Vertine crept across the leaf, her sword in hand and her eyes fixed on the wasp. The enormous insect preened its yellow and black body on the branch just above, in the hazel tree.
Vertine smiled to herself. Just a little closer, then a leap and slash of her sword and the quarry would be hers. She would hang its sting on her sword belt with the other two.
She hated wasps and hunted them any chance she got. When she’d awoken to the world four sunrises ago, a wasp took her by surprise, attacking her on her river-stone. She had crawled in fear under the stone, shivering in the freezing river waters, until it had gone.
Not so easy to scare now, though, am I? She grinned.
Vertine slid her wings out from the slits on her back. She

REVISED:

Vertine crept across the leaf, sword in hand and eyes fixed on the wasp. Just above her, in the hazel tree, the large insect preened its yellow and black body on a twig.
Vertine smiled. Just a little closer, then with a leap and a slash of her sword, the prize would be hers. She would hack off its sting to hang on her sword belt with the other two.
She hated wasps and hunted them every chance she got. When she’d awoken to the world four sunrises ago, a passing wasp attacked her on her river-stone. She crawled in fear under the rock and shivered in the freezing river waters until it grew bored and flew away.
Not so easy to scare now, though, am I? She grinned.
Vertine slid out her wings from the slits on her back. She

Some problems with the syntax:

The first two lines sound a bit awkward. I feel I should know she is in a hazel tree before hand, and not at the end.

"Vertine smiled to herself." You don't need, "to herself," here; its a bit redundant.

Other than that I would look for words that might not be needed, for instance, "had," "got," and other words that might take away from the active flow of your syntax.

Good start.

I'm not sure you need "enormous" because we can guess that from her crawling across the leaf. A sense of its size relative to hers might be nice instead, though.

I don't think you need "the quarry" and for me, "and it would be hers" would read more smoothly.

You need to decide how you're going to handle the little flashback. I've learned that these can start in past perfect and then, for ease of reading, slide into simple past tense, but I don't think you should slip between past perfect and past. Simplest fix would be "a wasp had taken her by surprise"; or--and less effective in my view--"a wasp took her ... She crawled in fear ..."

If you can wait until late next week for a crit, I'd be happy to read.

Thanks for the comments, all good points. Yes, she does know human terms--there is a reason for this, despite her short life.

This going to be a WOTF entry, and I need to finish it up fast and send it--this or the original, I haven't decided yet. It isn't finished yet, in the sense that I haven't got to the point where I can tack it onto the original and edit them together.

I'm not a grammar expert, but I think this might read better as "She hated wasps and hunted them every chance she had." I'm not 100% sure, though. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, please.

In my opinion, you do need the word "enormous" because when I first read this, I was unsure whether it was a human or human-sized creature in a giant forest, or a small creature in a normal-sized forest. I think that, without "enormous", I might have been a little more confused.

Random musing: I love the name Vertine and noticed it has a certain similarity to verdant. I wonder if there may have been a subconscious factor here...

I love the way she hangs the stingers of the slain wasps from her belts. It's simultaneously dark and fey, kind of like a fairy serial killer. It's a great concept.

Overall, I think this is extremely smooth and well-written, and would definitely keep reading. I would be glad to look it over for you. I'm fairly clueless about things like grammar and story structure, but I might be able to lend a hand here or there.

Good luck in the contest. Best regards,

Vertine was named Vertine after many failed attempts. I wanted a name that stemmed from the word virtuous.

In the story Vertine comes across as a bit of a scamp, and I wanted to balance that with a name that suggested a better nature. It also had to be made-up and sound fairyish.

I am surprised you feel it is smooth and well-written--your own work is a very different and is an unapologetic individualistic style. Does this mean you are coming over to the light-side...? Only kidding. I understand that it possible to appreciate something that is different to one's own output.

Feel free to send the story over if you want me to take a look at it; it sounds like a good one. Best regards,