tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-720912124204844532024-02-19T16:06:24.884-08:00Authors RefugeWriting, tech, and navigating between the two without letting the latter distract from the former.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10035740929329660756noreply@blogger.comBlogger198125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72091212420484453.post-61052544511836040342016-07-19T18:15:00.001-07:002016-07-19T18:15:43.083-07:00Consolidation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
In the interests of consolidating some of my online presence, I've<a href="https://eileeny.wordpress.com/" target="_blank"> exported all of these posts</a>. Future posts about writing & tech will be there.<br />
<br />
I'm leaving this up, partly as a redirect for anyone tracking me down from old information and partly because, in the complete absence of privacy on the internet, I'm opting for transparency and leaving archives of myself intact until the host site dumps them.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10035740929329660756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72091212420484453.post-82365980019161713142016-05-03T18:39:00.001-07:002016-05-03T18:39:06.688-07:00Summer Projects<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Tomorrow I take my last two final exams of my college career. Friday, I move. A week after that is Commencement.<br />
<br />
Over the next year, there will be more changes, including applying to and then sorting out the logistics of various graduate programs as well as one of the more important Presidential elections I've seen. But the summer stretches out before that, before any decisions need to be made, with only work as a necessary draw on my time.<br />
<br />
So I'm going to write. And knit, of course, but that list of projects isn't relevant here. What I hope to write:<br />
<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>at least one essay as Emah</li>
<li>finish <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/6287245/chapters/14406961" target="_blank">Silver In The Sun</a></li>
<li>finish rewriting the werewolf thing</li>
<li>finish the Regency polyamory</li>
</ul>
<div>
It's a short list, but they're mostly long projects, and it'll be satisfying to have them done.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
What are your writing goals for the summer?</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10035740929329660756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72091212420484453.post-36508836455815912842016-04-12T20:58:00.002-07:002016-04-12T20:58:45.733-07:00You Are Not Alone<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It's the night before the end of <a href="http://mspaintadventures.com/" target="_blank">Homestuck</a>.<br />
<br />
There are other things going on in my life right now, but that's the one singing note of tension that keeps coming back to me. I'm planning to wear a Homestuck shirt tomorrow to campus, and drop everything to look at the finale as soon as I can.<br />
<br />
Homestuck, obviously, has been important to me. It won't stop being a fandom when it's over, but the impetus for obsessive reflection about what it means to me will be gone - we'll have the end to talk about, after all.<br />
<br />
Homestuck was the first fandom I really got into - I'd read fanfic other places, sort of desultorily because it was free and more about characters I liked. But Homestuck let me reach out and make friendships and talk to people about stories and their nature pretty much as things happened. It was the first really immersive fan experience I'd had, and the first <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/328477/chapters/529890" target="_blank">fanfic</a> I wrote. The experience of being in fandom has been a massive and transformative thing for me, letting me connect with a whole bunch of talented, kind new friends.<br />
<br />
And fandom has a really interesting relationship with Homestuck - the narrative was originally driven by fan prompts, fans have been involved with art and music and merchandise, and it <a href="http://saccharinesylph.tumblr.com/post/141045889085/seerofsarcasm-cursmudgeon-bawlgoblin" target="_blank">changed some of how fandom is done</a>. It's been kind of a <a href="http://www.pbs.org/video/2276100442/" target="_blank">wild ride</a>.<br />
<br />
Part of the reason it grabbed me so much was that it opened the door to talking about stories with more people in different ways - and to talking about the specifics we look for and the shapes they can take with no interest at all paid to originality, because this was after all transformative works. And one of the conversations that came up around Homestuck, and came up repeatedly, was at the core of Homestuck itself: the ways in which we reach out and connect.<br />
<br />
The interpersonal narratives in Homestuck are, at almost every level, about knowing that you are not alone. They myriad ways that's expressed are a gift in and of itself. And for something that starts with a bunch of isolated kids, it's a gift seeing them all gain strength from that connection.<br />
<br />
It reminds me of what I love about Person of Interest: a repeated refrain of "in the end you're all alone and no one's coming to save you," with the characters then proving over and over with their actions that someone indeed will come to save them. For those characters, the emotional growth is in unlearning their isolation and slowly growing to trust each other, but they're adults and more jaded and it's a slower process.<br />
<br />
In Homestuck, the kids don't have quite as engrained in them the idea that they're alone, and there's more joy and hope in their learning, and less of a focus on their unlearning. One of the reasons that the fandom is so obsessed with Homestuck is that the very nature of fandom, and particularly Homestuck fandom, means that those people who are caught up in the culture around Homestuck <i>also</i> get to reach out and feel that they are not alone.<br />
<br />
Homestuck has brought people together in remarkable ways, and I'm not quite ready for it to be over.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10035740929329660756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72091212420484453.post-87008970235560756792016-03-19T11:17:00.002-07:002016-03-19T11:17:39.559-07:00Fiction As Learning Tool<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Do you remember in Health class when you had to watch Degrassi videos?<br />
<br />
I ask this in full expectation that it's a universal - I know we watched some in Canada and some in the U.S., and expect that everyone in North America at least had to watch episodes of TV about pregnant teenagers as part of either class or homework at some point.<br />
<br />
But that's not where I meant to start.<br />
<br />
I'm taking a class right now called Technology and Social Responsibility. It's all right up my alley, from the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUkYdLG_8mQTiiAFHc4RueiPpaCazyfPm" target="_blank">discussion material</a> to the class meetings on Twitter, and it's made me think about how we establish stakes in issues, and the power stories have. Because this is a university class about technology and social responsibility, we don't have Degrassi to watch: mostly we read relevant articles, but one session we did have to watch episodes of <i>Black Mirror</i>. I'm not particularly a fan of the show, aside from it's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piggate#Reactions" target="_blank">odd prescience</a> in one incident, because it shows such an unrelentingly bleak view of our future with technology. I've found myself making reference to a lot of other novels and TV shows, though, such as <i>Person of Interest</i> and <i>Orphan Black</i>, because they also extrapolate on current issues with technology and IP and ideas of ownership and privacy. And the reason I come back to them is this:<br />
<br />
Fiction answers the question "why should I care?" before it even raises the issue it addresses.<br />
<br />
Some of the things we're talking about in Technology and Social Responsibility are easy to think of in the abstract, because so many of the issues sound science fictional and like a future problem, but a lot of the issues we're talking about, such as if we really own our own DNA and how secure our data is, are things that impact us right now. There are current court cases about these issues, not least the FBI fighting with Apple over whether we're allowed effective encryption on the devices on which we store our whole lives.<br />
<br />
Fiction makes these things real, and immediate, playing out the consequences of treading wrong in a way that's easier to hold on to than an abstract thought experiment. Fiction allows for exploration of worst-case scenarios without explicit fear-mongering.<br />
<br />
And for me, at least, fiction shows me the things I want to work to prevent.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10035740929329660756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72091212420484453.post-77645690577763567912015-08-19T10:05:00.002-07:002015-08-19T10:05:46.855-07:00Intellectual Property and Trolling<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The phrase 'fight like a girl' is trademarked.<br />
<br />
Yep - the phrase used as a title in <a href="http://comicbookroundup.com/comic-books/reviews/action-lab-comics/fight-like-a-girl/1">this comic</a>, <a href="http://www.fightlikeagirlthemovie.com/">this movie</a>, <a href="http://www.cc.com/video-clips/d5z8a6/inside-amy-schumer-fight-like-a-girl---uncensored">this comedy sketch</a>, <a href="http://www.fightlikeagirl.com/Fight_Like_A_Girl_GD/Fight_Like_A_Girl.html">this self-defense program</a>, and the song below is trademarked, and not to any of these people.</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/GGF7bJdn6zI/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GGF7bJdn6zI?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
So who owns it? Well it's one company - they're not hard to find, but I'm not linking them, because they try to support a particular thing that I am generally in favor of, but either their lawyer needs to be put back on a leash or they are, corporately speaking, massive dicks.<br />
<br />
They're dicks because they have been suing independent artists using the phrase in their art. By specifically targeting independent artists trying to make a living, they can try to control the proliferation of the phrase while not ending up embroiled in court with people who can actually fight back. Because, realistically, the company in question doesn't have a leg to stand on. It's a common phrase. It's a phrase that empowers a lot of women! Except, y'know, when a business that purports to support women uses that phrase to attack their ability to sell their art.<br />
<br />
It's an ultimately doomed effort - even Band-Aid ended up changing their jingle to 'stuck on Band-Aid brand' because their brand name had become the common name, and Band-Aids aren't as tied up with feminism and the policing of art as Fight Like A Girl is. So the company is currently trolling, getting themselves more press, and being dicks.<br />
<br />
Intellectual property is more complicated than declaring that one owns a segment of language forever, but it's really difficult for independent artists to get legal fees. As an independent author or artist, you're a lot more vulnerable. So while legally when nuisance cases like this come up you could fight back, you might not have the resources. It's deeply frustrating, partly because even if one can dispute a DMCA claim on solid grounds one's distributors might not want the hassle. I don't have any kind of easy solution, just a lot of frustration on behalf of my artist friends. Fair Use doesn't even come into this, as far as I'm aware, because these works have nothing to do with the company that owns the trademark. No one cared about them until they started suing.<br />
<br />
So hopefully it'll die down soon, or there'll be something class action on behalf of the artists. In the meantime, it's worth it to know your rights, even if you won't always be in a position to exercise them.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://orig10.deviantart.net/f8e1/f/2015/190/a/5/a589d1862968f0315e667400335fd10f-d90nvx6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://orig10.deviantart.net/f8e1/f/2015/190/a/5/a589d1862968f0315e667400335fd10f-d90nvx6.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fight Like A Girl by LettieBoBettie, from <a href="http://www.deviantart.com/art/Fight-Like-a-Girl-545310042">DeviantArt</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10035740929329660756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72091212420484453.post-85577916519609184582015-05-19T12:27:00.002-07:002015-05-19T12:27:49.143-07:00Genre Fiction and Sexual Violence<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
One of the interesting contrasts between literary and genre fiction is what we expect from them: literary fiction we expect to give us good writing and interesting narrative devices, genre fiction we expect to give us a particular emotional experience.<br />
<br />
With the recent kerfuffle about Game of Thrones and having gone to see Mad Max yesterday, I was thinking more today about the things I want from an experience.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYkrYwxwVT2AqwXbDLL-Uak12qcN1m4P05lViAWXICstArPdeh0NGm_IMRS80DEdcU_mR73TNoBXY_tC0vNesRy3DQcHpNcsXzvggkbUDn-RfAUk_zLnF1MFXVLOwXH70y0nOALyPDNXc/s1600/madmax.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYkrYwxwVT2AqwXbDLL-Uak12qcN1m4P05lViAWXICstArPdeh0NGm_IMRS80DEdcU_mR73TNoBXY_tC0vNesRy3DQcHpNcsXzvggkbUDn-RfAUk_zLnF1MFXVLOwXH70y0nOALyPDNXc/s1600/madmax.png" /></a></div>
This tweet summarizes a lot of it. I mean, at this point, we all kind of expect a pervasive threat of sexual violence from every shadow in Westeros. And, because I've seen other action movies, I was kind of expecting some threat of sexual violence in Mad Max. I was braced for the hit. And then it never came, and it was a gift, and I <i>really love that fucking movie</i>.<br />
<br />
I read non-fiction and literary fiction both for school and for my own edification, and I brace in the same way when reading a lot of those. Sexual violence is pervasive in the real world, and so it pervades fiction set in the real world.<br />
<br />
Which takes me to the genre fiction I read. I have a friend who, because she's perfect, heads an email filled with book recommendations as 'Trash Books!'<br />
<br />
They are supernatural romance novels. They're amazing. It's great. In every single one, people fall in love in a long-term-monogamy sort of way, kick butt, have magic powers, and maintain healthy friendships. It is the best kind of wish fulfillment.<br />
<br />
Also of note is the way it treats sexual violence. Rape still exists, in these worlds, because I tend to read the kind of paranormal romance with high body counts and so other kinds of violence come with that. Of note, though, is that rape attempts are <b>far less frequent</b> than in the real world. In the series I'm reading now, I'm on book 19 and there have been two characters who were raped, of which only one was a perspective character (the other character started a centuries-long war and she was considered justified except when she nearly murdered her kids). There were also three threats that ended in violence. This is significantly lower than anywhere in the real world. Also, anyone who tries to rape a woman ends up dead or severely beaten. It's very emotionally satisfying.<br />
<br />
And it also makes these books kind of reassuring to read: one doesn't have to be quite so braced against the possibility of an onslaught.<br />
<br />
That's what genre fiction offers. There are other genres, like cozies, where the only thing one has to be braced against are dessert cravings, but these tight genres offer a kind of consistent experience that's as relaxing as a glass of wine.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10035740929329660756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72091212420484453.post-329750962053037102015-05-13T21:11:00.000-07:002015-05-13T21:11:39.631-07:00Body horror and blenders<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />
<a href="http://authorsrefuge.blogspot.com/2014/08/monsters.html">Becoming a monster</a> plays into an aspect of horror that I'm very fond of: body horror. Becoming a monster sometimes involves physical changes - shifting, or things under the skin. One of my favorite incarnations is in Homestuck and Homestuck fandom, where there exist Helmsmen: high-powered psychics capable of directing a spaceship with their <i>minds</i>. Mostly they are chained to the ships, stripped of free will, and wired directly into biotechnological interfaces. Fanworks are frequently <a href="http://www.deviantart.com/art/The-Helmsman-398001863">somewhat horrifying</a>.<br />
<br />
Body horror taken to this kind of extreme is its own kind of externalization - of different things for different people. Puberty is generally horrifying, with all of the growing and hormones. For trans* people, who sometimes experience their changing bodies as deeply and irreconcilably wrong, it can be deeply horrifying and an utmost betrayal. Disability, severe injury, and assault can all be traumatic. They can all be body horror, and expressing body horror as a plot device, as a way a character becomes stronger can be ways to explore the more mundane sort of body horror at enough remove that it's just fascinating. Body horror can also be a way to explore the ways we take - and deal with - damage.<br />
<br />
I haven't generally been fond of the product of writing as therapy, but that has somewhat changed - body horror in particular has let me read stuff that I can relate to - and I've also come to a slightly different appreciation of the ways we use our experiences to create art, which is well-articulated in Amanda Palmer's <a href="http://blog.amandapalmer.net/20130618/">review</a> of <i>The Ocean At The End Of The Lane</i>. I've found that I really like when things are fine-ground and spit out as art that's appreciable in its own right and not just as a reflection of the creator.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10035740929329660756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72091212420484453.post-13448996018970957012014-11-29T22:43:00.001-08:002014-11-29T22:43:27.866-08:00Schools of thought<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I see two major schools of thought about writing when not on deadline, and I mostly see them dichotomized.<br />
<br />
The first is that one must write every day, just plant butt in chair and get words done, get them out. Polish later, but write every day, no matter what. The discipline will mean you produce more and more easily and improve.<br />
<br />
The second is to write when you feel like it, and to forgive yourself when you're not up for it for months on end. I've seen it mostly as a reaction to the first one, particularly from the chronically ill. A friend with arthritis goes through periods when writing is physically horribly painful; a friend with depression feels blank and flat and hates everything they force themselves to produce.<br />
<br />
And the first is more popular generally, but the existence of the second is incredibly important: especially with mental illness, it's imperative to acknowledge that sometimes one's ability will not be the same as a well person, and to not beat oneself up about it.<br />
<br />
The dichotomy of the two schools of thought kind of bothers me, in large part because the idea of not writing for months on end makes me feel kind of panicky. I write almost every day, even if it's just a little, and I write for work, and I write for school. I don't have a set word count or time. I just leave a story or two that I'm working on open in tabs (I usually only have five or six tabs open). If I have a thought, I'll go noodle in the document. Progress gets made eventually.<br />
<br />
So writing daily - or at least having a constant reminder that I could be writing - is important to me. But not putting a minimum requirement on it is also important. I'm a full time student and paying my own living expenses. During midterms I had an hour-long breakdown over <i>soup</i> one day. I don't need the stress of a self-imposed writing requirement on top of that.<br />
<br />
For me the starting point had to be that it's okay to try and fail. I can try to write every day, or try to write five thousand words a week: I can set any goal I want, but if I don't make it, it's okay. I haven't failed as a person, I'm not doomed as a writer for my lack of discipline. It's okay.<br />
<br />
I think we have too few messages that it's okay to fail. So the second school of thought, the idea of forgiving yourself and taking care of your needs first, is desperately important. But it's not a terrible thing to also go to the first school, and set goals. We just need to be able to get off each other's - and our own - cases when we don't meet those goals. Because it's okay.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10035740929329660756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72091212420484453.post-86812773851645693292014-08-28T18:59:00.000-07:002014-08-28T18:59:01.738-07:00Character Creation: Cheesy Broccoli Casserole<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A story is food for the mind. A drabble is an amuse-bouche, satisfying to the palate but not the stomach. A novel is a multi-course meal, with tastes that complement each other and segue into the next part.</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-05ea9802-1f7a-c4c2-5762-8ff9e7b4b6f2" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Characters are the ingredients. You combine a little salty, a little sweet, a little bitter, a little sour, a little umami. Umami is a Japanese loanword, for pleasant savory tastes, like meat or onion sauteed in water with a little salt. It’s what makes a meal satisfying, and what makes a character feel real and stick with you.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So a novella can be taken as cheesy broccoli casserole. One dish, consumed in a single sitting. Not as many complexities as a novel, not as many twists and turns and things to synchronize. Importantly to all of this, I need to know what I’m making before I start: ingredients aren’t important until they’re used.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I start with the pasta and the chicken. The pasta is a fairly straightforward character, who’s gone through some hard times and lost some stuff. The pasta’s tragic, boiled backstory has to stop before they’ve gone completely limp. They still need to have some body in order to support the other characters and work well as a group. It’s also important that the pasta be properly drained: having pasta water floating around makes everything lose coherence and draws too much attention to a single character. Their backstory contributed to who they are, but it isn’t the totality of their character.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The chicken has a different sort of backstory, one of murder and personal tragedy and exposure to medium-high heat until thoroughly cooked. Even though the chicken and the pasta both have horrible backstories, they aren’t the [i]same[/i] horrible backstory. Identical characters unbalance the whole dish, no matter how exciting the shared story is. The chicken then gets sliced into smaller chunks. The size of the chunks depends how much I want the dish to be about identity politics, how much I’m okay with having big chunks of narrative devoted entirely to this one character.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The broccoli is a big part of the story, and is usually the main character. It knows the pasta, usually, has a bit of a shared history in that it, too, went in the boiling water. But the broccoli was only in there for a little while, and it only made the broccoli more vibrantly green. Some of the brittle rawness of the broccoli is gone, but it’s still crunchy with vigor and determination. The freshness makes for a good YA protagonist, a fighter that everyone can root for.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The shredded cheddar is not a tragic character, and is part of the glue that holds the group together. Even a glue character, though, one that facilitates group cohesion and keeps our ingredients together when they want to fall apart, can’t have that as their only identity: they need their own sharpness, and enough of them needs to show up in the story that their personality is on display.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Campbell’s 98% Fat Free Broccoli Cheese Soup is our supporting cast, our environment. The minor, supporting characters should at least imply that they can and do exist separate from the story, that they don’t stop existing when the main characters stop needing them. The soup is much improved by using it as a casserole ingredient, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist on its own. The helpful innkeeper might be married to the surly coachman, or cousin to the secret informant with the critical information. It doesn’t need to be on display - we don’t need to make broccoli cheese soup from scratch just to throw it in the casserole - but it should at least be implied. The supporting cast should be dumped all over the other ingredients and mixed well, because our main cast doesn’t exist in a vacuum.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Seasonings are part of atmosphere and setting, but they’re also important to character: salt is something some people avoid out of health concern or prudishness, but it highlights different aspects of character. Sexual content isn’t a bad thing on its own, and can show up different sides of an ingredient, but it’s at the discretion and to the personal taste of the cook. How much salt I use varies - by mood, by how fresh the broccoli is, by whether I want to feel like I’m eating something with pretensions at health or want intensely comforting food. Audience matters, and influences character and cookery in various ways.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Garlic is part of worldbuilding, too: it adds umami and brings the whole together, but overdoing it and giving it too much space in the casserole means that only very particular palates will like it. Foul language can also be peppered in at the discretion of the author, with the knowledge that it pairs differently with each individual ingredient.</span></div>
<br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After cooking in the story for 45 minutes at 375, the ingredients are still recognizable, can still be pinpointed, can even be enjoyed on their individual merits. But it’s the whole that’s important, and they only serve the whole. The characters can no longer be extricated from the story. Even if I were starting with the same building blocks, the same basics of tragic-but-strong or my-whole-family-is-dead, the details would change with the dish, because the story as a whole comes first, and the characters are only there to further it, and there can frequently be substitutions.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10035740929329660756noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72091212420484453.post-65712333901607288792014-08-02T22:41:00.000-07:002014-08-02T22:41:06.321-07:00Monsters<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="p1">
I didn’t watch horror growing up, and thought the genre was mostly faceless killers and shock stuff - cheesy gushing blood and dead cheerleaders. I was turned off by the whole concept, even aside from the lure it should have had as something that was forbidden in our house.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
My first horror movie was <i>Ghost Ship</i>, which made me jump but didn't have any lasting emotional impact. A couple years later, I watched <i>The Haunting</i>. <i>The Haunting</i> made an impact - I wasn’t all that horrified, but I was amazed that it wasn’t a ‘proper’ happy ending, and I loved that death and transmutation were Eleanor's happy endings.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
I didn’t really get into horror in any kind of meaningful way for about a decade after that, but now, years later, I watch <i>Hannibal</i> and <i>Teen Wolf</i> (the MTV show; yes, it’s horror), and love stories where the monster isn’t an external threat.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
A large part of it is that I like the idea that we can all be monsters, given the right circumstances and motivations. That idea is intrinsic to both shows, like the second season of <i>Hannibal </i>where most of the FBI characters are drawn into Hannibal's web, and almost the entirety of <i>Teen Wolf</i>, where our beloved hero has attempted to kill his best friend on more than one occasion. <i>Teen Wolf</i> makes for an easier metaphor, here, because the metaphors at work are utterly transparent: the main character is bitten and turned into a werewolf. A lot of his internal struggle - and the struggle of other characters - is to not let that define him, to not let his monstrous nature make him do monstrous things.</div>
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
There are external threats, of course, because that's what makes them lose their shirts and get extra powers, but it's a recurring theme that they struggle against themselves, that all of the characters try to remain themselves, try to work towards being better versions of themselves, despite the parts of them that say rending and killing and dumping the bodies in the woods is a really excellent solution to every problem.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p2">
Just as important, though, are the times they give in to the monster inside, and do terrible and horrifying things, and have to live with the aftermath. The thing I love about <i>Teen Wolf</i> in particular is that monstrous and terrible things are not the domain of men alone: one young woman gives in to grief and tries to kill a bunch of people, and another takes several years to even re-accept humanity at all, and another comes into knowledge of her own powers and acceptance that she might have to kill someone almost simultaneously. And young women becoming monsters and then grappling with that is a narrative I want to see more and more of, everywhere, because it's amazing. Meghan McCarron did a really fantastic interview with Kelly Link <a href="http://thegiganticmag.com/magazine/articleDetail.php?p=articleDetail&id=178">here</a> about young women and monsters and <i>The Vampire Diaries.</i></div>
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
When young women are monsters, they become compelling, in part because literal monstrousness is a perfect externalization of the internal growth we grapple with as part of coming of age, and too much about femininity is still considered internal, private, something to be hidden. <i>Black Swan</i> embodies a lot of conventional femininity, at the same time dramatizing and externalizing it in ways that make it utterly compelling: ballet is considered intensely female, and it's a female-dominated movie, and most of the ballet company are women, and almost all the important interactions are between women. But, on the other hand, a lot of the major conflict occurs primarily internally to the main character. The physical changes she perceived were manifestations of psychological pressure.</div>
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
More literal monstrousness brings femininity more into the open, erases some of the still-persistent separate-sphere ideology, and makes the problems of the young woman characters everyone's problem rather than something she has to struggle with on her own.</div>
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Becoming a monster means more and better and harder choices, and more freedoms, and I think that's beautiful, especially as an option for more and more women.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10035740929329660756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72091212420484453.post-87335130164491337422014-07-08T08:32:00.002-07:002014-07-08T08:32:33.154-07:00Fanfiction as a social force<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I did a guest post today on my mom's blog about fanfiction as a social force and reclamatory action by young women. Read it <a href="http://cmufford.wordpress.com/2014/07/08/fandom-fiction-where-creativity-is-not-a-gift-you-possess-but-one-you-give/">here</a>.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10035740929329660756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72091212420484453.post-52436368308035442682014-05-13T16:04:00.001-07:002014-05-13T18:04:58.721-07:00Let's (not) Play<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
My friend <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/mahoganypoetgames">MahoganyPoet</a> has been doing Let's Play videos on Youtube. Let's Play videos are a whole booming genre where you can watch someone else play video games. Which - okay. So video games are basically the only form of storytelling that one can actually be bad at: a Let's Play lets you take a passive role. That's why I like them! I didn't grow up with a video game console, and skills such that I don't die horribly and/or kill all my teammates aren't ones I've developed (or, really, tried to develop) as an adult. Let's Play videos can also let other players see how to get past tricky bits or see alternate endings to the one they got, and they let you listen to or watch entertaining people. MP's official job title is 'youtube personality.'<span style="font-size: x-small;">*</span><br />
<br />
Her first move is to close Skype to minimize noisy interruptions and to make sure the computer's running cool: the games + Avus4U recording software take a lot of RAM and if the computer heats up too much the game might freeze and crash, losing her place in the game.<br />
<br />
Conveniently, this also lets her feed me cheese and fancy crackers.<br />
<br />
MP has what she jokingly refers to as the most professional studio setup in the world - a couple monitors, a game controller hooked up to the computer, a freestanding microphone with directional settings and one of those spitguard screen things, and headphones so the game music doesn't get caught on mic. Her recording software already catches the noise from the game, so a microphone pickup would be out of sync, and probably not as clear.<br />
<br />
She plays the game, Child of Light, fullscreen on one of her monitors, while the other one shows what's being picked up by the recording software.<br />
<br />
I'm only able to see about a quarter of the screen from behind her, and moving might get picked up by the mic and would also take me away from the crackers and cheese, so I mostly know what's going on by what she says, and will pick up the action when I'm watching the video later. She accidentally summoned an ogre, which she hadn't intended to during this episode, which prompted her to pause, sign off on the video, and then start a new video so she could finish with the ogre and save the fish people.<br />
<br />
It's not quite the same as watching someone play video games directly and snarking at them, which made it difficult to refrain from snarking when sitting directly behind MP and listening to her commentary, but the videos are cool and progress pretty linearly through the story.<br />
<br />
Mahogany Poet can be found on <a href="https://twitter.com/MahoganyPoet1">Twitter</a> and, of course, on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/mahoganypoetgames">Youtube</a>.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">*Seriously, it's her job: turn off Adblock for Youtube.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10035740929329660756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72091212420484453.post-45497142885654901092014-05-03T10:21:00.001-07:002014-05-03T10:21:19.363-07:00Piracy and books<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I spend a lot of time talking to writers.<br />
<br />
I spend a lot of time specifically talking to indie writers who make all their own publishing decisions.<br />
<br />
It's pretty great!<br />
<br />
But one frustrating part of it are some of the myths that get perpetuated, like that free stuff hurts sales. This can take the form of distrust of and unhappiness with Creative Commons licensing, but on the whole tends to take the form of aggressive anti-piracy stances.<br />
<br />
And, hey, I'm not super enthusiastic about piracy, because intellectual property is important and it's important to respect it and the people who create the things one likes. But the thing about piracy is that it's <a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/lousycanuck/2012/03/17/neil-gaiman-piracy-boosts-sales/">not actually lost sales</a>.<br />
<br />
You heard me right.<br />
<br />
The people who are pirating your books either never would have bought them or are going to like it and either buy a copy or consider buying future works of yours.<br />
<br />
Okay, let me talk about examples from my own life. Four books I have pirated are the <i>50 Shades</i> trilogy by E L James and <i>Sunshine</i> by Robin McKinley.<br />
<br />
<i>50 Shades</i> I wrote about <a href="http://authorsrefuge.blogspot.ca/2012/07/hulk-smash.html">here</a>: to say I was unimpressed is a dramatic understatement. I also knew, going in, that it was going to be probably-enraging <i>Twilight</i> fanfiction, and made a deliberate decision to not support the author. That was never going to be a sale. I was never going to purchase anything written by her. It does not affect her sales numbers in the least.<br />
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<i><a href="http://www.robinmckinley.com/books/sunshine/">Sunshine</a><span style="font-size: xx-small;">*</span></i> was the opposite story: I love it, and have purchased two paperback copies of the novel, both of which have gone missing. It's also not available as an ebook through legitimate channels. So nor was that a lost sale: I'd already purchased it, and was unlikely to purchase it a third time in the same form.<br />
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Piracy can actually <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/e-book-piracy-may-have-unexpected-benefits-for-publishers-1.1123710">increase sales</a>, but hey, if you don't want in on that, the best way to discourage piracy of your particular works is to make legal downloads ubiquitous. Make DRM-free purchase of your works for multiple platforms easy, and I can guarantee at least some people will find hitting the 'buy' button more appealing than piracy.<br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">*Ms. McKinley, if you happen to see this and be unhappy with someone pirating your work, I'd be more than happy to Paypal you your royalties.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10035740929329660756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72091212420484453.post-82997655217113473582014-02-10T12:43:00.001-08:002014-02-10T12:43:43.928-08:00Walking Away<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Something not a lot of people know about me is that sometimes I get rage-induced nosebleeds. Conditions have to be right: fairly dry weather, and I have to be sitting still so that the spike in my blood pressure is a substantial difference, and I have to be really enraged. But it's happened, a couple of times. I get headaches, too. More frequently, I'll burst into tears when I'm really frustrated.<br />
<br />
None of these circumstances are great for making an argument, which goes kind of counter to my burning and vicious desire to get the last word.<br />
<br />
One of the things I was told when I was bullied as a kid was to just walk away. This was not helpful advice, as kids are, by and large, sociopathic and predatory, and pounce on weakness. Turning your back and trying to 'be the bigger person' like adults advised was not a functional solution, and sometimes made things worse.<br />
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The good news about kids being awful is that they grow up!<br />
<br />
As an adult, arguments that degenerate to shrieking that someone else is a poopy-head . . . are not productive, and for me the stakes no longer involve social ostracism. The stakes different, a lot of the structure of disagreement is different, and usually the premise of the disagreement is different (Russia should be sanctioned for human rights violations vs. "you're fat"). This means that a lot of the - really maladaptive! - strategies I developed as a kid are no longer functional.<br />
<br />
Which brings us around to walking away. Because it's a more tenable strategy now. I get to consider things like 'will staying engaged in this conversation yield anything productive?' and 'is getting the last word now worth the headache I'll have in an hour?'<br />
<br />
And if the answer is no, I can walk away. I can physically remove myself or say 'I'm done talking about this right now,' or 'can we please be done with this,' or block people on social media sites, and I'm <i>not required to engage in things that harm me. </i>Being an adult kicks ass.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10035740929329660756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72091212420484453.post-77760454422983763772014-02-05T13:29:00.000-08:002014-02-05T13:29:15.715-08:00University<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
So I referenced the fact that I'm in university again in my last post.<br />
<br />
I'm back at UW-Whitewater, this time majoring in Liberal Studies, and this is my second semester, and the second doing courses entirely online. Doing it all online has required a major reshuffling of my time, which has coincidentally enabled me to work more hours. Time management helps, who knew?<br />
<br />
It's interesting being back in school, especially as an older student: I'm much more inclined to argue with authority. One of my textbooks this semester said something heinously and easily verifiably wrong in a chapter about research, so I ended up putting together a long and well-cited argument about why it was wrong.<br />
<br />
As a condensed version: top-level domains are sometimes shorthand for figuring out credibility of information. Sponsored top-level domains are almost always going to be much more trustworthy than generics, so it's important to know the difference.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10035740929329660756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72091212420484453.post-11432526340057539832014-01-31T00:08:00.000-08:002014-01-31T00:08:02.090-08:00Literary Analysis<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I've actually been attempting a fair portion of literary analysis in the last few months, and the deconstruction of narratives in general. The only issue, and the reason it's not here, is that it's all fandom-based.<br />
<br />
My reluctance isn't a matter of shame (please see links on Words page to erotica I've written), but a matter of context: the discussion occurs primarily on Tumblr, and is tagged such that mostly other fans see it. I don't have to introduce characters or concepts and I don't have to preface arguments with a description of the common perceptions I'm rebutting: I get to rest on the laziness of shared common knowledge.<br />
<br />
But this semester I'm taking a required entry-level literature class, and I'm finding exegesis much easier. Surprisingly, arguing about the significance of driving to a relationship or about how someone's mistranslation means they're evil (it was true) has prepared me very well for expositing at length about women as portrayed in 1946 movies about veterans. Of course, it's also prepared me for injecting comparisons to Jane Austen and the Vietnam War into the same essay, but that's what second drafts are for.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10035740929329660756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72091212420484453.post-82704710709707963542013-10-16T19:35:00.000-07:002013-10-16T19:35:00.169-07:00Meta: Falling Star<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This was my first serious foray back into original fiction after months and months of fan fiction. It's a very different process, because characterization and worldbuilding are about creation as opposed to adherence or clear alteration. In writing fanfiction (at least the way I do), the focus is more on building emotional connections between characters and having a well-paced adventure, so that's what I got to focus on.<br />
<br />
<i>Falling Star</i> involved a lot of research on the late fourteenth century in Europe, and then throwing out or altering parts of it because magic. I wallow in description a lot: probably too much, for people who don't like historical detail, but it was a lot of fun to take the time to show that I had done the research. Lord of the Isles as a title is a bit of an exception, since in the real world, it's a Scottish title.<br />
<br />
Titles for stories are usually a challenge for me, and I generally hate them after the fact, but I like this one, because it works on a couple levels. The body of the action takes place during a meteor shower, so under cover of what are often misnamed falling or shooting stars, with a lot of important bits deliberately staged at night (the introduction, the first real conversation with Arthur, finding out what Rigel had done). All of the characters except Eadweard are also named after stars: Vega for the brightest star in the constellation Lyra, Arthur as an Anglicization of Arcturus, the brightest star in Bootes (and also to suggest that he's a good King by way of association with King Arthur), Rigel as the brightest star in Orion. I get a lot of mileage out of that one astronomy class I took in university. In hindsight, I'd have gone for something like Albireo (from the constellation Cygnus) for the King of Alba, because, while it might not suggest a common name for an English King like a modified version of Edward does, it sounds more like Alba and might further suggest that this is Alba rather than England, and things are different here.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10035740929329660756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72091212420484453.post-58013293189012274632013-10-09T18:15:00.000-07:002013-10-09T18:15:00.405-07:00Blog fiction: Falling Star<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Let me hold you, please.”</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-318c2c69-04c8-ecc7-36fe-9b26b4066d9d" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“We can’t. I’m promised to another.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Just for tonight?”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She kissed him, fierce and sorrowful. “I love you. Now go.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As Rigel climbed out the window, a star fell in the distance, the first of a week-long meteor </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">shower.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lyra leaned out after him. “Don’t pine for me. It has to be this way. I am securing an alliance, and Arthur is not a bad man, so I will be doing my best to be happy.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rigel paused on the trellis and met her eyes. The kitchen garden was a long way down. “Does that mean you won’t miss me? That you won’t long for me at all? That you’ll forget?”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She closed her eyes briefly and swallowed. When she opened them again, her eyes glittered with unshed tears. “No.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Suddenly shame-faced in addition to despairing, Rigel looked away. “I hope he treats you as you deserve.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lyra closed the windows reluctantly and watched the moon through the leaded glass. By the time the waning gibbous moon had set, she would be married. She set her forehead on the cool, indifferent glass and prayed for it to stand still.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The morning dawned brilliant gold, the smell of sweet dew and honeysuckle flowing down from the fields. Lyra’s maid, Vega, brought her breakfast and news that Arthur looked spectacularly handsome. Lyra smiled at her, trying to infuse some enthusiasm in the expression. She was not, after all, being forced into this marriage, and Arthur was quite a catch, young and handsome and Lord of the Isles already.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But he wasn’t Rigel. She hadn’t grown up with him, or had her first kiss with him, or spent days with him shirking responsibility by riding off into the countryside. Arthur hadn’t been with her on a summer’s day when she flopped down in a field of wildflowers and looked at her companion and realized she was in love for the first time.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Vega set out Lyra’s wedding clothes while she ate. The kirtle was red, the bliaut a bright blue with tyrian and gold embroidery at the neck and hem. She’d done most of the embroidery herself, and knew which threads had been stained by tears. This was not a day for tears, however. This was her wedding day. Today she would acquire a title not merely honorary, as well as a husband she’d try to craft a life with.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She squared soft shoulders and sought the joy she should rightly feel. She did not let herself pretend it was Rigel she was going to meet.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“My lady, if you’re done, as soon as you’ve changed I can help lace you up”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lyra made a face at her plate. Everything in her wedding costume was very tight. The end result, she had to admit, was aesthetically pleasing, but she was accustomed to loose tabards for everyday wear. “Yes, of course. Just give me a moment.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She swept behind the screen and slipped on her kirtle. “I’m ready, Vega.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Vega set to work lacing her up, a task which took some effort. Then they slipped on the bliaut, and laced it tight with the tyrian ribbons. It pleated fashionably across her stomach and arms. The belt that accompanied it was gold and amethyst and ruby, and framed her well. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Vega dressed her hair, catching it up in a net of gold with small diamonds that would sparkle all the brighter on black hair. Lyra would look well in her role as representative of the Alban throne.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lyra drew on her own stockings, and then the garters to keep them in place. Then the extra garter, the one she’d throw as part of the wedding feast. It had the year and the coats of arms of both houses embroidered on it.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Applying kohl and rouge was the work of a moment, but she drew it out. Everything had to be perfect.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eventually, there was nothing left to do. Lyra looked at herself in the glass and reminded herself that it was her wedding day and she would be happy.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then it was down the stairs and through the halls to emerge in the courtyard on the far side from the steps to the Great Hall. The court and a variety of foreign nobles and every servant not busy preparing the feast crowded the courtyard, ready to bear witness. An aisle had been cleared, leading to where her father and Arthur waited on the steps, the witness from the Holy Roman Empire to the side.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lyra folded her hands at her waist and tried not to look for Rigel. He’d be somewhere in the crowd, of course. He wouldn’t be able to stay away. She proceeded up the aisle with her eyes on her future husband and her train fanning out behind her.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The stairs loomed far and endlessly farther until abruptly she was ascending the first step.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her father boomed out, “We are here today to witness the marriage of His Majesty Arthur mac Mordha o Cuinn, Lord of the Isles, High King of Ireland, King of Mann, Earl of Orkney, and Lord of the Blood to Her Royal Highness Lyra verch Eadweard, Princess of Albion and Lady of the Blood. Can anyone name a reason in the law why these two should not be joined?”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The crowd was silent. Lyra half-wished Rigel would speak out, but even his impulsiveness was not enough to overcome the fact that there was no reason under law: not by consanguinity or affinity or prior promise. She and Rigel had sworn nothing to each other. As a scholar of the law, he had to know his bounds here.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her wedding went uninterrupted.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her father gestured to Arthur to proceed.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Arthur took her hand and smiled, a dimple creasing his cheek. “I, Arthur mac Mordha o Cuinn do take you, Lyra verch Eadweard, to be my wife in the eyes of God and the law, to have and to hold through storm and sun, and I pledge to honor and cherish you above all others from this day forward. By the Blood I do swear.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her hand convulsed on his, and she looked at him in wonder. In swearing by the Blood, he was making vows truly and irrevocably binding, and thumbing his nose at Rome. They hadn’t discussed this - though there’d been no time, really, with contract negotiations and other formalities preventing their spending any time together. Before the pause could lengthen beyond gravitas, she replied, clear and carrying, “I, Lyra verch Eadweard, take you, Arthur mac Mordha o Cuinn, to be my husband in the eyes of God and the law, to have and to hold through storm and sun, and I pledge to honor and cherish you above all others from this day forward. By the Blood I do swear.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If Rigel had any mercy in him, he would stay away from her now. It would break her heart, but that was better than breaking her vows.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Arthur produced a ring from his sleeve, heavy gold and diamond, and slid it on her finger. “With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods and estates I thee endow. Let this be a symbol of our union for all to see.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Roman priest waited a beat, then cleared his throat and declared stentoriously, "You have declared your consent before the Church. May the Lord in his goodness strengthen your union and fill you both with his blessings. What God has joined, men must not divide. Amen."</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lyra and Arthur turned as one and raised their joined hands to the cheers of the crowd. And there was Rigel, right in the second row, blue eyes anguished.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The bottom dropped from her stomach. It was hard to keep a smile on her face, and harder still to tear her eyes from his. Arthur made it easier when he slid his hand against her cheek and turned her to face him. His eyes were green as new grass, and vivid with energy, and coming closer.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He kissed her, right there in public. He kissed her thoroughly, and she found herself enjoying it. When he drew his head back, her arms were around his neck, and she blushed.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“To the feast!” her father roared.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They swept inside at the head of the crowd, the new Lord and Lady of the Isles. Lyra would need to be formally coronated at the Hill of Tara once they’d returned to Ireland, and then they’d be able to retire to Dublin.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Great Hall had been hung with fresh greenery and swags of festive cloth and scrubbed within an inch of its life for the day. The high table sat at the far end of the hall, in front of the fireplace which stood empty for the summer. It, too, had been decorated for her wedding day, and her chair had been moved. As Lady of the Isles, she now held the same rank as her own father. With the festivities, she and Arthur held pride of place, so she was to be seated at the center of the table, with Arthur to her right and her father to the left.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They sat, and the lower tables filled, and the first course was brought out, followed by a man with a lute. He played for the duration of the first course, and the second. Then there were jugglers. Then the third course, and a trio with pipes of different kinds. Then a troubadour, with songs to Lyra’s beauty and Arthur’s valor, threads of King Eadweard’s greatness woven in to pay due deference to the man presumably paying him.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There was endless soft white bread and sweet red wine and the fruits of the hunt the day before, including the deer that Rigel had apparently brought down. Lyra didn’t look for him when it was brought out. She looked at her husband, the man she’d made binding oaths to. She had sworn to honor and cherish him above all others, and to be forsworn was to die. The Blood recognized little nuance and no prevarication.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Arthur laced his fingers through hers and lifted the back of her hand to his mouth.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dancers came in after the venison, flowers in their hair and on their persons. Each of them presented Lyra with a flower at some point during their performance. She laughed delightedly, and Arthur took them one by one and tucked them into her hair.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It should be a romantic gesture. This should be a happy day. But his eyes were too intelligent on hers, and the wrong color. He probably hadn’t phrased his vows as he had just to annoy the Church. They might have to talk about this.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She drank from the nuptial cup. Enough wine would make the impending conversation and consummation less awkward and painful. When a servant stepped forward to refill it, Arthur leaned up to speak to her, and she filled it only a quarter of the way before watering it. When she caught his eye and quirked an eyebrow, he only smiled. She frowned at him in irritation, then smoothed her expression before looking out again at the lower tables.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The entertainment continued, interrupted by additional courses and the occasional speech - from her father, from the Roman emissary, from Arthur, from Philip, Duke of Aquitaine, there on behalf of his brother the King of France. Despite well-watered wine, Lyra’s head grew heavy and began to spin. She would like nothing better than to escape somewhere cool and quiet where she could be alone to lick her wounds. If it weren’t for the Habsburgs, this might have been a very different day.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Finally, finally, the sun began to set, the rays of light through the windows casting amber and long shadows. As the dishes of nuts were cleared away, Arthur took her hand. She swallowed hard. Soon there would be quiet, and no crowd, but she would not be alone.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They stood as one, and Lyra didn’t have to feign the blush that rose in her cheeks. The Great Hall erupted in cheers and whoops as he swept her into an embrace. He whispered in her ear, “Which leg?”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I - what?” Oh, the garter. “Left.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Arthur knelt swiftly, and Lyra steadied herself on one broad shoulder as she lifted her leg. He averted his eyes as he reached up her dress, and his fingers were the barest ghostly presence as they slid up her ankle and calf, and they raised gooseflesh on her skin. Lyra bit her lip.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He found the garter and tugged it gently down, and it slipped free, catching only momentarily on the arch of her foot before he eased it off. Somehow the whole thing was more sensual than it ought to have been, especially surrounded as they were. It was worse because he was barely touching her, and hadn’t touched bare skin at all.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rising to his feet, Arthur cast the garter to the crowd and then swept Lyra into his arms. “Oh!” she exclaimed softly, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Careful.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Of course, my lady.” He whisked her from the Great Hall, away and up the corridor. At the stairs he paused to sweep up her train, and she reached for the wall reflexively to steady herself.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Arthur’s arms tightened on her. “Don’t worry, I have you.” He carried her to his room and set her down. Turning, he bolted the door behind them. “We should talk.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Yes. I was not expecting the vows to take the form they did.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He took off his crown and set it on the table, then set to unlacing his tunic. “I can’t have you making a fool of me.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I wouldn’t - I’ve never -”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“It’s not something I hold against you, or suspect you of doing deliberately - after all, you repeated the vows. But I know how you look at Rigel of Wembley, and I will not be a cuckold.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rage rose in her, and she gripped the back of the chair until her knuckles were white. “I would not dishonor myself or my kingdom that way, my lord.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“There’s no need for such formality. I didn’t mean it as an accusation, can you see that? I don’t care what you’ve done in the past, and I know it’s not me that you love, but this alliance does nothing if it looks like you’re pulling the wool over my eyes or an heir is born with only a half-measure of the Blood.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She wanted to kiss him; whether to make him stop talking or to reassure him, she wasn’t sure. He was her husband, and they were alone now, so she could. Prising her hands free of the chair, she took a hesitant step toward him, then another. She raised a hand to his cheek and leaned up and pressed her lips to his. “Arthur, I mean to put all effort into making this not just a political marriage. And there’s no chance - the heir -”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lyra stopped talking, because she was stammering and blushing and neither was becoming.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They looked at each other, and the silence was overwhelming.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Would you like me to call your maid to help you undress?” he asked, and his voice was a little rough.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“No. Could you please help me with my laces?” She raised her arms slightly to indicate the ties on her upper arms. Not just their inaccessibility but her own trembling made assistance attractive. Arthur called forth a heat in her that weakened her limbs, and she despised herself for it because it rivalled the effect Rigel’s presence had on her, but on a purely physical level.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She half-feared she’d be unable to hold on to even the memory of her love. Arthur would be present, and he was magnetic, and he was her husband. Even if leaving her love for Rigel behind would spare her heartache, she wanted to be able to ache for him. She wanted to yearn. She wanted her feelings not to be meaningless, and it felt as if they would be if she fell in love too easily with Arthur.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Arthur kept his eyes on hers as he slowly unlaced the right side of her bliaut. “So you never -?”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even in an agony of embarrassment, she couldn’t pry her eyes from his. She reached desperately for dignity, but managed only a soft-voiced sort of shyness as she said, “I knew my duty, my lord.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He smiled wryly, and leaned in to whisper in her ear, “I thought we were disposing of formality while we’re alone.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At the touch of warm breath, a shiver ran down her spine.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Do I make you nervous?”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“No,” she breathed, and he drew back to look at her face. She knew her eyes were shining gold even as his were over-vivid emerald.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He touched his lips to hers, gentle and exploratory. Oh, if only she had fallen in love with him, this would be perfect.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her laces were undone enough that her bliaut loosened seemingly all once, slipping from her shoulder and exposing the kirtle underneath. Lyra slid her hands into his hair and threw herself into the kiss. His lips, and the heat from them, were her lifeline against the paralyzing chill of nerves. She needed something to distract herself as he slowly undid the laces on the other side.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Arthur nipped her lower lip, and she trembled; once, all over, and quite hard.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her bliaut loosened enough to slip free completely, and she lowered her arms to let the sleeves fall and to help it slither from her hips. She stepped back out of it, and then picked it up and draped it over the chair. She slipped out of her shoes as well, and stood barefoot on the stone floor.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He was looking at her hungrily. Lyra swallowed hard. This would be the time to put the effort in, to show that she could do this. She reached for the laces of her kirtle. Arthur reached for the laces of his tunic again.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They peeled themselves out of their clothes until they stood their in only their undergarments, Lyra feeling very exposed in a chemise that covered her from chest to ankle. Arthur drew her into his arms again, and all was thunder and lightning.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If he had not been Lord of the Isles, it would have been sensible to ride to Holyhead and cross from there to Dublin. It would have given Albion more of a chance to see them and celebrate the alliance and generally throw a party.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But it had been determined that a coronation would be more auspicious if it occurred during the meteor shower, which gave them only a week to get to Dublin and thence to Tara. So the practical result was that they progressed in state to the Thames, and their way was lined with people armed with flowers and well-wishes. A state wedding was next best thing to a holiday, and Lyra and Arthur scattered coins in return for the flowers.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">King Eadweard followed behind them, and most of the court behind him - including, far back, as was appropriate due to his rank, Rigel. Rigel’s eyes felt hot on the back of her head.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It made her feel dirty, though she hadn’t at all last night despite everything that had passed, and she’d bathed only this morning. At the river, Arthur helped her on to the little boat that would convey them down to where his ship was anchored. It was decked in ribbons and garlands, to announce their presence to anyone who wanted to observe their progress from the shore. Numerous other small craft were tied beside theirs, to convey baggage and servants and accompanying dignitaries.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They cast off, and drifted out towards the middle. Then, without discernible change in anything but the vivacity of Arthur’s eyes, they were clipping along at high speed towards the Channel. Lyra grinned as she gripped his arm. When she was coronated Lady of the Isles, they’d invest her with some of his powers. She’d hold sway over storm and sea as well as her own smaller purview over living things: the same purview that told her that the night before would bear fruit.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She’d have to consult with Arthur before exerting her sway, though: too many conflicting influences made systems wild. She’d learned that on the herb garden, thankfully, and not on anything more irreparable. Her mother, who’d taught her before she’d passed, would have had her hide if it had been the roses rather than the basil.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They would see how much influence she could wield when barricaded by water. As her father’s heir and now Lady of the Isles, she’d be enriching the harvest on all of the islands in both kingdoms, and the prospect of constantly being on progress did not appeal. Lyra wondered how the Greek Lords and Ladies managed it, though they feuded and diluted their blood enough that they might just be one per island at this point.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Arthur asked, “Does the speed distress you?”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“No, it’s exhilarating.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He laid his hand over hers on his arm, and squeezed. “I asked Rigel to join our train.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She stiffened, enraged. “Do you seek to punish me, my lord?”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Confusion flitted across his face, then hurt and disappointment and understanding all bundled into one. “No.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“If I fail to honor and cherish you above all others, my blood will boil in my veins, driving me mad before it kills me along with your heir. And yet you bring along temptation, in full knowledge that by his presence you make me a starving woman at a poisoned feast.” She turned to smile and wave at the people gathered at the banks of the Thames who waved so enthusiastically at them. That duty discharged, she turned back and added a belated and withering, “My lord.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“That wasn’t my intent.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“What was your intent, then?” she hissed.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They lurched forward suddenly, a sign of uncontrolled emotion on Arthur’s part. “I didn’t want you to feel alone. You’re only bringing one personal maid, and you’ll be expected to collect ladies-in-waiting from my court and you won’t know anyone. And, aside from everything else, he cares about you and will try to see that you’re happy.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even in the face of his awkwardness and apparent care for her well-being, her voice dripped ice and ichor. “Is that not what my husband is for, my lord?”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He stared at her in frustration. “I’ll be busy.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She tightened her lips and looked back at the banks.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He took his hand from atop hers to wave at the observers on his bank.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They had passed Dartford and were well on their way to Gravesend by the time he spoke again. “How sure are you, about the heir?”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“My Blooded talents lie in living things, my lord. That doesn’t just mean crops and trees and flowers.” He should have known this.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Suddenly he dropped her hand where it rested on his sleeve and slipped his arm around her waist, instead, drawing her flush against his side.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lyra looked at him, too surprised to elbow him as he deserved for grabbing her so suddenly. He looked gleefully satisfied, as if all his wishes were coming true. Which she guessed they might be - he had a wife who broadened his base of power, he was now heir to Albion, and he would have an heir nine months after his wedding night. An heir with a healthy measure of the Blood, and more than Arthur would expect. Powers of life were often forgotten, because as long as the Lords and Ladies didn’t do something dramatic, the crops would flourish and come in, only slightly more generously than an un-aided good season. Some didn’t push things to that extent, though, or didn’t have the power to. Lyra had been able to assure that Albion didn’t starve since she was twelve years old, and they’d only grown more fruitful since.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Until she was invested with a measure of his purview by dint of the ceremony at Tara, Lyra would not have easy access to anything dramatic, but drama was the only thing her power lacked.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She settled her arm across her stomach, content that the thing inside her, barely a whisper more than potential, would eventually be a Lord or Lady of frightening reach and breadth.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Standing and waving had become boring but not unduly tiresome by the time they arrived at Southend-On-Sea; the benefit of being wed to the Lord of the Isles. Another water Lord might have been able to perform the feat of bearing them this quickly, but it would be illegal to do so. Her cousin Philip, Albion’s own water Lord, had been notified well in advance, and had made sure nothing he was doing would interfere with her and Arthur’s passage.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The estuary opened up, and the water was less smooth than the Thames proper had been. Lyra was glad for Arthur’s arm still wrapped around her, as it would be tremendously undignified to stumble.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Arthur’s ship rose in the harbour, a trireme with his pennant flying high. A ladder dangled from the side.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lyra paled and asked, “Will we need to climb?”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“No. There’s a platform they can lower. You don’t like heights?”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I am not overfond of them, no, my lord.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Fascinating,” he said. “It will be an interesting experience, getting to know the woman behind the frosty formality and snarling.” He was smiling as he said it.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I don’t snarl, my lord,” she protested without force. She could get used to this sort of banter. It was almost comfortable.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The boat came to rest on the port side of the trireme, and a platform, sure enough, was lowered. The platform was wide enough to stand on with Arthur, with excess enough that their boatman could have come with them if it would not have been excessively familiar.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The platform rose surprisingly smoothly, and Lyra looked up and saw pulleys easing the way. It was still a relief to set foot on the comparatively much steadier deck of the ship. Arthur introduced her to the captain of the ship, and escorted her to the stateroom that would be their home for the night.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She heard the rising noise of others coming aboard - amongst them undoubtedly Rigel. She wondered what premise Arthur had used to invite him. A study of Irish law? Or had he been more straightforward, and invited him to be his wife’s lover. She wished she knew what he was thinking. No matter what his plot, he kept her occupied as they cast off, showing her the small shelf of books and the collection of charts and where her clothes would be stored when the servants eventually caught up with the baggage.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“What would you like for dinner tonight?”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Salmon,” she replied instantly, with Rigel’s favourite dish.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He kissed the side of her head. “I will see to it before I send us off.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He closed her in the state room, and she wasn’t sure if he’d meant her to stay. She took one of the books from the shelf and admired the marginalia as she thought. He kept touching her. It was his right, of course. He was her husband. But she was already working on providing the heir, and she was unsure whether marital duties included letting him take her hand and touch her hair and all the little things he’d been doing. They were possessive and almost affectionate and they unsettled her deeply.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s what she would expect from Rigel, almost. Or maybe expect in a few months, when they’d been married longer and she’d had time to foster an affection for him. It wouldn’t be hard - he was clever and seemed to want to make her happy, even if he was going about it in strange ways.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She concluded there was nothing she could do about it, and it would be better to take her mind from it. Arthur would not be available for a detailed conversation until after they’d made landfall in Dublin, and that would be the morrow. It was nigh-miraculous, the speeds they could make with him aboard. Without him, it would be weeks by sea.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The marginalia on this page were really quite strange: a river inhabited by weird creatures meandered down the page. She turned her attention to the content itself.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She closed the book very slowly, and put it back. It was possible he thought she could not read, but it was still strange to keep a book of dark pattern-magic in his chambers.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She drew out another book, a history of Roman highways.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was a much more soothing read.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eventually, she was called to dinner, asked very politely by the ship steward to dine with her husband and the captain in the greatroom.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When she joined them, Rigel was there at the far end. She tried very hard not to catch his eye.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When the meal was over, she retired with Arthur. He wooed her again, and drew her to him, even though it was not necessary.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She did not sleep easily.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He rose before she did, and they once again picked up speed. It was only mid-morning when they passed Land’s End, and Lyra gazed at the rocky desolation she had thought truly the end of the world when she’d been young.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ireland began looming at noon, and they had docked by early afternoon. When someone had sighted their ship, runners had been sent, so there were carriages waiting to meet them when they alit.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When they had travelled from the din and dirt of the dock, Dublin proved a fair city, with cobble streets and white buildings. It put her in mind of Oxford, though the streets were not as narrow.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They did not go straight to the palace, but directly on to Tara, on roads rougher than those found in Albion.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The hill itself was greenest emerald, and ringed in celebrants and holy men. The rites there were strange and old, and their secrecy weighed heavy as a shroud.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At the height of them, Lyra stared at Arthur in wonder, because she could feel everything. The earth in its soft verdancy was a constant, but joined now by an awareness of the rivers and fish and lakes and ocean. She swayed on the spot, but Arthur’s hand on her arm kept her upright. He touched her, he was always touching her, and she found herself drowningly not minding.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She leaned on him as the coronation ended.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The journey back to Dublin was slower, more processional, partly to allow for the guards who trickled in to accompany them. Because she was Lady of the Isles, now, she was privy to Arthur’s meetings with them, which weren’t about security at all but about reporting everything they’d learned on a reconnaissance mission to the Holy Roman Empire.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One night a man with a German accent was brought in, and he was filthy and Lyra hated the way he smelled.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“He has been - uncooperative,” one of the guards said. “But he was a servant at Habsburg castle. I thought Your Majesty might like to - talk to him.” The guard shot Lyra guarded looks all the while, and she was utterly unimpressed.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She set aside her embroidery and stood and put a hand on Arthur’s shoulder. “If you need him tortured quietly, husband, I can suck the life from him.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Arthur squeezed her hand, pleased and reassuring as the guards and the prisoner all showed fear. It’s good, she thought, because she would not be undervalued in this new life. “It’s not necessary, my Queen. I think our guest will volunteer any information in his possession in hopes that we grant him amnesty.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lyra took up her embroidery again, and listened to the interrogation. The servant answered everything he was asked, even giving up those names he’d heard as Habsburg sympathizers in the Irish court. There weren’t many, but Lyra gathered from the hard glint in Arthur’s eyes that at least some of them were well-placed.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was late by the time they let him go, and Lyra was tired - too tired to be shocked when Arthur drew her to him for sleep, wrapping his arms around her and burying his face in her hair.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She’s unsettled in the morning, and hadn’t much slept. They were to be one more full day on the road and then the next morning to Dublin, but she wished forlornly for four walls and a real bed. The meteor shower was over, so there was no lure to the outdoors after dark.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rigel rode up next to her, stopping a distance away that wasn’t quite improper but wasn’t ideal, either. “You look unwell,” he said, his voice pitched low and concerned.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She shook her head slightly. “Arthur was interrogating a Habsburg servant. It took some time.” She looked at him and ached. “I’m fine. You should go.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He fell back, but she could feel his eyes on her.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One of the benefits of taking this journey more processionally was the fact that they stopped for lunch, that servants had set up a picnic on a hill, with linens that only faintly bore the creases of storage. Arthur helped her down from her horse, and said quietly, “I saw you speaking to Rigel.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She looked at his face, held impassive but for slightly overbright eyes, and raised her chin. “Yes,” she said, matching his tone, and did not elaborate. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Arthur dropped his gaze first, and looked at where he still held her hand. He led her to the table, and she let him. She carefully moderated her breathing as she sat, because she didn’t want to give away any emotion.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The attempt was apparently unsuccessful, as he squeezed her hand reassuringly as soon as he was seated across from her. When she looked at him, he smiled a little ruefully, and she smiled back, just a bit, just as a conciliatory gesture.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lunch was almost pleasant, and not just for being a change from road fare, with apples and well-watered spiced wine.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When they got back on their horses, Lyra was almost pleased with the world.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That ceased abruptly when the first arrow flew, striking the ground in front of Arthur. Arthur’s horse shied and reared, which was the only thing that saved Arthur from the second volley. Guards were already springing into action, driving their horses towards the woods from whence the arrows came.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The third volley, though, was swift, and accurate. Arthur fell, an arrow through his throat.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lyra was dismounted and running before she quite knew what she was doing, racing for her husband. Guards stopped her, shielding her with their bodies.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Move!” she screamed, all dignity forgotten. If she could lay hands on him, if she could just touch him, she could fix it. She could save him, if she caught him before he bled out.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The guards, confused, move sluggishly, and she shoved them out of the way. More arrows flew, and she couldn’t do anything, because they were neither alive nor of the water, and one struck her in the shoulder.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Everything went grey and hot and cold, and Lyra couldn’t tell which way was up.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She woke hours later, in the tent she’d shared with Arthur, and sat up. Her maid and a guard are the only ones in the tent. “Arthur?”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The guard looked down, and away, and silence fell in the tent.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her throat closed. She lay back down. “We’ll move out tomorrow, when I will be recovered from the attack. Send runners to Dublin with the announcement, and to Albion.” She took a deep breath, because she had hoped to keep word quiet until she was closer to showing. “Send word also that I know by my Blooded gifts that Arthur’s line continues.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The guard made a soft noise. She didn’t look at him. Eventually, he left.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That night, Rigel slipped into her tent, and was clutching her hand ardently before Lyra was even properly awake. “You’re a free woman, now,” he said earnestly, his fingers laced tight with hers.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Understanding dawned violently. “Tell me you didn’t.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“You’ve fulfilled your promises, and now I have an established channel for negotiations, if you want more guarantees of your security.” His eyes went soft and liquid, the way she remembered liking them best. “And it means, if you wish . . .”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her throat worked a moment soundlessly before she could shout, “Guards!”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Two burst into the tent, obviously alert at their posts.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lyra kept her eyes on Rigel and voice steady. “Rigel has just confessed to conspiring with Habsburg agents in the assassination of Arthur. Take him away, extract the names of his co-conspirators, and execute him by beheading.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The guards hesitated, perhaps taking in their intimate positioning.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Do it,” Lyra said.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They dragged Rigel out, and he didn’t even protest, just stared at her.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She stared at the ceiling and waited for tears to come. They didn’t, though, and eventually she rolled out of bed. Arthur’s book of pattern magic needed to be discarded completely, rather than secreted in the chest where she’d spotted it the night before. Very carefully, she peeled up one of the rugs that formed the floor of the tent, and asked the grass to move out of the way.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It did, and she moved the dirt with her bare hands and buried the book, then asked the grass to grow again, and to send its roots deep enough to start eating at the book. She put the rug back and washed her hands and turned her attention inwards, checking that healing the wound to her shoulder hadn’t harmed the hint of possibility that she would have to rely on now for political capital. Her shoulder was mostly fine, her belly in perfect health, and she sighed in relief.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If only she’d been able to reach Arthur sooner - no, that was an unproductive line of thought. She had a war to plan, and a long dark night to make it through alone.</span></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10035740929329660756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72091212420484453.post-72842794384346335842013-07-30T16:23:00.002-07:002013-07-30T16:23:33.516-07:00Differences between Wordpress.com and Wordpress.org<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Wordpress.com hosts blogs: wordpress.org is where you get the wordpress software to upload onto your own server (or that of a friend, family member, or someone you pay to host your stuff). It's important to differentiate, because they're both fantastic, and they're easily confused, because the interface is similar. They have their own <a href="http://en.support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/">breakdown of differences</a>, but this aims to be more descriptive.<br />
<br />
Wordpress.com is nice because you don't have to mess around with a server or, necessarily, with getting your own domain.<br />
<br />
Wordpress software is nice because you can do anything you want. Cue maniacal cackling off into the distance.<br />
<br />
But more concrete comparisons:<br />
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<b><u>Access:</u></b><br />
The first thing you did was take out that little Meta toolbar on the side, right? It looks unprofessional and sloppy, though some people dislike it more than others (I hate it).<br />
<br />
<b>.com:</b> go to your site/wp-admin or wordpress.com or someone's site where they left up the Meta toolbar. It doesn't matter which, since you can navigate the whole back end of Wordpress after the one login.<br />
<b>Software:</b> go to your site/wp/wp-admin. That's pretty much the only option.<br />
<br />
<b><u>Appearance:</u></b><br />
Themes govern most of how your blog appears. Themes are a collection of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) that tell things to align left or align right or show up purple.<br />
<br />
<b>.com: </b>There are a variety of free themes, and even more paid ones, and you can almost definitely find one you love. Typically from there you can also select background color or image and header image. If you buy an upgrade, you can also edit the CSS. You don't get access to the CSS files themselves, though, so you are overwriting blind. If you are pretty confident, that's fine, whatever. If you are mostly used to editing and not building and have never bothered to look at the source code for various pages, when Wordpress updates and breaks your theme you will spend several hours drinking and frantically trying to correct the website, while text boxes float around seemingly arbitrarily and look completely different on the three screens you eventually end up looking through because you are trying to fix the header and you've changed the alignment and indent and mandatory margin but you don't actually have access to the files and it doesn't occur to you to override the vertical alignment, and you then switch to a different theme that is not actually broken but does truly horrifying things to your submenus. When you eventually wake up, vodka having beaten panic at about three-thirty in the morning, Wordpress will have fixed it and you will spend the rest of the day in nihilistic despair.<br />
<b>Software: </b>There are myriad themes and you can not only customize the background and header but also look at the CSS and pinpoint that this line of code here governs what color links default to and change just that to make everything violently orange. You will accidentally leave an extra space or digit or apostrophe somewhere and crash the server. Things will need to be reinstalled. You can take comfort in your own agency in the failure.<br />
<br />
Seriously, though, themes and editing without messing with the CSS can get you a pretty customized website, and Wordpress is great about fixing their mistakes and errors that crash the server can be corrected.<br />
<br />
<b><u>Widgets:</u></b><br />
If you're building a Wordpress site, you freaking love widgets. Widgets are awesome. The Text widget (which lets you insert arbitrary text and HTML) is how you get your Twitter feed or follow button up, and your tumblr follow button, and a lot of the other buttons social networking sites let you generate. But widgets let you do a heck of a lot more than that: they're your Facebook like box and your RSS feed and your contact info and your flickr link and your category cloud. Widgets are how you implement neat features without extensive background in coding.<br />
<br />
<b>.com:</b> limited number, but they cover a lot, and the text widget with HTML adds additional functionality.<br />
<b>Software: w</b>idgets for the software are actually a feature of the plugins you can get. Plugins for the software are great, because you can get ones that tweet automatically every time you get a new post, or generate a new post every time you tweet, or do all manner of strange and unlikely things. The trick is that they are reviewed but not actively policed, so you need to make sure it actually does what it says it does, and isn't broken.<br />
<br />
<b><u>Akismet:</u></b><br />
Akismet is a spam filter, and is how you filter all the comments that are lists of links to scams or are soliciting people to buy knock-off Gucci handbags on your bike site. You want a spam filter. Akismet's pretty good.<br />
<b>.com:</b> it's already there.<br />
<b>Software:</b> you need to install the plugin. It is a terrible amount of work. You have to click, like, three things.<br />
<br />
<b><u>Scalability:</u></b><br />
What do you do when you suddenly get lots of traffic on your website?<br />
<b>.com:</b> It absorbs the traffic, and doesn't cost you extra money.<br />
<b>Software:</b> Your server might crash, or you might need more servers. This can cost more, and may or may not be able to respond quickly to a sudden surge.<br />
<br />
Which you choose will depend on your comfort with code, your ability to acquire and comfort with self-hosting, and how much you like customizability. They're both excellent platforms, versatile enough for almost everyone.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10035740929329660756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72091212420484453.post-17017383409715487322013-07-19T11:23:00.000-07:002013-07-19T11:23:06.413-07:00Surveillance<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Everyone's heard about the NSA tapping phones, right? That's not news.<br />
<br />
Basically, they're following up on permissions they got in the Patriot Act, when we were all still going 'please take my liberty and give me security and screw Ben Franklin.<a href="http://thinkexist.com/quotation/anyone_who_trades_liberty_for_security_deserves/289390.html">'</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1fv4r6/i_believe_the_government_should_be_allowed_to/caeb3pl">This</a> is a great post that talks about what such measures can lead to.<br />
<br />
Which leads to my <a href="http://authorsrefuge.blogspot.com/2012/11/anonymity-again.html">perennial</a> <a href="http://authorsrefuge.blogspot.com/2010/03/online-security.html">post</a> about anonymity. I have not posted about it nearly as much as I thought I had, given that I am persistently cranky about it. Anonymity is very hard to do, and true anonymity is something that has to be worked on persistently and in the face of people who would really prefer that you didn't. Things like The Onion Router and other things discussed in Cory Doctorow's <i>Little Brother </i>are good starts, and Cryptocat is a valuable tool, and encryption keys are completely fantastic.<br />
<br />
But all of these things take effort, and are very different from posting 'down with the government' or whatever on your Facebook page. If you're going to go through the effort of anonymity, if you care about a cause enough to get active in protesting, posting on your Facebook or whatever about it is actually potentially dangerous to you and everyone who liked it out of abiding bitterness over parking tickets.<br />
<br />
So if you care about something deeply? Talking casually about it on the internet is probably one of the last things you want to do. In light of the surveillance abilities of even reasonably democratic governments, making sure everything you say online would meet with the approval of a hyper-judemental theoretical grandmother is a safe bet.<br />
<br />
Also, for writers, anonymity is almost always the enemy of publicity.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10035740929329660756noreply@blogger.com0Victoria, BC, Canada48.4284207 -123.3656444000000148.3441267 -123.5270059 48.5127147 -123.20428290000001tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72091212420484453.post-67129305779277752242013-06-09T01:47:00.003-07:002013-06-10T01:21:53.935-07:00Things I grew up thinking about the media<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Sometimes overwhelmingly it strikes me that other people did not grow up with journalists. As usual, there are people angry on Tumblr about a 'media conspiracy,' utterly outraged that something didn't spin the way it would in their ideal world. I usually abjectly fail to comprehend.<br />
<br />
My mom, dad, and step-mom all have journalism degrees. All have worked extensively in print journalism, though none do anymore. They've collectively worked variously in PR (both before and after social media), political campaigns, television, online news coverage, editing (ranging from copy-editing daily newspapers to helping writers organize the content of their history books), and magazines. They imparted three important things:<br />
<br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li>Journalists lie.</li>
<li>Factcheck everything.</li>
<li>Don't watch Fox News.</li>
</ol>
<div>
<b>Journalists lie.</b></div>
<div>
Every journalist is a person, and people are subject to cognitive biases as well as personal bias. Journalists have a professional code of ethics, but it doesn't cover every circumstance, and journalists are still fallible. Some of them can't find sources who have accurate information, or can't do so by a pressing deadline. Some of them can't or don't find the sources for balanced coverage. Some of them have to work within editorial bounds that include political leaning. Some of them are Joel Stein.<br />
<br />
<b>Factcheck everything.</b><br />
People get things wrong. People misapprehend. People read summaries and then try to summarize them and end up somewhere else completely. No matter how much you adore someone, unless your chief reason for adoring them is rigid and obsessive factchecking, be prepared to check their story before repeating it. Some things, a sanity check is most of what's needed: if a three-headed cow was really born in Nebraska, wouldn't it be more likely to be in an article in <i>Agri-Chemical News</i> than in <i>The National Enquirer</i>? Check as many sources as possible! I ran into an issue last week where I'd only read one news source for a thing, and it wasn't recent enough or comprehensive enough to actually give me the answer I was looking for, but I ended up repeating it anyway, and then retracting my statement and apologizing and feeling very silly.<br />
<br />
Usually, I try to check two independent sources before I repeat or reblog (I'm on tumblr a lot these days) any kind of newsy thing. Like the persistent urban legend that Mister Rogers served in the military: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Rogers">no</a>, <a href="http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/mrrogers.asp">he didn't</a>. Try to get independent confirmation of things, try to get multiple sources, try to get firsthand accounts, try to get physical proof. The truth is important, and the story you tell with the truth is important.<br />
<br />
<b>Don't watch Fox News.</b><br />
You know that first point about journalists? An important thing to keep in mind is that most of the people who talk on Fox are commentators and analysts and not actually journalists.<br />
<br />
Fox lies. Fox fear-mongers. Fox wasn't allowed to broadcast in Canada until 2004, and even now broadcasters are required to monitor it and "abridge or curtail" any hate speech, because it is an <i>active concern</i>. Canada has standards about lying on air, and so Fox isn't allowed out without a leash on.<br />
<br />
Fox is sometimes put on the same playing field as news agencies because they present themselves as the more right-leaning news option that is still totes reliable, yo. That's incorrect. There are tons and tons of articles out there enumerating the ways Fox has straight-up lied on air: find them. Check up on me. Factcheck. Just don't do it with The O'Reilly Factor on in the background.<br />
<br />
<br />
These are the reasons I am dumbfounded when people point out that the story in the Saturday paper is different than the one in the Sunday paper and cry conspiracy or coverup: if it's a normal morning paper and the incident happened late late late Friday night, the journalist who wrote the story probably had an hour or less to find out what happened, get a statement from a witness, write the article, submit it to their copyeditor, and have it sent to Layout to make the deadline. Then they had all of Saturday! That means they got to talk to more people, maybe get a photographer by, and do their own factchecking.<br />
<br />
This is mostly a ramble, but if there's anything I'd really like anyone to walk away with, it's that 'The Media' isn't a massive unified faceless machine: it's a few (disturbingly few, but that's a separate issues) corporations and a lot of Editors in Chief and even more journalists, all with slightly different agendas and all with varyingly applicable codes of ethics. The best, and ultimately only, thing you can do to further pursue truth is to <i>think critically about everything</i>.</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10035740929329660756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72091212420484453.post-2406999215048318252013-04-02T11:26:00.000-07:002013-04-02T11:26:09.239-07:00Wix and an SEO rant<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I sometimes help people with websites: I've been doing so for the past few years. Mostly simple stuff, setting up pages for authors and editors and friends.<br />
<br />
I usually use Wordpress, because it's simple, straightforward, and, while you can get more mileage from it if you know how to override the CSS and edit the HTML manually, you can get a perfectly functional, useful website without any of that knowledge. You can even get a decent website out of Wordpress if you don't feel comfortable poking around with all the settings. Having that low barrier of entry for use is really great, especially for people who want a website but not to live on the internet as they swear at code at 3 in the morning.<br />
<br />
I've also worked in Joomla!, which was fine, but required more poking around before I could reliably make it do what I wanted it to. I don't usually recommend it for people, since it did require that experimentation.<br />
<br />
The first site I set up for my mom was with Yola, which has convenient drag-and-drop boxes for doing stuff. The second, when she wanted to blog more, was Wordpress, because of the simpler comments features.<br />
<br />
This, obviously, is Blogger, and I like it for the stripped down simplicity. I don't need it to do anything fancy or have particular page features, because it's a blog and it blogs and that is all I require of it. I like the clean back end with clear labeling and the option to compose both pages and posts either in rich text or HTML. If someone doesn't want to do fancy things with the appearance of their site and prioritizes the blogging over the static pages, Blogger is a great option.<br />
<br />
Today I got to mess around in Wix, which I hadn't before. I don't like that it automatically adds big banners advertising themselves to the bottom of every site. I don't like that on so much of the back end, clicking a link opens a new tab or window. I don't like that the font modification options aren't universal: you have to change them page by page. I don't like that<i> everything is popups</i>. The ability to create an online store is pretty neat. The fact that all elements need to be moved around by hand instead of, oh, going into a neat sidebar, is fucking maddening. It also treats subpages as forms, making links to particular subpages look sloppy. Also, when you view page source (to see wtf is up with the fonts), it treats every subpage as part of the same page, so you are looking at every single element. I'm used to looking at the source for Wordpress, which is full of stuff that governs margins or whatever: endless lines of repetitive whatever, but that doesn't look anywhere near as sloppy. Wix also gives the options to add SEO keywords to pages, which, I guess, could make sense with image-heavy galleries, but is also reflective of a five-years-out-of-date approach to SEO.<br />
<br />
Here's the secret to SEO: write about the shit you want to write about. People who are interested in that shit will find your website. If you are an artist who takes commissions, having a blog post that talks about different art styles will bring in people who search for those art styles. They will find you and give you money. Would keyword stuffing with sex and kittens and whatever be of benefit to you?<br />
<br />
It might get you more hits, but<i> is that of benefit to you</i>? You want people to buy art from you. Unless you specialize in like cat pinups or something, you are not attracting people who are interested in what you're doing, you're just getting people who will click things.<br />
<br />
Blogger's statistics section shows search keywords that have lead to my blog. Let's look at some of the top ones of all time:<br />
<br />
<table __gwtcellbasedwidgetimpldispatchingblur="true" __gwtcellbasedwidgetimpldispatchingfocus="true" cellspacing="0" class="GFJVYHBBO0" style="border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><tbody style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<tr __gwt_row="0" __gwt_subrow="0" class="GFJVYHBBH- GFJVYHBBB0" style="background-color: #ffffcc; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><td class="GFJVYHBBG- GFJVYHBBI- GFJVYHBBJ- GFJVYHBBA0 GFJVYHBBC0" style="border: 2px solid rgb(215, 221, 232); font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div __gwt_cell="cell-gwt-uid-287" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline-style: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" tabindex="0">
<div class="GFJVYHBBCO" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; text-overflow: ellipsis; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: nowrap; width: 220px;">
authorsrefuge.blogspot.com</div>
<div style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div>
</div>
</td><td class="GFJVYHBBG- GFJVYHBBI- GFJVYHBBC0" style="border: 2px solid rgb(255, 255, 204); font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div __gwt_cell="cell-gwt-uid-288" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline-style: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
</td><td class="GFJVYHBBG- GFJVYHBBI- GFJVYHBBD0 GFJVYHBBC0" style="border: 2px solid rgb(255, 255, 204); font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div __gwt_cell="cell-gwt-uid-289" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline-style: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<table style="border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><tbody style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></tbody></table>
</div>
</td></tr>
<tr __gwt_row="1" __gwt_subrow="0" class="GFJVYHBBH0" style="background-color: #f3f7fb; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><td class="GFJVYHBBG- GFJVYHBBI0 GFJVYHBBJ-" style="border: 2px solid rgb(243, 247, 251); font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div __gwt_cell="cell-gwt-uid-287" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline-style: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div class="GFJVYHBBCO" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; text-overflow: ellipsis; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: nowrap; width: 220px;">
kishotenketsu</div>
<div style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div>
</div>
</td><td class="GFJVYHBBG- GFJVYHBBI0" style="border: 2px solid rgb(243, 247, 251); font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div __gwt_cell="cell-gwt-uid-288" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline-style: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
</td><td class="GFJVYHBBG- GFJVYHBBI0 GFJVYHBBD0" style="border: 2px solid rgb(243, 247, 251); font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div __gwt_cell="cell-gwt-uid-289" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline-style: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<table style="border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><tbody style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></tbody></table>
</div>
</td></tr>
<tr __gwt_row="2" __gwt_subrow="0" class="GFJVYHBBH-" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><td class="GFJVYHBBG- GFJVYHBBI- GFJVYHBBJ-" style="border: 2px solid rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div __gwt_cell="cell-gwt-uid-287" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline-style: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div class="GFJVYHBBCO" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; text-overflow: ellipsis; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: nowrap; width: 220px;">
laura bradford interview</div>
<div style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div>
</div>
</td><td class="GFJVYHBBG- GFJVYHBBI-" style="border: 2px solid rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div __gwt_cell="cell-gwt-uid-288" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline-style: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
</td><td class="GFJVYHBBG- GFJVYHBBI- GFJVYHBBD0" style="border: 2px solid rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div __gwt_cell="cell-gwt-uid-289" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline-style: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<table style="border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><tbody style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></tbody></table>
</div>
</td></tr>
<tr __gwt_row="3" __gwt_subrow="0" class="GFJVYHBBH0" style="background-color: #f3f7fb; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><td class="GFJVYHBBG- GFJVYHBBI0 GFJVYHBBJ-" style="border: 2px solid rgb(243, 247, 251); font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div __gwt_cell="cell-gwt-uid-287" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline-style: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div class="GFJVYHBBCO" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; text-overflow: ellipsis; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: nowrap; width: 220px;">
eileen young</div>
<div style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div>
</div>
</td><td class="GFJVYHBBG- GFJVYHBBI0" style="border: 2px solid rgb(243, 247, 251); font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div __gwt_cell="cell-gwt-uid-288" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline-style: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
</td><td class="GFJVYHBBG- GFJVYHBBI0 GFJVYHBBD0" style="border: 2px solid rgb(243, 247, 251); font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div __gwt_cell="cell-gwt-uid-289" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline-style: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<table style="border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><tbody style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></tbody></table>
</div>
</td></tr>
<tr __gwt_row="4" __gwt_subrow="0" class="GFJVYHBBH-" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><td class="GFJVYHBBG- GFJVYHBBI- GFJVYHBBJ-" style="border: 2px solid rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div __gwt_cell="cell-gwt-uid-287" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline-style: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div class="GFJVYHBBCO" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; text-overflow: ellipsis; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: nowrap; width: 220px;">
laura bradford author</div>
<div style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div>
</div>
</td><td class="GFJVYHBBG- GFJVYHBBI-" style="border: 2px solid rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div __gwt_cell="cell-gwt-uid-288" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline-style: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
</td><td class="GFJVYHBBG- GFJVYHBBI- GFJVYHBBD0" style="border: 2px solid rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div __gwt_cell="cell-gwt-uid-289" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline-style: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<table style="border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><tbody style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></tbody></table>
</div>
</td></tr>
<tr __gwt_row="5" __gwt_subrow="0" class="GFJVYHBBH0" style="background-color: #f3f7fb; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><td class="GFJVYHBBG- GFJVYHBBI0 GFJVYHBBJ-" style="border: 2px solid rgb(243, 247, 251); font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div __gwt_cell="cell-gwt-uid-287" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline-style: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div class="GFJVYHBBCO" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; text-overflow: ellipsis; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: nowrap; width: 220px;">
adam schreckenberger</div>
<div style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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amazing spreadsheets</div>
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is the kobo vox backlit</div>
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<br />
So, the first one is people forgetting that this is a .ca blog, and the third, fifth, and sixth are because of interviews I did with people more popular than me. Those all make sense as people who would appreciate the content here.<br />
<br />
I've only talked about kishotenketsu once, but people continue to be interested in it, which is great. It's something I was really interested in, so people also interested in it might be interested in other things I talk about here.<br />
<br />
Fourth is my name. Excellent. SEO is doing its job.<br />
<br />
Amazing spreadsheets is probably because of my 'spreadsheets are amazing' tag.<br />
<br />
And the question 'is the kobo vox backlit' probably leads directly to my review of the Kobo Vox, which includes the information that it's backlit and other details about it.<br />
<br />
Search engines are designed to take people to what they're looking for. So use common terminology (if you're talking about books, don't call them bound stories or something like that) and correct spelling and provide regular new content, and <i>that is your SEO</i>.<br />
<br />
If you're not getting as many hits as you'd like, make sure your website is attached to your profile on every site you're on and post more.<br />
<br />
Back to Wix: you can't even configure a Facebook like box to go to a page you've already created. It does some auto-suggestion bullshit.<br />
<br />
In conclusion: Wix sucks and I hate it. Only real benefit is the webstore, but that's what eBay and Etsy are for. 2/10, would set fire to again.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10035740929329660756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72091212420484453.post-10588321094106014412013-03-06T18:00:00.000-08:002013-03-06T18:00:02.905-08:00Changes<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
At one point, I had ten weeks of posts queued here.<br />
<br />
I am down to two, because I keep forgetting and losing track of days.<br />
<br />
Part of that is that I'm just involved in different conversations about writing, on different platforms. I spend a lot of time on tumblr these days: mostly involved in fan things, but discussing writing and story structure nonetheless, and reading a lot more about social justice and science.<br />
<br />
I'm also not freelancing, or particularly on the hunt for freelance work. I'm writing as much as I'd like, and don't need this to push myself to write or talk about writing: if anything, I need more of a push to get <i>off</i> the internet and talk to people.<br />
<br />
So we're coming off a weekly schedule. New posts will happen whenever, so some manner of subscription will probably be the best way to keep up if you're interested.<br />
<br />
Happy writing!</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10035740929329660756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72091212420484453.post-74799358469283763722013-02-28T18:00:00.000-08:002013-02-28T18:00:02.783-08:00Meta: Victoria<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I really enjoy writing about places: the idea of setting as character is an aspect of CanLit that's really stuck with me. I like to think that generally I can keep a narrative going, but this piece was really designed as self-indulgent location-porn. It's not particularly plot-heavy. A lot of the way it's framed is because I can't quite conceive of actually doing travel writing and making it interesting to anyone, but I love architecture and the things that make each place unique.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10035740929329660756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72091212420484453.post-3032535120253962472013-02-27T18:00:00.000-08:002013-02-27T18:00:02.728-08:00Fic: Victoria<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.5927125732414424" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For a city forty miles from the infamous Forks, WA, Victoria gets surprisingly little rain. This is because the Olympic mountains catch all of it for us; on a good day, one can stand in the sun on Dallas Road and watch the rain fall on Washington. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But Dallas Road is all the way out in James Bay, and just the view isn’t worth the 45-minute walk from city hall when one has the glory of downtown to explore. I walk down to Chinatown past the condemned apartment building and the charming self-contained Victoria house, past the construction pit that will be the parking lot for the swank shops going in at the bottom level of the redone Hudson Bay building. The chirping ‘walk’ sign signals me, the two business-women in pumps and skirts, and the meth-head waiting on the corner to cross. I duck into the old brick yarn shop on the corner and browse for a minute, enjoying the air-conditioning and half-heartedly contemplating Christmas presents. It’s July, but if I’m going to make anything, now’s the time to start. But the sheer range in the knitting store makes it hard to choose, and intimidating; what if they judge me for using the wrong kind of yarn for the pattern I’ll inevitably have to buy? They’ve always been nice to me, but I’ve heard rumors about what led to the local knitting societies splitting in two.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Most of the local arts scene is like that, though; the two straight literary magazines are only on speaking terms because of shared editorial staff; the University-managed one is much pickier, and charges more for each copy (but also gives away more free copies), and they can, because they get government sponsorship. The community issue has an acceptance rate of an obscene twenty percent because, without the government sponsorship, they don’t have nearly the advertising budget, and so rarely sell out a print run. And neither of the straight literary magazines so much as acknowledges the Science Fiction magazine unless it’s winning another award; genre fiction makes both editorial boards uneasy and faintly afraid. They are more comfortable with poetry, and would publish their magazines entirely as chapbooks if they weren’t so much work and there was some clear way to pay the bills. And if Munro’s, the largest independent bookstore in the city, whose facade looks somewhere between a Greek temple and a Georgian bank, carried chapbooks. But Munro’s hallowed halls only carry things which have been machine-bound, and so the literary magazines continue contracting with the printers. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The yarn store doesn’t hold me long - people are trouping in for some class or other. I continue towards the harbour and Chinatown, and pass the Chinese school and the Lee Club and the city-commissioned mural which faces the building with the aged and faded “7-up: the Un-cola” ad taking up the upper storey and a half. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m in luck; the Chinese bakery is still open. I go in and jostle with four other customers in the shopfront the size of my bathroom to get my hands - separated by medium of tongs - on pineapple buns and melon bread and an egg tart and a Korean barbecue roll. The barbecue roll is still warm, probably fresh from the kitchen in the back, where the owner bakes everything on display. I buy my goods in cash from the owner’s wife in a nearly silent transaction; I speak Mandarin, not Cantonese, which in hindsight seems a silly choice. At the time I was planning things that were utterly derailed by Nanna’s Alzheimers. As I put my change away she goes back to an animated conversation with an old Chinese woman sipping a Tim Horton’s coffee. When people around me are speaking a language I don’t understand, I always have a sneaking suspicion they’re talking about me. Which I know is silly, but, well, I’ve caught some of the French-speakers here at it a few times. The best part is the looks on their faces when I spew Parisian gutter-French at them in retaliation. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I hurry past the tattoo parlor next door, where I can see some aging biker getting something on his bicep, and round the corner to Chinatown proper. It’s the second-oldest Chinatown in North America, and some locals will argue that it’s really the oldest, since San Francisco burned down in 1906 and therefore shouldn’t count anymore. Dragon Alley, which used to be one of the main housing projects in Chinatown, has been turned into upscale shops. It was first designed as a way to pack as many Chinese immigrants into one place as possible, according to the plaque on one wall, but it’s been ‘reclaimed’ by designer dog treats, an exclusive hair studio, and what I’ve heard is an upscale brothel, which has a lovely little water feature in front of it. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But Dragon Alley leads away from my destination, so after I’ve bought Ramune at the crowded Asian grocery store I jaywalk across the main drag of Chinatown (a sleepy two-lane cobbled street) and turn down what looks like a dingy access passage. It opens quickly into Fan Tan alley, the spinster sister of Dragon Alley. There are two resale shops, a used record store, and Triple Spiral, a shop that sells mostly jewelry and Tarot cards. All of the shopfronts are painted bright colors, even though the shopfronts themselves are just the strips of wood outlining windows and doors in the red brick of the colossal building they are all carved out of.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I could cut over to Wharf Street here, avoid all the foot traffic of the end of the work day, but I head to Government Street instead. It’s Thursday, which means that the chalk artist whose name I’ve never learned will have recreated another masterpiece on the sidewalk. I’ve only recognized two so far - <i>Girl With A Pearl Earring</i> and <i>Mona Lisa</i> - but they’re gorgeous, and I love that we have someone here who can do that. He’s done a detail from Waterhouse, this week. I stop in the middle of the sidewalk and juggle my bakery box to dig out a notebook and pen. I want to look up the full painting when I get home (I, unlike everyone even on this island out of time, don’t have a smartphone). I garner a couple annoyed looks from passerby forced to step around me, but other people are slowing to look at the chalk, too. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Past the gargantuan Bay building, which dominates arguably between one and four city blocks, depending how you divvy up the warren of downtown into “blocks,” it’s an easy slope downhill to the Inner Harbour. Darth Vader, a local violinist, is just packing up for the day at his corner across from Visitor Information. I smile at him as I go past, though I can’t see whether he smiles back behind the mask. There’s always some kind of knot of tourists in front of Visitor Information, and I slip through them on my way to the stairs. The stairs hug the seawall on the way down, and are wide and shallow and a little uneven, since they’ve been part of the promenade for something like a century. As usual there’s a mix of homeless artists under patio umbrellas obviously nicked from the seafood grill just up the stairs and around the corner and professionals doing caricatures and selling art cards from small tables. I meander down the promenade to the dock for the bum boats, those tiny little water taxis roughly the size of minivans. If it weren’t for the ocean kayakers, they’d be the smallest thing on the Inner Harbour. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jeremy finishes his shift, and the bum boat tours for the day, in about twenty minutes, so I park on one of the oversized steps of the promenade, tucking my skirt around me. A quick glance at the Visitor Information clock tower affirms that, yes, I haven’t been able to magically skip ten minutes in the walk down the stairs. I open the bakery box and dig out one of the melon breads to pick at while I wait for him. It’s a far cry from the high tea being served above me and across the street at the Empress Hotel; iconic finger sandwiches in a formal English garden that now hosts a statue of Emily Carr, our homegrown leading light in art. I did tea there once, when I was visiting Nanna a few years ago. When Nanna would think of things like that, and still had the wherewithal to plan them. We’d done a tour of the Legislature, too; the center of government that also served as building-shaped art framing a third of the harbour. The Empress, by the same architect in the same sweeping and gothic style, makes up the center third. And on the left as you entered the harbour is Visitor Information with its useful but entirely unimpressive Art Deco clock tower.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jeremy is finally done, and I rise to meet him, brushing off the back of my skirt. I snag his arm, and we walk companionably back to his condo in James Bay for dinner and my own personal escape from the obligations that lurk in the heart of downtown.</span></b></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10035740929329660756noreply@blogger.com0