An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
“Oh, she’s settled,” Bill had said lightly, with the supreme confidence and self-assurance of a boy just gone nineteen. “Some foxes do this, you see. Change color in the winter, to the spring. She’ll be orange soon enough.” He ran her hand over her smooth fur, which stood up behind his fingers, staticky, and Jim Prideaux, curled up in an armchair next to him, curled up his fists in his lap.
The His Dark Materials/Daemon-verse Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy AU you didn’t realize you’ve always wanted. The worst thing, the very worst thing, is how fantastic it is as an exploration of the original canon. The voices, tone, prose is spot-on, and more importantly, the characters are true.
“Will they ever come?” she asked in a small voice.
“No,” he said. Bill and Aurora would never come. “It’s not allowed. We’re cut off. We don’t exist anymore.”
“Bill doesn’t care about that,” Thisby said. He just scratched behind her ears.
“If I were a bird,” she murmured, eyes drifting shut, “I would fly all the way there myself. To yell at him.”
“You couldn’t make it that far,” he said.
“I could make it that far to get to Bill,” she said, and that was the last they spoke of it for a long time.
I’m just so angry with how strongly this story makes me feel. Fuck it, fuck everything, can’t recommend enough.