Coldfire: Before the face of the sun

[flambeau]

Story! Coldfire story! whee! Gerald and Damien!

It's posted to the yuletide archive as a New Year's Resolution story for giddygeek, as well as to my site.

Before the face of the sun (105 K). Learning to live in daylight. PG.

Before the face of the sun on the yuletide site
Before the face of the sun on strangeplaces doubleagent

whee! finally finished!

Comments

[giddygeek]

Oh. Oh my. Torch, I'm so happy I could cry and I haven't even read it yet. I love the story that I got for Yuletide, but my greedy little heart has been dreaming of a Coldfire story ever since the Yuletide sign-ups began. Reading the story you were writing made me so jealous. I wanted it to be for me! And now, this. You're wonderful, and thank you so much! I can't wait to dig into it. :)

[flambeau]

I wish I could say I did it all for you, but to be honest, it was a very selfish endeavor ("Gerald! Damien! Eeee!"). I hope you enjoy it, though. :)

[madamemim]

I just finished reading the series and all I could think was: More fanfic...need more fanfic..
I promised myself I´d go back and read Fumarole again, (nice to know what it´s all about now!), but I´m afraid it will have to wait. *g*
Sooo happy!

[flambeau]

Glad to hear it! I hope you have fun. :)

Was not the second half of Crown of Shadows the slashiest thing ever? ;)

[madamemim]

Oh, the slash factor was quite satisfactory throughout, thank you very much!
Actually, there´s a scene near the end of WTNF that reduces me to a puddle of goo every single time I reread it. Damien faces Gerald and the bad guy sitting side by side in that hall and You-know-who asks Gerald "Was he always like this?" and Gerald smiles (one of those smiles of his!) and says: "Unfortunately." For me, that´s the sweetest declaration of love ever - whee!

Anyway, back to the story.

[flambeau]

Yes! That is indeed adorable. Personally I go all a-squee over "I'm offering, Gerald." *deep sigh* They really are all kinds of wonderful.

[madamemim]

There, I´ve read it! And I wish you could see the broad, happy smile I wear on my face right now!!

I like smut as well as the next girl and when I had finished the series the first thing that came to mind was the famous quote about Pride and Prejudice: "I wouldn´t have minded...a twenty-page sex scene...with Mr. Darcy...aquitting himself uncommonly well."
Still, I applaud the wisdom of reserving the explicit stuff for Damien´s encounter with a "safely nameless stranger" (how I loved that line and its layers of meaning!)
With Gerald and Damien, before the face of the sun, a more tentative approach is appropriate. That doesn´t mean the emotional impact of the story is any less powerful.

There is something to be said for smut, of course.
I particularly loved Gerald´s "gloriously messy hair" in Fumarole. Friedman constantly refers to his hair which doesn´t bother me in the least; I have this hair kink myself. But Tarrant is usually such a Not-a-hair-out-of-place kind of person that seeing him all disheveled and rumpled after a night of

[flambeau]

whee! Thank you so much!

I'm very glad you liked it. I don't think they're quite ready to be, um, explicit, in this particular timeline, but they did pretty well with the schmoop in their own way. ;)

particularly loved Gerald´s "gloriously messy hair"

*beams at you* I think after centuries of being well-groomed and evil and not getting laid, he deserved that. :)

do you feel inclined to linger in this fandom

I'm still completely in love with it, that's for certain sure. Maybe we could start some type of writer recruitment program. :)

Coldfire

[anonymous]

torch, I didn't realize you were into Coldfire. Very nice - you've captured the feel of the books very well.

Leigh

Re: Coldfire

[flambeau]

I've liked the books for years, but it was when I signed up to write it for yuletide that I discovered I'd gotten myself a new fandom. *G* Very glad to hear you liked the story!

[anonymous]

What do you think about this comment:
"I still have a great trouble believing any slash set in the Coldfire trilogy, for several reasons (biggest among those is that Coldfire is made to be both a paramount of a certain type of gothic novel and a certain type of antihero, and a satire of thereof.. which includes the debunking of redemption by romantic love in such cases) On the other hands, there's no reason it would be totally out of the question,... but in the fics I read - though they were well written and in character - didn't convince me one bit and it was all coming out of the blue"?
It is from www.livejournal.com/users/etrangere.

[flambeau]

Well... tastes differ? *g*

[anonymous]

Funny thing is, that after re-reading the series estrangere changed her opinion:
"And since I /was/ reading it again to check for slash potential, my conclusions :
- Both Tarrant and Vryce have a particular look out at women that they don't have with men. Karril actually tells us right away that Vryce is straight. For Tarrant it /might/ be mostly because he's such a sexist bastard.
- /However/ Vryce does spend a lot of time being awed by how pretty Tarrant is. Okay, in an annoyed way, but who spends so much time fascinated with another man's look ?
- Thought iextactly by preference, Tarrant doesn't see anything against feeding from Vryce throught the link, and that despite how obviously sexualized his feeding is.
- < spoiler >Another good question is what becomes of his sexuality once his sadism and taste for hunting are gone/ Obviously you can't use both this and the previous rationale at the same time

[flambeau]

Okay, I must speak severely to lj, I never got this comment. hmf. Anyway, I always thought the gleefully Gothic feel of the series was... I mean, yes, obviously with the poking fun, but it's a lot richer than merely satire, for me. :) (Side note: I think Damien Vryce makes an adorable Gothic heroine. *snicker*)