More Water Song art

[pyraxis]

From the left: Amber, Puma, Fiona, Sha, Gillian, Ua'lin, catman


Shashigai laughs every time he sees it. "Ua'lin doesn't look like that!"

But she does, to the people who fear her, and during the time of the Water Song, there were plenty of reasons to fear her.

Comments

[tigerweave]

So androgynous. Ua'lin, that is. Well I think so anyway :-)

[pyraxis]

Yeah, she is. She's only female because of social expediency, as in the tradition on Ua is that the raba has to be a woman. I think I've said that before. But the dynamic of the gender roles varies from one royal house to another. There's always a raba and her anza, who's like the second-in-command or the secound-highest ranked. When Lin first became raba, she took Qi as her anza, who was a very friendly and nurturing kind of person. It worked really well with Lin's kind of harsh and demanding personality, though Qi tended to do a lot of running behind her and smoothing things over when she ruffled too many feathers. But when Qi left, and she had to take a new anza and chose Javik, the dynamic changed. Javik's gentle but very distant, and he shirked his duties a lot. He liked it better spending time in the library instead of going to all the diplomatic functions. So there was only Lin to hold the house together, and while she can be all majestic and imposing at the right moment, the house was weaker for no longer having Qi's warmth. Now Lin is finally losing patience with Javik's passive refusal to do what she thinks an anza should, and she's looking for new candidates, but she hasn't found anybody yet.

[tigerweave]

It sounds to me like a good thing she can see that she needs that gentler person to balance her out. Where does she look for new candidates?

[pyraxis]

I don't know yet. Shashigai and Pyraxis might be going into the Dreaming to find out.

[tigerweave]

Not you too? *curious*

[pyraxis]

*shakes head* Pyraxis is better with Shashigai than me. I've done some things there but she talks to him more naturally.

Also would you tell me if I ever said Dreaming stuff in a way that was offensive in Australia? I was thinking about it and it seems like one of the things that is very important is which stories you tell, like some people have by right of inheritance a certain set of stories. So as long as I don't go near those it's ok. But you'd still know better than I would.

[tigerweave]

I don't know, to be honest. I just don't know enough about it to be able to say it's ok or not. Though I think it probably is ok, what you write and how you use it. It really is... where does the specific cultural term of Dreaming (An English term to describe a very non-english cultural concept!) become a more general description of a more general concept? Rather like when does Hoovering become using a Hoover vacuum cleaner, and when does it become vacuuming in general? Or googling is another one!

I'll ask my friend, she might be able to help, but she'll really only have her own people's experience to go by.

It's good to ask though. Like being respectful is good!

:-)

[pyraxis]

Cool, thank you. :)

I'm making cookies tonight! Chocolate chip.

[tigerweave]

No worries.

Oh yum!!!