Ch. 6 of ‘Who built the road’
Ohhhh thanks for this ask anon
I thought of this scene as a foil to the way Angel Eyes acts about his Latin hobby. I realized in chatting with a few people that neither solitudinum nor Sighted Crows gives much of an indication how private that character quirk is, nor how rare it is for Angel to share it with anyone.
As it was, making that clear in so little words was a challenge unto itself. The only real suggestion of it is this line:
I freeze. The conversation continues, but I slip back to the chill of the inn.
In which Angel I think leaves because he suddenly has the realization that Blondie has this information about him that’s deeply personal, and hearing him share that with someone else really makes him hesitate, he’s not sure if he’s okay with this at all. He didn’t even know that it could affect him this way.
There’s the way he reacted to this when he realizes what Blondie has done:
An hour later, he drops a leather-bound copy of Metamorphoses onto the side table. Actiones secundum fidei , thought made flesh.
That was never the intention.
This was actually one of the only pieces of Latin I had semi-professionally translated for the purposes of my writing (thanks again, anonymous Hellenist :) ). I most often get the Latin snippets from a website and they are direct quotations from historical Roman figures or the like. But there wasn’t anything on my website or Wikipedia that really fit the mood of….suddenly having physical evidence that someone close to you knows you quite well and cares about you.
The fact that it turned into more of a ship-focused moment between them was nice. The aim with (who built) the road was to bridge the gap between the optimistic ending of solitudinum with the fraught conflict of Sighted Crows. In this drabble specifically a lot of that ‘bad at taking affection’ comes in that’s a very central theme to Sighted Crows.
“What, can you uh. Not read.”
Instead of throwing the book into the fire where it belongs, I crack open the spine.
The endline hits a lot of good notes for me– I of course love bone-imagery when writing Blondeyes, and this subtle underscoring of the intellectual differences between them worked out well. The theme of choice, choices made is quite important in (who built) the road, and this drabble reflects that strongly. Angel chooses the right path here, and I think that’s a big part of why I like this drabble so much.
