The Water at the Edge of All Things (new Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn fic, chapters 1-9)

[queenlua]

When Tibarn calls for the bird tribes to unite as one nation in Serenes, Reyson is skeptical, and Naesala refuses outright.

But when rising ocean levels threaten to devour the islands of both Phoenicis and Kilvas, none of them have much of a choice in the matter.

Read here on AO3.

aka, "Naesala has a bad time, then Reyson has a bad time, and then they make each other worse <3<3<3"

yeah this 50k+ monstrosity was what I wound up writing for the Tellius Big Bang

and also BECAUSE IT IS A BIG BANG it comes with ACCOMPANYING ILLUSTRATIONS (?!?!?) and they are AMAZING???? i was gifted with some incredible goddamn artists. even if you don't read the fic, go check out chapters 1 & 4 & 5 & 9 because. honestly i've been pinching myself with how incredible my artists were, feeling so fucking blessed to have them BRINGING THIS THING TO LIFE

anyway. please please enjoy. chapters 10 through "the end" are coming soon, but, today's the Big Bang posting day & i'm pretty pleased with what's up there already haha. you will probably also enjoy it if you like (1) politics, (2) scheming, (3) woo mystic serenes heron bullshit, (4) reyson being awful, (5) naesala being awful but also pathetic, etc etc it's been a good time~

Comments

[helicoprion]

What response is there but "sickos dot PNG"

[queenlua]

[airlock384]

holy shit. finally the bird thoughts are manifest

[queenlua]

might you even say they are... taking flight... ohohoho

[airlock384]

they're hatching from the egg! they're leaving the nest! if we make enough puns someone will flip the bird at us!

[kradeelav]

as you might have guessed from your email notifs (rip) i've been caterwhauling in the comments but deservedly so b/c this is SO GOOD and SO INTENSE WTF.

you were Not Kidding about the bad times but they hurt so goooood

[queenlua]

lmaooo i was frantically doing last-minute packing this morning & rushing to merge some code & was like "yeah that fic is a million words long, i won't get any emails for a while" but then i checked my email on a whim and THERE YOU WERE BLOWIN IT UP???? i about got knocked over lol

(i was delighted all the way down to my toes, haha, thank you for DEVOURING it (on the clock apparently lollollol), plz know i read every comment and was preening immaculately)

i'm just gonna batch-reply to your reply-able comments over here since. that seems easier than eight separate threads LOL

* i'm so delighted to hear you're watching corvid vids more lately :DDD they're such ANIMATED little dudes, aren't they? i just. never get tired of watching bird body language dreamy sigh. (there's a whole segment in the fic that was written directly after i got back from birding at a local beach, and man it must be the feeling those cool plein air painter peeps get, i was just like "oh yeah let's commit those bird-y antics i just saw directly to prose" and then i did and it felt GREAT lol)

* your comments about "naesala as department director" DID remind me of some ancient tumblr post where i was spitballing an AU where Naesala is a director at the CIA. which was such a fun idea i was like "did i ever write that." the answer is: yeah, a little bit, except it stalled out b/c CIA peeps are waaaay cagier when you randomly call them up like "hi hello can you tell me about your job, it's for fanfiction" than NSA peeps are >>>:(((( spoilsports!!! but yeah 100% agree he'd be such an objectively good director and i would hate him so goddamn much lol

* so glad i could wreck your whole meeting with naesala!whump :P (i'm generally kind of emotionally removed in certain sense when writing stuff, but that whole sequence, i did have to step away from the keyboard and pace a bunch of times just 'cause of, like, ow. it hurt! it did not feel great beating the shit out of him that hard!!)

* okay when i got your one-sentence comment on ch6 i lol'd so hard and also said THANK GOD aloud haha. because, see, when i was writing the last part of ch6, i was sitting there like "ok i thought i was just gonna write reyson being pissed, but this is now the hottest sex i've ever written, i am on absolute fire, why does this scene require tens of thousands of words of preamble, like i'd be tempted to peel it off and make it a standalone or something just to give it wider readership exCEPT IT DOESN'T WORK WITHOUT THE TENS OF THOUSANDS OF WORDS OF PREAMBLE, so uhhh, hope somebody gets far enough in to appreciate. what's happening. there." and you were there. thank you krad i am glad it is appreciated lol

* EXCITING THINGS AFOOT CAN'T WAIT TO FINISH WRITING SOME BEGNION SHIT WHILE I'M SKIING DOWN MOUNTAINS

[kradeelav]

<3 there's nothing better than nice lengthy comments on a longfic though HAHA i knew you'd get a kick out of that one line 'hooooot' one too.

*corvids really are such animated little floofballs! either playing in the snow or pulling pranks or whatever. been teaching the gf about cat language (she's more of a dog person), and it really does go to show you how clear different species can be once when they've been studied a little. anyway, that wasn't about FE LOL but rest assured i could definitely see the tellius birbs doing most every gesture.

*yee i think what got me about the whump was like the innards bit (in a good way) - very viscreal, carnal in a 'damn nature be wilding' sort of way, picking over a corpse. especially when he was so listless afterwards. naesala's such a prideful fella that that humiliation just... oof.

speaking of the deer with the wasting sickness hit me in a similar way of like - not quite nausea but definitely that psychic unease? man, poor reyson seeing that. so fucking great to get those feelings from tellius verse ngl, it's got a lot of untapped corners of horror-adjacent vibes.

hope the con and skiing is going well! :D and can't WAIT for begnion excitment hehehe

[ellerean]

I cannot WAIT to read this. I'm waiting until I have some undisturbed time to sit down and properly gorge on it.

(also that art, I am still in awe. If Big Bang were a contest, your team wins everything.)

[queenlua]

hope you dig it when you get a chance to read!!!!

(and also man there is STIFF competition among all the big bang artists... but yeah i did love the art i got SO MUCH, SUCH good fortune lol)

[ellerean]

I should also mention (the day after leaving a flurry of comments) that I also read the whole thing while running a fever. So that was an experience I’ll never forget.

[queenlua]

honestly seems like an ideal state to read it in :p certainly matches some feverish and/or fiery moments in the story itself...! :DDD;;;