[Report This]Date: January 01 2024 11:05 PM Title: Not Constantinople
Careful Gloria, you really don't want to end up in a Turkish prison!
So Chloé and Emilie have a secret to share now. Maybe this will help ease some of the tension between them from Emilie wanting to use Mika as a baby-making machine.
The way Charboneau's demise was written, I briefly thought that Chloé might not have gone through with it the first time I read through the chapter. I'm always a bit suspicious when something that we haven't seen is alluded to in any work of fiction, and Chloé never actually admits to eating the old killer and his mercenary friends.
But after going back and looking at Chloé's return to the group, it was easier to notice that Emilie figured out what happened because she drew parallels to the benefits her own people experience after eating humans. And Chloé being thankful that Emilie didn't mention her suspicions out loud seems proof enough that those aren't fish in her second stomach.
I do wonder what Mika will think when he inevitably finds out. These people were going to kill them, and, obviously, Charboneau killed his parents, not to mention that Chloé was clearly starving, so I have a hard time seeing him judge her too harshly. But she did break her promise to him, and part of the conversation leading to that promise was about how the legal system, rather than one individual, judges a criminal's punishment, so I could see him being a bit upset, too. I don't know, if ever there was a person who did deserve to get eaten, it was Charboneau. It's just a matter Mika weighing that against his worries over how Chloé view humanity, which seemed to have melted away but will likely come bubbling up to the surface soon enough.
The sad part about that is that Mika won't know what Chloé went through when she resisted her instincts when she was searching for them on the streets of Istanbul. I thought that scene did an excellent job of conveying the internal struggle she endured and showing just how far she had come since the time that promise was made. Unfortunately, her trying to explain that will probably sound like she's just bragging about not eating random humans to Mika; it might actually makes things worse in his mind.
Of course, you also have to consider that Chloé's immediate reaction to Charboneau trying to sink that boat was to save it, without even thinking about how she was leaving her friends behind to do so. Yeah, part of that was some natural instinct in the Naga's, given how human-friendly they seemed to be, based on the history we've learned so far. But even if that was a factor, she still rushed off to save a bunch of humans she didn't know and was happy when she succeeded, so she clearly views human life differently than she did before.
Back to Charboneau, he was a different level of evil altogether. It's evil enough to enjoy taking a person's life, it's another to hold a grudge against someone for stopping you from taking lives. That's quite possibly amongst the highest levels of fucked up.
And I love Natasha's selfishness regarding Charboneau's death. It's been clear from the start that she feels differently about him than any other human (something Yukia and maybe even the man himself never seemed to understand), and the fact she's after revenge for his death, completely ignoring that she has caused similar feelings to countless people over the centuries, is the stuff great villains are made of.
I wasn't sure what to expect from Natasha's "last conversation" with Emilie, but I kind of like how it went. There really wasn't much said, but I think that was the point. A small part of Natasha does feel bad about trying to have Emilie killed, something she made clear that she had put off for quite a while, but it's far too late for her to back down now. That desire to speak to her old friend one last time was the last gasp of that struggle. She didn't actually have anything that she needed to say. There was just a need to do it, for closure if nothing else.
Again, I feel like we see a little payoff in the building relationship between Emilie and Oklahoma. I liked how Oklahoma defended Emilie (even if it was in a casual way) from Mika when they were talking about Chloé eating humans. Then we had Emilie show more concern for Oklahoma than she did for her own lab assistant when Yukia was teasing eating the pilot. So it felt natural that a tiny Oklahoma (who escaped a Neko's clutches by herself, like a badass) wasn't the least bit worried as she approached Emilie and was picked up by her. I don't know if even Han Solo would have been cool with being handled by one cat-girl, ally or otherwise, after almost being eaten by another.
I can only imagine how confusing a conversation with Abbot and Costello can be for an immortal Neko from the Bronze Age. Emilie's understanding of humans is better than the other Nekos we've met so far, but I'm sure their wit was still lost on someone with only a passing understanding of humans.
And lastly, I was happy to see Higgins start to embrace the comradery of some of his co-workers. I don't know if the bill for his past deeds is going to come due by the end of this story, but I like how all of this is starting to pull him away from neutral killer lifestyle toward a more likeable one. I've had a bit of a soft spot for the guys from the beginning, so it's nice to see him develop like this, especially when we've seen what his line of work can lead to in people like Charboneau.
Author's Response:
Forgot to respond to this one last time, so here we go!
Mika will have to come to terms with Chloe's nature, she's not a tame snake. She doesn't view humans as disposable as she once did, but she is still the apex predator and sometimes situations will bring her over the edge.
Emilie's discussion of mummies with Abbot and Costello was likely frustrating for all involved.
Charboneau and Natasha had a strange relationship, he was almost like a favored pet or playmate for her, and their shared sadism brought them together in a way that was about as close to true companionship as either was capable of.