Kitty's Corner • Short stories • Accepting members!

[BlueMoon130]

You can post both poems and short stories, yes. You're both welcome! I honestly thought that this idea hadn't struck interest a long time ago... xD I'm glad it has, finally, though.

Hehe, we should probably talk about something more on-topic... Do you guys prefer writing poems, short stories, or novel-type-things? I prefer to write longer things, but I think I want to try writing more short stories... it might be a good way to practice planning out the beginning, middle, and end of stories, since I can't ever seem to finish my stories. I can write poetry, but I don't think too highly of my own writings; the only times I really write poems are for prophecy-type things in role plays.

Okay, Chevy, can you make a form, please? You can either PM it to me or post it here.

i did make a form its on the bottom of the first page...

[~Aragorn~]

Oh hay, I'm a moderator. Cool. Righty, first some stuff about me, then constructive crticism for de poem.

Well me I like to think I'm a bit random. Who honestly wants to be normal? I prefer writing fantasy, and I always end up starting things and never finishing them D: Like Kitty I can go on, and on, and on, and on.... etc. I think my english teacher gets frightened whenever I hand in my work. Well yeah, that'll do for now. I'll post something I wrote for a comp here on CS shortly.

Now for the poem. It has good rhythm, but the words seem a bit... maybe jumbled. Of course it depends on what effect you are going for with it, but for me it sounds a bit like Dr Seuss, take that as you will. If you're wanting that kind of effect than its great, but if you're going for something a bit more dramatic then you need to change a few things. Maybe get some words that are a bit more exotic and different if you know what I mean? Likewise if you're going for dramatic sometimes it can be easier to just drop rhyming I find. Then again, I don't like to rhyme anyway I'm kind of new to the critiquing thing, so I could be speaking absolute rubbish... but yeah.

[~Aragorn~]

No one's posted for a while... oh well I'm going to post this anyway. Hope I can get some feedback.

In the darkest, stormiest night.
In the palest, purest snow.
She is there.
Domina Corvus

A young man's boots pressed into the fresh layer of snow, leaving perfect imprints in his wake. His hands were sunk deep in his pockets and his dark hair flung moodily over his face. An air of decided indifference emanated from him as he made his way to wherever it was he was going. In the distance a wooden farmhouse rose out of the pristine, shimmering environment, standing out like a raven among a flock of doves.

The farmhouse had long faded against the gray of the sky however before the man came to a stop. He raised his eyes from the ground, where they had been rooted almost the entire journey, and with a small flick of his head cleared his hair from his eyes. Darkness flashed from these shining, blank orbs as he scanned the landscape with what appeared to be casual interest.
Evidently satisfied, he reached back into his pocket, discreet and yet with such care and awe that it would fill anyone who happened to be watching with curiosity. Slowly withdrawing a clenched hand, he knelt in the cold and started working away with his remaining hand at the snow in front of him. There was no sign of him flinching away as would normally occur when a person moved snow without gloves. No sign of any pain, or feeling at all in fact. No discomfort at the dampness that had begun to filter through the knees of his trousers, no self-consciousness or wariness caused by the openness of his actions. Nothing.

The snow was not hard, and soon he had a hole about as deep as his hand was long. Grass had begun to show and he brushed the last remaining clutter away to reveal a stone. It was smooth and rounded, almost like the top of a gravestone but much more beautiful. Its surface was polished black like the top of a modern piano. Carved into its curving face in exquisite, sweeping letters were the words:

From the raven farmhouse that he had passed earlier, something was coming. The door hung open, and footprints led from it across the snow. There was no sign as to what had left them, but they were smaller than those left by the earlier passer-by. The two tracks soon merged, so definitively that it was not difficult to tell that who or whatever they were, their business was with the dark man.
A cry broke the eerie silence that always came with the fall of snow. The croaking, rasping call of a raven. A fleeting shadow passed over the snow as it too followed the footprints of the man. Strange happenings were afoot. As it flew it would occasionally call out as it had before, and its eye seemed fixed on the ground below, like an owl after a mouse. Having the advantage of flight it soon caught up with the smaller footprints, but they merely stopped. There was no sign of whatever had made them, and no sign of it having turned off to the right or the left. The bird alighted on the ground beside the last print, then gave its call again. Frustrated, it once again took to the skies.

Barely a meter from where the bird had perched a woman stood. It was certain she had not been there before. Or had she? Perhaps not even the sharp eye of a bird could have picked her shimmering form from the landscape around her. Now that it was gone she cast a furtive glance about her, and moved back onto the path she had been on before the untimely interruption. Her skin was as white as a perfect pearl, and her hair the same dark brown as you might see in a forest during the night. She wore a simple pale dress, but it seemed to move at her direction as much as her limbs did.

This was the woman who minutes later arrived at the hole and the end of the tracks. She knelt down beside it, just as the man had before her, and stared down into the hole. Reaching inside it, she pulled from its heart a black feather. She looked at it wordlessly for a second, then pulled from her dress a sharp bladed knife. Her mouth was set and her eyes as cold as the wind that had begun to whip her hair into her face. With surprising aggression, she cut cleanly through its stalk, and then dug it into the snow by her side. She then placed the two halves of the feather back in the hole, and got to her feet.

"I-ris," came a sing-song call from behind her. She turned slowly, and closed her eyes wearily as she spotted two figures not far away. One was that of the dark man, and the other was a woman. Iris said nothing, but stared with burning passion at the man. She reached down slowly, aiming to pluck her knife from the snow.

The woman laughed, "No no dear, you won't want that," she moved her hand slightly and the knife darkened. Iris jerked away, and for the first time examined the woman closely. Their skin was the same, but the stranger's hair was as white as freshly washed sheets. It was long, stretching down to below her hips in thin, curling ribbons. She wore a dark blue gown that unlike her own was extravagant in every detail. Everything about her was poised, elegant and graceful, aloof from the world.

"Leave me alone," she growled, "I have my own quest to fulfill." The woman laughed again, a light, airy, confusing laugh.
"You want revenge," She said brightly, "Don't we all?" Iris shrugged and took a tiny step back. Her ankle gave way and she had to grit her teeth to keep from crying out as she hit the ground.
The woman stepped forwards. The beating of wings sounded overhead and a raven alighted on the shoulder of the strange man.
"Someone died," the elegant woman mused, "or something happened. To be honest I might have had something to do with that. Just a wee bit."

----------------------------------

She took another step forwards.
"You've already figured out how things work," the lady commented. "The way you hid yourself from Corax was ingenious." She took two more steps in quick succession so that she was standing over the prostrate Iris.
Iris shook her head at the women and pushed herself into a sitting position. She pulled from the side of her dress another, smaller knife. Throwing back her arm, she flung it at the man and started when with a dull thud it actually buried itself in his chest. She turned slightly frightened eyes on the strange woman, there was some unnatural influence here. Her gaze flickered back to the man, and her face paled, if it was even possible that it could be paler than it already was. He had started to sway slightly on his feet as an unnatural dark flow began to make its way down to the pure white of the snow. She watched captivated as its colour slowly changed, reddening to become a shockingly beautiful ruby stain. His knees buckled, and he fell to the ground.
"Go see girl," the woman said with a smile. It obviously didn’t hurt her to see her partner in darkness fall. "See what you have done."
Iris tried again to get to her feet, and found to her surprise that nothing hindered her. She cast a suspicious glance at the strange woman and walked to the now dead man's side. An involuntary cry left her as she looked upon the body.
His dark hair had faded to a sandy blonde, and his skin had darkened to take on a playful tan rather than the unnatural white he had borne in life. The biggest change was in his eyes. The featureless orbs of darkness that had once resided there had been replaced with counterparts of beautiful sea green. A tear ran down her pale face as she stared. She had killed him. How? How had it come to this? A sob escaped her.
The woman laughed again, this time it was cruel, cold and menacing. "How ironic," she said with a smile, "killed by the one who loved him most. Who swore she would stop at nothing to destroy the man she imagined to be his murderer."
Iris shook her head in silent denial as the woman continued her monologue. "And to think that if you had been but minutes earlier you could have stopped all this. You know this. It was the feather. The feather and the stone."
She looked up at the sky. "But see, we run out of time." She crossed to where Iris knelt, removing the darkened blade from the snow as she did so. Iris refused to look up as she stood at her side. "You know what happens when darkness falls on one soul. The light is enough to brighten even the dullest soul. But do you know what happens when that same darkness leaves the being it has claimed?"
Iris reached out and touched the cold hand of the man, and closed her eyes. The woman tossed the knife and caught it by the blade. "You can have this back if you would like?" she said, a teasing smile dancing across her face.
Iris reached up wordlessly, expecting it to be torn away at any moment. It was not, but as her fingers brushed the end of the handle she gave a small cry and jerked away. A sharp bolt of pain, as if electricity had jumped from the blade into her very soul ran through her. She opened her mouth wide, tried to scream but found she couldn't. She looked down at herself and though her mind was clouding managed to comprehend the darkness spreading up her dress. Piercing cold ripped through her, and everything went black. She felt nothing. She was nothing. Nothing mattered anymore. Nothing but the low wail that echoed through her mind. It never stopped, never changed, not for a moment. Domina Corvus

And they say that she is still out there
and that when a man or woman goes astray
and kills
they belong to her

[spookskingcal]

Hey, that's really good! I don't see anything that could be fixed or changed. Good job!

[~Aragorn~]

Thanks! I love getting feedback like that on my stories. I might post another one in a bit, but not right now. And oh hay, It's legolas XD