[Fic: Merlin] Loaded March 15: Do or Die
With apologies for the very long wait, allow me to present the fifteenth part of the Loaded March series.
Title: Do or Die
Rating: Mature
Word Count: 200,000(ish)
Summary:
It's time for war.
More than anything, it's time for the war to end.
The men of Excalibur are soldiers above all. They know every time they leave the base, every time they leave each other's line of sight, it might be the last time they see each other again.
Their lives is a sacrifice they're willing to make if it will mean peace. But it's love -- love for their families, their friends, their brothers and sisters in arms, and for each other that drives them to the end.
Author's Notes:
I don't own the characters to Merlin(TV) and am not profiting from this work.
This is part fifteen in the Loaded March series.
My thanks go to the members of the Hive who participated in a chat ages, ages ago and assisted me with information and location details. Thanks also to Detochkina (AO3) for the thorough beta. Any mistakes that remain are entirely my own. Liberties were taken with history, mythology, and locations; any errors are deliberate to protect the innocent.
As always, be aware that this is a military fic, and there will be military violence. In this part? There is a healthy mix of both mundane and supernatural violence. There may be triggers in this part associated to this warning.
On a personal note:
Usually, I don't know what the story wants to be called until I'm finished writing it. For part 15 of the Loaded March series, I had the title nearly a year before I wrote word one.
Do or Die is a phrase that comes from two different poems, both of which are historically significant and which reflect an aspect of the story. One of those poems is The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The other is Scots Wha Hae by Robert Burns.
If you're inclined, I leave it to you to read the poems before or after you read LM15, if you elect to read them at all. Reading these two poems isn't a requirement or a necessity. But if you wonder where my heart was as I wrote Do or Die, it was buried in these two poems.
Title: Do or Die
Rating: Mature
Word Count: 200,000(ish)
Summary:
It's time for war.
More than anything, it's time for the war to end.
The men of Excalibur are soldiers above all. They know every time they leave the base, every time they leave each other's line of sight, it might be the last time they see each other again.
Their lives is a sacrifice they're willing to make if it will mean peace. But it's love -- love for their families, their friends, their brothers and sisters in arms, and for each other that drives them to the end.
Author's Notes:
I don't own the characters to Merlin(TV) and am not profiting from this work.
This is part fifteen in the Loaded March series.
My thanks go to the members of the Hive who participated in a chat ages, ages ago and assisted me with information and location details. Thanks also to Detochkina (AO3) for the thorough beta. Any mistakes that remain are entirely my own. Liberties were taken with history, mythology, and locations; any errors are deliberate to protect the innocent.
As always, be aware that this is a military fic, and there will be military violence. In this part? There is a healthy mix of both mundane and supernatural violence. There may be triggers in this part associated to this warning.
On a personal note:
Usually, I don't know what the story wants to be called until I'm finished writing it. For part 15 of the Loaded March series, I had the title nearly a year before I wrote word one.
Do or Die is a phrase that comes from two different poems, both of which are historically significant and which reflect an aspect of the story. One of those poems is The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The other is Scots Wha Hae by Robert Burns.
If you're inclined, I leave it to you to read the poems before or after you read LM15, if you elect to read them at all. Reading these two poems isn't a requirement or a necessity. But if you wonder where my heart was as I wrote Do or Die, it was buried in these two poems.