TLS Special SNEAK PEEK Feature

 

The Lemonade Stand has spent so many years bringing you the best the Twilight fandom has to offer, and we are very excited to have the chance to offer you even MORE. We've watched stories grow and develop from first post through COMPLETE, and now we're lucky enough to share previews of the stories that will soon be your new addiction.

This week we are so excited to bring you an excerpt from hikingurl's new Sci-Fi/Adventure fic Daughter of Three Suns. Hikingurl is the author of fandom favorites The Protector, and La Sua Bella Mente.  

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Daughter of Three Suns
by
hikingurl

Summary: On a desert world ruled by three suns, tradition demands that a girl must journey alone into the scorching heat to find her destiny and her soulmate. It wasn’t always this way. The seers say that Bella is the one chosen to fulfill the prophecy that will restore balance to the world. But is she prepared to pay the price that will be asked of her?

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Daughter of Three Suns

Chapter One

Three suns rule our world.

Grandmother Sun was the first. It was she who gave birth to the world and everything in it. Once, she was big and powerful. Her light so strong and fierce, none could look upon her face. She moved across the skies, sweeping all before her. But she was lonely. Using her great magic, she split herself open and our world and Mother Sun tumbled out. 

Grandmother looked upon the world she had birthed. It was barren and without life. She pulled the rocks from the great sands and piled them into huge islands. She caused the water, which ran beneath the sands, to bubble up into large pools within the islands. Then she placed plants and fish in those pools. She made all the animals: those of the air, and the sand, and the rocks. When all was ready, Grandmother Sun made a woman and placed her upon the first bare-rock island.

Not much was left of her by then. She was no longer big and powerful, nor her face too strong to look upon. Instead, she was shrunken and small, her light a pale red. She gave the world she created to her daughter, Mother Sun, and charged her with its safekeeping. Grandmother remained in the sky, staying just above the horizon as she circled our land. To honor her, our blood runs red.

Mother Sun is swollen and yellow, her heavy bulk fills more than half the sky. Slowly, she moves over us, sharing her life-giving, life-nourishing, life-sustaining warmth and light to all the land below her. She is benevolent and caring, caressing our world with her golden light. Only when she finally rests below the edge of the land can her warmth and glow not be seen. Without her, the plants in our ponds would not grow, the fish that feed upon their roots would not exist, and all life on our world would perish. Our eyes shine gold in her honor.

Time passed, the woman aged. She was happy with her life and thankful to the suns who created it, yet she wished for something more, a companion who could share her existence. Mother Sun felt the woman’s longing and decided to gift her with a basherter, a soulmate, who would share her life and end her loneliness. It took powerful magic––bright, strong, intense magic––to create the basherti. Mother Sun did not possess this type of magic. She called for help and Daughter Sun appeared. 

Daughter Sun was young and strong, her magic full of life. She created the companion for the woman, but her help came at a great price. She demanded two things for her service. First, Grandmother Sun and Mother Sun had to leave the sky so she could rule in their place. They agreed but limited her rule to a short time so her fierce heat could not destroy the world they had created. And second, in order to prove herself worthy of a basherter, a girl must offer herself to Daughter Sun. Stripped of protective clothing, weapons, food and water, the girl leaves the cool safety of her rock home and ventures into a world of blazing sand and scorching white heat. To find her Moirai, her destiny, a girl must burn.

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This is the story of the beginning of our world. It is the tale told by our mothers, our aunties, and our teachers. The seers chant it during the Anamnesis, the remembrance ceremony when we honor our foremothers. It is a good story. It is a true story. But it is not the whole story. It is only part of what happened to our world. 

In our long existence, we had forgotten most of our history. Discovering the rest of it, the truth of all our history, was the difficult task that fell upon my unwilling shoulders. I did not wish for it, but the seers said I was the one chosen by Grandmother Spirit to fulfill the prophecy and set the world to right again.

I did my duty, and when the task was done, our world was a better place. What I did changed everything, but it came at a great cost.

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Be sure and put Hikingurl on alert so you don't miss out. Daughter of Three Suns starts posting on February 7, 2021.