Lack of excitement

Rough-typed the first chapter of "Familiar"; a bit over three thousand words. I'm not sure why I'm procrastinating so much about getting this published -- I always do tend to put things off once the 'hard work' has been finished, namely the manuscript, but I'm not particularly enthusiastic about this one.

And I'm still feeling a fresh surge of nervous dread every time I get a review notification on "The Opportunist", even though the vast majority of them have been unallayed praise; I'm just not equipped to deal with any kind of criticism (other than by trying to be extremely good at everything) and not used to people finding things wrong with my work. Which sounds, and is, very arrogant, especially as I'm finding things wrong with other people's work all the time.

Familiar (ch1)

I feel there are too many italics in this; I've tried weeding some of them out and ended up putting them back in, but en masse they do tend to diminish in effect :-(

Familiar

“All she could remember was the sword coming down”: AU. Anna wakes to a strange place and unwelcome company.

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Chapter 1 — Yesterday and a Lifetime Ago

All she could remember was the sword coming down on Elsa — Elsa, who’d never intended any of this, who’d meant no harm to anyone. The fog of cold that somehow lay between had numbed her senses until she did not know where she had been, or what urgency had driven her out onto the ice. The last vivid thing in the world had been the bright flash of steel, and Elsa’s white neck bowed in yielding despair, and the impulse that had flung her between them.

Anna remembered the sword, and the agonised moment before the blade could cleave through flesh and bone. Then — nothing.

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