Warning: This work has been rated 16+ for violence.
Author's Notes: 1,570 words. Edited to remove most replacement names, by request. Also, the newcomer is referred to as "deer boy" because Mage called him that and it sounded really good to me, so credit goes to Mage for that. Lastly, I despise the "speech impediment" thing (because odds are I didn't bother with research), and am tempted to change it to say that he just is a man of few words. However, I'd like to have some input before I change that.
Eremia didn't watch as the man collapsed onto the ground, choosing instead to prepare some of her dwindling strength and moving the palms of her hands behind her and conjuring a brief blast of wind. She could hear the sounds of people falling onto the ground, particularly the clanking of their metal armor against cobblestone, as she was flung into the air by the force of her attack. Now taking the stance of an individual in a long jump event, she watched as Yorew finished his efforts, turning paler and weaker, and made to grab her leg and stop her. The servant failed and leaned on his staff even harder, his sunken eyes widened in horror as the girl threw herself ever closer to deer boy, who dodged out of the way as she threw her hands in front of her and summoned a second wind blast.
This time, however, Yorew was able to catch her as she flung herself backwards, the wind flying into the alleyway and buffeting the assembled cronies, many of whom were knocked back or shoved ungracefully onto the ground. Deer boy pulled another arrow out of his quiver and looked around him, observing as the less faithful and terrified of soldiers - among them those who had pursued Eremia - run away in terror and consternation, hiding within panicked groups of citizens. Those citizens were themselves horrified by the bloody and gory display, and retreated en masse from the marketplace and courtyard.
Eremia and her servant collapsed onto the ground. Yorew, though sturdy as ever, was now gasping for air, the breath knocked out of him. Neither heard the sounds of anything breaking, but Eremia could see black spots dancing around her eyes, the pale sky and bright sun over her heard becoming ever more distant as she was consumed by so many emotions. Fear, tension, anxiety, horror. This was the bloodiest spectacle she had seen thus far in her life, as well as the most strenuous use of her powers ever. It was a miracle that she was still alive, but she had no idea if her brother was. She hadn't eaten in a day, she was tired, thirsty, hungry, her body ached, and it felt as though her life was on the verge of collapse. Yet, she would do anything to see Jonah again, regardless of how mean-spirited and horrible he had been over the past few days. She had to see if he was still alive, and if she could help him at all. Even if it killed her.
She suddenly felt herself being lifted upright, and looked behind her to see that it, for a change, was not Yorew. The girl could see the tanned and broad shoulders of a man lifting her and the servant upright, and the familiar face of the butcher from earlier appeared over Yorew's shoulder. All the color and smile in his face had been drained away, and he seemed to be caught between ready to yell and perfectly relieved to see that the girl was mostly fine. Either way, he'd probably done something he'd hadn't the guts to do before, and she was thankful for it, even if it was incredibly hard for her to say something, and taking a step on her own footing and spotting the bloody carnage was enough to thrust her into nausea and dizziness.
"Stop moving!" whispered the butcher, as though he was being watched. "If you're hungry or thirsty, I have a meal for you waiting in my stall. But, in the name of the Creator, you had better get of out of this town now. I don't know what you've started, but it's bad."
"But...my brother," shot back Eremia in a quiet voice. It was hard to say anything in a louder voice than that without feeling desperately ill. She didn't have to, as her next words were drowned out by loud and incessant screaming emanating from the alleyway.
"Who are 'ya, kid? Who are 'ya? Those eyes a yous? What...how did ya' get -- no! No! I swear, I'm innocent, I was bullied into this, yeah, somebody pulled the strings. No! I'll do penance, I'll stop killin' folks, let me go! I ain't worth this divine retribution, stop! stop! stop! I --"
Everything else was incomprehensible. Deer boy sprinted into the alley without hesitation, jumping over bodies as the few people still left in the courtyard waited in fear and anticipation. Eremia was fervently drinking from the bowl of water that had been handed to her, and tearing apart the piece of bread in her other hand. The screaming, and those faint noises behind it, as though somebody was ferociously attacking him, placed a chill into her heart. What was going on? Where was her brother? Was he still alive? Were they fighting each other, and was the criminal trying to kill him? Or the other way around? Or both?
And then, after a minute's silence, deer boy came back, breaking free from the shadows as he clasped the hand of Jonah, with blood smeared across the latter’s outfit. Jonah was holding a long rope behind him, and his knife was clasped in the same hand. He looked dreadful, and his massive eyes seemed on the verge of tears. Jonah was devastated and horrified, and almost collapsed when deer boy let go and Jonah’s immensely relieved sister, first handing her bread and water to Yorew, ran and tackled him.
Deer boy watched as Eremia buried her head in Jonah's hair and cried. He responding by laughing, but it was a frail, glad-to-be-alive kind of laugh, and his face was still etched in shock and horror. All Eremia could see was this small child, far younger than when she had last remembered him, and she cast aside her hatred for him, as he was her brother, she had been so close to losing him altogether. As such, everyone watched the spectacle for a minute, seeing Jonah as he bore his few regrets on his shoulders, and tears began to fall down his face.
"You must go," said deer boy in a scratchy voice as he placed his hands on Eremia's shaking shoulders. She, eyes red and swollen, looked up at him and frowned as he explained. "Word spreads quickly. Soldiers are coming. Eimhin's guard, led by the...king's son. They have been waiting for...disturbances." He struggled to create sentences longer than a few words, as the effort forced him to take a deep breath before continuing. Speech impediment, perhaps?
"If our horse hasn't torn off a tree branch in fear," remarked Yorew, separating gently the siblings with his hands while handing the bread and water to Jonah, who treated it as his sister did. "I see that we must head to Exedor." Eremia, in the meantime, her waves of panic, fear, and relief dissipating in turn, gradually regained her composure and stopped crying. She turned to Jonah, expecting him to provide some kind of a counter-argument or dispute. After all, it was Jonah who had spent all this time planning this operation, who had wanted them to escape the castle, who had escaped from the castle, devoted what was the most amount of effort to a singular task in his life. Jonah said nothing.
To everyone's surprise, deer boy shook his head. "They'll see it coming," he retorted, keeping his firm composure. Eremia noticed that his previous injury was now but a scar, although he still looked pained and tired. "Head into Eimhin."
"I should think we could outpace them," responded Yorew, who rose an eyebrow. That was his version of surprise. "We do have a swift horse, and I'm sure Exedor has taken steps to guard its border troops as well."
"Eimhin is famous for...horseback archers," said deer boy, dismissing Yorew's statement. "Exedor is in disarray. They are searching for two...children. If what the boy said...was true..."
Jonah nearly choked on his bread. "That was...that was lies! I am most certainly not the Prince Exedor!" Deer boy glared at him with the kind of stare that indicated he had more than enough evidence to suspect otherwise. The prince looked down at the cobblestone floor and silently mumbled, "Yes, I am."
"Who are you?" questioned Eremia suddenly, as her wits came back to her in full force. Her heart had sunk when he had told her that she and her sibling had caused so much chaos, and that did make sense, as their parents were compassionate, but how could she trust his logic, simple as it might be, as not the product of an intimate knowledge of the situation? Too much so? "Why should we trust a man who seems to know so much about Exedor and Eimhin? How do we know you're not setting up a trap for us?"
Deer boy began to walk off. "I am Jonathan," he said simply. "Exedor has been moving troops...by the border. I live here, and the townsfolk...can agree. They seem to be looking for...something. I saved your life. I must go to find help. You decide if you want...to trust me."
With that, Jonathan murmured a brief incantation, turned into the buck that the girl had seen earlier, turned to nod at her, and bounded past a corner edge of the courtyard, vanishing from view. In the process, he knocked out some of the goods in the area, but persisted.
End of chapter
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139,331 Literary Works • 672,537 Reviews
Alrighty! This review will be short because this is the last one I can drop before I have to run around as an adult and do adult things like go to work, but overall, now that there's actual action going on, things are moving at a decent pace and flowing pretty nicely.
I do think, rather than have deer boy standing outside the alleyway with Yorew and Eremia, it would make more narrative sense for him to dash into the alley before the pleading begins. At the very least, that would introduce more ambiguity to the events that take place in the alleyway while also providing a fairly direct plausible explanation for the pleading to help the mysterious events that transpired therein fly under the radar of less suspecting readers.
At this point, it kind of stuck out to me as a case of FORESHADOWING and that THINGS ARE NOT ALL THEY APPEAR TO BE which could work, I'm not entirely sure what's coming up next or the details of what you have planned, after all, but injecting a bit more ambiguity into things wouldn't hurt, regardless.
I didn't find the speech impediment thing to be an issue, mainly because Jonathan was a passing character in this, and the observation was one Eremia made rather than a declaration of the narration proper. I don't really see a reason to remove it, though you might want to describe Jonathan's physical struggle to say things rather than relying almost entirely on ellipses to convey the pauses.
Hmm. I knew I shouldn't have waited until tonight. Now I can't earn a badge for the entire novel. Let's dive in, shall we?
Technical Comments:
There's only one this week, and it's a biggie.
I noticed that several times, you describe emotions simply as they are. The citizens were horrified, Jonah devastated, etc. While it does get your point across, however, it lacks weight.
Emotions have corresponding actions, and you actually do describe those actions sometimes (like Jonah choking when he's accused of being the prince), but you don't often describe those actions when you're trying to get across the heavy emotions. Fear and terror? Heavy. Hopelessness? Ooh, man, that should make me feel like my chest is being carved out.
And heavy emotions are hard to describe, yes, but that's why it's so important that you translate it all into action. Heavy emotions deserve more than one clause in a sentence where five things happen in sequence. (See: "Jonah was devastated and horrified, and almost collapsed when deer boy let go and Jonah’s immensely relieved sister, first handing her bread and water to Yorew, ran and tackled him.")
The moment you forgo emotive action for the emotion itself, you lose part of the weight. Sticking your emotions inside of actions not directly related to that emotion hurts even more. I understand that you don't want to spend too long lingering on what's going on inside of people's heads, but emotions are exceptionally powerful. They deserve to get a little more attention.
Plot, Characterization, and Misc. Items:
1. I can tell that Jonah goes through some kind of change in this chapter. Obviously something (fear, probably?) is the catalyst for that change, so play up his feelings, both here and in the chapters leading up to this one. That'll give more weight to his emotions, and also help all your readers get a better understanding of what exactly this change is, and how it happened.
Unless you don't want us to understand this change. Then by all means, keep him a mysterious little brat.
2. Also, it feels like Eremia's relief to get her brother back is a little much. It wasn't as big of a deal in the last chapter (which made her relief seem overlarge in comparison), and beyond the he's-my-bro explanation, I don't feel like I was given enough prior knowledge to understand why she cares so much. Paired with the description of her actions-of-relief, that whole aspect just felt a bit... overdone.
3. I like Jonathan. He does a kind deed expecting nothing in return and pulls off mysterious well enough that I probably wouldn't feel too betrayed if he turned out to have less-nice motives. Hopefully I keep liking him, because I'm still grasping for likable characters.
That's about it this week. Later!
-Buggie
Yep, good points all around. I cop out for descriptions of emotions rather than associated actions whenever I'm rushing myself, because it takes much more time and effort to convey it than to just state it. I've been trying to reduce that habit with time, but it's never quite gone away. And you can also see why I said I was laughing earlier, because the whole thing is overdone. The chapter is heavy on drama and light on solid rationale, unfortunately, even if it does introduce Jonathan, who's a fairly nice person.
Hello, TheSilverFox! I apologize in advance if my review isn't helpful.
You asked me to tell you what I thought of your usage of descriptors in this chapter, so I'll start with that and then move onto the rest of the review. And, like usual, I didn't have any major problems with your work's overall grammar.
I thought you did a great job when it came to using the descriptors. You didn't use them excessively, and the ones that you did choose to use didn't make the story confusing. They helped to keep the flow of the story constant.
One of my favorite things about this chapter was how you showed the reality of what it was like to leave the castle. You hadn't romanticized it in the previous chapters, but this addition showed both Eremia and Jonah coming to terms with what life outside of the castle can be like. Their reactions to it showed just how jarring it could be. Even though Jonah had been planning this and Eremia was already shown to be mature, neither one expected something like that to happen. It looks like the perfect opportunity for Jonah to start developing into a more mature, responsible person, though I don't know how possible that is for him.
I just have two things I'd like to bring up before I end this review. While I do see why you wrote Jonathan's dialogue the way that you did, something about it seemed to break the flow of the story. I don't know how to remedy that problem, but maybe you could figure something out that I can't. The last thing I wanted to comment on was Jonah and Jonathan's names. While I personally didn't have a problem with them, some of your other future readers might become confused because of how similar they are. Maybe you can change Jonathan's to something a little more different?
I really enjoyed reading your work, and I'm sorry if any part of my review seemed harsh. Also, please feel free to PM me if something I said doesn't make sense. I'd be happy to explain it to you. Keep up the great work - which I doubt you'll have trouble with - and good luck on your writing endeavors! I hope you have a wonderful day/night!
Yeah, I think this is sort of a nudge for Jonah to move away from being a prick, though the real push won't be in a while (and is more powerful than a mere push, but that's probably a spoiler). I can also see how Jonathan's speech might break the flow; I'll try to reduce his constant use of ellipses and make everything seem less disjointed. Also, I have long suspected the names would be confusing, but Jonah and Jonathan have had their names for literally years. Those names are too closely associated with them for me to change either; I might resort to nicknames or middle names instead, though it helps that they rarely appear in the same chapter. All in all, thanks for the review, and thanks for your great commentary!
Hey, I’m here to review!
You don’t have to include those words as you’ve said she was hungry.
The dialogue is hardly a shot, more so when she speaks in a quite voice.
I’m glad Jonah’s alive. Eremia trying to fight back is also interesting to see as well as the return of the butcher. The speech impediment from the deer boy is also interesting - I wonder what has made him to be like that? I do think the fighting scene can be smooth out in further drafts, however. Using short sentences and minimizing the use of commas and adverbs can certainly do that.
You should also want to reduce the use of words of emotions such as panic, fear, and relief. It would be more felt if each of this emotion is shown rather than listed.
This sentence is wordy. I would suggest to combine some of the parts to make it more direct like this.
So much shorter, and yet readers can understand what you’re trying to say here. This is Jonah’s plan and he has much of a say about it.
Wait, does Jonathan change into a deer at the end? This surprises me because I don’t remember him turning from a deer to a human at previous chapters. Maybe it’s just me, or perhaps you’d want to make it clearer next time.
Overall, I think the chapter is solid. Still too wordy for my liking, but it seems like the plot is moving nicely. I haven’t read the chapter where Eremia and Jonah escaped their own castle, which is why I would like to say I don’t know why they did. However, I would say it’s interesting the deer boy is suggesting them to enter their enemy’s territory. Since they want go away from Exedor, though, I guess that’s understandable. I just hope to get a better understanding in future chapters.
And that is all! Keep up the good job!
Thanks for your comments; I'll be sure to keep them in mind! I could've sworn I described Jonathan's turning back to a human form at one point, but I would not be surprised if I didn't. I'm happy that the general idea is coming across, even if I wasn't (and am still not) good with action scenes. As for the castle escape, it's 100% fine if you want to read it (because chances are I also didn't bring in a recap) but don't review the parts it's in, if that's what's holding you back from that. Nevertheless, thanks for your review!