Status update, and sneak preview · 8:24am Jan 20th, 2014
Another thanks to the, what, 10 of you that actually read A Chronicle from a Time of Darkness, for your patience (Not knowing how the view counting on FiMFiction works, that is what I assume based on the story’s 77 views). I know it’s been like, three months since I updated it last, but I was preoccupied with many things (the Skitchverse, moving, a birthday, a funeral, a kind-of divorce), and I can tell you all now that I am working on it again, and that the next chapter is coming along beautifully; I only really started working on it today, and it’s already maybe a quarter finished. With luck, I may have it completely ready within a week, if not less.
To say “thanks” to those of you who actually follow this story (10, I guess), please enjoy this sneak preview from Chapter 5 of A Chronicle from a Time of Darkness:
In the Earthwalker home, a small section of the floor in one corner had been removed, and from beneath the house in a small space cleared in its foundation, a bundle had been removed and spread out under the dim light of lanterns and cook fire. Ryder and Granny Earthwalker looked at the articles with surprise and shock respective, but Winona could only look at them with a mixture of disgust and determination.
“Mama? Is that-“ Ryder began before Winona cut her off.
“Yeah, hon. It is.”
Winona shut her eyes and heaved a high, resigned sigh. “After all these years, Ah never, ever thought…” She trailed off, and her thought went unfinished, pushed to the back of her mind. “Ryder? Ma? Could th’ two o’ ya, h-help me with this? Ah, Ah gotta help Mister Nightwatch an’ everyone save th’ Empress, an’ Ah think… Ah think Ah’m gonna need this.”
Any further words were cut off when Winona felt Ryder latch onto her arm. “Mama, don’t go!” the youngest Earthwalker pleaded, tears already spilling from her eyes. “If you go, then, then something’ bad’s gonna happen, an’ Ah’m never gonna see you again! Ah jus’ know it! Don’t go, mama! Please, don’t go!”
“Oh, Ryder!” Winona yelped out. She seized her daughter in the tightest embrace she could, unable to hold back her own tears. A moment later, Granny wrapped her arms around both her own daughter and granddaughter, and for several long seconds, the three of them sat on the floor, embracing and crying, until Winona was finally able to get herself under control. “Ah know it’s scary, hon,” she said, “But sometimes, there’re things in life that we got t’ do, even when we don’t wanna. This, this is something’ Ah got t’ do. But Ah’m gonna be okay. Ah’m gonna be okay, an’ Ah’m gonna come back home t’ ya, an’ then… an’ then Ah’m gonna tell ya all th’ things Ah never did. All th’ things Ah shoulda told ya a long time ago.”
Her words seemed, at least a bit, to help Ryder calm down herself. “Ya promise?” she asked with a sniffle.
“Yes, hon. Ah promise.”
Winona hoped, and silently prayed to the spirits that resided within Taiyō-sen, that she would be able to keep that promise.
