graycardinal | Yuletide: Gift Fic

It is, it is a glorious Yuletide, and I am just now coming up for air after a surprisingly busy Christmas-midweek.

So far my contribution to Yuletide has been admired by its recipient and a couple of other readers, with a tiny scattering of hits. This is perfectly cool, as the fandom is way out on the seriously obscure end of obscurity.

My gift-fic, meanwhile, is a thing of great loveliness in a slightly less obscure fandom:

Artifacts
Stealing the Elf-King's Roses - Diane Duane
G • gen • ~1500 words
Lee Enfield; Gelert

Some of the qualities of matter have changed now, sure, but a lot of investigating remains the same.

Our Heroes are consulting crime-scene investigators in one of the next universes over from ours, who use technical sorcery the way CSIs in our world use traditional science. Also, Gelert is essentially a very large shaggy dog.

This is a snapshot of a case that comes up after the events of the novel, but it's sufficiently self-contained that you don't strictly need the novel to understand the world. And reading this should not spoil you for any of the major twists and turns in the novel proper, which is a definite bonus. The author nails Duane's narrative voice and shows an excellent understanding of the magical system; I am very, very pleased indeed to have had this written for me, and if the scene you see here draws you in, I highly recommend the book, which is available in an author's preferred e-book edition direct from Diane Duane's Web site.