Published August 30, 2026
Warning: This work has been rated 16+.
In Ladine,
a princess slept in her bed. The night was in its height; stars twinkling in the sky, nightingale singing his song. Though, The Princess was restless in her slumber. She was dreaming of the yellow of her father's rage, and the somber blue of her mother's grief; of dying birds and a loveless marriage.
and so, she woke.
It was quiet outside. And the air was cool on her skin.
"It is pleasant outside, tonight." The Princess mused. Tonight, tonight, tonight.
"Tonight, it should be." The Princess decided. She stepped barefoot onto warm sand, every step taking her further away from the castle.
…
"OUR BIRD HAS LEFT ITS NEST," A crawling voice whispered. This was the King. Laying beside him was Holy Lady Francine.
Her brown curls were entangled in his spindly fingers; he would continually tug on her hair. If Francine was irritated, she did not show it outwardly.
"And are you going after her?" Francine did not sound particularly worried. The King merely chuckled and coiled one of her locks around his finger.
"WHAT USE DO I HAVE FOR A DAUGHTER?" His voice was incredulous, almost mocking. "BUT IF IT SHOULD PLEASE YOU, MY STARLIGHT, I SHALL." This time, there was a bit of affection in his words, if not but a small ember of love.
"That would please me. How…thoughtful of you." Francine drawled. The King let out a small purr, petting Francine’s head.
"REST, MY STARLIGHT. I WILL RETURN WITH OUR DAUGHTER." The King slunk out of bed in that strange, utterly inhuman way, then with only a few steps, was gone from the room.
…
The nights in Ladine were always cold. It was a welcome freeze as opposed to the heat of the twin suns. The Princess walked; she did not know where she was going nor when she was going to stop, but she felt free.
The Princess looked up at the sky. She saw the stars swirl up ahead. She could see the stars, and it was lovely. She could feel the breeze and it was lovely.
How lovely.
The Princess closed her eyes and kept on walking.
"MY MOCKINGBIRD,"
Called a voice. It circled around her head, and the Princess’s eyes snapped open and her moment of peace and freedom was gone.
"I CAN SEE YOU. DO NOT DISPLEASE YOUR MOTHER; RETURN, LITTLE MOCKINGBIRD."
She couldn’t go back. Suddenly, she was running. Her breath came out in fast puffs and she barely had time to think.
"I will not." She muttered to herself.
"YOU WILL NOT? WHY, MY DAUGHTER? YOUR MOTHER WILL BE SAD."
"I will not."
She picked up speed, and felt yellow clouding her vision.
I will not. I will not. I will not. I will not. I will not. I will not—
"YOU SHOULD WATCH WHERE YOU WALK."
And then, with a high scream, she was falling down,
down,
down….
Down.
There was nothing beneath her and nothing above her. No sound, no touch. Still she had the feeling that she had stopped.
"Oh, what’ll I do now?" She said to no one. Or she thought she might’ve; there was nothing anymore.
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140,068 Literary Works • 672,978 Reviews
Hello there, human! I'm reviewing using the YWS S'more Method today!
Shalt we commence with the devilish S’more?
Top Graham Cracker - The Princess has a father who will force her to marry someone she does not love. It also seems that her father is inhuman, in a way. So she runs, her father chasing after her, until she…stops? How odd.
Slightly Burnt Marshmallow - Hmm…on one hand, I think it’s important that The King talks in a way that’s different from everyone else and on the other, I picture him yelling most of the time because his speech is in all caps.
Chocolate Bar - First of all, I love the cover, it reminds me of the whimisigoth aesthetic. I also like that The Princess still decides to run away even though her mother seems to care more about her than The King, because she still can’t stay in a place like that. And finally, THE ENDING?! Like, she’s in a strange place that sounds like the in-between of the living and mortal world? That’s so cool!!
Closing Graham Cracker - Overall, a lovely first chapter to this story! I enjoyed reading this and I’ll be sure to read the other chapters after this. I can’t wait to see where The Princess went and…
I wish you a glorious day/night! ^v^
thanks for the feeedback!!! on the king speech thing, the first chapter was written when I was really tired and running on two bottles of sprite soooooo i thought ‘oooh the king should have something different when he talks’ and that’s what it ended up being. my friend reviewed this and they laughed their ass off at the idea of the king yelling all his lines
lol ok ^v^
Hi! This is a very interesting start to a story.
The King's dialogue is quite unsettling, and I really like this detail. The use of all capital letters combined with the pet names he used, like "my starlight" and "little mockingbird", creates a real sense that he is something inhuman wearing a human mask, so to speak. Francine's flat and unbothered responses make her almost as unnerving as he is, but not quite as much! The repetition of "I will not" give the piece a nice and distinctive rhythm to it, and I like the yellow/blue colour-coding for emotion!
Grammatical errors/suggestions!
I'm not sure why there is a paragraph break between this to break up the sentence. As vulpesvelox pointed out, this part:
The night was in its height; stars twinkling in the sky, nightingale singing his song.
Does need fixing. I think you mean: The night was at its height, with stars twinkling in the sky, the nightingale singing its song.
And also maybe 'she was dreaming of her father's yellow rage' is a bit of a less clumsy way to phrase that?
But I love the imagery here!
Missing a capital A here
the doesn't need to be capitalised
Should be "It is pleasant outside tonight," the Princess mused. With a comma not a period after tonight. In dialogue followed by a tag like "she mused," the punctuation before the closing quote is a comma (not a period), and the tag itself starts lowercase, since it's grammatically a continuation of the same sentence rather than a new one.
This should be "Lying beside him" (easy mistake, but "lay" is what you do to something; "lie" is what a person does themselves)
same as before, should be "'I will not,' she muttered to herself."
if this is a question, i would say 'she asked' and if not, i would replace the question mark with a comma and a lower case s in she
to be fully honest, I wrote this when I was SUPER tired and uploaded it w/o any revisions at all. so this is my raw writing at 2am on two bottles of sprite
haha i get that, honestly if that was me my typos would be 10x worse XD
Hey, hello!
I like the imagery here, especially the colours being connected to her parents' emotions. "The yellow of her father's rage" is a really interesting detail and immediately makes me wonder if she actually sees emotions as colours or if this is just how the narration works.
There are a few grammar/flow issues though. "Stars twinkling" and "nightingale singing" need something connecting them properly to the sentence, and "Though, The Princess" doesn't quite work grammatically. I'd also probably say "a nightingale" unless this is a specific bird we're supposed to know. The actual imagery is strong though and I think the dying birds/loveless marriage gives me a nice idea of what she's trying to escape from without explaining everything outright.
The King is easily the most interesting character here for me so far! There's something very creepy about how casually he says he has no use for his daughter while being almost affectionate toward Francine, and the all-caps dialogue makes him feel like something that isn't quite speaking in a normal human voice. I particularly like the contrast between "our bird has left its nest" and then immediately admitting he doesn't really care about getting her back.
I'm a little unsure about "if not but a small ember of love" though. I think you mean that there is only a very small amount of affection there, but the wording is awkward.
I understand what you're doing with the repetition here and I think "How lovely" works really well as the final little thought because she's clearly savouring something incredibly ordinary simply because she's finally free. The sentences before it are a little repetitive for me though, particularly saying she looked at the sky and then twice telling that she could see the stars. You could probably keep the same vibe while varying the descriptions a bit more.
I really like this transition! Her getting so caught up in resisting him that she literally doesn't watch where she's going is funny, and the King's interruption has a nice bit of dark humour to it. That's something to keep consistent in the next chapters!
***
I'm looking forward to reading more of this, for sure!
It reminds me a lot of a fairy tale, but it's also very wrong in a way I enjoy, like with the princess dreaming in colours and then apparently walking straight out of her kingdom into some kind of void. I also like that you don't explain exactly what the King is because his movements and dialogue already make it obvious that he's not human, and that's much creepier than immediately giving an exact species or a long explanation.
The Princess herself is still more mysterious than developed at this stage, but her repeated refusal to return and the hints about her father's rage and an arranged marriage give me enough reason to understand why she'd rather run into the unknown than go home. The ending definitely makes me want to know where exactly she's fallen!
Cheers, cheers! Thanks for sharing!
Lip
thanks for the feedback!!!! I was unfortunately very sleep deprived when writing this, so a LOT of the prose is very clunky lol