Line #13 Literature/DreadCompanion


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3	''Dread Companion'' is a SF/Fantasy novel by Creator/AndreNorton.
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5	Rather than be shoved into a slot by bureaucracy, Kilda takes a job taking care of two children. One, Bartare, is a CreepyChild, with a companion that her brother Oomart calls "She" and the "Green Lady" and fears. They, with the children's mother, arrive on a planet to find that the children's father has died, and Kilda takes over for the children while the mother collapses.
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7	When they go on a sight-seeing trip, Bartare lures her brother off and insists on doing something with stones. Kilda, following, is trapped with them in another world, where to eat its food is to be transformed into one of its beings..
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9	----
10	!!Tropes included:
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12	* AFriendInNeed: Kilda throws food to the creature dogging them.
13	* AfterActionPatchup: Kilda to Kosgro, when they hide in the notus grove.
14	* TheAgeless: The inhabitants of the dark realm.
15	* AntiMagic: The notus blossom. Unfortunately for Jorth Kosgro it affects him as well as the enchantments on him.
16	* BloodMagic: At one point, Kilda needs to bleed to get a guide. The guide is a bunch of grass she's uprooted--equal sacrifice is required.
17	* ChangelingTale: Bartare is described as a changeling.
18	* CommonalityConnection: Kilda acquired her mentor at the creche through their shared curiosity and desire for intellectual adventures.
19	* CoolGate: Getting in or out of the Dark Realm requires one.
20	* CreepyChild: Bartare in spades.
21	* DispelMagic: The notus blooms undo the Folk's enchantments, and, to a certain extent, the ForcedTransformation effects of eating the Folk's food.
22	* {{Determinator}}: Kilda ''will not'' let anything stop her from rescuing the children under her charge and returning them safely home.
23	* EvilSmellsBad: The Dark Ones. They don't realize it, which helps when they hunt you
24	* ExactWords: Kosgro makes [[spoiler: the Lady]] promise them not ''a'' gate but "their own" one.
25	** Kosgro also notes at the end that [[spoiler: he never promised anybody in the colony that he'd take one of the ''men'' with him.]]
26	* TheFairFolk: Made explicit in the frame story.
27	* FoodChains: Kilda's supplies are the only thing that ensures their freedom
28	* ForcedTransformation: the effect of the fruit that the land grows. Kilda's skin and hair turn green and her toes try to turn into roots. Kosgro...WasOnceAMan.
29	* HealingHerb: The notus helps treat Kosgro's wounds.
30	* HellYesMoment: Kilda pinning Kosgro's bandages in place with his Survey insignia.
31	* HomeSweetHome: Kilda and Kosgro are completely dead-set on returning to their own place.
32	* IKnowYourTrueName: The Dark Ones ''must'' answer to their true names; it is the law.
33	* {{Immortality}}: The Folk can be killed, but are otherwise immortal.
34	* ImprovisedWeapon: Kilda fills a bag with rocks. It's a handy weapon...until she loses it.
35	* IngestingKnowledge: The fruit also tells them things
36	* InHarmsWay: If Kilda had been male, she would have loved being a scout and explorer.
37	* MandatoryMotherhood: At the end, Kilda is told she must marry and bear children [[spoiler: due to being the only single woman on a planet with a population of several dozen.]] She decides to TakeAThirdOption.
38	* NoOneGetsLeftBehind: Kilda can't and won't leave Bartare--even if she wants to stay.
39	* NotSoImaginaryFriend: ''She''
40	* ParentalAbandonment: Kilda, at birth. The children suffer a milder version during the novel: their father dies in an accident and their mother has a nervous breakdown (implied to be partly Bartare's doing) and is confined to bed rest.
41	* PluckyGirl: Kilda is only about eighteen.
42	* RitualMagic: Bartare learns it from The Lady.
43	* RoyalBrat: The children's mother is a rather languid version.
44	* StrangerInAFamiliarLand: [[spoiler: The heroes return to find they've been gone about fifty years, and things have changed. There has been a war and the colony has collapsed to a mere few dozen people.]]
45	* WasOnceAMan: Kosgro has spent so much time in the Dark Realm that Kilda doesn't even realize he is human, at first.
46	* WalkingWasteland: Bartare makes Kilda's hand wither a flower
47	* YearOutsideHourInside: What we are told in the opening line is that Kilda has aged only a year though it's been decades. [[spoiler: and centuries for Kosgro.]]
48	* YouCantGoHomeAgain: The problem with going through the gate.

Context Literature / DreadCompanion