Maidens of the Fall, Arc 7, Front Toward Enemy, Chapter 1
Chapter warms frozen hands in winter deep, muffled and muzzled and wrapped in wool, plodding through feet of snow toward the ever-distant flame.
https://hungryshedgerow.net/maidens-of-the-fall-front-toward-enemy-7-1/
Password is: candlelight
An epub version of the chapter is also attached, as always!
Arc 7 opens with the single longest chapter of Maidens thus far; this one is a real beast, clocking in at over 12k words, which is, uh, actually a little too much! No joke, this one was an actively difficult chapter to edit, in a way no chapter of the story has been so far. Why? Because it's not only the opening of an arc, it's the opening of the whole next narrative ... movement? Book? Series? I'm not even sure what words to use to describe how I'm structuring Maidens. Arcs 1-3 were the intro, and 4-6 was the first motion, and 7-??? will be the second! I guess we're edging into the beginning of the middle, so to speak!
I don't expect subsequent chapters will be quite this long. This one just really needed it for rather unique reasons, since I was doing some ... experiments! Hehehehe! You'll see. As for the arc itself, I'm planning for arc 7 to be a similar size to arc 6, but it might actually be a little longer. We'll see how it goes. As ever, I aim to be flexible!
And I hope you enjoy this one, dear readers! I hope you enjoy it just as much as I enjoyed writing it!
And and and, this week we have some more fanart from over on the discord server! 'Not A Homosexual' depicts the moment back in arc 4 when Octavia was so very insistent about her sexuality, despite the clear evidence right there on her laptop screen, as Grimgrave pointed out with such blunt enthusiasm. 'Girlcock' is from a few chapters later, of Octavia in the graveyard with Grimmy's special present; and no, despite the title of the piece, it is not NSFW! It's not what it sounds like! Blame Grimmy! Both of these pieces are by Alyssa, who has been drawing a bunch of fanart for Katalepsis as well. Thank you so much! It's a delight to see!
Comments (12)
she's doing her best. Scarlet is so cute in puppy mode <3 still not as cute as the zoogs tho dgsjjsiahd i love them
She is doing her best!!! She is trying! She'll get there eventually. Scarlet is very cute in puppy-mode, this is true. If only she could stay there more often. But the cuteness of zoogs cannot be beaten, of course!
I wanted to post something about how much of a disaster Octavia is being, but human words do not suffice. I lost 1d3 SAN just reading about it.
Octavia has discovered an entirely new and previously unexplored kind of disaster lesbian. She is driving herself (and everyone else) up the wall.
“Awww, but tits!” and "Hug-slut" are my favorite Grimmy lines this chapter! I need to start keeping a running list haha. "Grimmy and Scarlet, meeting face to face? I’m not ready for that, not sure I’ll ever be ready." Oh, you better get ready for it Octavia! Also, I'm imaging the part at the end out of context. Octavia clearly building herself up for some grand reveal and then, after all this tension, saying that her and Scarlet watched some anime together is pretty hilarious! Just like, I...I'm sorry Grimmy... I'm a weeb!
Hehehe, thank you! She surprised me with those lines too, they came out of nowhere. I'm noticing that a lot with Grimmy, she's very good at surprising me during the drafting process, and I always just roll with whatever she does! Octavia needs to have a detailed and comprehensive plan for how to handle Grimmy and Scarlet meeting, because it's bound to happen sooner or later! Hahahaha, Octavia revealing she's a weeb! Well, it does mean quite a lot to watch anime together with another girl, right???
Octavia is being such a useless lesbian, and I love it. And I hate it. And it's driving me crazy. I can't stop smiling and I just want to throw a zoog at her and scream, "Just do it already!"
Octavia has accepted that she loves women, and has instantly become maximum useless lesbian when it comes to Grimgrave. She is infuriating, yes! Perhaps the zoogs can get together and tease her hard enough to break this pattern.
Also these bits are so heartfelt and big and ahhhh 🥰 gay gay gay SE: you’re so fucking beautiful it hurts [01:44:41] SE: the reality of you is more beautiful than my poor rendition can capture SE: i mean i can’t capture it in art. i’m not sure it’s even possible. you look like a blossoming flower made of black steel. it is one of the most beautiful things i have ever seen. i wish I could animate it, but i fear i would need an entire animation studio to do it justice.
Scarlet is being surprisingly open about the depth of her feelings for Octavia, even if she can't sum it up with a single word. She probably could not have said this so directly face-to-face!
Awww damn! We back on the moon baby! That Scarlet convo was so sweet, and amazing and terrible all at once. Scarlet realllllly fucking like Octavia, and vica versa. I suspect Scarlet was alluding the new norm being working alongside some lucid dreamers? At a guess, since it's clearly something that would hurt Octavia and she wants her to know she is not at all ok with it. Very glad she's at least semi-ok, though I don't trust her to be reporting everything going to her, I suspect she's downplaying some parts. Also the barking and good girls sprinkled in 🥹🥰 sweet as heck between these two, reaffirming their connection. The absolute sweetest was the art and the selfies though, that was straight up intimate. Mmm mentioning Willow seems to have hurt Scarlet. Octavia seems pretty stuck! She's still got a problem of hating on herself a bunch here, loooots of self hate going around, she's improved but damn it's still strong. And of course, worry for Scarlet, and guilt with Grimmy. Speaking of Grimmy, what a fucking ray of sunshine and care she is as always, wrapped in a crass absurd package with a healthy dose of cute sprinkled all over her. Occy!! You can talk to Grimmy, and you know that, and it scares you. I don't think it's even the vulnerability you're scared of with Grimmy, it's the trust you see from her, the acceptance that you don't know what to do with. I really love seeing Octavia and Grimgrave together 🥰 and I do hope Octavia can be warm up to their dynamic more. Also that hug was a big step for Occy, super proud of her for that! She's doing well, just takes time and there's a loooot to work through, but you're doing well Octavia 🥰 Bright being missing is curious, I wonder if she's been around the manor with Scarlet, and if so, I wonder what's been going through both of their minds there! Signal is a busy bee as ever, she's really got a gold mine if analysis after this whole sequence, lots of goodies to sort through! Ummm, Nerys? You ok? Or just busy? 🙏 Hoping you're ok As always, I'm ridiculously excited for the next chapter!
Back to the moon! Hooray! I'm really glad you enjoyed the secret text conversation between Scarlet and Octavia! That part felt really experimental and fun to write, really different to even how I handled it before. And you're right, they have a very odd and close bond now. Scarlet's not telling everything, and she seems to be jumping to some worrying conclusions about Octavia and Willow too. Octavia is freer than before, but she's hung up on guilt and self-judgement and all sorts of messy stuff about her sexuality and Grimgrave and so on. Grimmy! It was a delight to get Grimmy back on the page, it's made me really happy to write her front and center once again, she's just so much fun. And thank you! She and Octavia really do bounce off each other in rather a unique way. I suspect we're going to be exploring that a lot more over the course of the story. Probably very soon! Bright is mysterious, perhaps she's up to something she shouldn't be doing ... Signal is certainly in her element for now! As for Nerys, well, the gods are difficult to comprehend, even for magical girls. And thank you again! I'm excited for the next chapter too!