Prologue

    Prologue

    The very first thing that Frederick noticed was that the woman was holding a baby, rain was pelting against her hood, but she nearly collapsed against the door frame. The next thing he noticed, staring from the baby in her arms to her young face, was that her eyes were a beautiful light blue. Bags hung low over these jewels and rain dropped from her black eyelashes like dew in a rain forest. Her gaze was pleading. He began to say her name, he knew her, but she shook her head furiously and glanced cautiously around.

    "Please, Frederick, please take her," She whispered, her beautiful soprano voice was strained and her eyes held back tears that would eventually mix with the rain.

    "What are you asking of me?" He asked curiously, "Are you in some kind of trouble?" His whispers mixed with the thunder boiling in the West and moving hastily towards their small village nuzzled deeply in the South, a deep bass.

    Her eyes flared angrily at him, her dark brows furrowed and she glared at him from underneath her hood. "I need you to take her. Just for a while," she paused and glanced quickly over her shoulder, "I got called for work in the East, I'll only be gone for a little while."

    "I..." He began, taking a step back, his hands already coming up in a surrender, "I can't take her, I have my nephew-"

    He was cut short by her growling at him, her blue eyes flaming with a hidden fire that was only shown at her scariest of times. He opened his arms up to her and she lifted the baby from her chest, placing it gingerly in his hands. The baby stirred slightly, making a bubbling sound. The woman standing in front of him let a single tear fall from her left eye, which she quickly wiped away. She pushed her hood back and unclasped her necklace, then clasped it behind the baby's head.

    he noticed the charm on the necklace as soon as she pulled it from underneath her robe. "Just... how long are you going to be gone, exactly?"

    She smiled at him, it was not a warm smile. It was a smile filled with a mixture of emotions; Sadness, regret, reassurance. "Keep her safe, Frederick." She stood on her tip toes and kissed his cheek, looked at her daughter, smiled again and then hurried off into the rain without another word. 

    Frederick stared down at the tiny girl in his arms. He turned the treble clef charm over in his fingers and read the inscription out loud, "Melody."

    The baby stirred again and opened her eyes, looking at Frederick for the first time. The were light green with tinges of hazel. "That's your name, is it?" He closed the door and leaned against it, staring down at his new possession. "Very fitting."

Reviews

[StarNinja]

Oh, and maybe think about changing those descriptors. I don't think thunder boils.

[StarNinja]

Okay, so a few things. First, Grammar. "Rain was pelting against her hood." Pelting? You make it sound like the rain is an active subject actively hitting this poor girl. Pelting by itself would be okay in that case. "Was pelting" makes the rain the active participant in this scene, which rain can't do. One or two left out letters and one Capitalization that didn't happen in paragraph seven, but otherwise everything else was good.

Now for story elements. Well, what can I say? It's a prologue so it’s pretty basic, hinting at future conflict while setting up the plot of the story. One thing that bugged me was the attitude this blue eyed woman had. Why was she so angry with the guy? If I were a pleading mother holding my baby in the rain, I'd expect to be doing a lot more pleading than growling (growling?) and flashing angry eyes at the person I'm hoping will take the baby. This is a minor detail, but it tells me a lot about this person. One, she asks a huge favor of this guy (take care of my child! Pretty big deal if you ask me) and when he protests that he already has a mouth to feed, her reaction is anger. As if she expected this guy to alter his life so drastically for her own unknown ends. This leads me to believe she has some narcissistic tendencies at the least. A normal reaction would have been her becoming even sadder, despondent even, since she probably has very few options left at this point.

Don’t get me wrong, I think I know what you’re going for here. They know each other, obviously, on a first name basis. Blue Eyes annoyance at Frederick (growling! Think about that. She growled at him. Like a dog. What the heck?) would be understandable in any other situation.
“Sorry I can’t come to the dance with you. I’ll too busy watching the football game around that time.”
“Sorry I can’t visit your dying mother with you. I have furious masturbating to attend to.”
“Sorry I can’t help you clean your garden like I promised. I’m too busy not giving a s**t about your garden to help you.”
Then her growling would have been expected. Oh that whacky Frederick, what will he do next? But no, this is a serious scene and the growling (GROWLING!) just kills it for me. There’s no way I can see this unnamed blue eyed character as anything but deranged. Dropping off her kid and growling at the guy she expects to take care of it? And she’s looking over her shoulder for some unseen threat. Definitely deranged. If that’s not what you’re going for, maybe give her a different reaction? Maybe cut out the growling?

Other than that, this was an okay prologue. Keep on writing!

[Doxophobia]

No offense. but you do not know the relationship between Melody's mother and Frederick, therefore you cannot just assume how she treats him different. I appreciate your commentary, but please do not assume things until you know the whole story. This is just a prologue.
And, if I want the thunder to "boil" I will have it BOIL. I am the author, NOT you.

[StarNinja]

None taken. But seriously: rumble. If your thunder boils I have to assume it's some kind of magic thunder that physically manifests in the world and bubbles and pops as it's temperature reaches a point which changes it's physical state from liquid thunder to steam thunder. Your verbs don't have to be different for the sake of being different, Dox. There's no shame in having your characters hear the same rumble of the thunderclap that literary characters have heard since time immemorial.

[Aarontastic]

Good introductory chapter, it kept my interest the whole way through and at the end, I very much wanted to read on in order to figure out what was going on: who is this mysterious woman, and what kind of trouble is she in? Is Melody involved somehow? And what about Frederick? Soo many questions ricocheting around in my mind XD

You did a good job with the dialogue and the interspersing of descriptions througout as well. Good way to start off.

[Laura Maidah]

Missing "Y" IN THE "The were light green with tinges of hazel. "

[Doxophobia]

Thank you.

[Craig2591]

Fascinating start! Got my curiosity.

Well written with good description!