I think this one’s interesting, but I can’t help but feel as though, in spite of being surprisingly long (at 7k words), there just isn’t much here for me to talk about.
This feels to me like a matter of scope, really - we start with a detailed explanation of a specific piece of the world’s folklore, before running through what feels like the whole life story of both of our MCs - we meet them at three different stages in their growth, but I’m honestly left questioning if that much was even necessary.
I think that, in storytelling, what you choose not to say is just as important as what you do choose to say - and while I certainly understand the desire to write everything that you have in mind to make sure the readers understand it as best as possible (and it’s something I’m quite guilty of as well), learning to pare things down to make the story more engaging for the readers is an incredibly important skill.
As is, I feel as though the sections of the characters in their youths just aren’t all that necessary - the titular Rain of Feathers was interesting, but I think it could have been showcased while the characters were older as well. There isn’t all that much new information that’s told in these sections - it feels as though we’re learning the same things over and over again, rather than getting to the meat of the story.
What makes this most relevant though is the matter of artwork. As is, we have very limited sprites for the characters - and most of them are of their younger versions, leaving the older sprites quite static, and without varied expressions and poses.
The reason I’m mentioning this is because, by your own admission, you ran out of time while working on the art - which certainly makes sense! Game jams are incredibly hard, and it’s easy to run out of time while working on them (especially when you’re doing everything solo), but that’s why the most important skill for working on a project is figuring out how to make things easier for yourself in the planning phase.
When you’re a solo dev, it’s easy to fall into the trap of underestimating just how much work you’ll have to do - which is why you have to plan from the getgo to figure out what is or isn’t necessary. While this might change with the latter half of the story, I’m ultimately given the impression that the ‘childhood’ parts of the story, and to a lesser extent (though I still enjoyed them quite a bit) the many illustrations of the folklore reading, didn’t really add to the main story you’re trying to tell, and left those sections of the VN somewhat lacking.
I do want to commend the art though, because it is quite nice - while limited, the sprites are cute - and I’ve already mentioned my enjoyment of the folklore scene. That said, it’s a shame that I don’t have much else to say about this game due to the little that happens in the story. As is, we leave off just as things start to get more interesting, which is a bummer, especially when it felt to me like we could have had a version of this story that got to the point much quicker without losing much in the process.