Derik snorted and rolled his eyes. “You were in on it, too?”
Rek looked at him guiltily. “I… when you say ‘in on it’ do you mean—?”
Derik sighed and rubbed his face. “Are you okay?”
“Oh, I’m fine,” Rek said, waving off the concern as he strode over and flopped down in his seat. “But I’m not the one who decided to take on a giant in the bar last night.”
Derik looked back at Jerica with a furrowed brow.
“Okay, that is a misleading—” she tried.
“Reason and extent,” Derik interrupted, looking at her sternly.
“I…” She sighed, deflating. “He was trying to uh… get some.”
“From you?” Anger flashed across his eyes.
Jerica scoffed, crossing her arms. “No one’s that dumb Derik. It was just some girl… young girl. And she didn’t want none. And he was getting up in her business and pushing her around… so I fed him his teeth.”
Derik sighed, visibly conflicted.
“I’m not sorry,” she sniffed, lifting her chin. “He had it coming.”
Derik rubbed his face with another tired sigh. “Is she okay?”
Jerica looked to Rek to answer that one.
“Yeah.” Rek nodded, stretching his back as he looked over at them. “A little shook up, but I made sure she got home safe. She’ll be fine.”
Derik nodded. “And the… offender?”
“Dungeon.” Rek lifted a shoulder in a careless shrug. “And… doing considerably worse than either of the girls, best I can tell.”
“Hah!” Jerica flashed a smug smirk and strode towards the table, proud of herself. “Maybe he’ll think about that the next time he wants to get a bo—”
“Aww!” Edler Biryn cut in with a sarcastic whine as he walked in the room. “Did I miss the Beat-Jerica-Up-Party? Let’s have another.”
“Har. Har.” Jerica rolled her eyes and flopped down in her seat, crossing her arms. She made an active effort to look as petulant as possible. It seemed to get on his nerves.
“No, come on,” Biryn goaded, striding towards the table. “Your face is all lopsided now. You need another to make it symmetrical.”
“You know what? Let’s do it,” Jerica goaded. “Just me and you. No weapons and no sparkle hands. I’ll give you the same I gave out last night.”
Biryn clenched his fists and looked at her coldly. Her gaze drifted down to his fists and saw a subtle red glow peeking out from around his fingers, emanating from his palms. The poorest temper control she’d ever seen in a sorcerer. Though, admittedly, she didn’t have much experience with sorcerers outside of Biryn himself.
“Oh no,” she said dramatically. “Mr. Sparklehands is coming out.”
“Jerica,” Derik cut in tersely. “Enough.”
Jerica smirked a little as she saw Biryn’s hands get even redder.
“Biryn,” Derik continued with a tired sigh. “Also enough. Let’s try to have a peaceful meal for once, yes?”
“Would be more peaceful if the Royal Meals went back to being royals only,” Jerica sniffed.
“Oh, shut it.” Biryn rolled his eyes and sat down.
Jerica reached forward and poured herself a glass of juice, satisfied with her jab. Biryn might as well have been an Ainsley at this point. He was King Levin’s Head Advisor and, more importantly, his best friend. And somehow, he always managed to wiggle his way into things that were meant to be for royals only.
Levin strode in a moment later. He stopped and looked at her skeptically, then continued to his seat at the head of the table. “What happened to you?”
“Fight,” she replied.
“With whom?”
“A rapist.”
Levin’s head snapped towards her. “Excuse me?”
“It’s fine.” She wasn’t inclined to give details. When it came to Levin, everything you said would be used against you in the future. Brevity tended to be the best strategy with him. Not give him anything to go off. “Offender is in the dungeon; victim will be fine.”
“And where were you at, getting into fights?”
They both knew the answer to that. Jerica looked at him irritably. She wasn’t in the mood to get a lecture about her drinking habit… hobby. Drinking hobby, really. “Book club.”
Levin snorted. “Liar. Rekard?”
Rek blinked, looking at him with a startled expression. “What?”
“You know what.”
“I am not the person going around getting into fights,” Rek defended. Levin looked at him flatly. Rek shifted in his seat. “I got in zero fights last night.”
“But you witnessed one, didn’t you?” Levin’s tone was thick with accusation. “You’re always the ditz to her dolt and we all know it.”
“Hey now!” Derik cut in; voice terse. “There’s no need for name calling.”
Levin looked at him irritably, rolling his eyes. He seemed to be considering a retort, but instead looked back at Rek. “Cut the nonsense. Were you with her when it happened?”
End of chapter
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140,268 Literary Works • 673,077 Reviews
I’m on a rooolll! Ok let’s get cracking with part two so you can post chapter three
This does a great job of portraying Derik as the uncle/father figure I know and love. The disappointment is there, but his first priority is making sure his two chaos children are ok and I love him for that.
Important question, is his name Edler or is this a typo for Elder?
Biryn seems less threatening to me in this draft so far. I don’t know if it’s because Jerica seems less afraid of him or because we met him in a more dramatic setting last time? I found him quite imposing and a little scary before but this time I’m just getting annoying vibes. Intentional?
Rek replying ‘what’ to the king felt a little disrespectful and not like him. Is he just caught off guard?
This draft seems a little slower than the last time around. I’m bought in because I like the characters and the story already but it would be good to get an unbiased view of whether it’s compelling enough to keep going!
See you for part three
Icy
Hallo there.
A small review if your interested…
First off, you’ve excelled in characters’ descriptions and speech. Despite the large number of people exchanging dialogue, I was never confused about who was talking, how, or why they wer saying something—it all felt quite natural and many of the lines were quite clever and amusing.
For instance, Jerica’s scorn for Biryn is well substantiated, it certainly feels like she's annoyed with him in how she acts and speaks. And, her annoyance is easily understandable. The line:
In particular, is quite clever and entertaining, while reinforcing Jerica’s loathing of the sorcerer.
As for criticisms, I could find few..
For the most part I followed the scene effortlessly however, one thing you might want to add is a line or two about what Derik was doing in between his lines? He sometimes seems to just pop in occasionally for a line or two trying to stop the argument, and then just wait around till he can talk again. Now I don’t know the character as well as you do, but maybe just something like: “he nervously paced around as they argued, trying to get a word.” Just to give a slightly fuller picture. Though this is more personnel preference than anything else.
My only other criticism might be that you describe two people as “flopping” down in their seats. It’s a great description, and probably fine since I only noticed it on the second read. However, I thought I’d tell you in case you do it more. I don’t know if you’ve used it a lot in the rest of the book, but maybe it’s something you might want to look out for to replace with another word in some places.
Overall, a quite entertaining read. I hope my review helps in some small way, and I wish you best of luck with the rest of the book!
-Myth