Hey. It’s RAE. I have been trying to write a book called Guardian Angels, a space story. Can I get some constructive criticism on the first chapter?

1. Laxan
Billowing smoke filled the air. Lava drooled into the city streets. Rock soared into the air to land on crawling Nanian bugs. Ash was mixed in with every shaking breath. They had lost. The Nayhelm had failed. Laxan was over-taken ruin, their reward for protecting refugees. Now they screamed and cried as they were killed. Tears rolled slowly down the stained cheeks of Nahim . Back there lay the bodies of his family. His face stung and his eyes burned, his throat and mouth were dry from being full of ash. He had no weapons nor helmet anymore. To dash into the Nanians was suicide without purpose, against the Code. Yet that was the impulse that flowed with his adrenaline. The ground shook with earthquakes. The last of the brave ships trying to get refugees out of the city exploded with a great boom as if it had broke the barrier of sound. Here he was, watching people die from bug aliens and from lava, suffocation and crushing and not able to do anything. For the first time in his life he was helpless and alone without any member of his family left to turn to. Mothers called after children’s souls, fathers tried to comfort them. Children tried to make parents rise again to no avail. With his heart aching unbearably, Nahim turned away from his viewpoint and wiped his cheeks, covered in a mixture of ash and tears. His hands balled into fists tightened with rage and sorrow. ‘How? How could the Nanians get so far?’ One answer. ‘A traitor!’ Nahim turned back to the ghastly scene he could do nothing to change. ‘By my Honor, I will avenge you and find this traitor.’ One last look. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! A high-pitched Leavar warning call rang in his almost deafened ears. It seemed to be a last wailing cry of anguish by those salamander dragons over the people they once were friends with. Now it was Nahim’s turn. ‘Farewell.’ He ran into the tall grasslands, but he could not smell their sweetness, nor care about the tall blades cutting his face. His back was to Laxan, to his home, to his now-dead family, and to his happy past. He could feel it even in the way he moved, his life was changed forever.

He ran until he finally came to a staggering stop and glanced behind him. The air over his home was black with smoke. The horrible memories flashed through his mind. His dead brothers and parents. Vorgan . The duel. The hopelessness. The rescue. All was too vivid. His young teen features contorted. Nahim’s hand strayed to his throat. He winced with clenched teeth. Pain. He looked at his fingers. Blood. He tried to talk. Nothing. Nothing but pain. He let his hand fall and stood with mouth open slightly, eyes staring off towards his old home. He remained there in this state for how long, he didn’t know. All he knew was that he was wounded but his family would not be at his side, his mother would not talk to him and comfort him as she tended it. His father would not ask how he had managed to hurt himself this time. No little brother to ask him to spin it into some brave act of monster-slaying. No older one to chuckle at the mess he had gotten into. Tears rolled more freely.

A low throaty growl resounded from behind him. He turned. A tigros tail bounced above the grasses, its two colors of orange and black mingled in a cloud or swirling water pattern. Usually a tigros doesn’t attack Realn , especially fully trained and almost-fully armored ones. But Nahim was different; he was weary, wounded, dehydrated, and starving. The orange and black roughly striped predator leaped to come down on Nahim’s chest plate, sending him smashing onto the ground. One large, out-stretched claw holding claws of almost one hand tried to swipe Nahim’s face, only to be thwarted by Nahims’ sea blue and forest green gauntlet. He gave a hard blow to the beast’s jaw and it leapt away with a stiff feline agility as if it were part canine, knowing it should not mess with a Realn.

But Nahim did not rise. There was no hope for him. If the Nanians found him, he would die. And if he tried to keep going even if no other tigros thought he would be an easy kill, he would die of dehydration. If somehow he found flowing water out here, then he would die from the probable infection in his wound. And no one ever went into the vast grasslands. And the Leavar? Suddenly his eyebrows lifted, he readied his muscles to rise. He could almost feel Knight’s hot breath like that of summer’s hottest air, blowing out of his black nostrils. Those almost invisible scales rubbing lovingly against him, those pupiless red eyes staring into his own. He could feel the red flaps of skin down the creatures’ body, he could almost feel himself riding Knight back to his volcanic domain, the pace set by those long decorated thick black legs veined in red. His wound would be no problem then, for it is said that the saliva of the Laxorian Leavar have healing abilities. Hope sparked but then blew out. Nahim let his muscles relax again. The Leavar would not come. They right now were probably in their volcanic caverns swimming among the lava, out of reach of those murderous Nanians. He wished he could lift his voice up in a call Knight always had a tuned ear for, the all of his master and friend. What was he thinking? Here he was, no matter what way he turned, going to die and never fulfill his vow. He would die with no honor. He was stuck with death. After 15 years of his life it had finally come. His hands fisted into the very roots of the sharp grass, he could barely breath. He was not afraid of death, he was afraid that he would be honorless when he died. Nahim let his eyelashes touch the tops of his cheeks as one last tear drifted down that already wet skin. ‘This is the end.’

Sorry, it didn’t keep the pronunciations in the footnotes. I will take any suggestions.