“Beg to Differ”, 4/4
Jan. 6th, 2006 01:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aadlerFinal installment.
(Part 3 here)
epilogue
The rest of the story is already known, but only those parts of the story that remain. The testing ground was wiped away, and Will and Allie ceased to exist even in memory. Their lives had been vivid, if abbreviated, but now were banished to the realm of never-had-been. Even so, three consequences of their brief span lingered, after that span had been consigned to the vast unknown.
First and most obviously, the dark warrior received the reward promised him, and found the price to be, indeed, steep beyond his expectation. He returned to the Valley of the Sun, and found his lost love and lost her all over again, and fought his last battle — only to discover it wasn’t the last after all — and went on to severely annoy many people for quite some time to come.
Second, the white knight who had so long condemned himself for his abandonment of the woman who loved him, found that he had reached an unexpected peace with himself. In some way he couldn’t quite understand, it was as if he had paid a penance, set the scales level, and shown that he could, in fact, commit his heart without reservation. This made no sense to him, but he accepted it and put it to beneficial use.
(He also found himself with a new, intuitive understanding of the mysteries of the female orgasm, an awareness that would subsequently move more than one grateful woman to rapturous astonishment; but of this, more need not be said.)
Third, least significant but much noted: months after the forgotten trial, a puzzled young woman would exclaim in exasperation, “Is there anyone here that hasn’t slept together?”; and two men with long memory of (and ample reason for) hating one another, would find their eyes meeting in a furtive, quizzical glance, and then jerking quickly away.
They might — if they allowed themselves to think of it at all — wonder why they had done that.
But they would never know.
– end –
[ A supplementary drabble for this story can be seen HERE. ]
And there you are. Don’t hesitate to offer commentary.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-07 11:53 am (UTC)Although I did enjoy this story a lot, and was impressed by many things about your writing, I was bitterly disappointed at the ending. I'm afrad that I see it more as a cop-out than as a bait-and-switch, and I would greatly have preferred the story had it really been a true original character fic. I would have called the story superb but as far as I'm concerned the ending downgraded it to merely very good.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-07 04:04 pm (UTC)Most people find purely-OC fics to be somewhat annoying, and I understand the sentiment; if I read fanfic, it’s because I enjoy that world and want to see more of it, which generally includes the familiar characters. Did we perhaps get to liking Will and Allie so much that we hated to see them consigned to nonexistence? I felt some of that, and I knew what was coming. That was just what the story was, so that’s where I went.
I’m glad you still rank it among the very good, even though you were disappointed by the last twist. Some things have a price, and my failing to satisfy you was part of the price for the story choices I made. Maybe I can hit nearer the target next time out.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-07 08:56 pm (UTC)Exactly. I was totally engrossed in the story, the characters had really caught my imagination and I was desperate to find out what happened next - and then bang! they disappeared in a puff of smoke. I felt cheated. It was as if you'd announced at that point "I'm leaving the fandom and will never finish the story", or perhaps even worse. You did too good a job of creating them - they were more interesting than Spike and Xander.
Most people find purely-OC fics to be somewhat annoying
Those people won't read this story anyway - they'll dismiss this as an OC fic - unless they're told the twist before they read it.