A Little Snippet

[breezeshadow]

The king's palace was a sprawling structure in the center of town, almost hidden among the growing markets and businesses beside it. Its silver roof sparkled in the early sun, but the walls were dull and old, any paintings on them gone with age and not yet repainted. She pressed her hands together in front of her chest, smiled, and bowed her head at the guard posted at the large wooden doors; he stifled a yawn to greet her in return and let her in.

She followed the prayers to the palace's old chapel, full of great golden statues of the Dark Walkers, the Sun Dancers, the moon and the sun themselves, and all of the gods and goddesses. Even after centuries their jewel eyes still glittered down upon the worshippers. The King was at the end of the long row of blankets and concrete platforms, his voice strong and loud despite his seventy years, spindly arms raised toward the painting of a smiling sun with two of its many arms cupping the planet.

Ubon took one of the prayer blankets folded neatly beside the door and rolled it out beside one of the King's assistants, and joined them for the morning prayers. They were already a few minutes in, but she listened carefully until she found the right spot, and sang out her own reverence and joy, asking the sun to provide them with new crops, new animals, new gold and silver and riches, and to keep their kinship well and strong. She gave thanks for the day before, and the year, and her entire life, and promised eternal servitude and gratitude for the rest of her life, so long as the sun continued to rise each morning.

She always wondered what would happen if the sun didn't arrive each day, but there were too many essays on this topic, and she did not have the time to read them.

Soon the prayer was over -- the sun had plenty to do, after all, and so did they, so it was best to get the reverence over quickly and move into action. She was folding up her prayer blanket when she heard a familiar clearing of the throat, and looked up to find the King looking down at her, leaning heavily on his ornate cane.

"Sun's Blessing, Lady Ubon." He smiled and bowed his head at her; she got up to bow lowly, hands up, smiling in return. "You are not usually at the King's Sun Prayer."

She nodded. "My lord, I have ended a mission." She took her wrapped dagger from her belt, unwrapping it to reveal blood on the inside, and fresh blood on the blade, already sticking and drying -- it would take forever to clean. "I will need your guidance."

The King took the blade with one hand and held it up toward the sky windows, watching the blade and blood both glimmer in the light. He frowned thoughtfully as he called over a servant. "See that this deed is recorded and bring me the records of the negotiations between our country and Saoxing. Make copies and deliver them to my advisors." As the boy scurried off, the King returned her blade. "Come back for lunch. We shall speak then."

He left her to finish folding her prayer blanket.


I'm making culture and religion. Also "Saoxing" apparently means "to be disappointed" in Chinese, think I'll have to pick new syllables to combine.

Comments

[smw]

The king's palace was a sprawling structure in the center of town [the king’s palace sprawled], almost hidden [why almost? obscured by, overshadowed by…] among the growing markets and businesses beside [around?] it. Its silver roof sparkled in the early sun, but the walls were dull and old, any paintings on them gone with age and not yet repainted [she doesn’t know if there were paintings before? no reason to be uncertain]. [To the guard posted at the entrance… could go first. this way we know why she’s doing what she’s doing] She pressed her hands together in front of her chest, smiled, and bowed her head at the guard posted at the large wooden doors; he stifled a yawn to greet her in return and let her in.

Which is a good outline of how I would critique this, generally -- sniffing out bits of passive prose, unnecessary uncertain language, and the occasional sequencing awkwardness.

As to what I like about it, seeing you venture into non-Western cultures is always interesting. I've said it before and will say it again: the normal people things your characters do is a great part of the charm your work has. Keep on keepin' on, buddy mine. I look forward to seeing more.

[breezeshadow]

I'm glad you like the culture so far, and the fact that my characters as always are bizarrely normal. I'm trying not to throw in something too horribly sterotypical, so I appreciate that you are enjoying it thus far. ANd thanks for the quick edit; most of it I agreed with so I'll try to keep a look-out for anything else similar.