>Actually, I kinda like this outcome, even if it
>still has nothing to do with the current Diqiu story. It's internally
>consistent and puts Azula in a situation where there's no expectations
>she has to live up to, which is what basically ruined her life before.

Well, I don't know as I'd call it an "outcome". I mean, it's high school, that's sort of by definition a transition period.

I considered a couple of different next phases after Blue Harvest that featured Gryphon following up the case himself, including one set very shortly after it in the late Golden Age and another that would have been a sort of prototype/prequel of Weapon of Choice, earlier in the Exile, but neither really worked for me; among other things, they weren't breaking anything that might be called new ground.

In playing around with the concept for the second version, though, I began to realize that the basic idea worked as a sequel to (the flashback parts of) Weapon of Choice. Making Laura the protagonist in a story that mirrors her own puts her in the unique position of having to take point on the salvage of another discarded weapon, recognizing and making an effort to connect with a kindred spirit. Keep in mind, this is less than a year after her escape from the Facility, so she's just barely an actual person herself at this point. So that is a fairly big job for her to be taking on, but I knew she would take it on, because a) she doesn't back away from challenges and b) she recognizes, as she says to Azula in the epilogue, that it's a chance to pay forward what was done for her.

And of course, as so often in this stage of her life, she couldn't have done it without Rhian and Mairwen. Perhaps even more so than Gryphon and Sir Victor, on a day-to-day basis, they are the keys to her - I can't even call it a recovery, technically, because she's not getting any thing back; she never had a childhood or any but the barest vestiges of human connection before.

It helped, also, that The Maiden in the Ice is the kind of title that naturally lends itself to a prepended Laura Kinney and. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.