Weekend Writing Warriors, War’s End

Back to War’s End, and Madame Irela, who’s just volunteered to feed Michelle until Coralie has milk for her, is speaking. I’m entering this in Cambridge, but should be home (if exhausted) by the time it goes live.

“You concentrate on keeping us alive, at least until you have milk for her again.”

Coralie hesitated, but Michelle had no objections, and Madame Irela clearly knew what she was doing. “All right,” Coralie said once she was convinced that Michelle was as satisfied as she was going to be. “We need to know what we have — let’s check the emergency kit first — and discuss whether we’re going to stay here, look for a better place, or try to find help.”

“I’d say here or within a few hours walk, if we can,” Kelty said as he laid out the contents of the emergency kit. “Michelle would have brought us to some place that felt safe to her. Any ‘help’ we could find on Rakal would more likely than not be Maung-possessed. There may be a Confederation base somewhere on Rakal, but if so it’ll be well hidden and I have no idea of where it might be.”

So they have some idea of what to do once it’s light again.

There are lots of us offering snippets from our work today. Click the logo at the top for Weekend Writing Warriors, and the one on the bottom for the facebook page for Snippet Sunday.

Weekend Writing Warriors

It’s Sunday again, and time for Weekend Writing Warriors, a blog hop where a number of authors post up to eight sentences from our writing, published or unpublished. Click on the logo above to get to the list of authors. The one at the bottom gives a facebook page with more authors.

My snippet this week is again from War’s End, the story I’ve been giving excerpts from for some time. A group of five adult Humans, a baby and an alien have suddenly found themselves on an alien, hot, unfamiliar jungle planet. The pilot of the ship they were on, Kelty, is summarizing their abilities, and he has just asked the oldest of the group, Madam Irela, what she can do. We are in the point of view of Coralie, the mother of the baby.

“Politics and diplomacy,” the old woman sighed. “I’d probably be of most use as a baby sitter and cook, assuming we can find something safe to eat. And I still want to know what happened. I certainly was not expecting this when I agreed to represent my continent!”

“Immediate priority’s survival,” Kelty said. “Coralie, for right now I think that puts you in charge. What do we do first?”

Coralie stared at him for a minute.

The last thing Coralie was expecting was to be put in charge, though in fact she has been in acting charge for some time.

Six Sentence Sunday

Welcome, Sixers.

Here’s another bit from War’s End, though Bounce is out of sight this time, looking for the rest of the group. Ginger has just told Kelty that the sticky vines holding him have a substance that acts as an insect repellent. (Makes sense: if the vines trap animals for nutrients, they would evolve some defense against insects “stealing” their prey.) Coralie? The steps of survival are recognition, inventory, shelter, water, food, signals, and play, and being from a nomad culture, she’s well drilled in survival strategies.

To see earlier snippets of this WIP, click on “Index” above, and then on “Six Sentence Sunday.” If you want to know more about pocket herders, take a look at last Thursday.

“Glad you can use it, but get me loose,” the pilot growled.  “I’d just as soon I hadn’t found it.”

What else was in the emergency kit? Coralie wondered.  They’d need water, shelter, food ….  She looked up, now seeing that the silver spangles she’d seen earlier were bits of a cloudy sky.  This forest was warmer and wetter than anything she knew; they’d need shelter from rain.

New to Six Sentence Sunday? It’s a blog ring where authors can post six sentences from something they’ve written, ranging from shitty first draft to Pulitzer prize winner. To find other great authors click on the logo.