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Prologue: Rewrite

by Soulkana

Published May 24, 2012

In The Warrior's Path

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Prologue


 


I floated beside a tree, unseen, by the rather large man who wandered   through the thick forest. His face a dark red from anger as he  continued  a seemingly futile rant at the small child he dragged behind  him. The  child seemed to be thinking, eyes taking in the white, snow  covered  environment with calculating scrutiny. But this wasn't what  infuriated  me. No, it was the large bruise on her neck, the shape of  large hands. I  narrowed my eyes at the man, hissing with rage. The  child had such  promise, the power rolling off her made my very magic  sing with its  purity.  


 


With no other interest other than the beautiful girl I followed them, as they grew closer to the only river within the area. With the current rather fast, it had yet to fully be encased in ice. I watched as the girl attempted to pull free, her small hands scratching the man's hand. Impressed, I noted with a slight smile at the blood which dripped from the surprisingly deep gashes on his hand as she fled away only to be tackled by her uncle a few minutes later.


 


The snapping of bone makes me wince, never had I reacted such a way to the   sound before. But this child, this child seemed to break every wall I had built and with a growl of rage I knew I didn't mind it. Not at all   since the child obviously didn't know it. Oh the desire to find a body   at the very moment boiled inside me as the Uncle roughly drew the girl up, holding her over a portion of the river free of ice.


 


Unable   to stop him from doing what he wanted, I flew to the edge of the river   as he let go. The child shrieked in terror before her cry was drowned  by  the rushing water. The uncle merely walked the way he came until he   vanished, not once glancing back to check on his niece he had so   willingly tossed to death's hands.


 


Yet,  before I could go off to find someone to rescue the child, the draw of the girl's magic swiftly pounced from its cage, desperate to save its frail owner. I quickly sent a raven off to a nearby friend, before focusing on the magic pouring off the girl in such waves that I knew others sensitive to the ninth plane would feel the earthshattering ripples her magic created. Again, the child impressed me and with no desire to leave her alone, I watched as she clung to the river's end by a log that had fallen sometime before the snowfall.  


 


I could feel Andria closing in. With a relieved sigh I frowned slightl at  the girl. Her magic was changing her appearance. It would only mean   that her creature blood was awakening. The once blond hair became a  pure white and her silver eyes became a cold blue that fascinated me. I felt  Lues drawing closer, his eyes taking in the small girl with a  dark scowl. 


 


Carefully,  he lifted her out of the freezing water and murmured a soft spell to  dry and warm before glancing over at me. Without hesitation, I ordered  softly, yet firmly, "You will protect her. When the time comes and my  body is back, she will become my heir. Do not forget, Lues, the six hundred." My warning causes him to shift and look away and with a smirk I drew back into the shadows with the knowledge the child will become great.


 


"My lord, wait!" Lues shouts, hands securing the child to his back as he continues on at my glare, "What shall we name her?"


 


"For now name her Eirlys." I smiled faintly at the child before vanishing with the hope of a new body within the near future.


 

Comments & reviews · 2
User avatar
Snoink
Review
Snoink wrote a review Review · May 24, 2012

Hi Soulkana!

First off, I wanted to comment really quickly that the format looks weird at parts. This may or may not be your fault, but it's no real biggie, I think. Just look it over again.

As far as this piece? It seemed like you were trying to emphasize the whole evilness of the character to a point that it was kind of ridiculous. Yes, yes. He's evil, we know. He'll kill a little girl, just because, and do it in a violent manner.

Still, and I know this is going to sound a bit weird, but I wasn't very horrified by the man. He seemed to take too much glee in what he did. If he were to treat the girl kindly before he killed her, or if he were to simply ignore the girl and then kill her as if she were a thing and not an it, then I would be creeped out majorly. I mean, you kind of do the latter, but not really in the creepiest way because then he talks to her and does weird evil maniacal laughs and stuff.

...does this make sense?

Gah. Let me try to illustrate this.

The bundle that the man carried wiggled about, shrieking. The man didn't say anything, but his lips pursed and a strange look crept into his face. He put the bundle down and unwrapped it carefully, as it were a present. Inside the bundle was a little girl, no more than five-years-old. She stared at him with tear-stained eyes and wiped her nose with her dirty hand.

"Uncle?" she said uncertainly, her voice trembling.

"Hush," the man said. He wrapped his arms around her and gave her a hug. "This isn't going to hurt," he said, squeezing her neck. The girl's body tensed, but she didn't move away from him. She couldn't. He kept squeezing until her eyes widened and her lips parted. She made several guttural noises, as if she was gasping for air, but he only squeezed harder. Her tiny hands grabbed his arms, as if trying to stop him.

Finally, she passed out.

He broke her neck and glanced at her body, taking a strand of hair off her eyes. With a grimace, he took her body, stripped it of its clothes, and dumped it unceremoniously in the river. Then, his hands trembling, he took out an old photograph and looked at it blankly. It was a picture of a boy. He kissed it briefly and put it back into his pocket before walking away.


YES. I just rewrote the first scene. And now, the uncle is a moody man who is not plainly evil and he's not plainly good. He is a horrible person because he just hurt his niece badly and his niece would probably have died, were it not for the magic. But, he is not obvious about the death at all, and in fact hides a lot from the reader. This gives him a very... mysterious aura, actually, because you have no idea what to expect from him.

The point is that you have an evil maniacal stock character who likes to do monologues and all that jazz. He's kind of obvious. But, you don't have to make characters like this. You can do cool things with them so they can be alive.

What I wrote just now? That's basically something quick I put together, so it probably sucks. Still, it shows you that there are a million ways of writing the same story. So, be creative and play around with it!

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ahhhsmusch
Review
ahhhsmusch wrote a review Review · May 24, 2012

((my comments are like this))

The lone figure walks through the snow covered path without looking back. The man's eyes cold and flashing with anger as the bundle in his arms lets out a small,(( yet - yet ruins the flow for me)) piercing cry. It's ignored by the man who merely ((I'd take out merely, I don't like unnecessary adverbs)) slams the child against the snow covered tree, grinning viciously at the crack that broke((broke should be breaks)) the chilling night. The five, almost six, year old girl goes limp, blood trickling to the white ground from her bleeding forehead.

"It's all your fault, wrench." The man growls at the unresponsive girl, the sound of a rushing river in the path ahead bring an even crueler smirk to dawn the man's face.

"If you hadn't have come my son wouldn't have died in that accident." ((this dialogue sounds awkward, mostly the part where he specifies that an accident happened. It should be more vague because he is talking to himself. He knows what happened.)) The harsh words continued as the river comes in sight.

The water flowed too fast to be covered completely in ice ((despite the time of winter-I'd cut this part, better for the flow, its also unnecessary information)). Large chunks of ice flowed downstream with the current. Stepping over the large mounds of snow that had been accumulating the past few weeks, the man emotionlessly holds the child out over the fast moving waters, eyes burning with sick joy.

"Good luck with your powers saving you ck ((ck?)) with your powers saving you know, freak." The man watches with a twisted smile as his niece ((it would be nice if the narrator didn't specify that this was his niece and that we either learned that she was niece through subtle hints or maybe later in the story)) falls into the river, before walking off without so much as a glance back at the child.

The cold water engulfs the girl and with that action something powerful breaks loose. Swelling up inside the child it rises up quickly in aide of the dying soul. As it explods ffrom the core, a shockwave of magic rocks the mostly disregarded mystic plane. ((However,--cut)) a few miles down the stream a young woman jerks from her bed, eyes peering out at the darkness. Heart thudding with the power that she felt((feels)) clogging the air, she rushes outside to the river to find the girl's magic clutching tightly to one of the sturdy branches just in front of her house.

Kneeling beside the child, she moves to touch her when suddenly the magic rises up again, only much stronger. Amazed, she watches as the child's blonde hair become as white as the snow littering the ground. As she picks up the child, she quickly hurries back inside the house, mind running fast with all the signs her grandmother had warned her of. The legend would rise and without a doubt this child was it. Worried, she covers the girl in new clothes and blankets before settling by the fire with the decision to figure this out in the morning.



Kneeling beside the child, she moves to touch her when suddenly the magic rises up again, only much stronger. Amazed, she watches as the child's blonde hair become as white as the snow littering the ground. As she picks up the child, she quickly hurries back inside the house, mind running fast with all the signs her grandmother had warned her of. The legend would rise and without a doubt this child was it. Worried, she covers the girl in new clothes and blankets before settling by the fire with the decision to figure this out in the morning. ((maybe making her curiosity more subtly described instead of outright telling us that she has heard about the legend may create more intrigue))


Ok, well that bit definitely grabbed my attention. That is why I read it and decided to edit. You tend to use words and phrases that remind me that there is a narrator. Examples such as 'despite this time of winter", "without so much as a glance"-phrases that do not really seem as if they are apart of the environment being described but more so small snippets of something speaking. They mess up the flow of the story.

Anyway, cool story, I hope you keep it going.
Ahhhsmusch



Life is about losing everything.
— Isabel Allende