Lost Haven: a master, his servant, and a disappearing island (Waterman; original slash)
Title: Lost Haven: a master, his servant, and a disappearing island.
Author: Dusk Peterson.
Where to find me: Website, DW/IJ/LJ/list.
Series: Waterman, a historical fantasy series and retrofuture series inspired by the Chesapeake Bay oyster wars, boarding school rivalries in the 1910s, and 1960s visions of things to come. You don't need to have read the other stories in the series to understand this one.
Categories: Original slash. Age-of-sail fiction set on an island. Liege-master/liegeman and master/servant (part of a servantfic/slavefic series).
Length: Short story (5,000 words).
Note: This is a holiday gift story for my readers, written in response to a prompt by Yingtai, and is also written in response to the 50 Darkfics challenge.
Feedback: Yes, please.
Rating: PG.
Summary: Amidst a servant's nightmare, can a haven of hope be found?
Meredith has brought his beloved master to the island where he spent the happiest days of his childhood. But when danger descends upon them, they must seek refuge, and Meredith must confront the tantalizing sorrows and rewards of change.
Then he remembered (on the edge of his memory, like a smudge of land on the horizon of the Bay) the reason that he and his father had lived alone on an island where once hundreds of people had lived.
Plus, three recently reissued stories:
The New Boy (Michael's House). Running a business seemed a simple enough matter: you learned what the patron wanted, and you forced an employee to satisfy his needs. Then along came the new boy. ¶ PG-13; gen/slash; historical fantasy; prostitutefic; chan in the subplots (but no onscreen sex); e-book.
Night Shadow (Darkling Plain). A prince who could see beyond his borders but not see the people around him. . . . An enemy who would take any measure to get what he wanted. .. . And now a stranger has brought news to the prince of an approaching danger. ¶ PG; gen; historical fantasy; lord/liegeman fic; prisoner fic; e-book.
Re-creation (The Three Lands). What can you give a slave who, by law, can own nothing? That is the question faced by Peter, the teenage heir to the throne of an empire. Despite his father's desire that the imperial heir maintain a formal distance from servants, Peter finds himself drawn in friendship to the younger boy who serves as his slave. But a shocking revelation on the eve of the New Year forces Peter to confront his own motives for keeping the slave close by. And that in turn will help him understand the deeper meaning of the gift-giving festival. ¶ PG-13; gen/slash; fantasy; slavefic; royalty/subject fic; underage characters (but no sex); e-book and online fiction.