HL Fanfic: "Comes but Once a Year"

[brightknightie]

This little Highlander Christmas story is not for any fest or ficathon.  It's just because.  My thanks to batdina for beta-reading, and to celli for Chicago-checking.  As always, constructive criticism is welcome.

•	Title:	"Comes but Once a Year" (also on AO3)
•	Length:	~1,400 words
•	Date:	December 2010
•	Rating:	G
•	Characters:	Starring Joe Dawson.  Also with Lynn Horton and other relatives.
•	Summary:	Joe babysits his sleepy niece on Christmas Eve 1978.
•	Quotation:	"For ten years, Joe had gotten fairly sedate, settled assignments, and it wasn’t like he didn’t know why.  But that was about to change, he told himself."

Posted in the oldschoolfic community.

Comments

[mackiedockie]

Many thanks for reposting your links on the New Year--I almost missed this wonderful vignette in the holiday madness. I love fics that look into Joe's past, and this one is particularly well done, with excellent voices and great attention to detail. There's almost no clues to Joe's earlier years in canon, but you've used nearly everything hinted at in the telecasts and the chronicles and pulled them into a very believable flashback. Sad, wry and hopeful at the same time, I enjoyed it immensely!

[brightknightie]

Thank you! Your comment has been a most delightful New Year's treat; thank you for reading, and thank you for sharing your thoughts! I appreciate it.

I've read only your three 2010 HL stories so far -- I see that you have two others on the AO3; more elsewhere? -- but your well-demonstrated facility with the Joe character makes your positive reaction to "Comes but Once a Year" even more encouraging. I love to grapple with canon, and when I got this idea, I worked out a Joe-specific timeline; for the first time, I really noticed tidbits like the chronicles' supposition that Watcher Academy training takes just one year.

Again, thank you!

[mackiedockie]

I do have more fic scattered elsewhere--some is on HLfiction.net, some short stuff scattered through LJ, IJ and DW over the last few years. I need to pull it together. The LJ and DW stuff ought to be tag searchable.

There are little gems of information hidden in some of the dialog in canon and in the Watcher CDs. The one year training period, for instance, does point out the disadvantage accidental Watchers like Joe have in advancement in the organization compared to traditional guild family Watchers like Jacques Vemas. The tale of the Dawson/Vemas feud through the years would be an epic of its own *g*.

[bearshorty]

This was such a nice story. It is great to read just about Joe. You got his voice so right.

Thank you.

[brightknightie]

Thank you very much for reading "Comes but Once a Year," and thank you for letting me know that you did! It was fun to dig into Joe's perspective and his life beyond the folks with the swords. :-) Thank you for your kind words.