I see her point. When I'm being crashed over by waves, I feel like I'm right in the middle of the ocean, rather than at a distance.
Pick one metaphor/simile, and that should solve the problem. c:
Or clarify by saying something like:
"She felt the competing emotions crash one after the other,
but she was eerily detatched,
as if listening to the sound of waves from a great distance."
Whimsi: That's the word I was looking for! But my MC is seven and wouldn't know that word even if she weren't drugged and half-conscious. Ah well. As long as it makes sense to folks who aren't me, I guess I can leave it?
Aurin: The main problem is that Haven gets really flowery about her descriptions when drugged. sweatdrop Case in point: "This time the woman hovering over her spoke, fetching out a water skin from a pouch at her waist. She had thick, black hair and warm brown skin, and her voice called to mind warm light on fresh grass, fireflies flicking in and out of sight."
I can't help but cover my face when she says stuff like that. She's a weird kid. (Also, she unconsciously links any unpleasant sensation with water--nearly drowned as a baby.)
Inkling: Ooh, do you mind if I use that line, or some permutation thereof?
I'll participate in the next war too!
Whimsi
At least you can write despite the allergies.
When mine flare, I just lay around and sneeze my head off all day. >.<
Inkling: How's this? "Haven's heart crowded with competing emotions that crashed one after the other, but she remained eerily detached, as if listening to the sound of waves from a great distance."
Moya: I also thought being crowded and far away at the same time was a little weird. Though I probably wouldn't have thought much about it if I were just reading through a novel... I should keep that in mind for my own edits. Every line doesn't need to be absolute perfection... *is way too obsessive with her stuff*
This is the.. 3rd? draft of this novel. By which I mean the 3rd separate file. Troublesome chapters have many more edits. emo But you and I had time in between rewrites. I think PMS has been doing nothing but this story for a while now. That always gets irritating. XP
Finished chapter two! Here's the maybe-final version of the first two chapters--have I missed anything?
Chapter One
The trees stood so thick that no rain could reach through the canopy; thunder resounded without the glare of lightning to illuminate the ground below. The tightly packed trunks and branches masked all vision in the dank, icy air below. Far behind her, a monster gored a villager in white, screaming with rage before it swallowed her whole.
The venom burned. It stung and tore at the blood that coursed through her veins, setting her arm afire. Haven screamed, but didn't dare stop running. Scarcely a hands' width apart, the trees twisted her sense of direction, her mental map of Ilonon.
As the clear poison figured out another of her Colors, her head blurred with pain—she'd lost her Purple, that time, and her feet felt suddenly too heavy to control. Running into a tree so hard that it scraped fresh blood from her uninjured arm, Haven collapsed. Her head spun, her heart pounding as it sent the poison ever more quickly through her blood. Haven used White to get a better look at her dress; the Haubonalyr had torn off most of it when it shredded her rain cloak and torn through her arm. Haven's hands trembled. The Haubonalyr's poison had stung through her Black and now her Purple, preventing her from a faster escape.
Her Red reminded her that Ryann had once amputated an arm taken by infection; her Blue wailed and flickered as the Haubonalyr's venom ate through it. Haven was half Blue—she wouldn't survive long if it got through half her blood. Biting her lip, Haven pulled off the scraps of her dress and tied them tightly above the gash in her right arm. Her head swam, but she tried to pull back the medical knowledge Ryann had taught her.
“Good that it's not the left arm,” Haven whispered to herself, pressing her forehead against the tree's smooth bark as she tried to catch her breath. The brush scratched her bare legs. “Then it'd be in my heart already, and I'd be dead.”
Rolling onto her back, the canopy above her seemed like a soft, inviting floor. Though rain thudded against the leaves, no water touched her face through the knotted canopy. Rivulets of unseen water coiled around the slim trunks, dragging chilly fingers down her back.
Haven had only a sliver of White to see by, which offered an experience akin to looking through filthy bath water, only marginally clearer than her everyday eyes. But she preferred seeing even a murky, distorted forest to running blind. Haven staggered to her feet, swaying as she heard thunder mingle with the loudest scream she'd yet heard from the Haubonalyr—then silence fell across the forest.
Haven's eyes shuddered closed, and she saw Meg. Meg, after all these years. Beyond her stood Ray—the new Ray. The kind Ray. Haven knew in her heart that, if Ray took one more step, she would leave the world for good.
“No, Meg!” Haven tried to focus on her wavering form, but Meg was transparent. Haven's tongue felt thick in her throat: thick with guilt and death. “She still—” has a chance to live, Haven thought. Not like them; Haven felt death drawing closer to her, bringing Meg into sharper focus. “—not yet! We can't take her yet!”
“I thought you hated her?” Meg asked. Meg had always looked out for her. Of course Meg would try to keep Ray from finding her again. Haven shook her head.
“She's not the same Ray!” Haven tried to say. “There was a—” a mistake, an experiment, a lie—too many lies to count. The words got stuck, jamming in her throat. Ray made as though to step forward, and panic tightened around Haven's heart. “No!”
Was she still running? Haven lunged, knocking Ray back, only to find herself stumbling into a tree, woozy and weak from her wounds and the cold. A hallucination. So real that she'd believed she was talking to Meg again after all these years. So convincing that she'd jumped face-first into a tree to fight back.
The poison moved more sluggishly as her heart eased, but it continued gnawing through her Blue. Once it got through that—Haven winced at the thought, clutching her arm. She had to get to safety. Which way was she facing? Which way was safe? Haven's head spun, and she sank to the forest floor, clutching her scalding forehead with frigid hands. Her injured arm burned with pain.
Fog settled low and still against the forest floor, blanketing sounds of thunder and battle alike. Her head throbbed—or was it some new danger thudding through the underbrush? Fear hastened her heart's unsteady pounding, letting the poison surge anew.
“No!” Haven hissed, squeezing her arm with her good hand. “I have to think! I ran—” She bit her lip as the pain rose, willing her heart to slow down and stop trying to kill her. “I ran northwest, away from Phoenix. I'm probably north of Ilonon now. If I go back...”
Haven looked down at her arm. She'd meant to hide herself away in the forest for a few days, to see if Mommy and Ray could ever forgive her deceit, could ever look past her Colors, but with blood pouring from her arm and her Blue too full of holes to disguise it, it would mean as sure a death as the venom.
“Sandwont is too far.” She thought of Ryann and her medical kit and her anguished expression when she'd seen Haven's cut thumb, when she'd watched Haven run from Sandwont into the safety of the woods. “There's nowhere else.” Haven staggered to her feet. “The river is a little further west of here. Maybe—maybe it's not as far as I think it is. Maybe I'll make it.”
Still clutching her arm, she used the tree for support. The trees here were thin and densely clustered, so tightly packed that Haven had to squeeze through them. Maybe she was going west—maybe she was going east. Maybe she was going south to her death in Ilonon. But at least she was moving.
“I've done it again.” Tears burned, unshed, in the back of her throat. “I've got to start all over again. It's always the same. It's always the same...”
Haven pushed forward. The rain quieted somewhere above her, and a thick chill lay across the earth, condensing against her skin. She felt it when her Blue died—it nearly took her legs out from beneath her. Her head felt like a clear bowl of water, sloshing around without a single clearly defined thought inside it. Soon after, her White followed suit, and the world went dark. Her Red reminded her that she still had Brown, and Haven warmed herself with it until that, too, passed away.
She had no concept of time, but when she was left with only Red, Green, Yellow, and Pink—her Gray having sputtered out sometime after the Brown—she felt the eerie stillness within herself, and her words died with her Pink. The pain seemed so far away—she couldn't feel her right arm. Then her Red began to slip away, and the world melted around her, taking her into its icy embrace.
Chapter Two
Time after that had no meaning. There were faces—there were words. Haven felt herself speak and laugh deliriously. She heard herself speaking in languages she didn't remember well, as clumsily as a baby and as fluently as an adult. One face stood out, lined and worn ragged. Not Ryann's, but wider, with softer features and a kind, sad smile. Her name—her name?
Haven sank under the waves again and again. She couldn't breathe! She couldn't breathe! Why couldn't they hear her? Why couldn't they save her? Water seeped in through the cracks in her eyes and face and heart and drowned her from within—those were the times when she heard a far-off wailing that was painfully, irritatingly familiar, when she felt herself torn apart with sobs that left her gasping for air.
Promises—Haven remembered promises. The woman with sad, gray-blue eyes. Et-nelda? Was that a name, or a word that she'd forgotten? And who had promised whom—and what had they promised? Haven couldn't remember. But she clutched at the sad-eyed woman as women with spears took her away, not understanding, not wanting to understand. Her Red began clearing things at last—sweeping away the dust and cobwebs that cluttered her head.
“Be a good girl, Haven,” the woman said, her voice clear and strong despite the shine of tears in her eyes. “I'm sure that your mommy misses you. We can only—” Her voice cracked. “We can only care for patients for four months. After that, they have to manage alone. If they can't, they weren't meant to live.”
Haven's heart crowded with competing emotions that crashed one after the other, but she remained eerily detached, as if listening to the sound of waves from a great distance.
Et-nelda cupped Haven's cheek with a warm hand, stirring the waters. “You'll be safe, won't you? The guards will get you back to Ilonon, and after that—after that, you'll be with your mommy. I'm sure she'll protect you.”
“Mommy?” Haven whispered, the distant clash of thoughts turning into a dull roar against the inside of her ears. Et-nelda nodded, and Haven remembered the promises—Haven had promised Et-nelda that she'd keep herself safe, and Et-nelda had promised to get her back to Ilonon.
“Goodbye, Haven,” she whispered, holding her close for an instant before giving her away to the strangers with the spears. As Haven was carried away, she watched Et-nelda. Though she tried to reach back to her, lead seemed to fill her muscles. All she could do was stare, head clearing slowly as Et-nelda disappeared into the distance, and as the women carried her away from Tesshek—the name came to her only as she left it.
“Are you all right, Haven?” The woman leaning over Haven looked young—maybe even younger than Mommy—but the voice had come from above her.
Though she tried to answer, Haven's tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, dry and thick, too clumsy to form real words, so she shook her head instead. The spot between her eyes pulsed with a headache that had finally begun to fade after ages of pain.
“She's probably thirsty.” This time the woman hovering over her spoke, fetching out a water skin from a pouch at her waist. She had thick, black hair and warm brown skin, and her voice called to mind warm light on fresh grass, fireflies flicking in and out of sight. It took a moment for her words to come into focus. “It's only a few hours to Ilonon if we're carrying her. I think she'll be fine.”
“She's having an easier time focusing her eyes today, anyway,” the woman carrying Haven said. There were three in all; the third woman remained silent, a stern frown firmly in place on her face. Gray streaked through her black hair, and lines carved her face like cracks in desert sand.
The youngest woman offered a water skin to Haven, who tried to grab it. Her fingers refused to grip the leather pouch, too weak to hold it. As the woman carrying her grinned, the one offering water laughed and spoke.
“See, Em-vien? Today, she's even trying to hold things on her own.”
Haven grimaced as Em-vien held the water skin to her lips, even though the water felt good on her tongue, sweeter than the water she knew.
“What day?” Haven managed, after Em-vien had pulled away. Sudden clarity sparked through her mind—she felt almost lucid. She reached again for the water, and Em-vien pressed it again to her lips.
“What calendar?” Em-vien laughed. “Rai-k'myer? Do you know?”
The stern woman shook her head, leering into the woods.
“Kai-sh'vet?”
“The Ilononian calendar is too hard,” Kai-sh'vet replied. “I don't even know whether they've decided what year this is yet. They keep too much to themselves. Try the Harris calendar. She's been other places, and that's the only one that's widespread.”
Haven twisted around to finally look at the woman carrying her. She had sharper features than Em-vien and eyes the color of Lake Anonwe—a bluish black. This time, Haven's head unclouded enough that the woman's voice sounded only like a voice, wry and middle-aged.
“Fair point.” Em-vien smiled, and Haven clutched at the water as she tried to take it away. The day was warmer than felt right; sweat beaded up on Haven's forehead. She felt feverish, and the more she drank, the more things cleared before her. “Today is March the thirteenth of 1544, and a Wednesday at that! That's a lucky day, isn't it, Rai-k'myer?”
“Just call me Esh-anur and be done with it,” the third woman said. “Bringer of thunder. I loathe that name, Em-vien.”
“Better a bringer of thunder than the little bird who got struck down by lightning,” Em-vien said, ruffling Haven's hair with her free hand while pulling away the water skin.
Her Pink, already primed, recognized the pun—reversing the emphasis, Haven meant wood-warbler. It seemed oddly fitting to Haven, who'd never found a place to roost. Maybe there was something to Tesshek name-lore.
Em-vien laughed and pulled her hand out of Haven's curls. “Though this one looks very little like a bird.”
Kai-sh'vet adjusted her grip on Haven as she took the water skin from Em-vien and shook it. “She drank it all.” Kai-sh'vet groaned. “It's been less than an hour, and you let her drink all her medicine in one dose.”
Everything seemed to be opening up around Haven. The sky seemed bright and colorful—her green and yellow were more prominent than they should have been. Slowly, though, the sky began to settle into the more familiar colors. A smidge each of Black, White, Yellow, Gray, Brown, and Purple—just a smidge, each only half the size of the swirl of Pink, which was in turn half the size of each of her blots of Green and Red. Greatest of all was the Blue, twice the size of the Green and Red combined—half her sky was Blue.
“She'll fall asleep,” Haven heard one of them sigh. The breeze on her skin felt far away again, and her ears hummed and rang with a thousand unheard sounds. “You should have split it up the way that Et-nelda ordered.”
“She wanted more. I'm a sucker when it comes to kids. You know that.”
The sky seemed to grow hazy above Haven; the lines and definitions between all the colors began to blur. The momentary clarity fell apart, and the women's words ceased to make sense.
Though she fought it, her eyelids slipped closed, and she sank into the stranger's arms.
Flea: It's true, though I've been doing almost nothing but Qol stories for the last ten years. rofl I've written a handful of other stories, but a good million words and tens of thousands of hours have gone into Qol. Lately more so than ever before. I think I'll be heart-broken if no one likes the series. gonk
Hai guys. I think the nervousness went away after finally posting the damn fanfiction. No reviews yet for it, but I don't mind. The fact that I took my non-existent balls and did it is good enough for me.
I think I'll try to finish the next chapter of my fanfic and a one shot (or two). Taking a little time away from writing Princess Knights just to make sure the ending is how I really want it to be, at least in the general feeling.
Typed 250 words!!! I know it's actually not a lot...and some of them were actually quick planning notes, but for the way I've been going lately that is a lot!!!
612 for the war and I'm on a roll! I feel like this entire novel has been leading up to this point. It's so about time. I'm going to keep going before I lose my steam! To glory!
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