Creative Writing Folio
Mon, Nov. 12th, 2007 03:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annarti
Alrighty ladies and gents, it's nitpicking time~! =D I have four stories here that I plan to make a part of my writing folio to submit for entry into Creative Writing next year. Deadline is next Monday but I plan on getting it in considerably earlier than that.
So yeah, they're written, I just need SERIOUS critiquing. If you think the whole story sucks for whatever reason, that it's a weak point for the folio, TELL ME and I shall ditch it and either replace it with something better or... not.
They come to a sum total of a little over 5000 words. Winter Dogs you may have read before, since it was an assignment beginning of last year. It's largely unedited because it was edited to death the first time, but I figured I'd put it back up here again anyway. Trippin' is based on another uni assignment that I forget if I ever posted, but it's been lengthened and bettered, cos I wasn't happy with the first version. Spell is one that I had a brief outline of earlier and posted that, so here's the finished(ish) version. Please note that the first paragraph is supposed to be shit, but don't worry cos it's not the first story in the folio XD; Broken is a minific I wrote a while ago but still love, cos it addresses my love of hands <3
So yersh, if you could spare a moment to critique these stories as heavily as possible, I'll love you forever =D
The sun shone bright but uselessly, hardly bothering to reach any tendrils of warmth through the almost-bare branches of the golden ash. The tree had been a glorious ball of sunshine itself a month ago, its branches silver in the pleasant golden glow. Now, though, only a few stubborn brown leaves still clung to the grey limbs, stained darker from the rain that had only stopped falling an hour ago.
Beneath it, she sat curled up tightly, every joint and every muscle clenched and brought in close to her body, trying desperately to create some warmth. Even her toes, bright red from numbness, curled up in her desperation, and her eyelids were squeezed shut to try and warm the icy blue irises. Her body shuddered violently with the cold, and yet it was still only May.
{The Winter season shalt not commence for a seven-day yet, and already thou art dying.}
‘Shut up,’ she hissed through gritted teeth, drawing her body tenser. ‘I don’t need you anymore. I never needed you. I hate you.’
{Thou wouldst be nothing shouldst thou denounce me.}
‘I am nothing!’ Another violent shudder tore down her spine, but she knew it couldn’t have been from the cold alone. ‘I’m sitting under a tree in the cold because of you. I used to have a life.’
{And thou blames me for this loss?}
‘Who else am I going to blame?’
{But of course. I apologise sincerely. Thou couldst not possibly blame thyself.}
‘Shut up!’ Her voice shrieked louder, but still her teeth remained clenched. Her jaw was too stiff from cold to open up. ‘Leave me the hell alone!’
{There was but one reason thou did previously live a life thou considered worthy.}
She scoffed, shaking her head bitterly before burying her chin further into the patchwork rug. ‘Oh come on. So you’re going to take credit for my successes, but as soon as I stuff up you’re just going to piss off, is that it? You weak, selfish bastard.’
The cold, vicious teeth of winter bit through her lanky brown hair and into her neck.
{Ah, but I have not “pissed off”, as thou so eloquently phrase it. I remain.}
‘That’s the problem.’
{Thou art contradictory.}
‘And you’re a heartless bastard. Just piss off. You clearly just picked me up to throw me back down again. Shut up, piss off and don’t you dare come back.’
Silence. Not absence, but silence. She gave a shaky sigh; silence was as good as she was going to get. At least now she could concentrate on keeping warm.
‘That sounds like incredibly violent language for one so small.’
‘Shut up.’ Her clenched brow frowned at her automatic response. That voice had come from somewhere else.
Somewhere real.
. . .
I couldn’t resist.
She looked so lost and alone, curled up under the tree as she was. Her only protection against the chilling wind was the patchwork blanket around her shoulders. It was a ragged old thing, obviously home made from the ends of hundreds of balls of wool. Every square had a different pattern, a different texture, a different colour.
Most patches had intricate designs of braids and baubles knitted into them, but there were some in just plain, flat colours with no pattern at all. These ones had slightly crooked edges and holes where stitches were forgotten. A loving joint effort between mother and daughter, but only the daughter was curled up here, back to the wind.
I couldn’t resist. Who could possibly pass that up?
. . .
She cracked her eyes open and squinted against the sun’s pathetic rays.
A man stood there, taunting her with his ankle-length black coat and fluffy scarf. She couldn’t see his face clearly against the glare of the sun behind him, but her mind’s eye could see the condescending smile on his lips.
She glared at him through slitted eyes, well aware of how disconcerting their chilling blue could be. ‘Stop patronising me.’
He held his gloved hands up defensively, but didn’t leave as many others would have. ‘Of course. I’m sorry.’ He lifted one finger as an idea came to him. ‘I know exactly what you’d like though. A nice, piping hot chocolate. How does that sound?’ He swung a back pack from his shoulder that she hadn’t noticed before, drawing out a glinting stainless-steel thermos as he stepped evenly towards her. His full-length coat billowed out behind him as the winter dogs attacked again, but his rich, thick suit underneath kept him warm enough that they seemed not to affect him.
Her glare didn’t waver, not even to watch his hands unscrew the thermos’ cup. ‘I said, stop patronising me. I’m not as young as I look.’
{Oh, but thou art. ‘Tis only mine own voice has given thee wisdom of ages.}
‘Piss off.’
‘Now that’s a bit rude.’ He squatted down beside her out of the sun’s glare, the warm steam of the hot chocolate rising welcomingly in front of his face. ‘You’re never too old for a good hot chockie, eh?’
. . .
I’ve always helped people.
Way back in the dim distant past when I was at school, I held study groups every lunch time. In my final year, I had sessions on weekends and after school as well. I was hounded by various competitive teams at school, not just sporting, but the debating and chess teams as well. They all wanted me as their captain, but I never had enough of that killer instinct required to hold such a position.
For me, the study groups were far more fulfilling than captaining a sports team could be. I could see the progress each of the students made as I helped them.
I just wanted to help.
. . .
Her eyes flicked down to the cup of chocolate, then back up suspiciously to his face. ‘Why?’
He shrugged. ‘I still like it.’
She gave a slow, disdainful blink. ‘You know what I meant.’
Another shrug. ‘You looked cold, and I can just as easily buy a cuppa myself.” He grinned broadly and gave a short laugh. ‘I just take a thermos to work because I’m a tightarse.’
Another flick of a glance at the chocolate. ‘And what’s work? Salvos? Mission Australia? …Mormons?’
He shook his head and gave that same short laugh. ‘Nope, just a boring office job.’
‘Don’t try to make me feel better by saying how boring your perfect life is.’
‘I’m just trying to make you feel better by offering you a hot chocolate. Which is now going cold.’
{Why shouldst thou not? Why dost thou resent the aid of others?}
‘Because I’ve had your aid for far too long.’
‘I’m sorry?’
She shook her head, partly in reply, partly to naïvely try and shake the voice from it. ‘Never mind.’ She reached one hand reluctantly from the relative warmth of her rug, shuddering at the winter dogs that bit her skin as she took the hot chocolate. She was grateful more for the change of topic than for the drink itself, but now she had it…
. . .
I’ve always been a glutton for knowledge.
I may have only taken five exams in my final year at school, but I learnt so much through that study group that I could have passed the exams for every subject taught at that school. I never took Music, but by the end of the year I was quite competent with a clarinet, piano and bassoon, and knew more about Vivaldi than I could ever have hoped. I studied Modern History and Classics, of course, but neither of them delved so deeply into the Black Death as the students of Italian.
I’ve always loved learning, and then passing on my knowledge to others. Those study groups were my dream, and naturally I continued with them right through my years at university.
. . .
She clasped both scrawny hands around the stainless steel cup, trying to suck any heat from the flavoured milk into her numbed fingers, then lifted it to her lips. She slurped it carefully—despite what he had said about it going cold, it was still hot enough to scald her tongue. Nevertheless, the feel of the sweet but earthy milk as it slid down her throat and into her stomach loosened some of the tension in her shoulders.
‘There, you see?’ He shuffled around to sit down beside her and rest his back against the ash’s trunk. ‘Cures anything, that’s my theory. I reckon that if they’d thought about it, they could’ve used it to cure plague way back when.’
{The first reported outbreak of the plague in Europe was in 1347. It was not until 1585 that they received their first shipment of chocolate.}
‘Europe didn’t even have chocolate until more than two hundred years after the first plague struck.’ She took another calm slurp of her hot chocolate, unable to hold back the smile as the warmth spread out from her stomach, almost reaching her limbs now.
‘Well, is that so?’
She shifted a worried glance over to him, then muttered back down into her hot chocolate. ‘Don’t even try it. If I’m getting out of this, I’m doing it without your help.’
. . .
Knowledge is not power. It can be powerful, true enough, but knowledge in itself is not power.
If you wished to learn about the Second World War, who are you most likely to ask? On the one hand there’s your son, a university graduate presenting a thesis detailing the appalling conditions in the trenches. You know he’s researched the War thoroughly, read up on countless books and encyclopaedias, and spent every waking moment to glean as much knowledge as he could.
On the other hand, there’s someone you’ve never met before. He lives in a nursing home with an artificial left foot and a pistol displayed above his bed.
Knowledge is not power. Wisdom—knowing when and how to use what knowledge you have—is true power.
. . .
She could feel his curious gaze on her as he idly screwed and unscrewed the lid on his thermos, but he didn’t say anything. Obviously he thought it rude to question her about her apparently insane mutterings.
{Tell him. He is polite enough that he does not ask thee of thine internal monologues.}
‘He already thinks I’m insane.’
{But then, his opinion of thee could not lessen if thou but offered him some words of explanation.}
She shook her head. ‘No no no. I am not letting you do that again.’ Her fingers squeezed the cup tightly, pretending it was the voice’s neck, if indeed it had one.
Suddenly, she became aware that the man had leant over to her, his mouth near her ear as he whispered to her in confidence. ‘I have voices in my head, too.’ He shrugged and looked back out at the dying autumn parklands. ‘They may not be real, but they sure have some good ideas, eh?’
She snorted and shook her head derisively. ‘It’s real, and it has the worst, most selfish ideas of anyone I’ve ever known.’
{Oh, but that is an indecent thing to say.}
She gritted her teeth and took another sip of chocolate, trying to resist the violent urge to respond, but once the warm milk had left her mouth, she couldn’t help herself. ‘Everyone now thinks I’m insane because of you!’
His arm wrapped comfortingly around her shoulders, and this time she didn’t resist. ‘Keep talking. There’s no reason for you to keep it bottled up inside. Just let it all out.’
{Oh yes, do.}
. . .
I’ve always loved helping people.
I couldn’t leave her sitting there, curled up in the cold with nobody to hug her or keep her warm. Sometimes, all a little girl needs is to be hugged. She just needs someone to wrap warm, protective arms around her and silently promise that she’ll be safe.
Clearly though, this little girl needed more. She had nothing but the frayed, patchwork blanket over her shoulders. Did she have a family? I couldn’t know. I doubted she could have lived so long with nobody, so long that her blanket had gone threadbare. There had to be someone, surely, but I certainly couldn’t see anyone in the park but her and me.
. . .
She sighed heavily, successfully ignoring the voice this time. ‘You’re a shrink, aren’t you? That’s shrink talk.’
There was that short laugh again. ‘No, I’m not a shrink either. If it really makes that much of a difference to you, I’m an IT consultant. I wanted to be a teacher, but I couldn’t deal with the other teachers.’ He grinned and held the thermos to his lips to take a sip of hot chocolate.
{Do not be fooled. He will have studied Psychology as a compulsory part of his university degree.}
‘How’d you figure?’
{I speak truth.}
‘Like hell you do.’
He squeezed her in a light hug. ‘I have conversations like that all the time. You just need to keep them in your head. Nobody can know what goes on then.’
‘No. I can’t. The voice has my voice. If I hold the conversations in my head, then I lose track of which thoughts are mine and which are the voice’s.’
{And such was where the problems began.}
‘No, you are where the problem began. I had a life before you shoved your sorry arse into it!’
{And thou hast a life still.}
The man’s voice came again in her ear, warm and silky smooth as the hot chocolate in her hands. ‘I can give you life again.’
She narrowed her eyes back at him, no longer in suspicion, but in silent accusation. ‘No you can’t. That’s what the voice promised. Knowledge and wisdom of ages.’
{I delivered my promise, and I deliver it still.}
‘And then you threw me in the gutter!’
‘I can help you out of it again.’ So warm and gentle, it had to be false. He was doing the same as the voice. She wouldn’t let him.
She dropped the stainless steel cup, spilling its remaining contents into the cold, hard soil, then pressed her knuckles to her temples in sheer frustration. It was too much of a struggle to sustain two conversations at once, and that was always what the voice demanded. But it could never be ignored, however much she tried.
‘I can help you.’
She shook her head stubbornly. ‘I don’t need help. I can get out of this on my own.’
‘You’ve been conned before, but not everyone is like that. Real people just want to help, without wanting anything in return, without letting you down once you’re on your feet.’
. . .
I’ve never received anything in return for the help I’ve given over the years.
Granted, I’ve never asked for anything, either, but I don’t think I should have to. None have ever chosen to remember me in their acknowledgements at the back of their best sellers, or in the credits at the end of their box office sensation. My name in the “Thank yous” on the back page of the lyrics would be a small token, but I’ve never been given so much as a pat on the back since university.
Maybe they like to think that the knowledge and wisdom I gain from them is gratitude enough. I beg to differ.
. . .
Silence still. She waited for the derisive remark that would contradict everything she was thinking, but nothing came. The voice was letting her think for herself, waiting for her to go wrong again and beg for its help. She wouldn’t let that happen, not again. She didn’t need help from anyone, especially not such a sickeningly sweet voice as the one in her head, or the man sitting next to her.
She shook her head again, knuckles still firm against her temples. ‘No.’
‘I’ve already seen how cold you get out here alone, and it’s only May.’
Her gaze lifted to look at the chilled park. It was always filled with children playing cricket in summer, or running around with yappy little pet dogs. Now though, the only activity came from the brown leaves that flapped under the feet of the biting winter dogs, too sodden for children to kick their boots though in fun.
‘It’s going to get far worse than this in the next month or so.’
‘No.’
‘Don’t you ever get lonely though? I know you have the voice, but that’s hardly a decent companion, is it? Wouldn’t you rather have someone real to talk to?’
She twitched. ‘No.’ The voice was real. It knew things she never could have known. How could that knowledge get into her head unless the voice knew it first?
‘You must get scared, poor girl. I used to be scared of the dark when I was your age, and I still get nervous walking home every night from the bus stop, too, when it gets dark in winter. Do you get scared at night, sleeping out here all alone in the cold?’
‘No.’
‘Not even just a little bit?’
‘No.’
‘Don’t you get scared that something might jump out of the shadows and attack you?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
A dark grin passed over her lips, and an even darker frown over her bright, intelligent eyes.
‘I am the something.’
May folded her arms and stared at the toaster, waiting for the crumpets to either pop up, perfectly toasted, or start smoking to tell her it was too late.
There was the shuffling of ugg boots behind her and a wide yawn as her younger-but-annoyingly-taller brother shambled up next to her to help her stare at the crumpets.
‘Thrilling stuff.’
‘Oh, I know.’
‘I need coffee.’
‘Me too.’
‘…Can’t be stuffed.’
‘Oh, hell no. Crumpets are my limit.’
May yawned again, shivered and stared at the jar of honey once the crumpets had finally popped up, smoking slightly. After a few moments, she realised they weren’t going to cover themselves in honey and she’d have to do it herself.
‘Remind me again why we’re up this early,’ Luke croaked through a yawn. ‘The sun’s not even up yet.’
‘So we don’t have to spend a night in Woop-Woop.’
‘Oh, right.’
May handed him his honey-soaked crumpet and sat on the bench to eat her own, staring out at the morning with depressed, half-lidded eye. The orange glow of the city was visible in the sky beyond the hills, and she pretended it was the sun rising just to make herself feel better. ‘I assume you were planning on getting dressed at some point. He’ll be here in a minute.’
‘I’m right on it.’ He didn’t move.
May shook her head and took another bite of her crumpet, waiting for the honey to hurry up and wake her. She yawned again and half-watched as a pair of headlights drifted up the road. It must be him. Who else in their right mind would voluntarily be up now? But the headlights continued to drift past the driveway, showing no sign of stopping or turning around.
‘What colour’s his car? Red, isn’t it?’
‘Sort of maroon. It’s a Bommodore.’
‘Like I’m going to be able to see that out there.’ She glanced over at the glowing green numbers on the microwave. ‘You did say four-thirty, right?’
Luke nodded as he chewed on his last bite of crumpet and shuffled over to the dishwasher.
‘Maybe he’s lost. You should give him a ring.’
Her brother shook his head this time. ‘Nah, he’d sms.’
‘Please, he’s more male than you are. He’d never admit it.’
‘He would this time.’ Luke grinned and pushed the dishwasher closed. ‘I told him he’s buying the first round of drinks when we get there if he’s late.’
‘Free drinks for us, then.’ She grinned and held up a hand that Luke made to high-five across the room.
‘I’m getting dressed,’ he announced as he mooched off to his bedroom.
‘I’m making coffee.’
Luke raised one hand and gave the devil-horns sign.
May played with the radio while the kettle boiled, depressed to find that even the radio announcers weren’t there yet. What did they listen to on the way to work? All this music was dance stuff, the kind of crap that was so repetitive it made her want to drift off to sleep. A bad choice for a 4am drive to work, she felt.
She gave up on it with a huff once the kettle had boiled, returning the kitchen to relative silence. Her fingers curled around the mug so they could warm up and she stood at the window, willing every car that passed (all one of it) to be a maroon Commodore.
‘Brains,’ Luke drawled as he mooched back into the kitchen. ‘Brains, brains!’
May shook her head and experimented with a sip of her coffee. ‘Still all zombies here.’
‘Has he still not rocked up?’
‘Nope. Are you absolutely sure you said four-thirty?’
‘Would I voluntarily get up for four-thirty if I’d said seven?’
‘That’s a good point, and well made.’ She sipped her coffee again. ‘Wow.’
‘“Wow,” what?’
‘Seven o’clock is a sleep-in.’
Luke was silent as he swallowed his coffee. ‘Wow,’ he agreed finally.
May had finished her coffee by the time the next car had floated past, but it still wasn’t a maroon anything. ‘The radio’s dead,’ she warned Luke when he tried. ‘Scissors, paper, rock?’
Her brother shrugged but held out a fist anyway.
Scissors, paper, rock grew old fast. So did thumb wars, and ‘I spy’.
‘The entire trip’s going to be like this,’ May groaned. ‘He’d better have a cd player.’
‘Yeah, he does, but only the rear left speaker works. Oh hey, here we go.’
May lifted her eyebrows as a pair of headlights turned into their driveway, but the car they were attached to was not a maroon Commodore. She pointed one finger loosely at it. ‘That’s a Merc. We’re road-tripping to Sydney in a Merc?’
Luke shrugged and grabbed his bag from the kitchen chair, slinging it over his shoulder. May followed him in bemusement, shivering and hugging herself when the cold night air bit into her skin.
Sure enough, as the driver’s window of the little silver convertible slid down, it revealed a pair of mirrored sunglasses, a tanned arm and a grin filled with more cheese than a round of camembert.
May folded her arms and raised sceptical eyebrows. ‘We’re road tripping to Sydney in a Merc?’ she repeated.
Noel nodded eagerly. ‘Yasmin’s got our car, and Dad’s in Perth for the week, so he’s letting us borrow his. Sweet, eh?’
May rolled her eyes as she sauntered around to the boot to dump her bag, then slid into the passenger seat next to Noel and admired her surroundings. ‘We are so going to stick out in Woop-Woop.’
Luke dropped into the back seat, his face the same grin of boyish eagerness as Noel’s. ‘Yeah, but we’ll fit in sweet on Bondi. Anyway. Noel. What took you? You know you’re up for four rounds tonight, right?’
Noel paused as he stuck the car in gear and stared wide-eyed in the rear-view mirror at his friend. ‘Since when? I’m five minutes early!’
May craned her head over the back of her seat and looked quizzically at her brother. Luke shrugged defensively back.
Noel dug awkwardly into his pocket and threw his mobile over to May. ‘Go on, check. Definitely said five.’
May raised her eyebrows as Noel reversed out of the driveway, then began looking through his messages for last night’s message from Luke. ‘“Make it four-thirty, then maybe you’ll at least be here by five.”’
‘See?’ both boys said simultaneously.
May rolled her eyes and groaned audibly. ‘Look, we’ll make it two rounds and call it even.’ She grinned and settled back in her plush seat. ‘But only if I get to drive this thing along Bondi.’
It wasn’t the dark that scared her. Darkness had never been a threat. As long as she had enough light to see by, she would be all right. The guttering golden candle flames just barely sufficed, reflecting eerily off of the water and creating moving shaddows in the trees.
‘Shadows.’
‘What?’
‘Shadows. One D.’
‘I don’t… what are you on about?’
‘Look. “Shaddows” is giving you a red squiggly underline. Clearly, one D.’
‘Oh.’
The author sighed heavily as she stared at the evenly blinking black cursor on the screen, then rubbed one eye with the heel of her hand. It was rough, callussed after having spent so many hours resting on the edge of her desk.
‘Callused. One S. You’re really fond of the pointless double-consonants tonight, aren’t you?’
The author paused and glared at the word processor. ‘I’m going to garrotte you with your own red squiggly underline in a minute.’
[Right click. Spelling. ‘Shadows’.]
Another heavy sigh. She folded her arms and rested back, drawing a loud groan of protest from the chair that echoed the groan in her mind. ‘Now look what you’ve done. You’ve broken it.’
‘Broken what?’
‘The spell.’
‘No, I fixed it.’
The author shook her head. ‘You fixed the spelling, but you broke the spell.’
‘You can’t cast a spell if you can’t spell it.’
‘Stop saying “spell”. It’s starting to look wrong.’
She shoved the keyboard away and slumped over on the desk, forehead resting heavily on her arms as she stared at the carpet between her feet. George the ant was making another epic journey across it, a fearless journey to… somewhere. She would say the window but for the fact that he kept going around her room in circles. It was a truly epic journey.
‘You’re not seriously thinking of writing about an ant, are you?’
The author rolled her head over her arms to shake it in answer to her muse’s understandable question.
‘Good.’ The muse paused, presumably as it read the broken spell on the screen, then began making displeased ‘tsk’ noises with its tongue. ‘There was never a spell to begin with.’
The author craned her neck up, then slumped back into a sitting position and reread the not-quite paragraph. She had to agree. It was drivel. ‘Well, whose fault is that, then?’
‘What was this supposed to be about?’
The author rolled her eyes as the muse not-so-cunningly dodged the accusation. ‘Lost souls being guided home by candles.’
The muse was silent. The author took this as a bad sign.
[Ctrl+A. Delete.]
‘Smart move.’
‘I’ve got a smarter one.’
[Alt. File menu. Exit. No I don’t want to save. It’s a blank page you stupid word processor.]
A faint smirk just barely tugged at the corner of the author’s mouth. One mortal enemy was out of the way. The muse remained silent.
[Start. Turn off computer.]
Still, the muse didn’t speak as the author listened to the triumphant Windows chorus, followed by exquisite silence.
The smirk was clearly visible now as the author stood and left her chair, walking around the house in beautiful silence as she prepared for bed. A hot chocolate, a trip to the bathroom to freshen her mouth, a quick change into pyjamas and into the warm cocoon of bliss.
Spell a word
Cast a spell
Spell a spell
The author’s eyes snapped open and she stared at the blackness. Images of frustrated young mages filled her mind. Their robes whirled around them as they traced sigils in the air with beautiful but awkward staves, only to have their spell blow up in their faces because they couldn’t spell it right. Windows of the academy filled with stained grass, because someone had made typo of the word ‘glass’.
Her eyes narrowed at the invisible muse, who was no doubt hovering there with arms folded and an evil little grin on its evil little face.
‘I hate you,’ she muttered, dragging herself away from the warmth of her bed to slide her feet into a pair of slippers and amble back to her computer.
‘I hate you, too,’ the muse agreed.
Lynnlita sighed quietly, sitting primly on the couch and fanning herself in the heat of the day. It wasn’t even particularly hot today, but Raykinian tradition dictated that regardless of the weather, the kingdom’s citizens would all bed down for a few hours in the middle of the day. Even the servants had taken a few hours off to retire to their quarters. Poor form, Lynnlita thought.
She sighed again, then kicked her feet off the couch and onto the refreshingly cool stone floor. She could hear blades clashing down in the army barracks. Not many, but enough at least to prove that not everyone in the kingdom slept when the sun was at its highest.
The Llayan princess slanted a glance at the door back into the palace. If she was going to make that prince her husband, she was going to have to try harder at changing him. Just a little bit, just so he would be awake to entertain her. He was being a most ungracious host, really. It didn’t matter if the whole kingdom took a midday siesta; he could drop that while she was here, at the very least!
Lynnlita tossed her curls back over her shoulder, hitched up her skirts and padded on bare feet to Nolryn’s room. He lay with his back to her, black hair flopped over the pillow.
She stood there for a few moments, just watching him sleep, before creeping silently up to his bed, fully intent on shaking him forcefully awake… but something stopped her.
One hand lay on the pillow in front of his face, his fingers curled loosely against his palm. But it wasn’t the hand of a crown prince. It wasn’t even the hand of a nobleman. They were supposed to be smooth and delicate, made for cradling a lady’s cheek or a fine crystal wine glass.
Nolryn’s rough, callused hands would look wrong in either of those positions. They seemed more suited to holding a farmer’s pitchfork or a blacksmith’s hammer. They were heavy, workman’s hands, not nobility at all.
Lynnlita padded around to the other side of the bed and knelt down, one of her own refined hands reaching out to the prince’s. She had always known he was an archer, of course, and that he rode a horse to Kazin for half the year, but somehow, Lynnlita could never see the rigours of battle taking any effect on her prince.
His fingers twitched when Lynnlita touched them, but he showed no other signs of wakefulness. She uncurled his fingers with her own, biting her lip sympathetically at the roughness of them. The calluses on his middle and index fingers, where he cradled his bowstring every time he pulled it back, felt coarse enough to scratch the skin from Lynnlita’s hands.
She gasped quietly as her fingers ran over the joints. Every finger but the middle one had been bent crooked. When she tried to straighten his little finger, his brow twitched in a frown and small noise came from his throat, showing his discomfort in the action even in his sleep.
Lynnlita clasped the finger gently, making a silent promise to the prince. If this was what the army did to not just a noble, but the crown prince, then it simply must be disbanded.
Still, she thought with a quiet smile, she certainly wouldn’t mind that hand in particular cupping her cheek…
So yeah, they're written, I just need SERIOUS critiquing. If you think the whole story sucks for whatever reason, that it's a weak point for the folio, TELL ME and I shall ditch it and either replace it with something better or... not.
They come to a sum total of a little over 5000 words. Winter Dogs you may have read before, since it was an assignment beginning of last year. It's largely unedited because it was edited to death the first time, but I figured I'd put it back up here again anyway. Trippin' is based on another uni assignment that I forget if I ever posted, but it's been lengthened and bettered, cos I wasn't happy with the first version. Spell is one that I had a brief outline of earlier and posted that, so here's the finished(ish) version. Please note that the first paragraph is supposed to be shit, but don't worry cos it's not the first story in the folio XD; Broken is a minific I wrote a while ago but still love, cos it addresses my love of hands <3
So yersh, if you could spare a moment to critique these stories as heavily as possible, I'll love you forever =D
Winter Dogs
The sun shone bright but uselessly, hardly bothering to reach any tendrils of warmth through the almost-bare branches of the golden ash. The tree had been a glorious ball of sunshine itself a month ago, its branches silver in the pleasant golden glow. Now, though, only a few stubborn brown leaves still clung to the grey limbs, stained darker from the rain that had only stopped falling an hour ago.
Beneath it, she sat curled up tightly, every joint and every muscle clenched and brought in close to her body, trying desperately to create some warmth. Even her toes, bright red from numbness, curled up in her desperation, and her eyelids were squeezed shut to try and warm the icy blue irises. Her body shuddered violently with the cold, and yet it was still only May.
{The Winter season shalt not commence for a seven-day yet, and already thou art dying.}
‘Shut up,’ she hissed through gritted teeth, drawing her body tenser. ‘I don’t need you anymore. I never needed you. I hate you.’
{Thou wouldst be nothing shouldst thou denounce me.}
‘I am nothing!’ Another violent shudder tore down her spine, but she knew it couldn’t have been from the cold alone. ‘I’m sitting under a tree in the cold because of you. I used to have a life.’
{And thou blames me for this loss?}
‘Who else am I going to blame?’
{But of course. I apologise sincerely. Thou couldst not possibly blame thyself.}
‘Shut up!’ Her voice shrieked louder, but still her teeth remained clenched. Her jaw was too stiff from cold to open up. ‘Leave me the hell alone!’
{There was but one reason thou did previously live a life thou considered worthy.}
She scoffed, shaking her head bitterly before burying her chin further into the patchwork rug. ‘Oh come on. So you’re going to take credit for my successes, but as soon as I stuff up you’re just going to piss off, is that it? You weak, selfish bastard.’
The cold, vicious teeth of winter bit through her lanky brown hair and into her neck.
{Ah, but I have not “pissed off”, as thou so eloquently phrase it. I remain.}
‘That’s the problem.’
{Thou art contradictory.}
‘And you’re a heartless bastard. Just piss off. You clearly just picked me up to throw me back down again. Shut up, piss off and don’t you dare come back.’
Silence. Not absence, but silence. She gave a shaky sigh; silence was as good as she was going to get. At least now she could concentrate on keeping warm.
‘That sounds like incredibly violent language for one so small.’
‘Shut up.’ Her clenched brow frowned at her automatic response. That voice had come from somewhere else.
Somewhere real.
. . .
I couldn’t resist.
She looked so lost and alone, curled up under the tree as she was. Her only protection against the chilling wind was the patchwork blanket around her shoulders. It was a ragged old thing, obviously home made from the ends of hundreds of balls of wool. Every square had a different pattern, a different texture, a different colour.
Most patches had intricate designs of braids and baubles knitted into them, but there were some in just plain, flat colours with no pattern at all. These ones had slightly crooked edges and holes where stitches were forgotten. A loving joint effort between mother and daughter, but only the daughter was curled up here, back to the wind.
I couldn’t resist. Who could possibly pass that up?
. . .
She cracked her eyes open and squinted against the sun’s pathetic rays.
A man stood there, taunting her with his ankle-length black coat and fluffy scarf. She couldn’t see his face clearly against the glare of the sun behind him, but her mind’s eye could see the condescending smile on his lips.
She glared at him through slitted eyes, well aware of how disconcerting their chilling blue could be. ‘Stop patronising me.’
He held his gloved hands up defensively, but didn’t leave as many others would have. ‘Of course. I’m sorry.’ He lifted one finger as an idea came to him. ‘I know exactly what you’d like though. A nice, piping hot chocolate. How does that sound?’ He swung a back pack from his shoulder that she hadn’t noticed before, drawing out a glinting stainless-steel thermos as he stepped evenly towards her. His full-length coat billowed out behind him as the winter dogs attacked again, but his rich, thick suit underneath kept him warm enough that they seemed not to affect him.
Her glare didn’t waver, not even to watch his hands unscrew the thermos’ cup. ‘I said, stop patronising me. I’m not as young as I look.’
{Oh, but thou art. ‘Tis only mine own voice has given thee wisdom of ages.}
‘Piss off.’
‘Now that’s a bit rude.’ He squatted down beside her out of the sun’s glare, the warm steam of the hot chocolate rising welcomingly in front of his face. ‘You’re never too old for a good hot chockie, eh?’
. . .
I’ve always helped people.
Way back in the dim distant past when I was at school, I held study groups every lunch time. In my final year, I had sessions on weekends and after school as well. I was hounded by various competitive teams at school, not just sporting, but the debating and chess teams as well. They all wanted me as their captain, but I never had enough of that killer instinct required to hold such a position.
For me, the study groups were far more fulfilling than captaining a sports team could be. I could see the progress each of the students made as I helped them.
I just wanted to help.
. . .
Her eyes flicked down to the cup of chocolate, then back up suspiciously to his face. ‘Why?’
He shrugged. ‘I still like it.’
She gave a slow, disdainful blink. ‘You know what I meant.’
Another shrug. ‘You looked cold, and I can just as easily buy a cuppa myself.” He grinned broadly and gave a short laugh. ‘I just take a thermos to work because I’m a tightarse.’
Another flick of a glance at the chocolate. ‘And what’s work? Salvos? Mission Australia? …Mormons?’
He shook his head and gave that same short laugh. ‘Nope, just a boring office job.’
‘Don’t try to make me feel better by saying how boring your perfect life is.’
‘I’m just trying to make you feel better by offering you a hot chocolate. Which is now going cold.’
{Why shouldst thou not? Why dost thou resent the aid of others?}
‘Because I’ve had your aid for far too long.’
‘I’m sorry?’
She shook her head, partly in reply, partly to naïvely try and shake the voice from it. ‘Never mind.’ She reached one hand reluctantly from the relative warmth of her rug, shuddering at the winter dogs that bit her skin as she took the hot chocolate. She was grateful more for the change of topic than for the drink itself, but now she had it…
. . .
I’ve always been a glutton for knowledge.
I may have only taken five exams in my final year at school, but I learnt so much through that study group that I could have passed the exams for every subject taught at that school. I never took Music, but by the end of the year I was quite competent with a clarinet, piano and bassoon, and knew more about Vivaldi than I could ever have hoped. I studied Modern History and Classics, of course, but neither of them delved so deeply into the Black Death as the students of Italian.
I’ve always loved learning, and then passing on my knowledge to others. Those study groups were my dream, and naturally I continued with them right through my years at university.
. . .
She clasped both scrawny hands around the stainless steel cup, trying to suck any heat from the flavoured milk into her numbed fingers, then lifted it to her lips. She slurped it carefully—despite what he had said about it going cold, it was still hot enough to scald her tongue. Nevertheless, the feel of the sweet but earthy milk as it slid down her throat and into her stomach loosened some of the tension in her shoulders.
‘There, you see?’ He shuffled around to sit down beside her and rest his back against the ash’s trunk. ‘Cures anything, that’s my theory. I reckon that if they’d thought about it, they could’ve used it to cure plague way back when.’
{The first reported outbreak of the plague in Europe was in 1347. It was not until 1585 that they received their first shipment of chocolate.}
‘Europe didn’t even have chocolate until more than two hundred years after the first plague struck.’ She took another calm slurp of her hot chocolate, unable to hold back the smile as the warmth spread out from her stomach, almost reaching her limbs now.
‘Well, is that so?’
She shifted a worried glance over to him, then muttered back down into her hot chocolate. ‘Don’t even try it. If I’m getting out of this, I’m doing it without your help.’
. . .
Knowledge is not power. It can be powerful, true enough, but knowledge in itself is not power.
If you wished to learn about the Second World War, who are you most likely to ask? On the one hand there’s your son, a university graduate presenting a thesis detailing the appalling conditions in the trenches. You know he’s researched the War thoroughly, read up on countless books and encyclopaedias, and spent every waking moment to glean as much knowledge as he could.
On the other hand, there’s someone you’ve never met before. He lives in a nursing home with an artificial left foot and a pistol displayed above his bed.
Knowledge is not power. Wisdom—knowing when and how to use what knowledge you have—is true power.
. . .
She could feel his curious gaze on her as he idly screwed and unscrewed the lid on his thermos, but he didn’t say anything. Obviously he thought it rude to question her about her apparently insane mutterings.
{Tell him. He is polite enough that he does not ask thee of thine internal monologues.}
‘He already thinks I’m insane.’
{But then, his opinion of thee could not lessen if thou but offered him some words of explanation.}
She shook her head. ‘No no no. I am not letting you do that again.’ Her fingers squeezed the cup tightly, pretending it was the voice’s neck, if indeed it had one.
Suddenly, she became aware that the man had leant over to her, his mouth near her ear as he whispered to her in confidence. ‘I have voices in my head, too.’ He shrugged and looked back out at the dying autumn parklands. ‘They may not be real, but they sure have some good ideas, eh?’
She snorted and shook her head derisively. ‘It’s real, and it has the worst, most selfish ideas of anyone I’ve ever known.’
{Oh, but that is an indecent thing to say.}
She gritted her teeth and took another sip of chocolate, trying to resist the violent urge to respond, but once the warm milk had left her mouth, she couldn’t help herself. ‘Everyone now thinks I’m insane because of you!’
His arm wrapped comfortingly around her shoulders, and this time she didn’t resist. ‘Keep talking. There’s no reason for you to keep it bottled up inside. Just let it all out.’
{Oh yes, do.}
. . .
I’ve always loved helping people.
I couldn’t leave her sitting there, curled up in the cold with nobody to hug her or keep her warm. Sometimes, all a little girl needs is to be hugged. She just needs someone to wrap warm, protective arms around her and silently promise that she’ll be safe.
Clearly though, this little girl needed more. She had nothing but the frayed, patchwork blanket over her shoulders. Did she have a family? I couldn’t know. I doubted she could have lived so long with nobody, so long that her blanket had gone threadbare. There had to be someone, surely, but I certainly couldn’t see anyone in the park but her and me.
. . .
She sighed heavily, successfully ignoring the voice this time. ‘You’re a shrink, aren’t you? That’s shrink talk.’
There was that short laugh again. ‘No, I’m not a shrink either. If it really makes that much of a difference to you, I’m an IT consultant. I wanted to be a teacher, but I couldn’t deal with the other teachers.’ He grinned and held the thermos to his lips to take a sip of hot chocolate.
{Do not be fooled. He will have studied Psychology as a compulsory part of his university degree.}
‘How’d you figure?’
{I speak truth.}
‘Like hell you do.’
He squeezed her in a light hug. ‘I have conversations like that all the time. You just need to keep them in your head. Nobody can know what goes on then.’
‘No. I can’t. The voice has my voice. If I hold the conversations in my head, then I lose track of which thoughts are mine and which are the voice’s.’
{And such was where the problems began.}
‘No, you are where the problem began. I had a life before you shoved your sorry arse into it!’
{And thou hast a life still.}
The man’s voice came again in her ear, warm and silky smooth as the hot chocolate in her hands. ‘I can give you life again.’
She narrowed her eyes back at him, no longer in suspicion, but in silent accusation. ‘No you can’t. That’s what the voice promised. Knowledge and wisdom of ages.’
{I delivered my promise, and I deliver it still.}
‘And then you threw me in the gutter!’
‘I can help you out of it again.’ So warm and gentle, it had to be false. He was doing the same as the voice. She wouldn’t let him.
She dropped the stainless steel cup, spilling its remaining contents into the cold, hard soil, then pressed her knuckles to her temples in sheer frustration. It was too much of a struggle to sustain two conversations at once, and that was always what the voice demanded. But it could never be ignored, however much she tried.
‘I can help you.’
She shook her head stubbornly. ‘I don’t need help. I can get out of this on my own.’
‘You’ve been conned before, but not everyone is like that. Real people just want to help, without wanting anything in return, without letting you down once you’re on your feet.’
. . .
I’ve never received anything in return for the help I’ve given over the years.
Granted, I’ve never asked for anything, either, but I don’t think I should have to. None have ever chosen to remember me in their acknowledgements at the back of their best sellers, or in the credits at the end of their box office sensation. My name in the “Thank yous” on the back page of the lyrics would be a small token, but I’ve never been given so much as a pat on the back since university.
Maybe they like to think that the knowledge and wisdom I gain from them is gratitude enough. I beg to differ.
. . .
Silence still. She waited for the derisive remark that would contradict everything she was thinking, but nothing came. The voice was letting her think for herself, waiting for her to go wrong again and beg for its help. She wouldn’t let that happen, not again. She didn’t need help from anyone, especially not such a sickeningly sweet voice as the one in her head, or the man sitting next to her.
She shook her head again, knuckles still firm against her temples. ‘No.’
‘I’ve already seen how cold you get out here alone, and it’s only May.’
Her gaze lifted to look at the chilled park. It was always filled with children playing cricket in summer, or running around with yappy little pet dogs. Now though, the only activity came from the brown leaves that flapped under the feet of the biting winter dogs, too sodden for children to kick their boots though in fun.
‘It’s going to get far worse than this in the next month or so.’
‘No.’
‘Don’t you ever get lonely though? I know you have the voice, but that’s hardly a decent companion, is it? Wouldn’t you rather have someone real to talk to?’
She twitched. ‘No.’ The voice was real. It knew things she never could have known. How could that knowledge get into her head unless the voice knew it first?
‘You must get scared, poor girl. I used to be scared of the dark when I was your age, and I still get nervous walking home every night from the bus stop, too, when it gets dark in winter. Do you get scared at night, sleeping out here all alone in the cold?’
‘No.’
‘Not even just a little bit?’
‘No.’
‘Don’t you get scared that something might jump out of the shadows and attack you?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
A dark grin passed over her lips, and an even darker frown over her bright, intelligent eyes.
‘I am the something.’
Trippin’
May folded her arms and stared at the toaster, waiting for the crumpets to either pop up, perfectly toasted, or start smoking to tell her it was too late.
There was the shuffling of ugg boots behind her and a wide yawn as her younger-but-annoyingly-taller brother shambled up next to her to help her stare at the crumpets.
‘Thrilling stuff.’
‘Oh, I know.’
‘I need coffee.’
‘Me too.’
‘…Can’t be stuffed.’
‘Oh, hell no. Crumpets are my limit.’
May yawned again, shivered and stared at the jar of honey once the crumpets had finally popped up, smoking slightly. After a few moments, she realised they weren’t going to cover themselves in honey and she’d have to do it herself.
‘Remind me again why we’re up this early,’ Luke croaked through a yawn. ‘The sun’s not even up yet.’
‘So we don’t have to spend a night in Woop-Woop.’
‘Oh, right.’
May handed him his honey-soaked crumpet and sat on the bench to eat her own, staring out at the morning with depressed, half-lidded eye. The orange glow of the city was visible in the sky beyond the hills, and she pretended it was the sun rising just to make herself feel better. ‘I assume you were planning on getting dressed at some point. He’ll be here in a minute.’
‘I’m right on it.’ He didn’t move.
May shook her head and took another bite of her crumpet, waiting for the honey to hurry up and wake her. She yawned again and half-watched as a pair of headlights drifted up the road. It must be him. Who else in their right mind would voluntarily be up now? But the headlights continued to drift past the driveway, showing no sign of stopping or turning around.
‘What colour’s his car? Red, isn’t it?’
‘Sort of maroon. It’s a Bommodore.’
‘Like I’m going to be able to see that out there.’ She glanced over at the glowing green numbers on the microwave. ‘You did say four-thirty, right?’
Luke nodded as he chewed on his last bite of crumpet and shuffled over to the dishwasher.
‘Maybe he’s lost. You should give him a ring.’
Her brother shook his head this time. ‘Nah, he’d sms.’
‘Please, he’s more male than you are. He’d never admit it.’
‘He would this time.’ Luke grinned and pushed the dishwasher closed. ‘I told him he’s buying the first round of drinks when we get there if he’s late.’
‘Free drinks for us, then.’ She grinned and held up a hand that Luke made to high-five across the room.
‘I’m getting dressed,’ he announced as he mooched off to his bedroom.
‘I’m making coffee.’
Luke raised one hand and gave the devil-horns sign.
May played with the radio while the kettle boiled, depressed to find that even the radio announcers weren’t there yet. What did they listen to on the way to work? All this music was dance stuff, the kind of crap that was so repetitive it made her want to drift off to sleep. A bad choice for a 4am drive to work, she felt.
She gave up on it with a huff once the kettle had boiled, returning the kitchen to relative silence. Her fingers curled around the mug so they could warm up and she stood at the window, willing every car that passed (all one of it) to be a maroon Commodore.
‘Brains,’ Luke drawled as he mooched back into the kitchen. ‘Brains, brains!’
May shook her head and experimented with a sip of her coffee. ‘Still all zombies here.’
‘Has he still not rocked up?’
‘Nope. Are you absolutely sure you said four-thirty?’
‘Would I voluntarily get up for four-thirty if I’d said seven?’
‘That’s a good point, and well made.’ She sipped her coffee again. ‘Wow.’
‘“Wow,” what?’
‘Seven o’clock is a sleep-in.’
Luke was silent as he swallowed his coffee. ‘Wow,’ he agreed finally.
May had finished her coffee by the time the next car had floated past, but it still wasn’t a maroon anything. ‘The radio’s dead,’ she warned Luke when he tried. ‘Scissors, paper, rock?’
Her brother shrugged but held out a fist anyway.
Scissors, paper, rock grew old fast. So did thumb wars, and ‘I spy’.
‘The entire trip’s going to be like this,’ May groaned. ‘He’d better have a cd player.’
‘Yeah, he does, but only the rear left speaker works. Oh hey, here we go.’
May lifted her eyebrows as a pair of headlights turned into their driveway, but the car they were attached to was not a maroon Commodore. She pointed one finger loosely at it. ‘That’s a Merc. We’re road-tripping to Sydney in a Merc?’
Luke shrugged and grabbed his bag from the kitchen chair, slinging it over his shoulder. May followed him in bemusement, shivering and hugging herself when the cold night air bit into her skin.
Sure enough, as the driver’s window of the little silver convertible slid down, it revealed a pair of mirrored sunglasses, a tanned arm and a grin filled with more cheese than a round of camembert.
May folded her arms and raised sceptical eyebrows. ‘We’re road tripping to Sydney in a Merc?’ she repeated.
Noel nodded eagerly. ‘Yasmin’s got our car, and Dad’s in Perth for the week, so he’s letting us borrow his. Sweet, eh?’
May rolled her eyes as she sauntered around to the boot to dump her bag, then slid into the passenger seat next to Noel and admired her surroundings. ‘We are so going to stick out in Woop-Woop.’
Luke dropped into the back seat, his face the same grin of boyish eagerness as Noel’s. ‘Yeah, but we’ll fit in sweet on Bondi. Anyway. Noel. What took you? You know you’re up for four rounds tonight, right?’
Noel paused as he stuck the car in gear and stared wide-eyed in the rear-view mirror at his friend. ‘Since when? I’m five minutes early!’
May craned her head over the back of her seat and looked quizzically at her brother. Luke shrugged defensively back.
Noel dug awkwardly into his pocket and threw his mobile over to May. ‘Go on, check. Definitely said five.’
May raised her eyebrows as Noel reversed out of the driveway, then began looking through his messages for last night’s message from Luke. ‘“Make it four-thirty, then maybe you’ll at least be here by five.”’
‘See?’ both boys said simultaneously.
May rolled her eyes and groaned audibly. ‘Look, we’ll make it two rounds and call it even.’ She grinned and settled back in her plush seat. ‘But only if I get to drive this thing along Bondi.’
Spell
It wasn’t the dark that scared her. Darkness had never been a threat. As long as she had enough light to see by, she would be all right. The guttering golden candle flames just barely sufficed, reflecting eerily off of the water and creating moving shaddows in the trees.
‘Shadows.’
‘What?’
‘Shadows. One D.’
‘I don’t… what are you on about?’
‘Look. “Shaddows” is giving you a red squiggly underline. Clearly, one D.’
‘Oh.’
The author sighed heavily as she stared at the evenly blinking black cursor on the screen, then rubbed one eye with the heel of her hand. It was rough, callussed after having spent so many hours resting on the edge of her desk.
‘Callused. One S. You’re really fond of the pointless double-consonants tonight, aren’t you?’
The author paused and glared at the word processor. ‘I’m going to garrotte you with your own red squiggly underline in a minute.’
[Right click. Spelling. ‘Shadows’.]
Another heavy sigh. She folded her arms and rested back, drawing a loud groan of protest from the chair that echoed the groan in her mind. ‘Now look what you’ve done. You’ve broken it.’
‘Broken what?’
‘The spell.’
‘No, I fixed it.’
The author shook her head. ‘You fixed the spelling, but you broke the spell.’
‘You can’t cast a spell if you can’t spell it.’
‘Stop saying “spell”. It’s starting to look wrong.’
She shoved the keyboard away and slumped over on the desk, forehead resting heavily on her arms as she stared at the carpet between her feet. George the ant was making another epic journey across it, a fearless journey to… somewhere. She would say the window but for the fact that he kept going around her room in circles. It was a truly epic journey.
‘You’re not seriously thinking of writing about an ant, are you?’
The author rolled her head over her arms to shake it in answer to her muse’s understandable question.
‘Good.’ The muse paused, presumably as it read the broken spell on the screen, then began making displeased ‘tsk’ noises with its tongue. ‘There was never a spell to begin with.’
The author craned her neck up, then slumped back into a sitting position and reread the not-quite paragraph. She had to agree. It was drivel. ‘Well, whose fault is that, then?’
‘What was this supposed to be about?’
The author rolled her eyes as the muse not-so-cunningly dodged the accusation. ‘Lost souls being guided home by candles.’
The muse was silent. The author took this as a bad sign.
[Ctrl+A. Delete.]
‘Smart move.’
‘I’ve got a smarter one.’
[Alt. File menu. Exit. No I don’t want to save. It’s a blank page you stupid word processor.]
A faint smirk just barely tugged at the corner of the author’s mouth. One mortal enemy was out of the way. The muse remained silent.
[Start. Turn off computer.]
Still, the muse didn’t speak as the author listened to the triumphant Windows chorus, followed by exquisite silence.
The smirk was clearly visible now as the author stood and left her chair, walking around the house in beautiful silence as she prepared for bed. A hot chocolate, a trip to the bathroom to freshen her mouth, a quick change into pyjamas and into the warm cocoon of bliss.
Spell a word
Cast a spell
Spell a spell
The author’s eyes snapped open and she stared at the blackness. Images of frustrated young mages filled her mind. Their robes whirled around them as they traced sigils in the air with beautiful but awkward staves, only to have their spell blow up in their faces because they couldn’t spell it right. Windows of the academy filled with stained grass, because someone had made typo of the word ‘glass’.
Her eyes narrowed at the invisible muse, who was no doubt hovering there with arms folded and an evil little grin on its evil little face.
‘I hate you,’ she muttered, dragging herself away from the warmth of her bed to slide her feet into a pair of slippers and amble back to her computer.
‘I hate you, too,’ the muse agreed.
Broken
Lynnlita sighed quietly, sitting primly on the couch and fanning herself in the heat of the day. It wasn’t even particularly hot today, but Raykinian tradition dictated that regardless of the weather, the kingdom’s citizens would all bed down for a few hours in the middle of the day. Even the servants had taken a few hours off to retire to their quarters. Poor form, Lynnlita thought.
She sighed again, then kicked her feet off the couch and onto the refreshingly cool stone floor. She could hear blades clashing down in the army barracks. Not many, but enough at least to prove that not everyone in the kingdom slept when the sun was at its highest.
The Llayan princess slanted a glance at the door back into the palace. If she was going to make that prince her husband, she was going to have to try harder at changing him. Just a little bit, just so he would be awake to entertain her. He was being a most ungracious host, really. It didn’t matter if the whole kingdom took a midday siesta; he could drop that while she was here, at the very least!
Lynnlita tossed her curls back over her shoulder, hitched up her skirts and padded on bare feet to Nolryn’s room. He lay with his back to her, black hair flopped over the pillow.
She stood there for a few moments, just watching him sleep, before creeping silently up to his bed, fully intent on shaking him forcefully awake… but something stopped her.
One hand lay on the pillow in front of his face, his fingers curled loosely against his palm. But it wasn’t the hand of a crown prince. It wasn’t even the hand of a nobleman. They were supposed to be smooth and delicate, made for cradling a lady’s cheek or a fine crystal wine glass.
Nolryn’s rough, callused hands would look wrong in either of those positions. They seemed more suited to holding a farmer’s pitchfork or a blacksmith’s hammer. They were heavy, workman’s hands, not nobility at all.
Lynnlita padded around to the other side of the bed and knelt down, one of her own refined hands reaching out to the prince’s. She had always known he was an archer, of course, and that he rode a horse to Kazin for half the year, but somehow, Lynnlita could never see the rigours of battle taking any effect on her prince.
His fingers twitched when Lynnlita touched them, but he showed no other signs of wakefulness. She uncurled his fingers with her own, biting her lip sympathetically at the roughness of them. The calluses on his middle and index fingers, where he cradled his bowstring every time he pulled it back, felt coarse enough to scratch the skin from Lynnlita’s hands.
She gasped quietly as her fingers ran over the joints. Every finger but the middle one had been bent crooked. When she tried to straighten his little finger, his brow twitched in a frown and small noise came from his throat, showing his discomfort in the action even in his sleep.
Lynnlita clasped the finger gently, making a silent promise to the prince. If this was what the army did to not just a noble, but the crown prince, then it simply must be disbanded.
Still, she thought with a quiet smile, she certainly wouldn’t mind that hand in particular cupping her cheek…
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Date: Mon, Nov. 12th, 2007 09:54 am (UTC)Argh! First person! *hiss* (Disclaimer said and done, let's get on to the good stuff.)
The sun shone bright[ly] but uselessly <- Otherwise there's disagreement between the adverbs with one (bright) being an adjective. It doesn't read right the way it stands.
brought in close to her body <- Question, how do you bring muscles and joints close to your body when they're part of your body? I understand what you mean, I think, but, again, it doesn't sit right. Just something to ponder about and possible rephrase. 'Closer together', maybe.
thou did[st?] previously <- Archaisms are very, very tricky to use right, mind. You might want to see if you can't find a proper scholar of older forms of English to read through these sentences.
o eloquently phrase it. <- phrases, I think. Otherwise you've no ending at all.
home made <- ish one word, no?
slitted eyes <- might consider a rephrase as not to use 'eyes'. You're using it thrice rather closely together. Less first person than I'd feared, though. This is good. Interesting story too. I like the sparseness of the descriptions. They work. ^-^
what you’d like[,] though <- Also, if you want this to be third person limited (which you might not, but it's how I default my reading) you'd have to look at him having an idea and either get rid of it or make sure you put something in there to make the idea/observation the girl's.
cuppa myself.” <- *grin* Slipping into double quotation marks, me dear? Is nice, though. The differences between the third person and first person work nicely. Make a person want to read more and see what happens.
despite what he had said <- the man, I think, since you've just had a pov switch that makes a person wonder what 'he' refers to since it's not in the previous sentence. If that makes sense. *has a feeling she may as well leave four comments all together and save herself the trouble of seeing if she should split them up.
Knowledge is not power. Wisdom—knowing when and how to use what knowledge you have—is true power. <- That is a cool sentence. *nods* Also, I love the title.
No[,] you can’t.
Now[,] though,
boots th[r]ough in fun.
‘Don’t you ever get lonely[,] though?
‘I am the something.’ <- You... may actually want to throw some references to this ending into the story, hun, because as it stands it comes out of the blue so much you're asking the reader to suspend their belief beyond a point where that's possible. I'm sorry, it just doesn't work for me as an ending to the story I've been reading. I can see it working as an ending, though. Leave it open to the reader what that means and what the ending actually is, but there're too few hints to her being a/the something in the story. It's like a deus ex machina but without the happy ending. Like "I don't know how to end this story, so let's throw this in".
And that's a pity because you had a very strong story up to that point. Very dialogue-driven and, while not everyone's going to like that, it carries the story well. Descriptions are just what's needed to get a feel of where they are and how they're acting. You can see the description increase in their importance when the man arrives near her. Could consider throwing in a sense of smell more than is present now when the chocolate comes up, but that's optional.
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Date: Mon, Nov. 12th, 2007 10:42 am (UTC)*big scare as she's not used to LJ not working, kicks it*
Trippin'
May yawned again, <- may want to put that on the same line as the direct speech just so it's clearer that it's May speaking. It's easy to lose track of who says what without '(s)he said's, which are nightmares in their own way.
with depressed, half-lidded eye[s].
‘Nah, he’d sms.’ <- Aussies actually say sms? *fascinated*
maroon Commodore <- I think you said Bommodore at some point. Might be just a speech pattern I don't know, though.
‘See?’ both boys said simultaneously. <- Why both? Luke got up at 4:30 just as much as May did, even though we presume he knows this. Possible he'd have forgotten, but then wouldn't he be more in line with May, disgruntled at waking up at 4:30 when he could have gotten up slightly later?
Beyond that, though. 's Nice story. Solid. Nice idea, interesting characters. Like how you don't off and explain why they're up an ungodly hours straight away and just let them and the reader wander around bleary-eyed until the subject comes up. *nods* Good story. Though bit odd to see you write something other than 'speculative fiction'. ^-~
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Date: Mon, Nov. 12th, 2007 11:40 am (UTC)You know, I should write that down for the talechasing challenges. Did I? Think you may want to italicise the actual story paragraphs. Put them aside a little more and make it a bit less jumbled, if that makes sense. Makes the narrative of the author stand on its own a bit more, I think. But that's all stylistic and more personal opinion than anything. I think it'd make the effect of Clippie making adjustments to the narrative proper stronger. Doesn't mean others agree. ^-~
It’s a blank page[,] you stupid word processor. <- Ish vocative. *nods and grins at it* Don't you just love it when Word does that?
made [a] typo of the word ‘glass’. <- typo in? Might want to look at the phrasing there. *waves non-native speaker banner*
Her eyes narrowed at the invisible muse, who was no doubt hovering there with arms folded and an evil little grin on its evil little face. <- *cacklecackle* Oh, I have love for that sentence and that idea. It is so, so very true.
and amble back to her computer. <- question, what's the 'amble' on the same level as? It's ambiguous this way, methinks. I'm more inclined to read it on the same level as 'dragging' than 'slide' (because there's no additional 'to', but I admit I don't know the rules for similar prepositions).
Much fun as a story, though. Muse stories are that.
--
Aah, heck. This is short enough to contain the last as well.
Broken
(Can I note this one down for 'broken' next week, by the bye?)
a few hours in the middle of the day. <- I'd go for 'afternoon' just to use 'day' a little less often. 'day - today - day' and all that. I liked this one, by the bye, first time I read it. Lynnlita comes across as such a sweet thing, if a little lacking in the common sense department.
She stood <- Methinks you've got an enter too many there. ^-~
one of her own refined hands reaching out to the prince’s <- Think you may be going a wee bit overboard with the mention of hands, really. Trust your readers. They can extrapolate from her opinion of what constitutes a nobleman's hand that her own are uncallussed. It's a risky story to put in, really, since you've written so much about this world. It's difficult for me to judge how well it'd stand on its own. I think it'll work, but background knowledge of the world definitely helps. Nol and Lynnlita would get along better if they'd try to understand one another better, I think.
on her prince. <- Awww, bless her. Word choice is such a little thing, but so important.
and [a] small noise came
That was a sweet story. *nods, can't really be helpful since her knowledge of the story is impaired by background knowledge*
*huggles* I hope that helps you, hun. ^-^
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Date: Mon, Nov. 12th, 2007 03:53 pm (UTC)I love your comments~ thank you so much hun <3 I know what I can do with them all now, especially Winter Dogs. I reread it myself today and felt it was a bit iffy, but couldn't quite pick why, so thanking you muchly =DD
*big scare as she's not used to LJ not working, kicks it*
...you~ lucky, lucky bastid!
Commodores are one of the most common cars in Australia, and if a car's really old and looking like it's about to blow up, we call it a bomb. People who don't like Commodores merge the two cos they're mean~ =( *has a Commodore* *called Bruce*
Aussies actually say sms? *fascinated*
We're kinda half-half. Text or sms, both work. I say sms, tho =3
Though bit odd to see you write something other than 'speculative fiction'.
It's even weirder WRITING it XD; I had to steal my own characters' names just so I had a bit of familiarity there ^^;
I'll get Mum to read Broken tomorrow, see how it goes down with no context. If not then I'll just scrap it. It's kinda there as a filler, cos I had two extra pages to fill (which amounts to about 500 words with the damn formatting they want) and just threw in that minific, cos I like hands~ >>;
Feel free to nick them both for Talechasing =D Broken was actually a response to something else a while ago, but there's no reason it can't go up at the comm =D
But yes, thank you soso much! I reckon I can fix all those bits now =3
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Date: Mon, Nov. 12th, 2007 11:37 am (UTC)You might use the winter dogs metaphor too often though, even as wonderful as it is.
You're interested to know about the voice in her head in it. And when you read the mysterious man at first you (well, I did) get the impression that he's sinester, and then the second time you see his thoughts they completely belay that. Which makes you want to go on again and work out just what is going on. I definitely think Winter Dogs is a piece you just want to read on and on until the end.
My only qualm would be, maybe it's too intelligent - what with the voice, and the flips and then in the end not really having an ending (besides using that awesome line, but you never know more about the characters).... But of course i'm not studying these things, so I don't know, I doubt not having a definite ending will hurt you. It might just be my hunger for character development that makes me want more like that XD;
So what is it with this one? Either you have to just give it a spit-shine, leave it or a total big poking @0;; (I'd say a little spit-shine for the sake of less work). It works as it is
Trippin' - Is a complete style flip from the last one, but that made it so much easier for my sleepy mind to read :D
I like this one too, but I don't think it's as WOW as Winter Dogs. It's cute, it's a nice little slice of life and it doesn't nessessarily go anywhere like those things do... but unlike it doesn't have the same impact. It's nice and it's easy to read too - a joy to read even. It's a good contrast, but I think maybe there needs to be something more in it. More descriptions maybe? The dialogue is good and fine and natural but it just seems there's something lacking in there.
(and I can't help but read May and Yasmin and think of Nimay and Yamin... and Noel/Nol of course.)
Spell - I like Spell a lot, but I think it neds a lot of work to make itself stand out. I've seen a few like this before, written a few like it too, so it really needs an added oomph. I think if you chose this one, you'd need to work on it a lot.
Broken - You can describe hands for pages and make them all interesting, you really can.
I think I like this one most because it's got so much description in it, and you do beautiful descriptions. I don't know how you could expand it though, or if you'd want to. Like winter Dogs I think this one just needs a bit of polishing up and it would be good.
Er... I'm not helpful.
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Date: Mon, Nov. 12th, 2007 03:59 pm (UTC)Trippin' is totally just there to show that yes, I CAN write normal stuff without being weird XD; I agree about the descriptions, tho. I've just realised how seriously lacking this thing is in imagery, when I'm told that's what I do best. GO ME.
I shall have to poke you re Spell methinks *nods*
*glomps* Thankuu so much for commenting hun, you are so helpful <3 <3
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Date: Mon, Nov. 12th, 2007 09:45 pm (UTC)Actually... I think said something very different. ^-^; (Well, I meant to at any rate.) I said the ending's too disconnected from the story rather than it not being an ending at all. (I luff the ending. It just doesn't follow from the story as it stands for me.) But if you know how to fix it, it's all good. ^-^ *just wants to clarify her comment, prods email* Go on and send so I can go back to my quiet room with my luffly laptop. Feel free to send it my ways if you want me to read over the changes. ^-^
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Date: Wed, Nov. 14th, 2007 12:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Sun, Nov. 18th, 2007 01:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Tue, Nov. 13th, 2007 07:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Wed, Nov. 14th, 2007 01:44 am (UTC)