Tag Archives: Chonselta

Mouse and Dragon – Chapter 28

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In which there is a Mouse in Aelliana’s new lodgings.

This is in some ways a chapter of pausing and taking stock of where things stand, with Master Kestra delivering her assessment of how far Aelliana has developed since they last met, and Aelliana telling Mouse the cat what she has learned about being a mouse.

I like the description of Mouse’s attitude when he first appears, which, speaking as one whose family has always had cats, strikes a very familiar chord: “There was something about the long muzzle that suggested at least temporary resignation; the very tippiest tip of the scruffy tail was twitching. Slowly.”

Mouse and Dragon – Chapter 19

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In which courier pilot Aelliana Caylon makes her first interstellar delivery.

The other thing I wonder, speaking of the incident with Delm Hedrede in Scout’s Progress, is whether Dath jo’Bern is the same person as Delm Hedrede. We never got Hedrede’s personal name, nor any other personal details beyond “female” and “not young”; Dath jo’Bern is female, and if she’s a grandmother’s cha’leket she’s probably not young. If she is delm, one might have expected the fact to be mentioned, but I think that’s thinking like a Terran, and a Liaden might say that it’s an irrelevant detail when she’s acting in a personal capacity. (We’ve seen that several times with Daav and Delm Korval, as recently as when Aelliana told Mr dea’Gauss Daav yos’Phelium was going to be her co-pilot.) On the other hand, would Delm Hedrede choose to give business to one so closely associated with Korval, after that incident in Council?

Mouse and Dragon – Chapter 16

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In which Aelliana deals with some outstanding business.

If I have the timeframe figured out correctly, Aelliana began teaching the advanced seminar for Scouts about the time Daav was obliged to leave the Scouts and take up the Delm’s Ring. One wonders whether, had Daav been able to remain a Scout, he and Aelliana might have crossed paths much sooner.

Mr dea’Gauss continues in the mode of servant to lord, addressing Aelliana as “my lady”, until she asks that he address her as Pilot or Scholar and not offer her more honor than she has earned; then he follows her into a more equal mode and switches to addressing her as “Pilot”. I notice, though, that by the end of the conversation he’s back to addressing her as “my lady”, apparently having formed his own conclusions about how much honor she has earned from him.

Mouse and Dragon – Chapter 8

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In which Aelliana meets Daav’s brother and Daav’s sister.

I’m intrigued by the ramifications of Aelliana addressing Lady Kareen in the mode of pilot-to-passenger. It’s understandable that that mode would come to her tongue before whichever tongue is appropriate for delivering a set-down during a social call (even if Aelliana had been taught that mode, I doubt she’s ever had a chance to practice it) but it’s not really appropriate — except possibly in one sense: as the lifemate of Korval Himself, Aelliana shares his melant’i as the Captain whose passengers are every other Liaden, including Lady Kareen. (I wonder if she was standing close enough to Daav at that moment to have unconsciously picked up an intimation of the mode he was restraining himself from using.)

I hadn’t really thought about it, but it makes sense that Anne would have a place for work at the University, perhaps working with people she’s met through her work finishing Scholar yo’Kera’s book. Certainly she’s not the type to just sit about the house all day. The reason I might not have thought of it, I think, is that I wouldn’t have expected the University of Liad to be accepting of a Terran, but perhaps it helps that she is of Korval as well.

There are several grace notes I love in this chapter, including the cameo by Shan’s Mouse and Mr pak’Ora’s evident relief at not being required to remain in the same room as Lady Kareen.

Mouse and Dragon – Chapter 6

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In which Aelliana is taken under Korval’s wing.

So then, a slight but significant revision: it appears that the lifemate bond is active when Aelliana and Daav are in close proximity, but information flows only in one direction; Aelliana can feel Daav, but Daav can not feel Aelliana.

I know there’s the whole thing about how melant’i means that the same individual might be effectively a different person in different situations, but there are moments when it feels like Delm Korval really is a different person from Daav. (The scene in Local Custom where Korval calls Er Thom and Petrella to heel, the night of the gather, is another one.) I think part of it is the way Daav doesn’t like to step into the role of Delm if there is any way he can handle the situation in one of his more personal capacities, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; if the only situations where Delm Korval puts in an appearance are those which Daav can’t handle himself, it follows that Delm Korval must be somebody other than Daav. Or perhaps a less dramatic way to put it is that the role of Delm consequently brings out aspects of Daav’s character that don’t usually get expressed when he’s “being himself”. Particularly since, with Daav solving the easy problems and the personal problems himself, that leaves Delm Korval with the extremely formal occasions and the situations where duty must be placed before any personal considerations.

Mouse and Dragon – Chapter 5

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In which Aelliana does not feel safe under Mizel’s roof.

The heading quote is being pointed again, but in a slightly more underhanded way. Some of the people who constitute Aelliana’s clan do indeed frown on her conduct, but I am confident that this is a deficiency in them, not in Aelliana. (It makes a pair with the last time this heading quote appeared, which was the chapter in Scout’s Progress that revealed how much the clan’s beloved son Ran Eld was undermining the clan for his individual gain.)

The part where Delm Mizel accuses Korval of attempting to coerce Aelliana and valuing her only for her exploitable resources strikes me as one of those occasions where the guilt a person sees most readily in others is the guilt they would find if they looked straight into themselves.

And she does rather undo any mollifying effect she might have achieved (perhaps she was still counting on Aelliana to be obedient to the delm regardless) when she admits that regardless of Aelliana’s achievements she would rather have had anybody else if there had been anybody else to have.

Mouse and Dragon – Chapter 4

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In which Aelliana has breakfast and messages.

The chapter heading quote is particularly pointed today. In theory, Aelliana is not without kin, and Daav is overreaching himself by offering her aid. In fact, though, none of Aelliana’s kin are willing and able to give her the care she ought to be able to expect from them (Sinit is willing, but not able), and if Daav had not offered his assistance she would have gone without. It ought not to have been only Daav who made sure she was clothed and fed, nor only Daav who came to see how she was doing. Even if other business prevented a visit, they might have sent a message; it says something that the messages from her colleagues outnumber those from her kin threefold, and that one of her students, a person who is not even so close to her as to be permitted the Low Tongue, sent a message when her own mother still has not. It says something that the one message from her kin is more than Aelliana expected.

It says something, too, that Aelliana herself compares the Mizel clanhouse, which ought to be her home and refuge, to a hostile port where she would be unwise to set foot without backup — and presents this as an obvious truth which she counts herself foolish not to have seen sooner.

Mouse and Dragon – Chapter 3

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In which Daav and Aelliana are reunited.

It occurs to me that, even had nobody noticed the Jump ring on Ran Eld’s finger during the confrontation, it would have been surrendered to Mizel along with the rest of his finery when he died, so it would not have been necessary to pursue him to Low Port to get it back. I can understand that chain of thought not coming to Aelliana’s mind, though.

It appears that Daav and Aelliana do possess the lifemate bond to some degree, but that it only works at full strength when they’re in close physical proximity, as they are here, or as when they were dancing at the celebration.

This chapter includes the final four sentences of Scout’s Progress, all that was left from last chapter, with a few tweaks to punctuation and word choice but no substantive changes.

Mouse and Dragon – Chapter 2

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In which Daav returns to Chonselta.

I wonder about Aelliana’s grandmother sometimes. She usually comes up when Aelliana is reminded of happier times, before Ran Eld was nadelm, and it’s clear that under the old delm’s eye he’d never have gotten away with behaving the way he has done. And yet… the situation which allowed him to get away with it once the old delm was gone did develop under the old delm’s eye; he was already showing the kind of man he’d grow into before she died, and some of how he turned out must be due to how he was raised by his mother — and thus in some measure to how she was raised by her mother.

The half of this chapter with Daav in it is a reprint from the final chapter of Scout’s Progress, give or take a few punctuation tweaks and altered choices of wording. Most of the latter are in the narration; the only ones that result in an actual change of event, if you’re interested in comparing them, are a couple of refinements in the paragraph where Master Kestra describes the treatment Aelliana has been given for her various injuries.

Scout’s Progress – Chapter 38

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In which Daav’s future is decided.

And now the Tree approves of Daav’s choice of Aelliana — because, as I see it, now Daav has made the choice, where before he was only thinking sadly of a choice he might have made.

(And why does the Tree care? Is it, as Daav accuses, only interested in breeding stock, or did it want Daav to choose the woman with whom he’d be happy? I don’t suppose we’ll ever know. Either way, Daav is certainly right about one thing: the Tree’s method of expressing its disapproval wasn’t fair on Pilot tel’Izak.)

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Reminder: Although there is one chapter of Scout’s Progress remaining, it is repeated in its entirety near the beginning of Mouse and Dragon. With that in mind, tomorrow we go straight to Mouse and Dragon chapter 1.