Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

aethersea asked: Could you do Brenneth for your ask meme maybe? I want to get to know her better.

My brain refuses to tick over appropriately in order to ACTUALLY work on Alleirat, so here are some short li’l headcanons in the hope that it will kick something into gear.  They’re not super detailed because it’s 1 AM and I’m trying not to think about the MCAT too much.

Oh, also, while I’m at this, I’m listening to Hopeless by Halsey and it’s just.  The Most Brenneth and Crispin.  “Cause you know the good die young, but so did this, so it must be better than I think it is.”

A: what I think realistically

Brenneth likes to sing.  She picked it up while she was being trained as a blacksmith, because she doesn’t really care for quiet, and it just sort of became a thing.  Crispin has real actual-facts voice training, so he used to bring her songs that he’d learned and they would sing them together while he lurked in the corner of her forge.  It continues to be a thing to this day.  Her voice isn’t anything special—low end of alto range, fairly limited range—but she can project and she has the feel for folk songs, you know what I’m saying.  It used to be kind of Known that you could bring the singing smith a new song she’d never heard, and she would charge you a little less than usual for your job.

B: what I think is fucking hilarious

On Earth, once they’re—you know, once they’re speaking again, Brenneth calls Crispin Darth when she wants to get on his nerves.  Most of their teachers and (later) their coworkers think it’s an inside joke. It kind of is.  But an inside joke with a body count.

C: what is heart-crushing and awful but fun to inflict on friends

Torei, Brenneth’s right hand woman that first time around and her devoted amdri, wears Brenneth’s name like a brand on her soul and says that love should make you feel invincible.  

Brenneth, who multiple times a week wakes up choking from a nightmare about the last time she told someone that she loved them—you’re my best friend, Cris, of course I love you, and then he says you understand, right and she doesn’t, and that’s usually where the choking starts, a scream that doesn’t make it past her throat—doesn’t agree.  All love has ever done for her is open gaping holes in her armor, over vital organs.  

Fourteen years and four centuries later, standing between that same person—of course I love you and then the choking—and a death sentence, Brenneth still doesn’t agree.  This isn’t invincible.  This is utterly, unfathomably, unspeakably breakable.

D:  what would never work with canon but the canon is shit so I believe it anyway

Listen the book will never progress this far because I Do Not Like Writing Children and also this is highly unlikely because Crispin and also because Plot Reasons, but I like to think there’s a happy future for these poor kids where Brenneth owns a forge again and spends her time quietly making weapons and trinkets and whatever else she likes, and Crispin is basically her house husband. Given the opportunity, he would 100% like nothing more than to bring Brenneth meals and play with the kids who loiter in her forge and walk to the market while he tries to figure out how to keep the plants Krei gave them alive.  Brenneth spars for fun, rather than because she needs to keep her skills up, and Crispin grows his hair out long again because he can stand to look at himself in the mirror.  They sit on their roof at ungodly hours of the night—they have a deal with the local Lai Dase population, to the tune of try us, we dare you, so no one hassles them—and drink wine straight from the bottle and look at the stars and sing off-key and fall asleep in uncomfortable positions, with Crispin’s head in Brenneth’s lap.

Basically what I’m saying is that, despite whatever else they might be into, both Crispin and Brenneth have gotten to the point in their lives where their absolute top kink is domesticity.  Like, once you’ve literally tried to murder each other, falling asleep on the couch together becomes Some Weird Shit.  And as much as I’m enjoying putting them through hell sometimes I like to pretend that they will literally ever get to indulge in it.

Anyway I’ve been attempting to Novel for almost five hours now and I’ve decided that clearly I am too aggravated to write an emotionally wringing trial and sentencing.  All I really want to do is talk about Shiko wearing flower crowns made by her girlfriend and Brenneth and Crispin sitting on a roof and looking at stars while they mutually get drunk on the most expensive wine Crispin can get his hands on and the fact that Brenneth and Krei are actually legally family according to Alleirai law.

So if you also wanna talk about that, hit me up so that I can pretend I’m being productive.

Summary of today’s writing: Crispin, dude, please stop actively inhibiting the attempts to save your fucking life.

Anonymous asked: Crispin 14

I’m combining two anonymous asks for this thing that a bunch of people ended up doing against my expectations, because they are both about my poor murder boy.  Poor Crispin, he makes so many bad choices.

14: Are they prone to outbursts (of violence, extreme emotion… exc… )?

…shockingly, no.  Not even the White Wolf was really prone to losing control of himself.  Losing his temper, maybe, but Crispin was raised as a diplomat, with exceptional control over his emotions (this emotional repression may have been a contributor to his eventual snap).  He has always been prone to very cold anger–Crispin has always been the type where he can hold onto his temper until the most opportune moment to release it and then flay someone alive with a totally bland expression.  Like, is he an incredibly dangerous, violent, impassioned person? Yes, 100%.  But those things are always released with the sort of steel-eyed calculating precision to have the maximum impact.  Which is somehow more nervewracking when he’s on the ‘right’ side of things.

44: What’s one thing they wish they could do more often, but can’t?

Crispin genuinely really likes children.  He’s great with them.  He used to hang out at Brenneth’s smithy before everything went to hell and the kids who drifted through (Brenneth didn’t immediately kick them out and told good stories, so she was something of a hit) adored him.  The kids used to call the two of them pesaruld Crispin and pelali Brenneth (big brother and big sister).  Crispin would love to be able to spend more time with children.

Naturally, absolutely no one trusts him with their children.

Anonymous asked: Brenneth and Crispin 16 if you don't mind. Love your work. :)

Listen I just want you all to know that I expected to get zero (0) asks for this, MAYBE one from a close friend or my mother or something who was trying to humor me.  And now I have Many.  Like eight all told.  I have no idea if this is just one really curious anon or if this story got popular but welcome to my kingdom, you may call me my liege.

16: Is there anyone who makes them feel inferior?

I mean, each other, tbh.  And they have understandable reasons for this, which doesn’t help their respective buckets of Problems.

So, Crispin’s reasons for thinking Brenneth is better than him are pretty plain and simple.  Crispin knows that he was the villain of their story, and as much as he might hate himself for it, he knows that Brenneth did the right thing.  He knows that–regardless of whether he was necessarily compos mentis at the time–he killed a lot of people and attempted a takeover, and Brenneth was the hero who came in to stop him, no matter the cost.  Beyond that, Crispin genuinely believes that Brenneth is a hero, talented and clever and stubborn and strong, and even though he has a very accurate grasp of his own skills and abilities, he’s always thought that Brenneth was severely underappreciated by the people around her.  This translated into more than one extremely ill-advised attempt to get her to side with him during his stint as the White Wolf.

And like moreover Brenneth won.  Brenneth isn’t just the hero, in Crispin’s mind, she’s the victor.  Obviously she’s better than him.

Brenneth, on the other hand, has very similarly logical (if…debatable) reasons for her feeling that Crispin is better than her.  First of all, she was passed over for the prophecy when they first arrived in Alleirat as kids, and that has an impact–Crispin was fated to be the great hero, according to the people who took them in, and Brenneth still feels some of that imposter syndrome, like she stole his title or cheated him out of it, even though he very much surrendered that right when he started murdering folk.  Second of all, flat-out Crispin was better in combat for much of their time fighting each other.  Like, it was an objective reality, he had trained as a warrior and a diplomat exclusively while Brenneth was both a blacksmith and a warrior.  No level of natural talent (and Brenneth is very talented) can make up for that kind of time devoted to practice.  Don’t get me wrong, she did a good job–she poisoned him once or twice, fought to the best of her ability when they clashed, tried to blind him one time–but Crispin was just having more success, better luck.  There was even a time where he believed he had successfully managed to kill her (and in his defense, stabbing someone in the chest and burying them alive in an avalanche does seem pretty foolproof).  By the end of their four years, the two of them were well-matched, almost perfectly equal in skill, but that time of knowing that Crispin was more competent left its mark.  Brenneth believes–erroneously, perhaps, but no one can prove her right or wrong–that if she was as good as Crispin, she would have been able to save him from himself.

Anonymous asked: UM HI. So I'm the one that sent the ask about the magical gf things and I have a confession. I already knew it was from your magical book and was kinda subtly hoping you would talk about it?!?!?! I"M SO SORRY but like I said I'm so invested in this crap and would read the entire frikin thing. ALSO I LOVED THE EXCERPT. And now I'm leaving before I disgrace myself any further.

WAIT NO DON’T LEAVE

SO HERE’S IRONY FOR YOU: you came in and didn’t want to bug me so you asked in like a sideways way, BUT I DIDN’T WANT TO BUG YOU, so I didn’t talk about it.  (I’m a mess, I’m sorry, y’all gotta be explicit about this stuff because I have no self-confidence.)

BUT ON THAT NOTE let’s talk about perceptions of sex and romance in Alleirat?  Like?  I’m into it?

Earth is where the trouble comes from

So you know the code of chivalric love, where like the fair and pure maiden is adored from afar by the knight and on the one hand it’s kind of cool but on the other hand it’s predicated on the fair and pure maiden who can’t reciprocate or even really acknowledge what’s going on?  I like that first half but the second half bothers me like FUCK so I made a better version.

In Alleirat, sex and romance are considered linked, but not intrinsically so–having casual sexual partners is fine as long as your partner is aware and good with it, and sexual experimentation is considered normal (even expected) between the ages of like 16 and like mid-to-late twenties.  (People who are like ‘I am gay/straight and I am EXCLUSIVELY gay/straight and I have never experimented with another gender’ are considered weird and kind of to have missed out?  Like, they’re thought of as…having skipped an important life stage?  Societies Are Problematic, is my point here.)  Monogamy is common, but not mandatory, and conditional monogamy (which I’m about to get into) is pretty normal.

So, the courtly love arrangement, which is called amuniasa.  Like, say that you are a woman and you work closely with another woman, and you fall in love with her.  And you’re very much in love with her (commitment is Serious Business in Alleirat and cheating is considered an actual crime) and you tell her as much.  Now she has two options.  Either she can take you up on it and you can attempt a relationship, or she can acknowledge the honor you’re doing her with your feelings and declare herself amiasa, or ‘the beloved.’  Then you have the choice to remain committed to her as amdri (the lover).  Some basic rules of amuniasa include:

• Amuniasa is generally given the same level of importance as marriage, and there are a very short list of reasons that are considered valid to dissolve it.  

• Amdrin and amiasan are permitted, but not required, to engage in other romantic and sexual relationships.  It is common and accepted for someone to have both a spouse and an amdri/amiasa, although it’s not frowned upon if someone devotes themselves wholly to their amiasa.
• Brenneth’s right-hand during their previous stint in Alleirat (Krei The Tree Lesbian’s mother Torei) was Brenneth’s amdri, and never took another romantic partner during the remainder of her life.  Brenneth and Torei are held up as sort of the Platonic ideal of devotion and amuniasa.  (Krei’s coloring also suggests that her father looked like Brenneth, but she never met him.)

• The amiasa has a limited period of time to change their mind (often one year), and leading your amdri on with hints that you might one day return their feelings (or with sex) is considered incredibly cruel and dishonorable, and is a valid reason to dissolve the relationship.  (Your amdri is functionally off limits for sex for this reason.)

• Hassling your amiasa and trying to force them to return your feelings is not permitted and is a valid reason to dissolve the relationship.  It can also get you arrested, sent out of the city, or placed under what basically sums up as a restraining order.

• It is standard for the amdri to give gifts to their amiasa, or to perform great deeds in their name if they’re in a position to do so (also a thing that Torei is considered the ideal of).  Alternatively, an amdri might cook for their amiasa or perform another kind of service, like braiding hair, tending children, etc.  This is because Alleirat views service and gift giving as a mandatory core of every romantic relationship (…this extends to orgasms), not because the amdri is viewed as in any way subordinate or servile to their amiasa.  The amdri considers it a privilege to perform service and give gifts, and the amiasa recognizes the honor being accorded to them.

• It’s actually not common for amdri and amiasa to continue working closely unless it’s necessary, as it’s believed that this is unfair to the amdri.  They interact largely socially and on their own terms, to the extent that the amdri is comfortable with–this might be several visits in a week, or the amdri might travel quite a distance.  (Torei is considered an outlier, as she took a position as the captain of her amiasa’s guard and proceeded to live, work, and spend all her time with Brenneth for four years.  …there are songs about Torei’s devotion and selflessness and disregard for her own pain, is what I’m getting at here.)

• It IS common for your amdri or amiasa to know your children, if you have any, and is generally considered their de facto guardian in the event of a disaster.

• It is NOT UNHEARD OF for someone to executively decide not to even try to have a relationship and act as an amdri without telling their amiasa.  This is generally because they believe they have no chance with the other person and that their attention would make their amiasa uncomfortable, such as a man falling in love with a lesbian, or someone falling in love with someone aromantic.  This is considered fine, but it also means that you have no formal claim on the other person.
• This can also be because they have a terrible (justified) guilt complex and believe that the other person could never reciprocate as a result of four years of mutual attempted murder.  Not that I’m in any way vagueblogging about any of my characters here.

ANYWAY THIS HAS BEEN A PRIMER ON LOVE AND ROMANCE IN ALLEIRAT, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO ASK OTHER QUESTIONS.

Right, so, there’s been some interest in this?  So here, this is like a 1.5K snippet that I wrote yesterday, a conversation between the main character (Brenneth) and Crispin, with a little bit of Krei (the Tall Tree Lesbian) at the end there.  I think this is…pretty much self-explanatory, but here is the ‘Earth is where the trouble comes from’ novel explanation.

Crispin was in the last cell to the left of the door, with the wall beside him, and on the side facing the entrance—no windows. His hands were bound with fresh apas cord, the wrists pressed together tightly enough that he could struggle if he attempted to break free.  He seemed in good health, uninjured from what I could see. His hair was even clean, the curls falling around his face like copper wire in the lantern light.

Crispin, I thought with a bitter rush of guilt, probably had not been given the luxury of fine soaps and a private bath.

He seemed to catch the thought on my face and pointed at me.  “Hey, none of that,” he said in his most commanding voice.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” I said automatically, and scowled when he grinned at me.  “And don’t be an ass, I’m trying to help you.”

Crispin’s good humor faded, leaving a small, sad smile behind as he glanced me over, eyes lingering on the spike in my hair and the new belt around my hips.  “They got you a sword,” he noted quietly, and my hand dropped to the pommel at my side, smoothing over the unornamented hilt.  

The weight of the sword was a strange dual sensation—it was intrinsically familiar and reassuring to the part of my that had hated to walk unarmed for a decade and a half on Earth, but my muscles didn’t remember how to compensate for it, had never learned how to walk without bumping the scabbard with my leg.  I was feeling the ache from the time I had spent in the training grounds, trying to force my body to accustom itself to the weight of a blade again, and I would pay for it tomorrow.  My palms would blister and my legs would tremble.  For the first time in years, I felt like a stranger in my body again, hating the way that my hands hurt from the hilt and the way my shoulders complained bitterly at me. The sword was a small token comfort against it.

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