[2308] What Remains Under Moonlight Chapter 2: The Prince

NSFW for a pretty tame seduction scene at the end, but just wanted to be safe especially since the power dynamics are weird.

What I'm going for: The main purpose of the chapter is to introduce Oren. I want him to feel so beautiful it's uncanny, and for him to be a bit ambiguous and difficult to read. Influences are very Daughter of the forest, Tam Lin, Lady Hawke, The Lays of Marie de France, Kay Nielson illustrations, The Bloody Chamber.

By the time the inciting incident hits, I need the reader to believe that Ava loves Oren, and give context for why that is (her isolation, increasingly orientating herself around him), so I guess this is the first step in that process.

Interested in general impressions, and also whether the ballad inserts work. Also is Oren successfully ambiguous or reading differently from what I'm going for.

I've tried to take a lot of the feedback into mind in terms of tightening perspective, alternating sentence structures, avoiding writing "not" a thousand times.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VAc5twxtI8hm9Fso9O2ASTRms_JN9X1d7ivK9Jnp7PA/edit?usp=sharing

Crits:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/1tq3gyz/comment/oohlv5h/?context=3

https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/1tpai0i/comment/oob4r6g/?context=3

https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/1tp23ez/comment/oo6arra/?context=3