Afterword - Book 1 - Chapter 26 (Patreon)

Chapter 26: Those Left Behind

(Original Chapter title: Adventurer III (for the final bit))

Back on June 27, 2024 I was in the midst of writing Book 2 when I finally got over my antisocial tendencies and decided to try joining Selkie's discord. I'd long been paranoid it would be one of those massive loud communities that overwhelms me, but I finally gave it a shot. The community—and Selkie themself—were so warm and welcoming, and a short time later I decided that I needed to add this chapter.

Not that this is exactly what I envisioned. Originally, Ranthia didn't come to the realization that Tatius and Pupius were her family until Book 2 when she started speaking to <Spoiler Omitted>. Yet when I completed Book 2 and accepted that I needed to rewrite the start of Budding Rhythm I... kind of hated that. Ranthia wasn't so stupid, she was just unaware.

I didn't know what I was going to do about it until it came time for Ranthia to meet Julia. By Xaoc, it was perfect. Elaine gave Ranthia her life and start. Elaine's family gave Ranthia the context to acknowledge her own (lost) relationships.

I feel so many emotions when I read this chapter; it makes it harder to proofread. I hope it's well received.

And yes, I made up Themis' full name; it never appeared in Selkie's prose. I didn't want to ask Selkie either, I wanted them to be surprised whenever they read this chapter. It may change if Selkie's like "um actually it's," but here's my thought processes behind Marcus Themis Catonus. In Remus, as Elaine explained, (male) names are Family First Fancy. Her dad was Marcus Elainus Cato. So I gave Themis the same Family name (obviously), and we know Themis; but for the Fancy I wanted something more. Cato as a root, for his father. Then I added -nus, which seemingly is a bit more of his father but it ACTUALLY has a hint of Elaine—the sister that he owed his life to—hidden in there. Subtle enough young "I'm too cool to owe my big sister anything" Themis accepts it, but present enough that "I miss my sister and would give anything to see her again" mature Themis can smile with pride when he gives it.

I might be writing fanfiction, but I hate using important characters from BtDEM. There's so much pressure to get them just right and there's no way for me to get inside Selkie's head perfectly. Nor am I going to bother them to check every bit of dialogue and every action to see if they'd have the character react differently. Worse, every reader (including myself) has our own preconceptions about the suggested but not shown quirks of the character. Is Julia as playful and fond of causing minor incidents as I read her to be? By Xaoc I hope so. But there's a reason why in the original draft Themis was a unnamed cameo and Elainus was an even less obvious cameo. I eventually had to touch on other characters, as Adventurer tier supporters know already, but I tried to shy away from canon as much as I could.

At least until Selkie left a lot of canon from this era to me (and others) in our conversations. That gave me enough boldness to write this.

Gods and goddesses, I haven't even covered anything but one part of the chapter. It's a chapter that starts with cute flirting (and a bit more of a peek at Hexara's concerns about public opinion). Then Ranthia learns about found family and is shook. Then she finally gets her armor. And then her final farewell to her fathers.

Thank you, Julia, for helping Ranthia realize exactly what she was doing before that happened. That scene finally has the proper weight behind it. And Ranthia's wishes that she had been allowed to cheat Black Crow yet again have meaning to more than just her.

And yes, the crater provided me a great opportunity to expand something that I find weirdly few opportunities to remind the audience: Ranthia's chaos-granted knowledge is incomplete, yet she knows not its metes and bounds. How (not so) strange, she wasn't aware of the capabilities of a Void [Mage].