The Good People- Prologue

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),

Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!

First Impression: This seems like a really nice little premise here. It sounds like a pretty well developed world here, there's a lot going on here and there and lots of more subtle details that point towards a good amount of worldbuilding, which I love to see in a story. A pretty nice piece to start a story off.

Anyway let's get right to it,

Tomorrow is to be my wedding! I am not yet sure how I feel about this. I have been betrothed to the High Prince, Oberon, since my first birthday. I should be used to this idea, right? I still cannot help feeling that this is somehow wrong. This is, after all, the 14th century. Perhaps I should be choosing my own husband.

Ooooh, well this is already a really good start here. It instantly catches your attention right away. There's so many things here to really get your attention as a reader besides the obvious fact of having to marry someone for an arranged marriage. That in itself is pretty crazy but with the age of the betrothal and the other details slipped in there, this is a really nice start here.

But there is so much more to this than just an arranged marriage with the future High King of the Seelie Court. Oberon is one of my best friends. Our parents didn’t want us to meet each other until our wedding day. But we have fooled them. Every day, when the sun is setting, we meet on the banks of the Shannon River. It just seems wrong to be forced to marry my best friend. Tis not that I don’t love him. I am just not sure if my feelings are toward a brother or a future husband.

Oh, I must stop thinking about this. I have tried to suppress myself from thinking of it, but I slip up sometimes, and it only makes me cry.

Oooh, we have ourselves yet another twist. I don't know if I've seen this particular version of the classic arranged marriage story, especially the part where we get to see this person not only has gotten to know the other very well, but also considers them a brother of sorts. The raw emotion there in the small part towards the end is an especially powerful touch there at the end.

I should instead be thinking of my life after we are married. I will no longer have the blue wings of a healer. They will turn lavender, and along with the color change, I will lose my healing abilities. I am not sure what unique and strange power will come to me, but I hope it is a good one.

OOoh, well, looks like there's even more happening there besides just the marriage itself and you can see there's a lot more than seems to happen in this world here in general, which definitely gets my attention even better by this point. I think I can safely say I'm already hooked with this story here.

And besides the powers, I will move into new quarters. I will have many green-winged servants to help me. I will have a closet of royal clothes and a golden crown. Listen to me, I sound like any other spoiled brat. I should be thinking about being the best High Queen ever, except maybe High Queen Aine, Oberon’s grandmother. She is over a thousand years old and is dying. She single-handedly raised Oberon when his mother and father both died. She is the greatest ruler that Avalon has ever had.

I had heard stories of what was happening when she was born. The Seelie and Unseelie Courts were being kept as slaves by a much bigger and more powerful tribe of fairies, called the Tuatha de Danaan. They were told to be barbarians, for they spoke to the animals and then killed them for furs. I have heard that they used to even eat animals. All that they ever wanted to do was fight and work their slaves to death. Their slaves had learned to weave the non-sticky threads from spider webs into a soft, durable, and warm cloth called spider silk.

OKay...a little too much of a tangent there. We had a really nice thought process going there with her sort of reflecting on all the various ways her life would change and how things would affect her, but then this little change in track to talk in quite this much detail about this former queen is a bit odd. I feel like that takes away from the focus we had which were her emotions and its just kind of going too far off track.

When Queen Aine was just ten years old, the revolution began. The slaves all hid sharp pieces of flint under their mats to use as weapons. Since the Tuatha de Danaan was just clever enough to separate the children and adults, The Queen had to take on all the children as their leader at ten. They organized an uprising with the adults by scratching messages into flint rocks that they passed among themselves. In a very bloody battle, both of the Courts won their freedom, completely obliterating the Tuatha de Danaan.

Since then, we have parted ways. In the last few years, there has even been some talk of going to war with the Unseelie. They live on Torc Mountain, a cold and forbidding place that has virtually no food or other resources. We live in a tree at the bottom of a valley and they want to live like us. I have not heard much, but I have heard that there is talk of an invasion. This will probably be something that Oberon and I will have to work out after we get married.

Hmm...perhaps that second paragraph could work in the context of the story. It seems like it'd make for a nice touch at any rate but the bit that comes before it seems like its maybe a little too off track again. You've gotta be careful not to fall into the trap of going too far into detail with backstories, its great to know that level of detail about your characters, but you have to reveal such information only where it fully makes sense. Here with so much talk of her thoughts, and this being a diary entry no less, that's a bit odd.

But tonight, my goal is to not fret about my wedding too much. Perhaps being married to him will be the push we both need to see each other in that light. I have a small celebration with my friends at the Fairy Circle tonight. A sort of bachelorette party. There will be dancing, music, and perhaps we will bring in a human to dance with us. It will be great fun!

Even though you are only a book, wish me the best of luck tomorrow. I am going to need it.

Hmm, well that looks like she's maybe trying to convince herself of all the potential good that could come of it and kind of is trying not to feel sorry for the situation that she's currently in.

I set down my wooden pen that dripped in blackberry ink. After changing into a peach colored dress, I flit out of my rooms into the main hall. I must be silent about this, for I do not want Oberon to catch me leaving. My party is not exactly supposed to happen. The Elders Council has forbidden us from dancing the night away with humans. They say that it just makes the humans speak about us.

The Council has some very strange rules regarding the Humans. For example- For unknown reasons, the Master Elder does not like Humans to call us fairies. Everybody else it fine with them calling us what we are, but he gets angry about it. Because of this, Humans have many different nicknames for us. The Hidden People, The Wee Folk, The Fair Folk, and most popularly, The Good People, are all examples of silly things Humans call us.

Hmm...well this is a good bit of a change here. This little tangent I don't mind cause its outside the initially created line of thought there and this one seems to dive a bit into the setting of the world in a very light sense and I think that is a nice addition to the prologue here.

One other rule that seems to take a physical effect on us is that we cannot capture a Human if he sticks his knife in the door frame. This is an irrational and confusing rule, but we follow it because we seem physically incapable of closing the door if a Human does this.

But, enough of thinking about complicated laws. Tonight is a time to celebrate! I am getting married to my best friend tomorrow. Then I will have enough power to make my own laws.

Hmm, this is a decent line there to end things on. There's a lot of promise to com, that much is certain and it in general makes for a decent inevitable feeling there towards, which I like to see.

Aaaaand that's it for this one.

Overall: Overall, this makes for a pretty nice piece here. I think this prologue does its job very well. Its certainly good enough to make me want to read more of this story. There was only the one little issue there.

As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.

Stay Safe
Harry