Tag Archives: Cordrey

Saltation – Chapter 19

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Erkes Dormitory, Suite 302
Anlingdin Piloting Academy

In which Win Ton takes Theo to dinner.

Although, as when yos’Senchul and Veradantha included Theo in their dinner plans, it might be that the flight time and experience is as great a gift as the dinner. (Which is not to knock the dinner; one is getting the impression that a dinner at Howsenda Hugglelans is no small thing itself.)

When the kissing gets started, Win Ton kisses Theo’s temple, her neck, and her ear; it’s Theo who kisses Win Ton on the lips, a move he’s not expecting. We’ve seen this before with couples kissing across the Liaden-Terran cultural divide; between Liadens, face-to-face kissing is an especially intimate gesture not usually added to the repertoire until a relationship is considerably further advanced than this.

Saltation – Chapter 9

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History of Piloting
Anlingdin Piloting Academy

In which Theo meets Kara ven’Arith.

Theo is learning a lot of family history without knowing it, lately. Although I suppose that was to some extent inevitable once she started learning piloting, considering how much the history of piloting is bound up with the history of Korval.

I think Inspector Johansen is being unfair, here: it would have been one thing to be down on Theo for not doing all the assigned reading, if that was what she had done, and I would even allow that it would have been reasonable to be somewhat disappointed by the class’s lack of initiative — but to mock them for not doing something they hadn’t been called on to do seems to me to be pushing it, especially since I get the impression that Johansen was counting on them to have not done it so she could be grumpy about it. Or maybe I’m being unfair now, and she was just in a bad mood about something.

Kara, with her own version of having grown up between Liaden and Terran cultures and a willingness to share her understanding, could be a useful friend for Theo to have. (Not that I’m saying, of course, that usefulness ought to be an only or a primary criterion for a friendship.)

Fledgling – Chapter 39

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Melchiza Station

In which Theo and Kamele start for home, Jen Sar enters the home stretch, and Hafley can never go home again.

Clyburn stops pretending to be the kind of bubble-headed male no Delgadan would suspect of being a criminal mastermind, and is revealed to be, among other things, a pilot. Which suggests further covering-up from his relative in Admin, since he wasn’t issued a pilot’s ID when the research team arrived. It also makes me wonder again about the divided motivations of the blue-shirts: if he’s a pilot and a native Melchizan he must have known enough about how Melchizan pilots think to be able to predict that they’d protect Theo. Although that assumes he knew Theo was a pilot, and I get the impression that came as an unpleasant surprise to him on the bus; apparently he wasn’t paying enough attention to Theo on the Vashtara to notice how she’d been spending her time. He must be kicking himself for that now (or, if he’s the kind of person who is never at fault for their own lapses of judgement, finding some excuse to blame Theo).

For all the trouble it’s caused in the past, Theo’s pilot nature has been really helpful several times this trip, both in obvious ways like protecting her at the Transit School and in indirect ways like leading her into a situation where she can, unlike the sheltered Kamele, recognise violent intent in time to avoid danger.

Fledgling – Chapter 31

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Vashtara
Breakfast All Year

In which Cho and Win Ton bid farewell to Theo.

When I finished reading this chapter, my eyes might have been a bit wet too.

Despite saying to Theo earlier that very few of her teachers on Delgado are likely to be pilots, Cho knows that there’s at least one, because Theo already knew some piloting lore when they met. She must have a good idea who it is, too; Theo’s told her outright that Professor Kiladi was the one who introduced her to the lacework, and probably has likewise mentioned that it was him who chose and proposed the Suwello lessons (and if she hasn’t, Cho’s the type to have been able to find it out anyway). But I think she’s refraining from being specific at least partly by way of nudging Theo herself to the realization of the role Jen Sar has played in her education.

Fledgling – Chapter 22

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Vashtara
EdRec Level
Library

In which Theo is introduced to menfri’at and bowli ball.

Theo is picking up the pilot’s way of moving from Win Ton, and along with it the mental toolkit needed to avoid the kind of maladapted interactions with other people that got her labelled clumsy back on Delgado.

The bit where Theo gets mistaken for a Liaden is a fairly strong indication that Jen Sar is her father in fact and not just by courtesy and by virtue of having a hand in her upbringing. Whether you find this interesting might depend on whether you were already, notwithstanding the indications that it’s not usual practice on Delgado, taking Theo’s parentage as read.

It would appear that Win Ton hasn’t read Tan Sim’s Ugly Day.

With the benefit of hindsight, at least one of the things Chair Hafley says in this chapter is very, very ironic.