Red-Eyed Raven Options

[Thomas Kaira]

All: It's been an extremely long time since I poked my nose in here, but I do so having (hopefully) triumphantly cured my writers block. I've decided that to do so, I would need to start from scratch and apply a few things I have learned, including:

1. Keep your story coherent, don't twist and turn for the sake of it.
2. Know what makes a good description and what is purple prose, one is good and the other is pretentious.
3. Backstory. Use it.
4. Make it your own, use your own imagination.

As for keeping up with everyone else, I pretty much need to start over. I will do my best, and hopefully get into commenting on everyone else's stories as time goes on. In the meantime, here is a brief taste of I am working on now.




Prologue: Cloaked in Ash

“Mommy, where are we going?” asked the young Dunmer girl.

“Wherever the road might take us, little Raven.” The mother replied.

Ash choked the midday air as the two journeyed westward. What little light could break through offered little solace to travelers; a gray, cheerless light that served more to remind them of the dangers ahead than to cloak them in warmth and comfort. Only barely visible ahead were the snowcapped peaks of the Velothi Mountains. Beyond them, the mother hoped, they could finally escape the hellish world they had come to live in.

The days of peaceful living in Morrowind were done. Gone were the times when the sun shone bright and the marshmerrow grew tall. Now there was only ash, and death, and more ash to bury the dead.

“Do we have to go, mommy?” The child continued, “Why can’t we stay at home?”

“There’s nothing left for us there, little Raven,” the mother replied, her soothing tone failing to hide her deep inner sadness. “It’s all we can do now to just find somewhere else we can make a life for ourselves.”

Little Raven, she thought. Such a shame she had to be born into a world like this. She was barely even five years old now and already she carried inside her a fire to rival the Red Mountain. How ironic it was that the great tempest that now turned her away from everything she ever had might instill itself in her only child. A stark reminder of how even a small bit of light can shine through the darkest curse.

She looked back at her home, the Ravenloth plantation. It was nowhere near as large and opulent as, say, the former Dren plantation (or so she was told), but it was enough to live comfortably. At least, until the recent flurry of constant ash storms sucked all the life away from her beloved mashmerrow and saltrice. Now, her fields cloaked beneath a solid foot of ash, which was seeping its way through every gap in her house’s walls it could find, there was no good to come of staying anymore. She couldn’t bear to watch the life choked out of her fields.

The child was overcome by a fit of coughing, she fell to her hands and knees, unable to move. Terror gripped the mother’s heart as she ran to her little Raven, tearing her cloak asunder.

“Here,” she said, wrapping a piece around her child’s head, covering her nose and mouth. “You can’t breathe this air, little one. This will keep the ash out.”

Covering her face with what remained of her cloak and grimacing as she felt the rough, gray snow pelt at her light inner tunic, she held her child as close to her as she could, praying to the ancestors that she it was not too late for her.

Ever since the ash storms came, her little Raven’s health had deteriorated quickly. She was much too young to survive like this. Every night before she slept, she’d hear her coughing, each rough crack piercing her skin like an ice-cold dagger. No matter how many windows she boarded, how many gaps she stuffed with old clothing, still the ash found a way to her little Raven, trying to choke the life out of her the way it did her livelihood. Last night was the worst she’d ever had. No matter what she tried, pans of water with flames lit beneath to fill her room with steam and help her breathe, fashioning masks to wear while she was awake, still the ash found its way to her. Last night, the coughing started and wouldn’t stop. She’d spent the entire night curled up beside her, holding her close, listening to her labored breathing as fresh tears rolled down her nose. It was then she said to herself, they had to leave.

The child’s breathing steadied. Slowly she got to her feet again, and her mother, smiling meekly, grabbed her hand, and they continued west.

“So where are we going, mommy?” The child asked again.

“Across the mountains, my little Raven,” the mother replied. “Away from here. Anywhere the air is clear.”

This post has been edited by Thomas Kaira: Mar 26 2014, 10:01 PM

[Thomas Kaira]

Acadian: It's good to see the intentions of each segment are clear to my readers and makes them understand exactly what's going on in the story.

hautee: Hmm, what a puzzle indeed. Diressi is definitely not a man, so what would the correct word be? Soulful maybe?

I like to start my stories in the middle of a tense situation too, it really helps to grab the reader's attention.

SubRosa: Hair is always of utmost importance. Besides, what better way to lighten a chapter's mood a bit than to have our heroine contemplate her various wardrobe malfunctions?

Grits: You want more. Goood.

treydog: I'd liken it to my half Pit-bull's jaws, she shuts them on something, you aren't opening them back up until she lets you.



1-2: Seeing Red



The sun was setting by the time Diressi had reached the dome. This close, it looked smaller than before, though no less foreboding. She glanced at the surface. Lots of loose gravel and earth, no doubt churned up by whatever bestial force was beneath her feet right now. Not a great surface to walk on, especially with the light fading. But what else could she do? This was the only landmark for miles, as far as she knew. And besides, it wasn’t too steep.

She stepped onto the hill; the gravel quavered menacingly under her feet, but didn’t shift. Feeling slightly more confident, Diressi began to ascend. The journey here had taken most of what was left of her strength; the little she had left after getting smashed around like she did. Several times the ground shifted beneath her feet threatening to spill her back to the bottom, but never enough to actually overbalance her so long as she took her time. Twilight had fallen by the time she reached the top, and the great red-orange sphere of Masser, the larger of Tamriel’s two moons, was visible in the sky.

“That way must be east,” Diressi told herself, pointing towards the great body in the heavens. “Moons over Morrowind circle to Cyrodiil.”

She turned her finger.

“South,” she continued, pointing towards a great cliff face only just visible in the waning light. “I was heading that way when I was ambushed.”

She turned again. This time, her finger came to rest on a massive mountain, nearly three times as tall as the others. Clouds and mist cloaked the bottom, but it rose far past them, trading the cotton-like puffs for the frigid white of snow, all the way to the peak. Sharp as a talon, it speared towards the heavens, reaching to touch the many stars now appearing as the indigo sky faded to black.

“The Throat of the World” she said, continuing her recital, “west with the setting sun.”

“Which leaves north,” she finished, moving her finger one last time. That was where she wanted to go. Back to Windhelm; back home.

But the light was gone, and she had no torches or spells. She couldn’t see anything around her anymore, let alone the distant city, for all the steam in her way. Nevertheless, it was pleasantly warm here, with plenty of overhanging rocks to provide shelter from the wind, good a place as any to rest for the night. Trying not to think about how well she would actually sleep on the bed of rough, sharp gravel, Diressi sat down, put her head against the rock wall behind her, and shut her eyes.


---


The light of dawn shone down on Diressi’s eyes as she woke the next day. Shielding her face and squinting from the brightness, she eyed at the sun now peeking its way over the eastern peaks of the Velothi Mountains.

She winced as she got to her feet, sleeping on gravel all night was not what she would call comfortable. Her arms and chest ached and her head was still complaining from the blow it had taken. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the light, but once they did, she was able to survey her surroundings much better than last evening.

The sight of the dome’s summit chilled her blood. Between the jagged rocks that sprouted hither and thither without pattern or sense were scattered enormous amounts of bones. Several human-looking skeletons were prevalent, along with the skulls of what were obviously mammoths. They were about as large as a man was tall, and their incredible tusks swept forth with a grace near unheard of from a beast as colossal as they. Most curved upward in sweeping arcs as they grew further and further from the face of their master; many actually looped entirely. What was more fascinating to Diressi, though, was that several skulls had four, even six tusks.

It must have something to do with how they are raised, she wondered to herself. A sheer sense of awe had overpowered the brief stab of foreboding she had felt not a minute ago. How she longed to see one of the beasts, alive and fit, wandering the tundra with their Giant handlers. Such a sight was rare now, as the most of the mammoth herds had been taken quite far from the cities of Man and Mer, who prized the mammoths for their meat and hides rather than for their majesty. She’d heard many a drunken Nord boasting to his friends of slaying one and claiming its skull as a trophy. The very thought sickened her.

Suddenly her awe turned back to fear. An ominous rattling was emitting from the bone piles, and several looked as if they were moving.

There was a crackle at her feet, there were now several bones there that had not been before. Diressi’s gaze turned to the pile right beside her. There was a human-looking skull intermixed in the chaos of remains. It seemed like it was looking back at her…

A bright blue glow then erupted into the center of where the skull’s eyes would have been. One yell of shock and backward stumble later, Diressi had tumbled over a loose bone and careened onto the mountainside. She could see nothing through the flying dust cloud behind her, and she didn’t want to. All she wanted now was to run, run as far away from this place as she could. With no weapons, and little knowledge of magic, it was all she could do.

She landed hard at the bottom of the dome, and the wind was knocked out of her. Unable to breathe, it was all she could do to work herself onto all fours, wait for her breath to return, and hope to her Ancestors that the skeletons that just raised wouldn’t reach her first.

A few seconds later, her lungs began working again. Coughing and sputtering from the dust in the air and the huge breaths she was taking, she worked her way back onto her feet. She looked up and her stomach seemed to vanish.

Three skeletons stood right in front of her, their bleached bones gleaming in the morning sunlight, and eyes glowing with what seemed more like ice than fire. They all had weapons drawn, one an ancient axe, one a sword, and the third was hanging farther back with a bow.

The skeleton with the sword stepped forward; hand raised, and brought his blade down in a violent slash. Diressi dove aside. The blade barely missed her shoulder, but a mind-numbing sting and involuntary yell of pain told her the blade had still struck true. Her blood ran hot down her left arm and the fresh wound smarted. She could barely think for the pain.

The mountains turned red, time seemed to slow. She looked back; the archer skeleton had knocked an arrow and was readying his shot.

Run, she was urged, don’t think. Just run.

She pushed herself back to her feet with all the strength she had left. Before she had taken two steps, she heard the skeleton’s arrow pierce the ground, where she had been lying not even a second ago. Breaking into a full sprint, she ran the only direction she knew: away from her assailants.

Her wound smarted fresh, but it felt distant, detached.

She glanced over her shoulder. The axe-wielder was staring down her neck, and was raising its vicious looking weapon.

Stop. She pushed all her weight into her feet and skidded to a dead halt. The skeleton shot past her, his axe hitting nothing but air. Diressi quickly veered to her right, away from the group, and sprinted off once again.

It didn’t take long for the skeletons to figure out what happened to their prey. Within seconds they were back to the chase, and gaining. Another sharp pain came from Diressi’s waist as she saw another arrow shoot past. Thankfully it only grazed her.

She then heard a sound like a footfall, only much too large to be of a Man, Mer, or skeleton. Glancing to her left, she saw the source: a giant. He was a hulking beast of a man, with a huge beard and an even huger club.

Go to him. She veered off again, sprinting straight for the massive wanderer. Before he even knew what happened, she had shot past. She didn’t stop, until she heard a huge crash and felt the ground shake.

Turning around, she saw what she had hoped for. The skeletons had started fighting the giant, and the giant was now crushing them beneath his feet… literally. The sword-wielder who had taken her blood was hacking away at his legs. He responded by whacking him away with the back of his palm and giving a mighty swing of his club. It impacted the ground with such force she could see a small crater through the cloud of dust it left behind. The skeleton shattered, bones flying everywhere. The other two were nowhere to be seen. He’d probably already destroyed them too.

Panting heavily, clutching a stitch in her side, Diressi settled herself onto a nearby rock. The color of her vision was slowly returning to normal. She didn’t know what exactly had urged her to do what she did, maybe survival instinct? But that wouldn’t cause her sight to shift colors like that. Maybe that was just a reaction to the pain and blood?

The wound seared. She looked at it. It wasn’t terrible, but the cut was clearly deep and the blood was running thick down her arm, dripping off into the dirt. She quickly tore off her sleeve and tied it tightly around the wound, bandaging it and, she hoped, slowing the bleeding.

Fear stabbed at her heart once again, she needed to treat a wound like this immediately. But she had no supplies, no potions, and no idea how to cast a healing spell. It all seemed hopeless now. She was lost, wounded, hungry, thirsty, and there wasn’t a soul for miles who could help her. Never in her life did Diressi feel so alone. The giant, having finished smashing his aggressors into bonemeal, was walking off.

Diressi grasped for her doll again. Holding it up, she looked straight into its fiery eye, crying harder than she had ever before.

“I wish you were here right now,” she sobbed, clutching the doll to her tear-stained cheek. “I wish you could help me.”

This post has been edited by Thomas Kaira: Apr 8 2014, 02:24 AM