Shadow Walker Chapter 6 (Spoilers*)

[ANTIcarrot]

Aww. Bless. Our little boy's all grown up. Now he's just as mean and callous as Shadowfox.

But on the other hand I get my wish, and my favorite city in all of Noram is going to be taken. Hopefully before all the rich furriers who live there have a chance to flee. While I'm rooting for the arcans (and the Masked) to ultimately win, I think my personal happy ending would be to see some of the slavers at Cheston get exactly what they deserve.

[miraborn]

I think my personal happy ending would be to see some of the slavers at Cheston get exactly what they deserve.

Do you think we'll see any Arcans sporting a nice human skin coat?

[boballab]

What i can't wait to see is when Danna finds out that one of the great "heros" of the Loreguard is part of the Masked. Of course since he is a real general he would take command of the army but imagine what that will do to her already folded, spindled and mutilated bigotry concerning Arcans.

[lapland]

Do either Danna or Kyvin retain enough of the similar DNA that they could mate now that they are once again able to trade species? It would be inter-species copulation but that would be nothing to Kyvin. Maybe she needs to have the arcan body to carry a child to term, while he retains all the twisted DNA to make it work.

Kyvin can now make his enemies nightmares, their own realities. What could they fear more then their own becoming shamin. Could they imagine anything worse then fifty Loreguard who are really human Shamin marching on their soldiers followed by a nation of Archans during the winter season. Archans have fer so they can tolerate the cold far more then humans. Can there be any fear they have greater then that.

He also now knows how to shadow walk, so he can be anywhere he wants to be. Distance means nothing to him now. Guards and patrols mean nothing. He is shadow and so can go and be anything he wants. Liquid shadow can seep through or around almost any wall, door or window. Spirit sight can see beyond any wall or obstacle. And there is virtually never a time when there is no shadow. He is now a living nightmare if he wasn't already.....

[dellstart]

What i can't wait to see is when Danna finds out that one of the great "heros" of the Loreguard is part of the Masked. Of course since he is a real general he would take command of the army but imagine what that will do to her already folded, spindled and mutilated bigotry concerning Arcans.

wicked!!!!!!!

[GBLW]

Do either Danna or Kyvin retain enough of the similar DNA that they could mate now that they are once again able to trade species?

Nope, and there are two reasons why that won't work:

#1 - while Danna is now a shadowfox, Kyven is now human. If Kyven activates his 'charm' to change into a shadowfox, Danna becomes human. And in Spiritwalker we were told that Kyven wasn't even fertile with other foxes, let alone anything more disparate.

#2 - The Shadowfox wants to start a breeding program (of sorts) to gain further shadowfox kits and and thus more shadowfoxes. If she knows anything about genetics, she won't want all of those kits to carry half of their DNA from one sire. Even two widely variant breeding pairs raises the odds of a fatal variation or mutation to an unacceptable level.

I'm sorry, but at a minimum, Danna (as a shadowfox) has to breed with an 'outside' male and from what Fel has written, I'd bet on Toby being the one the Shadowfox has her eye on to do the deed. Of course that means she has to trick him into becoming a shadowfox as well.

[ANTIcarrot]

What i can't wait to see is when Danna finds <snip> imagine what that will do to her already folded, spindled and mutilated bigotry concerning Arcans.

I think it's a little unfair to say that she's still bigoted. She had some foolish notions, but seemed to drop them moderately quickly once she was confronted with proof that she was wrong. I would say that a willingness to change your mind is the very opposite of bigotry. Now she seems to be treating the Arcans as another political faction, rather than racial inferiors. The closest we have to prejudice in Shadow Walker is Danna's reluctance to lead the army during the actual offensive. Which is quite understandable since:
A) She is a POW, no matter how well they treat her, and has a fundamental duty to escape.
B) She knows exactly the kind of young men and women (18yo? 16yo? 14yo? Not a modern army, remember?) who her orders will kill, since she used to be one of them, train along side them, and probably trained them at some point.

Apart from that? She hates being transformed at random times, which you have to admit does sound kinda annoying, and she hasn't had sex with any arcans yet. I've never had sex with another bloke. Does that make me a bigot?

The revelation about Danvers could go either way. I doubt it will surprise her too much though. He simply got his education a decade or so before she got hers. In fact it might make her angry. (She probably killed arcans (which she knows were people) because he was too much of a coward to speak up about what he learned.) Other than that, the Arcans will now have one of the finest generals in human history, and won't need her any more. This could relieve her (now I can escape) or worry her (now I need to escape). Or it could reinforce her new outlook on the world.

I wonder if she'll tell him, "Oh, but that thing about the spirits being evil? Loremasters are 100% right about that."

[Downdude]

Escaping as an arcan will do her a lot of good if she wants to be killed or enslaved. She can't really even consider doing that until she is 100% human again and no longer linked with Kyven. By then she will probably want to stay with Kyven assuming they are both human when/if that happens. Then we can see about more human shaman from Danna...

[ANTIcarrot]

Escaping as an arcan will do her a lot of good if she wants to be killed or enslaved. She can't really even consider doing that until she is 100% human again and no longer linked with Kyven. By then she will probably want to stay with Kyven assuming they are both human when/if that happens. Then we can see about more human shaman from Danna...

Not necessarily... As we have been told by many senior characters (and so it must be true...) arcans don't know how to act human. Danna not only knows how to act like a human, but to act like a Command Officer. Soldiers are trained to obey the tone of voice rather than a given face. If follows her training to the letter they will obey her before they quite realise it's an arcan giving the orders. That might be enough to get her to a (rational officer. Then all she has to do is say she's the last survivor of her unit,

Hmm. Which might actually be useful, even if she doesn't defect. With a 20 or 30 point white crystal, she could probably look entirely human. Maybe just for a few minutes or so, but that might be vital.

Edit: And finally I attain the rank of Sui'kun. Mwahahaha!

[michaelsuave]

I like how you were able to insert "sometimes crazy works" in a slight bow to both Sennadar and subjugation stories. Keep up the good work Fel!

[Downdude]

Not necessarily... As we have been told by many senior characters (and so it must be true...) arcans don't know how to act human. Danna not only knows how to act like a human, but to act like a Command Officer. Soldiers are trained to obey the tone of voice rather than a given face. If follows her training to the letter they will obey her before they quite realise it's an arcan giving the orders. That might be enough to get her to a (rational officer. Then all she has to do is say she's the last survivor of her unit,

Hmm. Which might actually be useful, even if she doesn't defect. With a 20 or 30 point white crystal, she could probably look entirely human. Maybe just for a few minutes or so, but that might be vital.

Edit: And finally I attain the rank of Sui'kun. Mwahahaha!

This whole bit was a joke right?
A shadowfox arcan that would look very much like the shaman said soldiers are hunting are just going to obey only by tone of voice?
And a rational officer is going to *belive* an arcan? Are you kidding me? Arcan's are seen to be less than subhuman by most of the humans so you really think believing any story she could spin looking like a shadowfox arcan is going to have any chance of being trusted? She would be put in prison for sure because they can't take any chances. She would probably be tortured just like kyven was. Yeah it's a good idea to go marching up to the loremasters to beg for help as an arcan if you are stupid.

[expedient]

<begin: idle musing>
I wonder what Toby has been up to since the arcan purchases are over?


If 40 is old for an arcan (May: Spirit Walker chapter 4) and arcan shaman can live up to 60 years (Firetail: Spirit Walker chapter 15), how long can human shaman expect to live? Holm died around age 70 and current science predicts 150 years to be possible for a human. If a human shaman is protected from serious illness and injury they could live more than twice as long as an arcan shaman. That could really shake up the hierarchy in future generations. Not to mention naturally born shadow fox arcan shaman with both strong shaman powers and shadow powers. Looking a couple hundred years in the future...
<end>

[ANTIcarrot]

This whole bit was a joke right?

Yes... That's right. A joke. And if you look up the phrase 'refuge in audacity', as well as the number of times it really has worked, even during war time, you might even understand the punch line.

The chance of success would depend on what kind of Loreguard she meets. Any Loreguard who's lasted more than a year on the frontier is going to be pretty damn pragmatic. Given the recent influx of loremaster nutters, this might be a slim chance, but as I've said before, if Danna gets pissed at the shadowfox enough, she might not care.

Yeah it's a good idea to go marching up to the loremasters to beg for help as an arcan if you are stupid.

I don't think you quite understand what I wrote. for that matter I'm not even sure you understood what Fel wrote. Kyven was tortured because he refused to cooperate and (speculation) shadowfox wanted it to happen. She found his near death experience very convenient after all. In the same way a cat calmed down a young boy at the start of Spirit Walker, I suspect she either got the dumbest block head she could find assigned to Kyven, or deliberately egged him on to hurt Kyven past his normal judgment. This wouldn't be an issue is Daana cooperated.

Of course the little bitch might do the same thing again out of shear spite if she lost all hope of getting Danna raped by another shadowfox... But that's the problem with speculation. The outcome depends on your assumptions. And I'm naturally inclined to be sympathetic to Danna as the underdog; who seems to have stumbled upon the one genuinely evil spirit, and has fallen for a complete and utter jerk. An interesting and entertaining jerk, who will probably save a lot of lives and go down as a war hero, but a jerk none the less.

[andy_t_roo]

I wonder if Kyvin is now permantly, and entirly, human again (ie, the fox gave him back his humanity), so any further transformations are now entirly the result of the use of the medalion (or further misguided negotiation with the fox, although i doubt that would hapen, Kyvin has been taught that lesson, and the Fox wouldn't need to teach it that way again).

If so, what is the source/nature of Kyvin's shadow powers? --a) it isn't mentioned that any of the other shamans gain non-shamanistic based powers through the 'sponsership' of their spirits. b) they were previously described as being an inate power (able to work where magic was blocked, like the drain crystal ability). If they are innate, how non-human is Kyvin still? -- is it possible to 'partially' remove/add the animal/human part of a person/shadowfox? if previously Kyvin gained/lost his shadow powers when he exchanged human/arcan form, what happens now when he switches to arcan form, via the amulet?

so many questions, so many fiendishly tangential answers as plot leaders ....

[ANTIcarrot]

I wonder if Kyvin is now permantly, and entirly, human again [then] what is the source/nature of Kyvin's shadow powers?

It makes a little more sense if you use vector maths as an analogy, and view Kyven as a composite creature. (Or magical 'cyborg' if you will.) Kyven the Physical Being is now entirely genetically human. But Kyven the Life Force Entity is not entirely human. It was probably never the shadowfox's fur that gave him his powers (as such) but rather some manifestation of that shadowfox fur in another reality. I think she's somehow 'bolted on' that otherworldly functionality onto his 'spirit', and then wired it into his brain.

That and little miss evil likes to cheat and break the rules.