Some Years Later
In which it is well.
Even having figured that this was going to be more of an epilogue than a full chapter, it was shorter than I expected.
We don’t get told the fate of Clan Serat, or whether there’s any prospect of Don Eyr being called home one day by a more forward-thinking delm. I’m undecided whether I want that to be a possibility or not. “Block Party” shows the household settling in on Surebleak, where they’re going to be valuable members of society. But they were valuable members of society on the Low Port, too, which arguably was in more need of valuable members of society, and if Serat brought the household back to Liad they could be again. And I don’t want Clan Serat to have collapsed; Delm Serat might deserve it, but his kin and employees don’t. Then again, it might be that things are past being helped, both in Low Port and in Serat, and Don Eyr deserves better than being forced to struggle fruitlessly against the inevitable.
I wonder what happened to all of the household’s cats when the people emigrated to Surebleak.
Ach…I too am always left wondering about the cats!
Yes, so true.
The two works need to be combined. I imagine they might be, someday.
PA: any prospect of Don Eyr being called home one day by a more forward-thinking delm
Perhaps I misunderstood: How long does it take for an Intention of Separation to become permanent? Or do you think it is allowed to stand indefinitely, i.e., till the death of the person who puts forth the conditions? I had thought of it more as a one-time declaration, with the delm of the clan required to make a positive or negative response within a set time limit.
It might be me who misunderstood, but my feeling about the Intention to Separate is that it means Don Eyr will be living apart from the clan and free of the delm’s oversight, but still technically counted as part of the clan and always with the possibility of going back to it later. If it meant him leaving the clan entirely and permanently, I would expect more drama about it, since the impression we’ve gained elsewhere is that the only way a Liaden leaves their clan is by dying.
One thing I can point to specifically is that the wording around the conditions sounded to me like they stand indefinitely. Don Eyr says he’ll return to the clan “if and when” the conditions are met, which sounds to me like whenever the conditions are met he has to return, not only if they’re met within a time limit. Also, he points out as an aside to the “must accommodate the children” condition that he expects to accumulate more children as time goes on, which suggests that the conditions will continue to be relevant as time goes on; if there were a time limit, it would only matter how many children he had within the specified time.
Thanks Paul for explaining, I havn’t seen it that way. Now I see both.
About a time limit – there is one for anybody going eklykt’i till he/she may be counted as dead to the clan. Is it 12 years? I could imagine such a timespan for the Intention to Separate – that would account nicely for accommodating more children. But I gues we’d have to wait for the authors to clarify.