Each Sunday, Weekend Writing Warriors offers a selection of eight-sentence excerpts from writers in multiple genres and forms. Check out the full roster here.
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My clan-sister Martisset quietly turned down her Captain’s commission, after a private meeting with Temn yr Astok. She had it, and she turned it down.
She turned it down.
Then the family scandal: she applied to the Institute for Terraforming, Exobiology, and Archaeology and was admitted for study in archaeology. Tethys and Yuki-Iskri invited the entire patronage to a party to celebrate that, and stood on either side of Martisset on the festival dais.
Temn attended, with his shadow (and patron-child) Iric Desnaray yr Astok, whom everyone else punctiliously refuses to address as one of us. From the look on Temn’s face, I wasn’t sure if he were going to challenge Tethys to a dagger-duel then and there.
Then that little boy with the very long queues ran up to the dais and proposed marriage to Martisset, which led to hearty laughter all around, except she took him very seriously, even gave him a hug and a glass of punch and let him sit at their table at the feast afterward.
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Speaker is Yasmin-3, Full Clone of the Great Shipwright (Naime). She’s the minor villain of the Ship’s Heart trilogy. Thanks to my writing comrade Lev Mirov, she’s getting her own novel. “Minor villain wreaks havoc on major villain when she discovers she’s been played; finds redemption through love of sex and fried dumplings.”
E. P. Beaumont 
I love your lavish descriptions. Beautiful excerpt!
Full of intriguing details!
Obviously she wanted something different that the clearly coveted Captain’s commission. Makes me wonder what her plans for the future are…
All highly fascinating. I can imagine other people would be really upset to see her get the captain’s commission and turn it down. All sorts of negative emotions in the bystanders! Fun little anecdote about the boy…enjoyed the excerpt.
Loads of details and description. I like that your MC let the boy sit at her table. 🙂
Martisset sounds like a rebel in a clan with stern rules and lots of hidden antipathies.
This is beautiful writing. You’ve worked so much of this world in with just a few paragraphs, and peeked my interest about the characters. I want to read more. Nicely done!
Martisset’s reaction to her marriage proposal shows a lot about her character – and the character of her family members. Great excerpt.