Fleirzon: People of the Skies ) 3

Chapter two of fleirzon:

Three: Tears, the cold and bitter
Back on the platform, Verdeyan sat on the rough boards, stroking the ragged stumps of her shorn feathers. When her fingers brushed the bandage, she jerked her hand away as if the bloodstained cloth had bitten her. In a rage of injustice, she snatched the bandages off of her wings, wincing as the sudden motion jarred the sore muscles. Then, she ran from the hut, and pitched them down out into the sky, watching the strips of cloth float downwards into the blur below.


“My father Anno will find you. He’ll kidnap your sister. My mother Unsa will curse your name to whatever gods there are. Just wait, Gatlin. You’ll regret the moment you saw me!”
Unsa? Anno? Where are you! She called mentally, begging her parents to take notice of her absence. Even the chatter of her aunt’s obnoxious pet sparrow would have been a welcome sound at this moment.
Her head hung as she grasped how unlikely it was they’d ever find her. Did the Hamoiin do this as well? She wondered. But if so, would they paralyze each other as wretchedly as the Fleirzon did?
Now she realized with irony that she could indeed empathize with the Hamoiin. She couldn’t fly at all; her skin burning where blood dripped forth, adding to the pain in her heart.
When Gattlin returned, Verdeyan was lying on her side, staring blankly at the sky. When she heard him land, she sat upright, blue eyes like lightening.
“You.”
“Yes, I returned,” he stated, setting down the carcass of a hawk. “I suppose you’ll need a cloak since the chill is setting in. You could start with this one’s plumage, and some of your feathers-”
Verdeyan leapt at him, clenching her arm around his neck. His hand darted to his belt in search of his hunting knife, but not quickly enough, for she brought her foot up his back and kicked him in the head. The girl’s subjugator collapsed beneath her.
“Now whom is captive, you wretch?” She spat the words. On an impulse, Verdeyan grabbed his knife, and carved on both his forearms in the shape of crossed arrows; the Fleirzon hieroglyph for evil. After a few minutes of gloating, she built a fire and plucked the hawk. She cut off a portion of meat that she cooked.
Numbness pervaded her consciousness as she ate the stringy, dry meat.
After her meal, she threw the plumes into the flames, watching them burn. Just like the last plume that stuck up from the coals, she was cornered, about to be burned.
When Gattlin came conscious, he realized that he was lying on the platform, and his head ached awfully, along with lacerations on his forearms. He felt like he’d been attacked by a forest leopard. Then, seeing his bloodied knife, he remembered what had happened. The girl. She had attacked him. Her arm had locked around him, and she’d kicked him senseless. She would regret her rash actions. Then, in the glint of the full moon, he noticed the lacerations on his arms. Evil, the symbols read. He could almost taste the bitter sweat that spite brought to an exerted man’s brow.
Then he groaned, a cramp hitting him at the same moment as an image of his family. How could he harm her? When she had done him no real ill, a girl of his own age, trapped in the trees with him? Gattlin entered the hut, lying down in the hammock, as Verdeyan occupied the floor mattress.
A few minutes before sunrise he began to stir, stretching his limbs. Then Gattlin crept over to where Verdeyan lay, frowning in her sleep.
Would his plan work? At best, it was sketchy, yet the best he could come up with.
It would only work when she was partially asleep. The objective was that she’d stay passive throughout the day. She couldn’t fly. He had to carry her.
As he touched her hand again, she took in a sharp breath, and Gattlin jerked back, afraid that she was awakening. With a soft sigh, her fingers twitched and she was again motionless. Gattlin began to speak to the girl in a soft murmur, telling her of his past and his hopes for the future. He faintly realized that if she did remember this, it wouldn’t matter. She was a captive. Why was he even going to this trouble?
Then he told her what he planned to do “I will keep you in a trance; this is hypnosis, and fly with you to the next settlement. It’s a long way. You must stay calm.”
It was a skill his father had taught him, for use as meditation and a source of discipline. It could also calm people, lowering feelings of alarm and fear.
He slowly took in his hands the remaining bed sheet he’d found in the crate, and eased it beneath Verdeyan’s body. He carefully tied a scrap of material over her eyes to block the glare of the rising sun.
He looped cords around the fabric, tying them securely around Verdeyan’s body. He then tied the same cords about his own waist, tugging to be sure that they were tight. She was in a crude sling that he would carry for hours to reach the next settlement.
Staggering under her weight, he dove from the platform into the spiraling mists below.
The wind whipped through his hair as he flew, each stroke of his auburn wings
bolstering the weight of his body and hers. She weighed him down, but he felt a strange sense of duty to her. He had taken her from the sky and deprived her of flight. She was now his responsibility, however cumbersome it might be.
Perhaps three hours passed of fighting the winds, and Gattlin was exhausted. He alighted clumsily onto the broad branch of a sky pine. Tying the sling Verdeyan slept in to a sturdy bough, he collapsed in the fork of the tree.
As the rough bark contacted her skin, she startled awake, tearing the blindfold from her eyes, peered out. The sky surrounded her pierced only by the
Rough bark of the tree and its needles.
Verdeyan spotted her captor and understood what was happening. He was taking her somewhere. But how? She vaguely recalled hearing someone’s voice in her dreams, feeling a gentle touch on her arm. Why would he have been so sensitive if she was a prisoner?
Gattlin was startled to see his captive peering back down at him contemptuously.
“Coward! Why don’t you just kill me now!” she jeered.
Anger burned in his eyes as he silently stared up at her. He longed to strike at her, but that wasn’t what he’d intended to do when he’d capture her. It was better to stay true to his plan.
A flicker of doubt played in his mind. What if a storm struck and it came to his life or hers? Was he brutal enough to leave her in a tree? Such action was frowned upon even by the most hardened warriors; starvation was torture. It was better to drop them and let whatever happened below the mists of the trees be.
As the minutes trickled by, both felt increasingly lost; slowly edging away from each other over the broad limbs.
Gattlin was still fatigued, but he knew they would have to leave soon to arrive at the trading post, New Locher, before nightfall.
His mind heavier than his tired wings, he ached to speak to someone, to feel the presence of another sentient being.
The young man climbed upwards across several branches towards Verdeyan.
“You’re a wonderful flier,” he murmured absentmindedly, then regretted it.
“Do you wish to drive me mad! That I would kill myself while you watch!”
“No, I-”
“Then stop! I don’t care what you think of me. Because I hate you.” Verdeyan seethed, her voice colder than the frigid winter winds, her words freezing Gattlin’s thoughts.
“You mustn’t attack me,” he stated.
“You filthy son of flies! I was decent enough not to kill you last night. Untie me.
You’ll regret doing this to me, I swear by the forest!”
“I already do.”

....

Thanks for reading!

-Voxina

Hey Vox! Okay, your numbering is REALLY confusing.

I. NITPICKS

“Now whom is captive, you wretch?” She spat the words.

She's already called him "knave," which was weird, and combined with "wretch"? Really?

When Gattlin came conscious,

became, maybe?

He touched her hand then touched a tangled lock of hair. Touching her arm again, he gently ran his fingers up her arm to her shoulder and back down.

You better have a reason for this other than like, love, or something. Because it's just creepy.

The sky surrounded her pierced only by the
Rough bark of the tree and its needles.

Why a new line? Also, I really don't like this. How can the sky be pierced by pine needles without trees there? Which would mean they're below the top of the canopy, which would suggest she's surrounded by trees.

“Do you wish to drive me mad! That I would kill myself while you watch!”

Use question marks.

Okay.

II. OVERALL

There's nothing really that wrong with it, except that it's not pulling me in. I don't feel sympathy for either of your characters, they're both kind of annoying and Verdeyan has a really antiquated way of speaking which bothers me. I think that mostly you need to work on character development, and actually making us want to read about your characters.

Hope I helped, drop me a note if you need anything!

-Stella x

I cut out the creepy part...you're right, it was creepy.

As for her speech, I could use a little help.

What sort of thing would pull you in?

Review part three!
(I'll call it part three even though it's only part two, because otherwise I'll get confused .)

Viewpoint.
You can either tell the story sitting at your desk at home, or on your characters shoulder.
Sitting at your desk gives you the opportunity to see everything that is going on, but keeps your reader as far away from the characters as you are. Sitting on your characters shoulder gives you the insight to their emotions and thoughts, but only gives you the perspective of that one person. The trouble is, you can't sit on two shoulders at once.
It's completely up to you which place or whose shoulder you choose, but being indecisive seriously disrupts the pace and readability of the story.

Names (2)
'The girls subjugator' goes back to the point about Names. Referring to someone by a different name (even as in this case) gives them a slightly different identity, and by using this term it's almost like creating another two characters. An easy example would be a boy who one day starts saying 'some guy' instead of 'dad,' which shows an obvious change in his view of his father, and makes his father seem like a less familiar character.

Grammar 101!
Don't we all love it :p Here's your first grammar lesson from me.
In the case where commas are used to separate clauses, every clause must be a complete thought- that means it has to be able to stand alone as a sentence.

'Then Gattlin crept over to where Verdeyan lay, frowning in her sleep.' Since 'Frowning in her sleep,' would not work as a sentence on its own you take out the comma and add it to the previous thought. 'Gattlin crept over to where Verdeyan lay frowning in her sleep.'

Other Stuff
This girl can't half sleep XD Is her race one that sleeps so heavy, because it takes something unnatural to make a person sleep through being tied up and carried through raw wind. You should either clarify or change this.

I see that you cut a part out because of Stellas comment, but you should remember to go back and fix up any loose ends. Like when he touches her hand and her arm for the second time, you cut out the first time so that doesn't make much sense.

I quite like the way she speaks. I remember reading 'the secret garden' and the written dialect annoyed me a lot, but it's the kind of thing you get used to after a while. It makes her more distinctive, and if you play up on it a little more, it could be a way of forming a good contrast between these two characters.

Now, for those characters.

Gattlin
He seems like a confused young man. I'm confused as to why he's kidnapping her, and why he has such mixed emotions about her. Is this not the kind of thing he would usually do? If so, you should make him a little less experienced. Maybe she reminds him of someone he has been fond of, in which case maybe he could slip up by calling her a different name.

Verdeyan
I'd like to know a bit more about what kind of person she normally is, and how she's feeling about this situation. Is she going to go along with what he's doing because she's curios? Or is she waiting for a chance to escape? Is she emotional or contemplative?

And on to part four!