Rizkaland Readalong: Water Princess, Fire Prince Part 2 - The Fire

 

First off, if you missed part 1, you can check it out here.

Second off, if you don't have your own copy of Water Princess, Fire Prince, you can nab it today only free on Kindle!

Third off, there's a giveaway at the end, so do stick around!

Let's get into it.

Summary
TLDR:
Andrew's busy corraling his brothers and organizing a camping trip when he sees a swirling vortex of fire, thinks he hears his youngest brother inside, and runs into it. He emerges in Rizkaland, where he's promptly proclaimed the Fire Prince, much to his annoyance. He's a pretty typical, non-athletic, brainy type, so none of the men are very impressed with him, though Lord Abraham seems to think he can make something of the boy. And Lord Abraham's young son, Karlos, latches onto Andrew as a surrogate younger brother. One day, they get attacked by a kirat, Karlos almost gets caught, Andrew risks himself to free him, and then one of the older men rescues them. Andrew is shaken and decides that it's time for him to own up and be the Fire Prince. They then head Up to meet the Water Princess.

Things of note:
Like Clara, he only gets told about half of his prophecy until after a moment of crisis, but while, for her, it was their reign that was withheld, for him it was the fact that there's a Dragon.
His counterpart to her room of stuff is a cave of weapons, where he has a chat with Laura, the Doorkeeper, which is a mysterious girl who's apparently responsible for bringing him and Clara to this world.
Karlos is Lord Abraham's oldest son, but not his heir, because Rizkan law requires that the heir be the child of the Lord AND Lady, and Karlos' mother died before Abraham became Lord, and thus was never Lady. 
He also gets a pretty sweet sword.
Andrew finds his mysterious stranger a little bit familiar...

Favorite scenes/other stuff in this part:

Every scene with Karlos was awesome, but most notably the one where he gets into Andrew's bag.

The Kirat scene was so thrilling to write, and I really liked how it drew out Andrew's determined nobility that 

I actually plotted Andrew's section to parallel Clara's structurally with a few reversals, though his last two chapters got combined. The major reversal is that his Action chapter happened in #8, while hers was #10. Meanwhile, she had a chat with a mysterious stranger in #10 and she had one #8.

So ... small thing that some people notice in part 1 is Jakob/Essua, but I packed in a number of references to the Patriarchs in this book. Abraham's daughter is named Iska, and he has an older son who isn't his heir due to having a different mother. And then the twelve men of the hunting trip were all each given a name corresponding to one of the twelve sons of Jacob. I didn't get to refer to all of the men (I tried though, and I actually did have names for them all written down on the back of a bulletin), and Rhodan/Reuben is a bit of a stretch, but I didn't want him getting confused with Reuben in the next book, so...

Favorite Quotes:

“Yes, Kyle, you may take Josh and Parker for a hike before we leave,” said Andrew, without looking up from the map he was examining. “Just don’t push them off of any cliffs. We don’t have time to call 911 right now.”

“That wasn’t what I was going to ask, Andrew,” said Kyle, with a groan. “I—”

“Well, it happens to be what I just gave you permission to do, unless you want to stay and help me pack up the tent. On second thought…”

“I’ll take them hiking,” Kyle quickly amended, before Andrew could finish the thought.

“People aren’t the only ones to fall through doors, not always.”

Andrew spun around, waving his flashlight’s beam violently until it fell on a girl seated on a rock, dressed in a tank top and jeans, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. Her hand went up to shield her eyes.

“Didn’t your parents teach you not to shine those things in people’s eyes?” she protested.

Andrew lowered the flashlight, frowning. “Who are you and what are you doing here?” he asked.

“The name’s Laura, though most people call me the Doorkeeper,” she answered. “As for what I’m doing here – well, it’s a room full of powerful weapons from all sorts of worlds. I sorta belong here.”

“You said you’d never held a sword before in your life,” Karlos continued, seemingly oblivious to Andrew’s foul mood, so much like Parker it almost hurt. “I can’t imagine what it would be like if I didn’t have a sword, but I suppose you get used to it.”

“You can’t get used to something if you’ve never experienced anything different,” Andrew pointed out. “You’re just used to it.”

Behind The Scenes
As with Clara, I wrote Andrew to be the opposite of the conventional view of fire, but still 100% fire. He's not angry (as long as you don't hurt someone he cares about) and impulsive. He's more of the hearth. He's warmth and home. But, yeah, if you hurt those he cares about ... watch out.

Those who have followed me for a while know that Andrew was originally not the oldest, but the youngest of his family. If you're new here ... well, now you know. I don't know what I was thinking with that plotline, but eventually, I got it straight and it made the character so much easier to write. Mostly 'cause I myself an oldest child and I very much knew his mentality. 

Also, random thing, in the original draft of the book, Karlos wasn't there at all. He was a character I added for my cousin to play while we were acting out the story in the backyard ('cause letting him play Andrew when I was Clara was ... awkward), and the original draft doesn't have the kid join the party until they reached the Lower Kastle. This cousin also inspired Quintin, who will have a major role in book 4 of the series.

The scary creature that nearly eats them was called a Kirat because I'd been watching too much Reader Rabbit and had Pi-rats stuck in my head. Very glorious, I know.

There's not a lot that I would rewrite on this section, but there is a lot of exposition and sum-up that I think could have been tighter.

Discussion Questions

(Every question you answer in the comments below is an entry to win one of the Rizkaland Legends in paperback, or all four - for a total of five winners. Giveaway is U.S. only.)

1. How would you personify fire?

2. What was your favorite one of the creatures that they encounter/hunt/hunts them?

3. Are you an oldest? Youngest? In the middle? Only child?

4. What's a fantasy world that you find incredibly interesting?

5. Any favorite quotes?