#ask nota

*cracks knuckles* saddle up, here is the directors cut to the Wild West AU.

So first off, I really don’t remember how it first came to my head. I never watched a lot of westerns growing up. The only significant “western” movies I can remember are “An American Tale: Fievel Goes West,” and “Shanghai Noon”. That said, I certainly read several book series that took place in the Wild West, on ranches, or on the frontier. I also was very interested in Annie Oakley.

I just remember the idea of Legolas’s improbable aiming translating over to the idea of a nigh mythical sharpshooter just resonated with me.

I also felt a lot of the immigrant story with Gimli was very fitting. Especially the Irish immigrants. I know there are other cultures even more strongly tied to the culture of the Dwarves, but the Irish resonated with me because of my family’s history. A good deal of my family were Irish immigrants, and I’ve been tracing back their history. There was even one of my grandfathers so many greats back that we realized was an Irishman, when we had never thought so before. We always thought he was German, until we found his trail and realized that he had changed the spelling of his Last name to a similar German name, moved to a new city, married a German woman, and passed himself off as German. That tells you something.

I wanted to highlight some of the more romanticized parts of the Wild West outlaw gang (because it turns out it’s a fun sandbox to play in), and highlight how people who are outcasts could find community and family together. I also wanted to play with some of the aspects of the west that get overlooked with the image that is most known. I wanted to make a point not only of our two main fellas falling in love, but how colorful the West was too, in terms of people involved.

The plot of the first story stands for itself. I just really wanted a high action, comedic, dramatic “meet cute” as it were (and now I really want someone to make a list of prompts for Action Meet Cutes).

So let’s get into the cast! I’ll happily reveal some of their backstories, since I don’t know that I’d be able to fit it all in in the sequel.

Gimli; an Irish immigrant who came to the US in search for opportunity as a teenager. He hasn’t had an easy time of it, owing greatly to his hard it’s been for him to find and keep a job. People don’t want to hire the Irish for anything but the lowest paid and toughest of jobs. Landing the job as the fireman for the engine is the best one he’d had actually, until the outlaw gig presented himself. He still hasn’t told his Ma, even though he writes to her whenever he can.

Legolas “Legs”; is a legendary sharpshooter and outlaw. It’s alluded to in the story, but never fully stated in what’s been written so far, but Legolas is mixed race. Part Native American, and Part European. I don’t go into as much detail in these aspects, because it would be rather uninformed, despite what research I can do. Still I felt it was important to his character. I can say that he can feel as though he doesn’t really belong with either side of his family, and like he’s always too much of the other side to really fit in. It’s part of why the gang means so much to him. He fits in there.

Aragorn; has a mysterious past. Because it’s Aragorn. When doesn’t he? I won’t reveal all of that, just know that his grandfather fell from grace. I also wanted to make it clear that Aragorn has dark skin in this story. Again, the Wild West was colorful.

Boromir “Beau”; was a bugler for the Union during the civil war. He’s came back jaded. Proud of what he accomplished, but definitely scarred as well.

Faramir; is Boromir’s younger brother, he was supposed to go to school to become a chemist and start work at a pharmacy. But his father cut him off. When Boromir decided to strike out on his own, he decided to come with him. Aside from the bit of medical knowledge he has, both he and Boromir are responsible for handling any explosives the gang may use.

The Hobbits are all Italian immigrants. I’m giving them one bullet point because they are very much intertwined. Frodo was sent to the US to join his uncle Bilbo, who had immigrated before and opened a shop. Frodo was a very bright student with a gift for languages, so he learned English well before he took the trip. His cousin’s Merry and Pippin ended up joining him last minute to avoid some trouble they’d gotten into at home in Italy. They will not divulge what trouble that was. They spoke enough English to make it through immigration, and understand it fairly well, although neither speaks it very much. Pippin speaks a bit more than Merry. Sam actually did not meet the others until they were on the boat. He did not speak or understand any English whatsoever, and upon learning that he needed some to make it through immigration, was in despair. Frodo noticed, befriended Sam, and spent the whole trip tutoring Sam in specifically what he’d need to get through immigration, and English in general. He’s devoted to Frodo because of this and swore to help him in return. He remains the best cook you’ll ever meet. Upon arriving to the US, they find that Bilbo’s shop is closed. Apparently some strange folk who were heading west with the hopes of finding gold and a new life (the cast of the hobbit) somehow convinced them to go with them. Frodo and the others ended up heading west in hopes of someday finding Uncle Bilbo. They ran into the gang along the way and somehow ended up joining it.

One thing that was important to me from the beginning, was getting the voices right. I wanted to get the dialects to sounds right without writing accents too phonetically. It’s an interesting line to find.

The town that Eowyn is leading them to is called Dreadwood, as a play on the city of Deadwood, and the literal name of one of the places in middle earth.

Okay, so first of all for anyone who really likes angst and gigolas who is interested in Finding the Sun, I recommend reading that first, because spoilers are very relevant to this fic. You can find it on AO3, my name is the same on there.

Now that the spoiler warning is out of the way, a courtesy warning that I’m going to discuss some heavy topics below dealing with grief, death, illness, and coping with your own mortality and the mortality of loved ones. I don’t know what depths I’ll get into, but I do want to give a warning ahead of time just in case.

Now, first thing first, FtS was inspired by the way Shakespeare liked to use hallucinations and/or ghosts as plot devices. It got me thinking about how to weave grief into that sort of setting and thus, the imaginings/hallucinations/denial was spun into being. At first it was a thought exercise, but then it grew a plot.

I love leaving clues in the story to further reveals so here are a few things I slipped into the story to give hints:

I was very careful about the word choice in Gimli’s friends and family’s dialogue. I wanted the worry to be clear, but I wanted the source of their worry to be something that the reader would assume. I figured that the most likely thing people would assume is either that people didn’t approve of Legolas, or thought Gimli and Legolas were too codependent, rather than they didn’t think Gimli was coping with his grief. You might notice that they are always implying something about the situation is wrong, but never actually say anything about Legolas.

Legolas never interacts with his surroundings in a way that changes them. He talks about needing to do school work, but never physically interacts with his laptop or books. He also never touches, or is touched by Gimli. I did this not only to keep the reveal a surprise, but because I didn’t think Gimli’s mind would let him picture anything that would break the illusion it’s given him so he didn’t have to face his grief. If he pictured Legolas moving an item, and it stayed in the same place the illusion would be broken. There is a slight ghost of this idea with Gimli resting his hand on the “sun warmed bench” where Legolas was just sitting; there was no body heat to warm the spot, just the sun.

Part of Gimli’s anger when people are concerned is because he’s protecting the illusion. He knows what happened, but he’s buried in the back of his mind and is acknowledging only the comfortable illusion in which he doesn’t have to deal with his grief. He doesn’t want to hear anybody talk about Legolas’s death because then he can’t keep pretending it didn’t happen. It’s not healthy, but it doesn’t hurt.

Gimli started this fantasy with simple things. Imagining what Legolas would’ve said in a conversation, or what he’d be doing this time of day, things like that. At first remembering, but it was comforting to remember what he’d be doing, and then if more comfortable to pretend that it was what he was actually doing. It spiraled out of control from there.

Legolas’s confrontation is partially because too many contradictions to his fantasy are being noticed, partially because he knows it’s not healthy, and partially because he knows that Legolas wouldn’t want him to be living this way.

Gimli resists saying goodbye, because that means it’s actually over. (Like how sometimes I hold off on reading the end of a series, or haven’t watched the last episode of Merlin).

Gimli’s role as a musician is based off of a friend of mine. One of her first shows as she was gaining more traction was a 2 song by 10 performer setup.

Legolas’s epithet took me forever to choose! I knew from the beginning I wanted it to be a line from the book, and I searched for so many lines before “I go to find the sun” came to mind. That is actually the line from the book that cemented Legolas as my favorite character. So taking it and making it something sad but still hopeful just struck me as perfect. The name for the fic came after I chose the epithet.

I leave Legolas’s illness unnamed because I want readers to be able to fill in whatever disease resonates with them the most, however; I wrote it personally as if he had an aggressive cancer. My mother was dealing with thyroid cancer around that time, and thankfully she has been cancer free since treatment, but I still couldn’t help but think of all of the worst case scenarios. Since then we’ve lost a very dear family friend to an extremely aggressive brain can. It’s only further cemented Legolas’s disease as cancer in my own personal headcanon.

Here’s the other big news… I’m writing a prequel. It’s halfway done, and it’s called The Going. I started writing it not long before COVID hit. My writing slowed down because it felt like posting a story about someone dying from an illness at that couldn’t be cured was not the right tone for the events going on.

Then I caught COVID, just about 2 months before the vaccines were available for people like me in the medical field. It was… bad. I never got to the point I had to be hospitalized, thankfully, but for about a week and a half, every time I went to sleep I wondered if I would wake up in the morning. I very seriously had to grapple with that possibility. On top of that, I could see how worried my family was for me. We live too far apart for them to physically be there with me, but they were trying everything they could do from a distance, and we video chatted multiple times everyday while I was awake. For a while I was so fatigued that I was sleeping anywhere between 14 and 18 hours a day. I could see how scared they were for me, and it was heart breaking to think about possibly leaving them behind. On top of that, my at that time fiancé caught COVID too. We lived apart and had tried to be careful because we are both essential workers and his job created increased risk of infection, and my job was working with people least likely to survive an infection. So I also was worried about his survival. We both came out of it alright (although fatigue still sweeps up on me out of nowhere at times), and now I’m more motivated to finish the prequel, because I’ve got a great deal more resonance with the sort of fears Legolas would’ve grappled with.

Prepare tissues.

Could Never Forget You. (Couldn’t You?)

One of the perks of being a thing beyond time was that no one could ever really expect you to follow it. Even Armageddon ended up late, for Manchester’s sake. So really, it didn’t matter a bit if Crowley decided to show up somewhere late. Or early. He might be early this time. (He was definitely early this time).

It’s not like the angel would mind.

The closed sign cheerfully posted to Aziraphale & Co.’s Bookshop greeted Crowley like an old friend. He gave it a nod of approval for keeping out the unnecessary as he sauntered on through into the vacant storefront.

“Alright, Angel, where are you this time,” he said to himself as he slunk through the bookshelves; the must of aging books, a familiar taste on his tongue.

He caught a whiff of candle smoke before a gentle flicker from the back room door caught his eye.

“There you are,” he murmured, adjusting the bottle nestled under his arm as he sauntered towards the light. Looked like it was one of those days.

“Angle,” he said a little louder, nudging the door further open so he could slink through, “found something you might like. A Côte du Py in need of drinking, for the discerning palate.”

As expected, Aziraphale had eschewed electricity for the day and was holed up with a book in hand and the outer world forgotten. It was still gratifying the way he perked up at the sound of Crowley’s voice.

A pleased expression lit up his face as he eyed the bottle.

“Sounds delightful!” he said. “Be a dear and pour, would you? I’m almost done with this story.”

And with that, his eyes turned unerringly back to the copy of The Happy Prince and Other Tales in his hand.

Crowley just shook his head fondly and set about pouring two glasses of wine while the angel finished.

True to his word, just a moment later Aziraphale shut the book, setting it atop The Picture of Dorian Gray at his side. There was a clear theme in the angel’s choices of literature for the day.

“Oscar Wilde by candlelight,” Crowley commented, passing Aziraphale his glass.

“Well yes,” Aziraphale replied, accepting the wineglass with one hand while tucking his reading glasses into his breast pocket with the other, “earlier today I realized I couldn’t quite recall the way Dear Oscar’s voice sounded. Quite distressing really.”

Crowley hummed at the appropriate place, long familiar with the part he was meant to play in these conversations.

“Of course, I had to close shop immediately and remind myself. Thankfully he gave us so many works to remember him by.”

Aziraphale turned a soft smile on the stack of books at his side.

“So terribly clever, these humans,” he murmured. “Give them language and they create novels. I swear just picking up one of these books and everything about them just comes tumbling back to me.”

Crowley gently swirled his wine around his glass.

“Huh. Maybe I should sit down and write a little something myself then,” he commented, looking fixedly at the wine dark color. “Just in case you ever find yourself forgetting me, too.”

The smile Aziraphale turned his way very clearly said he thought he was being an endearingly silly thing.

“Oh, Crowley, I could never forget you,” he said warmly.

But you already did.

The thought slithered through Crowley’s mind as Aziraphale suggested a toast.

You forgot the way my voice harmonized with yours.

Crowley gamely raised his glass.

You forgot the way my face looked when my head was crowned with flame.

Aziraphale toasted to old friends and oldest friends with a cheeky wink in Crowley’s direction.

You forgot the name that was first mine to give to you.

Their glasses came together with a pleasant clink. It rang hollow in Crowley’s ear.

You looked at me atop a garden wall and forgot how you had called me “dear” long before the word was first ever spoken.

“Really, my dear, you’re quite unforgettable as it is,” Aziraphale added blithely, and took a sip, unable to resist closing his eyes as he reveled in the flavor.

Crowley turned his eyes back to his own glass and the blur of his distorted reflection staring back from the surface.

“Yeah, well, first time for everything,” Crowley replied.

He tossed back a mouthful of wine, and swallowed down the ancient sting.

I’m the first thing you ever forgot.

END

Sansûkh and the music from it will always hold a special place in my heart.

The arrangement for the Iron Hills soldier’s song was something that @determamfidd and I did together. Personally I always enjoy hearing new performances of it, and I would love to hear a version on the horn out there! While I can’t ask Dets directly, she was always so excited to hear her music given new life, that I’m confident she would be amazed by it too.

Alrighty! Let the nostalgia begin!

1. I broke my arm by bouncing on an empty inflatable pool, and had to spend a whole summer in a cast.

2. I got to perform in 2 professional operas because they would pull kids from my choir when they needed a children’s chorus. So we were performing in the second biggest theatre district in the US and just enjoying running around backstage for Tosca and Carmen.

3. On that note, I learned and performed songs in 15+ different languages due to that choir I mentioned. It was a semi-professional children’s choir that I was a member of for 12 years.

4. My mother and father specifically raised me with the goal of being kind, and I am very grateful they prioritized that over having the goal of being the most successful or anything else.

5. My mother also enrolled me in a special program at our city zoo with the specific goal of having me interact with the reptiles and snakes they would sometimes bring as ambassador animals so I wouldn’t end up with the same fear of snakes that she had. It worked!

6. I played t-ball and softball, and was a pretty good shortstop, but whenever they put me in the outfield I would just pick flowers. Should’ve known I had ADHD back then.