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Young Writers Society


18+ Language Violence Mature Content

Delta - 18.1

by Brigadier


Warning: This work has been rated 18+ for language, violence, and mature content.

January 3, 3588 – 1:30 pm – remembering the past while falling into the future

Harry didn’t have any amount of real business in mind. Instead she had just taken Cara up to the last spot they had stood in as children and thought about how different Tanis beings were. Others out in the Nerot sectors had the similar features that most of their civilizations had. It was Harry, one of the few members of royalty, who had some of the body quirks.

“Cara, do you wish that you had other features?”

“You mean like your spines or your skin color?”

Cara was sitting in a position underneath the trees, where the sun shone down through the canopy, creating a halo effect above her. Compared to Harry’s skin that was mainly a dark purple with occasional streaks of orange, a big thanks to her father, Cara’s light red and orange complexion was different. She meant different in a good way. In the best way that it could serve. And after being raised in a kingdom where the most obtuse color one might find upon a person was a white lavender, different always meant good. Cara’s sort of different features had come from her father’s kingdom.

“You know, you remind me very much of my father. Maybe it’s just because you came from his lands or you share a similar complexion, or you both love nature so much…”

“But?”

“But there’s something there that makes me very happy, no matter the way that we were brought together. No matter what bull shit prophecy made it so they thought we had to be together in the traditional sort.”

Gender is not considered by genitals.

That conversation was ten years ago.

Both of them nine or so, time had forgotten its place in Harry’s mind for an exact date but she knew she was more or less twenty. Twenty years old by all of the counts she had found within the Federation, no matter how much older she felt on some days.

“I would like to say something to you, Harry, but I still do not know what to say to make you happy. You really only have been back for one day.”

“One day. Ten years. Time no longer holds that much of a concept for me.”

A laugh came from the partner across from her, who tried to hold in their gut and not fall over in a dramatic fashion.

“Of course an immortal like you would say something like that.”

And there it was.

She was being sorted back in with the rest of them in their tall mountain castles, never again for a moment, while all the rest found their own ways to die. And they weren’t truly immortal. They would all die by the time five thousand years crossed their chests and sent them spiraling into the gates of the worlds beneath. This circle was told to every child who wished to dream of the mysterious creatures from inside the stone.

“They are immortal.”

“So now you’re just repeating a fact? Do you have no answer for me, my love?”

“My answer is that if you do not like the fact of your own short mortality, perhaps you should have moved along and married someone else.”

Harry jumped from her position on the ground and threw one of the knives near her ankle into a tree. It landed in the middle of portion of bark already stripped away, rather convenient for the new projectile. And the patterns around the clear area showed slight signs of scorch marks, driving a stake into her heart while removing the blade from the rich green and red wood. Peeling back more of the wood revealed a patch done with shoddy magic to reveal a brand underneath.

“Cara, collect the basket and the blanket, and take one of the meat knives out.”

“What? One second ago you were protesting to me remaining faithful to you and now you want me to find a case that doesn’t exist, just because you were staring at a goddamn tree?”

There was no other word for her to say, [but] “Yes.”

“Will you at least tell me what the hell is going on here?”

Harry had no answer. She didn’t dare to talk aloud if the creatures she so feared were still resting in the shadows of the woods, waiting at any moment to grab her. There were few other people on this side of this sector that might be able to recognize the brand in the tree. And this was a place that she had told those of that kind about, during one of her fits of not realizing it was best to keep her old self hidden from these current people.

“When I left the out sectors, the people there might not have exactly known that I was leaving. And I’m not the sort of person that people like to let go.”

A kiss adorned her cheek a moment later and it felt rather out of place for the conversation that had been occurring a moment before. It would have seemed better if Cara had slapped her or threatened to cut her throat. But Cara was being the person that Harry had left behind, even if they hadn’t of known what they back then. The thought of their recommended relationship kept coming back.

“Well I don’t know why they want you back but I know I don’t want to let you go.”

Harry kept looking back over their shoulders as she took everything – everyone – back down the hill. And the thought of someone loving her so dearly was a rather foreign concept. These ones wanted her back for a particular reason and it wasn’t because of a truce made between kingdoms or a night of passionate love making. It was for what Harry had done in the past and the potential she had in the future. In plainer words, she was a very valuable weapon.

“Why won’t you talk to me?”

The voice brought her back to the realization that they had hit the bottom of the slope where Harry’s unfortunate mode of transport was waiting. When she had set off from the castle with her very important business, a picnic basket and a blanket and a gun strapped onto the saddle, it had all seemed like a very good idea. Romantic horseback (or horse like creatures) rides in the country were a good way to find a lady, right? If she had learned anything from the westerns that had been drilled into her head in secret in back rooms, it was that her ability to find a partner was based on the style of her dress and the beast beneath her saddle.

“We’re far away enough from the danger to talk but I didn’t want them to know I was around.”

“What’s so important about your life out there? You’re home now.”

“Well Cara, you might say that I’m a bit of war criminal.”


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414 Reviews


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Reviews: 414

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Tue Feb 05, 2019 2:56 am
keystrings wrote a review...



Hello there. I've been meaning to get to this, but I guess it wasn't meant to be until now.

A few things to talk about here. Since this is a science-fiction novel, and parts of this are set in the future-past and the future-present, I'm an avid fan of learning more on how society would work in this type of place. The bits about Harry as a member of the royal family, about her being sent off to war, about her being an immortal, (!!) (albeit that makes a lot of sense thinking about how many years have passed since now to the present times) are all just really neat things to learn about and to see the effects of these societal ideas and her history.

That was some babbling going on, but to speak in clearer terms: I think Harry contrasting where she and Cara are from, the difference in their skin color, speaking about who/what they are to each other - it's fascinating for me to be able to learn more about how other worlds/planets/time-periods thought of other people or like royalty and relationships. I can get an interesting read on what this life would be like, and even compare how Harry is feeling to like other characters and in present times.

I also am excited and a little worried by the last part of this chapter - recognizing something from her "criminal" past, wanting to know who could've left something like that, feeling a little mind-blown that Cara cares so much about her - all these things tell a little of who Harry is, and it's really neat to get more of these details of her past as this story carries on.

I think this is all for now, but I do like that the reader is able to learn more about Harry, while I do feel we're being led to a faraway cliff if we ever learn about where Cara could be in the present day.




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Fri Jan 11, 2019 10:30 pm
BluesClues wrote a review...



No matter what bull shit prophecy made it so they thought we had to be together in the traditional sort.


Don't you just hate it when prophecies determine your romantic life?

There were few other people on this side of this sector that might be able to recognize the brand in the tree.


Ahhhh. I was wondering what all this was about scorch marks, etc. I actually thought Harry just got mad about that last line of dialogue prior and decided to take it out on a tree, but this makes more sense to me. I'm curious as to whether this is an old brand that's just got Harry on edge and involves more Tragic Backstory™ or if it's something that's actually Danger, Will Robinson that will more immediately affect the story. And also whether it's something that will affect only this flashback or also the present-day (well, future-day) part of the story.

Romantic horseback (or horse like creatures) rides in the country were a good way to find a lady, right?


"Or horse like creatures," nice save lol. I mean, to be honest, I love this method of dealing with inconsistencies, bad metaphors, etc. Like we could clean them up, but it's more fun to just acknowledge in-text that it doesn't quite work.

Before I move on to the next installment, I just want to say that I'm glad we finally seem to be getting into the history of Harry the War Criminal! That's something mentioned more or less in passing that I've been curious about for a while. Honestly I wasn't sure I would ever learn any specific details about it, but now it seems like I might.





I *do* like flipping tables.
— Faye Whitaker, Questionable Content