Couple Interview: Roric and Perarre

Welcome to another couple interview for Love & Magic Week: Roric and Perarre, from The Lost Book of Anggird.

1. How did you meet?
Perarre: We met when I interviewed for the position of translating old books for him. He didn't want to hire me, for some silly reason, but I talked him into it.
Roric: I remember wondering, immediately after I engaged her for the position, if I hadn't just made a terrible mistake. As it turns out, hiring her was probably the most intelligent thing I've ever done.

2. What was the first thing you noticed about the other person?
P: His looks. He's very handsome, in a slightly exotic way. And then I noticed that his reputation for being a sanctimonious prig seemed to be completely justified. Fortunately, he's grown out of that.
R: I noticed that she was a woman, which I thought made her unsuitable for the position. Then I took note of her qualifications, and changed my mind. Male or female, I couldn't have asked for a more highly-qualified and competent assistant.

3. Did you know when you met that you would end up together?
R: No. I had no intention of ever entering into a romantic or carnal relationship with anyone.
P: [laughs] I was just hoping that we could work together without strangling each other. I had my sights set on foreign lands and exotic lovers once my work for him was over.

4. What do you like best about the other person?
P: There's a very sweet and gentle side to him that he never used to show anyone. He had his reasons for that, and I felt very privileged that he finally opened up and let me see that side of him. He also has great integrity; he will do what's right no matter how hard it is. He can be absolutely trusted to tell the truth and keep his word. And when he does decide to offer his love or friendship to someone, he is completely loyal. And he treats me with respect.
R: Her warm, straightforward nature, along with the fact that she forgives me so easily for my more difficult traits. And I have the greatest admiration for her intelligence.

5. What is something you enjoy doing together? (Besides the obvious!)
R: In spite of a rather difficult beginning, we found that we work very well together on scholarly research.
P: We also like reading together. Roric has a fondness for the mythologies of different lands, and it's fun to read out of collections of myths to each other. And also, yes, "the obvious."

6. How has the other person changed you?
R: She got me to open up my heart to friendship and love, to start truly living instead of living only for my work and to protect myself.
P: All the things I once thought I wanted - traveling to exotic places and having love affairs with exotic men - started to seem shallow and meaningless. With Roric, I learned to want something bigger and deeper, something greater than my own immediate, self-centered desires.

7. What are the biggest differences between you? How important are these differences?
R: There's quite a difference in our ages. I'm thirteen years older than Perarre. But that doesn't seem to matter; we relate to each other very much on equal terms. And she was far more experienced in some things than I was when we first... when our relationship began.
P: There's also the difference in our personalities. He's very neat, fastidious, really, and reserved, and I'm... not. But I think the differences between us are less important than what we have together. We just seem to complement each other. And anyway, if we were both the same, it would be boring!

8. What do the two of you have in common?
[long silence]
P: Not much. But that's ok.
R: We do share a dedication to scholarly work. We've also been through some unique and difficult experiences together. But mostly what we have in common is our feelings for each other.

8a (new question!). What is the biggest challenge you've faced in your relationship?
R: We had a rather serious disagreement over some avenues of research I was pursuing.
P: You were looking at books you weren't supposed to have and you lied to me about them.
R: I didn't lie as such, my dear. I simply... held back some information that I thought it would be better for you not to know. That incident nearly ended our relationship, but after some time apart we decided not to let it come between us.
P: Hmm, that's an interesting spin to put on it. But, all is forgiven now. *smooch* There was also the time when we had to go our separate ways for a while, to do some things. That was hard. But each time we've had to be apart, we've come back together with our relationship stronger than ever.

9. What does your family think of your partner, and what do you think of your partner's family?
P: My mother didn't think much of Roric when she first met him, but he wasn't at his best at the time, all things considered, and anyway, she was still pushing me to marry a man who was the last man in the world any girl would want to marry, so her judgment is pretty questionable. I'm much closer to my sister Samale and her family than I am to my mother, and Samale and her husband Luka like Roric very much. As for Roric's family, his brother Khaian is a good man. The rest of them, well, with family like that, who needs enemies?
R: My father was horrified that I had married a woman of a different heritage from ours. On the other hand, my brother Khaian and his wives seem fond of Perarre. I quite like Samale and Luka; they are good, sensible people. Perarre's mother, on the other hand, in my opinion, failed as a mother when she tried to force Perarre to marry a young man who was not only unsuited for Perarre but an entirely objectionable person.

10. What role does magic play in your relationship?
R: We met when I engaged Perarre to assist me in research concerning a difficulty with the magica, the magic power found in the Vorunne Dominion.
P: And then, the first year and a half of our relationship was spent trying to find the roots of the problem and correct it. We went through a lot of experiences, magical and non-magical, that really bonded us together.

11. What are your plans for the future?
R: Raising our children, of course. Also, due to the circumstances surrounding what happened to the magica, I'm considered the foremost expert on how to use magic as is currently exists. So there is no end of courses to teach, lectures to deliver, and books to write. I love my work, so this is a very exciting time.
P: There are also books to be translated which have never been translated before, and I'm very excited to have the opportunity to do this, and to keep working with Roric.

12. "The whole is greater than the sum of the parts" How is this true for the two of you?
P: Working together, we changed magic and the way the Vorunne Dominion is ruled. So there's that.
R: As well, Perarre and I are both better, stronger people together than we are apart. And the two of us complement and complete each other.
P: [smiles at the toddler running around the room] The most important thing is that together, we made something that didn't exist before - a new family.

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