#anabel lerolan

[rainstorms-moonrivers]

the true villains of Red Queen

you want to know who the true villains of the Red Queen series are? Julian Jacos, Elara Merandus, and Anabel Lerolan.

Especially Julian and Anabel.

Because at least people acknowledge Elara's involvement in Maven's mental abuse.

But Julian and Anabel. They had a hand in that abuse being actively ignored and no one ever called them out on it.

Ever.

Cal should've ripped them a new one.

It's because of them he lost his little brother.

They knew what whisper influence looked like. They saw it in his mother and they would've recognized it in Maven. They should've done something. They should've done the bare minimum of telling Cal's father what was happening to his other son.

But Julian was holding a child accountable for his mother's crimes and Anabel had blatant favoritism.

[imjulia-andilikecats]

Random Headcanon: Maven Calore hates old people.

Like dude had beef with his brother, his father, his uncle, his mother-in-law, his grandma, his ex-fiiancée and his wife. The ONLY older person he liked was his mom, Elara.

Which kinda makes sense since he craves to be seen and understood. Having an age gap would probably be a hindrance in forming a connection. Plus, the fact that Mare was only a month older than him (and probably Thomas too). Made it easier for him form a connection and him later, falling for them.

Just me, overthinking this: Maybe his dislike for the elder could also stem from the Royal Tradition. Where being born first/being older would mean they'll have everything: power, family legacy, love and admiration. A tradition that older members of the court uphold on the Royal family and among themselves.

Maven Calore being born second meant he was doomed to be seen as less. No matter what he did. Betraying his father, usurping the throne and wearing his father's crown. He was still Maven Calore, never to have "Tiberias" in his name, because he was and still is the second son of House Calore.

[ball-of-butter]

everyone: we absolutely need to KILL maven, we need to murder him, decapitate him, who even cares he just needs to be dead immediately

cal: hey guys i have a cool funky fresh idea. what if we gave him therapy help?

everyone:

cal: yknow because he’s mentally ill? he’s clearly been enabled and forced almost (when he was younger) to act out on everything too, he just doesn’t know any other way to function but what if we can teach him?

everyone:

cal: it just feels wrong to not try and heal the damage caused from the years of negligence and emotional abuse—

everyone: hes UNFIXABLE cal jeez poor thing is just in denial that he has to put his innately evil brother down

[maveys-baby]

Anabel Lerolan I am your biggest hater.

[maventheforgotten]

I hate so many characters in the Red Queen series. I understand it's a book (and these are fictional characters) and absolutely no hate to the author it's an amazing series, but on like a personal real-life I hate them. To anyone who doesn't want to hear how I hate a specific character, you can skip their part. Also understand these are my OPINIONS and understanding of the characters if you disagree you are free to tell me but understand I have the right to disagree with you as well.

Anabel Lerolan grandmother to both Cal and Maven and my absolute least favorite character. She makes me so mad mainly because she makes no attempts to save Maven from his mother. Anabel knew and saw what Elara did to Coriane and hated her for it but yet when Elara shows signs of doing the same thing to Maven she looked at Maven as Elaras son, not her grandchild who was being forced at such a young age to go through the same pains that caused the death of an adult women then has the aducaity to blame Maven for everything that happened.

Julian Jacos is next on this list for much the same reason. He saw what was happening but viewed Maven as the son of Elara instead of a boy who needed someone to step in much as his sister did. I understand why it would have been hard especially after Elara cut out Sara's tongue but even spending time with Maven making sure he understood he wasn't alone was all he needed to do. (This part goes with Anabel as well.)

Evangeline Samos just annoys me because I think she's a self-centered, selfish brat who can only get over herself when family or her girlfriends are involved. She did have some character development at the end but for me it was to late for her to be saved.

Mare Barrow is riding in the same boat as Evangeline but on a whole other level. I despise her to put it simply. In the beginning, she is obnoxious, self-centered, and blankly disregards the feelings of others for whatever she believes to be right. She also has attention seeking behavior and throws a fit when it doesn't go how she wants it. The main example I see of this is when Cal chose the crown. There has been a major debate on this sceen and what he was thinking but for my stand point I don't seem him chosing the crown just to be King but I see him chosing the crown to be HER king. When Cal tries to explain his reasoning to Mare, she refuses to accept and leaves. She had the right to be upset with his decision but not to claim she was not enough for him.

Tiberias "Cal" Calore VII I don't have much to say about. I don't hate him. I just felt he had a right to be added to the list. I think he's okay, and he's trying his best to be a good person despite what he grew up around. I don't like that he ignored the signs he saw from Maven and Elara's relationship, but he was just the prince and a kid for most of it, and at least he never gave up on Maven.

Tiberias Calore VI we didn't see much of but I have no love for him. He was depicted as a drunk and neglective father who was to caught up in the loss of Coriane to really pay attention to either of his sons and obviously favored Cal the son of his late wife. I do think he loved Maven he just didn't know how to be a father to someone that wasn't Coriane's son.

Elara Merandus is a bitch and I hate her. She was mentally abusive and hurtful to Maven from a young age. She manipulated his views of his family members and made him dependent on her and deserved her death. I don't have anything else to say on her.

None of this makes anything Maven did right or any less his fault. I'm just saying at all of these character except Cal and sometimes Mare want to throw all the blame on Maven. It's not just his fault- someone should have done something to help him before it got out of hand. This was all a rant I had to my friend and just felt like letting the internet know about. Remember these are OPINIONS- so it's cool to disagree but be respectful and know I didn't see the book the same way you did.

[king-maven-calore]

Oooh now I’m curious about your take on Anabel. Cuz I understood her hatred towards Maven after him assisting Elara with murdering her son but do you think that she favoured Cal even before that? Cuz it has been a while ever since I read the books and frankly, I don’t remember much of their relationship.

yes, I'm sure her full hatred comes after the king's murder but I never got from Anabel a sense of loss or mourning of a lost loved one to external corruption, like Cal expresses for Maven. The books make it seem as if the only two people who truly loved him were Mare and Cal. There's not much insight of what their relationship used to be like, because the most we get from it is her bits of dialogue in one of Evangeline's chapters, I think.

“Thank you, Prince Ptolemus, for at least not furthering the outrageous falsity of my son’s murder and my grandson’s exile. Both committed at the hands of Elara Merandus, both spread through the kingdom in the worst propaganda I have ever seen. Yes, Tiberias has done terrible things to survive. But they were to survive. After every one of us turned on him, abandoned him, after his own poisoned brother tried to kill him in the arena like a base criminal. (...)"

See how all of her pain and efforts are very one sided. Not even after Elara's influence is gone for good does she try to approach Maven and try to influence him toward goodness, or even just to demonstrate affection. I'm not fully sure she's capable of those, since her love for Cal is also very "politics" oriented idk. In any case, I don't f with her

[iamademigodandwizard]

“I am a queen”

“I am too”

We Stan a good queen

[lucy-the-cat]

Red Ruse (Maven Tries To Make Mare His Red Queen, Eve Battle)

Red Queen Awards Winner for Best Incomplete/Ongoing and Nominee for Best Fanfiction

Prologue

Chapter Thirty Four

[paragon-of-anxiety]

That scene in king's cage:

Anabel: Questions?

Evangeline: Yeah, I have a lot of questions.

Evangeline: Number one. How dare you?

[mehamang]

i'm reading war storm rn and. cal's buttons on this new uniform that anabel somehow provided him with on the jet. they are in the form of flames. that is so?? cause no one could tell that he's a calore and a burner before or??

[thepuffpastrycustomer]

I don`t really like Julian and Anabel.

At first Julian was really cool, because he loved books (just like me) and helped Mare, but in the middle of Red Queen his attitude towards Maven was just ugh!

I mean you can`t just go and blame a teenager for what his mother did to your sister.

As the series progressed, I somehow had the feeling that Julian`s character somehow also changed? In can`t really describe it. He somewhat also started to avoid Mare and the most important thing for him seemed to put Cal on the throne. I got the feeling that he didn`t care about Sara anymore. 

The same is for Anabel. When she first walked in, I was like “Could you please just go? We are completely fine here. We don`t need you. 

She is also very overprotective of Cal and treats Maven like trash. I thought that the story with her husband and his lover and her, was pretty interesting, though.  

She is just really annoying and I think she is partly the reason why Julian suddenly changed, because they were in a competition of who would get to advise Cal once he would be king.

That Julian and Anabel killed Volos Samos bothered me to. I mean, that`s so unlike Julian. 

And can we come back to how bad Anabel treats Maven. I mean he is her grandson.

[rainstorms-moonrivers]

Maven Calore was wasted as a tragic character.

Maven Calore as a tragic character was wasted. I'm not trying to say that he as a character was bad. If anything he was a good, well written character, one of the most well written characters in the Red Queen series. What I'm saying is that he as a character was truly wasted as an oversimplification of "people with mental issues are horrible monsters."

Throughout the series the point was made that Maven was a product of his mother's abuse. The same kind of abuse that was done to Cal's mother, Queen Coriane Jacos, which resulted in her having multiple miscarriages and taking her own life. Something that was known by multiple characters in the series aside from Mare. And yet no one does anything to try and help him. No one aside from Cal, his brother, and even then Aveyard doesn't have Cal do much aside from mentioning his want to help Maven and then having Davidson say he'll see if he can find anyone who might be able to help Maven with his mental issues, and then later on say that there is no one who could help him.

Which is the bare minimum.

This is not to excuse anything that he does in the series, and this is definitely not to justify shipping him with Mare, because I don't ship them at all.

That being said, Maven had so much potential as a tragic character. He could've had something akin to a redemption arc, perhaps not a redemption arc, but a healing arc of sorts. If Victoria Aveyard had taken the care to actually explore the character she created beyond the "mental issues = monstrous & evil." Because despite it being a difficult pill to swallow, Elara is not solely responsible for turning Maven into who he is in the series.

King Tiberias with his neglect and absence in Maven's life is one factor.

Julian Jacos holds a lot of the blame for the abuse Maven endures before the start of the series. Something that is largely ignored throughout the entire series. Much as everyone loves him. Julian like a lot of other characters in the series has his actions excused and brushed aside because he's on the good side. But Julian being Coriane's brother would have known what a person being mentally tortured by Elara looked like. He would've been able to identify the signs of her mental torture in Maven as they had presented themselves in his sister. Even though Maven is spectacular at masking his emotions and his behaviors, Julian would know what to look for in a person whose being manipulated by a Whisper. And while he has a justified hatred for Elara. He doesn't have a justified hatred for Maven. Just because Maven is Elara's son doesn't mean that Julian should've directed any of that animosity towards Maven to the point that they have a strained relationship by the time Mare gets there.

Seriously this man is like at least 40 and he's been having beef with a child since said child was born.

Elara obviously did a good job at isolating Maven from the rest of his family. Something Julian or Anabel should've noticed. Which is another thing.

Anabel's blatant favoritism. This is something that also get's excused and swept under the rug. It could be because the first time we see Anabel on page is in the second book when her son has been murdered and her grandson has been chased out of his country. But no one ever seems to bring up how easy it is for her to just disown Maven. She never shows any sort of sadness for who Maven's become or what's happened to him.

She never shows any sort of regret for allowing her grandson to be hurt so terribly to the point he would watch his father murder and feel nothing. She never shows any contempt for Elara in regards to her abusing Maven, and instead only for Elara usurping the throne. She doesn't even show any grief like Cal does when they finally capture Maven and he's on the path to the chopping block.

So it's not that big of a jump to say that she probably showed favoritism towards Cal even before the events of the book. She probably even encouraged her own son to be neglectful of his own son, probably because she didn't like Elara and she still saw Coriane as the true queen of Norta.

And yet no one seems to call her out on this? Not even Cal from what I remember. Which you would think that at least Cal or hell maybe even Mare who was kind of developing compassion and understanding for Maven later on in the series, would call out Julian and Anabel for their contributions on Maven's continued abuse.

Because even though Tiberias neglected his youngest son. He did show in his final moments to care about Maven. So if someone had just brought up their concerns about Elara and her relationship with Maven. A lot of trauma probably could have been avoided.

Which brings me back to my original point. Victoria Aveyard had a golden opportunity to take a character with mental issues, who was a victim of mental abuse and rehabilitate them.

She didn't have to excuse anything Maven did.

In fact if she did excuse all the horrible things that Maven did it would have cheapened the whole rehabilitation arc.

But she could have instead of writing a whole book of them looking for Newbloods, taken the time to have Cal and Maven, Mare and Maven, heal their respective relationship, give Maven a proper journey, and written a much richer story than just "people with mental health issues are evil"

Instead Maven Calore as a multifacted tragic character was wasted.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

Discourse is always welcomed.

[imjulia-andilikecats]

A Longer Response to @rainstorms-moonrivers

It is unusual to see an account address criticism on their previous post and I thank you for evaluating our response to that.

Firstly, your initial post was strongly worded. I could sense that you deeply empathized with Maven, given his unfortunate upbringing and ending. Couple with how his character was handle in War Storm, I can't fault you on seeking justice for the tragic end of a character you are really fond of.

However, when you start pointing at characters that are victims of his mother and expecting them to help Maven, that's where we start to have a disagreement.

In your initial post, you listed Elara, Julian, and Anabel as the true villains in Red Queen. Putting emphasis on Julian and Anabel's contribution to Maven's abuse. Framing it in a way that these two are somewhat worse for not being called out on how they treated Maven. While Elara is being called out left and right, and seen as the main perpetrator of Maven's abuse.

I do agree that abuse is complicated. However in this setting, the story and the way the power structure is framed. Elara, with her whispers, abused Maven and molded him into whatever she wanted/needed. While doing so, it is a common practice for abusers to completely isolate their victims from anyone who could help them.

This includes Julian. In your response post, you expressed that Julian and Maven could have at least had a good/decent relationship. Given Maven was not yet born when Coriane died and Sara got her tongue removed for speaking up about her friend. It would be unfair and unreasonable even for Julian to extend his cold demeanor towards Elara's son. Even telling Mare that "He is his mother's son." However, this statement from Julian was not rooted in anger or spite. He was warning Mare and expressing caution. Because when he said that, Maven was 17 years old and a few months away from betraying Mare and usurping Cal's throne.

I do agree that Julian is familiar with Elara's powers. Decades before Mare's arrival. Elara has always schemed and killed her way to the throne. The moment Coriane walked down the aisle and Elara made her trip, that's where her terror began. Julian witnessed Elara's rise to power, taking over the operation within the palace and forming strong alliances with certain houses. He knew facing Elara head-on would mean death or her harming those he held dear. Like Sara, since after her tongue got cut off and branded a liar who spoke ill of the late Queen Coriane. Instead of exiling her from court, she kept her around to be ridiculed and reduced to a shadow of once a bright and skilled healer. Cal, his nephew and heir to the throne, is bound to follow his father's wishes, and his existence is greatly unwelcome by Elara. Both he dearly loves and the only ones keeping him from leaving the palace and openly opposing Elara. So he had no choice but to resign himself as a passive librarian who spends most of his time with books than with people.

Note: Also, apologies for a longer response to your long response and having it posted in a separate post. I do not want this message to be hidden in the comments or reblogs because I have seen a noticeable amount of people here have a similar take on Julian, that he should have helped Maven and he is horrible for not doing anything for him.

This, to me, is a very unfair, simplified, and wholely wrong take on his character since Julian is not just some side character that is related to Cal, who dislikes Elara and Maven. All I ask is for the fandom to at least view Julian Jacos as his own character who experienced tragedies and suffered injustices most of his life yet still extended his kindness to those he believed would bring hope and change in their world, not some spiteful librarian who bullied a teenager.

Credits to: @nymphenberger for helping me compose this response and sharing good points.

[ball-of-butter]

i love maven and understand why people dislike him, but, like, hear me out… maven was given a negligent emotionally distant alcoholic father and an overbearing emotionally abusive helicopter mother who did not know the definition of privacy for the life of her. plus the controversy he was born in due to his mother and coriane which made other family members (julian, anabel) distant as well, all except the merandus clan who were full of sociopaths that take pleasure in psychological torture. he was also given a title that discarded emotional growth, where power was necessary and therapy didnt exist… like… bro did not stand a chance 😭😭

[therealwylanvaneck]

Maven: Gram Gram, why are all these freaking cookies on the floor?

Anabel: I fell, can you help me?

Maven: *laughs*

[elliemarchetti]

Red Queen Pride and Prejudice AU (Part 4)

I wanted not to publish this part until I had reached at least a dozen notes on the third, but I’m a clown and I wanted to share this so bad, so, here we are. Hope someone is still interested, hope someone could enjoy something so silly in this trying times. 

Tag list: @lilyharvord

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Masterlist

Words: 2456

The day passed practically as the previous one: Miss Samos and Lady Haven spent a few hours with Wren, whose health continued, albeit slowly, to improve, and in the evening Mare joined the others in the living room. The table game, however, hadn’t been organized and the General was writing to his grandmother while Miss Samos, sitting next to him, controlled the progress of the letter, of a considerable length, and continually diverted his attention with messages for the recipient and congratulations for her friend’s handwriting and the regularity of the lines which, together with the complete disinterest with which they were received, formed a curious dialogue, in perfect coincidence with the opinion she had of both.

“You write at an extraordinary speed.”

"I'm sorry to admit you're wrong, in fact, I write rather slowly."

"How many letters do you have the opportunity to write in the course of a year?" she asked, though she didn't seem particularly interested in the answer. "Many will be about business. I guess you’ll find them hateful. I certainly would."

"Your guesses are becoming less and less correct day by day, my dear Evangeline," he replied, sardonically, and although she didn't seem particularly pleased with the answer, she asked him to tell her grandmother that she wished to see her again as soon as possible, which she must have already done, given his reaction. A brief period of time passed, in which all three were silent, when she started again , this time asking him if she should fix his pen, but the General replied he was fine and that it was anyway a job he always did by himself. The more time passed, the more Mare could understand that young man, whose pride was gradually diminishing, revealing he was actually unable to converse or stay in a company, a sign he must’ve had a cold and rigorous childhood, without friends or confidants, full of mentors and teachers, books and lessons.

"You always write her letters so long and beautiful?” she asked, and just then her brother walked in, accompanied by Lady Haven, which annoyed Mare a little, since she still hoped he and Wren could soon begin an official courtship.

"They are generally long, but as for always being beautiful, it’s not my job to judge,” replied the General who, although he had registered the newcomers, didn’t lift his head from the sheet.

"For me, it’s a certainty: a person capable of writing a long letter can't easily misspell," interjected Lady Haven, who had quickly rushed to snoop in turn. Mare didn’t agree with her, anyone could write long letters, even with a not particularly large vocabulary and a bad grammar, yet she said nothing, determined not to draw further attention to herself and too interested in the conversation, which had shifted to the General's use of extremely refined terms, evidently also in the letters addressed to his friends, something in sharp contrast with the writing style of Mr. Samos, which his sister defined as a set of sloppy scribbles.

"My ideas flow so quickly that I don't have the time to express them, hence sometimes my correspondents can't understand practically anything."

"It means that you let your heart write and not your mind," Mare commented, "and this does you credit, because you show yourself vulnerable to the people you love, something in stark contrast to your character with the rest of your acquaintances."

Mr. Samos seemed surprised by the compliment, while the General didn’t seem to like it, but Mare wasn’t in the mood to endure his malevolent comments, which always showed an ill-concealed wickedness and a stubborn decision to contradict her, so, before he could reply, she asked him if he didn't care about the influence of friendship and affection.

"The respect for the writer often leads me to overlook possible errors of little importance, but I would do better, perhaps, to wait for Mr. Samos to write something for my eyes before judging."

"It wouldn’t be advisable, before pursuing this topic, to agree with a little more precision on the degree of importance to be attached to this letter, as well as on the degree of intimacy existing between the parties?" the General asked, and before Mare could reply, it was the person directly interested who interrupted the discussion, which almost resembled a quarrel, with a joke, bringing his friend to end his task , while the three young ladies devoted themselves to analyzing the music sheets placed on the grand piano that dominated the right side of the room. Lady Haven sang with her friend, and while the two were busy, Mare couldn’t help but notice how the General's gaze stopped very often on her. She certainly couldn't suppose to be the object of the admiration of such a great man and that he looked at her because he disliked her would be even stranger. Eventually, she could only imagine that he turned his attention to her because there was nothing more out of place and reprehensible, according to his ideas of correctness, in any other person present. The hypothesis didn’t bother her: she liked him too little to hold on to his approval. After playing some Italian songs, Miss Samos started something more lively, and soon after General Calore, approaching Mare, asked her if she didn’t feel the strong desire to take the opportunity to dance. She smiled, but didn't answer. He repeated the question, a little surprised from what could be interpreted as a shy reaction. The truth was that she had heard him the first time, but had found herself undecided on what to answer, as she was sure that her interlocutor hoped for her assent, so he could denigrate her good taste, but for her it was always pleasant to upset these kinds of plans and deprive people of their premeditated contempt, so she replied negatively, with the sole purpose of offending him just as she had been offended by his comment when he called her not beautiful enough to tempt him. He, however, was incredibly gallant and found himself thinking that if it weren't for her humble origins, he would’ve found himself in serious danger because that young woman had bewitched him like no one before. Though she seemed too busy at first to notice, Miss Samos saw everything, and her strong impatience for Wren's recovery was somewhat reinforced by a desire to get rid of Mare, which risked to seriously jeopardize her plan. In this regard, she tried to instil in Cal a dislike for her own guest, talking to him about the alleged marriage and offering him a glimpse of the happiness that would follow such a union.

"I hope," she said, as they were walking in the grove next day, "that you’ll give your mother-in-law some advice, when this desirable event takes place, about the advantages of holding her tongue, and that you can limit the younger girl’s desire to run after officers, not to mention the delicate subject of your lady’s presumption and impertinence.”

"Do you have anything else to propose for my domestic happiness?" he asked, but before Evangeline could answer they ran into Lady Haven and Mare herself, coming from another path.

“I didn’t know you were going to take a walk,” she noted, a little embarrassed for fear of having been heard.

"You treated us horribly," Lady Haven replied, glaring at her, "running away without telling us you were going out."

Then, taking the General's free arm, she left Mare to walk alone. The path had room only for three and when the young man realized the rudeness he immediately proposed to move to the avenue, but Mare, who had no intention of staying with them, replied laughingly, before walking away with a brief farewell, that they formed a charming group and that a fourth person would ruined the picturesque appearance. From the window, Wren, who had felt strong enough to get up, saw everything and decided that she would come downstairs for a couple of hours that night. Making sure she was well protected from the cold, Mare accompanied her into the living room, where she was greeted by her two friends with many manifestations of joy; she had never found them more pleasant as in the hour that passed before the gentlemen’s appearance, and the demonstration that their remarkable ability to converse weren’t limited only to describing precisely the receptions they had attended but it was also extended to reporting anecdotes with a sense of humour and laughing at their acquaintances made her feel invigorated nearly as much as Ptolemus’ attentions who, on his arrival, spent the first half hour poking the fire and made sure she sat on the side of the fireplace farthest from the door. When he finally sat down next to her, he barely spoke to the others, which Mare noted with great pleasure. Once they had tea, Lucas Samos reminded his cousin of the game table, but in vain: Lady Haven had learned, in a completely confidential way, that the General hated cards and the few times he had played it had been only to not offend them, so suddenly everyone had lost interest in it, and seemed much more determined to devote themselves to reading, although Miss Samos's attention was much more concerned with checking the progress of the one she wished to make her husband soon than to read her own book; she never stopped asking him questions or peeking the pages, but she couldn't draw him into the conversation as he just answered her questions and kept on reading.  Finally, completely exhausted from her attempts to amuse herself with her own tome, which she had chosen only because it was the second volume of his, she gave a loud yawn and said: "How pleasant it is to spend an evening in this way! I feel like saying that basically there is no entertainment like reading! How quickly one gets tired of anything other than a book! When I have my own home, I would feel really miserable not to have an excellent library. "

No one replied, then she yawned again, put aside what, in her words, should’ve been her new favourite pastime, and glanced around the room for some amusement when, hearing that her brother was talking to Miss Skonos about a dance, she immediately turned to him, reminding him that for some of those present a dance would be nothing but torture. It was evident that the dig was thrown at the General, but he let his friend answer for him and raised his head only when Mare joined Miss Samos, by invitation, to stretch her legs. The platinum-haired young woman invited him too but he refused, noting that he could only imagine two reasons for that choice to walk back and forth in the room, both of which his participation would interfere. Miss Samos was dying to know what he meant, and as Mare was of no help to her, she insisted on her childhood friend, who replied that the first reason was that the two women had suddenly become intimate and had private affairs to discuss, and the second was to be admired, which he would’ve been able to do much better while sitting.

"I've never heard something so disgusting!” exclaimed Miss Samos. “How will we punish him for such a speech?”

"Nothing easier, if only you feel like it," Mare said, perplexed by the fact that her interlocutor had taken her by the arm, as if they were great friends. "We are always able to torment and punish each other. Tease him, laugh at him. As intimate as you are, you sure know how to."

"On my honour, I don't know. I assure you that intimacy still hasn’t taught me to tease such a quiet temperament without losing in the attempt, and as for laughing, we shouldn’t expose ourselves for laughing for no reason. I suppose he can congratulate himself.”

"Miss Samos gives me more credit than how much is due. The wisest and best of men, or better, the wisest and best of his deeds, can be made ridiculous by a person whose main purpose in life is to joke."

"Sure," Mare replied, "there are people like that, but I hope I'm not one of them. I hope I never ridicule what is wise and good. Extravagance and nonsense, tantrums and absurdities amuse me, I admit, and I laugh at it every time I can. But these things, I suppose, are just the ones from which you are immune."

"Maybe this isn’t possible for anyone, but in life I’ve always tried to avoid those weaknesses which often expose even a remarkable intelligence to ridicule," he replied, and it soon became apparent that a conversation of that rank would only take place between the two of them, though it also attracted Lucas and Elane’s attention.

"Even vanity and pride, then."

"Yes, vanity is undoubtedly a weakness. But pride... where there is real superiority of intellect, pride will always be under careful control."

Mare had to hid a smile, and Evangeline, who hadn’t understood what had just happened, asked her what the outcome of her study was.

"I am perfectly convinced that General Calore doesn’t have flaws. He himself admits it without a doubt."

"I've never demanded such a thing," he corrected her. "I have several flaws, but they don’t concern, I hope, the intellect, even if I certainly cannot vouch for my character, which I believe is very little accommodating, certainly too little in the eyes of the world. I cannot forget the follies and vices of others as much as I should, nor the offenses done to me. My feelings don't shift at each attempt to move them, my character could perhaps be called touchy and my respect once lost is lost forever."

"This is a real flaw!" Mare exclaimed. "A relentless grudge is a stain in a character, but as a flaw it’s chosen well, so I can't really laugh at it. In mine opinion, you’re safe."

"In every temperament there is, I believe, a tendency to some particular sin, a natural imperfection that not even the better education can defeat,” he went on, "and if in my case it may seem that I hate everyone, which isn’t true, in yours it certainly is obstinacy in misunderstand them."

Mare would’ve liked to continue that conversation, but Miss Samos, tired of hre inability to take part in it, proposed to make some music and after a brief moment of reflection, Cal decided that it wasn’t a bad idea: he was beginning to clearly feel the danger of giving Miss Barrow too much attention.