19 thoughts on “A Long Road Chapter 13 Now Up on AO3”

  1. Lucky 13!

    I was entertained that the reaction to revealing the Wens’ settlement is basically “Oh good, you already got in according to established policy, we had a whole argument with the Council planned but we don’t even need it.” And I enjoyed WWX’s explanation of the impression Arvil and the ghost-lady’s reaction to him made on them, on his own and on behalf of Valdemar.

    I will be fascinated to see WWX and WN’s response to finding out the Companions have classified WN as one of their own (and the ghosts have declared WWX a priest but I feel like that would be less of a surprise, although the part where they insist on Valdemar acknowledging him might not be). This seems… not as alarming, but potentially about as sheerly weird for them as the whole “oh, all the cultivators are bloodmages (but the Scary Necromancer has a respectable Gift (and by the way the ghosts say you have to recognize him as a priest)).”

    So, about Elspeth… I looked her up but explanations were limited… should I surmise that the local reaction to her killing Orthallen was significantly less enthusiastic?

    OK, the mage thing: I seem to vaguely recall from previous discussions that you are probably not actually going with “all the baby mages are driven mad and lost in the child mortality stats” but probably more along the lines of “most people in Valdemar who would be mages get rechanneled into a Gift”? Maybe? But it’s not a great solution considering some Gifts can also drive you crazy, plus the cultivators perceive the early stages of that as an imbalance to be corrected?

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  2. Now I’m imagining what happens if some more devious Holderkin decides to hire a cultivator to put up Companion wards.

    “Yup, thirteen is way too young to be chosen. They might even choose not to get married!”

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  4. The last chapter is great. Not only do they need to break for lunch, they need to find a quiet room to scream. The Valdemar government has been trying to find out as much as they can about the Cultivators, and Jianghzu since the ambassadors first shown up and now they realize that they know very very little.
    They know enough that the Wen can settle in Rabbit Hole, and the Valdemar healers can go and try to learn from them. Which is a start, but now they know how much they don’t know.
    WWX and Wen Ning are going to question the Nie about Valdemar

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  6. -Reads end of chapter-
    BWAHAHAHAHAHA, I wish I could have seen their faces.

    Good news, Selenay, the new inhabitants of your country like your daughter despite everything they’ve heard about her. Bad news, what they consider proper behavior for royalty/nobility is just slightly different than what you’re used to.

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  8. You know, the judge doing the executions kinda makes sense, but I can also see it going very wrong…

    On one hand, for a decent person, especially in that setting, you really don’t want innocent blood on your hands. Or any blood, really, might literally come back to haunt you, but needs must I guess. Encouragement to be very sure before you execute someone.

    With a judge who isn’t a decent person, though- kangaroo court. Yikes.

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  10. Just going through the fic again, and with the way people keep talking about the Terilee, the ghosts it contains, and keeping Wei Wuxian out of it, is there going to be someone who attempts to ‘accident’ him only to deeply (and briefly) regret it?

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