Novella: "Rings"

[Alicorn]

...will be up tomorrow.

I'm on a plane, and it has free wifi but blocks FTP, so I can't upload the story yet. When it goes up it'll be here. Fantasy, < 18,300 words (a little shorter than Water).

If you are a Patreon patron, go check out this patrons-only post with a link to the version the beta readers got - it's a Google doc in raw HTML, so not the most pleasant reading experience ever, but it'll get you there a day early. I charged for this post on Patreon but won't be double-charging for Rings. I think this should still work if you subscribe after the fact (i.e. now) and I won't begrudge if you then back out as soon as you have the link - I would be publishing to the world today but as long as I can only do an ugly version might as well make it a perk of sorts.

[Anya]

That was great and makes me feel things. Sad things!

[Alicorn]

Home! It's up normally now.

[cbhacking]

... Ooof. Dang, that hits. Such complicated feelings...

Also, your RSS feed has the right link, but shows the title "Sendaway". Copypasta?

[Alicorn]

Yeah, bleagh.

[Bluelantern]

That was great in a "completely twisted horrifying" kinda of way xD

[jalapeno_dude]

Well, that was horrifying.

especially this

---

"The royal family does not condone biological murder."

[DeAnno]

Does anyone think that maybe Shula knew Celia was on the fence and the entire thing with Meer was staged to guilt her into going along?

EDIT: Though through Celia's father we know Meer wasn't lying, so he wouldn't have been in on it and Shula would've been playing the game two steps ahead, letting him make his doomed attempt since it would let her rope in Celia with guilt.

[PlainDealingVillain]

Yeah, I also got the feeling that Shula was expecting Meer (or maybe someone else) to try to convince Celia to give it up.

[Alicorn]

I can't tell if people want me to confirm or deny interpretations of events.