayshas was doing well. The population expanded and the standard of living had been slowly but steadily rising. It felt like the steady passage of time would continue on the same way forever.
The villagers made twice yearly trading trips to the closest outpoint of the new society, about a week's hike away, trading furs and craftsmanship for salt and other essentials that they could not garner for themselves. The men who'd gone last spring had come back muttering about rumours of unrest. Once they caught wind of this, the heads of the 12 or so households that comprised Tayshas had gathered to a meeting from which all women and children were excluded.
Abel and Elijah had eavesdropped on late night discussions between their father and Purity's and brought back alarming snippets of information about monsters and people who were allied with them. The stories spread among the children like wildfire, and for a week or so every child of Tayshas had trouble sleeping. Purity included, her nights invaded by huge, glowing eyes and razor sharp teeth.
Surprisingly, for such a practical child, she was the one who had the most trouble with the night terrors and long after the other children had allowed the excitement of being afraid to subside back into the monotonous flow of their lives, Purity lay awake waiting for the monsters to come. And in a fashion, they did. A couple of months after the rumours landed in Tayshas, the New War arrived.
___________________________________________________________________
Chapter One
Even at a distance, the weary panic surrounding the group of men hurrying toward the settlement was obvious. They were carrying something between them on a blanket and were tired enough that the burden almost dragged on the ground. Purity shrank further back into the slight cave she'd discovered long ago, set in the hillside above the path into the village. She'd been waiting for Abel to come past so she could ambush him with the goat dung she'd used her mother's second best jug to collect, as revenge for the frog in her bed a month or so ago. Purity was a patient, intelligent girl and she liked that he probably thought she'd forgotten the incident.
The newcomers were close enough now that she could see the dried blood on their clothes, and that their burden was a man. Purity had some experience with wounded men, hunting accidents and rivalries taken too far always ended up in their kitchen, with her Mama's rough hands stitching, bandaging and soothing others' hurts too. These men had fared badly in whatever fight they'd had and even though three of them were carrying the fourth all of them bore wounds of varying degrees. They had a red, white and blue patch sewn high up on their sleeve, a design that Purity had never seen before. She felt the blood drain from her face as she noticed for the first time the weapons the men carried; a knife at each hip, one short and one longer blade, and over their shoulder hung mean looking rifles.
Purity ran through the woods high above the path, running towards home and safety, afraid as she'd never been afraid. She ran from a fear she couldn't name, which she would later come to realise was her subconscious knowledge that this was the end of the idyll. She burst into the kitchen, threw her arms around her Mama's waist as she hadn't done since she was just a small girl and sobbed out her breathless story, face firmly pressed into the familiar warmth of Mama's apron.
"Purity, my girl, what is it?" Mama took hold of her shoulders and held Purity away with arms strengthened by a lifetime of washing clothes in the stream and carrying loads of firewood. Purity raised her tearstained face, "There are strange men coming. They've been fighting, Mama." Piece by piece the story strung together, and Purity watched her mother's eyes grow troubled as she spoke.
Mama, whose name was Prudence, regarded her daughter with a fleeting surprise; she was unused to seeing Purity so distraught. Prudence stroked her child's cheek gently, her mind already turning to the practical requirements of the unexpected situation." Go find your father. He'll want to gather up a few of the neighbours before meeting these men. Once you've found him, come straight back here with firewood. I'll need boiling water if I'm to treat their wounds." She knew her daughter's sense of responsibility would outweigh her curiosity eventually, and Prudence wanted to keep her close by. A formless dread had grown in her chest as she listened to Purity's description of the patch the men wore.
User Reviews
Submitted by woolfe (user info) at 2008-06-04 04:18:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by ArnieGeddon (user info) at 2007-10-01 06:12:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Dude....she's a girl.
Submitted by ArnieGeddon (user info) at 2007-10-01 04:52:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
who the fuck is bridie carter? A handsome devil-may-care man of action?
Submitted by ArnieGeddon (user info) at 2007-10-01 02:42:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
it's in my user info forrest. Not d_r's, mine.
Submitted by ArnieGeddon (user info) at 2007-10-01 02:13:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
http://www.ubersite.com/m/83698#2539922
okay that was pretty hurtful. I don't get you Fey, the animosity and the anger, the cruel barbs you probably perceive to be wit, the ubiquitous underlying racist tone of nearly each and everyone of your respones. This started out as a bit of fun and you took it too far. Jesus Fey it's just the fucking internet.
oh and regarding not having your phone number/address if you could just email it to mine that'd be very much appreciated. *bats eylashes*
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2007-09-13 18:04:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Jag alskar dig
Submitted by DirtyHarry (user info) at 2007-09-10 15:25:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Surgeon (user info) at 2007-09-05 09:32:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
procedural..
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2007-09-05 09:28:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2007-09-04 21:14:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by Empathetic (user info) at 2007-09-04 20:03:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Fuck Uniter.
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-09-04 19:45:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Submitted by rob_berg (user info) at 2007-09-04 14:01:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Look at you cranking out the multitasking fiction.
Submitted by GodChicken (user info) at 2007-09-04 11:45:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by rorrim (user info) at 2007-09-04 11:44:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
http://www.ubersite.com/m/111044#2514116
I plastered a handfull of adresses over the site...
(dnimssem.at.etisrebu.com (yes,that is really a site)
(rorrim.at.etisrebu.com)
(badfirstcontact.at.yahoo.com - The alters adress..)
I had to smile that you had not noticed that...
And concerning this post ; you don't need proofreading...
greetz!
Submitted by zwerg (user info) at 2007-09-04 11:35:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
more please
Submitted by DrogoRoch (user info) at 2007-09-04 11:19:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I think this was great Fey and would love to see more.
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2007-09-04 10:54:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm about to head to bed, so I'll review properly tomorrow.. my email address is on my posts, so if you ever want to bounce ideas off someone or just hear the borderline OCD ravings of a madwoman, feel free. I'd like to read your stuff and I don't come to Uber that often anymore.
Also, I'm really good at condensing stuff... mostly through sheer laziness... less words, less typing... I sketch rather than paint. Really incredibly lazy.
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2007-09-04 10:51:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I like where this is going.
Submitted by Zampano (user info) at 2007-09-04 10:47:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Transworld and UGR? In the same story?
My mind has been blown.
Submitted by ChaosJester (user info) at 2007-09-04 10:33:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
What orph said.
You don't post very much but when you do, you write very well.
I wish you'd write more.
Sometimes I have to force myself to just sit down and write if I want to get anything down.
I have been told that you're only twiddling your literary thimbs until the characters in your story become alive to you. Once that happens, it's just a matter of getting everything happening in your head written down before it evaporates into the ether.
This has promise, but unless you do anything with it, you're just teasing.
Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2007-09-04 08:51:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Interesting concept, combining UGR and Transworld, but not enough here to fully retain my interest. Hope to see you develop this moreso in round 3.
Submitted by orph (user info) at 2007-09-04 08:00:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
A solid start - now lets have something happen.
Submitted by ShapeShifter (user info) at 2007-09-04 06:35:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Worth reading. Points of interest in this were few and far between. You've created a setting, with no storyline, and even that is incomplete. This seemed like a string of all 19th century cliches lined up, back to back. I'd suggest completing a story first (as you said it wasn't) before posting it or at least leaving off at a suspenseful segue way. Worth reading.
Submitted by EmissionImpossible (user info) at 2007-09-04 04:31:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Moody yank below.
Submitted by HurtByTheSun (user info) at 2007-09-04 04:30:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I am not American.
Fuck Sweden.
x
Submitted by EmissionImpossible (user info) at 2007-09-04 04:02:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Beautifully written, lovely flow to the story which makes it very easy to read.
It is a dick tease and I was suprised to see the chapter so short but It didnt really matter due to the prologue.
You are a rebel Fey combining the two but it should work well. Do continue, like to see Purity developed as well.
Submitted by Fey (user info) at 2007-09-04 03:57:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
So um, yeah.
It's not finished. Sorry about the dicktease. Is it worth continuing?
In the Ashes of our Century is obviously supposed to be about the fall of the human era. There will be transpeople eventually, promise.
I combined Transworld and UGR. Does that get me in trouble?
GAH.