I *finally* got round to uploading the brief epilogue with which I was struggling before Christmas; it strikes me that the connection between "hurry up and get dressed" and "the offending blanket" is not terribly clear :-(
However, it's done, and the story can now disappear into the complete obscurity with which the other chapters have been met.

Epilogue on a Departure

The blossoms on the boughs were already more sparse than they had been a week ago, when Venya had arrived, and the ground below was more deeply drifted in white. The forms of the horse and rider as they passed through the grove were clearly visible from a distance, even from above and in the early-morning light, and Venya watched from the window as the soldier’s dark figure dwindled towards the high-road, out of sight. ( Read more... )

I am completely overwhelmed with the reaction to The Four of Us Together, which received a flood of hits and reviews within hours both on AO3 and when, on the off-chance, I travelled in to upload it to FFnet ( Read more... )

At any rate it has given me sufficient motivation to finish proof-reading Chapter 3 of "Little Gentlemen", where it turned out I had made a great many editorial amendments while typing up, which I have almost without exception inserted back into the original manuscript as improvements. I am actually pretty pleased with this chapter; if I had run the scene between Athos and d'Artagnan at the start of the story instead of portraying the set-up through the eyes of my OC the fic might have managed more traction, but as it is nobody is likely ever to see this section. (Except that Venya and the crossover were more or less the *entire point* of writing the story in the first place...)

Chapter 3 — Two Old Friends

It was some hours later that d’Artagnan, washed, refreshed, and well-dined, was taking his ease in his host’s private chambers, before composing himself to sleep, with the ease of an old campaigner, upon the mattress that had been made up for him upon the floor there — a privilege upon which, in deference to the dignity and grey hairs of his host, despite the protests of the latter he had adamantly insisted, the chateau being at present sorely short of spare accommodation and Charlot at his wits’ end to know where to bestow this honoured new arrival.

“And so you are bursting at the seams with boys,” he observed, regarding the Comte with some amusement as the latter furrowed his fine brow, head leaned upon his hand, in an attempt to decipher the scrawl of the young Vicomte de Vaugison. Adalbert’s command of a pen had not in any way been improved by his long line of ancestors. “I take it that means the experiment has not only endured, but become a success? Mordioux! who among us would have believed in the old days at La Rochelle that Athos, the cool-headed hero of the Baston Saint-Gervais, would end up as a schoolmaster?”

Having decided to rename Auguste-Philippe-Gérard du Chaligret de Fouilgieux to Henri-Auguste-Gérard in order to avoid an overlap with the familiar Raoul and Philippe of my "Phantom" stories( A Mad Hatter's name-party )

Viewing stats: Chapter 1 received a grand total of six views [edit: now eight!] in its first few days before getting stuck. ( invidious comparisons :-( )

Chapter 2 — A Fresh Start

Warm, well-fed and comfortable, Venya slept until long past daybreak, and woke to find himself sharing a bed with a small and wriggling body that was kicking him in its sleep. Venya kicked back, instinctively, with one of Big Dima’s favourite oaths, and sat up with a jolt in the realization that he was no longer in Dima’s cellar. Sun was streaming in through open shutters, boys’ voices echoed down the corridor outside the room and dogs were barking somewhere beyond the window, and it seemed his companion of the night was a curly-headed child some three or four years younger than himself, into whose bed he had evidently been put the evening before.

The two of them pummelled one another wordlessly for a moment, then broke off by unspoken common agreement, with honour satisfied on both sides. The little boy bestowed a beaming smile upon Venya, along with a hopeful enquiry in a language he could not understand at all. He did his best, haltingly, to explain.

Here, then is the first fruit of my crackfic crossover: eventual length 9800 words, a little longer than estimated. (And weirdly enough I actually had an idea for something that turned out to use the BBC versions of the characters, even though I was under the impression at the time that it was the siege of La Rochelle -- if I'm going to write that one I probably need to do it quickly before it fades, because that really *will* be a one-shot, and ironically probably a good deal more saleable to the fandom at large...)

Meanwhile this one is going to need a summary of some sort, which I had forgotten all about :-(

Little Gentlemen

A starving street musician is sent by a kindly benefactor to find refuge in a stately home now inhabited by a crowd of boys: a crackfic crossover in which Louisa May Alcott's "Little Men" meets the world of Dumas' "Twenty Years After", and Athos finds his true vocation in the upbringing of the young.

Chapter 1 — A New Arrival

In the last of the evening light an ox-cart came slowly along the road beyond La Vallière, the heavy beasts and their driver alike weary and powdered with dust. But the day’s work was almost over, and the oxen lifted their heads, nostrils flaring as if at the scent of water, as they approached the familiar homeward bend up ahead.

“Here, lad.” The driver lifted his long goad, not unkindly, to nudge the shoulder of the ragged boy perched astride the rear beam of the cart. A jerk of his chin indicated the pair of entrance posts they were passing, and beyond them a long white house in the distance, half-glimpsed in the growing dusk. ( Read more... )