*This story is underneath my folder titled “Souls and Roses”. Gacha Club character designs are under my forum titled “My character designs<33[2]”. Enjoy!*
Elizabeth pulled the floral print curtains closed, getting ready to go to bed. She was in the sitting room of her house, but she would go to bed after she closed up all of the curtains. She lived all by herself and she was perfectly fine with it being that way, for she could have her own moments of peace and-
A knock sounded on her door. Elizabeth froze. Who would be at her door so late at night? It wasn’t like she had any friends to come visit her…well, except for Scarlett and Kenneth. But they wouldn’t be knocking when the sun wasn’t out.
Nevertheless, she walked up to the door and opened it, worry and shock twisting in her heart as she looked down at a little green-eyed boy with his long, black hair encircling his dirt and mud covered face. He was shaking, his eyes wide with terror and…and she knew him. He was Scarlett and Kenneth’s son, Raven. She waved to him the few times that she saw him and he waved back. He’d visit her sometimes to show her worms that he found in the backyard, but that was in the morning.
Elizabeth pulled him inside and closed the door, asking him why he would come to her at the time he was supposed to be asleep and what had frightened him so.
“My parents got sick, so Queen Cordeila…she sent soldiers to kill them! They said they weren’t going to get me, but…but-“
“Be quiet. You don’t know who is listening. Go upstairs. I have a spare room, you can sleep in there. I’ll be down here, making sure no soldiers come. Now, you-“
“I don’t want to go upstairs alone.”
Elizabeth sighed. She knew he’d be scared of going upstairs by himself, but she had to be alert. She couldn’t sleep if it meant that Raven could be taken away. It was better to be safe than sorry.
“I can come upstairs with you, but then I have to go back downstairs. You-you know what, you’re right. My room is right next to the spare room. I’ll be right next door if you need me for anything. I won’t be too deep in sleep. You, though. You need your rest.” Elizabeth said, hoping that her solution would be enough.
Raven seemed to calm down a little bit and extended his hand out for her to take, which she did, walking up the stairs with him.
She loved Raven and she had told her friends that she would take care of him if anything bad happened to them, but she didn’t expect it to happen at all. She wasn’t a mother, so how would she be able to protect him? What if she wasn’t good enough?
Well, that didn’t matter. She had to do more than her best for Raven, especially with somebody like Queen Cordelia ruling.
She would not let that woman’s soldiers come anywhere near them.
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125,021 Literary Works • 672,739 Reviews
I’m gonna write a couple of more reviews for your stories despite my on-going disappointment with the dialogue formatting.
I don’t quite understand why she cant bring the child upstairs herself if he is this scared? I mean, is she rly gonna miss soldiers entering her home? And if that is the case, what could she conceivably do other than tell the kid to hide and stall them out, which she could be doing from the guestroom too…
Again I feel like this would be better as part of a larger story rather than a snippet.
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Hello Hello!
You did a good job setting the scene here, which is improvement from some of the other stories I've read from you. You're getting better every day!
I like that you go in depth with the characters P.o.V., and we get to see some of the thoughts that go through. It's also nice to see Elizabeth showing a motherly worry for Raven. However, I'm curious about this Queen. Sending soldiers to murder a sick family? Oh boy, that's some tyranny.
All in all, there are some really nice things in here, but I do have a suggestion. A lot of the short stories you have are REALLY short. Some, I wouldn't even consider short stories, I'd consider them flash fiction.
Might I suggest lengthening them? A lot of your stories I see have parts. LOTS of parts. Try to make them pull together. It saves you points, and you might get some more reviews!
A lot of the stories also cut off awkwardly sometimes, and making them just one long, 1,000+ word story instead of a bunch of short 250+ word story can help prevent this, and can also give you a bunch of room for cliffhangers.
When I'm popping out short stories, I typically try to aim for 1,000 words. If I go above, that's great! But it's a nice exercise to have. Then push on from there. I do it as a warm up, to get my brain functioning and out of a writers block, but it might help you with these stories.
That's all for now!
~Taost
Thank you for reading! I do want to write my lore for the Queen, so I%u2019m going to be working on her origin. :>