Messengers of Wane (1)

The arrival of visitors caused a commotion in the Isle of Thalen. It wasn't so much the fact that there were visitors, strangers arrived all the time from the surrounding islands. What made these visitors unusual was the way they arrived.

Mayor Gallberg, whose responsibility it was to greet them, was among the last to see them. His tardiness was the result of two things. The first was due to his insistence to live in a Mansion above the town. His stately house had a good view of the harbor and was far enough away from the riff-raff that lived in town. The second was due to his figure, which was round and ill-suited for walking. In contrast to the Mayor was his daughter Adelaide. She was a graceful young woman, she had both wisdom and beauty. She accompanied her father.

The crowd was thick but strangely silent. Constable Riemen saw the mayor coming and promptly cleared a path through the crowd.

"What is this?" the Mayor said.

"You need to see this for yourself Mayor. Follow me," the Constable said. They made their way through the crowd and when they emerged from the other side, they saw their visitors. The first thing the Mayor saw were the talons. Sharp and deadly, they rested on the cobblestones. As his gaze moved upward, he saw the muscular body of a lion, and the large wings, sharply curved beak, and the eyes of an eagle. The eyes scared the Mayor the most, as they bore hungrily down on him. The Mayor was looking at a gryphon, one of the most dangerous species known to man.

Adelaide, on the other hand, noticed the rider first. His clothes were leather, except for his goggles, which were made of glass. He wore a pack on his back and was attached to the Gryphon by a harness. All of his clothing fitted him closely, which made sense to her. He was well covered, but he was clearly well built and, she suspected, most attractive. Likewise the rider noticed Adelaide first and the Gryphon noticed the mayor first.

Constable Rieman had been talking, but the Mayor had been too busy imagining the various ways that he could be torn to shreds to listen.

"What were you saying?" the Mayor said.

"I said that they spoke Imperial and that none of us know it well enough to speak to them," the Constable said.

"I haven't had to speak Imperial for years!" the Mayor said. In fact he hadn't had an occasion to speak it since he had been taught it by the school master.

"I understand that sir, but you're our leader and they seem important enough to warrant some official attention." Constable Rieman said.

"Very well, but I'll need the school master. I don't trust myself with the translation." The mayor was correct, he was terrified enough of the Gryphon that he would be completely incoherent. Adelaide knew her father's character well and so now she took action of her own.

"The school master is sick. Doctor Jamison is with him," the Constable said. It was at this point that both realized that Adelaide was no longer among them. Instead, Adelaide had strode forward towards the gryphon and its rider. The gryphon shifted its gaze to Adelaide, but she continued fearlessly. Forgotten by her father and constable was the fact that she had been taking lessons from the school master in, among other things, how to speak Imperial. When she was a few feet away, she stopped and spoke in that language.

"Strangers from lands distant, I welcome thee on behalf of my people. If you are hungry, we shall feed you. If you have first, we shall quench it. If you require rest, then you may rest in safety. When you are ready, we shall discuss your business here," Adelaide said. The gryphon's ears, which had been alert, flattened out. The rider dismounted from the gryphon and walked until he was alongside his gryphon.

"You speak with the authority of a Queen," the rider said before bowing. The gryphon followed suit, though its eyes never left Adelaide. "We have need for all that you have offered, but first we wish to know whose hospitality it is that we are enjoying."

"You are the guest of my father, Horatio Gallberg, Mayor of the Isle of Thalen."

"You do your father much credit, daughter of Horatio."

"My name is Adelaide," she said. "Follow me and I will see to your needs."

Hey there. I saw this on that one hundred topics that haven't been reviewed thing and this one popped out at me. I usually don't get into these kinds of stories, but I really liked it! I think most of your descriptions were really good, but I want to know more about the gryphon! How was he acting? Was he timid? Was he quiet and stern like a british door man? Was he shuffling from paw to paw? There are so many things that this gryphon could tell us Just with the movement. Overall I think its a very solid piece. Well done =]

Hi Griff,

Not bad at all. I thought the humor was subtle and effectively conveyed. This is too short an excerpt for me to properly judge. There are a couple of things that I did notice, however, and I'll bring them to your attention.

Firstly, I am not very comfortable with your omniscient perspective while narrating the story. Your humor strikes me such that it would be far more effective if the biases and characters of your characters were allowed to manifest in the prose itself. The omniscient perspective of your narrator requires you to be objective, and I'm not sure that you wouldn't be better off with a different narrator each of whom is limited by the scope of a single character. As it stands your omniscient narrator seems to switch bias with the paragraph. Especially between the Mayor and Adelaide. Whether the mode of narration would be first or third person is a personal preference, though I personally like your third person narration personally.

Your dialogue is quick and reads really well but doesn't give much insight into your characters yet. The scene you're setting up for is interesting, and I'd read forward a little. Still, the stake here doesn't seem that high to me yet. I don't care about the characters and if the gryphon killed the mayor or his daughter, I'd probably laugh, sadist that I am.

I have no emotional investment in your story, and that is my biggest problem with it. You've got my interest, you just don't have my heart yet.

Hope this helps!

If I may be the first to say this, the Isle bit reminded me of Sanctum. XD Anyway! Continuing on...

Mayor Gallberg was among the last to arrive.

You talked about visitors directly before this, so this part seems like you're talking about the visitors again, so I was wondering why Mayor Gallberg would be mentioned here, especially with his title as mayor, as he was a visitor. It may be nice to give us more clues!

In contrast to the Mayor was his daughter, Adelaide, who was all energy and quick wits. Her only reason for being tardy was because of her father.

I don't quite see how having energy and quick wits means that she wouldn't be tardy. Also, some additional information would be really nice, especially if we knew how old she is. That way, we can get an impression on the mayor as well.

They made their way through the crowd and when they emerged from the other side, they saw the visitors.

Just a quick comment, but it might be really nice to see "their" visitors instead of just "the visitors." That way, it gives them additional importance.

The Mayor was looking at a Gryphon.

Don't capitalize gryphon.

When he had read stories of these creatures, he had had nightmares about them for a week.

Why would stories cause this much fear to him and yet he is not paralyzed? Also, it may be interesting to see what sorts of stories he recollects, that way we can decide whether he is being irrational about this or not. Also, it might be a good idea to mention whether he thinks gryphons are real or fake.

His clothes were leather, except for his goggles, which were made of glass.

Harley, except gryphons! Anyway, the very fact that he would have a rider in the first place makes me a bit suspicious... aren't gryphons supposed to be really independent?

Adelaide knew her father's character well and so now she took action of her own.

You don't actually say what sort of action that she takes... I think you should!

Anyway, hopefully we'll see more.

First, thanks for all the comments. I'm afraid I had to leave the work before I was completely finished. I'm in the process of adding more to the original post.

EDIT: Finished.

Hi,

I enjoyed this very much! I can not wait to read more, if there will be more. It has me guessing as to what will happen. I adore how you had the mount not take his eyes off the mayor. So far, this is a very charming story. :] Good job!

Farewell,
A.

Okay, so with the chapter completed, I can make further points that I wouldn't have made until now.

One of my pet peeves is tension killing. See, you have very little tension in this open chapter. When, however you take this little tension and remove it from the equation, you have committed story-suicide. We think there's going to be some issue with the lack of communication that might result preposterously. You have a situation where a gryphon could be killing a freaking village, where a mayor is helpless. Where there is likely to be some miscommunication. And then, you kill that scenario before it can go anywhere. If you want to make the story interesting, take the tension and flaunt it.

Let the lion start doing some killing. Let Adelaide provoke him. Let the mayor fail at talking to him. Either way, you can only salvage the scenario when it is really desperate. Otherwise it's too easy.

Secondly, in a couple of lines, your story went from snazzy to cheesy. And all it took was a couple of lines of cliched ancient dialogue and a shift from humor to seriousness. Stick to either funny or serious. When you mix two completely different tones, I lose faith in your narrator. Personally, I preferred your funny stuff.

So yeah, I hope that that helped.

Those are the major points.
Have a great one:1

This is really well written! I like how you described who noticed who first (griffin and mayor, girl and rider).
I also like how you made a change. Usually it's dragon rider. Now it's griffin!
Your writing style is pretty good.

Alright. Grammar town.


"It wasn't so much the fact that there were visitors, strangers arrived all the time from the surrounding islands."

This is a run-on, and you can fix it by adding a conjunction then a comma.

"Mayor Gallberg, whose responsibility it was to greet them, was among the last to see them."

The wording "whose responsibility it was..." is a little awkward.

"She was a graceful young woman, she had both wisdom and beauty."

Run-on. You can add a semicolon too, vs. a conjunction. And, instead of telling us she was wise, you can just continue to show the readers by her actions and words. The exchange between the griffin rider and her illustrates this point nicely.

"The crowd was thick but strangely silent"

Maybe a comma before the "but."

"You need to see this for yourself Mayor."

Comma after "yourself" would make this grammatically correct.

"If you have first, we shall quench it."

Typo. Thirst.

Keep writing this! I can't wait to see where this goes!