[Report This]Date: September 08 2023 8:33 PM Title: Welcome Home
I've got to admit, I wasn't expecting a holy war to break out in this story!
Cynthia and Svetlana going at it a bit was a lot of fun, especially since they both not only kind of stole the show in their respective stories but are also complete opposites personality-wise. So, in a way, it makes sense that they actually have more hostility toward one another than Palledia and Dirk and Cora, even though the latter two have very legit reasons to hate her.
But I found that interesting as well. Despite everything Palledia did to them and the confusion that led to them thinking she kidnapped their daughter, Dirk and Cora still have a respect for her. Dirk was understandably pissed and went into dark mode, it didn't take him long to believe (or at least partially believe) Palledia wasn't out to get them. And Cora, even when she assumed the worst, was still trying to get her to out of the stupor she was in. I mean, they used their memory of Palledia to scare their children into behaving, but it didn't take long for them to remember that the former Lady Griselda was a bit more complicated than that once they saw her in the flesh once again.
And Amaya, having been raised with those bedtime stories about the monster Griselda, handled the truth better than I thought she would. Yeah, her initial reaction was to think that Griselda was scheming something and she's still wary of the ex-noble, but all it took was Annie to calm her down. I kind of thought Amaya would distrust the rest of the group just as much as Palledia once she found out, especially after finding out that Annie was the missing Ironshield heir, but the bond between them is really strong, even though they haven't known each other for very long, and this was illustrated pretty well early in this chapter. That set up softening her reaction to Palledia's secret quite nicely.
I enjoyed the irony that Christina was disgusted by Griselda's presence when she herself was planning to do something far worse than Griselda ever did. Sure, people died because of Griselda's plan, but that wasn't her intent and now that she's well removed from her Machiavellian leadership mentality, we've seen that she's truly remorseful about that. Christina tried to organize a straight-up assassination, and of the last heir of the family she's supposed to be serving. Not to mention that Christina's motivation seems to be purely selfish, while Griselda never intended to use the gold for herself but for the betterment of her people.
Amaya very much reminded me of Cora in this chapter. In some ways, she has more respect for men than the average amazon, and she's annoyed that the men of the Queendom tend to frown upon her telling battle stories. She even thinks it's weird that they want her to buy them a drink, which I thought was funny to note. But at the same time, when things got dangerous, she adopted that amazon sense of superiority but did so out of a sense of protection rather than arrogance. I believe her when she says she respects men (with Dirk as her father, how could she not), but she just hasn't me that guy (like Cora did with Dirk) to show her that some guys NEED to be able to take those kinds of risks and may even surprise her with how capable they turn out to be.
As for Griselda herself, we see her growth as a person really shine through here. I think maybe seeing that Dirk and Cora achieved her dream and went beyond it, doing more than she could have done, maybe was the last thing she needed to see to realize that she was just as wrong practically as she was morally. Dirk, despite having a penis, was able to do more than she ever could for her people. Then later, she was able to move past her bad habit of underestimating men, standing up for Clyde during the razorlizard "attack" even after she initially dismissed him without really thinking about it. Clyde may have been annoyed that he was told to stick with Annie, but Griselda complimenting his battle prowess at all is extremely high praise, something we certainly wouldn't have seen even in the earlier chapters of this story.
So is Clyde going to leave the Imperial Army? Annie fawning over him is adorable, and, again, he takes her teasing better than I would have expected him to early on, but is he really going to move to the Ironshield estate? As much as he clearly loves Annie, I have a hard time seeing him deserting. Maybe he can get a discharge, but is that even what he wants? I think Griselda's concerns about how Clyde will fit in this new setting are well founded, but I'm not sure her solution of getting him a bunch of books to culture him up is going to solve that. I don't know, it feels like Annie and Clyde are just a young couple in love who haven't really thought to far ahead or planned anything out yet. I'm really curious to see how things turn out for them.
And as always, the Palledia and Svetlana scenes were maybe my favorite parts of the chapter. They're usually fairly brief, but seeing the side of Palledia that Svetlana brings out is really special. I feel like anyone else ruining Palledia's razorlizard hunt would get a much harsher reaction from the amazon, but Svetlana has best friend privileges and can get away with saying and doing things around her that she wouldn't let slide with most other people.
Oh, and do the summer and winter courts consider it an insult to be confused for one another? Do they not really like each other, or is it more about being annoyed at the ignorance of the one mixing up the two?
One more to go! It should be a pretty fun finale, I think.
Author's Response:
Amaya is very much her parents daughter. She definitely does respect men, but no she hasn't met her special someone yet, obviously the man for her would be an action oriented sort.
Clyde's probably going to do whatever he can to stay close to Annie, as far as leaving the army the Empire is a very practical government when it comes to these things. The influence gained by having one of their citizens married to an important foreign noble outweighs Clyde's utility as a soldier by several orders of magnitude.
The Summer and Winter elves are in a heated rivalry and as a general rule find it offensive to be confused for one another.