>>34500523Okay, I'm done reading this, and I have a lot to say. I tried trimming it down, but it's still a wordy reply, so I apologize in advance if this bores you to death. Hopefully it won't.
I think this story's not bad. Even though I haven't read WIAM, I could generally grasp what was happening here. I did feel a bit confused at times, and it was obvious that I was missing some details and backstory, but not enough to ruin the experience. I thought there was a good amount of action, and the characters and their interactions were good too. All the characters got a nice amount of focus and attention, including the characters in the town Brand visits partway through. The mix of PMD and main-series worked well, and I liked the PMD segment. I also liked the emotion in the ending, as well as how the ghost and the arrow were used. In addition, I found it interesting how Echo has gear and equipment of his own, and can use his wings to (imperfectly) emulate speech. That was a neat idea. I didn't see many typos or errors, either.
However, I also had some problems with this story, and I wanted to bring them up for your consideration.
First, I initially felt confused about who Brand and Chryse were, because the names were introduced without really being tied to anyone. Although I figured out who they were pretty quickly, I'd still suggest not naming the Decidueye so soon, because naming her serves no real purpose at that point. Later in the story, Sierra asks "Who is Chryse?" and Brand explains who she is, so you can just wait until then to name her.
Speaking of names, who's Elty/LT? She's mentioned a few times, but not really explained, so I don't know what her deal is.
Another thing: early on, when they're setting up camp, there's a block of italicized text without speech tags. It begins "I am sorry I could not keep my promise to return". I presume that's meant to be text written by Brand, but you should make that clearer.
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