Don't TELL me you're depriving me of a chance to talk about Lar!! Auuuggghhhh!

This exact event happened in the backstory of my story so I can answer it easily. (And it TOTALLY could happen in my story... what if Emma hooked up with some married man, say? DRAMA!)

Wynflaed & Mouse's Little Mother was the illegitimate daughter of a married lord and a noble girl. Egelric told her story in "Malcolm gives his advice":

“Young man, your little sweetheart’s mother is the daughter of the Lord of Hamelan that was, Broga, and thus the half-sister of Lord Galan, whom I think you have met.  And her mother’s mother was the daughter of the Lord of Windhlith.  A fine match!  Except that Lord Broga was married at the time.  See what I mean?...  Broga never claimed his child.  The young lady was married to the old Baron’s steward’s son, and he claimed the baby was his, though she was born four months later, and he had never set eyes on his bride before their wedding day.”

He doesn't actually say that the girl was betrothed at the time, but in her family and at her age (15/16) it was quite likely.

The important thing to the girl's family is avoiding scandal -- and if they possibly can, save the intended marriage, but that depends entirely on the family of the young man she was supposed to marry. They can either refuse her or, as you said, rush the marriage and pretend the baby was the husband's. But unless they have such a great stake in the marriage going through, I don't see why they would. Especially if she had a boy -- the man's "heir" would not even be their grandchild!

Would Alred still have wanted Brit for Dunstan if she had actually gone all the way with Brinstan and been pregnant? I am not sure about that. More likely Alred would have campaigned for her marriage to Brinstan, but failing that, I don't think he would have married her to Dunstan. Dunstan would have been devastated, for one thing. He's not the most pragmatic sort. At the most they might have organized something where Brit would have gone off to have her baby in secret and given it up "for adoption" prior to the marriage.

However, if (hypothetically speaking) Emma had an affair with a married man, I could imagine her marriage to Baldwin going ahead. Baldwin is such a pushover, and Edris is not really the sort to put her foot down either. (Cenwulf on the other hand...)

I am not sure Sigefrith would want it, though, now that I think about it. He's definitely a pragmatic sort but women have always been his Achilles heel, and he got burned once by Brit already. I can see him packing Emmie up to a convent immediately and never speaking to her again.

Did that answer your question?

Birth and conception dates among the elves are not particularly significant, since the ladies are only fertile around the equinox and solstice times, and their gestational period is equal to 3/4 of a year, so the babies are born around equinoxes and solstices as well.

As a result, the idea of a "birthday" is not something the elves put much store in, since approximately 1/4 of the elves have a birthday around the same time as yours. They celebrate the solstices & equinoxes, but not the people who were born on those days. We saw this with Hila and Kia who didn't really understand the concept of a "birthday" when Wulf and Gils apparently tried to explain to them, and they thought it was something called a "bird day".

The only significant birthday is 16. That is when the kisór boys are old enough to be counted as adults, and to marry and fight. It tends to be the age at which khírrón girls are considered old enough to marry, as well, though some don't marry till later and some do before. That was the age at which Iylaine was supposed to marry Vash, though, and Rua was supposed to marry Lor.

Being born in the fall or winter is considered somewhat inauspicious though. It's best to be born in the spring.

Obviously, however, they can die on any day of the year. Nidala's death wasn't accidental, so from there it is possible to speculate that the date wasn't coincidental.

That's what I've been thinking lately too.

I suppose there would be more sense in Dru killing Lar (baby boy) than poor Nidala.

Darnit just when I was thinking I was gonna put off until the spring the stuff with Dru originally scheduled for the end of this month...

Maybe we need a poll.

How does Imin feel about being the oldest living kisor male? Does he consider himself lucky to have lived so long, or does he kind of wish he'd die already so he doesn't live to see the further decay of his culture, and his sons killed and his daughters raped?

Eldest of the Eld. I love that.

I also love these character analysis(es?). They put everything I've ever thought or read together into one coherent stream of thinking. And as much as I get from these, they don't even scratch the surface.

After taking years of structured Literature classes, I've pretty much come to the conclusion that even the most in-depth character is still lacking. Your characters seem so real. Like you could honestly have a candid conversation with them about the weather, and in their signature dialect and gesture, you could hear their response. It's uncanny. You've managed to make me start reading again. I mean really reading.

Okay, I keep telling you how wonderful your writing is and probably making an arse of myself, but you're really great. Really. Make it a book. Or something. So people won't look at me funny when I talk about this cool webstory with Sims in it.

That's okay. I knew it was only a matter of time before karma came back and bit me in the ass

Besides, it's fun reading forum comments.

I would say it has to be Eadie. He was just as starry-eyed and giddy with her when he first fell in love with her -- maybe more, since it's always delightful when it's reciprocal -- and now she's comfortable. She fits him just right. Pretty, not too bright, not too independent-minded, and always looking to please him and be a good queen to the best of her abilities. (Which are not too shabby, since all he really wants in a queen is a gracious lady.)

He had his period of love with Maud, both when she was first a mother with Caedwulf and Brit, and later when she had her little starry-eyed, empty-headed interlude of her own, but Sigefrith has never been the sort of guy who would be all tragically romantic over this magnificent girl. He liked to compare her to a deer, but it always confused and frustrated him, too, the way she never truly let him get close to her. Eadie is just so eminently touchable and human and there. Eadie is a lot like her mother in that -- Sigefrith has his Eadie and Leofric has his Eadgith. The difference is that Sigefrith will never have his Hetty.

(Or will he? I suppose I should never say never, but Sigefrith is a bit too pragmatic to risk his honor on a romance. Plus he may not have many years left in which to fall tragically in love anyway.)

As for Alred, we have seen several times how he can get all misty and nostalgic at Gwynn's resemblance to her mother. In "Gwynn sees a smile" for example:

The bow of her upper lip was perhaps a little broader, a little fuller, but her pouting bottom lip was precisely her mother’s: the living image of the lip he had kissed and pinched and nibbled and loved.

He did not know whether she was growing more like her mother or whether he was simply noticing it more with Matilda so much on his mind of late, but it was unbearable to think that some other man would one day be the fool for that lip that he had been—and still was.  For that lip he would make himself a modern-day Herod and slay every man-child in the valley between the ages of ten and twenty.

“My dear…” he whispered—to a ghost.

Gwynn spoke and moved, and her face was her own again.  “Look at her!  Smirking!”

Alred rubbed his hand over his head and eyes to wipe the mist away from both.

The more interesting question is how does he feel about the personalities his daughters are growing into. Gwynn does not seem to have her mother's sharp wit, for example -- that's Margaret's specialty. My feeling -- and later chapters may prove me wrong -- is that Alred is a bit troubled by Margaret's resemblance to her mother in those ways, because the poetically right thing would be that Gwynn would have gotten 100% of her mother's personality to go along with her looks.

He adores Margaret of course -- Margaret has always been HIS baby -- but he wouldn't have mourned the lack of Matilda in her if she hadn't gotten much. On the contrary, perhaps he would have liked a little female Alred.

Especially now that she's growing up into a curvy, bouncy little image of Matilda, Gwynn is the daughter that Alred is all dreamy over -- the sort of too-good-to-be-true, sacred, untouchable one. I can't imagine Alred planning for Gwynn's eventual marriage the way he already is with Conrad and Meggie. Gwynn's eventual marriage is like OH MY GOD too much romance to bear, whereas Margaret's is more like a wink and a nudge and a keep-your-hands-to-yourself-meanwhile thing.

However, I must add that recent chapters have shown that Gwynn has apparently inherited her mother's interest in sex. This is not only POETICALLY RIGHT but POTENTIALLY HILARIOUS. She may never enter into a belching contest at table, as Matilda used to and Margaret surely does, but she may very well have her foot in somebody's crotch beneath it.

And how is poor Alred going to handle that? "Why can't you be less like your mother???"

Gwynn has her mothers meddling side as well. Maybe Megs have it too, but Gwynn was such a Matilda in "Gwynn makes a message". Matilda's meddling felt more thought through (she always thought she would make people happy) and less selfish than Gwynn's though. Errm.. I just remembered that when she told Gunnie that Egelric was Cubby's father, that wasn't so selfless at all.. So maybe Gwynn is very much like her mother when it comes to meddling.

Has Alred seen Leia at all yet? And also, considering she's so young, I'm sure Leia doesn't know exactly what happened with her parents, but does she have any sort of sense that something surrounding her birth was maybe a little unusual?

I was reading this one Brede post not too long ago, I think the one where his youngest daughter was born, and he was disappointed that she wasn't a son. But isn't he stuck with Daeglan as his heir anyway, since he's the oldest?

Wouldn't there be some lovely drama if Estrid had a son with K and Brede never figured it out and made him the heir?

Of course, that's probably too similar to the whole Sigefrith/Maud/Malcolm/Cubby plotline... except that Sigefrith had Caedwulf, and he did eventually figure out that Cubby wasn't his son.

I take it Brede isn't thrilled with his family these days? Haven't really seen him since he realized he was acting like his father, as far as I remember.

I don't have the exact details for this and I probably never well, but I'll try to remember all the bits and pieces I've mentioned over the years.

We know Matilda was born in Winchester and mostly grew up there in the court of her uncle and then cousin the Earls of Wessex. Sigefrith's lands were on the fringes of his territory (it was more an alliance than a relationship of liege and subject), so Sigefrith & Co. could have made the occasional visit over the years, but Alred was not part of the Co. at the time.

We know that Leofric met Matilda before Alred ever did, but it was after he was married to Eadgith, so no earlier than November 1058. Matilda would have been 16 or older by the time she met Leof. (And Sigefrith was the same age as Matilda.)

Sigefrith, Leofric, Cenwulf, & Co. participated in Earl Harold's campaigns in Wales in 1062-1063. That's where they met Alred. Alred was from farther in the southeast of Sussex than Hwaelnaess, but Earl Harold was taking over the south of England at that time and his influence must have spread that far.

Of course, at some point during that campaign, presumably towards the end in 1063, Alred "accidentally" saved Harold's life and became a war hero. Sometime soon after -- perhaps after the war was over and the troops marched back to Winchester in glory -- that was when Alred met Matilda. Since wars were mostly fought in the summer, it must have been summer or early autumn 1063 that they met.

And of course they were married on December 12th of the same year, so it was only a few months' courtship -- involving, as we know, Alred making a great fool of himself over her, and Matilda publicly scoffing at him and privately copying his poetry into her psalter, and eventually breaking her vow never more to laugh.

And it ended, as we know, in circumstances that I will probably never make plain (since even I could not create the appropriate level of awesomeness for that), with Alred waking up very hung-over in some other town, in bed with a naked-except-for-her-wedding-ring Matilda, and no clear idea how he came to be there. But very glad he was.

The End.

*sigh!*

"Gwynn and Lar. "

I very much doubt that Alred would allow his daughter to marry a rapist and the murderer of his best friend's wife.

The poor girl is so foolish..

Ooh, I hope we never see Gwynn in Matilda's dress. That might freak all of us out a little. Alred most of all.
Hmm, I remember she got the ruby headdress and the psalter, but it would be interesting if she got one of those red dresses as well. I know Alred has all of these weird misplaced-Matilda stuff onto Gwynn, but I think he gets a little weirded out when she looks TOO much like Matilda. I know I certainly would be if I saw her all decked out in Matilda finery...
I can't wait to see an all-grown-up-and-horny Gwynn. She and Finn arriving late at parties with their hair all mussed, flushed and giggly...
*Hijacks thread while she should be writing her paper*
-------------------------------------
I'm romantic, literary, cynical, and a diehard Alred Sebright groupie.

Has Seven ever asked anyone about his human parents? I know he's a little young to be thinking about that sort of thing, but at the same time, he definitely knows he's not an elf...

Is there any chance of Edris getting married again?

Ohh, Edris gets some! Yes!

I never thought the day would come when someone would look to me as a model for writing about sex. This calls for a !

Well let's see, Estrid is going to go back to pick her necklace up from K, on Friday probably, but I'm not sure I want to go straight back into an all-out sex scene with those two. That could get kinda repetitive.

I have another coming up soon after that but it won't be pretty. I seem to prefer writing about twisted violent sex. (I think it is, paradoxically, easier, since the emotions involved are a lot less complicated.)

And that's all I have until my outline trickles out after Christmas. (Yes, believe it or not, it seriously does. My last written-down chapter is on Dec. 27 and nothing more till early Feb., but if you knew who shows up on Dec. 27 you would know that it's NOT the last chapter of the year. And maybe we will get more sex. Just sayin'. )

I have been thinking about doing a scene with Sigefrith and Eadie. (Nobody better say Ewww to that.) But I was planning on saving it till a quiet period, it isn't urgent. And I kinda wanted to do a few more chapters of Sigefrith upright and clothed first to get us back into a Sigefrith mood.

So I don't know. Do we need a poll? Do we need MOAR SECKS!!? And with whom and whom? *ponders*

I don't really care that there are under-age readers out there... the ones I know about seem a mature bunch. But I know that some people just don't care to read that sort of thing.

Do you mean the elven accent when they are speaking English? Or their own language? (Elvish?? Elven?? I never know.)

Generally speaking I have described their speech as being rippling and flowing and various other watery metaphors. In their own language they have a lot of repeated syllables since prefixes/suffixes often get added to multiple words in a sentence according to the context. For example imagine if instead of "the big red dragon" you had to say "the-big the-red the-dragon"... the effect is somewhat jittery or ripply.

"A big red dragon" is "makíl yó khúm" but "I saw a big red dragon" is "Rûín almakíl alyó alkhúm" because the dragon is a direct object, and all the adjectives describing it are inflected in the same way, with al-.

The other thing is that the language's declensions and conjugations are much more vowel-centric than English, and I think this would also lend a somewhat warbly sound to it.

For example with modern English regular verbs you conjugate with consonant-based suffixes at the end -- walk, walked, walking; tap, tapped, tapping -- and it's only the irregular (and usually very old) verbs that you see vowel changes like speak, spoke, spoken, speaking or eat, ate, eaten, eating. In the elven language all conjugation is done around the vowels, so the vowels are pronounced with much greater emphasis and care. (In English any unstressed vowels are usually pronounced with the same dull schwa sound no matter how they're written, which drives French people crazy, believe you me.)

So the end result with all these repeated short syllables like al- and té- and -ím and -rí, which are spoken quickly, and this large palette of vowels which are dwelled on, gives an effect somewhat like bird song -- lots of short trills and warbles with the occasional long note.

And if you throw in a question, which has the rising tonal particle la at the end and optionally scattered through it, you get something even more musical. Here are Gunnilda's thoughts on Finn's accent from "Gunnilda sees the son":

Suddenly he blurted through a mouthful of crumbs, “What I want to ask—is—how did she die?”

Gunnilda’s fork clattered back onto her plate.  “Don’t you… didn’t your Da tell you anything about that?”

“What I want to know is—did she murder herself?”

His pronunciation was as crisp and clear as a noble boy’s, but his words still rolled with the queer sing-song of the elves, curling up at the end with a heavy stress on the last word of a question: die? herself?  As if it were not the murder that was in doubt but the victim.

Finn is applying the tonality of the concluding la of an elven question to the last word in an English sentence, since he has nowhere else to put it, and it doesn't "sound" like a question to him unless it has that striking lift at the end. English has a different tonality to question-sentences, too, but as you can see from Gunnilda's impressions, it's not as high as the elven.

In other news, the elves don't have the consonants B or F, which is why Lena (and now everybody) calls Benedict "Penedict" and why the elves call Finn "Vin". They also don't pronounce TH very well at all, but it's damned annoying when I try to write it that way, so I don't.

In exchange though they do have some consonants we don't have in English, including the CH sound of the Scottish "loch", both the Scottish Rrr and the French Rrr, and pretty much the entire range of liquid consonants that the humanoid mouth can produce, most of which I don't even know how to describe to you but which again would contribute a watery sound.

Oh, and the kisór accent is supposedly more guttural, but I haven't figured out the linguistic logistics behind that yet. It may be that it is simply the perception of the khírrón and not based on reality -- or because when the kisór speak to them they have to keep their heads down and basically mumble into their chests.

The kisór also have a habit of repeating entire words to emphasize them, which the khírrón find hopelessly vulgar of course. Like Sela with her "It is sad in the winter, sad, sad" or Lena with her "It is fire, fire for you."

Uh... sorry you asked yet? Drop a quarter in the "linguistics" slot and I can go all night.

I doubt Synne knows if Sigi doesn't. Murchad probably figures it's not his business, so even if he knows he might not say anything.

Sigi would surely talk about it with Synne if she knew, but I wonder whether Eirik would tell her that kind of thing. In spite of their great love for each other, they don't actually tell each other everything, in a possibly misguided attempt to protect each other. Eirik might like Sigi to go on believing everything's happy back home, since she'll never have the opportunity to know otherwise. I did get the sense that Eirik was keeping that a secret from her and everyone else when he told Murchad that he didn't want Sigi and the boys to go to Brede. Brother Murchad has to help him keep that secret I guess.

Selwyn must know since he lives in the valley, though it's not sure Selwyn would fret about it in the same way Sigi and Synne would. He probably grumbles about his brother being an asshole but doesn't really feel implicated. He hasn't lived in that house in years, and even for his age (16) he's not very mature. He's like Caedwulf without the sense of honor (which Caedwulf may sometimes choose to ignore, but at least he has it). Selwyn isn't a bad guy in the way that Leofwine was, say, but he just naturally falls into the condition of selfish-jerkiness. (So it's not even sure he sees his brother's behavior as all that improper.)

Trudi has only met Brede, since Sigi and Synne both left for good long before she arrived. Her house with Selwyn is quite far from there though, and much closer to Dunstan's and Bertie's and Eadwyn's, so that's who they hang with now. Trudi is getting quite close to her confinement so she isn't going anywhere anyway.

Selwyn definitely has slept with other ladies besides his wife, as we will learn the next time I have scheduled us to see him.

If Selwyn's allowed to sleep with whoever he wants, is Trudi also allowed, if only in her own mind?

On a completely unrelated note, what was Lar's relationship with Zevadra like?

Oh yeah, Nidala! Thanks Devin--I was wondering about her too

Alred aside, do you think Matilda and Hetty would have gotten along if they'd known each other? And how about Egelric's wives?

Thanks

I meant how Egelric's wives would get along with each other. I imagine Sela and Lili might have some fun, maybe with Lili trying to learn Sela's language and trying to teach Sela English or German. Elfleda probably wouldn't have been too fond of either Sela or Lili, though. Correct me if I'm wrong, of course

I have a hard time imagining Egelric's wives with each other outside of the context of Egelric. Obviously if he had tried to start a harem, I can't imagine any of those three ladies getting along with the others. ;-)

Elfleda might have gotten along with Sela. Sela might even have helped her understand a few things about herself, since Elfleda had a part of elf in her. They could have sat around and stared into fires together.

I could imagine Lili jumping gung-ho into a friendship with Sela but I am not sure Sela would have liked her all that much. Sela had a sense of humor, but she wasn't giddy. She might have found Lili annoying. You had to accept the cuteness and the silliness to get along with Lili, and to get access to the brilliant mind that was hiding behind them.

If you look at the elven family trees, you will see that the two-child policy has not been extraordinarily well-respected anyway. Look no farther than Shus's family -- he and Nush have two other siblings, namely Uncle Mustache's wife Ria and another brother who was killed by Hel back in the day.

My SQL-fu tells me that the average number of children born to khírrón ladies (as far back as my family tree goes) is 2.2344. The breakdown looks like this:

This must include a few families who were allowed to have another child to replace one lost young, but elven children don't have the habit of dying young.

If you look recent times though (say, ladies born since 1020), only two have been allowed to have more than 2 children -- Shus's mom and another who almost doesn't count, since her husband is only síkhón. So obviously Saralla takes this two-child rule very seriously. (She's been the Shalla since 1051.)

Saralla might justify it either as a necessary replacement for Vash's wife or a kindness paid to Ris and Madra since they lost their son. (Though in the latter case it would make more sense to let them have a son.)

But the more shocking innovation, if Vash's suspicions are correct, is that this girl would not be khórrón, and as far as history shows it would be the first time that the wife of the Khór has not been of his caste. Madra is khórrón but Ris isn't, and you can only get to that caste through your father. (Another guarantee of the eventual end of their caste system as they know it.)

Don't worry these questions are loads of fun for me.

I don't believe Egelric ever had a thing for Matilda. She was just way too far out in the stratosphere as far as his reach was concerned. I'm sure he found her attractive but I don't think he was actually attracted to her. He usually felt kind of sheepish and clumsy around her -- and she was his lord's wife -- and she was a great lady -- and he respected her the way he would have respected a man, which is so-so rare for Egelric.

Of course this was the Egelric of before-1080 too, who was not quite the swaggering, surly beast he has become in recent years.

When he was startled in "Gwynn sees the meaning" it was just because he thought for a minute that it was Matilda or Matilda's ghost. I guess Gwynn's voice as she ages is getting more like Matilda's too. Egelric has been dwelling so much on "dead ladies who are dead" lately, I suppose it's not surprising. In the same way Alred was thinking maybe Gwynn reminded of him so much of Matilda lately because he was thinking so much about Matilda ever since Lili died. (In "Gwynn sees a smile".)

Now the question is: is the Egelric of 1085 capable of being attracted to Gwynn? And what is he going to do about it if he is?

Ew indeed!

I'm afraid to say this but maybe in a year or two he should remarry just to prevent something like this from happening.

Why is the man so self destructive and volatile!?

I think I did mention this in a chapter once or twice, but I sure can't remember where. Sigefrith gave Alred a higher rank than Cenwulf for two reasons: Alred was richer then both of them put together, and he was married to King Harold's cousin.

Unlike Sigefrith's or Leofric's or even Cenwulf's, Alred's family was not noble -- which he believes Leofric holds against him, witness:

" You never could bear to see an ugly, common-blooded little man such as I come back a war hero, and be called the best swordsman of my age and isle, and win the Earl's cousin to wife, and be made a Duke here over you—you've been jealous of me every step of the way!"

-- but they were filthy rich from some never-yet-mentioned exploits of his ancestors. And unlike Sigefrith and Cenwulf, who never made it back to Hwaelnaess at all after the battle, Alred scampered home and carried off everything he could, which is why he ended up with a large part of his fortune in the form of jewelry, and why Matilda was always so well-adorned.

In the early days I don't think anyone besides Matilda took the title thing very seriously anyway, which might have been a reason too. It kept Matilda happy. If you go all the way back to the first chapters you can see that Alred was all "Whatever you want, dear" about the the whole thing.

And if her young cousins or the Aetheling ever managed to take back the throne -- which in the early days Sigefrith believed was going to happen any month now -- they were going to need a happy Matilda to jockey them into the best possible place in the new king's court. Matilda knew all the big players in those days -- the men like Earl Morcar -- better than Sigefrith or any of the men, and she was a real favorite with them.

As for Caedwulf and Gwynn... you know, I tried, but I don't think I have a single chapter in which Caedwulf thinks anything about Gwynn. The closest I could find was this third-party exchange between Conrad and Cedric in "Gwynn kisses a beardless gentleman":

"Her father means to let her marry whomever she likes."

"What makes you think that?" Cedric scoffed.

"Caedwulf told me.  He was supposed to marry her, but her father said she could marry whom she liked."

"So why wouldn't she want to marry him?  Then she would be queen."

"I wouldn't mind kissing a future queen..." Conrad said thoughtfully.

Perhaps by the time she was old enough for him to ogle, he was already engaged to Ogive, or at least he already knew that Alred wasn't going to make her marry him, which meant it was quite likely that she would never want to marry him at all.

He probably does find her rather tiresome -- Caedwulf has no time to waste on giggling and ROMANCE. Sigefrith is a sucker for a pretty face and likes his girls somewhat empty-headed and docile, but Caedwulf only likes them that way when it comes to the bedroom. He doesn't realize it yet, since except for his fling with Cecily he has never been in love, but Caedwulf actually wouldn't like a girl like Eadie all that much. He would probably like Gwynn better than Eadie. Gwynn is so naive she makes my teeth ache, but she's quite clever if she takes her time and thinks things through. (Though I doubt she'll be anything like "docile" in the bedroom.) But even then he would much prefer a girl with the brains of Ogive.

(Unfortunately, Ogive also has the body and face of Ogive, so that's going to be tough all around.)

It may be that my lack of Gwynn observations from the part of Caedwulf may simply be due to the fact that he doesn't think about her that way. Maybe growing up thinking he had to marry her spoiled her for him, but I think it more likely that their sorta-betrothed status over the years made their parents throw them together all the time at parties and so forth, so he grew up seeing her as a sort of annoying little sister. Maybe that will change as she grows up and especially outward, but right now I just don't detect any attraction there at all.

Also, have Lar and Ris met? I'm assuming Larl knows that Ris is his half brother.

I was just wondering. I'd be pretty angry if any of the guys cheated on their wives. Except maybe Malcolm the younger, I think he's earned the right to have an affair. Oh, and I'd be okay if Bertie did, just because I highly doubt I'll ever like Anna.

Does Sigefrith ever make Emma hang out with Baldwin? If so, what do they do?

Gah! Our comments keep crossing.

Haha one point for Team Malcolm-minus-Iylaine! Another team to add after Team Vash-minus-Iylaine (plus-or-minus-Kraaia).

Bertie might but I don't think he would do it until he had been made sufficiently disillusioned about Anna (doubtlessly by Anna herself). It could happen. Bertie was certainly no angel before he was married.

I don't think Sigefrith actually makes Emmie hang out with Baldwin, but their social gatherings being what they are, they end up in the same room quite often, and once there of course she is expected to at least get along with him. He's mostly invisible enough that he just sits in the background while Emmie and Meggie talk and play. They kinda like having him around because he's a boy and has certain privileges they don't, yet he does everything they tell him to do. Like I don't know sneak wine to them or something.

Sometimes she gets stuck dancing with him, though neither like that pastime very much. And otherwise they do the usual things the noble kids do. Riding and falconry and telling riddles and playing games. At this age they don't get stuck alone together the way Sigefrith (or Caedwulf mostly) was throwing Brit and Dunstan together all the time. That will surely come in a few years. They will probably marry fairly young since Cenwulf's only other heir besides Baldwin is Baldwin's little half-brother Ceolred. Also Emmie seems likely to be a bit wild, and Sigefrith may do like he did with Brit and hasten her marriage to force her to settle down.

I wouldn't be surprised if Sigefrith cheated on Eadie with a teenaged maid..

I hope not!

I still love Sigefrith/Eadgith. Although sometimes I wonder if that's just as wishful of me as thinking Egelric and Gunnilda still might be together one day (which, not going to lie, I still think that sometimes...)

Or Lar's son(s)!

Ever since I started thinking Sigefrith was a pedo I have been finding ookiness in lots of old chapters. Maybe he will lose interest in Eadie as she gets older and more womanly? Maybe he's actually falling for Ogive? He seems to hang out with her an awful lot for any man in his position, and especially for a woman-disdainer like Sigefrith. Reminds me of his little chats with a certain someone, back in the day.

OMG you have a backup for Eadie? Do tell! Is it one of her dashing cousins? Hey, actually Britmar isn't even married...

Would Eadie marry again? I never even thought about that. She would be the mother of the 2nd in line to the throne... I am not sure Caedwulf and His Advisors (so funny to say that, since it would consist of, like, Malcolm and Dunstan and Selwyn) would allow her to marry again, at least until Caedwulf has an heir of his own. Anyone she married would have potential to influence her, and Drage through her.

Eadie would be asking herself what a great lady would do anyway, and she might decide a great lady mourns for the rest of her life.

Eadie and Alred? Only shock-smilies can express my shock.

That was a cute chapter though, but I came away with the impression that Alred was looking on her in a very fatherly way.

Oh dear you think Hetty might die? Only cry-smilies, etc...

Who are your backups for Alred, huh? Tell us, huh huh? There are so few women in the valley, you would almost have to kill someone. The only two I can find (without robbing any cradles) are Irene and Edris, both interesting choices indeed.

But something tells me that if Hetty were to die, Alred would be done with romance of all kinds. He just couldn't do it any more. He's having a hard time doing it now, and I mean that in every sense of the expression.

I'm with you on Larl. That man (elf) is such an island. I kinda know where his character is going in the next few months or year, so I'm OK with that at the moment.

OH YES! I remember I once toyed with the idea of Alred and Leila having an affair. They have all kinds of chemistry, since the day they met. And remember in "Alred returns Leila's chickens" they both seemed kind of disillusioned about the whole second marriage thing -- and, what's more, trusted each other enough to admit it to each other.

I like Godefroy well enough, but he's not a MAIN character, so as long as I can keep ConRAD! I would consider offing him. But I wouldn't kill Hetty just for that. On the other hand... Alred cheating on Hetty, while Hetty never truly cheated on him... that could have interesting repercussions too.

Man, Alred marrying a third time... I don't know, I can imagine him trying to find ANY other way to avoid doing that. If he had an old maid sister or someone to help him raise his kids... Or make Dunstan and Brit come live with him, and have Brit be the mother figure.

Alred marrying just to have someone to raise his kids... that would be so tragic. That would be like the death certificate of the Alred we once knew.

Alred and Gunnie would be cute together. But like I said a little earlier, I still have that slightly disillusioned dream of Gunnilda with Egelric.

So Leofric and Sir Leila's kids seem fairly clever, and I'm guessing Leia will grow up to be quite bright, but both young Sigefrith and Eadie are a little on the slow side, even though their parents are both decently intelligent. We haven't seen much of Leofric and Eadgith's younger children. Are they going to grow up to be smarter than their older full siblings, or is it something about Leofric's genes in conjunction with Eadgith's? I suppose they are cousins, so maybe it has something to do with the inbreeding...

Also, this has nothing to do with the story itself, really, but I'm curious. What are some of your Sims' aspirations? I remember reading somewhere that Leofric was romance (and, well, that was always kind of a given). I can see Sigefrith as either fortune or popularity, since he's really more into his politics than his family. Alred, a little harder; family or popularity or knowledge. What about Gwynn (and I'm guessing Matilda had the same)? I can see her as family or romance... do you have any of those expansion packs that allow for secondary aspirations? And of course I'm stumped on both Egelric and Larl. My guess is that Lar is knowledge or something for lack of anything more suitable. Egelric, probably the best bets are romance or fortune.

I know you age your teenagers up to adults at seventeen, and your kids up to teenagers at ten or eleven, but when do you age your toddlers up to kids and your babies up to toddlers? I'm debating when I should age some of my sim babies up, but being one of two relatively close in age children of older parents with older friends with older kids, I really have no idea when exactly babies start looking older than newborns. I'm guessing you age yours up somewhere between six and nine months? As for kids, I'm going to guess around five, just because changing kid heights in Sim PE is pretty different from changing adult heights, and it's a bit of a stretch to have a four year old running around who's the same height as their nine-year-old sibling.

I think I'm using a different height scale than you are anyway, at least for adults and teens.

How's Gog these days? Is he going to make any appearances any time soon?