Tag Archives: bachelor earring

Local Custom – Chapter 15

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In which Er Thom yos’Galan comes home.

The first mention by name of Er Thom’s elder brother, Sae Zar yos’Galan. (Who is – was – about the same age as Kareen, apparently. Perhaps they were intended agemates, like Er Thom and Daav. I wonder how well that worked out.)

Unlike “Shan”, which Er Thom has already remarked is not a yos’Galan name, “Er Thom” and “Sae Zar” are both yos’Galan names of long, long standing: Tor An had relatives with those names, back in Clan Alkia before Korval was founded. Thinking about that makes me wonder where yos’Phelium gets its family names, since they appear to have decided against reusing “Cantra” or “Jela”, and neither of those worthies had any families to speak of. Though, come to think of it, we do know where the name of Cantra and Jela’s son came from: if memory serves, she named him “Val Con”, which is a play on the Liaden word for “dragon”. Perhaps after that, when people from Line yos’Phelium married people from other clans they let their spouses suggest baby names, and kept the ones they liked.

Local Custom – Chapter 2

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In which Er Thom has urgent business elsewhere.

This chapter is one that becomes richer through being able to bring in context from other stories. There are things that slide by as unexplained background details that are expanded on elsewhere in the series.

For instance, the reason why Er Thom, “an experienced and considerate lover”, was “unexpectedly awkward” when it came to kissing, is never explained, that I recall, anywhere – in this novel. But the necessary cultural background is available elsewhere.

Likewise, knowing about the Liaden prohibition on permanently-installed ear decorations adds strength to Petrella’s description of Daav’s ear decoration as “barbaric”, and on the other hand adds emotional weight to Daav’s decision to continue wearing it.

Sweet Waters

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In which Slade leaves his mother’s tent and follows the trail the day brings him.

This is one of my very favourite of the Liaden short stories. It never fails to give me, as the young people say these days, All The Feels.

Unfortunately, as I think we’ve established by now, I am not very eloquent when it comes to The Feels.

Reading a Liaden short story is sometimes like being a courier, the way it’s described in Mouse and Dragon, getting to see a slice of a person’s life and never after learning how things turned out for them. If I were ever to settle on a definitive Top 5 Liaden Universe Characters Whose Fates I Want to Know, several spaces on the list would be filled with names from this story.

Though the story itself does not carry a date, The Updated But Partial Liaden Universe Timeline sets it in SY 1177, around 50 years after “Naratha’s Shadow”, and around 150 years before the birth of Daav yos’Phelium, who will one day walk this world in his turn.