Yuletide reveal and thank you post
I wrote three stories this Yuletide.
My first and official story was The Tumultuous Events at Raxenhyrst written for JackOfNone in Philip Reeve - Larklight series (5,585 words)
Although a young gentleman of the British Empire should not be forever complaining about trifles, when Art Mumby returns from Starcross life at Larklight is dull and his sister Myrtle is annoying. So he welcomes a journey to Mars, even if it is to attend a gala ball. But Raxenhyrst House holds a dastardly secret and Art's inability to dance will be the least of his problems.
I got it uploaded with a few days to spare, mainly because I knew I would be out of the house quite a lot in the run up to the deadline. So of course the obvious thing to do with a week and a half before the archive went live seemed to be to read through the pinch hits, people's dear writer letters etc. And from there I wrote another two stories.
What Is And What Seems To Be written for ineptshieldmaid in Arthurian Legend (3,007 words)
She is the Saxon princess, a token of friendship between two powerful kings. She is the ambassador's tool, a weapon to his hand.
Walking into Legend written for Kali in Merlin (TV) (11,394 words)
Sorceror, King, Queen. Seer, Druid, Knight. They walk into legend, one step at a time. (Includes slash, het and lots of non-shippy politics for people who like to be warned for any of those things.)
And yes, I know Merlin is totally not a small fandom any more, but it barely existed when nominations closed and it still qualified when requests were put in.
If you are interested in reading, but don't know the fandoms, What Is And What Seems To Be should work for anyone with only the vaguest familiarity with Arthurian Legend. The Tumultuous Events at Raxenhyrst stands pretty much alone, and is probably worth trying just for the concept of Victorian space pirates at a formal ball on Mars, but will mean more if you know the books. It does contain one significant character spoiler for the first book in the series (Larklight) but nothing I consider a major plot spoiler and one spoiler for something that happens very early on in book 2 (Starcross). It was written before I even read book 3 and therefore contains no spoilers at all for it. And now might also be a good opportunity for me to strongly plug the books. Walking into legend is probably the most dependent on canon; it picks up immediately after the end of the season finale and for me at least, both the characterisation and plot hinge quite closely on things that were revealed through the first season; other people's mileage may vary.
I have many thanks to make, beginning with the long-suffering phlebas who every year dives into a fandom he doesn't know to be my beta and helped pull The Tumultuous Events into shape.
And thanks to attempt_unique and everywherestars who emerged from yuletide chat to beta read What Is And What Seems To Be and Walking into Legend respectively in mega-quick turnaround time and putting up with a lot of e-mails from me saying things like "I'm still not finished, so will you be about to do a beta tomorrow instead?" and "I know I guessed about 5000 words, but it grew a bit."
And thank you to everyone who has enjoyed, commented on and recommended my stories. I'm overwhelmed with how much love you've been giving me. I have oodles of intelligent, perceptive comments grappling with the stories, I've seen them in many peoples recs and I've made the Popular Merlin Bookmarks page on delicious. I will be responding to comments over the next few days, but in the meantime; Thank you all!
Many thanks finally to the authors who wrote for me:
lferion for The Duty of a Bard and
care-says for Five Loves in Jaxon Halsing's Life.