Sitting in a Rainbow [2]

TWO: Serious, Serious, Serious

They were bundled into a carriage that stood waiting on the edge of the square. The door was slammed shut and bolted, and a moment later they were rattling and jolting over the cobbled streets.

Mistress sat on the padded leather seat and began to cry. The Raven sat on the floor with her head on one side. ‘If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.’ She smiled. ‘Sa, Mistress? You know, Mistress – Mistress? How did he get us here without anyone noticing? I mean, men with knives–they’re different, aren’t they? Remark-upon-able. Aren’t they?’

‘Oh be quiet, just be quiet.’ Mistress scrubbed at her face, then held out her hand, sniffing. ‘Where’s my handkerchief?’

The Raven hitched up her poncho and opened the pouch at her belt, found a handkerchief and passed it over. Mistress dabbed at her eyes. Her powder was smudged across her cheeks. The Raven sighed. ‘Mistress?’

‘What?’

‘Your face is spoiled.’

‘What?’ A tear dripped off the end of Mistress’ nose and fell onto her dress.

‘Your face, Mistress.’

‘What about my face?’

‘Erm… smudged. Powder. You know?’ The Raven pressed her fingers against her cheeks.

Mistress scrunched the handkerchief into a furious ball and threw it at the opposite wall. The carriage jolted and she grabbed at the seat to save herself. ‘It doesn’t matter!’ she almost screamed.

‘A lady is never out in public without her face properly applied,’ the Raven said serenely. ‘Along with a never ending supply of pocket handkerchiefs, largesse for the masses, tips for the cab driver and a bootlace. That’s what your mother always says, Mistress, and if she were here–’

‘She isn’t here, Raven!’ Mistress began sobbing in earnest. ‘Mama isn’t here and Papa isn’t here and Sine isn’t here, and Siarl’s dead and–and–’

‘And you’ve been kidnapped by a madman who drives like a lunatic,’ the Raven said softly. ‘It’s all right. It happened to me once, on a day just like this…’ Mistress rubbed her eyes and seeing this, the Raven opened her pouch again. ‘… in a carriage just like this, and at first it was truly awful, but it didn’t matter because it was just a dream – this is all a dream, you know–’ She handed Mistress a clean handkerchief. ‘So I thought to myself: Why so serious?’

---

Comments on everything, especially the characters (as usual). And no. I'm not pretending to own The Dark Knight. -_-

Hola. ^^ I read the first installment, but you already have an abundance of input on that one, so I thought I'd review both of them here. I really am enjoying this so far. Your characters are a bit baffling as of now, but their personalities are coming across as very vivid.

They were bundled into a carriage that stood waiting on the edge of the square. The door was slammed shut and bolted, and a moment later they were rattling and jolting over the cobbled streets.

Something about this seems so very sudden and un-elaborated on. Bundled into a carriage? What exactly does that mean? Was the Mistress shoved in, kicking and screaming and wailing, while the Raven fussed over her wrinkled petticoat and what a scene she was making? Or did the kidnapper act very gentleman-ly and offer one hand to help them into the carriage, with the other hand holding a knife to Mistress's throat? Does Raven remark on how there's a dent in the carriage? Does Mistress try some more to convince this lunatic that this is all one horrible mistake?

I just think this can be slightly expanded, at least to a paragraph.

‘It doesn’t matter!’ she almost screamed.

I'm trying to envision an 'almost scream', but I seem to be failing miserably. I would think of this as more of a shriek, you know? Or, if you were to take in another direction, more or a frightened/hysterical whisper. Perhaps one dialogue tag might not seem to matter, but I think they're important, especially in scenes like this, where you're really trying to set the atmosphere and the character's reactions.

*shrug*

The Raven:

I love the direction you're taking her-- so completely unaware and only mildly concerned about this tragic scenerio unfolding aroudn her. It's hilarious, and as long as you keep up that aloof and naive tone throughout the entire piece, I think you have a wonderful character here.

Mistress:

Although I normally disapprove nameless characters, I think it worked well here. That's all this woman will ever be to the Raven-- a Mistress, an owner, someone to fret over. So far my only issue is that the Raven and Mistress have such a perfect relationship that they both seem utterly content with. We have some great external conflict here (the kidnapping) but I'd like to see some friction between them, especially since they have such contrasting personalities.

Overall

All in all, I'm going to try and keep an eye out for this because I think it's really interesting! ^^ One thing that's slightly bothering me is that the tone of the piece is still so eerily calm and light, even though this majorly horrible thing has happened-- but that's probably because it's more from the Raven's perspective, and this is just another exciting day with her Mistress to her. Perhaps work on building up some more tension and chaos outside of the Raven's thoughts, just so that your readers can appreciate that this is a big deal, no matter how nonchalant Raven is acting.

PM me for anything.

~Evi

EDIT: And, woohoo! My 200th review! xD

I’m back and yes, I had plenty of time to come review this for you.

Here, I honestly don’t have any nitpicks here. This part is far shorter and that generally grants for fewer mistakes.

Dialogue
The dialogue is, like I said about the first part, very well written and there is sarcasm and wit present throughout the spoken text, which is good. It keeps the reader hoping for a good laugh to follow the one that they just laughed.

Plot

They were bundled into a carriage that stood waiting on the edge of the square. The door was slammed shut and bolted, and a moment later they were rattling and jolting over the cobbled streets

I have to agree with Evi here that this could definitely have used more elaboration. It’s too abrupt. No, this doesn’t really call for a perfect point play-by-play but a little more information would have been nice.

Characters
This is good what you’ve done with the Mistress. Her change in attitude, dialogue, and actions all show a response to what is going on around her. This is good as it makes her seem more human.

Overall, this is an interesting idea here as well as a very interesting perspective to present it through.

I would give you another cookie but well, you don’t want a belly ache, do you? ^^

~lilymoore

Hiya!

Oh dear, I'm late. Sorry about that. ><

They were bundled into a carriage that stood waiting on the edge of the square. The door was slammed shut and bolted, and a moment later they were rattling and jolting over the cobbled streets.

Not sure how much I like these sentences. They feel loaded up with prepositions and are a bit cumbersome when you read them too quickly.

Also, "and" is a bit repetitive in the second sentence.

her head on one side.

"On" one side or "to" one side? "On" seems to imply that she's resting her head against something, while "to" would mean she was just leaning it to the side.

‘If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.’

I'm really not sure what you mean by this line. It's really random, even for the Raven. I think that if Mistress were about to start crying instead of having started crying it would be better. This line sounds more like a preamble to Mistress sobbing instead of something even a random creature like the Raven would say after the fact. (It also vaguely reminds me of a wedding, which I doubt is a coincidence. )

The Raven hitched up her poncho and opened the pouch at her belt, found a handkerchief and passed it over.

I find "passed it over" doesn't really fit with the tone of the work. For most of it, you've stuck to more Victorian style English. "Passed it over" sounds more modern.

Mistress scrunched the handkerchief into a furious ball and threw it at the opposite wall. The carriage jolted and she grabbed at the seat to save herself. ‘It doesn’t matter!’ she almost screamed.

This paragraph feels really choppy to me. The ideas are all detached... yet cohirent at the same time. It's a bit odd to describe, but I'm mostly talking about the dialogue. Sometimes having double-tags like this fits, while other times it doesn't seem to. This is one of those times it doesn't fit.

‘And you’ve been kidnapped by a madman who drives like a lunatic,’

This is so cute/funny. It fits the Raven's tone perfectly and it's a nice way of getting the situation into play.

‘So I thought to myself: Why so serious?’

Trying to fit the Raven's random character seems to have left a hole in the explanation/logic.

What I mean is, the Raven hasn't been trying to lighten the mood enough or hasn't been trying not to explode enough for "why so serious" to work. There hasn't been enough real solid feeling from her part to really understand why she's not taking things so seriously.

That's the only qualm I have about this last paragraph. It was nicely done.

*

Characters: I suddenly don't know how I feel about the Raven, lol. She seemed a bit too all-over-the-place for me to get a decent feel for her. Most of the dialogue was good, but I found there wasn't quite enough emphasis on how practical the Raven is being. Nor how light-hearted. She's kept the same tone as before, which might be what you want? It just feels underexplained, that's all. (And ignore all my ramblings if you're going to explain this later on!)

Tone: The Raven feels more like she did in Scavenger, now. We're not quite sure about the situation because of the way it's described. This segment is really short, so it's hard to grasp a lot about the true tone of the work, but mostly what gets to me a little is that the Raven's tone seems to have gotten randomly serious. It almost feels like she's trying to hard to lighten the mood, be matter of fact, or something. I can't quite put my finger on it, but she seems different from part one.

Overall: Just about everything here was well executed, but after I read it once or twice it was a bit harder to get. That's not so bad, on first read I wondered what there was to point out, but then I read the last line and it just... doesn't seem to fit. Made things less enjoyable for me.

Questions? PM me.

~Rosey