island_of_reil | Entries tagged with nightrunner series

island_of_reil

Rating: Mature/R

Archive Warnings: None

Fandom Nightrunner Series, Lynn Flewelling

Words: 11,260

Relationship: Thero í Procepios/Klia ä Idrilain

Other Tags: Missing Scene, Grief/Mourning, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Wakes & Funerals, Sexual Inexperience, Self Confidence Issues, First Time, Established Relationship

Summary: Near the end of Casket of Souls, Klia summons Thero to Plenimar a final time, to comfort her in her tent in the wake of Phoria’s death.

Read Aura’s Bow at An Archive Of Our Own.

Source.

Dragon, Bear, and Wolves by

island_of_reil
Chapters: 1/1
Word Count: 8,551
Category: Gen
Rating: Mature
Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Fandoms: Nightrunner Series - Lynn Flewelling; Kushiel’s Legacy - Jacqueline Carey; Frontier Wolf - Rosemary Sutcliff
Characters: Alec í Amasa, Moirin mac Fainche, Beka Cavish, Hilarion (Frontier Wolf), Seregil í Korit, Nyal í Nhekai, Nikides, Micum Cavish, Kari Cavish, Bao (Kushiel’s Legacy)
Additional Tags: Soul Bond, Archery, Swordplay, Military, War, Explicit Language, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Canon Era
Summary: It is entirely possible for one person’s soul to bond with that of another in an entirely different world. But, sometimes, the two do not hold one another’s hearts. They hold something perhaps even more precious: one another’s backs.
Author's Note: In Nightrunner canon, this story takes place somewhere between The White Road and Casket of Souls. For those unfamiliar with this canon there is a glossary of terms here.

Read Dragon, Bear, and Wolves at An Archive of Our Own.

I've finished Casket of Souls. There's one scene…

( spoiler, but not a plot ruiner )

And then there's this follow-up, a few scenes later…

( Also a non-plot-ruining spoiler )

As for the book in general? I liked it much, much better than any other book in the series since the second, Stalking Darkness. That said, the first two — taken as one, because that's how Flewelling wrote them — would always be better than any sequels, no matter how well written. It's got the "save the world" plot of heroic fantasy, necessarily with evil that subsequent books can't touch, no matter how evil their villains get. It's got some superbly rendered character arcs. And it's got the UST between Alec and Seregil.

The seventh and final book, Shards of Time, comes out April 1. I hope it's as good as Casket of Souls. That said, Flewelling is wise to end the series there, hopefully tying up the last loose ends of various minor-character stories, before it jumps the shark completely.

not to mention the unsuitable (though beautiful) final verse, The White Road has been putting me in mind of Kate Wolf's "Across the Great Divide."

Now I heard the owl callin'
Softly as the night was fallin'
With a question, and I replied,
"But he's gone across the borderline."

"" (Watch on YouTube)

http://thecockerelinn.tumblr.com/

It amuses me to no end that, by grace of autocomplete, typing "thecock" into my browser bar takes me to a site for this fandom.

Crossposts: http://island-of-reil.livejournal.com/16180.html

By Nowsy on DeviantArt.

Crossposts: http://island-of-reil.livejournal.com/15996.html

Third Heart by

island_of_reil
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Nightrunner Series - Lynn Flewelling
Rating: Explicit
Word Count: 12,205
Archive Warning: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings (but please see Content Note below)
Category: M/M
Relationship: Alec í Amasa/Seregil í Korit
Characters: Seregil í Korit, Alec í Amasa
Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Implied/Referenced Mind Rape, Implied/Referenced Torture, Light Bondage, Soul Bond, Nightmares, Healing Sex, Bathing/Washing, Hair Washing, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Summary: The wounds in Seregil’s soul have barely begun to heal when it becomes clear that those in Alec’s still fester. Talímenios drives both of them to want more than Alec can yet bear. After another year of adventure, danger, and rough living, Seregil may have found a way to for them to fully consummate the bond — if it doesn’t immerse him in painful memories of his treacherous first lover.
Content Note: Alec is 17 or just shy of it when this fic begins; by the end of it he’s 18. In canon, 16-year-olds are considered sexually “of age.” Therefore I chose not to warn for “Underage,” but please bear the above in mind if the subject is a sensitive one for you.

Cross-posted to

rarelitslash.

Read Third Heart at An Archive of Our Own.

Crossposts: http://island-of-reil.livejournal.com/15661.html

Source. The appearance is right, and there's even an owl, the symbol of Skala.

Crossposts: http://island-of-reil.livejournal.com/15325.html

( Spoilers )

Speaking of which, I was greatly amused by one item from the TVTropes page for the series:

Mangst: Seregil, oh gods, Seregil! It drives Alec, and pretty much everyone else, crazy at times.

You don't say? ( More spoilers )

Crossposts: http://island-of-reil.livejournal.com/15014.html

A centenarius of the Frontier Wolves fighting shoulder to shoulder with a captain of the Urgazhi — the Skalan "demon wolves." Both of them heavily freckled. The latter, to the former's surprise, a woman.

I briefly considered writing a fic along the lines of "soulbond across different universes in which the twain shall never meet except, perhaps, briefly in a dream." But I don't think I can pull that one off. Fuck, I wish I could draw.

Crossposts: http://island-of-reil.livejournal.com/14637.html

“All right.” Alec arched an eyebrow knowingly, then went to his bed and pulled a coil of rope from beneath it. “And this time, I’m prepared.”

Crossposts: http://island-of-reil.livejournal.com/14241.html

( very minor and trivial spoiler for Nightrunner books )

BTW, this is before, but not hugely long before, the UST starts to show up in earnest.

Crossposts: http://island-of-reil.livejournal.com/13686.html

Based on

sineala's recommendation, I will definitely will be reading Hild at some point. But, before that, Knight's Fee, the rest of Roman Britain, and probably the fourth Matthew Swift book (The Minority Council) as well.

Right now I'm working my way through Lynn Flewelling's Nightrunner series. I'd never have considered it were it not for

novembersmith's Yuletide fic "Back on the Horse," in which the first-time scene between Seregil and Alec is fantastically hot and intensely loving.

I'm about halfway through Luck in the Shadows, the first book. The writing itself is a mixed bag; Flewelling can write very good descriptions and dialogue, but then she'll switch POV abruptly in the same scene, or she'll do a little too much telling rather than showing. Her geography has a faux-Tolkien tweeness to it, at least in the North, and it's jarring when set next to the real-world roughness of the narrative — graphic violence, profanity, openness about sex.

( here be some spoilers )

What I like most is the characterization, followed by the plot. Seregil is a fascinating, often hilarious, character, and I hope the eventual revelations about his past live up to all the hints dropped about it. While Alec seems the prototypical Innocent Young Fair-Haired Boy, Flewelling subverts the trope from nearly the beginning: He's skillful, observant, and smart as a whip. As his friendship with Seregil deepens, you also see loyalty and grim determination surface in him. I'm right at the point where Seregil is acknowledging to himself that he finds Alec attractive, so the UST, which has been muted so far, is probably about to kick into high gear.

The supporting characters are also distinctively rendered. The Bad Guys are really, really bad, though. Going by the nomenclature and physical descriptions, it looks like Flewelling is coding them as Assyrian or maybe Phoenician, but the other peoples of the continent are much fairer-colored. It has … uncomfortable implications, to say the least. I rather hope that at least some of the characters from that nation turn out to be sympathetic ones.

Crossposts: http://island-of-reil.livejournal.com/13423.html

The authors mentioned in this post are as follows:

"Most Fervently," the cracky yet gorgeous Lost Prince story, was written by

halotolerant.

"Wherever You Go," the fic for The Eagle that segues from beautifully rendered h/c and pining into fiery porn, was written by

alby_mangroves.

"All The Pleasures Prove," the witty and hot Marlowe/Shakespeare fic, was written by

wildestranger.

The brilliant " \Hello Operator, Please Give Me Number Nine," in which Susie Derkins from Calvin & Hobbes challenges Death with a game of Calvinball, was written by

starlingthefool.

"The Queen of Rokovoko," Melville pastiche featuring an orgy to which Ahab isn't invited and the mating habits of cetaceans, was written by

the_alchemist.

And "The Velvetskynn™ Rabbit," a hilarious adult version of the Margery Williams book, was written by

gnomad.

I still have a lot of YT stories I want to read but haven't yet. Here are four more:

"Delete Selected Email?" by storiesfortravellers. This is based on Mallory Ortberg's post "The Rage of Jonathan Franzen" and is a screamingly funny piss-take of one of litfic's most grossly overrated and most unpleasant figures.

"The Red Hot Brawling Sun" by Nokomis. It's the story of Stagger Lee and Billy Lyons (which I had no idea was an actual 1895 murder), played out night after night at a roadhouse stuck in the mists of time. So you ignore the railspike and hammer lying carelessly next the broad-shouldered man whose chair threatens to break under his massive musculature, and the haunting strains of the blues coming from the guitar of a man with hellfire in his eyes. Chills.

"The Not Entirely Accurate Chronicle of John Polidori, Genius Physician and Brilliant Writer, and His Rather Less Distinguished Companions" by

lady_ganesh. A cracky recounting of Polidori's, Byron's, and the Shelleys' Not-So-Excellent Vacation, influenced by Kate Beaton, as well as by The Awl. Includes the tag "Lord Byron's Penis."

"Back on the Horse" by

novembersmith. I know absolutely nothing about Lynn Flewelling's Nightrunner series, but I clicked through anyway upon seeing a rec for this fic somewhere. The sex scene between the two main characters is absolutely incendiary, full of love and new sensations and trembling and saying each other's names, and the teasing that leads up to it makes it even hotter.