The Beauty of it all. [very short story]

[Arat-Falathion]

Ah, finally I finished something... or perhaps it is just a part of something bigger I could write, who knows...

Anyway, I wrote this to Hans Zimmer & Lisa Gerrard - The Gladiator Theme. It is so beautiful, and I tried to catch the mood and strong emotion of that song in my text. Ah, that wasn't easy...



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The beauty of it all
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A great grassland displayed into view as the crow shifted easily on the wind and settled at the perch of a scorched bush. The bush was set in the middle of this vast grassland, and there it stood triumphantly, as if history had been written at this place and the bush was its monument.

Three other monuments spired close to it, but these were greater. Not by size, but of share pose -they were of flesh and bone.

Their silver hair played gently in the breeze, their armor was dashed and their shields broken. Unmoving they were, like a troll watching the sun for the first time, frozen to stone.

There they stood, swords lowered to the ground, bloodied, dented, shining in the crimson-set sky of the dawning sun. A fire flickered in their eyes, wet with the emotional beauty of it all, yet dejection and loss fought to kill that hopefull flame burning inside them.

Firm they stood, even though their lips trembled with exhaustion, wicked wounds pained their bodies and death pulled at their souls. They would not yield, would not allow themself to sit down and rest. They would not let the peacefull sleep of death lure them into its seducing entrapment.

"Beautiful..." Bandolas whispered through clenched teeth, for his wickedly wounded chest was bloodied by the blood of many, yet most of it his own. He fell to the ground, limply, as the last seed of life left his body.

The vast plain was filled with bodies, the ground muddied with blood, light danced on the uncountable plates of armour and weapons laying sprawled and broken. A war of pride and honor, of land and kingdom. True heroes they were, those two still standing. True servants of their king and country...

"Be at peace, brother." Berandor whispered. He was the least wounded of the remaining, yet his sword the most bloodied. "You have earned your right among the gods this night."

On the northern end of the plain grassland, whiteclad riders were approaching. They held banners high, banners that flowed and weaved in motion with the wind. The silver-enlaiden silk reflected the flickering beams of the sun and produced a mesmerizing display of greatness and mystery. A grand sight to behold for the elven warriors, who stood there lonely in the middle of the great grassland. They were struggeling more now than they had ever before; -struggeling the strange taste in their mouth and the clump in their throats, struggeling the tears in their eyes and the tremble at their lips.

Honor and pride, exquisite and loss, emotiones too gravious to struggle.

"So they came at last..." Berandor whispered. "The reinforcements."

"So it seems, but too long did it take our messangers to reach their land." Felandil sighed through his pain. "And too long did it take our friends to come back. How the count of loss could have changed by so many with only a few days, if we only had predicted..."

He released a mournfull cry of pain as he fell to his knees, both hands resting at the pommel of his sword, pierced into the ground before him. His head sunk to his chest slowly. "Mother of all, take me in your arms, bring me to your eternity," he whispered, then he fell to his side, sprawled beside his sword. He stared emptily at the blue sky above him, a peaceful smile set on his whitening lips.

"Rest in peace brave warrior." Berandor whispered as the riders caught up with him. Their white beauty glowed as the sun shone on their backs, their proud steeds walked gracefully and their heads were held high.

Berandor did not behold their greatness. He walked right through their ranks, towards the forrest on the other side, towards his home, the kingdom of Ethalas, the Silverwoods of Kanatas. He cared little for allies now, they had come too late...
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Thanks for reading...

[Dreran the Green]

Wow, that's beautiful. You must really be able to tap into the music, it's great.

[Tessar]

Originally posted by Arat-Falathion
[B]And there they stood, swords lowered to the ground, bloodied, dented, shining in the crimson set sky of the setting sun of dawn. A fire flickered in their eyes, wet of the emotional beauty of it all, yet of the savage and loss.

This doesn't make much sense to me.

Especially: Shining in the crimson set sky of the setting sun of dawn.

The word 'set' and 'setting' are too close together. Also, if it's the sun of dawn, why is it setting? Is it morning or evening?

Also: A fire flickered in their eyes, wet of the emotional beauty of it all, yet of the savage and loss.

Perhaps 'wet with the emotional...' might flow a tad better.

'Yet of the savage and loss' doesn't make any sense at all to me.


The word 'beauty' pops up way too much.


Of course keep in mind that that's just what I think . Also keep in mind that I thought it was a great story! Very moving!

[Arat-Falathion]

Thanks both of you.

I actually wrote this and posted it right away. Reading over it now, when I've had some time to put my mind off it, I can see the mistakes you did Tessar... I shall edit it and make it better...
Oh, and about too many "beautifull"-words in there; That was actually planned, as the title of the story was to be referred to. Perhaps I overdid it a little, I changed most of them now...

I saw that the first part of the story was very clumsily written, hope I managed to change that now...

Ah, and one thing popped up to me suddenly: Isn't setting and rising the same? Heh, guess not... so now I know... thanks!

This was a practise on writing an emotional moving scene... Thank you for the comments!

Oh, and as a note: I am a musician. I have written music to many poems and stories before, so I guess this was just all about reversing that experience

[Tessar]

Ahhh much better , and still a lovely work .

No their not the same thing . When the sun is setting, that means that night is coming.

When the sun is rising that means that it's morning.

Think about it, rising means going up; to the person who is standing in an open field (or anywhere else for that matter) at night the sun is sinking back towards the ground, but in the morning it's 'rising' up into the middle of the sky.

[Arat-Falathion]

Yeh, you are right... what was I thinking all these years!?!

Ah, and thanks again... perhaps I should write a prequel to this story... leaves a question of what happened here and why in my mind... may as well just get that out on paper... if time let me

[Lief Erikson]

Originally posted by Arat-Falathion
And there they stood, swords lowered to the ground, bloodied, dented, shining in the crimson-set sky of the dawning sun. A fire flickered in their eyes, wet with the emotional beauty of it all, yet dejection and loss fought to kill that hopefull flame burning inside them.

It might be good to change the beginning from 'and', simply because it's common grammar to not begin a paragraph with a conjunction. It might be helpful, to avoid early confusion, to have an earlier paragraph describing who 'they' are, and what the setting is. I know I was confused by the early paragraph when I first read it, and had to reread it a couple times before fully understanding it, and being able to continue.

Originally posted by Arat-Falathion
Firm they stood, even though exhaustion trembled at their lips, wicked wounds pained their bodies and death pulled at their souls. They would not yield, would not allow themself to sit down and rest, they would not let the peacefull sleep of death lure them into its seducing entrapment.

This is a good paragraph. One thing I'd advise is the changing of your structure in the first sentence a bit though, where you talk about 'even though exhaustion trembled at their lips', for exhaustion is trembling in front of their lips, in that way. It's not their lips trembling with exhaustion, which is what I think you meant.

Originally posted by Arat-Falathion
"Beautiful..." Bandolas whispered through clenched teeth, his wickedly wounded chest bloodied by the blood of so many, yet most of it his own. He fell to the ground, limply, as the last seed of life left his body...

Bandolas' chest being bloodied doesn't really fit with the his "Beautiful," statement, in this manner. If you added in a 'for', and deleted the word 'so' at these points, "Bandolas whispered through clenched teeth, for his wickedly wounded chest was bloodied by the chest of many, yet most of it his own," it would work out as one sentence, grammatically. Then it's cause and effect. He whispered through clenched teeth because he was severely wounded. As it's currently written, it doesn't follow itself very well.

Originally posted by Arat-Falathion
The vast plain was filled with bodies, the ground muddied with blood, light dancing on the uncountable plates of armour and weapons laying sprawled and broken. A war of pride and honor, of land and kingdom. True heroes they were, those two still standing. True servants of their king and country...

This is good. Simply change the bit about 'light dancing'. It's good description usage, but it's a continuation of the description of the vast plain, and thus doesn't fit. I'd advise you just change it very slightly, in saying 'light danced', rather than 'light dancing'.

Originally written by Arat-Falathion
"Be at peace, brother..." Berandor whispered, the least wounded of the remaining, yet his sword the most bloodied. "You have earned your right among the gods this night..."

Might be better if you changed it to two separate sentences. End with a period after his first whispered sentence has been whispered, and then say 'he was the least wounded', etc.

One other note, is that I think you should make the people end in periods in their conversation, more frequently. Here you can change the '...' at the end of each of his sentence to a plain period, and it would make just as much sense, if not more. The dramatic effect of people trailing off is good to utilize, but only sparingly. Periods are to much better sense, normally.

Originally posted by Arat-Falathion
On the northern end of the plain grassland, whiteclad riders were approaching. Banners held high, flowing through the wind. Its silver-enlaiden silk reflecting the flickering beams of the sun. A grand sight to the elven warriors, now struggeling more than they had ever before. Struggeling the strange taste in their mouth and the clump in their throats, struggeling the tears in their eyes and the tremble at their lips.

Again, you have great descriptive language, but simple grammatical difficulties. Every sentence except the first one, in this paragraph, is a sentence fragment.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally posted by Arat-Falathion
Honor and pride, exquisite and loss, emotiones too gravious to struggle.

"So they came at last..." Berandor whispered. "The reinforcements..."

"So it seems... but too long did it take our messangers to reach their land..." Felandil sighed through his pain. "And too long did it take our friends to come back. How the count of loss could have changed by so many with only a few days... if we only had predicted... ..."

Again, just change the '...' to periods or commas, more frequently. It's not necessary to do it with every usage here, for some of them actually do fit with the '...' form. It is somewhat too much, though.

Originally posted by Arat-Falathion
He released a mournfull cry of pain as he fell to his knees, both hands resting at the pommel of his sword, pierced into the ground before him. His head sunk to his chest slowly. "Mother of all, take me in your arms, bring me to your eternity," he whispered, then he fell to his side, sprawled beside his sword, an empty stare set at the blue sky and a peaceful smile set at his whitening lips.

Good .

Originally posted by Arat-Falathion
"Rest in peace brave warrior..." Berandor whispered as the riders caught up with him, their white beauty glowing as the sun shone on their backs, their proud steeds walking gracefully and their heads held high.

Berandor did not behold their greatness, he walked right through their ranks, towards the forrest on the other side, towards his home, the kingdom of Ethalas, the Silverwoods of Kanatas. He cared little for allies now, only recovery and sleep mattered, they had come too late...

These also are good. The second paragraph needs to have, at the first comma, a change of it to either a period or a semi-colon.

In the last sentence, it's a little bit confusing to have the mentioning of recovery and sleep inserted right in the middle of his thought. His thought was, "I don't care about the allies now, because they arrived too late." It's a little strange for the last sentence of the story to basically say, "I don't care about the allies now, because they arrived too late, and now I want some sleep and medical aid."


I do like the story though, and I'm glad I got your email before tomorrow. I enjoyed critiquing it, too . You write well, Falathion. You have good transition between thoughts, events, and dialogue. I like the structure and the way your paragraphs follow each other. The way that they are written also brings across a great deal of description, which is good.

Thanks for making that story available for us to read .

[Arat-Falathion]

Haha I knew you would just find about 1000 faults to comment in that text Lief Ahh, thank god that Tessar made me correct a few obvious issues before you started tearing on it Thank you tenfold for taking your time'...'

Now I'll just have to go editing it again, correct my grammar'...'

I seriously need to start reading the english grammar again, it doesn't come naturally to me you know, as I wish it would. Norwegian grammar does'...'

Heh, and I just had to laugh when you pointed out the '...'-offtrailing in that paragraph about the reinforcements, where I used it a thousand times without even noticing!

I guess it is just a habbit I have when writing. Writing and writing is 2 different things I guess. IC and OC at that

I thank you again Lief!