Wilderness

Prince Folco was tired of the food shortage, tired of sleeping in places that did not even remotely resemble a bed and above all tired of overhearing plaintive comments with hostile glances his way.

            Folco leaned against the stone wall of the cave he and the other refugees had managed to find to shelter themselves from the bitter cold outside. It was not the most pleasant of accommodations. Their surroundings smelled heavily of mold, but  there was a pool of water in the cave in addition to the stream about a mile from which they could drink. It  beat being exposed to the freezing rain and howling rain outside. It was cold enough in here.  He pulled his hood as far forward as it would go and drew his cloak into a cocoon around his shivering form.

 

Earlier in the evening, several hobbits had scouted the cave both for predators and other animals that might occupy the cave in hopes of procuring something to eat. They’d been very short on commons in the past eight nights since they’d fled Drémeadow. To their disappointment, they’d found only bats. While they’d shot a few, it was not nearly enough to feed the entire group. Only the smallest children and the hobbits already showing symptoms of illness had eaten an evening meal. The prince himself refused to touch anything. He was on unsteady enough ground when it came to his subjects and fellow refugees without taking food away from those who needed it more.

 

 Around the youth, a mixture of heavy breathing, chattering teeth, snores, sniffles, coughs and the occasional complaint of those who, like him, were unable to sleep echoed throughout the cramped quarters. Folco closed his eyes, drawing his knees into his chest in hopes of stifling the nagging pain in the pit of his stomach. It was his second consecutive day on an empty stomach. Perhaps I should have had some lunch after all, he thought. He could have partaken in one of the deer from earlier, the deer the children and frail had finished for supper, but when he’d overheard several complaints about the meager commons, he’d lost all desire to eat.

 

 Folco was tired of the winter-induced meat shortage, tired of sleeping in places that did not even remotely resemble a bed and above all tired of overhearing plaintive comments supplemented with less-than-friendly glances his way as though he was somehow better off than the rest of them- or, more likely, as though his father’s actions nearly a fortnight ago were somehow his fault. Never mind that he’d come to Kiran’s defense, knowing beyond the shadow of a doubt the Cancalian emissary was innocent. Never mind that he’d planted false orders with the gatekeepers to anticipate a large group of early departures and allow them to exit. Never mind that both things, particularly misleading the gatekeepers in his intentions to sabotage efforts at capturing Kiran or any of the now-stateless hobbits amounted to treason.  Then again, Folco thought, he deserved it. After all, had he not acted so childishly on New Years’ Eve, he could have caught his mother’s assassin and prevented her poisoning. But he had, he hadn't been in the kitchen where he should have been. If he'd been there, his very presence might have stopped her death happening. Instead, he'd had someone else go in his stead, someone who missed the assassin tampering with the red wine, and now his mother was dead because of it.

If only he’d known what would happen. Folco would have insisted on staying in the kitchen, annoying though he found it at the time, whether or not Kirk was there. He might have seen something and been able to bring the real murderer to justice. Kirk obviously hadn’t seen anything that would help Kiran, or he presumably would have said something. So here was the situation where his mother was dead, the wrong person blamed and himself in disgrace for both helping Kiran to avoid unjust punishment and helping the other hobbits coming to Kiran’s defense escape an attack by his father’s people.

 

His face suddenly felt hot. His eyes stung. Gritting his teeth, the young prince picked up the open water skin beside him and stood, looking wildly for a place where he could be out of sight of the other refugees. His dark eyes fell upon a rocky protrusion from the ground near the edge of the cave, rising above the others. It would be cramped, but it would do. Folco began to carefully wind and weave between the others. Once safely out of sight, the teenager slid down the stalagmite to the ground, dropping his water skin next to him. His knees struck the rough stone wall, but Folco ignored it. He reached for his water. To his horror, Folco saw the cap had come off, spilling the contents. He pummeled his fist into the ground in frustration. Now he didn’t even have anything to drink! Just what he needed, on top of everything else!

 

One by one, the horrors of the past week and a half crashed over the youth. His mother, Queen Arabella, proposing a toast and drinking from her glass after saluting the life and health of all in the room. Ironic, Folco thought, how the concepts of life and good health were nearly her last words. His father accusing Kiran, Cancalia’s envoy, after exchanging words Folco could not hear with his advisor Jarmir Esteel. His father ordering an attack on those coming to Kiran’s defense, the act that spurred Folco into sending Lindo to his room to get travel necessities while he went to tell the guards outside, who remained unaware anything was wrong, that his father had said to allow anyone leaving early out. At least, after Lindo had offered his support when Folco told him what he was thinking of doing, expressed his intentions to join him in seeing to the safety of the others, and said goodbye to his family.

 

Folco wished his closest friend were nearby so he might talk about the crushing burden of guilt weighing him down. However, Lindo was with Kiran and three other Dremeadow refugees were somewhere between the wilderness of southwestern Baur and Kiran’s home city of Northchester in Cancalia. He only hoped Kiran would be able to find them. Folco had left four behind in the clearing where they’d spent the past few nights in case the delegation, changing out the designated four every hour or two, but what if Kiran’s group got lost?

 

Leaning against the wall of the cave, the young hobbit fell into an uneasy slumber.

Author's Note

This isn't complete yet, but please let me know what you think so far. love it? Hate it? Why? Please give constructive criticism!

12/3/14: Several have pointed out that the flashback scene could be done better and i'm working on converting it into a different format to reveal things there, possibly as a conversation between Folco and Lindo. Let me know what you think please.

12/5 Flashback removed for the nonce, now deciding whether to incorporate it into one of the upcoming chapters or making it its own entity although presented differently

Reviews

[C. Rose]

You use dubiously and indubitably in close proximity.

If one person says some dialogue. And then a different person does an action, it helps to put the second person's action in a new paragraph. I ought to find a name for that rule. Do you know what I'm talking about?

"No need to crack your head open about it" LOL
"let sleeping hobbits lie" LOL

It is January 6th and he missed January 8th? Do you use an inverted calender or is that a typo?

Xenia had one, should be Xenia had won, I believe.

Nice last line.

Based on the dialogue you clearly know your characters well.

Good job explaining Kiran's abilities, and keeping it natural. (It didn't feel forced).

[SpeedyHobbit Armstrong]

Whaaaaat, how did I not already reply to this? Thanks so much for the head's up about the typos about Xenia and the date too!

[SpeedyHobbit Armstrong]

*heads And that is why I ought never to write at midnight o.O

[endo rush]

how was your trail run?Whoa, I think you wrote most of this in Starbucks and on the commute.Your main influence must be Tolkein. Wish all of us luck in finishing our respective novels. soooo hard to finish.

[SpeedyHobbit Armstrong]

Heyy, it was great, thanks! I don't remember where I did the bulk of this, but the editing of the chapter was done at the combination of my job during spare moments, the train and bus rides, and my room. And yeah, it's DEFINITELY hard to finish a novel one starts, especially given how many distractions there are!

Tolkien is definitely an influence; he is one of my favorite authors. [= What genre novel are you writing?

[endo rush]

Right now, mystery-suspense. Still on the outline stage. Got two rejections already from literary agents on a novel I've written, it's now gathering dust somewhere. :( Pro-forma rejection: sorry, we're not taking in new clients at the moment, but we've read your query with interest. :( Have you submitted any novel for publication already? My short novel (horror), the first i've ever written, was published in my country years ago, in a women's magazine. But i'm not satisfied in being published in my country. I guess it's like the marathon, amateur runners like me always dream of being able to do it. Getting published in the States is like the marathon for me. Hard, but possible, with God's help of course. I'm trying to break in the USA. I googled and found out that around 10 Filipinos have novels already published there. Someday, perhaps, I'd have a novel published there, maybe even made into a movie: every writer's dream. Oops, i've already shared my dream with you. Hope you don't mind.

[Alleyway Rover]

Line notes:
“At the beginning of what would be an eight-day stay, Kiran had learned that the king and his people had been put on edge by several incidences of narrow misses with marauders bent on bullying the small folk for whose safety King Hrothgar was held responsible, leading to injuries to several hobbits patrolling the borders.”
I am noticing a lot of run-on sentences in your work. In my mind it makes for clunky writing that’s hard to fully understand. You might keep an eye on those as you edit.

“The young man opted for a tavern called the Banging Hedgehog”
I don’t know if there are businesses that do nothing but name bars and taverns, but if there isn’t such a business, you should start one.

“In this exchange, during which the young prince had sounded a combination of nervous and defiant while the king’s adviser sounded almost amused about intimidating the kid, Esteel had superciliously uttered words Kiran could not shake from his head. “You really ought to be more careful, Folco Foxtrot.”
Awkward sentence.

‘“as I know everyone is hungry and wishes to eat, but first I wish to introduce everyone at my table for those who do not know all the names.”’
This is the hobbit royal family in their own lands, yes? Wouldn’t everyone know their names already?

‘“Paladin! How dare you! You enter my land, we grant you hospitality, we grant you generosity that your land needed, and you repay us by taking away my wife’s breath and heartbeat and robbing her of life with your poison! Leave at once!”’
Interesting twist although theres something odd. The paladin is suspected of killing the queen. That’s an offense that normally gets more then persona non grata. Killing a queen? Best case scenario, that’s a death sentence if the king is the generous sort.

Overview:
There’s a lot of jumping back and forward in time and it’s really, really hard to follow. My advice is to pick a starting point in the story and move forward. Address past events as needed, maybe write a flash-back if the scene really, really warrants it, but always move forward in time. It’s a lot easier to follow.

I think you go on way too long about the ceremony. I started losing interest fairly quickly and started wondering what, if anything, this had to do with the story. There’s quite a bit here that can be cut without losing any of the story. It strikes me that a lot of the preparation could be cut as well. Everything in this chapter leads to the poisoning of the queen, that’s the important part. Everything that does not relate directly to that could and probably should be put on the Old Editing Chopping Block.

This will probably be answered as the story goes on and it kinda goes back to my first comment so I’m going to just leave this as an open question: What do the events in this chapter have to do with the events in the last? I felt as if I was reading two completely different books.

Cheers!

[SpeedyHobbit Armstrong]

Firstly, thank you for this review also! [= On the run-on sentences, excessive wordiness can definitely be a flaw of mine. I avoid it in dialogue by saying what the character says aloud to ascertain if it sounds natural in spoken language, but definitely need to find a way to avoid it in descriptions.

Hmmm, reading over this, I think I could definitely send a good portion of this to the chopping block. On the fact that Kiran is being ordered to leave rather than sentenced to death, that is because Kiran is not one of Hrothgar Foxtrot's subject but an emissary from another land, so he cannot sentence him to death without incurring the wrath of Kiran's homeland- making a mental note to make that more clear to the reader, perhaps the king himself commenting on it.

Do you think it would be a better idea for me to have flashbacks within the chapter, or should I use something such as a "December 3014" anytime I have a time jump?

The main things I know are definitely important to keep for reasons to be revealed later are Kiran's thoughts on things he noticed wrong, the conversation between Folco and Kirk, and the poisoning itself- and add something to make it clear that the king cannot just kill a foreign emissary without starting a war? (He could, however, say he will make sure word gets back to Kiran's land about the crime of which he is accused...)

Now I just need to contemplate how to make an appropriate transition.

[SpeedyHobbit Armstrong]

Sorry for the double reply, but I think I'll stick with Folco's disappearance as the starting point with allusions to stuff that happens during the travel from Dremeadow to Cancalia. [= The poisoning and its direct aftermath is definitely an important flashback, though, as it is meant to show both why the hobbits are refugees and why Folco's disappearance is so worrisome.... now starting to think I might want to somehow combine this and what was to be chapters 3 and 4 into either just this chapter or this and a chapter 3. Hmm...

[Alleyway Rover]

I'm glad the reviews so far have stirred up some thoughts. I think you have the right idea, starting with Falco's disappearance. Keep the backstory tight and I think you'll have a good result.

As for flashbacks... both can work, but if you have a lot of material to get through, I would suggest the latter option. That way it's clear to the reader that for this chapter we are going back a few years.... grab a soda. Boom. But either works so long as it's clear what time period your talking about and how it effects the current situation.
One last note about the death of the queen. Understanding that he is a foreign emissary, I still stand by my original statement. If it were anyone else, I'd could see that, but this is the queen. She was poisoned by a foreign agent (supposedly), that's political assassination. War is a moot point. Besides if he had done the killing, I doubt his government would intervene.

But that's just my opinion.

Cheers, good luck with this piece.

[SpeedyHobbit Armstrong]

Thanks so much! I've done some editing to chapter one, cutting a bunch of the dialogue out, and this chapter is about to be in the process of being combined with my chapter three- I'll definitely use a bolded "One month earlier" to make it obvious that Kiran's mind (or Lindo's, at one point) is wandering back in time. [= I've also come up with ideas on how to abbreviate the direct aftermath of the poisoning making use of the points-of-view of main characters other than the protagonist. I'll definitely work to make it clear why the king is not going right for the death sentence via a brief reference to continental-level law as agreed upon by all the lands involved [= Believe me, Hrothgar would LOVE to see him dead, since he's convinced Kiran did it, and wishes that Kiran was one of his subjects so he could order him killed on the spot.

[Phoenix]

Can't wait to read more

[SpeedyHobbit Armstrong]

Thank you! I just uploaded another chapter.