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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Saga - PT Before the Saga Forever Away From Home (OCs, town chronicles) - OC & OTP challenge response replies December 03rd

Discussion in 'Fan Fiction- Before, Saga, and Beyond' started by Ewok Poet, Apr 13, 2016.

  1. Raissa Baiard

    Raissa Baiard FFoF Artist Extraordinaire star 4 VIP - Game Host

    Registered:
    Nov 22, 1999
    Oh Taide! Poor, befuddled Taide! He's so cute when he's confused...which seems to be a lot of the time :D Perhaps he should not have had quite so much caf; it doesn't seem to help his anxious stammering and word-mangling:
    [face_laugh]
    He just has no idea how to deal with a member of the opposite sex. Slad and Vero have tried their best, but I'm not sure even their well-meaning advice has gotten through the academic shell surrounding Taide.
    Um....yes.

    Maris and Larax's conversation regarding Taide and Elesandre is revealing, too. Once again, Elesandre comes off not as the progressive model citizen his daughter portrays him as, but a troublemaker and, well, kind of a creep.
    I kind of love that Taide being reliable and scholarly are the things about him that make Maris stammer and swoon. Perhaps there's something redeeming about Sacorrian progressiveness, after all. ;)

    But this
    is a Chekhov's gun if I ever saw one.

    Can't wait to see just how disastrously Taide and Maris's danger...er, dinner..turns out :)
     
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  2. divapilot

    divapilot Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 30, 2005
    Nice update!
    And I feel like an idiot. I just now figured out how I know Maris. And I've read your other works! Gaah! Of course!

    I love this look at Maris and Taide. They seem so sweet together. She seems to like him despite herself, and he is just smitten. Just don't talk about that thing with the hands. Why do I have a feeling that the hands will somehow become a topic during their danger dinner?

    Looking forward to more! :D
     
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  3. Findswoman

    Findswoman Fanfic and Pancakes and Waffles Mod (in Pink) star 5 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Feb 27, 2014
    Awww, poor Taide, bewitched, bewildered, and bombarded with advice! Not only that, it's advice from two people who are totally unlike him and likely totally unable to put themselves in his shoes, who totally don't realize what an ordeal just talking about general small-talk "stuff" is for someone like Taide. And that one piece of advice hands—the one piece that actually isn't bad advice—is most likely the very one he's going to forget about when he's face to face with Maris. [face_worried] Also, his questions about the Sacorrian Triad don't bode well either... not that they're not good and reasonable questions in and of themselves, but if he starts in with stuff like that while talking with a good "Golden Grains"-singing Sacorrian girl like Maris, she's likely to let him have it. [face_nail_biting]

    I really liked the scene with Maris and her aunt and uncle—it was so nice to see Maris just getting to spend some laid-back quality time with family members. Larax is eccentric, for sure, but she's got a kind, caring heart and tons of love for her niece (just as we know she will later on for her grandniece "Dodo"). Ditto Denaro—I think this is my first time seeing him actually appear in one of your stories. It's just so gladdening to see Maris so happy and at ease, and feeling a few flutters of a crush for the polite, studious scholar—though bittersweet, too, since we know from your other stories that she will not be so happy and at ease forever.

    Looking forward to seeing how the actual "danger date" will go, and how things will wrap up! :)
     
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  4. Ewok Poet

    Ewok Poet Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jul 31, 2014
    Thanks for reading. :) Here's the last chapter, after the replies...

    Because they're not gems. Gems don't expect you to talk, just praise them while they remain silent. :eek:

    So...what sports exist out there?


    A pretty classic one at it. "Tell everybody, but don't tell your mother!" etc.


    I can't wait to see how you feel about her as an adult...now that you saw WHY is she the way she is.

    Because it's STAR WARS and you HAVE to have a bad feeling about something. ;)


    They're not particularly educated, either. However, cooking and waiting tables while studying at the Lyceum allows a lot of interaction. The combo of lower education and good social skills just screams "don't advise a clumsy academic type".

    Code:Blue: "Of course!" :D

    Of course. HOW DARE YOU INSULT THEIR LEADERSHIPS?

    Smitten Maris is fun to watch. :D

    And Denaro WILL appear in another piece, but once again, as a side character.


    Heeere you go...
     
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  5. Ewok Poet

    Ewok Poet Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jul 31, 2014
    III


    On the last day of Comrade Saride’s leave and the day she was to meet Taide for dinner, Maris visited the Abatore county fair in the nearby landlocked town of Lyro. Much like Anaslinea-Hoc, Lyro had once been destroyed by a large groundquake, but it was rebuilt quickly afterwards.

    The younglings, even the ever-so-serious Ordinus adored the fairground attractions, carbosyrup-fluff and the rides such as Kill All the Rebels!, and Star Destroyers Unlimited. She even tried the zero-G room and the Clawdite Simulator Chamber herself.

    And then, she got distracted. She thought about how it would have been with Elesandre. Of course, he would’ve headed to all these stands where you can win bottles of Corellian whiskey if you manage to throw rings over them. If you are good with the fake blaster and something called a “Wookiee crossbow” that likely comes from the local folklore, you can win a stuffed tooka, mooka or a plastoid quadduck, the kind that was not allowed for use in bath tubs back on the Motherworld.

    And of course, Elesandre would’ve had one drink too many, which was actually just a single drink, due to his low tolerance to alcohol. And of course, he would’ve picked a fight. And of course, he would not have gotten in trouble, because this is Vagran where all the Brothers and Sisters practiced non-violence.

    But what would have “commaster” Taide Lambrin done? Commaster, now that was funny. He would’ve said that, wouldn’t he? Does he even understand how to use a rollercoaster and has he ever had carbosyrup-fluff? She could imagine him with a quizzical look on his face, going on about something in the lines of the Church of the Blind having had their own delights, but not something that impractical. And then she laughed out loud, something that she usually did out of her sense of duty, such as when Elesandre or Uncle Geo would tell a joke.

    “What are you laughing at, comradette Inesedam?” a Selonian girl named Klaaus asked.

    “Nothing, young comradette.” Maris shook her head. “Absolutely nothing. Would you like more carbosyrup fluff?"

    “You’re the best, comradette Inesedam!” Klaaus clapped her tiny hands. “Comrade Saride would have never allowed us to have this much sugar.”

    “Well, it’s artificial sugar, so it’s…p…”

    The child cocked her head. “Progressive?”

    “Yes, yes, that.” Maris nodded. What she really wanted to say is “permitted”, but there was no variation or creativity in these younglings’ minds.


    Taide spent that day, the Iasonneday, with his new friend, a foreign Drall named Lidgrain and the local youngling Morusalba Kaeni on the beach. The girl was running around with a repulsorlift-powered toy, occasionally checking on something she had brought along – an amphyplax she called “Kalgo-Neet”. That name sounded like some sort of a decalcifier to him, but he had no heart to insult the child.

    “You’ve been quiet today, Taide.” Lidgrain said. The archaeologist wondered why his accent sounded so similar to Maris’. Nah. That must’ve been because he had been thinking about her way too much. “Oh, hey, look at those two – they look like our next candidates. Emy, come along! Your presence helps me find customers!”

    “I think I’m in love. But I can’t possibly say that out loud.” Taide could not even say this much before Lidgrain had already gone to approach a nearby-sitting couple about drawing them. He turned around and the only living thing that could have heard him was Kalgo-Neet.

    “Ay-ko, ay-ko, ay-ko!” the creature went and reached out to him from the tiny repulsorlift aquarium Morusalba Kaeni brought him over in.

    “Now, that was strange.” Taide scratched the back of his had. “If you were sentient, I would have had a panic attack from the idea of your knowing that I’m in love with Maris Inesedam and that I don’t know what to do!”

    “Ayyyyyy-ko!”

    Taide looked to the sun and the Chiro Mountain in the distance.

    “Help me, hooved Goddess.” He whispered to himself. “I need to, how they say, get the girl?!”

    …​

    Taide wore the same suit that he did every day. Usually, he felt a bit hot in it, due to Anaslinea-Hoc’s climate and closeness to Vagran’s equator, but this time he was getting the chills. His hands were shaking.

    “Some women are like that once every month.” Vero adjusted the tablecloth for what must have been the thirty-seventh time that evening, much to Slad’s confusion. “Speaking of women, here she comes! Wearing that awful colour, again.”

    Indeed, Maris was coming up the street from the pier, wearing orange. She realised that Taide and his two friends were somewhat confused by her attire. After a short “prog”, the word they were still not able to even figure out, she went on to explain.

    “This is the same dress I will perform in, on the last night of the festival.”

    Taide didn’t know anything about dresses. Vero and Sladok did, but they just nodded, the latter letting a soft “m-hm” escape his mouth.

    The waitress attempted a careful question, “Why is it orange?”

    “That’s my class colour at the university. Second best. Red is the highest class, white the lowest. There are also yellows.” She paused. “You don’t have that on Vagran, do you? Why? It’s very practical. It helps filter out the weeds from the golden grains.”

    Taide was flabbergasted. “But…everybody is a star, in a way! In this Universe as it is, there’s place for everybody. Every brother is a star and every sister is a star!”

    “I guess.” Maris sat down at the table. “That must be why I was selected to perform. I never sang live before.”

    Sladok climbed the stairs to the restaurant and soon he was back, carrying two large plates full of various delicacies.

    “These are fried doio squid rings with red nebula onion and ryoo vinaigrette. This here, it’s okufleesi suckling roast on small sticks, straight from the spit. Then you have the local bantha yoghurt covered in swampgrape flower honey, with ground apex tree fruit kernels and real sugar syrup, not carbosyrup here. And…” He pointed to two nearby wraps and a large dish in a rounded pan. “No traditional Vagranite supper would be complete without the chicken and nerf mixed meat with pomatoes and the kakariki sauce wrapped in a flatcake…and…and...”

    “Young bantha cheese pie!” Taide clapped his hands, gleam in his eyes, as if he had said the most beautiful thing in the Universe. “My mother, Kantaree, makes the best cheese pie ever...after Slad’s, naturally.”

    Maris smiled politely and took a bite of everything. It was delicious.

    “I liked the dessert most. What is it called?”

    “Sweet as honey, white as fresh bantha yoghurt, tough as apex tree fruits. We call it doria.”

    “What does that have to do with, well, anything?”

    “It does not.” Sladok grinned. “It’s a traditional name that this stud here“ – he pointed to a blushing Taide – “managed to decipher together with the rest of the recipe. What’s wrong?” He noticed that Maris was confused, again.

    “Doloria is a Selonian terrorist organisation back in the Sacorrian system. They’re basically an assassin cult. Secular, but a cult. It’s…hard to explain.”

    “We definitely didn’t want to evoke memories of them.” Vero did her best to fix the situation. “In fact, we have other guests to serve over there, so we will leave you alone to your meal. Right, Slad?”

    The restaurant owner grinned again, showing a mouthful of blindingly white teeth. “Right, Vero.”

    Taide swallowed a lump. He had to talk to a girl without two of his friends around. And he’d had no courage to invite Lidgrain to join them and talk about his art. He couldn’t exactly confess to Groyo Stagger that he had never been on an actual dinner date before. His mother suspected that he was up to something before he went out – the last time he was this happy was when he had found the first petrified hand at the excavation site. But still, he didn’t manage to tell anybody other than the two common people who somewhat understood him.

    “So, Maris…” he began. “You like…stuff?”

    The Sacorrian stopped with her fork in her hand, just when she was about to take another bite of the pie. “What stuff?”

    “You know…things. And all that...poodoo!” Taide put both of his hands on his mouth. “I totally didn’t mean to use that word, I’m sorry!”

    Maris laughed.

    “How old are you, once again?”

    “Twenty-nine!” he said, as if this was some sort of an embarrassing thing to confess.

    “Well, I’m twenty-three and I don’t think you should be apologising for this kind of a word. And I don’t like many things except for history, culture and art. I used to have friends, but El…I mean, now with my studies, I don’t have much time to hang around. Plus, hanging around is not progressive. You?” She smiled.

    “I…make…things. You know, like these tiny ancient starships…in real glass bottles that my father brings me straight from Aurea! But that’s stupid. As far as f-f-friends go, there are Sladok and Vero. There’s Groyo, you already met him. Then, there’s the Caraway-Kaeni family. They actually founded this town. I mean, Ravyd Caraway did! At this point, his two youngest grand-grandsons, Proto and Klato own hotels, the Taliore and the Taliore Deluxe.”

    Maris looked at the slightly tanned face and gleaming hazel eyes. Elesandre’s were chocolate brown. Taide was also taller than he, which added a certain value to his natural awkwardness and clumsiness. He was most certainly a handsome man, but just like her first boyfriend back at the Lyceum, Frangoo Chato, he should have come with a manual. How did the story about his hobbies turn into one about those two beat-up hotels at the very end of the waterfront?

    “But what do you like most?” she asked. “Other than your family, friends and your job. Do you have any progressive goals?”

    Taide swallowed a lump again. “This is where I have to ask, forgive me, please…but why do you use that word all the time?”

    “You don’t know?” Maris was genuinely surprised. “Didn’t you study our culture?”

    “There is nothing about your culture available to us. You’re one large mystery. In fact, I have only briefly met Sacorrian beings before. I’m aware of the actor Garko Garelbi who recently defected to Coruscant, but that’s it.”

    “There is a lot to us. We get the rules and we follow them. At the first day of basic school, we’re explicitly told where our place in the world is and how far we can go. It’s an admirable society.”

    “That sounds slightly disturbing. Every being is a star, it’s just that some don’t know that they are.”

    “No,” Maris said flatly. “It’s a good thing, because it’s not progressive to waste time on useless beings. The founder of the First Triad, Taranya of R’vanye, said so herself. Roofus and Dorthus Tal agreed and that is how our progressive society began!”

    Taide’s curiosity was piqued. “Oh, the Sacorrian Triad! Who are they, exactly?” He took a small helping of the doria dessert.

    “We don’t know. There have been at least one hundred thousand incarnations of them over the course of the last thirty millennia, ever since the first sleeper ships came from Corellia.”

    He expected her to have some interest in knowing who these beings were. But no.

    “Maris, have you ever wondered who they are right now?”

    “No. It’s not like it’s public domain. They have been keeping it a secret forever, so why tell us now?”

    “Is it because it could…break your society the way it is?”

    The Sacorrian woman raised her voice. “How dare you say that, Comrade Lambrin? Our society is perfect and progressive!”

    Suddenly, they were on a last-name basis again, or so it seemed. Taide wasn’t sure what to do. He took one of Maris’ small, white hands in his hand.

    “Maris, please don’t be angry. I was just curious, being an archaeology doctoral candidate and a doctor of sentientology.”

    Her expression changed and now she was blushing, too. “It’s all right, Taide. I get carried away, too. By the way, has anybody told you that you have a certain charm amidst that confusion of yours?”

    “N-no, nobody’s ever told me anything like that!” Taide did not want to remember the time he almost took that droid home back at his University of Vagran days. “Not at all.”

    Maris came closer. Was this going to be what he never cared or dreamed about until she came along? Also, was this the time when he was supposed to return the compliment?

    “You have really nice…” He could hear Vero and Sladok telling him what not to say, but their words turned to plain ‘blah blah blah blah’ in his mind. “Hands.” Maris yanked her hand away. “I… I honestly meant to say ‘eyes’.”

    The woman got up, almost bringing the whole tablecloth down.

    “You necrophile!” she yelled. “Is that the only reason you wanted to kiss me? So you could ask me to be one of those hand models? Well, Comrade, I have news for you – death is not progressive and I am not going to be anybody’s relics. I am a real woman, of flesh and blood. AND I AM TAKEN!”

    “Maris, wait! I…I really like you!” Taide said out loud, causing everybody present at the other tables to turn to him. Then he swallowed a lump.

    But it was too late. The girl of his dreams was gone, pacing downwards to the Anaslinea-Hoc waterfront.

    …​

    Lidgrain, whose real name was Dyeke, whose real fur colour was tan and who was indeed Sacorrian himself, unbeknownst to all of his Vagranite friends, surveyed the crowd on the last night of the festival.

    Once at home, he recorded the following audio message to his long lost love, one certain Branna, Maris’ neighbour back in Saccorata.

    On the last day, a troupe from Sacorria performed before the closing ceremony. They were a late addition to the programme. The crowd was extremely curious about them.

    At first, the stage was almost completely dark, with only a light orange circle, likely representing Sacor, shown in the centre of the back wall. After a one-minute intro that sounded a lot of like ramship parade music, a pale, red-haired, blue-eyed young woman wearing orange walked towards us. Her corpse-like appearance must have been Taide’s favourite thing about this festival, but I couldn’t spot him in the crowd. I gave up on looking for him. Imagining his facial expression was enough.

    It was only then that I realised this girl was the young comradette Maris Inesedam! They didn’t even introduce the members of the troupe, I guess it was not progressive to single anybody out and imply individuality, not even taken into consideration that they were in another star system, but it was absolutely her. She sung Fields of Golden Grains and then she sat on the ground and a group of five Drall, five Selonian and five Human children, all wearing costumes in the four school colours back at home…this really, really bothered me, Ranni…danced around her, to the tune so boring that it must have been composed by Whatevername Lylek.

    There was a moment when I could swear Maris looked straight into my eyes. I put my glareshades on. I guess I was the victim of that stupid belief that the performers are looking at me, me, me and not somebody else, but I wanted to be safe. Turns out this was a good decision, as the unenthusiastic applause the performance received was enough to bring the author of the whole thing onstage.

    It was Saride, the kriffin’ art thief! He said that the choreography was done by Lyneina Lylek – I guessed that, Ranni – but that she had prior commitments with the folkdance entrance exams at the SUPAS, so he filled in for her. He could have as well said that he wanted a free trip to another star system, right? He praised his troupe and said that he’s satisfied by the intensity of the applause, because they needed to remain humble?!

    I almost wanted to throw something at him. Was he even aware that the applause was the way it was because the performance sucked bantha poodoo? Because Lyneina Lylek likely lacks any kind of an art talent, just like most other Lyleks?

    We’re such unimaginative people. I am not even sure if that’s Saride’s fault or not. Or the Lyleks’.

    And then he sighed. He wished he could have talked to Maris. He was worried about Taide. At the same time, he wished Taide would have seen his long-lost and much younger friend. They were, more or less, perfect for each other.

    …​

    After the return trip to Sacorria, before she could even manage to take a rest and talk to her mother and Branna the Drall about what had happened on Vagran, Maris found herself sitting at the Orbit Bar at the Central Spaceport with her boyfriend, Elesandre Vorr, and his older sister, Iris.

    “So, how was Vagran, Maz?” he asked her. He had been calling her “Maz” since the first time he had seen her and many of his friends didn’t even know that Maris had been her actual name.

    “Boring,” she said in her usual flat tone and stirred her transparisteel mug of Corfai-caf with a long spoon. “Other than the usual visit from Larax and Denaro, nothing really happened.” She quickly drank everything in the mug. “I prefer it here, anyway.”

    “Tell me something I don’t know, Maz,” Iris said and took the mug in her hands. Seconds later, she bit her tongue and turned around, making sure that her brother could not see her face. The remains of the caf on the bottom of the mug looked like a tall man holding a quadduck toy.

    And there was one, peeking from Maz’s handbag.

    THE END

    Footnotes
    Carbosyrup-fluff would, of course, stand for cotton candy. Carbosyrup is otherwise canon.

    Kalgo-Neet’s name is indeed a pun on Calgonit, the decalcifier.

    Iasonneday would be one of the days of the week on Vagran, likely an equivalent to Sunday.

    The part written from a different point of view has been lifted from Letters Never Sent, word for word.

    Fried doio squid rings with red nebula onion and ryoo, okufleesi suckling roast on small sticks, chicken and nerf mixed meat with pomatoes and the kakariki sauce wrapped in a flatcake and bantha yoghurt covered in swampgrape flower honey, with ground apex tree fruit kernels and real sugar syrup are all fanon foods, typically eaten in the Kaz’aan Gulf.

    Kakariki is, of course, a parrot in our world, but since “kikiriki” means peanuts in my native language, I combined that word and “tzatziki” to create absolute nonsense.

    Corfai-caf would be ice coffee.
     
    Last edited: Mar 11, 2021
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  6. Findswoman

    Findswoman Fanfic and Pancakes and Waffles Mod (in Pink) star 5 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Feb 27, 2014
    You know I love how cutely, bumblingly earnest Taide is as a character, and how much I enjoy characters like that in general. But what I especially love about him in this chapter is that he gets the opportunity, even in this awkward "danger date" conversation, with its awkward beginning ("do you like... stuff?" [face_laugh] ) and many awkward moments, to make some actual important points and raise some serious issues: why not recognize that everyone is special and can be a star? Who are the three members of the Triad, anyway? Plus pointing out to her that Sacorrian society really is a closed book to those who don't live there.

    Unfortunately, they are all things that raise Maris's Sacorrian hackles. Even though it's not the one she reacts the most strongly to, her surprise that Taide isn't familiar with Sacorrian culture says a ton, because of course the Sacorrians would have this view that their society is so perfect and progressive that everyone would know all about it. Most of the way through the conversation, though, she at least manages to let her better side win out...

    ...until THE HANDS COMMENT! Uh-oh, I just knew he'd goof up on that one (well, the title of the story kind of hints at it :p ). :oops: Though being Taide he really does mean it as a compliment, and given that he deals with hands (of one kind or another...) almost every day, he does kind of know what he's talking about. Though of course Maris wouldn't know that—she hasn't expressed anywhere near the amount of curiosity in Taide's background as he has in hers—and of course even in her shocked reaction she invokes specifically Sacorrian ideals ("death is not progressive!")

    The Lil/Lidgrain interlude is a nice touch and a nice tie-in with Letters Never Sent, which is where we first met young!Maris. There's no small pathos in the fact that he didn't really get to talk to Maris, and that Taide lost the nerve to ask him along to dinner. "What might have been" was the story of Lil's life, and there is a distinct element of it in Taide's life, too. (And of course it's a theme that runs all throughout your Sacorrian oeuvres. :cool: )

    So, now, this ending section—let me see if I have this right. Maris is back with Elesandre, whose question about her trip gives every appearance of not being very sincere (it's telling that his friends don't even know her proper name; I'm not sure if the choice of "Maz" is significant, given who that will turn out to be later). She answers in a totally desultory and terse manner—part of it no doubt because of her own disappointment with her dinner with Taide, but part of it I'm guessing has to do with Elesandre's stifling influence, and that's a very sad thing. :( I have to say I don't quite understand the bit with the toy quadduck at the end, though it looks like Iris is doing the GFFA equivalent of tea-leaf reading. Is Taide the form she sees in the cup? And where does the quadduck fit in? Does it perhaps even mean that Taide will at some point come back into the picture? Very tantalizingly ambiguous...

    Great wrap-up to this wonderfully fun story—both bittersweet and enjoyable! I would not say no to more Taide stories from you. :)
     
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  7. Ewok Poet

    Ewok Poet Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jul 31, 2014
    HOPE THE OTHERS COME BACK. IF YOU DON'T COME BACK, I WILL TAKE AN OUIJA BOARD, CALL THE SPIRIT OF FLORENCE FOSTER-JENKINS AND SEND HER TO YOU. THEN IMMA SING A DUET WITH HER. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!

    Yeah, I'm dramatic. :p And the above is a joke. ;)




    Yup, Taide quickly switches from absolute awkwardness towards liberal ideas, once they're challenged. He might not be the classic Vagranite hipster type, but he's aware of the freedoms his planet offers, in comparison to Sacorria - the more Maris contradicts him, the more aware he is of it.

    I am not sure if she was aware just HOW isolated her planet was until this point. The realisation must have been frightening, to put it mildly.

    Many of my stories have sort of...Chekhovian titles. ;) But yeah, this one was s00pa-obvious.

    Of course. He is not exactly a fetishist, a necrophile, he's just seen so many hands and learned to love them that he simply can't think of a more flattering thing to say - ouch.

    And true, that. Maris was probably indoctrinated to think that Sacorrians are SUPERIOR to everybody. But this might as well be the time she first opens her eyes to the real world...

    Aww, you're flattering me, I just copied and pasted that from Letters Never Sent.

    But yes, "what might have been" remains valid.

    Yes to almost everything.

    Nah to the name.

    Nothing to add here.

    Iris basically saw what could have been and was not. The quadduck is there, but Maris did not go to the county fair with Taide, rather with the younglings. However, the quadduck could be a foreshadowing, a sign that she "cheated", at least in her mind...

    There will be more of him, I promise. :)
     
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