The year is 1756, and all Clarita Leschot Esteybar wants to do is fly.
To be precise, all she wants is for her mechanical harness to WORK, enabling Clarita to fly, thus acing her final Student Trial before she graduates from the Fleet of Wisdom.
Instead, her teachers have saddled her with tutoring Domingo Malong, a Christian Tagalog who views a white-skinned Muslim like Clarita as Evil Incarnate.
But she'll say this for the Northern barbarian... he's good with his hands, even if he has the engineering sense of a banana. Maybe, if she works at it, she can make something of him. And maybe, if they work together, they can start something that will shake the world...
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Cover Art by Borg Sinaban - http://borgsinaban.tumblr.com/
Published in print both in the Philippines and the United States, "On Wooden Wings" is the first story in the Animata universe, a clockpunk-fantasy take on Philippine alternate history by the creator of #RP612fic. The sequel, "Between Severed Souls", has just been released in "The Sea Is Ours: Tales from Steampunk Southeast Asia" http://www.amazon.com/Sea-Ours-Tales-Steampunk-Southeast-ebook/dp/B017QL62L6/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Ella is falling apart trying to live a "perfect" high school life. Then she meets Ren, who can see past her scars. Suddenly perfection isn't her only option.
*****
Ella Volkov is a gifted music student, but she's depressed and starting to crack under the pressure of high school. Her overbearing father won't even let her choose what instrument she plays. Then she finds herself alone at a party with Ren, her best friend's crush. She'd always thought he was rude, but after that night he's all Ella can think about. Now she's trapped. If Ella dates Ren, it will ruin her friendship with Jenny. But if she stays true to Jenny, she's losing the one person who can see past her scars. It's up to Ella to decide if she will forge her own path, or stay in the "perfect" box designed for her...
Content and/or Trigger Warning: depression, anxiety, self-harm, violence, sexual assault.
[[word count: 50,000-100,000 words]]