Ambrosia Software Web Board: Sail: Chapter 17 - Ambrosia Software Web Board

This chapter is so long and has given me so much trouble that I'm just going to post it without any further editing, so hopefully I didn't leave any half-finished sentences strewn around.

[scrubbed]

This post has been edited by iKaterei: 14 December 2015 - 06:37 AM

So pretty! I love the wedding <3 It's too bad for K really, but how about if she goes out with Rhonos? :D I'm happy the wedding was without incident, when you said Rhonos & K were supposed to protect from evil spirits, I thought Suriel would crash the wedding :x

I don't understand why Tiernan was so set on finding the alternate world, and why Rhonos disagreed with it. Also curious why Tiernan and Maika settled down in Iyun Bel, where neither of them have any relations, in the first place. Maybe you already explained & I forgot?

One more random question (well, two): Which parent did Kako inherit water-bending from? & does that mean that Isu was the sister of the other parent? Or is it possible for two siblings to be antayul?

Anyway, very fun chapter! :D Thank you for posting! & thanks for not making me wait an extra few days for it to be proof-read ^_^

BreadWorldMercy453, on 03 December 2014 - 11:00 PM, said:

I'm starting to think you have a thing for improbable ships.

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The evil spirits are an imported legend. There might actually be spirits back in Sverba who crash weddings, but the ones in this land don't take any interest in that.

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As a mercenary, he's known a lot of people who have died… including his best friend Jorumgard, which Tiernan blames himself for. He's gotten lost in the idea of another world where all those people might still be alive and he can erase his mistakes. Maybe I need to make that clear earlier in the book.

There's another secret reason which will come up in the second book, and is also hidden in the lyrics of the song I linked you to a few days ago.

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Because it's meddling with dangerous magic, and Rhonos knows there are people who wouldn't hesitate to betray Tiernan. Also because he's seen Tiernan spiral into depression for years and knows the idea of the alt-world was keeping Tiernan from being with Maika.

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I don't think I ever have explained. I'll work it into the novel somewhere if I can find a good place. I was going to cover some of it when people are telling stories at the wedding, but it was too much of a tangent.

Maika studied healing at Ingdanrad (the Pnyx equivalent) and went to do an apprenticeship in Caladheå where there were fewer healers. Tiernan went to find work as a mercenary. (Nýhemur was fairly settled, but Eremur was more dangerous with conflicts between Ferish and Sverbian settlers, local viirelei, people arriving on ships from other nations, and general crime.)

After Maika turned down Tiernan's proposal, she moved to Iyun Bel where there was plenty of land to grow medicinal herbs, but she was still close enough to Caladheå to travel back and forth. Tiernan lived on and off in Caladheå. After Jorum died, Tiernan retired from being a mercenary and moved into an old fur trapper's cabin so he could be close to Maika.

It was fairly common in colonial times for people to move where work and land was available, even if that meant leaving behind their families and culture.

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Kako inherited it from her mother Sohiko. Her father was a wood carver, so she inherited his tools but not his official role. Water calling takes precedence because it's a useful skill, even though it's culturally less respected than drumming or dancing because those are ways of communicating with the dead.

Isu was Sohiko's older sister. Siblings can be antayul, and it's easier that way because parents pass down the skills. Isu had to be one because she was the eldest child; Sohiko chose to be one. Isu's oldest son Emehein was an antayul and her younger son Dunehein chose not to be.

The only other mandate is that antayul marry non-antayul so that theoretically more children can inherit the role. That's part of the reason Isu wants Kako to marry Fendul; there aren't many non-antayul men of the right age around so Kako may as well marry as high up as possible (…but mostly Isu just thinks it'll make Kako behave better.)

This post has been edited by iKaterei: 04 December 2014 - 12:21 AM

iKaterei, on 04 December 2014 - 12:14 AM, said:

I came to the same conclusion! ^_^ If there's no chance for the couple in the canon, then it's much more fun to ship. And then you're never disappointed - for example, if I shipped Kiernanko (er, what should we call them?), this chapter would be a major bummer.

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Oh, I see! So it's kind of a selfish thing, I thought maybe he was somehow trying to save the world @_@

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Ooh, I must study those lyrics & try to figure out the secret!

Wait, second book? Do you mean the second part of Sail, or is there going to be another novel? :D

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Thanks for the explanation, that makes sense (More sense than what I've heard of Avatara & Moonshadow's actual origins in the taverns/TSes, anyway)

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Oh, I didn't realize waterbending was a choice! (For not-eldest kids of antayuls, anyway) I thought it was a gift they either had or didn't.

BreadWorldMercy453, on 04 December 2014 - 01:10 PM, said:

Humm. That actually makes sense. I ship Tierko/Kateinan and this chapter was depressing to write.

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Avatara knows the answer too, but he doesn't know he knows it.

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I'm planning a second one that covers events in the parallel world. It's not well developed yet though.

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I've described it to someone else as like acrobatics. Pretty much anyone can learn if taught from a young age, but some people are naturally better at it. Kako actually taught Nili a bit of water calling just for fun, but Nili could never be bothered to practice.

This post has been edited by iKaterei: 04 December 2014 - 01:28 PM

iKaterei, on 04 December 2014 - 01:26 PM, said:

I did feel bad for Kako. Tiernan was kinda leading her on, & that's not cool. Maybe he didn't realize he was leading her on, or maybe he just hoped she wouldn't give him the same ultimatum Maika did (which begs the question, would Tiernan have pursued dating/marrying Kako if she hadn't asked him to stay in this world?). Tiernan won some coolness points in this chapter when he saved the group from the burning shrine, then rather lost those points with his cruelty to Kako. But oh well, the wedding was fun ^_^

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Oh, I see! Does that mean Kako could have lost her skill when her parents died, if she didn't have Isu to continue to train her? And could a non-viirelei person learn it if they had an antayul to teach them?

I like how Suriel is depicted: a background figure who's actions are visible but who is seldom seen. I suspect his major interest in the shrine is its relationship to the weakening barriers between worlds and that its destruction was more of an afterthought (though presumably with the dual purpose of warning them to not aid the itherans in their war against him), an action very much in his nature.

Tiernan might have wanted to explain his relationship to Marijka earlier. It might have saved Kateiko some heartbreak, although he perhaps feared she would leave rashly.

BreadWorldMercy453, on 04 December 2014 - 02:05 PM, said:

Tiernan realized she was interested and he was leading her on a bit, but he never realized the extent of her feelings - he sees her as young and impulsive with her whole life ahead of her, so he figured she'd get over him pretty quickly. That's why he tried to persuade her to stay at Toel Ginu instead of outright rejecting her.

He wouldn't have pursued Kako no matter what. He never really considered her as a potential romantic partner, just valued her companionship because she was the one person who stuck by him - unlike Maika, who gave up and moved away. Even if his feelings for Kako changed, he wouldn't act on them because he's still hung up on Maika.

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Hmm, I don't think she would have ever lost them. She started learning at a young age before her parents died, and if Isu wasn't around/wasn't an antayul, someone else would have taken over her training and possibly guardianship. Even without anyone to train Kako she would have kept doing it because it's part of her identity.

Someone who stopped practicing water calling for years might have their skills fade away, but would be able to pick it up again with a bit of work, like forgetting and relearning a language. A non-viirelei could theoretically learn water calling if someone taught them. The circumstances needed for that to happen are unlikely, but it would be kind of neat to write a character like that one day.

Selax, on 04 December 2014 - 08:44 PM, said:

Yeah, I wanted him to be a distant villain with his own distinct goals, not just a Disney-style "I'm evil and I'm out to ruin everyone's day! Especially the hero's!" He doesn't even know Kateiko exists and doesn't care what she does.

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Yup.

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More on this in a couple chapters!

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He might have wanted to do a lot of things, but social graces have never been Tiernan's strong point.

I assume that explaining anything to Kateiko would have been outside of Tiernan's nature.