Ashes (Ch1) - revised

After about six months, I made another attempt at the first chapter for "Ashes" (and it's just as well that I did write down my intended titles for the other two chapters, because after this length of time I couldn't remember them! I was vaguely thinking that I'd decided on "Resurrection" for Ch3, but apparently it was "Revelation", which is definitely better...)

I've largely rewritten the opening section and set it in a new context, and beyond that simply omitted certain bits of backstory from the later scenes; the whole thing now runs about eleven hundred words shorter even with the added material at the beginning. Which is, objectively speaking, less than I had remembered -- it just felt like an awful lot at the time because such a very high proportion of it consisted of crossings-out :-(

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“Where Roland’s sword had failed utterly, de Brencourt, despite everything, had brought them all off to safety as well as could be managed”: AU in which the rescue plans succeeded. Two years later, Roland has an unexpected encounter, and an inspiration.

Chapter 1 — Reunion

“Anyone would think,” Marthe observed pertly, “that nobody in London had ever seen a Frenchwoman before.” ( Read more... )