Very good! I liked the short little bit about the whale, it's a nice detail to add. I guess that the only critique I have is that you've introduced a bunch of characters all at once and they're a bit hard to keep track of (at least, for me).Are you going to explain what the alarm was about? And I loved this line "Nothing, really. Just the amount of nothing that happens"So yeah, I guess that's it :)Put up the third chapter

Hmm. My home comp still isn't fixed, but I guess I'll review this now. It's not that long anywayz. ^^;

Conversation is always a good way to world-build, and Eltras sounds like a mysterious world indeed, with plenty of room for creativity. You have a very intruiging social structure here.But this little thing bothers me about Oriel and Nezra's relationship. It's rather ambiguous, isn't it? Nezra's cool, like Nami said, but Oriel seems so uptight around him. Ah, just one of my silly impressions, I suppose. I'm sure you'll explain everything in the next chapters! And I'm looking forward to hearing more about Nezra. Keep writing, luv, and sorry for the short review. I'm a little pressed for time.

Yay, more dialogue! You did a nice job on this chapter, and Nezra seems like a sharp kid with more to him than meets the eye. I hope we get more stuff from his viewpoint sometime.

Well, I just did that bigass beta reading job for you-know-who, so my brain is too mushy to give a thoughtful, intelligent review. o_O

nicely made, i like it so far...

You posted it! Very nice :) I don't have anything to say that I haven't said before... so... yeah. The summary is pretty cool, too :)

*gasps* For me and Minami? That's so sweet! *Quavi wiggles with joy* I now own a chapter (well, actually, /co-own/ a chapter with Nami) because said chapter has been dedicated to me (and her), and even though I don't actually own it because I haven't written it, I feel so privileged because I feel like I've been involved somehow (even though I actually did nothing), and the song is "Scarborough Fair!" (do I get points for that?), and could you tell that I've just been drinking fatally immense amounts of Coke and am on a drunken high? Sorry sorry sorry.

Anyway. What really struck me about your story is that it has a point. A plot. You could tell straight away. So many other stories start off with a deathly boring history or maybe so-called "witty" banter about history, but yours paints an intruiging framework of the world in less than three paragraphs, then lets the story live on its own. It's wonderful how effortlessly you blend description and events. It flows well. There /is/ that business with transitions -- and the reason they jar so much is because the rest is so even -- but all you need to do is /add/. You don't need to delete anything. Just insert stuff like, "then she made her way back to her exasperated mother" or something, and it would be all good. Oriel's return trips would be great for small comments on her relationship with Deirdre too (though that might be premature, I guess).

Also, your writing style is great fun to read! It's not pretentious or over-heavy on adjectives (not like, er, mine). And I'm really interested about the concept in general. Usually, when people do an undersea community it's all science and glass-bubbles and angst about oxygen levels. It's an interesting spin to create an underwater city maintained by mages -- and there's that ultra-funmysterious question: why did they move underwater, anyway?

There are just a few things I found a bit hard to understand. Blame my Coke-iness, maybe. Like, what is with the bell? Hmm, I'm nitpicking majorly, but if some alarm bell was timed to ring in the morning, shouldn't Oriel have woken along with everybody else who was woken by that bell? Granted, she might have spent so many minutes daydreaming, but I wouldn't think that's enough to allow her whole family to finish eating and bathing and everything. Unless this bell has a totally different purpose and it only woke her by accident. Aw, maybe I'm just being a doofus, but you gotta watch out! There's a lot of us doofuses (doofi) out there. ^.^ If you decide not to use the bell, you could just say she woke from a dream or whatever strikes you as appropriate.

And the other silly little thing. I couldn't for the life of me figure out the conversation about "seeds having magical properties but not when they're for eating." But Deirdre and Oriel are planting the seeds, aren't they? It just didn't feel right to me that the mother should mention that particular detail at that particular moment. Her mind would have been on something totally far from eating, I think. Just my humble opinion, 'course. Feel free to slip a comment into my profile to enlighten me. ^_~

Anywhose, love this story and hope you don't get tired of writing it! I promise to read it all the way. (Unless I get run over by a helicopter or devoured by rabid field mice.) And...one of your mages or shield guardians better have /white hair/ or I shall call upon my deep sea monster friends and order 'em to scare the living daylights out of the people at Sagen. =D

Aw. Dedicated to me? You're a sweetiebun.

Last time I looked over this, my main thought was about how I liked the overall idea and the way you fleshed out the world you've made. Personally, I like your use of descriptions a lot: you give enough to let the readers sketch out what it would look like on their own, without drowning us in tedious details. A wee bit more description of the scenery itself, slipped in here and there, might be nice. But I think you're doing fine.

Anyway, on this go-around, I realized how much I like your writing style. It's very cute sometimes, and the sentences flow smoothly. And I like the way the characters interact; you're not trying TOO hard to make them speak "like real people talk", but it's not too formalized or over-proper, either.

As for the characters themselves, I can't say much as the story has only just begun. So, as would be expected, there's not much dialogue to go on. But I will say that Oriel seems to be a little bit of a silly-head. In a good way. Wonder how she'll face up to the inevitable unpcoming onslaught of drama and danger...

There are some errors in the sentence structure and word choice, but I had to employ my very best nit-picky skills to identify them. Taking a leaf from Cyres' book, I did a full-length Word critique-ish thingy, if you'd like me to e-mail it to you. You know how to ask. ^_^

Finally! A good one. Very good topic choice. I like it a lot.

Constructive Criticism:

Work on transition from one thing to another, like when Oriel is doing things: filling the can with water and handing it back to her mother. It read a little choppy. Also, it would be nice to read more descriptions on the location they live in and their settlement. I was quite curious about that.