It was a nice night. The forest was quiet and dark. The only source of light in the forest was campfire, which was made by a lonely girl. She was as beautiful as a young woman could be - long, blond, almost white, hair, slender figure and gorgeous face with a hint of something that just screamed “Danger!”. That was intensified by a sword, lying on the ground beside her. She sat facing fire, but if you looked closer, you could see that her emerald-green eyes were scouting the surroundings. Finally she fixed her gaze on the bushes to her right. Bushes moved, as did the girl.
With one smooth move, so quick that no eye could catch it, she rose and unsheathed her sword. For a moment she looked at the bushes, then smiled and hid her weapon.
“By all the gods, Wip, did you possibly think that you could catch me off guard? At night? I thought you knew me better than that.”
“Well, you can’t blame me for trying, although I should have tried at daylight,” answered a male voice from the bushes.
“Do you really think that at daylight I would be blinded by the sun? Come on, even if I was, I still would be able to hear you.”
“Well, I just thought of it a bit another way, because you can see in the dark and I can’t. Bloody bushes! Would you please stop laughing and help me?”
The girl moved closer to the bushes, wide grin spreading over her face, and the next moment bushes were on fire. The fire burned for a second and then bushes turned into ashes. Finally she could see her acquaintance.
It was a young man who, if he was cleaner, could be a very handsome one. Now he was all smoky and dusty and, not to mention, angry.
“May gods have mercy on your soul, Kyra, for I won’t!” said Wip and took his weapon out. He sounded very serious, but Kyra just laughed.
“Oh, come on, you know I don’t want to fight now. I have sore back since I participated in that tournament. I was told not to strain myself. You know that and still you’re not helping.” Kyra went back to where she was before Wip came along, which meant sitting by the campfire.
Wip sighed and joined her by campfire; he was still angry with Kyra and, although he did know about Kyra’s injury, he did not put too much faith in her patience. Kyra was impatient, but she tried to improve herself. Injures wouldn’t hinder her if she lost her patience. In order to make it as far as possible, she needed to be in the top shape. Fighting, when her back was hurt, wouldn’t make the journey easier, so she had to hide her sword, calm down and hope that her injury will heal soon.
“Did you find out what I asked of you?” she leaned forward to put some sticks in the fire.
“I did, and I don’t think that you will be very happy about it. The thing is that your father still thinks that you have to get back to the palace, you know, to apologize for what you said and did to the ruler of Samal-Ascary.” Wip sighed again and moved closer to the fire. “Honestly, my opinion is similar to yours, but, you know, you probably should have been… um… more polite.”
“You really expect me to be polite? He had the guts to offend me, yet he didn’t have the guts to accept the comeuppance? To offer me, ME, one of the best strategists of Gall’maad, to be his concubine?! He should be happy that he’s still alive, not to complain about a few wounds that will leave scars!” Kyra was furious.
“And not to mention that you’re gall’maadian aratin and one of the best sword dancers I’ve ever seen.” said Wip in matter-of-fact-voice.
“And he’s still think that I will apologize?!”
“Oh, well, he’s your father; you embarrassed him in front of the other rulers…”
“I don’t care who he is!” Kyra was almost ready to go back and fight everyone who wronged her. “When he decided to send me to the dwarves, so I would work in the mines, I didn’t mind, because there I could learn something new…”
“And you did… ” muttered Wip.
“Don’t interrupt me when I’m angry!” Kyra raised her voice to the point of screaming. “Oh, just great! Now I don’t remember a thing of what I was going to say next!”
“Don’t you worry, I got it.” Wip stood up. “The fact is that you’re not coming back. Where will you head now?”
“Don’t know. The Cursed Forest, probably… or to Teyya Elwess… or somewhere else… Like I said, I don’t know…”
“As far as I know you, you will go to whatever place annoys your father the most.”
“You mean Blossoming Valleys? Oh, no, of course! That’ll be the first place he’ll look! To be honest, I have no idea… We’ll see…”
“Well, then. Take care of yourself!” Wip waved good bye and disappeared into the dark forest.
“Don’t you worry, I will,” muttered Kyra.
The incident that they discussed occurred in the morning of the same day. Kyra was sitting in the library when an older man approached her. He looked very stylish and very fond of himself. He was dressed in the traditional desert outfit, which meant that he had big spacious pants, nice tunic and a turban, something that Kyra never understood. Why wrap a lot of fabric around your head? At first he just looked at Kyra, and she didn’t mind that, as long as he did not disturb her. She was right in the middle of her history research and wasn’t willing to communicate with anybody until she found the fact she was looking for.
When the man started to talk to her, Kyra answered politely that she was very busy with her work. But the man just kept on talking and distracting her. When Kyra finally asked him what he wanted, he said that he liked her and he would be very happy to have her as his concubine.
First she thought that she heard him wrong, but the man said that he meant what he just said and if she’ll refuse, he would have to use power. For the moment Kyra didn’t believe her ears, and asked him if he was as stupid as he sounded. He became angry and slapped her in the face. It was then Kyra lost control of herself and beat him up.
After he left, Kyra went back to her research. In about a quarter of an hour her father came in the library together with that man and demanded that she apologized to the ruler of Samal-Ascary. Not that Kyra was unused to her father being unfair to her, but this time he crossed the line again and Kyra left the castle without anything but some money and weapon.
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
Okay so this was an interesting read. I'm a bit confused about what is going on which is probably why I'm hooked on the book. But the story was hard to follow, I felt like your writing just picked me up and threw me into the middle of a story. It's a little irritating. With that said i had trouble following your story, I mean I understood enough of it to get the gist of what's going on but it took a lot of thinking and re-reading certain parts. But despite all of that i still look forward to reading more. This book seems interesting but I recommend back tracking a little and adding a few chapters before this one. But then again this is just the first chapter so maybe if i read a little more my opinion will change. Anyways good luck and keep on writing!
Hey Rhe,
I loved this story !
The way you described the setting was really descriptive and enjoyable.
Though one advice, try not to use the simple, passive words like "nice".
In general, I really enjoyed !
Continue writing !
Bye.
Hey, Rhe, Louis here to review.
Well, this is an interesting piece, really. However, it has some grammatical nit-picks which could be worked on.
Alright, an okay beginning. However, you could make it a tad more realistic, by adding sounds, and smells maybe. Or describing the forest, even a little. Forests are tricky, as they can be described in many different ways, to convey many different atmospheres.
I cringed at this description. The way you describe this character really hints at a Mary Sue as she's just so perfect, and evidently superhumanly skilled. Either way, there should be a comma after 'long' and 'that' needn't be capitalized.
That full-stop should be replaced by a comma.
Evidently not human. Lo, the Mary Sue approaches!
'was on' should probably be replaced by the likes of 'burned.' It's a fire, after all. Also, how does she see him? If the blaze is momentary, and goes out quickly, it'll probably just leave her blinded and confused.
That full-stop should be a comma.
If Kyra doesn't like him, she probably won't be picking out the positive in him. Perhaps some derogatory adjectives would be best.
I'm not sure about in these lands, but usually, when a ruler asks for a princess to be his concubine, he's already discussed with the princesses' father, so resisting would be futile. And so forth.
This doesn't strike me as a particularly strong ending, I must say. By changing the wording, you may have a greater result. Also, a description of the castle, or the room, would have been nice.
But these are all very minor details! Overall, this was good.
Hope this helped
~Ita
Thanks!!! My English is so far from being perfect it's almost hilarious XD I'll work on detailes, hopefully it'll be something worth reading later XD
I didn't have much tim before, but I can write a bit more now.
Yup, she is not human. I had to look up what Mary Sue is, since I didn't know. I can say that she has some of my characteristics, but she is not an idealised version of myself, there are some more people in her.
Also, just so you know, it's not the whole chapter, there will be more, I just thought it was way too big to post it whole. Otherwise, I'm thankfull for your help.
This reads as though English were your second language. Is it?
It could be an interesting story, if you get the characterizations right, but runaway girl who's fed up with misogyny isn't the most original storyline around. That doesn't make it bad, but it makes your job harder, because if your story doesn't grab people by the necktie and pull them into the world you've created, they'll think, "Oh, this again." and pass it by.
Some nitpicks:
Suggestion: "Faster than the eye could see, she rose and unsheathed her sword."
This says the same thing you did, but it's more succinct. The reader doesn't become bogged down in extra words--and that's a good thing.
If you just changed the first "could" to "did", I think this would be perfect. In English, you want to avoid repetition, so try not to use the same word twice on the same page. (Unless it's a word like he or to the. Those are hard to avoid. XD There's also a form of poetry that focuses on repetition, but I'm pretty sure that's not what you're going for. ;P)
Too many apostrophes! Take out the ones after "Fighting" and "hurt" and you'll be fine.
This is why I asked if English was your first language. You're writing like someone who's not used to speaking it. You can fix that (mostly) by changing "has to be" to "should be". I'm not quite sure what to do about the first sentence.
Oh no, don't describe your newcomers like that! You could say something like, "His clothes indicated wealth, and he walked with a pompous. His hat, Kyra mused, was of the ridiculous sort--a turban, that wrapped around one's in great swathes of cloth."
Of course, if you were to quote me exactly you'd sound like me, so you should find your own words! But this needs to be rewritten.
You spend the rest of the piece building up to this point, so to say she "beat him up" is rather anticlimactic. Describe the fight. What exactly did he say? You say that he asked her to be his concubine, but you don't give us the exact words. It would work better if you gave us dialogue, had her look at him incredulously, and then describe how she kicked/punched him or something.
We would say he "crossed the line". People will probably know what you're saying anyway, but they'll be taken aback by the wording.
Well, that's all I have to say! Good job, and keep writing. Let me know if you have any questions, comment, or complaints! I'd love to hear them.
I think I wrote in description that English wasn't my mother tongue, but anyway, thank you for advice, I'll think it through and make some changes. It's not the whole chapter, if I posted it whole, it would have been too long, so I had to post a bit.
What did you mean by "Too many apostrophes! Take out the ones after "Fighting" and "hurt" and you'll be fine." I didn't really get it.
Hi there ^^
I liked this one. I liked the dialogue, the main character and the fact, well, that its fantasy. The idea sounds rather original for now, I'm very curious of what will happen next. I felt kind of sad when Wip just left, though.. I somehow think Kyra's story would be more interesting if there was someone to accompany her and keep up the talking.
Of course, I have no idea if that will be the case anyway, as this is really just a beginning, and you're the one writing the novel.
However, I'm one of those who don't really stand for the statement 'the shorter the better' when it comes to sentences. Especially in the beginning, I find it a bit hard to read three sentences where I would easily read one. I'm not going to tell you that's something you must do, not even that you should change it, as I'm rather often told that my own sentences tend to be too long.. But I'd like you to read your story again and just think about it
One more thing, though you do use descriptions anyway.. Try avoiding the words such as 'nice'. I know that you have your story in front of your eyes as you write it, but the readers may not see 'nice' the same way you do.
To sum up. I liked this piece, I really did. I wonder what happens next, and you've intrigued me with the natural behavior of the main character. I most certainly want to know what will happen next, and I think you're very good at writing dialogues, though perhaps it wouldn't hurt to add a bit more of description or the character's thoughts now and then. But it's very early on in the story, so good job!
Keep writing! You're doing it very well
Kind regards,
Aria
Thanks a lot XD I already got some criticism i previous comments, it's good to hear some "Well done." XD I'll try to adjust the text and then edit it. It is not the whole chapter, I just put in first part of the chapter. It it 3 pages in Microsoft Word Times New Roman, I thought it is a bit too long to post...