I love good guys

What's Good?  I've recommended very large stories for the past four months, so let's turn April's recommendation spotlight on a medium-sized story: Nancy T.'s "First Knight" (2000, PG).  Set during Toronto's public New Year's celebration, this story called to me in this Easter season for striving to match the spiritual questions asked in "Last Knight" with the answers Nick fails to grasp in "Near Death."  It also boasts a surprisingly unresolved ending that tickles me.  (As a caution, this is very explicitly religious Christian fanfiction. Mileage will vary.)

What's New on FKFic-L?  In March, the fiction list did not see any new stories.  I hope this sad dearth lifts soon!

The original idea-flash for this vignette came in the form of a comic-book storyboard with no speech balloons -- no words at all except the message on the answering machine and the date on the newspaper, something very like the silent "The Phoenix and the Carpet" interlude in the back of that issue of Classic X-Men -- you know the one, right? ;-)  But I don't have the drawing skills to execute that vision, so I wrestled the inspiration into prose instead.

The piece includes my best use of Miklos to date.  Re-reading it, I felt I should try to do more with his character.

	•	Title:	"By Expectation Beguiled"
	•	Length:	~1,900 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L on July 28, 2006
	•	Rating:	G (m/f)
	•	Summary:	A shift at the Raven hinges on personal intangibles that have nothing to do with work.
	•	Setting:	Second season
	•	Characters:	Janette, Alma, Brianna, Miklos, Nick, Other
	•	Quotation:	"At first, she looked up each time the door opened.  But Janette soon shook her head and settled down to her paperwork.  ...  This was one of the nights when she felt how very good she was at what she did, and how much it was worth the doing."

Fluff.  Utter, unremitting fluff.  My first fiction response to "Last Knight" was apparently thoroughgoing denial wrapped in sappiness and sprinkled with humor.  Eeep!  A few years on, this would have been satire, but at the time, I meant it just as it is.

	•	Title:	"Happiness Is"
	•	Length:	~1,700 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L in June 1996
	•	Rating:	G (m/f)
	•	Summary:	Natalie and Nick chat about friends and family, happily ever after.
	•	Setting:	"Nobody Dies; Nobody Ever Dies"
	•	Characters:	Natalie, Nick, references to everyone else (that's right: everyone!)
	•	Quotation:	"How about you, Natalie Lambert Knight, love of my eight hundred and four years?  Are you happy?"