by StillStunned
A lovely fairy tale and a fitting tribute that manages to capture some of the song's sense of melancholy.
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I appreciate how you portrayed an introvert's feeling of sinking deeper and deeper into oneself. Such a bizarre mix of comfort/satisfaction and loneliness/pain.
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I particularly liked the paragraph that begins, "It filled him up, and made him feel hollow." What a wonderful set of contradictions that paragraph conveys.
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It's difficult to generate genuine emotion in a short fantasy piece that doesn't allow much space for the characters to breathe (in this case, literally). But you pull it off. Well done!
It's a christmas miracle, so of course 5*. I liked the pacing and the way you managed to build a world and delivery a HEA inside 1800 words!
But, I was expecting them to be singing "Galway Bay" :-)
Stunning. Breathtaking. Original. Brilliant. Another absolute homerun from you, as far as I am concerned. Maybe your best work yet, honestly. I hope you win the competition with this. You are an inspiration, and I raise my glass to you tonight. Cheers!
Aww. I had to see what all the comments were about and I was not disappointed. You've done more in 1800 words than I could in 18k.
At a personal level, this is not to my taste. But it's clearly very well done. It's tender and the descriptions are evocative. Good five starr job!