#reserved and brave hawk queen and the passionate cobra king who marry for the good of their peoples to stop the war and fall in love!!!!

[sansascully]

i just had a bit of a nostalgia trip and reread an old favorite hawksong by amelia atwater rhodes (who wrote her first ya book at 13... and it is apparent) and i forgot how wildly compelling and/or batshit the mythology ends up getting. 

i can’t remember how it goes exactly but something something ancient egyptian (yes actual real world Egypt) cult members cursed/gifted to turn into various birds and snakes (also falcons who are different than birds it’s a whole thing) and whose respective descendants are locked into a forever war to prevent their bloodlines from mixing which? would create a being powerful enough to destroy the world. or something. also there are other shapeshifting cultures unrelated to this.

#hawksong is really more like an outline of the first third of a book but i DO love it and danica x zane is THE ship #reserved and brave hawk queen and the passionate cobra king who marry for the good of their peoples to stop the war and fall in love!!!! #i think this is all nominally taking place in the real world egypt/middle east too? whew the racial politics are another fucking can of worm #all the protags are somehow still white/white-coded iirc. mess #and the more wacky mythological and magical aspects are several books down the line which is why i can't really remember them #the falcon culture and the snakes are descended from the og cult members but the bird people come from. another god/religion? maybe? #and danica and zanes wyvern kid cuts off her own wings and kidnaps herself to abdicate for world ending propechy reasons #and runs off with a mute lady wolf woman (not werewolf) she falls in love with #god i love YA fantasy people just out there writing whatever comes into their heads #words