>>57574419wasn't there to read whatever original version you had, but these are my current thoughts:
- your prose is pretty good and gets the scene across well, albeit is somewhat unremarkable in just how concise it is(not a bad thing in and of itself ofc, just pointing it out if you wanna aim to spice it up more).
- partially me being a grammar autist and i know most of is is due to the extensive dialogue, but your paragraphs feel far too short and your descriptive sentences fractured. the detail needed to accurately picture a scene is there, but is simply spread out thin between so many single/double sentence paragraphs... it leads to a rougher reading experience, no matter how good your actual prose is; my attention and focus keeps getting split between continually building up the scene with a drip feed of details and processing them inefficiently... each new paragraph gives your reader a chance to process the glob of text they just read, but atm you're giving too many breaks.
- felix's portrayal feeds off of that somewhat, and he overall feels kinda inconsistent. you obviously want to make his lack of spikes a defining trait, so why wait until our second encounter with him to reveal this? why does he not explicitly reacting to being called a dog and a mutt(and rowan, for that matter), but takes such offense to being called a noncombatant? perhaps you could do more to demonstrate the difference between their everyday banter and actual insults meant to wound, or even give him a habit of reaching to the spot where the spikes would be whenever they(or his inability to battle) come up in the story. that way you've got a method to show what mentally affects felix or not, without directly telling us whether he's offended.
still, your premise and take on the world insofar is interesting enough to keep me on the line, and your writing/execution isn't turning me away instantly(much better than most fics i've tried). i'll be following your writing journey from now on.
