Thanks for sharing your piece with me. I really enjoyed reading it. Your setting is very imaginative, and I have lots of questions about it, but I guess that most of those would be answered by reading the chapters that come before this. I think the dialogue is well done, and it helps me get a sense of the characters.
Now, here are some more particular comments:
The cold, damp air was thick with mold and the soft touch of water in the air. The parts of me still sensitive to such things danced and quivered when she approached.
The sentence construction makes it sound like "such things" refers to mold or humidity. I would just change the order. "When she approached, the parts..."
The way she tied her hair, wrapped high on her head and hanging down her back in a sort of tail. Gold threads woven into it and dotted with red and blue stones. She was beautiful.
These first two of these three are not sentences, they're fragments. But it would be easy to rewrite them. For example: "I was mesmerized by the way she tied her hair..." and "Gold threads were woven into it, and it was dotted..."
Those parts of me still sensitive slithered and hissed.
Boy, he has a lot of still-sensitive parts...
Most of the animals, even those shelled or foolish, retreated to the shade of stones and earth. Burrows dug and filled with mothers and children. Some of the little ones destined to become the days meal.
The second and third of these are also fragments. Why not combine them with the first sentence? Or make them complete sentences of their own?
Most would call it the heat, and any other day they would be right. But not today.
Most would call
what the heat?
The heat of the day was overbearing and Jin'Cathul's body, despite the silk coat and brimmed hat, sweat darkened the blue dyes to the color of a murky bucket.
And Jin's body... what?
A place where everyone and anyone could come and ply a trade and be rewarded for it. Where the only slaves were the ones being marketed.
Man, you love sentence fragments.
Jin sat up on the trampled grass of the savannah.
So, wait, I thought this was a barren and deadly desert. Savannahs are grasslands, a completely separate biome. They can be near deserts, but I think what you're wanting here is an oasis-- a small bit of vegetation in the middle of the desert.
She took a deep breath and straightened the small bodice, only covering her chest and ribs with a cone shaped section missing from the front, point at what would have been her bust if she had anything to call a bust, and then she straightened the skirt.
This sentence is super confusing-- not least because a cone is not a flat shape, so it's very hard to imagine a conical section missing from a flat dress.
Jin could almost hear the blue dress straining to hold the woman's fat breasts inside it's sleeveless, strapless linen.
>>its
“I'm sorry, Chalinae,” Jin said.
Okay, he knows her name. So when she walked up, he knew who she was. So why did he think of her as "a small girl, looking the same age as Jin"? In movies and on TV, the audience doesn't know a character's name until someone says it. But we're seeing the world from Jin's viewpoint, and so the moment she shows up, he should be thinking about who she is and what she is doing here.
“Then you gotta stand up for yourself,” she said. “You're a free man. My man.
Wait-- he's her man? This information needs to come out the instant we see her.
“And you're gonna tell them your my man, right?”
>> you're
In reality, she was a year and a half years his senior.
>>"a year and a half his senior"
He was just so tall, people thought he was older.
Okay, he's so short that he can't see over the adults in the bazaar. And she's even shorter? And they're dating? Or married?
And so they were an odd pair of friends. Or Jin thought so at least.
Man, what is the relationship here? Maybe I need to read the rest of this book to understand what it means when a girl says a boy is "her man."
He always felt better during the night. Like he could just hide away in it, forever. Get lost and never be found.
More sentence fragments.
House branch of Geuzuul was one of the largest a long the Hellfane boarder.
>>along >>border
All along the walls were frescas and mosaics of great battles and powerful victories of the House.
>>frescoes
As always during the day, it was ajar to easy access in and out.
"to afford easy access"
Old Herera, a slave to the Mai'asie who handled the branch and it's affairs, waved to Jin.
>>its
Even living here, and everyone knowing he lived her, did not make Herera any less intimidating.
"knowing he lived here"
Better too hot then too cold.
>>than
One could always put on more silks. Had to kill animals to survive during the night. And that was costly.
Okay, I don't understand the connection between your first sentence and the fragment that follows.
Thanks again!
