@veliseraptor ah! what a delightful question

honestly, it's Sinnih's death (sorry, the dog does die in this story). I resisted for soooo long (literally years) and then once I figured out how she was going to die, I was like a giddy little goblin doing the evil finger dance

Her leg was mangled, back crushed. Even if her leg could be amputated, there was no curing a trampled spine. White showed around her eyes and frothed at her lips with each panting whimper. A hand encroached at the edge of his vision, an anba offered hilt-first. Looking up, Callebero found Sirion looking down at Sinnih with a gutted expression. He took the knife. “Hold her head,” he said, as if from a distance. “She's always liked you.”

I think the fun part of it is not just that I get to shoot Callebero into the angst pit like a pumpkin out of a trebuchet but the way it (hopefully!) works both in-universe and for me, personally, the target audience of this book. Bc in-universe, Sinnih is sort of Callebero's last vestige of a home he can never return to and is the one constant in his life from childhood to present day: when he's home in Ancelm, she's at his side, when he's at war she's at his side; when everyone else leaves, she remains. So her death is really him reaching the point of no return, that moment where it hits that the world he felt he belonged in is well and truly gone and he's somehow still here but can never go back.

There's also some nice little angst built in for Sirion, who has already been having a Pretty Shit Year and now is watching his best friend lose core chunks of his family but feels cosmically restricted from doing anything to comfort him both because he feels like he already got said best friend killed once and because that best friend has been basically informally newly appointed as a living god. Yay!!

“You asked what rumors I’d heard,” Gianntoë continued, furious. “Perhaps it was wrong to call them such. Can you truly pretend you’ve done anything but tumble into the Bloodletter’s bed and drag all of Capall down with you?”             

Jisel jerked her hands out of the water, fingers curling into fists. She wanted to hit Gianntoë. She wanted to upend the entire bloody bowl. She stared, chest heaving, as Gianntoë lifted her chin stubbornly

a prince who is seventh in line for the throne and never expected to inherit gets apprenticed to the royal forest ranger. when his mentor goes missing, he goes out into the woods to find him and meets a witch, who decides she would like to marry him. he gives her the standard issue Impossible Quest that the kings and queens of this country have been using to get rid of witches and wizards for hundreds of years. except she manages to do it. which means magically-legally he has to marry her. except he can't, because in the meantime, and through no desire of his own, he ended up inheriting the throne after all, and he's already married.

but most of the story is about a kitchen maid trying to break the curse cast on him and and the kingdom after that.

status: trucking along. i stupidly thought i'd be done by now.

here's an excerpt from the chapter i wrapped up last night:

I downloaded some mods (Paragade here we come!!!) and started my first Mass Effect game with me at the controls to assist in the Pride and Prejudice/Mass Effect fusion fic, since this Shep combines aspects of both Elizabeth and Darcy in the AU.

5. odysseus in the underworld, book 11.

did you know that you can't embrace a ghost even if you try three times? even if the ghost is your mother?

4. nausicaa discovers a disreputable vagrant, book 6.

the odysseus-nausicaa interactions are so special to me. she's my brave little princess and he's so delicate with her. the fuckin, tree at delos metaphor. what is this man thinking. i hope nausicaa is happy!!!

this quote is from book 8 but i'm including it anyway:

3. athena meets odysseus in ithaca, book 13.

athena obscures from odysseus that he's back in his own land, so that she can be the one to tell him, and then she lets him lie about his identity for a full page before she reveals herself.

this is also the conversation where she says "this is why i like you; anyone normal would have gone home to see his wife and children by now!" they are Cronies. she Can Make Him Worse.

2. odysseus strings the bow, book 21.

many parts of the bow contest i love, including penelope retrieving the bow from the storeroom and pausing to weep over it, and telling the suitors she will always remember this house, even in her dreams. but the moment he does the deed after everyone else has failed... hghkgh the narrative tension. Complete With Sound Effects.

the riddle of the olive tree bed, book 23.

i've written about the reunion at some length and still have more to say.