#loquaerryn

AABRIA: I'm going to use this moment to shine a little light on Sam here, because when we first planned for the divorced couple, it was like, "Oh, what a fun little side arc, and we'll just get to snipe at each other, and it'll be cute to occasionally try to have her–" It was a knock down drag our who can hurt the other person's feelings more, and I have never been so thoroughly warmed than by Sam making me ugly cry into my own hands every episode. Okay, well, I'm fully in my feelings and I'm going to fight him in the parking lot. Tight tight tight.

SAM: Yeah. No, it was cool because I went into it thinking the same thing you were, like this is going to be fun to yell at each other and be cruel to each other, but once we started to play– sorry, I'm out of breath, you guys. [...] Once we started to play, I realized that the choices I had made in the character build, and also in our backstory, it wasn't really like a– Everyone had these dark dark dark secrets that they were trying to conceal, and I had a little one. But I just thought it would be super cool if my dark dark secret was that I just really liked you a lot. [...] And I really missed you. It felt as we got closer to the end that that was the payoff that my character certainly needed and also, in a way, yours with as lofty goals as you had, to ground it into a relationship was– I don't know. It felt like the right path to go, and you were so amazing to play off of and to yell at but also to kiss, and it was amazing to work with you and to be side by side when we did. I wish we could have been across the table from each other, just because I wanted to see your eyes more.

AABRIA: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Quay’s broadcast caught fire in the minds of the surviving bards, the passionate plea and beautiful memorial serving as a near endless source of motivation and inspiration.

And many of them already wrote love songs, poems and stories, so when their own life yielded no one beloved or striking enough to call a muse, they wrote odes to “the most beautiful woman in the world.”

Most simply allowed the lyrics to transfer onto whoever in their life was worth dedicating love songs to.

honoring his closest friends, the ring of brass, with their strengths and values. comparing cathmoira and avalir to his experience as a divorced man. how promises are binding, valuable—no matter how far beloveds drift apart.

but near the end of his speech, quay simply called laerryn: “the most beautiful woman in the world”. there’s many words he could’ve used to detail his unending love for laerryn, but none would suffice. how could this reporter even BEGIN to express why he stuck by her side, no matter what? gave up safety, his place in the seelie court, to die in laerryn’s arms? all in the span of one short speech, at the precipice of ruin?

it would never be enough. so she’s simply the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen. and ever will see. 🫶🏼