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Also reminded of how badass Cheris' opening scene is, running experimental math equations while actually under fire and also trying to corral her squad into her quasi-heretical plan which ultimately ends up being successful despite all odds...no wonder Mikodez went "yes, this is the one"
Now that I'm on a reread, it's time for "insane things from Cheris and Jedao's first meeting featuring an unnamed Nirai who is definitely Kujen" here we go
"You are a Kel, aren't you? You usually are." He [Jedao] added: "It's so easy to forget what colors look like."
His [the Nirai's] speech was plain, despite his beautiful voice, his verb forms almost disparaging.
"Should formation instinct have taken her so strongly?" Jedao said. He sounded deferential.
"Jedao," the Nirai said, "I trust she's satisfactory?" "I'm your gun," Jedao said. Cheris was nonplussed. A Kel might say that ceremonially to a superior, and even then only on the highest of occasions, but the irony in Jedao's voice suggested that something else was going on. "Besides," Jedao added, "if she's like the others, she never had a substantive choice, and I didn't have one either."
"What defenses does the general have, sir?" "He can talk to you," the Nirai said sardonically.
But the formation instinct was ebbing. She could think more clearly now. "That's better," Jedao said. Was that genuine relief?
"'My attention wandered'?" Cheris said, remembering his smile when she had fallen off the treadmill. "The Nirai has peculiar ideas about entertainment," Jedao said without any particular inflection.
Cheris frowned. Something didn't add up. "I appreciate the concern, sir." The word slipped out: habit. "You weren't at the Siege of Hellspin Fortress," Jedao said. For the first time, his voice went completely flat.
"We're going to have to confront the Fortress sooner or later," Cheris said. "It might as well be sooner. With any luck, fewer people will die this way." "Good," Jedao said crisply. "I'm glad we care about the same things."
In an emergency, if the general withholds necessary information, the carrion glass remnants can be ingested by a volunteer. Although this procedure is experimental, this will give the general a body so he can be tortured.
"Alright," Jedao said. "Setup...We're going to have to ask the Nirai to loan us a mathematical analyst--" "I can handle that," Cheris said. Sharp interest: "You're Nirai-trained?"
"I can request my profile for your perusal," she said. "I'd like that, yes, but I want to hear it from you as well." Cheris brought up her profile--the part of it she was allowed to see, anyway--and wondered which sections were inviting particular scrutiny... "Fine," Jedao said after a disquieting silence. "Fourth display, review of available resources."
"If the Pale Fracture weren't a calendrical dead zone, they would almost be good enough to fuel a whole new wave of expansion." "Don't get cocky," said the Nirai without looking up, "you have enough problems already." "One could hope for some variety in opponents," Jedao said. Cheris blinked. She didn't think she had imagined the chill in his voice. But the Nirai's expression was serene, as if he hadn't heard it at all.
"Breaking the enemy has always been important." Yes, Cheris thought, but who is your enemy?
Incredible dynamic. Poor Cheris has no idea what she's standing in the middle of.
The fact that Jedao's very last words, his very last thought, is to thank Cheris for the light, for something so small, for this one little thought as to how dark and lonely his world has been for so long, says so much about the condition he has lived the last 400 years in, and so much about his relationship with Kujen.
too much strangeness all at once.
Queer Book Character Tournament Round 1
Daphne Luckenbill- The Spirit Bares Its Teeth
Ajewen Cheris- The Machineries of Empire
Violet Debenham- The Last Binding trilogy
Cyril Laverre- Shoestring Theory
Character, book, and author names under the cut
@a-voltage asked: Jedao and/or Cheris? OwO Pink seems like a challenge! [A26]
menace (extroverted) and menace (introverted)
[send me a color palette]
I just think I just think I just think that in the beginning she wanted to be a part of something larger than herself so badly, she wanted to conform in the matrix of the larger Us and even through all that she was still so human she couldn’t help but listen to the ghost in her head and realized he was human too. in the end she again gave up who she was for the hope of something greater
she was such a good Kel but god she was a better Person
What if you were a guy who was actually a girl who was actually kind of the guy
And they were both war criminals <3
(Or, I hyperfixated on the Machineries of Empire series for a week and all I got was a handful of new blorbos and a desire to do more linear algebra)
