Home Away From Home

Alright, as promised this post will actually have a story in at and will hopefully (actually no, screw hopefully, it WILL) be the beginning of me updating with a little more regularity.

Anyway, following with my desire to categorise my posts and the stories within them (and to update from each category somewhat equally) the following story is an indirect continuation of Exile/Cryo, in that it contains the same character (Bryce) even though it is from the perspective of another character (Erin) and is supposed to be set well before the other portions of the story (and will probably therefore be confusing).

So at the moment you should probably take them just as experiments, as although i have the story (or more precisely the three specific arcs of the story) jotted out I still think I'm a bit away from writing full novels - plus of course if i did and then put it up it would be asking a bit much for people to read the whole thing. So for the moment it will just be excerpts and potentially various versions of the same exploits as i toy with editing etc.

Anyway without further mucking about, here is the next excerpt:

She had always liked his house. As far away from anyone and anything as a place could be, it sat small and alone on a low hill, looking out over an endless sea of shifting grass. Whenever she stayed there, which was becoming less and less these days she would spend hours just standing at the windows and watch. She would watch as the clouds drifted by, forming patterns and shapes as they came together and then broke apart again. Watch as the sea of grass broke upon the stony shore of the hill. He always joked that she was being unsociable, that she only ever came to visit for the view. In return she would turn and with a mock sincerity say something like: “Bry, of course I came to see you,” then she would give him a wicked grin “After all, you’re the only one with a key.” He would smile and then would try to convince her to tell him about what she had been doing since they saw each other last. She never told him and he never asked more than once, though she was sure that he was smart enough to have a vague idea about what she gotten herself involved in. He had know her long enough.

Tonight however had been different: it had been months since they had seen each other last and when she arrived he had been quiet and subdued. Slowly she had tried to pry him from his shell, with old jokes and shared stories from when they were children, but it hadn’t done any good. When he had finally asked the question, it was done half-heartedly, as if he already knew the answer. The very idea of this terrified her. If he somehow knew what was going on, if he even had an inkling of what was about to happen... She didn’t want to think about it.

Usually they would have stayed up late chatting and reminiscing. She would tell him the little that she could. Small personal things. If the holes in her stories bothered him he had never let on, and was seemingly more than happy to fill the void with local stories about people he knew and she had known before she had moved away. Mutual friends she no longer kept in touch with. How they had gotten married, or had children, or as he would often joke, something more stupid.

Tonight there had been no such stories, at least no new ones and he had left his meal half finished. His glass of wine half full. Complaining that he wasn’t feeling well he had gone off to bed early, leaving her alone with the windows and the view. For a long time she simply gazed out at the grass, watched it shift in the wind and then darken as the sun began to slip below the horizon. Further to the north she could just make out storm clouds starting to gather in the dying light and slowly she began to admit to herself that she was afraid.

For a long time she just stood there, wondering if it would be worth it. Wondering if she would be able to go through with it. There were a thousand things that could go wrong and not just for her, but for everybody she knew. Everybody she cared about.

A flash of lightning in the distance finally jolted her back to reality and for a moment she couldn't help but stand there and watch as the storm came to life before her eyes. Soon the clouds broke and rivulets of water began to make their way insistantly down the glass. She tried to push her fears aside, thinking to herself that seeing as she had come this far already she may as well see things through to the end. She gave a sad sigh, flicked off the lights and then went off in search of Bryce with the hope that sleep would bring her some sort of peace.


It took her a while to figure out what it was that had woken her. Bry’s arm was draped around her waist, but she had moved it there when she had come to bed and he was still sleeping as soundly as when she had found him. She brushed the hair out of his eyes and grinned at the expression of contentment on his face. Unlike her he had always been a good sleeper. He had always boasted that he never had nightmares and she had spent enough time watching him sleep when she could not that she was inclined to believe him. He always looked happy when he slept, regardless of how he had feeling when he had been awake. She smiled before slipping off to sleep.

She came awake hours later, cold and shivering, the blanket having slipped away in the night. Off in the corner, amongst the messy bundle of her clothes a green light had begun to flicker. She groaned, trying to ignore it; Bryce muttered something and shifted in his sleep. The light grew brighter. More insistent; a low whine started in her ear.
Slowly, so as not to wake him, she dragged herself out of bed, pocketed the terminal and then shut herself in the bathroom. The light clicked on with a pop as she closed the door.
“What!?”
“Damn it Erin, what the hell do you think you’re doing? Leaving like that. Pieter has completely lost his shit.”

An angry heat prickled up her spine.

“Oh come on Anne don’t give me that crap.” She could feel her voice trembling as she tried to keep it at something close to a whisper. “It took us four weeks to get here. Four weeks shut up in the rust-bucket that Pieter calls a ship. No contact with the outside. No sun. No sky.” She sighed. “Once we put down and he told us that we we're all supposed to stay on board I snapped. I couldn’t take it anymore. I just had to get away. To get out.”

On the other end she could hear Anne sigh in return. “Okay, okay Erin. You’ve made your point.” Erin got a flash of the other woman grinning “and your probably right”, she paused, “but, Pieter is in charge of this one, not me and we’ve still got a lot to do, so it’s probably best if you do come back as soon as you can.

The transmission crackled as it changed channels and Anne took on a more business like tone “Okay that would be my cue to go. Think we just got checked. I’ll see you in a bit” Her voice was beginning to fade, “and a word of advice. Probably best not to tell Pieter where you’ve been. You know how paranoid he is about people like Bryce, about people with that sort of family...” With that the com light flickered off.

It took her a while to gather herself after she again slipped the pencil thin communicator into her pocket. She wanted nothing more than to slip off back to bed and pretend that the conversation had never happened. That she could sleep safely with the knowledge that no one important knew where she was. The problem was that Anne was right. She would have to go back.

She slid the door open as quietly as possible, slipped through and moved to collect her things from the chair in the corner. Bryce’s dark eyes glinted in the darkness, silently watching her. “ So you’ve got to go huh?.” She felt her face flush and she looked away. “Yeah I do” she said, before quickly “I didn’t want to wake you”

He reached out to touch her arm. She stopped packing her bag and looked towards him. He was sitting up with a sad smile on his face. “I know.” He let his hand drop. “No chance you know when you’ll be back this way?” She tried to smile back at him. “Sorry Bry.” He sighed, but as usual seemed to accept it. “Just take care of yourself.” She nodded and then turned to go.


By the time she got outside the storm had nearly passed, leaving only a light wind and some stray drizzle in its wake. Huddled in the dark and wet the house looked different than how it had when she had arrived; smaller somehow and less dignified. In an sickeningly detached way she wondered if she would ever see the house, or Bryce again. She brushed wet hair from her eyes and thumbed the keypad on her silently waiting pod. It sprung to life beneath her hand, the small portal on the side sliding open with a hiss. She climbed aboard and felt the drive begin to cycle. The ground lurched away. Only time would tell.

A New World Next Door

I'm afraid to say that over last few months I've found that my motivation to write has been somewhat diminished, even though new ideas have still been coming thick and fast.

This seemingly has contributed to my lack of inspiration - I will start on something, it will progress for a while and then I will think of something else, something that in the moment seems somehow better and so the first story or idea will end up being put aside (aka the giant folder on my laptop where all my writing stuff ends up - many of the files within contain single sentences and half formed ideas)with the intention that it be picked up at a later date. Unfortunately most of the time this doesn't happen.

Of course it is all well and good acknowledging these issues, but it doesn't really do anything to address the problem. I do however have a number of ideas that just might.

Firstly it goes without saying that if this really what I want to do I need to stop bitching and just write; and to write and work at something long enough for me to actually get something out of it (i.e. at the moment I am far from happy with my ability to write dialogue - so I’m going to try to insert much more into stories - criticism and advice are incredibly welcome).

Secondly I think I not only need to start updating with some sort regularity (duh) I also think that I should start updating into different categories -

i.e.

-continued works - like the chunks of exile/Cryo that have featured in my last few posts-

- past works - old stories, stuff already written etc.

- random stuff, half finished, ideas etc.

- requests (I think this is important - please ask for stuff if you’re so inclined - it doesn't have to be serious, it doesn't have to be anything, just ask)

- folder work - stuff that I have put aside - might mix this with requests by putting up screenshots of the folder, or descriptions of a few at a time or something).

-----

Finally, yes I acknowledge that I have just listed almost as many categories for posts as I have published posts so far and that the request thing may not work considering that my readership sits at 2/3, but frankly I don't want this blog to die and I've gotten sick of my own excuses and sitting around doing uninteresting things, so I figured I needed to write something, even if that something was self chastisement (even though I generally hate that sort of stuff in blogs).

Anyways, that's the end of my rant and of this post (I started it because I couldn't sleep and now not sleeping has caught up with me).

There will be a story up tomorrow*

*(It's almost finished - but if I delay putting up this post until it's done, I may reconsider the contents of the post).


M