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Post by devilinthedetails on Oct 22, 2020 10:19:21 GMT 10
Title: Blazing Pride Rating: PG Word Count: 34 Summary: Zahir feels a blazing pride for his desert born and bred horse. Notes: Part III of my Zahir series. Written for mistrali’s prompt “Blaze.” Thanks to mistrali for the inspiration. Blazing Pride Zahir had heard Lord Wyldon’s stables were the best in the north, but the training master’s dark dun couldn’t compare to his desert born and bred bay, Zahir thought with a blaze of pride.
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Post by mistrali on Oct 22, 2020 20:31:20 GMT 10
Love the alliteration strung through the sentence here; and of course Zahir would be justifiably proud of his horse.
Pride is an emotion that sits well on Zahir, I think. He’s... aloof, in a way that Joren and Vinson aren’t. A bit like Alex, if Alex hadn’t gone completely inexplicably anti-Alanna in SOTL. He places his faith in... I don’t know how to explain this, but he relies on himself a lot. Possibly because he’s an outsider and doesn’t trust the Tortallan system (he’s always at one remove) and also partly because he’s conscious of his differences. It could also just be in his nature to be very self-sufficient.
Joren and Vinson are privileged nobles with a vested interest in inequalities and keeping the status quo. They have a vendetta against Kel/Lalasa/the lower classes. Zahir makes a very interesting contrast to that kind of true hatred. If we take racism as his incentive, even his one sensitive point, his pride in his blood, doesn’t really seem to have much staying power when it comes to systematically bullying women.
‘Blazing pride’ is perfect.
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Post by devilinthedetails on Oct 22, 2020 23:09:28 GMT 10
mistrali, thank you so much for commenting! I had fun with alliteration in this sentence, so I'm so pleased you liked having it strung throughout the sentence. I really enjoyed being able to explore Zahir's justifiable pride in his horse. I totally agree with you that pride is an emotion that sits really well on Zahir, which is probably why my Zahir is often a very proud, prickly being, ha ha. I think aloof is a great way to describe Zahir, and I could definitely see an Alex comparison in terms of that aloofness and self-sufficiency. I do agree that Zahir does seem to rely on himself a lot, giving him the courage to walk away from his friends in the pages' wing when he is no longer interested in their bullying without looking back. I do think some of it must be that he is an outsider and can't trust the Tortallan system (he knows it wasn't designed for his benefit or the benefit of the Bazhir and can view it from a certain remove as you phrase it) and because there is always that gulf between himself and others in the north where he spends most of his time. So, I could see Zahir as someone who has learned how to depend on himself in ways many people never have to do. But I also wonder if Zahir demonstrated some strong signs of an independent spirit and self-sufficiency as a child and that is part of the reason why his parents chose to send him north to train as a page. In writing these one sentence stories about Zahir, I am finding myself interested in Zahir's parents and their decision to send him north. I am starting to think that perhaps they wanted to give him an opportunity to gain more respect and status among the northerners by earning his knighthood (they had high hopes and ambitions and wanted the best for him almost like immigrant parents in the United States often do) but also were aware that they couldn't really provide him with much guidance in navigating the complexities of a northern culture they didn't understand. I'd really like to look at Zahir's relationship with his parents in more detail in the future, since I find myself curious about that and I haven't really explored it too much in the past. I think there could be at least a story there. I think that you're totally right and have found the perfect words to describe how Joren and Vinson are these privileged nobles with every vested interest to violently and viciously preserve the inequalities of the status quo that keeps them above everyone else, but with Zahir something more complicated is happening where his pride in his Bazhir blood and heritage doesn't have to continually manifest in systemically bullying women or younger pages. He can grow beyond the bullying and still take a pride in his identity as a Bazhir. Perhaps even a nobler pride now that it is not associated with the negatives of bullying behavior which I think deep down at least he must have had some remorse for since he chose to stop engaging in that behavior. There must have been something inside him that told him to stop doing that and become a better person.
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