Chapter 15: The Hunt
Last time, we met Kishan. He's edgy and a bad boy and this is shown by him openly flirting with Kelsey, the scoundrel.
But wait, isn't this just...exactly what Ren's done for the entire book so far? Like, immediately flirting with Kelsey and playing with her hair? And calling her "beautiful" right off the bat? And Kelsey found him immediately charming, just like Kishan last chapter?
But I guess it's different because Kishan is wearing black because he's a bad boy.
Oh, yeah, and in case it wasn't made clear last chapter (which is possible because I kind of rushed the last post out) the multiple-page-long fight that Ren and Kishan had that resulted in deep, life-threatening wounds (that would 100% kill them if they didn't have the curse's mutant healing factor) was explicitly because Kishan touched Kelsey. And Kelsey belongs to Ren and even though she just rejected his romantic advances, how dare Kishan touch what's rightfully his.
This book has some problems.
Oh and the name Kishan is apparently a variant of Krishna, which translates to "black" or "dark." Because he's a black tiger!
Chapter Fifteen: The Hunt
Kelsey finishes up telling Kishan what she's doing there and how she's helping them. Kishan says that she'd be better off leaving them to their fate because it's so dangerous. Kelsey says that she's been fine so far, and that she'll be even safer now that she has two tigers protecting her.
Which is awfully presumptuous! Kishan hasn't expressed any interest in helping them yet! He just tried to kill Ren! Maybe he likes being immortal. Maybe he likes being a tiger.
He doesn't even want to help her! He tells her that he hopes she succeeds but doesn't plan on going with them. She's surprised by this, but asks it in typical Kelsey fashion (i.e., not in a remotely human way).
"Kishan, I don't get it. Why don't you help us . . . help yourself?"
Kishan has a couple of reasons. First of all, he rufuses to "have any more deaths on [his] conscience." Unless Kishan went on a murderous rampage at some point in the last three hundred years, he still feels bad about Yesubai dying. Aww. That's actually kind of nice!
Second, he says that he doesn't think their attempt will work, and since he's gotten used to being a tiger, he doesn't think it's worth it to try breaking the curse. Which seems a little defeatist, Mr. Supposed-Reckless-Bad-Boy.
Kelsey guesses out of the blue that he's forcing himself to stay in the jungle alone for some sort of punishment. After all, it was his fault that they got cursed in the first place. I have no idea how she would know this, given that she's just met Kishan and only heard about his betrayal of Ren from Ren himself, and it didn't sound like he regretted his actions at all. Plus he's been joking about stealing Ren's women since he showed up last chapter, which doesn't sound like something a person who sincerely regrets doing just that would do.
The book decides to call Kishan "the younger prince" which I find very annoying. A lot of people do this, but if the viewpoint character already knows the person's name, there's no need to use an epithet! And it's not like it's trying to call attention to the fact that he's a prince, either, since the stuff around it is about his self-imposed exile, not about being a prince!
Kelsey gives a truly Oscar-worthy speech to try to comfort Kishan:
I put my hand over his and gently asked, "Kishan, don't you want a future for yourself or a family? I know what it feels like when someone you love dies. It's lonely. You feel broken, like you can never be whole again. You feel like they took a piece of you with them when they left.
"But you are not alone. There are people you can care for and people who can care for you. People who will give you lots of reasons to go on living. Mr. Kadam, your brother, and me. There could even be someone else to love. Please come with us to Hampi."
Because everything has to relate back to romance! You should want to help us because you might fall in love with someone!
Also, this is a weird response to what Kishan's been saying. Kelsey completely ignores the other, perfectly legitimate reason for Kishan not wanting to go with them. He's sick of violence and hurting people! Continuing to break the curse means that he'd have to get back into his old habits that caused the problem in the first place!
(I mean, it would make more sense if there was an actual antagonist at this point who was sending minions out to attack them or something. All we've gotten so far in "things that want to kill Kelsey" is...a panther attacked her once? The only other dangers have come from the Indiana Jones dungeon that they went through earlier.)
And Kelsey's whole speech seems weirdly geared towards, like...an intervention or suicide or something. It's just weird.
Kishan remains unconvinced by this moving speech, and tells her that he still has no interest in going with them. He adds that Ren is going to have to hunt soon if they're going to go all the way to Hampi.
Kelsey's grossed out by this. Kishan says that since he spends most of his time as a tiger, eating enough for a human isn't enough. This opens up a whole realm of conservation of mass questions (where does the rest of the mass of the tiger go when he's a human?), but I only bring this up because I've been reading a lot of Terry Pratchett recently and I just read that scene where Tiffany turns the guy into a frog and the rest of him is glooping around on the ceiling.
I'd much rather be reading that right now.
He grabs her hands before he leaves and "seem[s] reluctant to let them go." Because love triangle!
Also, it's been an hour and 1. Kishan's been a human for most of this time, which goes against the whole "24 minutes a day as a human" rule that was already set up (annoying) and 2. Ren's life-threatening injuries are almost healed already (removes all stakes or consequences of actions). I hate both of these things.
Also I think Kelsey's concussion has magically healed itself with aspirin. I don't think that's how it works. Her back hurts from sleeping on the ground over a few nights, though, so we get to hear her complain about that!
Ren starts kneading her like a cat. Which is weird enough when my cat does it, and she's not a three hundred year old human who is also super into me romantically. And not 600 pounds, so I think Kelsey is dead now.
He turns into a human again and starts massaging her back. It lasts about a page and it's very Romantic. There are tingles.
She hugs him and he's very much not into it. She's surprised by this, but she literally just told him off and rejected him and has done nothing to apologize or let him know what her feelings actually are.
Not good, I thought. What just happened? He's never acted cold to me before. He must still be mad about the kissing thing. Or maybe he's still upset about Kishan. I don't know how to fix this. I'm not good at talking about relationship stuff. What can I say to make it right?
It would be like in Pride and Prejudice if, after Lizzie rejects Mr. Darcy's proposal, she goes around moping that he doesn't like her anymore and wondering why he's really not very happy to see her when she shows up at Pemberley.
(Granted, Lizzie didn't like Mr. Darcy at all when he proposed to her, but that's because Pride and Prejudice is well-written and actually has like. Character development.)
Kelsey tells him to go hunting and that she's not leaving until he does. Ren acts like a small child in response, ignoring her and purposefully being obnoxious. Kelsey responds by also acting like a small child and goes to the tent in a huff. When she comes back out after a little while, Ren is gone, but Kishan's back, and he's still creeping on her like the last conversation never happened.
"Who knew such a small girl would have such big muscles?"
Charming.
Ren is indeed out hunting and sent Kishan back to the camp to watch Kelsey while he's gone, as hunting can take a couple of days. I would ask why Kelsey needs constant supervision, but she did manage to get herself knocked out underwater a couple of days ago, so I think she actually does need adult supervision.
Kishan tells Kelsey that Ren isn't happy to have Kishan here with Kelsey alone (so, like, does he think Kishan's gonna do something bad? Or is the something bad "speaking to girl that I like that doesn't like me?"). Kelsey says that Ren isn't all that happy with her either.
Kishan's face turned hard. "Don't worry, Kelsey. I'm sure that whatever he's upset about is foolish. He's very argumentative."
I sighed and shook my head sadly. "No, it's really all my fault. I'm difficult, a hindrance, and I'm a pain to have around sometimes."
Truer words have never been spoken.
"He's probably used to being around sophisticated, more experienced women who are much more . . . well, more than I am."
Um. When? Because he's been a tiger for the last three hundred years. He just started being able to turn back into a human when you showed up.
Kishan quirked an eyebrow. "Ren hasn't been around any women as far as I know. I must confess that I'm now exceedingly curious as what your argument was about. Whether you tell me or not, I won't tolerate any more derogatory comments about yourself. He's lucky to have you, and he'd better realize it."
Kelsey is just so Good and Special, dammit!
He offers to let her stay with him in the jungle if she wants, but I'm mostly sure he's joking. Kelsey answers the question seriously, though, so I'm not sure.
Oh, he does call her "my lovely" again, though. He says that she's worth fighting for.
Kelsey's response is pretty weird:
"You, sir, are a major flirt. Worth fighting for? I think you two have been tigers for too long. I'm no great beauty especially when I'm stuck out here in the jungle. I haven't even picked a college major yet. What have I ever done that would make someone want to fight over me?"
I love how her argument is "I look gross because I've been camping and I haven't picked a college major, so no one has any right to be into me." It's so stupid. I love it.
This was apparently supposed to be rhetorical/a joke (maybe? It's hard to tell, since the "jokes" in this book are...bad) but Kishan answers seriously. It's not as good as Ren's speech from a while back, where he tells her why he likes talking to her (one of the few times I've actually liked the writing of Ren and Kelsey's relationship). Kishan's reasons boil down to "You're nice because you're helping Ren and me out, and you're 'confident, feisty, and full of empathy.' Also you're pretty."
More shallow, in other words, because it boils down to what she's doing for him.
The "golden-eyed prince" fingers her hair. I'll admit that this made me giggle, but I'm mentally about twelve years old.
She asks Kishan about Yesubai, the girl that Kishan "stole" from Ren, because all women are the property of the men that love them in this book. All of Kelsey's questions and Kishan's descriptions of her boil down to "she was really pretty."
Kishan continued, "The minute I saw her, I knew that I wanted her. I would have no other but her."
We're supposed to like Kishan, remember.
So, Kishan met Yesubai while Ren was out conquesting.
"One day, as I was returning home from weapons practice, I decided to take a detour around the gardens. There was Yesubai, standing near a fountain where she had just plucked a lotus blossom from."
I'm no grammar-matician, but that sentence seems very wrong.
Kishan very clearly spells out the fact that he was jealous of Ren being the older sibling who would inherit the throne in a way that no human being would actually talk. Basically, he feels that since Ren was first in everything else, he was entitled to have Yesubai. Yeah, I don't think that's how betrothal works.
"He'd never even met her. I didn't even know that my parents were seeking a bride for Ren! He was only twenty-one, and I was twenty. I asked my father if he could alter the arrangement so that I could be Yesubai's betrothed instead. I reasoned that another princess could be found for Ren. I even offered to seek a bride for him myself."
Okay. A couple of things. First, Ren was "only" twenty-one? That's practically ancient for a first-born son of a king to not be married and popping out kids yet, let alone not even have a fiancee! Royal children were often betrothed when they were really young in order to get married later.
But okay, moving on from that, the whole point of arranged marriages in royal families is to create political alliances. Yes, Ren gets the better political choice for his marriage because he's the one that's going to be king. The arrangement is highly unlikely to change because Yesubai's father would not want it to, because that means that his daughter would be queen instead of just married to a random prince that's not even going to inherit anything.
Yesubai hung out at Kishan's palace for a few months while Ren was out fighting in "the war." Blah, blah, Kishan and Yesubai fall in love but they can't get married because it's forbidden, blah. This leads up the the prologue where Yesubai convinced Kishan to go talk to Lokesh in return for helping him capture Ren.
Lokesh is not referred to by name. He's the Big Bad of the whole series! This is important stuff and it's just glossed over so we can just talk about ~forbidden love~ and ~isn't it sad what happened~ and I hate it.
Kelsey asks Kishan the same question she asked Mr. Kadam--did Ren love Yesubai?
Kishan laughed bitterly. "Ren loved the idea of her. Yesubai was beautiful, desirable, and would make a wonderful companion and queen, but he didn't really know her. In letters, he insisted on calling her Bai and wanted her to call him Ren. She hated that. She felt that only lower castes of people used nicknames. In all honesty, they didn't really know each other."
Oh, so she was awful! Thanks for clarifying, I was worried that Ren could have had a love interest that was a good person, but no, it's okay! She hates people in lower castes than herself, so Ren's love life remains untainted for Kelsey. This is never referred to as a bad thing, by the way.
Kishan turns back into a tiger because he ran out of time. They literally just...hang out for the next four (!) days, and it's all glossed over because nothing happens.
Kishan is getting worried that Ren isn't back yet, and tells Kelsey that he's going to go out to look for him. He apparently met up with Mr. Kadam earlier to get more food for Kelsey because Ren is taking so long. But he did it for her and not for Ren. Because Love Triangle.
He tells her to come with him because he doesn't want to leave her alone. As I've mentioned before, this is kind of justified, because Kelsey would wander off a cliff if someone wasn't there to grab her before she fell off.
So Kelsey and Kishan wander off through the jungle while Kishan tries to track Ren. There's a river with a log that fell down over it, so Kelsey crosses the river on the log. "It was like walking on Mr. Maurizio's tightrope--with the added bonus of being extra-slippery." Oh hey, it's our old friend circus Mario! Except Kelsey never actually walked on the tightrope, so this comparison makes no sense.
Dang. The whole circus thing was almost relevant for a second there.
Kishan reports back after a bit that there's a herd of black antelope that Ren's been unsuccessfully stalking for a while. It's time to break out overly-pedantic biology to talk about black antelopes!
This is what they look like, if you're curious. I just like using pictures of animals.
They know that Ren is there because Ren sucks at hunting and is standing upwind of them, so they've been sticking close together which is making it even harder for him to get one.
Kishan just leaves Kelsey alone while he goes to help Ren out. Which defeats the entire purpose of bringing her along in the first place, as she would almost certainly be safer back at her camp alone than out in the middle of nowhere alone.
She finds a hill and goes up to high ground to get her bearings. She can see the herd from up there, and gets a front-row seat to see Ren and Kishan hunting.
The attack came quickly. The herd stampeded.
It's like I'm there.
Kishan chases the leader of the herd away from the rest of the antelopes. He jumps up on its back and holds on to keep it from going anywhere. Ren, instead of going for its neck like a good predator and taking it out quickly, decides to attack it's...front leg, which puts him in range of kicking hooves. No wonder Ren hasn't managed to catch anything yet. He kind of sucks at this.
It's not a match for two tigers attacking it no matter how terrible Ren is, and keeps getting attacked, but manages to escape a few times.
The antelope quivered with exhaustion and limped lamely as it waited for the next attack. [emphasis mine]
Redundant much, redundant?
I though the whole process would be quick, but the hunt took much longer than I'd expected. It was as if Ren and Kishan were tiring the beast out, engaging it in a macabre dance of death. The tigers were moving wearily too. [sic--missing comma in front of "too"]. It seemed as if they saved their energy for the chase, burning up all their strength on that. The kill itself was an almost sluggish process.
Nope. That's not how tigers hunt. Tigers kill prey within an average of 90 seconds. Kishan is well-rested, well-fed, and has been hunting prey for over three hundred years. He should know how this works.
They finally manage to kill it and they both start eating. Kelsey is extremely grossed out by this. "It was grisly, nauseating, and disturbing. It shot shivers down my spine, but I just couldn't tear my eyes away."
Like, is she surprised by this? Tigers gotta eat, Kelsey. This is how it works.
When the flies show up she gets too grossed out to keep watching and goes away, not sure if she can even face Ren and Kishan after watching them hunt. I think she's being a bit of a baby. Has she never seen a nature program? They show this stuff on TV.
I climbed into my tent and sang songs from The Wizard of Oz to get my mind off the disturbing images I had just seen, hoping it would help me fall asleep. It backfired on me, though, because after I fell asleep, I dreamed of the cowardly lion tearing chunks out of Dorothy.
lolwut
Closing Thoughts
Uh, I guess we got some character interaction that was meaningful in this chapter? We heard some more from Kishan, but everything we hear from him kind of makes me hate him. Also, Yesubai sounds like she sucked too as the only character traits we get from her is "she's pretty and also kind of a classist." Caste-ist?
Oh, and Ren absolutely sucks at hunting and has no idea what he's doing. So that's one thing he's bad at.
Next time, Chapter 16: Kelsey's Dream, which is an extended dream sequence and Ren and Kelsey leaving the jungle. Riveting!
But wait, isn't this just...exactly what Ren's done for the entire book so far? Like, immediately flirting with Kelsey and playing with her hair? And calling her "beautiful" right off the bat? And Kelsey found him immediately charming, just like Kishan last chapter?
But I guess it's different because Kishan is wearing black because he's a bad boy.
Oh, yeah, and in case it wasn't made clear last chapter (which is possible because I kind of rushed the last post out) the multiple-page-long fight that Ren and Kishan had that resulted in deep, life-threatening wounds (that would 100% kill them if they didn't have the curse's mutant healing factor) was explicitly because Kishan touched Kelsey. And Kelsey belongs to Ren and even though she just rejected his romantic advances, how dare Kishan touch what's rightfully his.
This book has some problems.
Oh and the name Kishan is apparently a variant of Krishna, which translates to "black" or "dark." Because he's a black tiger!
Chapter Fifteen: The Hunt
Kelsey finishes up telling Kishan what she's doing there and how she's helping them. Kishan says that she'd be better off leaving them to their fate because it's so dangerous. Kelsey says that she's been fine so far, and that she'll be even safer now that she has two tigers protecting her.
Which is awfully presumptuous! Kishan hasn't expressed any interest in helping them yet! He just tried to kill Ren! Maybe he likes being immortal. Maybe he likes being a tiger.
He doesn't even want to help her! He tells her that he hopes she succeeds but doesn't plan on going with them. She's surprised by this, but asks it in typical Kelsey fashion (i.e., not in a remotely human way).
"Kishan, I don't get it. Why don't you help us . . . help yourself?"
Kishan has a couple of reasons. First of all, he rufuses to "have any more deaths on [his] conscience." Unless Kishan went on a murderous rampage at some point in the last three hundred years, he still feels bad about Yesubai dying. Aww. That's actually kind of nice!
Second, he says that he doesn't think their attempt will work, and since he's gotten used to being a tiger, he doesn't think it's worth it to try breaking the curse. Which seems a little defeatist, Mr. Supposed-Reckless-Bad-Boy.
Kelsey guesses out of the blue that he's forcing himself to stay in the jungle alone for some sort of punishment. After all, it was his fault that they got cursed in the first place. I have no idea how she would know this, given that she's just met Kishan and only heard about his betrayal of Ren from Ren himself, and it didn't sound like he regretted his actions at all. Plus he's been joking about stealing Ren's women since he showed up last chapter, which doesn't sound like something a person who sincerely regrets doing just that would do.
The book decides to call Kishan "the younger prince" which I find very annoying. A lot of people do this, but if the viewpoint character already knows the person's name, there's no need to use an epithet! And it's not like it's trying to call attention to the fact that he's a prince, either, since the stuff around it is about his self-imposed exile, not about being a prince!
Kelsey gives a truly Oscar-worthy speech to try to comfort Kishan:
I put my hand over his and gently asked, "Kishan, don't you want a future for yourself or a family? I know what it feels like when someone you love dies. It's lonely. You feel broken, like you can never be whole again. You feel like they took a piece of you with them when they left.
"But you are not alone. There are people you can care for and people who can care for you. People who will give you lots of reasons to go on living. Mr. Kadam, your brother, and me. There could even be someone else to love. Please come with us to Hampi."
Because everything has to relate back to romance! You should want to help us because you might fall in love with someone!
Also, this is a weird response to what Kishan's been saying. Kelsey completely ignores the other, perfectly legitimate reason for Kishan not wanting to go with them. He's sick of violence and hurting people! Continuing to break the curse means that he'd have to get back into his old habits that caused the problem in the first place!
(I mean, it would make more sense if there was an actual antagonist at this point who was sending minions out to attack them or something. All we've gotten so far in "things that want to kill Kelsey" is...a panther attacked her once? The only other dangers have come from the Indiana Jones dungeon that they went through earlier.)
And Kelsey's whole speech seems weirdly geared towards, like...an intervention or suicide or something. It's just weird.
Kishan remains unconvinced by this moving speech, and tells her that he still has no interest in going with them. He adds that Ren is going to have to hunt soon if they're going to go all the way to Hampi.
Kelsey's grossed out by this. Kishan says that since he spends most of his time as a tiger, eating enough for a human isn't enough. This opens up a whole realm of conservation of mass questions (where does the rest of the mass of the tiger go when he's a human?), but I only bring this up because I've been reading a lot of Terry Pratchett recently and I just read that scene where Tiffany turns the guy into a frog and the rest of him is glooping around on the ceiling.
I'd much rather be reading that right now.
He grabs her hands before he leaves and "seem[s] reluctant to let them go." Because love triangle!
Also, it's been an hour and 1. Kishan's been a human for most of this time, which goes against the whole "24 minutes a day as a human" rule that was already set up (annoying) and 2. Ren's life-threatening injuries are almost healed already (removes all stakes or consequences of actions). I hate both of these things.
Also I think Kelsey's concussion has magically healed itself with aspirin. I don't think that's how it works. Her back hurts from sleeping on the ground over a few nights, though, so we get to hear her complain about that!
Ren starts kneading her like a cat. Which is weird enough when my cat does it, and she's not a three hundred year old human who is also super into me romantically. And not 600 pounds, so I think Kelsey is dead now.
He turns into a human again and starts massaging her back. It lasts about a page and it's very Romantic. There are tingles.
She hugs him and he's very much not into it. She's surprised by this, but she literally just told him off and rejected him and has done nothing to apologize or let him know what her feelings actually are.
Not good, I thought. What just happened? He's never acted cold to me before. He must still be mad about the kissing thing. Or maybe he's still upset about Kishan. I don't know how to fix this. I'm not good at talking about relationship stuff. What can I say to make it right?
It would be like in Pride and Prejudice if, after Lizzie rejects Mr. Darcy's proposal, she goes around moping that he doesn't like her anymore and wondering why he's really not very happy to see her when she shows up at Pemberley.
(Granted, Lizzie didn't like Mr. Darcy at all when he proposed to her, but that's because Pride and Prejudice is well-written and actually has like. Character development.)
Kelsey tells him to go hunting and that she's not leaving until he does. Ren acts like a small child in response, ignoring her and purposefully being obnoxious. Kelsey responds by also acting like a small child and goes to the tent in a huff. When she comes back out after a little while, Ren is gone, but Kishan's back, and he's still creeping on her like the last conversation never happened.
"Who knew such a small girl would have such big muscles?"
Charming.
Ren is indeed out hunting and sent Kishan back to the camp to watch Kelsey while he's gone, as hunting can take a couple of days. I would ask why Kelsey needs constant supervision, but she did manage to get herself knocked out underwater a couple of days ago, so I think she actually does need adult supervision.
Kishan tells Kelsey that Ren isn't happy to have Kishan here with Kelsey alone (so, like, does he think Kishan's gonna do something bad? Or is the something bad "speaking to girl that I like that doesn't like me?"). Kelsey says that Ren isn't all that happy with her either.
Kishan's face turned hard. "Don't worry, Kelsey. I'm sure that whatever he's upset about is foolish. He's very argumentative."
I sighed and shook my head sadly. "No, it's really all my fault. I'm difficult, a hindrance, and I'm a pain to have around sometimes."
Truer words have never been spoken.
"He's probably used to being around sophisticated, more experienced women who are much more . . . well, more than I am."
Um. When? Because he's been a tiger for the last three hundred years. He just started being able to turn back into a human when you showed up.
Kishan quirked an eyebrow. "Ren hasn't been around any women as far as I know. I must confess that I'm now exceedingly curious as what your argument was about. Whether you tell me or not, I won't tolerate any more derogatory comments about yourself. He's lucky to have you, and he'd better realize it."
Kelsey is just so Good and Special, dammit!
He offers to let her stay with him in the jungle if she wants, but I'm mostly sure he's joking. Kelsey answers the question seriously, though, so I'm not sure.
Oh, he does call her "my lovely" again, though. He says that she's worth fighting for.
Kelsey's response is pretty weird:
"You, sir, are a major flirt. Worth fighting for? I think you two have been tigers for too long. I'm no great beauty especially when I'm stuck out here in the jungle. I haven't even picked a college major yet. What have I ever done that would make someone want to fight over me?"
I love how her argument is "I look gross because I've been camping and I haven't picked a college major, so no one has any right to be into me." It's so stupid. I love it.
This was apparently supposed to be rhetorical/a joke (maybe? It's hard to tell, since the "jokes" in this book are...bad) but Kishan answers seriously. It's not as good as Ren's speech from a while back, where he tells her why he likes talking to her (one of the few times I've actually liked the writing of Ren and Kelsey's relationship). Kishan's reasons boil down to "You're nice because you're helping Ren and me out, and you're 'confident, feisty, and full of empathy.' Also you're pretty."
More shallow, in other words, because it boils down to what she's doing for him.
The "golden-eyed prince" fingers her hair. I'll admit that this made me giggle, but I'm mentally about twelve years old.
She asks Kishan about Yesubai, the girl that Kishan "stole" from Ren, because all women are the property of the men that love them in this book. All of Kelsey's questions and Kishan's descriptions of her boil down to "she was really pretty."
Kishan continued, "The minute I saw her, I knew that I wanted her. I would have no other but her."
We're supposed to like Kishan, remember.
So, Kishan met Yesubai while Ren was out conquesting.
"One day, as I was returning home from weapons practice, I decided to take a detour around the gardens. There was Yesubai, standing near a fountain where she had just plucked a lotus blossom from."
I'm no grammar-matician, but that sentence seems very wrong.
Kishan very clearly spells out the fact that he was jealous of Ren being the older sibling who would inherit the throne in a way that no human being would actually talk. Basically, he feels that since Ren was first in everything else, he was entitled to have Yesubai. Yeah, I don't think that's how betrothal works.
"He'd never even met her. I didn't even know that my parents were seeking a bride for Ren! He was only twenty-one, and I was twenty. I asked my father if he could alter the arrangement so that I could be Yesubai's betrothed instead. I reasoned that another princess could be found for Ren. I even offered to seek a bride for him myself."
Okay. A couple of things. First, Ren was "only" twenty-one? That's practically ancient for a first-born son of a king to not be married and popping out kids yet, let alone not even have a fiancee! Royal children were often betrothed when they were really young in order to get married later.
But okay, moving on from that, the whole point of arranged marriages in royal families is to create political alliances. Yes, Ren gets the better political choice for his marriage because he's the one that's going to be king. The arrangement is highly unlikely to change because Yesubai's father would not want it to, because that means that his daughter would be queen instead of just married to a random prince that's not even going to inherit anything.
Yesubai hung out at Kishan's palace for a few months while Ren was out fighting in "the war." Blah, blah, Kishan and Yesubai fall in love but they can't get married because it's forbidden, blah. This leads up the the prologue where Yesubai convinced Kishan to go talk to Lokesh in return for helping him capture Ren.
Lokesh is not referred to by name. He's the Big Bad of the whole series! This is important stuff and it's just glossed over so we can just talk about ~forbidden love~ and ~isn't it sad what happened~ and I hate it.
Kelsey asks Kishan the same question she asked Mr. Kadam--did Ren love Yesubai?
Kishan laughed bitterly. "Ren loved the idea of her. Yesubai was beautiful, desirable, and would make a wonderful companion and queen, but he didn't really know her. In letters, he insisted on calling her Bai and wanted her to call him Ren. She hated that. She felt that only lower castes of people used nicknames. In all honesty, they didn't really know each other."
Oh, so she was awful! Thanks for clarifying, I was worried that Ren could have had a love interest that was a good person, but no, it's okay! She hates people in lower castes than herself, so Ren's love life remains untainted for Kelsey. This is never referred to as a bad thing, by the way.
Kishan turns back into a tiger because he ran out of time. They literally just...hang out for the next four (!) days, and it's all glossed over because nothing happens.
Kishan is getting worried that Ren isn't back yet, and tells Kelsey that he's going to go out to look for him. He apparently met up with Mr. Kadam earlier to get more food for Kelsey because Ren is taking so long. But he did it for her and not for Ren. Because Love Triangle.
He tells her to come with him because he doesn't want to leave her alone. As I've mentioned before, this is kind of justified, because Kelsey would wander off a cliff if someone wasn't there to grab her before she fell off.
So Kelsey and Kishan wander off through the jungle while Kishan tries to track Ren. There's a river with a log that fell down over it, so Kelsey crosses the river on the log. "It was like walking on Mr. Maurizio's tightrope--with the added bonus of being extra-slippery." Oh hey, it's our old friend circus Mario! Except Kelsey never actually walked on the tightrope, so this comparison makes no sense.
Dang. The whole circus thing was almost relevant for a second there.
Kishan reports back after a bit that there's a herd of black antelope that Ren's been unsuccessfully stalking for a while. It's time to break out overly-pedantic biology to talk about black antelopes!
This is what they look like, if you're curious. I just like using pictures of animals.
The horns are cool!
Kishan says that this herd is made up of only adults. Now, this might make a bit of sense if the antelopes have a specific breeding season. But black antelopes don't and breed all year round, so I have no idea why there wouldn't be any young in the entire herd (which is supposed to be really big). There also aren't any injured or old or sick animals in the entire herd, which is again pretty unlikely. Especially in a case where things were going badly enough for the herd that there were no living babies.
They know that Ren is there because Ren sucks at hunting and is standing upwind of them, so they've been sticking close together which is making it even harder for him to get one.
Kishan just leaves Kelsey alone while he goes to help Ren out. Which defeats the entire purpose of bringing her along in the first place, as she would almost certainly be safer back at her camp alone than out in the middle of nowhere alone.
She finds a hill and goes up to high ground to get her bearings. She can see the herd from up there, and gets a front-row seat to see Ren and Kishan hunting.
The attack came quickly. The herd stampeded.
It's like I'm there.
Kishan chases the leader of the herd away from the rest of the antelopes. He jumps up on its back and holds on to keep it from going anywhere. Ren, instead of going for its neck like a good predator and taking it out quickly, decides to attack it's...front leg, which puts him in range of kicking hooves. No wonder Ren hasn't managed to catch anything yet. He kind of sucks at this.
It's not a match for two tigers attacking it no matter how terrible Ren is, and keeps getting attacked, but manages to escape a few times.
The antelope quivered with exhaustion and limped lamely as it waited for the next attack. [emphasis mine]
Redundant much, redundant?
I though the whole process would be quick, but the hunt took much longer than I'd expected. It was as if Ren and Kishan were tiring the beast out, engaging it in a macabre dance of death. The tigers were moving wearily too. [sic--missing comma in front of "too"]. It seemed as if they saved their energy for the chase, burning up all their strength on that. The kill itself was an almost sluggish process.
Nope. That's not how tigers hunt. Tigers kill prey within an average of 90 seconds. Kishan is well-rested, well-fed, and has been hunting prey for over three hundred years. He should know how this works.
They finally manage to kill it and they both start eating. Kelsey is extremely grossed out by this. "It was grisly, nauseating, and disturbing. It shot shivers down my spine, but I just couldn't tear my eyes away."
Like, is she surprised by this? Tigers gotta eat, Kelsey. This is how it works.
When the flies show up she gets too grossed out to keep watching and goes away, not sure if she can even face Ren and Kishan after watching them hunt. I think she's being a bit of a baby. Has she never seen a nature program? They show this stuff on TV.
I climbed into my tent and sang songs from The Wizard of Oz to get my mind off the disturbing images I had just seen, hoping it would help me fall asleep. It backfired on me, though, because after I fell asleep, I dreamed of the cowardly lion tearing chunks out of Dorothy.
lolwut
Closing Thoughts
Uh, I guess we got some character interaction that was meaningful in this chapter? We heard some more from Kishan, but everything we hear from him kind of makes me hate him. Also, Yesubai sounds like she sucked too as the only character traits we get from her is "she's pretty and also kind of a classist." Caste-ist?
Oh, and Ren absolutely sucks at hunting and has no idea what he's doing. So that's one thing he's bad at.
Next time, Chapter 16: Kelsey's Dream, which is an extended dream sequence and Ren and Kelsey leaving the jungle. Riveting!
Comments
Post a Comment