Chapter 1- Feather Falls

Chapter 1 of Vector of the Heavens.

“Link!  The sun has been in the sky for nearly two hours now!  You need to get up!”   Link tried to fight back the sounds of his older sister, but gave up when she started whacking him in the head with a pillow.  He got dressed into his work clothes, ate a quickly and much harassed breakfast, then got outside and began to work on his chores around the family ranch.  As he looked out, he saw the mill next to the town of Feather Falls begin to turn as the mechanics had likely just let the wheel down and begin the work.  Alongside that, the sounds of the town began to pick up as shopkeepers began their daily grind as the women made their way through the town marketplace.  While the ranch that Link lived at wasn’t right on top of the beautiful town, they were close enough for the sounds to reach them and let them know what time of the day it was.  Right about now, it was time for Link to take the eggs, milk, and cheese to the market and trade them with some of the merchants for supplies, meat, and gold coins.  As Link saddled up one of the horses and attached the wagon to the other horse, he heard somebody calling him from the ranch across the way.  It was Malon, a lady half-elf like Link and his family, and a long-time childhood friend.  They had raised a horse together from the time they were children and they did a very good job.  They named the horse Epona, after the steed of an ancient ancestor of Link’s.  Link jumped on Epona’s back, and had her jump over the fence and ride over to the stables of Malon’s ranch, and quickly dismounted.
“Good morning Link!  Did you sleep late again?”
“Oh come on Malon!  I never sleep in!  I always wake up on time!   I…” and as he said this, he let out a huge yawn.  They both laughed for a moment, then calmed down.
“Hey Link, can you do me a favor?  I’m going to head to the falls and give a prayer to the statue of the town’s guardian.  Can you give me a lift to town?  I can get off at the village gate and walk from there.  I might need a lift back from town as well, so can you help me out?”  Link pondered this for a minute, then he said,
“Hey Malon, I haven’t been to the fall springs in ages, and I’m aching for a bath.  What say that you come with me to town, help me with the daily trades, then I go to the statue with you, then we go get a nice bath, then go home together!”
“But Link, do you even have enough money?  I mean, you and your family need every cent you can get.”
“Don’t worry.  With the festival of the guardians coming up, people are wanting more goods and food for the great feast.  Therefore, the people I trade with are willing to give more money for the stuff my family sells them.  I am planning on using some of my share in order to do this Malon.  Don’t worry about it too much.”  After contemplating this for a few seconds, she agreed, let her father know what she was doing, got on Epona with Link, then they went back to Link’s home, got the rest of the supplies, then rode into town with their cart.  As they reached the town square, Malon hopped off and told Link that she would meet him at the guardian’s shrine, and walked off.  Link met with several traders throughout the town market, trading what he had for gold coins and whatever else they needed back at the farm such as feed for the animals, food for him and his family, and money in case if they ever needed it.  Link’s family was plentiful.  He had lived with his mother and father his whole life.  While his mother was an elf at birth, she gave up her immortality so that she live a normal life with her human husband.  In any other nation, this would have been considered a taboo, and they would be enslaved or forced to serve a jail sentence.  But the grand country of Galor was under the rule of the high elf Eraqus.  He had been a member of the armies of Xelador for many centuries thousands of years ago, but after serving in the army for three centuries of the thousand year war against Hylia, he left with a small band of humans, elves, and half-elves and took the colony of Galor from the small units of Xelador and established the country of Galor, a country that offered freedom to Half-Elves and humans, not judging people by their race, but by their actions.  Xelador was too busy fighting the war with Hylia to worry about a lost colony, so they let Eraqus keep the land for “services rendered” to their country.  Eraqus made an extreme effort to make sure that of all the nations that they traded with, Xelador and Hylia were not one of them.  Time went on, and people from other countries began to colonize the land of Galor, Feather Falls being one of the first of these great cities.  Link’s family had been living at that ranch for nearly a thousand years now.  He never knew how they came in possession of it, and whenever he asked his parents, they would simply say that it was a gift from an old friend.  Since his mother was over 1,500 years old, that old friend could be alive and well as an elf, or have died 500 years ago for all he knew.  He was annoyed about not knowing at first, but as he grew older, he began to accept the fact that it didn’t matter who gave the ranch to his family, but rather what he did to help move the ranch in the right direction in the future.  He finished his trading with the different merchants, and then headed over to the famous waterfall of his town.  As he looked down, he saw the small walled off area that sheltered the people bathing underneath the falling waterfall.  Feather Falls wasn’t just famous for its majesty and beauty, it was also known for its amazing magical property.  The water that fell from the river above did not crush anybody that sat underneath it, but rather gave them a nice sense of relaxation and ease.  So one could stand beneath the strongest part of the falls and only feel like they were being hit with a feather, hence the name Feather Falls.  However, Link couldn’t enjoy himself just yet.  He walked up a cliff that overlooked the falls, and met up with Malon.  They took out small, beautiful flowers from their gardens, and placed it at the base of a statue of an angel.  The angel was beautiful, had a small halo over its head with beautiful wings on its back.  Legend had it that each town or city across the whole world had an angel that protected called a guardian who can do things as big as keeping monsters from invading the city to doing stuff as small as cleaning up a mess in somebody’s home.  Nobody had ever seen a guardian in real life before, and some had been speculating that they never existed.  Eraqus proved them wrong with an experiment he had done during the last few centuries.  He wrote down the name of the guardian of the capital at one time, and a few centuries later, the name changed magically overnight, and proved that there were guardians that were watching over them.  Some still speculated why the name changed, but the general public didn’t really care about all of that.  Link and Malon said their prayers of gratitude, and then went down to the bath houses for some time to relax.  As Link sat in his bathing chamber, he looked up to the sky and watched in wonder as the stars began to light up the sky one by one.  He remembered what his mother told him.
“Each star is the soul of a person who has gone before us.  When one goes on to the next life, they join the great dance of light in the sky, and that is why the stars always give us a new wonder to behold each night, because they always have something new they wish to celebrate each night.”  Link’s mother told that one of his greatest ancestors is amongst the stars as well.  She never talks about him too much, and all that Link knew about him was that he was one of the first Half-Elves, and that his name was Riku.  As the sun set, Link and Malon got dressed in their separate bath chambers, then met up where they left Epona tied, then rode back to their homes together.  Link got chewed out by his sister a little bit because he came home so late, but when he mentioned Malon, she just gave up and went to bed.  Link’s sister always made fun of Link for the fact that he had a crush on Malon, but he always got her back with her childish desire to meet with the elder elves of the capital city of Galor.  It was extremely rare for any commoner to witness the high council of elves, even rarer for half-elves.  While Eraqus made a big effort to remove the boundaries between the two races, there was still friction in the political center that said that even though by commoner status, the humans, elves and half-elves are all equal, the elves have lived longer therefore have a much stronger right to rule the land.  Most of the people don’t really care due to the fact that the high council cares more about making the people happy than the state of finances.  However, there had been cases in the past where a half-elf would try to get on the council, but would be denied in a vote, because mainly all the elves would come out in force to make sure that he wouldn't get on the council.  While the Half-elves would be upset at first, they soon forgot about it mainly because they either didn't care so much, or they died off.  As Link got ready for bed, he looked out at the stars again, and wondered where in the heavens he would be?  He closed his eyes, and soon drifted off to sleep, wondering if anything different would ever happen to him during his life.  As much as he enjoyed the daily grind, he always had a nagging for something more.  He longed to see the other nations of the world.  He longed to go out and see the lands of his ancestors.

Reviews

[NateG]

Pretty good so far. You just need to indent the writing, as well as start a new paragraph whenever there's a new speaker or the subject of the paragraph changes. Those things will make the reading part a bit easier.

[MDShadowwing]

I like what you have so far. You neatly tied together the prologue to the first chapter, which is necessary when it is a jump in time. Otherwise it would have been confusing. The entire chapter helps to clarify the stories beginning, and some may disagree with me but it feels as if there is a slight cliffhanger there at the end.