Don’t call me Shelley – Chapter 7, Prologue 29

Loose lips sink ships, Si’ri, haven’t you ever heard of that? In a normal setting, such crumbling giant statues are only there to allow the protagonists (and possibly the audience) to consider the ethereality of power and the inevitability of being forgotten…but in a fantasy setting, you just never know. Perhaps it’s just a pile of inert debris, but it might as well be a semi-sentient or sentient being…and one, for that matter, that doesn’t take kindly to having its advanced state of decay mentioned. (Who does?)

On the other hand, it’s probably a bit hypocritical of me to mock Si’ri’s loose lips, given all of the invaluable exposition service they’re providing. If K’ip had been assigned a fairy companion that was as taciturn as he is himself, this prologue wouldn’t really have a lot of dialogue, and a lot of things would remain unexplained by default. So, thanks Si’ri, but try to be a bit more careful about the decay-shaming while you’re wandering around the ruins of a long-lost civilization. You’re not going to find a lot of stuff there that’s mint in bag, and in a fantasy setting, stuff can easily turn out to be people.

And that “some of my best friends…” line just never works, Si’ri, so you should drop the habit. It’s not going to mollify your opponent, but it is going to get a few of your best friends angry at you, when they hear about your calling them ‘crumbling left-overs’. You know how sensitive some of your companion-colleagues are regarding technical obsolescence.

More on Thurs…uh, Monday.

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