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Lavender Light

some creative writing I did about a femme fatale and a queen

inspired by this quiz

for Nixie @highly-functioning-mitochondria

Trigger warning: self-harm in the context of a fantasy magic ritual (burn wounds)

"It might do you good to share what you're thinking more..." the dark-skinned woman clad in expensive travelling clothes said, leaning over the Queen's desk with a dangerously gorgeous smile on her lips. "...Your Majesty." she added as an afterthought, eyes sparkling.

The Queen tensed imperceptibly, staring at the unfamiliar woman who had just waltzed into her study. A beautiful green structured jacket paired well with the black leather leggings she wore, and a few artful curls of her hair framed her lovely face, giving her an alluring yet commanding air. But the Queen's sharp eyes snagged on the dagger strapped to her leather-clad thigh, and the callouses visible on the woman's hands. She knew where one acquired callouses like that. This woman trained with weapons regularly. The threatening edge this gave her only enhanced her dazzling beauty.

There was a word for women like this one, the Queen thought. Femme fatale.

"And who are you?" the Queen demanded, rising from her desk. She had a solid ten centimetres height advantage over the woman, but somehow, the femme fatale seemed overwhelming in her presence. 

Those sparkling eyes held her guarded ones like a vice. “Call me Nix, my lady. I was at the council meeting today, you see...thus my opening comment.”

“That it would do me good to share what I’m thinking more? Yes, thank you for your advice, Madame Nix. It is most appreciated.” the Queen said, her tone making it very clear that it was the opposite of appreciated. “But why were you at the council meeting and why are you in study, exactly?”

As if on cue, the study door swung open to admit one of the Queen’s personal guards, carrying a black leather overcoat draped over his arm and a look of barely-contained panic on his face. The moment he laid eyes on the two women facing off in the middle of the room, the blood drained from his face. His posture snapped into a low bow of apology. “Queen Dove! I tried to stop her, but she insisted! It was my fault--” he cut himself off, as if sensing the Queen’s glacial brown eyes on him without having to look at her.

“It’s fine. At ease, man.” the Queen said evenly, waving a manicured hand to dismiss the issue. “Madame Nix here doesn’t seem like the type to be stalled if she doesn’t want to be.”

Nix’s captivating laughter rang through the study. “You understand me already, my lady! That bodes very well for our working relationship.”

The Queen went very still as she began to catch on to who exactly this woman was supposed to be. “Working. Relationship.” she repeated, tilting her head to one side to show that it was a question, but her tone utterly flat.

The guard, still hovering in the doorway with Nix’s overcoat draped over his arm, opened and closed his mouth like a beached fish, as if trying to muster the strength to answer the Queen’s question, but finding no strength to speak of.

Nix seemed to find the guard’s discomfort amusing. Taking it upon herself to make it worse, she turned toward the desk and promptly seated herself on its mahogany surface. With a catlike stretch, she reached across a stack of papers and grabbed the Queen’s decanter of cognac, which she poured into the crystal tumbler that the Queen had been drinking from mere minutes ago, judging by the dark magenta lipstick stains on the rim.

The guard brought a hand to his mouth in abject horror.

The Queen’s eyes followed Nix’s antics languidly, her proud oval face showing not the slightest flicker of a reaction to this overt display of boldness.

Between sips, Nix articulated herself in words both concise and charming. “I was at the council meeting because I wanted to see you in action before deciding to commit my services to you. Your former bodyguard, may the Goddess rest his soul, was an old schoolmate of mine, and in our correspondence, he always spoke so highly of you that it made me curious as to what kind of liege could inspire such devotion in a man as ill-natured as he was. In his will, he left me one last letter, a letter conveying his wish that I might consider taking his place at your side if he was ever killed on duty.” the femme fatale finished her cognac and set the tumbler down on the desk beside her with a resounding thud of crystal on wood. “And so, here I am, my queen.”

Finally, something stirred within the perfectly impassive doll of a Queen. Her narrow shoulders pinched together with something that might’ve been interpreted as pain. Her slender arms came up to cross over her chest, as if to shield her heart from some unseen assault. “You were Vance’s--” her voice, which despite its natural softness, had always sounded strong and compelling to all who heard her, now took on a small, fragile quality in those three words that she quickly cut off with a shuddering breath. “I understand now. Though I don’t understand why you couldn’t have just explained all this in the first place.” as if nothing at all had happened, the Queen dropped her arms at her sides and smoothed the black velvet of her skirt over her narrow hips. When she raised her gaze again, it snapped to Nix with renewed severity. “So, I presume if you’re here to talk with me, I’ve passed your evaluation and you’re ready to perform the necessary rites to become my new bodyguard?”

Nix must’ve sensed the whirlpool of emotions locked tightly beneath the Queen’s poised facade, because her next sentence held something soft and almost compassionate, though her tone did not lose its glib cadence. “But of course. Not every queen can survive such a violent attempt on her life, lose her bodyguard of ten years in the process, and still attend a council meeting with such composure and insightful leadership left in her. But you, Your Majesty, did just that.” 

In her first display of true deference since arriving in the study, Nix slipped off the desk and bowed low.

“Queen Dove, would you accept me, the mere daughter of a minor noble, to be your contract-bound bodyguard?”

The Queen was silent for the span of a single, slow breath. “Yes.” she assented with quiet finality. 

Nix dropped forward onto a knee, bowing her head even lower.

The Queen crossed to her and held out an upturned palm, which Nix placed her calloused right hand into. Their palms flush against each other, the Nix released her magic first, as was customary. The femme fatale’s magic manifested in a lavender blaze that radiated from her downturned palm like a beacon, bright like her playful and unreadable eyes. 

"I, Nixie Dearheart, swear my fealty unto you, Queen Dove Mayheart. I will protect you with my life endlessly, until you choose to release me from my service, or I should die in my service to you. Under these two circumstances alone will I ever leave your side.”

Accepting these words with a nod of her head, the Queen released her own magic. Hers was emerald green, spilling softly from her hand like candlelight, alive and strong like the branches of an evergreen tree, but somewhat subdued when compared to the blinding radiance of Nix’s aura.

The guard in the doorway, who had left hurriedly at the beginning of the contract ritual, now returned with a bowl with iced water and clean cotton cloth, and set it down on the mahogany desk as the smell of burning flesh filled the study.

Nix let out a hiss of pain, but seemed more concerned about the Queen.

The Queen, however, did not react at all to the contract mark being burned into the skin of her left palm. Her dark eyes were fixed on the wall above Nix’s head, as if entranced by something no one else in the room could see. 

Nix’s gaze fell to the Queen’s other hand. On her right palm, another contract mark was seared into her skin. Vance’s contract mark. Now nothing more than a scar and a constant reminder of his death.

“It’s done.” Nix said as soon as she felt her magic settle, and she pulled their palms apart. 

The Queen passively allowed herself to be led over to the desk where the guard began gently cleansing her new burn wound. Beneath the magically cauterised mess of puckered skin, lavender light flowed stridently along the lines of the mark. Corresponding perfectly on Nix’s hand, the Queen’s emerald mark glowed more gently.

Nix hummed in relief as she submerged her hand in the bowl of iced water. Her eyes never left the Queen’s face, searching for any semblance of human emotion in her impossibly deep brown eyes.

But the Queen’s unbroken facade was like a wall of smooth, beautiful Venetian marble.

Nix looked again at the emerald mark binding her to her new liege, and made a silent promise in the confines of her own mind.

Vance, you can rest easy now, darling. She’s safe with me. I won’t let anything hurt her ever again.

to be continued...

but then again, maybe not, I am very lazy after all

thanks for reading ❣

~ Dove

Mausoleum

The only thing as consistent in this world as the sin of human beings is the inevitability of my death and the dust of my forgotten bones. Through the many ages my bones have turned to dust behind the protection of stone, been worn by the weight of the dirt that pressed down on them and been burned to ash on many a pyre. My skull sits, bejeweled and gilded beneath the altar of a Cathedral in Europe. Somewhere, I know, lost to me in the shuffle, is an arrow carved from one of my tibias sitting in a velvet case in a museum. I still remember the day I dug it up, with a shovel and my bare skin, holding the sharp edges in my palm and running my thumb over the divots worn by time. It had been many years since I held a relic of my life and as the bone warmed in my palm, I felt those long forgotten sensations dust themselves off in my chest; the feeling of the kohl rimming my eyes, silk sliding over the skin of my thighs, the desert sun kissing my collarbones.

The only thing as present as my death is his own. It has happened more times than I can recall in this age though, some of my sharpest memories are often those littered with my own agony; as I see him finally, my lost companion, marching along the front lines of my army before the slaughter. I can so crisply recall the soft strands of his hair soaked in blood, body littered with wounds on the steps of a great building, surrounded by traitors. Some deaths are even more agonizing as I miss them entirely. Hearing about it from an advisor, reading about it in a book, the newspaper. A new memory, not greyed by the act of distant remembrance, often plays before my eyes as I drift off to sleep; standing before an exhibit as people mill around me, mothers corralling their children, teenagers huddled together as they shuffle past, and me, looking up at him for the first time with my new eyes.

He was smiling in the picture, arms thrown around two other men as they stood before a car, a 1932 Ford Model 18 V8 read the small plaque below the picture. His dark hair was slicked back beneath a top hat, and his coat was fitted to his lean frame. I was so transfixed; I did not realize I had stepped forward and placed my hand on the glass of the photo until a guard sternly asked me to take a step back. The moment was distinct, when the world came rushing back to me and a sharp pang took over my chest when I realized it, when I knew it in my soul. I had missed him entirely. It happened from time to time, when the only way we knew of one another was through a history book or a passing mention from a stranger. I was only eleven when I listened through the crack in the door of my father’s court as his advisor told him the tale of the Great King who had died in Babylon, as was prophesied. Not even the muddled understanding of my youth could keep me from the crushing loneliness of knowing, in my soul, that I would be utterly alone through my life.  

The memories come slowly at first, a morbid understanding of a wisdom beyond my years is often recognized by those around me, though considered the quirk of my personality. At some point, an understanding settled in me to hold those memories close to my heart as the smell of smoke still burned the inside of my nose from time to time, the echo of my charred flesh shaking me from my slumber. I think, sometimes, that I can hear the timber of his screams paired with taste of ash in my mouth. I singed myself once with a candle; I watched the blood drain from his face as he cradled my burned skin and he wept. It was clear that our shared memory was much sharper, in his mind, than my vague impressions. There are many stories we cannot bear to tell the other that haunt the space behind our eyes. At some point he stopped looking at fire the same way and still, he has yet to understand why when he turns his head to the side, just so, tears slide down my cheeks as I see him sprawled on the dirt, neck broken as my husband towers over him in a foreign land.

Sometimes, warming ourselves in the light of a fire, the night settled around us where no prying ears could hear we would fill in the gaps of each other’s forgotten experience. The name of our first born child, the war we fled from, the court he presided over, the last name he wore. Our own names were long forgotten along with the life they lived, a sad but relieving tragedy in the face of our endless existence.

His favorite story was that of his time as one king or another, the kingdom forgotten in the cracks of his memory, but he could still remember the sweet smell of my hair as I poured wine into his goblet. He had never noticed a servant before yet found himself slowly lifting my trembling chin. His mouth had stretched into a grin when our eyes met and he often teased that his first thought was that of triumph to finally be the towering authority to my submission after so many moments standing before my many thrones age after age.

My favorite tale is always that of the wide set of his eyes as he was introduced to the visiting sister of a fellow priest as we stood on the steps of a great cathedral. His surprise was so great, he tripped on his way down the steps and landed in a heap before the hem of my skirts. I would always tease him for how he could barely make eye contact with me once he righted himself and he would defend himself with a scoff and a waving of his hands. How was an old soul in the body of a young man supposed to react when he realized how sorely he regretted taking his holy orders not even months prior as he was now faced with his lost love.

Our journeys to finding one another were mostly a waiting for fate, which we both had decided must exist, and would lead us together eventually. Though, the fear was always there of when, and how, and if that meeting would happen, our hope scarred by many missed opportunities. In the meantime, how were we supposed to live our lives? Sometimes the waiting would be too much, and our indifference would grow as our years passed in one life or another. One cannot cease living to wait for the companionship of another and the years after that realization were often better for it, and the meeting if it did come, was a gift more sweet.

One of my favorite pass times is reading about him, those details I don’t know or the people I missed entirely. Only years prior, I even wrote a thesis in my senior year of university on the phenomena of prohibition crime, inspired by that picture; the smirk on his lips, the gun in his pocket, looking the ever suave American gangster. I hope to remember my work by the next time I see him so I can ask him my curious questions. He will most likely tease me for being so obsessive as to write a thesis on him. Though, he’ll quickly blush when I mention the multiple volumes he wrote on a past queendom, by hand, when Gutenberg was but a young man.

In this life, however, my love for his past life is, I am beginning to see, a veiled acceptance. A hope that, if I dig enough, he will appear. If I just walk through the museum hall one more time he will be standing before that picture, waiting. I have yet to learn, once again, that waiting will only lead me to an agony too deep to encounter.

I hope, in the meantime, to leave something behind for him as I am now, so that when fate eventually brings him to stand in a museum hall, or see the names on a wall of alumni, or maybe read my name under the authorship of a paper handed to him by his professor, there will be something there to comfort him, to give him, until we see one another again.

(s.m.)

Recently finished reading this (not this particular printing, but the 1975 Bantam version, with the cover by Pauline Ellison, below). I tried reading it many years ago at my mother's recommendation (she also got me into Pratchett, and many other fantasy and scifi authors), and for some reason just bounced off it.

I'm very glad I came back to it; I can absolutely see why it's considered a classic of the genre, it's nice and short too, so I'd definitely recommend it to either fans of the fantasy genre, or even people curious as to where a lot of things we often take for granted within the genre.

Looking forward to reading more! :)

Brian Hampton’s 1974 cover to A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula K. Le Guin

The cosmogony of French fantasy

The title is not by me - this is actually the title of an article I want to kind-of-translate kind-of-recap here. "Cosmogonie de la fantasy française - Genèse et émancipation", "Cosmogony of French fantasy - Genesis and emancipation", by Marie-Louise Bougon. It was an article part of the "Worldbuilding" issue of the French National Library review (La revue de la BNF), back in 2019, and it brings a lot of interesting element for those who are curious about what fantasy literature looks like currently in France (since all the fantasy we talk about is mostly American or British).

Here is the rough translation/summary:

Fantasy only appeared quite late in France - and if the first translations of English-speaking fantasy only come from the 1970s, we will have to wait for the new editorial dynamic of the 1990s for a true "French fantasy" to appear and specialize itself - many talk of a "French touch" that makes these books clearly different from their English companions.

I) The first translations: a fragmented territory

The first translations in French of fantasy books started in the 70s. The decisions of publishing houses at the time made it quite hard for a reader to identify "fantasy" as its own genre. Indeed, most fantasy authors (especially British ones) were published by houses specializing in "general literature" - The Hobbit was translated as "Bilbo le Hobbit" in 1969 by Stock, before it took care of the Cycle de Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake, while in 1972 Christian Bourgeois releases the first French translation of the Lord of the Rings. Another part of fantasy books - more American, these ones, the inheritors of the pulp aesthetic, the sword and sorcery books - was rather translated in collections dedicated to either science-fiction, or fantastique. [N.o.T.: The French term "fantastique" designates a specific literary genre in which supernatural elements suddenly happen in an otherwise normal, regular and mundane setting identical to our own - as opposed to "merveilleux" which is about describing worlds where the magical and fabulous is mundane. Dracula would be "fantastique" while fairytales are "merveilleux".] There was the collection "Aventures fantastiques" by the editions Opta, or the science-fiction collection of Lattès.

Fantasy was perceived originally as merely a sub-genre of science-fiction - an idea that was kept alive by collections such as "Pocket science-fiction" or "J'ai lu - SF" that published a mix of science-fiction and fantasy works throughout the 80s. Outside of the short-lived collection "Heroic Fantasy" by Stan Barets at the Temps futurs publishing house (it only lasted from 1981 to 1983), we would have to wait for quite some time before publishers started to understand that fantasy was its own genre. In 1988, the Atalante creates the "Bibliothèque de l'évasion" (Library of evasion) collection. Fleuve noir creates in 1998 a fantasy collection called "Dentelle du cygne" (Swan's lace), that in 2002 was replaced by "Rendez-vous ailleurs", "Meetings at other places". These were for large formats - pocket formats also started their own specific collections. J'ai lu Fantasy in 1998, for example, and in 1988 the Pocket SF collection started to add sub-titles such as "Fantasy", "Dark Fantasy" or "Science-fantasy" to differentiate the works. However, despite all these efforts, the original decades-old confusion between fantasy, SF and general literature hindered the growth of the genre in France, since it never got a true visibility...

II) Cartography of the "great old ones"

If people only start to realize and understand the genre itself at the end of the 80s, it doesn't mean that there never was any French fantasy works until this date. In fact, the Callidor editions, specializing in "fantasy archeology", have made an effort to dig up and bring back to light the works that shaped the French fantasy - and for them, the oldest French work of fantasy would be the epic Les Centaures, in 1904, written by André Lichtenberger. In 2005, the author Laurent Kloetzer went even further than this - he claimed that Flaubert's Salammbô (an 1862 sensual, violent and Orientalist historical novel) was one of the earliest examples of French fantasy. Kloetzer notably pointed out the similarity between Salammbô's baroque style, and the one of Michael Moorcock's Gloriana, and how the way Robert Howard described bloody battles was quite close to Flaubert's own war descriptions. By retrospectively considering these works as fantasy, this would make the French fantasy a continuation of the merveilleux genre (see my mentions above).

So, French precursors did exist - but they remained lonely and rare experimentations, that never got any true success upon their release. Nathalie Henneberg, an author of science-fiction (who often published under the name of her husband, Charles Henneberg) did made a few fantasy pauses in her SF career during the 1960s - Le Sang des astres (The blood of celestial bodies) and Les Dieux verts (The Green gods), republished by Callidor in 2018. However the most notorious example of this "primitive French fantasy" would be Jacques Abeille's Cycle des contrées, published in 1982 at Flammarion, then re-edited in 2012 by the Attila editions, and finally released in pocket format by Folio SF in 2018. This cycle, that describes the exploration of another world full of wonders and magics, took more than thirty years to be recognized as a fantasy works - and that despite Abeille having sent his manuscript to Julien Gracq, one of the greatest French fans of Tolkien at the time. If people did notice a similarty between fantasy books and Abeille's works, editors made nothing of it - one would have to wait for the more modern reedition for the "fantasy" aspect to be advertised. In 2011, in an interview, Jacques Abeille recalled a sentence one of his readers said to him: "As a kid, I watched Star Wars. As a teen, I read Tolkien. As an adult, I read you."

Abeille's new success in modern fantasy is however an exception, since other "precursors" of fantasy never regained such a late recognition: for example, Isabelle Hausser's Célubée, published in 1986 by Julliard, is still not sold as a fantasy work, and that despite being re-edited by Fallois in 2000 (with a Marc Fumaroli preface). Among other French early attempts, we can find Sous l'araignée du Sud (Under the South spider), a 1978 novel by Dominique Roche and Charles Nightingale, published by Robert Laffont. Unlike the previous works, this novel actually had a consciousness that it belonged to a new and "infant" genre. The back of the book doesn't use the "fantasy" word yet, but it does describe it as "a marvelous and terrifying fairy tale, in the line of Tolkien's work, in the heroico-fantastical tradition of the Anglo-Saxons, but this time written in French, in a rich and visual language, sparkling with humor."

In the 1980s, we see an hesitaton, an ambiguity between publishing/editing decisions that made the birth of this first fantasy completely invisible to the public, and a slow, creeping recognition by authors and publishers of a new genre. In 1983, Francis Berthelot's Khanaor duology was published in the Heroic Fantasy collection of Temps futurs - and in the preface the author clearly states its "fantasy" status. "No need to lie to ourselves, the same way general literature disdains SF, the SF disdains heroic fantasy. It makes it a sub-sub-genre, a doubly-poor parent of the Letters with a big L." This preface highlights the bad reputation of the genre at the time - for French people of the 80s, fantasy was just a sub-science-fiction, less thoughtful, less prone to reflexion, more turned towards adventure and entertainment. Despite all this criticism, fantasy will still manage to grow away from science-fiction, and find its place in the "genre literatures".

III) An expanding universe

It was around 1995 that a true turn of event happened, around the same time the first French publishing house entirely dedicated to fantasy were created (Mnémos and Nestiveqnen). Mnémos, originally conceived by Stéphane Marsan and Frédéric Weil to publish role-playing game novelizations, still edited during its first years French authors such as Mathieu Gaborit, Fabrice Colin, Laurent Kloetzer, Pierre Grimbert and Sabrina Calvo. Nicknamed "the Mnémos generation", these authors created a true boom and multiplication of the French fantasy works in the 2000s. Les Chroniques des Crépusculaires (The Chronicles of the Dusk-people), of Mathieu Gaborit (1995-96) and Le Secret de Ji, by Pierre Grimbert (prix Julia Verlanger in 1997) form the two first commercial successes of French fantasy.

This new fashion was certified by the creation in 2000 of the Bragelonne editions: this very prolific publishing house released translations of English works, but also promoted the writers of the "Mnémos generation", while discovering new authors. For example, Henri Loevenbruck with his Celtic saga La Moïra (2001-2002), or the Ange duo (already famous for their work on comic books and roleplaying games) with their cycle Trois Lunes de Tanjor (Three Moons of Tanjor, 2001-2003, re-edited in 2005 under the title Ayesha). Les Editions de l'Oxymore (The Oxymoron Editions), created in 1999, also allowed numerous French authors to start in the genre, via periodical anthologies - these anthologies contained short stories from authors now quite well-known, such as Justine Niogret, Mélanie Fazi or Charlotte Bousquet. The editorial expansion follows all the way throughout the 2000s, with new publishing houses opening regularly. Le Bélial', which created the Bifrost journal, published fantasy novels since 1998 (their collection "Fantasy", renamed "Kvasar" in 2011). The webzine ActuSF becomes an editing house in 2003, and dedicates its collection "Trois souhaits" (Three wishes) to French authors. Les Moutons électriques (The electrical sheeps) were born in 2004, and made famous Jean-Philippe Jaworski, while La Volte, around the same time, started the very noticeable Horde du Contrevent (Horde of the Counterwind) by Alain Damasio. The years 2010s also saw a few house apparitions - such as the Critic, Callidor and Scrineo editions - and there was also a very dynamic microedition market.

Of course, French youth publications also stayed very rich and prolific - finding a true audience after the Harry Potter phenomenon. Two famous French series played on the idea of "the adventures of a young wizard" - the Tara Duncan series by Sophia Audouin-Mamikonian, started in 2003 and a mass commercial success, and also started in 2003 the saga of the "world of Gwendalavir" by Pierre Bottero. While these works all evoke the Potter-phenomenon (teenage characters promised to a great destiny and magical powers in a fantastical parallel world), they do keep an original voice, find their own themes and specificities, and thus gain a faithful audience. In the Fantasy forum of the university of Artois, Pierre Bottero was the most frequently mentionned French author when participants were asked "Who is your favorite author?", making him a good rival of English-speaking fantasy authors.

If French fantasy managed to build itself, and to singularize itself - and if the genre became even more visible thanks to the recent mediatic success of the Game of Thrones TV series, Jérôme Vincent (director of ActuSF) made a quite disappointing observation in a 2017 interview. He noted that the "wave" expected did not happen. "The big cinema blockbusters all belong to either science-fiction or fantasy, the great TV series are all tied one way or another to fantasy, that's the same thing in comic books and video games, and that's without talking of role-playing games... [...] But it seems that is no effect, no repercusion of this onto fantasy literature." In order to ameliorate the visibility and the sales of fantasy books, since 2017 publishers created the "Mois de l'imagination" (Month of the imagination), a way to rival the "literary new year". While it is too early to establish if this worked or not, it is quite a hopeful sign to see that in "fantasy reading recommandations", French names start to pop up alongside the great English ones. As Estelle Faye wrote, "French fantasy seems to still suffer from an inferiority complex" - but we can only hope authors and readers will manage to fight it off.

IV) A world of its own ?

Is there a "French touch", a specificity to French fantasy? This question, frequently debated by fan forums, became the subject of a podcast produced by the website Elbakin.net, in which was noted the lack in France of huge cycles carried over several volumes (a very prominent feature of English-written fantasy). French fantasy authors prefers one-shots, short series (rarely more than a trilogy), or series of distnct novels merely sharing a same world (for example, the works of Lionel Davoust that take place in the Evanégyre world). This formal difference would however be due to the "fear" of editors, who do not dare putting in the world too-ambitous projects. Due to this format specificity, it seems that there is a lesser importance of the worldbuilding in French fantasy - which might be why its authors had a hard time building an audience in the beginnings. As David Peyron wrote it in Culture geek, fantasy fans tend to prefer the quality of the worldbuilding over the quality of the style. "If the quality of the world becomes essential, in return some traits such as the literary style, which gives its value to a cultural object in a classical system, are pushed aside." French fantasy, which is less of a worldbuilder and much more literary than its English counterpart, is as a result swimming against the stream. However, nowadays this particularly is accepted by the fans. Indeed, in recent reviews and articles, several French authors such as Jean-Philippe Jaworski or Alain Damasio are praise for their mastery of style - the first one because of how he writes like Alexandre Dumas, the second because of how versatile he can be with tones and genres. These literary qualities are obviously tied to the inspirations of the French authors, who do not have the "pulp inheritage" and rather take from French classics or swashbuckling novels. Of course, we also cannot ignore the theory that French readers are more sensible to the style when it comes to writing in their own language.

If we go towards themes, we can see several recurring motifs and traditions shared by both English-speaking and French-speaking fantasy. For example, Arthurian fantasy has sparked a certain interest in France - La Trilogie des Elfes (The Elf trilogy) of Jean-Louis Fetjaine (1998-2000), or Justine Niogret's Mordred (2013). However, French authors truly seem to express a taste for historical but non-medieval fantasy. Jean-Philippe Jaworski's Gagner la guerre (Win the war, 2009) takes place during a reinvented Renaissance, Johan Heliot's takes an interest in the rule of Louis XIV in his Grand Siècle (Great century) saga (2017-2018), Pierre Pevel choses the 17th century for the setting of his Les Lames du cardinal (The Cardinal's blades, 2007-2010), and finally Fabrice Anfosso takes inspiration from World War I in his Le Chemin des fées (The road of fairies, 2005). Urban fantasy also has a big success in France - especially one focusing on a reinvented Paris. There are numerous works reimagining the French capital as either filled with surpernatural beasts, either invaded by a scientific-marvelous touching to both the steampunk and gaslamp fantasies. For examples you have the Paris des merveilles cycle, by Pierre Pevel (Paris of marvels, 2003-2015), Un éclat de givre by Estelle Faye (A fragment of frost, 2014), Les Extraordinaires et Fantastiques Enquêtes de Sylvo Sylvain by Raphaël Albert (The Extraordinary and Fantastical Investigations of Sylvo Sylvain, 2010-2017), or Les Confessions d'un automate mangeur d'opium by Mathieu Gaborit and Fabrice Colin (Confessions of an opium-eating automaton, 1999).

Jacques Baudou described with enthusiasm the originality of French fantasy, whose main specificity is - according to him - a tendency to go to the margins. "The best works of French fantasy [...] operates a subversion of the codes, they practice the art of mixing, and as thus come off as greatly original literary objects". It seems indeed that, due to its late apparition, French fantasy benefited from a certain look-back on its own genre, making it easier for French authors to play with or subvert its codes. Anne Besson, however, nuances this opinion: she points out that the small number of French fantasy authors (compared to the mass of English-speaking authors) makes the differences in tones, themes and motifs much more obvious - which creates what is merely a feeling of a greater diversity.

Another element of French fantasy that seems to be born of its "lateness" is its reflexive dimension: French authors have a strong tendency towards the commentary and the erudition. For example, the fantasy anthologies of the Editions de l'Oxymore include between its short stories things such as critical files or textstaken out of classics of French culture. These practices seem to be an attempt at legitimizing a genre that still has a hard time being recognized as "true literature" - even though modern days receive fantasy works with much more benevolence than before.

V) To the conquest of the world ?

If French fantasy grew enormously since the first experiments of the 70s, and if it now benefits from a much better visibility, its market stays quite weak. A proof of that: the numerous funding campaigns launched these last years by different actors of the genre. French fantasy also has a hard time crossing the frontier. Le Livre et l'épée by Antoine Rouaud (The Book and the sword, first volume released in 2013) was translated in English, German, Dutch and Spanish. Le Secret de Ji of Pierre Grimbert (Ji's Secret) was also published in English via Amazon Crossing in 2013. But these are exceptions to the rule. But there is hope for future French publications - for example the Bragelonne publishing house established a partnership with the British Gollancz, a science-fiction specialist.

Last Line Tag Game:

Tagged by @writernopal for this one, (go check out her blog!)

Tagging: @lassiesandiego , @rickie-the-storyteller , @lyutenw

Rules: Post the Last Line you wrote.

(For my Gothic Victorian Fantasy WIP, Enchanted Illusions)

“[...] On the other side of the inn, the strange, blond haired young girl disguised as a boy would soon become his only hope and he her only clue on her strange mystery, but first, they’d have to meet [...]”

(For my Medieval Dark Fantasy WIP, The Last Wrath)

[...] “The most deadly piece in the chessboard is the one your opponent never saw coming,”  Her adoptive father gazed steadily ahead, speaking calmly as they walked side by side through the old palace’s moonlit gardens, “Never forget that, child.” Ellinor nodded. [...]

(I am well aware that the second last line bit is more of a “last paragraph”, but the actual last line, “Ellinor nodded”, would be completely out of context without it, lol)

Writing Share Tag

Thanks for the tag, @talesofsorrowandofruin (here)!

I'll go with the turning point for Kane Mylestrom's character arc in Song of Thorns! (Spoilers Ahead)

By the way, if you like this, please reblog, it helps a lot 💕

Kane walks into the King's study, posture as immaculate as his robes, silver sword at his side. His expression was unreadable, but behind it hid the storm of anxiety and worry at being summoned by the Head of State in the middle of the night. Especially after what had happened.

Keeping his nerves out of his voice, Kane asked, in his usual 'can-do' tone. He tilted his head slightly to the side. "Your Majesty. You summoned me?"

The King did not turn around immediately to greet him, sitting on an ornate chair in front of a great oak study desk, his signature golden goblet of wine on the table. The man was seemingly busy signing some kind of document and patiently took his time rather than answering the other's inquiry right away. Kane bit back the urge to hurry him up, forcing himself to stand at attention by the door.

Finally, after a drawn-out minute that felt like an eternity, the King took a sip of his wine and stood up with a look of... disappointment. Mocking him, Kane realized.

"Ah, yes. Kane. My most trusted war hound ..." The older man spoke in a languid, bored voice, that hid a snake's malice underneath. The King smirked as he continued. "And the most wayward fool I ever had the pleasure to place upon my chessboard."

Kane drew in a sharp breath, trying to keep his composure.

"I'm not sure I follow, sire"

The King groaned, like an annoyed teacher "Of course you don't. You're not paid to think - you're paid to obey." He punctuates his words tapping his jeweled fingers at the oak desk behind him. "But you had to go snooping around. A rogue pawn is a useless one, you know. Alas, you had one job. Orders to follow. And you had to go and fuck it all up."

This time, Kane did not restrain himself from glaring daggers at his superior, but his military training forced his answer to be formal.

"With all due respect, I have been nothing but loyal ever since I was knighted at the Tempest's Keep ."

At that, the King chuckled, a rumbling sound that made Kane want to deck him right then and there for a split second. As the man continued, there was a condescending lilt to his voice as if he was having fun making a fool out of him.

"Yes." Larkin, the King, said. In the tone one would use to talk to a misbehaving child, "But also a curious one. And stupid enough to get involved. You saw the heart of the Sanguinex didn't you?" The man asked, a question rhetorical - as they both knew the answer to it "You saw the truth about my family's most prized art. And I haven't had a reign so everlasting by not cutting off threats to our prosperous land before they even present themselves"

Kane says nothing, realization dawning on him like a winter wind that was going to knock him to the ground. He knew precisely what Larkin meant - he had feared that would be the case ever since the mistake he made last week. So, the knight simply let the man continue to talk, trying to gauge how bad his situation would get before making any decision.

It was then the King said the only words Kane would've killed to not ever hear. "It's only a pity your ward will have to pay for your transgressions soon. Such a lively young girl, that Lyra. She had such promise - what would your adoptive brother say? Or better yet, what would your mother think if she could see you now? You, the Dragon of the Golden City, who failed to keep the only promise he ever made." The man chuckled, as someone would when hearing a bad joke. "That's so pathetic."

The last sentence was the tipping point for Kane. Knowing his life was already forfeit, he didn't care enough for the consequences that could follow anymore. "Touch my family and I'll kill you, bastard!"

However, as he reached for the sword at his side, Kane felt his limbs go stiff as if his blood had been turned to ice. He tried to force his body to move, but he was stuck in place. Paralyzed. With some effort, he was able to move his gaze toward the King, the answer immediately clear from the pulsing, crimson-red glow around Larkin's outstretched hand and eyes.

Of course, the man would use his petty excuse for hemomancy on him. Just peachy. Kane tried to scream, but little more than a muffled whisper came out. His voice, much like his body, refused to obey him.

Victorious, the King shook his head, walking towards the young man he just trapped. "Tsk, tsk." It took no effort for him to maintain focus on the spell, like a second-nature thought.

He circled Kane, like a prowling wolf stalking his wounded prey. Terrified, the young man tried everything he could to move away, but to no avail, frozen like a statue. Larkin put a hand on his shoulder - and the gesture would have been placating if it wasn't for the context, and for what he said next. As it stood, Kane would've cut off the King's hand if he could.

"Such spirit! It's almost a shame I'm about to lose a fighter like you. At such a young age too." He said, in a falsely impressed voice "Maybe your ward can yet prove to be useful. If she has your fire. With a bit of training, I'm sure my instructors can tame her into the weapon you could've been." Larkin leans closer, whispering in his ear "I'll make sure she knows well about how you abandoned her too. Can't have her following in your footsteps, that's for sure."

Kane protested fiercely at that. Or tried to. What sound he could muster came out more like an indignant whimper than the wrathful string of profanities he intended. It only made the King laugh more at his predicament.

After a moment more of this dynamic, of Kane trying to free himself while the King watched amused, Larkin stretched himself and walked to the door with a clap. "Well. Now that's out of the way... Guards!" As soon as he called out, two armored soldiers stepped into the room, with the same perfect posture as Kane had only moments prior. Larkin gestured towards Kane, dismissively "Take this one away, will you? I have more important matters to attend to."

Once Kane's arms were secured in shackled and held by the two soldiers, the King dismissed the spell and walked out without a second glance at the former commander. Kane, now freed from the enchantment, intended to cry out and curse the King's name - but strangely, his mind seemed foggy, and all too soon he was engulfed by darkness, as conscience slipped away from him.

Tagging (gently): @sleepy-night-child, @kaylinalexanderbooks, @smol-feralgremlin, @oh-no-another-idea, @littleladymab,

@winterandwords, @eccaiia, @sarahlizziewrites, @illarian-rambling

@agirlandherquill, @anoelleart

@leave-her-a-tome, @writernopal, @anyablackwood, @unstablewifiaccess, @forthesanityofstorytellers

@i-can-even-burn-salad, @cakeinthevoid

@lassiesandiego, @thepeculiarbird, @clairelsonao3, @memento-morri-writes, @starlit-hopes-and-dreams and OPEN TAG

Fantasy fiction featuring orphan-hero and chosen-one tropes (and this fic just so happens to have a teeny bit of inspiration from Harry Potter stuff, and maybe a bit of Lion Guard stuff, idk)

There was a boy who grew up in an orphanage for ten years, before getting adopted by his father's best friend.

The boy's uncle-figure had been looking for the boy ever since he heard that his best friend (the boy's father) and his wife (the boy's mother) died.

The boy's parents died separately, in two separate incidents. The boy's father (Aaron Edelhert) sacrificed himself to let his wife and baby son escape when there was a threat against their village. The mother took their baby boy to a different village to take refuge.

Unfortunately, when the boy was two to three years old, he was bitten by a dark snake, whose venom was lethally cursed. That snake also came from the same threat those two to three years ago, which the boy's father had partially succeeded to destroy before succumbing to his death. The mother acted quickly and extracted the curse, but at the cost of her own life. This left the boy with a scar over his eye, and his blood being laced with venom (without the curse). The venom gave him a certain immunity to some poisons, venoms and curses. It also prevented him from being recursed years later. The boy attributes this immunity to his mother's sacrifice rather than the venom itself.

POV

A tall, handsome young man stepped into the orphanage. He spoke politely to the orphanage staff, asking for a certain Augustus Jason Edelhert. They kindly obliged and gestured to the light-haired boy with a strange-looking blotch on his face.

The boy was sitting at a table with some friends, drawing pictures (really good pictures, the young man thought, he has his dad's talent).

The staff called the boy, and he walked up to them obediently, warily eyeing the man. The man stifled a gasp when he saw the blotch for what it was; a large, fat slash mark over the boy's left eye, from just above his eyebrow all the way to the bottom of his jaw. What have they done to you?

The man fought back his tears and smiled as welcomingly as he could at the little version of his brother. It stung him to know that he was a stranger in the boy's eyes (rather piercing eyes at that), but he would soon fix that.

"Augustus Jason Edelhert, this is your godfather, Cyrus Kane Waterbury. He will be looking after you in place of your parents."

I fell in love with the Olivia Rodrigo song, "Can't Catch Me Now" so I couldn't help imagining this song in one of my story scenarios. It's just so hauntingly beautiful, I couldn't help it hehe

Gus remembered the song his mother used to sing to him, either when they were dancing in the fields outside their cottage or when she was rocking him to sleep, soothing away his fears about his father no longer being around to protect them both. He remembered not understanding the words in the song as he waddled around in the grass or as he lay in bed with his eyes half-shut. He also remembered thinking that his mother sounded angry as she sang the song, though he knew it wasn't directed at him.

There's blood on the side of the mountain

There's writing all over the wall

The shadows of us are still dancing

In every room, in every hall

"What does that mean?" a wee little Gus remembered asking innocently.

"It's...it's hard to explain, honey," she smiled sadly.

"Is it about Daddy?" he piped up. His mum's smile faltered, and he knew he'd struck a nerve. "S-sorry, sorry Mummy, never mind--"

"No, it's okay, dear," she said, though Gus thought he saw a glistening tear threatening to escape from her eye.

Oh, I'm in the trees, I'm in the breeze

My footsteps on the ground

You'll see my face in every place

But you can't catch me now...

The tune was haunting to him, yet strangely soothing. He never quite understood the song, but that wasn't what he cared about. It just somehow felt like his mother would always be there with him, even if it's just a ghost of her.

Fantasy school world building for fun

Rowena Snow is the name of a distant ancestor of Winnie Hart's. Winnie was named after her. Rowena was the youngest of seven Snow children, with one of her sisters being Hildegard Snow. Hildegard Snow was very influential and remarkable in her day (for whatever reason I don't know yet). Winnie Hart looks and acts very much like Rowena Snow, but Hildegard Snow is the direct distant ancestor of Winnie Hart (whether through Winnie's mum or dad, I'm not sure yet).