Young Writers Society

For the first time in our travels, I was scared.

“Are you sure this is a good idea, M’Lord?” I asked the knight ahead of me.

He didn’t spare me a glance back. “For the tenth time, yes.”

I resigned myself to silence, cloak pulling up against the cold mountain wind. More silver dust blew in my field of vision. My knightmaster didn’t see it; he had already scolded me twice for mentioning things that didn’t exist. Once was the wind, the other was silver veining in the stones.

Which meant it was most likely my magic letting me see the colour. I had sometimes seen colour before, when we went on these missions. But it was only closer to the caves that I saw so much. And magic only allowed me to see dragon activity to a certain degree.

Villagers who had seen this dragon said it was silver. Finding evidence of it at least an hour’s ride from the cave made me swallow.

I looked at my knightmaster’s back. Thanks to his exploits, we’d begun getting calls to slay dragons that weren’t even terrorizing villages, just to get rid of what were supposedly scary beasts.

I’d gotten good at not rolling my eyes every time I heard that.

“Gentle Knight,” I said, glad he hadn’t realized I only used that name when belittling him. “You nearly told the village who I was.”

He glared back at me. “If you wanted your supplies, I had to say you were a healer.”

I resisted muttering I used to be. My skills were now better honed in poison, no thanks to the man in front of me.

I tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. I still wasn’t used to black from blonde, despite seeing it the past eight months. It was much easier to ignore blonde hair blowing in my eyes.

The dragon's direct presence began filtering through the air. I hesitantly reached out to investigate, trying to gauge the remaining distance between us and it.

As with everything so far about this dragon, his magic range was wider. And far more powerful than previous beasts we'd encountered.

I paused, nearly wincing at calling dragons 'beasts.' Had three years changed me that much?

I shook my head slightly and waited until we were close enough to call a halt.

"You should have enough supplies," the knight muttered from behind me. "Unlike the last time."

I didn't look up from mixing the drug that would put the dragon to sleep. "You were never in any danger, Gentle Knight."

He snorted. "I wouldn't fail this time, S."

That got me to pause. "What did you just call me?"

"S. Slayer." He bit every word out. "What you'll become if this mission encounters problems."

I coated my blade with the toxin, still not looking at him. "Are you so sure you want to threaten me with that fate?"

He smiled. "Do you forget I can prevent a payment from reaching your village?"

My lip curled in a snarl. Thankfully, he never stood in front of me when I worked. Ever since I'd 'accidently' spilled some sleeping serum on his foot, and it had been so potent just a few drops soaking through his boots and touching his skin had been enough to put him to sleep for a day.

It was opportunities like that I lived for, now.

I stood and jammed my dagger into its black leather sheath, hand momentarily vanishing as my gloved hand fell into shadow. When on a mission, I wore blacks or greys to better hide in a dragon's cave. A stark contrast to my knightmaster's deep burgundy vest and gleaming silver armor.

"That excuse won't work on me forever," I muttered, walking past him.

He caught my wrist, then my waist, pulling me too close. "Now, now," he whispered, putting a finger to my lips. "That's a large boast for a girl so far from home."

I froze, glaring at him. "Don't touch my gloves. You know I always get ingredients dripping on them."

He let go of me as if I were a plague. "Do your task."

I smoothed out my shirt, not worrying about any drug that had accidently formed on my hand. I had already gotten used to small doses of what I created long before he bought me for a bride price.

The cave was a quick trot up the mountains; it was longer, and more dangerous, this time. The dragon was nearly aware of me, and every trick I'd learned the past twelve years was put to use. But once inside the cave, I would be too close to detect.

I hoped.

The knight had seen me nearly enter the cave. I could hear his muttered curses on my way inside. Had he not learned anything?

I slipped inside and lay down against the wall, in the thinnest part of the cave. From here, no dragon could walk by me and avoid being nicked, even if they walked along one wall. My cloak masked my form, and my hair covered my face. To a dragon, there should be nothing here past a shadow.

The dragon hardly waited for my knightmaster to begin taunting— the earth vibrated more than any dragon previous as it stepped out.

I opened my eyes as it neared, blinking at the onrush of silver swirling through the air ahead of it. Only the most powerful dragons gave a warning of their presence. And they only did so when angry.

Silver scales became visible from deep inside the cave. I stayed motionless, stunned. Its front paws went past me, wind from even its folded wings ruffling my hair. I came out of shock when its first hind leg came into view. A thin line of red became visible on the second.

It paused.

I stopped breathing and closed my eyes, trying to maintain my ruse. My dagger was already blackened and dulled just for this purpose. Not a single inch of skin was visible on my body, past my face screened by my hair.

Silver washed over me before the dragon returned to engage the knight. It should have fallen asleep by now, with that potency of drug going through its system.

I waited far too long before the earth shook from a dragon falling on one knee. Another, smaller tremor followed. The third— its side— was strong enough to make me stand.

Outside, the dragon was attempting to get up.

The knight glared at me. I had made a mistake. "Drug it again."

I didn't grace that with a physical reaction as I trotted up. "It'll kill him if I do."

"I said..." he growled.

I met his eyes. "And I said it would kill him."

There was a chance I could have the dragon stop flying over the villages in the area, even when it wasn't drugged. It would be difficult— I couldn't just say another dragon had invaded this territory because I doubted there was another dragon able to intimidate the being in front of me— but I had to try.

My hand went to its head and I sent my magic into its conciousness. Emotions and dragon magic resisted. They pushed back.

The dragon broke into my mind, anger sending me to my knees and magic keeping the connection even as I dropped to the ground. His memories broke into mine; Silver, father to a handful of dragons I had ripped from their homes and clanmates to dozens more. His anger when he realized I was the cause of his family's upset shattered the seal on my memories.

I didn't know if my scream was mental or physical.

Silver's anger became redirected, towards my knightmaster. He left me on the ground and roared at my master.

The knight's yell was followed a bone-snapping— and wet— crunch.

Silver turned to me, a snort ruffling my cloak. I cringed and curled up, muscles refusing the command to run and half of my mind trying to tell me it was pointless anyway.

He stopped with his head above me, waiting. I didn't move and wished he'd get killing me over with.

His nose touched my shoulder, gentle breath ruffling the hair that had fallen across my neck and jaw. My chest froze, eyes scrunching tighter than they already were.

'I won't harm you,' a voice with a soft growl said through my mind.

I blinked and rolled onto my back, staring at the bloody snout of the dragon above me. I had never met a dragon who spoke before. "Silver?"

He closed his eyes and dipped his head. 'Now be quiet. You should rest.'

"But—"

'Hush.'

He used one paw to lift one side of my cloak, his teeth grabbing the other. He gripped both ends between his front teeth and lifted me up, causing me to yelp at the sensation. Silver ignored any protests and carried me to inside his cave.

I had to cover my mouth with my sleeve because of his breath. It still smelled of metal and blood. I tried not to see if there were any pieces of knight between his teeth.

He put me down on the hard stone and curled up around me, but, thankfully, kept his wing from covering me just yet. The thought of being trapped by him made me shudder.

'Rest,' he said quietly. 'You need it.'

I tried to push myself up, talk to him, but my arms trembled at the effort. I had still used magic, and magic always drained me. Even after so many years...

Silver breathed a cloud of mist over me, bringing on a yawn.

Before I could register what he was doing, my head was resting on my folded arms and I was asleep.

Hey there, Pervy here! To start off, this was a great story. Despite that i'm about to collapse from sleep loss, I managed to read it through (unlike 98% of the others). I found some minor nitpicks, of which some may be flawed due to me being plain tired ^^ (some might spice it up a bit?)


But oh well, here goes nothing

"The dragon's direct presence began filtering through the air." I'm not sure is "direct" the best to describe. Rather, you might consider using adjectives such as "omnious/malevolent/alerting or such...the dragon aint' necessarily evil so i'm not sure which would suit your preferance . Although, the girl may have some magic to alert her of "indirect" and "direct" presence.

"I wore blacks or greys to better hide in a dragon's cave" (You propably meant "hide better" or maybe that's a style of text i'm unfamiliar to).

"it was longer, and more dangerous, this time." (Take the comma out of between "dangerous" and "this")

"I could reach out and nick a dragon's skin even if they walked along one wall." ("dragon's" is propably in this case singular, in which case you should change it to "if IT walked..." and "one wall" is quite precise, eh? Maybe it should be changed to plain "along a wall").

"the earth vibrated more than any dragon previous as it stepped out. " (*previous dragon, or then it's a style unfamiliar to the likes of me)

"wind from even its folded wings ruffling my hair" (*even wind from it's folded wings ruffling my hair)

"I came out of shock when its first hind leg came into view." (Maybe "snap out" would work better, *it's)

"My dagger was already blackened and dulled just for this purpose." (had already been blackened* <-maybeh?)

"was strong enough to make me stand. " (was she lying on the floor? I may have missed it in my trance)

"Silver's anger became redirected, towards my knightmaster. He left me on the ground and roared at my master." (too many repetitions of "master" for my taste. You can just replace the former with "him")

Well, there they were . They were all nitpicks though, so nothing major ^^ (hope this helps!!!)

Best regards,
-The Perverted Iguana (please, do call me Pervy~ ^^)

Hey Rosey!

I really, really liked this; your style was very good and it flowed extremely well. I really liked the conflicted relationship between the girl and the knight, and it’s a pity you killed him off so quickly; that would have been fun to see more of.

A few nitpicks:

I hesitantly reached out to investigate, trying to guage the remaining distance between us and it.

Guage = gauge

I shook my head slightly and waited until we were close enough to call a halt.

"You should have enough supplies," the knight muttered from behind me. "Unlike the last time."

I didn't look up from mixing the drug that would put the dragon to sleep. "You were never in any danger, Gentle Knight."

I’d like more a setting-up at this point; this is moving too fast. They’re walking or riding (which?) and then all at once he’s mixing poisons.

He caught my wrist, then my waist, pulling me too close. "Now, now," he whispered, putting a finger to my lips. "That's a large boast for a girl so far from home."

I don’t know why, maybe it’s because I’m rereading Royal Assassin and that’s all poisons and going about being sneaky, but I had the strongest vibes of this character being a guy. I had this problem the other day as well; all the way through reading a story I’d been picturing the main character as Chris Evans, and then they turned out to be a girl, lol. It’s very disorientating, so a clue of gender or a name would be nicer before this point.


As I said, I really enjoyed this. It was fun and easy to read, and I like your main character, though I’d like to know her name – and more hints early on that she’s female, lol. I guess her backstory will be revealed later on? I will say, though, that there wasn’t much emotion or description, and as a result, sometimes the pace was too fast. I’d like to know more about the countryside, more of the setting so I can picture it more. What’s the cave really like? What’s the dragon really like? Dragons differ a lot. Though I guess that could come later... Still, there wasn’t a lot of emotion, especially when the knight got nommed. I mean, I know she didn’t like him that much, but he still got nommed right in front of her and all. And then when the dragon is about to nom her, she’s just like, “Aw man, I’m gonna get nommed!” Not much oomph behind it, you know?

Anyway, I hope this helped. PM me if you have any questions!

Hi Rosey,

Before I give you my usual, I just wanted to remark on your astounding grasp of your character and how you've so successfully got into her head. It's very, very, very, very impressive.

*takes out scalpel and surgery equipment*

I want to talk about info-dumping and exposition and pacing tension as well as Mary-Sues,.

The first part of your story is almost solely dedicated to telling back-story. You give us a load of stuff to swallow about a) how your magic system works, b) the purpose of your mission, c) how you are being coerced into doing things you find repulsive, d) underlining your abilities and past as an assassin and e) the landscape. This burdens your story heavily, and quite honestly for the first part of the story I wasn't drawn in to say the least. There are too many variables here to make a good short story. Either focus the story and eliminate anything that isn't entirely vital to the piece of the story you're telling here, or write this as a novel. You dump a whole bunch of information and expect us to merely passively accept it. It seems too unreal as we haven't experienced it.

Take us through the story. To put this in YWS speak, you need to show us all of this rather than telling it to us. Work out the details to your story that are vital, and tell us about them, but only them. Anything that detracts from the focus almost always detracts from a short story.

On the exposition note, let's talk about creating danger as a real and thick atmosphere that lurks behind your story holding the reader's attention. I've said it time, and I'll say it again, one of the most important aspects to tension is making us feel the stake almost personal. In a first person narration, given as the narrator is telling the tale, the stake cannot be the life of the protagonist, it must be something that the reader fears. Moreover, the reader needs to be entirely convinced that it will come to pass. To achieve this, you need to give the main character reason to fear. To place her into a perilous situation is not enough. The whole story needs to take place wth a material threat to something the narrator holds dear apparent.

To make the story truly epic, she needs to emerge from the story as a different person, which brings me to the next point.

The second thing I wanted to talk about was Mary-Sueness. Yes, your character is a Mary-Sue. A person who cares about all creatures, is insanely powerful, and is only limited by her own virtue. She's smart, and streetwise. If she dies, her death will be hailed as the death of a hero, if she lives, her life will be that of a hero. If she kills, she'll emerge as a hero, and if she remains in captivity her captivity will be a heroic one. She needs to have internal conflict. Something her more real. To create tension, we need to fear she will make an incorrect decision. To make the story epic, she must emerge with a correct decision or a correction of an incorrect decision.

Your prose is great, your world is great, your dialogue is great. The above are the points I thought important.

Hope that I helped,
Yoda

Alright, Dreamy here as requested! *cough*and even if I wasn't I'd still be*cough* ;D

Okay, so I'm pretty sure you know my basic reviewing formula so won't really need to explain. So, lets get this show on the road!

Grammar and Punctuation:

Once was the wind, the other was silver veining in the stones.

I'm sure you mean't 'One', or something of that general sort. Once doesn't really fit in this kind of explanation.

I had sometimes seen colour before, when we went on these missions.

You don't necessarily need the comma here unless you're drawing on a dramatic pause. Its up to you to keep it though since its not 'technically' bad punctuation.

Finding evidence of it at least an hour’s ride from the cave made me swallow.

Maybe change the wording of 'swallow' to 'gulp'. Swallow sounds kind of silly to me... maybe that just my opinion though! I could be overanalysing xD.

I stood and jammed my dagger into its black leather sheath, hand momentarily vanishing as my gloved hand fell into shadow.

You use the word 'hand' twice here. That creates a bit of redundancy that you don't want. A good tip would be to try and use a word only once in a paragraph unless its a connective word like 'and' or 'its' and so forth. Pretty much your nouns, adjectives, and verbs all fall under the catagorey of 'lets try not to repeat twice'. If you can do that, you wont have that pesky repetition that can hanker a lot of writers.

I slipped inside and lay down against the wall, in the thinnest part of the cave.

You jump from past to present tense here. Try 'I slipped inside then laid down against the wall in the thinnest part of the cave.' That'll make more sense to the readers mind.

'I won't harm you,' a voice with a soft growl said through my mind.

Try rewording the line after the dialogue. Its sounds a little wonky. Maybe 'The soft growl of a voice said through my mind'.

I tried to push myself up, talk to him, but my arms trembled at the effort.

Instead of using the first comma, just put an 'and' there. The way you have it worded made me have to reread the sentence cause it didn't ring in my head right of the bat.

And that concludes my Grammar and Punctuation section! There is only one other line that you repeated a word, but other than that, I see no other errors. So thumbs up for that!

Now, onto the next section.

Plot:

This is definitely a very interesting inciting incident. I can see the plotline slowly making itself known and it does make the reader want to know more. That and its almost enjoyable to see a rather bad person pegged off in the beginning of a book xD. Is that horrible of me? Well, either way, it shows the very traditional fantasy entrance that is so beloved to a fantasy writer. For that I give you a thumbs up on this section and I can't wait to read more!

Setting and Description:

Because this is the first chapter, no one really wants to overdue the whole 'description' thing in case you bore the reader from the start. So, in any case, this has a lovely ring to it and is quick and enjoyable to read.

But for later chapters, the setting descriptions are a must. They help flesh out the story and make it more believable. I would have liked to see more on the place she was heading, or the musky rankness of the cave. Maybe even the beautiful surroundings before one should reach this said cave. Its really up to you. But, as I know this is a first chapter, I won't be too harsh on this section.

Characterization:

I like how you gave the male an interesting character. Like he wasn't all that great and for the first while, I was sort of hoping he would remain in the storyline just because he wasn't all that great of a person. A mean, blunt Protagonist is always a little more fun to read about then your regular Mary Sue.

I think, the best thing you can do here to improve on your characterization would be the try and start forming your character flaws right away. So far, she seems like the basic fantasy heroine, and theres nothing wrong with that. Just, to make your character original, and yours alone, you've got to make her into a human before a character. So far, she's already showing that attitude, and I'm sure she'll only get more well-rounded as you go along, but from what I've seen so far, she's still pretty basic. This could all change though and I'm sure it will!

That and I was reading back on some of the other reviews, and they drew up an interesting point. Is the protagonist a male or female? I got the intinctives that it was a girl right off the bat, but, unfortunately, I could be wrong. A good way to fix this would be to give a name or something of that general sort right off the bat.

Overall:

You have a very interesting beginning here. I love the simple, almost breathy language you use. Its to the point and it shows the fun, almost enjoyable plotline that will ensue. For that, I give you a thumbs up. I'm sure, in no time at all, you'll have a very interesting set of characters. That, and I'd like to see a little more with this dragon. Sounds interesting to me!

Either way, it was an enjoyable read and I hope to read more soon!
~The.Dreamwalker

I really enjoyed reading this, as the quality of punctuation, spelling, grammar, plot, characterization and everything really is of stupendously high quality. I think that the 'nitpicks' pointed out were really just changes in the usual style of writing. I thought it was a refreshing change to read a style that really fit in with the era the story is set in. I fervently hope that there will be more of these to come. Good luck!

I read your story, seeing it was about a dragon. I love it, to put my feelings simply. I like the plot so far, I like Lidia's character, and I like how the Dragon seems to be the Good Guy. I really want to read more. If this wa a book, I'd spend hours reading it. Please, please keep writing this story! I really want to read it, it seems like a very nice story.