@Rainy Day People: Aww, I didn't think Daneera was one for rain. Cute couple moment.
She likes nature, so I imagine she enjoys the rain, especially when she's not actually out in it. But it's never been established one way or the other (to be fair, it's possible I dropped in some comment about it in "Instinct," when she does, in fact, get caught out in the rain on her way to Kerik's cabin the first time they sleep together). Mostly, I just love the visual here.
@Race: neat, but you use "stop" twice to mean opposite things, which made me mind-stutter.
Good point, and I wasn't really happy with the second one anyway, considering Ethal is not talking (or thinking, rather) about stopping anyway. I changed the second one to "delaying."
@Dream: Cool! The twist about the "tiger" was unexpected, but pretty nice nonetheless.
Cool, I'm glad you liked it. I did a similar thing with the tiger in "Promises, Promises," so I'm glad it didn't feel too trite. My favorite part of this one is the "whose dream she was borrowing" line. I just sort of love that image.
@Mind: I thought Orida was unnecessarily harsh here, then I remembered this happens in her youth, when her being unable to connect to the minds of other kithkin is kind of the point, so it's Royce that's reminding her of her anomaly... which explains Orida's reaction much more clearly. I wonder what Orida's love life looks like after her ascension...
I don't think her threat is necessarily literal here, but she's obviously displeased. In my first draft of this out, I did not use Royce's name, just a generic "he," but I thought switching it to Royce would make it seem like they patched things over later, as the two seem close in "Whisperweft," which naturally comes after this canonically. This is a moment of youthful thoughtlessness, because I imagine Royce was trying to say something nice, like "you would know there's nowhere I'd rather be," but like you hinted at, he hits a sore spot. I don't think he meant to, but that doesn't exactly help.
As for her love life going forward, I'm not sure. She's pretty deep into the
-mana mindset right now, and I would think it would be difficult to have a serious relationship like that. But who knows? It's difficult to say what is in store for her.
@Never Too Close: ouch. That track, though... I wonder what kind of 'walker Annalee ended up being.
That's a good question. An embittered one, I think, but beyond that, it's hard to say. She's definitely a character I would like to explore more.
(Am I seeing too much into things, or she's also got your name snuck into hers? I can't remember if you said anything about it in the past, but Ray-V-An has a familiar sound to it
)
Interesting. In this case, no, that was not intentional, though from a subconscious level, it is fascinating to wonder if that was random or some weird connection from the depths of my mind. I named her Annalee when I wrote "Rendezvous," the poem that eventually inspired "Change of Heart." It was more of a reference to "Annabel Lee," as well as a lyric from the song "The Weight" by The Band:
"'Well, Luke, my friend, what about young Annalee?'
He said, 'Do me a favor, son, won't you stay and keep Annalee company?'"
Anyway, when I wrote "Rendezvous," I had not planned on a surname yet. When it came time to write "Change of Heart," I gave her the name "V'ray" as sort of an inside joke (purely with myself. A VERY inside joke...). The "joke," if so you can call it, is that so many planeswalkers seem to have four-letter surnames that start with "V". There's Liliana Vess, Fisco Vane, Raiker Venn, Orida Vise, Urassaya Vath, Hanara Vika (I feel like there are a couple more, but I'm not remembering them). So I gave her a four-letter surname starting with "V" and I liked the way V'ray sounded to me.
Thanks for reading! I had fun with these, and it had been a while since I've written any microfics.