This wasn’t very fair of her, she knew, since the sun didn’t have any tile floors that she knew of, but racing was even more fun than just running was and she was sure the sun didn’t mind at all.haha, I love this! I have no idea how old she is but not very I'd have to guess, since she thinks it 'isn't fair that the sun has no tiles'. Nicely done, Rach!
“Good Dawn, Sheukki,” the emperor said with a smile, and he crouched down until his eyes were level with hers.ooh, I like this part in bold. I love when worlds are created, as well as different expressions to go with it.
This chapter is as long as the first, and I can see that you've introduced a new character. Alright then, my comments are in bold.
The Palace by the Sea had tile floors. Good for keeping the building cool during the summer and warm during the winter, Master Lagiku had told her once. Sheukki didn’t know how or why—and she was sure as seagulls I like this expression. It adds to the world you are showing us. that stone became hot in the summer, since she had burned her feet on the roads so many times before—but it didn’t really matter. Not to her.
She liked the tiles because as she ran through the palace halls, they helped her turn the corners tighter tighter? It sounds strange here, maybe you should only use quicker. and quicker. Those tiles and her bare running-feet felt good next to each other. For more than a year now, she’d been running those corridors, and never once had she slipped or stumbled. More importantly, never once had she lost a race, because those tiles made her fast the italics are unnecessary for this first use of 'fast' —oh so very fast.
But this morning, she only raced her personal records and the sun. This wasn’t very fair of her,get rid of this comma she knew, since the sun didn’t have any tile floors that she knew of, but racing was even more fun thanjustrunning was and she was sure the sun didn’t mind at all. The sun couldn’t have minded. Otherwise, she would have found some other way to speed up by now. Even little Zahkul, who Sheukki knew to be the slowest palace runner the palace had ever had, had gotten faster. Eventually. And the sun had been around years and years before Zahkul.
Today, the sun was a long ways behind. As Sheukki passed through one of the palace’s outdoor walkways, which had glassless windows that let in the breeze, she glanced out at the sky. Only the thinnest line of color stretched out over the horizon. She had won by a half bell at least.
She darted, smirking, through a beaded curtain back into the indoor part of the palace. In a dozen or two bounding steps, she was at her destination, the double-doored entry to the rooms of the Emperor of Meuku.
She gathered her breath and switched to her normal-feet. Standing there, chin up, hands clasped eagerly in front of her, she waited for the fifth bell to ring down in the city. She counted the seconds as she waited, stretching to keep her muscles loose as she did. Seconds turned into minutes. Just when she thought she was sure to break her record, though, the bell tolled out. I'm confused here. I thought that she had beaten her record because she had reached the Emperor's rooms. Apparently not?
Disheartened, but only for a second, Sheukki wiped at a bead of sweat with the back of her hand and then returned to full attention. Six minutes and twelve seconds to get from the runner quarters to the emperor’s capitalize 'emperor'. Be consistent rooms was not bad at all, not really. Even some of the older boys, the ones who ran messages to neighboring towns, couldn’t get much better than that. And she had only set the record a few days ago, six min—
The door opened in the very, very I know you're trying to emphasize here, but I think one very is enough dim gray light of morning and fading hallway lamps. And in the doorway stood the emperor. Looking tired, but not much more than usual.
“Good Dawn, Sheukki,” the emperor again, capitalize. said with a smile, and he crouched down until his eyes were level with hers.
“Good Dawn, sir,” she said back, giving him her brightest grin.
“I have two for you this morning.”
From the pocket of his shirt, his shirt? Maybe it's just me, but when you used the word Emperor I was thinking of a Chinese Emperor or something. But still, just a shirt seems a little plain for someone of such importance. Doesn't he wear a cloak or anything? he took out two pieces of paper. Sheukki reached forward to grab them but he pulled them back just out of polite reach.
“Patience,” he said, and he laughed a little, holding her gaze very steadily as he held out just one of her messages. “To the cook. Deliver it first. Right on his nose if he sleeps still.”
Sheukki grinned again and took the note from him. It was unsealed. She could tell by just the weight of it in her fingers. Fingers that itched to accept and deliver messages just as much as her feet itched to run.
“Other one?” she asked the emperor, looking from his face to his hand and back again.
“Can I trust you?” he asked her in a whisper, leaning toward her.
She knew it wasn’t really a question, but she nodded anyway. “Yes sir.”
“This you take to the pigeons,” he said, still whispering as if this were a very big secret. “Tell him I want it to North Reach—know you where that is?”
Sheukki looked up in thought. She didn’t much like her geography lessons, because what good was knowing where a place was if you couldn’t run to it? Still, it sounded familiar, North Reach. She squinted at a spot over the emperor’s shoulder as she tried to visualize a map.
“Nalmae?” she asked hesitantly. That sounded right.
He smiled, and that made her feel good. The emperor’s smiles stretched all the way up to his eyes and back down again, and even though he smiled a lot, each one looked as if it were hers and for her alone.
“Good,” he said, still smiling. He sounded pleased, and that made her feel good too. “Take this to the pigeon master, and tell I want it to North Reach fast. And safe, because I wrote only this one.”
Some mornings, the emperor just had short scraps of paper for her to run. Other days, he had notes more like the first one she now had clutched in her hand. Real letters came only every few weeks—but a letter like the one he now held out to her was the rarest of all.
Sheukki took it carefully, mindful about crunching it. Her eye caught the gold seal on the back and, as her heart quickened with excitement, she turned it over to look at the name. Only, when she tried to read it aloud, the syllables wouldn’t come out sounding anything right.
The emperor really laughed then. It was a hearty laugh, a low rumble like the tide coming in, and Sheukki liked it even more than the smile.
“The ‘e’ makes no sound,” he told her, pushing himself to his feet. “Lamir Loradaine, the Crown Prince of North Reach. But run now, Sheukki. And tell that sour piece of seaweed you must see my pigeons.”
“The pigeons!” Sheukki gave him another grin and nodded curtly. “To Dusk, sir!” A little confused here. To Dusk?
“To Dusk. Run fast.”
She didn’t need any more encouragement than that. She put her running-feet back on. Are her running feet shoes or something? Or does she have actual different feet? The tile became her friend once more. She tore back down the hallway. Darted through the beaded curtains that separated that hallway from the outdoor hallway. Tossed one glance out of a glassless window to make sure she still had the sun. Put a little more speed into her feet. Ducked down the servant’s stairway into the kitchen. Dropped the first note into the yawning cook’s hand, giggling as she surprised him. Then out through the kitchen’s supply door. Into the gardens. Across to the pigeon master’s building on far end of the palace grounds.
In the gray but growing light of dawn, Sheukki could barely see it, but that didn’t matter. Her feet knew the way. Cool salty sea air tickled her face and lips and throat. The ground, wet with dew, sprung under her feet.
When she finally slid to a stop outside the pigeon master’s gated garden entry, she had to giggle again before tumbling toward the gate, opening it, and skipping across the stepping-stones to a stop just before the door.
She took a few quick rapid breaths to contain her excitement, and then knocked. Three good raps. Since she woke up an hour before the rest of the city—before anyone except maybe the emperor and the fishermen and the men who opened the harbor gate and the cooks—those three good raps rang out, echoing in the sea breeze that knotted her hair.
But no one answered the door.
That was strange.
Head titled to one side, Sheukki knocked again, and again. And again. Her knuckles smarted against the wood but she kept on knocking. The importance of the letter in her non-knocking hand was almost tickling her fingers. And as the number of knocks mounted, frustration overtook curiosity. She, Sheukki, was bringing this letter to the prince of a land called North Reach right to the pigeon man’s door, yet he wasn’t opening.
And if he could sleep through all that knocking…
Making a face at the wood, Sheukki took her knuckles down and huffed. She let her eyes drift to the closed and shuttered windows on either side of the doorway. She took a step back and looked up at the little two-storied building.
Then someone shouted some nasty words inside.
Sheukki, grinning, stepped forward again. She switched the letter gingerly from one hand to the other and then raised the hand that wasn’t sore to the wood and started knocking again, rapidly this time. She kept knocking even as she heard the wood over the eyehole slide back and another curse.
“Oh, show you!” a voice said from behind the door.
“Down here, sir!” she said, and she forgot her annoyance because the letter in her hand was dancing now.
The eyehole wood slat clapped shut and more grunts came muffled through the door. Then, after a few slinking sounds of locks sliding back, the door opened a crack. Not hesitating for a second, Sheukki leaped at it, pushed the door back, and stumbled to a stop on the splintery wood floors.
“At end,” This is some sort of old speech, I would guess. But what does 'at end' mean exactly? That she was about to give up knocking? she said, turning and titling her head so she could see the vague outline of him. “I knocked a full bell!”
“What want you?” he snapped at her.
Sheukki couldn’t see much in the dark—the sour piece of seaweed had shutters all over his windows and just a single lamp lit—but she saw his scowl. Sure as seagulls, he thought she was some troublemaker runner, but that most certainly was not her.
Fighting down a grin, she stuck out the letter.
He snatched it out of her hand with wide eyes. “Go,” he said, waving her off.
“Special orders,” she said right back, and she crossed her arms across her chest.
“Well, what?”
“He wants it there fast. And safe.”
“Where?”
“North Reach.”
“Fast and safe to North Reach, yes. Now go. Shoo.” He waved his hand again, as if he could tell her what to do, and then clattered over to a door set in the far wall.
Sheukki barreled after him, letting her feet smack against his grainy wooden floors so he had no choice but to hear her.
“What else, what else?”
“He says I see the birds.”
His entire spindly body twitched. He said nothing, and Sheukki stood there, glaring at him because she didn’t much like him and the less-than-friendly way he talked. She was a palace runner, for fortune’s sake!
All at once, the seaweed chuckled. I'm getting a bit confused with the name changing. First he was the pigeon master, then the pigeon man, then the seaweed. Which one? He grabbed the lamp from the wall and opened the door and with a smile that did not make her feel good, said, “Come then.” And he began to climb a ladder with the letter in one hand and the lamp in the other.
For a second, Sheukki thought about just turning around to leave, but then she heard the pigeons cooing up overhead and she darted up the ladder after the seaweed. As her head came up through the trapdoor, she squinted through the sunlight streaming through the unshuttered windows, illuminating all of the pigeon cages and coops and nests scattered all over the room.
She stared at all of the pigeons as she clamored out of the hole. All of the pigeons stared back, and then all at once burst into a flutter of anxious calls and wings. The ruckus shook the cages, and in the center of the room, making it all worse, the seaweed rounded on her.
“See what you make! See!” he shouted, and then made a bunch of cooing noises while flailing his arms about, birdlike.
Sheukki bit her bottom lip to keep from laughing. How like the flighty little pigeons the man sounded, and acted! He scuttled about, looking like a teetering top going from one cage or coop to the other.
Just as the birds finally settled down, she couldn’t resist any more, and the laughter came bubbling out of her.
The look he sent her was furious. He tromped over to her and tried to shoo her back down the ladder, but she just grinned and slipped right underneath his arm. She went right up to the cages, mindful of where she stepped on the straw-covered floor, and peered inside.
“Oh, get away!”
The seaweed put a hand on her shoulder and tugged her back. Sheukki shrugged out of his grip, looked over her shoulder and up at his ugly face, and glared as hard as she could. “I know,” she said, the same way she told the runner boys to stop pulling her hair.
His whole face twitched as she said it.
“Then touch nothing.” He turned sharply and headed for the window that opened out eastward toward the rising sun.
Sheukki watched as he clucked and cooed to some pigeons inside a cage nestled up against that far wall. He took one out and fit it into a carrying vest. Then he took her letter and rolled it up and stuck it inside.
She made a face and spun to face the opposite window. He said something, probably to her by the tone of it, but she no longer cared about him or the birds, even. They were just birds, and if she had known getting to see them meant having to ruin her morning, she wouldn’t have bothered at all.
Sighing, she walked over to the western window’s sill. She put her forearms down on top of it and put her chin on top. The frown settled in as she stared out into the gray light. The five-and-half bell rang out in the city, with long, deep tones that she loved.
The rings cheered her up, just enough, and she wondered if Master Lagiku, the fastest runner in the city, would have any work for her to do down in the city itself. Other than running for the emperor, running down into the city was her favorite task of all.
Except for Master Lagiku and a few of the older messengers, no one could get down there faster than she could, and she knew shortcuts that let her beat some of the older boys, even, and they ran as far out as the near villages sometimes in just under an hour.
Not even the seaweed’s pigeons could beat her down to the harbor, she would bet, and to make this point to herself, she stood up on the tips of her toes to see if she could see the water. She couldn’t, but instead she saw the roof that ran under the window.
And something was on the roof, just below the sill.
Moving.
All that I really have to say now is to take into consideration what reviewers have and will say, and edit this up a little with their advice. With a little bit of polishing, this could be even greater than it already is!
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