[Note: This story was originally published in the chapbook Fortune’s Favors as an untitled fragment, but on being reprinted in A Liaden Universe Constellation, Volume 5 it was given the title “Opportunity to Seize”. Accordingly, I have renamed this blog entry, which was previously “Neogenesis – Outtake”.]

Surebleak
Dudley Lane and Farley Avenue

In which Daav, Aelliana, and Kamele embrace opportunity.

As I read the afterword, this chapter was left out of the novel only because there wasn’t a convenient place to put it without interrupting the flow of the story, not because the events it describes have been superceded. Therefore, unless and until there’s a more definite declaration (or Accepting the Lance comes out and blatantly contradicts it), I’m going to assume it’s canonical.

I did rather suspect that the reunion of Daav and Aelliana and Kamele was going to end up somewhere like this. I have observed before that the Jen Sar Kiladi whom Kamele fell in love with, and who fell in love with Kamele, was as much Aelliana as Daav. Possibly I did not expect them to get this far down this path on their first meeting as three people, but then they’re none of them the kind of person to hang back when they have a goal in mind.

It’s nice seeing them having a proper three-way conversation.

The thunder that wakes Daav might be the arrival of the Clutch Emissary’s ship at the end of Neogenesis, if the last two Surebleak chapters are set on successive mornings rather than being parts of a single day.