Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.......contemplating. I want to perfect this one because it hit a lot of buttons with me - but at the same time, I wonder if pushing for the 30000 stretches it too much. If there was a way I could get the characterisation sharp, I think I could do it in almost the same amount of space.
Maybe, at some point when I'm not running delirious on caffeine and booze, I'll have a go at tightening/making the language more specific and less subtextual, and add one or two scenes.
In terms of focuses (1 or 2) - this I saw very much as Ashe's story, which is sad because the simultaneous death of 'Ashe' as 'Balthier' died completely got hidden by Balthier's own trauma. Ashe wants to love him, truly she does, but her aspects of sex/desire/gender/crown, in combination with assorted male betrayals (every man she's ever known failed/betrayed her), make each aspect of her femaleness exclude the others. If she would be queen, she can't be a wife; if she would be a lover, she can't give orders; if Her Perfection surrenders (to the flawed male), she has no respect for herself.