Single-Stroke Battle...and John survives. With Just a Flesh Wound. He credits his recovery to the expertise and experience of the women attending to his wound, who can heal most any injury to immediately mortal. No Bizzare Alien Biology, I guess.
Dejah is sobbing, thinking him dead, and he asks Sola to gently break the news to her, when she's calmed down.
- More Cannot Spit It Out?
- Oh, it's not like I like you, it would just be inconvenient if you were dead.
Sola also invites him to come talk sometime; she'll tell him why she's different from other Martians.
Her mother was small, too small to be accepted for breeding (the elders select for size, which makes me wonder how tall they were when they started), and with her head full of fluff like compassion, and...love.
A servant in Tal Hajus' household, she often spent her time daydreaming in the fields, where she met a young warrior, a sheperd. They spent time with each other, and in time, admitted this strange thing called love.
- I have to say, daydreaming in the fields on Mars seems like a bad idea, what with the yeti and everything.
They had an egg, that they hid in a distant incubator. Their love was forbidden, but the warrior had a plan, a mad plan; he would climb ranks until he was king by his own hand.
He advanced quickly, but disaster struck when he was sent on a long mission to the south. The egg hatched, and the mother did her best to raise her, until she got ratted out by another woman, Sarkoja, and dragged off for horrible torture and death. She never admitted the name of her lover, but told her daughter, hidden with the other children. The man who became cruelest of the cruel, determined to exact his revenge and become king, who knows not if his daughter survived?
Tar Tarkas.
On the one hand, I was expecting Luke, I Am Your Father, but on the other hand, it was still surprising. I guess it explains what seems off about him.
Sola...you know, her story makes either Rousseau Was Right or In The Blood Plausible. Hiding by the whole savage culture and upbringing theme he has going for the green Martians, I'd say the former is what he's going for.
Not much to comment on this time, it seems. I have to say that Sola's tale sounds like a saga of its own. Tar Tarkas is the main character of his own story, an epic of love, loss, and revenge; is there a trope for that?
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