Initiation: Rebel
S1E2 | Sci-fi | Biopunk | Coming of age
Hello my fellow voyagers🖖. Initiation is a coming of age, biopunk, sci-fi mini-series in four parts. In this episode a young girl rebels against her mother.
Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3 | Episode 4
The women in the palace were strange.
Not the ones cooking in the glass summer kitchen, tending the manicured flower gardens, cleaning the ancient teak-wood palace, hanging the delicate bed linen to dry on long lines over the meadow, wet-nursing the children in the whale-themed crèche or working the fields in the nearby villages. These were sturdy women who laughed, yelled, cursed, cried and spoke their minds freely. These women hugged the children when they cried and joined games of hide-and-seek on free days.
Not the female teachers who took over her education at three, those stern women determined to teach the girls self-control in the physical and virtual worlds. Who didn’t allow the kids to mingle and punished any form of laziness and stupidity. These women celebrated the children’s unique qualities and inclinations. These women cared about her.
It was the Vesper women.
~~~
‘She bloomed!’
The first time she heard the whisper, she was walking down the main hallway, admiring the beautiful contrast of her hibiscus red dress with the pure white statuario marble statues aligned against the teak walls, the golden chandeliers hanging like ripe grapes from the ceiling, and the triangles of yellow atlantide and white carrara marble floor.
‘It’s so pretty, isn’t it?’ Amiee said.
The fabric of her hibiscus red dress glided on her skin with its viscous cuticle of polymer wax and lipids coating. Amiee ran her fingers over her skirt, feeling the tiny ridges that gave it that crepe texture and iridescent red color she had adored ever since she was a little girl and wasn’t allowed to wear until today. But her aunt raised an unsmiling eyebrow, and her cousin’s face turned violently crimson before they spun on their heels and disappeared into the library.
‘She bloomed!’
The whisper slithered from mouth to ear, echoing through the palace and slipping through open doors and windows to the villages, landing on everyone’s lips, bouncing off everyone’s eardrums. Everywhere she went with her cursed red dress, those two words followed Amiie like a foul scent.
‘She bloomed! She bloomed! She bloomed! The young mistress bloomed!’
Looming clouds were gathering in the sky when she broke down in tears, the whole world encroaching on her. She fled back to the palace in a flurry of red skirts fluttering in the wind, crimson tears flowing from her eyes, from between her legs, and from the fearful heart beating in her chest.
‘Maa, please make it stop!’
She threw herself in her mother’s arms, wailing.
‘You‘re not a child anymore,’ her mother said, releasing her from her arms into the world. A mighty thunder rattled the tall windows of the study. Amiie dried her eyes with the sleeve of her red dress then looked at the darkening sky, tense with opposite charges crashing against each other. A flash of lightning crisscrossed the sky, offering temporary relief.
She spent the days locked in her room, watching the rain splash against the windows, listening to the rumbling ocean waves pounding against the rocks. Her red dress hung on the wardrobe door like a blood stain on her white and soft pink room. At night, the cowardly moon was hiding behind the dark clouds, waxing each day, summoning her initiation ceremony closer and closer. She vowed never to leave her room again. But one day, her body stopped bleeding, the clouds took a break from pouring buckets of water into the ocean, and the guests started to arrive.
~~~
Over the following days, a curious little group of mothers and sons from the other six houses gathered at the Vesper palace. Amiie was strongly advised not to leave the women’s quarters until the official dinner party took place the day before the full moon and her initiation ceremony. Her private communication channels were shot off, including her direct connection to Alva, who was still in her oestrus cycle.
‘But I need to be in touch with Alva!’ said Amiie. ‘She needs me!’
Her mother’s detached demeanour pierced Amiie, making her lips quiver and her eyes well with tears.
‘That’s enough! We cannot risk you getting in contact with the guests before the dinner!’ said her mother.
‘Please, maa!’ said Amiie.
But no amount of pleading and crying could persuade her mother to change her mind. It was as if someone had hit a switch, and she was gone, and this stranger was standing before her now.
‘Grow up, Amiie! You bloomed. You are not a child anymore!’ said her mother.
‘Can you stop it with the stupid blooming?’ said Amiie.
‘That’s enough, young lady! Go to your room now!’ said her mother. ‘I have guests to attend to!’
‘Why do you do this to me?’ said Amiie.
‘What don’t you understand, girl? The days leading to the initiation are the most important days of your life! Must I force you to behave?’
Her mother had become cold and distant—a Vesper woman.
‘I hate you!’ said Amiie.
‘In three days, all this nonsense will stop. I’m looking forward to it!’ said her mother.
Amiie stormed out of her mother’s studio, slamming the door behind her. Blinded by her tears and anger, she almost ran into the arms of a young man standing in the hallway next to a short woman who must’ve been his mother. Amiie’s cheeks flushed as a pair of green eyes measured her head to toe. She opened her mouth to say something but felt a lump in her throat, so instead, she spun on her heels and ran away.
‘What a rude girl!’
The woman’s chastising words chased Amiie down the palace hallways to the front gate.
‘Good morning, young mistress!’ said the palace AI through the gate speaker. ‘I tried to talk to you, but your communication channels seem to be switched off.’
Amiie blinked in confusion wondering how she ended up there. The ocean rumbled under the serene blue sky just a few hundred meters away, calling. She looked at the diving equipment station next to gate.
‘I’m afraid it will be a rainy day, mistress. I don’t think it’s a good idea to go diving today,’ said the palace AI.
‘Who cares what you think?’ said Amiie, slipping into a diving skin.
‘I’m going to tell your mother!’ said the AI.
‘Do what you want!’ said Amiie.
‘Young mistress, come back at once!’ said the AI.
Amiie hesitated for a moment not knowing what to do. Then she laid her eyes on the wind pod docked on the sandy beach, as usual.
‘You are too young to be at sea alone!’ said the AI.
‘No I’m not! I have bloomed!’ said Amiie.
Pumped by the adrenaline running through her body, she walked to the wind pod and pushed it into the water. Then she jumped onto the deck and set sail. She sent a mental command to the pod’s AI to locate Alva but her request was met with silence reminding her that she was cut from the network. She switched on the pod’s navigation board, searched for the coordinates of the whale pods and pressed enter. Out in the open seas, the wind was stronger. Amiie pulled the diving skin over her head and face and glanced at the clouds gathering in the sky throwing dark shadows over the vast surface of the ocean. Will Alva find her like she always did ever since she was a little calf? Or will Alva also forsake her now that she has bloomed? Amiie hesitated for a moment then jumped into the ocean.
The familiar pull of that water made her feel at home for the first time in weeks. Everything was as she knew it. Out here in the open, the red blood stain that had turned her life upside down seemed like a distant dream. If only she could find Alva, Amiie felt like she could have her life back. She held her breath and listened. The whale singing was very faint. She swam in its direction, and she could hear it better after a while without straining or holding her breath. Then the singing grew louder and clearer like a bell, and she saw a mother whale with her calf swimming just below her. The song vibrated through her body, filling her, calming her heart. This reminded her of the first time she had seen Alva. It was a sign!
With the calf on her back, the mother whale swam up to the ocean’s surface for oxygen, and Amiie followed them. The sky had grown dark, and the tormented ocean waves twirled her slender body, sending her deep into the ocean, away from the mother-calf pair, away from the light. Her diving skin needed to refill oxygen and she desperately tried to swim up to the surface. But her limbs flailed, exhausted, too weak to fight against the ocean’s pull. The only escape was to dive deeper.
‘Alva! Alva!’ Amiie closed her eyes and time rolled back to the happy sunny days of her childhood when she would play with Alva for hours while her mother was sleeping just below the water. ‘Alva! Alva!’ She had never been able to speak to Alva like her mother did. She never had the talent.
Amiie gasped for air but her diving skin was almost depleted of oxygen. Panic sent her heart racing and he body felt weak and limp, like a kelp leaf in the water. Through the dark haze of her mind she felt the booming sound of a whale symphony orchestra vibrating through the water, the ancestral song nurturing and soothing, pulling her home to Alva. She took one last breath, felt her body lifting towards the light.
To be continued…
Initiation: Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3 | Episode 4
Author’s notes
Writing a fiction is more time consuming than writing non-fiction. This week I’ve spent over 20 hours writing the second part of Initiation. I usually finish every work of fiction before I publish it here, but this time, I want to try something new: serialized fiction.
This story is set in the same world as Welcome to gulmohur, the first short story I published on Story Voyager in March 2023. This story world is a continuation of the Dust Road universe and is set in the year 3600 CE.
Like ‘Welcome to gulmohur’, ‘Initiation’ explores the youth of a prominent character from an upcoming novel with the working title The Deep Dive which will be a sequel to my ongoing cli-fi series, There Is Hope.
I hope that you enjoyed this glimpse into the future. Once I finish my experiment in serializing Initiation, I will edit the story and publish it here. Let’s make this an exercise of writing fiction in public!
As always, thank you for being here. It means the world to me 💚.
Initiation: Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3 | Episode 4
Unlock more worlds in Story Voyager!
By upgrading to a paid subscription, you’ll gain full access to the entire archive of climate fiction series and short stories, immersing yourself deeper into the Story Voyager universe. Your support as a paid subscriber not only fuels this independent publication but also directly contributes to bringing my first book to life. Together, let’s expand the world of cli-fi—one story at a time.
Become a Story Voyager supporter today and help turn this vision into reality!
This is a very good and thrilling continuation, Claudia. Great tension at the end. You leave us desperate to know what happens!
Beautifully done