#I’m going to be sparse on liveblog next week as a heads up

[thebibliomancer]

Tides of the Dark Crystal liveblog pt 6

Tides of the Dark Crystal by J. M. Lee because SET SAIL TO CERA-NA!

Last times on book: Amri, Kylan, Tavra, and Naia join forces with Onica, a Sifa Far-Dreamer and probably Tavra's girlfriend. Through her psychic powers they learn that they're getting some backlash for Kylan spreading recaps of the first two books all over the land as flower petals. After rescuing Rian from the Chamberlain, the group gets invited to a group chat in dream-space where Aughra tells Naia to unite the Gelfling clans in resistance. Onica suggests they go to Cera-Na because the Sifa Maudra put out word for the Sifa to gather there.

Chapter 6

Amri and co spend an eventful day on a boat on the way to the Plot

Amri is woken up for his first miserable day at sea by spider Tavra walking across his face.

She’s decided that if he’s going to carry her sword then by Thra, she’s going to train him to use it!

“Training? What are we now, captain and soldier?”

She laughed, though it wasn’t joyful. Joyful didn’t seem like a word that would ever describe her, though Amri wondered if that could change.

I bet Onica has stories to tell. It can’t all be arguments about her mom.

But Tavra insists that sword school is in session now so Amri gets up and even ties his hair back when Tavra says so although he resents that good suggestion.

There is a lot of bad blood between Vapra and Grottan. Amri hasn’t expressed any at Tavra specifically but he has expressed it.

Amri still hates being on the boat. Not just the rocking but now a little agoraphobia. Being surrounded by so much open space when he’s used to tunnels.

Kylan is up on the roof of the cabin with Onica as she teaches him about knots and sails and stuff. An unexpected friendship is brewing for the best boy? But Kylan asks what Amri is up to and he says Tavra is going to make him into a Vapra paladin, joking that he’ll be Amri the Strong.

Naia shows up with her sweet metal dagger to challenge Amri the Strong to a training spar.

Tavra tells Naia to do thirty lunges and Amri thirty parries but Amri protests he doesn’t even know what a parry is.

Google informs me that it’s a platypus.

“If we’re going to war with the Skeksis, Naia is going to need someone to watch her back, and you’re not going to be able to rely on your strange Grottan tricks every time.”

“I could if I had a bigger spice pouch.”

Pffft. I enjoy you, Amri.

Amri wonders if he could join Kylan in sailing lessons instead but he’d be starting square one either way so sticks with sword school.

Points where due, Tavra actually shows him how to parry. How she does this as a tiny spider is a mystery unexplored.

Swording is hard. Even when Amri successfully parries it jolts his arm because Naia lunges hard. While Naia doesn’t seem winded at all. After all, she wins the hunting festival every season in bola and spear.

“Like I said! Not fair!”

“Life won’t always be fair, or kind!” The voice in his ear was like a conscience, reminding him of the things he would rather have not remembered: like that he’d never seen a bola or a spear before leaving Domrak, or that he’d never attended a hunting festival.

Amri goofuses up during the training, trying to strike back at Naia when he sees an opening and ignoring Tavra’s warning. He gets a shoulder to the chest and stern Tavra words. Telling him that if this were a real battle, he’d be dead.

“What’s the point of practicing if you’re not allowed to take risks?”

“It wasn’t a risk. It was a guaranteed failure.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I did.”

“Well, maybe I’m just tired of you bossing me around.”

“I was trying to…” She clicked with frustration, ending with a final-sounding “Never mind. Do as you like.”

Tavra then hops off his shoulder and ditches.

I do feel sorry for her.

She’s lost her ability to physically protect these danger prone dinguses and she’s never had the consistent ability to get them to do what she thinks is best for them.

She’s been rolling with what happened like a champ but on some level it’s got to be getting to her. She just represses all of her emotions the Vapra/paladin way!

Amri does understand how she must be feeling but says (after she peaces out) that he can’t be her cool replacement.

Naia tells him that he’s not too bad and as good as she is, her skill is derived from hunting, not real combat. And definitely not the same as going up against a Skeksis.

Or a Skeksis hopped up on Gelfling goo. That makes them three times scarier.

No, fighting a Skeksis would not be the same as hunting. The Gelfling had grown in the world as hunters and gatherers. Farmers. Scholars. Song tellers. Even the sailing Sifa clan, as ruthless as they might be to take on the wind and sea, had been raised and nurtured by Thra to be in communion, their voices one with the great song.

Why hadn’t Aughra, who heard the song of the world, foreseen the Skeksis? If all on Thra was part of the song, then so we’re the Skeksis, as terrible as they were. So why hadn’t Aughra prepared the Gelfling, the children of Thra, for such a great betrayal? Amri wondered if it was some sort of test. But he had heard real fear in even Aughra’s voice, in the dream-space. If Aughra was worried, then how could this be part of Thra’s song?

He’s like edging up to the conclusion but it’s kind of an outside context thing. Who’d guess that the Skeksis are aliens? That history has been lost to the Gelfling and Aughra isn’t sharing.

Onica wanders over and asks where Tavra is

“Being Tavra,” Naia replied. As much as it said nothing, Onica understood it all too well. She leaned against the taffrail beside them, watching Kylan handle the sails on his own. “How long have you two been together?” Naia asked.

“Together! My, what a relative term.”

Amri tilted his head. “You mean because of her mother? Because you’re Sifa?”

“My people come in and out of Ha’rar with the seasons. Tavra’s mother never knew my face, only that when the spring and autumn came, her middle daughter was errant. Young and foolish.” Onica shook her head with a wistful smile. “We thought we were getting away with something, meeting out at the seafarer’s lantern. We weren’t.”

Okay. Now I’m like 99% that Onica and Tavra are dating. It just seems like everybody is assuming that without having to say it.

Amri speculates that the reason why the All-Maudra was against these two being together is something something pure line of succession, don’t mix snow with salt water.

WHICH WOULD BE A HILARIOUSLY HYPOCRITICAL MOVE FROM HER CONSIDERING THE COMICS!

And considering that the princesses dad in the comics is Kam’Lu.

Different continuities I know I know…. Anyway.

Onica also says that in a way it’s the first time in a long time that she and Tavra can be together without the All-Maudra’s disdain. So it’s kind of like a mixed bag. Cons: girlfriend is spider, pros: her mother is off our case. And then she looks sad so Amri changes the subject.

He’s not prepared to help unpack any of this.

Amri asks if Onica knows Maudra Ethri well and wouldn’t you know, she do! They grew up together! And Ethri isn’t a Far-Dreamer but puts a lot of stake in prophecy. Onica thinks that maybe Ethri already knows what’s going on and is prepared to rebel.

It’d be nice!

So after Onica teaches them to fish for lunch, Amri asks if they should seek out the Mystics for help. Since they’re bound to the Skeksis.

But they don’t know where to find the Mystics or where to start looking and Amri didn’t even know urLii was a Mystic or an UrRu so trying to seek them by name might be fruitless.

Naia decides that they won’t find the Mystics by trying but they’ll probably run into them anyway.

The boat approaches Cera-Na and Amri hears a mmmmmmmmmm which by the lack of h you can tell isn’t the Chamberlain. It sounds to Amri like the deep cry of a creature in pain somewhere under the waters but nobody else hears it

Curious.

The ocean’s voice was meaningless to him, it’s words dense and incoherent to his touch they only knew the language of stone. He wiped the salt water from his palm.

“I don’t know what it was,” he said. “It’s gone now.”

And curiouser.

They get closer and closer to Cera-Na and the land looms bigger yet bigger.

Amri gasped as they came around the main headland, then winced and had to shield his eyes from one vessel that rested in the arms of the bay. He squinted through his fingers at a magnificent ship that dwarfed all the others. It was not made of wood but coral; glittering white and pink at the keel, brilliant carnelian as its fronds reached higher. The masts were thorny spires, growing out of the coral body like trees and bloused with flowing anemone sails.

Onica, with Tavra on her shoulder, leaped down to the deck.

“The Omerya,” the Far-Dreamer said. “Maudra Ethri’s ship… Welcome, my friends, to Cera-Na.”

Wooooow that doesn’t sound aquadynamic at all!