Grundhook

This is my first novel ever, so please bear with me if it makes you cringe in fear! Gentleladies and Gentlemen, I give you Aradia Noble!

PROLOUGE
In the days before The Dark One came to power and rose as the King of Magic, the small village of Tabelle, just beyond the outskirts of Edinburgh, thrived with culture and life. King Devimonel, as brave and foolish few chose to call him as evil as he was, vandalized the Wizarding and Mortalan worlds secretly, under suspicion of the Magical Gods, causing destruction and chaos in every corner of the world. For now, as a result of Devimonel, nobody dared to venture outside for fear of being ambushed and killed, tortured and controlled to due his awful bidding. Everything is grey now; nobody is smiling or laughing, no friendliness or playing. Packs of Bringers, Devimonel’s followers, were almost as feared as King Devimonel himself. Death loomed in everyone’s soul, heart and spirit. You couldn’t escape it. Every waking minute of the day, miserable thoughts came to you. The fears of coming home and finding your dearly loved ones dead, a trickle of blood running down their cheek, sprawled out over the ground haunted the people of the world. They feared hardly anyone, and found delight in killing and most of all torturing people, especially the ones so little they can’t even lift up their head. The greatest witches and wizards of all time fell down to the wrath of Devimonel. Caught in the act of torturing Clarisse McMillan and Jonathan McMillan into madness, King Devimonel and the Bringers were brought forward to the Council of Gods, the highest court. Sentenced as guilty for treason, murder, torture, controlling innocent lives, and raping, Ex-King Devimonel and the Bringers were banished and sentenced to an eternity in Hell, or the Underworld of the Greek God Hades. Somehow, unknown to all, they had escaped and are now continuing their plague, being hunted and being the hunter. The darkest days ever recorded in history still occupy the Wizard and Mortalan worlds alike, but for now, life must go on, and young children must grow…

CHAPTER ONE

BETRAYAL
Little, young, and far from innocent Aradia Noble looked gloomily out her bedroom window, watching the low afternoon sun bathe the village. She was tired of staying inside because of Ex-King Devimonel. Just thinking the name made her room crawl with darkness, but Aradia didn’t care. She was young, and carefree. If he was going to attack anyways, she would have time to get under cover… She got up from her warm and comforting bed, ran to open her door quietly, and then walked out of it, slowly going down the winding stairs. Aradia jetted smoothly out of the living room, out of the kitchen, and then quickly escaped out of the front door. Dashing out of the yard, she ran over to the forest and jumped on a nearby log, laughing. She was free at last. She happily swayed her black cotton robes in the soft November breeze. The sweet smell of crisp autumn leaves, ripe and fresh pumpkins, and delicious apple pie tickled her nose and exhilarated her senses. She tugged playfully at her hand-knitted pine green scarf and spun around, fast and quick, laughing happily, alone in the grey, yet beautiful village. The apple pie’s scent flowed its way over to her, wrapping its sweet essence under her nose, drawing her curiosity. Slowly and slyly, she jumped off the log and put her mischievous plan to knick the pie into action. Stepping forward cautionaly and avoiding the maroon, gold, and orange leaves strewn across the lush, green ground for fear of attracting unwanted attention, she slowly reached forward, arms outstretched towards the pie. Just as she finally had the delectable dessert grasped in her small, pale fingers, the village kids of Tabelle ran quickly and carelessly passed her, not even caring that they had disregarded Aradia and pushed passed her, knocking her in a murky, bug infested mud pit; making the pie slip from her hands and come tumbling down, splattering all the contents onto her face.
Screeching in desperation and frustration, she wiped the burning apples off her face and stood up, looking around.

Titania

I hope I don't edit things too much... I'm trying to help, and I do tend to point out the things I see first and then try and say overall comments. One thing might be to try and find places to split up the first paragraph (although coming from me...) just because it seems quite long.

Hm, a few tense issues here. It should probably be in past tense, so I'd try:
For afterwards, as a result of Devimonel, no one dared to venture outside for fear of being ambushed and killed, tortured and forced to due his awful bidding. Everything was grey; no one was smiling or laughing, and there was no more friendliness or playing.

Generally using "you" isn't a very good thing, and you switch a ways through to saying "the people of the world" so you might say instead:
It was unescapable. Every waking minute of the day, miserable thoughts came to everyone. The fears of coming home and finding their dearly loved ones dead, a trickle of blood runnin gdown their cheek, haunted the people of the world.
I thought the "sprawled out over the ground" interrupted the sentence a bit.

These are mostly suggestions, by the way, but I hope I'm at least making some sense / you can see what I'm getting at. A lot of times it's just easier to show rather than try and explain what I'm talking about.

couldn't, and... you were just referring to the "people of the world" so it's a bit confusing (I presume you mean the bringers by they here, but it's hard to tell at first)

Somehow, in a way unknown to all, they escaped, and returned to continue their plague, both hunted and playing the hunters.

cautiously (sp, I think that was just a typo)

should be past, and I'd take out "and pushed passed her" the 2nd time. The semicolon can just be a comma... this sentence feels a bit run-on to me. Ack, someone stop me, I'm being hypocritical today. There's just a lot of -ing phrases in this one.

As far as overall... hm, well in a way I almost wish you hadn't told me it started out as a HP fanfic, because now I can see the similarities (I would have been interested to see if I noticed without the forewarning). Her avoidance of the name even in her thoughts seemed a little... suspicious, but I don't know, I'm not really inclined to make judgments since it's certainly not very far yet. Some of your descriptions, ie of the apple pie, pumpkins, leaves etc. were nice, and I didn't find anything too objectionable about your style except the paragraphs. I guess I feel like a prologue and a chapter one should have more than a paragraph each. But thanks for sharing, and as always I hope I didn't tear things apart too much.

__________________
Critique and ye shall be critiqued.

Grundhook

Thank you for your patience and advice. Some of them I changed after I posted this, but others I will change. After all, I came to get feedback, not praise! I know it's not awesome, so thank you! And there's more to chapter one, I just wasn't sure about how long our posts could be! I know there are a lot of mistakes in this part! Lol.

I should have known, she thought miserably, it’s Travis Litengo and his loyal posy…
Sure enough, a tall, blonde haired teenager turned around, glaring at Aradia. She bravely walked forward, pointing her finger at him. Even though she was seven, she could still do some bad damage. He smirked slyly and pulled out his wand, pointing it at Aradia.
“What are you going to do to me, you little mesh? Scratch me to death?”
A circle of ringing laughs ran across his friends, making her blush a deep crimson.
He continued on in a mocking voice, “Oh, I’m Aradia Noble and I’m a little baby! I go crying to my mummy and daddy when mean ol’ Litengo makes fun of me, even though my daddy is dirty and a piece of---”
“Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up!! Just because me father is more worthy of existence than yours, and he was Mortalan-Born, it doesn’t mean you have to make fun of him!” she snapped back, stamping her feet on the ground. Fuming hotly, she jumped up and grabbed his hair, pulling his hair and scratching his scalp.
He suddenly over-turned her and Aradia went flying across the ground, getting scratched and bruised from rocks and sticks.
Aradia lay there, shocked and petrified. She didn’t expect him to fight back so forcefully. But then again, this was Travis that we’re talking about. She got slowly up as he walked forward. Aradia then lunged at him, scratching, biting and kicking like mad. He did not hesitate for one second. Pushing her off, he went to kick her, but someone jumped forward, blocking her from Travis. She had short, bushy, blonde hair and bright blue eyes. Travis went to push her out of the way, but she picked up her tiny hand and swung it right and Travis’ nose in a fist. There was an ear-grinding crack and dark red blood spluttered out of his nose. He grabbed his nose and started to run away, but Aradia stared him down, giving him the oh-so-penetrating Evil Eye. Something then happened that was un-explainable and un-expected. Fire blazed in her unusual golden eyes and a soft but strong wind tasseled her hair, her strange birthmark by her hair burned passionately. Then Travis’ ears suddenly faded away and fox ears sprouted from the top of his head, a long, bushy tail grew out of his bottom, and then, just as quickly as it had all started, he turn abruptly into a fox, hind-legs and all. Travis bared his teeth and bounded into the forest, yelping. His friends scurried after him, looking behind them to make sure the girl and Aradia was not going to chase after them and take them down too. Or worse---transform them. The blonde-haired girl turned to Aradia, chuckling, her eyebrows raised in pure amusement.
“Bonjour,” she snickered in French. “Mon nom est Oracle. Quel est à vous?”
Aradia grunted and lightly shook her hand, not used to people.
“I--I’m sorry, but I do--don’t speak t-that language,” Aradia looked at her, nervous for some reason.
“Oh, sorry,” the girl blushed, shook her head, blonde waves swirling everywhere, then laughed a little. “I’m so used to talking in French with my mum and dad that I forget to talk in English when I’m with other people (hardly ever happens because of Him, though). I was born in France, bet you didn’t know that? But we moved her shortly after I was born. Anyways, I’m Oracle, nice to see you make a fox out of that Toerag.”
Aradia laughed nervously with Oracle, recalling a memory that had only happened a few moments ago. “I’m Aradia… W-why are you talking to me? No one’s ever talked to me except my m-mum and dad…”
Oracle raised one tiny eyebrow and said, astounded, “you mean---you never ha’ any friends?!? And do you always stutter this often?”
“Na uh and Na uh,” Aradia replied simply, shrugging.
Oracle tried to whistle a low tune, but failing tremendously, so she just muttered to herself quickly then started walking up the gravel-hilled road.
“You know, I’ve never understood people. Just watching them makes me wonder how they can come up with such mad ideas, like having Travis!”
“I agree!!” Aradia said, walking away from the forest and entering the deserted village along with Oracle. “Say, how old are you?”
“I’m seven and three quarters and proud of it! I turned seven on February 19th!” “You’re same age as me! Except I turned seven May 31st…”
They reached a fork in the gravel paved road, suddenly ending their conversation. Oracle became uncomfortable and kicked a spare rock to the side, splashing it in the acute pond, causing a gentle ripple. She nervously cleared her throat and croaked hoarsely, “Well, I better be off before me mum finds me out here,” she waved good bye, “I know I’ll see you again…”
“Yeah,” Aradia said, wondering. She had said ‘I know’? How could she know? But before Aradia could ponder on that anymore, her tiny attention span got the better of her and it left her mind, leaving it for many years to come. She was now more interested in laughing at the little garden gnomes that played in her yard. She could hear their little yells of glee and evilness.
Aradia strode the other path, coming to a little cottage with black smoke slowly rising from the brick chimney. She unlatched the lock on the broken down picket fence and slowly walked through the gnome infested yard, silently laughing as the little, green and murky brown figures ran quickly into the overgrown bush, bumping into each other.
Quietly, she sneaked into the house and ran upstairs coming to her room. Aradia slowly pushed her door open, but stopped half-way, petrified at what lay before her.
“Well, look who it is…. Aradia Emma Stephanie Noble’s finally came home……”
“Urrgggghhhhhhh…….mummy………..”
“I’ve been worried sick about you! Did you even care if you made you mother go out searching for you all day long, unprotected from an attack?!!? But no, you just wanted to go outside and risk your life like a fool. I understand you’re only seven, but I know you have more common-sense than that and I know you are more mature!!”
“Your mother is right, you know Aradia.”
“But daddy…… I’m always stuck inside and I wanted to smell fresh air for once!”
“Aradia---”
“Fine, I’ll just stay inside like a good little girl and never feel the sun again!”
“Don’t you use that tone of voice with me Aradia Emma Stephanie Noble!!”
“IS THAT ALL YOU CARE ABOUT, MY TONE?!?! DO YOU CARE ABOUT ME?!!?”
Aradia’s mum sighed and ran her delicate hands through her black hair, thinking.
“Wait….Aradia, why are you all bruised and bloodied up? What happened out there…?”
“Travis called me the m-word, so I turned him into a fox. Come to think of it, I should of turned him into a chicken, because he is a chicken, but then again I didn’t even really mean to turn him into anything, I only meant to make him cower under my Evil Eye,” said Aradia calmly, slightly smiling mischievously. “Then this French girl named Orac—“
“Wait,” her mum said softly, turning towards her dad, stunned. “A full transformation?”
“Yeesss…. Why? I bet loads of people here can do that. I mean, we’re all magical, aren’t we?”
Her mum, Libby, became wide-eyed and fearful.
“Cale---It can’t be this soon?”
Aradia had no idea what-so-ever of what they meant.
Her dad clapped his hands and got up as if he had ended the conversation. “Later,” he added, before coming towards Aradia and swiping her off the ground and in his arms.
“Hey now, how about some Flaming Mocha? That always seems to cheer you up!” he said sweetly as if Aradia was crying her eyes out.
“But daddy, I’m not sad…?” she remarked curiously.
Why were her parents acting so weird?
She went over and sat down on the couch in front of the merry fire, pulling a soft, flannel blanket decorated with shining stars and a silver moon sleeping motionless, blanketed in a cluster of gray clouds. A beautiful little fairy perched on top of the silver crescent moon as her dad and mum went into the kitchen, preparing three cups of Flaming Mocha for them all to enjoy.
Aradia just shrugged. Hey, Flaming Mochas? It’s chocolate and Aradia was not about to pass up that offer. If her dad wanted to believe she was sad, let him if it meant a cup of Flaming Mocha.
Aradia’s dad walked over hand in hand with her mum, levitating three Porcelain China Tea cups with a comforting smile on his face. He sat down next to Aradia and carefully handed her her cup, her mother laying her head gently on his chest, sighing, and a misty look in her eyes beneath her half-moon spectacles. They changed color, and her eyes swirled and slowly changed to a deep indigo, the colour of night falling on a crystal moon sky. Her mum’s black hair that strongly reminded her of the colour death, swayed over her face momentarily before she tucked it behind her ears. But her eyes twinkled with life, which changed her mum’s entire look. It was always her mother’s eyes and her cheerful, wrinkled–around-the-edges smile that cheered her up when she was down. Her father had messy, ruffled flaming red hair and grey eyes that just made you smile when you looked at them, with wrinkles underneath them from smiling so much on his sun tanned skin, dotted with freckles.
The light complexion of Aradia’s skin glowed lightly like the sun, her flaming red hair dazzled beside the crackling fire. She fingered her curved nose and sighed. The silent music of the dancing flames up top her mug of Flaming Mocha enchanted her as she stared off into space. The gentle splash of freckles across her cheeks and nose complemented her stubborn face structure and the large, luminous eyes. Aradia truly loved her eyes, for they were a brilliant gold, like the horizon just before the sun sets, yet more spectacular. Hidden beneath the red of her hair lay a birthmark that obscured neatly from view; it was a pure mystery to Aradia on how she got it. She had questioned her mum and dad about it many times, but either they pretended that they had momentarily gone deaf or abruptly changed the subject. She raised her tiny finger and traced some of the lines. The birthmark lay by her right eye, soft red lines intertwining, lacing, and curling. One line broke out from the end of her eye and spread out as it grew towards the beginning of her ear. It was very peculiar, but Aradia admired it all the same.

Grundhook

Stupid computer! Sorry, accident!

Grundhook

Accident with the computer, sorry!

Smaointe

Ok, let's test my grammer skills. If I'm wrong then I'm sure someone will correct me.

[If he was going to attack anyways, she would have time]

Pretty sure the WAS should be WERE

[people of the world. They feared hardly anyone, and found delight in killing]
Don't use THEY in this sentence, it's confusing.

Also, anytime it comes to a new thought or scene in the story make it a new sentence. Something like this...

[In the days before The Dark One came to power and rose as the King of Magic, the small village of Tabelle, just beyond the outskirts of Edinburgh, thrived with culture and life.
King Devimonel, as brave and foolish few chose to call him as evil as he was, vandalized the Wizarding and Mortalan worlds secretly, under suspicion of the Magical Gods, causing destruction and chaos in every corner of the world.
For now, as a result of Devimonel, nobody dared to venture outside for fear of being ambushed and killed, tortured and controlled to due his awful bidding. Everything is grey now; nobody is smiling or laughing, no friendliness or playing.
Packs of Bringers, Devimonel's followers, were almost as feared as King Devimonel himself. Death loomed in everyone's soul, heart and spirit. You couldn't escape it. Every waking minute of the day, miserable thoughts came to you.
The fears of coming...]

I don't mean to be too critical because really it's not a bad beginning. I would really like to know what happens next.

Ok, if my grammer still stinks then feel free to fix it lol.

__________________
Yesterday we shook hands, my friend
Today a moonbeam lightens my path
My guardian

Dephere

Oh, dang it, Titania beat me here.......I was busy critiquing her story...hehe.

Hey, welcome to the forums, glad you decided to jump into the mix, but if you want a lot of responses on your work, I suggest you get out there and review others.

The first thing I noticed is that you didn't use any point to break up your writing, so I suggest you do that. You may need to write a little more before you do that, as these seem rather short in length.

Whoa, watch out, you're getting into the very, very cliched part of writing...You may put a twist on it, but that title itself hints to about a thousand other books in the genre.

Okay, that whole first paragraph needs to have a good look through. The tense changes were confusing, you need to make sure the transition is easy and is grammatically correct, which as far as I can tell is not.

The "anyways" really throws off the flow of this sentence, my suggestion is to take it out.

You have many listing sentences in here (i.e. I saw a penguin, a donkey, and a jackalobe...)...More than just a few, it really sticks out to me and I think you might want to give that a good go over.

The whole steal the pie thing is also very cliche, not real common for the fantasy genre, but I think we have all seen the scenario...

This is redundant here, you need to make sure to avoid things like this. "Carelessly" implies that they didn't care...

I think she would experience some pain from the "burning apples"...

I hope I don't sound too harsh, but I thought you needed to hear it all. Your writing seems to have a lot of potential, but you need to work out a lot of the kinks.

The biggest advice I can give you is to watch out for cliches, I spotted two in this short piece of writing. They can be okay if implemented in an innovative way, but make sure to add that twist.

As it is your writing was the only thing that kept me through this, the story doesn't appeal to me....Keep at it though!

__________________

Grundhook

Well, the apple pie scene was to fill you in on her personality, really. That she's mischievious and all that stuff. Here's the finished version of those two parts. And I have it in paragraph form, the whole story is, it just isn't showing up in my post!:

PROLOUGE







In the days before The Dark One came to power and rose as the King of Magic, the small village of Tabelle, just beyond the outskirts of Edinburgh, thrived with culture and life.
King Devimonel, as brave and foolish few chose to call him as evil as he was, vandalized the Wizarding and Mortalan worlds secretly, under suspicion of the Magical Gods, causing destruction and chaos in every corner of the world.
For afterwards, as a result of Devimonel, no one dared to venture outside for fear of being ambushed and killed, tortured and forced to due his awful bidding. Everything was grey; no one was smiling or laughing, and there was no more friendliness or playing.
Packs of Bringers, Devimonel’s followers, were almost as feared as King Devimonel himself. Death loomed in everyone’s soul, heart and spirit. It was inescapable. Every waking minute of the day, miserable thoughts came to everyone. The fears of coming home and finding their dearly loved ones dead, a trickle of blood running down their cheek, haunted the people of the world.The Bringers feared hardly anyone, and found delight in killing and most of all torturing people, especially the ones so little they couldn’t even lift up their head. The greatest witches and wizards of all time fell down to the wrath of Devimonel. Caught in the act of raping Clarisse McMillan and torturing Jonathan McMillan into madness, King Devimonel and the Bringers were brought forward to the Council of Gods, the highest court. Sentenced as guilty for treason, murder, torture, controlling innocent lives, and raping, Ex-King Devimonel and the Bringers were banished and sentenced to an eternity in Hell, or the Underworld of the Greek God Hades. Somehow, in a way unknown to all, they escaped, and returned to continue their plague, both hunted and playing the hunters.The darkest days ever recorded in history still occupy the Wizard and Mortalan worlds alike, but for now, life must go on, and young children must grow…




















BETRAYAL


Little, young, and far from innocent Aradia Noble looked gloomily out her bedroom window, watching the low afternoon sun bathe the village. She was tired of staying inside because of King Devimonel. Just thinking the name made her room crawl with darkness, but Aradia didn’t care. She was young, and carefree. If he were to attack, she would have time to get under cover… She got up from her warm and comforting bed, ran to open her door quietly, and then walked out of it, slowly going down the winding stairs. Aradia jetted smoothly out of the living room, out of the kitchen, and then quickly escaped out of the front door. Dashing from the yard, she ran over to the forest and jumped on a nearby log, laughing. She was free at last. She happily swayed her black cotton robes in the soft November breeze. The sweet smell of crisp autumn leaves, ripe and fresh pumpkins, and delicious apple pie tickled her nose and exhilarated her senses. She tugged playfully at her hand-knitted pine green scarf and spun around, fast and quick, laughing happily, alone in the grey, yet beautiful village.
The apple pie’s scent flowed its way over to her, wrapping its sweet essence under her nose, drawing her curiosity. Slowly and slyly, she jumped off the log and put her mischievous plan to knick the pie into action. Stepping forward cautionaly and avoiding the maroon, gold, and orange leaves strewn across the lush, green ground for fear of attracting unwanted attention, she slowly reached forward, arms outstretched towards the pie. Just as she finally had the delectable dessert grasped in her small, pale fingers, the village kids of Tabelle ran quickly and carelessly passed her. They disregarded Aradia and pushed her down, knocking her in a murky, bug infested mud pit. The pie slipped from her hands and came tumbling down, splattering all the contents onto her face.
Screeching in desperation and frustration, she wiped the burning apples off her face and stood up, looking around.
She should have known. Standing before her were Travis Litengo and his loyal posy…
Sure enough, a tall, blonde haired teenager turned around, glaring at Aradia. She bravely walked forward, pointing her finger at him. Even though she was seven, she could still do some bad damage. He smirked slyly and pulled out his wand, pointing it at Aradia.
“What are you going to do to me, you little mesh? Scratch me to death?”
A circle of ringing laughs ran across his friends, making her blush a deep crimson.
He continued on in a mocking voice, “Oh, I’m Aradia Noble and I’m a little baby! I go crying to my mummy and daddy when mean ol’ Litengo makes fun of me, even though my daddy is dirty and a piece of---”
“Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up!! Just because me father is more worthy of existence than yours, and he was Mortalan-Born, it doesn’t mean you have to make fun of him!” she snapped back, stamping her feet on the ground. Fuming hotly, she jumped up and grabbed his hair, pulling his hair and scratching his scalp.
He suddenly over-turned her and Aradia went flying across the ground, getting scratched and bruised from rocks and sticks.
Aradia lay there, shocked and petrified. She didn’t expect him to fight back so forcefully. But then again, this was Travis that we’re talking about. She got slowly up as he walked forward. Aradia then lunged at him, scratching, biting and kicking like mad. He did not hesitate for one second. Pushing her off, he went to kick her, but someone jumped forward, blocking her from Travis. She had short, bushy, blonde hair and bright blue eyes. Travis went to push her out of the way, but she picked up her tiny hand and swung it right and Travis’ nose in a fist. There was an ear-grinding crack and dark red blood spluttered out of his nose. He grabbed his nose and started to run away, but Aradia stared him down, giving him the oh-so-penetrating Evil Eye. Something then happened that was un-explainable and un-expected. Fire blazed in her unusual golden eyes and a soft but strong wind tasseled her hair, her strange birthmark by her hair burned passionately. Then Travis’ ears suddenly faded away and fox ears sprouted from the top of his head, a long, bushy tail grew out of his bottom, and then, just as quickly as it had all started, he turn abruptly into a fox, hind-legs and all. Travis bared his teeth and bounded into the forest, yelping. His friends scurried after him, looking behind them to make sure the girl and Aradia was not going to chase after them and take them down too. Or worse---transform them. The blonde-haired girl turned to Aradia, chuckling, her eyebrows raised in pure amusement.
“Bonjour,” she snickered in French. “Mon nom est Oracle. Quel est à vous?”
Aradia grunted and lightly shook her hand, not used to people.
“I--I’m sorry, but I do--don’t speak t-that language,” Aradia looked at her, nervous for some reason.
“Oh, sorry,” the girl blushed, shook her head, blonde waves swirling everywhere, then laughed a little. “I’m so used to talking in French with my mum and dad that I forget to talk in English when I’m with other people (hardly ever happens because of Him, though). I was born in France, bet you didn’t know that? But we moved her shortly after I was born. Anyways, I’m Oracle, nice to see you make a fox out of that Toerag.”
Aradia laughed nervously with Oracle, recalling a memory that had only happened a few moments ago. “I’m Aradia… W-why are you talking to me? No one’s ever talked to me except my m-mum and dad…”
Oracle raised one tiny eyebrow and said, astounded, “you mean---you never ha’ any friends?!? And do you always stutter this often?”
“Na uh and Na uh,” Aradia replied simply, shrugging.
Oracle tried to whistle a low tune, but failing tremendously, so she just muttered to herself quickly then started walking up the gravel-hilled road.
“You know, I’ve never understood people. Just watching them makes me wonder how they can come up with such mad ideas, like having Travis!”
“I agree!!” Aradia said, walking away from the forest and entering the deserted village along with Oracle. “Say, how old are you?”
“I’m seven and three quarters and proud of it! I turned seven on February 19th!” “You’re same age as me! Except I turned seven May 31st…”
They reached a fork in the gravel paved road, suddenly ending their conversation. Oracle became uncomfortable and kicked a spare rock to the side, splashing it in the acute pond, causing a gentle ripple. She nervously cleared her throat and croaked hoarsely, “Well, I better be off before me mum finds me out here,” she waved good bye, “I know I’ll see you again…”
“Yeah,” Aradia said, wondering. She had said ‘I know’? How could she know? But before Aradia could ponder on that anymore, her tiny attention span got the better of her and it left her mind, leaving it for many years to come. She was now more interested in laughing at the little garden gnomes that played in her yard. She could hear their little yells of glee and evilness.

Grundhook

All of this is in paragraph form, it's just not copying right from Word into here. Here's the rest:

Aradia strode the other path, coming to a little cottage with black smoke slowly rising from the brick chimney. She unlatched the lock on the broken down picket fence and slowly walked through the gnome infested yard, silently laughing as the little, green and murky brown figures ran quickly into the overgrown bush, bumping into each other.
Quietly, she sneaked into the house and ran upstairs coming to her room. Aradia slowly pushed her door open, but stopped half-way, petrified at what lay before her.
“Well, look who it is…. Aradia Emma Stephanie Noble’s finally came home……”
“Urrgggghhhhhhh…….mummy………..”
“I’ve been worried sick about you! Did you even care if you made you mother go out searching for you all day long, unprotected from an attack?!!? But no, you just wanted to go outside and risk your life like a fool. I understand you’re only seven, but I know you have more common-sense than that and I know you are more mature!!”
“Your mother is right, you know Aradia.”
“But daddy…… I’m always stuck inside and I wanted to smell fresh air for once!”
“Aradia---”
“Fine, I’ll just stay inside like a good little girl and never feel the sun again!”
“Don’t you use that tone of voice with me Aradia Emma Stephanie Noble!!”
“IS THAT ALL YOU CARE ABOUT, MY TONE?!?! DO YOU CARE ABOUT ME?!!?”
Aradia’s mum sighed and ran her delicate hands through her black hair, thinking.
“Wait….Aradia, why are you all bruised and bloodied up? What happened out there…?”
“Travis called me the m-word, so I turned him into a fox. Come to think of it, I should of turned him into a chicken, because he is a chicken, but then again I didn’t even really mean to turn him into anything, I only meant to make him cower under my Evil Eye,” said Aradia calmly, slightly smiling mischievously. “Then this French girl named Orac—“
“Wait,” her mum said softly, turning towards her dad, stunned. “A full transformation?”
“Yeesss…. Why? I bet loads of people here can do that. I mean, we’re all magical, aren’t we?”
Her mum, Libby, became wide-eyed and fearful.
“Cale---It can’t be this soon?”
Aradia had no idea what-so-ever of what they meant.
Her dad clapped his hands and got up as if he had ended the conversation. “Later,” he added, before coming towards Aradia and swiping her off the ground and in his arms.
“Hey now, how about some Flaming Mocha? That always seems to cheer you up!” he said sweetly as if Aradia was crying her eyes out.
“But daddy, I’m not sad…?” she remarked curiously.
Why were her parents acting so weird?
She went over and sat down on the couch in front of the merry fire, pulling a soft, flannel blanket decorated with shining stars and a silver moon sleeping motionless, blanketed in a cluster of gray clouds. A beautiful little fairy perched on top of the silver crescent moon as her dad and mum went into the kitchen, preparing three cups of Flaming Mocha for them all to enjoy.
Aradia just shrugged. Hey, Flaming Mochas? It’s chocolate and Aradia was not about to pass up that offer. If her dad wanted to believe she was sad, let him if it meant a cup of Flaming Mocha.
Aradia’s dad walked over hand in hand with her mum, levitating three Porcelain China Tea cups with a comforting smile on his face. He sat down next to Aradia and carefully handed her her cup, her mother laying her head gently on his chest, sighing, and a misty look in her eyes beneath her half-moon spectacles. They changed color, and her eyes swirled and slowly changed to a deep indigo, the colour of night falling on a crystal moon sky. Her mum’s black hair that strongly reminded her of the colour death, swayed over her face momentarily before she tucked it behind her ears. But her eyes twinkled with life, which changed her mum’s entire look. It was always her mother’s eyes and her cheerful, wrinkled–around-the-edges smile that cheered her up when she was down. Her father had messy, ruffled flaming red hair and grey eyes that just made you smile when you looked at them, with wrinkles underneath them from smiling so much on his sun tanned skin, dotted with freckles.
The light complexion of Aradia’s skin glowed lightly like the sun, her flaming red hair dazzled beside the crackling fire. She fingered her curved nose and sighed. The silent music of the dancing flames up top her mug of Flaming Mocha enchanted her as she stared off into space. The gentle splash of freckles across her cheeks and nose complemented her stubborn face structure and the large, luminous eyes. Aradia truly loved her eyes, for they were a brilliant gold, like the horizon just before the sun sets, yet more spectacular. Hidden beneath the red of her hair lay a birthmark that obscured neatly from view; it was a pure mystery to Aradia on how she got it. She had questioned her mum and dad about it many times, but either they pretended that they had momentarily gone deaf or abruptly changed the subject. She raised her tiny finger and traced some of the lines. The birthmark lay by her right eye, soft red lines intertwining, lacing, and curling. One line broke out from the end of her eye and spread out as it grew towards the beginning of her ear. It was very peculiar, but Aradia admired it all the same.
“Poppet, have you done your homework yet? You know you have to go to that MortalanSchool tomorrow.”
“Yes daddy.”
“Mmmm…. Darling, this is brilliant,”
Her father gently kissed her mother on the head, closing his eyes. As Aradia sipped on her Flaming Mocha, warmness spread throughout her entire body, making her feel loved and well-protected.
“Mummy, daddy, can you read me a story please?”
“Sure, poppet,” her mum put down her cup gently on the table, got up and went to the bookshelf, maneuvering around the piles and piles of books, kneeling down to scan them.
“How about…… Aha…. Merlin: His Past, your favorite…”
She walked back over to the couch and sat down on the squishy armchair across from Aradia, situating herself comfortably. She slowly opened the creased, battered, and old book, turning the yellowing parchment.


Aradia awoke to an early sunrise the next morning, assuming that her mum had put her in her room. She groggily threw her quilted covers off of her and slipped on her fuzzy blue slippers, dragging her little feet out into the corridor. She looked far down the corridor and out the window, seeing that the early morning sun was barely beginning to rise. She turned and slowly walked down the narrow stairs, twisting and turning as they went, rubbing at her sleep-covered eyelids.
Voices traveled to Aradia and met her ears. She stopped, listening attentively.
“So, he’s coming, isn’t he? He was told about Truth?! Oh Great Gods…We need to leave, now. King Devimonel could be heading our way any moment,” she heard her mother, noticing a note of panic and fear in her voice, “Galen, where will we go? We need to leave as soon as possible.”
“There is a place off the coast of Dover, but you will need to leave at night, so no one will see you.” The voice paused, as if thinking. “Avar—Libby, you know of what house I am talking about. You must be undetected,” spoke an unfamiliar, calm voice
“I need to get Aradia up. She must get ready.”
“No, I’ll do it Cale. You talk with him.”
There was a thumping of feet and Aradia heard someone bounding up the stairs. She hurriedly scurried up the stairs and jumped noiselessly in her bed, pretending to be fast asleep. She heard her mum creep quietly come in, and then sigh.
“Aradia, I know you’re awake…”
Aradia kept on pretending to sleep soundlessly, praying to the Gods that her mum wouldn’t come over and tackle her. But on that particular day, unfortunately, they were not on her side. The covers whipped off of her and she slyly peeked her eyes open. Her mother’s scowling face shined down on her, brows furrowed.
“How much did you hear?”
“Not—not much, ma’am” Aradia stuttered, getting out of bed.
“Well then, you can’t go outside today even for the littlest thing, got it?”
“Yes, ma’am…. May I ask why?”
“I’ll tell you when you are older… Now, go downstairs and eat your breakfast. I’m going to make bacon and eggs. We’ll need all the strength we can get.”
She gave Aradia one last warning look and left the room, emerald green robes billowing behind her. Aradia sighed and strode down the winding staircase again and entered the living room. Through the windows she could see that the sun had fully raised now, bathing the living room in sunlight. She looked around as she went to sit down at the table and noticed something peculiar. The only people she saw were her mum and dad, no one else. But she had heard another person in there. Where had he gone?But just then her mother’s voice broke her concentration.
“Would you like some toast, poppet?”
Aradia nodded gazed into space again. What was going on? Who or what was Truth? And King Devimonel was coming after them?! So many questions swirled around in her head and overwhelmed her. It was far too much for a seven year old to handle. Aradia’s dad came behind her and put his hands on her shoulder, looking at her mum.
“While he was here, Libby, he left the List from your old school friends…”
“I despise the List…”
“Mummy, what’s the List?”
“Nothing….nothing….”
But it sure looked like something to Aradia, for when her dad handed her mum a long list of parchment full of numbers, dates, and names, she turned skeleton-white and gulped, her eyes changing to a dramatic and depressing stormy blue.
The day pasted by very slowly, almost as if someone had purposely stopped time, and restarted it at slow-motion. Her mum kept on rushing over to look out the window and then returning each time more pale and tired. Finally, her mum got up and swayed over to the window, looking as if she was going to puke out of nerves. She pulled the drapes aside gingerly and turned so white that she looked like a paper doll.
“C-C-CALE!!”
All of the colour drained from her dad’s face as he jumped up rather quickly, rushing over to look out the window at a startling fast pace. The moon was just barely rising now, and dark loomed over the village. Aradia got up quickly, laying her markers aside to look over her mother’s shoulder and out the window. Mist rolled out upon the dewy grass of the silent and still village, giving it a look of terror, of mystifying eeriness. With a swish and rustle of leaves, a tall, towering figure appeared, shouldered in a black cloak. One by one, dark figures appeared right beside the first one. Now Aradia knew the answer to one of her questions. King Devimonel was indeed coming after them.
A Bringer leaned over and pointed at her house. Devimonel nodded slowly and then vanished, reappearing at their front door with his followers at his side. Her father quickly dashed away from the drapes and grabbed Aradia and her mum, pulling them away from the window.
“Libby, take Aradia AND GO!!!IT’S HIM!!!!!HURRY!!!” he screamed, kissing Aradia’s mum quickly and affectionately.
Her mum rushed over, crying, and swiped Aradia up, running up the stairs. Aradia heard a loud crash and an ear-splitting, spine-tingling laugh that made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.
“Devimonel, leave my house this instant!”
There was a blast and shattering could be heard in Aradia and her mother’s hiding place in the wall near the stairs. More shattering and jets of sound happened. Realization struck Aradia. Her brave and courageous dad was dueling with King Devimonel, the darkest wizard in the world. Again there was that same horrible laughter and Aradia heard her dad’s petrified screams of agony. And then, the screams stopped. A loud thud traveled up the stairs and Aradia heard no more from her father; Libby heard no more from her beloved husband. Cale was dead.
“No-o-o-nooo…” Her mum sobbed in distress. She turned to Aradia, her eyes full of tears. “Aradia, darling, I need you to get out of here, quickly. I knew it would happen sooner or later….”
“But mummy, aren’t you coming?”
“No, but don’t worry about me. Mummy will be okay. Just—just follow your heart when in doubt and always, always remember that you have me and daddy’s love. You must remember that. Love is your only weapon; the only weapon that King Devimonel has not. I will die to save you, no matter how painful. You are the key. You are the only one. You can save everything. You can make everything get better and save the world! Oh sweetheart, you have no idea what’s in store for you!”
“I—I don’t understand….”
“There’s no time to explain,” said her mum, turning to get up. She grabbed Aradia’s hand and slowly pulled her up.
A spyder crawled down from his web and spun his spindly, shinny string of silk, embedding an intricate design as her mother stifled a cry. Aradia couldn’t take anymore. She couldn’t hold in her sadness any longer. She choked and suddenly hot, steaming tears flooded from her gleaming, golden eyes, shaking.
“Mummy, don’t leave me. Please, please don’t leave me!”
“I’ll never leave you, Aradia! I will always be in your heart!!”
She then gently planted a kiss on Aradia’s star scar and a tingling sensation spread throughout her body, every part of her glowing gold.

Grundhook

There was a trample of feet and a blast of light. Aradia was flown backwards and she hit the wall, pieces of paint and chunks of wood falling to the floor. A face of sheer evil looked down at them, his towering figure looming in the darkness. His head was hooded over in a black cloak, but that could not hide his looks. He had cold, pearly white eyes with no pupil. They seemed like endless pits of ice. Aradia jerked her head away from his eyes. She had a feeling that they could do more than they seemed. He didn’t have a mouth, nor did he barely have a nose. There were two tiny incisions where nostrils should have been and only two thin, small lines indicated a mouth. His skin had a ragged, green tinged colour that foul smelled; the smell of a murderer. Aradia stepped forward.
“Go away you prat!” she screamed, pointing a finger at him. He leered down at her as her mum stepped forward between them.
“Give me the girl,” Lord Devimonel retorted. His voice was scratchy and hoarse.
Her mum pulled out her wand and blasted a hole in the wall next to Devimonel, shaking the whole house, jumped to her feet, grabbed Aradia and ran past him, as screams busted out from the Bringers. A Bringer then collapsed and tumbled down the stairs, Libby blasting every piece of Bringer she could get before briefly stopping to yell at Devimonel.
“NEVER!!!”
“Get HER!!”
With a quick wave of her wand, her mum did a spell of Protection and a glowing, blue orb surrounded them, shimmering. Black, fiery spells chased after them as her mum dodged left, then right.
“Don’t kill her fools! I want her alive!! I need to kill her!!!!!!” screamed Devimonel, chasing after them.
The house was starting to collapse now, pieces of brick and plaster falling from the ceiling, and the walls began to crack in two. Her mum turned and ran into Aradia’s room, Aradia clinging on her mother for dear life. She raised her wand and pointed it cautiously at the door as he came bursting into the room, her hand shaking violently. His mouth curled into a wicked smile and he raised his wand, perfectly calm. Devimonel flicked his wand and the orb flickered, and then disappeared, leaving them completely exposed.
“Now, now, now, Libby, just hand over Aradia and you can live…”
Her mum spat on the floor at Devimonel’s feet. Aradia was now sobbing through her motions of rage.
“Hush now child, mummy’s not going to let him hurt you…” her mum whispered softly, but not soft enough.
“I’m giving you one last chance to live girl! Now, hand over the child!”
“I’ll sell my soul to Hades rather than give Aradia to the likes of you!”
“You’ve made your choice, girl!!! You’ll go down with that retched mesh of a husband!! ”
“I loved him, and I always will. If anyone is a mesh, it might as well be a filthy cockroach like you—
“Step aside, Aradia. Mummy’s got to do something she should have done a long time ago…”
Devimonel stepped forward as Libby walked up to face him, wand raised. King Devimonel glowed evilly, muttered something and then a jet of fiery black flame erupted from his wand tip as Libby shouted, “Protecsium Defendous!” But it was too late. The village clock bell sounded, ringing throughout the house, its sorrowful sound echoing in Aradia’s ears.

Titania

Oh, this forum for some reason can't see indents on paragraphs so you have to go back and put double spaces in between the paragraphs when you copy from word.

The edited parts look better, I'll try and get to the rest soon. You might want to think about whether or not you're going to keep putting them in the same thread, as a lot of us tend to put Chapters in separate threads so a reader isn't quite as overwhelmed by the amount of text. Although this is all still Chapter 1, right?

__________________
Critique and ye shall be critiqued.

Grundhook

Yes, all of that is chapter one, believe it or not!

I think I'll put it on a different thread, so like you said, my readers don't get overwhelmed. I'm going back and rereading it to look for grammer and spelling mistakes too so there won't be as many. My mum read it and said she almost cried and that she really liked it. I have already about three chapters, so she read ahead.