~August
*
The dawn I got bound to the Boy, it was winter.
Freezing winds, as always before the sunrise, carried the ashes and scents of the nearby bonfires, and shouted words of the villagers seemed like nothing but muttered music. The soldiers sat around the flames, their eyes as sharp as their swords, observing the preparations. It was a night of anticipation, and the next morning, many were to die - yet in all the years I've lived, I had learned that Death never appeared expected.
The Young Master was in pain, I remember, his skin burning from all the cuts and his heartbeats loud enough for me to hear. He was alone and he was afraid, unable to move and with no one around who'd care if he called for help. But he had that small piece of paper with the enscription he couldn't even understand, and that was all it took.
I passed the guards without getting noticed, and the bars as if they weren't there, and stood observing that weak little human as he held the paper in his trembling hands, wondering what could he possibly ever offer me. Yet then he met my eyes, and I saw his soul - and for the first time in longer than I counted, my lips curled into a smile.
I still remember saying the Words, that cold winter dawn in a dungeon which smelt of fear. I still remember the first order, and how hot his skin was against mine as I took him out of there. I still remember the look in the eyes of the soldiers, before we left their bodies behind.
*
"Do you think they're real?"
I turned to him as the Young Master spoke, in his almost lazy tone and without meeting my eyes. I could understand that - the thought of meeting the gaze of someone who was about to take your soul eventually must've been terrifying - yet I felt myself smirking. It's been years since I've came to him, since he'd called me - and still, though I never left his side and though I was bound not to hurt him, he still feared even to think of the inevitable future.
Humans were so boring. So predictable and needy, and even when offered power on a plate, they lacked the imagination to use it.
I didn't care what he was asking me about - but among all the other nitpicks, the Contract stated I must answer his questions, so I oblidged. "Do I think who or what is real?"
He looked up, his light brown eyes examining my face for a moment, before they turned back to the book in his lap. "The characters," he said. "The people inside, do you think they live their lives not even knowing they're nothing but a story?"
I got up, walking over to him, glancing at the book over his shoulders. There was something amusing in the way he tensed, as he always would when someone would approach too close, in the way the beating of his heart quickened and the light of his soul almost estinguished. Fear. It followed my Contractor like a shadow, like myself, and I knew he would never truly leave it behind.
"For them," I said, picking my words, "their story is their world. They nor know nor care of us, and they maybe wonder the same you're wondering now."
He frowned, clutching the edges of the book in his hands, struggling to keep calm and not show how bothered he was by me standing so close. My poor little master.. still as naive to think I'd care.
There was something fascinating in how strong he managed to keep his voice as he spoke again.
"Really, August." He looked up, this time really meeting my eyes. "For someone who is to answer my questions, you tend to be really good in avoiding doing just that."
For someone who has me on their side, you really know how to live a boring life. "I never bothered to think about it enough to be able to properly answer your question."
He muttered something, but even if I'd care to hear, I couldn't make myself focus.
My vision blurred, the colours mixing, and I felt like falling - like a puppet, with my strings being pulled in all directions, until the pressure got too strong to handle and they finally broke, leaving me like nothing more than just one of the lights in a galaxy of others around me. I knew where I was, but I didn't know why; the space in between was always the same, always as beautiful and as lonely, but I wasn't supposed to be there. I wasn't supposed to be weak and again stuck in a place I could do nothing but observe, not while my Contractor was alive and well and under my protection, not until our deal was done.
Yet I was - and as I realised I had a form and eyes to open, I found myself standing in a room I couldn't recognise, not from a memory nor even from a story. Tall windows behind furniture in dark colours revealed nothing of the land I came from, nor of either land I've ever seen. There wasn't a sight of castles and soldiers in that world - and not a drop of magic in the air around me.
For the very first time in many, many years, I found myslef surprised, as my thoughts got cut by a silent voice.
"You're not him," it said.
A girl with skin as white as lillies, fiery hair falling around her face, stood by the bed and kept her gaze on me. Her voice was one of a person whose wishes I was to fulfill, whether I'd liked it or not, and I already knew what she wanted. The girl was alone, accompanied only by a book on her bed, and held a small piece of paper in her hand
"My, my," I almost sang, taking a step towards her, cirling around her like a predator around a prey. It's been a while since I'd taken a wild soul for being stupid enough to invite me so close. "Whom had you expected, I wonder."
"His name is Lain," she said, and the sound of my Young Lord's name made me stop. "He's a prince."
I moved to pick up the book on the bed, finding myself unable to touch it. I wasn't a part of that world, that strange and unpleasingly intriguing world with no magic and a sky with just one moon watching over the city I could see through the windows.
"His name," I repeated carefully, "is Lain. And I know what you want." But you know nothing, mortal lady. Moving away from the bed, I once more stood in front of her, as she gripped the paper stronger. She knew my price, or she wasn't worth signing my Contract. I locked my eyes on hers. They were light as well, but green and wide opened, exposing her heart's desires even to those far less used to read them than I was. Nothing like my Young Master's, which hid the path to his soul, for everyone but for me even though I knew he'd tried that too.
"Very well then," she said. "You know why I've called you - will you accept?" Her eyes showed hope. So naive, so stupid. Atracted to promises of power like moths to a flame. She licked her lips. "Will you make a deal with me?"
Before she even asked, I knew what I'd answer.
She didn't feel any pain, and her eyes showed no fear - but her soul matched the brightness of only one another.
***
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
125,013 Literary Works • 672,842 Reviews
hey its a nice start .....
the sentences in them are usaully riddled . but besides that its you are showing the pain in the charcter eyes For example:
"The Young Master was in pain, I remember, his skin burning from all the cuts and his heartbeats loud enough for me to hear. He was alone and he was afraid, unable to move and with no one around who'd care if he called for help. But he had that small piece of paper with the enscription he couldn't even understand, and that was all it took."
"The Young Master spoke, without meeting my eyes, in his customary almost-lazy tone. I turned to him, and smirked. I could understand that -- the thought of meeting the gaze of someone who would eventually take your soul must be terrifying." it should be like this in my opininon.
and i think you should establish the backstory. that what is the charcters are leading from?
and what is their role in this story. you know like a prologue/ before starting a chapter.
but overall i like your chapter. and i am now see what happens after that.
you have little grammatical problem but i think if you re-read and have a look where ever it is/ you should work harder in that place.
P.S. i am not much grammer specialist and my english is not much good , but where i think u need to improve i told you that. hope it will help you.
Ninety percent of this makes little sense. The other ten percent is Black Butler. Congratulations.
Your sentences are usually too run-on and horrible, riddled with a series of otherwise small grammatical mistakes that pile up and become one horrible rolling stone of pain for my eyes. An example:
First sentence there should be broken up. Perhaps a re-phrasing would be: "The Young Master spoke, without meeting my eyes, in his customary almost-lazy tone. I turned to him, and smirked. I could understand that -- the thought of meeting the gaze of someone who would eventually take your soul must be terrifying."
And so on. Needless to say, your original paragraph has three mistakes for every two words properly slapped together.
Overall, I think you should read this again, break up the sentences, consider your use of verbs, and so forth. However, that should come later, after things are nicely finished. I think you would prefer I focus on my impression of plot, character, and so forth.
I find your idea intriguing, to say the least -- demons and whatnot. However, this reminds me of Black Butler so much it's almost painful.
Oh my, his name is NOT Sebastian!
I'm not quite sure where you're trying to go with this, but from the first chapter, I'm... not quite sure where this is going. I'm repeating this because I feel it should be stressed. You wanted to establish a bit of backstory on how the demon and the Young Master (Black Butler oh my) met. His mother paid a great price, perhaps even her life. Surely there will be a twist following.
However, I think you should have focused more on the relationship between the two characters. Let's take a look at your intro. Everything in-between your two asterisks.
That's completely useless. Why is
SebastianAugust remembering when he was bound toCielhis Young Master? Does it have any relevance whatsoever to the events to come? Maybe, but from this chapter, it seems to me you just threw it in there as a hook. That just doesn't work.Even if it WAS absolutely necessary, I'd say the way you did it is just jarring and unnatural, completely interrupts what could have been the flow of a magnificent conversation. In my opinion, you should start from
Cielthe Young Master asking the question concerning the characters (nice attempt at leaning on the fourth wall by the way, I see what you did there). That's much more interesting. Then, you have the conversation go on, show us some of August's nice Sebastian-esque sense of humor, and DURING the conversation something evokes his memories of when he was first bound toCielhim.That above would, in my opinion, make things very natural, and perhaps stop me from questioning the use of the intro. Perhaps you could expand the first chapter and give us foreshadowing of what is to come, maybe even during the conversation itself.
tl;dr: cut up your intro, have the dialogue between the two come first, then the reminiscence, and finally, after more dialogue, the sudden plunge into memory world, part two, with the Young Master's mother and stuff.
Now, this also lacks something I quite often Nazi. Description. It may slow down your chapter -- or it may not, if done in a particular way. Nonetheless, I think you could have easily mentioned, say, the smell of the old, leather-bound books in the room, or the view from a window, the cold gray light seeping in through the curtains, giving the rich, red-carpeted room an unnatural, still beauty.
Or whatever, something like that. Small details, especially perhaps touch or smell, those are two very powerful senses, perhaps the most powerful.
tl;dr: add sensory description to this piece, make it so that we can see the room.
So to recap once more, and, for your sake (and mine), finally: play with the structure of this, start off with the dialogue, add description, and, for the love of all you hold dear, work on your sentence structure. Either make things sharp and concise, or slow things down, really give weight to every detail in the piece.
Hope this helped,
your little brother
That is exactly how a little brother acts....
^^
Well, it is, lol. Saying praises when I know something is terrible before even posting it, that would border with insulting, no? But anyway.
Funny how I see no connection to BB (and didn't even have it in mind, but now I want to watch it again), and yet people do *blink* But oh well, I'm always happy to put up whatever to let people get their points :3
You imply I reviewed this solely to get points. Yet you talk about insulting.
Seeing I submitted this here basically so people who stumbled upon it could get (back) some points (they spent giving gifts)..yes, you did review it to get points xD Maybe not solely, though.
Ah, perhaps it was your intention. Mine was to try and help you salvage that thing above *waves in general direction at piece*
I am evil Santa.
Here is my super intense evil review that you will hate me for by the end of it.
I don't like this line because it doesn't make complete sense for a first line. I would suggest something along the lines of "It was on a winters dawn, that I got bound to the boy." Even this doesn't make sense properly on its own because it just doesn't so maybe you could even drop the word dawn completely which is what makes it weird. You could even say " It was winter when I was bound to the boy" or "It was dawn when I was bound to the boy" and then say something about winter in the proceeding writing. And now that i think about it saying "got bound" could sound better if you say "was bound" instead.
Moving on:
This first sentence is a tongue twister. There is just too much in it and too many pauses. You need to break it down into two smaller sentences, for example "The freezing winds before the sunrise carried the ashes and scents of nearby bonfires. The shouted words of the villagers in the far distance, seems like nothing more than muttered music." (as you see I also added some sexy onomatopoeia there because it is sexy.)
This sentence is good. No comment.
Saying " Death never appeared expected. " doesn't make sense. You should have said "that death never appeared when expected."
There's no such thing as enscription. Its Inscription. Get it right.
Once again, too many commas. For example "I remember his skin burning" no need for a comma. Or if you would like to be more poetic like my sexy evil self who is very poetic you could write something like this. "I remember his skin, burning from the cuts, his heartbeat loud enough for me to hear." Either way you should get rid of the word "all" in front of "the cuts" its just makes it seem less childish. Also "that was all it took." all what took?
Too many and's in the first sentence. Get rid of either the 'and' before 'bars' or replace the 'and' before 'stood' with an 'I'.
Again, this could be re-arranged like so. " I still remember saying the Words as I stood in that cold winter dungeon which smelt of fear."
Also whats an order? Do you mean 'his order?'. rest of it is good. No more comments.
*
Alright blaming the weird spacing on the annoying formatting problem thing that someone should surely fix soon. There is no such word as 'must've' it reminds me of mustard and it doesn't exist you need to write 'must have'.
Also you could optionally get rid of "I turned to him", by saying that I am a hypocrite because I always write turned to in everything and it only makes me realize how even more unnecessary it is and that we don't need it it. Also the 'and' before 'without meeting my' is not compulsory.
Moving on:
Obliged is spelled like obliged and not oblidged. Also "Humans were so boring. So predictable and needy, and even when offered power on a plate, they lacked the imagination to use it." what has this got to do with anything? It isn't even followed up in the next statement. You need to put in why he thinks that, for example if he is thinking that because the boy asked a question then you need to say so such as saying somewhere in there; "always asking questions" or "needing to know answers to everything".
The rest of this is cute.
Its spelt extinguished. Get it right.
Also.. never-mind. Next!
No comment.
First speech- Good.
Next line. Completely confusing. It seems like speech, but its not? I assume its thoughts but in this instance thoughts like that simply do not work. I suggest something like this. "I mentally mocked him; For someone who has me on their side, you really know how to live a boring life.
That was a badly written example but if you put in something similar to that at least we will know what is going on in that sentence.* You then need to miss a line for the new speech of a new person. Also make it more clear that it is August saying that line.
* I understand that you have missed a gap and put italics but realistically speaking with proper formatting and also in a place where italics lack such as this review window or another medium of reading this really is confusing.
Thank you for using the correct spelling of colour. Unlike many people here.
Confusing. First thing first, too many metaphors/similes. First you compare him to a puppet then to a galaxy. Just stick to one in order to be more straight forward. Also Why did this happen? I am unsure what is going on.
Alright I assume that he has been teleported somewhere, he didn't seem very surprised in the last paragraph as if he was used to it.
"and as I realised I had a form and eyes to open, " strange way of putting it. I can't say it doesn't work though.
Also its myself not myslef. Get it right.
Full stop at the end please.
Lilies only has one L in there.
"Her voice was one of a person whose wishes I was to fulfill, whether I'd liked it or not, and I already knew what she wanted. " No. Just rearrange that. It my even be something simple such as: "...liked it or not. I already knew..."
NEXT.
Its circling. Get it right.
There is no such word as unpleasingly. Try unpleasantly instead.
Its not 'a prey' its just 'prey'.
The final sentence is too long. Break it down. /dances/
For example: "I wasn't a part of that world, that strange and unpleasantly intriguing world. A world with no magic, and a sky with just a lone moon watching over the city that I could see through the windows."
Its 'reading them' not 'read them'.
Also rephrase "for everyone but for me even though I knew he'd tried that too." maybe "for everyone but me, though I knew he still tried."
Its attracted not atracted. Get it right.
"but her soul matched the brightness of only one another." That line makes 0 sense. I cant even give you an example rephrase.
Overall, it's still better than a lot of the trashy fiction that gets published nowadays. Through my intensive sentence by sentence study I actually want to read more if you put it up.
In fact I think you should just put up the next part of this story so I can review that instead of having to read a whole new story for my second review. -.-"
Holy review! How many points was that thing worth?!
xD It's brilliant. 100, I surely hope, well deserved ^^
I had to like my own review. It took me too much time not to like it.
Wow! I really loved this.
Effective first sentence, the opening few paragraphs build tension in a way that really draws the reader in. For this sentence though: ‘and for the first time in longer than I counted, my lips curled into a smile’, I’d change it to ‘for the first time in longer than I could remember, my lips curled into a smile.’ And remove ‘eventually’ as well as changing ‘it’s been years since I’ve came to him’ to ‘it has been years since I have come to him.’ Also, there’s a typo at ‘oblidged’.
I absolutely love the Young Master’s question about whether the characters are real, very eloquently put. There’s an accidental repeat of ‘nor’. And make sure ellipses are always in threes… For this sentence: ‘…struggling to keep calm and not show how bothered…’ the wording is slightly clunky. The simile of the puppet is really nice. Typo: ‘myslef’. And ‘even to those far less used to read them than I was’, this should be ‘reading’. ‘Which hid the path to his soul’ is nice, but the rest of this sentence needs to be re-worded. Typo: ‘atracted’.
Overall, the concept is clever, I’m intrigued to learn of the plot for the rest of the novel. Nice writing ☺
Hello Aria~ Scarli here to do that review she promised. ^^
Oooh, I like this concept. It reminds me of something, which I'll refrain from naming. You can ask me what it is later. I like the whole Contract thing, the master/servant part. August, what a name for this strange character. What is he, I wonder? Also, Lain is an interesting name. I like it. This is very interesting. I really want to read more now. As for the shortness, I'm not sure how you could make it longer. Hmm. Perhaps an extension of that first snippet of scene? I like the first line, but that first scene is a little short.
I'm not entirely sure how you could add to it, though. Perhaps show us a little more of what actually happened? Maybe let us actually hear that first order? Maybe a bit more of what this August saw before he reached the boy?
Now, I'm going to do a tiny bit of nitpicking. I think "enscription" is meant to be "inscription". Also, a lot of your sentences are awkward to read for me. I feel rewording some of them would help. And you use words that are meant for present-tense instead of past or use the wrong words before them. I suggest trying to keep to one tense, otherwise it confuses people. For example, this; "It's been years since I've came to him" should probably be "It's been years since I came to him". You see what I mean? Another thing; "I passed the guards without getting noticed". "Getting" should probably be "being". It sounds less awkward.
Okay, I think that's enough for now. It's really good, but not the best it could be, with the small mistakes I noticed that just make things awkward. With a few little fiddles, though, it'll be great. Despite this, I do like it so far, and that's a good thing. If you ever revise it or anything, please let me know. I'll be sure to come back and read it again! This is an interesting concept for an original novel. Thanks for the story! I hope this review helps, somehow. ^^
Remember; keep it up and never stop writing!
~Scar. <3