This is a relatively long short story (roughly 13,000 words, this is beyond the dA word content limit) that I wrote several months ago. At the time I considered it to be a rather good bit of writing and even submitted it to a publisher, but was ultimately turned down. I'm not so sure about the quality now, and thus, I am putting it here. 

I don't expect comments, but if you do happen to enjoy this, a word or two expressing your feelings would go a long way. Enjoy.

~Nelan