#skreeeeee

I updated Traveling Thieves today! I'm very, very excited to see everyones reactions to this chapter, Ren and Martyn continuing to try and figure each other out...some little bits of foreshadowing have been tossed around, some more obvious than others, so we'll see how everyone feels about that.

Checks window...oh would you look at that. I can see the angry mob and pitchforks already...is now the part where I start running?

Don't forget, y'all came here for the angst and hurt/comfort! 😉

" look--" the TIME LORD started hesitantly, exhaling. the lights on the time rotor spun slowly above, occasionally illuminating the glint of hurt that resided in his stare.

" what I'm trying to say is-- " he shuffled closer toward his daughter, gently taking both of her hands. lips parted, but nothing came out. this five letter word always dripped so heavy.

" I'M SORRY. " even saying it felt like finally getting to the top of a hill. he guessed the rest would be easy.

" that it took me so long to find you. that you were alone. all of it. " she was suddenly embraced, the doctor cradling her head against him.

so there are multiple things there that Catherine's narration kind of glosses over, and tbf it's for good reason! Catherine is not a braggy kind of person in her narration, if she goes "I'm fucking awesome" it's to psyche herself up for some new bullshit, not to rest on her laurels, and it's honestly fantastic and helps the narrative a lot, that said, we should all totally step back and appreciate that

1) Catherine is seriously for real inheriting Callow here. Like this is not a trick? This is not a clever wording loophole? Catherine is literally at that point in the process of putting her ducks in a row for her "Callow is now mine bitches" plan, and while it's not exactly immediately transitioning to her being in charge of everything solo, she is very much getting the inheritance of ruling Callow from her father teacher I said teacher

2) Catherine put her life on the line for her people twice over - on an increasingly thin one. First she goes into the city of Liesse itself while knowing about the pattern - she's unwilling to let William claim his victory here in this way :) and this might sound obvious, especially for someone who's just read the book, but - there's nothing selfish about this. Catherine gains nothing from besieging Liesse (except very marginal OR very low likelihood potential gains that would 100% not be worth the risk) and loses nothing from retreating to the Legions, this is purely for the sake of the population of Liesse itself. Second she goes specifically to seek William out to deal with the devil problem (WHICH WAS ALSO BEAUTIFUL AND AMAZING AND I JUST WANTED TO POINT THIS FACT OUT. IT WAS BEAUTIFUL AND AMAZING HOW SHE DID THAT RIP AKUA'S LOOPHOLE CAT'S GONNA DRIVE A TRAIN THROUGH IT)  (oh and also this would help the rebel forces which HER forces were actively fighting at the time, just to harp on this point a bit more) - again, while knowing that a pattern of three is active and she's fated to lose. She did her best struggling but she KNEW she was going to lose. And the plan for her to survive was like... 1. die 2. become undead 3. convince a choir they want to support her over their champion. Like, can we all appreciate how insane a plan that is? Catherine went with it straight-faced, and like... Paradoxically, I'm pretty sure it's because it was insane that it actually worked. Because Catherine knew it was absurd, knew she was basically laying down her life for this one city, and she did it anyway. She threw her life down and dared angels to say she wasn't worthy of what she wished to claim.

Because none of this was a trick. Cat’s narration kind of focuses on the part that WAS tricky wording / loopholes, and it sure is convenient that Heiress was there to represent "the enemy" that Cat was presumably protecting Callow from... she was though? Like I'm sure Akua's presence helped drive the symbolism down with the subtlety of a dropped anvil, but factually Cat's goal is to stand between the worst of Praes and Callow, and even her helping tamp down this rebellion ALREADY IS actively working to minimize casualties (Black had changed his strategy due to her involvement). Getting William to confirm that the chapel is Callowan land is more along the lines of not letting Akua get away with a loophole (also fucking hilarious, "could be relied upon to fuck over at least one person in the room" no I didn't reread I just remember that because I adore it). Of course the chapel is in Callow in every meaningful sense! It's attached to Liesse and events in it are going to ripple out into and then from Liesse geographically, that's the entire problem! If the chapel wasn't Callowan Cat wouldn't give a shit and wouldn't have given her fucking life (SHE'S LITERALLY DEAD AT THAT POINT, A SKILLED NECROMANCER WHO MANAGED TO OVERPOWER MASEGO COULD PUPPET HER) to get there!

None of this is a trick! The sword in the stone was a decorative flourish and not even a part of Cat's original plan, because the thrust if it was not the #CallowanAesthetic. The thrust if it was the authentic narrative, in the sense of A=>B: when the person whose job is about to be ruling Callow gives their life to protect its people, and the protection takes the form of getting to a point of contact with angels to get them to switch tracks from doing one thing to another (importantly, Akua also wanted to mess with William's ritual, Cat hijacking it first locked her out!), well then in that situation the angels kind of have a job to do.

And if their chosen champion is the SOURCE of the original problem and this new person who's coming in for a last minute save is literally his deadly nemesis and about to kill him... well fucking sucks for them, I guess! They are angels. They have a job, and when something's gone wrong with how they're doing it, the course corrections can be rough.

Cat did not do a sleight of hand here. Cat full on committed to a course of action that was going to achieve her chosen goal - interrupting both William and Akua - even if the resurrection trick didn't work and it killed her. Cat straight up laid down her life for her people, then asked for it back.

And the way Guideverse works, when things line up just so... well, the chapter is named that for a reason :)

I will also contrast it to Akua’s “pattern of three” plan, because it’s an excellent example of how things DON’T work - of how they work when you are doing it wrong, and how tricks that really ARE tricks blow up in your face. A pattern of three works on symmetry and reversal - claim the victory at first, get inevitably defeated at the last moment. And it’s not that it’s impossible to abuse that, but you gotta PAY. You always gotta pay if you want the result to be real. Akua tried to avoid payment - she lost NOTHING in that first confrontation with Cat that she so demonstrably lost except underlings she didn’t care about (RIP those people). Akua got a technical loss that was actually a victory in every sense that mattered... well hey, guess what the pattern reversed into!

That’s the difference between basing your story on something real - something that would have worked this way in a non-narrativium world too - and trying to cheat your way through loopholes. Would non-narrativium world Akua have fled from that confrontation with Catherine, if she’d seriously considered her a rival and enemy? Nope, not unless she had the same “outsmarting herself” sort of plan Cat would later get to foil. Would non-narrativium world Catherine have gone into Liesse to put her life on the line against both her nemeses at once to save its people? Well... yeah. It’s the same thing with or without story lenses. That’s why it works.

And that’s why it’s fucking awesome.