Hello there, Lodish here with a second attempt at writing something worthwhile I won't discontinue this one I swear. The following fiction is the story of my SB Avali character Eijala and her pack during the Starbound events, with a few differences with the original game. For those unaware of what an Avali is, it is a modded race of nomadic feathered/fluffy space raptors, living in packs of usually three to five members. Packs are the core of Avali society, as they are considered like individuals would be in ours. Avalis are put into packs very young; as in, being separated from one is disastrous for an avali, causing severe mental issues, even leading to insanity in some cases. I'd really like feedback and criticism from the readers (yes, you!) as I am fairly new to writing and I aim to improve, thus why I am looking for help and advice from others. If this is bad, tell me why! Enough talking, let's get to the story proper! I hope you have a good time reading, and we'll see (maybe?) in the comments! ------------------------------------------------- What did we do wrong? ...How could this happen? How did... We were prepared... right? First the lab, now the whole colony... We should have foreseen this. We should have known better... So many are lost now. So many. They aren't dead, it's even worst than that. Even if they now wanted to die they wouldn't be able to... to die... Am I dead? No, I escaped... we managed to escape... in a ship... Nayu, Ren... and Vaune are inside. Vaune is wounded... I cried for him. I remember. And there is this kid along with us... She lost everything. She had a pack for sure. Friends. Family. Family... Now what? Nothing. Us, maybe. Strangers. Cowards. Cowards... What about the others? How are they now? Where are they?... Where are we? We landed on a planet... In a forest, I think... Because one of the thrusters died... We are stuck, right? Going to die in this lost place? Without anyone to help us?... Maybe... maybe they followed us all the way here... they may have found us already... does this means it is over? This is my fault. I should have stood and fought. This is what I've been trained for. Fighting. Not giving up. They trusted me. They trusted me when I assured them we were safe. They trusted me, and now they are condemned. While I am away from this hell. This is not fair. I should have been the one to get caught first. They should have been able to leave. This is my fault. Mine. And no one else's. And everyone will die because of me, and me alone. I don't know what to think anymore. I am lost. Please. Forgive me... Forgive... Eijala slowly emerged from her nightmare, only to find herself in a dark, silent room; she recognized the ship's cockpit. The only sound disturbing the otherwise absolute silence of the area was the rain pouring down on the hull. At first she stood motionless, her confused mind trying to recall the past events. The sorrowful events that led them to leave. Trying to remember these quickly made her sick, as she began to feel in her mouth the foul taste of blood. After touching it with her hand, she got the confirmation that it was indeed blood, most likely her own. Upon a closer look, she realized that her hands, and the board were also stained with the same purple liquid. "The holograms are still working, at least..." she thought to herself, bitter. She tapped one of them, and a few floating marks emerged from thin air, indicating the early hour and the rainy weather outside. Eijala sighed at this discovery. Having been sat for a while, the avali tried to get up from her seat. The effort caused a surge of pain all across her body, remnants of the previous battle. She grinned in pain, as her whole body felt much heavier than usual and refused to follow her moves. Eventually, she managed to stand on her feet. After finding her balance, she stepped towards the corridor, using the walls for support as she walked. The faint light coming from a door on her left immediately caught her attention. Silently, she approached the door frame and began reading the holographic display next to it. "Medical bay... of course..." Fear instilled in her mind, as she tried to erase from her head the sight of her mate Vaune, laying down unconscious in the bloodstained grass, with an horrible gash across his chest. The avali raised her head, breathed deeply, and carefully stepped into the dim room. Inside was Vaune, lying in a medical bed illuminated by a soft blue light. Next to him was Nayu, half-asleep, watching over his wounded packmate. Eijala flinched involuntarily at this sight, a tear clinging to her eye, then walked closer to Vaune. She gently caressed his head while reading the floating sigils on the side of the bed, inquiring about his state. Nayu, awoken by her presence, cleared his throat before talking, in an attempt to reassure her. "Hey. He'll be fine, Eija. Don't worry." "But he was... so..." she stuttered in response, trying to find her words. The male replied as calmly as he could, clearly seeing that she could shatter at any moment. "These were superficial wounds, no vital organs have been harmed. He just needs some rest now." "Alright, alright..." she muttered, sitting on the bed's corner. "Where is Re... Where are the others?" "I don't know, I guess they're downstairs." He continued before she could speak, "Are you sure you're alright, Eija? You seem exhausted. You should rest too--" She interrupted him. "I'm fine, I'm fine, no need to worry about me. ...What about you? How long have you been watching over Vaune?" "I am okay. And I've been here for a few hours. But don't worry, I'll take care of him as long as needed." "Glad to hear that." She stood up, and began walking over the door. "I'm going to see the others." Nayu muttered something in response, but she already was too far away to hear. After taking a few steps in the corridor, Eijala's sight quickly became blurry. She stumbled on the wall and leaned against it, silently crying, as her body began to shiver uncontrollably. "We're not fine... We're not fine at all...", she whispered between her teeth. She stood in this position for a few minutes, trying to calm down and regain control over herself. After a while, she eventually gathered herself, and walked towards the lower floor. Once she arrived downstairs, an eerie sight greeted her. Renumi had always been the one to make jokes, the light-hearted member of the pack, never missing an occasion to cheer her fellow packmates up and to lighten the mood. And there she was, sitting down on a corner of the cargo room, covering a white kid with her wings like a mother with her child. To see such a grave look on her face made Eijala uneasy, as it yet another hint of how desperate their situation was. The young kid was seemingly sleeping, laying on Renumi's side. The latter heard Eijala's soft footsteps, and slowly looked up at her. Her tired eyes met her packmate's and, even though not a single word was spoken, Eijala understood what she meant. She nodded her head, and after a last, sad look at the asleep kid, left the room. Eijala headed straight to the cockpit. On her way back, she had another flashback of the attack, how Renumi called her while she was on a hunt, her frightened voice as she yelled at her to come back. Her surprise, when she arrived at the colony, at the death and destruction caused by the renegades. Her fear, as she realized the fight was already lost. Her anger, when she saw a bandit about to kill Vaune, his feet on his chest, his gun pointed as his head. Nayu and Renumi helpless, unable to save him. The blood on her hands, as she slashed his throat with her bare claws. Their race to a ship that was miraculously still intact. The hiding kid they found on their way. Their escape, as the renegades were targeting their ship. The emergency landing on an unknown planet. "How could this happen to us...?", she whispered. Once she arrived, she sat down onto the pilot's chair, the very one where she had awoken. She buried her head in her arms and began quietly weeping once more, the rain's sound being her only company as she slowly drifted into sleep. The avali leaped from the branch she was standing on, and nimbly landed onto the grass below. She groaned in spite, as her hunt was still unsuccessful despite her best efforts. It had been two days since they landed on this unknown planet. The pack had agreed to let her hunt for food, since she used to hunt regularly in their former colony. The rest of them were engineers, and decided to stay and try to repair the ship, damaged during their escape. Eijala, Nayu and Renumi spent all of yesterday on examining their ship and setting up a tent outside; while Vaune and the young kid, whose name was Mayra, were resting, sheltered in the ship. Therefore, their survival rations were wearing thin, and it fell on her to ensure their survival on this foreign place. Eijala left the camp hours ago, but she still couldn't find any prey large enough to be worth hunting. "Two rabbits aren't enough to feed a pack. Clearly not..." She looked up to the sky, checking the star's position to loosely determine the current hour. "Around noon...more or less. Yeah, I still have some time." She took her makeshift spear laying on the ground, and moved on. The wind blowing through the leafy trees and the wildlife's sounds accompanied her in her long walk, as she scouted the woods in hope of finding prey. Finally, after an hour of wandering through the forest, her ears twitched as she heard a rustling in the distance, seemingly approaching. Led by her hunter reflexes, she hid behind a broken tree trunk, taking note of her surroundings and getting ready to ambush any creature who dared to show itself. After a few seconds, she lowered her weapon and looked in the direction of the sounds, which immobilized down the hill she was on. The source of the noise was a fight between two wild animals: a tall, white quadruped beast, and a smaller creature, too far away to be recognized. The avali hid again and decided to wait for their fight to end before taking down the winner. The two animals seemed dangerous and in a situation such as theirs, she couldn't afford to take any chances. Their struggle lasted around a minute, a long minute during which Eijala was forced to listen to the screeching, gradually weakening cries of the smaller beast, as the white creature was gaining the upper hand. Although she was born a hunter, Eijala hated to inflict unnecessary suffering to her prey. She always preferred dealing a quick, painless death. Listening to this dying cry made her uneasy, and she only wished for it to end. Once the fight was over, and the beast began to feast on its foe, Eijala left her cover and silently approached her prey. Upon a closer look, she noticed the beast was very tall, about half higher than her, and entirely covered in a bloodstained white fur. The unknown creature had short rear legs, but very long and muscular arms, ended by sharp claws. "A worthy opponent", she thought, but the hunter had no time to waste with a proper fight. Once she was two meters behind the beast, too busy eating to notice her presence, she swiftly jumped on its back and plunged her spear between its scapulas. The creature let out a guttural scream and, much to her surprise, suddenly turned around, and sent her flying away. She unsuccessfully tried to catch her fall with her arms, and rolled on a few meters before standing up. The monster was staring at her with hollow, pitch black eyes; saliva drooled out of its bloody mouth. It was clearly not happy to be interrupted during its meal, and charged towards the avali without warning, the spear still housed in its back. Eijala barely had the time to dodge the attack, still stunned from her fall. By the time the enraged beast stopped and turned back, she gathered herself and she attempted to pull out her gun. To her dismay, she realized that the pistol she was looking for wasn't on her, as she gave it to her pack before leaving, in case something would happen to them while she was away. "Great..." she thought to herself. "How come you aren't dead yet?" She quickly revised the situation: it was too hazardous to frontally attack such a monster without a spear or a sword, her only weapon being her knife. As she tried to find a way to defeat this thing, a sudden, crazy idea slipped in her mind. Eijala dropped her backpack on the ground to lighten herself and unsheathed her trusty aerogel knife and held it in her left hand, waiting for the monster to attack again. As she expected, the creature charged her, while she calmly waited for the right time to strike. Once it was about to hit her, she wondered if this was a good idea. Then she did something that a wild beast couldn't expect: she ran towards her opponent and jumped, using its head to propel herself in the air. The beast, confused by its opponent's action, continued its course and crashed in the grass. Once Eijala hit the ground, she ran towards her prey as fast as her legs could carry her and, in one swift jump, landed on the beast's back, clinging to its neck and avoiding impaling herself on the her spear. As the monster realized it was not the predator anymore, but rather the prey, it began to struggle, trying to make the avali fall. Alas, this was too late, as Eijala stabbed the panicked creature to the throat. She then jumped down, and stabbed the monster under the jaw to finish it. The white beast fell down and, after a last breath accompanied with a faint whimper, ceased to live. The hunter, standing a few steps away from the corpse, let her knife forge a fresher blade to replace the worn one before putting it back in its sheath. "Not a moment too soon..." she thought, looking at the dead monster. Eijala went to recover her backpack, glad to see it hasn't suffered from the fight, then walked back to the beast. "And how am I going to take you to the camp, now?" ... Eijala was in a grassy plain, illuminated by the warm, orange light of the sunset. She could see in the distance the banner they hanged to their tent, floating in the wind. The avali was walking at a slow pace, large chunks of meat hanging to her backpack, her eyes closed, breathing the fresh air of the late evening. It has been difficult for her to withstand her feelings since the past events. However, hunting allowed her to clear her mind and forget her problems for a while. In other words, she finally felt good, for the first time since the attack. Now that she was clear-headed, their whole situation seemed much less desperate now. Her pack would leave this planet, and they would take down these pirates. "Not now... Not yet. But they won't get away with that." she thought, raising her head and staring at the sky. "No matter how long will I have to chase you among the stars... For the ones we lost... I will find you." she said aloud, sealing her promise under the attentive ears of the sky. Once Eijala reached their camp, to her pleasant surprise, she saw her mate Vaune safe and sound, napping on a chair next to the tent. She promptly ran towards him, setting aside her backpack onto a nearby table, and hugged her wounded packmate. Without a word, the male began to caress her naked arm. "Hey." he simply said. "Hey?" she replied, a hint of disquiet in her voice. "Is that the only word that comes to your mind, Vaune? I haven't heard a single word from you since the attack, and this is all you can tell me?" "I'm happy to see you too, sweetie." Vaune whispered. Eijala paused, realizing how exaggerated her reaction was. "Sorry. I got carried away." she said, relieved to hear her mate's voice again. She smiled, as she pressed her head against his neck. "So, how was your hunt?", he kindly asked. "Fairly well. I wandered for a while searching an animal big enough for us, but once I found one the fight went quick. I almost died, but that's nothing, because it died before me." she answered on a playful tone. "What about you, how do you feel?" "Bad. My whole body hurts, and I am completely exhausted. I tried to eat something, but it didn't help... Not to mention my incapacity to think in a coherent way. I keep having nightmares... even when I am awake." "We all had nightmares, Vaune." she replied in a warm tone. "But we'll get out of this mess. I swear we'll make it out of this place. I mean it." "You know we'll never have a normal life after what we've been through, right?" Eijala sighed. "I know that already. But we'll try to have a life, at the very least." She paused. "Have you seen that kid? I'm pretty sure I saw her with a pack, back at the colony. Now where are they? They're dead. Or worse. She is alone, and she is too old to integrate a new pack. She lost everything, Vaune. Everything. What can we do for her, other than bringing her to a safe place and let her start a new life from the beginning?" "About her." He waited for a few seconds before speaking again. "She was right next to me when I woke up, so we talked a bit before I went to meet Ren and Nayu. She told me how did we ended up there, taking a ship and all. But she also told me how you saved her, and how Ren took care of her. She was very calm and kind with me, but she couldn't hide her distress. Eija, what I mean is that we are the only people she has now. We can't leave her alone, even if we somehow find a safe place to live." "Do you mean we should..." she tried to ask, unsure about his intentions. "I talked about this with the others, and Ren confirmed what I was thinking. She is young, lost in a cold universe, and could break at any moment. This kid needs our support, our presence. So... we've decided to welcome her in our pack. We are only waiting for your approval now." Eijala raised her head, and seemed to think for a couple seconds. She then replied; "Then you have it. You guys are right, we cannot abandon her. When will we tell her?" "During tonight's dinner, I guess. We should wait to be all together before telling her." "Alright, works for me." she replied as she stood. "Oh, and where are Nayu and Ren?" "They're busy trying to repair the ship, I think it would be better to leave them be." "You're right." She looked at the sun, slowly disappearing behind the mountains. "Night will fall soon, I'm going to prepare the meal. It won't be as good as if Ren made it, but at least we won't starve during the night." "See you later, sweetie." he said in response. Once Eijala vanished behind the tent's cloth door, Vaune, exhausted, let himself fall into sleep again. The clear sky gave way to the two moons orbiting the planet, offering a beautiful sight to whoever was still awake to see it. Night fallen, and the camp was only illuminated by the warm light of the lit campfire. Nayu wasn't there, as he went back to the ship after their meal. Mayra was sleeping, cradled in Renumi's arms, asleep as well. Next to them, Vaune was curled in his cushion, his eyes closed. Eijala couldn't tell whether he was sleeping or not, but she didn't want to disturb him in any way, given the trauma he suffered. As for her, she was lying on the ground, using her crossed arms as a pillow, and looking at the starry sky. She had been in this position for a while now, and she had been thinking. Thinking about her life, about the history of her pack, about all the events that had eventually led them to this place. Years ago, back in their home colony, a kid distinguished herself from the others, a kid who was raised by her father alone; the mother died protecting the pair from pirates. And this kid was none other than herself, Eijala. She learned to think and reason as an adult early on in life. Unlike her siblings, she was all too aware of the dangers of the universe. Her mature mind obtained her a deep respect from the other youth, and especially from her packmates, who quickly made her the big sister of the pack. Although she never wanted to admit it, this role suited her quite well, as she couldn't help but look after her dear ones. Along with her was Vaune, a fairly quiet person, content with being with the group and listening to them while minding his own business. He was closest towards Eijala, and the two became fast friends, deeply caring about eachother. On the other hand, Renumi was the extrovert of the group: she was never afraid to speak her mind about anything, even if it meant she got into trouble afterwards. She joked around a lot, but she was serious when it came down to it. Her fantastic cooking made her famous in the colony, and the rest of the pack was welcome to have her. And last, but not least, Nayu. He was a hard worker, but he always found time for fun with the others. He and Renumi had a yin-yang kind of relationship: he would pull her out of feisty arguments, and she would make sure he wasn't stone-cold serious all of the time. Together, they formed a pack known under the Wyman name. The carefree years didn't last. Work prevented the pack from seeing each other as much as they wanted. While the others wanted to go into engineering, Eijala pursued the career of a soldier, so she could protect them. After days of talk, they finally agreed on letting her follow her own path, acknowledging the difficulty it would represent for a lone avali such as her. During the following years, she had to learn to live without her packmates, as they could be together only for a short time each day. This was truly painful for her the first days, to not feel the presence of those she lived her entire live with, but she eventually got used to it. Still, needless to say they were more than relieved when they were finally reunited, now finished with their respective studies. After that, the pack decided to fly to the stars, and to settle in another colony. They found a small one, far away from their home planet; a newly founded avali colony destined to open up the frontier, and hiring too. "We thought that was a good opportunity..." she whispered in the silence of the night, tears gathering in her eyes. After living a few months in their new home, they managed to make some friends, and a reputation amongst the other colonists. Life was as good as it could be until, one day, Eijala got called on a special mission. A remote laboratory had lost contact with the colony, and her superiors had decided that she would lead a team to investigate the area. Before her team landed, she had already guessed what had happened. A few steps outside were enough to confirm her thoughts: the laboratory had been raided. After a quick search, she informed her superiors of the raid, and that there were no survivors. Knowing that the truth would be revealed eventually, the military decided to spread the word themselves. The broadcast was simple, but poignant: the colony was not safe anymore. Security measures will be reinforced. Eijala held her head in her hands as she wept. "How foolish we were, to think that would be enou--" A crack of a branch dragged her out of her thoughts. She swiftly rose to her feet, her knife gripped tightly in her hand. She loosened her grip when she recognized who it was: Nayu. "Oh, it's you... I... I was..." she stuttered, then dropped her knife in the grass and sat down, hiding her face in her hands. "I was thinking about... Sorry I scared you..." Her eyes were tearful. Nayu stepped closer and sat next to her, putting his hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry about it. You of all people would know that I would have done the same if I were you." Eijala sighed, "Yeah, I guess you're right. You surprised me, I was thinking..." "What about?" he asked as he crossed his arms. "Reminding how we ended up here... I try not to think about it, but..." She grinned, a sad grin that her packmate couldn't see in the darkness of the night. "It always flashes back at the worst moments, doesn't it?" "Don't worry about this." he replied. "Say, that was pretty fun earlier, right?" She knew he was talking about Mayra integrating their pack, and how they celebrated the event. Probably an attempt to cheer her up. "Heh, it was. Hard to have happy moments these days..." she answered. "We did a good thing. She is not alone anymore. She has a family now. A pack." "Yeah, a pack..." she whispered, lost again in her thoughts. They stayed there for a minute without a word, simply sitting, feeling the warm and soothing presence of eachother. Then, hesitantly, Nayu began speaking again. "Eija, I have... something to tell you." Another pause, then: "I... I know it may be inappropriate of me to tell you this now, but... there might not be a good time to say it." Noticing he had paused, the female raised her head, and her eyes his, keeping herself silent. Unsure of himself, he resumed. "I didn't wanted to tell you think sooner, because I didn't wanted to ruin the fun earlier but... Ren and I realized that... well..." Nayu paused again, and took a deep breath before continuing. "We can't repair the ship's thruster. We don't have the sufficient materials, and I... we have no idea of where to find these..." "Does this means we are stuck in here, for now?" she asked in a surprisingly neutral tone. "Yes, we are", he finally breathed out. Eijala didn't answered immediately, as she was now staring at one of the two moons shining in the pitch black sky. "Listen," she said, with a calm voice. "We welcomed a new avali in our pack. A young kid, who has yet to recover from her losses. Vaune is still wounded. And the rest of us need a break as well, after all that happened. Even if we could fire the ship tomorrow, we wouldn't be ready to go yet." She turned towards him. "We will find a solution together but, for now, we only need a break. All of us, Nayu. We need to live normally for a few days before trying to do anything. Trust me." Nayu looked away from her. "You're probably right..." He stood up, and started off towards Renumi. "I'm going to sleep. Good night, Eija." "Good night," she replied, lying down again and looking at the sky, her gaze lost in the stars. Everything was dormant and still, the air was quiet once again. Then, as she went to sleep next to the dying embers of the fire, she considered her day. The hunt, the welcoming, the ceremony, the laughter. Her waking nightmares of the colony. And now, the conversation with Nayu. All in all, she had no regrets. And with that final thought, she drifted to sleep. Mayra slowly stirred from her restless sleep, her eyes adjusting to the ambient light. She rose and stretched her limbs, which still felt numbed by her long slumber. The rest of the pack was behind her, sleeping soundly. The only one who wasn’t with the camp was Eijala, which was becoming more and more typical every day. She guessed she had already gone on her hunt, since the sun had risen already. If she knew Eijala, she wouldn’t be back until the sun started setting. She grabbed her coat and headed outside, hoping to see Eijala at work. In the morning fog, she spotted a figure in a jacket, sitting on an old log. On closer inspection, she recognized it was Eijala. She quickly gave her a smile and a wave, which she half-heartedly returned. "Hey!" Mayra said as she jogged towards her. "Where are you headed today?" Eijala pointed towards the sun, beyond the horizon. "Never been over there, so that’s where I’m headed.” “For food?” Mayra scoffed. “It’s ridiculous to go that far for it.” The elder Avali shook her head. “We have enough food to last awhile, so it’s purely for exploration.” She turned her head back towards the growing sun. “Who knows what I’ll find over there?" “Hmph,” was all she got for a response. After that, they remained silent for a bit, appreciating the heat of the campfire. "Hey," Eijala continued, "did you slept well tonight? You usually aren’t up this early. What kept you up?" Eijala knew that Mayra had nightmares, but she wanted to see if something else had left her awake at nights. "Nothing kept me up." Mayra replied. "Actually, this is the first time in a while I’ve gotten a good night’s sleep.” "That's good to hear.” she said as she wearily stood up. "I’ll be heading out soon, and you should be heading back to your tent. It’s too early to be up for someone your age!” “That,” Mayra said as she yawned, “sounds like a good idea. See you later!" she said, before heading back to the tent. Eijala watched her jog back towards her tent. For all of the things she had gone through, she was holding up far beyond her expectations. The hunter packed the rest of her gear, and set off towards the sun. ... Eijala noticed something very peculiar about the place beyond the sun: a distinct lack of noise. During her entire trek, she hadn’t heard any chirps of birds, or scuttles of squirrels. Not even the buzz of an insect could be heard in the mossy ground of the forest she was in. Despite the lack of sound, the Avali had an overbearing sense that she was being watched by something, or someone. Tightening her grip on her knife, she forged onward in her forage for adventure. Much to her surprise, she came across a first sign of civilization; a rotting tree, laying in front of her current path. The log itself could barely be recognized as such, if not for the cross etched deep into the rich pine in front of her. Examining it closer, Eijala could tell that the cross had been cut recently, the wood still fresh from ripping and tearing. A phrase captioned the otherwise plain cross, but it wasn’t in any language she knew. She made a crude sketch of the cross and it’s phrase in her old notebook, then decided to move on. After a few minutes, she stumbled across a similar etching, this one a little more faded than the one she had encountered earlier. The phrase here was different, and an arrow had replaced the cross. Despite her logical thinking, curiosity got the best of her, and she followed the crude instruction given by the even cruder sketch. A few more logs (and a lot of trips and falls) later, Eijala finally made it to what looked like the largest bush she had seen in her life. The plant had twisted itself in and out of the numerous trees, intertwining and forming a barrier she knew she couldn’t cross. She was about to turn back when she spotted a hard-to-notice clearing near the bottom of the brush. It looked like the vines and thorns around that particular area had been cut, leaving enough room for a crawl space for one person. Now this caught her interest; someone had clearly had to go here before her, given the cross, the arrows, and now the clearing. Getting down onto all fours, Eijala shuffled into the small space given to her. After crawling out (and brushing off the many pins and needles that had irritated her during the crawl), she opened her eyes to something she thought she would never see again. A ship. Covered in vines and various plants, but still in one piece. A ship, the size of a big tent, in the middle of nowhere. Eijala was stunned by this discovery. She promptly forgot about any and all danger in the area, for all she could think of now was hope. The hope of leaving the planet, the hope of finding a decent place to live. The hope of taking revenge on these pirates, those who had wronged them and forced them down to this planet. The whole experience was just breathtaking, unbelievable. A miracle that she never would have expected, a dream come true. But her eyes did not deceive her; it really was, in fact, a ship. Whether it still worked was still up in the air. It took her a while to gather herself, but once she cleared her head, her survival instincts took the upper hand again. She took a tour around the ship, checking its state and seeking for an entrance. The ship was clearly not of Avali design. Upon closer inspection, she noticed the metal hull was patched in several places. On a side of the burnt and scratched hull were faded, white letters, forming the logo U.S.C.M. Eijala was aware of the other races living in the universe, but she didn't know enough about foreign cultures to recognize who or what this ship belonged to. She did find an entrance, but the overgrowth had made the doorway impassable. Despite her curiosity, she figured it was wiser to come back with her pack than to hack away at plants for hours on end. After making the pathway back a bit clearer, she started her long hike towards the campsite. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ By the time Eijala finally got back to the campsite, she was completely exhausted; she could barely shuffle towards her tent. Just as she was about to get in, she heard noises of laughter. With a moan and a groan, the Avali slowly backed to see the rest of her pack behind the ship. Just like she thought. Everyone was chattering away in the grass, brightly lit and warmed by the sunset. The older ones, Nayu and Ren, were tucked against metal crates and speaking in hushed tones, while the younger ones danced and sang together. Eijala was surprised to see Vaune, her mate, laughing and playing with Mayra. His leg seemed to have healed, and he danced and enjoyed himself, bringing a weary smile to her face. She didn't want to disturb this wonderful moment; her discovery could wait. --- Post updated --- First chapter is here! Hope you have a good time reading ^o^ Big thanks to @Ponamis , who had the infinite patience to read and correct my mistakes
After only a century and two weekends, the third chapter is finally here! School is getting in the way of everything nowadays... HUGE thanks to @Combozone , who helped me much more than expected ^o^ (I'll finish my story before you do yours )
A month and a half... oh well... The fourth chapter is *finally* here! All of my thanks to @Combozone , who had yet again the patience to turn my writing into something readable; I can't thank you enough. I hope, dear readers, that you will enjoy this chapter as much as I did when I wrote it ^.^ And we'll see again in... well... quite a while actually. Writing in the school bus is litterally the only option I have, and it's clearly not the best place for this... Anyway have fun reading and, why not, leave a comment to tell me what you think, and what could be improved!
I wish I had noticed this earlier, I really like what you've got going on here and I can't think of any major complaints, only a few nit-picky things. Great work!
I will stop updating this story. I've been trying for a while to get back on this... and I failed every single time. My lack of vocabulary, my writing conditions, the little amount of time I have, all of this drained my motivation, to the point where it isn't fun to write anymore. Furthermore, this has become a source of stress. Seeing how time flies between two chapters, seeing how I couldn't do anything without proofreaders to help me, made me think that I should just abandon it. I've been thinking about it for the last few days, and came to the conclusion that it would be better to just it give up. I know I won't have the strength to continue it. As in, I'd like to thank every single person who helped me. What little text I wrote may not seem huge, but to me it definitely is. And I couldn't have done that without you I'd like to thank every person who read, and enjoyed my story. It means a lot to me Now, don't think this story is over. Far from it. It is all written in my head, and I like these characters too much to let them fade away. I had... another idea running in my head for a while now. We will see how it goes... Stay tuned
Oh, boy, where to start. Uuuuuuuuh.... Well first off, thanks for remembering that this story exists, I thought everyone (myself included) forgot about it >w< And secondly, there will be something after this! Well, something that I turned over and over again in my head, so much that it now has its own universe and lore, pretty much nothing remains from the original stories, aside for the characters and a few places... Their backstory is now completely different, so the Chasing the Stars story is basically irrelevant now... And it will be a webcomic, not a written novel. Whoops, did I reveal too much?
err, not sure, I've been getting more and more bored by the hour so i have been looking for stories to read and stumbled upon this one and just commented on it, i don't mind spoilers i just like to read stories people come up with!
