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Skiagraphia XVI (Patreon)

Published:
2015-12-27 05:46:20
Imported:
2026-10

Content

Skiagraphia XVI

WOW I am sorry this is so late going up and it's mostly because I was concurrently writing the last two chapters kind of as one, and then just found a place to split them. I don't think the second will get finished by the end of the year although I could really try, but anywhere here's this "half"! Second to last chapter (not counting epilogue).

Also sorry for any errors, I seriously wanted to get this up and didn't check it over as many times as usual.

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Comments

W0llen

Merry (late) Christmas! Glad to see the sword came up once more X) The siblings's reactions to the beard was funny (And Rhet had all that teasing coming). Oredaiken's interactions was great, surprising and made sense. Kinda want to shake Jesna though. Can't wait for the next part! :D

Brianna

After all these years it has happened. Who knew that so much could change in such a short period of time. True, they probably have no idea what to do with peace but the beauty of it all is they will finally have the chance to consider how they want to live instead of preparing for possible death. This was a nice end of year present. :)

Potatoe

A fantastic Christmas gift. Thank you :) I can't believe how close this thing is to being done. Of course there are rewrites and Keyd's story, so 'done' is a relative term, but I like that. It's like... it can be done, but without the part where I don't get to read any more of it.

Teromain

The end kind of snuck up on me! But I'm really excited to be getting to finish it finally, and then being able to go back and clean up all the earlier books (and probably split this one into two). I'll likely never be finished with stories in this world so 'done' is definitely relative.

Teromain

Getting backed into a corner with very few options actually helped them out here. :) And peacetime will definitely be an issue, but it's not something that will be covered in this series. In other stories I have planned, for sure it will be. I'm glad you enjoyed the chapter :)

Teromain

Thank you! The sword will actually be useful next chapter, so it definitely had to be mentioned :). And Rhet and Alan definitely are gonna end up with a picking-on-each-other-a-lot friendship, but all good-natured. :) I'm glad you enjoyed the chapter and hopefully the next one will be up very early next month!

Alex

Ahhh, every time you update I get so hyped to read it. This seriously is probably one of the best & well plotted out series ever and I get so excited to see what's gonna happen next. And this chapter was SO plotty and exciting--I felt like I was reading the whole ting with bated breath. Overall a good Christmas gift, haha. :P The line "go be responsible adults, and try and end a war" made me laugh pretty hard, I loved that! And the scene where Rhet and Ansa are getting all interested in Alan's beard and petting at it made me smile so much--the chemistry between them all is wonderful and they always feel like real people. And it was just a really cute scene that I think worked well to break some of the intense tension/atmosphere of the chapter if that makes sense? Speaking of awesome characters, too, Lahjenlehr is awesome. I love that she's a high ranking, older woman character who's so competent and intelligent. But also, she just seems kind of intensely different from a lot of the other higher ranked characters we've met so far--maybe because she's not involved in politics? But either way I'm dying to know more about her. What was it about her that led Ansa to believe she was trustworthy--do the two of them have a friendship or is she someone Ansa has served under for long enough to have a sense of who she is? Also, have we met Jesna in passing before? I feel like someone (probably Rysa or Keyd?) mentioned him during that chapter way back when Keyd was still sick and Alan followed him to the camp but I also might be just remembering names where they weren't. Either way though I'm excited to read the series again once it's finished to try and notice hints or things I would've have noticed the first time around. But in addition to Lehjenlehr, each time we see Oredaiken I get even more interested in him. And now I want to know all about his relationship with Keyd and more about his relationship with Maedajon as well. Did he play an important role in Keyd's life growing up? Was he upset when he was told about the meetings? Just generally I would love to know more about this dude. Also--I'm wondering what marakion means? And shit, watching the forfeit happen was really intense. And it does feel sort of appropriate that Oredaiken be the one to carry the banner. And meanwhile I will try not to worry about Rysa and the other folks like Hahd, Kir and Darban that we haven't heard from in a couple of chapters. But anyway, I'm done gushing, lol.

Teromain

Ahh thank you so much; I’m really glad you enjoy the story so much! This chapter was meant to be pretty tense and maybe even a little surreal with a strange dead snowy alien forest being most of the setting, so I’m glad some of that came across in the reading! And I always enjoy big comments like this because it really helps me know the parts people really enjoy and are interested in or just notice in the details. Rhet and Ansa aren’t exactly comic relief, but they are less constantly intense somber characters like…a lot of people are in this series, and they’re some of the only people Alan can joke around with and feel comfortable doing it. So I really like writing their interactions with each other and they can ease some tension for sure, for both Alan and a reader. They’re definitely forming a sibling-like relationship with each other, Rhet and Alan being the two that always pick on each other and Alan and Ansa would be the ones always getting into mischief together. The story where Rhet and Ansa are the main characters, set five years after this, won’t have a ton of them interacting with Alan but when they do they’ll have more of those dynamics going on. Lahjenlehr is a pure soldier, nothing else, so she is fairly different from the other high ranking characters who have been around. She’s used to taking orders and then delegating them to get done, real straight-forward action and efficiency, and so she’s very blunt (obviously she was very blunt to Alan about her opinions in this chapter) and really speaks honestly about things and without much agenda. Not exactly how people in politics communicate with each other, and every general or high ranking military person Alan knows IS in politics (Keyd, Rysa, Darban, Oredaiken, Arirsanya, Eldronreht, pretty much everybody). As she says, she was in the ghereen for a while and then quit because she basically found it to be a bunch of inefficient nonsense. And like a lot of military-only-no-politics soldiers, she’s very into doing what is ultimately best for the oenclar as a race, whatever that actually means or entails. Which is why she was nervous about peace just suddenly HAPPENING, rather than a slow slide into it, because of how their super militaristic society will handle that sudden extreme switch. Overall that’s one reason why she’s generally more trustworthy though, since she absolutely gains nothing from political maneuvers. Ansa specifically trusts her because she has been stationed under her since she got out of training, so she does have a pretty good knowledge of what Lahjenlehr is like and knows for SURE that she was very loyal to Maedajon and is supportive of Keyd. Ansa doesn’t know her super personally, but out of general experience+knowledge+instinct (and Ansa is really wary /paranoid) she figured that it was safe to trust her. Jesna was mentioned once, in like one sentence, and it was back in the chapter where Alan followed Keyd out to the camp. He wasn’t named, but Rysa was mentioned to talk to him. In rewrites he probably will get named there, and so will Lahjenlehr. Just so they don’t suddenly appear out of the woodwork at the end of the story, haha. Besides tightening up the writing and the giant continuity fixes and stuff, the rewrites will definitely keep up more tiny consistent details like this, because I did have the entire series completely PLOTTED since like 2008 but the details were not always 100% finalized. Oredaiken’s always been kind of this hovering background guy in the series and I’m not sure if I want to focus on him more in rewrites or keep him kind of mysterious, haha. More about him will come up in Keyd’s POV, obviously, but that will take a while to get to. He and Keyd were closer when Keyd was younger, and Oredaiken was involved in his life about as equally as Maedajon was. They were definitely more familial, until Keyd started holding everybody at arm’s length except Rysa (which was when he was about 14 or 15, so…a long time ago). Oredaiken, like many people, wasn’t fond of Rysa at the start and anybody who didn’t like Rysa, Keyd side-eyed in return, so that didn’t help their relationship either. ‘Marakion’ actually means ‘uncle’, which is what Keyd used to call him when he was little. It didn’t translate through frequency because he’s not legitimately his uncle and Keyd was using it more like a title instead of just a word (the commentary will go further into this). Other folks’ll be showing up again in the next chapter :)

A. Mori

Ahh so many mixed emotions. On the one hand, it's super exciting to be so close to the end at last, and I'm really eager to see how things play out after the characters have worked so hard and been through so much to get to this point. But on the other hand, I'll be very sad once this story is over and will miss all the characters greatly (even if you'll still be working through the rewrites, and probably have a million other stories planned for this same world, haha). I bet it will be a huge relief for you to finally have it finished though!

A. Mori

Oh, also I hope you had a good Christmas, and happy New Year in advance!

Teromain

It is a little bittersweet getting to the end, but yeah I'm definitely far from done with this world and characters! They'll be hanging around for a long time. And I'm excited to really tighten up the story in the rewrites and make it even better, and since the whole story is finished it'll be easier to look at it as a whole. Apparently it takes me 8ish years to finish everything I do, haha.

Alex

Well you definitely nailed the surreal/tense feeling! Especially with the descriptions of the purpley light from Ansa's hand oen marks and stuff. Oh man, well I'm excited for Ansa, Rhet and Alan's relationship to get more siblingy even if we only see snip its of it. And I'm excited to see what kinds of mischeif Alan and Ansa would get up to, haha. Overall I just love the dynamics of those three. And I'm super, super excited for the five years later story even if it doesn't have a lot of Alan and I will miss him. Characters are always one of my favorite things about stories and so I always like to know more about them! And Keyd calling Oredaiken uncle is sort of adorable, honestly. Especially if it's something he hasnt' called him since he was little then, I'm guessing??

Teromain

Rawwwr rawr I can't reply directly to your reply so I have to reply to your original post thanks Patreon! But anyway. Yeah their country is kind of creepy in general right now. Everything is dead and dark but they still get weather (rain, snow, etc.) because atmospheric conditions and weather still exist and affect them, there's just no light so nothing can grow (aaaaand no animals/insects/anything that lives off plant life or other living things). It is a very creepy place. Yeah just snippets of it is probably what'll get seen most! Alan and Keyd will be in the 5 years later story, they’re just not main characters. Without huge spoilers, one main interaction with them is Rhet proving that he actually does know them personally (because not everyone knows/believes his wartime stories) and basically walking right up to them in a very public place and just…being Rhet loudly at them. Mostly with Alan, since Rhet knows him a little better. I feel like Alan and Ansa would go around pulling really minor pranks on people if they ever had the free time, starting with Rhet and then branching out. :D Keyd probably hasn't called Oredaiken 'uncle' for like 50 years at this point; it's definitely been a while. He stopped around the same time that he started to really separate himself emotionally from Maedajon, and since Oredaiken and Maedajon were close friends, that included him too.