It's crazy how much writing can change in a couple of years! The first two paragraphs were written around October 2023, before I'd truly begun to delve into the craft of writing and paying attention to the words I was putting down on the page. I've learnt a lot since then, and it shows in the following extract, which I wrote in October 2025. Of course, there's plenty of room to improve and I encourage any sort of feedback. These two extracts are the beginnings of the same scene, though it's evolved greatly. It marks the near beginning of an ongoing story idea I've been working on for a couple of years now, and since it's popped into my head, so many plotlines and characters and kingdoms have sprung to life in my head that it's gone from one book to a potential four book series! I would love to share more of its lore - and some of my recent writing, soon. 

Esme  ðŸ©· 

2023

Reyna Aldine had been travelling through Valbara for four days and five hours. Her parents hadn't noticed when she'd crept out in the middle of the night, armed only with a sack that contained a map, compass, food, water, and a bow and arrows she had purchased from the Markets earlier that day. The Vendor had given her a suspicious look, likely wondering why a sixteen year old girl needed a weapon at such a young age - before doing a double take and assessing Reyna's muddy clothes, wild and unruly hair and hollow eyes before giving in to her offer of thirty pieces. It wasn't anything special, just a normal ash bow, and some protection was better than none before venturing into Valbara. 

The food and water had almost run out and Reyna was parched, desperately licking her lips and praying for the rain or a nearby stream. Her once white blouse was torn, navy blue skirt ripped, her cloak falling to pieces as she pulled it tighter around her thin body, leather boots a size too small and peppered with holes. She shivered, the only sounds she could hear the sounds of the forest floor as Reyna made her way onwards to Bruha, where the Valbarian Witches were rumoured to be lurking currently. Rubbing her eyes once again, she glanced at the map before assessing her surroundings. A grey sky, an eerily quiet forest which was swept with fog from all sides, enclosing her in. No birds or wildlife, the occasional rabbit like she'd seen in her village, Deidre. Many times already Reyna had doubted herself, wondering if she should turn back. If she had made a mistake coming here in the first place. No, she had scolded herself. No, I have not come this far just to turn back home and for things to carry on as they always do. 

2025

There was still no sign of the creature. Not the one from her two nights ago dream ; no, this was a thing of ancient shadows and wreathing darkness. A thing that had the same capacity for atrocities that her crows did. Worse.


Speckles of snow twirled and eddied around the trees, some deigning to nestle in her hair, on her cloak, rather than reuniting with the thick layer of snow coating the ground. Tranquil - peaceful. So at odds with the fear twisting itself into knots in her stomach. Reyna planted her feet on the branch she’d been warming for the past hour, and dared a glance to the sprawl of forest beyond. Still nothing. Still silent -  save for the rustle of a snow bunting’s wings as it perched on an adjacent branch. 


Like all children, Reyna had heard the stories around a crackling hearth ; of fearsome monsters prowling Cailleach’s forests with obsidian claws and crimson eyes, thirsty for blood and hungry for flesh. The witches' pets - and guards. But in the heartbeat she’d caught a fleeting glimpse of that black thing, she’d known it was something else. Whether it was better or worse remained to be seen. 

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