#and yeah the ending is like ....and then cornelia funke had some more ideas actually

[schleierkauz]

Inky Holiday Exchange 2021

I am late... But not too late and that’s all that matters.

Happy Inky Holiday Exchange @tommymcartney! I hope these last few days of 2021 have been treating you well.

I discovered that writing about the Inkworld in English feels incredibly strange (I legit wrote parts of this in German and then translated it lmao), so that was an interesting experience.

I’ve been thinking a lot about stories about stories and the relationship between Dustfinger and Resa especially in the first book and then this little thing happened. I hope you like it!

The Truths we found between the Lines

To Resa, Dustfinger was a thousand stories before she ever met him.

When she sat down with Mo that fateful night, eager to hear him read a few more chapters of the book they‘d picked out together; when she worked as a writer those precious few years of freedom in the other world; when she shared cramped quarters with maids who only ever whispered: Dustfinger seemed omnipresent in his absence.

Children on Ombra‘s streets swore up and down that they‘d seen him at midnight, walking across rooftops in the darkness as if the cold air listened to him as readily as his fire. Their mothers scolded that no child ought to be seeing anything at that hour, then turned to their friends to hear the story of the mysterious girl who had stolen the Fire-Dancer‘s heart and taken it with her, far away from any mortal eyes.

Wealthy merchants scoffed at them, confident that Dustfinger had met the same fate that awaited most strolling players (dead, then or dying in one of the Adderhead‘s dungeons). He had been captured and sold to a young prince who sought to speak to all the elements. He had wandered into the deepest depths of the Wayless Wood and turned into a silver tree. He had been eaten by his best friend‘s bear. (Resa had her own suspicions about what had happened. But that was not a story she would go around telling anyone.)

The first time anyone mentioned his daughter was weeks after the child had died. Resa wondered if Dustfinger knew of his daughter‘s fate. She wondered if she would know, if-

If.

There would be no gossip on the street about Resa‘s whereabouts. Whatever Meggie would hear about her mother would come from Mo and no one else. Resa wondered if that made it better. She wondered how the mother of Dustfinger‘s children felt, meeting her partner‘s ghost at every street corner.

There were nights when Resa would have given anything for someone to tell her a story about Mo. She wanted to curse the magic that surrounded her, rip it all up like the ink on paper it was supposed to be and get her damn family back. Her husband. Her daughter.

But when the sun rose and the world drew her back into it‘s colorful chaos, all that remained was the biting guilt that came with being so treacherously enraptured with it all.

This other world was enchanting and full of wonders but it did not love Resa back. Here, being a woman meant tying oneself to a man, one way or another. Resa had no interest in any man she hadn‘t already married, so she became one and stayed alone as long as she could. She worked and travelled and made the memories that would keep her alive in the years to follow, when she needed something to hold on to but the faces of those she loved most in any world felt like thorns in her heart.

And through it all, there were stories about Dustfinger. Resa imagined many things about the Fire-Dancer, the way one thinks about characters from a story. That was what he was to her, still. Years later she would blush admitting it to him on a crumpled piece of paper, held dangerously close to the small candle Mortola had failed to see hidden in Resa‘s hair before locking her in. The man who took it struggled to make out the words in the dim light and laughed when he finished reading, a quiet sound in Capricorn‘s night. „All those stories you keep hidden away in your head and you were thinking about me? What an honor,“ he teased and didn‘t try to dodge the empty pack of matches thrown at his face.

***

To Dustfinger, Resa was a thousand stories once he finally met her.

He‘d heard about her, the mute maid with the golden hair Capricorn seemed so obsessed with (as Basta never tired to bitterly point out). Dustfinger assumed her tongue had been cut as some sort of punishment (a threat Capricorn liked to make and Mortola was glad to fulfill) but his old enemy, ever in love with his own voice, soon regaled the group of indifferent blackjackets (and Dustfinger, hidden in a corner) with the exact circumstances of how Darius had fished her out of their old world but left her voice behind. Sneaking out of the church, Dustfinger wondered if he should be glad Silvertongue had left him intact. He didn‘t use his own voice much these days- and in her position, he figured, the woman had little reason to speak anyway. The fire-raisers maids were barely seen and never heard, that‘s how it always had been.

He took notice when he kept hearing about her: Rejecting Capricorn‘s advances, placing snakes on Basta‘s doorstep, sneaking out at night... For a moment Dustfinger was reminded of another woman so much braver than him. When he first heard that Capricorn had locked her in one of the towers, Dustfinger did nothing. The second time he watched her walk to her cell, spine straight and head held high and suddenly Dustfinger felt like he had an idea of what her voice would sound like if she still had it. The next time he saw a guard half asleep in front of the tower, Dustfinger decided it would only be polite to introduce himself.

Back home it had always been understood that Dustfinger was the fire-raisers prisoner when he was with them. He would forever regret everything he had taught them about fire but there had never been any doubt that he’d had no choice.

Here, the lines weren‘t so clear. Capricorn hadn‘t felt the need to lock Dustfinger up in a long time. It was obvious by now that he would always come back, the bittersweet comfort of seeing familiar faces binding him to his old enemies like no chain ever could. How many times had Dustfinger cursed that stubborn flicker of hope within his heart that whispered of home and family and refused to die for good.

He wasn‘t one of Capricorn‘s fire-raisers, would never belong to them, but he wasn‘t quite their prisoner anymore, either (even if it still felt that way) and Dustfinger soon realised that belonging to neither group made for a lonely existence. He wasn‘t a social person, had never been keen to spend prolonged periods of time in the company of other people, even those he loved (and what a fool he had been). But it had been different back home. He had always known where he could go and be welcome. After that first night when he climbed through the window of Resa‘s cell, it didn‘t take long for Dustfinger to realise that she had become the closest thing to a home he had.

They traded smooth stones and candles and words between them like thieves in the night. Dustfinger was careful to hide their friendship, acutely aware that Basta was interested in Resa and unwilling to repeat the experience of getting between Capricorn’s attack dog and what (or rather who) he desired. Dustfinger would always be a coward and he knew it.

Fortunately, Resa was determined and capable of standing her ground.

Unfortunately, that meant she sometimes needed protection from herself.

Dustfinger despised it, having to tell her over and over again that it was impossible to escape. Somewhere along the way he had turned into one of Capricorn‘s prison guards and he hated himself for it - but if she got caught, if she lost her way in the darkness, if a snake bit her...

Resa‘s answers were always the same.

„Help me then.“

And Dustfinger would look away, away from the careful letters he still struggled to decipher, away from Resa‘s face.

„You can come and go however you please.“

„You know the way.“ 

„Come with me.“

But what if it worked? What if she really made it and escaped, returned to the place she belonged and leaving him in the darkness again?

Dustfinger knew he was a horrible person but at least he wasn‘t alone anymore.

Sometimes, Resa would allow him to distract her, coax her into telling him another story, drawing another picture in the dirt to forget their bitter reality.

Sometimes her hands went quiet and she turned away.

And as time went on and the look of betrayal never quite seemed to leave her face, Dustfinger realised he would lose her either way. The hug she pulled him into when he suggested they go on a little walk one of these nights was worth it. He told himself it had to be worth it.

Of course the plan immediately went to hell.

When Basta found them, Dustfinger gingerly poking at Resa‘s bruised ankle, he looked like a little boy on christmas morning. For a moment Dustfinger was certain he was going to die.

And if some part of him, buried deep beneath the pain and terror of feeling Basta‘s knife against his throat once again and seeing Resa being dragged away from him felt something nauseatingly familiar to relief... Well, that was just another personal failing to ignore. 

Resa would never know and a few more scars were a small price to pay to get his friend back.

***

Many years later, those scars would remain. 

The White Women had washed away Dustfinger‘s oldest reminder of what love could lead to but kept the other one. Sometimes he wondered why. Perhaps they couldn‘t touch the wounds of another world (or they just didn‘t want to - Dustfinger could sympathize with that). Thinking back to the terrified man cowering next to a mute maid with golden hair felt like someone else‘s memory.

 A story half-forgotten.

The woman sitting next to him now laughed louder than anyone Dustfinger knew when her son spilled her paints all over the work desk. She kissed her husband and held Dustfinger‘s hand at the same time and there wasn‘t a moment of uncertainty between the three of them. As painful and complicated as their stories had been, they had made it. They had turned into people able to overcome it all and, for one glorious moment, there was nothing more to say.

[finnlongman]

Your book posts are my favourite thing, especially the ones on middle grade books. It's very comforting to know that I wasn't the only kid reading weird fantasy and classics/arthurian/medieval legend re-tellings and going absolutely feral over them while all my friends were reading, well, i have literally no idea because i was never interested hahaha. horrid henry idk?? But yeah, it's nice to see that other people also loved weird books like those and still do as an adult.

I’m glad you enjoy them!

I had pretty weird reading tastes as a child. Working in the bookshop over Christmas, I was kind of stumped when it came to the 5-8 category, because I’m not sure I ever really read that category. I read the ‘learning to read’ type books we had at school, in graded boxes with ribbons around them to mark what colour they were; I remember racing through those. And I read most of the ‘Animal Ark’ and ‘Animal Ark Pets’ series too, which would fall in that category if it was still around (most of the books I read for that age range are now a thing of the past).

But then I also read the Hobbit when I was seven, and LotR when I was eight. I didn’t read a lot of adult books as a child, but that definitely shows the jump in my reading level at a very young age, which meant I was always outstripping the difficulty level of the books that were aimed at my age group. I was super innocent, though, and pretty sensitive, which made it tricky to find books I could read... I remember when I was eleven we were doing Macbeth in school and my teacher took great pleasure in describing a particularly violent scene and I felt so ill I had to be sent home from school. (Which is... mildly hilarious considering how violent all my childhood stories were, but ehh.)

Somehow I missed a lot of the big MG series that are still going now. Skulduggery Pleasant started in 2007, so I definitely could’ve read it, but I didn’t pick it up until I was at university; ditto Percy Jackson (2005). I loved Artemis Fowl, I loved Mortal Engines (usually marketed as YA these days, but I read it when I was ten), and I worked my way through most Anthony Horowitz -- plus of course The Roman Mysteries and Harry Potter. Other authors I really liked at the end of primary school start of secondary school included Cornelia Funke (I loved Inkheart), Kate Thompson (I talk about her a lot), William Nicholson (I was obsessed with The Wind Singer)...

But I read a lot of very old-fashioned children’s books as well. All those classics (Heidi, Pollyanna, What Katy Did, Anne of Green Gables), although there are several I missed and still haven’t read, like Little Women. Lots of old Puffin books -- A Load of Unicorn, Five Children and It. Swallows and Amazons, of course, I *loved* that series. Narnia too. Not much Rosemary Sutcliff -- I came to her stuff later -- but still lots of books that had belonged to my parents during their childhood. Oh, and there was some Alan Garner -- The Owl Service gave me actual nightmares when I read it in about year four or five.

The trouble with me as a child was that on one level I was quite a precocious reader, but also, I was a snob. I think that’s probably why I missed things like Percy Jackson. They were the books that were popular with the more reluctant readers at school and obviously I was better than that, so they wouldn’t interest me, right? *headdesk* I’ve tried to grow out of my snobbishness, but I know some of it still remains, especially where bestsellers are concerned...

I don’t even know where I was going with this, haha. Point is: I had pretty weird reading tastes as a child, and I think if I handed you a list of all the books I read between the ages of 6 and 14, you’d be hard-pressed to deduce from that how old I am, because it did not match the current market at all. I like to be nostalgic in my bookstagram pics sometimes, because very often bookstagram is dominated by new releases and popular authors, and sometimes I just wanna yell about this one book that came out in 2005 that I haven’t stopped talking about since.

[schleierkauz]

Is it me or does The Color not only have inconsistencies, but is it much weaker than the other three? I mean, there are hardly any descriptions, for example. Everything seems summarized, without delving into anything; and it seems there is no development in the characters, they seem a bit... robotic. After Dustfinger's ambivalence in Inkheart and Mo's double soul conflict in Inkdeath (especially Inkdeath is a jewel), and the melodic prose that Cornelia had then, maybe The Color falls short?

I mean, the Violante thing, for example. Violante being a better mother and suddenly overcoming her traumas just by... the intense therapy with the Prince, it seems to me a way to pave the pitfalls without real development. An easy and schematic way, avoiding the conflict. It's like to subtract depth from the characters. And the Violante we knew in Inkdeath didn't need a man to overcome anything! 

VERY interesting message, and you mention some things I’ve also been thinking about, Anon, so this response will probably be pretty lengthy. Edit, yep, it was - I’ll put it under a cut. :D

Alright, so first of all I agree that so far the whole story seems... rushed, especially compared to the very detailed descriptions of the first three books. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that we’ve spent very little time with our actual heroes thus far-

There were chapters 2 and 3 from Fenoglio’s perspective (which... not to drag Fenoglio but I think most of us would have preferred a look into someone else’s head), chapter 5 was from Meggie’s perspective but dealt mainly with her love triangle with just a dash of magical exposition, chapter 6 was mainly about trying to find Ironstone (again) and then in chapter 8 everyone vanished and we didn’t get a whole lot of detail there, either. Now, I love chapter 8 and it was very painful to hear, but I think it’s a strange choice to give us so little time with Resa, Mo and Roxane. Especially Roxane, goddamn, she didn’t even get to speak! Just give me a normal day of her peaceful life with Dustfinger and her son, just one, I don’t care if nothing exciting happens, Cornelia.

... But that brings me to my next point. You mentioned how Violante changed and while, yeah, it is a huge thing... I really loved the latest chapter (those descriptions of the red sky, red pages and the red blood on that girl’s hands... loved that), including that part where her whole therapy process was described. It reminded me of the earlier chapters, when Fenoglio cannot believe an actual plot is happening again.

Because it really feels like... yeah, everyone got their Happy Ending. Mo and Dustfinger both have their happy families living peacefully together (even though I really really wanted to see how/if Brianna and Dustfinger repaired their relationship and I think there should have been a spotlight on those two ages ago and it’s really frustrating to me but that’s a post for another time), Elinor and Darius are doing their thing, Violante brought peace to Ombra, loves her son and got to hook up with the Prince, who’s also presumably doing wholesome robber things... you get the idea. It’s this borderline unrealistic fairy tale ending, and everyone thought the story was over - we as the readers, they as the characters and Cornelia Funke as the author.

And then Orpheus set it all on fire.

Personally, I really like that, because now everyone has to figure out how to continue a story they clearly weren’t prepared for. I was actually very sceptical when Fenoglio described Dustfinger as this perfectly calm unafraid best version of himself because, well... good for him, but a character like that isn’t very fun to read about. But seeing how quickly that seemed to crumble when Orpheus’ plan continued, I think things are going to play out in interesting ways from here on out.

Regarding readability, sentence structure and melodic prose... 

Um. Honestly, that’s probably my fault? Cornelia’s writing style has definitely changed and evolved since she wrote the first three books, but as someone who’s read Dragonrider II (which was written like 20 years after the first one) as well as that Pan’s Labyrinth fanfiction that came out last year, I honestly don’t think it’s... less pretty. She still tends to use a lot of metaphors and similes and flowery language. The one exception I can think of is Reckless, and TCoRs style doesn’t remind me of that at all. I really try my best over here but this is the first time I’ve ever translated a longer text from German to English (and not the other way around) and it’s an ambitious project. Think of my versions as, like, the prototype of the prototype. I’m sure the official translations will flow a lot better.

So... Yeah. I agree that parts of TCoR seem strange and clunky, but overall I really enjoy it and I’m looking forward to hear more. Also, keep in mind that these chapters aren’t the finished versions, who knows how much things will change until the final release? 

(Oh, and as for Violante not needing a man in the other books - I disagree, actually. While she has always been a strong character and I love her, she was very much just trying to appear strong in order to defeat her father, and Mo saw through that facade fairly easily. He kept having to remind himself not to dad her... and by the end she was trapped in a hole while her son saved the day. If anything, she’s a stronger force in this book, since she worked through some of her issues and I can’t wait to see her throwing shoes at Orpheus)