Royce's Random Thoughts

Almost two years and fifty-three thousand words to reach this point. :)

* * *

In less than two hours both the Blacksailor sisters arrived at Darktail Manor, Karra accompanied by her spouse, Fin. Fin was indeed a Blended as Ali had told Salli, wearing the baggy, androgynous clothes some of the genetically engineered sex preferred. Karra looked like she’d been crying on the flight over, and leaned on Fin for support as Salli and Zaker led them to the conference parlor.

“I’m glad you were all able to come,” Salli told them. “I know, Karra, that you quite upset about the that unfortunate incident with Ali and your two boys.”

“Of course I was upset, but I don’t want her dead,” Karra declared, as Fin gave her a supportive squeeze.

“Our boys are in school today,” Fin said. “They wanted to see Ali, but I told them it would be a bad idea.”

“When you see her, I think you will all agree it wouldn’t be a sight for young children, no,” Salli agreed regretfully.

“So why did you want us to come here first, Lady Sallivera?” Razi asked.

“I have some things I wish discuss with you, about what to do… in case some hard decisions need to be made, about Ali,” Salli said. “It might be best if we discuss that now, so there won’t be any needless confusion when her brother Lu becomes legally involved.”

“Ah, yes,” Razi said. “Though we could have done that over the com if need be.”

“I think face to face is much preferable in situations like this.” Salli turned to Zaker, who doing her furniture imitation along the wall, much as Ali once had. “Zaker, please flag down Nari and have her bring tea and biscuits for us while we discuss things. Then double-check the CP locks on my and Ali’s rooms.”

“There’s an alarm set to go off if they’re tampered with, Lady Salli,” Zaker noted, raising an eyebrow at the request.

“Do it anyway, please. For my peace of mind.”

Zaker shrugged and touched her forehead in salute, heading out of the door.

“If you’ll be patient, Nari should be along shortly,” Salli told the others. “No sense in starting only to be interrupted.”

( Salli channels her inner Agatha Christie )

The day of Lady Aganatha Highglider’s investiture to the Highglider domain came two days later. As was traditional, it was a dawn event, beginning at the Darktail sacred grove. Salli was woken two hours beforehand by a diffident Nari, who touched her briefly on the shoulder and whispered, “Lady Salli? Time to get ready.”

( Wake up call. In more ways than one. )

As predicted Civil Protection spent the rest of the afternoon and evening searching the garage for evidence left by the graffiti artist, to absolutely no effect. Questioning the staff was put off until the next morning, but with well over a hundred servants employed by their House, never mind an equal number of District administration employees coming and going every day, it was going to take some time.

Later the next morning, as the first round of questioning was beginning, Salli received a call from Rolas. She quickly rushed to her suite to bring it up on her comsole, to find her twin sitting in her office, dressed for the day in his House uniform.

“Good morning, Salli,” he greeted cheerfully. “I was just checking in to see how you and Alinadar are getting along.”

Salli's mouth hung open a moment as Rolas' completely ordinary question stopped her short. “That's... complicated at the moment,” she finally said.

( To put it mildly )

While the Arkham games are pretty much GrimDark with an extra helping of Dead Parents for that added bit of angst, you can find a lot of humor in the mook chatter Batman can eavesdrop on during the games. Particularly in Knight a lot of the rioters on the streets express things like wanting to grab toys for their kids or anger at the Arkham Knight's militia trying to take over the city.


And in one random moment you can hear this:

Miltia: My wife doesn't know what I'm doing. She thinks I'm here on a business trip.

2nd Miltia: Yeah, my husband doesn't know either.


Please bear in mind all the militia in the game are male. :)

For a few seconds Melanie could only sputter. Then she slapped her palm down on his shoulder, eliciting a sharp cry of pain from Rolas as she shouted, “That’s not funny! I thought you were dead!”

Rolas winced and cried out, “Ow! Milady, please!”

Oh, Mother Goddess, maybe he really wasn’t joking. “Rolas,” she said carefully, willing herself to be calm. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

( Melanie Gets More Information Than She was Expecting )

Popping back over to one of my Red Vixen stories in progress, while I muse about the Groupmind's nexxt move.

***

Melanie was carrying the last box of groceries aboard Rolas’ sailboat, when there was a deep throated call of “Oi! What are you doing on Rollie’s boat?” She turned to see a compact, white-furred male, wearing deck shorts and an unbuttoned shirt that showed a set of abdominal muscles even more impressive than her husband’s, walking down the pier quickly towards her.

( Melanie has her secrets, Rolas has his )

Waaaay back in Captive there was a scene where Rolas and the Red Vixen were discussing his current love life, or rather lack thereof. After a litany of his duties, obligations, and current guilt trips that discouraged his dating life, the Red Vixen finally gets him to admit he had a couple of flings back when his was doing his Service tour. Specifically he states:

"A few times, with a couple of my crewmates on the cruiser we were assigned to."

Never did specify what gender the crewmates were. Or whether it was one at a time.... ;)

Note: Salli is not happy about this situation...

* * *

“This is impertinent, outrageous, intolerable!” Lady Salli shouted, split skirts swirling as she paced back and forth across the pavilion. “You dare to arrest my liege-sworn servant in my domain! After being invited to be my guest no less!”

“I am obligated to follow the law,” Commander Blacksailor said stiffly. “I'm not permitted to pick and choose which bits to pay attention to.”

( Honor Before Reason )

For rix_scaedu. "A surprise package"

(spoilers for "Legacy of the Red Vixen")

* * *

"What is it?" Alinadar asked, turning the small box over in her hands.

"There are certain protocols to this sort thing that I'm ignoring," Salli said. She'd taken an emergency dose of her anti-anxiety meds. She was still shaking. "Can't ask your head of household for permission, since your family is gone. I'm not asking mine either, since technically I outrank Mother now."

"But what is it?"

"Open it and see."

Ali popped open the lid. Nestled in a bed velvet were two matching golden commitment bracelets, decorated with silver inlay.

"Alinadar Waterfarmer, would you be my wife?" Salli gasped.

jimhines has an interesting essay on his LJ about reviews for his novel Libromancer that discusses the negative reviews he's received due to the relationship the protagonists end up in at the end. And though the final relationships at the end of my own Shadow of the Red Vixen are considerable different, they might generate negative reviews as well, for entirely different reasons.

( Spoilers for both books below )