STORY BEGINNING

The Story A Boy Wrote
by Jacob Strout

The cavern was as dark as the stone it was made of, only pierced shallowly by the beam of light held by the party. The sounds of the river echoed drip drip in unfathomable steady reason. The smells of dirt, mud, and mold upon stale air bit their nostrils.

The female of the party peered over the edge of the safety below and beforeâ€"sighing with disgust. She sat with the torch, drawing out another to light and drop into the expanse. The small orb slowly faded from view.

“A long way,” mentioned Saythe conversationally. “I wonder how many dresses from Miss Alvene it would take to tag from end to end to that bottom.”

Imus straightened from standing next to Faylithe, and glanced down with a reply. “With or without the Ladies wearing them?”

Saythe smiled with perversion. “Wellâ€"”

“Quiet, Saytheâ€"Imus.” The strong voice of their elder, Belivant. “Your tavern musings are not fit for the ears of your sister.” He gave both a solid stare, the demand for obedience. Imus and Saythe lowered their eyes, muttering apologies in a half-hearted manner. It was not as if their musings did not exist when Belivant was not there to forestall them around their sister.


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Anyone interested in the rest of the first scene? Fairly long in terms of scenes, almost 5,000 words. I can post it in smaller increments.

I'm just sort of dying for comments. No one ever seems to want to read it. :( Maybe I sucks.

editted: To add in line breaks.

For this particular story I decided not to physically describe my main characters. Call it a trait of this story, because I normally do. I figured by the end of the first scene the characters would be fresh in description without any indication from the actual text.

Here is the next batch of the story, but not the entire scene. I may or may not have missed some italicizing, as you have to re-do it when you paste it from a word doc.

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Faylithe brushed her knees as she stood, in a mood to seemingly ignore everything. She turned and began the way they had come. As they walked along, Belivant gave Faylithe her company of silenceâ€"as she often requested. Imus and Saythe began talking gently between themselves, discovering one another's hopes concerning Feast Day.

“Syn? Synluna? From the fletcher!?” Saythe spoke with disbelief. Imus simply nodded, his embarrassment revealed in his color.

“She has not taken note of me,” he added, as though to quell hope.

“How should she notice a man without a face? You bury yourself in your cloak and hood whenever we shop there! And I was convinced you had a love for the smell of feather, contorting your face into a pretty little pucker!” Saythe laughed, pinching Imus' cheek despite the sullen reaction.

Belivant looked over his shoulder from a few paces ahead and gave them both a look that they noticed only after a moment. Both cleared their throats and looked in opposite directions. It would take them a few minutes to begin talking again, at least, but this was enough time. The elder and much thicker sibling put his arm around Faylithe and gave her an affectionate squeeze, smiling down at her.

Belivant said, “We will find it soon, my sister Faylithe.” She only joined her looks with his own for a flicker, and stared at the ground before her thereafter. It wasn't the torn and scarred visage of his appearance that took her cheer; she was often uncomfortable when things revolved around her, he knew. If only Queens ruled the world as she would, maybe they would have peace.

Imus and Saythe began whispering again, tone reflecting agreement over a subject.

Belivant saw a fork in the cavern ahead; one that curved right and up, and one that spiraled down and left. They took the passage to the right, and the end of the darkness began to speckle each frame of vision. The white sparkles of light crept through the visage of darkness until it finally enveloped it, and the smell of dank soil was replaced by a breath of fresh wind and grass.

The torch was tossed off to the side before they stepped onto softer land with a bright sky. The pigmentation beyond the crawling white clouds was a hair-brushed purple, as it might have been on any warm day. Imus and Saythe stretched their arms and legs, appearing to both be glad for natural light. Even Belivant smiled a bit, feeling more relaxed. Faylithe was the only one not noticeably affected, disregarding to look about at the new environment.

The party wrapped themselves up in their scarves; tugging tightly each cloak. Hands were secured under garment or glove, and eyes behind a palm. Belivant led, while Imus and Saythe held on to his shoulder; Faylithe, placing her left hand on his neck, made up the tail end of the pack.

Yellow blossoms swirled past in scattered ideas of migration as the wind took them, plucked and torn from the cubbies of the mighty tree trunks. Should one touch bare skin, it would be unpleasant at best. The branches leaned and dipped, much similar to the sight of a child trying to tug her father along by the hand. With a fearful mind, they might have been hungry giants swooping their arms down to snatch up prey.

What was said to die in these plains during the day was feasted upon at night. Saythe and Imus had listened to a few stories, of the drunken and exaggerated sort, but had invested much doubt into the idea of monsters that only appeared under the moon. Well, at least after Belivant gave them both a good slap. ‘Sometimes wisdom only comes with age,' Belivant often said.

The group suddenly halted as the leader did.

“We are at the rock,” Belivant intoned, turning around and letting the hands upon him drop. Each uncovered their eyes and glanced around, nodding.

They stood now under the small overhead of boulders stacked in a misshapen shape, famous for its protection from the blossoms and ability to give rest to any traveling man. The splintering petals themselves were now picking up speed and numbers as the wind increasedâ€"as though the lord over the storm was furious it had missed four more meals. Many men had fallen to the flowers called by just as many names: Blight Flowers, Leech Plant, or the Soaring Needle Pricksâ€"as Imus called them. He seemed a bit fond of his own variation, for its creativity and poetic appeal.

The place itself could be considered relaxing only in the reality of its protection, for it had shown no signs of comfort. The rock walls were sometimes, as they all noticed, splattered with a coat of bloodâ€"only to be removed the next time they passed through; whether the city or the unexplained did such was a topic Belivant instructed his brothers not to inquire about, or he would resort to teaching them wisdom in public. The plant life around them was scarce and often dead, tucked away to starve in cracks of the stone or torn apart as it was trampled underfoot; seeming by groups of feet more in number than their own band. While Belivant knew the benefit to risking their lives in crossing the plains, he did not know what others might gain.

A raspy voice exhaled the words, “Find it?”

Belivant inclined his head to the dark shape at the wall furthest from them. “A river that still runs yet underneath.” A cackle from the old man followed his rise, lingering into a laugh at the end of his breath.

“Runs deep and runs clean. Runs deep and runs clean.” He began picking up his several oddities: A bow with no string, a clock with no hands yet ticked loudly, a second cloak that he wore over his first yet in terrible repair, and a dead nightingale that he always pressed against his heart as he stepped. The tick ting tick grew louder as he closed in on the party, a dragging trail of dust behind him. He always seemed to be shaking grit free from him with each movement. Intentional or not, Belivant could not say, or even if the man knew he was so bound to the earth.

For the best was to not ask, however, like so many things. The old man was one of them, after all.

“She was excited to see it? Yes and yes?” The old man leaned forward and perked his bushy eyebrows quizzically. Imus and Saythe often, or as often as they were distanced from Belivant, took wagers on how much the brow would creep up the forehead of the old man; the rules indicated that only the tallest point mattered. Currently, Saythe was muttering silently as he slipped Imus a coin, for it rested on the fourth crease and not the fifth crinkle just above that.

Belivant replied, “We were unable to find it for certain. I do believe we found the place to return to should we acquire the right materials.” The correct path, or what was thought to be so in the cavern, had been collapsed. They would likely be forced to descend the cliff to arrive at the river.

The old man staggered in a bend to peer into the eyes of Faylithe, revealing his spaced and worn teeth as he smiled. “You can just taste it, and taste it, and taste it.” He lowered his voice to a whisper, “Can't you?” He moved his free hand to reach out and touch her. Belivant slapped the eager limb short in a grip at the wrist, and with a stare that a wall would give an ill-fit army, looked down through the eyes of a creature that might become an enemy.

“You know the price we paid. We will pay no more.” If the often bestial tone of Belivant did not frighten, the portrait of a monster would. The eldest held on until the old man lowered his eyes and dipped the front of his body in a sweeping bow several timesâ€"all while trying to free himself. He was granted with pardon after his few attempts.

“Yes and yes the price was paid!”

Imus gave the guide an uneasy look, moving forward to whisper into the ear of Faylithe a spot of comfort. She nodded in appreciation, lacking fright or worry. Saythe began a quiet conversation with Belivant as the old man stepped around carefully, apparently wrestling with something unseen.

“Why do we trust him?” Saythe inquired.

Belivant returned over his shoulder, “There were fouler choices, brother.” He directed his voice to the old man again, saying, “When shall we begin again?”

The old man stopped in his pacing and lifted his eyes from the book he had procured from no where and nothing. “We cannot move yet, no and not yet no. Perhaps and perhaps later.” He pointed a shaky finger to the storm outside, his teeth now chattering from some chill that did not touch the others. “It is terrible, and terrible how it howls. It howls now for you. It knows you now. We must fight it on our return, not return again and again.”

Belivant shook his head, declaring, “We will be returning again.”

“Torture and torture! Torture awaits, do not and not!” The man, who could be resembled to one only in shell, was horrified at the idea. “He will not forgive and forgive.”

“It is wind. There is no he,” Belivant assured for everyone gruffly.

The guide worked his jaw in a spasm as he dribbled along his chin. “There is he! There is he and he and you will die to he.” He fell to his knees and screamed a terrible cry, “You will die to he!” He pressed his face onto the dirt and grime below, rubbing himself against it in a groveling motion. “I do not lead these, I do not and not will notâ€"do not! Spare and spare me! I know your patience and knowâ€"”

A heavy boot slammed across the face of the old man, sprawling him onto his back; his things sprayed about. His face froze in captive surprise, staring up at what surely was his doom. Belivant hunched down and took him by the cloak, lifting him off the ground.

“You will lead us this time. We have paid,” the eldest brother snarled.

The old man was weeping and babbling a clogged reply only after Belivant dropped him and stepped away; once a shivering water skin, sprinkling fear as he shook under his gripâ€"now he poured forth in a fury of noise and wet. What words he meant to say with emotion were so soaked in despair, it seemed he was trying to wail chained at the murky bottom of a bog; the sounds formed were swallowed in the weight of his prison, buried by a terrible depth. He held his lost volume above his head as though to shield him, like a man might shade his eyes from the sun if it would burn through him. What he was frightened of spiritually did not bind him as the laws of physical death.

Faylithe looked onto the poor creature with soulless eyes. The old man was collecting his dignity and brightened with resolve with each item he acquired once again, stumbling his choice of word and his use of ligament. There was no consolingâ€"only the watchful interest no matter what was happening, ever constant between the two people. Faylithe believed his name was Caize; the spawn of a whore and a drunkard. While Imus and Saythe were inclined to agree with the idea that he indeed had tasted the terrible taste in the womb, Belivant had other ideas about Caize, who now carefully stepped around the three with an air of avoiding a snapping dog tied to a post. As he reached the edge of safety that the small alcove provided, he knelt onto one knee.
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editted: To add breaks in the paragraphs.

I broke up the story with line breaks as has been suggested.

Demondestiny: I'm not sure what you're talking about, unless you're referring to the paragraph breaks. In which case, I'm not really privvy to posting or reading stories online--either way, I did just adjust the story to meet the request. If this is not what you're referring to, please be more specific.

Also, I am wondering how far you read. You are not being specific about what you mean with "visualizations". I believe a great deal of description is put into the scene after the original blurb I posted. Dramatic things do happen, within reason to the story, (not to sound like an overly-defensive writer.) There isn't going to be an alien invasion in the first scene, and I did not think a "flashback" to an exciting scene would have been appropriate. Elaborate?

In your opinion, this story did not use enough descriptive wording?