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Scout’s Progress – Chapter 18

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In which Aelliana and her co-pilot begin their day.

Aelliana continues to show outward signs of her growing inner confidence. By the end of this chapter, she’s not only wearing her hair back, she feels safe enough with Daav to leave off the habitual overgarment that is described with the very word “armor”.

The Scouts’ tendency to want to feed Aelliana may have something to do with the fact that when they do, those are the only times in the book we’ve seen her eat anything at all. When she is shown taking meals with her family, she’s always too stressed to eat.

Scout’s Progress – Chapter 16

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In which Daav offers Aelliana more than one kind of life support.

Although Delm Bindan says she’ll remember the lesson about sending word ahead, I’m not sure she’s learned the right lesson. I get the feeling that she thinks Daav deliberately kept her waiting to (the phrase is inevitable) teach her a lesson, and hasn’t realised that he genuinely wasn’t in a fit state to receive visitors. One wonders how restricted her life is, if she never relaxes at home at any time when visitors might come by.

This being a prequel, and a genre novel, we know that Daav would have made his immediate future much easier if he’d succumbed to the temptation to break off the contract with Bindan, but he hasn’t realised yet where his future lies. Nor should he have, at this point; his relationship with Aelliana is still at an early stage where it would be presumptuous for him to be making plans in that direction.

Though, speaking of the development of their relationship, the gift he gives her in this chapter is freighted with all kinds of significance, for all that it’s just a hair-tie. (And apart from the fact that he offers her, along with it, the determination to keep fighting past the first fall.) A few days ago, she probably wouldn’t have accepted it from him, a near-stranger — and not so long before that, she, the woman whose habit had been to hide from the world behind her hair, would have had no use for it.

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.