#jazzhandsmcleg

I can’t believe I missed this! What a treat. You’re right that the mundane/routine/logistics don’t get focused on as much as the more exciting doings and it makes perfect sense/requires a very different type of book to make work, but man I love this kind of thing. …Also, “I’m a gryphon :)” really made me laugh.

Yeah, I don't know that it's a concept I could hold up for something more novella-length or longer, but it's fun to explore in something a bit shorter, you know?

This one I think you might have just called ‘Roan Has It So, So Bad (and also has unwelcome guests)’. I appreciate your restraint. XD It tickles me that good looks and horrible personalities alike run in the MacArra family. Doesn’t matter! Eilidh escaped with her life but she still got owned pretty thoroughly by your “dog”-skull wearing bumpkin, and in some ways the fact that she doesn’t know it is the cherry on top of the sundae.

In more than one sense! 'Hopelessly besotted' and 'desperately lonely' aren't a brilliant combination of emotions for her.

And yeah, 'Hot, but also The Worst' are recurring traits in their family. There are several very good reasons why their grandmother elected not to live at Castle MacArra, and most of them were related to her. I feel like that one guard probably did have his suspicions that Roan knew more than she was letting on, but as far as he's concerned his job is just to make sure Eilidh doesn't get herself killed while she's out looking for Daro, not to actually help her look for him. I do wonder how far they ended up going before they gave up, though.

The skull of a common seal looks like this, by the way, so I suppose it's not entirely unreasonable to mistake it for some kind of dog.

I really liked this one. Lorna and Vala are at fundamental odds as people and as members of different cultures, and their shared history is nowhere near enough to negate that – but it’s clear that their being sisters still counts for something serious to both of them, however unwillingly or oddly. Then, contrasting the glimpse into the Sea People’s world with a more intimate (and more familiar to the reader) look at Lorna’s cozy new home life…chef kiss. I also enjoyed the little look into Sea People culture! And Whale Sister is a great name for a ship, imo.

I get the impression that, all things considered, Lorna probably does have fond memories of her sister, who I'd estimate is about five to six years older than her; even in as warlike a society as the Sea People they did your typical kid stuff together, like playing hide and seek in the Orca Clan's keep and pulling pranks on each other and the rest of their family. It was only as they grew older that they started drifting apart, when Vala started her warrior training and Lorna got her first good look at some of the more violent aspects of their culture.

LOVE this. My favorite parts are how reasonable the fare is and the fact that the Dogleg line is very much just that. XD Are the trams gryphon-accessible??

The fares are inspired by (though somewhat cheaper than) how it works on the buses here in Edinburgh. So if you're only going to be taking one or two trams in any given day, it's cheaper to just pay each journey individually, but if you're going to be taking three or more then a day ticket is more economical.

I don’t know why exactly but I’m just tickled by the construct that walks on the waterwheel. Is there a class element to the question of horses vs. constructs?

Yes, but the exact nature of that element can vary depending on where you are. It’s kind of like owning a horse vs owning a car; for people in urban areas where there’s less room to keep one, owning an actual flesh-and-blood horse can be a bit of a status symbol considering all the expenditure needed to feed and house it, whereas you don’t need to feed a construct and it doesn’t need more space than the amount it physically occupies (and it differs from a car in that you don’t need to fuel it, either).

oh to be an old man on a horse with an incredibly judgemental drinking horn