Chapter 21: Storm

Hello, and welcome back to our irregularly scheduled nonsense!

Last time, we found out that the entire two chapters with Lvselong was literally only so that Kelsey could make out with a maybe-real-maybe-fake Ren. It was weird and confusing.

This time, more boat stuff and Ren being horrible.

Chapter Twenty-One: Storm

Turns out that Kelsey's dream!Ren was actually real!Ren. Somehow.

With flaming cheeks, I stepped away from Ren and stood between the brothers.

This makes no sense, because in the previous chapter, the door only opened when Kishan burst into the room. Unless Ren somehow managed to sneak in quietly enough for Kelsey to not hear him while he was by the door with Kishan, this couldn't have actually happened.

On the other hand, sneaking into Kelsey's room to make out with her while she's not conscious of it is definitely something Ren would do.

Kishan looks upset but quickly hides it, for Reasons, I guess. I'm not sure why he cares if Kelsey and Ren see that he's upset because he just broke up Kelsey and Ren kissing. I think. It's still super unclear.

Lvselong appears as a human and thanks them for the interesting game. Kishan says that it's the dragon's turn to give them their prizes and they can go. The dragon said that the only prize he offered was Kelsey and refuses to give them what they actually wanted in the first place (help finding the Necklace)

He says that if one of the tigers stays he'll give them Kelsey and take them to the next dragon, but Kelsey yells at him. This is somehow enough to convince him to give them everything they wanted. Alright. That was easy.

The dragon gives Kelsey to Ren and shoots a ball of fire into Kishan's face.

He shot out a hand and a ball of fire burst from his palm, zoomed toward Kishan, and hit him in the face. He screamed and covered his eyes.

The way this is written, it looks like the dragon screams and covers his eyes, when it's obviously Kishan.

(And, uh, whoops! I misremembered when that plot point from the beginning of the book comes back into play. It's not here. This is just more random bullshit.)

Kelsey runs to Kishan to check on him, and Lvselong says that Kishan will be blind for a while, but it will wear off eventually. He says that it's what they wanted anyway, so they have no right to be mad.

"We didn't want you to hurt him," I accused.

"What do you care? If anyone has hurt him today, I would say you are more at fault than I. Now I'm bored with you. It's time for you to leave."

HA! The evil dragon is calling out Kelsey for her terrible behavior! And he's completely right! Kelsey constantly drones on about ~not wanting to hurt Kishan~ but somehow always conveniently forgets that trapping herself in a relationship she's not happy with does much more damage to him in the long run.

The dragon snaps his fingers and they're magically transported to the beach next to the boat, so Kelsey takes care of Kishan while Ren gets the boat ready. She takes a sash from her dress and ties it around his eyes.

And, hey, this is actually a kind of subtle reference to folklore for once! It's so subtle that I doubt it's intentional, since basically everything else that's referenced gets a whole conversation of infodumping. But still! In the Grimm's fairy tale version of Rapunzel, the prince confronts the witch and ends up going blind when he falls into a patch of thorns. Here, some (not all) of what happened with Lvselong kind of resembled Rapunzel--Kelsey was stuck up in a tower and he made her hair grow really long. That's kind of it, but it also doesn't bludgeon me over the head with similarities.

(Hey, if you want a much better retelling of Grimm's fairy tales, check out The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer! It's a series of sci-fi retellings of Grimm's fairy tales that were pretty clever and fun, and this made me think of the Rapunzel character in the series.)

The trip back to the yacht is uneventful, and they explain what happened to Mr. Kadam and Nilima when they get back.

Mr. Kadam removes the sash to take a look at Kishan's eyes. They're not their normal golden color anymore--they're pitch black with tiny flames burning. What???

Kelsey starts to cry (even though she knows it's completely temporary...) and Kishan tries to console her.

"What?" He turned his head toward me. "What is it, Kelsey? Don't weep."

People! Don't! Talk! Like! This!

It apparently doesn't hurt, so Mr. Kadam says that everyone should turn in for the night before they make way to the next dragon in the morning. Kelsey says she'll watch Kishan and make sure he's alright. She helps him get ready for bed and he falls asleep with his head on her lap. Ren makes an appearance to, uh, stare at them for a bit, but he leaves before Kelsey can say anything.

The next morning, Kelsey extricates herself from Kishan and finally takes off her princess clothes and washes her now-knee-length hair. The length is annoying, so she grabs a pair of scissors and goes off to find Nilima. Nilima immediately gets ready to cut her hair without so much of a conversation, because I guess Nilima is just extremely subservient. Ew.

While Nilima cuts Kelsey's hair, Mr. Kadam rambles about blindness in mythology. This would be the normal place to bring up the Rapunzel similarities, but he doesn't, so I think I'm just seeing things that aren't there.

"One of the Pleiades named Merope had a son named Glaucus who was blind. The term glaukos means "bluish green or gray," and from that word, we get glaucoma. Meropia is a physical condition of partial blindness."

Okay. Mythology time!

The Pleiades were Greek nymphs were the daughters of Atlas and Pleione, and were the companions of Artemis. They were pursued by various Greek gods (natch), and Zeus transformed them into various things so they could escape Orion. In one version of the myth, Artemis got Zeus to turn them into stars while Apollo killed Orion by sending a giant scorpion after him. Zeus, being an asshole, turned Orion into a constellation so he could continue to chase after the Pleiades.

Except, well, Glaucus wasn't blind. There are actually several Glauci in Greek mythology, and the two I've linked here are the most relevant. The first is Glaucus of Corinth, who seems to be the son of Merope and Sisyphus. He's known for the absolutely metal story of being devoured by horses.

The word "glaucoma" actually seems to come from this Glaucus, who was a prophetic sea god (but his parentage seems to be up for debate). The Greek word glaukos was used by Homer to describe the sea as "glimmering," the original usage of the word seems to have been used to describe a "dull sheen" of some kind like you'd see on the ocean. So the word "glaucoma" as used by the Greeks (which we also use in English because a lot of our medical terminology is based on Greek!) refers to the hazy sheen you get from someone who is partially blind.

Mr. Kadam correctly notes that meropia means partial blindness, but it's unclear how much this actually relates to Merope. Merope herself wasn't blind in the myths, but Merope is the dimmest visible star in the Pleiades constellation, so it makes sense that it would be associated with blindness--not because Merope was blind, but because of astronomy!

I apologize if that's super boring to people--I find etymology and stuff fascinating, so I'm having a great time.

"Another Greek oracle, Tiresias, was blinded by the gods for either seeing them or disclosing their secrets."

Tiresias is another figure in Greek mythology, famous for apparently being tranformed into a woman for seven years, which in my opinion is a little more remarkable than the "blind" thing. Apparently Hera turned him into a woman because he picked up a stick and bashed two snakes that were having sex.

I love Greek mythology.

Anyway, there are a few myths relating to his blindness, but those mostly revolve around his skill as a soothsayer. He appeared in The Oddyssey, Oedipus Rex, and Antigone, which is cool. He's only relevant in this story because he's blind and an oracle, so referencing him is kind of pointless.

"The three sisters, sometimes called the three spinners of destiny, or the Moirae, shared an eye among them--an all-seeing eye, it was called."

Aaand Houck ran out of ideas, so now she's talking about the three Fates. This is somewhat relevant to Tiresias too, but the idea of a Blind Seer is a very old archetype (warning: that's a TV Tropes link). There's absolutely no point in singling out random examples of this archetype from Greek mythology while simultaneously ignoring it in other mythologies.

It's even more baffling when the references Houck does pick to talk about aren't relevant at all. Yes, Greek mythology has three sisters that share an eye...but it's not the Moirae. That would be the Graeae, who helped Perseus to kill Medusa. This is news to me, since I initially thought that these were the same people, but apparently not! This seems to be, uh, from Disney's Hercules.

The best source for mythology research.

So I also learned something today!

So, while all of that was tangentially relevant (and poorly researched!), Houck is just trying to get at the idea of a blind seer, which is 1) not exclusively Greek, and 2) a super well-known archetype that she could have just brought up instead of talking about random disparate Greek myths. Neat.

Now it's time for Ren to be an asshole.

Nilima finishes up and Kelsey sees that her hair is still waist-length.

"I think I want it shorter than that."

"I'm sorry, Miss Kelsey. I was given specific instructions to cut it no shorter than waist length"

"Oh, really?"

"Yes. Ren threatened to fire me, and technically, he has the right."

"He won't fire you. He's bluffing."

"Still, he seemed very serious."

God, he KEEPS GETTING WORSE.

Kishan said in a previous chapter that Nilima is like a sister to them! Why is he treating Nilima like dirt now?

And this is treated as comedy! This is a joke!

"Fine. I'll just cut it myself later."

"No, you won't." I turned at the sound of the threatening male voice.

Hey, that's a bad term to use when describing the main love interest speaking to the protagonsit!

Ren leaned against the doorway with his arms folded across his chest. "I'll throw all of the scissors into the ocean."

"Go ahead. I'll figure something else out. Maybe I'll use the chakram. You wouldn't dare throw that into the sea."

"Try it. Yo'll have to deal with the consequences, and you won't like them."

See, we're supposed to see this and say, "Ha ha! Ren's so funny since he's so worked up over something as small as Kelsey cutting her hair. What whimsy!" But if you think about it for more than one second, you realize, "Oh, Ren's this worked up over something as small as Kelsey cutting her hair. Yikes." He threatens to fire Nilima, who is a close family friend and is like his sister, and also threatens to jeopardize the entire mission if he doesn't get exactly what he wants. He's a huge asshole and just continually throws temper tantrums. Ugh.

(And look, I don't think it's horrible to have a love interest who gets worked up over small things that don't matter and throws tantrums when things don't go his way. It's hard to do, but it's possible:

Slime!

This example from the movie still works, but I think the movie did a disservice to Howl's character. Book!Howl is lazy, a coward, and constantly argues with Sophie about chopping his suit to bits and spraying weed killer all over the place and, well, everything else that happens in the entire book, but he never actually directs any anger at Sophie. The slime is as close as he comes to actually retaliating directly (besides arguing), but that happens really early on in the book before they get to know each other.

Basically, Howl blusters a lot, makes things difficult for everyone, and he and Sophie are basically always arguing, but there's no malice behind it like there is when Ren throws tantrums and argues with Kelsey.

Anyway.)

Mr. Kadam continues vomiting exposition about Greek mythology.

He talks about Phineas (which should be spelled as "Phineus"). There are a lot of different versions of the story, but Houck brings up Jason and the Argonauts, so I'll stick to that one. This is the one that's the closest to what happens, because Phineus led the Argonaut through a dangerous path in the sea.

Mr. Kadam brings up Polyphemus (who was blinded by Oddysseus) and then immediately says that it's not relevant. Nice.

He also brings up Oedipus, who blinded himself upon learning that he'd fathered children with his mother.

Acerbically, Ren said, "Perhaps taking a woman belonging to another would apply."

Kelsey yells at him and says that it's obviously not relevant because Jocasta's husband/Oedupus's father never told Jocasta to marry Oedipus, which is a good point. She also says that the "obvious theme" is about prophecies. Cool.

Nilima and Mr. Kadam see that the atmosphere in the room is rapidly chilling and they go to check on Kishan. This lets Ren and Kelsey go at it (again) about how she's ~meant to be with Ren~ for the umpteenth time.

Goody.

Ren is obnoxious:

"And yes, I'll admit, I am jealous. I'm jealous of every minute you spend with him, of every concerned expression you send his way, of every tear shed, of every glance, every touch, and every thought. I want to rip him to pieces and purge him from your mind and from your heart. But I can't."

Jeez, dude. He's your brother.

Also, look! He wants to "purge" Kelsey from Kishan's "mind." This is literally exactly what happened to him, which he himself feels was, like, the worst possible torture. He's on generally good terms with Kishan despite the love triangle thing. Ren's perfectly willing to put his brother through what he went through just so he can be together with Kelsey.

He also tells her that he was also there for the weird magic dragon vision.

"I heard your secret confessions. I know the innermost feelings of your heart. You will never belong to him. You belong to me, and it's abut time you came to terms with that."

This isn't the first time we've heard Ren say this, but it is the first time we've heard him say this after having actual knowledge of how Kelsey feels about him.

Kelsey says that she's her own person and she can choose who she wants to be with.

"Just because you're a prince, doesn't make me your subject. So get off your high and mighty horse, your highness, and find some  other girl to intimidate into submission."

I'VE BEEN SAYING THIS FOR TWO AND A HALF BOOKS

Ren interprets this as playful flirting and quotes some more Taming of the Shrew at her, and then goes in for another very, uh, violent make-out session. It's very, um.

I ineffectually pushed against his chest as his lips bruised my mouth. He held me in an inescapable grip. He found my hands and trapped them at my sides so I couldn't flail against him any longer. I tried to kick him, but he adjusted his stance so I had no leverage. He bit my lip softly, and then instead of trying to escape, I moaned and kissed him back feverishly. He took my braid in his hand, wrapped it several times around his wrist, and yanked my head back to deepen the kiss. It hurt but in a very . . . good . . . way.

Was Houck reading Fifty Shades of Grey or something while she was writing this?

THIS IS A PASSAGE IN A BOOK THAT WON'T USE THE WORD "SEX"

Ren looks pleased and says he's serious about her hair, har har har I HATE HIM SO MUCH

I screeched in disgust and stomped off, ignoring his soft laugh. I muttered all the way down the stairs. Imperious, smug, too-enticing-for-his-own-good alley cat! Thinks he can put his paws all over me. Strong-arm me to get what he wants.

See, but the thing is, he can do that. THAT'S NOT A GOOD THING, OR A THING TO GET COMICALLY ANGRY ABOUT. The point of the phrase "Thinks he can do [x]" is to prove that the other person can't do the thing. Ren can and does constantly strong-arm Kelsey into getting what he wants! SHE TRIED TO PHYSICALLY ATTACK HIM AND HE BLOCKED HER.

UGH

She thinks to herself about how Ren can't just act like a pirate and steal her. This makes her think of a romantic fantasy where he's a pirate. It includes the phrase "heaving bosom."

She meets up with Kishan and feeds him soup, mainly so he can make Kelsey hand-feed him soup. Comedy?

He tells Kelsey that it's alright, which confuses her. He says that he's not mad that Ren tried to kiss her in the tower, since he'd have done the same thing. So, Kishan isn't aware of what happened between her and Ren.

Anyway, Kelsey spends the rest of the day with him (he keeps making her feed him things like grapes, which makes him call her a "harem girl," so that's a thing). Kelsey spends the whole time feeling guilty, which she describes in very purple language.

Ren knew how to push my buttons well enough that I could shove the feelings to the back of my mind, but Kishan was so patient and sweet, the guilt rose up until my heart was swallowed in billows as black as his sightless orbs.

Ah, my favorite, eyes being called "orbs."

Kelsey falls asleep next to Kishan, and wakes up to Ren carrying her to her room. Ren says that there's no way she should be sleeping in Kishan's room and that he'll watch over her. Kelsey says that Kishan's her boyfriend and she'll sleep wherever she wants, but Ren kisses her and threatens her with violence if she leaves her room.

The next morning, Kelsey joins everyone for breakfast, and there's a hi-larious scene where Kishan asks her to feed him, but Ren doesn't want her to, so he spills a bunch of stuff trying to feed Kishan! Ha ha! It's funny because he's an asshole!

Ren pulls Kelsey into another room and tells her that if she doesn't break it off with Kishan, he'll do it for her. She says that this isn't something that he can just decide for her since she loves them both. He immediately tells her that she doesn't actually love Kishan and berates himself for choosing "that trigger."

Oh, yeah, did I mention that he was the one that picked the trigger to get his memories back? And he decided to make it so that he'd get his memories back upon seeing Kishan kiss Kelsey?

"I knew he'd try to do it again, and I figured that if I was around to see him kiss you, and he felt comfortable doing it, that you would likely be out of danger. So the trigger was a kiss. Who know he would wait so long."

Hey, this makes his previous rant about how Kelsey moved on to "twenty" men immediately make no sense! KELSEY NEEDED TO MOVE ON TO ANOTHER GUY FOR HIM TO GET HIS MEMORIES BACK.

So what Ren's done here is deliberately set the entire situation up so that Kelsey could move on to another guy AND HE COULD YELL AT HER ABOUT DOING WHAT HE NEEDED HER TO DO ANYWAY.

Kelsey calls him an idiot, but not for the perfectly justifiable reason I've just explained. No, she calls him an idiot because she made Kishan promise not to kiss her.

She asks him why he didn't make it something like getting home safely or eating her cookies again, and he just says "lol I didn't know he'd wait so long to kiss you." This also makes no sense because no one else knew that he had amnesia when they rescued him. So, to literally every single person that rescued Ren, he was still with Kelsey. So why would Kishan immediately have his hands all over her?

...

Oh, wait, that's it. If Ren and Kishan's positions were reversed, Ren wouldn't have any problem with trying to break up Kishan and Kelsey! The fact that she's already dating someone else means absolutely nothing to him (because he's an asshole) so he just kind of automatically assumes that Kishan would treat her the same way.

That...makes a disgusting amount of sense.

My brain hurts trying to figure this plan out. It's...it's so bad, guys.

Kelsey says that she needs some time and space away from both of them, so she'll take a bit of time to try to sort out her feelings. He says that he'll agree as long as Kishan keeps his hands off of her, and Kelsey says that means Ren has to do the same. Ren agrees, and then immediately kisses her because Rules Don't Apply to Ren, Obviously.

He left, and I pressed my hand against the wall to steady myself. Holy Hannah, that man is dangerous.

lolwut

Kelsey's spared having to explain anything to Kishan because he's found his way out to the sundeck and isn't acting like himself.

He turned his head slowly, eerily, like a zombie from a horror film. His face was devoid of expression. Orange flames burned in his black eyes. "A storm is coming," he said in a low voice not his own. "I will prepare the way. Go. Warn the others."

So yeah, most of what Mr. Kadam was talking about was nonsense. The only one remotely relevant was Phineas/Phineus.

Kelsey goes to get the others and tells them he's in "oracle mode." They can't see him on the deck, so Ren goes to sniff him out while Kelsey sits on her ass in the wheelhouse. The rain starts coming down hard and it's really windy. Ren comes back and says that he's on top of the wheelhouse and unresponsive. Kelsey tells Ren to get the Scarf to tie him down so he doesn't get knocked overboard.

Ren tries to get Kelsey to go back below deck, but she refuses, saying she has to make sure he doesn't go overboard.

"Can't you just lash me to the rail like Kishan?" I sneezed loudly and looked up sheepishly from behind wet eyelashes, knowing I was going to lose this battle.

I...what? Why does she sneeze? What is happening?

Also, I absolutely hate how any effort to stand up to Ren is said "sheepishly" because she knows it's pointless. Ick.

He says no and takes her back to the wheelhouse to worry about the two of them. Half an hour later (Kelsey is literally just sitting there doing nothing--she says so), Ren comes back and says to follow the lightning. So they do that for a while.

The waves were so high and the clouds so dark and violent that it scared me. Not so much for my own life--I felt fairly certain Mr. Kadam knew what he was doing--but I was scared for the men standing in the open overlooking the terrifying storm surrounding us. How helpless it must make them feel, how vulnerable, knowing one slip could snuff out their lives in an instant.

Hey, you know what would make this so much more effective? If Kelsey was actually up there doing anything instead of just speculating about it.

Kelsey spends the whole day and evening, well, praying. This is odd because she hasn't been shown to be a religious character up until this point, although even nonreligious characters can pray. It's just strange because it doesn't actually say who she's praying to. Durga? Any of the other Hindu gods? The Judeo-Christian God? No idea!

Eventually, the waves get smaller and it gets less windy. Mr. Kadam says that they're probably in the eye of the storm. Kelsey asks if they're in a tsunami, and Mr. Kadam starts expositing about different kinds of tropical storms. This is an established character trait of his--he starts expositing when he's nervous--so I'm actually okay with it.

What I'm not okay with is the quality of the dialogue. 'S bad.

"Can we discuss typhoons, hurricanes, tropical storms, tornados [sic], tsunamis, and cyclones later?"

Say that out loud. It's like a tongue twister.

(Also, it's spelled "tornadoes.")

They head back into the other side of the storm, and it's so uneventful that it's over in three sentences.

The boat started shaking as we cleared the eye and moved back into the thrust of the storm. Mr. Kadam and Nilima were kept busy as the lightning bolts started striking again. Several hours later, the rolling of the ocean lessened, and the rain became lighter and then disappeared altogether.

Wow, anticlimactic!

Ren comes back, supporting a barely-conscious Kishan. They're shivering, so Kelsey tells the Scarf to remove their wet clothes and give them some warm dry flannel.

In a few seconds his shirt was gone, and the Scarf moved on to his jeans. Nilima giggled at my embarrassed expression, put her arm on my shoulder, and turned the both of us to look at the ocean while the Scarf continued.

This is the same chapter where Kelsey discovered she has a BDSM kink. We must remain Chaste as the love interest intimidates the protagonist and physically forces her to kiss him.

Like, look, I don't want to read about their genitalia either, but at least be consistent about it!

Kelsey tries to get them some warm blankets and food to warm them up, but it's not working. She holds Ren's hands and her hands start glowing. There's no lightning, but she's able to massage some warmth into his muscles. Also, Fanservice.

What started off as a means to warm him actually became something more. Something intimate.

Hot. Geddit?

She finishes up with him and he says he wouldn't mind if it was a little hotter, wink wink. Then he sees Nilima and shuts up (shocking, I know) and Kelsey starts on Kishan. She's out of juice after warming Ren up, and he takes her hand. This starts the golden glow again (which Mr. Kadam says is "fascinating") and she finishes warming Kishan up. All three of them are exhausted and go to bed.

The next morning, Kishan's eyes are back to normal.

The lightning bolts had apparently come from his eyes. He said his eyes still itched from the experience.

lolwat

In a surprising display of backbone, Kelsey lets Kishan touch her and kiss her while Ren is around even though he's clearly unhappy about it. But following this, Ren tells her to go put the Fruit and the Scarf away so he can get her away from Kishan and she doesn't even try to argue.

She plays around with the Golden Fruit in the sun--it's reflecting sunlight around her like a disco ball.

I held it by its stem and spun it, thinking about what Mr. Kadam had once told me about diamonds. He'd said that cutting and polishing them is how they become brilliant. "Huh, with all the cuts in my heart, it should be about as sparkly as you are by now," I said as I twirled the Fruit.

This is 3deep5me, guys.

She sees something sparkling in the water, and something gold comes out of the ocean.

Flashing white teeth gleamed in the sun, and a voice with the sound of clinking coins said in my mind, What a fancy bauble you have there, my dear. Would you be interested in a trade?

Eyyy, it's the next dragon! Finally.

That's also the end of the chapter.

Closing Thoughts

I am sooo sick of this relationship Drama. It's just the same things said over and over and over and over again until Kelsey feels battered enough by Ren's onslaught that she can't help but finally agree with him.

And I really hate that because it's just such a fake Girl Power (TM) thing. So many people think that just making your protagonist argue is enough to show that she's spunky, but you have to actually follow through with that. Just arguing isn't enough if she gets bullied like Kelsey does!

Anyway. Next time, Chapter Twenty-Two: The Golden Dragon's Hoard! Yet another dragon hits on Kelsey.