History Literature / TheTwoPrincessesOfBamarre

%%Administrivia/ZeroContextExample* ActionGirl: Meryl is already one at the beginning, before falling ill. Addie becomes one reluctantly.

* BondVillainStupidity: Vollys notes that her mother could have killed Drualt many times, but she was after revenge, not outright death.

%%Administrivia/ZeroContextExample* IceCreamKoan: ''Homely Truths'' is full of these.
%%--> '''Vollys''': What I adore about the best of them is that they almost mean something!

* MagicAntidote: [[spoiler: Subverted]] with an actual magical antidote. Addie finds out what the antidote for the Grey Death is, but by the time she makes it back, Meryl is already at death's doorstep. [[spoiler: The fairies can't keep her alive as a human, so they offer her the choice of becoming a fairy herself.]]

* IllGirl: Meryl, who is an ActionGirl by nature, falls ill with the Grey Death, and the rest of her plotline is about her struggling against her inevitable decline, while her sister goes questing for a cure.

* DragonHoard: Vollys' lair is full of treasure.

* TreasureRoom: Vollys' lair.

** It's not clear when [[spoiler:Drualt and Meryl]] fell in love, but given that [[spoiler:Drualt]] was looking after Addie from afar, he very well may have fallen for [[spoiler:Meryl]] before her EmergencyTransformation.

* MageSpecies: Sorcerors are this, living longer than humans and born when lightning strikes marble. Despite this, many still marry humans and can have [[HalfHumanHybrid children with them]] (it's said they never wed their own kind).

* DragonHoard: Vollys' lair.

* MuggleMageRomance: Princess Addie develops a crush on Rhys and wonders whether the attraction might be reciprocated. [[spoiler:It is, and they marry at the end of the book]]. In this case, it doubles as InterspeciesRomance, because sorcerers are [[WitchSpecies a different sort of being from humans]].

* WitchSpecies: Sorcerors are this, living longer than humans and born when lightning strikes marble. Despite this, many still marry humans and can have [[HalfHumanHybrid children with them]] (it's said they never wed their own kind).

* YourDaysAreNumbered: The way the Grey Death works. It comes in three stages, where the weakness stage will last for a few days to a couple weeks, the sleep stage always lasting nine days, and the fever three days.

Princesses Meryl and Adelina of Bamarre are polar opposites. Meryl, the elder, wants nothing more than to embark on a grand adventure. Addie, the younger, wants nothing more than to stay at home under Meryl's watchful eye for the rest of her days, in peace and safety. The land of Bamarre is home to specters, which lure travelers to their deaths unless exposed, sorcerers, ogres, dwarves, elves, gryphons, dragons, and fairies. Fairies, however, have not been seen since Drualt, Bamarre's greatest hero and subject of myths, went up to visit them after the tragic death of his sweetheart Freya. Bamarre also plagued by a fatal disease called the Gray Death, which has three stages: Weakness, Sleep, and then Fever. While the weakness may last for a few days to weeks, the sleep stage always lasts nine days, and the fever always lasts three. A prophecy foretells that the cure for the Grey Death will come "when cowards find courage and rain falls over all Bamarre".

* BittersweetEnding: Good news is [[spoiler:Addie, Meryl, Rhys, and their crew are able fulfill the prophecy, curing the Grey Death, Addie herself has grown as a person, and Meryl isn't dead]]. Bad news is [[spoiler:Meryl was too far into her illness to be cured by the mystical water, so she elected to be [[EmergencyTransformation turned into a fairy]], so she can't go back to Bamarre with her sister, though they can still see each other, with Meryl being Addie's children's FairyGodmother]].

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Early on, Addie reads an encyclopedia entry on sorcerers, which mentions that they can marry humans (or other species) and have children. Addie is disappointed, because what she really wanted to know was the kind of magic sorcerers did [[spoiler:and yet, by the end, she is happily married to sorcerer Rhys and everyone expects them to have children]].

* LivingEmotionalCrutch: Addie is easily frightened and depends on Meryl to protect and calm her. She grows out of it when she has to save Meryl from the Gray Death.

* MissingMom: Addie and Meryl's mother died of the Gray Death when they were very young.
* OurDragonsAreDifferent: Dragons are very dangerous, cunning, fire-breathing beasts. They are also extremely solitary and cannot stand any contact with others of their kind. But on the other hand they get very lonely, so they kidnap humans to keep them company. Unfortunately, they tend to get bored with their companions quickly, kill them in a fit of rage and then mourn them.

** Meryl and [[spoiler: Drualt]] receives a minor tease when Meryl calls him by a nickname and brushes petals out of his hair and he calls her his "dear Meryl", minutes after mentioning his lost love.

* TakingYouWithMe: The dragon Yune, toward humanity in general. [[spoiler: The Gray Death was her DyingCurse.]]

* ThePlague: The Gray Death, [[spoiler:which turns out to be a MysticalPlague.]]
* TiredAfterTheSong: A variant gets PlayedForDrama. After declaiming the moment Drualt kills Yune, Meryl stops, tired. Addie notes the oddity, given that she usually recites until the story has finished and every question has been answered. Then Rhys tells Addie her sister is showing the first signs of the Gray Death.

* VasquezAlwaysDies: Tomboyish older sister Meryl is the one who becomes ill with the Gray Death, while delicate younger sister Addie survives and must carry on Meryl's mission. Played with at the end when [[spoiler:Meryl doesn't die, but she becomes a fairy and can't return to her old life.]]

* YourDaysAreNumbered: The way the Grey Death works. It comes in three stages, where the weakness stage will last for a few days to a couple weeks, the sleep stage always lasting nine days, and the fever three days.
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* OurElvesAreBetter:
** Averted. Elves in Bamarre are shorter than humans and work in the castle as nurses, as they know a lot about healing and herbs. The one elf that we get to know better, Milton, also loves knitting.
** One the other hand, the Fairies are more like elves in that they are immortal, made of light, know powerful magic and fight monsters in the darkness beyond daylight.

* IceCreamKoan: ''Homely Truths'' is full of these.
--> '''Vollys''': What I adore about the best of them is that they almost mean something!

* ActionGirl: Meryl is already one at the beginning, before falling ill. Addie becomes one reluctantly.

* TomboyAndGirlyGirl: Meryl and Addie, respectively.