Letter to a foreign country

[castorlion.livejournal.com]

"I wish you were here." Tor said, quietly.

The person he was talking to couldn't hear him, of course. She was sitting on a hillside, staring up at the sky. It was later there than it was in London, and her red hair was muted almost to black in the pale light. Still, from this angle it almost looked as though she was looking up at Tor, and that was almost good enough; Tor could pretend, for now.

"It's all gone a bit wrong, you see" he explained. "Lady Astraea, she... it turns out she's been telling people that you raped her. And Galehaut, well.."

He paused for a moment, remembering, rubbing at the strange runes in the ornate gilt frame with his sleeve distractedly.

"He was horrified, as you might expect, the way he worships the paragons. He didn't know what to think. His holy saint, pronouncing from on high. He doesn't know who to believe."

Tor realised this was likely to provoke an explosion, and hurriedly continued, to forstall a bout of Alex's famed temper. "He's just confused. You know how he feels about the seasons, of course."

"And Lucan... You'd have been proud of him, I think. He called out the person saying those horrible things about you - and the guy backed down."

Abruptly, he slumped slightly. "But... it's been said, now, and publically. And I don't know how to answer that. I'm hoping it's going to go away, but I don't know how to make it go away. Normally I'd talk to Gale about it, but... we argued, last time I tried. He shouted at me, told me my attitude was bad. How can my attitude be bad? You didn't do it!"

"If you were here, she'd never have said it. If you were here, none of this would be happening, and Gale wouldn't be all wierd." Tor wiped a wet smear off the surface of the mirror. "If you were here, I would be able to talk to my sister."

Tor laid his cheek against the surface of the mirror. It was cold, and unyielding, and made of glass.

Comments

[akonken.livejournal.com]

That's a lovely piece.

[castorlion.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

1) Is it wrong that I suddenly had a hideous mental image of the other times Tor has decided to 'just affectionately look in on Alex and see what she's doing' without warning?

2) One of the things that really does sometimes feel slightly weird about the IoD is the way that retired PCs do just vanish into never-never land, because I'm sure that in real life world, Tor would be able to use skype, or livejournal, or a telephone to get in touch with Ywain if he needed to. And I think I'm mostly glad that Ywain and Rosie did get to run away to live happily ever after and don't get the horrible-ness of 'crazy spring lady thinks Ywain raped her', but it is a slightly unreal situation in some ways. Although I guess you do have the option of getting in touch with jez (I guess, due to Rhona being Ywain's VST and that being a bit COI) and getting him to run a conversation or something if it does end up being really needed.

3) I do find the whole 'paragon' thing really interesting, if only because adze and I were talking about it today and I think this is actually entirely PC created. We can't find it anywhere in the source material, but the IoD chronicle has created this amazing almost cult like vibe, esp to Spring, which is really different and creates a lot of strange and fascinating tensions and dynamics.

[castorlion.livejournal.com]

1) Is it wrong that I suddenly had a hideous mental image of the other times Tor has decided to 'just affectionately look in on Alex and see what she's doing' without warning?

What, you mean he might see them having sex? Or overhear them having sex? Or have to hide in a bathroom for 45 minutes to avoid intruding on them having sex?

Honestly, I think that if he did accidentally end up catching a glimpse of them going at it, he'd be like "awwww, it's just like old times!"

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

OK. It's a fair cop. ;)

[akonken.livejournal.com]

The paragon thing is entirely PC created, and as far as I can tell, entirely a Spring thing. It's thelorax's fault.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

It has totally moved out of Spring now! I've heard Snaggle referred to as 'my paragon' by an autumn courtier and my Summer courtier was referred to as 'one of the Summer paragons' at the weekender.

I think it's still predominantly a Spring thing, and it's Spring who make the paragons these kind of saint/icon/cultish kind of figures (which is weird and cool and interesting) but it doesn't seem to be exclusive to spring anymore.

[akonken.livejournal.com]

As a title it's not uncommon, but do people really worship Snaggle? Or Domdaniel? Or Annatar?

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, the weird cult worship-y stuff is totally Spring. :)

[sl4irl.livejournal.com]

It's only Galehaut that does that, as far as I can tell. And he's got that attitude towards all the paragons, kinda.

[elizathemekhet.livejournal.com]

Poor Tor! *hugs*

[colonel-maxim.livejournal.com]

Verra nice, in a sad sort of way.

[sl4irl.livejournal.com]

Very sweet piece.