Jenthura wrote:Alright, so I was reading a thread about fantasy animals and decided to make two species of my own. It was late at night, and the Panin was somewhat humanoid, the Dih wolf-like, but it’s a start. Tell me what you think.
Oh, and nit-pickety critique is welcome. #FF0000 ">hopefully, you'll describe these within the actual story instead of listing them down beforehand
The Start of a Journey (second draft)
I held still, leveling my breath and focusing my mind on becoming one with the forest around me. It worked, and I could feel my skin taking on the pattern of leaves, branches and dirt: the perfect disguise. #FF0000 ">Looks like you started the action without laying out the scene. I would suggest describing the 'forest around me'
The sound I’d heard only seconds ago returned, and with it the worst sight I’d ever hoped to see. A full-grown Dih with a juvenile (most likely his offspring) strode in the forest, their great clawed paws making a tremendous noise to my ears. My eyes traveled up their tree-trunk forelimbs to the massive jaws, dropped wide to reveal a bright red tongue and ivory white teeth. Sharp teeth; molars #FF0000 ">molars are flat teeth. Canines are sharp teeth.capable of tearing the delicate flesh of a Panin effortlessly.
My heart fluttered, my resolution trembled, and I felt my body reverting to a visible pattern. I slid a needle-thin claw from beneath my fingertip and dipped it into the tiny glass bottle of nightshade poison that hung from my satchel, but the bottle was empty: I’d forgotten to fill it after my last bounty hunt! Quickly I stabilized myself and grasped back onto the only thing that would keep me alive: total invisibility. Immediately I was blind to the world around me, devoid of all senses except hearing.
I heard the Dih pad across the clearing, his tongue lolling from the heat, his breath loud, his shaggy fur making swishing noises. I heard the youngling growl mews of hunger, and that surprised me: Dih males do not care for their young. The females of the pack usually did that.
And then another thing surprised me, where was his pack? I released my invisibility a little further and my sight returned. Now, when looking with a searching eye, I noticed an ugly scar across the Dih’s face, dried blood caking in the folds of its’ jowls.
I must have let my cloak drop fully while staring at him, because I suddenly found that he was staring at me, the black irises fully seeing me #FF0000 ">That's a little arbitrary, don't you think?. His eyes traveled up my white-furred body and pointed ears; I could swear it was his gaze that made my skin tingle #FF0000 ">If some wolf creature was looking at me, I know I would too. Remove the 'I could swear.'.
“Well?” he asked, his voice deep and rich, not with the rough, cruel words Dih managed to glean of our language. “Have you finished staring yet?”
I panicked, tried to cloak again but then lost all control. Something snapped in my mind and I realized I was changing into all the shades of the rainbow. When my head cleared enough for me to see, my eyes focused on the Dih, towering over me with his huge fearsome teeth mere inches from my face.
“Please don’t eat me,” I pleaded, my every word a frightened whisper.
“Akla,” the baby (although he was chest-high to me) Dih mewed. “Pa gret; ne pana.”
The only thing I understood was gret, a Dih word for ‘hunger’. Surely I would die now; the Dih –despite being vicious predators– loved their cubs and killed to defend them. I would end up being Dih-chow…for sure. #FF0000 ">What is there to defend from?
“Rak pana,” the male Dih replied to his son in their language. “Ra medda ”
The small Dih growled, glared at me, and then left to play with the autumn leaves that piled beside the trees.
“What did you tell him?” I asked the Dih.
“Ra means ‘eat’ in our language,” he explained, keeping a careful eye on his son. “An added ‘k’ negates the verb, so I told him not to ra the pana. #FF0000 ">Why would he have to explain this? Is this some second language class? No, you don't need this!”
I gulped, realizing that pana was a corruption of panin.
“And then I told him ra medda, which –translated directly– means ‘eat later’.” He looked down at me with his inquisitive eyes. “Do you know why I did that?” #FF0000 ">What you could have done was simply say, "I told him to eat later." If you love your language so much, explain this later. This is the first chapter, I understand, but don't force so many things down our throats especially in the most unnatural way possible.
I shook my head, which was trembling so much anyway it hardly seemed to make much difference.
He settled beside me, his barrel-chest rumbled deep, throaty growls of contentment; which seemed strange, considering the twelve-inch gash on his face.
“What happened?” I asked him, losing my fear of the teeth and claws.
“A clan battle, three days ago,” the Dih replied without batting an eye. “I was wounded while trying to clear our cave of the intruders.”
“Did you win?”
There was a pained look in his face as he turned to me. I cringed, hoping I hadn’t stirred the memory of a slain mate –which I probably had– but realized that there was no anger in the Dih’s eyes…just sorrow.
“My son and I were the only survivors from the battle,” the Dih said, turning his face away. “The clashakana sleep in our den tonight.”
There was a pregnant pause as I searched for words of condolence, something to keep his mind of #FF0000 ">offeating me or tossing me to his hungry son.
“But it doesn’t matter now,” the Dih said quickly, apparently eager to move to the next subject. “I am in need of your help.”
“How may I assist?” I asked, hanging my head at the thought of being eaten, even if I did help him.
“Your kind has…appendages that we Dih were born without,” he said. #FF0000 ">you could say that he was looking at the character's hands. “And you have the knowledge of kele-kal: the herb, the root and the clay that heal, to out in your language.”
He was referring both to our hands and our arts of healing. I was a somewhat middle-class healer, but the gash was nothing I couldn’t do.
“For your services I promise not to kill you,” he vowed, placing his paw –ever so lightly, yet it still made me flinch– on my head. “And I give to you the Dih’s protection: a gift no other species can bestow, so I’ve heard. #FF0000 ">Why is this random character suddenly given such an honor?”
I would have been content with being set free unscathed, but the Dih’s protection was something not even my village elders had hoped to receive. My eyes glowed, and my skin rippled with blues and whites: the Panin emotion-colors for excitement. #FF0000 ">Instead of bluntly saying 'yup, he's excited' you could have had the character express embarrassment in his/her actions since he is visibly excited.
“I will do it,” I said, sitting up while the blue crept to my face. “When can we– I…I mean…When do you wish me to start?”
The Dih chuckled and rolled over onto his side with a grunt. His underbelly was a pale cream color that contrasted greatly to the brown of his upper coat. The baby Dih pounced on his father and for a moment they wrestled playfully. Their ‘playful’ would have torn me to shreds thrice over, so I backed off for a while, amazed to see affection in a creature I had thought to be completely ferocious.
“Forgive me, Panin,” the Dih said. “I tend to get carried away, where were we?”
“I was offering my services to you,” I said, pointing to his face-scar.
“Oh, yes, about that,” he stood, brushing his son from him, and gave me a nervous look. “I’m afraid that this–” he lifted his neck and revealed the cut. “–was not what I spoke of: this tiny thing will heal by itself, and remind me next time to watch carefully before lunging.”
He pushed his son towards me with his paw, and for the first time I noticed the blood.
It dripped from a crudely-stitched wound in his neck, staining his creamy coat (juveniles were covered in a pelt that later receded to only belly fur in adults) #FF0000 ">info dump! It burns! Don't do that! Like I kept saying, spread it out. I believe that audience would know that fact if you just stated somewhere that the adults had belly fur, and later, the children don't. and splattering the ground red #FF0000 ">splattering gives off the image of the child literally flooding the ground with blood. Is he, or is he not? They were playing just a while ago, so the former is doubtful. Smelly, gangrenous skin puckered around the wound, and I could only stare when a maggot squirmed in the rotting flesh beneath the cut.
“This is awful.” I finally managed to squeak. “He might never be able to speak again: it’s a wonder he can still breathe.” #FF0000 ">They were just playing! That doesn't make sense. You're just trying to make us sympathetic to the child. "Oh look, it's a child! It's wounded! There are worms crawling within its flesh! How horrible!"
As if to cut my wondering short, the baby coughed and blood spattered my face. There was true concern and worry in the eyes of the Dih #FF0000 ">After reading that they were just playing, I could only laugh.. As I got to work, boiling a poultice of herbal leaves and preparing gold thread (which never became infected like the sinew string the previous healer had used) the Dih unsheathed one of his claws in my face.
“The last Panin I trusted poisoned my son,” he said, the friendly side of him gone now #FF0000 ">He trusted the character. Why the sudden reaction? I can understand the "last person I hired did...", but that also brings up the "Why even bother hiring another one?". “His wound is worse than before, and for that I killed the cursed balakana.”
I nodded energetically, making a mental note not to screw it up.
“Hold still,” I told the youngling, preparing a knife to cut the sinews. “You may feel pain, but not any more than you’ve probably experienced in the past few days.”
The cub grumbled a response, and then suddenly dropped to the ground as if he’d been drugged.
“What happened?” I asked the Dih. “Did he die?”
There was a hearty laugh, and then the Dih sunk his claw into the youngling’s paw, bringing forth a bright red drop of blood.
“He committed kuna,” he explained. “He won’t wake up for a few more hours, but he will feel no pain.”
I nodded, storing that bit of information away in my ‘Dih knowledge center’, and set to work.
First, I cut out the sinews, making sure I left no bit behind in the skin. The needle had probably been a thick bone or some other crude instrument, I began to doubt if the healer had really been a Panin.
After a few minutes of cutting and puling, the Dih settled down, mesmerized by my hands flashing to and from his son’s neck.
“My name is Balak,” he stated. “I was Balak of Kanan, but the clashakana took it.”
“I am Anda,” I replied, reaching for another blade in my satchel; the sinews were tough. “But I was never very much a part of a clan or pack: the Panin are generally free standers.”
“You live as nomads?’ Balak asked, probably wondering how we survived, living a single life.
“We have villages,” I replied, finishing the sinews and getting to work at the dead skin and muscle. “But they are only places of trade and marriage: every ten years or so two Panin will settle in a village to mate and produce, but we usually tire of it and return to the single life after the children are grown and old enough to care for themselves.
“It sounds cruel, but we have no choice, there are those who…eat Panin. The closer together we are, the more risk we create, so we spread out, and hide beneath our cloaks when the Dih come. #FF0000 ">Like I said, information dump...blah blah...spread out...blah blah! Why would a Panin trust a Dih enough to give this information? If a terrorist who promised not to shoot you asked you about your home, would you give him that information?”
I sucked in my breath, realizing I had gotten carried away and spoken freely about Balak’s species while he was near enough to kill me with one swipe from his paw.
“I do not care,” Balak replied, understanding my fear. “We know what you Panin think of us: cruel, heartless, and merciless. But at least we care for our children until either they die or we do. #FF0000 ">This part is good. The different viewpoints, the 'this culture thinks your culture sucks and vice-versa" I have to say that this part is the highlight.”
I peeled back a layer of dried blood and suddenly realized I was looking down the young Dih’s windpipe. A wrong cut here and he would die. Slowly, I sliced away the rotting skin and flesh, leaving a bare patch of pink exposed: about the size of my palm. Balak suddenly became interested in that patch, too interested.
“Please,” I whispered, trying to make my request more like a demand (but failing pathetically). “I need to work, could you…?”
“Hmph,” Balak said #FF0000 ">grunted would have a better effect here., settling back on his haunches to watch me.
I stitched the windpipe back together where it was ripped clean across, then packed the poultice against the wound. I pulled what little skin was left around the cut, teasing and prodding it with heated sticks until it stretched over enough so I could stitch it closed with neat, tiny stitches. The gold thread was about as twice as thick as hair, and perfectly round and smooth, so as not to cut into the skin.
Finally I swathed the whole with a herb mix, tied a bandage around the youngling’s neck, and then stepped back to admire my work.
“It is good,” Balak said, startling me –I had forgotten him while concentrating on the work. “He will live.”
For a moment neither of us said a word, staring at the snoring ball of fur that I’d just saved. Balak closed his eyes and began a deep rumbling purr that started in his belly and rode his breath to his nostrils, escaping in a kkkhhhmmmkkkhhhmmm sound. It was one of the millions of sounds the Dih made #FF0000 ">seriously? I would never have guessed that since it was a Dih who made that sound.; one I had never heard before. With Balak my eyes were opened ever so much wider to the social system of the Dih: their packs, the young, the communication growls and mews. The Panin had nothing like it, but we were a hunted race, and perhaps that had to do with it. Being at the top of the food chain gave the Dih time to develop sensitivity towards their own kind.
“About your reward,” Balak said, turning to me. “You will receive the Dih’s protection.”
I had expected an amulet, or perhaps some strange tattoo, but instead, the Dih closed his eyes and…breathed on me. It was strong, warm and moist, almost like the wind on a summer’s day. It smelled sweet, rich and strong, and made me feel alive like nothing had ever done before. I could sense something passing between us, some deep connection no two species had ever made in centuries #FF0000 ">I could not help, but find this hilarious. The Dih seems to be marking his territory onto the character, and he felt alive.. I was probably right, since Dih were not partial about giving the protection outside their species.
It was over in seconds, and after it I felt normal, returned, unchanged, almost as if it had never happened. I looked expectantly to Balak, hoping for some confirmation, but he was tending to his son, who was waking up.
“That’s it?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied. “You may not sense it, and your own species will not be able to tell the difference, but the Dih can smell my mark on you, and they know that if they harm one hair on your head, I will avenge you and fulfill my promise.”
“Thank you…Balak,” I said, uncertain of how to feel: the Dih were the only things Panin had to fear in the world. “When will I see you again?”
“I do not know,” he replied, an almost sorrowful look on his face. “Mayhap our paths entwine once more, but do not look and wait for me. Goodbye, Anda.”
“Goodbye, Balak.” I replied, halfheartedly waving as he faced the wind, squared his shoulders and set off at a brisk trot while his son stumbled groggily after. I watched them until they neared the bend in the path, the place where I would lose sight of them.
“Wait!” I called out, running full tilt after them. “Balak, stop!”
He paused and watched me as I ran. I stopped at his feet, breathing heavily as a stitch began to form in my side.
“Balak…the thread…” I gulped for breath and calmed my nerves. “The stitches have to be removed in a week or so: do you think you can find another Panin to do the job?”
Balak looked at me with an unreadable expression on his face, and then, with the longest, slowest growls of his voice:
“Are you asking to come with me?”
A smile spread slowly across my face.
Your story seemed interesting, but only in a plot-based point of view. You had made the mistake of most first chapters in a fantasy, and that was to info dump the crap out of us, showing no mercy, and even as we begged for you to stop, you continued, laughing, scoffing at our suffering.
But all-in-all, the only thing that frustrated me was how you portrayed your information, the unrealistic dialog, the unrealistic actions, and the unrealistic species evolutionary development.
I really look foreward to reading other pieces of yours, and your vocabulary is amazing! I could just see the little cubs cut and his windpipe. Where did you come up with this? Keep up the great work! ~Cheez_Burger~
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