I was left floundering in quite a big hole of bewildered ?????? by the time-and-pov skip of the coming chapter.
I didn't know the history beforehand, either, but I can't remember being confused? I think I just assumed they lost the battle. But then, I was reading mostly for the Keith/Ewen and probably accepted not understanding everything. I do think that Broster, in 1925, assumed everyone would know the history.
Ewen is so unlike Keith in this respect: he is deeply embedded in a wide circle of people who love deeply, devotedly, and unreservedly. Loving is a thing that you do as a part of living, as natural and necessary as breathing air, and is deeply entangled with duty and honour and loyalty, inseparable from any of them.
I have definitely noticed this as well, but you put it beautifully. ♥
Re: Lachlan, it's worth noting that despite all his theatrical threats, ng gur raq, ur qbrfa'g whfg guerngra fhvpvqr ohg nofbyhgryl sbyybjf guebhtu ba vg. But yeah, he's a difficult character. He and Ewen are not just a laird and his gillie, they're like siblings as well, which complicates things. Sibling relationships can have so much baggage to them. I think I've tended to "smooth out" those difficulties a bit while writing fic, partly because I feel bad for him--he's the character whose loyalty gets the least reward, difficult though he is.
No one has so far written the fic where Ewen ends up in a relationship with Keith, and Lachlan finds out. OMG, the trainwreck. I think Lachlan would be incredibly upset and jealous, not least because Keith, unlike Alison, has no proper role in Ewen's life--Keith isn't part of the network of clan connections in which Ewen is embedded. Of course, it's difficult for Lachlan not to notice how important Keith is to Ewen anyway, but he doesn't have to fully face it, if he doesn't know the full extent of it.
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I didn't know the history beforehand, either, but I can't remember being confused? I think I just assumed they lost the battle. But then, I was reading mostly for the Keith/Ewen and probably accepted not understanding everything. I do think that Broster, in 1925, assumed everyone would know the history.
Ewen is so unlike Keith in this respect: he is deeply embedded in a wide circle of people who love deeply, devotedly, and unreservedly. Loving is a thing that you do as a part of living, as natural and necessary as breathing air, and is deeply entangled with duty and honour and loyalty, inseparable from any of them.
I have definitely noticed this as well, but you put it beautifully. ♥
Re: Lachlan, it's worth noting that despite all his theatrical threats, ng gur raq, ur qbrfa'g whfg guerngra fhvpvqr ohg nofbyhgryl sbyybjf guebhtu ba vg. But yeah, he's a difficult character. He and Ewen are not just a laird and his gillie, they're like siblings as well, which complicates things. Sibling relationships can have so much baggage to them. I think I've tended to "smooth out" those difficulties a bit while writing fic, partly because I feel bad for him--he's the character whose loyalty gets the least reward, difficult though he is.
No one has so far written the fic where Ewen ends up in a relationship with Keith, and Lachlan finds out. OMG, the trainwreck. I think Lachlan would be incredibly upset and jealous, not least because Keith, unlike Alison, has no proper role in Ewen's life--Keith isn't part of the network of clan connections in which Ewen is embedded. Of course, it's difficult for Lachlan not to notice how important Keith is to Ewen anyway, but he doesn't have to fully face it, if he doesn't know the full extent of it.