NFE Reveals - I wrote 3 things

[rthstewart]

So first, I urge you will all haste to go read the wonderful things that syrena_of_the_lake syrena_of_the_lake  wrote for me. She is amazing and so are the stories.


What I got
A little madness story,
Fit to be tied (723 words) by Syrena_of_the_lake
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Susan Pevensie
Additional Tags: Crack Crossover, Anansi - Freeform, Chronicles of Narnia - Kangarooverse
Summary: Susan does not like surprises. Tebbitt does not like spiders. Anansi does not care.

And the glorious Rule of Threes Raid which does not require familiarity with the xover Rat Patrol (RAT- how perfect is that?)
The Rule of Threes Raid (18796 words) by Syrena_of_the_lake
Chapters: 3/3
Characters: Susan Pevensie, Edmund Pevensie, Peter Pevensie, Sam Troy, Jack Moffitt, Mark Hitchcock, Tully Pettigrew, Hans Dietrich
Additional Tags: World War II
Summary:The Rat Patrol's mission is "to attack, harass and wreak havoc on Field Marshal Rommel's vaunted Afrika Korps." Susan's mission is a bit more complicated, as is her relationship with the desert. A story of daring and deception and of loyalties built on shifting sands.

What I wrote,
My big story, written for Selden, is Flee From Memory. There's a lot that happens here, and it's right after the siege of Anvard, with Tumnus arriving to help with the complex diplomatic issues. As I was trying to decide what to do for NFE in response to Selden's marvelous GA prompts, she specifically said that she didn't mind romance and was curious how Tumnus reacted to Lucy the little girl as Queen. Seldon was also interested in worldbuilding and stories about memory. I had also a few new readers ask for more about Aidan Gunarr, Lucy's consort who appears in AW and is reference in other stories.  So, as the saying goes, kitchen sink time, with, among other things, the introduction of Aidan.  Also, for those who are familiar with my work, the ending is, I think, a surprise. I've not decided yet how I feel about the ending, but for the purposes of the story, and my recipient, it worked. Tumnus is the pov character and this continues his decidedly bitter views of Aslan. Tumnus is a very unreliable narrator and is a master of self-justification. As I was working on the story and the role of memory and deception, I thought a lot about my time in Eastern Europe in the early 90s after the Wall came down and the damage done to the psyches of the people I knew. Lying was necessary to survival and that was a difficult habit to break.

I did two madness stories.
The Blue Door Cottage (1909 words) for the superlative WingedFlight and syrena_of_the_lake syrena_of_the_lake
Relationships: Jill Pole/Eustace Scrubb
Characters: Jill Pole, Eustace Scrubb, Alberta Scrubb, Harold Scrubb
Additional Tags: Magic, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Silver Chair - AU, SCAU
Series: Part 4 of Everybody Lives Nobody Dies Narnia AU
Summary: Jill and Eustace take a holiday. It does not go as planned.
The story is closely related to Winged's NFE from last year Concerning the Daily Maintenance of a Large Country House, obliquely references her other works, and I suspect the houses have had the same owner.

The other is related to an earlier work I did, about Mabel and Letty's apprenticeship with Mrs. Lefay. I wrote this for edenfalling  because she's written so many things for me and I really wanted to give her a small gift as she asked about Polly and Digory post-MN and what Letty and the other family members thought of this odd friendship between the two.

At An In-Between Place (2032 words)
Chapters: 1/1
Characters: Polly Plummer, Letty Ketterley
Summary:  Polly has an iron poker, a pocketknife, and a police whistle. She's ready for anything.syrena_of_the_lakesyrena_of_the_lake

Comments

[autumnia]

I've not decided yet how I feel about the ending, but for the purposes of the story, and my recipient, it worked.

Yes, that was such a surprise to find out about Lucy... I think you hinted at it maybe once (or at least I had presumed) when Peter meets up with Edmund and Lucy after they returned from VDT but since we usually see Harold, Morgan and the Cub stories, I thought that Lucy and Aidan never had kids. Do you think this will just end up being a one-off or are you actually going to include it as TSG canon?

syrena_of_the_lake's fics for you were fabulous. Kudos to her both the main fic and the madness one.

[rthstewart]

I thought that having a baby left behind made sense for the kind of story my recipient wanted. I've not written it before. I've always assumed I couldn't do that to Lucy and that Aslan isn't that cruel. So I went a bit AU there as it did fit with the story -- whether it's actual rthverse canon or not, I haven't decided. Or, I could have her born and then die an early childhood death! Gosh, I remember when I didn't used to be that awful....

And Syrena's fics were great, weren't they?

[edenfalling]

I thought "At An In-Between Place" might be you -- or at the very least, written by someone who had read and loved "Mazy Rings, Troublesome Things" -- and I am so pleased to discover I was right! I loved seeing Aunt Letty be quite aware of the Rings and dusting off her old studies in Magic in order to set out on a quest. ♥

I also loved "The Blue Door Cottage" -- such great fun! -- and I found a lot to think about in "Flee From Memory," though it was not always... hmm... a comfortable read, shall we say. (I am highly amused, though, that you and I both dealt in passing with the Liln-Olvin-Pire story, and even mentioned Llamas in relation to it. The NFE always seems to produce some unlikely coincidences of that sort.)

[rthstewart]

I'm really sorry Liz that Flee From Memory hit you so wrong. I'm not usually that harsh on Aslan but of course it's Tumnus who is. And Selden, my giftee, was specifically interested in memory, so that's the direction I took, and it fit with the whole weird disconnect between HHB and the end of LWW where they have no memory of the lamppost at all. I AM sorry that it was disconcerting for you. I don't think that's happened very often and I'm sorry it did here.

[edenfalling]

Oh, I didn't dislike it at all! Sorry; I must have phrased that badly. I simply meant that it's a story in which the POV character is uncomfortable and there are really no good answers to the situation, and so while I found it a valuable read, it was the kind of story that makes me think rather than the kind of story that makes me squee and melt.

Nothing wrong with that at all, just a different kind of goodness. :-)

(ETA: I think of "Flee From Memory" the way I think of, say, The Idiot by Dostoyevsky. That book ends horribly and is not comfortable to read AT ALL despite moments of beauty and lightness along the way. I loved it to pieces.)