thinking about a roleswap... (cloho)
after finishing the latest episode of cloho (spoilers ahead), i keep rotating a tentative au in my head, namely a roleswap between marya and ludmila.
i mean, think about it. perhaps comfrey intervenes sooner to stop the straka disaster from occurring, and perhaps, instead of escaping, marya demands that her protege be saved first. ludmila is young, after all, sky-eyed and brimming with a limitless potential yet untapped; why should she be doomed to a fiery death in the maws of straka?
and so ludmila is saved, but marya is not. straka attacks, marya is taken— (and in another world of fire and metal, in a time far in the past, marya is forced to become the queen of zern to survive.)
ludmila has no knowledge about zood, much less zern. would marya have even told her about such things, given how the wind riders all seemed to hold some doubt as to zood's existence before they set off? encumbered by survivor's guilt, paralysed by this great loss, she retreats, loses herself — until a trio (of olethra, maxwell, daisuke) come knocking about scrapsylvania much later on, looking for marya junková and only finding her protege.
do i have much more than this? nothing much, unfortunately; there's still so much lore that we're getting in future episodes. but god, i love thinking about it. the shift in dynamics in the wind riders with marya gone and ludmila in her place — would ludmila be in the same corner as monty as people that comfrey dislikes, given ludmila was saved over marya? maybe van would grow protective over ludmila given she was marya's protege, and especially since marya was once "the kid" of the crew.
(and beyond ludmila— what would a zern ruled by marya look like? in canon, ludmila is already implied to be so dangerous and terrifying but she was, at the end of the day, marya's protege. how much more powerful would this queen of zern be, in that regard?)
[thank you to @herkimer-aurora for letting me yap to you about this o7]
