A voice swam to Aidan in the dark.
“Hmph. So this is what you look like clothed.”
His eyes opened to find Mestra staring down at him. He was back in her lair, the piles of gold casting wavy light, though it seemed brighter now.
“Am I dreaming?” Aidan asked, sitting up and wiggling his toes.
“You are,” Mestra said. “A devil shares dreams with their acolytes, though I may have to keep a closer eye on you than that.”
The devil dragon snorted and looked away. “I should’ve known you’d be so reckless. You’re a disgrace to my mark.”
“I forgive you,” Aidan replied coolly, “for not telling me how the curse becomes stronger over time. Really, crucial information like that is a waste to speak of.”
“The curse is not my fault!” Mestra roared. She shifted her claws and spoke quieter. “It draws power according to the user’s desires. It won’t get any stronger than you need it to. And it obviously shouldn’t be used when you’ve nearly wiped yourself out the previous minute,” she pointed out.
Aidan folded his arms. “Maybe not. But, considering I’m the only acolyte you’ll ever have, I think I’ve done well for myself. Did you get my silver?”
“Don’t think you’re the only one,” Mestra muttered, tapping the silver coin he’d taken from the bar. “It’s a dull little thing, isn’t it? It’s practically grey.”
“Yes, but it’s also money,” Aidan purred, watching Mestra’s mouth twitch with delight.
“Well, it’ll do for now,” Mestra huffed. “Now you might want to wake up. I doubt you’ll be as smug when you’re dealing with the damage to your body.”
Aidan kept his grin as the lights burned to daytime. “I might just be.”
He wasn’t.
-----------------
He opened his eyes to a dark wooden room, full of beds. Only the one next to him seemed to be occupied, and Aidan recognized the rotund sleeping shape of Krakan.
Then all he recognized was pain.
It felt as though the devil dragon scales had been ripped out one by one, tearing away his muscles with them. He gritted his teeth as he sat up, mumbling a roll call of all the curses he knew.
He looked around the room; it appeared to be an infirmary. As nice as an actual bed was (for the first time in two weeks), he hadn’t the time to relax. Once word of the ogre spread, the Army Unitas would surely arrive to handle it. I need to leave with Quinta before I’m arrested.
Waves of fatigue assailed him as he dragged himself out of bed. There were bandages on his fists now where he’d punched the ogre. “Quinta,” he croaked. “Quinta!”
A nurse came running towards him. “You need to lie down, sir! I’ll get-”
And Aidan, half-dead and impatient, kissed her on the lips.
As the nurse reeled back in shock, he bolted for the door. He wrenched it open and stepped outside to find Quinta standing there, at the back of a small crowd.
On the broken platform in the center of the square stood Haku Beastkin, his hand on his chest as he laid testaments to peace and justice.
“That is why, no matter my hardship, I will fight for others. All Beastkin would!” he declared, as the crowd cheered.
As he stepped down from the platform, the children dashed over to him. Aidan grabbed Quinta’s collar to stop her from doing the same. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m analyzing that man for recruitment,” Quinta said, analyzing closely the fluff of Haku’s tail. “Didn’t you say you needed followers?”
“Not him,” Aidan said, “He’s too flashy, and pompous too.”
“Should I ask him to give back your stolen thunder?”
Aidan turned pink and went quiet. “You didn’t have to stop me,” he muttered.
Quinta looked at him seriously. “You’ve been out for the past hour.”
He glared at Haku, seething with jealousy. “He’s been talking for the past hour?”
“Well, we occupied most of it with imprisoning the ogre.” Quinta pointed to the large building at the edge of town. “He’s been incapacitated.”
Aidan simmered quietly in his thoughts. “Thank you for waiting for me,” he said finally, “but we need to move. The Army Unitas is probably on its way right now, to pick that ogre up. You and I don’t want to be here when that happens.”
“Agreed,” Quinta said, turning back to the dispersing crowd. “We can exit through the forest.”
Aidan saw the nurse exiting the infirmary, probably to drag him back. “Right. Let’s move, then.”
They headed for the edge of town, away from the flow of people back to their homes. The path through the foothills was just beyond the prison, and they could vanish from the trail once they reached the forest. Aidan already had an idea for their next move.
He headed for the alley behind the prison, which overlooked the trail into the forest.
What he saw was the ogre exiting the jail, being led down the hill away from town. He could barely comprehend it before Quinta had tackled him and shoved him behind a corner.
“Thank you for the help, Zaguille,” a familiarly charismatic voice said. “Your magic is, as always, incredible.”
“Not half as moving as your speeches, I’m sure,” a deeper voice replied. “I kept count of the times you said ‘justice’.”
An embarrassed laugh drew Aidan and Quinta to the edge of the corner, peeking around. “Well, it was Chourin’s idea,” the man said, his ears and tail instantly recognizable. “It’s good for getting the people on your side.”
“We’ll just have to see if you can keep it up,” the ogre replied, kneeling to let Haku Beastkin unlock its shackles.
“You’ve done your part well, Zaguille,” Haku said warmly. “Let this be your formal dismissal, then.”
“Watch yourself, Haku,” Zaguille warned, standing up. “You’re playing a dangerous game with these people.”
“Maybe,” Haku agreed. “But if I don’t play, we can’t win.”
Zaguille grunted, and trudged off down the path. Haku looked after him for a moment before relaxing against the wall.
Aidan jerked his head back around the corner, looking at Quinta with bewilderment. He’s a fake! he mouthed. Already, his mind was churning with all the juicy revelation of what to do next.
But that next action turned out to be a small yelp as Haku’s arms appeared around their necks and dragged them into the alleyway.
Haku loomed over them, the sunlight shadowing him from his back. “Looks like I have some explaining to do,” he said. “Well-”
He never finished that sentence, because Quinta’s sword hilt flashed from its sheath and bashed against his chin. As Haku reeled in pain, Aidan walloped him with a wild haymaker. The Beastkin tumbled back and landed in a heap. “Alright,” he said, wincing as he got up. “Even more explaining, then.”
Of course! Aidan realized. This faker isn’t strong at all! His enthusiasm died with a shock as another shadow appeared in the alley.
“Mr. Beastkin?” The worried voice came from the nurse, standing just behind Haku at the entrance to the alley.
Aidan’s thoughts turned to panic; he shoved past Haku and grabbed the woman’s shoulders. “Get out of here!” he shouted. “He’ll kill you!”
The nurse’s eyes widened; then she folded her arms and sighed. “Haku, Haku. I can’t believe you!” The words should have been damning, but the tone tipped Aidan off.
“What are we going to do now?” the nurse chided, a smile growing on her face. “You’ve left witnesses.”
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139,531 Literary Works • 672,600 Reviews
Hey Chaser! I'm swinging by for a review today!
Let's get into it, shall we?
This is an odd description of say he heard a voice? Swimming is a physical action whereas talking is...not. This sounds more like it's trying to sound fancier, but it ends up detracting from the sentence in the long run since it doesn't really make sense.
If he just woke up, how can it be brighter? That implies it was darker before, but if he was asleep, that doesn't really make sense? Unless you're referencing the first time he was in her lair (I'm guessing just from saying he was "back in her lair"?), but I still probably wouldn't use that?
Since I assume this is Mestra talking, I wouldn't separate the lines like that. Since there was no change of Time, Person, Topic, or Place, there's no reason to separate these two paragraphs, and only makes it more confusing that Mestra is the one talking.
If this curse doesn't get any stronger than the user needs it to, why is she getting upset at him for overexerting it? If it wouldn't get to be too strong for Aidan to handle, why did he even knock himself out in the first place (I also am just assuming please correct me if I'm wrong about this!!)? This exposition about the magic just seems to contradict itself?
What is this supposed to mean, "the lights burned to daytime"? Sunlight started streaming in? There was a bright flash? You haven't described any light source either, so how are we supposed to know there was any lights, besides the previous mention of it being "brighter"? Or if he's waking up, I wouldn't describe it like this. But that also doesn't fit with Aidan waking up so I'm...still not sure what you mean.
So far, most of your writing is dialogue? Which can be fine, at times! But you're always going to want to have other things going on at the same time. What is Aidan feeling? What is he smelling? What do his surroundings look like? Is he moving around in any way? Gesturing? There isn't many clues as to Aidan's surroundings or what he's doing, besides what it shown in his dialogue. Try to find your balance so your writing isn't so dialogue heavy!
I'm not sure what Aidan needs followers for, or what the situation is, so I don't know how much he needs followers, but given this comment, I'm guessing he doesn't need them too bad because this is a bit of a petty reason not the recruit someone (although I like the look into Aidan's characterisation here).
Since I haven't read any previous instalments of the story, I don't know why Quinta and Aidan are trying to escape the authorities. It sounds like they took down the ogre, and the Army Unitas has to pick it up (which sounds like a good thing), but there's no clear reason that they're fleeing from them? Is it some sort of offence to kill an ogre? Are they outlaws?
Of course! I'm sure this is cleared up if I had read more beforehand! I'm just curious, is all!
With as much pain as Aidan was in, I am left wondering why he's able to suddenly move around so effortlessly. He doesn't seem to have much pain after meeting up with Quinta, and I'm not sure if you just forgot to include it? But he seems like he's in pretty good shape after feeling like he had gotten his muscles torn out before (this also applies to when he simply ran out of the infirmary. Despite the apparent stakes at hand, I'm not getting much tension from this chapter. Quinta and Aidan are standing around, bantering for a moment, and then they have to move, but that together doesn't make it feel like there are any stakes being raised here?
So I am guessing if they're releasing the ogre, that probably means that Quinta and Aidan were doing something illegal with the ogre then?
I know you're probably trying to introduce this character/give us his name, but this feels like an awkward place to throw it in? Would Haku say this normally if you weren't going for that? Is there anybody else around he might be thanking instead and therefore needs the clarification? There's a lot of instances where you don't need to use a characters name, or it fits awkwardly in dialogue, and especially since you use it again right after, I would remove it form this first sentence.
Overall, I think you have an intriguing story here! I already mentioned finding a better balance with your dialogue, because for most of the time I really didn't have much of a foothold for what was going on/their surroundings.
That being said! I think there was a few places (like the beginning sentence I pointed out), where you tried to use fancier words that didn't really fit the situation, or just sounded more awkward because of their use ("He could barely comprehend it before Quinta had tackled him" was another place I remember more distinctly, with comprehend feeling a little out of place for me).
Anyway! That's all I've got for you today! I hope this review was helpful to you and your story
I hope you have a wonderful day!
Hey there Chaser.
Looks like you've been waiting about a month on a review. I haven't read any of the story before this but hopefully I'll get the gist as the review goes along.
When I haven't read any part of the story before, I always like to look at the title and the first line. "The Revolting Knights" gave me a couple of ideas and I wanted to see which one it was most like, so the title is certainly interesting.
Going to assume that since you introduced this person in the first line they're the main character/one of the main characters. As a first line, it's not particularly breathtaking but since you are passing over from a previous chapter, it doesn't worry me too much.
The wording is the main thing that feels off to me and I'm just worried that it will set the view for the rest of the chapter. If that feeling continues, of course I'll comment on it more.
This part of your story was interesting to me, there's just a few issues that were bothering me the whole way through.
I would describe this chapter as bit of a whirlwind since it is rather short and that creates more issues with the effect I think you were going for. There's certainly some parts here that need a slower pace but instead there's just an overall fast pace to it, and that takes away most of the enjoyment that I was getting from it.
You are also mainly in these intense action scenes but the wording is not there to support it. Nothing feels tense, even when the characters are hiding and eavesdropping on whatever malicious plan. It feels just casual?
I'm trying to find the technical words to explain the problem that this presents. Mainly it's just affecting how the reader is seeing the story but you might be writing this as YA. Or some other way that this effect is purposeful. I know that certain styles demand certain things, this just feels like a personal writing issue that just needs more practice.
The effect of the scenes runs over into the characters not grabbing my attention. It might be that I'm reading this so late into the story and there's only limited character descriptions. It seems too early for a reader to find themselves with no connection to the characters, even though that's not necessary.
So just in a one shot view as someone not familiar with everything going into the work, the concept feels interesting but then it falls flat in the execution. It's mainly some minor things so if you'd like to talk more about that, my inbox is always open.
- Lizz