Posted 32 a few hours ago. And that marks the close of another POV cycle - exciting stuff! Two more to go!
@Vendetta: Yep, that clear struggle between self-preservation and upholding one's promises/doing the right thing is what I was going for! The kinda running theme of Vulpine is that no one event changes everything or a character's entire motivations. Their development is a slow, sometimes repetitive process, wherein they have to fail and pick themselves back up and try again (as Faun mentions in this most recent chapter). Riven's no exception (probably the most obvious example, actually). He has a lot to gain and a lot to lose, depending on his choices - as does everyone else.
@Cinderpaw11: Yep, Riven's predicament was kinda from his own stupidity, instead of heroics, this time. Poor dingus. He's learning his lessons, though, slowly but surely. & yeah, plenty about Koulder is easy to forget - the last time he spoke before 31 was 15! But, seeing as we're entering the endgame now, we're going to see a lot more of him as things move along, for better or for worse....
As for the Koulder/solitaires thing, he presumably never thought it was Sprite (it would generally be assumed that if Iole were meeting a solitaire in secret, it would presumably be a male; in their minds, a solitaire female would have no reason to interact w/ a Skulk vixen), but Sage could have been a possibility. However, even that's sort of shaky, since he knows from Sprite that Sage is apparently elderly, which means a sexual motive is unlikely, and an elderly tod would have a difficult time killing a healthy young vixen, even if she knows nothing about self-defense. Sage was still his best bet, but the circumstances meant that Koulder was probably suspicious of something else going on - he just didn't have enough information to put everything together.
That's all for this week, I think. Seeya next Monday (and happy 4th of July, for all my fellow Americans)!
