For the Last Man Standing contest - 866 (still pretty badly written) words.
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A deer stood a few meters ahead, its head turned towards a brook, paying no attention to Carys. The air was calm, no wind nor sound disturbing the animal or the forest around it. Slightly narrowing his eyes, Carys brought his weapon to his lips - a small, hollow piece of a branch, with a poisoned dart inserted in it - and aimed carefully.
"Carys?"
The deer turned his head to the voice, jumping away and disappearing between the trees. Carys sighed, but didn't turn, knowing well enough whom the voice belonged to.
"I'm going to the village," Sir Oristan announced as he approached, ignoring Carys's expression. "It's growing colder, and we'll need to exchange some food and skins for tools. I should be back before night."
In a moment, Carys found himself on his feet, clenching his weapon in his hand. "I'm coming with you--"
"No, you're not." Sir Oristan was smiling, but his voice was serious - as always when he'd talk about leaving the Woods.
Too serious. Carys frowned. What does he think would happen? What does he not want me to see?
"I want to," he said, raising his chin. "I've never been there... I don't understand why you always forbid me from coming with you."
The knight sighed. "It's dangerous, Carys. You're safer here - as long as you don't get yourself in trouble." He put his hand on the boy's shoulder shortly, giving him another smile but not meeting his eyes, and then turned to leave again. "I must go, while the sun is still high enough."
"I'm not a child," Carys muttered, looking at his back as the knight walked away.
He glanced towards the spot the deer was standing on, biting his lip in contemplation for a moment. If he took off now, he could've still tracked it down, he was sure of it. It would take him longer, and it could get difficult if the animal had decided to take a path through the thorns not far from where Carys was standing, but nonetheless it was possible to still catch the deer and bring it to the others.
He nodded slightly to himself, taking a step towards the pines the deer ran off to.
What are you afraid of?
He stopped as if he walked into a tree, his eyes closing for a moment. One of the voices from the dream, he was sure - high and melodic, reminding him of raindrops falling on the leaves in late days of summer. It wasn't the first time he heard it during the days, not even the first time it has asked him that question.
"Not the village," he muttered in answer, slowly turning to look at the direction Sir Oristan had left in. He would leave the forest every once in a while, and he would always return unharmed. And yet, every time when Carys would express his wish to follow - ever since he was little, ever since he could remember - the knight would order him to stay.
Too dangerous. You're safer in the woods.
Not for the first time, Carys felt anger creeping under his skin. Anger mixed with curiosity, dancing through his body and growing warmer the more thoughts he gave to Sir Oristan's words.
Too dangerous.
Not giving another glance to the brook and the woods behind it, Carys followed the knight's steps. He stayed hidden by the trees as he walked past the group on the clearance, carefully observing the woods around him and memorising the way - a thin, tall tree with unusually white bark; a set of three oaks around an island of grass filled with dandelions; a deep cut undoubtedly made by a sword or an axe, probably from ages ago, back from the time when there was still men in the Woods.
He couldn't see Sir Oristan anywhere in front of him, and after a while he considered turning around and returning to the others.
You're safer in the woods.
Frowning again, he looked around, taking a few more steps. He wasn't afraid - not of the village Sir Oristan forbid him from going to, not of the people who might've lived there. He had heard stories, thousands of times. Most of the members of their group once lived in villages or even cities - he knew for sure that Lais's mother, the woman Sir Oristan never wanted to talk about although everyone knew how important she once was to him, once lived all the way in the land they referred to as the Southern Empire, where paths weren't covered in branches and people lived in stone and iron. None of those stories told of dangers - none of those stories made him scared.
What am I afraid of?
He clenched his teeth as the forest grew thinner, locking his eyes on what emerged in front of him; round buildings made of a gray material, and people dressed in less colours and more clothes than the ones he was used to seeing. Taking a breath, Carys smiled slightly and walked forward, keeping the grip around the weapon in his hand tight.
"I'm afraid of not knowing and not being trusted," he muttered. I'm afraid of secrets kept from me.
*
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139,504 Literary Works • 672,591 Reviews
Hi Aria!
In all honesty, when it comes to this part this will be a really short review. Because this piece was basically flawless, and everyone has pretty much covered the majority of what needs to be said without question. I will do my best, though. And also, this story is awesome and the writing style is awesome, so I hope you start posting it again by the time I reach the later parts. Because I am going to want to keep reading!
I think Carys is my favourite character of the novel. Someone haunted, constantly sheltered and afraid of what is being kept from him, even though he isn't sure what it is and how it could be so dangerous. You've sparked my curiosity and I want to know what it is that Sir Oristan is so sure Carys should not get near at all either. Brilliant descriptions, incredibly well written... I don't think these is much more to be said for what I liked. Because it was near everything!
This is a little thing that is bothering me. We still don't know what this 'here' is like at all! They live in trees, meet in clearings for breakfast and then hunt for food? Do they all contribute to the food? How do these people live? All in the same place because there is safety in numbers, or as a big family? How many people are there even? I want to have a proper description of the place and the way this area functions before we get much more into the story. Yes, Carys may be leaving all of this behind for an adventure or something soon, but I feel like we should at least get to know his home place before we move on to anywhere else.
Due to the wording of this sentence I immediately thought Carys was looking at his own back as Sir Oristan walked away. Needless to say, I didn't get it until I reread a few times. So, maybe this wording would be for the best. 'Looking at the back of the knight as he walked away.'
I also couldn't help wondering, even though you did mention that people have been to villages before, has no one ever gone to this particular village with Sir Oristan before? I know if I was a villager curiosity may have gotten the better of me. And surely, a nearby village would be taken advantage of by more than one person? So why couldn't they tell Carys at least a little bit about what this village is like? It just seems strange one in many people went there, and suddenly it's his territory and no other people go there to explore and so on. does anyone else go this particular village. cant they till him about it?
Then again, I don't know how many people there are and can be assuming there are larger numbers than there really are.
That is definitely one long sentence! Instead of me droning on about small changes in this review, I've done them for you to help make this less chunky. It's just a suggestion, and I am sure there are many other ways to edit this.
Most of the members of their group once lived in villages or even cities. He knew for sure that Lais's mother - the woman Sir Oristan never wanted to talk about although everyone knew how important she once was to him - once lived all the way in the land they referred to as the Southern Empire. A place where paths weren't covered in branches and people lived in stone and iron.
Otherwise, there really is nothing more for me to say. Favourite chapter yet? Definitely
Deanie x
Hey Aria! I'm back! Again
Main Points
"He stopped as if he had walked into a tree,"
I read and reread this paragraph a few time and I still don't know what has been deeply cut. I'm assuming it's a tree? Is it a random tree or one of the trees that you mentioned before.
Is he not a man in the Woods? Unless you did this on purpose to show us that he isn't a man? Or are these classified as different Woods?
This is very long and very wordy. I got confused half way through. I suggest breaking off the red part into a separate sentence and same with the blue part, only replacing "where" with "there".
"forbade"
Alrighty! So, this was an interesting chapter, as usual you inject a lot of intrigue and keep the reader asking questions wanting to find out more about what's going on, why can't Carys go to the village? Is there something special about him? There must be a reason that we're seeing from his point of view.
All that is great, the thing is as much as I liked this part, I felt like something was missing. I feel like you've been telling us a lot of things but I know next to nothing about Carys and his life. You've show us his character by the way he acts, which is great, but what does he do as a trade? Is he a hunter? If he was surely knight Oristan wouldn't have knowingly scared away the dear? What is his part in the community that he lives in? You've just introduced us into this lovely forest community and now you've ripped us away from it. You teased us with a mere glimpse of it. Before he left it would have been nice to have seen some interaction between him and some villager that wasn't Sir Oristan, just to give us a little more sense of roundness. The full bodied coffee needs a little more milk to mellow it out.
Apart from all that though, I still really like the "feel" of your story. There's something about it that I really enjoy. I also feel like this is going to be a really good plot too, it seems really big and I'm interested to see where all this will go. Keep it up and happy writing!!
Silverlock
Yo! Here I am again
I think it sounds better with "the weapon in his hand".First of all, stop saying that it's bad when it's freaking brilliant. Believe in your writing, woman. Seriously.
I like it (surprise, surprise), and I'm starting to get all comfy with Carys, and knowing you'll probably change the pov soon makes me miss him before he's even gone. Anyway, I'm curious about what might happen in town, and if Oristan will catch him.. Or if something totally different and unexpected will happen. One can never know when it's you writing. Also, I liked the random little info about the South Empire. Any information about the world is nice, since I find it kind of fascinating xD
I second Norelle on that you should do something so that it's easier to tell when it's the voices speaking, and when it's his thought. Maybe put quotation marks around anything that isn't his thoughts?
A few nitpicks before I go:
This might be the nitpickiest nitpick I've ever nitpicked, but due to the formatting the last " ends up on the row beneath for me.. So maybe you could remove one of the -? You really don't have to, but it looks odd xD
I'd change that to "will", since it's present tense.
Remove the "'ve" here, and change "tracked" to "track".
Change the word order a bit, so that it's: "it was still possible".
I'd write "day" instead, as it's a more conventional way to use the word in this context. I know you mean during daytime, and not that precise day, but it's still written in singular most of the time.
I'd put a hyphen between "about" and "although".
I understand what you mean, but I think it'd make more sense if you put "houses" or something like that at the end.
Hi there!
Make sure that you add a tag after this. Something like "Carys thought". Otherwise this thought runs into the voices he's hearing. You have to be careful to distinguish between the voices and Cary's thoughts.
I really like how you incorporate the voices into this chapter (both parts). It's an interesting addition to the story and you've written it well. What I like especially is that you weave Cary's thoughts between the voices speaking. We don't just get line after line of voices in Cary's head; we get his take on the voices as well. There's a response he has to almost everything they have to say.
I feel like there's a huge jump here from the first part to the second part of this chapter. Maybe because there is a break when this is written out in full and it just seems weird split like this. I don't know. But I feel like we were just learning about Carys and where he lives and who he lives with and now all of the sudden he's hunting in the woods. But either way, I would've liked to see more description of Carys's life and what he's doing living in trees. We go from one kind of life, the life of a royal, to another life, the life of a "peasant". There should be more emphasis on the difference between the two lives.
Overall this is a good chapter. I hope our characters meet up soon! I have the feeling that these voices Carys is hearing are from the Labyrinth, something that the people at the castle (I've forgotten their names already...fail) are worrying about. And I'm excited to see what the village is like. I know it's something small, but it'll give me a nice idea of how the entire kingdom is.
Keep writing!
**Noelle**