Macbeth said:
Wow. I was going to post 'I'm beat,' because that story wore me out.
I can well understand that. I feel emotionally wrung out just reading it.
You put a lot into that one.
And I found a lot there.
Your language was really powerful in this one--beautiful cadences, beautiful, strong images.
The only place I saw the time pressure was a little bit in the proofreading (man, I hope this round doesn't come down to a close count of which of you had fewer typos) and in the closing cadence of the very last paragraph.
There is nothing else that I wanted to have happen in this story, but the language of the very ending wasn't quite perfect. I can't tell you how I'd fix that last sentence, except that the rhythm needs to slow just a teeny bit before the final emphasis. I blow through it too fast and find myself surprised to have come to the end of the line, even though I know the story is now over.
It's because the rhythm of the rest of the piece is so very perfect that this one spot seems rough. This is not a quibble about content--the content is perfect. It's just a phrasing thing. A little (methaphorical) sandpaper and oil should fix the scratch, and you will have a very shiny thing here.
It's one of those rare Ceramic GM stories that might be usable outside the confines of the game, without the illos.
(Although I admit that if I were to reprint this outside the game, I'd make Burro monstrous in some other way, more terrestrial, less aquatic. He so damn scary the way you paint him, he could look like nothing more than an ordinary donkey and he'd be terrifying just standing there chewing cud on four normal feet.)