Activity

@calidris

Agreed. I really care about emotional impact in my writing on all levels.

That is actually in the story too. 😛 Lydia was intended to trigger the escape so someone from ‘her’ household raises the alarm. Ambrose takes an arrow to the shoulder and because the Kisi tribe uses arrows shaped like corkscrews, they can’t get it out, so they break off the shaft, so it forms an abscess, then the abscess eventually leaks the infection causing him to go into hyperthermia in the jungle. Yona breaks a hand later during a second chase (Kisi are hunters, they don’t give up so easily). Zurrun is the only local slave a descendant of the Lavya [Western] Kappi (Not to be confused with the Nyorro [North] or Adiya [East] Kappi) with whom the Kisi have warred for ages, so he ends up being the leader. Like the whole escape is just chaos and it takes days to reach the ‘safety’ of the jungle and the village Zurrun knows to be friendly/physicians is hard to find, and further than he thought, and then it gets dark and then Ambrose gets his hyperthermia so Zurrun has to go on his own and find help. All the main characters experience something on the way out so we can see what the Grand Weaver does with each of them. So, why was Lydia intended to be pregnant… I think because she becomes the rallying point for the group, to protect her and get to safety. They have to travel slower for her, but this gives them time to learn from Zurrun and keeps Ambrose from pushing himself too hard thus causing the infection to set in sooner. Then Lydia goes into labor, forcing them to hurry which is important because the village is further than thought, and then as Ambrose starts getting feverish/delirious it forces Zurrun to leave and find the village. It saves Ambrose’s life because they bring him there just as things would be getting critical. Yeah…..

A lot of timing stuff falls on her pregnancy which makes dropping it hard+++, But! I want to honor this gut feeling that I need some form of correction around the sexual trauma bit, even if that does mean dropping all of it. Side note: Eventually, I want there to be a moment where every character finds their pain has been woven together for good and is/will be swallowed up in victory.

Well, technology is ah, different, shall we say. They are more advanced than the medieval period but less than ours, sort of. But everything is different: the plants, the animals, the metals and minerals. So… some plants have proteins that carry oxygen, which can be used to increase human blood oxygen which promotes healing and tissue function. their pain meds are not as good as ours because none of them have any synthetic components or 100% purification. Medicine is plant and mineral based, but they have germ theory and sanitation. One thing Yona has to deal with is that his medical knowledge is about 40% inapplicable in this setting so if he goes back to that kind of life, it will be a lot of relearning. While they escape, the only one with pharmacological knowledge is Zurrun and it is rather limited