#kyprioth

the entire book we see through Kyprioths visions to Aly that Alanna, above all, cares for Aly, that she really does see Aly for who she is and worries terribly for her lost, hidden daughter, angry and upset and scared. She's constantly scrying for her with the mirror Thom gave her--her daughter is missing and her husband lied to her about it.

After months and months of worrying and praying, Alanna finally knows where her daughter is. She loves George, she does, but he lied to her about her only daughter's well being. And after the 8 years of her training constantly lying to everyone Alanna is sick of it, sick of doing it and avoids it at almost all cost--but for this? For the love she has for her daughter?

She’s been worried sick, scrying every free hour, distracted and blaming herself for her daughter’s disappearance. She's not needed in Frasrland, not really, not with this stalemate at the border. The killing devices are all gone and nothing is happening there. They don't need her--but Aly does.

She’s been married to George for 20 years and she’s known him for 30--she’s picked up a few tricks on how to go around unseen, how to slip away seamlessly but first there are a few things she has to do.

Her husband with his nondescript features can roam freely.  She cannot. She’s far too distinctive nowadays, but to quote her daughter that is what razors and dyes are for. Her long hair is her pride and joy. After years of cutting it boyishly short, as well as being a good enough fighter she can have long hair--it’s her one vanity.

She loves her hair. She’d topple kingdoms for her daughter.

A short and stocky man with copper red hair isn't the ideal spy, but shes here to find her daughter--its the story she goes with. She’s looking for her daughter, a Tortallan, who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the Copper Isles.She speaks enough Carthaki to get by and well it’s not like she can’t defend herself, even with just a knife and hand to hand.

The only dead giveaway about her are her purple eyes, but she's a mage, with a powerful Gift specializing in manipulating the human body--if there's a magical way to create an illusion or temporarily change your eye color she would know it. If not, I'm sure George has found a way and she's already used it before.

This barely scratches the surface of what she’d do for Aly. She's a mage, with a powerful Gift specializing in manipulating the human body--if there's a magical way to create an illusion or temporarily change your eye color she would know it. If not, I'm sure George has found a way. She glamors her eyes to look the same as her daughter and her husband. She lightly dyes her hair, making it a more blondish red like Aly's.

She finds a young squire stationed at the border and surreptitiously steals some of his clothes and other supplies around camp, her personal weaponry far too flashy and distinctive.

Aly isn’t the only one who was trained by the King of Thieves.

You can’t tell me she’s never done anything like this with George, not wanting to be stared at by people who recognize the famous Lioness, either getting him out of some scrapes or just relaxing and having fun.

Kyprioth is sweating bullets. There's only so much he can hide, although he has far more power in the Copper Isles than Tortall so he can't stop her but he’ll do his best to hide her from the Goddess but uhhhhhhhh there’s only So Much he can do. 

Alanna is Determined--she will find her daughter and is she maybe less subtle than George was? Sure. But all the same, she’s brought to the Balitang’s home in Rajmuat and makes her way to Lombyn.

It’s the same scene, of Alanna approaching Winnamine , introducing herself as Alan Cooper and asking to buy Aly-- Winnamine realizing “Alan” isn’t really here to buy Aly.

It takes Aly just a little longer to recognize Alanna--and she comes to a halt and is filled with shock because this is the Lioness, her mother who is persona non grata to the Copper Isles due to killing one of their princesses decades ago (and wow that might actually get Ochabu to tolerate her mother) and would probably be either killed or ransomed as a hostage p much on sight, the King’s Champion, one of the most distinctive and famous women in the continent--is here.

She’s here, her hair short and lighter and her purple eyes--they’re very similar to Aly’s now. Alanna letting out a sob at the sight of her daughter--her hair also shorter, eyebrow scar, broken nose, but alive and safe and still with that spark in her eye.

Just. The PARALLELS of both having the explicit approval of their god to deceive and lie and how they both deceived so many people to achieve their goals. Aly seeing her mother engage in spycraft and trickery to try to find her is probably a better apology than Alanna could ever find the words for

Later after Alanna had her Own standoff with Kyprioth she tells Aly she didn’t want this life for her, not because she was a noble or a Trebond but because she’s Alanna’s daughter and she knows how hard it is to keep a secret and deceive the people she cared about, and how much it hurt when it all came out. That’s something George never had to deal with--George has never really had to deceive his loved ones. They’ve always known he’s Crooked and an inkling of what he’s been up to--but Alanna has. She did it for 8 long years and she was good at it too, but the amount of pain it brought her after meant she never wanted that for her daughter.

Alanna earned her shield through treachery, the constant fear of being found out dogging her footsteps and once she got it she made sure no other girl would have to.

For Aly just to be reminded how similar she really is to her mother and begrudgingly putting that together--for Kyprioth to tell Aly that yes George gave her the skills he needed that made Aly his ideal Spymaster and what she’s done so far in keeping the Balitangs safe is why he wants her to stay, but it was Alanna’s actions that really sold him on recruiting Aly in the first place.

(I have other feelings about Kyprioth and Alanna here because d a m n “they say he loves a good trick”--as a girl for 8 years Alanna fooled the Tortallan monarchy and nobility. That’s what his Promised Queen will have to do. And he is George’s patron--it would make sense that both of them loved aspects of Alanna.)

(also while she’s there it’d be hilarious for Sarai to spar against Alanna and have her ass handed to her--it’d be a great nod back to when Aly was observing Sarai and thinking about her own training bc it sure would make Ulasim wonder wait can Aly use a sword????)

I don't even buy that it was NECESSARY or realistic given the world we were introduced to. We KNOW how influential Kyprioth is in the Copper Isles, we KNOW how important that prophecy and the people in it are to the raka, and we KNOW how delicate Dove's position is when she takes power. I don't for a MOMENT believe that anyone would really truly consider it the smart sane choice to send away a resource like Aly, someone whose skills are IMMENSELY needed to keep a very new government in power, when it could easily piss off the god who chose her to represent him to his people. Aly is his messenger, he chooses her to see the things he wants her to see, he uses her to move things into place in a way he does nobody else, and I'm supposed to believe that he's stupid enough to think that Dove's government is SO SECURE a measly few years post-revolution that he can just throw away someone like Aly? I'm supposed to believe he'd ALLOW THAT and not step in to ensure it didn't happen even if other people started to come to that conclusion?

I'm supposed to believe that Aly would be considered equivalent to Taybur even though she's never served the Rittevons, is involved in the raka prophecy, and was instrumental to putting Dove on the throne? How is all of this somehow less important than just making sure every single position in the government is only filled by raka? How is it not important for Dove to ensure she has at least a few luarin in there to appease the luarin nobles, especially after the narrative makes such a big deal out of her being both raka and luarin and how it's important not to dismiss one side of her in favor of the other?

Characters' info under the cut

Just realised that Aly is both spy master (autocorrect keeps changing that to 'spam aster' which is also a career goal) of a country immediately post-revolution AND pregnant by 17 or 18 years of age. The epilogue of Tricket's Queen also implies that she has taken off her anti-pregnany charm and planned for children before their wedding.

There was no rush for her!!! So young and so busy running spy networks etc. Why doesn't she just enjoy some time being young and in love first?!

When Alanna told him she was thinking of retiring, George had laughed.

“I know you and your thinking, darlin’,” he’d said.

She’d countered that she meant it, and he knew she did, that’s what terrified him.  She knew she needed to retire, she was thinking about it, but Alanna never did anything by thinking about it, she simply did.  Or didn’t.

George laughed because it hurt too much not to.  Because his wife was beautiful and wonderful and brave, and she might think, and think, and think, but she would never retire, not really, not until after this next last mission, not until after she couldn’t anymore.

George had been thinking about Alanna retiring for a while now.  It was the way healing magic had stopped working right for her that spooked him the most.  There was the simple, straightforward terror of knowing she was going out without a safety net, the naked fact of it, that her every misstep was so much more likely to bring her death now, without being able to depend on magic to pull her back from the brink.  But it also scared him in a more bone-deep existential way.  George grew up with healing magic, his mother’s gift warm and kind beneath his skin.  Ma had used her gift on him all through his childhood, on his every scrape and bruise, to heal his every illness, or even just to make the hunger feel less pressing some nights.  George grew up steeped in healing magic, he can’t imagine how much magic you would need to pump into a person in order for it to stop working, how often and how badly a body would need to be broken, torn to pieces, in order for it to stop allowing itself to be put back together again.  

George doesn’t want to think about it, all the times his Alanna almost didn’t come home to him, all the pain her life is filled with by default.  He doesn’t want to think about the stories her scars tell him, doesn’t want to think about magic itself giving up on the body of a woman with a death wish.  But he can’t help thinking about it some nights, alone in the dark, with no way of knowing if she’s even still alive.

When George was twenty seven years old, he chose to live long enough to grow old.

It was more complicated than that.  He was going to give up the Rogue in any case, after he had betrayed it for Jonathan.  He couldn’t accept himself as its king after that, even if his people could.  But he could have done something else, fled the country, that had been what he was planning.

But Jon gave him a pardon and a Barony, papers to sign and oaths to swear, and George chose.  George chose to give up his freedom, chose to belong to Jon the way he’d promised himself he’d never belong to anyone again after he killed the old king of thieves, he chose the pardon and the Barony, he chose life.  And he chose them for Alanna.

He knows it’s more complicated than that, and he knows the circumstances aren’t comparable, but a small lonely part of him wishes she would choose the same for him.

But they aren’t comparable circumstances, and he and Alanna aren’t comparable people, Alanna will choose her duty every single time, she wouldn’t, couldn’t, choose anything else, it’s in her nature.  George knew that when he married her, and he wouldn’t change her for anything.

But still.

It would take a miracle for Alanna to retire.

“Kyprioth,” George says in his empty office, “I believe you owe me a favor.”

“Oh, are you finally collecting?”  The god asked, appearing in his office.

“Possibly,” George said, “This favor of yours, it will be something I actually want, an actual favor to me, no strings attached, no unintended consequences?”

“Of course,” said Kyprioth, seeming a little offended, “My tricks are tricks, my deals are deals and my favors are favors.  I don’t mix up the three.”

George nodded, he’d thought as much.  Of course, the god’s good intentions didn’t mean he wouldn’t ruin their lives accidentally.  Gods didn’t understand human nature, human feelings and desires, anywhere near as well as they thought they did.  Kyprioth was better than most, but even he screwed up on occasion, even in regards to people he liked.  But just this once, George would take the risk.

“I want Alanna to retire,” George said, “And I want her to be happy about it.”

“You couldn’t have asked for that just a little earlier?”  Kyprioth asked.

George could have envisioned several responses to his request, that was not one of them.  Gods were bad at taking human feelings into account, but Kyprioth was better than most, at least when it came to the specific humans he cared enough to pay attention to.  George doubted this would be the god’s way of informing him of his wife’s death.  The trickster sounded frustrated and faintly… embarrassed?

“What?” George said.

“Well you see, that particular problem is already being handled.”

“What.”

George hated it when gods made no sense.

The god sighed.  He knew how George felt about this sort of thing, and he also knew that George could be relentlessly annoying in his pursuit of answers.

“Look,” Kyprioth said, “It’s being handled.  My sister and I have a plan, we’ve already put it in motion.  And before you ask, I would count it as your favor anyway, but this plan happens to come with a pretty obvious timeline, and you’d never accept it once you realized I’d made things happen before you even asked.”

“Your sister?   The Great Mother Goddess?  I thought you hated each other.”

Kyprioth waved a hand airily.  “Oh, you know,” he said, “Family.”

George imagined Alan and Aly as gods.  Then immediately decided he didn’t want to imagine that.

“Alright,” George said, “But why? What’s in it for you?”

“Well it’s really my sister’s idea, you understand, you know how she is about Alanna,” Kyprioth said, back to being oddly embarrassed, “And well, I did sort of steal your daughter from you.”

George raised an eyebrow, “No you didn’t,” he said, “Aly stole herself.  You don’t get to take credit.”

“Fine,” he said, “I facilitated your daughter’s stealing of herself.”

“You think you owe me for that?”

“I can do things just to be nice, you know,” the god said, sounding defensive, “You’re one of my favorite people, after all.”

“Huh,” George said, “I guess I can buy that.  You know, you used to say I was your favorite person.  How’d I get downgraded?”

“Seeing as I now have my very own queen, she pretty much has to be my favorite person.  Also, I’ve met your daughter now.”

George grinned, delighted, “Well, third place ain’t bad when you put it that way,” he said, then returned to the point of the conversation, “But back to this plan of yours and the Goddess’s, we will like it, won’t we? It’s not going to ruin our lives or destroy the kingdom or anything, is it?”

The god rolled his eyes.  “No, the great sir Alanna of Pirate’s Swoop and Olau retiring will not, in fact, destroy the kingdom.  My sister thinks the plan will make her happy, but then she would,” the god shrugged, “I think Alanna will be happy too, on the whole, but I’m not sure I know here well enough to judge.  At the very least it’ll be good for her.  You will absolutely love it, though.”

“Well,” George said, “I suppose I can be satisfied by that, thank you,” he added, sincerely enough that the trickster looked deeply uncomfortable.  Kyprioth was not a god accustomed to heartfelt gratitude.

“Yes, well.  It was all the Goddess’s idea.  Are you satisfied by your interrogation, oh Whisper Man?  Can I go now, or will you keep bothering me with questions?”

“I’m satisfied,” George said, he wasn’t going to ask what the plan was, he knew how Kyprioth loved surprises, “You’re free to go annoy Aly now.  Tell her her old da says hi.”

“I don’t follow your orders, mortal,” Kyprioth said as he disappeared.

“Yes, but you want to go annoy your favorite person,” George said to thin air, knowing the god could still hear.  That was the best thing about conversations with gods.  You could always get the last word in.

Surprise, surprise, I am still in love with one(1) trickster god of the Copper Isles!!

-Aly of Pirate's Swoop, Trickster's Choice by Tamora Pierce

I love that in Aly's eyes her mother is a bigger threat than two divine beings.