Novel Treatments / Fuchsia Blooming- Chapter One
Prologue
For millennia untold the land has watched the passage of time. The trees that were little saplings at the end of Foln now tower in the depths of the forests at the new dawn. The wind’s song heard on the passage to Foln by the founders still rings in the people’s ears as though the song was sang to them personally just a moment before. For the land itself, very little has changed. The seasons come and pass, the moon waxes and wanes, and the tide ebbs and flows. Changes come very drastically, but the land always becomes the same again.
In its beginning and to this very day the people of Foln have always been very close to the land, for the Mother Earth was the Mother of all, even the gods. To them everything on earth went in a circle, it changed, but it became the same again. Time itself is also a thing of the earth, as much as the plants and the air are. In the beginning, Mother Earth sat cold and alone, and so she created a consort. This was Father Time, and Time too travels in cycles, or as it is popularly thought. The lowly pheasant may be doomed to rise little in this world, but some day his family will be queens and kings. The queens and kings may be powerful all their lives, but the family will lose power and stumble from their thrones one day. All rise and all fall, that is the way of things. That is Time’s Wheel.
In my own experiences, I have found that the concept of Time’s Wheel is very much true. I have seen dukes become farmers and the daughter of a farmer become a queen. This daughter is very close to my heart. I love her very much. She is beautiful, she is witty, she has a powerful sword-wielding hand, and she will let me know it too. Every day I wonder how I got to be so lucky, for I do not see how anyone like me could ever deserve to even gaze upon a woman such as her. She is my darling Fuchsia, the flower queen of all Foln. Her story, our story, is one I think Mother Earth and Father Time have watched very closely. I think that it- and she especially, will be remembered for a very long time.
And so begins my tale of Foln, my tale of Fuchsia’s blooming.
Chapter One
The Beginning
The raging waves of the ocean along the small peninsula of A’tlea were blackening with the twilight sky on a fateful winter night. The sun was sinking into the ocean, painting a vivid picture worthy of a museum. A peach and red sky and purple-tinted clouds mingled among the stars which were starting to show in the ever darkening sky above. The wind howled, and the clouds grew menacingly into large bombs waiting to explode with rain. Glowing a deep yellow right above the sinking sun, the moon the moon didn’t seem to care.
A man called Alwin Jadis-Dilohsol walked along the wet sand of the deserted beach. He didn’t notice the faint sprinkling of rain or the wind brushing though his prematurely graying hair. He stopped suddenly, possibly to ponder the weather; his gaze searching the dark sea and then turning to the mountains behind him. Those mountains were the only reason A’tlea was free from its unruly neighbor- Karbleoa.
Alwin kept walking along his path, somberly marching in the direction of the distant dunes. His stride slowed as he got closer to his destination. There before him was a steep grass-ridden dune that abruptly tore though the beach. Awkwardly constructed stone steps led to a fenced graveyard on the top. The thought as to why a graveyard needed a fence had always plagued him; the occupants were surely not going to escape, and there was nothing truly valuable that was worth protecting and liable to be stolen.
He mournfully paced up the slick, gray steps and sought out a tiny gravestone in the farthest corner. His knees gave way at the same time as his eyes, and before he knew it the strong man had fallen to his knees, crying beside the still fresh grave. He lovingly caressed the engraved words on the small, wet headstone,
“Duere Aerona Jadis-Tunbat, beloved daughter/ you died before your time/ may Anehta guide you in death as she did in life.”
Praying to Anehta, the goddess of death, to protect his daughter the gruff and crude man that he was slowly died away for a moment. The sincere, caring father that remained behind left the flowers, rhododendrons and hydrangeas, cut from his wife’s own garden, on the gravestone. It took all the strength he could muster inside of him for Alwin to stand up and leave Duere’s resting place behind, knowing that he would never see his daughter’s laughing face and naive smile again. The only reminders of her existence being a small stone on a hill near the beach which she had loved so much.
With a sigh he took his first steps towards his little village of Qe’eem, where his farm lay just beyond the inland border. His wife, Maegan, would be fretting about him by now; having a young orphaned niece and nephew to take care of without help- she would also not be very happy. So much about life has changed since Duere died.
He knew that he shouldn’t have left the house so late, with Maegan alone and taking care of Efa and Mordred. Going had brought a sort of peace to him as it had so many times before. The peace would be short-lived, and soon he would be grieving once more. For now, at least, Alwin Jadis-Dilohsol was slightly content walking home and once again admiring the sunset and mountains. Another day would soon come when he could let himself be happy again.
She was lost. She knew it. Qe’eem is out here. I feel it is near. I can feel their thoughts, their sad thoughts. Her thoughts raced though her head at a desperate pace. She had ridden all the way to the coast of A’tlea and nearly all the way back to where she was now on this path along the dunes and hadn’t found it yet. Oh, I have to hurry. He will send someone to find me, I know it. I have to hurry. I only have so much time. They will catch me. Then it will all be ruined.
She knew that if she didn’t find Qe’eem soon then another life would be ruined along with her own. It had been her fault, and she was not about to let another human being follow her into this horrible, trapped, imprisoned life she had made for herself.
The sound of their horses’ hooves was pounding in her ears. They were catching up to her. There was no more running. There was no turning back. The only place she could go was right in front of her. She had to find them. They’re in hiding. I know they have to be. Anyone would do now. Someone will be able to find them. At that moment, just as she could practically feel her pursuers breathing down her neck, she saw a man walking on the dunes.
People in A’tlea are different than Karbleoans. They are compassionate and help other people when they are in need. That would be her only hope now, the compassion of this man. She urged her horse to ride in his direction, hoping that he would be sympathetic to her urgent plight.
Alwin was walking dolefully down the trail to Qe’eem from the beach. All that could be seen in the dark were a few lights flickering from the village far away and the shadow of a horseman riding towards him. Concerned for his safety, Alwin hid in a bush just off the worn trail. Karbleoan knights had a tendency to turn errant and ride into A’tlea with the pure mindset of causing destruction and havoc; but it was a rare sight indeed to see one this far inland. Still, there was something telling him that this could only be trouble. Some innate feeling told him that, at least until the horseman rode closer, he should hide, be quiet, and wait this out, which he quickly did.
The legs of the horse brushed against the bush he was hiding in, and he could hear the frantic sobs of a woman and see that she had no visible weapon of any kind, only a bundle that she was carrying. This woman wasn’t a threat, she needed help. She stopped her horse for a moment right in front of where Alwin was awkwardly perched in an overgrown blueberry bush. Slowly, as not to scare her, Alwin rose to his feet. Her head turned as though she had heard a sound, but did she not see him though the darkness. The woman instead started whispering to her bundle that she was carrying.
“Umm… excuse me, do you need help, Milady…?” Alwin guardedly started. Her gaze instantly dropped to his hair that now contained a few blueberry branches and his clothes that were dirty and slightly torn. She appeared to ponder his sudden appearance for a moment, suspecting the worse.
“Do you know where Qe’eem is?” She seemed distracted, looking behind her and side to side at even the slightest noise and then the absence of one. Her voice was vaguely familiar to him, like someone he had known long ago and had forgotten, but whose memory remained firmly lodged in his head.
“Yeah, I know where Qe’eem is.”
“Thank you so much! Here, please give this to the people whose name is on this envelope. They live in Qe’eem. Please, sir; you are my only hope.” First she gently offered him a bundle of cloth in her arms which she gave up slowly and with a face that seemed to show regret and sadness. Next she pulled a small, brown envelope from the inside her of cloak. “And if you could tell them to give this to her when they think she’s ready for it.” The woman gave him another envelope with a sigh, this one purple. It smelled of roses and quivered in his hand just slightly.
“Who? What? She?” Alwin looked up in his confusion to ask the woman, but she had already left, her shadow disappearing quickly into the dark horizon in the direction of Karbleoa. Her phantom voice rang in his ears, the forgotten memory of its owner paining him.
Alwin held the smaller envelope up in the moonlight and squinted at it. He tried superfluously to read the name of whomever he had inadvertently volunteered to deliver the package and envelope, whatever they turned out to be. When he turned around a patch of silver moonlight hit the envelope at just the right angle to allow him to make out the faint message they carried on their exterior.
There in bold, elegant, and still wet script illuminated by in the night were the names he hoped he would never see again.
Cedric tiu Redav, Lord Duke of Argetionali-in-Karbleoa and his duchess, Lady Verana ai Tunbat of Rek’lawyks
His heart quickened when his eyes glimpsed the very essence of those names. Who could have found him that knew their real names? They had fled for a reason, and someone had been able to find them. They couldn’t move again; maybe it was just a coincidence the rider hadn’t been able to identify him personally. Maybe she had just gotten lucky and merely suspected that they were in Qe’eem. Still the woman did look familiar; she had to be someone that he knew the past, when he was Lord Duke Cedric and his wife was Duchess Lady Verana.
Before he could think anymore about this desperate situation, much to his surprise, the bundle of expensive merlot silk he was told to deliver started to squirm and make noise. He warily set it on the ground and peeled away the first layer of fabric that looked to be covering something up.
“Oh, Noaj, no-,” he cursed in disbelief to his patron god of war.
There in his arms, formerly hidden beneath the silk, lay a tiny baby. No more than a few weeks old, the poor thing likely whisked away as soon as the mother could manage it. The problem of who its mother was still plagued him; the answer was gracefully dancing on the tip of his tongue but refused to fall off and reveal itself. That was, until the tiny baby in his arms opened its lovely green eyes exactly like those he had seen many times before, which he watched slowly change to blue and back to piercing green again. The answer to the mystery woman’s identity burst into Alwin’s head like a wall of freezing water rushing from a broken dam.
“Nikana”
After deciding that he actually did know the mother and he had not gone completely insane, yet at the least; Alwin then looked to see what the other envelope he had been given said as to whether or not Nikana was in fact the baby’s mother. Sure enough it said in the same elegant calligraphy:
Fuchsianna Iseult Ekul Maleri tiu Redav-Zoncu-Bruja, daughter of Queen Nikana-Rose Olawal Jwgx’ofwub Aerona Naqqibg-Bruja tiu Redav of Geunfa, formerly of Rek’lawyks
Alwin wondered for a moment what he was supposed to do with this baby girl that he was supposed to be taking care of. Was he to take it home to his already stressed and overloaded wife? Or was he to chase after the seemingly desperate Nikana who did not want her in the first place? Then, he came to his decision. “Well little one, welcome to this horrible messed up world. I should rather like to think that your given name is awfully long for someone so small. We’ll just have to call you Fuchsia. You’ll be living with me, Maegan and your cousins from now on.”
He thought it best, since he was finally in the lights of Qe’eem that he should read the letter addressed to him and his wife. He sat down on a bench left by some visiting storyteller in the abandoned marketplace. Cradling Fuchsia in his arm, Alwin opened the envelope and read softly aloud to Fuchsia in a sweet sing-song voice.
The sun had set long ago, and the moon shone in a bright yellow aura by the time Alwin made it into the streets of Qe’eem, holding Fuchsia and the rest of the bundle tight in his arms and the envelopes safe in his pocket. The residents of Qe’eem had long since gone to sleep; the only lights on in the village were that of a small house just on the outskirts of town where Alwin, Maegan, their niece and nephew, Efa and Mordred lived. All of a sudden that one light that was their destination was joined by one above them in the small apartment above his sister’s bakery that was rented out to the village hedgewitch.
Dear Ced and Vera,
I am very sorry the give you this trouble, but I feel it must be done. You most likely have known what I did since it happened in the first place, and I also must apologize for that. This is Fuchsia, my daughter and my heir, which you probably knew as well if you have seen her eyes. I could not drag her into this life that I have made for myself; I do not want her to grow up in Karbleoa, where she will never know freedom. I saw a comet on the night she was born, just as a comet was seen on the day of my birth and the night that I first met Liam. She might be our last chance.
I am rather embarrassed to say that I do not know exactly who her father is. I do know that he is one of two men. The first is your brother Liam. Vera, I hope in your heart that you forgive your one and only brother. I know what he did was wrong and horrible, but it was my fault to begin with. You should really be blaming me. The second man is the new King Duryn. Even know in my head I can hear you, Verana, calling him ‘a horrible man that is cursed by countless men every night and the cause of suffering among the widows that do not have a man to curse him’, and you, Cedric, I can see you shaking your head in disgust. I thought at the time that he was kind, that he would be different than all the other Karbleoans (with the exception of you Ced. You were different from the moment you rode that horse into A’tlea). I have to admit I was wrong. I know that there is no way that you are even in the slightest amount, but please, do not blame yourselves for introducing me to him. It was he who set the trap, but it was me who fell into it.
With best regards and sincerest apologies,
Rosie tiu Naqqibg-Bruja
Poking her head precariously out of her apartment above the bakery’s window was the town busybody. She was called to her face Viola or Vi by those she wanted to be close to, but behind her back the entire village knew her as Old Widow Olet. Viola Olet was the type of person that was known for knowing more than she ought to. She was forever poking her head out of her apartment window and into the annoyed populace’s business. She had her eye for gossip keenly focused lately on that peculiar Alwin and Maegan that had just moved in on a farm just out of town.
“Well, up awfully late aren’t we now?” she pondered aloud, looking as though she was about to fall out of her window.
“I guess it is pretty late; must have lost track of the time,” Alwin remarked, steering as far away from Old Widow Olet’s gaze as he possibly could.
“Of course you did.” She appeared rather bored and was about to call it a night until her eyes were fixed upon the squirming bundle in his hands. “What is that- which you have there?” she could not help to sneer at Fuchsia and point to her.
“Uh, nothing; bye then Mrs. Olet; Maegan will be worried sick about me, better go.”
“How many times have I told you to call me Vi?” She responded, not liking to be addressed with a term that aged her by someone only ten years her junior. Before he could even hear what she had to say, he was already half the way home.
Alwin shook his head just as Rosie thought he would. What she had made Maegan’s brother Liam do was a turn sad turn of events for him that he hoped that he would never have to remember again. He meandered down the street, trying not to make any noise and wake the neighbors.
The light of a single flickering candle protruded its way out of his kitchen window. Through the foggy and rather cheap glass he could see the silhouette of his wife, cleaning and feeding the baby girl Efa, while calming down the furious, two-year old Mordred. She wouldn’t be worried sick like he had told Old Widow Olet. She would be beyond mad. Maegan’s mad, of course, was a tad bit more subtle then most, but her fury in the end was just as harsh.
Warily, Alwin opened the creaky, wooden door which he should have replaced last week and turned in to the hallway. At the end was the door that led into their humble kitchen. He took a deep breath in and cautiously turned the old iron handle to open this door.
“You’re late,” Maegan told him the instant she spotted him.
“Yes, I know, I’m sorry; you see-,” he started.
“No more excuses- give this to Mordred and make him stay in his bed. Poor thing wants to know where his mommy is and I hadn’t the heart to tell him for the hundredth time.” She thrust a blanket into his hand without even looking at him.
“Maegan, will you please listen to me?”
“Put Mordred to bed first. Then I will listen to whatever excuse you happened to think up this time.” She started scrubbing a dirty plate while attempting to force feed little Efa.
“Maegan-,”
“You know, you ought to stop going to that beach. I know you miss, Duere, but so do I, but do you see me going all that way and leaving you to take care of Efa and Mordred all night?” Alwin simply sighed and led his young nephew out of the room before his to-do list tripled again.
“Be a good boy and go to bed, alright?” he pleaded with a soft, gentle voice. Being sure to be very careful he balanced Fuchsia in one arm and tucked his wide-awake young nephew in with the other.
“Mordwed want mommy n daddy!” he yelled. Fuchsia opened her eyes and started to make baby noises, but by the time Alwin whispered a lullaby in her ear she was already back asleep. He sighed heavily; Maegan was so busy that she hadn’t even noticed that he was caring anything; maybe he should stay home more often. It had been around a month since his sister-in-law Nimue died, and it had been around six months since her husband, Byrnn’s death. Mordred was old enough to know who his parents were, but not old enough to grasp the concept of death. It broke their hearts every time he asked for is parents.
“I’m sorry Mordred, Mommy and Daddy had to leave. You are living with Aunt Maegan and me.”
“Mordwed want Mommy n Daddy!”
“Maybe if you are quiet enough and go to sleep Mommy and Daddy will visit you in your dreams,” Alwin kissed the boy on the forehead and gave him a soft, lingering smile.
“Will they weally Uncie Ced?” The toddler looked up at him with big begging eyes.
“I’m Uncie Al now, remember?” Mordred responded by bobbing his head, still waiting for an answer, “and it never hurts to try, no matter where you are, no matter when, you can always look in your dreams for Mommy and Daddy.”
“Okay Uncie Al,”
“Good night Mordred,” he said at last, blowing out the candle that barely lit the room. Now he had to somehow explain Fuchsia to Maegan, but as soon as he walked back in the door it was she who brought the subject up.
“Is that the cloth Jestina gave you for that dress?” All she could see was the purple silk and being the seamstress that she was she probably assumed it was for a dress she was doing, never once even harboring the idea of what it really was. “Because I asked for wool, not silk, I thought she wanted a practical dress. How practical is silk? Not at all.” Alwin really didn’t know what to tell her, but he knew that he ought to say something quick, because when Maegan started to ramble on about something there was no stopping her. “I hope you didn’t pay for it yet. I thought that she wanted blue, not that awful shade of purple-,”
“Maegan darling, please stop for a moment. This isn’t the cloth from Jestina.” He finally interrupted.
“Then what is it then? I hope it isn’t from Rhiannon, I told her that I couldn’t-,” Maegan had stopped trying to force feed Efa, so now, naturally, she wanted to be fed. Maegan went to pick up Efa but immediately turned around because a second shrill cry came over the room, much louder then the first. Apparently Fuchsia did not like to be woken up this late at night.
“I assume that you are going to tell me why you have someone else’s baby in my kitchen.” She was severely startled, waiting for an answer and ignoring Efa’s cries that were growing louder by the second.
Alwin sighed and started his explanation once more. “There was a woman on a horse. She was alone, she was desperate. I think someone may have been chasing her.”
“Who was chasing her? Why is there a baby in my kitchen?” interrupted Maegan.
“I honestly don’t have any idea who was chasing her. Actually, no wait I do, but that right now is a mute point.”
“And the baby-,”
“The woman asked if I lived in Qe’eem. I said yes, what else could I have said? Before I had the chance to ask anything she told me to deliver it to the people whose names are on the envelope she gave me, and then she rode off.”
“So you came home to tell me you were still alive and sorry you were out so late. Now you are planning to go wake up whosever baby this is.” Alwin looked down at Fuchsia for a moment, trying to decide how to answer. “Right?” Maegan continued. No one said anything for a moment.
“I’m sorry; I don’t think there is any way we can get rid of Fuchsia now.” Alwin found a stool and sat down on it with a sigh.
“You named it? I hope that you don’t honestly expect us to keep it.” Maegan fumed. The past month had been very stressful to her. On top of loss, she had two young children to get used to and a move across the country. What she truly desired more than anything was to have a quiet rest of her life.
“She is human, honey; not an It to be tossed out without a single guilty feeling. How could we leave a baby helpless?” Alwin was tired. Why tonight did Fuchsia have to come into their lives?
“Fine then; the baby needs to be helped,” Maegan left the room to put Efa to sleep, but quickly came storming back in, ready to stand her ground.
“Then we have to take Fuchsia,” he declared when she came back in.
“I said we need to help her, not take her in,” she pleaded, “Do you know how much of a burden Efa and Mordred are already? We cannot afford to take in another. We can barely feed ourselves, Alwin!”
“I’ll personally go out and start work on making the garden a farm as soon as the sun gives me light.” He was planning to do it before this even came up but now was a good time to use it.
“That won’t do it. Vegetables at harvest are not food now. Della is already nursing her own boy and Efa. Fuchsia is young. Where are we going to find food for her?”
“I’m sure Widow Olet will help us,” Alwin tried.
“For a charge, she has to live too. I don’t trust her anyway.” Maegan paced the room like a caged tiger. “If you want her to help then just give her the girl. The Widow must be lonely, a daughter would make her and me happy both.”
“You can’t abandon her. We have a duty to see that Fuchsia is taken care of,” Alwin proclaimed.
“No we don’t. We have a duty to take care of ourselves. We have a duty to take care of Efa and Mordred. What about the people who you were supposed to deliver her to? What about her parents? Shouldn’t they be the first to care for her?” Maegan was beyond livid. There was no way now that they were taking in another one, why would he even think of such a thing? Their house may as well be an orphanage then.
“If we have a duty to Efa and Mordred we have a duty to her as well,” Alwin stood up, careful not a wake up Fuchsia.
“The reason we took them in was because they are family and they had no where else to go,” Maegan stood in front of him, staring harshly at him. Even though he was a whole head taller than her, he was the one that felt intimidated.
“Fuchsia is as much family as our niece and nephew are, and I don’t see them having anywhere else to go either. She has to stay,” Alwin demanded. Maegan pulled back and gave him a look of momentary contempt.
“What on earth are you talking about? We have no family that age besides Efa.” She was puzzled by him. He never lied. On a rarity when he needed to made claims with little reason to support them and he omitted some things he shouldn’t but this would be the first time ever since they met that Maegan was convinced that her husband had outright lied to her face.
It was silent for a long moment. Fuchsia cooed and Mordred talked in his sleep but no noise was made by the two adults who at that very moment were determining the fate that little unwanted baby Fuchsia would have to live with.
“Verana, my dearest Vera-, someone has found us,” Alwin declared morosely, all while making a bad attempt at softening up the news. Maegan was taken aback by the mention of her former name. “It wasn’t to any of the villagers that the letter was addressed to.” He showed her the back of the envelope.
“Look,” he told her.
“Cedric tiu Redav, Lord Duke of Argetionali-in-Karbleoa and his duchess, Lady Verana ai Tunbat of Rek’lawyks…” she dropped the envelope on the floor. “Oh Sera, someone has found us, Cedric.” A hating foot stomped on the letter in frustration, “all gods damn them those-, those-,” Maegan paced, struggling for a word adequate enough to describe her fury.
“Calm down Verana, please. If you calm down you can think.” Alwin placed his arms around her waist to stop her and then gently set them on her face.
“My name is Maegan. I don’t know any Verana, never have.” By this time Maegan’s very breath stuttered, and she was doing all that she could to hold back the tears.
“Can’t we still be Verana and Cedric with each other?” he asked tenderly.
“We’ll slip, I know we will. I have never known anyone named Cedric or Ve…Verana.” Already she was so used to not saying those names that her tongue tripped over them like they were foreign words it had never encountered.
“Do you think there is any trouble in someone knowing the village we are at?” Alwin prodded gently.
“Of course there is; if they know where we are then they are bound to come for us soon.” Maegan pulled out of his grip and began pacing again.
“What if someone knows but it isn’t them?” Alwin thought this might calm her down.
“You know who gave us the baby don’t you,” she suddenly realized.
“After she left I knew who the woman was,” he admitted.
“And she was…?”
“Nikana,” his eyes matched hers in a glare of absolute terror.
“Are you sure it was her?”
“Positive.”
“If Nikana knows we’re here then the whole of Karbleoa knows where we are hiding. We need to leave here as soon as possible and change our names again.” Maegan told him grimly.
“No, I have a feeling that she didn’t know who I was when she gave it to me,” Alwin said. “There was something there, like; it just seemed that she was running from something, doing something wrong, something the Karbleoan’s wouldn’t have wanted her to do.”
“That doesn’t mean that she won’t be forced to tell,” Maegan stated, “She might change her mind later; there might be come reason. Maybe this is an act, maybe she was setting us up for a kidnapping charge so that they can execute us when they catch us.”
“They have a treason charge for both of us, at the very least, that’s a hanging sentence by itself. Then they most likely have Spying for me, impersonation for you; maybe everything else.” That really hit home to both of them. The reason they left their posh life as Karbleoan nobility and abandoned their names was something that caused a long silence whenever it was brought up.
“She won’t; I know it.” Alwin said just to end the silence. “This is her daughter; I think she would be strong enough, loyal enough, to protect her.” He was more than certain of this; there was just something about Nikana when he met her tonight that made him trust her.
“We need to leave. The only option we have is to get rid of that thing she gave you-, and to leave,” proclaimed Maegan anxiously.
“I think that we ought to stay here. There wasn’t the slightest inclination or the subtlest hint that this was a ploy. They have other things to worry about if Duryn finds out. It will be Nikana being chased, not us. It is our Rosie, the girl we took in, the girl we taught to be independent that trusted us with her daughter – her heir. She wouldn’t put such a thing as the heir’s life in the way if she knew they would be after us.”
“But they know where we are-,”
“They knew where we were before and nothing happened. We escaped and we came back. Nothing happened, we are safe,” Alwin reassured her. “Besides, the Karbleoans don’t know where we are at, Rosie does.”
“And when they discover their precious Queen Nikana on the A’tlean coast, minus one baby, and she is so close to that one placed where they thought that her duke and duchess accomplices were hiding then don’t you think they might put two and tow together.”
“Honey, for them I can get two and two put together to make five.” For the first time since he came home he smiled suavely, in that funny way that made her always trust him, the same way that made her fall in love with him the second their eye’s met for that first moment. This time however his smile did nothing to sooth her fears.
“I’m scared,” she admitted finally, “Cedric, I know is she is Nikana’s that we have some sort of duty to take her; but is too much of a risk. I don’t think that after what Nikana did… that… she deserves for us to do this.”
“Then don’t do it for Nikana, or Rosie or whatever she calls herself. Open up your heart for Liam’s sake,” Alwin grabbed Maegan by the waist once more and she rested her head on his shoulder. All this after a long day, she must be so exhausted.
Her head popped up and she thought for a moment. “What? I don’t see what this has to do with Liam.” Without a word he bent down, picked up the envelope and gingerly pulled out the letter she had written them. He pointed to the second paragraph and she read it.
“It says that Fuchsia could be Liam’s or that she could be Duryn’s. We can’t be cure if she is not sure,” Maegan commented with a stern look to her face.
Alwin picked up the baby from where she had been laying this entire time. He pulled the cloth off her head, trying not to wake the poor girl. “Look at her hair, how red it is. Duryn’s hair was black, Nikana’s is dark brown. I don’t know of anyone else in their families that have red hair, especially that red. Doesn’t that look like it’s the exact same shade as Liam’s?” he pleaded.
“Yes, but you know Nikana. She magicked the baby so it would look like it was Liams. Or this is some ploy the baby is pulling to make us think that she is Liam’s.” Maegan started to get worked up about this again. The mention of Nikana, Liam and the hated King Duryn of Karbleoa brought up the old wounds that were the results of her lost daughter. “Besides, who says that I’d take his child anyway? Liam is almost as bad as that Duryn is now. Murderers! All three of them are traitorous murderers.”
“Maegan, come on you seriously can’t think that a baby is trying to trick us. She’s so innocent. Fuchsia can’t know about her family or about what they have done; and for god’s sakes she cannot know which hair color to have. I don’t think that she can even change her hair color if she knew what color to have,” he explained.
“All those people listed in that letter are murderous traitors. I will not have their offspring in my home. Go and try to find Nikana and get that thing out of my house!” she yelled, completely losing any clarity of mind she had before.
“Fuchsia is not a thing. She has done nothing wrong. Technically, Duryn is not a traitor because he was not on our side to begin with. Nikana is not a murderer because she has never killed anyone. Liam is neither traitor nor murderer; he did not kill Duere, and he is still on our side if you could just stop seeing everything as his fault and forgive him!” he shouted back. “This is not about Liam or Nikana. It is about Fuchsia. She is just a baby and can’t help who her parents are or are not and what they did or did not do. Besides, she is as much related to you as Efa and Mordred are.”
“But what about her ‘destiny’ and the ‘curse’? She will have to know about it someday. She is Nikana’s daughter, Violet’s granddaughter, and Lavender’s great-granddaughter. When she discovers what she is, we can’t risk having her in this house; it would be a danger to us all,” Maegan explained. She paced around the kitchen like a madwoman. In the nursery Efa started crying and Fuchsia and Mordred soon followed with an awful screeching of their own. Alwin contemplated what Maegan said for a moment. It was true that Nikana’s family was dangerous. If Fuchsia knew the destiny Violet was always raving about, his life and that of his family’s could be at stake.
“Then what can we do?” Alwin asked rhetorically as Maegan came back in with Efa. “We can’t keep her, nor can we give her away. What can we do?”
“Go to bed, talk about it in the morning; I am too tired to make any decisions tonight. Sleeping on it should help our opinions anyway.” She rock Efa back and forth, trying to sooth her back to sleep so that eventually Maegan could get some sleep herself.
“You know, with the exception of the eyes and the hair Efa and Fuchsia look almost exactly alike,” he observed as he rocked Fuchsia back and forth.
“They look like they could be twins,” she commented in agreement. Then a big smile cam across his face, and he chuckled to himself. Maegan could not see what could be possibly funny about this situation.
“You know, that may be it.”
“What may be it?”
“They look like they could be twins.” Alwin beamed and took Efa from his wife so he could compare the two infants.
“And?” Maegan did not get what he was thinking.
“Fuchsia would only be a danger if she knew about what her family is.”
“And?” This seemed like a completely irrelevant point.
“Efa and Fuchsia are the same age, almost exactly. They’re what, a couple weeks apart?”
“And?”
“What if she doesn’t know who she really is, what if she thought that-,” Alwin beamed.
“What if she thought that Efa was her twin,” Maegan finished. For a long time she considered this. This child was her family after all, and she needed a place to live. Sending her to Karbleoa was the worst possible thing that they could ever do to her; maybe they should take her in. She looked so harmless after she had drifted off to sleep again. At last she straightened herself, looked at Alwin, then Efa and finally to down at Fuchsia. This might actually work.
“Agreed”
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Excellent… a piece of real writing with panache, from the yound adult genre, no less! As someone who is generally slow to latch onto genuinely fine writing I was glad to be able to offer my praises to your submission this afternoon. Here goes…
I think it is unconstructive merely to give the writer the proverbial thumbs-up, so I will state what I enjoyed about the piece and then try to help with the writing in whatever I am able to.
I really enjoyed the language that you used here (in the parts where the prose is allowed to flourish) I think the piece is alight on a really understated and beautiful turn of phrase and that the word choice you have in your piece are really fantastic. At the risk of sounding redundant, I find that you have this way with a metaphor… you are able to twist a basic (perhaps clichéd) phrase and turn it into something original (for your diminished years, I should add). I admire the moments of description, along the lines of “lead to a fenced graveyard on top.”
I also was able to catch the flow of your characters’ dialogue very well. The way in which your personnel talk is very astutely monitored. I can hear their voices booming loud and clear from the page… I was able to place myself in the story in that way we are all left to do with great escapism. This novel goes deeper than a piece of lowly escapism, but I find that losing oneself in the prose is a fine indication of a successful piece of fiction! I think the sci-fi characters are well judged.
To the criticism, well… the problems I see are things that would perhaps be ironed out in several drafts. I think there are a few phrases in there that work better than others. I would recommend reading these parts aloud in your head merely to see if they sound right and if you can perhaps do something about them. However, I am convinced that you are able to spot these and do not need to be patronised by the likes of me! For example, however…
“frantic sobs of a woman and see that she had no visible…” there are problems here, you leap from tense to tense, from POV to POV, and there is a missing word in the sentence
I felt perhaps that the descriptions could have been improved somewhat. It is evident that you are a writer of great substance and talent, so it would be nice to see you tackle a more prosaic style! I would be interested to see you tackle a more ‘classical’ writing style… one of the older author mould of the Victorian era.
I would also perhaps wonder whether or not the character of Alwin can be fleshed out a little more? Right now we get a definitive sense of this person, but I sensed a certain distance here. Maybe through that sparkling dialogue you deploy we could have a certain degree of vulnerability creeping in? I would love it if this were the case! Right now I love what you have done with this character… I would just push you into rounding this character off.
I thoroughly enjoyed your work most of all (if this is not clear already). I hope to read more of your work in future!
Mikhail
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What land? The end of what? Too much telling. Where are we now? When? Too many names without description.
You are telling more than you are showing. Where and when am i? Who are these people? Don’t give me names, show me people doing things, thinking things. So far it is very ‘random’ in that I can’t tell who is doing what. Make sure we know they are cities not people.
And who are these people. You are starting too early but not giving us any real background. The words are pretty but there is no scenery that means anything. The names are confusing. I don’t have any frame of reference. I don’t know what the danger is what fuschia is the hope for?
First off, I found that the background and backstory to this piece was in itself very interesting, and it propelled me through the first chapter. The prose and flow of the piece worked very well for me, and it essentially seemed very fluid. The main problem for me though was the dialogue; I couldn’t help but feel that it was very wooden, very taut. Perhaps if you were to loosen it up, make it flow better; adding realism to it would really help. Otherwise it is boring and cliche.
Mere little saplings
Was melodiously sung-or not
Went through a circular cycle-or not
Lowly peasant-pheasant is a bird
But eventually the family will lose power
This royal daughter-or not
Hand, and she’s not afraid to let me know it too.
My one and only darling Fuchsia-or not
For a very very long time-double the “Very” for emphasis-or not
Chapter 1
Menacingly into large reservoirs waiting to explode with rain, bombs didn’t work for me
“the moon” twice-either lose one or put in comma
ponder the inclement/changing weather
His knees and eyes gave way at the same time, both overcome with emotion. Before he knew it, the strong
Mention colors of flowers-I prefer as much detail as possible
Duere’s final resting place
It’s a nice pace and the plot seems smooth, but I don’t get enough clear images-adjectives seem lacking, as do adverbs
You describe the sunset, but not the people-horses-does get better with Alwin paragraph
“yet at the least” doesn’t feel right
town gossip-nice touch
“a turn-sad turn of events” reads better
leaving you high and dry to take care
to-do list is a nice way of implying a nagging wife
why are all these relatives dying-disease-assassinations?
Asked for his parents-h missing-end of paragraph
Nice toddler talk
A moot point-not mute
Quiet rest of her life-nice-also making the garden a farm
You may want to add an earlier chapter explaining more about how they became fugitives-at the very least I would compare their new lifestyle more to their old lavish one
Not a bad story-good saga quality to it, but many of the descriptions could use more detail-make images as vivid as possible
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