March is Women’s History Month, and so for March I’m doing vignettes about or questions regarding any of my female characters, one/day from the 10th-31st.
The prompt post is here; please add more prompts 😉
This one comes from ![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kelkyag, who asked for a continuation of Mother Knows… and Further Discussion Follows.
Rin & Girey are the main characters in my work-in-progress novella Into Lannamer.
“He comes from good blood.” Arinya’s mother Inatalana was watching her speculatively, chin on her hands. “He’s well-spoken-“
“You said that already.” Arinya/Rin smiled at her mother. “You have seven daughters, you know. You’ve got, what, seven grandchildren?”
“Twelve. You’ve been gone a while.”
“You don’t need for grandchildren and you don’t need for sons in law.”
Inatalana’s voice turned serious. “How many people have tried to kill you in the last year?”
“I was in a war.” Girey had, at least, not tried to kill her, although if he’d tried to take her as a war-bride, that might have changed quickly.
“I don’t mean in war, Arinyanca. I mean the people who’ve tried to kill you since the surrender was signed.”
Rin found herself squirming like a naughty schoolgirl. “They could have been after Girey.”
“They weren’t.” Inatalana shook her head. “You know they weren’t, Arinyanca.”
“Rin.” She corrected her mother without thinking of it, then ducked her head in apology. “I mean…”
“You’ve spent a lot of time down in the dirt, haven’t you?”
“War tends to be messy.” She rolled her shoulders, not quite able to look her mother in the eye. “They really were trying to kill me, weren’t they?”
“And they will, until you provide an heir. Why do you think Elin’s getting married so precipitously, and to such a… questionable sort?”
“If her husband is questionable, what would that say about a Bitrani Duke?”
“I’d say,” Inatalana dropped her voice to a bare murmur, “that a Bitrani Prince would be the perfect match for an Imperial Princess.”
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/695518.html. You can comment here or there.
Oh! More, please?
Well, I *am* working on the novella. ;-D
Somehow I missed that! Yay! 🙂
😀 The novella starts where the Rin & Girey stories started – in a prison camp at the southern end of the continent – and follows them up and into Lannamer. To be fair, this part might actually be BOok two.
Mum isn’t stupid, is she?
Not in the least!
… I don’t remember why Elin’s husband is questionable. Bah. I thought Girey had tried to kill her in one of his escape attempts? Or did that get written back out? Mom’s observant. Go, Mom. Of course, have to wonder who else is …
I may have made up the Elin’s husband thing. And I don’t remember, actually. This is the problem with writing semi-out-of-continuity.
Him being unsuitable, or at least a weird choice, seemed familiar, but I would have to dig a lot. Also, I have forgotten how their crazy inheritance scheme works (grandchildren who are the Nth son/daughter of an Nth son/daughter only) — why would having a kid take Rin off of the assassination list, rather than (also) adding her child to it?
no, I’m not sure why having a kid is a good idea. 😀
Heh.
mothers!
Yay! I loved this, by the way, it is nice to see that storyline again.