We Wanted to Become Heroes Together

by Shadiss

When Haruhime was taken to Orario, Bell found her and saved her from that fate. The renart was then raised alongside Bell during the years between then and his journey to Orario. Their mutual love for the tales of heroes sees Haruhime becoming something of a second Bell. Exactly what that last sentence even means is what this story serves to explore. I want to know too.

4. ANOTHER UPDATE December 2 2023

NOT A CHAPTER

12/2/23 Update

Hello! Just felt like I should make it a habit to put out monthly updates on where I am with my progress on the story as I personally find it frustrating when stories I'm interested in go off the radar for extended periods and I no longer wish to be one of them.

I know I haven't really posted enough chapters for many people to be truly invested in my writings but at this point I'm practically married to this concept and really, really want to see where I can take it.

The planned 11 chapters have had one more chapter added and 4 middle chapters now reduced into 2 chapters, leaving about 10.

Of those chapters I have a re-write of Sunsets to be more accurate to my new interpretation of Bell's personality and relationships and the geography of the region as chapter 1.

In the current form the next major important events will happen in chapter 4 or 5. The main issue is that those 4 chapters I reduced to 2 are the new chapters 2 and 3. These chapters serve the role of establishing Bell and Haruhime's relationship and status quo in the village. How they react and behave in their new life circumstances and laying the foundations for helping me and readers form an attachment to the setting which will allow me to give to proper weight to them eventually departing in what was originally the added chapter 12, but now may be chapter 10.

The thing is that writing mundane circumstances can be really hard as I need to find all sorts of really innocuous things to latch onto and build my scenes around. That's hard, because I need to pull substance and characterization out of situations that are quite simple and lack any action at all. That's my current block. I have about 1.5 scenes of chapter 2 drafted right now but going on tangents explaining farming techniques and researching what a medieval farmer's lifestyle would be like isn't really what I signed up for. The thing is I want Haruhime to try and involve herself in these things to show how she is adapting and trying to be helpful which is necessary characterization to show how she is changing into a different kind of person to her canon self. It is also why I want to include a bunch of cooking as it is another skill I'm currently enjoying developing in myself.

On that note, I've also spent so much time these past years thinking about how to make Haruhime a main protagonist that I've kind of lost sight of Bell's personality and how to characterize him. I know that I want him to be a rather shy and introverted boy like he seems to be in canon rather than the rather outgoing ADHD personality many other authors have given child Bell in other stories, but Bell and Haruhime have kind of blended together in my head character wise. I feel I need to spend some time now re-familiarizing myself with his core character traits so that I can adapt him to these new circumstances without making him completely different (a similar thing to what I've done with Haruhime). These things take time and a lot of just writing stuff down on paper until something clicks, and then finding the proper ideas for scenes that will demonstrate this characterization take a whole bunch more time.

I do feel things might get a bit easier once I reach chapter 4 as that will be one of the first action focused chapters, but chapter 5 is like the big title chapter where I carve into stone their new core goals that will drive them forward and that is going to take a lot of drafts and re-writes to get right.

Chapters 6 and 7 should be pretty straightforward as they are just exposition and training, and chapter 8 is a simple action chapter to show their progress.

Chapter 9 might be a challenge as it is the inciting incident for them leaving the village and heading to Orario, so I'll need to get it right as it will have a big impact on them (and especially Bell) going forward.

Chapter 10 is when they join their familia and bond with their Goddess for the first time and that will mark the end of the establishing arc.

Chapter 11 in the future would probably be set similarly to the current chapter Brighter, but now with all the context having been explained rather than awaiting exploration through flashbacks. It was the nature of the inciting incident and its effects on Bell's character that led to this current year long delay as you can see a bit of a strange thing going on with Bell's personality at the end of that chapter. I kind of latched onto that while writing a chapter 3 back in July 2022 and decided that it was too important to keep to the flashback angle and now I'm here.

Things might take a little longer than expected again as after I finish my coursework for the semester on the 15th, I'll be helping my family move to a new apartment and downsize from our current rented house which will take some time.

I have also been accepted into an undergraduate research position in a biochemistry focused lab on my university campus where I'll be helping out and developing skills and experience for future jobs down the line. (I'm actually a chemical engineering student but I'm trying to broaden my horizons a bit).

I'll keep writing and thinking these things through in my free time as other than wasting away time watchin video essays and other nonsense on YouTube, this is my only hobby (expect if a new game I want releases but that's not happening in the near future).

I'll send out another update or maybe (only maybe) a chapter early next year.

(Did I do a good job keeping things vague and non-spoilery? I think I did.)