Well, that was a sudden turn of events. Hey there, it's me, formerly respected maid Madeleine here. Currently, I'm in the tribe's jail. I'm surprised they have a jail. More surprising is how secure it is. A fully metal cage hung between four trees, with posts built at the four trees secured by guards 24/7. This is a really inconvenient time to be jailed since I feel like any of the other fellows I live with could easily escape this jail, except for Merida. She seems like she'd be useless outside… or instead of being jailed, she'd be executed, judging by their reaction. They even broke their maid oath. Is it a maid oath?
Fortunately, this isn't my first time being jailed. I've been jailed countless times, in fact. What's weird is that this jail is entirely green. Also, I'm sharing it with someone. An artist, evidently, since they're drawing on a canvas on one of those artist painting stand thingies. I have no idea what they're called. I think she's painting me with the countless paint buckets she has. She doesn't have red, though. It must be an artistic choice or something. I don't understand artists.
"If you did not understand any artists, then their art failed. An artist creates to be understood." Oh wow… that sounded like something an artist would say… I think.
"So, why is a maid jailed? The battle maniacs would never dare touch a student of the one who destroyed them."
"I told them I'm connected with Merida."
"Ah, the Seer. That fickle fiend. She must've warned you, considering her history with the tribe's chief."
"She just told me not to mention her."
"And you failed to do that."
"Yeah."
"I'm surprised she knows such a fool."
"She got her bandit to kidnap me. It was a fun time."
"Ah, so you are eccentric like her. Birds of a feather flock together."
"You seem to know her."
"Of course, I know her. She's the reason I'm here."
"What did she do?"
"She opened my eyes. I was a combatant like the rest of them until I met her. She bested me, and as per tradition, I became subservient to her and all those below her. She chose to use this to take me around the world. There I learned many things this tribe would never dare set eyes on. When I came back, I was changed in a way they could not accept. Their greatest warrior, the Blood Queen, turned into such a feeble opponent. So they jailed me here."
"Blood Queen? You wouldn't happen to be a Sacred Power holder, would you?"
"I happen to be one. Why?"
"Can I look into your eyes?"
"Although my adventures with the Seer have taught me not to play along with eccentrics, my time in this jail has me wanting more stimulation. Fine, let us look into each other."
I stared into her eyes… ah, what a beautiful shade of red.
|
Red You can manipulate anything red. Side Note: Red tomorrow, red today. |
"Red, you say?" She covered her eyes with her hands and then pulled something out. I looked at her eye sockets, seeing her eyes still there, but the irises were devoid of colour. In her palm was a ball of red, which she turned into a blade. "Let us escape and cause havoc. I no longer wish to be jailed." She cut open a hole beneath her and fell through. The guards below instantly reacted, and so battle commenced. I think I might stand in here for a little while.
Character profile: Swift Patras
Sacred power: Red
Favourite colour: Periwinkle
Description: The twin sister of Leaf, who helped her ascension to the tribal chief. After her sister became chief, she chose to be a guard of the tribe's outer ring, an area far from the tribe's village. Monsters roam this area, and the guard's job is to keep them away from the village. Using her All Seeing Eye, Merida was travelling the world, looking for other elf tribes. After a long battle, Merida managed to best Swift and took her on her journey. Due to their adventure, Swift will freeze up upon the mention of soup.
Chapter namesake: Red by Mori Calliope (Or is it Calliope Mori?)
epiku
I'm afraid that the cover keeps readers away since I too did not mean to read this until I was starved.
Title, Cover and Description play a major part in attracting potential readers (who may stick for long) and none of those do a good job here.
The extremely low amount of readers (159 by this chapter, no thousand for the first!), despite the good rating, consistent releases and evident length, does not do this fine comedy any justice and it is not like it's super niche.
While you shouldn't change the non-descriptive title (it's still short and unique), please consider a proper description (it can and should be still tongue-in-cheek but the 'organized chaos'* found in this work is not apparent there) and a cover, preferably with Mad because we love her, we know that many love mad Maids and we should share the love, so that it can reach Mel as well.
*To elaborate/put a finger on it, the cover along with description heavily suggest very amateurish (i.e low quality) writing-for-fun-practice with very random/whimsical content. Great for a writer to get practice and critique but something only few adventurous are interested in reading.
Thanks for the feedback, really made me think. Having looked over my description again, I ought to change it since it really tells nothing substantial about Side Note, so I'll be doing that soon. I was fond of the list but that's probably because it was an improvement over the previous one, which was bland and described your average fantasy world in a single paragraph and nothing else.
As for the cover, that might take a while, since I have no idea where people get their covers, but I will change it. I like the current one, but that's only because I made it myself, since this story was originally something I wrote for kicks and giggles and didn't want to put effort into... I've ended up putting a bit more effort into it than I thought I was going to. Maybe I'll get someone to draw Madeleine doing a cool pose with daggers in hand then juxtapose that with my cover. That sounds rather funny.
So she has the power to read forums; ie She reddit.
I was listening to red as I read this chapter! What a coincidence!
Current cover is fine, describes your story perfectly!