All C&C is simply my opinion and can be cheerfully ignored.  =)

Chilled night air blown off the river breathed
down Yoshi's neck, seeking warmth yet only
succeeding in making him shift uncomfortably
while it continued ever onward, unaffected.

Gah!  As an opening sentence this leaves a lot to be desired.  Too long, too
hard to follow.  "Chilled night air" isn't quite right, as it makes it seem
that someone has bottled night air and put it on ice.  =)

Maybe something like:

The chilly night wind blew off the dark river.  It breathed down Yoshi's
neck as if seeking warmth, yet it only succeeded in making him shift
uncomfortably.  Undaunted, the breeze continued on.

That's rough, of course, but I think illustrates that you can make this a
bit easier on the eyes without losing the descriptive aspect you were
looking for.

Four paragraphs of C&C on the first sentence.  A new record for me.  =)

He felt cold, colder than he could ever remember in
his twenty-two years of life. It was curious, since
no more than half an hour ago he was numb to the chill

What was curious?  Avoid passive sentences like this whenever possible.
Perhaps simply replacing "It" with "Which".  Also, change the tense of the
sentence to the past perfect.  "Which was curious, since no more than a half
an hour ago he had been..."

The cold would be ending soon enough. Sooner,
if he so desired.

Oooh.  Suicide is painless.

Oh, there would be a few moments of intense, probably
painful cold, but then it would drift away and he would
experience it in decreasing amounts until there was nothing
left to feel, or so he assumed. It was what he had heard
others say, and what he believed.

Hmm.  I don't like this spelled out.  The reference to suicide would be much
better implied, like it was in those first two sentences.  Leave out this
exposition and let your readers be left with a vague feeling of unease.

On the upside, most people didn't want to deal with
the snow and, between that and how late in the evening
it was, avoided the park.

Gah!  Another convoluted, difficult-to-break-down sentence.  Try something
like:

On the upside, the snow and the late hour combined to keep most people away
from the park.

A shuddering shook Yoshi's body,

Hmm.  Of course a shuddering would shake.  It's like saying "The punch hit
him."  "Yoshi shuddered" is simpler and better.

He looked back and forth across each side of the bridge,
but still no one had appeared. An omen, perhaps, one
that told him this was what he was meant to do.

If you remove the sentences I suggest above, this will again bill foreboding
as Yoshi's intention is made more and more clear.

Again Yoshi's eyes sought the water below. The lights
still danced across the surface as the wind continued
to blow, paying no heed to his discomfort.

You're getting a bit repetitive, describing the same things over and over.

It occurred to him as he stood there, regarding obsidian
depths that could have they reached two hundred feet down
instead of a mere twenty from as far as he could see into
it, that no matter what the priests at his temple  contended,
the world really didn't care about you.

<Richard's head explodes>

Whoa.  You really went overboard with the sentence structure here.  I don't
even know what "depths that could have they reached two hundred feet down
instead of a mere twenty from as far as he could see into it" is supposed to
mean.

You may want to rethink this.

It left abruptly, disappearing in a heartbeat. In the
beginning it lingered, becoming less noticeable as
other smells, none ever so sweet, drowned it out
until he could smell it not longer. It was shouting
in a cavern, listening to an echo that dwindled ever
softer into the distance until it became unheard.
Though if one tried hard enough, believed strongly
enough, they might convince themselves they could hear
one last sound even when it had drifted into nothingness
long ago.

In case you think I have nothing good to say, this is excellent descriptive
pose, well-paced and evocative.

The first thought that struck him as his eyes
fell onto the woman, who leaned over the railing
and looked idly in his direction, was that she
was a goddess descended from Heaven, come to
deliver him from oblivion.

Hurm.  I kinda dislike this, that his first impression is *so* spot-on
accurate.  Since we know from the AMG tag that she is a goddess, it feels...
unsubtle to have Yoshi react this way.

The only odd thing about her was the white
plastic bag that was slung over her shoulder,
the bottom sagging from an object within.

That's the *only* odd thing about her?  ^_^  Dark-skinned women with
platinum blonde hair are rare enough as it is, plus her unusual attire.  The
plastic bag should just be another of the oddities associated with his first
perusal of Urd.

"Where'd you come from?!"

Even though I do this too in some of my fanfics, it behooves me as a C&C-er
to point out that multiple punctuation marks such as !! or ?? or ?! are
grammatically indefensible.  Leave out the exclamation mark and find some
other way to convey his startlement.

Her smile held a mix of
sarcasm and amusement in equal amounts.

Get rid of "a mix of".

Even as distracted as he was, he would have heard her approach,

Even as distracted as he had been, he...

But he caught himself and instead gave out a terse,
"I am about to jump off a bridge. I'd say it's a little
late to talk to someone."

In keeping with the theme of explicitly stating the impending suicide, I'd
leave out the "I am about to jump off a bridge" bit.

He was making fun of her.

Er, *she* was making fun of *him*.

And of course there's the whole reason of why we
celebrate it, very important to me and my...
co-workers.

Hmm.  Mixing mythologies here; can't imagine the Norse gods caring much
about what the Christian worshippers celebrated.  =)  But perhaps you could
chalk this up to professional courtesy between competing offices.

"What?!"

Again with the multiple punctuation marks.  I won't mention them again if
they come up; but you might want to think them over.

This new tangent offended Yoshi for some
reason he couldn't understand. "You're
getting off the subject."

"Oh, yeah. Sorry about that." Though her
words were in apology, they lacked a feeling
of sincerity.

Heh.  She's getting off the subject but she's doing her jobs, distracting
Yoshi out of his cycle of depression.  Well-done, Urd.  =)

"So she died?"

Hurm?  This seems an unwarranted assumption on Urd's part.  I would have
assumed that they had simply broken up.  It's quite common that one half of
a couple idolizes the other, without reciprocation.

Without her, I can't go on, no matter how hard
I try. And now it's come to this."

Nice passage here.  Slightly incoherent, rambling a bit, but perfectly
natural for someone spewing out their thoughts all at once.

Each word weighed heavy with resentment and anger,
carrying with it the woman's emotions. It was like
being force fed empathy, and he found it impossible
not to swallow.

Not sure why words weighted with anger could be called the same as empathy.

The slap across his face was hard enough
to leave a hand print across a cheek already
reddened by the bitter temperature.

Woot!  Way to go, Urd.  ^_^

"Do you honestly believe that stupid idea about
there being one and only one person in the entire
world that you are destined to fall madly and
permanently in love with?

Well, Keiichi and Belldandy might believe, but that's another story.  :)

I want to remember exactly what I felt, how
I felt, about her forever, even if it does
hurt so much."

The woman spoke again. If ice had a voice,
it would have sounded just like her. "Oh no
you don't. You most definitely do not ever
want to wish for that. Be happy you can give
up your memories to the past rather than having
them remain with you forever.

Very nice, my favorite part of the fic.  Urd demonstrates nicely that being
a goddess is not all joy and happiness and being able to do neat magic
tricks.  It's an aspect to her nature I've never considered before, but one
that I think fits quite well with the concept of being the Goddess of the
Past.

My only real complaint about this passage is that it's one big block of
text.  But in a few descriptive connectors, something like:

Urd's voice grew slightly bitter.  "It makes letting go difficult and
forgetting impossible."

Of course, maybe Urd isn't bitter here, but I'm try to show what kind of
possibilities you have for breaking this up a bit.

That was not to say he was cured: he was still
miserable since Mariko remained in his heart,

I'm glad you didn't go with "suddenly it was all better".  This is much more
realistic.

Going from one extreme to the other, Yoshi held
a brief vision of slipping and plunging into the
river now that he had found the resolve to deal
with his situation through other means.

Hmm?  Another confusing sentence.  From the context, I'm guess you're
wanting to convey that he finds this an unattractive option, but this
sentence doesn't really convey that.

"Ice cream in the middle of winter? Why not?" Not
knowing what else to do, Yoshi slung the bag over
his shoulder, intent on going home, eating the whole
thing, and getting the first decent night of sleep
in months.

Honestly, I'd prefer that you end the fanfic here.  The scene back at the
temple seems tacked on, and it breaks the mood too much, and is, again, too
expository, spelling out things (like the fact that Urd is the Goddess of
the Past) that are better left implied.  Leave it like this and you have a
very nice, melancholy story that's paced nicely.

Overall, a nice story DB.  ^_^

-Richard


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