Teaser Tuesday

On my "blog" on The Young Writers Society, we [the members who keep up blogs] post teasers every tuesday from things we have been working on writing wise. It's a fun exercise, and so I'm going to keep it up here.

After much deliberation, I have decided to start from the beginning of my current novel project, Eventide. It's fantasy, I guess you could say high fantasy but I'm not very up on the lingo so maybe not.

A little background:
Natura and Nolen are siblings, Natura being my MC (main character). They live in Parcel, a small hunting village in Icarthia. Icarthia is largely forest, and one of nine countries on the continent of Ascensia. In this scene, Natura and Nolen have been playing a sort of dueling game in the forest outside of their village (it includes arrows under some sort of magical influence, running around barefoot, and other aspects that don't matter for this scene) and Natura has clearly won.

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She stood over his body triumphantly. “Told you,” she mocked.

He didn’t move, but mumbled a few indiscernible words into the dirt.

“What was that, Nolen?” Natura asked. “You say, yes Natura, you did tell me you would win. I was a fool to believe I could ever defeat you?”

Nolen managed to turn his head to the side slightly. “Nu,” he mumbled, “I sed, thet wus unfer.”

Natura fell to the ground laughing. “You should hear yourself!”

“Nah funey, Natra.” he mumbled.

Once she had composed herself again Natura pushed Nolen’s large body up so he was sitting against the earth wall. He sat slumped to the side, a discontented expression clinging to his face.

“I hate you,” he finally spoke clearly.

“Oh, don’t say that,” Natura scolded as she pulled the arrow she had hit him with from the wall– it had passed straight through him and lodged itself in the earth wall. “You know, these arrows are quite handy. How did you manage to get them to work that way?”

“You wouldn’t be interested,” Nolen said, “And don’t change the subject.”

Natura sat next to him and smiled. “Okay. I’m sorry that I beat you so bad, even after I warned you I would.”

Nolen frowned, or rather attempted to frown. It looked more like he had just eaten something that had spoiled. “Well on the positive side, you have to carry me home.”

Natura groaned at the thought of carrying Nolen back home. “But you’re twice my size,” she complained.

“Come on now, big sister. Help your little brother get home.”

Natura sighed and pulled him to his feet. His legs gave out and she found herself with all of Nolen’s weight hanging on her shoulder. “So much for you being a little brother, what are you, fifteen years? Shouldn’t your big sister at least look like she’s three years your elder?”

“Nope,” he gloated, leaning further on her.

Natura groaned, the weight buckling her knees. “Do you want me to leave you here?” she asked him.

He sighed. “No, I guess not.” He took some of his weight off of his sister.

Even with the extra weight off, Nolen was still extraordinarily heavy. Natura struggled to walk with his weight, and to avoid the two rambunctious wolves – barely out of pup-hood – that entertained themselves by running around Natura’s legs and being as underfoot as possible.

Progress was slow, as Natura struggled between keeping Nolen upright and trying to avoid stepping on a wolf’s paw. And, much to Natura’s chagrin, Nolen spent his time spouting off reasons why he, in fact, won and Natura didn’t.

“You see, the ending arrow shouldn’t be the decision of the true victor. The true victor ought to be the one who tracked the best, fought valiantly, and proved himself the strongest!” Nolen said, waving his arm that wasn’t around Natura’s shoulders to prove his points.

Natura rolled her eyes and pushed him off of her. He fell backwards on the ground, his eyes and mouth wide open. “If you’re strong enough to wave your arms around, you’re strong enough to walk,” Natura said. She walked away, leaving Nolen to the mercy of the wolves. Alaster and Nolen’s wolf, Jade, ran circles around Nolen, jumping into his lap and licking his face.

“Oh you’re just sore because I should have won!” he called after her. “Hey - get- get offa me!” he shouted, pushing the wolves away and clambering to his feet.

He jogged after Natura, stumbling a bit here and there, and grabbed her around the waist. He threw her over his shoulder and kept running.

“Nolen! Nolen let me down!” Natura yelled, hitting his back with fisted-hands. “Oh, I knew you were fine enough to walk!”
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Well, that's all for this tuesday. I'll try to post frequently if I remember and have something written.

-Lauren-