#musketeers

R.I.P. D'Artagnan, you would have loved mid-2000's pop punk music

R.I.P Porthos, you would have loved The Price is Right and Family Feud

R.I.P Aramis, you would have loved online dating and the term Irish goodbye

R.I.P Athos, you would have loved drunk karaoke to sad country songs

Before they became legends, they were brothers-in-arms fighting for justice in a nation forged by revolution. The Three Musketeers of Saint Domingue by DMC Cowan launches readers into the Kingdom of Haiti at a dangerous crossroads. Josué LaFleur returns from exile, joined by the mysterious Edmon D’Aigle—a man with wealth, cunning, and a past steeped in vengeance. Together with their fellow…

To date I have written 36 Musketeers fanfics! A lot of them were way back when the show was actually airing, and, you know what, I think some of them are actually quite fun. I can certainly write better now, construct better narratives. I’ve lived a bit more, I know a bit more about the world, and my grammar is for sure a little bit better…but there’s something quite nice about a couple of my early fics.

So here are some of my favourites, that I’m proud of:

Time Held Me Green And Dying - a tragedy, in reverse

Aramis has fought his whole life against his own nature, it’s easier now just to believe that there are two distinct people in him: the man who loves God, and the man who loves the scent of a woman on his own skin, the one who yearns for peace and the one who glories in killing, the man who stitches and the man who cuts. In his better moments he understands that every man is a shattered reflection of God, and it is never so clear as good or evil, but Aramis’ better moments are scarce these days.

Yet despite it all he’s been able to reconcile his faith with his less than faithful life: Aramis believes, with a steadfastness that’s deep and quiet and everything that he can never be.

He still believes, but he cannot understand anymore.

So he prays. And he fucks. And laughs and fights and drinks but always, always prays, and he does it all with an intensity that frightens him, when he allows himself to stop and think. When Aramis looks up for a moment from the endless forward motion his life is becoming he can see the tightness about Porthos’ eyes, the way Athos will look at him for just a beat too long sometimes, the way Treville won’t look at him at all.

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Aramis, Savoy. I’m proud of this one because I really like the structure: it begins some time after Savoy and goes backwards, ending an hour or so before the massacre. It sort of breaks my heart and the Aramis in it is an unfamiliar one for me, a little callous and distant and cold as he reels from the trauma of that night.

*

The Waters Of Lethe

“You're not really here," Marsac says, tongue slow and heavy. Aramis looks pale and tired and flickering. He shrugs, and the blood slips fresh from the wound at his temple, fury-red in the stark forest of white and black. “No I’m not. You left me, remember?”

Marsac turns back, forces his feet to lift and swing and step.

“There’s a village a mile east,” Aramis says after a while, “You saw it when we rode through two days ago.”

Marsac doesn’t answer, the huff of his breath the only noise.

“You should -”

“I’m not going to the village,” Marsac bites out, “Shut up.”

“Ten livres pay in your pocket,” comes the voice behind him. “Marsac. Send a message to Paris. They need to know what happened. Marsac.”

“Shut up,” he hisses once more, “Stop talking. You’re not here.”

“Perhaps I’m a ghost,” Aramis says behind him, something considering in his voice, “Perhaps I died when you left me.”

Marsac shakes his head, an involuntary motion like a nervous tic, bones loose and jangling. “No.”

“You left a wounded man in a forest, the snow and night coming on, surrounded by his dead friends. You saw the blood. What did you think would happen?”

“No!” Marsac says, whirling, and it comes out like a gasp, like the angry last huff of breath from a dying man. “Fuck off, fuck off!”

The forest is empty of everything but the stark masts of trees, the dark fuzz of tangled underbrush between bone-white patches of snow drifted in the piney hollows.

No Aramis. No slick paint of crimson at his temple, no hollow shadows beneath his eyes.

Just him. Just Marsac.

The lights of the village twinkle coldly for him as he nears. The livres in his pocket bribe a rider for the long road to Paris, along with the promise of more coin from the Captain of the Musketeers upon delivery of the message that Savoy has made corpses of his men.

A barn on the outskirts of town provides shelter for a few hours as the cold stars ease themselves out, and the frosty night hangs thick with ribbons of freezing air. The dark space is heavy with the animal sounds of livestock shifting, the soft warmth of their breath. Marsac settles down in the hay in the darkness, the pale glimmer of Aramis beside him.

“Don’t leave me.”

It was meant to be a whisper, but the sound is torn harsh and sobbing from his throat, from his heart, and Marsac shudders into himself.

“Never,” Aramis replies, after a while.

-

Marsac’s POV between Savoy and the events of The Good Soldier episode. I love this one because it helped me explore Marsac’s actions as a reaction to a very real trauma, instead of cowardice of selfishness. It helped me see him as the man Aramis always saw him. (Don’t get me wrong: it’s fun to write manipulative toxic Marsac, but it’s nice to see someone a little more 3D)

*

And Child

The boy is older than him, perhaps ten or eleven years of age, and is dressed in expensive clothing. Even so, Porthos could spot a noble a mile off, the way they stand, the way they hold themselves. This one has a scar, old and white, that runs through his top lip to his nose, and it lifts his mouth in a pout.

“Don’t stare at me,” the boy says coolly. His hand flutters at his side though, as if he’s having to fight to keep it there, to keep it away from his scarred mouth. “An accident,” he says after a moment, gazing levelly at Porthos.

“Liar,” Porthos says, and the cold empty room takes his voice and lifts it up at the end like a question.

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Little baby Porthos meets little baby Athos at a mass for the Dauphin’s birthday. This is a sweet one because it explores Porthos’ childhood and his feelings towards his dead mother.

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There are so many more! Go and read them if you have the time, if you’d like to, and also, begging your pardon sir, but if you wouldn’t mind droppin’ a little kudos, maybe even a comment into my tin cup I’d be every so grateful sir, begging your pardon.