A/N: Hey everyone, here's the next piece of Dreams of Giants. Enjoy!
A single ray of sun pierced the cloud-cover. It cast a golden glint onto the dark mane of Miana's horse. Miana peeked tentatively into her pouch, ascertaining that The Book of Truth still lay inside. She tied the pouch beneath the saddle and clumsily clambered onto her mount. She shivered from the cold, and sought what warmth she could from her thick woolen scarf. The wind gusted, freezing her to the bone as she dug her knees gently into the side of the horse and cantered northwards. She gazed back one final time to bid the library farewell.
The meadow on the edge of the street had frosted, and the grass that had once been an emerald hue held a depressing brown taint. The sporadic cottages and rarer shops irregularly placed along the dirt-road each had a column of smoke rising from its chimney. The glacial air numbed Miana's cheeks a pale pink, and her fingers were frozen to her horse's reigns, resigned to the fact that no matter how many times she rubbed them, they would not warm up.
The absence of other people on the road was not unexpected, but it was disconcerting. Most of the usual traffic would be curled up in front of their respective warm fires, not worried in the least about the cold, and certainly not worried about the prospect that the Book of Truth might end up in the wrong hands.
The dull thud of hooves hitting earth reverberated through the streets with only the occasional patch of cobblestones breaking the monotony of the sound. With each pulse, Miana felt the fatigue set in a little more. The roadside soon became a dull blur, and the vicious chill a throbbing numbness.
The sight of a silhouette emerging from the shadow jerked Miana out of her daze. A rush of adrenaline shot up her spine. Had they found her already? She searched around frantically. Was there anywhere she could hide? The Bubbling Pot: a little inn about twenty feet ahead. Perhaps she could stay there for the night as well.
Miana trotted through the picket fence that surrounded the perimeter of the inn's grounds. She did not notice the skillful craftsmanship of the eagle carved from granite, or the magnificent winter sun disappearing behind the horizon to the West. She noticed only the thatched roof of the stables as she urged her horse towards them.
Weathered, Miana clambered off her horse and tethered him securely to the leather strap that hung off the stable's roof. She rubbed her hands together as she walked across to the lobby of the inn. A quick survey of the road from which she had come revealed the rider of the silhouette. He, or perhaps she, was no longer a speck on the far off horizon, but rapidly glided toward the south.
With a single last furtive glance toward the sunset, Miana closed the gap to the inn itself. The distant clapping of hooves on the earth could now be heard in the distance above her hasty footsteps. It wouldn't be long before the rider reached the inn. The hair on the back of her spine prickled.
She grasped the doorknob, yanked the door open, and stepped into the warmth of the inn's lobby. Behind her, the distant rhythm of the horse faded with the closing door.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
125,013 Literary Works • 672,844 Reviews
What exactly is the Book of Truth? I remember reading about it, but was that mentioned already? If so, sorry for being such a lousy reader. I swear I have short term memory loss...
Okay, you could definitely make this better. If this were a scene in a movie, it would probably get cut out. Seriously Yoda, you could lengthen this a little. Nothing at all happens. I advise you to get more into the plotline the next chapter. Sorry to be so harsh, but that's the truth. I liked your descriptions in the beginning, they were very beautiful. But descriptions don't do squat if you don't have anything else to add.
No gram&spell issues so far as I can see. The only issue here is the lack of action/drama.
Don't be discouraged, just take my advice.
Dream.
Hiya! Sorry for being so late. ><
Hmm, what can we do here?
This line here implies that it's dawn, I find. Yet there is no mention of dismantling camp or that she's slept outside. Other than the fact she's cold. Mention of a camp would be needed to get a better idea of where she is and the time of day (Since, like I mentioned before, it seems that it's dawn right now)
I don't think there's quite enough on this emotion in here. It's implied that she's sad, but what will she miss the most? If you answer that question, it will give Miana more life. It will also make her more relatable if she has a weakness and/or a longing. (Missing something can count for both, depending on the plot)
I'd break up these two sentence segments to make them clearer. Also, since this sentence as a whole is already a long compound, breaking the segment would make it easier to read as well. (I'd break it up right before "resigned." Make that part of the sentence able to stand on its own.)
This passage is nice, but there could be room for more. Travel scenes are usually the places the character thinks about what's just happened and what's ahead. Right now, the thing this hints at with your MC is hypothermia. It's an okay subtle reference to her feelings and situation, but it feels like there's something missing.
I don't find this line has as much punch as it could have. The beginning feels a bit long when you could re-work it and lose the mention of "sight." It would then look something like, A silhouette emerged from the shadows, jerking Miana out of her daze.
Shorter sentence, more punch. Better to put the punch on the event first; the rest can still be short, but it will make a bit more sense if the first line containing the event was short as well.
Ohh, I like this. An advantage of third-person you have used well. It foreshadows that the inn isn't exactly the quiet place it seems. Although maybe add the location of the eagle?
~ Not sure what you mean by "weathered" here. I find that description fits better talking about an inanimate object than a person.
~ Does she take the pouch with the Book of Truth in it as well? Leaving it in the stables doesn't make much sense to me.
I thought the silhouette was the rider. Or a combination of horse and rider. Finding out it was only the horse before I find a bit jarring. Might want to elaborate on what the silhouette is when you first mention it.
~ Has she been riding all day? Like I said before, the time line is a bit fuzzy.
~ You said she hadn't noticed the sun before, but she takes a last glance? That doesn't make sense to me.
"Distant" is a bit repetitive and redundant here.
"Distant" is repetitive again.
*
Sentences: You use a lot of compound sentences here, usually starting the same way (with the subject). It can get a bit repetitive in the long run. It can also make things slightly hard to read if you have more than one sentence sharing a period/end punctuation mark. Shorten some of those sentences and make them able to stand on their own. It will give things more variety. (Notice how I used that in my paragraph about sentences.
Characters: I don't feel the connection with Miana I felt before. You seemed to focus too much on outside description instead of letting us slip into her head every once and awhile. Because of that, she sounds cold and emotionless. Travel scenes like this are usually kept interesting by emotion or something happening. You have something happen, but because of the multiple-viewpoints, you should spend a bit of time in each character's heads so we don't forget their voice and/or situation.
Time line: Like I mentioned in my nit-picks, I found the time line here a bit hard to follow. Part of it comes from some details missing at the beginning, but other parts come from this being in multiple viewpoints. Because we don't have a summery of what happens between each character's time in the spotlight, it can be a bit hard to follow what they're doing. Put a few more hints to time and place to get over that. There isn't much need for a summery in this part; it would simply bog this segment down.
Overall: Nice introduction at the end. It certainly makes me want to read more. ^_^ However, I found the beginning to be a bit slow and hard to follow. I kept expecting some parallels to be drawn between the surroundings and how she felt. However, I'm pretty sure that the reason you put those descriptions in is to tell us indirectly how she felt. Even with that in mind, I still kept expecting those parallels.
Hope this helped!
~Rosey