[out of story]
I kind of struggled with how to handle the climax/finish, and went with the cheap ending instead of slogging through another 30,000 or so words to get a more satisfying ending. (Well, the ending is pretty satisfactory, but there's probably 30,000 words worth I could've dragged it out to get there, anyway.)
I knew before they got to the bunker what the aftermath ending looked like, that I wasn't going to get entirely through the list (or even give everyone on it their own scene). this was probably a bit of short-change, but how many weird, violent deaths could I really come up with without it being torture porn or some form of Vore/Gorn?
so I didn't do that. The idea that 'Carmelita' would be reduced to a normal 11 year old girl with bad dreams (and 300 years separation from where she started) just felt kinda fun-we stop the monster by freeing the girl.
but it left some open holes I didn't really know how to fill in a satisfactory way, except by implying, instead of being explicit.
Which kinda raised the question of what Clan Wolf would actually do. (this kid is 300 years old, the last time someone tried to kill her their gun blew up, the people that put her into that position died horrible and ironic deaths, and she's been isolated in stasis for centuries at the bottom of a hole...what do you do with her now?)
Some fun bits I couldn't figure out how to show; which is why the ending and aftermath are so short, include details that live only in my head (and on this page, since I'm writing them down.)
Carmelita is a weapon of mass destruction, that's at least for the time being, disarmed. You might say she's a paranormal nuke, and unlike the usual tropes, I intended for the Wolf Clan leaders to figure this out fairly early (since Clanners supposedly breed for intelligence, and Wolf's been successful while others have not.)
But if armed, she's not the kind you can actually safely use, nor is she easily disposed of.
So? what do you do??
well, her physical body is still an 11 year old girl, and THAT part (aside from some language issues) is still human, and has mostly missed the last three centuries in stasis. (Watch out for the subconscious on that one though...and be wary of imaginary friends!)
My chosen outcome was to put her with a responsible adult that lacked other attachments and could be trusted not to misuse such contact. How?
Kids need parents in this setting. Whether it's a steady instructor figure for Trueborns that they grow up with, or foster parents, or actual parents, the setting I'm using implies that children have an unspoken NEED for a caring adult figure. 300 years of displacement from what she might have known, plus the extinction of her colony means lining up someone, and while the team has several members that are grown up, Arlene is an authority figure and has some experience dealing with broken homes and broken families (spend 20 years as, effectively, a cop and you would too...or you'll just go insane. either way...)
Thus, the happy ending portion taken care of, except I have difficulty writing comedy.
so basically, Arlene got a new job-mostly centered on keeping the WMD child disarmed and socializing her into something (relatively) harmless...or at least, low risk to the Clan.
I mean, what else are you going to do when you have someone who's a child, with potential for god-tier reality warping power? (Small 'g' god, like pagan gods, not big G god, like in judeo-christianity).
I'm not going to explain exactly what Carmelita is, except that a lot of what her 'alternate self' was doing was informed by the fairey stories she heard as a small child. Whether that's a direct link to an actual Fae court, a psychic manifestation of a child's imaginations mixed with techno-arcane manipulations, or ghost possession or even demonic/angelic activity, I leave to the readers.
because the characters aren't telling ME, doesn't mean they won't tell YOU.
I still haven't figured out the angle for Orcs yet. I may have to just shelve any Orky ideas until something percolates.
Wishlist for today: that someone would grab what I laid down in this, and give me their take on 'what happens next'. I really don't know what might become of Carmelita Morgan Llews when the Jihad kicks off, but it strikes me that there's probably a story there, along with what she might look like as a teenager who's had time to socialize herself into the 31st century.
