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brightknightie) wrote2009-03-07 11:39 am
FK Fanfic: "Three Fireweed Seeds"
This set of three flashbacks was my submission to the "Claire Rankin Characters Mini-Ficathon." They're set in my "Fireweed" AU, in which Janette brought Fleur across, accelerating Nick's rejection of vampirism. (No need to read the original. That's all the context.)
I have a soft spot for Nick's sister. My 1998 "Fireweed" vampire Fleur differs from my 2008 "Starwort" human Fleur, I noticed as I revisited her. Different lives made different women from the same origin. Yoked to Lacroix, "Fireweed" Fleur's development was constrained. "Starwort" Fleur grew further faster, living human. One of these days, I will finish "Amaranth" Fleur, who goes farthest of all.
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• | Title: | "Three Fireweed Seeds" |
| • | Length: | ~3,300 words | |
| • | Date: | Posted to FKFic-L March 5, 2009 | |
| • | Rating: | PG-13 (gen, f/f, m/f) | |
| • | Summary: | "Reconnection:" Nick watches over Fleur. "Responses:" Fleur tries to comfort Erica. "Recoil:" Lacroix has driven Fleur away. | |
| • | Setting: | 1229 Paris, 1700 London, 1966 Bonn | |
| • | Characters: | Fleur, Nick, Erica, Lacroix | |
| • | Quotation: | "So then why, why, why had he burned the Abbarratt without letting her read it first?" |
"Responses," the second of the three ficlets, replied to an f/f prompt. It is my first try at such, and I suspect I failed the prompt's intention. One lesson I'm taking is that a fully successful run at that prompt would require its own custom AU.
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These snippets are incredible! The texture, the detail (the throwaway line about Damietta, Newton geekage!) — fngh! See, I'm reduced to incoherency. I love the image of Fleur as a 'hooded hawk' in Reconnection. And, oh god, forcing Nick to aknowledge Janette by beating him at chess?
"If I win this game, you replace one of the white oliphants with a likeness of Janette. We will build up my side one piece at a time."
*flails* I love this to bits!
Fleur attempting to comfort Erica is achingly gorgeous. Recoil? Ouch. The dramatic possibilities of Fleur and Nick striding through the centuries as beautiful vampiric siblings really hit home for me there.
Your writing is beautiful; I know there's so much going on under the surface that I can't quite grasp, because my knowledge of the show extends to only having watched the episodes one or twice (in most cases). But it makes me want to watch everything again, just so can I tease out all of these shiny threads. And all this from an AU based on a character who only appeared in one episode!
I haven't read Fireweed yet (1998! yikes), but I'm certainly going to remedy that.
On "Three Fireweed Seeds"
>"the throwaway line about Damietta"
So many history books read solely for throwaway lines in FK fanfic! ;-) Thank you for noticing.
>"And, oh god, forcing Nick to aknowledge Janette by beating him at chess?"
Thank you! I hadn't intended for him to deny Janette, precisely, but rather that the medieval mind had only just adjusted to one woman on the chess board, and that two would blow Nick's brain -- but not Fleur's. (I had just read Birth of the Chess Queen by Marilyn Yalom, and was bursting with trivia.)
>"But it makes me want to watch everything again, just so can I tease out all of these shiny threads."
I am highly in favor of watching FK many more times. :-) And you're right; I'm frequently wall-to-wall canon cross-references (e.g. Erica naming Fleur a "glutton" echoes Janette in "I Will Repay," and comments on Nick's error in "Dead of Night") but I hope that the telling is still clear for those who haven't overstuffed their brains with FK quotations! If not, let me know, and I will try to do better next time.
>"I haven't read Fireweed (http://users.lmi.net/akr/fk/fiction/fireweed/fireweed.htm) yet (1998! yikes)"
"Yikes" is right! Good golly, that long? I reread it after writing "Three Fireweed Seeds," and, I, um, sure used a lot of words back in the day. ;-) I cringe now at some of the marathon sentences, and romance, but overall I'm still pretty proud of the AU.
Again, thank you very much for reading, and for letting me know!