[287] Story Discussion--Rabbit Warren

Well, swordsman is obviously Eglamore, but absolutely nothing has been accomplished. :l

Hehe, I love Annie!

Though, I don't understand the use of the word "abalone". I don't know what it means :S

I wonder why Coyote did all this. I guess we'll know at some point.
Since he wants Eglamore as an "escort", I guess he'll try to trick him into doing something too, like he tried with Annie.

I thought Coyote's "Abalone" line was just because he thought that was her name. After all, he can't remember human lifespans or human clothes, either.

Well, he did have the decency to apologize to Annie (and Rey concurs about his nose having a mind of its own, huh). Or maybe he was just being manipulative, setting up his very next line.

I worry about this driving a wedge between Annie and the Court. She's not foolish enough to just accept Coyote's word, but I think Annie already distrusts some of the faculty.

I love Annie's lines in panel 3. She doesn't get snarky often, but she does it well.

And the image of Coyote carrying Ysengrin in his jaws just rocks.

EDIT: Ah, confirmation from Tom on the comments page:

Oh man, Abalone? Tom you're making me hungry.

I spoke too soon; the link to Chapter Fourteen is on the main page now, meaning that this chapter is indeed almost at an end after all. Then again, with the meeting over and Coyote leaving, there wouldn't be much left of the chapter to tell.

I wonder whether the next chapter will cover Annie's experiences during the summer (I assume that she'll still be spending it at the Court, in case Anthony shows up), or if it'll fast-forward to the beginning of the next school year. We'll probably find out soon.

Good points, all. I agree.

The "abalone" comment is just true to form for a personality like the Coyote. He sticks his nose up her skirt and then nicknames her "Clam", so he's: a ) rude, b ) a total perv, and c ) hysterically funny.

Coyote's playing a deep game and it's pretty clear he's just using Ysengrin while keeping him in the dark too. He provokes the attack, but then cuts it short (brutally) when he learns what he came to learn.

Ysengrin probably misread the situation and figured Coyote wanted the girl or Renardine DEAD. But so far, Coyote's only shown an interest in abducting Renardine. He's also shown absolutely no regard for Annie in doing so.

Given that, he's probably absolutely right. The Court can't be trusted. The best deceit, after all, is woven with threads of the truth. But just because the Court is more than what it seems doesn't mean that Annie should trust Coyote either.

If she goes into the forest, she'll take Renardine, and that's EXACTLY what Coyote wants. Once there, he may not "harm" Annie, but he might decide to "improve" her by infecting her with the same "seeds" he used on Ysengrin and Robot or he might let a glass-eyed man possess her (technically not harming her body).

Whatever he does, his focus will be on Renardine, and Annie will be lucky to avoid permanent consequences.

I wondered why Coyote hasn't searched for Renardine before, but it occurs to me that Robot may have been the first bit of Court technology to enter the forest in a long time.

It's also interesting to see how Robot had to be "infected" with Nature (just like the Tic-Toc infected the forest with technology), before the Shadow Man could take control of him.

Unlike Renardine, they cannot possess anything with eyes. They probably needed the tree arm to infect him first before he was vulnerable to their power.

Annie with a tree arm? Scary thought! Let's hope she gives an adventure into the forest some serious thought!

I don't think that we need to read anything deep into the "abalone" bit. Tom mentioned that it was just a case of Coyote getting Annie's name wrong, with "abalone" sounding similar to "Antimony".

Annie is correctly suspicious of Coyote. I don't know if she'd actually dare venture into Gillitie Wood just to find out; while she is curious, her excursions have usually had something more than a desire to find out more in them. She ran out onto the bridge because Robot had paused in the middle of it and she thought that there might be something wrong with him; she broke into the robot part of the school to rescue his remains. I think that what it'll take to draw her out into Gillitie will be something more than just Coyote claiming to have answers (after his actions, she'd have good reason to believe that his request was not an altruistic one). Though the way that stories work, she probably will eventually venture out.

The interesting thing is that the impending conflict, which we thought was actually between Gunnerkrigg and Gillitie (i.e., Technology versus Nature), may actually be between Reynardine and Coyote instead, with Gunnerkrigg involved only because Reynardine is currently living there. Typical of trickster-gods, pulling everyone else into their private quarrels.

Dammit. Must not attempt typing with toddler in lap.

I think she snuck out in that case because she felt guilty after promising Reynardine to stay and then fainting.

In this case, I doubt that she will go to Gillitie Woods without some serious precautions.

Well, if you had been seeing odly shaped people, invisible to the rest of the world, from a very early age a large talking dragon might not scare you. And it would also covince you to search him out even when your best friend says you were probably hallucinating.