Flight-Prologue

This is my first post, so sorry for any errors...By the way, my book is separated into prologue and part 1 and so on by parts of the day. First we have Dawnsbreak, then Morningtide...you get it.

DAWNSBREAK

The moon was half full. It was a glistening, shimmering orb of pearly substances, swirling dazedly around the Earth in its serene manner. On and on it would go forever…if only peace could last as long.

Lady Eylŏn of the Mist stood on her balcony overlooking the Castle Awynå, the palace of quiet, the mansion in between the two dimensions of Gondwåna and Laurasiå. Down, Eylŏn looked, seeing nothing but the churning, twisting, white Waters of Eternity, a river so large it could only belong here, in the un-dimension of all dimensions, in the place of peace. It’s waters boiled and seethed in an ivory torrent of wishes and hates until it reached the cliff and spewed down, down, down forever…never to return again, the hopes and dreams fusing together and then disappearing.

Eylŏn threw her wish in there to, pulling the gossamer white thread from her mouth and flung it at the river, and saw it be dashed away quickly over the edge. She clutched the marble banister with pallid hands that turned her knuckles a colourless shade. Her hair, a waterfall of silver tickled her knees and shone silkily in the moonlight. Eylŏn shivered as a cold gust blew and twisted around her slim form and drew her emerald cloak around her.

“Come inside, irmâ.”

Frére Larwyn had come outside. He beckoned to Lady Eylŏn, gesturing that she should come in.

“No, frére, but I must wait for fate. I cannot protect the people if I cannot stop danger.” She said.

“But irmâ, you will weaken in the cold. And then you will not be able to protect your people. You are already ill as it is. Please, Lady Eylŏn, come inside and rest.”

With a heavy heart Eylŏn followed Larwyn in to the palace. Where they entered, the floor was polished and plain white quartz. It was empty and flat, the smooth surface broken only by milky pillars. Eylŏn’s satin slippers tapped on the glossy floor as she slid towards her bedchamber. She had absolutely no intention of sleeping, however.

She bowed her head to frère Larwyn and crossed the threshold in to her room. Larwyn touched two fingers to his forehead and then to his monk’s robe in farewell.

She sat down on her window seat and looked out upon the Waters of Eternity again, this time in a sea of fantasies and desires. She rested her weary head against the cool stone window frame. She was so tired, so frail. She had been ill ever since Aidæth had risen to the throne of Despir, feeble as a grandmother in old, old age. She must put up a barrier around the dimensions, both of them. But she was so fatigued…

Eylŏn forced herself to sit up. With her eyes closed in painful concentration, she put every drop of her energy into a barrier…a wall…a divider…a screen…a bubble of pure light extended from the castle…the force was zapping her of all her power…hurry, cover them from danger…now red-hot anvils were pounding at her temples, willing her drained body to collapse, but both dimensions were not completely covered yet…and still the scorching arrows flew at her, slicing her in agony.

Lady Eylŏn of the Mist slumped, unconscious and depleted.

ΦΠΩ

“Go, and attack everyone and anything in your way. You know what I want, and what the reward is. Go!” A shadowed figure rasped from a black palanquin suspended in the midnight air by four flying lizards. The chilling words echoed in the still.

With a roar a hundred demons launched themselves at the castle of Awynå, flailing battle-axes and talons. Spiked rhinoceroses, scaly elephants, two headed reptiles spewing fire, and other beastly warriors snarled and growled with anticipation for a great feast.

The fiend in the palanquin observed maliciously as her barbarians attacked the palace mercilessly, hearing the cries and shouts of the foolish guardsmen robed in white cloth. She cackled and cracked her knuckles and said: “Dunces! Their garbs will soon be stained scarlet with their very own blood, a living sacrifice to me!” She stood and commanded “Bring me to earth. I want to parley with my dear sister.”

The lizards bore her down to the ground, folding their plated wings and bowing their heads. The figure stood and gestured to two tashidons to accompany her. She flew darkly to the top of the castle and slid through the glass of the window.

ΦΠΩ

Eylŏn awoke to screams and moans. She stood up, clutching the ebony border of the window, dread and terror reflected in her beautiful, melancholy eyes. She turned so quickly her moon-bright hair whipped back around her and lashed her face. Her face froze in timeworn apprehension.

“So you have come.” She whispered at her sister who slipped through the east jalousie.

Aidæth smirked at Eylŏn. She was the Raven of the Dark, Mistress of Destruction, Lady Madnight, the Dark Angel. She held herself with the imperiousness of a magistrate declaring war over the enemy or a queen ordering the beheading of a criminal. Her soft, black cloak touched the ground and her jet hair was pulled into a sharp headress adorned with the Seven Jewels of the Night, as terrible and beautiful as their dame. She streched out a hand and shot a clear blue spasm of lighting from her palm and ensnared Eylon.

“You will be coming with me tonight, dear irmâ. I can’t afford to have you try ticks like that feeble barrier you tried tonight. It will snap just as I will snap you in half as soon as I finish with you.” She hissed, her black tounge flickering like her reptile devils. She closed her fist and Eylŏn’s thin throat was squeezed into a wire. She was imortal, but all the same, it caused as much pain as it would to a mortal.

“You will never win, devil.” She gasped “Our sister will come soon. She will be the sixth daughter after Zå’nibar. You know what she will do and that nothing can stop Fate.”

Aidæth snickered. She pulled Eylŏn into the grasp of one of the tashidons, who caught the frail woman in his huge hairy hooves.

“As if the girl could stop me! Larwyn, search the place. Bring as many survivors as you can. I want to have some fun later.” She ordered to the figure in the corner.

“No!” cried Eylŏn “Larwyn, my freré!”

Larwyn leered at her. “Your to trustful, irmâ.”

And with that Aidæth and her hell-beasts flew into the cloak of velvet that veiled the sky, with Eylŏn, the fourtborn of Fate, as captive.

There was no hope for the stragglers in chains that were forced to follow.

None but Fate’s last daughter.

The names here are hard to pronounce. "Larwyn" is said Lar-win. "Aidæth" is said "Ai!" like you're suprised and then "death." Awynå is said AW-ee-na. Oh, how I love complicated names.

Comments & reviews · 6
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pandapez
Review

Well, I thought I'd do this in the cookie pattern thing (I really can't remember it's exact name right now, but it's the good-bad-good form of criticism. You know the one :3)

Good Part: I was really impressed. I think you're story had a creative edge that I personally haven't seen in a awhile and I love how much depth your world already seems to have.

Bad Part: You tended to go into too much description. It got to the point where you seemed to struggle for the right adjective or adverb and ended up repeating words, which is never a good thing. My advice is to build up your vocabulary more and try to be more concise. You have the rest of your story to describe things after all.

Good Part: You had a really interesting plot. I liked how you started things off with a bang, and I'm curious to know more about the culture and beliefs of your world.

“You will never win, devil.” She gasped “Our sister will come soon. She will be the sixth daughter after Zå’nibar. You know what she will do and that nothing can stop Fate.”

This part in particular really intrigued me.

One More Bad Part:
“You will be coming with me tonight, dear irmâ. I can’t afford to have you try ticks like that feeble barrier you tried tonight. It will snap just as I will snap you in half as soon as I finish with you.” She hissed, her black tounge flickering like her reptile devils.

The wording of this sentence seems a bit off to me. I think it would flow better if was more along the lines of "It will snap in half, just as you will when I'm finished." or "My forces with snap it in half, just as I will to you." But that's just my opinion. Also, you used irmâ a lot, but never really explained what it meant. Is it a title, or part of her name?

And that's about it. All and all, I think it has a lot of promise and I hope you write more. Good job!
(By the way, this is my first criticism on this site, so I'm sorry if it wasn't that good ^^; )

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cooldude19967
Comment

I'm sorry, but within about a minute of seeing you work I couldn't take anymore of the symbol things. They do work and I think they add somthing to your piece but you've overdone them and it's really annoying to read. I hope this helps.

Hey, Calling!
I like what you've got right now, but here are a few things I'd like to point out:

i. Read this. It's so truthful it's hilarious. Leave your mouse over the picture for a little bit.

ii. While it's cool that you know how to use the "insert symbol" feature of your chosen writing program, the things are really quite the eyesore. :P Sorry truth. I'm taking German -- the language of umlauts and weirdo phonetics -- and I barely know how to use the things. Speaking as a bookworm, I barely know how to pronounce those accent marks and it just bogs down the story. My suggestion? Get rid of as many as possible while still preserving the flavor you want to give.
(Personally, though, I do like the Greek symbols. ^^)

iii. Just some things:

She clutched the marble banister with pallid hands that turned her knuckles a colourless shade. Her hair, a waterfall of silver tickled her knees and shone silkily in the moonlight

The bolded parts just seemed redundant. Tweak it a little and it will mesh perfectly with your ethereal style. And this is again just me -- but silver hair? Really?

the force was zapping her of all her power…hurry, cover them from danger…now red-hot anvils were pounding at her temples, willing her drained body to collapse, but both dimensions were not completely covered yet…and still the scorching arrows flew at her, slicing her in agony.

They agonize over the fact they hit her? Some strange arrows!

And crap, I gotta go. I'll finish this up later -- PM me if I don't. XD

Happy New Year's!

Sumi

EDIT: Yo, I am back!

Where were we?

Ah, yes, "zapping". "Zapping" is, I'm fairly certain, a newcomer to the dictionary. It just seems very...'50s superheroes. It's kind of retro and childish sounding, so I would recommend substituting something else for it.

She held herself with the imperiousness of a magistrate declaring war over the enemy or a queen ordering the beheading of a criminal. Her soft[s],[/s] black cloak touched the ground and her jet hair was pulled into a sharp headress adorned with the Seven Jewels of the Night, as terrible and beautiful as their dame. She streched out a hand and shot a clear blue spasm of lighting from her palm and ensnared Eylon.

Hmm. I noticed a lot of awkward things here.
It's great that you're branching off and using the comparing and contrasting between two things, but one, you only need one compare or contrast, and two, don't make it so flowery it actually draws the reader's attention to the words. The words are the gateway to the story.
About the bolded sentence: this is just awkward because I could see you struggling with how to say her hair is black without reusing the adjective.

My solution would be to gut any physical description you have of her -- let the reader decide what she looks like, in his mind. If her actions are strong enough, this will undoubtedly result. But right now, I don't think the story is strong enough to support that kind of thing. So for now, I would recommend describing a single aspect of her garb. The headress, for example. What exactly makes it terrible and beautiful?

"Spasm" -- I get where you're coming from with this, but it's such a startling word, I wouldn't use it. Maybe "arrow" or "bolt" or, you know.


iii.a -- Please, please be careful with this style! There is a very fine line between what you're doing now and what's called purple prose. Purple prose is the overuse of description in stories, and frankly, there's nothing more boring to read. Tolkien is one of the more famous breakers of this rule. Here's what Wikipedia's entry on it has to say:
Purple prose is a term of literary criticism used to describe passages, or sometimes entire literary works, written in prose so overly extravagant, ornate, or flowery as to break the flow and draw attention to itself. Purple prose is sensually evocative beyond the requirements of its context. It also refers to writing that employs certain rhetorical effects such as exaggerated sentiment or pathos in an attempt to manipulate a reader's response.

Because, while the style compliments this story's characters very nicely, it's easy to bore a reader. :P

One last thing --
“Your to trustful, irmâ.”

Other than the startling overlook of "you're", it's a great line. Short, sweet and deadly.

Keep working at it! And PM me when you update. I'm interested. ^_^

~Sumi

User avatar
jok101
Comment

Good description with cool names theirs gonna be more low right

Thanks Sakura. And just to say to anybody else who reads this, the Greek letters are just a kind of break in the text, like switching characters and such. Also, Awynå is not a translation. Most of my names are just awesome randomness. Though I do translate swear words to French occasionally, so I don't offend anyone.

Hello! I'm Sakura and I'll be your reviewer for today.

Welcome to YWS. It's a great place to have your writing critiqued, so you should return the favor!
It's a bit of a rule here that you should have two reviews of other's work before you post your own work.

Thanks!

Anyway, onto your story...

The moon was half full. It was a glistening, shimmering orb of pearly substances, swirling dazedly around the Earth in its serene manner.


I absolutely love your description here. The only thing is, an orb is a circle. If the moon is half-full, it isn't a circle. Maybe you could call it a glistening, shimmering smile or a glistening, shimmering sliver.

overlooking the Castle Awynå, the palace of quiet


Is "palace of quiet" a translation of the name Castle Awynå? If it is, it's a proper noun that needs to be capitalized: Palace of Quiet.

Down, Eylŏn looked,


This is awkward. Can't you just say, Elyon looked down?

churning, twisting, white Waters of Eternity, a river so large it could only belong here, in the un-dimension of all dimensions, in the place of peace.


Contradiction. A violent river exists in the place of peace? Explain.

in there to


Incorrect form of to. Should be "too".

gossamer


Great word.

and saw it be dashed away


Something about this bothers me. I would write: "...and observed it as it dashed away..."

“Come inside, irmâ.”


What does irma mean? Is it a name? If so, it should be capitalized.

She said.


De-capitalize she. The person saying the dialogue should not be capitalized unless it is a name.

to frère Larwyn


Capitalize frere.

ΦΠΩ


Oooh, Greek letters? They have no meaning here...
at least tell us.

castle of Awynå


Capitalize castle.

She whispered


De-capitalize she.

her black tounge


I can never spell this word either. Spell it tongue.

imortal


Immortal.

She ordered


Again, de-capitalize she.

fourtborn


Fourthborn, did you mean?

All in all:

-Great description
-Great prose, just a few nit-picks

Excellent. I'm definitely interested.

Hope this helped,
Sakura



“Can a magician kill a man by magic?” Lord Wellington asked Strange. Strange frowned. He seemed to dislike the question. “I suppose a magician might,” he admitted, “but a gentleman never could.”
— Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell