The North Wind Speaks (part 10)

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and we are all devoted

to her welfare.

And today's diagram . . .

You know how, in the wake of Dungeons & Dragons, the standard for modern fantasy became a lone adventurer slowly assembling a family about themselves? This diagram, read from top to bottom, shows the process of Caitlin becoming her own family. First Helen climbs inside her head. Then the dragon does the same. Esme and Raven become external members of the extended family (as do others). Here, I begin to look forward to the process of Caitlin's shedding of identities with the ultimate goal of becoming singular again.

In the middle, as usual, the ellipses (. . .) indicate the parts unwritten. Those that I'm trying to scry into existence with the diagram.

Ideas created by the diagram include that House Sans Merci is a majority stockholder in the Conspiracy, and the comment by one member of it, "You are representing your mother?" one asked politely.

So I haven't yet written the scene where Caitlin joins the Conspiracy under the nom de guerre Kate Gallowglass. Who becomes, come to think, yet another member of Caitlin's interior family.

I haven't said a word about sisters yet because it wasn't until very close to the end of the novel that I realized their importance to The Iron Dragon's Mother. 

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