Intermission 9 Page 22
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“…Oh.”
“Kotaca was still in the grip of her vision after naming you. She warned me to hide in a basket.”
“I wanted to protect my teacher, but…”
“I wanted to protect you, too.”
“You and I were the only survivors out of the whole camp.”
“I knew that the Guard was trying to force all of us to live in the city, so I made my way there. I was able to get inside the walls without being seen.”
“I found somewhere to live.”
“And I started raising you.”
Baby Ricki looks suspicious of that moldy cheese stew…
The eye wound remains a mystery.
She probably got it while getting into the city. The Bond Dungeon for Lohk is going to be interesting.
The Ko-Fi preview for Lohk has that fresh wound as she walks away from the burning mountain, Ricki swaddled in her arms. Given that she didn’t have the wound last page, I’m guessing the basket wasn’t all that protective.
Could be the person stabbed into the basket, but didn’t confirm the kill? Or didn’t notice his sword hit anything at all?
Given the state of the rest of the camp, I doubt Lohk managed to fight her way out or run, so it must have been a partial success on the hiding.
And what about the name? Did Kotaca spend two weeks coming up with “Ricki”? Or does Ricki have a True Name that she didn’t even know she had?
Could easily be Ricki. She wasn’t coming up with it, she was waiting for something to tell her.
I could definitely see it being a nickname though. Or see Kotaca warning Lohk to hide her true name, if the emperor would be better able to scry her if he knew it