Afterword - Book 2 - Chapter 59 (Patreon)

Chapter 59: The Night of the Second Sun

(Original Chapter Title: N/A)

A confession: in the OG draft I kind of just... let Hunting disappear over time, never commented on or acknowledged. It was an act of cowardice, and one thing I knew I needed to do as I progressed with my editing was to give the man the send-off he deserved.

I hope I succeeded.

The urge to leave this afterword there is strong. This chapter is one that took a lot out of me to write, and even reviewing it to give it one more coat of polish before it hits RR left me feeling kind of wiped out. I typically write the afterwords after preparing the RR release, but several have some note or another that I wrote when I initially edited (or, in this case, wrote) the chapter. The first lines of this one were all written in the wake of me tossing this chapter to beta readers, and now I find myself floundering for what else to say.

Much of what I could say is obvious. I could speak of Ranthia's attempts to deceive herself, but I think the prose does that as well as I ever could. I could speak of a rare moment of humanity from Night, but that was already there. The emotional conflicts, the fears, the wound Hunting left upon the world—I don't think my words as an author can convey anything meaningful beyond the prose. A lot of this is because this chapter wasn't edited, it's original. I wrote it and the interlude new, while the surrounding text was edited.

Choosing where to write Hunting's demise was somewhat difficult. Whether it came before or after a soon-coming development would have changed its tone considerably. There wasn't any true plan. I just finished editing A Return to Consistency, looked at the coming chapter and—more or less on whim—decided that it should go here.

I hated to put Ranthia through this, but Hunting deserved more. This was the highest respect I could offer him, at least with the fate that Selkie left him to. Hunting was never one to go quietly and disappear; he was doomed to go out with a hell of a display.

To one of the best side characters Selkie ever wrote.