crystal.

[cozen]

FORM: Crystal
SENDER: Bastien
RECIPIENT: Everyone
NOTES: Mmhph.

Bonjour, mes compatriotes. I have a few things.

The Hangman's Papers, I hope you have all seen—it was not my idea, so I am allowed to say that I think it is a brilliant one. If you want to write something, I am the one you should bring it to—

I am Bastien, if you are new. I am up in the Jeshavis office.

Secondly, I have been thinking about putting together an anthology of legends and tales from rifters' worlds. I've spoken to some individuals about it, but they keep disappearing. Vous savez comment c'est. But the bedtime stories that you grew up with, or the condensed plot of a book you have loved. They would need to be edited and annotated, of course. The purpose would be to underscore the similarities in themes and values and make sure they are relatable under the unfamiliar names and places, to show you are ultimately not that strange, so—if you are that strange, you might need to tone it down, [ he says, with all affection. ]

I am open to being told it would be a disaster. But I have something else that a publisher is going to want very much, that might be leveraged to convince them to take on something more risky in the bargain, so now would be the time.

Third, if you are good at fighting in close quarters, or if you are trying to learn to be good at it, I could use some help with something. You are a given, Yseult, [ in the shifting tone of a personal aside, ] but I can only impose on you so often.

And last, I promise: I am handling our trade negotiations for supplies for the time being, so if there is anything you find to be of poor quality, say so, and I will—you know. Probably tell you it is the best we can afford. But maybe not.

Comments

[armd]

No... I really wanna talk about it.

[cozen]

Oh. D'accord—

Would you like to tell me now? Advanced payment?

[armd]

Um. Sure. (Hold on, let her think about exactly what she wants to say.)

It's called 'Pride and Prejudice'. It's about the Bennet family. They're a mom and dad, with five daughters, and the mom spends the whole book trying to marry them all off. The main character is Elizabeth Bennet and she meets this rich guy, Mister Darcy, at a ball. He's really horrible to her. Like, he won't dance with her when she asks, and he spends the whole time brooding in the corner and being really weird and haughty. She basically writes him off.

But he falls in love with her, because she's clever and witty. Oh- and her older sister is trying to get engaged to Darcy's friend Bigby, but Darcy thinks that they aren't a good match because the Bennets are sort of... inappropriate to him? So he tries to get that called off, for Bigby's sake, and that makes Elizabeth really mad, so when Darcy proposes to her out of the blue and says he loves her, she totally rejects him. She says he's the last person she would ever marry. It's hardcore.

There's a whole bunch of other shit going on all at the same time as the main story, but basically Elizabeth starts to like Darcy after she visits his estate and sees how he treats everybody there. And then she finds out that she had the wrong idea about him from the start, and she let her prejudices get in the way of knowing him better. She finds out he's actually really kind and thoughtful, and then she kind of wants to marry him after all but she has to wait for him to ask again, and who knows if he will.

It works out in the end when Lady Catherine shows up and tells her not to accept a proposal from Darcy because he's promised to somebody else, and Elizabeth tells her to go fuck herself- not in those words, obviously, but yeah- and then Bigby and Jane get back together, and get married. Jane is the older sister. (This is falling apart but she's nearly there,) And Darcy hears that Elizabeth told Lady Catherine to fuck off and he's like ohhh she really does love me, so he proposes again and this time she says yes.

(Big breath! Exhaleeee.) It's really good.