Twenty-six? TWENTY-SIX?? TWENTY-SIX? How the hell..? I'm not really wondering, I do understand the logistics, but still..

I wonder how many fathers have killed their sons and how many son have killed their fathers without ever knowing..

As I read this, my mouth literally dropped open.

I couldn't fathom all these "loving, sweet" khirron having all these illigetimate children when they seemed to value and esteem their families oh so much!

How can they live with themselves? Do any of the younger generations i.e. Vash, Shus, know about this or are they contributing to these generations?

My heart is on the ground. And to think, you know all of this and yet you portray them as little angels with slight tendencies for a tantrum hear and there.

Oh. My. God.

With that many illegitimate kids, how do they know that the kisor girls they sleep with aren't their own daughters??

Also, I didn't say so at the time, but in response to this comment, it is now apparent that the "elven equivalent" of a world temporarily without women would not make for many hilarious chapters at all.

Now I just wonder what the ladies do with their libidos during these separation periods. That might be, uh, amusing.

I'm in shock, I just can't believe this Osh has 13 illgetimate children Uncle Mustache has 23 and Tashnu has 17 what the FUUUUUUCK!!!

This is so disgusting....

It's not really the promiscuity that bothers me, or even the illegitimate children. Even in modern times, even with the advent of reliable birth control, quite a lot of men probably have more children (aborted, given up for adoption, or otherwise raised) than even they (or their spouses) realize. And they would surely have a lot more if it was not only accepted but officially encouraged by society to have sex with as many women as possible. They just don't have a writer looking over their shoulders with a Godlike view to create a database of all their offspring.

What I can't get over is the fact that they're killing the boys. We don't really know how that's handled though... I just can't see Osh going out and slaughtering babies. I just can't. He wouldn't have turned out the way he has. Maybe that is where I draw the line at what you can be capable of and still have the humanity and compassion left that we have seen from Osh. That's why I am thinking they must send someone else out to do the dirty work for them. Perhaps the khórrón and laítón nobles send their lower-caste soldiers out to do the job.

Or perhaps the ladies themselves just do it... perhaps they expose or otherwise kill the boy babies the way they did with Aia -- and just as some cultures did and still do with unwanted babies, though those seem to be girls a lot of the times. Perhaps the village elders do it -- smother them or something when they're born. I would imagine you get hardened to it after a few decades. At the very least, some mothers like Rakha and Pima are capable of giving up their sons to be raised underground, maybe never seeing them again.

I don't know. I am still coming to terms with all this... now that I have put numbers on the practices I already knew existed, I have to think a little more about the logistics of it. Maybe I will put a different outcome on it by saying that a certain number of these "dead" baby boys were actually spirited away to be raised elsewhere, and there's still another tribe of elves hiding out somewhere. (I have hinted this before.) Or maybe the khírrón aren't killing them either, and these "dead" babies are actually slaves toiling away in their massive underground mushroom farms or something. (I have hinted something like this before too.)

I don't want to decide anything like that just now. At least I want to get everyone packed off into their little households and villages so I can ponder the phenomena that organized their society in that way. Considering that we are taking a previously patriarchal culture and within half a century forcibly making it a matriarchy by killing all the patriarchs, some very interesting dynamics could crop up.

I guess that depends on who finds them. I don't think there is an official order demanding they be killed, since otherwise it would have happened long ago, but if a sick bastard along the lines of Ris (or Dru?) found them outside, he might kill them for fun.

Although, for what that's worth, in my first plans for the chapter with the deaths of Surr and Mash, I intended for Gils to be with them too. He would have run away with Kia and Hila, and they would have somehow found Surr, and drama would have ensued. But the elf or elves who killed Surr (and Mash, I don't remember if Mash was there in that plan) would have let Gils go. So Gils would have been a witness to murder, but not a victim.

But since that never happened, I guess it doesn't guarantee anything.

I have not hinted that before. I would rather not answer that... or even think about it. At least for now.

The only necrophiliac vibes we have gotten so far were from Sophie's late husband, who she thought liked to pretend she really was dead when she was playing dead (or at least asleep) in bed, and who seemed to get off on strangling her. But I don't think Leofwine had the balls to actually kill her, or if he truly did he would probably be too busy shitting himself to molest her body.

Mushroom farms? Hidden tribes? Where can I find these hints?

Whoa Uncle Moustache!
Okay, that would explain my complete confusion last night when I was looking at Vash and other's relations. I thought my computer was being slow and doing a repeat... If only it was. Ugh.

It's definately a tough subject, but I am glad knowing you as an author are approaching it without the usual 'damn them, they're all like this!' attitude that glazes over the whole practice in their culture. It makes your work much more than just a showcase for a cause or fiction as others might. It's hard to explain, but the depth and breadth you've shown is definately a good change, especially after taking sociology and history courses at the same time this year (it took me forever to get through the damn history text without analyzing the cultural undertones/perspectives of the writer... ).

In a way, taking their children away to live underground and be 'molded' by that experience, reminds me of the boarding schools used for first nation children to 'rehabilitate' them, to only later on be treated horribly by the same system or to be killed by it, that is if they survived the eugenic experiments and possible illnesses there first.
It's a horribly deep and complicated issue you're writing with, but I'm glad you're at least approaching it with the understanding needed. You don't have to live through such hurt to learn from others, or write honestly about it. Once again, you've impressed me greatly!

Thank you for that thoughtful commentary, Jesska. I know the first reaction is like Ugh! But I appreciate that you went beyond that.

I was actually thinking about the eugenic experiment angle this morning. That is pretty much what they're doing: not so much making a super-race, but eliminating an inferior one by crossing the females of each generation with their own "pure" blood.

In a way it's almost understandable... you're not far enough along in the story to know it yet, but both races are supposed to be extinct by now anyway, and even though they're not, there are still so few of them and time must seem to be running out. The khírrón must have seen the numbers were not on their side, so they wanted to do something about it while the power still was.

But on the other hand, you would think they would just start breeding like crazy themselves instead of sticking to this archaic two-child tradition and making lots of half-breed babies to populate the lower classes.

But on my third hand, I guess tradition must be SO important to a culture where both religion and state insist that time is like a wheel, and nothing has ever changed, and nothing ever will change...

Anyway, *still digesting this*

Devin, I just started putting elves into households, starting with the khírrón. I haven't updated the pages to have "elven households" and "elven villages" and whatnot, so the terminology is still Anglo-Saxon, but you can have a peek. The Khírrón Compound.

So far, aside from the households of the individual noble families, I have three groups I have temporarily named "Harem", "Temple" and "Service". Some of the half-blood concubines are in "Harem", most all of the síkhón kids are in "Temple" and a few lower-caste stragglers are creeping into "Service" as I go. There will be more concubines added from lower castes to the "Harem" and of course lots more servants to come.

And then I have to do the underground village, and then I have to do all the scattered villages in the forest...

Derrrrrr Nush gets around! I just noticed he *cough* "met" two elves on the same night, Dec. 24, 1075, and got them both pregnant. When he was... *checks* 17. What a horndog. He is like an elven Carebear!

It's so crazy -- at 27 he has more kids than Imin, who is almost forty. And while Imin has always been like the ultimate sleazebag, Nush has always seemed the sort of anxious, stick-in-the-mud, "gosh Vash I don't think you should do that" one of the bunch. OK, so... *checks* Imin actually has rather poor fertility as elves go, whereas Nush has like a +3 Wand of Conception on him, but still. How wrong we were!

I really can't wait for Nush's moment on stage to arrive. He is more fascinating to me than ever. So much angst! So much unfulfilling sex! And all this actually plays into my plans for him so... *rubs hands together*

What a beautiful, ugly addition to understanding these characters and the society they live in. I was under the impression that this was not uncommon, but frowned upon. I didn't realize how wrong I was, or how the death of a race (species?) would lead to this conclusion. Thank you for this post...

Did you realize that Osh has two daughters named Lasrua? The one right before he had Paul.

Sorry, Devin, I didn't catch your comment yesterday.

You're right, it's a tough question to know what Osh would do if one of his kisór children came to his door. I wonder what an 1820's plantation owner would do if one of his half-white slave children came to the door. Probably wouldn't be a very affectionate greeting.

In a sense, though, I don't think the question is really valid. It would never happen. For one thing, that particular daughter is being raised with the rebels, so she is being taught that elves like Osh are the enemy, and something to fear. For that matter I am not sure the girl herself knows who her father is... that doesn't seem like the thing her mother would want to get out since it wouldn't exactly help her make friends. Look at how Hila feels about being a "gawky half-breed".

I don't know... in my quest for analogies, I am thinking about a country that has lost a brutal war and is being occupied by enemy soldiers. Like imagine if the Nazis had hung around for a few decades... if a little 8 year old Belgian girl learned her father was a Nazi general, do you think she would go knocking at the local barracks and say "Hi you raped my mother and I'm your daughter?" More likely she would pee her pants if she ever saw a real life khírrón go by.

That is not to say that the plantation owner or the Nazi general or Osh would hurt the girl, or even punish her for knocking, necessarily. The point is that it would never happen.

I am sure Osh realizes he has other children besides Paul and Rua, but I don't think he thinks about that much. All of his children are rather low-caste, so if anything he is perhaps a little embarrassed by the idea. Like, lingering evidence of past libido.

What is a lot more interesting to me is some of the other children... especially the síkhón children who sing in the temple and serve as emergency spare husbands and wives if a laítón elf unexpectedly dies. (This is the fate Miria fears she will have, since Kiv is gone.) They are usually not the children of marriages, and yet they have a certain noble status in the society, so their fathers must acknowledge them in some way. I wonder how that works.

And get this: the infamous Dru has two noble-yet-illegitimate daughters living with him, after he apparently plucked a 13-year-old síkhón girl out of the temple and... did things with her. The girls are right about at a marrying age too. And oh yeah they are living with Ris. I wonder if he has the balls to lay a hand on them while his father is still around. I think I will have to do something with those girls.

Anyway, back to your question, it may be that sons are more interested in who their fathers are, and -- as Lar himself did -- go "knocking" one day and confront them. Or it may be the sons get a special pleasure out of hunting down and killing their fathers, or vice versa.

As a society, among the kisór everything is pretty much given over to women. Baby boys are something you dread having, and adult males just show up occasionally looking for sex or someone to rough up. So girls raised by women probably don't give much thought to their fathers, or males in general. But the boys who are being raised underground might think quite differently... it's a miniature male-dominated society surrounded by all these females who mostly just want the guys to leave them alone, except for the few lucky ones who got husbands and think themselves superior therefore. It would be quite interesting to explore.

And I admit it would be interesting to see one of Osh's half-breed children... or Ris's, or Sorin's, or anyone's we know. But it would probably have to be in the context of their own society. Those two worlds are not likely to meet any time soon.

Thanks for asking though. As you can see, I am still thinking about this a lot, trying to figure out how it could all work.

The síkhón are technically noble too, but I really do have the feeling that they are looked upon sort of like spares. They get stuck on the sidelines unless someone needs a spouse.

Whereas Dru's two extra daughters are laítón, so in terms of caste no lower than his children Ris and Perala. But I wonder whether Ris and his mother (and especially bitchy Madra) really feel that way about having them there. I do think those girls had better hurry up and get married and move out before the old man dies, or their status in the household may take a turn for the worse.

Cave Mothers.... I have to re-read that chapter with Ris when he mentions his sisters. Do they get along with anyone in that household?