H&M, Chapter 7

[rthstewart]

In which Lone Island Bankers engage in savage, ritualized combat, here.  Chapter 7 of Harold and Morgan is up.

Thank you for your patience and support.  snacky  and Clio have been especially kind and I really, really appreciate it.  I had planned to post sooner, but I've had loads of loathing (nice alliteration, huh?) with regard to writing recently and a veterinary crisis.  I'm feeling very attached to Jina today.  And, of course, we know how THAT ends.  SOB.  I'd been planning to kill off an OC or three by the end of the Lone Islands story, and now, out of sympathy, I may not.

The next chapter includes a revised Two Hearts Day segment and lots more.  I'll get around to that in a few days.  I do hope folks enjoy this one and that I don't see what happened after chapters 4 and 5.  Anyway, onward.  And thank you all so much for being so helpful and kind.  I said it before, but it bears repeating.  I could not have continued this story without the F list and reviewer support.  Thank you!

Comments

[the_rck]

This chapter gave me several grins (my seven year old wondered why. I couldn't explain to her satisfaction). I love seeing Edmund working at adapting.

Thanks for writing!

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much! I'm late in responding, but I've been buried and work and am very close to posting the next chapter, so.... watch out for those kids. it's scary once they can look over your shoulder

[anastigmatfic.livejournal.com]

The one downside to being very good at what you do and surrounded by people who know it is, if one is plucked out of that situation and put somewhere else, one will chafe at having to start at the bottom all over again.

Ed, you're chafing. Ask Morgan to put some ointment on you.

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

Ed's imagination would like that ointment very much.

[autumnia]

Just like every other animal on the planet, even a Hoard of Bankers can be savages -- especially on the handball court. At least Edmund's slowly adapting to living amongst Humans again, even though the Bankers are a strange group in themselves. I wonder how they (collectively) compare to say, a Romp of Otters or a Charm of Hummingbirds?

Something I'd like to see one day is for the Bankers to show up in Narnia and see how four children managed to run a perfectly good kingdom. We get Ed's view on the Bankers, and Morgan's on the Narnians but she's a strange creature. :-) How would the other Bankers view Narnia, given their current opinions of the country they don't even acknowledge as the sovereign over them?

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

Funny you should mention what the other Bankers think.... Director Linch refers to Edmund as:

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Funny you should mention what the other Bankers think.... Director Linch refers to Edmund as:
<i<a little lordling, upstart, seducer, uneducated, poorly capitalized, no family, no history, King to a tiny land that depended on, apparently, luck, magic, and the provenance of the Divine to survive.</i> who moreover does not understand the awesome acumen of Morgan and insists on just treating her as a "woman"

[autumnia]

Well, if Director Linch has such a low opinion of Edmund (who does have decent drafting skills), I don't know if his opinion of Peter is any better!

As for the treatment of Morgan as a "woman"... well, it can be a nice change from always being treated as a Banker!

[varnafinde.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you didn't give up!

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

I'm trying@! HARD!

[florentinequill.livejournal.com]

*silently laughing* Oh man...I might not have ever played with a Hoard of Bankers but I can certainly relate to Edmund's narrowed minded focus a time or two with fencing. I don't care if my heart feels like it's going to explode out of my chest DID I SCORE A VALID TOUCH.

Excellent chapter, I wait eagerly for the next one.

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

it's all about THE WIN. And not dying when you do! thanks so much for reading!

[min023.livejournal.com]

Wonderful chapter. Can't wait to see how many levels Edmund gets busted on, since various of the bankers seem to be seeing around the edges of his disguise. Curious about the handball - I don't know that I envisaged wooden balls and body shots. Did you base this on anything from Spare Oom, or is it wholly imagined? At any rate, it's inspired.

And ooh, all the tension and shoes waiting to drop. Maeve/Morgan, Alan and the Narnians, Edmund and the Director. Lots of unresolved issues just waiting to burst forth. Cool!!!

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

Shhhh!

Constance escorted him to the doors and waited while Edmund shrugged into a cloak. The freeze from the night before was melting, so it was a sloppy mess outside.

“Harold, before you go, I should raise an issue with you.”

“Yes?”

“The Director asked me if I had ever seen one of the Narnian Kings before.”

The question Edmund had been expecting for weeks finally came. He had a rehearsed script prepared.

“Oh? And why is that?” he asked blandly.

“Because the Director saw the portraits hanging in the Governor’s House when she paid the Houses’ tribute to the Crown and found a remarkable semblance in one of them.”

Edmund mentally winced. That was an eventuality he should have foreseen. “I see.”

“Director Meryl is conflicted. She believes her brother is possibly complicit in a very significant secret, but is loathe to make any accusation with the Conclave looming. She also recognizes that she does not have all the facts and she dislikes making any decision without them.”

It was, Edmund saw, very consistent with what he had observed of the Director’s character. She was, fortunately, very risk averse. “Undoubtedly Director Meryl realizes that, should her suspicions prove correct, her continuing silence would garner far more good will from powerful interests.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Constance had changed to the Houses’ highest honorific, just as Morgan had, at first, in Narnia.

[katharhino.livejournal.com]

I posted a review on FF.net.

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! and you are quite right. I am definitely borrowing from the milieus I know well of professional workplaces, like law firms and accounting firms with long, long hours and very hardworking people There's a lot about this story that is condemning practices here and one of them is the way workplaces chew people up and spit them out and the aggressive cultures that dominate them.

[katharhino.livejournal.com]

aggressive cultures... that's a good way to put it. As I said, I worked a law firm, as a support professional, and it sucked. We were definitely "human resources"... the kind that get used up.

[(Anonymous)]

Always happy to see more Harold and Morgan! Though this chapter took place in a very short amount of time, you covered quite a lot of ground. It was nice that Edmund was thinking of Jalur, I bet he misses him just as much as he supposes that Jalur is missing his king. All the Narnians were great here, with Jina mediating between H&M and Sallowpad and Willa anticipating exactly what questions Edmund would want to ask if he was able. I wonder if all of this undercover experience will be relevant/useful back in Spare Oom? I would certainly not want to play any sports with bankers... that sounded intense! Poor Edmund! And I adored that last line! Laughed out loud. :)

Thanks!

J.Apple

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much! you are right, it does occur over a short period of time. A recent reviewer notwithstanding, I am not going to try to create and explain a quasi-medieval banking system in a fan fic. As for its usefulness to Edmund in Spare Oom, there will be tedious but important work for him to do there as well, for when I go back to AW.

thank you!

[(Anonymous)]

OK, I'm going to make it a habit of reviewing now that I've read everything, though I'm sure I may churn out another long e-mail of thoughts/reactions that I didn't cover in the last epic e-mail! (I've a mental list going of things I still want to cover.) I really enjoyed this chapter... I especially love your diverse cast of OCs. Plus, I cannot get enough of Edmund these days, it seems. As much as it hurts to kill off OCs, it only makes the story all the more real, in my opinion, even though as a reader it hurts when I grow attached to them. I hope your canine friend is doing better, and I look forward to the next chapter of this (and AW, too)!
--Indil

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

And here I thought maybe I'd scared you off with my reply, Indil! I'm glad you liked it. I'm reeling from the most recent chapter as my reviews have (again) dropped by half. This is what happened at Chapter 4 and it just AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! makes me tear my hair out as I thought that the chapter that just went up with the Two Hearts Day was better than the one before and evidently readers disagree. Again. And I don't understand what I've done wrong. Thank you for the kind words on Not Jina (the Labrador). She's still carrying some plastic around in her stomach so we're still in sort of wait and see mode.

[(Anonymous)]

Heavens, no! I loved your response -- there's no such thing as too much information in my book, and I appreciate the time you took to reply to my own ramblings, so thank you for that! I'm sure the reviews will trickle in -- perhaps people are waiting for a natural break to the arc (since this is part 1 of 2) before they respond? Is there a trend for some readers to only review every other or every couple of chapters?