Notes - characters

Sometime after the 2007 NaNo, I wrote a short scene between Meres and Veri, where Veri yells at Meres for abandoning him during the rose party, and thus humiliating him. Then they make up and are all sweet and loveydovey, and it was really beautiful to see the love between them, set against all the selfish fixations of the others.

I had planned to stick this into the story long before now. But somehow... there wasn't enough for it to have the impact I'd wanted. So I kept stringing out Veri being angry at Meres, trying to build it up more.

Then Claude stepped into that little conflict at the mermaid party, and I suddenly realized he was trying to break them up, and have Meres for himself, not thinking Veri worth Meres' effort. Which is when the idea popped up for Claude to confront Veri, which sounded fun to write.

Yet, after writing that bit yesterday, it felt.. flat, like not much was accomplished in the scene. I decided Luce should step in and do some meddling. Which he was, as always, more than happy to do.

I knew Meres would be annoyed that Veri didn't come to the play - but I realized this morning just how deeply upset he could be. "The Nightingale and The Rose" (which I summarized poorly - the language in the original is so heartbreakingly lovely, go to Gutenberg and read it, preferably from the pdf at archive.org with the stunning illustrations) is--- wow, good morning run-on parenthesis. The story is about Love in its purest sort of form, self-sacrifice for the happiness of another - the nightingale gives up her life, that Love might have a chance to flourish in the heart of another.

Given that the Grigori were once angels, and thus beings of pure compassion, and now are fallen from that and trying to forget their better natures... I suspect the story will have more than the usual poignancy. Meres in particular... I have a hunch he really, really wanted Veri to hear that story, told, visually at least, by Meres. I haven't sorted out all the rational yet, but... I think Meres is going to be seriously heartbroken.

I suspect that make-up scene in the garden is going to need some hefty re-writing. I'd never intended Meres and Veri to almost lose each other, but I'm afraid that's where it might be going. Wheeee drama!