2 critical comments about the first section.
I think there are a couple lines out of order.
“Can we take any pets with us?” He asked, ignoring Wesley’s question. He thought the question requested of him was rather absurd, but then his mother explained it to him saying ‘Yes, as long as they don’t eat much food and they are small enough to fit in the wagon with you without taking much space.’
“…Yes” Wesley responded as if the redundancy of the question was just as apparent to him as it was to Ranulf.
“May I bring my cat? His name is Sleuthe.” Ranulf asked. Wesley glanced down at the cat sitting by Ranulf’s feet and nodded.
Might should read:
“Can we take any pets with us?” He asked, ignoring Wesley’s question. He thought the question requested of him was rather absurd, but then his mother explained it to him saying ‘Yes, as long as they don’t eat much food and they are small enough to fit in the wagon with you without taking much space.’
“May I bring my cat? His name is Sleuthe.” Ranulf asked. Wesley glanced down at the cat sitting by Ranulf’s feet and nodded.
“…Yes” Wesley responded as if the redundancy of the question was just as apparent to him as it was to Ranulf.
2. The transition from 3rd person omniscient (?) to first person is awkward to read.
But I like the story! I like that the main character's name is Ranulf, (There is a cat-human character in Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn with that name), and I like that Ranulf has a cat that changes forms. FUN! The dad's humility but willingness to use his status for his son is neat. I like it, in general.
For the Chapter 4 excerpt I'd make 3 changes.
"What's going on?" I thought. <-- quotes Otherwise it has 2 different meanings.
1. What's going on? as a reflective statement and then the character thinking. This is probably nto what you intended.
2. The character thinking to himself "What's going on?" which is much more logical.
I'd also remove the word odd from your "odd reason" sentence. Personal prefernece there, though. I just think it would read better.
There were seven people in front of me wearing black velvet robes, seemingly guarding the one in the middle, with the six ‘guards’ in front of the guarded.
I would write:
There were seven people robed in black and arranged so that six stood in a line in front of the seventh, seemingly acting as a guard.
Starbeam mentions the book "On Writing" and it's a great read even for people who only write emails (me). Also heed Starbeam's advice on the dialogue tags. They make a huge difference.
