Maidens of the Fall, Arc 5, Parasomnia, Chapter 4
Chapter clambers over crumbling rocks, chewing on dried-out seaweed and poking at empty shells, following the retreating sea toward an ever-distant horizon.
https://hungryshedgerow.net/maidens-of-the-fall-parasomnia-5-4/
Password is: sturmaz
An epub of the chapter is also attached, as always!
Yet more arc 5! Octavia solves one set of problems, and creates several more? I guess we'll find out. And so will she. Hehehe.
As so often tends to happen, this chapter surprised me in a few different ways. Octavia took things in an unexpected direction, and so did ... certain other parties, ahem. You'll see! I can't really say much more about the chapter this week, not without spoilers. As for the rest of the arc, I think we're still mostly on-track for about 8 chapters, but there are some big possible swerves coming up (as always!) so I'm keeping my options open for things to sprout wings and fly off the rails.
And, I just want to say how much of a blast I'm having writing Maidens; 7 months into this story and I don't feel like I've lost any momentum. I'm amazed and delighted with how well this is all going, incredibly happy that readers are enjoying the story so much, and very much looking forward to the future, to where this is all going! I have such things in store!
Hope you all enjoy the chapter, dear readers! Onward for Octavia, down into the murky Nightmare deeps ...
Comments (12)
I’m not sure if I called it, or just thought about calling it, but I’m calling it now: Octavia won’t disappear from people’s memories. I imagine most magical girls are essentially nobody before being chosen, and generally transform within days, so they don’t leave that big of a footprint to be washed away. Octavia was all over the news, and has a personal connection to a magical girl and a dreamer, so I don’t think she’s going to get off that easy. Also the hinting and teasing at her magical girl name is torturous. I *need* to know what it’s going to be!
Octavia has certainly had an outsized effect on current events, both within the UK and even internationally. She's left a huge crater before even transforming the first time. According to Nerys this has never happened before, so ... perhaps she's broken some previously undetectable membrane of notability. Something odd certainly seems to be going on. Perhaps that's connected to how she doesn't know her own magical girl name yet! She's playing around with some potentials though.
It's probably just projection, because I'm a wh40k nut, but some of the descriptions of Octavia's transformation feel a lot like she just donned Astartes power armour, which is a badass yet funny image. Also, with all of her praise of the machine I can so picture some memes of her in mechanicus robes lighting incense and rubbing oil on the 3d printer while chanting to appease it's machine spirit or molesting some poor toaster lol. Also it's crazy that it's been 7 months already. I'm happy to have found this story, but also lament that I did it so quickly, so I don't have the luxury of binging two and a half million words worth of backlog. By the way, are you sure you aren't some human-machine amalgamation, fused with your writing devices, yourself? Your written word count is like a quarter of that of Stephen King's entire combined works and I don't need to mention how insane that is in just 6 or 7 years, that man was more cocaine and alcohol than flesh and blood at times.
I am also a bit of a 40k nut! A very long-time fan, at least. Octavia's armour and her very machine-focused mindset about herself are not explicitly influenced by 40k, but there's probably quite a bit of subconscious stuff going on there. 7 months! I know, right? And I know the feeling of wanting it all it once; I only wish that I could somehow write even faster! Haha, sometimes I feel like a writing machine, in a good way. I guess unlike Stephen King I don't have young children to worry about, or anything like that, though I also don't need the cocaine and alcohol, luckily for me.
I would have immediately forgotten the route winter explained. No way I remember that from hearing it once
Same! Winter is perhaps being intentionally unfair, testing Octavia's mind.
Forget saving Willow. We need to save the Zoog! Hang on little one, Octavia has you!
Saving zoogs very very important good yes zoog friend happy safe. Octavia knows what really matters in life.
7 months? Dang, time flies with a good story. Thank you.
You're so very welcome! And yes, it's strange that the story has already come so far. Very excited for more!
Time to fight a nightmare! No biggie. Will Grim/Scarlett/others rember her now that she's transformed?!
Octavia punching Nightmares into wakefulness! Good question about the others recognising Octavia; if not, she might have to untransform in front of them.