When you write a story, you have to have a story arc for your characters.  They have to have obstacles to overcome (or not) or you don’t really have a story.  To paraphrase Joss Whedon, starting out heroic, getting more heroic, end ending up even more heroic, is not a story arc.

One of the problems with writing is, you create characters you love and then you have to do things to them.  Yuah Korlann-Dechantagne is one of my favorite characters in Senta and the Steel Dragon, but she is one who has the toughest road to follow, and in this volume, she is at her most trying point.

The whole Terrence-Yuah story is about addiction, whether it is to drugs or some other behavior, and how it can destroy (multiple) lives.  Yuah’s obsession with Terrence and his multiple problems almost destroy her, and that’s really her part in this story.  Originally as plotted, there was more to her part of the story, but I found myself simply unable to write it, and ended up cutting quite a bit out, including the death of another character.

“Why are you here?” Pantagria repeated.

“I’m here because I’m ‘seeing’.”

“Then that brings us to an entirely different question.  Why are you seeing?”

“I don’t know.”

“You didn’t want Pantagruel.”

Yuah shivered at the memory.

“Who would want that monster?”

“He is what many women want.  He is who they come to see when they use the ‘see spice’.”

“How could anyone want that monster?”

“He is what your mind makes him.  In fact, he is a perfect reflection of what your mind makes him.  You see a monster.  Another woman sees a prince—a perfect prince.  But you didn’t come seeking perfection, did you?  You don’t even want perfection.  If you wanted perfection, you would have never wanted our Terrence, would you?”

“Don’t speak of him!”  Yuah’s hand became a claw with which she threatened to lash out.  “Don’t you dare say his name!”

 “I loved Terrence,” Pantagria hissed, her eyes taking an evil gleam.  “Forty thousand dressing maids with all their quantity of love could not equal my sum!”

“I am not a dressing maid.  I am Mrs. Terrence Lucius Virgil Dechantagne!  And you… You’re nothing!  Nothing!  You’re not even real!”  Yuah burst into a fit of tears.

Pantagria laughed in her face.

“You little fool.  He didn’t love you any more than he loved me.”

“You’re evil!” wailed Yuah.  “Why did you have to have him?  Why did you have to ruin him?  Why did you have to steal him away from me?”

“I didn’t go looking for him.  I couldn’t even if I wanted to.  He came to me.  He came to me just the way you have.”  Pantagria slowly circled the other woman.  “He came to me because he wanted something perfect.  It’s why all men come to me.  And it’s why women come to Pantagruel.  But not you.”  She stopped in front of Yuah.  “You don’t want either of us.  You don’t want something perfect.”

Yuah dropped her hands to her sides and sobbed uncontrollably.

“So, what do you want?”

“I don’t want… anything.”

“Then you have picked a particularly horrible way to commit suicide.”