Published July 2, 2011
“A- tail?” faltered Aral Alexander. He chewed on the thought for a moment, then asked his father, “What other tricks does this girl have?”
Miles Vorkosigan smiled. “Not tricks, Alex. Lady Bertolli has senses that’re as sharp as any of our instruments. I expect you to show her every courtesy.”
Alex up-nodded in a gesture that caught at Mile’s heartstrings. It was his own nervous-involuntary tic come back to haunt him. He cleared his throat. “By the way- where’s Helen?”
“Coming back from the spaceport,” the boy replied. “I think I hear the groundcar now.”
True to his prediction, a moment later the grand entrance door of Vorkosigan House swung open. Two young women entered- one, Alex’s twin Helen Natalia, and the other was most likely Mia Bertolli. The latter was dressed very modestly, considering today’s fashion trends. Her quick, hazel eyes took in her surroundings before coming to rest on Miles and Alex.
“Good morning, ma’am. I trust nobody gave you any hassle?”
Mia’s smile lit up her face. “It wasn’t all that bad. Although I admit, Beta Colony was more- inviting.”
A sideways glance caught fourteen-year-old Alex grinning foolishly. Miles suppressed his own grin, hoping his son wouldn’t show a tendency to “hit on” her.
For the first time, Helen spoke. “Mia and I have already become fast friends. Her stories about Earth are marvelous.”
Miles was about to reply when a hand took his- that of his wife, Ekaterin. She said no word, but beamed equally at all present.
"Allow me to present Ekaterin. Ah, you and she should get along famously. Alex."
With a little start, the boy came to attention. Mia seemed equally startled- by the military response?
"That'll do. Please show Miss Bertolli to her rooms."
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139,319 Literary Works • 672,529 Reviews
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!
Anyway let's get right to it,
OKayy...well this is off to an interesting start there. There is a little bit of confusion cause it looks like these characters know exactly what is happening but we reader's haven't got the foggiest idea of what is going on here. Nonetheless, there are enough potentially interesting words thrown around to catch our attention. I think perhaps if you could make things a teensy bit less vague, this would be amazing.
OKayy...so spaceport and a general sense that some of these things are happening out in space. That's a good sign. Now we're starting to get just about enough cues from what is happening around this scene that we're able to somewhat piece together what is happening and all the exciting new technology becomes interesting instead of confusing.
Okayy...a somewhat abrupt end to things, but this was quite a fun conversation here throughout the piece. It was only towards the middle ish that it started to make a little more sense, so you might want to look into making this conversation a bit less vague at the start, but on the whole this makes for a pretty intriguing start here, and I think its certainly interesting enough that I'd read more of this.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Hey there!
This sounded like Alex was a kid, around 5-10 years of age. So, naturally, I was surprised when you mentioned 14. I pictured him more juvenile.I generally don't do Fanfics and I have absolutely no idea what story/movie this is from, so I'm just going to treat as just another story. I decided to read on, because you started off really well.
Comments:
It is quite short for a first chapter/prologue and some bits confused me.
Mmm, I didn't like this. Obviously you're trying to describe her physical appearance and her character in this statement, but it doesn't work. Try reworking here.
This was confusion uno. It took me a couple rereading to understand who the speaker was. Add dialogue tags, kay?
Similarly, who says this : ""That'll do. Please show Miss Bertolli to her rooms."" ? It got me all confused.
Do Miles and Mia already know each other? If not, he should've introduced himself too, ja?
Is this an alien sci-fi? I am interested to see where it leads. It might end up to be very interesting!
CHeers!
~Lava
Really interesting prologue/first chapter :] Just one thing--I did wonder how old Miss Bertolli was...you said she was a young woman but that could anywhere from 13 to 25...just a thought. And you mentioned a tail in the beginning so I was expecting to see a tail as she walked into the room but..no tail!! D:
Other than that, I found it really good. I especially liked this sentence: "The latter was dressed very modestly, considering today’s fashion trends." And your entire sentence structure was really good...I like your wording, too.