Chapter 1: Playing
A small funny shaped wooden thing and a long wooden stick with a million tiny strings on it. I watch my mother draw the stringy side of the stick back and forth against the strings on the funny round thing. The sound is nice. Cheerful and it makes me smile as I twirl around on bare feet on the stone floor of our house. When she finishes, I plop down on the ground laughing and then crawl up on the couch beside her. "Teach me, mama! Teach me!"
She looks from me to the things in her hands and says, "Alright. But you have to be very careful, Clove. Sit still." I kick my legs out over the edge of the couch. I'm still too little for my toes to touch the floor from up here. "Sit up straight." I do and she fits the curvy wooden thing under my chin just like she had it. Then she takes one of my hands in one of hers and places it on the long skinny part. "Be careful," she says again. I make sure to be. I can tell this is important to her. I won't drop it. She hands me the wooden stick and says softly, "Gently, gently." She places the soft almost-white strings against the metal ones. "Now..." she guides my hand and I play my first note.
Immediately I feel something special going from my fingers up through my arms and into my body, into my heart. Still holding tight to both the things in my hands, I kick my feet out and giggle with excitement. "Oh, mama, what is it?"
"It's a violin," she says. Then slower so I can repeat it. "VI-OH-LIN." I copy her. "Or a fiddle. You can call it that too."
"Teach me more!"
Disclaimer: Don't own.
AN: So I know this one is really short. I actually feel a little weird about the beginning of this story. It's going to kind of jerk you around from kiddish/playful Clove to Arena-bound Clove.
If you're curious as to why this story starts out like this, I wanted Clove to be passionate about something other than fighting. I didn't want her to be so one dimensional that her greatest and only interest was combat, hence learning the violin at a young age. It becomes a thing for her.
On the writing, for this chapter particularly and to be kept in mind in the following ones:
Clove is very young here. That's why you read the word 'thing' like six times. I don't know how many of you have tried this, but it is really hard to try to write from the perspective of, say, a three-year-old or an eight-year-old. I have an eight-year-old sister, but I can't read this to her to make sure she understands it all, you know? I guess what I'm saying is that I'm trying to be descriptive as a narrator while also getting across to you guys that she's young. It's a weird sort of balance. In some respects you'll find Clove to be naïve. In other situations, as you'll see, she's well aware but alarmingly apathetic and calculating. Sometimes she may seem old for her age.
Thoughts on any of this (The AN or the chapter itself)? Don't hate to hard on the 307-word chapter, please. :) The next one is substantially longer and will come soon. Promise.
Ah, speaking of the next chapter, it'll change the rating. Just so you know.