If you run away, you gain one, but if you more Foreward you gain two.
Hi, my name's Matthew, and the story you're about to read is a Western in the brutalist, American style. It's about running away into the world, to a different frontier not found but left behind by Capital and the people who live within it, and just because you can run away from your story, doesn't mean that it ends.
I've written the majority of this story in twenty days, a test for me to start writing original work, and to do so I settled into the genre of fiction and prose that I felt most comfortable, or at least identify the most with: and that is the language of American canon by way of the late Cormac McCarthy. This story is in many parts tribute, cameo, and reference to his work and I think it would be worthwhile to bring something that is inspired by, even if I can't possibly hope to match the craft of, his work to Gundam, and more specifically the Witch From Mercury. If you're at all familiar, you'll more than likely see my tribute to it throughout, and indeed reference to all types of calls to the Westerns that made up American mythology.
This is a story where Norea Du Noc lives, and the Fifth goes with her, and in spite of surviving, the war that they came from brewing in Asticassia has to proceed without what they did, and in light of what they did. This may be a story where they survived, where their relationship is key and the body of the work, but it is not their story alone, nor was it theirs at the start. Somewhere, out there, the consequences of running away, as is gospel from the Witches of Mercury, will change the destiny of all forever.
There's no such thing as riding into the sunset, because even the world has its ends.
This story is not as grand or encompassing as my other work, especially in Gundam, but it is in the end, a test for me to make one story, start to end, within the span of a month and I hope you have as much enjoyment reading it as I did writing.
Summary: Norea Du Noc lives, and the Fifth follows. Escaping to Earth amidst a meteor shower they find themselves in a mythical heartland of a world left behind by Capital, Ad Stella 122. Stars, Hide your Fires, traces their fortunes, their fate, and their destiny as they wander through the American West like the settlers before them, generations ago. However, Manifest Destiny is never blessing, always a devil's deal, and what is another name for it but a curse?