“You had best leave now,” whispered the King. “It is too late to keep trying, you have done your service. There is no hope.” The healer, saddened, walked away.
The castle was black. Black sheets draped the windows, servants wore black over their grey uniforms. The gardeners killed all the plants, leaving a tangle of weeds.
Where there is black, death has overwhelmed souls. As it did, death was everything. Death was the soldiers standing guard, death was the trees. Death was the air blowing across the land, and death was the people, his bony face disguised as peasants’.
The news of the challenge brought life to it all.
“Yes, bring them all,” the King gasped. “I do not have much time, I hear death at my door.” Three princes slowly filed in.
“Jearwy,” the King rasped, “the strongest.” “Raspin,” he coughed, “the fairest.” “And Heran,” he smiled weakly, “Heran.”
“You have been summoned here,” he gestured to the three, “to find the most beautiful bird in the forest. You must complete this challenge by the quarter moon.”
“Oh yes father, we shall,” Jearwy the eldest and Raspin the second chorused. “We—” They were interrupted by a series of snores from the king.
“The lazy old lump,” sneered the eldest, “too kind to ever do any good.”
“The stupid, withered, twisted stump of a man,” the second prince remarked, “no good will ever come of him.”
They both turned to Heran. “And if you even try to find the bird,” the eldest prince spat, “you’ll be hanging in the gallows.” Then they walked away.
The forest was usually a peaceful place. Sun shining through branches dappled the ground with light. A flower swaying in the wind might be a fairy dancing, a tree an earthy green giant. Everything seemed perfectly balanced, perfectly still.
But today was different. Instead of peace, there was the sound of hunters trekking through the rocks, walking through the stream (cursing when they fell), pushing logs out of their way, and stepping on delicate poppies and snowbells. On this day, the song of birds never came, and by midnight the forest was alight by fire and the singing of drunk men.
When Heran arrived, the birds had nearly all been captured or killed. He sat in the shade of a large oak and took out a small reed flute. His tune lazily drifted off into the sky, swirling and changing. He played on until midmorning, when a small, grey sparrow sat on branch, repeating the song over and over.
Heran looked at the sparrow; the sparrow looked at Heran. And together they walked towards the castle.
One by one, the servants filed in carrying golden cages with silent birds in them: peacocks, woodpeckers, flamingos, all silent. Following were the two princes, clad in shining armor (looking more foolish than impressive), and finally the youngest prince. Dressed in common clothes, Heran carried only the sparrow.
Trumpets sounded and the King shakily lifted his head.
“Good day, wonderful father and…” said the eldest prince—who was quickly interrupted by Raspin.
“Humble, great father….” the second prince’s everlasting speech was finally interrupted by the curses of the eldest and the periodic coughing of the King who seemed, now, more dead than alive.
The cages were brought to the King in an elaborate process, all the while the two older brothers cursing under their breaths. The King slowly lifted his head but fell into a fit of coughing. After the coughing had stopped, the last cage was brought, the King was more than silent, he was asleep.
The eldest prince, frustrated, kicked the King and shouted, “Wake up!” The King immediately awoke and beckoned for the servants. It was now the youngest prince’s turn. He walked slowly to the front, and stopped.
“Father,” he said, “I am here.”
“Yes,” the old King smiled slightly, “Heran.” Their exchange was pleasant, the little sparrow nestled against the old King and then flew back and sang the most beautiful song anyone in that room had ever heard. Even the two older princes stopped fighting to hear the enchanting melody.
The melody lifted through the air and into the heavens. As the world grew silent and listened, clarity grew in the King’s diseased brain. This is the beauty, this is the beauty. When the song ended, the King placed his crown upon the youngest prince’s head.
And under Heran’s rule the kingdom prospered, never had the sun shined so bright, nor the air felt so clean.
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125,021 Literary Works • 672,738 Reviews
GREETINGS, BROTHER.
I am here to review your magical story about unicorns and whatnot. I hope you find some of my comments helpful and (as always) if you have any questions, just ask. YOU KNOW WHERE I LIVE.
Content:
Let's start out with this title:
Now, I'm not going to pretend to know how to say this. I bet you do, but I have no idea. Is it "leh pehteet moyn-oe" or "leh pehtit mohn-wah" or "ham-burg-er"? That's not the point. The point is, I don't understand why this is French. You're not French. I'm not French. The majority of your readers won't be French. The story doesn't have particularly obvious French origins. Maybe you have a reason, but I don't know what it is. Let's move on.
I feel like this last line is really missing something. The healer should have a more extreme reaction to this--I mean, they're a /healer/. Walking away doesn't really express anything to me here. How do the king's subjects feel about him? "Saddened" tells me a bit, but that's it. That being said, I think this was an excellent and engaging beginning.
This is an awkward sentence because of this sudden tense change. You've been operating in the past perfect up until now, and then you suddenly switch to this conceptual-present. That is, "where there is black" as if it's a universal rule. You know what I mean? And then you switch back to "has", a perfect past again.
This sudden personification is awkward and unnecessary. Up until now, you've been personifying death through other means, and now you use a double-personification by calling it "he". This is an easy error to fix, and I suspect it was caused by a word processing error. That being said, I did enjoy the lines preceding this. Excellent job.
This doesn't really make sense here. We don't really see this again--the people being excited and responding to this challenge. It's a bit confusing because the language doesn't change to fit this newer, positive outlook. But it /is/ an acceptable and even /good/ transition, and I appreciate it.
Please refer to ChocolateCello's comments on this matter.
This is very much a Cinderella story in that there is an arbitrary goal with an arbitrary deadline. Tell us more about this. Even just a little backstory would not only be helpful, it would be intriguing! In fact, this sounds like an even more interesting story. Does this relate to the king's childhood? Where is the princes' mother? Does this have to do with her?
Now, I understand why you felt the need to include this, and I really do think you had the right idea here. But just because it's a Cinderella tale doesn't mean that the characters can't be imagined in ways that would make them more engaging to the audience. From the start, it's clear that these are the evil ones. Or, at the very least, the ones we shouldn't be rooting for. They're one-dimensional in their insults and in their personality. That being said, I think this was an excellent /introduction/ to Jearwy's character. You really have a feel for the time period.
I really, really, really love this. This is an /excellent/ description, and I think it'll really resonate with your readers. However, I'd like you to connect this (somehow) to Heran himself. Throughout the story, as I said, we never get to see the elder brothers (Jearwy and Raspin) as anything more than evil and one-dimensional. And, even worse, we never see Heran as more than better than them. I'd like to dive into Heran's mind--does he spend lots of time in this location? I like the juxtaposition in the next line, but we never figure out why this is a place of significance.
WHERE DID THEY GET A FLAMINGO?! THIS IS NOT A CRITIQUE, THIS IS A REAL QUESTION. HOW DID THEY FIND A FLAMINGO IN SUCH SHORT NOTICE? AND WHO THINKS THAT A /FLAMINGO/ IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BIRD? THEY MAKE NEON PINK LAWN CUTOUTS OF THEM, FOR GOD'S SAKE.
Misuse of "everlasting". You mean "long" here.
"Their exchange was pleasant"... *ahem*. Don't forget to show, not tell!
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All in all, I really enjoyed this story. You have a great, strong voice as a writer, but I feel like (at times) you fail to imagine your characters complexly. Just because this /is/ a Cinderella story doesn't mean that you have to perfectly follow the one-dimensionality of the Cinderella characters.
Don't forget to be awesome!
IronSpark
Viv here to do a review.
First off, I love this story. It was so nice and simple but with a deep meaning to it. The characters were described well through their actions and words, mostly actions for Heran. I don't understand how this is based off the Cinderella stories but I love that you put the title in French. One nitpick I have is this line "Sun shining through branches dappled the ground with light." I think there should be a comma between branches and dappled, but if I'm wrong ignore it. Also you have really great imagery.
That is all. Keep writing.
Hey! ChocolateCello here!
Okay, so reviewing stories is not my strong suit. Actually, reviewing in general is not my strong suit. But I have a few little things to point out.
I see what you were doing here- Forcing pauses between the names and additionally, forcing a pause between the introduction of the princes and the explanation of why they were there. I think these pauses were well needed but I don't like how you approached the situation. I feel like all of the quotation marks makes everything feel cluttered. My two suggestions on changing this (If you're interested) are- A) Take out the quotation marks that simply aren't needed. (ex: change 'the strongest" "Raspin,"' to "the strongest. Raspin.") or B) Put something between the 'unneeded' quotation marks. (ex: change 'the strongest." "Raspin"' to "'the strongest.' The king took a shaky breath. 'Raspin.'" Honestly? It's fine how it is, but these are just some suggestion on how to make it less cluttered. (There's probably a better way to approached this. These are just the two things that came to mind.) And for the forced pause between the princes introduction and the reason for them being there- I just think it would look nicer if the two paragraphs were combined, not separate.
That's the only thing that I really noticed. (Like I said, not good at story reviews) Other than that, this was amazing. Everything was described beautifully and the story was enjoyable to read. I really liked that it was short and sweet but still told in great detail and written very well. Hope to see more stories like this from you!
Keep writing!
-ChocolateCello
::enter Reise, stage right::
Hello, IronBird!
First and foremost, welcome to YWS! I did some snooping on your page and saw you're related to our dear IronSpark so yay for families in families.
Usually I nitpick first, but I feel a pressing need to tell you how amazing I think this re-telling was done. I've never read anything like this before and it was beautiful and unique in every way. Well done. It was a joy to read through and through. When you say "classic Cinderella tales", what exactly do you mean by that? As in, the original tale, or are there spin-offs I have no idea about? Either way, lovely piece of writing here.
--
Now, nitpicks. I have only a few things, so lets make this quick and painless. ^^
I think this is one of the situations where a semicolon would work better than a comma. The two statements in this sentence could very well stand alone. Because of that, splicing them together with a comma makes for a bit of a stumble-y read. A semi-colon would offer a pause long enough to be efficient while keeping it all together.
When referring to a singular object, "was" would be the appropiate word to fit in there - as you did in the following sentence - but because "soldiers" and "trees" are both plural nouns, "were" should be put in place.
Also, you speak of death almost as a manifestation, something tangible in a way. This is simply my prerogative, but I feel death should be capitalized due to the way you describe it in your piece.
The rest of your piece in in past-tense, so I edited this line to fit.
Mild continuity error here. Previously, you mentioned the prince and the sparrow walking together, and now he is holding it. I will admit, though, I probably only noticed this because I'm picky. ^^
Speaking of being picky, I bothers me the tiniest bit that we never got to hear the King's remarks on the other two Prince's birds.
I may or may not have been looking forward to seeing those two little poop head's get shut down.--
Like I've said, Birdie, I love this piece. You wrote it near perfectly - good pacing, description, and story -, it reads much like a classic fairy tale, and it's the most imaginative, unique thing I've read in a long time. So, kudos and hats off to you.
::exit Reise, stage left::