littlestartopaz asked: Harry, Corlath, and Mathin! For the headcanon meme!
Topaz, coming through with the obscure fandoms! For this ask meme, and Harry, Corlath, and Mathin are from The Blue Sword.
A: what I think realistically
I have said this before, but you can pry the headcanon from my cold dead hands. The Damarians have some tradition in which the family of the bride (and normally the husband, but Corlath is the last of his family and it’s terrible) gives her away at the wedding. Mathin stands in as Harry’s father, a parent from the Hills, and gives her away as the Daughter of the Riders after riding roughshod over Richard’s protestations. Mathin cries a little and Harry cries a little and Corlath cries a little and no one ever says anything about it except in songs and stories where the devotion of them all is hailed as Serious Business.
Corlath very quietly slaps Mathin with a small title, whatever he can get away with, as the father of the new Queen. It takes Mathin a full year to notice.
Alsooooo, Corlath can draw, although paper is expensive and therefore rare in the Hills. He goes to the trouble of getting himself paper and charcoals during the winter rains for something to do with his hands and draws pretty much only Harry, Harry on Sungold, Harry bringing down the mountains, Harry laughing at dinner, Harry smiling at him stretched out on their bed. Harry thinks it’s adorable.
B: what I think is fucking hilarious
I think we’ve discussed this but THE RIDERS HAVE TO GET BORED DURING THE WINTER RAINS.
Y’all. My dudes. Hear me out here: the Riders playing pranks on each other. Normally, the way these things shake out is “everyone is afraid of Corlath not because he’s the king but because he’s frankly terrifying between his tactical training and his kelar, but they’re more terrified of Mathin because Mathin is the ultimate Prank Lord.” And then Harry shows up and radically changes the balance of affairs.
Because listen. Harry has a bit of a learning curve to catch up with, so they go easy on her at first. But then she lays a trap for Mathin after a little bit of idle conversation with Corlath and she gets him good. Mathin, for three days, is dyed bright red with the concoction Harry managed to mix up. And it’s war. After a week and a half, Corlath and Harry make a truce of necessity–no pranks allowed in their own chambers–but otherwise Harry is an ally of whoever charms her most at the time. The fact that the servants in the City all adore Harry means that she becomes the unquestioned champion by the end of her first winter. Corlath doesn’t take it personally, honestly he’s kind of thrilled that she kicked his ass so handily–tbh Corlath is eternally that Will Smith picture when it comes to Harry, even when they’re fighting.
C: what is heart-crushing and awful but fun to inflict on friends
Corlath is the last of his family. His mother always had a fragile constitution, and died of a plague sweeping through the City. His father died not long afterward–officially in battle, but everyone agreed that is was from a broken heart. He just couldn’t face the world without her. Corlath rose to power quite young, even by the reckoning of the long-lived Hill Kings, and quite alone. The Riders were all he had left, and for all that they tried to be enough, it made the City ache to see their joyous child prince grow into a serious warrior king. Corlath still smiled, of course, but not as easily, and his bright laughter was hard-earned–it wasn’t that Corlath was depressed, it was that he was controlled, and stiffly so, at all times.
It’s hard to have close friends, let alone anything near family, when you can’t be sure of meeting anyone’s eyes. Both Corlath’s parents had kelar, and he envies them for that security–he, who carries more kelar than anyone in living memory, is always aware of how much damage he can do. He drove a servant mad, once, by accident when he was a young boy, and cried for two days until his mother managed to restore most of the man’s mind. Corlath has had few friends and fewer lovers, as a result.
Beyond all that Harry does to endear herself to the Riders, the thing that truly wins them over is that they haven’t seen so much emotion–anger and joy and frustration and everything in between–on their king’s face in long years.
D: what would never
work with canon but the canon is shit so I believe it anyway
First of all, canon is not shit and you can fight me.
But seriously, I’ve said this before too but I’m so serious about it, Harry meets Aerin in the flesh at some point. And also Aerin visits Harry in her dreams and at first Harry’s very deferential and nervous, but she lightens up over time, and Aerin gives her advice on being a queen and being a legend and being a mother. (At some point, when Harry is just exhausted of everything and frustrated with everyone and ready to ride off into the desert just to get away, Aerin turns up and tells a story about a very vain girl named Galanna who got her eyelashes shaved off and could have been rolled out a window, she was sleeping so heavily. Harry laughs herself sick in the dream and wakes up smiling for the first time in weeks.)
