Hi y’all, I am trying to keep up a posting schedule of every two weeks on Friday, and here we go, we’re really getting started this week with a full-length chapter one (and a slightly updated cover)!
LAST TIME ON The Mirror Crack’d: Someone was pursued by a dark creature.
And now, the THRILLING CONCLUSION: Fingon rescues our fleeing thrall and brings him to the safety of Himring.
Link to Fear Behind Him on AO3
Link to Fear Behind Him on SWG
Chapter rating: Teen and up.
Hi y’all I am here with a fic I have been working on for a VERY long time and am really excited about. Originally I was going to wait till I finished the cover for it to start posting, but then I said, wait a minute, self, you can update people with the in-progress cover while you are also posting the in-progress fic! So here we are with the first WIP version of the cover, and the prologue of the fic!
Summary: Rescued from a brutal Angband hunt, an ex-thrall with a strange and powerful artifact embedded in his spine is brought to Himring, for it is one of the only places in Beleriand which welcomes such folk. Though he has no memories of his life before, Anniavas slowly becomes accustomed to his new life and finds he has a queer connection with Maedhros, Himring’s lord. As their intimacy grows, however, so do the dangers surrounding them, both without and within. What secrets are hidden inside the depths of Anniavas’s lost memories–and how will those with whom he is forging and deepening bonds react, when those secrets are at last revealed?
If you like Maedhros/Sauron, polyamory, tea-drinking, PTSD, a bundle of non-binary and female OCs including a very cute puppy, and questions of identity, redemption, and personhood in the context of how a person’s shape and environment can impact their behavior, then this is the fic for you!
Not Rated: While there are a few explicit scenes, the fic is primarily somewhere in the T/M space. I will be segregating explicit scenes and warning for them in the A/N.
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Moderate Violence
Summary: A deal goes wrong on the yellow tier. We are introduced to a kitsune prince and his terrifying lover.
Short Tail tried to stand a little straighter as she entered the conference room at the end of the line. She did not want to make any mistakes on her first day of duty, particularly not as a guard of the illustrious Leopard family. She was still unsure as to how she, Short Tail, the runt of the parade, had made it this far, and she damn well didn’t want to disappoint, even if she was only serving as the guard for the youngest son, Leopard Paw, and according to all her squad mates, today’s meeting barely counted as guard work at all.
“Final meeting with the kitsune prince?” Sharp Fangs had smirked. “I think you’ll be fine.”
All the same, Short Tail was curious. There weren’t many kitsune on the yellow tier, and Bee of the Wolf family was one of the only ones coming from princely blood.
When they entered, he didn’t look like anything special. Seated at the head of the table and sprawling a little, feet up, he looked like any other troll prince, his dark hair gathered in small, beaded braids close to his head. There was something strange about the wide set of his eyes and the glitter of yellow in the depths of his irises, but Short Tail would never have noticed if she hadn’t already known. Far more striking—and simultaneously surprising—was his companion.
Continue reading “The Man in the Runic Kerchief”
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Blood and violence, dark themes, mild internalized homophobia
Summary: When Feithlyn moves from her tiny village to the big city to study veterinary medicine, she’s expecting some things to change. She is not expecting to become embroiled in a ghostly murder mystery, at the center of which stands an enigmatic figure known only as the ghost-queller. As Feithlyn’s world expands, she fights to keep her footing–and her life.
The bird cocked its head and tapped on the glass.
“Stop that! Shoo!” It wasn’t that Feithlyn didn’t like crows, it was just that the last few times she had turned her back, this one had managed to open the window and sneak inside, dropping feathers everywhere for her to clean up. Crows did not belong in a café, and if the owner found out, Feithlyn feared for her employment, which meant fearing for her tiny one-room apartment, which meant fearing she would have to complete her veterinary degree while homeless. Which sounded difficult.
Continue reading “The Ghost-Queller”
Summary: Sheriff Solshemshesh and his sheriff-in-training Lekni try to stop a rash of violent deaths in the little desert town of Saplapelanka.
Rating: Teen and up
Warnings: Some violence
Notes: Genders: male, female, trine (third gender), quine (genderfluid).
Kimah was setting and the sun rising as Lekni set off at an exasperated trot southwards of Saplapelanka. Someday, she thought, people would stop being idiots. And someday, she would stop being the sheriff’s errand-runner and instead be able to delegate someone else to go lead those idiots back to the town.
She spotted the group before she’d gone three miles, squatting embarrassedly half-naked around a large campfire in the lee of a sand dune. Lekni waved tiredly as she arrived. “I did warn you,” she said irritably to the first of their group, a merchant named Peltlin, if she was remembering correctly.
They scowled at her. “The woman sounded like she knew what she was talkin’ about,” they muttered sulkily.
“Well, I’ve brought you shoes, blankets, and horses. Courtesy of Sheriff Solshemshesh. So you’ll be able to get back to town easily.” She received a highly ungracious grunt that might have been a thanks and rolled her eyes. “Do you need me to lead you back?”
“We’ll be fine,” Peltlin muttered. A young woman patted their arm gently and gave Lekni a sudden smile. “Don’t bother about my parent,” she said. “They’re just frustrated at getting fooled. Thank you for helpin’ us.”
Lekni felt her cheeks warm, like a fool. “Let me know if there’s anythin’ else,” she mumbled, turning her horse back towards Saplapelanka.
She had plenty of time on the way back to curse the person who kept running this stupid con. She could, she supposed, also have cursed Shem for constantly making her deal with it, but that seemed less fair. After all, he was trying to train her to take his place someday, so she should be the one dealing with the routine annoyances. And it wasn’t like he knew this was going to be happening.
Continue reading “A Love Like Water”
Mertiya Writes (and Draws) 