I see butterflies and a horse that thinks it's a dog...

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

We left our gazing out like a stone... sorry. He's looking out at the majestic landscape when his horse tries to kill him. I mean playfully nudges him off a cliff. When the Loyal Animal Companion is trying to off the Hero, you know we're going to have issues. Especially in the first twenty five pages. However the Hero is of course, not dead. If he was, the book would be a lot shorter than it is. We get a scene of a tender moment between man and horse instead. The horse's name is Pilgrim and a stallion who Tristan has trained to follow him around like a dog. "Pilgrim never went far, and had been trained from a colt to always return at Tristan's first whistle." At his second whistle he'd lay down and play dead. Third, have tea with the neighbors. Pilgrim is also a freak of nature having "long uniform teeth". Having looked into a horse's mouth I can tell you that they are not uniform. The front ones are made for grabbing and the back are made for grinding. If the horse's teeth were uniform then the horse is going to have serious problems.

But that's just me you know... actually knowing about horses...

And then... he plays fetch with the horse. No. I'm fucking serious. He plays fetch with the horse.

Retrieving yet another carrot from the bag, Tristan slowly drew it before Pilgrim's nostrils and then promptly threw it to the other side of the clearing. He smiled as the stallion ran off after it anxiously, his head and tail held high.

A horse is not a dog. A horse doesn't act like a dog. A horse, if you put a carrot near its mouth will bite the carrot and your hand too if it happens to be in the way. It does not play fetch. I could go on about this a bit more, but it would just be me frothing at the mouth which really isn't very intelligible.

He thinks about Earwig, his mentor. The old fart is apparently still alive. And apparently there are five others who are still alive (They're the ones that sentenced the evil women to Exile) and how the six of them had chosen someone with "endowed blood". Yes, that is the actual phrase. Yes, he meant it in utter seriousness. Yes, I laughed hysterically for five minutes after reading that. And apparently if a king doesn't have any sons then the six wizards pick another endowed citizen.

I'm sorry. I don't know if I can read this with a straight face any more. Okay. Moving on.

Apparently when a King abdicates he has the choice of joining the six wizards and being immortal or dying. No one has done it until Triscuit's dad decided to do it. AND Triscuit's dad also preannounce that that Triscuit will also join him.

How do you preannounce something? Is that when you get up and say, "I'm going to announce something!" Which is an announcement in itself... so would you need to preannouce the preannoucemnet? I mean, isn't it strange that daddy will pronounce sorry preannounce the fact that Triscuit is going to join the special Wizarding Circle? And for some reason, Triscuit is unable to say "No." Well, I imagine as a child he couldn't but when he becomes king there's no reason why he can't. And apparently the preannouncement was made at Triscuits birth... but no one will tell him why... OOoOOooOOooo.... Could it be that he's the Chosen One?! And now he gets to look forward to Uber Magical Powers and Immortality. This is going to be his reward and he HASN'T DONE ANYTHING FOR IT YET!!!1!! He's just getting it handed to him on a silver platter and he's sulky about it.

Finally we learn that while the Prince has had many romantic dalliances he's never fallen in love.

Sadly, it was just that no woman had ever really made him ache in her absence to the point of distraction, or hunger in her presence to the point of pain. Deeper, in his heart of hearts, he truly hoped one day it would be different.

He's thirty fucking years old! He should realize by now that he's not supposed to marry for love but to pop out children. If he's lucky he'll get a pretty girl, if he's not well... tough shit. Also, heart of hearts? Is he a Time Lord or something? That sounds like it got pulled from the deepest Romance Novel.

"My heart of hearts beats for you and only you," Goldie Purdue sighed, her hand resting on her heaving bussom, her deep violet eyes flashing in lusty passion.

Faichee McLauglin took her other hands and placed it on his broad and strong chest so that she could feel the firm and steady beat of his heart, "My heart beats in time with your heart and together they will always beat in time."


Some more drivel and then we get hit by the anvil of badly done foreshadowing.

Therefore, by tradition, the Royal Guard stood vigilantly at the ready to defend the realm against any potential threat, training relentlessly toward that end. But Tristan was sure that during his reign, as had been for so long now, he would never have to call upon them for any reason.

Especially in defense of the realm.

Gee. I wonder if Tristan will need to call upon the Royal Guard to defend the Realm. No. I don't think so. After all there's been peace for so long. Please.

To all future writers. This is the equivalent of saying, "Well, at least things are going well," while playing a D&D game. It's an open invitation for the DM to smite your ass silly with an Ancient Red Dragon. Everyone knows you don't say that unless you're stupid and want to die.
It's just bad writing. You might as well put out a giant banner that says, "Eat me. I'm a virgin." while bathing in BBQ sauce.

After this, he muses about how when he becomes king he's going to need to get a haircut. And he's depressed because he's never lived a normal life. But apparently he did excel at almost everything psychical. "Swordsmanship, archery, dagger use, horsemanship, hand to hand combat, and survival skills among many other things." But he sucks at the girly stuff and politics. OH! he has a FLAW! He's not a Stu after all!

Blah, blah, Triscuit sees magical rainbow butterflies. No. He does. And they can only be seen by someone with magical abilities. He's smoking pot people. He's smoking pot! And then Pilgrim, his dog, comes to play with the magical butterflies. (I refuse to call the animal a horse any more. Horses do not frolic with butterflies) And then the Dog runs off. Triscuit is frighteningly worried about his horse because the animal might trip and fall and there'd be no humane way of killing it (why not just throw a dagger through its skull and kill it dead like he did the boar?) Blah, blah, he runs. And then! He finds a mysterious clearing that described for two pages and there are many more magical butterflies. And he's so special because the magic butterflies aren't flying away from him.

He finds that they're hanging out on a stone wall, which then collapses on him suddenly and sends him hurling into a dark pit of despair.

Oh. and hay... there's an actual chapter break! YAY! I'm stopping now.