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Please help me improve my story

Could you help me improve my story by paying particular attention to the tenses I have used. Thank you :smile:

In the mythical kingdom of Maldur, there were two beautiful sisters, Stealia and Elysnai. When they were young, they were read philosophy of beauty, form and aesthetics by their father, King Maximus. While Elysnai was disinterested in her father’s pedagogy, it enthralled Stealia, turning her into a malign narcissist obsessed with her vanity and beauty. As both sisters aged, they grew apart in temperament. Elysnai was staid, demure and naïve, while Stealia was aloof, vain and would try to better her sister whenever the chance arose.

On her eighteenth birthday, Elysnai meets a handsome knight, Loxley, and it was love at first sight. Stealia, who is deeply jealous of her sister, believes that she is more beautiful, and as a result of her own beauty, is capable of ensnaring him, so that he falls in love with her instead. She has dreams of a knight as handsome and charming as Loxley to steal her heart, and she quickly develops a visceral hatred towards Elysnai’s relationship with him. Her many failed attempts to convince Elysnai of his supposed Machiavellianism angers her to such an extent that she casts aside any ounce of moral jurisdiction she has and plots to kill him.

One day, she lies to Elysnai by telling her that Loxley had been planning to meet her at the willow tree by the lake all morning, as he has wonderful news to tell her, and that she should go and meet him post haste. Although Elysnai, having now been lied to by Stealia, is so enticed by the prospect of seeing Loxley’s robust stature, his angelic face, and his unkempt blonde locks for which he acquired the name ‘Loxley’, that she does not think twice to question the legitimacy of his preposition, as they were conveyed by Stealia in such a platonic manner devoid of any facets of jealously or disbelief that might otherwise have raised her suspicion.

On his arrival to Maldur, he asks Stealia Elysnai’s whereabouts, and tells her that he has a gift for Elysnai. She tells him that Elysnai had gone hunting with her father, though he is disconcerted by this, as he remembers Elysnai telling him that she detests her father’s hunting, and that it was the crux of many of her arguments with him. Stealia asks him the nature of the gift and demands to see it, promising him that she will not tell Elysnai when she returns from her hunting; to which Loxley aspirates a vow of condemnation in which he tells her only Elysnai is going to see it, as it is a gift only two lovers can share, and that he would prefer Stealia’s company if she would cease her interrogating.

She is confounded by his tact, as he had never been able to project such forthright laconicism until now, as he had always been amicable insofar that he could easily be manipulated. It appears that the love he has for Elysnai is eliciting his innate masculine furore as Stealia’s impinging intensifies. He asks her to cease her prattling so that he may write a note to Elysnai in which he will tell her that he had hastily come to see her today, as he has something precious to give to her; something unlike anything she has seen before. On penning his letter, a silence falls between them, though Stealia’s mind hurtles towards an absolution as a rebuke to his candour.

She takes one of her father’s glass decanters from a nearby table and holds it behind her back, and walks slowly towards him with a look of reprisal on her face. He feels her nearing presence, though as he is penning his letter, he has his back turned away from her, so is unable to see his looming demise. She stands right behind him, takes the decanter and forcibly thrusts it into the side of his neck, and on doing so, breathes a sigh of admiration, as if she were undergoing a catharsis, while he jolts, drops his pen, and sways to and fro as his blood pours onto his letter and slowly smothers his words of love for her.

After falling around the room like a drunken dolt, he falls to the ground and she sees this as a fall of his defeat, as if he is a vehement behemoth and she a heroic warrior, and kneels besides him as he thrice aspirates: ‘Elysnai.’ She brings her face to his, and whispers in his ear three words: ‘I love you.’ As he is lying squirming on the floor like a dying insect crushed under her foot, she gazes warmly into his eyes, and snuffs his suffering by first kissing him on his quivering lips, then smothers him with Elysnai’s favourite pillow. With Loxley lying dead on the floor, she goes into his pocket and retrieves the gift he had bought for Elysnai. She takes out a small snuff box within which a golden necklace sparkles like the stars as she gazes at it in wonderment.

Elysnai, having been tricked by Stealia, returns home to find Stealia sitting complacently humming a song, while dangling the golden necklace through her fingers. She tells her that she had waited five hours for Loxley, but he did not come, and tells her that she was unable to wait any longer, as she feared walking home alone at night. As Stealia opens her arms and embraces Elysnai, she begins indoctrinating her with doubtful thoughts, and poses the question that perhaps he did not love her to begin with. She tells her that she had been hearing rumours in which Loxley loved a woman in another Kingdom, and that he was only briefly passing through this kingdom as means to reach the next. Elysnai, though vulnerable, insists that he loved her indefinitely, and worries that he may have fallen ill, or could be in danger, which is why he did not meet her, and in which case she must do everything in her power to find him.

Days pass into weeks, months and years in which Elysnai mourns the return of Loxley, and a melancholy infects her mind. One day, a shadowy figure approaches her as she rests under the willow tree where she and Loxley used to share romance. It speaks slowly, enunciating its words carefully, and asks her why she is upset, and she tells it to leave so that she may be left alone. The figure is very wise, and tells her that her misery comes from the death of a loved one, to which the melancholy consuming her mind clears. She is stupefied by the figure as it gives her a golden necklace. It instructs her to look into it and to wish for the return of her loved one, so she looks at the necklace, closes her eyes, and wishes for the return of Loxley.

After opening her eyes, the shadowy figure is nowhere to be seen, and a cold wind blows around her body. The sky darkens as clouds accumulate. A faint whisper is heard by her, one which is at first unclear, but as it becomes louder and clearer, she soon recognises it as the voice of Loxley, and becomes fully assertive by shouting his name into the dense bracken beyond which a thick fog lingers in the woodland. She is enticed by his voice, and follows it in hope of finding him. She runs through the woodland and the voices accentuate when she reaches the sundering, the entrance to a gaping chasm; the point at which the kingdom of Maldur meets the underworld of Tartarus. The prospect of meeting Loxley overwhelms her judgement, and on entering a foreboding cave, she slips and falls down a dark cavern screaming the name ‘Loxley’.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 1

Safiya122

I don't know what needs improving this sounds amazing :biggrin:

Reply 2

username1060297

When they were young, they were read philosophy of beauty, form and aesthetics by their father, King Maximus.

Do you mean when they were younger they read? as oppose to were read

*actually on second thoughts are you saying their father read them this stuff? If so forget what I said. It's fine. I read it wrong.

On her eighteenth birthday, Elysnai meets a handsome knight, Loxley, and it is love at first sight.