Levi and the Prince of Fire

“Hello, Ragged Rat.” I stare in dismay at the girl in front of me, and I wonder if she is friend or foe. I am lying in a pile of wood from my destroyed ship and I can’t move an inch. The girl takes a dagger from a sheath at her side and my entire life flashes before my eyes…

I was born on the island of Patame, a small island, to be sure, but a home none the less. Small though it may be, it was a busy place, always full of travelers trying to make their fortune. I always knew that my fortune lay elsewhere, though I wasn’t sure where. I had gold red hair in those days, and dark blue eyes. I’d always been sort of tan, while everyone else was a pale sort of color. My left arm has never been right, not since the first that I can remember. It’s sort of stiff and difficult to maneuver. I was the blacksmith’s apprentice, and good at it, too. I can’t tell you about my parents, for I never knew them. But my caretaker, Mara, I could tell you plenty about her. I have no human friends, but I have befriended a she wolf. My story really began one morning two years before I left. But I won’t start at the beginning, no; you’d never really understand that way. For you to truly understand, we have to begin at the day of undoing, the day that mine and my brother’s first breaths were drawn. I, of course, don’t remember that day, but the book of records has it written, exactly what happened…

‘Twins are rare things on the island of Patame, but when they occur, only one may be kept, as is law, now, if one twin is male and the other female, then the son will be kept and the daughter given to a widow. If both are girls then both may be kept, but if both are male, then the stronger of the two is to be kept, and the weaker either killed or taken to a neighboring island. Such was the case with Beckett and Arania, a newlywed couple. Beckett was a sailor, or used to be, before marrying. Arania despised the position of sailor, as it is a dangerous one. She convinced Beckett to take another job, so he became a lawyer. Arania was a seamstress, and a fine one at that. Beckett and Arania had been betrothed for four years, though their love was strongly forbidden. Arania was supposed to marry a man by the name of Perrin, a boy of noble blood. Arania did fully have the boy’s heart at the time that the wedding was arranged. Now, according to custom, in noble families, weddings are arranged between two families, who then join businesses to ultimately become more successful. The groom and bride are generally given no choice in the matter, just an initial meeting to find out if the two will be able to get through a lifetime with each other or whether the marriage is completely unfathomable. The marriage is arranged when both the bride and groom to be are at the age of 16, so that there will at least be a chance of a friendship forming before the wedding. Perrin loved Arania from the beginning, and she might have loved him as well, but she despised the idea of having no say in the man whom she wed, and rejected him. Perrin tried throughout the years to win Arania’s affection, but it was in vain. Arania eventually met Beckett, who also fell in love with her almost instantly. Arania found that she loved Beckett, and after the two held many secret meetings, Arania asked her father if she might wed Beckett, to which the answer was no, for Beckett was of much lower status. Needless to say, the two eloped. Arania was disinherited, but found that she didn’t care. Several months later, Arania had twin boys. The stronger, she named Ied, which in the language of the people of Patame means Blessing. The weaker, she named Levi, which means Chosen. She couldn’t bear to have Levi killed so unjustly, so she told Beckett to take him to the island of Kingsand and given to the widow Favrell. However, the twins were nearly exactly alike in appearance, and Beckett took Ied in Levi’s stead by accident. While he was gone, a stranger came into the room where Arania was and she was seen not again. When Beckett, unaware of his wife’s peril, arrived in Kingsand he was murdered the second his feet met land. A traveler by the name of Hestill found Ied and took him to a land beyond the borders of the known places. In Patame, a nurse and wildspeak, another term for animal whisperer, found Levi and took him to her dwelling.’

Aye, I lived with Mara for all of my remembered past. I always blamed this, Perrin, for my father’s death and mother’s disappearance. I never knew that it ran much deeper than that, so much deeper that possibly, I would never know. Our cottage was small, but it was big enough for two people to live in. Mara had gotten very old since adopting me, so are roles in the small family quickly reversed. When I was about 14, it was me taking care of Mara, a debt I was glad to repay. There was never much money, so when I was younger there were several times when Mara went without so I could eat. When I got older, it was my turn to go without, though Mara wasn’t pleased at all about this. Mara had wild blue eyes, the sort it’s hard to look away from. She always wore huge spectacles that were almost always slipping down her nose. She kept a garden, one of the few things she could still do. She was also fond of knitting, though the things she made were usually lopsided. I didn’t care though; Mara was as close to a mother as I would ever have. Soon after I turned 14, I became the blacksmith’s apprentice. It didn’t pay much, but it made enough money for Mara and I to get one, maybe two, meals every day. On market day or holidays, I would either sell trinkets I made out of mettle, or apply my other craft, firesing. Fire sing is a type of magic in most people’s opinion, though it really isn’t magic at all.’ It’s done by force of will, you sort of half sing half hum to a fire and it will respond by forming images to go along with the song. The singing isn’t any known language, so you have to form pictures in your mind of what you want the fire to become. I was the only human firesinger at the time. The day my story began was a typical day, as quiet as a whisper. I got out of bed and neatly folded my blanket and then went to check on Mara. She was in her rocking chair knitting, her silver hair falling about her shoulders reminding me that she should have a better life than this. I brought her a piece of bread from the kitchen, hugged her, and then left for the forge. Outside I noticed that it was darker than normal, but wasn’t too worried at the time, as I could sense a storm coming. The she-wolf bounded from the forest on either side of our house toward me, panting happily. I stopped to greet her. Her white-gray fur was smoother than normal and she might as well have been glowing, she looked so happy. “Well, sister wolf, have your cubs arrived?” she licked my hand in response. I laughed quietly and stroked her ear. “I hope their doing well, did you leave them with their father?” she barked once and then ran back toward the forest. I laughed again and headed down the dirt road for about ten minutes, then veered off onto the well worn cobble stone street to the main town. Patame was a busy place, with people running about everywhere. A man was tending his mother and father’s fields, as they were too old to be able to anymore. In the port, a man stepped off of the dock to look for his wife, who ran to him holding a baby and laughing with pleasure. I smiled, for I knew the couple well. Lauryn and James Whyttier… married just the year before. I knew them because, once when I was around five, there was a terrible storm and I got separated from Mara and wound up in a very bad place indeed. James rescued me and they took care of me until Mara came back from the storm shelter. I was happy to see them so pleased. I continued on to the forge, but Jarvin wasn’t there when I arrived. Jarvin was my master, a well tanned man with gray hair and eyes to match. He was a stern man, set in his ways. He wasn’t cruel, but wouldn’t hesitate to take a hot poker to someone who irked him. I sat down on the work bench for close to an hour before getting worried and looking behind the forge for him. There he was, talking to a man. He seemed annoyed. “We don’t deal in swords, sir. No need of em’. There hasn’ been need of a sword in years.” The other man was about to reply, but then he saw me. “Is it customary to train apprentices to eavesdrop?” He grinned and beckoned me to come closer. I went to Jarvin, who was looking very annoyed. The man shook his head. “No matter, will you make me a sword for a high price, then? I can give you a lot of money.” Jarvin sighed. “We don’t deal in swords.” Jarvin walked slowly back around to front of the forge, but I hesitated; Mara and I could use a bit more money, and it would be a nice surprise to bring her some tea, which we hadn’t been able to afford in about a year. I looked up at the stranger. “I could make you a sword; I make daggers and such all the time. But why exactly do you need a sword, like my master said, these are peaceful times.” The man glared at me, and I noticed that he looked like the incarnation of some devil of old. He had a sort of blue-black color hair, and his eyes were a stunning green. He had rugged stubble on his chin, the same bluish black of his hair. I also noticed that his demeanor was one that commanded respect, and that on his hand he bore the six point star, the mark of the rebel. He must have seen my flinch, for his glare softened. “I need a sword, boy, to recover something that was lost, something important.” I frowned slightly. “Can’t you just look for it?” He sighed, and I knew he was getting irritated. “No, I already know where it is, I just have to get it now. And it isn’t really an ‘it’ actually it’s a ‘she’. The wretched minions of my father kidnapped her, and I intend to rescue her.” I shivered slightly; all this love business was way over my head, plus this man was old enough to be the father of a fairly grown child himself, but I guessed that not everyone married at the same age. It wouldn’t hurt to help this man. “Are you going to kill your father?” I asked, meaning for the entire world not to make the sword if this man was going to kill his father with it. He nodded solemnly. “Yes, yes I do intend to kill him.” I winced at the thought and wondered what to say. Before I could reply however, he suddenly laughed and patted my head like a dog and said, “Aye, you probably aren’t skilled enough anyway. But, I am disappointed that you show such hesitation. I don’t react well to disappointment, so think carefully, or regret it later.” I thought about it for a moment, and it crossed my mind that this man might well carry out his threat. It was this one thought that really started my story.

I'm rather out of practice doing full critiques for stories. I used to do them a lot on Be Creative (my writing forum) until my life got too busy. Nevertheless I'll take my time and do one for you. Corrections are in red. Comments in blue



Final comments: I'm really sorry, but it's getting late and I had to cut this short. I'll give some general comments over the entire piece. Your writing isn't bad and you clearly makes an effort, but there are a number of areas you can improve on:

1. The above piece deals with numerous issues. First, we have the scene in the shipwreck which is quite sudden and breaks the flow. Then we have a number of different scenes from the character's childhood and the story seems to flow all over the place. Give each of these scenes their own paragraph and concentrate on them individually. You may even find you need an entire chapter for some of them.

2. Syntax. You seem to enjoy long sentences and you often overuse your comma. I've also noticed some very odd use of tenses. If you begin a sentence in the past tense (perfect, pluperfect and imperfect) end it in the past tense. Using shorter sentences generally means less of these errors.

3. Wording. You used the characters names a little too much. Try using pronouns a bit more. And try not using ''sort of'', or at least lower your usage of it. It's fine in colloquial English, but try adding a bit more style to your written English.

Anyway, I hope this helps. Again, sorry I hadn't got enough time to pay greater attention to your last few paragraphs. Keep writing. As you write more you'll get better - and who knows, you may even get published.

I'm already published at my public library and have written several things for them. Unfourtunately, I do not catch your meaning on some of the things that you said. My computer has a rather annoying grammer thing on it, and it doesn't notify me half of the time when I make a mistake. I can explane most of the problems that you pointed out though, and a good bit of them were on purpose. This story is written to be like it's the main charrecter's journal. Thank you for your help, but this charecter didn't learn to even read until the later part of the story, so I wanted some his grammer to be not that great.

Ah, I understand. Well aside from grammar, what really overwhelmed me there was how you moved from event to event. It was quite hard to follow. Paragraphing is not really an issue of spelling and grammar - it's about making your writing understandable to the reader. On the Internet, this is even more important than say, in a printed book. People don't like reading large blocks of text online.

Anyway, throw us an update whenever you are ready

Okay. I can easily explain the tenses though.

He was born on Patame, but doesn't live there anymore. It is small, and still is. It was a busy place, but not anymore. He doesn't look the way he was described anymore either, which is he said that he had rather than saying have. Also, the "Sort of" means that he wasn't very tan, just a little darker than everyone else. Left arm has never been right, means that it never worked properly, and I couldn't think of a better way to say it.

(Sorry about saying "Sort of" alot, I go through spells of using phrases often, and it's Levi's tademark thing. I also use the word "Now" alot in some stories. )

The reason I didn't put a period after "now" is that they didn't mean it as a time, they meant it differently. And he's from a weird village, so the record keeper was an odd man who is introduced later.

Ariana despised the posistion of sailor, but doesn't anymore. But it is still dangerous.

As for the first name thing... well, that was not on purpose like alot of the rest of it was.

He refers to Perrin as "This, Perrin" because "this" is a term in the world that the book is set in that indicates that the person is not human and the one saying it is disgusted with them

"I would never know" is quite true, he never does find out. But he does find out that it runs deeper than he thought it would, thus, he never fully finds out what it was.

The "Are" was another actual mistake. I had gotten really into typing by that point and was going too fast to think about spelling it

The "Go without" refers to food and small comforts.

And yes, you can sing in different languages. The one he was singing in wasn't a language that anyone was farmiliar with.

I left out the "T" in "Hasn't" because the old man is so-er- kind of country. He has an accent.

I meant for the grammer to be sort of rough, but I do need to work on paragraphs and such.

I understand what you are saying about the tenses, just it reads very badly. The sequence of tenses isn't a hard and fast piece of English grammar, but it is a rule for narration. Let me rephrase that paragraph for you:

I was born on the island of Patame, a small island to be sure, but a home none the less. If you know about it, you may think it is a rather quiet island, but it was a busy place at the time. It was always full of travelers trying to make their fortune. I always knew that my fortune lay elsewhere, though I wasn’t sure where. I had gold red hair in those days, and dark blue eyes. I’d always been sort of tanned, while everyone else was a pale sort of color. I've never been able to use my arm properly for as long as I can remember. It’s sort of stiff and difficult to maneuver.

I personally think that it sounds better that way. I've been rather liberal in editing the second sentence - but I think it flows a bit better that way.



If you have a different narrator later in the story, make sure they use ''rather'' or ''quite'' a lot to make up for it



You have to find a balance between a story that reads well and one that gets your point across. That first paragraph, in my opinion, is really quite a shocking start to the story and makes the reader uneasy when reading the comparatively tame introduction afterwards. If you want to include it, you will have to find a less shocking way of putting it in there. And remember, you do not have to remain slave to the plot you first thought up. Hell, if I didn't rethink pieces ten times over I wouldn't be where I am now with my current book.



You see the hole in your argument is that if you say it is dangerous now, it may not have been then . That said, the sequence of tenses is not a hard and fast grammar rule, but it is very much a rule in narration. Having a sentence start in the past tense and end in the present tense reads badly. On top of that, the past tense (or past tenses) are standard for narration. If you are going to be sticky about the technicalities of this: ''Ariana despised the position of sailor, at the time, because it was (and still is) a dangerous position''. I think it more or less gets your point across and it reads much better.



This is why drafting is so important. You never get anything perfect the first time .



Ok, as long as you explain it in a later chapter, preferably soon.



It flows badly though. Try a full stop instead of a comma. The punctuation in that sentence makes it hard to understand.



Yeah. I forced myself to learn how to touch type a few years back. Comes in handy .



You should probably explain that, because if I don't know what that phrase means, others probably won't



You said ''The singing wasn't any known language''. That sentence makes no sense at all, lol. You probably meant ''wasn't in any known language.



Ah, I get you. Make sure it runs throughout.



First time I posted writing on a forum I got my head bitten off. A ton of one line responses: ''Hard to read block of text is hard to read'' and such. I probably paragraph too much now though...

Thanks for explaining what's wrong with it nicly. Most of what's wrong will be explained in later chapters and such. About the narration thing though, like I said the main charrecter has terrible grammer and doesn't explain things very well. But there is a second book in the series where it's told from a different charecter's point of veiw, so the narration is much better. Thanks so much for your help, I think I'll join your website. Does it require email activation?

Your welcome. You could try intentional misspellings? As long as the misspelled word looks fairly ok, it won't bother most people. Maybe bad grammar annoys me more than it should



Yes it does. However if I know your name I can validate you manually.

Okay then, I'll join your site. Did you mean my real name or screen name? I share an email sddress with my mom, it's not really a problem, I just don't like putting my email address on the web for some reason.

The main charry is modled after a kid that I had a dream about onetime. I was working on writing another series called "A Tale of Twelve Pirates" and then I started writing another series about the same place, except it's set before the first series. It mentions Levi, so after I had a dream about him I decided to go ajead and give him some attention as well.

Unfourtuantely I tend to come up with stories faster than I can write them. I have like 20 or so in the works "Write" now.

Haha, I've been writing the same story for the past two years. But my compulsiveness to edit them has meant that the current draft I'm working on is nothing like the original. You could say they are two separate stories.

Yeah, I meant the screen name. I don't need to know anything else really.