Natira's Crucible and Gift

[Vela Nanashi]

The world is similar to another of my worlds but not the same or maybe I should say a different timeline maybe, the story for that is not here yet. The star elves are my version of elves an origin of them, and this is set in my own multiverse that takes inspiration from many others like we all do, this introduces two new creatures, one just super random and the other is at the core of the story in a way and why I even wrote it, as it needed an introductory story to show up in. Though it has very little actual words dedicated to it. So when I write in this setting I know how things work, I live in this setting, and to me it is a very real place, not this world specifically though, but the multiverse itself I am glad I managed to make the characters possible to care for I often feel that is a weakness of mine.

[Claire]

I finally got around to reading the first chapter. Sorry that it took me so long. The individual parts of your story are just so long that it is difficult to squeeze one in between other things. But let's delve into the story!

Your story is a fever dream as always. The opening sex scene has the signature Vela style of being hyperfocused on even the smallest detail. But it feels different from what you usually write because the scene carries a sadness with it that overshadows your usual sex positive attitude. The inabilty for these two to have children just comes across as incredibly sad in your writing.

Then you surprised me by freeing Natira so quickly. I expected at least a large part of the novel to revolve around freeing her. Natira making such strong demands and Tara being so willing to cater to them surprised me too. Instead of making freeing Natira a major plot point, you send us on a journey with her. And that the world has been robbed of magic is a new development, right? At least, I can't remember magic being absent in any of your other stories. But I guess this is just one of many worlds or planets in your larger universe/multiverse.

So you send us on a journey through a desert. When you described the clothing and its ability to recycle water, I was immediately reminded of Dune. I did not expect to get reminded of that in a story about a star elf trying to restore magic to the world so that she can heal her lover's impotence by turning him into a woman.

One thing I disliked a bit: During the first chapter, the focus lies so strongly on Natira that I feel especially Reza gets overshadowed by her. As a reader, I feel like I've been promised early on a story that puts Tara and Reza's relationhip and their inabilty to have a child together front and center and instead I get a lot of Natira. But that impression might change as I keep reading.

And yeah, can only agree with SGH: That first part could easily have been split in three or four chapters and inceased accessibility to your story tremendously. But I know better by now than trying to convince you to do that in the future.

[Vela Nanashi]

Yeah I really do tend to want to fully fill a whole post for each post when I write stories, bad obsession I guess

Yeah this world had something extremely bad happen to it, I do not recall what part I went into that in but anti magic is anti life, it is extremely bad, and the world nearly became lifeless during the bad event.

Natira is ancient star elf, so it is expected of her to make intense demands, and she is actually shockingly nice for ancient star elf, especially given what happened to her. Also plan was to balance characters but Natira demanded from me to write more about her and she is in the title (like she sort of demanded too). Getting her out was never meant to be a huge plot point

Tara remembers how the world was before the cataclysm under Natira's rule, she used to have magic, but kind of got that stripped by it. Also yeah still suit is stolen/inspired from Dune

Reza was born after the cataclysm, but is aware of how bad things have gotten from it.

Hope you enjoy the story when you can read more

[Claire]

Yeah I really do tend to want to fully fill a whole post for each post when I write stories, bad obsession I guess

You could still have created a long post. But to give you a natural example for the first chapter to end: When ara finds Natira chained and gagged (cliffhanger ending) or after Tara agrees to get Reza for help or when Natira names her demands (another cliffhanger) or after Natira is freed. To me, all these moments are natural points in the story to end chapter 1. You wouldn't even need to rewrite much, just add an end point there and name the next section of the story chapter 2.

Natira demanded from me to write more about her and she is in the title (like she sort of demanded too).

Don't let her push you around too much.

[Vela Nanashi]

Yeah the problem with those break points, they do not occur in my brain, I am in the flow of the story, I can only stop when it is natural in the flow in my head. And I don't edit after as we know another flaw of mine. I capture and spellcheck on the fly and that is all I do then when posting I break it up into post size chunks but thank you for your ideas maybe I can learn eventually how to add fake to me divisions in the text and allow people to go to those from the index.

I happen to love my Natira character a lot, even if she is quite a bitch lol. I only follow her requests when I feel like it. In this story the only way that Reza and Tara can get any positive outcome from her is to be subservient/submissive to her, they both know that, and accept it.

[Claire]

I read part 2 now. I'm slow but I'm getting there.

The start of the chapter had a lot of surprises for me. Natira revealing hat she could easily heal Reza but chooses to go through this complicated procedure essentially because she gets a kick out off it is very on brand for her. She is an interesting character. Benevolent, kind, generous in one moment and enormously selfish and reckless the next. She has a volatility to her that in combination with her power makes her scary in my eyes. Like, she could be helping and supporting someone one moment, but wipe out their entire world in a moment of frustration as well.

The second surprise was her revealing to Reza that she's his mother. I knew that this reveal was coming at some point in the story but I didn't expect it here. I would have thought that ome major event in the story would convnce Natira to share the truth with Reza, like him doing something that truly convinces her that he's not like his father. I didn't expect her to change her mind like that after a moment of self-reflection. I'm curious to see where this will go now that Reza knows the truth. I hope for him that Natira warms up more to him. He seems like a nice guy who deserves that.

One point from chapter 1 that I can only repeat here is that Reza still feels overshadowed by the women, especially Natira.

Every time I read the word heptapod I have to think of the aliens from Arrival:

► Show Spoiler

Imagining these aliens as the desert-crossing ride-animals that purr if you give them salted meat is kind of funny.

But to get back to the story: I think a lot of the sex dances on the edge of between con and noncon. Characters agree to be part of situations and also don't regret that afterward, but while the sex is going on the dominant partner crosses lines that go into non-con territory. It's an interesting dynamic and I wonder whether this will become a problem in later parts of the story.

[Vela Nanashi]

Yeah Natira could heal Reza, but she still hates part of him, there is a lot of hurt that is not his fault, but his father's, that he is unfairly having to deal with from her.

Yeah Natira coming of scary is exactly true for her and star elves, they are terrifying, so I am glad I managed to capture that part Yeah wiping out the world and starting over would actually be easier than repairing it for her, yet still she cares what star elves would consider too much about the life on that world, her creations, at least some of them, and wanting to repair it rather than cleanse it all and start over.

As for her reveal, that surprised me too, all I can do with characters like her is see where she wants to go and document it also Natira cares about herself a lot, so self reflection is what makes sense for her to change her mind on something, or do something.

The story is not primarily focused on Reza yeah, I suppose I could have tried to write a deeper point of view from his perspective, but it was not what I was getting from the characters, Natira was demanding a whole lot of time. Also Tara was more alive to me as well, and usually nearer Natira who wanted to at least be part of things most of the time

Those heptapods are very tall compared to the ones in my head that are more flat forming a platform you can put a tent on top of but I agree I did not describe them very clearly Still funny picture to have them purr and stuff yeah

Yeah the sex is rather intense/extreme, with the safe colours you have to be clear about signals, and I may not have made it clear in this story, but blue is the only colour that demands you stop, red, green, yellow are requests, not demands, still leaving the window open for the partner to decide to continue, but they need to be careful with yellow as that can turn to blue fast if you push at that point. Though Natira is not a good character, for her species she is, star elves at least the ancient ones as their apex as a species were horrifying, not every single member of them, but they saw non star elves, even other elves that are descended from star elves, as animals and then some of them treated people as pets, while others treated you like cattle, and not all of them cared about animal welfare.

I am glad you are getting something out of reading the story thanks for your comments