u/kma610

After my last post, I felt compelled to share this as well. I'm not planning to shotgun the sub with drafts, and I’ll be giving feedback too, to return the favor. I really like what I wrote here and I’m totally open to being brought down to earth. If it lands, let me know! If it doesn’t, lay it on me.

Context: This is intended to be the cold-open prologue to the book. The other excerpt I shared, Joy-Shadow, would be much later, last third of the book. So, the rest of the events of the book lead up to the prologue.

Thanks in advance.

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The path was empty, and the forest enjoyed the respite.

A quiet symphony formed that was not meant for the ears of men.

Old, creaking oaks settling under their own weight.

Ash straining upward past them, groaning for the warmth of the sun.

Wind threading the high canopy, catching the leaves above.

A soft knock of deadfall somewhere deep.

The step and pause of a red deer.

Wrens, trilling and squabbling for the choicest branch.

Fairies drifted on the easy song, dotting the woodland as they bobbed lazily from oak to fern to hazel, brushing leaf and stem with their brief, bright care before drifting on again.

And then, the symphony collapsed.

A distant sound that did not belong disturbed the rhythm. The wrens called warnings through the branches, their trills turning sharp and frantic. The deer heeded their call, froze, then darted, crashing through branch and sedge. The fairies scattered, reacting by some instinct older than memory, vanishing into the high branches like sparks snatched upward by the wind.

Boots. The sound of many boots in cadence.

Horns, deep, that haunted the morning mist.

A deafening clatter of shaped wood, dry and dead, turned to uses beyond their nature.

A strange grim silence beneath that defied the racket.

And then, a thunderous clash. Yells that turned to whimpers, then sounds the forest knew well. The crunch of bone. The squelch of rendered flesh.

Boots again. And then silence. A dreadful silence that settled into the soil and was not of the forest. Unnatural. Unwelcome.

The forest held its breath.

One remained. He wandered deeper, crying sounds that had shapes that the forest did not understand.

The man fell to his knees in the loam, his hands grasping the roots of the old oak before him like a blind man searching for what he had lost, even knowing he would not find it there, and the sound he made was something like weeping, but not quite. Something older than simple grief, pulled from somewhere deep in the chest where the things you cannot survive are kept.

He shouted his words into the silent canopy, and when no answer came, he screamed sounds that were more formless, his head against the roots between his knees, and then he grew silent for an amount of time that was trivial to the trees, but far too long for men.

“Sorrow-bearer.”

The man jumped and raised his head.

“Why do you cry to the empty sky?”

Hi all, this is an excerpt from a novel I'm writing. All feedback is welcome!

I would love to hear thoughts on pacing, the dialogue dynamics, whether the emotional impact lands effectively, and does the Fae feel sufficiently otherworldly to you?

Important context-- In this world, there is a natural magic system where the souls of those who pass are able to be woven into objects. Druids can approximate this magic, but only if they are there to catch the threads of the soul as it leaves the body so they can weave it into an object.

The druids call the magic Kenning. The poetic device of kenning is also integral to this world, which is why the fae speaks the way it does.

*Made an edit to fix a typo in a name.

---

“Poor sorrow-bearer, why do you cry to the empty sky?”

The voice was small and thin, and it was made of the sounds the forest made when nothing human was listening. The rasp of dry leaves against each other, the creak of dead wood in the wind, the trickle of water into still pools with nowhere left to go. There was something empty and old in the sound of it, some quality of long erosion, the voice of a thing worn smooth by the decay of endless time.

But it was not a sad sound. Hengest heard it and recognized it dimly, the way you might recognize the unnoticed scent of your own home after a long time away.

Hengest raised his head.

It crouched at the edge of the tree line. It was a creature of the Fae. Small, no larger than a child, but not proportioned like one. It seemed at once both youthful and ancient and its skin was dark and fibrous, like the damp threads you find beneath rotting wood.

Its eyes were two black pools, too large for its face, so dark they swallowed even the shadows behind them. It stared at him expectantly, its head held to one side like it had encountered a new and puzzling thing.

“My son,” he answered. “My son is dead.”

The fae considered this. “Yes,” it said.

Hengest waited. It offered nothing more.

“He’s dead,” he said again, his voice catching. He was still on his knees, his hands pressed against the roots. “Do you not understand death? He’s gone! He was only seventeen! He was—” His throat closed painfully.

The fae still regarded him, head cocked like it wasn’t satisfied. Like it wanted more.

Like it wanted.

“What do you want!” Hengest shouted.

“What do you want?” it asked.

Hengest pushed off of his knees, rose to his feet, and paced as his anger welled up again. “You came to me!” His voice was hot. “Didn’t you hear me? Weren’t you listening? I want answers!”

His voice trembled. “Why? Tell me why!”

“Why?” echoed the fae. “Why does the bear eat the deer? Why does the deer eat the ferns? Why does the oak fall?”

Hengest stood and breathed, deep and ragged. “Because they do.”

“Yes,” the fae said, seeming pleased.

“That’s—” Hengest’s hands went into his hair. “That’s not an answer! The oak falls with time. The bear eats to live. You don’t understand men, do you? You can’t. Men aren’t of nature.”

The fae’s head now tilted the other way. It waited.

“You don’t know what it is to want,” Hengest said. “Not the way men want. It’s not of nature, to want more than you can carry, more than you can ever use. To take and take until there’s nothing left and still feel empty.” He was shaking. “My son died in the name of a faceless man, died for a man he never met so the man could take more of something he already had too much of because he wanted more. That’s what killed him. You don’t have a name for that! It has no place in your world!”

The fae laughed. A thin, wandering sound, like water over stone.

“Not of nature?” it said. “All is nature. Even wanting. The tree wants, so it reaches for the sky-fire. Does it care that its shade starves the below-life? The ivy wants, so it climbs the tree. Does it care that its clinging chokes the sky-reacher?” Its great dark eyes stared into him, unblinking, unsettling. “Everything is wanting.”

Hengest stared, processing the fae’s words.

“But does the ivy know it hurts the tree, and does it choose it anyway?” he said.

The fae considered. “No.”

“Then it is not the same.”

The fae absorbed this in the way it absorbed everything. Without urgency, without conclusion.

"No,” it said, “No choosing. The ivy only wants. It does not feel grief-weight. No loss.” It paused, almost too long, a length of time afforded by a thing with endless time.

“But grief is shadow. Shadow needs light. The ivy casts no grief-shadow because it has never felt the light.” Another pause. “Have you felt the joy-light?”

The question caught him off guard, hit him in a place that hurt to remember, a place he hadn’t known existed anymore.

“I—Yes. I believe I did, once.”

“Because of your son,” the fae answered for him. “Is he only joy-shadow now? Is your loss all that is left of him?”

No! Hengest flinched, recoiling from the thought. No, Colm was so much more than just the grief, just the loss, and then memories flooded him. Happy memories, things he had allowed the grief to close away because they had hurt too much to recall. There was anger, but not the anger of loss; a father’s anger when Colm had snuck away to play with Finn instead of gathering wood for the hearth, but Sara had laid a hand on his arm and said to him, let him be little. And there was love, the love that would swell in his heart in the quiet hours at home when he would hold Sara and Sara would hold Colm and they would all bundle against the cold and sing his songs. And joy, yes, the joy of a full and happy life, together, fleeting as it may have been.

And then Hengest understood. He sobbed, his eyes filling with tears now of a different kind.

He clutched the pendant around his neck, let himself feel Sara, and they felt their sadness together. Gods, he still ached for his son—if anything, he ached even worse than he had before, and he ached for Sara, too, and the boys, and his mother and father and all of the other family and friends who had left him behind or been taken from him, but there was a spark of something else there, now. Like a pinprick of light, piercing through the void of grief.

It was the joy they had all brought to him.

What kind of life would he have lived at all, without having ever known them?

“What do you want?” The fae asked him again.

“I want...”

The self-righteous anger was gone. His voice was small, desperate, pleading.

“I want my son back.”

The fae seemed to ponder a long moment. Then it turned its eyes down and pointed to the soil.

“Do you know what this was?” it asked. “It was an oak. Deep-root. Old. It fell in a storm, made its long-return.”

It cast its eyes up and pointed to the tree that towered over them. “And now it feeds the new-life, and it will for a hundred seasons.”

Then it looked back down at him.

“It is not gone. Everything becomes.”

The words gave no comfort to Hengest. His son had returned to the earth, as would they all, with time. He knew this.

But then, he felt the fae was not offering comfort regardless. There was no warmth in its voice, nor pity, nor cruelty either—it was simply speaking of what was, as was its nature.

“Your son is gone,” it said, “But... Not gone. Returned.”

The fae placed a hand on the trunk of the tree next to them. A root sprung from the ground, growing rapidly to become a sapling, and then a branch whorled into the shape of a rounded, spiraling coin.

"The warm-thread wanted to be found," it said, gesturing for Hengest to take the coin.

Hengest reached, but he hesitated. He smoothed his hair and wiped his eyes on a sleeve. His hand hovered over the coin. It was small and plain, still faintly green with the new wood. It looked somehow perfectly smooth, with the visible spiraling pattern of the branch that had grown into it.

He took the coin.

For a moment, nothing. Just wood, smooth, lighter than it had any right to be.

And then, warmth, a specific warmth of a particular morning, the hearth burning low and the house quiet and outside the early rain, and the weight of a small boy who had fallen asleep against his arm. Hengest had barely breathed, had dared not move, dared not shift, because the weight against his arm was the most important thing in the world and he had known it.

Colm.

Hengest’s hand trembled. With his other hand he found the pendant at his neck and closed his fist around both, and he felt them! Colm and Sara, together, with him, and he felt the quality that fills a room when the people who love each other most are reunited, when no one has yet spoken because the speaking would mean the moment had begun and there is a kind of joy that lives only in the breath before.

He collapsed again to his knees and pressed his fists against his chest, Sara and Colm together over his heart, and he wept, but it was not the weeping of before, the hollow, furious grief that had brought him to this forest to scream at the empty sky.

Hengest bent and pressed his forehead against the roots.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

But the fae gave no welcome. It regarded him with its great lightless eyes, watching him with the cold attention of a thing that had lived in the same dark places for time beyond measure, that witnessed death and decay in an endless cycle as countless things had fallen and then became again—and found every single one worth watching. It accepted his thanks the way it accepted everything—without conclusion—and then it was gone, back into the undergrowth, back to do its tending.

Hi all. I’ve had ideas for a fantasy novel tumbling around in my head for a long while, and I’d love to get some feedback.

This is the opening chapter / prologue of an epic fantasy that will mostly follow a leader named Connail. This chapter focuses on Hengest and his son Colm in a rural village on a festival day, and hints at how Connail’s presence will later affect them.

I know some parts are still very first‑draft, but I’m at the point where I really want human perspective on my writing. I’m mostly looking for feedback on the writing itself (pacing, clarity, voice, characterization, etc). Does this make you want to keep reading?

If anything made you confused, bored, or especially engaged, I’d love to hear where and why.

Thank you in advance!

------

Chapter 1

The path was empty, and the forest enjoyed the respite.

Tall oaks and ash strained to outstretch one another for a breath of light, their crowns groaning and whispering in the high breeze. Wrens flitted through the canopy, trilling as they squabbled over the choicest branches. Below in the sun-dappled understory, squirrels chattered through leaves and up moss-dark trunks, claws scratching bark as they ferried seeds and hazelnuts to hidden hoards.

Fairies dotted the woodland, bobbing lazily from oak to fern to hazel, brushing leaf and stem with their brief, bright care before drifting on again, borne lightly by the forest’s easy song.

And then, the song changed. Wrens called warnings through the branches, their trills turning sharp and frantic. Squirrels froze, twitching upright as they caught new sounds beneath the birdsong. The dull thud of boots, a jangle of iron, a creak of leather, a soft, uneven scuff with each step, all out of time with the forest’s rhythm.

Hengest ambled slowly along the empty trail, enjoying the peace in the forest’s song, and he wished that Colm were there to hear it with him. But then, if Colm were there, there would be no peace to enjoy, would there?

Hengest smiled. No, the boy would be off chasing the squirrels. The wren’s trilling would turn to chaos, and the fae would scatter at his heels, and that’s why Hengest had thought to send him ahead. Not that he would ever tell Colm that.

But he found that the quiet he so craved whenever Colm was with him brought no real contentment. It never did. Once the boy was gone, he was left to face the shape of his own emptiness.

Hengest thumbed the intricate tin pendant at his neck. Drawing from its familiar warmth, he shook himself free of the thoughts that tried to snare him and focused back on the path ahead, where he saw—with some grudging relief—that the road began to rise.

Up one last hill, and on the other side awaited the village with all its graceless noise that the forest had spared him.

Cresting the rise, Hengest looked down upon Loam’s Crossing and the valley beyond. It was early yet, but already the town was buzzing, preparing for the swell of folk who would come for the day’s festivities. He could see them flowing in from intersecting roads. Families, traders, poets and bards, everyone within a day’s walk—and beyond—all pulling their carts and wares hoping for a slice of the commerce and renown that the day might bring.

Him too, he supposed. Hengest shifted the awkward weight of the burlap sack that was slung across his shoulder, filled with humble carrots, potatoes, and turnips. He wasn’t sure why he’d bothered. There’d be much better to be had at the market today.

Bah. Sorcha would sort him out, anyway, she always did.

In the center of the town was the village green, where a massive decorative stage was being constructed beneath the town’s ancient standing stone. A crowd was already gathered, folk staking out spots early to catch a good sight of the show to come. It wasn’t every day that one had a chance to see a King’s Filí.

Hengest reached the outlying fields where the carts were being set up and made his way through the haphazard rows between them . Interspersed along the way were smaller makeshift stages, some constructed nicely, others little more than barrels with planks to span them. The many performers who staked their places made a cacophony of preparation, plucking their harps and lutes and warming their voices.

Many were good, Hengest thought. Most were not.

At last he reached the village proper, where he noticed a curious man. He wore a simple gray robe, no bright colors, and he had prepared no stage. Nevertheless, a small gathering had found him, and he stood before them and spoke plainly, no register, no tune, but somehow still his words hooked Hengest’s ear with their cadence.

“...But why do good folk suffer? When the frost takes your barley, yet your neighbor’s stands tall, have you not wondered why? When a mother dies young while a cruel man goes fat, have you not wished for some account of it? I offer it freely, to all who will listen...”

Hengest made a point not to catch the man’s eye and he ambled on, but the man’s words lingered with him.Have you not wished for some account of it, he’d said.

Aye, and what of it? Shall we yell at the clouds for the rain?

Bah. He let the thoughts go. Why dwell on such things when there was work to be done.

He found Sorcha out front of her shop, ordering about her shopkeep—or rather, her husband, Eogan.

“No, Eogan, I said five, five bags, damn you, what am I to do with—” Then she saw Hengest and waived Eogan away.

“Well, about time, Hengest,” she said by way of greeting. “Hand them over,” and she reached for the bag, but then gave a queer look.

“Well that’s awfully heavy for—No, these aren’t my berries! What am I to do with these?” She shook the bag in Hengest’s face.

Hengest felt a pit in his stomach. “No,” He said, feeling a spike of alarm. “What do you mean, your berries? I sent Colm ahead to forage the berries hours ago, has he not come?”

Sorcha’s face grew red. “Oh, I saw him. Laughing like a fool with the boys, he was! Damn it, Hengest, it’s near midday, now what am I to do?”

Hengest found himself at a loss for words.

“Sorcha, I can’t believe it. We’ll make it right, I swear it.”

Sorcha’s face lightened a shade and she waved his offer off. “No. No, I’ll get it sorted.” She rifled through his bag of sad vegetables, grumbling. “Just like I always do. Young Fionna says she saw the lights touching the brambles just last night, down by the bend. I already sent her running. There’ll be berries plenty.”

-------

“Cut it out!” Colm tried to swat away the hands of Finn and Cenn again as they grabbed new fistfuls of berries out of the basket held in the crook of his arm.

“You cut it out,” Cenn said, smacking Colm in the shoulder with a fist amicably. “The basket is overflowing, Sorcha won’t mind.”

Colm placed a hand over his stomach and groaned. “Gods, we already gorged at the brambles, is your stomach lined with iron, man? Stop!”

Finn laughed. “No, Colm, you’re just soft, you mommy’s boy!”

Cenn smacked Finn much harder in the shoulder.

“Ow! Why’d-” And then he saw Colm’s face. “Oh. Right. Sorry, Colm, I didn’t mean anything by it.” Finn rubbed his shoulder. A long and awkward silence stretched, and Colm grew uncomfortable.

“I’m pretty sure you meant daddy’s boy,” Colm offered.

Cenn snickered first, then they all broke into laughter.

“Sorry, Colm,” repeated Finn. “How’s the old man doing?”

Colm waved a hand. “Better. Thanks. Had to fight him to come today, though.”

“Serious?” said Finn. “He’d have kept you from Hallow’s Day? For what?”

Colm had said too much. “Just lots to do,” he said, and tried to turn the conversation. “Who will you guys be seeing today? Aside from Iseldir, of course.”

Finn’s face lit up. “I heard Ruairc the Bear-heart will be here! I love his song, We Hold the Ford at Dawn. My uncle says no one sings it as strong as him, I can’t wait!”

“Ruairc is old,” Cenn said, dismissive. “I want to see Aengus the Raven-maker. I heard he was at the Breach of Caer Dunn himself, watched all those men die and just—remembered every one of them.”

“He stood by and remembered?” Finn scoffed.

Cenn grew somber. “I’m not much for words,” he said. “Neither are you. Don’t much think we’ll be passing our own on. So, if I die out there, like that, yeah, I hope someone like the Raven-maker remembers me.”

“Well,” said Finn, “Maybe if you stick to someone strong like Ruairc, you won’t fret dying so much.”

Cenn groaned. “Finn, they say there’s a fine line between bravery and stupidity. You sure do blur that line.”

Finn beamed. “Thanks Cenn! I will be brave. I’ll look after you, just stick with me. What about you, Colm?”

“Hm?” asked Colm. His thoughts had drifted.

“Who do you want to see?”

“Oh. Right.”

Colm hesitated. He was excited for Iseldir, of course, he had never seen a Filí perform.

But otherwise, he wasn’t interested in hearing about death or battle or courage. He thought he would find some new funny songs.

But the boys only talked of battle and bravery. He thought he should try to fit in.

Try as he might, though, not one song came to mind. The bards with their boasting had always rung hollow to his ears next to the songs his Ma had sung for him in his youth. Only ever on the quiet days, when Da was out in the field, and there was nothing left but to let their supper simmer. She would wrap him up in her arms and cradle him and sing the songs, masterful songs, different than the other boys would hear from their mam’s. Except for one. And that song was stuck in his mind now, the weight of the tune occupying his thoughts so he could think of none other through it.

“You know the song, The Ashes of the Brave?”

He might as well have asked if grass was green. “Sure. Why, is someone good singing it tonight?”

Colm shrugged. “Well, probably. Someone always does.”

Why was he saying this? His da would kill him.

“I heard the person who made it will be there.”

Finn looked confused. “Someone made that song? I thought it was old.”

Colm laughed. “Yes. Someone made every song, Finn, even the old ones.”

Finn seemed unbothered. “But I thought it was old. Who is it, then?”

Colm’s face turned pink. “I don’t know, it’s just something I heard.”

Cenn gave him an odd look, but before he could say anything Finn stopped short and froze, his eyes growing wide.

“Finn?” Cenn asked.

“Look!” said Finn with excitement, pointing down the road.

Ahead was a fork where a path adjoined the main road, and emerging from the fork was a column of men. Warriors, wearing Connail’s colors. Only, it was not just men.

At their head was a massive figure that drank the light.

Colm blinked. The figure was still there, hulking over the men that followed, wearing armor unlike anything he had ever seen—black plates that gave not one glimmer back of the sun shining brightly overhead.

“No way,” said Cenn.

“It’s the orc! Goliad!” Finn yelled and took of running, Cenn close behind.

Colm, shifting the weight of the basket, took a more apprehensive pace.

“Goliad! Goliad!”

The great horned helm turned slowly toward the sound. The face beneath was shadow given shape except for two points of light that burned from within, catching a ray of sun with a cold flash of crimson.

The hairs on Colm’s arms rose.

Finn and Cenn cheered louder.

The orc raised a gauntleted hand and waved, then continued on its way.

“Hey, boy!”

A warrior split away from the retinue. He seemed young and wore a gambeson two sizes too large, but he wore an easy, confident smile. A friend followed behind him, just as young, but less bold.

“Let’s have some berries, eh?”

“Yeah,” said his friend, “We’ve been on the march, protectin’ the border, alright. Some berries sounds real nice.”

"No," said Colm sharply. "I’m sorry, but they aren’t ours to give. Perhaps if you see Sorcha in town?”

“You think we can just wander around town?” said the first man. “Come on, boy, you have lots, you can spare a handful.”

“Back in line,” a voice said, loud and steady. Colm saw it belonged to an older warrior who had stopped at the edge of the road.

“We’re comin, a moment,” said the first man dismissively, still holding out his palm for berries.

“Now,” the voice said sternly, “Or did you forget Connail’s orders? Tell me, are the berries worth a hand?”

The man’s face twisted, but he clenched his fist and spun around back to the line.

“I was just asking,” he said hotly. The old warrior seemed ready to snap at him, but then Finn opened his mouth.

“You can have some!” he said loudly. “We’re happy to share!”

The two young warriors looked to the older man. “Be quick,” he grunted.

The two men rushed and each took a handful, but then, another saw. “Berries?” A man piped up, rushing over to take a share, and more were on his heels.

Colm tried to protest and pull away, but the men were loud and boisterous and his cries were drowned. In moments, the berries were gone.

The warriors gave their thanks and included Finn and Cenn in their banter, much to their delight, before a bark from their senior brought them back in line.

“Hold up!” called Finn without hesitation, moving to follow after them.

“Finn!” yelled Colm, and Finn barely slowed. “Sorcha’s berries!”

Cenn, at least, seemed to have some shame. “Sorry Colm,” he said. “But we’ll be going to muster in less than a fortnight, you know? After that, we won’t be seeing Sorcha again. Maybe. Not for a while, anyway. But them?” He pointed his chin at the line. “We might be seeing a lot of them, right? You get it, right?”

Colm wiped his face with a palm. “No. No, Cenn, I don’t get it. Those weren’t ours to give.”

Cenn held up his palms.

“Well, we need more,” Colm said. “We have to go back. Come on.”

Colm turned and took several steps, but Cenn didn’t follow.

“You’ll be leaving Sorcha soon, too, you know,” he said. “Won’t you?”

Colm felt a spike of something like guilt, and he could see that Cenn noticed by the way his eyes hardened.

“Right,” said Colm, too late. Cenn turned and left him, Colm stood in the road a long while, staring after his friends as Cenn rejoined with Finn. They were laughing.

Colm looked down at the basket. Nothing but bits of leaves and smears of berry. Empty.

He thought of Lochlann, who sang of how fate doesn’t happen to you. You choose it. There is always a choice.

With a sigh, Colm made his.