The Grey

Portion of one of the beginning chapters seeking some initial feedback upon

Surrender.

Her eyes opened with the patience of death. Liquid grey fog received her like a broken army spilling under a rising portcullis, illuminating a coastline shameful of its drab attire. Jagged brown cliffs descended into frothing steel-blue brinewater, inexhaustible in their rhythmic strife. The plight of elements. The dirge of tides.

Sorrow.

She slid from her gilded wool saddle with the weight of silk. A breath escaped her, seasoning the petrichor with her sullen beauty. Droplets of rain left by a faded storm fell in unison from her velvet robe. Water shattered upon terra. The strife of opposites. Gravity’s destructive guise.

Her child, mewling in consternation from the absence of his mother’s gossamer silhouette, was wrapped tightly in wool, bryle cloth, and a soft leather swaddle behind her perch. She removed the ties holding her treasure secure and drew the infant to her breast. Their hearts called to each other and harmonized. Together they fashioned one void within the mists.

Her stallion brayed with valiancy born from thousands of years of royal breeding. Its companions, fourteen other steeds of equally impressive resolve, guffed in reply as though conducting roll call. They bore men draped with war wisdom and life-absolving oaths, the woman’s blood debtors and vanguard. Men whose identities have already died, they rode eight before and six behind, holding still now as their queen, without utterance, had ceased their journey home. They had all immediately come to halt, their minds never wandered beyond attentiveness. Nary a mote went unnoticed before their sentinelled eyes.

One of the leading men dismounted as a shadow of his liege. His eyes predicted her path and surveyed it, allowing his intuition opportunity for alarm. The forest stood back from the cliffs edge as though the sea had taken a bite from it. Shadows amongst the formations of alder, blanchwood, and aspen were quickly sifted with attention. The sounds of insects and birds were inventoried for disturbance, the fog for deepening grey. Feline instinct remained astute, yet docile. The fields of war laid a horizon away, yet danger wages a boundless conflict of ambush and surprise.

The soldier’s destrier pivoted a quarter-turn away, the product of perfect training, readying the stirrup for urgent use. The beast’s haze colored caparison, fashioned by the steelweavers of Achalaed, brandished the same integrity, every stitch meticulously placed, every metal thread carefully positioned by a master’s hand. The image of the mother bear rearing before a battered shield was squarely center, the artistry refined. Perfection was the backbone of the Achalaedians, and it found its greatest embodiments within the accoutrements of war.

Shame.

Aenani nul’Ikyriel, Queen of the Warriors of Achalaed and sealed by marriage to a lineage spanning over three dreams, kissed her child upon his forehead and smiled. He was the opus of her happiness and sole product of her loins, having been born under a night sky shedding stars in the center of a sea of thirsty steel and screaming men. This tiny soul is the greatest gift her husband has delivered unto her. He is the blessing of her womb meant to emblazon the spirit of the Warrior Mother, as the prophesied Akeil nul’Ikyrien. The Blood of Secrets. The Formless Tempest. The Battleborn.

She walked cautiously, softly across moistened plains grass. The air carried the chilled chorus of waves crashing against stone, tumultuous and bold, far below. The fog hid the suns above, diffusing their light across the environment like a lullaby. Runeset would soon be upon them. The dasher whips swirled in their evening feeding frenzy, while the hooded rose curtsied the waning light. The heralds of twilight ushered the ensemble to set camp, but Aenani wished to share the currents of sea and the roiling evening fog with her son. She wished to inhale the peace of battles freshly won.

Her steps, lithe and pure, traced crescent paths across the slickened foliage, a sign of feet inherently heeding the imperative of balance and grace. The tiny prince cooed, eyes brightly observant of his mother, the image of his needs and desires. Together they stood before a world they ignored. Mother and son, stem and flower, wisdom and joy. The mother queen’s feet planted with the firmness of an oak nurturing a glade. The darkening sea spread with churning eternity unto the curve of Aia before them. The sunsset approached an audience of two.

Scars.

Capricious and damnable war, vile and gnashing strife, standing before all horizons and absent the experience of rest, with the exception of this cliffside perch of green and grey. Her husband had added exclamation to glory before the last fall of the suns, the diadem of Achalaed had been secured. Men had spilled bowels and grit teeth against splintering bones. Women had armored wombs pierced and endured against depleting blood… to end the life of at least one more enemy... to heal this land via lacerations and bruising wounds.

Warriors, just the day before, had watched the suns set and followed their descent with death colored eyes. They were forgotten today, hidden behind the ink painted strokes of a historian’s quill and the fading woes of mourning. One of the many curses of humanity, to always genuflect unto our gains and rarely our costs. Aenani stood within the eye of the storm cossetting her son. Death squalled about these lands, subduing love to shadowed corners and making laughter a blasphemous task.

Serenity.

Behind the mist woven veil, the first of the twin suns touched the edge of the world. Sune, overwhelming the daytime sky with golden light, was snuffed by the watery horizon. Gold smeared into orange. Strokes of red fused into the deepening scarlet twilight. The red sun Rune thickened the sky, the air, with crimson arousal. Runeset glared.

Aenani married two of her fingers and placed them on the forehead of her babe. The child struggled to focus, arms flailed, as his world shrank to the expanse of his mother’s touch. Her fingers traced a dry tear-path across brow. Down the tiny bridge of the child’s nose. Nailed digits skipped across lips, over chin. They leapt to the infant’s chest, over his heart, and ceased the moment into eternity.

Stillness.

The witch-red twilight glazed the air with frozen fire. All things blazed. Silent and still.

The queen removed her fingers and pulled free a sash, dyed with soot and ash, stowed within the layers of the babe’s leather cocoon, then laid it across his eyes. It was perfumed by the scent of waxed stowage parchment and cedar, a contrast to the moistened aromas of second twilight. The sash was made of softened yak wool, the weave was perfectly uniform minus a few rebellious strands. It crudely represented the world. Harmony always gives homage to the abstract. Imperfection always carries the greater weight. But chaos, often, lets slip its hidden design.

A voice, quilted by muses, whispered past velvet lips. The child’s mouth opened slightly in recognition. His heart saw clearly what his eyes could not. “I love you my feather, my soulsong, with the intensity of a smith’s brand,” the Queen spoke to her child, eyes staring into the infinity of memories. “I would for you.”

Rune slipped towards the horizon as a water droplet reaching a window’s pain. It hesitated, poised for a plunge into darkness. Ruby luminescence steamed from the soldier’s pauldrons, it coiled slowly upwards from prostrated grass. The horizon inhaled the dwindling light.

Author's Note

any feedback welcome, but specifically looking for commentary on mood, tone, viewpoint, and style

Reviews

[Ruby Heggie (PB Jacobs)]

Documentation
11/30/17
7:42 PM U.S. CST
My Review of "The Grey"
for Tonguetattered, a fellow "Review 4 Review" group member
by PB Jacobs (www.writerscafe.org)

Your Reviewer Introduction
Hey! Don't take this the wrong way, but this looks like something you pulled from a microfile, you know the older one's, but not that old. Any ways, my review style, if you will is simple, and that is I just type, but I do think about what I'm reading, reviewing, and typing, at the same time. It's not as if I'm in a "stack, slap, and wrap" mode when I'm reviewing.

Your Review
I wanna say your work has nitpicker written all over it, but I'm not sure, as you present me with opposite extremes, and you strike me as a chess player, but that's just me going with your format, so, I guess, I gotta dig through your work to see beyond the retail elements to it, and get to the real one's.

Commontary
Commontary and mood seem to be closely related, as I'm having trouble mentally pulling them apart. Have you ever heard the phrase "attempting to ascertain?" Your commentary messes with my awareness, and it leaves me doing this. I'm not much for attempting to ascertain types of writing, but you are dead on, commentary and mood-wise. Otherwise, I wouldn't be attempting to ascertain, one way or the other.

Tone
Your piece's tone is kind of somber, kind of bright, and kind of flat, yet there are little wisps of rainbow, here and there, which is something that keeps me reading on. Monotonous isn't the word for it, overall percentage-wise, and yes, I do appreciate work like this, although, I need a transponder to decipher it. No offense, it's just me.

Viewpoint
How many times has the narrator of this story been screwed over? Gee, I'm not at a loss here, as I think the narrator is lost, in part with no explanation for life, whatsoever, yet given your work's content, I guess, at least a few people in your story really did kind of smile.

I'd either totally leave this the way it is, or totally expand this.

Style
Great style, as it does totally screw me up! This is a true work of art to some, but I'm too flaky and half-assed, personality-wise to really get a grip on what you're saying, even though, it's College English writing.

There seems to be a big wrapper (like a skin) on your story (if it's officially that), and it's distracting, and yes, this brings me to my last point, and that is people can get better at at least something they are not getting better at by reading this story. It would break up my iconoclast personality type clog quite nicely.

So, for the kind of smart developmental shopper, on a mind level, you got a good one!

PB Jacobs

[Srchaud]

Very Shakespearean. I do not have the vocabulary to gohead to head with you so be kind with my review.
Mood-very mystic and mysterious, you paint a good picture.
Tone-Has an old time tale to it. Does not pop like a modern fantasy but comes across as something you would read in a fantasy world if that makes sense.
Viewpoint-not sure, I am idiot so a few times I got lost in the words, spent more time letting the words sink it, then seeing the world from your viewpoint.
Style-The best I have seen to intimidating. The prose the words are sooo amazing but all together (for me anyways) it grew laborsome.
Final conclusion-you can write no doubt about that. It is like poetry. Is it for a general audience, I dont think so(similar to how most people today are put off by shakespeare) .Is this work timeless, yes, hell yes.
I am torn becasue on one hand this is very very very good, but on the other I think it could benfit from a tone down. My advice would be read about purple prose and decide for yourself what you would like to do.