Comments for the first half – the beginning of the segment until the end of the fight.
small beer a very weak beer that is practically non-alcoholic, as opposed to a little bit of beer. Since the waters not safe this is what most people drink, small beer, small ale, small whatever.
“And you are obnoxiously chirpy this morning.” agreed I hate people who do this, she’s just evil
“The last one” agreed again Good plan
“Don’t ask me” gasped Eleanor in a very good impression of real horror, “Probably something so depraved an innocent like myself couldn’t even begin to guess”Well I suppose she does have a point – who could guess that Fulk was running around the forest unescorted with a princess, murdering four people and stealing a rotting head?
“Whatever you were doing must have been highly…draining.”
“Thorfin, old man who does the gardening at the castle? Was a friend of your parents? Village headman? Ringing any bells yet?” this is the mysterious old man from the Christmas special, given a name and brought back to rejoin the world of common sense And this is his motivation for helping them, he likes them and he knows what they are…sort of.
“You’re a shrewd young lady”
“No, just a shrew”
You know the law people have been exploiting for years, when an unmarried couple spend the night under the same roof without relatives or chaperones present they are classed as married, getting me neatly out of a mess with my fortune intact. Plenty of rich heiresses have been abducted so someone can claim their money legally, and plenty of heiresses have seized the opportunity to marry a man of their choosing. Yup, that’s real medieval. The assumption is that the two people slept together and that therefore they had jolly well better get married thank you very much, so to save them the fuss of nipped down the church and possibly not bothering the law just states they are married regardless of what they did. So maybe you are wondering why don’t they do that then, solves all their problems as it allows low status people to marry high status people. Well yes it does but they have to survive afterwards and that wouldn’t be likely with Mr. Happy King. Also that would be just a tad premature at this point This is how Robert the Bruce of Scotland’s parents got married, she didn’t want to be married off to another old man of the kings choosing so she kidnapped some unfortunate young man and the rest is history. The king raved for a bit, but cheered up after he extracted a hefty fine from them. So it is possible…if you get a somewhat sympathetic king.
“Although I sometimes wonder if I was insane” probably
She blushed slightly she is completely and utterly hopeless She was the one who started the story off in the first place, granted Fulk didn’t quite have to barge in with that but all the same the implication was already there. Methinks she would have strangled him later if she had the chance I also think she is wishing she had been able to think of another excuse
“Why do you always have to revert to squeamish at the worse possible times? someone asked why Fulk wasn’t surprised when she went from cool assassin to squeamish and back again earlier. The answer is he’s seen it several times before but that’s in the bits cut out of the comedies. Nothing funny about an agent being squeamish.
From, here on out it is nothing but an endless parade of stuff I don’t write very well. No wonder it took more than a month to mash this into some kind of shape.
:Wyatt going crunch: someone asked me if the battered peasants came with chips, possibly on their shoulders. No but he does have (fish) fingersI feel sick.
“You always did want a nose to match mine.” what is it with these people and broken noses? I just don’t see the attraction
Eleanor quickly drew a knife and threw it, hitting the man in the chest that is only the second person she has killed, somehow it seems like she has dispatched more but Aidney and this bandit are the only ones on the list. Lucky them?
As Eleanor and Fulk rounded a bend in the road from here on out this bit has been written for weeks, only receiving the occasional tweak to a word or two.
“I haven’t forgotten your promise to gut me like a fish, but I think you will find you are the fish today” could be worse – could have been squash you like a frog
“I think our best plan is to kill them and not die ourselves.” she’s a strategic genius That matches my best battle plans for cunning and fine detail – my plan is “kill the enemy and don’t lose too many men”
:fight: somehow still not exactly right but since I haven’t written many fights that’s no surprise. It works and for now that is enough.
And so for the comments on the flashbacks, the window scene (from “When Eleanor next awoke it was dusk” to ‘“See, I told you I could help.” he whispered.’), and the ending for the tale. Much Eleanor and Fulk teasing ahead – this took me forever to do and they certainly gave me more trouble than I deserve. Payback time.
and dragging her into the middle of a fight – you’re a disgrace” poor Fulk, as if he can do anything when 5 armoured goons descend to kill them
“But you’re older and bigger and stronger and you’re a squire now” the first of many run on sentences Young Eleanor drives me mad You should only use ‘and’ before the last item in the list
Eleanor drew herself up to her full short height and glared at her brother’s chest, five year old shorty Eleanor talking to her tall 14 year old brother is an amusing sight – she’s talking to his belt buckle practically
If they can’t find me they can’t turn me into a proper princess” I’m with Trempwick on this – oh what outstanding logic
and I’m a princess so there” urge to strangle brat rising…must keep control…Gah Kill Gah
Eleanor shuffled her feet, “Not allowed to, s’not ladylike” she mumbled. Oh dear lord I think I’m going to be sick
you need to grow a lot before you can do the indignant royal act properly – you are too short to be impressively overbearing now” Please bear with me as I apply my size 5 ½ narrow fit boot: Not only do I have the height to do her princess poses but I also have the figure and glare too, so I am far better at that than her ~:P :Eleanor is heard to say “and you have the grace of a drunken clown While you may be able to stand impressively the moment you move, well let’s just say the illusion ends oh webfooted one”:no fair This is supposed to be my chance to get my own back, not my chance to get insulted even more
“I know lots of things” and apparently when to shut up is not one of them
“My youngest daughter is impossible She has scared off another tutor; this one would rather fight in Ireland than stay here with her. It is time for her to have a tragic accident, perhaps she could fall off the castle’s battlements?” heh, this is back before the king got shot in the leg and his bad temper turned into murderous temper No swearing etc all the time. All the same Eleanor got ported out of this one unconscious.
“You killed my brother and I will never forget that.” Finally Not only is she talking properly but she has actually grown up a lot My patience is restored
“By making me an assassin,” replied Eleanor bitterly, “an assassin, same as any common thug in a tavern” I assume what she really means is “I don’t want to kill people” but she at least has the sense to see saying that would be a very bad idea indeed. I assume…
switch from spoiled brat to somewhat likeable and back again nice to see I’m not alone in thinking this.
I could push you over by blowing on you” it’s all that garlic he eats, I mean honestly
“It was my…honour” an interesting comment that can mean so many things. Could be that he was happy to help, could be that he almost considers it a ‘reward’ to help out. Could be that he thinks it is honourable in the sense of ‘saving the damsel’. Maybe that he kept his word and that brings him honour. Possibly that he thinks it will bring him honours like a knighthood. Could be that he did this because it was the only way to preserve that sense honour he is just beginning to scrape together. May be that looking back at what he did he is proud that he did the harder of the possibilities and risked his own skin for something he believes instead of running away as he usually does and that this gives him a feeling that binds in with both honour and conscience of doing well or ‘honourably’, bit like saying ‘it was the right thing to do’. I think the last one is most likely in the end, with a bit of the others thrown in…a sign of how much he has changed.
“I already told you I don’t want to see what you would choose when forced to decide between your oath to me and your life” Liar. Well sort of, more truthfully she doesn’t want to lose him. Before she was quite sure he would save her and die so she dumped him out of the way and told Mr Ballistic Tempered King “so sorry but I sent him away” and that is why he lost his temper so badly he hit her where it could be seen. Now she is equally sure he wants walk away and leave her and she would rather he just left without saying anything. Originally she thought if he couldn’t finish the speech then he couldn’t leave, but then she rethought that and as she said in the forest “If you want to go then I will not stop you”. Both assumptions are slightly wrong – when she thinks he’d help he would probably twiddle his thumbs and do nothing, when she thinks he would leave he would stay. Bit sad really. What really annoys me is the way she doesn’t think laterally or in colour or whatever you want to call it. All she needs to is tell him the truth and ask him to stay out of the way. Of course she doesn’t think of thatMind you all Fulk needs to do is keep talking very loudly when she cuts him off and that would fix this mess they have worked themselves into just as well as her thinking properly Gah Pair of idiots
Fulk used the hem of his cloak to dry her tears. medieval Kleenex? (brand of tissues for those not in the UK) No tissue handy to blot those tears you caused with your dumb long-winded speeches? Simple, use the hem of your cloak Inventive, if nothing else.
“Or perhaps simply survival in the game of life.” or maybe even survival in the game of medieval: total war?
“If you say all that why is the oath meaningless?” yes very important question. Just in case it isn’t clear enough I shall go over it, some of this was lost in the simple comedy but much (about 85% of the possible total) of it is still there if you look and at least 1 person has spotted it as far as I know. Originally Fulk had no intention of keeping his word, he was not the ‘chivalrous knight’. Right at the start when we first meet him he is serving a traitor knowing what he is and despising him for it and yet he simply won’t up and leave. Fulk tells himself that this is because he gave his word and must stay because of that, the simple truth he won’t admit is that he wants the money and in the small chance Aidney pulls his scheme off Fulk is right in line for a plum job and title and he is ambitious enough to want that plum job and title. Throughout the first three and most of the fourth stories he does things that are not at all ‘chivalrous’ or even decent – he is very serious in his insults at the beginning, mildly annoyed by her claim to her title he twists it up into the royal equivalent of ‘stinking peasant’. Fortunately she doesn’t actually like her title (before anyone asks why she used her title if she hates it, well she was hoping to awe him into giving up so they didn’t end up fighting as she knows she would lose) so she finds this amusing, it would be a very short story otherwise (No, not because the romance would be missing but because she would be dead. She’s not going to be able to kill Fulk in an equal fight for…oh another 5 years or so and even then it’s a close thing that could go either way since they both know each other’s tricks and weaknesses, er I’m saying she gets the skill to do that, not actually that she kills him) The way he phrases it she can’t object because “that is what they call their princesses in a far off land”, or in other words I am going to insult you and you WILL put up with it It is only at the start tale 2 where he starts to mean it as the more joking/complimentary thing. He tramples all over her feelings when she is obviously hurt and upset, he cares far more for his own safety than for hers, he sees her as a meal ticket and a sure shot to promotion (but only for a few days, then he starts to like her), and many other things I can’t be bothered to list here – Fulk is a 2 page essay and that barely scratches the surface He is the more complex of the two by a long shot, and in some ways is the one who grows more steadily - she has two sudden ‘growth spurts’ where she grows up almost overnight, one when she is five and finds out how her brother dies, about her arranged murder etc and one when…well, you will see Yes he does love her for most of the story, but he doesn’t realise how much until the argument on the road in this tale. Before he would have saved himself not her and been quite happy about it once he got used to missing her. But then he realised that he doesn’t want to lose her, that he would never forgive himself for just giving up, and that he would rather help her than help himself. It is at that point he starts the “br-“ thing, trying to explain but of course he messes it up and she won’t listen (and poor old froggy gets annoyed with both of them). It is from this part onwards that he slowly becomes the ‘chivalrous’ man some thought he was before. Her little pep talk on being a nothing combined with realising how much he does care prompt him to notice that what he wants is to like himself and to be happy. As long as she is alive and he is protecting her he is happy, and he doesn’t hate himself for being a coward, failing her, losing the one person he actually cares about, throwing away the strange opportunity that is making him into a person he likes, for lying to himself. But if he loses her…
As he says keeping the oath would be nothing but duty and he was never interested in that, but protecting her out of choice, well that goes far beyond duty. Eventually he grows even more and starts doing more ‘good’ things simply because they are good, not just because it related to Eleanor or to how he views himself. To me it is only now he starts to get likeable as a person, and this is one of the most telling differences between Eleanor and me – Fulk wouldn’t have got 1/16th of an inch with me.
In many ways that throw away insignificant comment from the start of tale 2 sums Fulk’s journey up very well: “It’s the company; you princesses have such a refining effect on us common folk.” Hers would be: “I’m a princess I can’t just up and run” from the end of the same tale. I didn’t have that in mind when I wrote that bit but in the end those two lines encapsulate everything they are, do, and become, in her case mostly for reasons I can’t explain yet due to spoilers
“If you are saying what I think you are saying…” sensible girl Always check vague sentiments before joining in
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