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This is a short story I wrote in High School for a writing class. It's got some grammar issues that I need to fix and I don't like the way I've made Ivan "talk". I will fix these, but right now all I have is a web version and the actual one is on my old computer's HD which is dead currently. But any comments or critique is welcome.

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Featureless

His gray face was as cold as the field of barren rock he lived in. Travelers who pass him by, sitting in the desolation, never see him for he is not much to look at.

Not much to look at, indeed. He sat very still and never spoke and dressed in clothing so old and so drab that the greens looked the same as the browns. His name was Ivan, Ivan the Dark, to be exact.

The few people who lived in the neighboring villages, or merchants who traveled the road often thought him to be daft.

“Crazy!” the pudgy woman baker piped, “He lost his wits in all those raids. The land has been more peaceful now that he’s gone mad, sure!”

The small child sitting at the baking table always listened when the baker talked of Ivan the Dark. He knew the whole legend now; for he thought it to be a legend, though the townspeople all believed it as true. Nevertheless the boy, Robyn, loved hearing the tale.

Ivan the Dark was the bloodthirsty barbarian lord, for he had united all the rogue tribes and mountain people and rose to a great rein. He was the most ruthless leader the tribes had ever seen, never leaving people alive.

The north now lay in ruins and the people in the west, all dead. Fires still raged in the fields of the east and only the south had warded off the barbarian hordes.

When Ivan’s bright green banner crested the rocky southern hills, something changed. The lord lay his eyes on the desolated cold fields; all the color drained from his face and his eyes misted gray. He could not pull his eyes away from the chill stone.

So, in a mindless stupor he broke away from the throng and wandered off into the rock-strewn field, never again to be seen by his people.

When the barbarians lost their lord they finally began to break apart and within months, the last motley bands were driven out of the country.

After the horde had been dispersed the locals began to spot Ivan the Dark, and some daring fools even tried to capture him. Not surprisingly, no one ever succeeded because the dark lord was no longer a strong warrior, but a stealthy and reclusive beast.

When the hunting stopped, Ivan started appearing more. Now he is as much of a monument as a victory statue. There have been some claims of people contacting him, but the baker said, they are as loopy as he.

“So you’ve seen him?” Robyn asked.

“Most definitely!” she replied.

“Spoken to him?” he asked with a light in his eyes.

“Heavens no child? I have seen him though, er, at least I thought so, but I cannot be quite sure. It was dark that night, and I had had a bit too much ale.”

“I wanna meet him!”

“Are you crazy boy? You can’t do—” the baker began but Robyn was already racing down the road.

“Aye Robyn! Where ye be goin’?” his mother called from her wash basket.

“To meet Ivan the Dark!” he said and didn’t stop to hear her reply.

He ran until his legs tired and finally the great rock field came in view, Robyn began to get apprehensive now, for he started to wonder what Ivan is like.

Entering the gray field he looked around but could not find the reclusive barbarian lord.

Sitting disconsolately on a rock, he suddenly felt eyes on him. Ivan was staring at him, Robyn knew, but the boy was too afraid to look up. He wondered what this strange person was going to do. A soft crunching of gravel alerted him that Ivan was approaching and looking down; the boy could see big boots the man wore. They once were black, but now they were gray just like the owner—and the land.

“Ye be a brave an’ bonny lad to be ‘venturing ‘ere alone.”

The sound of Ivan’s voice startled the young boy and he visibly jumped, however, he did not look up.

“I be sure ye knows me don’tcha? Ye hears me too, I’m sure an’ ye c’n look up. Ne’er keep yer sight off a person, be it friend or foe,” his words were forced and his voice was rusty and the man seemed to concentrate utterly on the formation of those words.

Robyn tore his eyes off of the big boots and onto the face of a tall man. Ivan’s appearance was as startling as his voice. Long brown hair flowed unbound past his shoulder blades and that hair had streaks of iron gray. His dark brown eyes seemed to stare intensely through you as he gazed with his dark eyebrows knitted above a hooked nose. He had a hollow look because his cheekbones protruded sharply, as did his collarbone. Robyn knew that this large frame had once supported great muscles but now those muscles had long faded away.

“Don’tcha worry, I be harmless as a bunny now,” Ivan’s chuckle was a bit strained, “A bunny that was once a tiger.”

Robyn allowed himself a smile at that thought and only one word formed on his lips, “Why?”

The man looked at him as if he didn’t comprehend.

“Why did you leave your hordes for this—this place?”

“When I was the lord I been angry at th’ people who ‘ad so much. I been angry with the lords who forced my people inta th’ deserts in th’ far north. I saw green fields ‘ere, I saw game and livestock abounding ever’where. I decided tha’ if my people (who are no better or worse than th’ people here) couldn’t ‘ave the luxuries they deserved, tha’ no one shoul’ ‘ave them—e’er. That was my ideas, till I saw the grayness in this ‘ere place. Dere was nothin’ ‘ere, nothin’ worth taking, nothin’ worth burning, just rock and gray. I decided that no’ ever’yone ‘ad equal opportunities an’ I realized tha’ what I did was wrong. I decided to isolate myself in th’ desolation and appreciate tha’ I am still livin’. Th’ moral, child, is tha’ ye should always take advantage o’ what ye ‘ave an’ don’ go tryin’ ta look fer better when ye gots plenty right ‘ere.”

Robyn listened to all this in wide-eyed wonderment and when the man was done with his oratory, the boy was still speechless. “Thank you!” he finally said, after minutes of silence, “I never looked at it that way before.”

“No thank ye!” Ivan said, “After all dese years I gots to hand me morals down to a young one. I believe tha’ my goal is done an’ dere’s no more need fer me in dis world,” he smiled a large bright smile, the kind that is not seen more than a few times in one’s life. “So spread it aroun’ kid, so tha’ all the others have somethin’ better to remember ol’ Ivan the Dark with,” and so he walked away into the seemingly endless rock field and the small boy, still sitting on the rock watched him until he was but a tiny speck on the horizon, then that speck, too, was gone.

So he did, he spread Ivan’s teachings to everyone he knew and within days the whole village began passing the information along. Soon the whole country was flooded with Ivan’s words and the barbarian lord’s name was associated with rebirth, instead of suffering and destruction.

After that, many people tried to find the barbarian lord in his desolate hiding place, but no one ever saw him again. The last person to see him was the boy who watched him walk out of the city and into legend.

'Is' should be changed to 'was', since the rest of your story is in past.


'Utterly' sounds a bit awkward, could maybe be replaced by something else?


Awkward sounding, could maybe incorporate the 'streaks of iron gray' into the first part of the sentence and forego the second part entirely.

Er, last comments, Ivan's speech is peppered with apostrophes and somewhat hard to read. While I understand the effect of accents and different dialects, it does kind of interfere with comprehension. >.>

That said, it's a very nice story, with an ending that made me smile inside (and outside too! ;D) Only other suggestion was maybe that you could drag out the ending a bit more. But that's just me.