“Beg to Differ”, 4/4

[aadler]

 

Final installment.

(Part 3 here)

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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. ]
 

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And there you are. Don’t hesitate to offer commentary.

End Notes

Comments

[poshcat.livejournal.com]

This was a terrific story - too many good lines to mention them all, but here's one:

This was a janitor’s closet, stocked with brooms and mop buckets and paper towels and cleaning supplies — including some that should never be stored together, you’d think the bloody Germans, at least, could keep such things straight!

Funny, moving, exciting as hell. And did I mention hot? You're an excellent writer, and I have to tell you that if this were a novel I'd picked up at the local bookstore, I'd have definitely felt I got my money's worth - and hoped you'd be writing a sequel, too. :0)

[aadler]

I keep trying to find new ways of saying thanks; the old ‘redundancy’ bugaboo. It doesn’t work. Thanks.

The funny thing is, I wasn’t even planning to do this story. I had several ideas lined up, and the schedule on which I wanted to do them. This one popped up out of nowhere, and I dutifully noted it down and filed it away … and it kept insisting it wanted to be told now. It even shoved aside the one I explicitly intended to do next. Then took hold of me and showed me a rollicking good time, plus called forth somewhat more response than I’ve ever gotten elsewhere.

I took a quick look at your flist, and didn’t see any of the people who explicitly recced me. What brought this story to your attention?

Again, thank you.

[poshcat.livejournal.com]

You could tell me you loved me. That would be a new way to say "thanks". Hee. :0P

Aha! It was alice23kate who recced you, but it was a friends locked post. She possibly came across your story at su_herald or it was recced by Lz_marcs, she can't quite remember. She said your story was very good...and she was right!

PS Hey, are you a guy? You're the first male fanfic writer I've come across. ::shakes your hand::

[aadler]

Thanks for providing the source, though I’m not familiar with the person you named; I just like to know these things.

And, yes, definitely a guy here. There really are quite a few of us, we just tend to be overwhelmed by the preponderance of female authors around us. I believe there were over 300 attendees at WriterCon 2004, of which perhaps a dozen (perhaps half that number) bore a Y chromosome. Could have been intimidating, if everyone there hadn’t been so nice.

Again, thanks.