A strange love, The story about S'iniith and He-Twists-His-Tail Options

[saqin]

This is the story about S'iniith, the khajiit merchant, and He-Twists-His-Tail, the argonian mage. I've had this idea for a while and now I've finally decided to post the first chapter.
If there is anything you wonder about, I've taken the information that isn't in the game from this site:The unofficial elder scrolls pages
And some from this: The Imperial Library

Chapter one

Silverhome on the water was crowded with people, and Gilgondorin was busy serving his customers. The female khajiit threw the dices across the table, and grumbled bitterly when the dices showed number three and one. The man across from her laughed.

“Why this must be my lucky day! I don’t think I’ve ever won this much playing with dices!” He said. She threw a glare at him and got up. The Oblivion crisis had ended, and order had been restored to Tamriel. And since there wasn’t any emperor, the council ruled the land.

“S‘iniith! Come here ma S‘iniith!” The khajiit male, who where quite obviously drunk, held out his arms and tried to wrap them around her as she walked by.

“M’aiq, I’m not interested.” She hissed at him and tried to duck under his arms. He grabbed her around her waist however, and pushed her against him. His breath stank of alcohol.

“M’aiq knows many things! One of the things M’aiq knows is that S’iniith likes M’aiq.” The khajiit answered, trying to kiss her.

“I’m not feeling well M’aiq, and you’re drunk. Come back when you are not and I might consider it.” Actually, she was already considering it, since there had gone months since she spent the night with a male before. She was 28 years old, and already a widow.

Now, she pushed M’aiq away from her and walked out through the door, across the dirty street of Bravil to S’Krivva’s house where she had been staying for a few days. She would leave to Leyawin the next day, the information she brought might just earn her a bed, for not many travelled to Leyawin.

She took out the key that she’d borrowed, and opened the door. S’Krivva greeted her when she hung up the keys and looked around.

“There you are S’iniith, I need help with dinner.” S’Krivva wore her usual clothing, the burgundy linen shirt, the laced leather pants and the doeskin shoes. She held a tallow in her hands, and just seconds ago she’d been cleaning them with it.

“I’ll help S’Krivva. Where is M’ethe?” S’iniith asked and followed her friend into the area where the food was being prepared, on the table there was some venison and potatoes at the moment.

“The boy should be down any moment, he’ve seemed very impatient the last hour.” S’Krivva answered and looked at S’iniith with a smile. Then her face took it’s normal neutral expression and she hesitated a moment before speaking again. “How is it going since Jo’Vaba died?”

“We’re doing fine I guess. At least we aren’t starving yet.” S’iniith sighed and began cutting the potatoes. S’Krivva looked at her for a moment before she began to slice the venison. Then soft paws crossed the floor above them, and soon the same paws descended the stairs. S’iniith smiled when the boy stepped in. He spotted her instantly and leaped up into her arms when she’d put the knife down. She stroke his back affectionatly and he purred.

* * *

The argonian looked up from the book, at the imperial across the street. She had very fancy clothing. Another argonian walked up to him then.

”He-Twists-His-Tail, what are you doing? Not fancying those clothes are ye?” The argonian said, and smiled.

”No Amusei, I was wondering how she looked without them. Could be a very interesting thing to study.” He-Twists-His-Tail smiled and closed the book, before standing up to greet his friend.

”You must be the most strange person I’ve ever met. Fancying imperials, bah! They don’t have the slightest bit of scales.” Amusei jokingly hit his friend on the arm, and then put his arm around him. ”Amusei knows where to find pretty argonian women, not weak skinned humans.”

”I did not say that I fancy her, I said it would be interesting. By the way, I got the answer to my application for the Arcane University earlier.” Twist said, and Amusei turned to him.

”You actually sent it? Oh my, you’re mad. A thieves guild member trying to join the mages! Now I’ve heard it all.” Amusei said, shaking his head and laughing.

”Why I’m not only trying, I’ve been accepted.” Twist spoke again, ignoring how Amusei made fun of him.

”Excuse me friend, but I really can’t believe it. You won’t forget about old friends when you are a respected mage, will you? And when will you leave?”

”In a week Amusei and no, I’ll not forget you.” Twist smiled.

”Why, friend, you must allow us to throw a party for you.” Amusei said, made a jokingly salute, and ran off. Twist smiled and shook his head, then he looked down on the book. ”On the Deadra” was certainly interesting. In fact, his interest in the deadra and aedra was part of what had caused him to apply to the academy in the first place. The other part was his interest in magic and his wish to one day become respected. He didn’t want to live his whole life in a hole like Leyawiin. Maybe one day he could have a house on the Gold Coast, and maybe even a wife. Yes, he’d marry the prettiest Argonian woman that would have him, and they’d live together on the Gold Coast. He smiled where he walked, and turned towards the little shack that he shared with Amusei.

Closing the door behind him, He-Twists-His-Tail, or Twist as most people called him, went up to the little bookshelf in the two room shack. He put the book in, and took Darkest Darkness out. Then he grabbed an apple from the bowl on the table and placed himself on his bed. He thought there was nothing better than a good book, that however, was about to change.

This post has been edited by saqin: Sep 21 2010, 04:01 PM

[haute ecole rider]

Oh hey, I like where this story takes us. The background on the two main characters are well-thought out, and gives me a good inkling of their motivations and their drives. The development of the romance is likewise done well, with a light touch - just enough to let me know it's there, but not overly so much that I'm groaning at the recycled clichés that populate just about every Harlequin book ever published.

I did catch a couple of nits at the beginning of the chapter, so I shall humbly point them out:

The horse turned it's head, and neighed upon seeing him.

Its? It's? It can be tough remembering which is which. Which is why I think of it this way: its is the exception to the possessive rule that all possessive nouns get an apostrophe. It's like you and yours, it is it and its. The only time its gets an apostrophe is when it's a contraction of it is. Clear as mud?

“Where is Amusei? I was under the impression that he is your friend.” She asked then, taking a last look around before inciting the horse, whom set of at a trot.

There are a couple of things that jump out at me in this sentence. One is the difficulty you have in following dialogue with the quandary to capitalize or not capitalize? The correct punctuation here would be: "Where is Amusei? I was under the impression that he is your friend," she asked then, taking a last look . . . Here the end sentence of her dialogue should end in a comma, followed by the speech tag she asked then, which should not be capitalized. Alternatively, if you want to end the dialogue with a period, drop the speech tag. Like this: "Where is Amusei? I was under the impression that he is your friend." She took a last look . . .

Another thing that jumped out at me is the term inciting. To me, to incite means to inspire rage in another. That isn't quite what S'iinith did to the horse, is it? Seems to me she asked him or prompted him or coaxed him to move on. Specifically (and I'm drawing on my own equine experience here), she slapped the reins against his rump, touched him with the tip of the whip, or smooched him. Those are the physical cues (personally I prefer smooching - most horses respond well to calm cues) commonly used when driving horses.

And thirdly the last few words of the sentence are very awkward. Instead of the horse, whom set of at a trot., you want to say the horse, who set off at a trot. This is something every spell check program will miss, every time. Us humans too, if we're rereading this for the umpteenth time!

Keep in mind these are technical nits. I really don't see anything wrong with your writing style or your character development - you already shine in those areas. I'd like to see you keep this story up as far as you can take it! Good writing!

This post has been edited by haute ecole rider: Feb 26 2011, 08:11 PM