In Which Alex Discovers a New Skill and the Forest Has Cause to Celebrate
Jesse had been keeping his eyes on the sky, scanning for a great dark shadow gliding within the clouds. Listening for the woosh of leathery wings cutting through the air. What he had not expected was for his youngest, the princess of Valkaria and – Jesse narrowed his eyes on the second man – his quarry to simply walk through the trees into the clearing.
Gregory stiffened beside him, straightening. He neither drew his sword, nor bowed - but then neither had Jesse. His men shifted from one foot to another, glancing at him for direction.
“Father,” Alex said, stiffly.
Jesse regarded him, wondering if Alex was playing some sort of game, or if he was truly so foolish as to give up the aerial advantage. “Alex, I see you have found your betrothed, after all.”
Greg looked between them startled. Apparently he hadn’t recognized the princess. Jesse supposed she didn’t look much like one in a plain dress and a dragon-scale cloak. But Jesse recognized that bearing.
The dragon, it seemed, had caused her to go feral. And by the way Alex stood before them, hand on the pommel of his sword, the beast had begun to work the same on his son as well.
“I’ve come to tell you that I am no longer a prince of Bexamer,” Alex said, confirming Jesse’s supposition.
Jesse snorted. Not much of a loss for Bexamer. She had lost three sons on this quest, but, Jesse felt, she was stronger for it.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
In late 2020, I began writing this atla fanfic based on a couple tropes I’ve seen in the fandom: weredragon Zuko and Water Tribe Zuko. Except, in this, Zuko finds himself in the Northern, not Southern, Water Tribe and Yue similarly transforms into a sea serpent during the full moon.
Each chapter is told from the perspective of a different spirit observing Zuko and Yue navigate their lives as a prince/ dragon and princess/ sea serpent respectively, watching as they find companionship in each other and find themselves caught up in the war. It was initially eight chapters, ending with Yue’s death after the invasion of the North, but after receiving a number of comments asking for more, I realized Yue’s death wasn’t a satisfying ending.
So now, two years after I began writing this and about a year and a half since I finished posting it, The Spirits Threw Down Their Spears And Watered Heaven With Their Tears is once again getting updates.
Now in the Earth Kingdom, Zuko must navigate the loss of his closest friend while also struggling with the loss of his firebending and transformative powers. Yue, now the new moon spirit, has to accept her own death and allow Zuko to life his own life and find companionship in his friends and Toph, an Earth Kingdom girl touched by the late moon spirit like Zuko and Yue.
If this intrigues you, would love if you gave it a read!
It had been two weeks since they had been sent to the Pen y Fan breeding grounds after coming back from sending the life-saving mushroom cure to France, and they still hadn’t heard word from Laurence. They had expected to be scorned, even reviled, as traitors, but no one seemed much to blame Temeraire and Genereux for what everyone deemed treason of the worst kind. The other dragons at the breeding grounds were amiable, if a bit distant, and the groundsmaster, an oaf named Lloyd, seemed more interested in speaking down to his charges than actually ensuring their welfare. Once, Genereux had requested that Lloyd read to her and the man had pretended to ignore her under the guise of poor hearing, and had walked away muttering about dragons who didn’t know to act their own kind.
Now, Temeraire found himself outside his sister’s cave, carefully peering in to see after her. He had noticed that she had been absent from the last few mealtimes, and he was concerned that she may have fallen ill. Inching closer as quietly as a dragon might when one weighed nearly 20 tons, Temeraire came to find Genereux curled in on herself, her large back facing the opening of her cave and her head tucked squarely under her wing. “Reux,” Temeraire called softly, “Reux are you alright?”
“Go away,” she grumbled, “And don’t call me Reux.” She tucked her head further under her wing, and sighed. Temeraire crept closer, “You don’t mind it when Laurence calls you Reux, I don’t see why-”
“Laurence isn’t HERE!” Genereux nearly roared the end, her head whipped up, ruff unfurled, and her plaintive pale blue eyes fixed glaring at her brother. “It’s just the two of us and we don’t know where he is or how he’s doing or if he’s even alive. And we’re supposed to go about our days like everything is fine and normal and dandy and even try to mate with dragons we know nothing about and have never even talked to when our captain, our friend, is also out there alone, by himself, with who only knows what happening to him. I swear to the skies above if anyone has harmed him-” Genereux cut herself off sharply and slumped, hunching her shoulders and drawing her forelegs closer to herself.
Temeraire took the last few steps and closed the difference between himself and his twin, placing his head comfortingly on her back. It had not escaped his notice that this was the longest amount of time they’d spent away from each other, and from Laurence. “I do miss him too, you know,” Temeraire murmured, “But he did tell us to wait for him, remember? We are to wait here, and if we do not hear from him in two months’ time then we may take action. I know that two months is so very long. It has already been very long since we last saw Laurence, and we do not even know if he is alright. He has been taken from us, and we are not to do anything about it but wait.” Temeraire’s tail thrashed in agitation, striking the wall of Genereux’s cave, knocking a few stones loose and scaring some bats from their roost.
Genereux curled in on herself even tighter and mumbled almost incoherently, “I may have asked someone for word of Laurence.”
Tereraire’s head whipped up to stare at his sister’s huddled form. “What?”
“There’s a little Winchester here, his name is Moncey, and apparently he has ways of sneaking into covets and asking around for information. I promised him a week’s worth of my dinners if he could only find out what had happened to Laurence for me. He said he’d be happy to do it, only he wasn’t sure that word of a human would travel around the covets. I only told him that it would be all the other dragons talked about, if another dragon’s captain had been hanged,” Genereux finished miserably, voice muffled, speaking almost into her foreleg now.
Temeraire understood now why Genereux hadn’t been coming to mealtimes, and internally berated himself for not having noticed sooner. “This Moncey fellow shall have some of my dinners as well. It does neither of us any good for you to be starving yourself.” Genereux raised her head indignantly at this affront, ready to protest when Temeraire cut in again, “If he comes back with news that Laurence is in danger, we both have to be in good condition to leave this place and rescue him. It will hardly do for only one of us to be able to go, especially if we could have prevented it by sharing this duty. Surely you must see the sense in that.”
Genereux relaxed slightly at that, acquiescing to her brother’s argument. She was ready to curl back in on herself when Temeraire gently nudged her with his snout. “Now if you’ll only come with me, if you please,” he started, getting up. He saw the question in her eyes before she asked it, “I seem to have made a mistake. My cave was very small when I first arrived, so I carved out some more room for myself and discovered there was a more spacious hidden cavern in the back. Only now it is too large and drafty for me to be in there by myself, and so you would be doing me a grand favor if you were to share it with me.”
Genereux paused, ready to refuse, when she saw this offer for what it truly was. Temeraire stood, not in the proud manner she was used to, but a little more rounded about the shoulders and droopy in his whiskers. She came to realize that he might be just as lonely as she felt, and she slowly rose to her feet.
“Only because you asked so very nicely,” she responded, “But if you take up more than half the space then rest assured I will be back here in my cozy cave on my own, and leave you to your musty, cold cavern by your lonesome.” She padded out of her cave before Temeraire who, stunned, took a moment before he loped after her, calling, “Well it is my cave after all, why should there be a problem if I take up more than half of it?”
The two of them bickered all the way back to Temeraire’s cave, secure in the presence of the other, that neither would let Laurence suffer too long on his own. For better or worse, they would face the coming days together.
A/N: Characters not my own! Temeraire and all his kin to Natalie Novik, and Genereux to @nighttimepatrons
*sets laptop on lap* *grabs coffee* *leans back* *throws feet up on desk*
*carefully wiggles into semi-comfortable position*
right, I’m just gonna vent a little here, don’t mind me
@deadcatwithaflamethrower pls come laugh at me?
about 5 yrs ago there was this fresh new show, had some great ideas. the premise goes, Magical Characters From All Your Favourite Fairytales Get Dropped Into Our Horrible, Horrible World. where they get no happy endings (because apparently happy endings begin and end with meeting your Intended Mate but w/e noI’mnotsaltyatallhbu)
(That aside...) they mixed fairytales in a kinda fun way and a whacked up family tree, but it was cool when they started. so I decided, hey, why not write a fanfic for it. nobody ask me why I started with the Real World part of the show tho, idk, for the Angst probably. Modern AU with a lot of angst.
but also, this was the first time I was coming back to writing after a decent break. it was kinda about throwing ALL the ideas and tropes I could at the wall to see which ones stuck, or just... make all of them work somehow.
the fic quickly turned into ‘how about I write a history of this fantasy world’ of about 300 years (why?) and then became more like 1000+ years (WHY?) with a consistent mix-and-match of fairytales and popular stories with bits and twists. there’s One Thousand and One Nights, there’s Arthurian Legend, there’s the Princess Bride and Legend of Zorro and pirates and Dragons and Shakespeare’s plays (idek bro).
i really don’t wanna do greek mythology..... that shit’s weird for me on a good day....... ugh I’m probably gonna have to do greek mythology tho, it was, like, one of the possible explanations for the origin of Mad Eye Moody’s Eye, man
WHICH BRINGS UP ANOTHER POINT. I never actually intended to pull HP into this fic, but there are all sorts of hints and nods to other universes/popular works of fiction as you go.
this tho. this is the part where brains are actually horrible. because Brain one day up and said, well, this doesn’t have all that much to do with the show you started with, so, uh... you could... well in theory, you could profic it....
me: NO. too much to change in the parts that are show-based. and also, how do you explain Princess Bride references? am I supposed to change all the names of the characters who appeared in BBC Merlin?? (oy yeah—it became a fusion fic, too) how on Earth am I supposed to deal with the modern world characters and their storylines?
Brain: ok
.... 4 months later ....
Brain: okay get this: Arthurian legend has been fucked by everybody six different ways, calamity and incest. it’s completely public domain. let’s not talk about The Princess Bride just now, tho. and get this: there’s enough difference between your stories and the original tale or movie that it probably isn’t easy to recognise. you’ll be fine.
me: ... why don’t I believe you... oh right, because you give me bad ideas, like Let’s Write Profic! No.
.... and a month after that ....
Brain: hey look so Dragons, right? they’re people, but they’ve essentially created a magical form for themselves for ‘protection’, yeah?
me: I’m making lunch, please don’t make me burn it
Brain: well, why would they need a gender?
me: ...th’fuck... you’re telling me they go dragonform to have clutches of eggs and solve any incompatibility problems thusly?
Brain: well, yeah. I mean if you had magic and wanted kids and adoption wasn’t exactly totally an issue for a population that likes to raise its young in nontraditional, sprawling families, why not? gender identity could be pretty flexible for them
me: cool, cool, very cool. nice. I like this thought, please keep going.
Brain: wouldn’t it be a shame if you didn’t fucking write it tho
me: BITCH NOT NOW
.... and a few days after that ....
Brain: ‘sup
me: ceiling.
Brain: yeah I know you think you’re funny. but I’m funnier. question: your dragonfic, it’s kinda historical, right? ish? I mean when you picture the geography you’ve literally set it around the mediterranean, and your Dragonfolk cross the region from fantasy-Italy to fantasy-Egypt and then plonk themselves in the Sahara where nobody else lives atm, to survive after a damn volcano blew them off their mountain?
me: your punchline better be worth this set-up
Brain: base your timeline loosely on world history. pull in fairytales not just from Europe and mythology not just from Greece. they’re living in Africa, use that. go around the world, maybe check out Norse mythology. figure out what the deal is with how Dragon magic affected Agrabah, and then explain what it did to places between their city in the damn Sahara Desert and all the damn way into Agrabah, IT’S A DECENT DISTANCE—
me, three years ago with fingers in my ears: lalalalalalalalalalalalala
.... last week ....
Brain: you know, you could frame it as a meta!universe thing
me: what even the fuck are you on about now.
Brain: okay, you basically explained the One Important Wise(ass) Person for your civilisation as a holdover of how they were created, i.e., one day an author sat down and wrote something, then decided to ‘step in’ and basically never left, which is how they get to see all directions any moment or event can theoretically sprawl off into?
me: I give up.
Brain: you could frame it as a story about a fanfiction. at some point you reveal that your main characters are actually written characters, and you’re really telling the story about someone writing it. There’s the Modern AU, there’s the Pirate AU, there’s the Princess Bride crossover, and so on
me: convoluted. probably still illegally infringing on something or other. kind of a hopeless premise? like living in a dreamworld? that’s... that feels... fake? unsatisfying? like happiness only happens there. you know that’s a lie.
Brain: ok, maybe. but you could try.
Brain: maybe you can even do it better.
me: oh, fuck you.
tbh I really think Brain might’ve won this round.
So if you’ve gotten this far in my tale of woe, pls feel free to rec me any sources for ancient myths and fairytales from all over the world, and some good history sources, because today I’m looking up whether Cinderella is based on a French fairytale from the 1700s or the 17th century, and also travel in the 1600-1700s (was it reserved to nobles/high-income folks? where did they travel to?)
Anyway, chances are it’ll be another 5-10 years before anything comes of this.
In Which Maria Learns Something New, Old Nearon Sees Visitors, and Alex Reluctantly Changes.
Maria busied herself in the kitchen. With a bare handful of gunpowder and mint, she stoked the coals left in the hearth from last night’s fire before setting the kettle on.
It may be summer but the mornings were still chill and she was glad of her thick wool dressing gown.
“You rise too early, beloved,” Michael grumbled from the warmth of their bed.
“Yes, well. One of us has to rise early enough to keep our wayward knight from wandering off. Oh I do wish his brother hadn’t shown up,” she said, in frustration.
“Is he getting any closer?” Michael asked, worry shading his voice.
She glanced at the painting, still trained on Clay with the aid of oak root, twined around its frame. “No, the spell is working on him for now, thankfully.”
“Well that’s one star aligned in our favor, anyway,” Michael said. “Now let’s hope Alex is swayed by your logic.”
She had detailed her plan to him the night before. Though he wasn’t overly fond of her methods, Michael had reluctantly agreed that it seemed to be the only way of keeping their knight. Or so they hoped. Alex was, after all, extraordinarily pigheaded.
It was why she hadn’t let the spell encircling the castle fade yet, when normally she would upon rising.
“You’d best get dressed, husband,” Maria said, before he could press for details. “Speak of a wayward knight, and he will appear.”
ebbster2012 replied to your post “*sets laptop on lap* *grabs coffee* *leans back* *throws feet up on...”
My favorite Irish fairytale is called Gold Tree and Silver Tree--It's a Snow White variant that, in the Irish version, has casual polygamy/polyamory and the second wife saves the day. Might not be helpful, since it's not exactly well known, though...
omg
my need for polyamory in fairytales is so great I started making up my own
If you're interested in fairy tales and folklore for your dragon book thing it would be cool if you included Jewish folklore such as golems or even the wise people of Chelm. Good luck with your writing! It sounds like a cool idea
I will definitely be looking into it, or I get the sense more than half the ancestral pool might facepalm very intensely.
A 1994 study concluded that ancestral lineages of Ainu people migrated across Beringia carrying HTLV-I virus (subtype A) to the American continent in the Paleolithic era. Phlylogenetic analysis of …
HEEEEEYYYYYY
Honestly, first few google searches didn’t go so well
How I got this I don’t know
goddamn Eurocentric/Mesopotamian-origin history of civilisation
