Afterword - Book 2 - Chapter 61 (Patreon)

Chapter 61: Ancient History II

(Original Chapter Title: Ancient History II)

Have you ever looked forward to reaching a chapter in your editing process, reach it, and the prose doesn't match your memory OR your expectations?

Yeah.

I ended up rewriting Avyna's story about her past almost entirely. The same general beats are there, but I elaborated on and fleshed them out; while I resolved a few inconsistencies. I think it reads a lot better now—I teared up writing it, at least.

It's easy to say that Avyna had an unhappy 'childhood,' but if you pay attention to the story she actually had a mortal's lifetime of happiness. Sure, her parents sucked, but she had the opportunities that she (or, rather, her sister) desired. Things just tend to go poorly when you find yourself pursuing fame at the behest of someone without a single scruple. The difference between an Adventurer like Ranthia's younger self and pet muses like Evi and Naria is that Ranthia chose her jobs based on risk versus reward, and was (theoretically) able to reassess if the job proved unexpectedly dangerous. As pet muses, they were thrown at tasks based on what sort of song Ass-y wanted to write. Sure, she mostly gave them softballs—it wasn't like her songs had to be entirely truthful—but they operated on rumors and whims. In a lot of ways, the outcome was inevitable.

We also see the lingering dark side of Avyna's hero worship of her sister. Even after well over a thousand years, she still struggles to acknowledge her value compared to her "more talented" sibling. It doesn't bother her day to day (and Adventurer Tier supporters can probably guess why), but when you dredge ancient pain, the ghosts of depression can haunt you once again. Just as we still cringe when we remember embarrassing memories that have no real bearing on our lives any longer.

But hey, I'm sure Avyna's painful past will never have any relevance ever again, now that a solitary and nonviolent encounter with Ass-y has been concluded!

(Also, I have done well over a hundred of these afterwords, yet every now and then I still have to look up how I format the titles for them???)