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@jennythefaun

This is really cool! I really liked the cultural vibes in the setting.

It’s a short story, but I liked the characters and feel like I was given enough info to get to know them relatively well for the story.

I loved her horse, and was especially intrigued by the earth verses jewel aspect of living beings. If you wanted to, I think that has potential if you ever expanded the story. Are all animals like that, or just horses, or just some horses, etc. Very cool stuff.

I was so sad and upset when he died, and that in the end it was just kind of like, yeah the horse was trying to tell you all this time and you didn’t listen, now he’s dead. One thing I didn’t get was I didn’t really see him trying to tell her. I mean, yes he said don’t go to the lady, but there was never a time where I thought he knew more than he let on, so when the other horse said that at the end I was a little confused.
It wasn’t bad though and I think maybe just a slight tweak might slip something in to foreshadow a little stronger so that when we find that out it makes sense.

My one major critique is the hunger itself. I understand this is an allegory, but it wasn’t real clear to me what it’s supposed to represent metaphorically (our desire for control? Power? General emptiness without God?) And then on the more literal side, allegory or not, this is apparently a teal disease in their world and I had a hard time figuring out what she was lacking. At first I thought it was a literal hunger and she just needed food like crazy. And then I thought maybe it was a hunger for people/family/love like when she was looking at the kids, but then she was convinced winning the race would help, so I thought maybe it was more a power hungry thing, or fame hungry. But there was no real explanation for this thing that caused physical pain, what it was yearning for, and why it had the power to kill you.

This was long, but I definitely don’t think it’s bad. A little bit of world building woven in would probably clear the Hunger issue right up.

And overall I really liked the story. It was very fun.