#lymond chronicals

[divinekangaroo]

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Once was: ellnyx @ livejournal & ao3 (FFXII, FFVII) pendency @ dreamwidth & tumblr & ao3 (Professionals, Dragon Age)

All (most) of my old fics can be found at the above.

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My Writing My Drawing Exercises (learner plates on) Peaky Blinders Dragon Age II Dragon Age Lymond Chronicles Personal Stuff

[boatcats]

Safe Friends

Books are cold, but safe friends. 

- Victor Hugo, Les Miserables.

After the Tour des Minimes, Lymond counts out the days of his recovery in books he’s read. And he makes a friend.

CHAPTER ONE 

Because this has somehow morphed into a whole … thing.

CW under the cut.

CW for emetophobia (really), poison, injury recovery, illness, nightmares, difficulties with food, and some implied medical trauma.

They got him to Sevigny.

Though Lymond wasn’t aware of this triumph till some hours after it happened, having fainted halfway through the journey. By the time he learned of it, his arrival was old news and the household was asleep.

He woke in the dark with the wind sighing in the trees outside. He froze, breathing slow, unsure of where he was. Then, in the halflight from under the door, he recognized the room, the bed. He closed his eyes, letting relief wash over him in waves, as exhausted as if he’d made the entire journey on foot.

He stayed awake long enough to find the glass of water by the bed and drink (he examined the water carefully first - far more carefully than he might have done three months before). He even set the glass down again before he fell asleep. He felt vaguely proud of that as he drifted off.

Archie arrived in the morning, announcing himself with a knock at the door. A knock meant choice - the choice to say “come in” or, temptingly, “go away.”

Francis Crawford hadn’t had a lot of choice lately. But that was over. He wasn’t going to dwell on it.

“Come in,” Lymond said.

Archie opened the door, smiling hugely, and Lymond had a flash of memory - Archie’s cool, roughened palm gentle on his forehead as the stress of the journey to Sevigny became too much, the world dissolving into black and a series of disjointed images then nothing.

“Alright, lad, I imagine you want a wash and the like?”

Lymond really, really did.

He wanted a wash. And then he wanted to lie in the sun with his nose in a book and no one and nothing depending upon him. Maybe he wanted to try eating something.

Well. That last was a lie; his insides were already threatening rebellion. But he knew he needed to try.

Florisando

He managed the wash. And he managed to stay awake long enough afterwards to eat three bites of porridge and read a paragraph of Florisando. When he nodded off and fell forward it was onto the book and not into the porridge. Small favors.

The next day he read Florisando and ate more porridge and slept.

He dreamt that he was singing Aucassin et Nicolette to men chained to their oars, sweating and bleeding in the sea-dark. He woke gasping, his heart hammering. Somehow he kept the porridge down.

He finished Florisando. He would have to read it again at some point. He hardly remembered the plot.

He was trying not to notice the pain. He was trying to focus on the pain in a way that stopped it from existing - to make a home inside of it. A castle’s defenses weren’t arrayed against the ones within. And if you stared at a white wall long enough it would blur into nothing.

God, but it was ceaseless. (Relax, relax - it’s been ceaseless before).

Perhaps it would be better to read an old favorite.

The Iliad

He wasn’t falling asleep in the middle of tasks anymore. But sometimes it was hard to sleep at night. Aegri somnia. Sick people dream too much. Lymond read Homer by candlelight…

and dreamed he was playing the lute for a faceless crowd, the strings cutting his fingers to ribbons. He could taste the nightshade at the bottom of his glass. What had he done wrong?

He woke with his chest heaving. He started being sick almost before he was fully conscious.

It seemed as though the entire household fussed over him afterwards - a blur of hands and faces. He sent them away as soon as he could and finished The Iliad that same night. Sleep had become deeply unappealing.

Healing felt like the siege of Troy, he thought. Sweat and dirt and the taste of iron and too many hands touching him. Then he thought, “How trite.”

The Odyssey

Obviously, the next reasonable choice.

Opera Nova dell'Arte delle Armi

He was walking. He was walking around the grounds of Sevigny.

The progress was awkward. His right arm was still bandaged; his left hand was white knuckled on the handle of his cane. Soon his left wrist joined his right in aching. It seemed they took turns, bouncing the ache back and forth between them like a game of catch.

Nonetheless, he was walking. Everything else was by the way.

Caetera desunt.

He walked to the library to read Marozzo in an armchair by the fire. A change of scenery - he was becoming well traveled! But the fire was warm and, ensconced in the chair, he fell asleep.

He woke to a soft weight on his knee and looked down to find a huge mongrel snoring with its head in his lap. It appeared to be part wolfhound and a diverse variety of other dogs, most of them bred to guard livestock. He shifted and it woke, looking up at him with friendly yellow eyes.

Lymond felt his mouth twitch into a lopsided smile. “Hullo, chimera. Did you come here to read? You’re doing a bad job of it. You seem to have fallen asleep.”

The dog nosed at his palm, successfully levering his hand out of his lap and immediately inserting its head beneath his fingers to be petted.

Laughing, Lymond relented and scratched it behind one shaggy ear.

“Alright. You’ve proved me wrong. I see you’ve been reading Pythagoras while I’ve been napping.”

It tried to follow him back to his room. He almost let it in.

He woke after midnight because something was whining at his door. He sighed, got up, and let the dog in. “Good evening, Melusine. Welcome. I’d nearly take you for an Erskine given recent events. Can I assist you with something?” The dog huffed in response and settled itself next to the fire. Good, because he wasn’t going to let it sleep in his bed.

Lymond woke in the morning to a cold nose on his pillow. He addressed the owner of the nose seriously. “So much for vigilance. I suppose you snuck beneath the quilt to protect me from wolves? I should send you away for insubordination.” Then, overcome by the unlookedfor comfort, he pressed his face into the soft fur of its chest. The dog sighed contentedly and dropped its chin to his close-cropped hair.

They stayed like that for fifteen minutes.

REFS:

Florisando was an (unauthorized) sequel to Don Quixote’s favorite book. Unlike its predecessor, it was universally panned. You can get it for free on Google Books. Jus’ sayin.

Aegri somnia trans: sick man’s dreams. According to my trusted friend Wikipedia. Sure hope that’s right….

Opera Nova dell'Arte delle Armi was a treatise on fencing. Back to work for Lymond. He has plans.

Caetera desunt trans: the rest is missing. Again, according to my friend Wikipedia. Lymond’s making a terrible bilingual pun. The rest is missing. In that … he’s walking around and not resting. Look, I didn’t say it was funny.

Pythagoras because levers and stuff. I know a doggo who does this and it’s the cutest.

Melusine is a tragic, legendary figure who it is said can be heard crying around the walls of castles.

[theartistknownaslymond]

Whumptober 2022 day 20

Going into Shock | Fetal Position | Prisoner Trade

Apparently I’m chronically behind - I started writing this with a different scene, but it was a bit of a stretch so I decided to do the Worst Thing a Lymond fan can do. I whumped the Somervilles. (only emotionally. but still. sorry) Anyway, that’s why everything’s still late.

CW: references to road accidents, hospitals, terminal injuries. Death of close family member. As you’ll see, some details from canon have been changed.

Oh, and glossary: EFDSS - English Folk Dance and Song Society. Bum-bag - fanny-pack. Hinny - North Eastern dialect word equivalent to ‘dear’.

---

Philippa and Kate had arrived at the venue before Gideon. It was a relatively large hall in a rural location deep among the wild, undulating hills of the Borders. A special venue for a special night organised by the local folk club.

Philippa had explored every nook and cranny of the hall on arriving; she'd followed the sound tech - a slow-moving man who was not thorough enough for her liking - round, checking the arrangements; she tuned the instruments and sipped at the weak, milky tea the head of the folk club had made for them.

Kate watched all this with a small, knowing smile, until finally she saw that Philippa had run out of ways to busy herself. "Daughter, you left your Walkman in the car. Why don't you go and rest for a bit? It'll be a late night, but you'll be the first to see Dad coming that way."

"Shall we take bets on how late he'll be this time?" Philippa asked forthrightly.

A disbelieving laugh burst from Kate's lips. "Philippa! The nice Mr Lloyd from the folk club will think we're a family of gamblers!"

Philippa ignored her and rummaged in the pockets of the EFDSS-branded bum-bag she wore. "I bet you...42p Dad won't get here until half an hour before."

Kate's eyes narrowed and she smirked playfully. "Very well. I bet he won't get here until I'm on stage."

"And he'll say he was just hoping to get the chance to watch you play solo..." Philippa rolled her eyes and traipsed out of the room with a laugh.

She got into the back seat of the car and sat with her shoulders against one of the doors and her feet up on the seat. She was listening to a bootleg cassette Gideon had brought home from America. The quality wasn't great - it was grainy and the levels were all over the place - but the fiddle-playing was astonishing. Philippa closed her eyes and imagined she was playing along in some straw-lined barn full of cowboys and women in long, flouncy denim dresses. In this way she could amuse herself for as long as it took: she had spare batteries, and the playing was endlessly fascinating.

When the car door opened, she expected Kate to be rousing her in time for the set - promising a rare glass of Coca Cola to help with the late night.

Instead, she saw immediately that something was wrong.

Her mother's face was grey and pale. Her lips were nearly invisible, pressed hard together, and her eyes were big and glassy, reflecting the light from the clear night sky. She paused and then, instead of inviting Philippa to leave the car, she got inside and closed the door, and mimicked Philippa's pose, her knees drawn up to her chest, her arms locked around them. She didn't fuss about either of their pairs of shoes making the back seat muddy.

Philippa saw her mother's fingers shaking before Kate knotted them together and made them stop.

She swallowed, and though it was dark in the car, Philippa knew that Kate's expression was unlike she had ever seen it.

"Ma?" she pulled her headphones off and pressed stop on the cassette. Instead of reaching out, Philippa curled tighter on herself and gripped her knees with enough force to make her knuckles ache. "What's happened?"

She guessed it could only be one thing, but she didn't know what else to ask.

Kate worked her lips, trying to hold onto her control, though Philippa could tell by her puffy eyes that she'd been crying already.

"We just...we just had a call, inside the venue," Kate gasped the words out. "Dad... Gideon...he had an accident, Pippa."

"What kind of accident?" she blurted.

Kate grimaced. "On his bike, pet," she said softly. "He was...he was running an errand for Mr Crawford. Thought he could get it done before the gig. He had that sweet lass, Christian, in the side-car."

Philippa's established dislike of Mr Crawford latched onto this significant information, and she struggled to process the rest of it through the roaring anger in her body. "He WHAT?"

"Philippa..." Kate closed her eyes and reached out, seeking her daughter's hand. "Philippa, you know Dad has his principles. He does...he did what he believed was right."

"He did?"

Philippa's voice trembled, rising hysterically. The surge of anger she had felt at hearing Mr Crawford's name had come at the forefront of a tsunami of adrenaline. It seemed to have blasted through her in a matter of seconds, and now left her empty and afraid.

Kate sighed and shook Philippa's hand, like she'd jog a baby's fist in hers, reassuring and familiar. But her eyes were still closed, and her grief was anything but familiar.

"Dad didn't make it, hinny," she forced the words out, then forced her eyes open.

Philippa saw the effort it took, but couldn't suppress her own horror. "No, Ma!"

"Yes, pet," Kate was crying again now, the tears sliding silently down her cheeks. "They've got him at the hospital in Newcastle. They're still doing their best for the young lass."

"No..." Philippa repeated. She squeezed Kate's hand back and found she was crying too. Confusingly, she felt like it was Kate's tears that had prompted hers, and not the news itself, which simply seemed impossible to her.

Kate nodded. "'Fraid so, pet. We're going to go and see him. I think they're... they're waiting for us to say goodbye."

"What do you mean? He's not dead?!" Philippa cried.

Kate took a deep breath and explained that, while there was nothing they could do to bring Gideon back, they could keep him breathing until his family got there. Philippa's mind swirled. This state of limbo seemed worse to her - horrific, almost. He was gone but his body remained, being pumped full of air like a set of bellows, or a squeezebox. It wasn't really saying goodbye, Philippa thought, if he'd already gone.

"Ma...I don't want to..." she said miserably.

Kate sniffed and smiled, and that was familiar; reassuring, even. "Me either, hinny. It's the last thing I want to do. I have so much to say to him, before I get to 'goodbye'. But we have to go. They can't wait all night. Others are going to need the bed. And Gideon wouldn't want to keep it from someone who needed it, would he?"

Philippa shook her head. Kate's fingers were cold in hers and she looked sickly and pale still, but Philippa had no concept of a world in which her mother couldn't manage to cope with things. Kate would get them to the hospital safely. And before she said goodbye, Philippa would tell Gideon off for driving dangerously, and for wasting his time on someone as awful as Mr Crawford.

First, Kate shifted, lowering her legs to the footwell, and she reached out to draw Philippa close in a big, enveloping bear hug. She stroked her hair and rocked her, but Philippa's mind was still whirling, disordered thoughts and worries and questions bubbling up in an order she had no control over.

"Kate?" She pulled away. "What about the gig? Don't we need the money?"

Kate smiled again, and Philippa saw her steel herself to break some further bit of bad news. "Mr Crawford had offered to fill in for us. He'll pass the fee on for Gideon's...for the funeral."

Philippa tensed, her body tempered by fury. Kate felt it and held onto her.

"Philippa..." she said wearily, warningly.

"But it's his fault!" Philippa's voice was louder than she meant it to be, and she was sorry to see her mother wince. "What did he want from Dad, anyway?"

Kate held her close and tight. She leaned her soft, warm cheek against Philippa's tousled hair and Philippa felt her shake her head a little. "He didn't ask Dad to do a thing, pet. Dad believes everyone deserves a fair hearing, that's all."

"Believed," Philippa corrected her sullenly.

Kate sighed. "Yes. And please don't say it's anyone's fault, my child. There is no rhyme or reason in these things. Mr Crawford no more wanted this outcome than we did."

Philippa squeezed her face against Kate's soft jumper and sobbed. She didn't accept it, not for a moment. Mr Crawford had come into their lives with the intent to make them all suffer, and she would never, ever forgive him.

[notasapleasure]

2, 3, 4, 6 for the meme?

Thanks K! Hurt/comfort asks. I’m assuming the fandom is Lymond Chronicles here ;)

2. Favorite character to read/write angst of?

Predictably, Jerott (certainly to write), though I do enjoy reading Francis angst. There’s just something very appealing about Jerott’s propensity to get angry about completely the wrong thing because he’s so woefully unable to deal with his own feelings.

3. Favorite ship/friendship to read/write angst of?

Francis (& or /) Jerott of course...the unrequited pining! The fact that they’re so very different but that Jerott is one of the few people Francis speaks a little more openly with. Loyalty and competence and the vulnerability of Jerott being completely unable to cope with verbal sparring, which is, of course, Francis’ forté.

4. Favorite “caretaker” character?

Ah! So! @erinaceina-blog and I were talking about how we want to see more of Francis being the caretaker - he gets whumped so often, but he’d be pretty good at looking after the people he loves if he needed to do so.

But also Kate Somerville. I wish Flaw Valleys existed so I could go an be looked after by Kate when life was getting too overwhelming.

6. Which do you prefer in a fic, illness or injury? Type of illness/injury you prefer?

Hmmm I find injury easier to write I think, having, I am very lucky to say, very little experience with physical illness. But in terms of chronic things I do get a lot from thinking about how that affects a character - what it’s done to their background and the choices they’ve made, for instance. But I think in the historical setting if the illness isn’t going to be anachronistic then it can frustrate me because it has to be necessarily vague if the characters don’t understand it themselves so well. (though this is probably fandom specific actually - illness in The Terror tends to be more interesting to write about and read about than injury, and part of that is about how poorly they understand what’s happening to them...)

[owlpostart]

I’ve been sucked, body and soul into The Lymond Chronicals by Dorothy Dunnett and would make a crack at myself over how easily i seem to fall for the blond, male antihero but it would lessen the epic and agonising read that was A Game Of Kings. I finished this evening after a day of reading literally on the edge of my bed, crawling up the walls, going to make strategic cups of tea when it became Too Much and then abandoning the process because i NEEDED to keep reading for about 10 hours with the curtains closed against the July sun and my phone on airplane mode and just crawled, dazed and hollow-feeling to my desk to try and quickly draw something close to how i’ve been seeing Lymond before I go to bed. @magpiefngrl this is the second rec you’ve given me that’s reduced me to an obsessed person and I couldn’t love you enough for it!!!!! (Also you can’t picture Lymond in traditional Tudor dress??) I have so soooo so many thoughts and feelings about this book and am SO HYPED that there are 5 more in the series. (even with the warnings from fans about how much more awful and painful they become. give me all the fictional pain.) 

[boatcats]

A fic (originally supposed to be a drabble!) written in response to a prompt that @notasapleasure gave me. The prompt was from a hurt/comfort prompt list and was “hurt character has to talk the person caring for them through giving them stitches.” I wrote it. And now it is super long.

Thank you to @notasapleasure for the prompt and for suggesting the idea of the hyper-competent (Lymond, it’s Lymond) character having a wound they can’t reach that necessitates them asking for help.

I ended up starting it in the middle of the action, but the set-up is that Will and Lymond are off on some ridiculous adventure post-GoK and Lymond gets hurt. Will feels unexpectedly tender and also has some feelings about Lymond without a shirt. I know the war was over by that point, but I’m sure there was plenty of trouble for them to get into. The medical accuracy is very hand-wavy because I was tired and am not a medical professional. And because I found conflicting sources about whether sutures were common in the 16th century so I figured I could do what I liked. Under a cut due to the subject matter (not exactly ‘dead dove do not eat’ but the dove has been through it).

“How, in all your time with our little band, did you never learn to do this?”

“There was always …” Will foundered a bit in his embarrassment. “There was always someone who already knew.”

“Christ.” Lymond sounded more disappointed than worried. “Well, I suppose this will be my humble contribution to ars medica. This is my body, given up for you, etc.”

“Do you want to tell me how to do it? Or are you going to bleed to death holding mass?”

“Patience, Marigold. To everything there is a season. How hard is it bleeding?”

“Uh. Medium?”

This was met by a pointedly long-suffering sigh. “Well, let’s get it down to medium-low. My shirt’s a lost cause. Use that. Then start a fire and heat some water.”

Lymond leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees as Will pressed into the gash with the ruined shirt.

He made no sound, his composure an expanse of flat, white nothingness, a field beneath new snow. Even so, Will was too aware of the warmth of his back, the vulnerability of his breath and the pulse beating hard in his neck, his utter stillness otherwise.

It was dizzying to be trusted like this. A year ago, Will had stabbed Lymond in a cellar. The scar was surely still there. If Will moved to his front he would see it.

But Lymond seemed at ease with Will’s touch.

“How’s the bleeding?” Lymond asked.

Right. The bleeding.

“Better. Nearly stopped.”

“Good. Make a fire and heat some water. There are supplies in my bag.”

Taking his hands from Lymond’s shoulders, Will set about the tasks he’d been given.

Halfway through, while waiting for the water to boil, he brought Lymond a blanket. Lymond’s lips curved up at the edges, like he’d been planning to laugh but then thought better of it. He accepted the blanket.

Preparation done, supplies in hand, Will returned to find his patient sitting with the blanket over his chest, leaving his back bare.

Something about the pose seemed too vulnerable for Lymond. Will didn’t like it. It occured to him that, after the galleys, it might be a sort of hell to sit quiet while someone worked unseen behind your back.

“Can I put my hand on your shoulder so you know where I am when I’m behind you?” Will asked. “Then you can tell me what to do.”

A look of surprise flashed across Lymond’s face, like someone offered something to which he was not accustomed, a traveler confronted with strange hospitality in a foreign land. But then he shrugged and said lightly “if you like.”

Permission thus received, Will moved behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. It was the sort of touch that said ‘I’m here. This is where my hands are in relation to your body. Don’t startle. Don’t worry.’

Lymond huffed out a laugh. “You’re being very careful with me, Marigold. I’m not going to haul off and punch you if it hurts.”

“That’s not what I’m – are you going to tell me what to do or not?”

The shoulder under Will’s hand jerked with more suppressed laughter. “Alright, clean it up as much as you can. Then thread the needle …”

They continued on this way for some time, with Lymond giving instructions in a quiet voice and Will following as best he could.

Finally, Will finished the last stitch and paused, considering how he might tie off the thread. As the moment of inaction dragged on, the muscles in Lymond’s back jumped and tensed. He was clearly expecting pain but uncertain, now, when it would come.

Will felt something ache in his chest, somewhere between guilt and fondness. “I’m done with the stitches,” he said. “Just thinking how to tie it off.”

Lymond nodded, then pressed his face hard into his hands and drew an audible breath. “Should I assume you know how to tie a knot?”

“Yes. And how to tie a bandage, too.” Lymond’s tone deserved an acid comeback but Will couldn’t think of one.

“Have at it, then.”

Lymond was quiet through the rest of it. Will tried to narrate what he was doing, an unexpected tenderness making him protective. He didn’t want Lymond to flinch again.

Afterwards, Will cleaned up the supplies. Lymond dressed, his movements sure even as he used the shredded, blood soaked shirt to wipe the pain sweat from his chest.

“Thank you, Marigold,” he said, giving Will a brief, unguarded smile. His voice was slightly slurred now from exhaustion. “I’m going to bed.”

[boatcats]

It just dawned on me that, given the "I'd woo him myself" comment, Henry Lauder's idea of a perfect first date is CROSS EXAMINATION.

[boatcats]

Dorothy Dunnet: Will Scott was imprisoned with Lymond at Threave.

Me: Gay baby jail.

[boatcats]

Lymond in the Tolbooth, going from very asleep to very awake: Wha- ?

Will Scott: I - stop screaming, it's just me (and Mr. Lauder) - I've saved your life playing cards and you're not going to be executed tomorrow.

(Lymond: I wasn't screaming; Will: I know, but I kind of hoped you would a little.)

[boatcats]

God. I am having so many emotions about Lymond.

Christian Stewart. Oh God.

[boatcats]

Evolving reactions to Lymond

Originally: asshole.

Soon: fellow chronic illness trauma baby!

Eventually: friend!!

[boatcats]

Oh no.

[boatcats]

Anyway, Psyduck the Pokemon was, in fact, based on Lymond.

[boatcats]

My chiropractor and I were talking about my past with Olympic style fencing and how it's easy to end up with more muscles on your dominant side.

And he said that rowing team members also get like that and that they end up with one arm much stronger than the other and a lot of soreness throughout their shoulders and back.

Anyway. Just thought I'd leave <3 this <3 here <3 for a certain tiny fandom. I'm not entirely sure I didn't straight up say "iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinteresting..." out loud.

Lymond × chronic pain thesis etc.

[boatcats]

Recommending The Lymond Chronicals to friends.

[boatcats]

The Lymond Chronicals

Someone who cares about Francis Crawford: Are you okay?

Francis Crawford: YEP!

Francis Crawford: