Kendra, a slim, mousy girl, complete with mouse ears and nose, walks into the room nervously, and settles into the big rocking chair, looking out at the gathered audience. Her hands smooth her blue skirt uncertainly.
“Um, hi?” Her voice is a tiny squeak. “Professor Pelletier said you wanted to ask me questions?”
Kendra is a character in the Addergoole web-serial.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/255364.html. You can comment here or there.
The January Giraffe Call (and on LJ) has reached an unprecedented $241.31!
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
SO!
Tell me what character of mine you want to ask questions of! I will post, over the next few days, a Q-and-A thread for at least the first four characters mentioned (first 2 each LJ & DW).
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/255177.html. You can comment here or there.
From the poll for continuation story from December’s Giraffe Call; a bonus because the main story ran short.
A continuation of “Tell me a Story,” (LJ)
The Aunt Family has a landing page here on DW and here on LJ.
Long after her friend and her brothers had run off to play another game, Lily slunk back into the room. Rosaria, who had been expecting something of the sort, crocheted patiently on her seventh afghan this year. They had, after all, a very large family; this one was going to Florida. Even Florida, she’d been told, eventually had cold days, and any grand-niece or nephew could use a little piece of handcrafted love.
Speaking of needing love… “What is it, Lily?” she asked gently.
“I liked the story you made for Cady,” she started hesitantly. Lily was not normally a shy child, which made Rosaria a little worried.
“I’ve made stories for you as well, honey. It was her turn,” she said, hoping that was all it was.
“I know! I’m patient and wait my turn.” She had two brothers; it was a skill she’d probably gotten very good at. “And I know Cady’s demon. I mean, I’ve seen it. Andmaybetheprincesstoo,” she added, all in a rush. “Does every knight get a princess?”
Interesting. And not a conversation Rosaria had thought she’d be having with Lily, and certainly not that young.
“Well,” she started slowly, teasing out a strand of Lily’s hair and beginning to braid it, “not all knights get princesses, no. Not all knights want princesses, of course. Some want princes, or dairy maids, or a really good book.”
“But some knights want princesses? Jennifer said girls didn’t have to be princesses anymore…”
Even more interesting. “But some knights – and some princess, and other princesses, and even huntsman want princesses. And some princesses want them.”
“Okay.” Lily smiled, tracing the swirling pattern of the afghan. “Tell Jordan I said hi?” She jumped down from Rosaria’s lap and darted out, leaving her grandmother to smile in a bit of bemusement.
That one… is going to be a handful. And a wonder
Next: The Princess and the Hunstsman (LJ)
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/243750.html. You can comment here or there.
From the poll for continuation story from December’s Giraffe Call. This one ran short, so I will also write a bit of something to the runner-up.
This comes after:“Come to Bed” (LJ)
In Bed (LJ), after “Come to Bed” [Beta]
Morning After (LJ) [Access-list only]
Virginity/Celibacy (LJ), a drabble.
Reiassan has a landing page here on DW and here on LJ.
Arinya found the way her captive was gaping at her to be very strange. She’d known he’d have a reaction, of course, and even if he hadn’t been staring, the warmth of his hand on her hip was a clear giveaway.
“So.” He coughed uncomfortably, and seemed to be trying to bring himself to move away, or at least move his hand. She made it easier for him, pressing her hand down more firmly on his and scooting closer. That just made him cough again, and repeat “so.”
“So,” she echoed, smiling at him.
“So,” he repeated, this time in Bitrani. “I am the reason you have not had a lover since the war ended.”
“That is part of what I said, yes,” she answered in the same language.
“Would you like me to leave, then, so you could find a lover without interference?”
She sighed. Were all Bitrani men this stiff-necked, or was it only this one that she’d brought home with her. “If I wanted you to leave, Girey-whose-mother-didn’t-give-you-enough-name-to-scold-you-with, I would have asked you to leave.”
“I like my name,” he protested. “And you don’t have to scold me.” She could see the moment when the rest of what she’d said sunk in. “So you want me to stay.” There was tension in his voice that she didn’t think she’d ever heard before. “And you want…” His voice cracked. “What do you want from me?”
A very good question. She wished she had an easy answer. Taking him with her had seemed so much more reasonable when they’d been at the front. Now, in her bed, by the light of day… “Roll over.”
“What?” he asked, almost a squeak, hardly befitting his dignity as… well, any of his dignity.
“Roll over, please.” Before she lost her nerve or did something they’d both regret. Staying chaste had seemed like such a wonderful idea when she was young, and it really had been practical in the army, but now, faced with this warm man in her bed… now she was beginning to have her regrets.
He rolled over, perhaps just out of the habit of obedience, because he was moving his hands as if they were still shackled together. “That, I have to note,” he mumbled, until he got his elbows under him to get his face out of the pillow, “is not an answer, not unless you Callenthe have funny ideas about answering… which I guess you do.”
“We do,” she agreed. “It’s part of being raised to diplomatic positions – or the army or priesthood, which are about the same.”
“Heh,” he chuckled, and then again, this time a little strained. “Ah… Rin, Arinya, what are you doing?”
What, indeed? “Straddling your bum, what does it look like?”
“Well, it looks a lot like the linen of your pillow from this position. I know you said you were inexperienced, but…”
She silenced him by pushing his face into the bedding. His hair was greasy; they both still needed a bath, desperately. Well, one foot after another. She pulled the blankets off his shoulders, down to his waist, and studied him.
Wisely, now he said nothing, holding still, cautiously tilting his head to one side and regarding her through a stray curl of hair. In addition to a bath, they both needed a haircut badly.
“Try to breathe naturally,” she murmured. “Relax. I am not the enemy.” He had scars on his chest; she’d seen those before, over their season on the road. But none on his back, nothing but muscle, slightly atrophied, and freckled, mole-dotted skin. Slowly, she set her hands just above his spine.
“If you were the enemy,” he replied, “I’d be in trouble.”
She said nothing to that. She had been his enemy – and now he was her captive, in the heart of her territory. By some lights, he was already in deep, deep trouble. Instead, she felt the energy running through his body, the connection to the small courtyard outside her room, the tree which had been growing there since the palace was built, the feel of the life in both of them.
“What…?” he asked, as she began to sense the energy within him, seeking out imbalances.
“It’s the step before a massage,” she answered, most of her attention on the way his muscles pulled and shifted, the way the tendons were stretched, the hitch in his shoulder from the way he’d held the shackles.
“A…” He turned over, frowning at her. “I’m not asking you to be a…” he trailed off, and muttered, “I don’t know the word in Callenian. It’s not a nice word.”
“Healer?” she asked, knowing that’s not what he meant. “You have pain there, Girey. I can soothe it.”
He flushed, discomfort – and, she thought, a realization of the position he’d just put himself in – making him angry. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
“I do. But it’s what I meant.” She set her hands on his bare chest, just left of the scar that had damaged his shoulder. “Girey, you have pain, old pain, and pain that I caused. As a healer, I’d like to fix it. As Arinya – I’d like to get my hands on you.” She smiled down at him, wishing her gut wasn’t twisting as she admitted that. He was the enemy, wasn’t he?
“You don’t have to demean yourself…” he tried again.
“Then don’t demean what I’m doing.” She traced the lines of his shoulders, poking gently where she could see the pain flaring up. “Roll over, and let me heal you.”
Slowly, reluctantly, he rolled over. Facing his back, she was able to tell him, “the word you were looking for? It’s ‘bed-warmer’ if you want to be rude, ‘courtesan’ if you’re flattering.”
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/236734.html. You can comment here or there.
This is the linkback incentive story for the January Giraffe Call. (here on DW and here on LJ. It is set in the Reiassan ‘verse, at the same time as the Rin & Girey story, but with different characters.
Be sure to tell me if you have linked to the call. Thanks!
Ciranelle did not know what to think, not just of this city, not just of this country, but of everything, of her entire life, as it had been overturned, twisted around, and turned on its head. She knew what she thought, at least, of her captor, the arrogant peasant Inalor.
“Arrogant peasant” didn’t begin to sum it up, but since Ciranelle only knew about a hundred words of Callenian and her captor knew less than that of Bitrani, it would have to do. It was enough to tell him to keep his hands off of her. Again. And then again.
She admitted to herself, if to no-one else, that she rebuffed his attentions mostly because she could, because he owned her, had claimed her fair as the sunshine for his war-bride, and yet still allowed her to push him off like a nervous plowboy. The power sent shivers through her.
Sadly, that wasn’t all sending shivers through her, and it was her only power. Her situation, as fun as it might be, was more than a little terrifying, when she gave herself time to think. And these people – not the arrogant peasant, but the rest – were so strange.
And the way they looked at her was worse than their strangeness, worse than the funny way they talked or the strange clothing they wore, clothing that Inalor had made her wear by the simple process of taking away everything else. Even in her strange-buttoned qitari, Ciranelle looked strange. Exotic.
“Exotic” was new to her, and Inalor had had to translate the word, painstakingly, slowly, with gestures. “Exotic” should mean dark-haired beauties with forest eyes and tan skin, not her, not her blonde hair and blue eyes and threatening sunburn. Not Ciranelle, ordinary enough that she should have been overlooked.
“Come here.” Inalor grabbed her arm, not roughly, but firmly enough to remind her that she had not, indeed, been overlooked, that of the twenty women hiding in the ducal manse’s wine cellar, he had taken her. The mostly-decorative shackles on her wrists clanged and jangled as he pulled her.
“What?” she asked obstinately, digging in her heels, though the stone-paved road gave her very little traction. Frustrated, she repeated herself in Bitrani: “What? What is it you want from me, you difficult little man? Why won’t you just let me go? Send me back to my mother, won’t you?”
“He will not send you back to your mother because that is not the way things are done.” The accented but clear Bitrani that answered her startled Ciranelle into silence, long enough for the speaker to come out from around Inalor. “Surely you knew that. Your people do the same.”
“I know it,” she admitted cautiously. Who was this strange woman, her hair neither Bitrani blonde nor Callanthe black but a muddy in-between color, her brown skin freckled, her Callanthe tunic a customarily Bitrani rust-red? “But I don’t have to like it, do I?” The Three help her if she did.
“You don’t have to like it, of course not. I’m assuming you don’t want me to translate your… complaints… to Inalor?” The woman raised an eyebrow, amused at Ciranelle – amused! – and a little mocking, as If she was saying I know you better than you know yourself.
The worst of it was, she was right. “Please don’t,” Ciranalle asked unhappily. “It will only make him glower. He does that enough already.” And as much as she enjoyed the power saying “no” gave her, she knew it had limits, and she wasn’t nearly ready to find those edges.
“I assumed as such. It’s more entertaining to yell when no one can understand you, isn’t it?”
Ciranelle didn’t like the way the woman smirked knowingly at her. “It’s easy to yell and holler when you’ve been taken away from your home,” she answered shortly, “taken from everything you know.”
“That’s what my father always said,” the woman answered sympathetically. “He said there was a point where he decided to stop fighting, not for my mother’s sake, but because fighting was just wearing him out.”
“Your father?” Ciranelle tilted her head. She knew it happened, but…”
“A war groom, yes.”
She flinched. “How can you say such a thing about your own father?”
“Well, in Callenian it’s not so dirty. Not dirty at all, actually.” She paused. “That, as a matter of fact, is part of why Lord Inalor hired me to translate.”
“Part of why? Lord? Hired?” Ciranelle boggled.
“One question at a time,” the woman smiled. “First, let me explain to my employer.” She turned back to Inalor – Lord? It must be a joke. – and spoke with him in fluent, smooth Callenian for a few minutes. Ciranelle caught very few words – her name, “getting along.”
When the woman turned back to her, her expression had changed; she looked hard, businesslike, distant. “Lord Inalor hired me to translate a conversation between the two of you. It is his desire, as you enter his home city, to be perfectly clear about the situation that you are in.”
Ciranelle swallowed hard. That didn’t sound good. “When did he have time to hire you?” she asked, instead of the questions she wanted to ask, instead of screaming. Lord. Lord, again. “I don’t know what there is to explain, either. I know the position I am in. I’m his whore.”
The woman spoke rapidly in Callenian, frowning deeper and deeper; in return, Inalor frowned deeply and spoke back to her, short, staccato syllables, with broad, angry hand gestures. She hadn’t seen him that angry in all of their trip here. She hadn’t seen him that angry when she rebuffed him.
Slowly, the woman turned back to Ciranelle and translated. “I think we have having that problem again, that you had in speaking about my father. Inalor wishes me to make it very clear to you that you are not, in his mind, a whore of any sort. You’re his wife.”
“How can I be his wife?” she protested. “He dragged me from everything I know. He…”
“He captured you as legal and right spoils of war, as our people – both of our peoples – have been doing as long as there has been war, and made you his wife.”
“He…” She sat down, perplexed. “He can do that, without me knowing about it?”
“He can, although it’s courteous for him to take you to the temple. He says he intends to, by the way, when you stop yelling at him quiet so much.”
“He… he intends to marry me?”
.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/230657.html. You can comment here or there.
Manually x posted from here – http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/226533.html
The list of stories can be found here. There are too many of them to fit in a poll (48 stories!) so I’d like to narrow it down to a setting first.
Manually x-posted from http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/224897.html
Five years ago
“Aren’t I supposed to be the twister, the chaos-bringer?”
Spring looked at her older sister, trying to hide her amusement and really not succeeding at all. Her sister, in return, looked back at her with a glare that could melt paint.
“You are supposed to be, at the moment, helping me, and not telling Mom.”
“Have no fear, I still owe you for that… incident. But I want a picture.”
“Spring, if you don’t get me out of this damn tree, I’m going to get Winter to organize your sock drawer!”
“Coming, coming. Oy, Autumn, when did you get so cranky?”
Four years ago
“Explain to me again what you’re doing?” Summer sat on her sister’s bed, watching the haphazard packing and surreptitiously smoothing everything out, organizing it, and, just because she could, laying luck and happiness charms in every single shirt and pair of panties.
“I’m going on the road, more or less.”
“The RV thingy in the driveway would suggest that, yes. Weren’t you going to do college?”
“I was going to, but, well, Winter’s good at school and you’re going to be brilliant and… and I won’t be, either of those things. So the money’s for you two.”
“Nobel of you.”
“Ain’t it?”
Three years ago
“So how long are you going to do this?” Winter studied Autumn’s chaotic receipts, and, with a long-suffering sigh, began stacking them into organized piles.
“As long as I can afford to, as long as it’s fun, as long as it teaches me something.”
“You know you sound like Spring, right?”
“Well, it’s not as if she has a monopoly on making a mess, you know. She just happens to be the best at Tangling the world up.”
“All you seem to tangle up is your own life.”
She sighed. “That’s only the half of it, big brother, trust me.”
Two years ago
“I’m just saying, Autumn, you could bring someone home you actually intend to have a relationship with. He’s a nice boy, and he’s very appreciative of my cooking, but isn’t there going to be a special someone in your life? Even Spring has boyfriends.”
“Spring, generally, has boyfriends for about an hour. Maybe a month and a half if she’s been around Winter a lot.”
“Well, that’s Spring. You don’t need to be a chaos-demon, you know. One of those in the family is really quite enough.”
Autumn shook her head at her mother. “Mom,” she sighed, “I don’t TRY to make messes.”
One year ago
“I love your family, Autumn m’dear, but I get the feeling they’re not quite as fond of me.”
“It’s not that they don’t like you, Gregor, it’s that…”
“That I’m not the sort of boy that’s going to bring any grandkids. Although with a family of four, you’d think your mother would cut you some slack.”
“I’m supposed to be the ‘family’ one. Winter’s in charge of being level-headed, I’m in charge of being good with people…”
“Summer’s in charge of bad relationship decisions?”
“You saw that, too? Well, someone has to make the bad choices.” It shouldn’t always be her.
Thanksgiving, this year
“I know what it is,” Spring muttered to Winter. “I know what she’s doing.”
“Do you?” he asked gently, looking over at Autumn; his date and Spring’s were discussing business, much to everyone’s surprise; Autumn was making bad jokes with Summer’s dates and her own perpetual escort.
“You taught me how to see the tangles, Winter, I know you can see that one. The wild knot around her heart? The mess she’s pretending isn’t there?”
“Spring,” he answered, just as gently, “she’s always been a tangle. Chaos follows her.”
His littlest sister sulked. “Being a chaos-harbinger is my job.”
“It is. It’s her destiny, however.”
~fin~
This is Tir na Cali. Cali has a landing page here (or on LJ)
This story comes after Revenge of the Pumpkins (DW), When in Rome (and on LJ), which is after Too Hot for Prime Time (and on LJ) from September’s Giraffe Call.
“Lady, ma’am, Mistress,” Jason gulped, “I have no idea what is going on.”
Her eyes met his in the rear-view mirror, and her voice was gentle as she spoke to him. “You know the important things, Jason. I have bought you, and you are mine now, correct?”
“Yes, Mistress,” he answered, too nervous to even feel resentful.
“When nobody else was interested, because of your spunk and attitude. That part’s important, don’t forget that.”
“Yes, Mistress,” he echoed, and, because she had mentioned his spunk, he added, “so you shopped the bargain bin for me. I get it.”
“That, too,” she agreed. “But it’s important to remember that I bought you for that spunk, not just because no-one else wanted it.”
He nodded slowly. “You wanted someone with… a personality?”
“Among other things. I wanted someone with some life left in them.”
“You make me sound like a bull in the arena,” he complained.
“That’s exactly right.” Before he could balk at that analogy, she continued. “You know you belong to me. You know why I bought you. You know that today is Samhain, Hallowe’en. And you know that I have a costume waiting for you. What else do you need?”
“Why are they dragging that woman away?” he tried. “Okay, revenge of the food, but this seems a little extreme. She’s crying.”
“You would, too. She’s been picked to tithe to the poor and needy for the next year.”
“Like that? By being hit with a stick?”
“Just like that.”
Jason shook his head. “You people are crazy, Mistress. Absolutely buck nutty.”
“Foreign,” she corrected. “We’re a lot different from your people, but that’s not the same as crazy.”
“Looks the same from here,” he admitted.
“Well, you’ll have to learn.” Stopped at a light, she looked back at him. “Make no mistake, Jason, while I’m interested in your ‘spunk,’ I am not interested in disobedience. I will give you clear rules. If you do not follow them, you will be punished. If you continue to disobey, I will sell you. And the place I will sell you to will make the work camps look like a vacation resort. Do you understand?”
Jason gulped, and nodded. “Yes, Mistress.” Shit, shit shit. “I understand. I’ll be obedient.”
“I know you will.” Her smile, this time, was sharp and predatory. “Mind you, there’s nothing saying you can’t be a brat. You just have to be an obedient brat.”
“O… okay. So it’s safe to say I think you’re crazy?”
“In private, yes. In front of other people, I might not be so tolerant.”
“… you people are all nuts. Mistress.”
“And you will learn how to live with us, Jason. Or else.”
Jason gulped. “Yes, Mistress. And are you going to tell me why you have a costume for me?”
“I could tell you why,” she decided. “I knew I was buying someone today. And we always do a costume event at the ranch for Samhain, getting in the spirit, you know?”
Jason nodded nervously. “Okay. So you… have a costume for some slave you might buy?”
“Well, you wouldn’t want to be left out, would you?” she smirked. “When everyone else is getting into the celebration?”
“Mistress,” he answered, as honestly as he could, “I don’t know what I’d be being left out of.”
“You’ll see soon,” she assured him. “We’re almost there.”
“Oh, good,” he answered tiredly, and settled back into his seat. The cuffs were pressing against his back, his feet and other bits were getting chilled, but it wasn’t the slave shop anymore, not the auction hall, and not a work camp.
He didn’t want to think things were looking up, he really didn’t. That seemed like asking for more trouble. And there was this weird Hallowe’en thing to contend with, and the unknown costume…
And a garage. His new owner was pulling into a large garage, between an SUV and a Mustang. “I do well enough for myself,” she answered his unspoken question. “Wait here.”
“Yes, Mistress.” What else was he going to do? He waited, while she headed out into the garage and disappeared from sight, waited while his fingers and hands started to grow numb and he started drifting off.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/198573.html. You can comment here or there.
The $35-level continuation story from the November Giraffe Call.
This is in the Reiassan Setting, which has a landing page here (and on LJ). It comes after everything else I’ve written in timeline for Rin & Girey, and directly after/during Mother Knows… (LJ) and Encountering Dad (LJ)
“Are you going to marry him?”
Rin blinked at her mother for a moment, and then shook her head, laughing at herself. She’d been out of Lannamer too long, away from politics, intrigue, away from watching what you said. Away from schooling your face and voice.
“Well?” Her mother was smirking faintly, suggesting she’d read every thought as it moved across Rin’s mind. “Are you going to marry your nice young man? Keep him as a bedwarmer? Use him as a clerk?”
“That’s quite a lot of questions for someone you’ve only met in passing, Ina.”
“You’ve had him in the palace complex for three days, Arinyanca. That’s enough for the word to get out. He’s quiet, but he speaks Callanthe very well, and when he shifts into Bitrani, his accent is crisp and upper-class. He’s a Duke’s son, well-bred, and the people who notice such things think he’s clever. You’ve got him dolled up like a court-dancer, and he fits it very well, but his hands have sword-callouses and his shoulders and arms are very broad.”
“They speak quite a bit about him, the gossips,” she answered mildly, worrying at the stab of jealousy like a loose cuticle.
“There’s quite a bit of speculation. That kiss had people talking within moments.”
“It was a very nice kiss,” she smiled. “He has nice lips.”
“And are you going to marry him? With Elen’s wedding today, it becomes more a more and urgent question.”
“I know,” she nodded, “and I don’t know.”
—
Arinya’s father pulled the scroll out of its case and rolled it out on the table. “She can be a wild one, my Rinnie,” he confided, “although I’m betting you’ve found that out already. Where was it she captured you?”
Girey colored uncomfortably, and stared at the scroll rather than look the older man in the face. “On the front. Just outside of Ouyknan. I was riding the line in the evening, and she was, too, both looking for wounded.”
“She got the drop on you?” The man sounded sympathetic. “Well, there are a lot worse things that can happen, coming out of a war like that one.”
Girey nodded slowly, more than a little reluctantly. “I suppose you’re right, sir.”
“It’s Egarengar. You can call me Gar. We’re practically family, after all.” He looked up with a very sharp glance at Girey. “Aren’t we, Girey of… Tugia?”
He didn’t like that hesitation. “So your daughter tells me, sir,” he answered evenly. “And she’s in charge.” He fingered the plaque bracelet around his wrist uncomfortably.
Egarengar glanced at the bracelet. “Ah, that,” he smiled. “I wondered if she’d taken it with her. I carved it for her, you know.”
“You did?” He looked at the bracelet again, wondering if he’d ever understand these people. “Why?”
“There’s old superstitions around these things. That if you want to bring home certain qualities, you ask someone with those traits to carve the band.”
—
“Well,” Inatalana offered, leaning forward, “what will it take for you to be certain? He’s a handsome man, Arinya. And he seems fond of you.”
“He does,” she admitted. “That’s new. He started out hating me, which is to be expected. If our quitari had been on backwards, if I had been the one being captured, I think I would have hated him, too.”
“Marriages have started from shakier foundation than that,” her mother offered. “Arinya, I know I’m sounding pushy, but there have not been all that many men that you’ve expressed an interest in. There was that nice scholar, when you were at University, but that didn’t seem to go anywhere. And then you joined the army.”
“And then I joined the army,” she agreed. It covered all of it, after all: the time away from Lannamer and the palace, the men around her who were not, for the most part, royal, the lack of time for the games of spouse-hunting. “And with Elen’s marriage…” Damn Elen, anyway, for her bad timing. “I’d hoped to have more time to see how he fit in here.”
“So it was part of your plan, then, the possibility of marrying him?” That seemed to reassure Ina.
“It’s been on my mind. He was young and cocky when I captured him, not really what I was looking for. But he seems to have mellowed out over the trip, and I think I’m starting to like him.”
“And it’s clear he comes from a good bloodline.”
—
Girey stared at the bracelet for a few minutes, and then looked back up at Egarengar. There was a lump of something like hope and something like horror in his throat, but he didn’t want to admit to this stranger any of that. “So you were hoping she’d capture someone?” he asked instead.
“Or find someone. That doesn’t mean quite what I think you think it does, that band.”
“I’m starting to see that. What – what qualities…” he stumbled in his Callenian for the first time in months, and frowned, frustrated, spitting out a few muttered complaints in Bitrani.
“Yes, it is a tongue-twisting language when you get into the interpersonal stuff. I’ve found that Bitrani is much cleaner for that, but it has much less opportunity for nuance.” He still sounded sympathetic, and a little bit amused. “I can’t speak as to what qualities I have, but I can tell you what she said she was looking for. If you think it will help.”
He tugged angrily at the sleeves of his strange, foreign tunic. “Nothing is going to help. She caught me.”
“And you followed her into Lannamer. That’s loyalty.”
“Nowhere else to go.”
“Pragmaticism is not the worst of motives by far.” He pointed at the scroll again. “If I read this correctly, this tells of how a Bitrani King wooed his captive Callanthe wife.”
Girey read the phrase in question. “I am not sure about the word ‘woo,’” he offered cautiously.
“Much like she ‘wooed’ you, mmm?”
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