Quite soon, Devin. They'll be at the house on Sunday and probably the question will come up then. They're both eager to move in, and the chimney is done, so they may just move in and let the rest of the work go on around them.

And then Elfleda comes up and huffs at both of them?

But I doubt there is jealousy in heaven...

So why do you think she killed herself? Or maybe it was accidental?

She and Hilda are very much alike. Elfleda's life and death was bit more tragic than Sela's actually the two women were the exact opposites. The only thing they had in common was their love for Egelric and their tragic deaths which Sela's was of course far nobler since she was killed for her love for Egelric.

No, currently I use a default skin set based on Louis skins with some body hair and "anatomically correct" textures added. You can see which ones I am currently using here.

Devin, I just noticed I hadn't done that yet. She is keeping the name for him that his parents gave him -- the elves attach a lot of importance to names, so she wouldn't change it, even if she doesn't understand what it means. Once the men found the dead woman and did some investigation, of course they were able to find out her name and the baby's name, so he will just go by that. I simply haven't decided what it is yet. I will make his family (and kill his mother) and then move him into Aia's household...

Well they can call him Wendel.. The baby will be baptized and raised in the Church does that mean Aia will also become a christian?

Devin, he already was baptized, so he's good as far as that goes. I would imagine someone will try to talk to her about becoming a Christian eventually. Aelfden if no one else.

Karen, I don't exactly have an Anglo-Saxon name generator, though I could, since an awful lot of Anglo-Saxon names are made up of two parts. Elf-leda, Elf-githa, Ead-githa, God-githa, God-wine, Leof-wine, Leof-ric, Egel-ric, etc. Just put two together!

However, since I suppose some combinations would be silly and unrealistic, I instead just have a long list of Anglo-Saxon names that I randomly pull from. I also have some Welsh names in the mix, and I really need to get some Scottish names in there as well, since Lothere is in the border country. All of my random Lotherian citizens get random names. This poor kid just had rotten luck, at least to our 21st-century tastes.

Grendelbirth!! Yay for period-appropriate humor!

GRENDELBIRTH! **dies** That is genius.
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'm romantic, literary, cynical, and a diehard Alred Sebright groupie.

This baby will be surrounded with love because his mama loves him so much. If he gets into any trouble he could go to his uncle for help or his step-father if his mother marries well of course.

Lothere when is Caedwulf coming back from Scotland?

Oh I see, so Aengus and Domnall are coming back home.

And Caedwulf is setting off to see the Scottish king. He and Cecily probably haven't spent any time together. Oh well, I hope he brings back some Scots with him back to Lothere.

Devin, they're both married, so I don't see why they would.

Devin, if we haven't heard from them lately, it's a fairly safe bet that they're doing very well. I only write about people with problems.

Ha! People with problems... I think that there are enough happy fun chapters that your readers get a sense of why they love the characters and how much they lose in their sad not-so-fun moments.

I don't know exactly, Devin. I would imagine that he must have told them that she was killed. Because I am sure someone at some point let slip a "when Sela was killed" and one of the boys overheard with their super power ears. And they would probably have asked him about that, and Egelric would have told them she was.

But I can also imagine him telling them that they don't know who did it. I doubt someone would have said "when Sela was killed by elves" or "when Sela was killed by Lar" so they probably don't know about that part of it. Obviously Gils doesn't know it was Lar since he now knows that Lar is his father, and he hasn't ever thought about him being his mother's killer.

But really, that little fact is all the evidence I can think of, so maybe I will change my mind about some of that later.

Also, I think Aia must not know who did it either. If Imin's own son didn't know, then I doubt those ladies all the way across the river could have found out. However, Aia might be a little more capable of guessing who and why.

OMG Lothere updated and there is a new fuckin elf in the bannar!!

OMG its Vash!

I've been expecting Vash! The first comment that I ever made was something like, "needs more Vash" and Lothere's response was "Vash on Sunday". Little did I know that it would take until August to get to Sunday.

I've been reading the old Gunnie Hogge chapters. I've noticed that there were a lot fewer pictures in those older chapters. I even found one that had no pictures at all.

But I miss young Gunnie. Come back to us, Gunnie! None of your nonsense!

Well, yes and no. Normally ladies-in-waiting should be noble ladies themselves, or young noble girls hanging out in the court in search of husbands. As you know, the problem we have in Lothere is that there aren't enough ladies -- particularly of the young, unmarried variety -- and the pioneer aspect of the place isn't really attractive to enterprising papas so far.

I'm sure Eadie (and the other noblewomen) must have a small flock of maids and attendants, but in terms of companions we only have the ladies you know. Creating new ones will require surmounting the same problem as ever: how can I introduce more women into this story? Medieval women just didn't gallivant.

I could only guess at this point. We don't know either of them at all. All we know of Dara is from "Vash regrets":

The sight of Vash in tears was not uncommon enough to be particularly alarming.  Dara embraced her husband first, but immediately afterwards she turned Vash around and hugged him too.

“Kiv is dead!” Vash sniffled.

Tashnu squirmed at the sound of the name, but Dara did not seem perturbed in the least.

“Poor dear,” she sighed.  “For who loved him better than you?”

“I let him die alone!”

“He knows you couldn’t help it, dear.  He knows you love him.  He forgives you.”

Tashnu was momentarily lost in contemplation of Dara’s sweet little face upon Vash’s shoulder.  His wife and his mother had been dead so long that he had forgotten what it was to find aid in the arms of a lady.  Dara did not begin by asking Vash what was the matter—she merely hugged him.  Dara did not begin by asking what had happened—she merely comforted him.

Based on that Dara seems like a very gentle, compassionate elf. Rather like her husband, actually. I remember Shus comforting Egelric once in something like the same way.

It is interesting that Nush is the one having the thoughts about forgetting what it was like to find aid in the arms of a lady. It does mean that at least as late as November 1084, he had not yet found aid in the arms of Nina. So either she's not as gentle and compassionate as Dara, or their relationship had not deepened to that point yet.

Hmm, I'm actually rather glad you brought this up, because it will give me something to think about, when considering Nina's character...

I guess it depends on what you consider "mean". A lot of people have dogs, and some people are cruel to their dogs, and some people are kind to them. But if your definition of "mean" includes having dogs as pets in the first place, then Dara and all the khírrón are evil.

Not to give too much away, but from what we learned from Lena when she was expecting her baby, it doesn't seem likely that Nina has ever even seen her son. Maybe Tashnu hasn't either.

No, actually he doesn't get a say... to quote Anna, it would be not the thing for a noble like him to express any interest in the bastard half-breed child he may have had with a concubine.

That's probably what Alred had in mind. There was no particular reason for him to go otherwise, since Egelric obviously got around.

I don't know that the men were all that curious to see her. Egelric was already kind of an outsider from having an elf daughter. The only people who might have cared were the people who lived or were going to live in the castle and the village, and their thoughts were probably more like "He better not bring that elf woman to be a lady over us..." *grumble grumble*

I said the other day Lar & the rest of his posse are coming up in the next few Lotherian days. But that chapter doesn't depend on very much that's happening around here lately, so I may move it if I need to, which is why I won't bother being more specific.

Yes. The cabin is (was?) below the cliff where the hills slope down towards the lake.

As I recall I swooned mightily. That was the picture-taking session when HE LOOKED AT ME!!! *dies again*

But Meryt why can't he find happiness in his children why are they always second?

He would not need another woman if Sela or that Lili didn't die....

Eww Gwynn and Egelric look so wrong for each other. Finn likes Gwynn it would be horrible if his father married the girl he liked.

Not to mention that considering the times, Egelric is old enough to be her grandfather.

Eww I hadn't even thought about how Finn would take that... he has a crush on a girl and then HIS FATHER moves in on her. We need an :eww: smiley around here.

If it came to that, I would think that Finn would be twitching mainly due to embarrassment over HIS FATHER tripping merrily through the grass and singing La la la. That is one image even I wish had not entered my brain.

Lothere what does Iylaine do all day, was she like Sela, staying in the house and taking care of the kids all day?
We need to see some more of her..

Country Clubs should have been invented during that time. Do you remember back in the day when Matilda, Edris, Eadie and Eadgith used to go over to each other's castles sit and sew and gossip, why don't the women of lothere do that anymore?

While Sigefrith is at Raegiming who is watching over his manor and Aia?

Hehe... if Egelric is singing Lalala Gwynn has definitely braided daisies into his hair.

My brain hurts now.

I think everyone has heard of it? I admit I have neither read it nor seen the equally famous movie, however.

I would not have even gotten ino the book if it weren't for the Scifi mini series of Dune and Children of Dune.

One of the character's Chani reminds me a lot of Sela.

I don't know. I guess so, for now. She will probably get married right quick though, now that she doesn't have a lady to serve. She was always a little fast. (We know she did at least sleep with Stein.) Probably the only one who might take on a German maid of questionable morals is Sophie, and she is kind of on her best behavior ever since Stein married her. (Not to mention -- awkward if she ever found out.)

I wouldn't say that. If Lottie gets married quickly it will be to profit from her own status as lady's maid while she still can. I am sure she has had plenty of offers, so she'll be looking to pick one now. I do doubt Lottie is greatly afraid of Egelric, since she must know him quite well, and the last woman Egelric would want to sleep with is his dead wife's maid. If anything, Egelric will be the one kicking all the maids out of his house so he doesn't have to look at any women at all.

Ummm... I don't know. I don't think I ever gave specifics. We do know he had another mistress whom he actually loved, and he only married Hetty because he needed a legitimate heir with good blood. But for some reason I seem to recall that I have hinted that he was at least mildly abusive with her. He certainly wasn't just cold and unavailable, I think he must at least have been verbally abusive. And I can only imagine that sex with a man who only wants you for your uterus must be rather unpleasant.

Her father did seem to be somewhat physically abusive, too, as she remembered in "Leofric issues his command":

He had taken her tiny chin in his hand and tipped back her head, and when he had seen her runny nose lifted away from his fine tunic, he had tumbled her off onto the couch and smacked her: once on the cheek, once on the ear, and once on the back of the neck as she had rolled away and tried to protect her face.

My feeling is that Friedrich was something along those lines... not beating her black and blue, but capable of slapping her or shoving her.

Well I think I said Lili stayed in the convent until Raedwald and Friedrich got her out of there so she could sorta pretend to be Raedwald's wife while they were on their way to "Ireland". And after that, I don't know. I kind of think she didn't know, just because Hetty is not the type to talk about her own problems like that. And I have the sense Hetty feels humiliated by or about that relationship. It was just so crushing to her.

Maud was a unique yet complex woman. She wasn't really in love with her husband and I didn't think she wanted to be Queen but she had little choice. Maud imo was a tortured soul and I pitied her. She was haughty and independent and I like that. I also remember how much she loved her children, when she began her affair with Malcolm she knew could not leave Sigefrith because of the children. Maud was simply born in the wrong time.
Maud is very dear to me her unhappines and tragic life made my heart bleed. Maud, Elfleda, and Sela suffered so much in their short lives. I am very protective over these 3 women.

I'm sure he does, Devin, at least the noble ones, but you mustn't read to much into that. I don't think he would look on them as his brothers and sisters. More like elves his father had made. Like, I don't think he would pay special attention to his half-brothers in the temple just because Sorin was their father.

I think the act of "making them" just doesn't have the same status that the relationship between a married couple would have. Sorin and his wife were bound together in a very literal way, and so their child together is special. If Sorin died, Vash would feel that, but his other "sons" wouldn't.

So I would think that in a society where (1) you have very strict social hierarchies and the upper class sexually exploits the lower, and (2) there are actual demonstrable, physical differences between children of marriages and children of sexual exploitation, then the status that such half-siblings would have been quite different from what you have with, say, Cedric and Leia. I would say that in this case it is at least as imbalanced as what you would have had with the children of masters and slaves in the US, where the "physical difference" is the color of the skin. The masters didn't have magic after all.

All that said, it doesn't mean that Vash will never look one of those elves in the eyes and call him brother -- even if it's not literally his half-brother. But we have already seen that Vash is pretty "racist" or whatever you want to call it, though we must grant him his inflexible convictions of youth. He may grow wiser and he may come to realize that both races are doomed if they don't learn to live together, etc.

However, if you are waiting for a moment where Vash is going to have this epiphany, like where he's aiming an arrow at some elf's throat, and suddenly he sobs, "I can't kill you... you're my... brother!" and hugs and puppies and rainbows all around, then nah, I don't think that's going to happen.