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I'm sorry to say I didn't like this.

You invoke the name of a god you did not give yourself the right to via the story - the Moon, the Hunt, chastity and sacrifice.

This suffers first from being a story and not a fairy tale. It has none of the trappings of a fairy tale. A fairy tale doesn't operate on the rule of cool, it dulls those edges into whimsy. A fairy tale doesn't name a Swedish Short Snout, that is the purview of science: if you feel the need to borrow from our pool of shared knowledge for description, in the writing of a fairy tale you're better off letting us come to the conclusion that this is, in fact, a Swedish Short Snout. You could even mention its short snout. By making it Swedish and capitalizing, you've capsized yourself.

There is another issue which makes it wholly not fairy tale - it's the delineation of complex emotion.

In another piece, this might be serviceable writing. In a fairy tale, this contorts the imagination and stifles the artistry by being too true. This is only the easiest example of this - it's present throughout the piece.

 

Woah, this is really well done.

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I'm a really big fan of this, because of the parallels to the Harry Potter series. I really like the idea of self fulfilling prophecies in general, so this story checks all the boxes for me.

 

Spoiler

This could've been a fairy tale (a dark one) but instead it's more of a Greek tragedy, with aversion to a prophecy bringing about the very result that was feared. You eschew a lot of fairy tale trademarks, and I don't think this quite qualifies for the prompt as a result.

And honestly, I don't quite like it. For a proper slowly-unfolding reveal you need at the very least an undercurrent of "wait, hold on..." which is lacking here. We don't have any indication of the dragon being a mere child. And if Artemis can read the stars well enough to know where the dragon is, shouldn't those very same stars have some indication of how everything will play out? Why did she take her foal with her? Where's the baby daddy? Why is she named Artemis, why doesn't the kid have a name?

Also, a centaur is a foal and a baby both? How the hell does that work, biologically speaking? Foals can stand up incredibly quickly after being born, while babies - need I remind you - cannot. I could've excused this if it was a fairy tale but it isn't, so I'm just left with questions.

 

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I think this would read better as 'to come' rather than 'that would come'.

I think your first comma should be after the 'and' not before it.

This is a very, very clunky sentence. You have a propensity, I think, for going for very overwrought poorly-verbed sentences. Possibly to capture that fairy tale tone but it's failing you.

Can probably just get rid of this. It costs more emphasis than it adds.

This is a very clunky sentence. Maybe you felt beings was the best way to describe it because that's what they're called by the MoM. But it reads odd. That she should refer to her peoples this way.

Again, not ideal. I'd rephrase.

Over-detailed

loomed and truly beautiful are words quite at odds. I think your sentence is confused.

Reflecting softly is an odd one again, on reading it in the context it is in.

You have a tendency to making things more passive than active. In a flash competition with word counts this tight, you can sacrifice words like this to make the story definite, powerful and evocative.

Clunky.

Missing a comma before this clause.

Can probably just get rid of this.

'Path' would be better than pathway.

This sentence. Even not reading it aloud, I stumble over it as if I was trying to read it aloud.

I think this final section is unnecessary. Think about the end of the Hobbit part 2. They ended on Smaug flying towards inevitable death and destruction, and this whole story is showing that by trying to prevent fate she caused it, you should be doing the same thing. You should be hinting at that inevitability (and you probably should've killed her foal from the scree of momma dragon rushing out her cave or something). This epilogue is like the yellow text over the story, saying what they went on to do post film. In this story, this short, this doom-driven, it completely robs the ending of the impact it should've had.

 

Spoiler

I liked it enough.

I think it's really just a story that could work better with a bit more length. The big reveal doesn't feel all that big. There's no real buildup that makes it feel meaningful, which is mostly an issue with the constraints.

It's a bit too complex to really be told in a proper fairy tale format, I guess, but it'd be a nice enough standalone story if it was longer and a bit more prose-y.

 

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So Artemis as a character’s name could work, but I think because she senselessly kills a young dragon and she misreads the stars, her name doesn’t quite work. Artemis in mythology is a peculiar composite of the goddess of the hunt but also a goddess of fertility, wildness, etc., so she also cares about life (especially nonhuman life).

I like the idea of setting events in motion accidentally as a kind of lesson for magical children to be wary of prophecies.

as for the title, should we imagine Bane telling the story? Is he the foal? Or is it a tale of bane, i.e. destruction?

 

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I like this idea of a cautionary tale that centaurs would tell their children. Is that what this is? It’s more than a little unclear what the moral is. Don't fuck with fate? Fate is inevitable? The latter is kind of obvious, no?

Sometimes I like the prose here, and sometimes I don’t. You would benefit from a beta who could take a red pen to this. You need to fix your run-on sentences and cut superfluous words.

 

Spoiler

I like that you told a tale through the perspective of a magical race, but not wizards and witches. This reads like the classic self-fulfilling prophecy, and how despite the power of their gaze, the centaurs-- or rather Artemis-- was blinded to her role. I could see this serving as a centaur fairy tale told to their young, as a caution against ignoring the tribe's wisdom(let this thing come to pass, don't try and fight it).

There might be some flaws here, but on the whole you did your idea justice. Good work.

 

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Damn, this one was really neat.
I liked the idea of making it a twist on the common dragon slayer fairy tale trope, and also making it a twist on hpcanon as this could be a true fable for why Centaurs can never meddle with what they see as they might not interpret it right.

A nod that I really liked in this is that I can see Artemis from greek mythology being rash like this as well.

 

Spoiler: In the third entry of Q4 (Part II), Niez sent to me:

Your story lives and dies by this line:

By which I mean than in itself it is quite evocative, and yet the events that occur for it to be possible make little sense.

I'll get the fact that this barely amounts to a fairy tale out of the way, since I tire of repeating my points. Suffice it to say that ill-fate is more a theme for a Greek tragedy than a fairy-tale; accepting your destiny is neither an universal truth nor is something that you should teach your children (and I don't accept that this could be a fairy-tale told to little centaurs, despite the title, this ending is for adults, and the image speaks to adult minds.)

Why did you make Artemis just give birth? I'll answer myself, its for the ending. But it also raises several questions, like, where is daddy centaur? and also, why the fuck would you go on a death-defying adventure with a literal newborn at your side? It really boggles my mind. I don't understand why she is named Artemis either. Ok, she is good at hunting, but unless she is the holy Mary of centaurs she isn't a virgin either.

I love that she leaves her foal at the foot of the mountain where she knows a dragon lies, really working hard for that mother of the year award, but what really annoys me is that after Artemis kills her child momma dragon spares her life for apparently no particular reason. But of course we know that there is a particular reason, its for that ending -_-.

I'll try to be constructive: I believe this story would have fit the mold far better if the protagonist had been a centaur-child, believing that she knows better than the elders (because of her mad skills with a bow) and causing calamity due to her foolishness. But then... (I'll stop).

Not to be brusque, but you overuse paragraphs. There are a whooping 39 in a tale that if Ched is to believed is no longer than a thousand-odd words. And it's not like it's dialogue heavy. Basically you have no excuse missy. Anyhow I caught a few things you might be interested in.

Artemis must be godly strong to be able to pick up a foal in her arms.

I laughed at this, and I don't think I was supposed to. It just brought to me the image of a mountain goat (omit this would be my advice, if you cannot come up with a better name).

I'm not in love with this second part of the sentence. I get what you are going for but you over explain it. Also the usage of 'waves' right after you tell us Artemis has the sense of being underwater feels a bit cheap.

Phoenixes? Aren't they like firey bois?

And here is your Christmas present:

Spoiler: It used to be a snowman, it did not survive the copy/paste process

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