A song for two voices - book 6

[swimmer963]

This story is getting HARD to write and I'm not super happy with this draft yet, especially re: pacing, there is way less intense action and it's much more a bunch of loosely connected side plots than I would prefer, and it probably doesn't end in the right place, but it's already taken me forever and is at like 180,000 words, so here, have a rough draft :)

(Note: I have made a bunch of changes to book 5 since the last draft I posted here, which means there isn't perfect continuity between the old book 5 and this section. I've listed major plot-relevant changes below, and I've also linked to the more recent and improved version of book 5.) 

Book 6 MOBI
Book 6 EPUB
Book 6 RTF 



Covers:
*Savil and Van trying to patch things up after the events of the end of book 5. Drama.
*Some clarification on what Leareth is up to, in case you were curious.
*Lots of magical research.
*Stef and Medren have adventures.
*Political drama. Vanyel is not great at politics. 
*There miiiiight be a side plot where Need shows up.
*Jisa getting trained as a Mindhealer.
*Checking in Lissa, Karis, Shavri, Tran, etc etc etc (there are too many characters in this series and they are all amazing and deserve their own side-story, damn it Mercedes Lackey)


New Book 5 MOBI
New Book 5 EPUB
New Book 5 RTF








Major plot changes made from last draft of book 5: 
-Rolan doesn't come back right away, and Tran gets re-Chosen by Delian instead. (Justification: I think it loses a lot of the impact of Taver's death to have Rolan immediately show up as a replacement) 
-Jaysen still dies but no longer calls Final Strike (because my friend thought there it was too much "a chain reaction of spontaneously combusting Heralds") 
-MOST IMPORTANT: the mystery of Leren's assassination attempt is resolved within book 5 and Vanyel finds out it was Leareth's plot. (I mean, I *think* this was canon already, but main thing is that Van already knows what's up by the beginning of book 6) 

Comments

[kaza999]

part of the charm of lhm is because van is such a heroic, mythical figure in the rest of valdemar, and seeing him be so human is really interesting. basically, van is a complete mess no matter what universe :D

these poor people are in such a mess...and on top of being pissed at van, savil and fandes, there's the very real self-blame (i really loved when shavri and savil especially recognized that van is like this because valdemar needed a weapon)--yfandes is subject to companion duties/programmings, savil and van subject to their own heraldic duties that sometimes superscede personal ones, and of course, the gods fucking around with everyone's lives.

i like the exploration of the end result of van's own personal philosophies--he considers conflict and war intrinsically bad, and had circumstances been different, he probably could have pacifist leanings. his distaste of destiny and problems with authority shine through in particular here--ofc he's going to listen to leareth, because, well, maybe he has a point. ultimately van's behavior is totally logical considering circumstances (in particular his increasing stress and alienation, as well as deteriorating mental state)

(i loved how stef is quietly the most sympathetic to van in the blood magic matter. 'cold bastard, but our cold bastard' i love that! that's very stef, and it's good early stef/van relationship building--they have each other's backs, where savil and yfandes and medren might push to guide, or jisa and shavri and randi need support, stef and van are more partners, complete with similar moral compasses)

more jisa and van would be good, actually! vanyel's mind and aura looks so different from everyone else's, due to the broken lifebond--clearly jisa knows something is very wrong with him, but no one has explained it, because it's such a difficult concept. i could see jisa approaching van with questions about why his mind is like that (that could also lead into conversations about lifebonds in general, and in particular shavri and randale)

yeah, i was trying to visualize what a broken lifebond would look like, actually, in particular what van might look like to jisa or another mindhealer, and it's really a tricky thing to try and express:

[swimmer963]

Oh my god that drawing is giving me feels, aaaaaaaaaaah. Poor Van. Poor Jisa. Yeah, I think no one has tried to explain it to her, because people think she isn't old enough and how would you even start that conversation with a seven-year-old. (And maybe Shavri firmly tells her *not* to ask Van about it, because she thinks he wouldn't want to talk about it, but it comes up later anyway?)

(Jisa would be well positioned to be the first to notice when Van & Stef end up lifebonded, which could be veeeeeery interesting. I am not totally sure how lifebonds work but my vague model is that they aren't properly lifebonded yet at this point?)

Stef is so great. My model of his ethics is that he's extremely pragmatic about it, and considers very few moral rules to be "real" – and Vanyel has ended up at a similar point, from a different starting position and for different reasons.

[swimmer963]

Also, man, no matter how much Vanyel grows as a person (and he has, so much), there are circumstances under which he will make predictably TERRIBLE choices. Like "my Companion just left, clearly the best thing to do in this situation is not tell anyone and also not sleep until I figure out what to do" damn it Van if you thought about it for two seconds you could guess EXACTLY how that is going to go.

[kaza999]

i think lifebonds begin to 'take root' when someone meets their lifebonded, but the lifebond doesn't get developed properly until both parties have an actual relationship with each other. jisa might notice something a little different about van after he's met stef, but it probably wouldn't be easy to identify.

[swimmer963]

Kaza, I feel like you should know that, um, at our work retreat this past weekend, management did surprise gifts for everyone, and my colleague ended up with a bespoke mug with your art on one side (the first one, above) and the quote "all knowledge is worth having" on the other side, which worked *remarkably* well, and he was so delighted that he hid under a pillow. Lmk what sort of recognition you want for it being your art.

[kaza999]

Wow! I'm glad my art is being enjoyed 😊

First I want to see that mug😄

And just let people know where you get my art from--i don't really have an online presence except for dreamwidth, so link (or whatever) to my dreamwidth

[swimmer963]

My friend was so happy! He sent me a picture of his wife enjoying it as well. Not sure how to embed pictures in comments, but, see in google drive here? https://drive.google.com/open?id=1hOUfmJHsLWVkBR1h1ua11AI6iqRyubjM

[kaza999]

I'm so glad they like it!