CHAPTER TWO
Florens looked out the narrow window. Above where she could even reach, stained glass showed the light blue sea and vicious cobalt waves of her family’s banner. Her fingers left smudges down below on the plain glass, Wake’s main export besides its leather and lace and the silk and spices it imported from the eastern and southern lands across the sea. She’d learned more and more about her House, Wake, and the land it had ruled for generations, Ocessa; the other four great lands, Acires, Coadric, Dradalaith, and Slialock; and the lands of the Council and Academies from her teacher, Helewysa, as the years had gone on. She’d absorbed more information about the lands than she would have ever thought her mind able to handle; then again, with her body so hopelessly weak, her mind had to compensate, she supposed. At eleven, Florens considered herself an expert, same as anyone else her age that had been hearing the same stories with gradually more and more detail since their birth. She could tell you about the banners, nobility and its lineage, geography and cartography, climate, exports and imports, main jobs, large historical events, current events, and even type of horses relating to each of the five great lands.
For example, as she noticed the spotted pony riding through the gates, an oddly small animal for any rider to own that was allowed to come into Wake Castle’s inner sanctum, she knew the horse probably hailed from either the northern grassland and steppes of Ocessa itself or, more likely, Dradalaith. All in all, Florens considered Dradalaith to have the oddest horses. It had ugly horses built like sighthounds with fur like gold, small horses with short backs and high-carried tails, and the most brightly-colored ponies she’d ever seen, and she’d been with her father, Lord Antony, up to the northern steppes of Ocessa and seen the huge cart animals the nomads had with their fur of black-and-white. As the horse looked like copper spotted with milk, she assumed it and its rider hailed from Dradalaith and, knowing it was an animal of quality even if it was small, the rider probably was a messenger for House Amondsham, the oldest and most powerful of all houses in Dradalaith. Florens could also tell anyone who asked that Lord Amondsham currently ruled the whole of the other seaside nation with an iron fist, and he wasn’t one to normally send a pony when he could send a showy war horse.
She smiled, pleased with herself for her knowledge and intuition, and ran off to tell Helewysa of their visitor. She knew she wasn’t supposed to run, for if she ran she often coughed and coughed, but she was so tired of sitting and sitting, like one of those dolls she’d been gifted by her grandmother, pretty and pale and unmoving.
She wished more than anything she could go outside and see what news the man on the pretty pony outside had to give, but her father always got so cross when she went outside alone.
She decided she’d try to convince Helewysa of going out with her. The old witch was generally better tempered than her father, even if she constantly threatened to turn Florens into a toad if she didn’t behave, as if a witch would dare turn the heir of Wake into a toad. It was pure hogwash, really; Helewysa was clearly bluffing, the old crone.
Not that Florens didn’t secretly worry sometimes when Helewysa said she’d turn her into a fox before a hunt. Not that she’d ever admit to that, of course. Father would throw a fit if he knew, being a brave decorated soldier and all. He really hadn’t wanted a wimpy daughter, Florens knew. She couldn’t help her coughing, but she could choose not to be afraid of Helewysa who looked like a troll and smelled like one, too, and remembered everything from eons ago until now like her brain was a dusty old library.
Speaking of which, Florens so hated libraries. They most certainly made her cough. As she trotted down hallway after hallway, calling for Helewysa, she sincerely hoped the witch wasn’t in the library.
She bet Helewysa was in the library.
Magic was supposed to make a woman go mad, but Helewysa hadn’t gone mad in the normal sense. She didn’t foam at the mouth and try and stab anyone; no, she just annoyed people until they wanted to stab themselves to end the suffering.
***
In a shocking twist of events, Helewysa wasn’t in fact in the library. She was in her room, which was a small thing with plenty of candles, lace covering the walls, and books stacked high and carelessly in mouldering stacks.
Florens froze in surprise. Helewysa was dressed all in black, like a widow mourning, and she was clutching at her necklace, the odd almost-rectangle of copper wire she always wore. Florens had long expected it was related to witchcraft, but unsure of how. It was copper wire. It wasn’t like copper wire could do much.
Helewysa’s cat, however, could bite and scratch, and it glowered from Helewysa’s bed, its fluffy orange body clashing against Helewysa’s eggplant sheets. It hissed as Florens stepped over the doorway, trying to raise the alarm. The cat had never liked her. Florens assumed it was because she was so pale the cat mistook her for a vampire, and everyone knew cats didn’t like vampires as much as if not more than they didn’t like dogs.
Helewysa didn’t turn at the sound, though.
“Hele?” Florens asked. She grasped her own skirt in her hands, twisting the linen fabric. “Hele?” No response whatsoever. She frowned. “Helewysa?” she asked, louder.
Helewysa jumped and turned. Her hands looked like eagle’s talons where they grasped around her necklace and her wrinkles seemed oddly not-so-much-there on her face, probably because her black-and-white eyes were stretched so wide. Her hair, however, was just as gray-streaked and puffy as always.
“What is it?” Helewysa asked.
Florens frowned deeper. Her teacher sounded hoarse. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing, dear.”
Florens knew she was lying. Normally Helewysa was better at deception, but today she looked right at the floor when she spoke.
“Does it have something to do with the messenger?” she asked.
Helewysa’s eyes went wider and her skin, normally the color of tan leather, went pale to a light tan leather level. “What messenger?” she asked.
She spoke as if she hadn’t just been looking out the window, same as Florens had not too long ago. Florens huffed. “The one that rode up on the pony, Hele. Honestly, are you going blind, or deaf? Didn’t you hear the drawbridge open?”
“Oh no.”
“What?”
“No time to talk, dear. Go tell the guard that followed you here to tell Raso to insure the messenger doesn’t kill Lord Wake.”
“What?”
“Well, hop to it. Honestly, must I do everything?” Helewysa sighed. She looked around the room and her cat leaped off the bed. “Now where did I put that potion?”
Florens stared for a moment, and then went out to tell the guard Helewysa needed him urgently.
Slowest reviewer ever award at the moment? xD But I'm sure by the time you get the review, you've given up expecting it and then it's a really exciting and pleasant surprise!
What I don't like about this sentence is it's not being short and dramatic or long and descriptive and a first sentence of a chapter should nine out of ten times be one of these! Short and dramatic would be:Specifics
1. We're going to take a look at your first sentence and see how we can improve it! Sometimes there's nothing wrong with a piece of writing, but just little parts that can be tweaked here and there.
The window was narrow. The stained glass was fixed higher than Florens could reach and showed the light blue of the sea and the vicious cobalt of her family's banner.
Long would be:
Florens looked out the narrow slot of window; above where she could reach, the stained glass showed the light blue sea and the vicious cobalt of her family's banner.
2. Waaaait! Start with one land please. All these names of places and things go by in a snap and I'll not remember any of them. If you give me just one and you repeat it a few times, tell me interesting snippets about it, then I'll start to see a piece of your world. But don't throw all the names in at once. Have you read A Game of Thrones? There we get multiple names of houses and details, but it's done through a history lesson which makes it more interesting for the reader and the child's own house is repeated to tell us this is the one we must not forget. You need a similar technique if you want to give us so many lands!
3. How can Florens be an expert and the same as others her age? If she has been inside more and had less time for outside lessons or distractions, then she should be more highly educated than them as you seemed to imply earlier. Make this clear cut and avoid confusing your readers!
4. There's too much about horses. I like that you're showing us she's perhaps interested in animals through this? But I'm thinking you need to turn this into a conversation. That will help you cut it down to more manageable details and to give us this sense of the girl who's highly bright, good at her lessons, and perhaps somewhat resentful of being stuck inside? It's difficult to show emotion through descriptions of what a character can see but dialogue would allow for flashes of frustration or loneliness. I'd sooner know less of the world and more of her personality.
5. I like the descriptions of Helewysa, they're the first part of this chapter to hold my attention! Already I'm getting a clear view of how the child sees her and I'm anticipating a fun character so good stuff.
6. Waaaait. How does this child's mind work? She thinks the witch will be in the library, but hates libraries. Does she therefore wrestle with herself to go and search the library first but decide against it and finds the witch in her room. Or. Does she convince herself to save time by going to the library, only to be vexed that she was wrong this time? It seems odd to bring up such a reference and then have it lead to nothing - gift us some character development please!
7. Love the line about vampires. We're seeing more personality now and that's good. You're digging into those emotions and I'd like to see more of that in the opening scene.
8. This is awkwardly phrased! It's very clunky and would read more smoothly as:
Helewysa's eyes grew wider and the colour drained from her leather tan cheeks. "What messenger?" she asked.
Overall
This chapter heats up beautifully toward the end but, while somewhat beautiful in its descriptions, the beginning is stagnated. There's not enough personality coming from the narrator so it falls flat. I think what you need is to have the little girl talking to a companion or even reciting her lessons to herself. I am sure afterall that a child who spends much of her time alone would start talking to herself.
Your sentences for the most part are well constructed, though a little sloppy at times. When you're reading through, if there's anything you have to read twice, try to take another look at it and see if it needs to be broken down or built upon.
I'd also be interested to know when Florens thinks of the witch looking for a potion! Is this normality? Is she surprised to have her suspicions confirmed? You give us a whole paragraph about horses but only a line dedicated to potions? Now that's teasing
You'll hear from me again!
Heather xxx
Hey Cas!
~ I'm all for long sentences, as long as they're easy to follow. This is not. It's a bit hard to tell at first which country you're talking about, and then I second guessed my guess of Dradalaith when you started talking about visiting Ocessa.I'm finally back with your second review.
Bringing in her father, and then bringing in the fact that she's a Lord's daughter, and then bringing in a past trip to a place-- just confuses, rather than contrasts the horses. You should try to keep your sentences long, but make sure they're not cluttered. You've sort of got a Faulkner thing going on now.
~~~
I'm a bit confused about this all...
But not in a bad way. It's intriguing. So on to Chapter Three...
Keep Writing!
~Shady