This set of three flashbacks was my submission to the "Claire Rankin Characters Mini-Ficathon."  They're set in my "Fireweed" AU, in which Janette brought Fleur across, accelerating Nick's rejection of vampirism.  (No need to read the original. That's all the context.)

I have a soft spot for Nick's sister.  My 1998 "Fireweed" vampire Fleur differs from my 2008 "Starwort" human Fleur, I noticed as I revisited her.  Different lives made different women from the same origin.  Yoked to Lacroix, "Fireweed" Fleur's development was constrained.  "Starwort" Fleur grew further faster, living human.  One of these days, I will finish "Amaranth" Fleur, who goes farthest of all.

	•	Title:	"Three Fireweed Seeds"
	•	Length:	~3,300 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L March 5, 2009
	•	Rating:	PG-13
	•	Summary:	"Reconnection:" Nick watches over Fleur.  "Responses:" Fleur tries to comfort Erica.  "Recoil:" Lacroix  has driven Fleur away.
	•	Setting:	1229 Paris, 1700 London, 1966 Bonn
	•	Characters:	Fleur, Nick, Erica, Lacroix
	•	Quotation:	"So then why, why, why had he burned the Abbarratt without letting her read it first?"

"Responses," the second of the two ficlets, replied to an f/f prompt.  It is my first try at such, and I suspect I failed the prompt's intention.  One lesson I'm taking is that a fully successful run at that prompt would require its own custom AU.

The 2009 femme_fic ficathon is now accepting sign-ups here.  (As a reminder, this event celebrates female characters, minimum 1K words, sign-ups throughout February.)  Voting determined that FK will be a wildcard fandom again this year, so participants will need to sign up for two of the voted-in fandoms in addition to FK (or, you know, some other fandom ~g~).  What's different this year is that the sign-ups are not screened, so you can look over what has been requested/offered, and perhaps even craft your entry to match.  This was a very good event last year.

And the Claire Rankin-character Drabble-a-thon (hereinafter the Fleur Mini-Ficathon) is now open here.  Submissions are accepted throughout February (no claiming, no limits).  Some new Fleur stories would be cool (but of course her Atlantis and Voyager characters are also eligible).  Thanks to everyone who submitted Fleur prompts!  For your convenience, I'm sharing them here:  ( prompt list )  And thanks to falcon_horus, for having the idea, and hosting!

falcon_horus

falcon_horus

• Prompts collected here through 01/29.
• Prompts consolidated and posted on 02/01.
• Posting 02/02 through 02/28.

This is so late for any of the holidays she mentioned that she's probably forgotten, but nevertheless this post is for falcon_horus, who specifically requested some new Fleur toys to play with.

Wallpaper.  Here is the ficathon wallpaper I made and used while writing "Starwort" to that quotation-prompt in the femme_fic event about a year ago.  Here is an alternate wallpaper I made for another story idea (an AU) for that same prompt, but which I haven't written yet because I couldn't complete the historical research in time.  And here is a plain old Faithful wallpaper collage.

Icons.  Here are twelve new Fleur user-pic icons, available if you would like them:

1.	2.	3.

( More Icons )

Please bear with me through one last post here about this story.  I sent "Starwort" to fkfic-l early this week, then archived it on my own site.  It's my longest fanfiction in almost five years, and my first starring Fleur in almost seven.  My sincere thanks to those who helped it come into being, and those who have let me know that they read it!

	•	Title:	"Starwort"
	•	Length:	~14,000 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L April 20-22, 2008
	•	Rating:	PG-13
	•	Summary:	While Fleur is pregnant with Andre, a stranger named Lacroix arrives uninvited at a hunting party.
	•	Setting:	1236, Artois
	•	Characters:	Fleur, Lacroix, Original Characters
	•	Quotation:	"How my ladies would laugh, to hear I had a successful flirtation and don't even remember it."

I've begun posting "Starwort" to fkfic-l, which means it's really, truly done.  The list is still Broadway. ;-)  This incarnation of Fleur has made me think about those versions of the character that I've written so far, and those I have yet to try.  Of course references to Nick's sister pop up in most of my fanfiction, but in these pieces, she's present in her own voice:

So what's next?  Not that my next story will necessarily feature Fleur, but I think I will not go seven years between again, either.  I have a small idea for a story with Ghost Fleur and Alyssa.  And I have ideas bursting out my ears for a parallel Vampire Fleur universe (not the same as in "Fireweed"), one of which I had the first glimpse in '96, but which never went anywhere past the first few chapters, because I thought of it as a novel I could never get all the way around (the murder mystery scenario is the hang-up).  I've recently come to think of it as a universe instead, and it has exploded like a seed pod.  I still need a solid cop-plot for the central present-day structure of the original story, though.

[04/20/08 6:04 PM: Edited to add links, by request.]

I'm going over my femme_fic ("We Love Female Characters") ficathon story draft one more time today, trying for as much polish as I can achieve before posting to the community this weekend.  As part of that, I've just transcribed the key dialogue from those episodes on which the story most draws, including every word ever spoken by my favorite neck-of-the-week, the most canonically pertinent guest character we ever received (such that I am joking by lumping her into that category, naturally).  The transcriptions below are exact; I did not omit even those lines that make me throw rolled-up socks at the screen, and you know these episodes have their share of those!  But I love them anyway, as shown by the 14,000-word draft continuing them that I'm scrubbing right now, and striving to make evoke these very lines.

If I've written the story well, no one will need to rewatch any episodes in order to understand it.  But reviewing FK canon is always a delight, right? ;-)  I will get these quotations properly sorted into my FK Concordance after the ficathon story is on its way.  (Gracious, but transcribing is so much easier with the DVDs than it was with tapes!)

Transcribed excerpts, in reverse chronological order:

My meta-parody "Grievances" is one of those few pieces that have never yet made it to fkfic-l.  I archived it on Bright Knight in 2001, but as far as I knew, no one read it until tv_elf recommended it on her LJ two years ago, when several people kindly commented on it.

It was my first attempt at comedy (well, since my contributions to the My Parental Units Invaded Earth and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt FK/DS/XF humor zine, anyway).

	•	Title:	"Grievances"
	•	Length:	~2,900 words
	•	Date:	Summer 2001
	•	Rating:	G
	•	Summary:	Canonical characters organize to protest the working conditions in fanfiction.
	•	Setting:	Where characters await stories
	•	Characters:	Vachon, Fleur, Janette, Lacroix, Schanke, Cohen, Stonetree, Nick, Natalie, Others
	•	Quotation:	"Bad day on the fic list?  Let me guess -- you spent an entire shift making love to Tracy Vetter for no emotionally established reason in no logically explained manner, and you need an aspirin and a shower?"

"Fireweed" is my longest story to date.  (To my surprise, "In the Light of Day" falls short by 11,000 words!)

This alternate universe diverges during the "Be My Valentine" flashbacks with Janette bringing Fleur across, and then parallels canon, asking what would have been different had Fleur been there.  I named the story for Epilobium angustifolium, a particular flower species [Fleur] that thrives in the aftermath of wildfires ["Ashes to Ashes"] in northern climates [Toronto].

	•	Title:	"Fireweed"
	•	Length:	~64,600 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L in December 1998
	•	Rating:	PG-13
	•	Summary:	As Natalie strives to derive a cure for vampirism from Divia's lethal venom, Fleur returns to her family.
	•	Setting:	After "Ashes to Ashes," with flashbacks to 1229
	•	Characters:	Nick, Natalie, Janette, Lacroix, Fleur, Grace, Tracy, Others
	•	Quotation:	"I hope, Doctor Lambert, that you will tell my brother of my attempt last night to dissuade you.  He will be looking for a scapegoat, and I'm not eager to take on the role again so soon."

And Another Thing 10:39 PM:  I almost forgot to mention that "Fireweed" was a nominee in the 1998 FK Fanfiction Awards!  My sincere thanks to those who nominated it and voted for it.  Your kindness still matters.

Here is another of my tiny handful of stories that have not yet appeared on FKFic-L because they belonged to zines.  This one appeared in the charity fanzine Tojours Lacroix, edited and published by Lisa P., conceived by Celeste and Laurie.  I wrote "Whence the Truce" in the summer of 1998, and it's my only fanfiction so far to spawn a sequel ("That Ain't Love").

Re-reading this, I realize that I've set more stories immediately following "Stranger Than Fiction" than at any other canonical moment (besides overriding "Last Knight," of course).  I also see what a Light Cousin I was back then.  And I'm delighted to rediscover my Ghost!Fleur character here; by coincidence, I have a new Ghost!Fleur story underway now.

	•	Title:	"Whence the Truce"
	•	Length:	~6,450 words
	•	Date:	Published in the charity fanzine Tojours Lacroix (1999)
	•	Rating:	G
	•	Summary:	Lacroix pieces together what happened after Nick staked him.
	•	Setting:	After "Stranger Than Fiction," with flashback to after "Dark Knight, the Second Chapter"
	•	Characters:	Lacroix, Janette, Fleur
	•	Quotation:	"Logic could not cut through the shrine he had made of his own wretched loneliness."

This LJ retrospective on my FK fanfiction now comes to "Billets Doux," which is one of my few stories that have never yet appeared on FKFic-L, and one of a handful to which no one has ever responded.  I wrote it in the winter of 1996, and a friend kindly recruited it for the zine Tojours Lacroix, which came out in 1999.

There isn't much to "Billets Doux," beyond a neglected line of "Fallen Idol" -- Nick says Fleur wrote to him -- but while I'm inclined to make light of it, eleven years out, and supposedly long recovered from my LC phase, well . . . re-reading the story tonight brought tears to my eyes.  If it never pleases anyone else, I'm still I'm glad I wrote it.

	•	Title:	"Billets Doux"
	•	Length:	~1,200 words
	•	Date:	Published in the charity fanzine Tojours Lacroix (1999)
	•	Rating:	G
	•	Summary:	Lacroix muses on his loss of Fleur and how it led to his loss of Nick.
	•	Setting:	Indeterminate, looking back at 1229-1247 from many centuries later
	•	Characters:	Lacroix, Nick, Fleur
	•	Quotation:	"He is what is left to me of her, and his hatred is what is left to me of himself."

Fluff.  Utter, unremitting fluff.  My first fiction response to "Last Knight" was apparently thoroughgoing denial wrapped in sappiness and sprinkled with humor.  Eeep!  A few years on, this would have been satire, but at the time, I meant it just as it is.

	•	Title:	"Happiness Is"
	•	Length:	~1,700 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L in June 1996
	•	Rating:	G
	•	Summary:	Natalie and Nick chat about friends and family, happily ever after.
	•	Setting:	"Nobody Dies; Nobody Ever Dies"
	•	Characters:	Natalie, Nick, references to everyone else (that's right: everyone!)
	•	Quotation:	"How about you, Natalie Lambert Knight, love of my eight hundred and four years?  Are you happy?"