The Blog of Roon

So Aryk’s in this huge Ilium poetry slam, right? And he needs to place in the top three, because if he does, he’ll get to open for Purgatory (and maybe throw a monkey wrench or two into their pro-Andragar propaganda machine), okay? All-freestyle, so the audience (in this case, David, reading over my shoulder) throws out topics and the emcee randomly picks one.

Second round, and what’s Aryk’s topic? This is all David’s fault, by the way.

“Bunnies.” I totally kid you not. “Bunnies.”

Between them, Alan (GM, playing Aryk’s backup Arretia and Aryk’s opponent Ambrose, as well as emcee Iron Telomere, impresario Hadley Domingo, and four out of five slam judges) and Matt (playing Aryk) totally ran with it, with me chucking in a few random numbers as Eleanora, the fifth slam judge. Herewith, The Bunny Rap Scene. Bits in parentheses, by long-standing Dragonhunt convention, are out-of-character backchat.

Alan: “The word for this match is…” Iron Telomere hunts around in her bag. “…bunnies! Bunnies?”

Alan: “Dammit, Hadley!”

Alan: Hadley shrugs. “They’re all audience suggestions!”

Aryk: “Bunnies?! BUNNIES?! HOW CAN I RAP ABOUT BUNNIES?!”

Alan: The audience is laughing, wondering what the contestants are going to make of it.

Alan: Ambrose Thunderhead stares at the ceiling, then says “Hm. I know.”

Eleanora: (You can kick David’s ass when you move to Wisconsin, Matt. I give you a free innings.)

Alan: “Well, call it, Thunderhead.”

Alan: She flips. “I call heads!” the dwarf cries.

Alan: [1d2] -> [1] = (1)

Alan: “And I’ll go second. If you’re so flummoxed, paladin, I won’t let you have time to think about it!”

Alan: “Okay then,” Telomere laughs. “Bunnies! Whenever you’re ready!”

Alan: Arretia giggles to herself. “What do you want, Aryk? Dark or light?”

Aryk: “Light. Overly light.”

Alan: “You’ll get both.”

Aryk: “Ridiculously light, even.”

Eleanora: (”Li’l bunny Froo-Froo…”)

Alan: She pops two soundcubes in and starts playing one… “Little bunny foo-foo was hopping through the forest…”

Alan: (Jinx!)

Aryk: What the fuck, man!!

Aryk: Okay, here we go.

Alan: She instantly slams the fader to a post-Slab rage band. “DEAAAATH! DEEAAAATH!”

Alan: The fader again: “pickin’ up the fieldmice and boppin’ em on the” “DEAAAATH!”

** Aryk shakes his head, and then begins to feel the beat regardless **

Alan: Then she drops the beat, leaving the bunny tune over the top.

** Eleanora is laughing herself to tears in the judges’ row. **

Aryk: “Fluffy bunnies, fluffy bunnies / The world is full of fluffy bunnies

Aryk: “That’s people living happily / Finding dragon tyranny so funny

Aryk: “That’s idiots spending frivolously / wasting all that hard earned money

Aryk: “Just to make their lives seem calm / at ease / what else do you want from me?

Aryk: Why is it people live selfishly / ignorant of the blood-stained truth

Aryk: While you work your fuckin’ nine-to-five / dragons make decisions for you

Aryk: While you go home / Kiss your wife and kids/ Dark Eternal pretends to implore you

Aryk: When honestly he don’t give a fuck / But you think that he adores you

Aryk: Nations will collide / Do you think that Heaven will ignore you?

Aryk: Honestly, it makes me sick / To see good people act so dumb

Aryk: When demons, dragons, crime syndicates have you under their thumb?

Aryk: It’s time for a change/ the system to be rearranged

Aryk: You’re little Jack Horner/ go fuckin’ eat your plums

Aryk: So prance around and dance around and eat up all your greens

Aryk: You’re all just little fuckin’ bunnies, man / Now it don’t sound so obscene

Aryk: When you leave tonight / in a state of fright / you’ll know just what I mean!”

Alan: Arretia has been shifting the beat darker and darker as you go along, fading the bunny song out.

Alan: But now she concludes by snapping it back in: “Now I’m going to give you one… more… chance…”

Alan: And the bell rings.

Aryk: “That’s my word!” He winks at Saladin and slams the pickup back into its holster.

Alan: The audience goes wild. They love raps about bunnies!

Alan: “I think I’m slowly going insane,” Iron Telomere says. “Okay, Ambrose Thunderhead, bring it back.”

Alan: Ambrose signals to his drummer, who starts up a beat.

Eleanora: (”Coal Miner’s Bunny”) (editor’s note: the joke here is that Aryk’s opponent in this round is a miner who raps a lot about how much mining sucks)

** Aryk plops down in his seat. He has no idea how he was able to rap about bunnies. He can’t even remember what he said. **

Alan: “When I pick up my pick-axe, flak flies from rocks / when I swing my mattock, cracks spread in locks / when you jackrabbit out of your cave, I’m taking over the rave like pirate radicals blockade the docks!”

Alan: “You’re a hare, a lop-eared, cotton-tailed disgrace / When I get up in the spot, I’ll put you back in your place / When you step up to the hill, I’ll shoot you down with my bow / You’d better learn which warren-holes are safe to go!”

Alan: “So listen up: I’m straight Ithaca style / and when if you pick up an inch, I’m going to pick up a mile, we’re talking old style / none of these Dragon’s Reign kilometers / we’re more hardcore than lodestone barometers”

Aryk: “Wow… that’s not bad.” Aryk looks a bit concerned for his own welfare.

Alan: “I’m an uncut stone that bears weight / I’m on a throne of bones of those who battled fate / and lost, but I never wear county blues, I floss / soot stains and coal dust / you can never control us!”

Aryk: Aryk whispers to Arretia and Saladin, “I wish I hadn’t gone first this time… he’s feeding off me.”

Alan: “Don’t bunny-hop; you can’t dodge my fletchery / you’re not a pimp-dad; you’re just a master of lechery / you can’t hang against dwarves, you’re not that tall / and when I kick for the goal, keep your eye on the ball!”

Alan: The dwarf stands down with a satisfied smirk.

** Aryk gives Thunderhead a respectful nod. **

Alan: Iron Telomere says, “Let it be on the record that he used five of those phrases in the battle at Conroy’s on Woodson Street two months ago. You know the rules.”

Eleanora: (I thought that might be the case.)

Alan: A certain amount of repetition is allowed; after all, there are only so many rhymes, period. But if someone actually has you made, you lose a point for every two self-bites.

Alan: As a rough estimate.

** Aryk suddenly feels a glint of hope **

Alan: “For the record, he adapted a few of them to the random word,” Tarno Thraddash whispers.

Alan: “But yeah.”

Alan: “Okay then,” Telomere says. “Let’s score! Aryk first.”

Eleanora: “Yeah, so shit, replacin’ one word…” Eleanora mutters back. “I expected better of that boy, I really did.”

** Aryk closes his eyes **

Eleanora: Eleanora scribbles quickly, thrusts a 9 defiantly into the air.

Eleanora: Eleanora doesn’t give 10s.

** Aryk clasps Arretia’s hand. He doesn’t look. He only wants to hear the final score. **

Eleanora: She believes there’s always room for improvement.

Alan: Tarno Thraddash gives Aryk a 7. “Always harder second round,” he whispers.

Alan: Master Tanager impartially offers an 8. “I like bunnies, too.”

Aryk: (LOL)

Alan: From Damiano Entemann, a 7; from Trenton Lakhat, an 8.

Alan: “Lot of heart,” Trenton explains.

Aryk: (WOOHOO! I can live with that)

Alan: “So the total is 23, seven points shy of a perfect score. From this crowd, not bad!”

Alan: “Now to judge Ambrose Thunderhead. Judges?”

** Aryk hugs Arretia **

Alan: Master Tanager offers another 8. “Excellent rhymes. Now get a message.”

Aryk: “No matter what happens, Arretia, you were great.”

Eleanora: Eleanora shakes her head, offers a 5.

Alan: Trenton gives a 6. “I didn’t feel anything.”

Alan: Damiano hands out an 8: “At the risk of stereotyping myself… I think it would sell.”

** Eleanora rolls her eyes disdainfully. **

Eleanora: That wasn’t a ten before deductions. Please.

Alan: And finally, Tarno Thraddash gives out a 4, with a half smile. “Old grudge.”

Alan: Judges are chosen to be impartial—and if someone chooses unwisely, you’re stuck.

Alan: Iron Telomere echoes Eleanora’s concern. “That’s with the two points taken off, Entemann?”

Alan: “Huh, it’s not just a guideline? Hm… six, then?”

Alan: Master Tanager says, “It’s a guideline for me. For you it’s the law.”

Alan: “My eight is unadorned.”

Eleanora: “No, it’s not just a fuckin’ guideline, man, get your head in the game!”

Alan: Damiano nods. “Six. Six.”

Aryk: “Damn!”

Alan: “Then the total is 17. A clean victory for Aryk!”

** Aryk throws his arms around and kisses on the cheek the nearest person. **

Alan: “Watch out, though, kid; I think we can all agree your message and your lightwarrior won that one for you.”

Eleanora: “Room for that,” Eleanora says complacently.

** Aryk nods **

Alan: Master Tanager shrugs. “Everyone has opinions, Tess.”

Eleanora: “Yeah, an’ everyone should have mine!”

I managed to surprise the Dragonhunt GM last session. I do not often do this, so I will take a moment to be proud of myself.

Renate had no luck tracking Aaron down, and time was running out before he did something (she wasn’t sure what, but the possibilities were frightening) that got him jailed, killed, or possibly both.

So she cut it off at the pass. By challenging the Baron of Glenworth to an individual duel. And (here was my surprise) dropping her weapons on the field of honor and inviting him to kill her, so long as her blood ended the feud.

It didn’t fly. (Meta-plot reasons, mostly.) Words speak louder than actions in the Dragonhunt, and while Renate is a fair wordsmith, she wasn’t up to countering Stephen of Glenworth’s demagoguery that day. (Hard enough to walk onto a field and tell a man to hurt you. I don’t blame the girl one bit.) He was ready to send her home in chains just for humiliation’s sake, but Aaron’s wife the Heaven commander interceded. So Renate collected Aaron and went home.

Seeing real, two-hundred-proof hate-filled insanity shocked her out of Bad Headspace, at least. She’s herself again, though (understandably) grieving over Rien’s and Aaron’s untruths and betrayals. Her flirtation with suicide has caused Coris to back way the heck off, though in my humble opinion all it really shows is how perfect they are for each other… but this isn’t the first romance Renate’s risky lifestyle has derailed; she understands his hesitancy perfectly, and won’t press him for more than he wants to give her.

(She also has suspicions about his birthplace and birth-rank, but she’s keeping her mouth shut about them. Because if they turn out to be true, she will have even more cause to regret driving him off.)

I’m working on a fluff piece with Renate and Coris, but it’s slow going because it’s hard to keep Coris properly noncommittal. (It’s not my business to decide what Coris thinks and feels.) I do want to let the two of them bond a little over strayed siblings, have Renate discreetly indicate that she’s not offended at Coris’s reaction to her little stunt, and perhaps get across what Renate’s political plans are.

(Karlbotel can’t handle Glenworth-plus-Heaven alone, and the chances of Ilium heeding Karlbotel’s difficulties are nil. So it’s time to work up some defense alliances, and perhaps even a one-way tariff or toll on anything going into Glenworth—with any luck, that would start to depopulate the place, as its residents don’t share Stephen’s onus and must share a web of family relationships in Karlbotel and the other surrounding provinces, creating an incentive to leave. Renate, of course, will want to be prepared with resettlement aid. Expensive, but if it cuts off Stephen’s economic support at the root without harming his people, absolutely worth it.)

What can Renate do, with broken relationships and a brand-new political morass? Well, what can she do but start over?

My sense is that Renate is going to lose the Dragonhunt. When I have a chance to jump, I just don’t jump the right way. Poor girl, she deserves a better player.

But I’m proud of her anyway, because she’s going to fail well. Despite Alan’s protestations, the Dragonhunt world is not one designed for noble heroes—it is designed for loud, arrogant, warmongering blowhards. Renate isn’t any of these things. QED.

Aaron Wrenfall, you will remember, snuck off to arch-enemy Glenworth in order to have words with his not-quite-ex-wife, Heaven functionary Poya Kern. Renate couldn’t manage to track him down, so she promptly lost what was left of her temper and decided to put her own spoke in the wheels.

Which she did in gallant style, by issuing a personal challenge to Baron Stephen of Glenworth and then refusing to hurt him, offering her own life in redress of the damage Karlbotel had done him. Noble. Heroic, even. And it failed.

Well, it did and it didn’t. It certainly derailed the tournament, along with whatever personal confrontation Aaron had planned. So she has achieved her immediate goal of getting him and Coris out of Glenworth unharmed. But mad Stephen wasn’t having any satyagraha, thank you; it took Aaron’s wife’s intervention to keep him from sending Renate home in chains or putting her in the stocks or something similarly humiliating. (Which, of course, she would have put up with patiently and with dignity, because Renate’s all about the dignity when the occasion calls for it.) She did win the open, public admission that he is trimming with Andragar, sufficient that even complacent Ilium will have to sit up and take notice. And she took the measure of Stephen’s chamberlain, an interesting fellow indeed. As failures go, it was a successful failure.

And really, it was an enormously Renate-like thing to do, entirely in line with what I know of her personal ethical code. No one is above sin; likewise no one is beyond redemption. (Why will Renate never be an indiscriminate killer? Because death ends the possibility of redemption.) Ex-enemies are the best friends. When you make a mess—and sometimes there’s just no choice—own up to it and clean it up yourself. Nobility amounts to dignity, honesty, responsibility, and sacrifice. Heroism is not war; seeking peace is often more heroic than battle. Nor can worth be measured in a single person or a single decision or action; it is the sum of many people and a thousand thousand actions. (This, to her as to me, is the signal failure of the Kahanite belief-testing mechanism.) The value of a sentient being (or a group of them) is not necessarily measured in skill or even efficacy, and certainly not by belief. Forgiveness and mercy are godlike, and revenge is outright evil; when you must kill, kill for the sake of the future, not the past.

(Which is why Stephen of Glenworth just hit her “better-dead” list, along with Keph LoCaine and [ha ha] Dark Eternal. Stephen’s going to make a hell of a mess if he’s let live. I have other ideas for what to do about Glenworth, but if Stephen’s chamberlain has the sense he appears to, he’ll keep Stephen way the hell away from Renate in future. She gave Stephen his chance; he didn’t just turn it down, he spurned it. Renate’s got no personal animus about that, but she’s fully aware now that Stephen of Glenworth is immediately dangerous to Ilium in general and Karlbotel in particular and needs to be neutralized, by death if there’s no other way.)

Renate does not violate her personal code by allying with the nominally (or actually) evil, only by working toward an unacceptable goal. The idea that one denies another an opportunity to do good, whatever their tangled personal reasons for it, is just enormously strange to her. (She and Aryk have fought over this point, and doubtless will again.) She does not necessarily violate her personal code by keeping another’s secret (though she vastly prefers openness), only by cravenly hiding from her own deeds. Hypocrisy, I think, is the sin that would damn her in her own eyes.

I suspect that my fellow players and GM think that Renate’s cold conduct toward her brother violates her code, considering how highly she values forgiveness. They’re wrong; that’s not what I think they’re thinking it is. They should ask about it sometime.

But in any case, I reiterate that I don’t think this code is going to get Renate to her goal. She will, however, fail nobly by my lights and die well, and I am reasonably content with that, as much as I would prefer to imagine her dying quietly at an advanced age sitting under apple-trees in bloom with the sound of her grandchildren’s laughter around her.

An IM conversation:

Me: Heh heh heh. Congratulations for inducting Matt into the Dragonhunt Hall of Paranoia.
Alan (D’hunt GM): Now it’s everyone from any Dragonhunt campaign ever!

In the wake of Renate being thrown together with Coris Nightblade again, the back of my mind has been trying to elucidate how she manages her rather strange (by the usual standards) lovelife.

I finally figured it out. Renate acts just like my cats.

Dream and Didi genuinely appreciate being around their people. They will lie in exquisitely uncomfortable places in the office just because we’re there. At night if Dream starts feeling lonely, he’ll wail hollowly or scratch at the bedroom door or both. He doesn’t want food, just companionship.

The thing is, though, it doesn’t particularly matter to either cat whether it’s David or me they get affection from. They assuredly know the differences between us; I’m fat, so I’ve got a better lap, but David’s knobbly (and unweakened by RSI) fingers are better for scratching cat skulls. We’re each valuable in our little uniquenesses.

Moreover, the cats have definite boundaries; they’re not indiscriminate. David and I are their people, and anyone who isn’t their people is regarded with suspicion. Dream thaws relatively quickly, Didi quite slowly; he will cuddle with our Wednesday-night houseguest, while she will barely let herself be touched. And they make perfectly clear what treatment they don’t like—more politely than most cats, but even so. Don’t touch Dream’s belly; don’t touch Didi’s paws.

But it simply doesn’t occur to either cat to be “monogamous.” A housemonkey is a housemonkey. A lap is a lap. They’d think it was weird to be required to stick to just one housemonkey, weirder still for David or I to be jealous of each other over them. There’s plenty of cat fur and cat purr for everyone.

Which is how Renate feels about love, really. There’s always more of it, and always more people to give it to. Not that she loves everyone; that would be absurd. Not that she loves those she loves the same way; everyone is different, everyone needs something different and can give back something different. But the idea that she can only “truly” love one person at a time—ridiculous.

She loves Rien, as much as that fact is killing her right now. She loves Coris, too, though neither of them has admitted it. She loves Aryk despite his maddening self-righteousness and sexism. She loves Godfrey dearly, and Kligh Darenton, and she’s even fond of stiff-necked Talos Clybourne. Of course no two of these relationships are alike. One simply can’t hug Godfrey Cuyler, and one can’t not hug lonely Rien. (Well, right now she can manage not to, as Rien lied to her and betrayed her, but they’ll work that out in the fullness of time.)

Eventually, I suspect, she’s going to inspire some jealousy, and she’s going to have a hard time understanding it. She’ll deal with it, establishing firmer boundaries if she has to, because she doesn’t want to make people unhappy. The right people for Renate, though, realize that the more love and strength she shares, the more she’s got.

I’ve been rereading part of Renate’s prologue to remember just what she and Coris had managed to say to each other.

It was amusing (to say the least) to see how the person who oscillated like a mad thing at the thought of fighting a mere exhibition match with Lord Hyuri of Vesper was later able to stare down Fire Stingray from a vulnerable zeppelin without losing her cool—even able to reassure others.

They do grow, characters. Even considering the state she’s in, Renate is a stronger, braver, wiser person than the little girl Coris met in Larkspur.

Our Rennie’s still stuck in Bad Headspace, but in a piece of fluff I finished this morning, she reached out as best she could for help. She admitted to Coris Nightblade that she was in a bad way, hinted obliquely that she knows he is fond of her, and did the time-honored “drop the handkerchief in front of him and see if he picks it up” trick. (No, she really did, and it wasn’t nearly as sexist-cliché as it sounds, promise.)

All in all, it’s not a bad match, Renate and Coris. Aside from the pronounced age difference, that is. They’ve both got that realistic, low-key self-image, the ability to look failure and defeat in the face without flinching or trying to spin it, the social grace, the inward conflicts and doubts. Right down to the silly pseudonyms.

They’re in Glenworth at the moment, that being Karlbotel’s neighbor province and pet enemy. It just so happens that Coris Nightblade used to be a Heaven knight, and his sister just so happens to be Aaron Wrenfall’s wife and also a Heaven knight, and it just so happens that Coris’s-sister-Aaron’s-wife is hanging out in Glenworth at the moment—and it’s not at all coincidence that Aaron left Karlbotel on “reconnaissance.”

So Coris and Renate are walking on eggshells in Glenworth trying not to be recognized (Coris is persona non grata in Heaven after his abrupt defection therefrom, and obviously Renate is persona non grata in Glenworth) while entering an all-comers tournament against CsAw’s Heaven detachment in order to find Aaron and bring him home before he gets hurt or worse.

I have an idea of the shape of things to come, and I know how I want to bend it… but I’ll need an opening from Alan. We’ll see if I get it.

In Monrroyo, Suhayla has finally spread a few of her cards on the table: she thinks the Catholics are trying to take over the world (and she’s not exactly wrong), and she wants to see it stopped, or its harm mitigated if it is in fact unstoppable. The rest of the covenant has yet to respond. Jullanar, however, has been accepted as a covenant member despite the slightly irregular manner of her arrival.

And for those of you on Pseudonym Watch, Renate’s going by Reyes l’Aigle in Glenworth at the moment.

Dragonhunt player Matt is damn, damn talented, at more than just busting rhymes and busting guts.

Here’s proof:

Nice, innit? Shame Renate’s worn out everyone’s welcome in Ilium, such that we’re no longer Troubleshooters. Oh, well. Words can be replaced in a logo, y’know?

Poor Renate. When she gets stuck in Emilia Eaglebourne’s headspace, she doesn’t know how to dig herself out.

Looking back on things, Emilia’s a scary, scary woman. She cut down a suppliant. She slit a hostage’s throat in a public park. She left Aryk trapped and nearly undefended for Keph LoCaine to torment. (Will Gerevannin saved Aryk’s bacon. How’s that for irony?) At the best of times, she’s harsh and abrupt with her friends; she’s gone off on poor faithful Godfrey twice. She’s been unequivocally rude, even; she proved in the pocket-dimension that she can swear like a sailor.

She’s empty as a hollowed-out tree-trunk, Emilia is, humorless and cold, not very much left to her but anger and violence and haughty indifference. She’s brave, yes, and she’ll make the tough calls without hesitation and soldier on undaunted through anything. Renate needs that bravery and that determination, no question about it. But Emilia is heedlessly brave, recklessly brave, the kind of bravery that invariably ends in death.

Death wish. Emilia has a terrible death wish. Probably has a lot to do with not being much in evidence except when matters really can’t get a whole lot worse. (Except when they do, of course. Welcome to the Dragonhunt.)

It’s a bad, bad headspace to get stuck in. Bad for Renate, bad for her family and friends, bad for the causes she believes in—let loose forever, Emilia would be a callous tyrant. (As long as she lasted, which probably wouldn’t be long. She’d get herself assassinated in short order, I suspect. You know how dragons are.)

The first time Emilia made her appearance, fortunately for Renate, there wasn’t any convenient death to hand, just a ticked-off dragon with an art gallery. The second time, Sabine was there to save her life and haul her out of Emilia’s quicksand. In Ilium, she and Rien fought hard and reasonably successfully to keep each other’s demons at bay (and if you think I’m drawing an analogy between Rien’s Trancey and Renate’s Emilia, go get yourself a gold star).

But now Rien’s gone, and Renate’s stuck. Coris and his crew have done right yeomanly work, enough that our Renate—our gentle, droll, warmhearted farm girl—has put in an appearance or two. They also confronted her with Emilia’s death-wish, which means she’ll actually have to start sorting that through. (For one reason or another, I don’t think she’ll be getting much sleep tonight.)

It’s not enough, though, not yet; not enough to remind her she’s entitled to humanity. No amount of confrontation or reason breaks down the walls Emilia builds around Renate’s heart and soul. That takes sympathy, warmth, and simple human contact.

Well, the good news is that the Andragarian invasion is cultural rather than military; more insidious, I grant you, but less shocking. Still, I’m not sorry to have a new stock of pseudonyms.

The bad news? The other shoe regarding Rien’s parentage has dropped in spectacular style. After Dark Eternal working through Rien slaughtered Heartbreaker, someone Renate had wanted rather badly to meet (and could have, if I’d put the pieces together—though Renate thinks it’s just as well she didn’t, as she would only have brought on the poor creature’s death faster) and Will Gerevannin got away clean with another magic rock, the pocket dimension started coming apart at the seams. Cue heroic last-minute escape.

Rather sweetly, Godfrey, Coris, and Coris’s small band of friends had camped out at the dimensional portal waiting for her to come back. (Inter-dimensional travel being what it is, a week had passed in the Silver Coast in the space of a few hours for Renate and company. Read Ursula K. LeGuin’s Changing Planes if you need to know more about this phenomenon. Heck, read it even if you don’t need to. It’s a wonderful, wonderful book.) Renate, however, was in no mood for sweetness; she rounded on Rien and demanded the truth.

She got it. Once she had it, she understood the whole scope of betrayal—from Dark Eternal’s setup to her brother’s sellout to Noble Mercury’s silence on Rien’s origins. Really it all falls into place. Almost no one in her life (excepting candid Aryk, as Matt was at pains to point out to me) has levelled with her; they’ve treated her as patsy or red-headed stepchild rather than colleague. For someone as strongly invested in straightforward honesty as Renate, that’s a bitter pill.

The other thing about Renate? She doesn’t know how to handle anger, she’s so rarely been really angry on her own account. Righteous anger on another’s behalf, battle-anger, these she knows. But just now part of her is screamingly, ragingly angry at the multiple lies, concealments, and treacheries wrought upon her, and she is frankly afraid of her own anger.

So she’s gone into Emilia Eaglebourne mode, trapping herself in her detached, rational, practical cerebellum, walling off the grief and the fury. She had to tell Godfrey what had happened. She did. She had to let her family know she was alive. She did. She had damage control to do. She did it. (I dunno what happened in Cobalt Aerie other than Renate explaining the pocket-dimension mess to Ilium authorities and then politely telling said authorities to take her Troubleshooter badge and shove it good and hard down their lying throats, but I’m sure Alan will fill me in.) She had to tell Talos Clybourne to reach out to Heartbreaker’s remaining followers. She did.

And now she’s back in Kligh Darenton’s manor (she couldn’t go back to her apartment; Rien has its key) with no more immediate work to do and no relief in sight for the heart she has forcibly emptied. It will take some doing, to lure her back to life.