I also haven't said this in a while though I've been saying this. Familiarity breeds something, definitely.
The nature of the Witchlands books and how they're written, the short time-spans covered, is that we only see the characters in moments of high tension. We are told what they are like usually, we get certain memories or mentions of past events, but on-page, they are almost always at their breaking point.
Where am I going with this? My darling Vivia Nihar.
We are told, constantly, that she keeps people at bay. We see her do this. But we also see that, when push comes to shove, she is desperate for connection.
Not to say that what she has with her Foxes and with Stix and even with her father isn't a deep connection — she is simply not letting herself rely on them in any way that isn't strictly practical and formally (socially) determined. Usually.
At her breaking point, though?
In Windwitch it is Stix who makes the 'first move', as it were, but she is encouraged by the temporary absence of Vivia's many masks.
In Bloodwitch, Vivia — whom we at this point know to be capital A avoidant, capital C cagey — outright begs her to call her by name. You could argue that this is too little, too late, that, after ≈ten years of desperately clawing at Viva's walls, Stix is entitled to some of her own. And her intentions are noble; she doesn't want Vivia to have any more problems to deal with. (She wants Vivia to know more than anything) (Vivia's wellbeing comes before her own).
Is this the exact same thing Vivia is doing? Probably not. Vivia keeps away from all, for fear that she might be hurt, if only indirectly, through not being wanted or respected as she is. Stix keeps away primarily from Vivia (though she tells no-one about the voices), for fear that she might make things more difficult for her.
There is a bond of unbreakable trust between them (Stix abandons her post and sends a message; Vivia evacuates an entire city) but still they are catastrophically bad at reading each other. In a way it's just bad fortune, that Vivia should need Stix most when Stix cannot in good conscience be only her Threadsister.
But Stix is also taking Vivia's distance for granted. Not entirely, perhaps not consciously, yet she phrases it as earning Vivia's true face, as Vaness breaking her walls down, when this is not something that has ever depended on anyone other than Vivia. Yes, Stix and Vaness and any other person could make it easier or more difficult; ultimately it is still Vivia's psyche, Vivia's work to do.
So we come to Witchlight, where Vivia understands herself, finally, but cannot possibly understand Stix, who, at this point, only half-understands her Paladin soul — and to Stix Vivia is still unknowable, even as she finally shows her true face without any reservations. A desperate final gambit that fails.
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Stix in Witchshadow thinking about how her father was right, how she was too haughty, how she will heed all his future warnings and admit she'd been in the wrong... Stix in Witchlight doing none of this because it's her father. And even though she'd gone under the Raider King's banner and even though the conversation with Owl served as a final shedding of her perceived truth, she doesn't actually feel the need to justify herself. Not to him.
Of course she is miserable. Of course she blames herself for his injury. But all she says is, I will carry you as you have carried me. And she does. That's all that really matters — not the glory nor the blame.
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Also something there about the naming conventions of Noden's Gift vs Last Holdout. The stocked ship that falls from the sky was the work of the Fury, and obviously supernatural in origin, so Yoris and his people named their village after their god, but they were the ones to build the village itself. The food stocks on the ship would not have lasted. You could argue that the blight leaving the land was what they interpreted as truly divine, but that, too, would mean nothing on its own without the human factor.
We hear Merik describe his condition and his many, many escapes through the eye of the needle as Noden's gifts, which only fools dare reject. But this is in a way erasing all the people that are working towards a better world, if not directly to help him, and I think he understands that, because in Witchlight we see him acknowledging and centering the work of his people, emphasising the community and the teamwork of it all.
And Last Holdout itself is, very obviously, supernatural in origin. We know this was most likely Owl's doing, Merik doesn't, but he can see it well enough. He knows at this point that there is a goddess in the mountain and that there is a way back from cleaving, but he doesn't run into the familiarity of religion. He relies on other people and their work and their strength.
So the name might be romantic, like Aurora's, but that's just Merik's personal touch. To me it's meaningful that it puts the emphasis on the people holding out, not the gods who facilitate them from the shadows.
"Especially because [she] had never kissed anyone before" says woman who has most definitely kissed the exact person she wants to kiss right now, but has discounted it because it was 'only' to share air with her, as if they had not spent the two days prior speedrunning a fairytale romance.
