End of Part 4 draft 4 ^^V

I've finished Chapter 44 of the fourth draft of Exile, which is the end of Part Four: Transfiguration. You can download it at the bottom of this page.

Ok, as I said before i had a lot of trouble naming part 4. I setteled on Transfiguration, becoming something else or more than what you are now, for a few reasons. First of all because Mal becomes a Samirreh, and learns how to use that and the Dark God to become even more than that. Also because this is the part of the story when all of the characters come to personal realizations that help them to become more than what they are, to grow stronger so that they can defeat their opposition in the end. Weasel comes to terms with her husband's death and moves on with her life. Mal finds a reason in himself to fight. And in this chapter Silmera overcomes her own inner emo and discovers that it's really her that's been the cause of all of her own unhappiness in life, and resolves to take what she can get, namely Mal, as she has finally discovered that she has feelings for him as well. The only character that hasn't had his moment of transfiguration yet is Patrick, and that comes later on during the battle.

There were a lot of changes to the last half of this chapter. There were some sontinuity issues to fix, but mostly what I added was some very deep delving into Silmera's character as she does some soul searching to find her reasons for going on in herself. Though I haven't played it up very much until now, she is suffering quite a bit, and is really trapped in a cage of her own making. She had some very deep delving into her own motives to do and I kind of just glossed over it in previous drafts. She sacrifices her life later on to save Mal's, and there was no way that she would have done that unless she found her reason to go on with life in this chapter. Before this chapter she was never exactly selfish, but she also doesn't care much about other people. Now she's resolved to be a better person, and to care more, and to take what love and happiness she can get. She's finally, after a thousand years of searching, found what she's been looking for, and she'd rather die than see someone take it from her. She needed to discover these things in herself, and this is the best place for her to do that.

anyway, this chapter is reaaaaaally long, because she has quite a bit of crap to work through in her heart, but at the end she's got real motivation for doing the things she does later on in the story. She's finally found something to hold onto, and she'd not going to let anyone take it away, even if she has to die to protect it. She'd lost her purpose in life, because what she set out to do a thousand years ago has proven completely impossible. She wanted to die because she knew no other way of life. Now she's discovered a new purpose, a new reason for living, a new reason to fight.