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I sent the first part of this story to TDL, but it seems they’re currently experiencing technical difficulties and my poor story was erased/emptied/obliterated. The main page says to re-submit via e-mail, but I figured I might as well make good use of this little setback and post the story here first, and hopefully get some feedback on it.
Any comments, questions, or (Christ forbid) criticisms are welcomed, and I hope you enjoy the story and don’t consider it a complete waste of your time and are left with no option but to stalk me and call me at all hours of the night and when I pick up the phone all I hear is your ragged watery breathing and the sound of you sharpening a bayonet, and then one day I find my cat hanged from the tree near my garden, the tree that stays grey and mostly bare all year round, and it’s up to me and a plucky rookie cop who doesn’t play by the rules to stop you from terrorizing my family and pets.
But that probably won’t happen. Right?
Oh, one last thing: I’m relatively new to this whole “forum thing”… I’ve done my very bestest to read up on the rules and whatnot, but I’m sure I’ll screw something up anyways. So, you know, bear with me. Thanks.
And onward we go…
The Art of Dying
Part 1
Concerning History / Consumption
The years passed. That was the first lie they were told; not by a person, or even a god, but a lie told by their own flesh. A lie that grew inside of them like a weed. They had come to a mute understanding with themselves, that if they achieved everything time would somehow stop, and all that would remain was frozen perfection. They would fall into the moment and never resurface; an obelisk would be carved in the depths of the moment and they would reside there against time and against deterioration. Against life. They would be newly stillborn. They would be the most beautiful nothing.
But they were not. Time continued its steady revolutions, and the second lie they told themselves was that the worst had happened; but, like all great tragedies, the worst was only the beginning. For the years did pass, and in dismal iniquity -- but, to their horror, so much passed with them. Their memories, their dreams, tentative hope and blissful conquests: all of it reduced to mere calligraphy in the sand, no sooner wrought than brushed away. History consumed itself, and them with it, and the pain of this was not in the subtle surgery of their erasure, but in the fact that even after everything they’d accomplished, they offered history no meal. They were but a morsel in its teeth.
They knew this intuitively. Having already lied twice, they felt no need to do so a third time.
Concerning The Night of Orchids / The Second Taste of Emptiness
“I’ve been thinking,” Sephony said, and said no more. Instead, she sighed and broke an orchid from the earth and twirled it between her fingers as the dark sky spilled around her, an adornment of crushed ice and the rich silt of space encompassing.
She pulled a petal from the orchid. Half a white face in the night; sad to begin with -- the petals curved like tears -- and sadder still with a tear broken loose and in her hand and the other tear so lonely, weeping against her thumb, a half-face mourning the death of tragedy.
She dropped the orchid.
Beside her, Willowyn raised a bottle of wine to her oxblood lips and took a languid pull.
A breeze ambled by and shivered the orchids.
“What have you been thinking,” Willowyn asked. She passed the bottle and regarded the stars.
“I’ve been thinking,” Sephony said, “all gods were immortal.”
After taking her fill, she returned the bottle to her sister.
Sephony and Willowyn, the Isadora sisters. Names whispered in dark places, amongst men with dull eyes and bright coin. Secret legends of misery.
“All gods were immortal,” Willowyn mused. She poured wine down her throat. Wiped her chin demurely. “And look how many we’ve gone through already.”
Another breeze crested the hill. The orchids bowed and prayed for them.
Concerning The Black Marsh / Bloodshed
They circled each other. Two dark shapes, ankle deep in the swamp water, the water gleaming like oil under the glossed eye of the moon; two dark shapes in the Black Marsh, amid the weeds and whorls and bloated emerald shoots, the spongy moss and loam, the swayback trunks of cypress tress; under the broken globe of moon, circling, breathing hard but with great control. Gossamer ghosts of breath shuddering from their angle faces. Phantoms fading in the damp autumn air.
Save for the hush of their breathing and the shear of their boots in the oil, the marsh was still and silent. At another time, years ago (since devoured by history), it had been much different here, but the sisters brought the Harvest and all that was blood was bloodied, and all bloodless undead: put to watery rest. Nothing remained but rot and spirits, and both, it seemed, were quiet.
Sephony crouched to wash the ornate blade of her suwayyah, her moth coloured eyes never leaving her opponent. She had struck a glancing blow, and the ensuing red blood on her enemy’s shoulder, though superficial, was nonetheless thrilling. Even now, under these dire circumstances, the letting of hot blood moistened her lips and fluttered her loins. Bloodshed would always be sex beyond sex.
“Does it sting?” Sephony asked.
“Yes, my little wasp,” Willowyn replied. “It stings.”
Sephony took her weapon from the dark waters. Clean. “Describe it to me. The minutiae of your pain.”
Under the triple blades of her claw, Willowyn touched the wound. “Pain? Please. You’ll be lucky if it even leaves a scar.”
Sephony said: “You won’t have time to scar.”
“Oh? I thought we had nothing but time.” She smiled under the shadows of her mask, a visage of polished bone, the skull of some hapless beast that crossed her path and crossed no further. Most of Willowyn’s gear was of this variety, personally tracked and trapped, tanned and stitched, reconfigured. Sephony remembered Willowyn, kneeling in the gritty alkali under the blasted cataract of the sun, skinning a giant serpent that still twitched and sprayed urine as her dagger flayed its belly and bared its strange innards to the silver sky. She remembered the serpent had a face like a man and when it wept the cracked desert hardpan sucked the tears greedily as they fell.
Sephony herself preferred to buy her gear. What else would she spend their bounty on? Paintings? Exotic perfumes?
As Willowyn had so succinctly said, Please.
“Nothing but time?” Sephony asked. She wiped her claw with a square of cloth. “It’s time that is killing us. We’ve both agreed that --”
Sephony realized a moment too late that this conversation was all a ruse.
Sheering through the swamp, splashing foul curtains of dark water along her sides, Willowyn attacked with both her claws, slashing wildly, the steel flashing but mere inches from Sephony’s startled face as she did her best to ward off the blows, wheeling backward against the onslaught, the blood thumping in her ears and the papery taste of fear in her throat; thoughts but garbled noise; the molten agony of her sister’s blades as they kissed her flank so deeply, kissing great swatches of flesh from her side, a kiss from the tongue of red ruination. To be tricked so easily, and -- as the steel scraped bone and drove notches in it -- seemingly beaten so quickly.
Smelling the blood, enraptured by it, Willowyn redoubled her efforts, though more concisely now: gone were the wild blows: they had done their brutish job and scored a clean hit. Now, she remembered her training and preformed the techniques, those age-old canons of combat, the postures of bloodshed. Her attacks were as smooth as amber whiskey, as precise as a lash from a scorpion’s tail, and in that moment, Willowyn no longer existed. The girl was gone. All that remained was her teaching.
Sephony fended with her suwayyah, deflecting the strikes, weaving clumsily from their deadly arcs. Unlike her sister, Sephony’s teaching was far from her, so quickly replaced by panic. The rush-song of tumultuous water around her, the foul and grime stinging her eyes; the blood spurting merrily from her wounds; she clenched the fist of her mind and fixed her resolve. Ignored it. Filtered it out. That was one thing she had over Willowyn: her tongue might wag from time to time, her panic might momentarily get the best of her, but when needed she could forge a greater mettle in her spine.
She gave not an inch to her pain. She clenched it in her belly and wrapped it in her cold guts. Smothered it. Her pain was given nothing but scorn, revilement. It would not caress her. She would fight, and fight until her last drop of blood, and even then: she would use that last drop of blood to drown her sister.
She would not lose.
Concerning History / Zero
After the lies there was only emptiness. This was a truth they had long suspected; first tasted on their tongues, perhaps, when they saw their first man die screaming through a hole in his throat; a second taste when Sephony gazed starward those years ago and said: “I’ve been thinking”; said: “all gods were immortal.” A taste like oil on their tongues, on which all hope slipped and what valour they still possessed turned to ash.
And then too was the ash scattered by the emptiness.
Beyond emptiness, all that remained in them was a species of cruel determination: for they were truly dead, yet -- through the ceaseless machinations of their strange resolve -- unable to die.
Two years ago, it was different. They were different. They had stood upon the cusp of greatness, the absolute penumbral edge of visceral enlightenment, blood-divinity. This was the moment where they would make their plunge into blissful nonexistence, the scattering of their psyches into the winds and cosmos. This was where the obelisk would be built. This was the lie they told themselves.
Only in hindsight -- terrible, damnable hindsight -- could they see the colour of their mistake. In the cold years which followed, when their thoughts often turned to their descent, they were always reminded of their training in the Order, where they were taught that to destroy anything, you must first grant it perfection, for the last number is but the first before zero.
Two years ago in the Worldstone, the last number before zero. The last victory before the victory defeated itself, and them with it.
Concerning The Black Marsh / Teachers
She would not lose. She would not lose.
Instead of simply blocking Willowyn’s attacks, Sephony carefully threw a few of her own. They were knocked aside with little effort, but that made no difference to her: at this point, all Sephony wanted was to gain a foothold and halt her treacherous backward momentum. As an acolyte in the Order, Sephony learned that to stay on the defensive was to perish indefinitely. Who had ever won a battle with their hands held over their heads? her teacher had asked. Who had ever killed while cowering in a corner?
They had gone renegade from the Order some time ago. Deemed Pariah, no doubt; to be caught, beaten, and ritually beheaded on sight. Sephony was certain that their old teacher would hate them now, would not even deign to spit on them… but it was sound advice nonetheless.
Plant your feet in the muck, you silly *****, Sephony told herself in a voice so close to that of her former teacher. Stay right here and fight.
Sephony whipped her head to the side and narrowly avoided a throat-cutting. Through her addled eyes her sister was no more than a charcoal smear, all edges and spikes, bones and burnished gold.
Her lungs smouldered. Hot sand pumped through her veins.
She would not lose, but there was nothing she could do to win.
They were both in agreement on when the last number turned to zero. It was a moment, heralded oddly enough, by a massive jet of vomit.
In retrospect, that was fitting enough. It was all puke from then on anyways.
Standing in the Worldstone Chamber, the cavelike crystal walls painted with flame and the ceiling so high that it defied the eyes, never falling to shadow but always climbing in brilliant emblazonments of ochre and tangerine and deepest blue, like the Great Ocean at sunrise, the ocean the sisters had crossed to come here; the miles to get here, the blood and death and demons slain.
And the Worldstone itself, beating heart of existence. Red gem of the Omniverse. That is where they would carve their legend.
Standing there, in the Worldstone Chamber, with the barbarian and the dog-man and the paladin. They cared nothing for those so-called “Warriors of Light”, but they reserved a special brand of loathing for the Zakarum. He killed and denied the intrinsic joy of it, and then killed and killed again. To the sisters, he was the worst form of heretic: clucking his tongue at them while chewing the souls of his dead.
One night, while the others slumbered in the deerskin tent they shared, the summer rain pattering lightly on the hide and the water-shadows dancing on their faces, Willowyn turned to Sephony, and, nodding to the holyman snoring behind her, said: What say we carve a door in his chest, so his god can pay him a visit? A big door, for a big god.
Sephony was forced to decline. Their journey was yet to be finished, and they might need demon-fodder. However loathsome said fodder might be.
Of the grunting, spitting barbarian: they never much cared for him, either. But at least he gave them a fight.
Concerning The Black Marsh / An Offering
The answer was to stop.
But wasn’t that always the answer?
Her side was torn to ragged chunks. Flaps of leather, flaps of skin; mangled red meat. The greasy white gleam of exposed bone. Another hit would be devastating -- so why not offer it to Willowyn? A direct, excruciating blow, yes; a trio of knives passing between the rungs of her ribs and puncturing something soft and wet and vital. Yes. A fine idea.
Sephony angled her body by near-imperceptible degrees and raise her arm. Ever so slightly, but it was enough for Willowyn to register, and waste no time exploiting. Willowyn feigned with her opposite and come in low and fast with the other, her hipshot aim impeccable, the parched razors driving deep and hard, Sephony screaming as shrill alarums gallivanted in her head, screaming and then biting it back, biting it all back, the pain, the ancient instinctual fear of death and ruin, holding the moment and allowing her sister to come but a hair away from killing her, all the while positioning her own claw in Willowyn’s blindspot, the air around it somehow thick and heavy, like molasses; and at that moment, that moment when the flowers of oblivion shot and bloomed before her moth coloured eyes, she struck, and dug her suwayyah in Willowyn’s neck.
A frozen moment as the weapons held their places, dark blood quietly pooling around the shafts. Eyes locked and drilling each other, not a single movement, not a single sound but the sound of flesh shearing; holding, holding, knees buckling, sweet and blood pouring, the moment an ebony monolith in time, a burning obelisk where they could never reside.
And then: disengagement.
The sisters broke from each other, stumbling back, splashing in the cold water. They cradled their wounds; they coughed and sputtered; but, in the fetid annals of their cruel determination, they damned themselves and forced their broken bodies to live on.
Concerning The Worldstone / Baal
The Chamber was the hub of existence, and the Worldstone its heart. Upon this heart, taloned hands stroking its surface, blackening it: the hands of Baal, Lord of Destruction. Last of the Prime Evils.
From his taloned hands, the tendrils of rot seething outward and the Worldstone weeping in pulsations, the nectar-light within it growing darker. Yellows and greys and browns; the maroon of long caked blood; the black of fresh cancer.
In a battle that raged over small aeons, the five warriors excised the cancer. They lost the dog-man in the process, blown to wet steaming chunks by a bolt of raw energy from the demon’s gullet. The sisters did not grieve him; he was a decent warrior, and a guzzler of hot blood -- which they could easily respect -- but he smelled and was covered in lice. On the long treks between battles, the sisters nearly wore the skin from their arms due to the constant picking and scratching.
Baal was their most magnificent foe, the greatest engine of carnage they had ever witnessed: his body twisted beyond mortal comprehension by the sheer power roiling inside him, a convoluted creature of stellar madness and unbridled malevolence. The sisters were in complete awe of him, and, upon different circumstances, would surely have joined him. Waged the unholiest of wars in his honour; sacrificed entire generations in his name. But Baal would never surrender the Worldstone, and the sisters had an obelisk to carve.
At the penultimate moment, Sephony straddled the beast’s gigantic chest and placed the tip of her suwayyah upon the rolling jelly of his bloodshot eye. Wisps of blued smoke crept from the corners of his shattered jaw. The cracked bones of his skull shifted sickeningly, like tectonic plates.
Your brother, Sephony purred. He looked so much like this at his final moment. Her face was streaked with gouts of blood and her underlip was split wide. Broken and beaten, lying on the cold stone. Mewling like an injured puppy. She smiled and her lip broke wider, a tiny mouth swearing blood down her bruised chin.
How the mighty not only fall, she said, but punch through the bottom of the world.
And there, at the most beautiful moment in all of creation, at the very helm of the Infinite where they would surely (with help from the Worldstone) plummet and fall, Sephony drove her blade into the great demon’s eye. It made a popping sound and it squelched milky fluid, and she forced the suwayyah deeper, broadening the wound, the ruined eye welling over and gushing against her fingers. Baal twitched and thrashed, bellowing from the charred relic of his maw, talons digging trenches in the floor. His insectile legs, many of which snapped or severed, beat hollow percussions against each other.
His stomach convulsed. Dark bodies moved inside it, like bloated tumours. They rose in unison to his chest, first breaking his ribs and then, as these dark bodies intermingled and coalesced, obliterated them. Sephony, straddling the beast, rode atop this charnel wave, her blade still splicing Baal’s eye, down to her wrist now, cutting his brains to mulch, and Baal’s neck expanding and fissuring, his ruined jaw bursting in one final scream of his own noisome guts. Twitching ropes of entrails. Strange tethered organs. Chunks of tissue and wedges of bone and snarls of sinew and a pulsating pus-coloured sac filled with shrieking wormlike creatures. The sac flopped onto Baal’s chest with a dull smack, nigh between Sephony’s legs as she was showered with hot viscera. Exposed to the air, the sodden membrane deflated and the worms curled and hardened and died, their tiny corpses drifting down the Lord of Destruction’s gnarled flanks like black commas sailing a sea of green bile.
Stricken, Sephony palmed offal from her eyes and cheeks. She spat and retched. Draped in Baal’s final, foul offering, she turned to Willowyn and said:
Now. The Stone.
They had never spoken to the others about this plan. The warriors of light stood dumbfounded, their eyes unable to look away from the remnants of the last Prime Evil as he writhed and jittered. His soul -- caught for a moment in the firelight -- moaned as it was pulled apart.
Around them, the chamber began to shake and crumble.
The sisters approached the Worldstone and laid hands upon it. They felt its dying warmth. Closing their eyes, they both demanded their prize, the sweet gift of eternality in purest valour, peace in nothingness. Their hands sunk into the stone.
Then came the angel Tyrael, with his wings of light and sword of fire: his sword, which he hurled into the Worldstone, and no matter how hard the sisters pushed for entry into it, the sword pushed harder and faster, sheering through the shimmering stone and piercing the heart of hearts. The sword’s heavenly blaze consumed it, and riding atop this blaze, the cusp of their greatness, which was quickly travelled and forever lost. At the other side of greatness, where they stood shaking: the first moment of their descent. The downward spiral leading to eventual and inescapable zero.
Concerning The Kingdom of Entsteig / The Second Autumn
Time passed. The Worldstone, two years shattered, and still the world moved on much as it had before. In the deserts of Aranoch, the sweat still beaded on merchants’ brows and the sun still bleached the bones of the dead. In a rarely ventured corner of the alkali flats, not far from the Seven Tombs, the powdered remains of a snake with the face of a man continued its silent business of fading away; a few nubs of bone poked through the cracked sand like the gnomons of lost sundials, counting shadows for the ages. High in the windshorn Steppes of Mount Arreat, a barbarian slumbered in the earth behind his hut, his last meal of mutton soup long dried from his face. In the jungles of Kehjistan, the Church of Zakarum aided in the reconstruction of Kurast, the capitol city; for two years now the sounds of saws and hammers rang through the days and nights, and the sounds of men treading scaffold, and the grunts as stones were carried and trees were felled and the great temples reconstructed. The clink of ice in iron mugs as men sat their weary nights in taverns, drinking solemnly as they contemplated their ambiguous future.
And in the Kingdom of Entsteig, where many say the trouble began, the peasants still tended their fields and pulled from the rich, cold earth their last autumn harvest. They seldom looked to the skies as they did this. They feared the celestial portents there.
The leaves turned and wept from the branches. In the Black Marsh, a forgotten tower grew moss and cobwebs. Every so often, a brick would lose its mortaring and drop to the ground with a thud, and when another fell atop it the bricks would clap like ghostly declarations from a lost war. The tower itself would not survive the harsh winter; like the skeleton in the desert, it was going about its business of fading away.
In the marshland itself, an autumn breeze moved through the cypress trees. They shushed and moaned. Crickets played laments on their jointed violins.
Concerning The Black Marsh / Remembrance
“You harridan,” Willowyn croaked, her voice butchered and barely audible. “Little war-*****, tricking her own sister. Vile!” Blood bubbled from the corners of her mouth.
Sephony smiled ghoulishly and spat in the swamp. “You were always the simple one.”
Willowyn harrumphed. “Not as simple as the holyman, I hope.”
They hunkered down, a safe distance from each other. Willowyn loosened a claw and took a length of cotton wrapping from her satchel. She wrapped it carefully around the hole in her neck as she spoke. “Do you remember what he said?”
“At this ending?” Sephony examined her own injuries but made no effort to bandage them. The raw, gaping face of it bled down her thigh.
“Yes,” Willowyn said. “Do you remember?”
“Take my life and I’ll have your souls. ”
“What tripe. And even if it were true, his life was worth the price.” After the Worldstone and Tyrael and moment zero, the black melancholy which devoured them. “We made it worth the price.”
In Harrogath, the mountain winds blowing gritty snow down the empty streets, the leather huts flapping and billowing, iron pegs creaking in cobbled stone. Candles guttering, and the wax like frozen sculptures in the amber light.
Sephony nude in a steaming washbasin, the tent billowing and the shadows flickering; Sephony, a phantasm behind wavering smokesighs, scrubbing the demon’s vomit from her face and arms and breasts. Willowyn nearby, sharpening her claws.
What now? Willowyn had said, and in the steam and shadows her sister could not answer.
The Worldstone still crumbling as they spoke, and there would be a new world in its absence, a world unsure of its own fate, of the sunrise the next morning. A world waiting, and they could not have cared less. What now? What now, with the greatest foes destroyed, and eternality with them?
Snik, snik, snik. Whetstone against metal, the beats in between mute vowels of judgement.
We could always carve a door in the Zakarum’s chest, Sephony jested, but gave it second thought when her sister offered no reply; only silence, her eyes glittering like coal in the candlelight.
Willowyn set the whetstone aside.
He left for Kurast this morning, Willowyn said. With the Prime Evils vanquished, he’ll be travelling with leisure. The corners of her oxblood mouth arched slightly. He believes there is nothing left to fear.
Sephony squeezed hot water over her nape. She said: We’ll leave as soon as I dress.
“You would have thought a man from Kurast,” Willowyn said, “would have faired better in the jungle.”
“He faired well enough.” Sephony poked at her ribs with one hand and untethered her waterskin with the other. “We were as silent as fallen night and still he stopped on the trail and called to us.”
“He knew how we judged him. He would have been a fool not to expect it.”
Sephony took a pull from the jug. “The price he paid for saving the world.” She wiped her chin. “To be killed like a dog in the jungle and buried facedown in a muddy grave. Skinned. Gutted. His teeth tucked in the sole of his boot.”
“For safekeeping,” Willowyn said, and they both chuckled lightly.
Willowyn plucked the cork from her own waterskin and took a measured sip. “The barbarian, though… he was a true challenge.”
That was back in Harrogath, three months after the desecration of the paladin. As she reminisced, it occurred to Sephony that they knew none of their names, those warriors of light. They had never thought to bother.
What manner of creatures are we, Sephony thought, and how were we allowed to exist for so long?
The first thing they saw of him was his smooth bald plate in the window of his hut as they stood on his dirt walk and waited for him. The sky was cloudless and flaxen, the sun haemorrhaging between the jagged peaks of Mount Arreat, basking the crags and outcrops in vermilion. When the door of his hut banged open, the sisters felt the thrill, an instance when zero regressed and their world was -- however fleetingly -- brought to rights again.
There stood the barbarian, child of Bul-Kathos, his granite maul resting over the thick cords of his neck and shoulder. His chest was a proud canvas of scars. Declarations of conquest.
He said: Come for the fight, have you? I’ve got soup on the fire, so let’s be done with it.
He asked: The both of you, for one at a time?
They gave him the choice and under his matted beard, he grinned. I strangled the Lord of Terror with my bare hands. I’m sure I can take on a pair of silly, fornicating girls before the soup boils over.
For such bravery, they gave him a quick demise and a deep burial.
“Slow down, Seph,” Willowyn said. “You’ll have that water finished, and I’ll not loan you any of mine.”
“Many thanks, Will, but I’ve no intentions for this to last much longer.” To prove this she tipped what remained of her drink in the swamp.
“Such bravado. I’ll not be so foolhardy.” Willowyn corked her jug. “At least clean that mess on your side. Imagine killing me and then dying from infection.”
“I will.”
Sephony stood. “But with so much water in my belly, I have to pass a quantity of it.” She turned and splashed over to a screen of high reeds.
Willowyn waited for a few moments before silently getting to her feet.
His name was Mavillius and he was bleeding on Willowyn’s boot. He was screaming, in his own way -- wheezing from the frothing hole in his throat, a sharp sound like the death of a thousand violins.
His gums were black and viscous, his crown a halo of scabs. Knuckles knotted. A thick pelt of grungy hair on his shoulders and down his back, burnt wings of hair, coarse and stiff. But, in his own curious way, Mavillius was beautiful.
He was their first.
Moonlight pouring into the alleyway. It dripped down the tenement walls and scrawled tribal shadows on the warped planks and crumbling brickwork. Rats squealed and scurried. Refuse crawled the grey pebbled dirt like crushed insects.
Wide-eyed, Sephony squatted beside the dying man and carefully examined his gored neck.
She dipped a finger in the hole. Mavillius moaned: the sound of wet leaves in a gutter. She pulled her finger out and bit her bottom lip in wonder. She was thirteen years old.
“Gods,” Sephony said. “You poked him a good one.” There was a touch of envy in her voice.
Mavillius shivered and drummed his feet and his black mouth gulped fishlike as he tried to suck air.
Sephony turned his head and touched his nape.
“Through and through.”
Willowyn asked: “All the way?”
“All the way. Relatively clean; you could probably string a banner through his gizzard.”
Willowyn nodded. Her eyes held little expression but her lips were moist and her cheeks flushed. “You should do the reading,” she said. “The boy’s reading.” There was an audible click as she swallowed. “Now, before he goes.”
Sephony rummaged in her pockets.
“Don’t tell me you’ve lost it,” said Willowyn.
“I’ve not lost it. I quite remember putting it -- Ah. There.”
She unfolded the parchment while Mavillius gazed up at her. His skin had gone maggot white. He was bleeding like a spigot and his blood pooled around him and the moonlight fell on it and they could see their reflections on its black-red face.
Sephony said, “Get his hand up over the wound or he’ll surely bleed out before I’m finished.” Once this chore was attended -- Willowyn’s hand over Mavillius’s over the hole, the blood seeping out between all their fingers -- Sephony smoothed the parchment and began to recite.
“Father, you’ve done so much wrong to ma and me that… Actually, hmm. Perhaps some explanation is in order? Something along those lines.” She ruminated. She looked to her sister. “Do you think so, Will?”
“I couldn’t care.” Willowyn sighed. “Hold it tighter, you imbecile. Pressure. That’s the word of the day. Your last day, rather.”
Sephony cleared her throat. “Father, you’ve done --”
“Tighter, I said. Floundering gods!”
Sephony tore the parchment in half and tossed the pieces behind her. They fluttered to the alley floor like ragged wings. “Forget it. This is all so deadly pointless. Just give me the dogswallowing knife and let me finish him off so we can go collect our bounty and be on our merriest way.”
“Thank you,” Willowyn said, and handed the knife to her sister.
Concerning The Black Marsh / Heartblood
Willowyn kept low, refastening her claw to her wrist and thumbing the bindings on the other, making certain they were tight. She had fashioned that claw from Bartuc the Bloody, greatest enemy of the Viz-Jaq’taar. Willowyn cared nothing for vanquishing their nemesis; she only wanted his mythically cruel fingers.
She crept to the screen of reeds. Her legs moved in such a fashion as to barely disturb the water, her breath light and soundless through her nostrils.
Using Bartuc’s petrified fingers, she pushed the reeds aside, carefully, taking but a few stalks between the tines and then taking a few more, a few more. In her strange mind, Willowyn counted the moments until --
The swamp erupted behind her as Sephony, hidden in the muck and bracken, emerged and thrust her suwayyah at Willowyn, who was already ducking and spinning and -- under her sister’s guard -- burying her blades into Sephony’s chest. The punctured metal of her breastplate squealed. Sephony’s mouth fell open in a perfect O, a splash of dark blood shooting from the curved neck of her armour. Willowyn tried to plant the blades to the hilt but her sister gripped them with her bare hands and held them at precarious bay, her fingers slicing down to the bone. Willowyn pushed against it, twisting the claw in quarter circles, gritting her teeth behind her deadface mask and her eyes in the deadface sockets a pyre of lust and purest tragedy, the smouldering milk from which oblivion sips.
Willowyn drew back her free claw to finish it.
And with the last of her dwindling strength, the final reservoir from a pool the size of oceans, Sephony reared back and kicked her sister in the stomach with her bladed boots.
Disengagement and collapse. Dark planets with tortured orbits, careening through the marsh and falling where they may.
Willowyn floundered in the swamp but soon regained her composure.
Sephony did not. Sephony but whispered and mewled; touched lightly at the rent metal with her rent fingers. Barely above the waterline, she gasped and blinked in strange successions.
“You foolish girl,” Willowyn said while holding her belly, her voice hoarse yet curiously empty. “Foolish, foolish! What made you think such a puerile trick would fell me? What made you think it, you *****? Get up! You are not leaving me here in this screaming bog-bowel of a world. I will not stand for such patheticisms. Get up!”
With great effort Sephony obeyed. She managed to force herself to her knees, planting her blade in the muck to keep herself from toppling over. “Willowyn…” she said. Dark blood like silt cascaded from the bottom of her breastplate. “Willowyn…” A tear, luminescent in the moonlight, cleaned a path down her muddy cheek.
“Get up!”
“I can’t. The blood, it’s almost black.” Sephony coughed and it was like a sepulchre opening. “You know what that means.”
She did. She had seen it often enough. Heartblood.
“This is the end, Will.”
Willowyn unlaced her claws and tossed them in the mire. She did the same with her mask.
“Damn you,” she snarled. “You were always the weak one. Barely worth killing.”
“I know. I apologise. Next time will be better.”
“Next time? Sephony, you --”
“Come with me. ”
Her eyes, like pits of midnight in her pale, mud-streaked face. A filthy orchid mourning itself.
Sephony said: “Follow me across the rift.”
“Madness.”
Sephony smiled wanly. She said: “What isn’t?” She said: “Follow me, to what ever dark parliaments lay. We wanted nothingness and could not have it. Let’s have this. The Shadows Beyond. They can be our theatre, and we can battle there until the light of eternity snuffs. Centuries of warfare. Exquisite millennia of pain. Follow me.”
“I’ll do no such thing.”
“Very well. It’s your accord. But just know that I will be waiting for you in the Ephemera, and the first strike will be long coming, and rightfully mine. I’ll cast you into oblivion’s abyss before you can even flutter the wings of your tenebrous soul.”
She dropped her eyes. She hung her head.
“Goodbye, Will.”
“Wait --”
A breath. Held for a moment and then expelled, ushered tremulously from her lungs, and so the life from her body. Sephony fell forward, face-first into the swamp.
Silence.
Concerning Mavillius / The First Taste of Emptiness
Sephony wrenched the knife from his jittering chest and they both watched as he went and the jittering stopped. It wasn’t long and there was a coldness in his wake, a frightful coldness. It did not touch them. But they thought that one day it might.
Concerning The Black Marsh / Willowyn
She dropped to her rump and gazed upon the body. Her stomach was in bloody tatters and her face was as empty as her heart.
“Damn you,” she said.
All gods were immortal, Sephony had once spoken… but why weren’t they? Shouldn’t the ones who had killed so many gods be granted at least that?
It wasn’t meant to be, Willowyn knew. All immortality was a lie. Save for history, which devoured immortality.
History. The one beast they could never kill.
On hands and knees, Willowyn searched through the marsh. She siphoned mud between her fingers and thought of history, their greatest foe, whose quiet power was unparalleled. She thought of time, and how it passed, and how so much passed with it.
In the cold muck, so near to congealing for the encroaching winter, Willowyn found what she was looking for.
She cleared the mud from Bartuc’s hand. She noticed that the dried sinews used to lash the talons to the wristpiece were beginning to fray. There would be little sense in replacing it now, though.
Willowyn regarded the claw for a few moments before finally deciding to draw it across her own throat.
Thinking: You’ve always been the slow one. I’ll beat the wings of my tenebrous soul, beat them hard and fast, and pass you into the Ephemera. And that’s where I’ll be waiting to greet you. *****.
Concerning The Night of Orchids / The Beginning
The words were still fermenting in her brains. She considered them, said them back to herself.
All gods were immortal.
And look how many we’ve gone through already.
The orchid laying near her boot. Dead and soon to wither; mourning no longer.
“I hear,” Willowyn said, “that a great darkness has fallen upon the Western Kingdoms. Entsteig, in particular. I hear the Sisters of the Sightless Eye are building encampments at the forefronts of the battle. There’s been talk of demons. Ancient evil.”
“Believe any of it?”
Willowyn regarded the empty bottle of wine. “Enough to warrant a visit, I’d say. The bounties have grown so tedious. Magistrates. Would-be warriors. Shivering merchants and their shivering gems.”
Sephony nodded. “It’s decided, then. We set off for Entsteig in the morning.”
So began the Harvest. And buried deep within it, so deep that neither sister could see: the slow, steady count to zero.
Concerning The Third Lie / The Ending
It took no longer than two minutes for Willowyn to bleed out. Like her sister, she fell face-first into the swamp, her placid features caressed by the cold mud.
And roughly a minute after that, her sister pushed herself from the stagnant waters, gasping for air, swallowing great gulps of it and sputtering filth from her lips and nostrils. She pulled a bloated leech from her neck and crushed it in her palm. She pulled another from her cheek.
Disgusting creatures.
She splashed over to Willowyn’s corpse and turned it over. But not before pounding her suwayyah deep into Willowyn’s back.
It never hurt to be thorough.
Sephony gazed upon her beloved sister. The long, garish cut across her neck yawned open and spilled a mixture of watery blood and loam. Her skin was orchid white.
Willowyn’s eyes were close. Sephony opened them.
“You were always the stupid one.”
She dropped the corpse.
Using a nearby cypress for leverage, Sephony rose to her feet. It was not easy work. Finished, she leaned against it and began the task of unbuckling her breastplate. She hissed when she was forced to use her mutilated fingers.
The waterskin she had hidden there fell to her feet.
Sephony looked down at it, the slightest of grins on her lips. In the moonlight she could clearly see the three ragged punctures her sister had gouged into it.
What made you think, Willowyn had said, such a puerile trick would fell me?
Perhaps Willowyn was looking down on this right now, burning with the shame of her own ignorance. Her consummation of the third and final lie.
That would be grand.
“I didn’t think it, silly girl,” Sephony said to the sky. “In fact, I thought something else entirely!”
Of course Willowyn would have followed Sephony when she went behind the screen of reed to relieve herself. And of course Willowyn would have assumed Sephony knew Willowyn would follow her, and therefore lie in wait. And of course Willowyn would know this, and be ready to evade and attack.
Of course. All steps in a complicated dance.
Such bravado, Willowyn had said at the sight of Sephony emptying her waterskin. I’ll not be so foolhardy.
“But you were certainly foolish,” Sephony said, remembering how she had squatted behind the reeds and quickly scooped mud and sediment and stagnant water into the skin. How she had loosened her breastplate and tucked the skin under it, fastened it tight, and dipped under the swamp for her careful crawling swim behind her sister.
How she had devised a new step in an old dance.
The blood, it’s almost black, and then a cough fit for the stage. You know what that means.
Sephony laughed at the sky. “It means you’ve been tricked!”
But that was enough mirth. Although her chestwound was nowhere near as fatal as her sister assumed, it was nonetheless agonizing. She was having difficulty breathing. It felt as if a band of intrepid wasps had built a hive under her sternum.
So: Before dragging her sister from the marsh, and before giving her a proper burial (like the nameless barbarian’s), she would trek to the mossy shore and strip of her armour and clothing and dry her tortured flesh by the autumn moon. And then she would dress her wounds.
Willowyn was right. She didn’t want to get an infection.
Beautiful. Superlative. You made the world of Sanctuary come alive as few have done. The pacing is taut, and the arrangement of events enhances the story. There are too many memorable, meticulously crafted sentences to name. It is perhaps too verbose. The only other criticism that comes to mind is that while I can remember details such as what armor was worn, weapons were used, and deeds were performed, I could not attach a single one of these things to a particular Isadora sister. It could just be me, and it could become clearer on a second reading, or else they're too similar to tell apart. That they're the only characters with any real depth was obviously intentional and not at all a flaw, and I do think you gave them depth enough to be believable as heartless killers with a literal bloodlust, but I can't help thinking I should know who Sephony killed, who Willowyn killed, which one of them wears what kind of armor, and other things without checking first. But then, I shouldn't have had to look up judgment to make sure it was misspelled, or obelisk to know what one was. It's probably just me. Speaking of misspellings, you made a few. I'm sure the time limit for editing your posts has elapsed; I only point these out now so you can change them before your story goes up on TDL, or wherever else you want it.*
Quote:
They circled each other. Two dark shapes, ankle deep in the swamp water, the water gleaming like oil under the glossed eye of the moon; two dark shapes in the Black Marsh, amid the weeds and whorls and bloated emerald shoots, the spongy moss and loam, the swayback trunks of cypress tress; under the broken globe of moon, circling, breathing hard but with great control. Gossamer ghosts of breath shuddering from their angle faces. Phantoms fading in the damp autumn air.
Did you mean trees and angled?
Quote:
Willowyn feigned with her opposite and come in low and fast with the other
Should be came.
Quote:
She smiled and her lip broke wider, a tiny mouth swearing blood down her bruised chin.
I don't understand how "swearing" fits here. Can you explain?
Quote:
His insectile legs, many of which snapped or severed, beat hollow percussions against each other.
Do you mean that his legs snapped or severed from his thrashing, or that they were already in that shape? It seems like it would be the latter, but the wording points to the former.
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"At this ending?" Sephony examined her own injuries but made no effort to bandage them.
This ending or his ending?
Quote:
"Take my life and I'll have your souls. "
Extraneous space. The most extreme of nitpicks, I know, but this story's too close to perfection to let anything by.
Quote:
Whetstone against metal, the beats in between mute vowels of judgement.
Should be judgment.
Quote:
"You would have thought a man from Kurast," Willowyn said, "would have faired better in the jungle."
"He faired well enough."
Should be fared, both times.
Quote:
The first thing they saw of him was his smooth bald plate in the window of his hut as they stood on his dirt walk and waited for him. The sky was cloudless and flaxen, the sun haemorrhaging between the jagged peaks of Mount Arreat, basking the crags and outcrops in vermilion.
Should be pate and hemorrhaging.
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He asked: The both of you, for one at a time?
For should be or.
Quote:
I will not stand for such patheticisms.
If patheticisms is a word, it shouldn't be. I advise rewriting this sentence.
Quote:
"Come with me. "
Hope I'm not boring you.
Quote:
Willowyn's eyes were close. Sephony opened them.
Should be closed.
Quote:
Of course Willowyn would have followed Sephony when she went behind the screen of reed to relieve herself.
Should be reeds.
Quote:
So: Before dragging her sister from the marsh, and before giving her a proper burial (like the nameless barbarian's), she would trek to the mossy shore and strip of her armour and clothing and dry her tortured flesh by the autumn moon.
Did you mean off?
I nearly "corrected" sepulchre before I noticed you were using British English, or English English, or the Queen's English, or whatever you call it. So if I pointed at any britishisms and said "wrong", you know why.
*In case that was too subtle, I think your story's ****ing brilliant, and that anyone who turns it away has standards I cannot begin to comprehend. I'm sure it will be an instant favorite of Anyee's, if she hasn't already seen it and fallen in love.
I thought most of this story was quite good, and overall I’d call it an excellent read. Your writing style’s enjoyable, your imagery is excellent throughout, and your spelling and grammar are generally strong, so this story really flows. However, there are two (in my opinion) major problems with this piece. The first flaw is what you’ve made these characters; both Sephony and Willowyn were very difficult individuals for me to believe. I couldn’t follow their motivations half the time, and therefore I couldn’t see them as real, or even possible. Also, they’re both portrayed in black and white, or black and black as the case may be, in that they have a great number of qualities that would be seen as selfish or mercenary, but no balancing agent of any sort opposite these. Now, maybe you know different folks than I do, but even the greatest (expletive deleted) that I know has at least something in him that I’d call admirable, or at least pleasant. I’d imagine that even going through what they did should leave something untouched, and they seem this one-sided all the time to me, even before the Worldstone fight. The second problem for me is that this story goes very heavy on the dramatic and the longwinded, which is something that I normally don’t mind, but here it feels like you’re beating the reader over the head in a number of instances.
Here are specific comments on Part 1; more will follow if there aren’t a bunch of new posts or you say that you don’t want my criticism.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Clarke667
The years passed. That was the first lie they were told; not by a person, or even a god, but a lie told by their own flesh. A lie that grew inside of them like a weed...History consumed itself, and them with it, and the pain of this was not in the subtle surgery of their erasure, but in the fact that even after everything they’d accomplished, they offered history no meal. They were but a morsel in its teeth.
These two paragraphs convey an interesting idea, but they’re a little...excessive. Your writing states each thought three or four different ways, with copious uses of (well written) imagery. Individually, each sentence is fine, but strung together, they sound overly grandiose. I have a somewhat similar problem in my writing, as I tend to spend too much time painting out details or settings, so I know that this probably was a whole lot of fun to think up and write, but, as the people of this forum and others have told me, there’s a point where it just gets to be too much. I’d suggest dropping a few sentences here and there, or paring down the wordiness.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Clarke667
She pulled a petal from the orchid. Half a white face in the night; sad to begin with -- the petals curved like tears -- and sadder still with a tear broken loose and in her hand and the other tear so lonely, weeping against her thumb, a half-face mourning the death of tragedy.
Again, this is a great image, and each idea by itself is strong, but this paragraph is overkill. One descriptive clause after “the petals curved like tears” would have been fine, if not a little repetitive; three feels like you’re waving it in the reader’s face and saying, “It’s sad, OK?” Also, “the death of tragedy” sounds wrong to me; should that be “the tragedy of death?”
Quote:
Originally Posted by Clarke667
“What have you been thinking,” Willowyn asked. She passed the bottle and regarded the stars.
There should be a question mark at the end of the spoken part. Also, I don’t know if “regarded” is the best word for what you’re trying to convey; though it is correct, I personally would use “gazed up at the stars.”
Quote:
Originally Posted by Clarke667
Sephony and Willowyn, the Isadora sisters. Names whispered in dark places, amongst men with dull eyes and bright coin. Secret legends of misery.
This seems like it was just pasted into this part of the story. There’s no transition, really, from the preceding sentence to this one, or from this one to the next sentence. I’m not sure if there’s a better place to put this, but if you can’t think of a way to work it in, you could probably get away with deleting it altogether.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Clarke667
Two dark shapes, ankle deep in the swamp water, the water gleaming like oil under the glossed eye of the moon; two dark shapes in the Black Marsh, amid the weeds and whorls and bloated emerald shoots, the spongy moss and loam, the swayback trunks of cypress tress; under the broken globe of moon, circling, breathing hard but with great control.
This is too long to be one sentence. As it is, it's way too easy to get lost the words and have to start over. Personally, I tend to write long as well, and I used to, and still do, get comments saying that it's hard at times to track through my sentences. My rule of thumb is if it takes more than one semicolon to be a sentence, it’s not supposed to be one; use this guideline if you want, and I hope it's helpful in any case. Also, the part after the second semicolon isn’t a complete sentence on its own, so the semicolon doesn’t work grammatically.
A side note: baldfaced game references, in this example “the Black Marsh,” are generally not a good idea. While Diablo fan fiction by definition works within the realm of the games made by Blizzard, no one wants to read direct translations of things from the game. This particular instance wouldn’t be so bad if you didn’t capitalize it, making it evident that you’re referring to the game.
And, while I’m at it: why? You never explain if there’s any reason behind this fight; you just go on and describe it. Granted, you do that very well, but as I said before, if I don’t have a clue as to why they're doing what they're doing, they’re very difficult to think of as realistic, and therefore they’re not as interesting. At the heart of every good story are characters that the reader can empathize with, feel sorry for, admire, or just believe as real; in fact, they may well be all that matters in a tale.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Clarke667
Gossamer ghosts of breath shuddering from their angle faces. Phantoms fading in the damp autumn air.
Some thoughts: “shuddering” should probably be “shuddered,” and “angle faces” doesn’t sound right to me. What did you mean by that? Finally, the last clause isn’t a complete sentence; I’d recommend combining it with the preceding sentence using a comma.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Clarke667
Save for the hush of their breathing and the shear of their boots in the oil, the marsh was still and silent.
I’m not sure what you mean by “shear of their boots in the oil.”
Quote:
Originally Posted by Clarke667
At another time, years ago (since devoured by history), it had been much different here, but the sisters brought the Harvest and all that was blood was bloodied, and all bloodless undead: put to watery rest.
“Another time” and “years ago” are redundant, the colon after undead should be replaced with “were,” and I’m not sure why you added the parenthetical comment, since it doesn’t seem to be of much use there.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Clarke667
Most of Willowyn’s gear was of this variety, personally tracked and trapped, tanned and stitched, reconfigured.
Hmm...I can imagine people in a classic fantasy sort of story “tracking,” “trapping,” “tanning,” or “stitching” something, but “reconfigured”? Maybe it’s just me, but I think that sounds rather anachronistic.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Clarke667
Sheering through the swamp, splashing foul curtains of dark water along her sides, Willowyn attacked with both her claws, slashing wildly, the steel flashing but mere inches from Sephony’s startled face as she did her best to ward off the blows, wheeling backward against the onslaught, the blood thumping in her ears and the papery taste of fear in her throat; thoughts but garbled noise; the molten agony of her sister’s blades as they kissed her flank so deeply, kissing great swatches of flesh from her side, a kiss from the tongue of red ruination.
Again, look at how long this sentence is; once it hits a certain point, it just starts dragging on and on in the reader’s mind, even if it’s very well done. The other problem is that when you write long sentences, your grammar tends to break down a bit. The phrase “thoughts but garbled noise” should not be separated from anything by a semicolon, and the same goes for the part after the last semicolon, since they aren’t complete clauses. Finally, “shearing” has an “a” in it, if you mean figuratively that Willowyn was cutting her way through the swamp.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Clarke667
Smelling the blood, enraptured by it, Willowyn redoubled her efforts, though more concisely now: gone were the wild blows: they had done their brutish job and scored a clean hit.
Technically, your use of colons above works, but setting off “gone were the wild blows” as you do seems unnecessary to me. Also, “smelling the blood, enraptured by it” could become more concise as “Enraptured by the smell of blood,...”
Quote:
Originally Posted by Clarke667
Now, she remembered her training and preformed the techniques, those age-old canons of combat, the postures of bloodshed.
Again, you’re repeating one idea to the point where it just gets tired. I admit to doing things like this as well, but given the number of instances of this structure in your piece, I feel as though you’re sledgehammering home every single idea. Also, “performed” has the “e” before the “r.”
Quote:
Originally Posted by Clarke667
Her attacks were as smooth as amber whiskey, as precise as a lash from a scorpion’s tail, and in that moment, Willowyn no longer existed.
Whiskey isn’t a medieval drink, being invented around the start of the 16th century, so I’d be surprised to see any reference to it in the narration of a Diablo fan fiction set in the world of the games. For example, I could compare Belial’s mind to a quantum supercomputer, but unless I was writing a futuristic/Diablo combination story, it would sound ridiculously out of place.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Clarke667
The rush-song of tumultuous water around her, the foul and grime stinging her eyes; the blood spurting merrily from her wounds; she clenched the fist of her mind and fixed her resolve. Ignored it. Filtered it out.
A general rule for semicolon use: see if you’re connecting two complete clauses (subject + verb = complete.) If you aren’t, then it’s not a proper use of a semicolon. Also, the way this reads, the “it” in the last two fragments appears to refer to “resolve,” which is probably not what you wanted.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Clarke667
She would not lose. She would not lose.
A suggestion: italicize or set apart in some other way the second iteration of “She would not lose.” In my opinion, it’d have a little more punch than it does now that way, but this is such a minor detail that I’m not sure how much it even matters.
Anyway, I’d say that this is an overall excellent piece in almost every respect. Good work, and thanks for posting!
P.S.: I wrote this prior to seeing Snowglare's post, so I'll mention here that I disagree on the point concerning who did what. It seemed clear enough to me in almost every case, though you do tend to present them as two parts of a unit.
First and foremost, thank you for the kind words and encouragement. That was quite neat of you. Really made my day to know that someone derived a bit of enjoyment from my work.
And your criticisms? Double thanks. You really went through the story with the ole fine-toothed comb, which was also neat. Yeah, a lot of those errors were “nitpicky”, but sometimes those are the worst kind… there’s nothing more embarrassing than getting all dressed up in a suit and tie, only to realize that your zipper is down or there’s toilet paper hanging from the bottom of your wingtips. To me, that’s what spelling and/or grammar errors (in abundance) to do a story, so thanks for snagging them for me. Those little mistakes tend to slide right over my eyes, no matter how many times I re-read or re-write.
Of the criticisms themselves: Most of everything you’ve outlined, I agree with. You questioned the validity of “patheticsms”, and well, mea culpa: Yeah, I made up that word, and yeah, I thought it sounded cool at the time. But looking back on it now… yuck.
The only one of your qualms I think I can defend with a straight face is: “She smiled and her lip broke wider, a tiny mouth swearing blood down her bruised chin.” Personally, I love the hell out of that line. The blood didn’t drip down her chin, nor did it trickle; the blood positively swore. I suppose I could’ve gone with ‘gushed’, but where’s the fun in that?
Oh, and as to my English: not British, but hella close. I’m Canadian, which is to say, a frozen Brit.
All in all, I’d have to say I’m glad I followed a whim and posted here on the forum before sending the story off to The Dark Library. I’ll definitely be posting work here in the future (for better or for worse).
Glad you liked it. I was half-afraid that this place would be really ‘exclusive’ or ‘elitist’ or some-such (as certain places on the ‘net are), but for once I’m glad to be proven wrong. Now, you had some questions/comments about the story, so please bear with me as I attempt to utilize the quote-function…
Quote:
Originally Posted by RevenantsKnight
The first flaw is what you’ve made these characters; both Sephony and Willowyn were very difficult individuals for me to believe. I couldn’t follow their motivations half the time, and therefore I couldn’t see them as real, or even possible. Also, they’re both portrayed in black and white, or black and black as the case may be, in that they have a great number of qualities that would be seen as selfish or mercenary, but no balancing agent of any sort opposite these.
I could answer this directly, but I think it also ties in with another of your questions, namely:
Quote:
Originally Posted by RevenantsKnight
And, while I’m at it: why? You never explain if there’s any reason behind this fight; you just go on and describe it. Granted, you do that very well, but as I said before, if I don’t have a clue as to why they're doing what they're doing, they’re very difficult to think of as realistic, and therefore they’re not as interesting. At the heart of every good story are characters that the reader can empathize with, feel sorry for, admire, or just believe as real; in fact, they may well be all that matters in a tale.
Now, I know I can’t change your mind about these things… I’ve been at this crazy writing thing for long enough to know that when one likes (or doesn’t like) something, no amount of convincing will change one’s mind. Either it sits well with you, or it doesn’t. So rest assured I won’t be going that route.
But I would like to explain what I was trying to achieve with these characters and this story. Sure, Willowyn and Sephony are somewhat one-dimentional, portrayed as “black and black” as you aptly described it… but that was sort of the point. In fantasy, whether it be fiction or game or film, there always tends to be the ‘valliant hero’. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about: the wandering warrior, the chivalrous knight, the hobbit, etc. These are the good folks, and they’re fighting the good fight, too. Saving the world from the darkness. But I got to wondering, wouldn’t a major crisis also attract a negative element as well? And not just the ‘flawed hero’ archetype, either: I mean the worst of the worst. The scum. The Unrepentants. In short, the Isadora Sisters.
To the Isadoras, life is killing. For some reason, they’re wired up differently from everyone else, basically a medival-esque version of our modern-day sociopaths, no remorse, no regret. They’ve embarked upon their quest not out of alturistism, but simply for the glory of it (there was a chapter in the first draft where the sisters actually caught Diablo while still in human form, and ulitmately decided to set him free so they could continue hunting him across Santuary).
So that’s the Isadoras. As to what the story is actually about… Well, I almost see it as a kind of moralist’s tale, how the sisters became so addicted to death and murder that, when all the greatest enemies were vanquished, they first turned on their fellow Warriors of Light, and then each other. I always saw that as the tragedy of the story, how the urge to kill was so deeply ingraned in them that they could never stop it, even when that meant battling each other.
Okay, that was a bit long-winded. But I felt it was somewhat necessary, not only to indulge my own artistic vanity, but to pose you this question: All these things that I’ve described… were they actually in the story? I know that sounds a bit silly, but I’m serious. “The Art of Dying” went through many, many drafts, and also survived a compete PC meltdown; the period between the third draft and the forth was almost two months. So I get the feeling that a few of the themes present in the ealier drafts might’ve gotten lost in the transition.
So if you can take a few minutes to answer that question, I’d certainly appreciate it.
The rest of your suggestions were quite good, though. Thanks for the tip on ‘whiskey’ – I had no clue it was such a new-ish development. Looks like I’m gonna have to find a viable alternative.
The only other comment I’ll have to balk at is the semi-colon thing. Yeah, I know that it’s supposed to link together two complete sentences, but I’m relatively certain it can also be used stylistically (if ungrammatically). I think the rule of thumb is “period = pause, semi-colon = beat, comma = half-beat”. But maybe not. Though, what’s the fun of a grammar rule if you can’t break the hell out of it?
One last thing:
Quote:
Originally Posted by RevenantsKnight
Quote:
Originally Posted by Clarke667
Sephony and Willowyn, the Isadora sisters. Names whispered in dark places, amongst men with dull eyes and bright coin. Secret legends of misery.
This seems like it was just pasted into this part of the story. There’s no transition, really, from the preceding sentence to this one, or from this one to the next sentence. I’m not sure if there’s a better place to put this, but if you can’t think of a way to work it in, you could probably get away with deleting it altogether.
This gave me a bit of a chuckle, because that is exactly what I did. At the very last minute, I realized that I might be writing a prequel of sorts to this story titled “The Isadora Sisters”… yet, in the final draft of The Art of Dying, I never once mentioned their last names. So I just crossed my fingers and threw it in, and you’re right: it sticks out like a sore cliché. Just thought that was funny.
Now, I know I can’t change your mind about these things…
Really? You did a pretty good job of that, so far.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Clarke667
But I got to wondering, wouldn’t a major crisis also attract a negative element as well? And not just the ‘flawed hero’ archetype, either: I mean the worst of the worst. The scum. The Unrepentants. In short, the Isadora Sisters.
Ahh...*lightbulb flicks on*. From that perspective, the way you set them up makes perfect sense. The only thing I'd say about this approach is that it has possible problems similar to the "valiant hero" archetype: it's very easy to make them not people as much as ideals/beliefs. In my opinion, you avoided this trap...almost. Since there's no balance, they're not quite distinguished from representations of more abstract ideas for me; they don't retain much of anything that people consider "human." There doesn't need to be much there at all; my thought when reading was that Sephony's reference to Willowyn as "beloved" was almost what I meant by some sort of balance. If you want to follow this path (which is by no means necessary for this to be an excellent story, since it already is), I'd suggest expanding that part just a little to allow in some shard of remorse. It'd be enough if Sephony drops the total serial killer mode just for a few seconds, to show that she's human in fact as well as name. But yes, this does help understand your story, and this does "sit better" in hindsight.
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Originally Posted by Clarke667
As to what the story is actually about… Well, I almost see it as a kind of moralist’s tale, how the sisters became so addicted to death and murder that, when all the greatest enemies were vanquished, they first turned on their fellow Warriors of Light, and then each other. I always saw that as the tragedy of the story, how the urge to kill was so deeply ingraned in them that they could never stop it, even when that meant battling each other.
*Lightbulb gets brighter*...that's definitely an interesting take on the whole thing. Read on, if you would:
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Originally Posted by Clarke667
Okay, that was a bit long-winded. But I felt it was somewhat necessary, not only to indulge my own artistic vanity, but to pose you this question: All these things that I’ve described… were they actually in the story? I know that sounds a bit silly, but I’m serious.
So if you can take a few minutes to answer that question, I’d certainly appreciate it.
First off, that's not a "silly" question at all to me; I ask it all the time, 'cause it's always good to find out if my writing did what I was hoping it would for other people. So, to answer your question...sorta. Parts of the "Unrepentant" type did pop into my head; the only thing that was missing was the parallel between absolute good and absolute evil, though that may just be me. I did get what their motives were for killing the Three and the paladin, but the reason for fighting amongst themselves...well, I kinda missed that, if it was there. In fact, that "What else would she spend their bounty on?" bit lead me originally to believe that it was a dispute over treasure, but no loot was ever mentioned. Same with the part with the barbarian; it was just...there, without any backstory at all other than the implication that he was the one who helped them kill the Three. These were the major reasons I commented that their motives were unknown, since there isn't even any premediation between them in either case, stuff just happens. So...I'd say some of those elements weren't there, though if other people pick up on them, I probably just missed them.
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Originally Posted by Clarke667
Thanks for the tip on ‘whiskey’ – I had no clue it was such a new-ish development. Looks like I’m gonna have to find a viable alternative.
I feel obliged to mention that I'm not an alcoholic... :lol:
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Originally Posted by Clarke667
Yeah, I know that it’s supposed to link together two complete sentences, but I’m relatively certain it can also be used stylistically (if ungrammatically). I think the rule of thumb is “period = pause, semi-colon = beat, comma = half-beat”.
Hmm...never heard that stylistic rule anywhere, though that hardly means it's wrong. You learn stuff every day, I suppose...
My jumping all over that was mostly because grammatical mistakes (or what I see as mistakes) in creative writing drive me nuts, much more so than for most people. Again, now that you've explained your reasoning, the story does seem better.
Hope that helps, and good luck with any further pieces!
Wow. That story is so far beyond what the game deserves that DII ought to apologize.
On the other hand, there is the whole "shared context" thing, which provides a ready-made backdrop in which a great story can be written without the tedium of introducing the world-mechanical "stuff". Well exploited, then.
Some nits:
-"Now, she remembered her training and preformed the techniques..." Should be "performed"
-"...holding, holding, knees buckling, sweet and blood pouring..." Should be "sweat"
-"The words were still fermenting in her brains..." Brains?
-"The orchid laying near her boot." Should be "lying"
-“Follow me, to what ever dark parliaments lay." This is incomplete, and there is that lie/lay problem again. Lie ahead, lie beyond... something. But I like the splitting of "whatever" here, definitely. Lends a time component to the image.
Word usage:
-"She siphoned mud between her fingers..." Should be "sifted" perhaps. Seined, even. Siphoned is not apt.
-"The long, garish cut across her neck yawned open and spilled a mixture of watery blood and loam." Loam? Say what? I know you mean dirt dissolved in water, but to me, loam describes soil consistency as well as composition. This gave me pause.
-"...the sun haemorrhaging between the jagged peaks of Mount Arreat, basking the crags and outcrops in vermilion." Perhaps “bathing” instead of basking, since the sun cannot "bask" something else. It's, er, a directional verb. Yeah.
-There are some places where repetition was annoying, sometimes the intentional re-use, other times just from not choosing a synonym. Chacun a son gout and all, but you might want to re-read again and see if anything strikes your eye as overdone.
-Jittering- fine word, but used often, it begins to stick out. Probably can't get away with more than once or twice in a piece this length. Personally, I like “juddering” as an alternative, although it suffers the same notoriety.
-"...a tiny mouth swearing blood down her bruised chin." Holy crap, that's good! A wound is a mouth born of violence. It "speaks" blood, and by rights should be pissed off. And ya can't say, "cursing blood" since people will think you simply misspelled "coursing". Sweet!
Oh, and I liked “patheticisms”. Since it was used in dialogue, it seemed revealing of Willowyn’s character. She spits it out along with so many other words, clutching fresh wounds, hoping/fearing she has killed her sister, going for a condescending tone and maybe not quite making it. Or so it looked to me.
Style:
-"Willowyn regarded the claw for a few moments before finally deciding to draw it across her own throat."
Thinking: You’ve always been the slow one. I’ll beat the wings of my tenebrous soul, beat them hard and fast, and pass you into the Ephemera. And that’s where I’ll be waiting to greet you.]"
"Finally deciding to draw it across her throat" is much less forceful than "finally drawing it across her throat". In the first case we see the intent but not the action. Is that intentional, done for pacing perhaps?
The plot/storytelling:
I loved the non-linear way the pieces of the story were laid out. REALLY nice.
But perhaps I'm missing something: they were assassins who became bored with mundane wet work and signed on for the crusade against the Brothers Three for the opportunities presented. So, the orchid-and-wine scenes show them making that plan, yet therein they talk in terms of already having "gone through so many" gods. Sorry if I failed to connect the dots, but what gods had they gone through at that point?
Wow. That story is so far beyond what the game deserves that DII ought to apologize.
On the other hand, there is the whole "shared context" thing, which provides a ready-made backdrop in which a great story can be written without the tedium of introducing the world-mechanical "stuff". Well exploited, then.
I'm gonna have to agree with you a hundred and ten percent, here. Well, not about the story being so far beyond the game, and DII having to apologize… that would make me a Douchebag of the First Order. But concerning the “shared context” and the avoidance of tedious “world-mechanical stuff”: Amen. I’ve really gotten into this whole “fan-fic” thing in the last couple of months. Others have called it constricting, working in a ready-made universe, but personally I find it liberating for precisely the reasons you’ve stated: There’s so little gruntwork involved that you can just fly around your story at a breakneck speed and pretty much assume that the reader knows what DII place/character/event you’re referencing.
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Originally Posted by Disco-neck Ted
Some nits:
My poor disfigured story. The Art of Dying’s got misplaced words like a hooker’s got genital warts. Which is to say, in abundance. Thanks to everyone for their patience with it.
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Originally Posted by Disco-neck Ted
-There are some places where repetition was annoying, sometimes the intentional re-use, other times just from not choosing a synonym. Chacun a son gout and all, but you might want to re-read again and see if anything strikes your eye as overdone.
Repetition, another bane of mine. Sometimes it’s intentional, for pacing and such, but most times not. It’s not a rare sight for me to write a phrase like “he turned around and said,” and then stop and realize that I’ve most likely used it twenty times in as many pages. And then I get depressed, visualizing my characters turning around and around and around, like they’re standing on dervishes, or perhaps having a very intense and meaningful conversation on a Merry-Go-Round.
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Originally Posted by Disco-neck Ted
Oh, and I liked “patheticisms”.
The jury’s still out on patheticisms. I don’t exactly hate it, but I’m starting to think it has far too many syllables for something that’s supposedly being said when you’re badly wounded and your sister is dying.
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Originally Posted by Disco-neck Ted
But perhaps I'm missing something: they were assassins who became bored with mundane wet work and signed on for the crusade against the Brothers Three for the opportunities presented. So, the orchid-and-wine scenes show them making that plan, yet therein they talk in terms of already having "gone through so many" gods. Sorry if I failed to connect the dots, but what gods had they gone through at that point?
That’s an old trick I learned from HP Lovecraft: When you want to convey a sense of grandness or, errr, “epic-osity”, don’t write what happened: hint at it. At least that’s the theory… I may have learned the technique from old HPL, but I’ve yet to perfect it. Basically, I wanted to give the story a feeling of being “at the end” of what must have been a long and arduous journey, that the Isadora sisters have been busy, very busy, even before we meet them in the marsh (or even in the orchid-field). So, if you saw that line and it made you wonder what the sisters were up to before the storyline started, then I guess I win. But, if it made you wonder to the point of irritating you with the lack of an answer, then I guess I lose (or, I have to re-write).
RevenantsKnight
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