verecunda

I've been remiss in keeping up with goings-on here on DW, but since I've already squeed about my Yuletide gifts over on Tumblr, I had to do the same here. A bit belated, since the anon period is over, and I'm still plodding slowly through the collection - but better late than never, yes?

It was all Jacobites, all the time this year for me. :D I was lucky enough to get two really lovely Jacobite fandom gifts, one each for Kidnapped and another for The Flight of the Heron.

night breeze (1294 words) by Serenity_Ribbon
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: David Balfour Series - Robert Louis Stevenson
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: David Balfour/Alan Breck Stewart
Characters: David Balfour, Alan Breck Stewart
Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Getting Together, Missing Scene
Summary: In Balquidder, Alan and David talk.

The Balquhidder section of the book seems like an ideal place to let Davie and Alan just breathe a bit, and to follow up on their reconciliation properly, and this story is just the ticket for that. Really lovely mutual fussing and h/c, especially of the emotional variety. 💖

I've not run into the author, Serenity_Ribbon, before, so that was a nice bonus, too, to find another Kidnapped fan. :)

As Little Irksome As He Can (4813 words) by sanguinity
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Jacobite Trilogy | The Flight of the Heron Series - D. K. Broster
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Ewen Cameron/Keith Windham
Characters: Keith Windham, Ewen Cameron
Additional Tags: Only One Bed, Fassefern, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Summary: In which there is a mishap with a stolen philabeg, and Captains Windham and Cameron have to share a bed after all.

If the Kidnapped fic built on the tropey potential provided by canon, this one built on the potential that canon so cheekily waved under our noses then snatched away at the last minute. XD This one was a delight from start to finish. I was alternately laughing aloud at the wonderful Keith POV, and fanning myself at the sheer UST.

I wasn't very sure who wrote this one. At first I vaguely thought it might be sanguinity, then I started leaning more towards luzula. Should've gone with my first thought, obviously!

My own offering, written for regshoe:

Like a Lover's Voice Fires the Mountainside (4676 words) by Verecunda
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Kidnapped - McArthur & McCarthy & Stevenson
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: David Balfour/Alan Breck Stewart
Characters: Alan Breck Stewart, David Balfour
Additional Tags: finale, Post-Canon, Fluff, Romance, canon-typical anachronisms
Summary: Alan returns to Scotland with only one wish: to be reunited with Davie. But it's been many years since they parted, and there's no knowing what awaits him at the end of his road.

I loved writing this one so much, trying to match the humour of the play and especially all the warm, fuzzy, joyful emotions of the finale. So thanks again to regshoe for your wonderful prompts! 💖

Also, unrelated to Yuletide, I ended up writing a short wee book-verse fic on New Year's Eve:

But Seas Between Us Braid Hae Roar’d (824 words) by Verecunda
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: David Balfour Series - Robert Louis Stevenson
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: David Balfour/Alan Breck Stewart
Characters: David Balfour, Alan Breck Stewart
Additional Tags: Fluff, Hogmanay, POV First Person
Summary:

David’s first visitor of the New Year is dark, but not tall, and most assuredly not a stranger!

1) I raise you: Alan getting in so deep in the gambling at Cluny's Cage, not just because he's daft when he gets to the cartes, but because he's only too aware that Davie is sick, and he needs the distraction to keep himself from freaking out completely. Unfortunately, by the end, Davie is still even more sick, and also very very angry to boot.

2) NTS!Alan doesn't seem to have quite the same sentimental attachment to Scotland that book!Alan does. Book!Alan says that he comes back as much out of homesickness as out of his duty to his chief, whereas NTS!Alan says that politics is the only reason he's back in "this godforsaken country" at all. Now, he's talking in anger, so maybe we shouldn't take him fully at his word, but still. Cf. the finale, when he says that he's "home"... and it's because of Davie. Davie is what has brought him home at last. <3

3) NTS!verse again: lowering Alan's age to twenty-five was probably a sound idea purely for adaptational purposes, but it also has me feeling some very strong emotions that I'm getting too sleepy to parse. Assuming that the play is also set in 1751 (albeit a wacky alternate 1751), that means Alan would have been Davie's own age at the time of the uprising. That's just... *gestures hopelessly* But not only that, twenty-five was also the age RLS himself was he met Frances (though in their case, she was the older one). Something something parallels. Kinda.

4) On Saturdays, I volunteer with the books at one of the local charity shops. Yesterday, I was going through the bags, when lo! out of one I pull a non-fiction book about the Appin Murder. :D Yes, I got it for myself. (I'm too tired to go rummaging for it now, so I can't remember the proper title or the author - Seamus somebody?) If nothing else, I'm hoping it'll be useful for mining background details for fic!