past

 Night had fallen and it was time to find a place to stay tonight. When they found an encirclement of trees and a fallen tree, they tied their horses to a nearby tree and started a fire. Neftali, while looking for firewood, was looking for a stream, pond, or waterfall any big water source so she could swim and let out all her emotions. When she found none she returned to find that abidan had a fire roaring and food already cooking.

“Wow, you work fast.” She put down the stack of wood she had collected and went to sit by the fire, across from him.

A long moment of silence went by until finally abidan broke it. “So how did you come to being the greatest warrior?” they didn’t look at each other instead the stared into the fire lost in their thoughts. Another moment passed and finally she answered

“My family was murdered when I was six and Alberich, my uncle, came to warn my parents but he was too late.” She paused, thinking and going back to that day when her family was killed and shortly after her uncle came and took her away. She never knew how he had known that that was going to happen. Maybe when she reached him he would tell her all the secrets he had been keeping from her,” he took me to the castle with him.” She looked up, suddenly, to find abidan staring at her. Their eyes meet for the briefest of moments, but there was an understanding neither thought they would find. She looked away too scared to let anyone in. “I then met the king. It was an accident really. I was about 7, I had lived there a year and never looked around, so I began to wander and got lost. I ended up in the throne room. I was actually really fearful back then. When I entered the room I was at first curious but then when the doors closed behind me and I couldn’t get them open I was terrified. I ran to one of the thrones and curled up on it and began to cry. I knew was foolish. What would crying do? It did nothing for my family.” She paused and took a deep breath. It felt good to tell someone all this, to let a little of herself show. “I was so busy crying I had not even noticed that someone had come into the room. He placed a hand on my back and asked ‘why do you cry little one?’ I quickly turned to see a tall man in the most beautiful robes I had ever seen. They glimmered as if jewels were sown in every stitch. He had a kind face. I sat up straight and said ‘I don’t know’ and instead of confusion he looked at me with understanding. I really, not even till this day, not know why it was I was crying. There were so many I didn’t know which one I was truly sad about. He then took my hand and said ‘you must be old Alberich’s niece, come I will take you to him.’ We talked all the way there. He told me stories of his travels and of his future plans. I liked him very much and when we came to my uncle’s chamber I turned to look at him he crouched down and looked me in the eyes ‘don’t cry anymore little one for a smile shines much brighter than any light.’ No one had ever treated me with such kindness the first I met them. I felt I could trust him and I didn’t want to let him, the only one who truly believed in me, down. So I stood up straight and made a promise to him ‘I will become stronger, strong enough not to fall into tears without true meaning. I promise I will smile for you always.’ I smiled, a true and from the depths of my heart smile. He smiled back at me and kissed on the forehead.” Neftali stopped and stared into the roaring fire. Those days seemed so long ago all the love and happiness before she decided to do this. “In order to keep my promise I had to train and I did, with the best in his majesty’s army. I surpassed them and the king saw my potential and not just in combat but in decisions. So I became his right hand in everything and the bodyguard part was my idea. I didn’t want him to be unprotected. I lived like that for 7 years. Then I remembered my family and what had happened and I knew I wouldn’t be able to live in peace as long as that murderer was still out there so I began to track him down and with the king’s blessing I was off.” She was finally done. She lay back against a rock and saw how abidan was intently staring at her.

“Wow you really are amazing.” He smiled at her and she gave him a wry smile back.

“Is the food ready?” she asks looking away.

“Yeah” he retrieves a knife from his boot, apparently he is always prepared. He offered her his knife. She took it and examined it before she cut herself a slice of meat, and handed abidan his knife back. As she did their fingers touched, Neftali felt rising emotions, she quickly let go of the knife and pulled away. What was happening to her?

Author's Note

please leave reviews ;p thnks

Reviews

[Casper Cross]

You are certainly improving on drawing out the internal emotions. You can hopefully see that by drawing on your own experiences, emotions, feelings, that the writing is much easier because you are writing about something that you know. Doing that makes your job as a writer much easier because you don't have to invent anything. You are simply writing down how you felt when something similar happened to you. So always try and remember... write what you know. Always try and put yourself in the place of the character and how they might feel. What would be your next logical step if faced with the same choices as your characters. Then make those choices the same as your characters.
Again don't forget to do something with the setting. You did a really good job of setting the mood. They are in a forest, or near a forest. But how warm is the fire? How cold is the air? What animal sounds do they here? Can they see the stars? These are all things you can play off of as a writer to really grab the reader and bring them into the story shivering right next to Neftali.