Start and Tremble (Felicity/Pippa)

[dollsome]

Title: Start and Tremble
Pairing: Felicity/Pippa
Spoilers: post-A Great & Terrible Beauty; could fit in pretty much anywhere in Rebel Angels or The Sweet Far Thing
Word Count: 2,564
Rating: PG-13
Summary: My dust would hear her and beat, had I lain for a century dead. Felicity ponders many things, but mostly Pippa.
Author's Note: GOD, WRITING FEELS

Comments

Part Two

[lovestories]

Even now, she keeps that sound - the quick, delicate hitch of Pippa’s breath - and wears it inside her heart. How stupid and weak to cherish one tiny memory so much. It is things like this that make her think that, for all her faults, she must be a proper woman after all.

OH FELICITY. OH PIPPA. AUGH AUGH AUGH, I LOVE AND HATE THIS TINGE OF ANGUISHED LOVE. JADKFJADFJADKJK IT'S SO PERFECT AND DELICATE AND LOVELY EVEN THROUGH THE TINGE OF SADNESS AND BITTERNESS THAT FELICITY HAS COLORED IT WITH.

This language, Felicity thinks, has no rune that means wife.

There's so many rich, powerful snatches of language in this fic but I think this one is my favorite. Whenever Felicity talks about the Realms and the Order in the books there's wonder, of course, and yearning and lust, but I think most of all, there's this bitterness that she can't have it. One of the reasons I think she resents Gemma so much is that Gemma's got this great power but she's not doing anything with it, and she refuses to share it, and Felicity thinks, You don't know what it's like to be in a cage.

“Oh, Fee,” Pippa says, her hands too sure for this to be anything but dreaming, her fingers so soft and trailing red ink as they tease the way beneath her skirt, up the inside of her thigh, “when will you learn to want right?”

OK, I absolutely adore what you have done with the prompt. I did a weird color with a weird book title and what you put out is maddeningly good. The interpretation of 'vermilion' and 'Inkspell' with the crazy fierce rune writing fantasy was excellent. And the way all the prose is steeped in this intense mist of sensuality is both utterly enthralling and a unique play on the color AND the book title. I've never actually liked vermilion as a color, and the reason why is what makes the tone and narration of this fic so perfect. It's got the pounding beat of desire that comes with crimson mixed with a softer, girlish, very Victorian creamy pink that makes for the perfect tone of blood orange tinted salmon; sexuality restrained by expectations and societal stiffness. As for 'Inkspell', it works very well both with Felicity's fantasy (or is it a pseudo-vision? Pippa has just enough of a dark edge to leave the reader in suspense and uncertainty) and the way Ann's beautiful voice and the lilting poetry draws out these emotions in her, and Mrs. Nightwing's entrance breaks the fragile memories Felicity cradles. Which, HOT DAMN, I NEED TO GOOGLE MYSELF UP SOME TENNYSON. REC ME POEMS?

...SO BASICALLY I LOVE YOU. ♥ And this makes me want to go back and write all of my prompts! The other day I was thinking of doing some kind of reincarnation fic thing with your Fee/Pip one, so maybe this is a sign that I should ACTUALLY WRITE IT?

Re: Part Two

[dollsome]

I've never actually liked vermilion as a color, and the reason why is what makes the tone and narration of this fic so perfect. It's got the pounding beat of desire that comes with crimson mixed with a softer, girlish, very Victorian creamy pink that makes for the perfect tone of blood orange tinted salmon; sexuality restrained by expectations and societal stiffness.

YES, EXACTLY. I went back and forth a bit on whether to actually put the word 'vermilion' in, but then I liked the direct simplicity of red better, but I think I was subconsciously trying to conjure the air that you get from 'vermilion' in the whole thing, so the fact that you picked up on that kind of makes you my favourite person EVER. And, oh, this was such a good prompt, thank you! I am so helpless at ALL PROMPTS EVER, on account of being the laziest writer in history, but that one immediately caught my eye and made my brain go 'ooh, pretty!' and immediately conjured up the fantasy scene in my brain (which, I think it switches from fantasy to dream somewhere throughout the course of that scene, and who's to say Pippa's not really sneaking in somehow a little bit?) -- it just had to percolate for a few weeks, I guess, for the rest of it to come along with it.

And, okay, TENNYSON! Ha ha ha, I actually don't know that much, because hi, worst English major ever. (Although ever since I found out that Idylls of the King is a bunch of poems about MERLIN ARTHUR, I have been like 500% more interested in him. Which, er, i did not actually know that until I looked it up like a month ago. Worst English major award goes to me again! None of those other sorry folk even have a shot.) I'm most familiar with The Lady of Shallott -- which, oh hey, Libba uses in the first book! Check me out with my totally coincidental Tennyson continuity! Let's just pretend that was ... on purpose, and rife with meaning.

The bits I used in this are from "Maud," which I have encountered snippets of in various other literary works -- most recently in Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own, which reminded me Oh, Hey, This Poem Is Like Shiver-Inducingly Good, but I actually came across it the first time used as an epigraph in Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace. It included the 'start and tremble under her feet / and blossom in purple and red' line, and I was just like ... floored. It was a definite, 'Wait, what, Victorian poets could be that sexy and awesome???' moment of giddy disbelief. And actually, while I'm on the subject, oh my GOD, I need to recommend Alias Grace to high heaven. It's about this murder trial that actually took place in Victorian Canada, where this servant woman Grace Marks is charged with murdering her employer and his mistress, and it is just such a sexy, evocative, fascinating novel, and in terms of tone and atmosphere a lot of what I admire about it is actually weirdly similar to the Gemma Doyle series. It's just so, so awesome, so if you ever survive pesky old Dickens and his great expectationtastic nonsense, keep it in mind!

And, okay, wow, look, I have begun to write a novel of my very own in this comment! Basically: I LOVE YOU, THANK YOU FOR THIS AWESOME PROMPT AND FOR YOUR TRULY BEAUTIFUL FEEDBACK. ♥

Re: Part Two

[dollsome]

ALSO.

The other day I was thinking of doing some kind of reincarnation fic thing with your Fee/Pip one, so maybe this is a sign that I should ACTUALLY WRITE IT?

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!! I ENDORSE THIS HEARTILY.

Re: Part Two

[lovestories]

Ahahaha, I had this CRAZY DREAM where the two of them were reincarnated and met in a college sorority (...this was right after I watched Greek, if you can tell), and I was like, "THIS NEEDS TO BE WRITTEN." The reason I haven't done any AGATB fic despite loving the girls to death is that the Victorian setting and all the little details of gorgeous utterly terrify me. It's too complicated! I can't do it!

(Also, this reminds me that once I promised Sophie I would write Felicity/Morgana. I HAVE TO GET ON THAT.)

Re: Part Two

[dollsome]

Oh my gosh! I love both of these ideas A LOT. Felicity/Morgana sort of threatens to explode my brain.

Re: Part Two

[lovestories]

MAYBE THEY CAN ALL BE REINCARNATED INTO A SORORITY? MAGIC MEETS MEAN GIRLS MEETS GREEK?

Re: Part Two

[dollsome]

This is one of those things that you are not allowed to merely tease me with. JUST SO YOU KNOW!

Re: Part Two

[lovestories]

I need to stop coming up with ideas and then not following through. Um, I can almost guarantee you that there will be at least Fee and Pip reincarnated into a sorority? AND PERHAPS AN ALLUSION TO MORGANA.