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First: Loved the glimpse into some background on Willow!
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Tara walked through the city of Farrun, noticing her house on the way. She stopped for a moment to look at it. A lot of bad memories had taken place there. She found out what kind of a man her father was and that scarred her for like.
...but again caught a glimpse of her childhood home on her travels. She stopped and stared intensely and the scene of her horror. She wondered and pondered about what was really going through her fathers mind that day, and she knew that the house had the answers she needed. There were alot of things that her father said that she didn’t understand, things that she wanted to understand.
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Karliah looked distressed. If only she knew...
What powerful moments you gave the reader in these quoted lines - knowing what happened to her in that house we feel (with her) what Tara must be feeling at these moments; and again with Tara's inner thoughts as Karliah was sympathizing with her.
These were really great ways to remind us of what Tara had been through and draw us into how it is still affecting her now.
The fact that she has to hear him praised and revered knowing what she does - and put on a false front of agreement - you absolutely ROCKED this chapter in the use of touches such as these to completely immerse us in Tara's position - Awesome job !!
I found myself wanting to yell, "Don't go in the basement!" when Tara entered the house, but knew she would be drawn to because she was sure that answer to why would be found there.
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She slowly approached the lab. She could feel something burning within her. Anger? Hate? Sadness? She wasn’t sure. All the emotions she felt that day came flooding back hard and fast, forcing itself into her weakening calm demeanour. Before she knew what to thing she screamed, casting an incredible shock spell that knocked the majority of her father’s things onto the wooden floor.
With her remaining strength he sprinted to the things still standing and threw them at the walls. When there was nothing left to throw and no more words to scream she collapsed in tears, breaking down; the break down her body had craved since the incident.
This was a gut-wrenching, emotional scene - very hard to accomplish, but you nailed it perfectly! Very powerfully done, written so well that the reader could easily visualize it as if we were present and witnessed it ourselves - Awesome job!
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The Letter:
If I was Tara reading that letter, I'd have to go find Riccard and kill him all over again - how easy and simply he can dismiss what he plans to do to her, dismissing how it will affect her - Oddly, it had the opposite effect on her, lol.
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Despite what he’d done and how he’d treated her he was still her father.
Not really, not when he admits he created her specifically for an experiment and didn't care how that experiment would affect her - that is sperm donation for research. The fact that his sperm was used is the only connection he has to fatherhood, especially when we've read how he treated her growing up.
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My thoughts:
For some reason I wondered if it was her mother's warmth and comfort she was feeling - and she probably was safe now that Riccard was dead.
I'm not sure that I wouldn't have rather seen her struggle to come to that forgiveness, probably because I'm sure you would have brought us through it as well as you did Tara's thoughts in this chapter.
Coming as quickly as it did leaves me wondering if she considers herself in the same mindframe her father did when he created her specifically for/raised her as: (worthless except as a useful tool to his experiments regardless of how it affected anyone else)
It feels like she is muting her own worth just like her father did, and minimizing the evil of what he was.
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I have to agree with McB, you showed a tremendous ability in doing two completely different characters in the same chapter - that is talent!
I also have to agree with SubRosa here:
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Who is this Palmer? And who is the rogue mage Willow was sent to hunt? I wonder if we will be seeing either of them again later in the tale?
Agreed, was wondering the exact same thing and couldn't have phrased it better!
I'm so glad I waited, didn't try to read this while fighting off that migraine. Reading then would not have done justice to the Awesome write you gave us on this chapter.
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