Concordia discors

[Isn't everybody glad that Arc made Mina take full responsibility for her inadvertant quotations? Such an easy mistake to make, Mina's, but luckily easy to fix as well.
Also, Mina keeps getting Vox invites; she has two now. Does anyone want these? She'll gladly give them away to anyone who responds with an email address.
svmadelyn, the secret thing is posted.]

Disclaimer: Mina de Malfois is an original fictional creation. These stories and characters are the sole property of the author, but she lends them out for fanfic and fanart. This is a work of fiction. No resemblance is intended to any person or persons living, dead, or online. No BNFs were harmed in the making of this fic.



When PrinceC and I arrived at the gardener’s cottage, we found Warr1or staking out tomatoes. He looked, I could not but note approvingly, every inch the part. He was dressed in a slightly old-fashioned gamekeeper costume of dark green velveteen and gaiters. He hadn’t lost his dragonherd buffness, either. He doffed his hat respectfully when he saw us.

‘We were just on our way to visit the BalletChic memorial,’ PrinceC told him, and Warr1or instantly offered to pluck roses for PrinceC to lay on the ‘grave,’ his face softening with emotion as he spoke.

‘Come with us,’ PrinceC said, sounding more commanding than inviting. Still, though, I was mildly surprised when Warr1or complied; I hadn’t realized he’d taken the servant role so much to heart. The scent of jasmine grew stronger as we approached the shade-shrouded statue of the winged ballet dancer, and I shivered in the cool evening air. Warr1or wordlessly draped his jacket around my shoulders, unasked, which was thoughtful even if it did smell of dragons.

‘Is there anything either Mina or I can do,’ PrinceC asked abruptly, ‘to dissuade you from mailing your slash collection to TPTB? We’ll do anything to protect the reputation of our fandom.’ I opened my mouth to tell him that actually, there were a lot of things I wouldn’t do to protect the probably non-existent good name of Sanguinity fandom, but Warr1or spoke first.

‘You’re too late,’ Warr1or said triumphantly. 'I’ve already mailed out the bound copies, and emailed back-up copies. No matter how much the slashers harass and persecute me, they can’t undo what I’ve done. They can denounce me publicly, they can mock my views and my religion, they can even stalk me and check my livejournal constantly, but I’ve won. I’ve revealed the Truth.’

PrinceC sat down patiently on the monument. ‘What, exactly, did you hope this would accomplish?’ he asked wearily. I sat down next to him, and Warr1or promptly sat down next to me.

‘I wanted the game’s creator and contributors to see what they were responsible for,’ Warr1or said. ‘So many young people, particularly emotionally fragile young women, are being led astray. I can’t just watch as they’re tempted down the twisted, base paths of slash. They need a man’s guidance and protection.’

‘I hardly think the game’s creators had any intention of encouraging P/J slash,’ PrinceC pointed out reasonably.

‘It doesn’t matter what the authors intended,’ Warr1or insisted. ‘The subtext is there. They included elements and scenes that could be interpreted as slash, and they’re responsible for that. They need to be aware of the inevitable outcome.’

PrinceC sighed heavily. I knew how he felt. There’s no way to argue with someone happily bent on martyrdom.

‘How explicit was it?’ I asked, hoping he hadn’t been able to find anything really juicy. ‘I haven’t read much Sanguinity slash.'

‘I know you’re not interested in slash,’ Warr1or said to me kindly, placing a condescending hand on my knee. ‘You’re a nice girl, Mina, though I worry you’ll be led astray by dark influences.’

‘I have no interest in slash at all,’ I assured him, trying to scoot over so I’d be less pressed against him, and only succeeding in pressing myself up more tightly against PrinceC on my other side. I glanced thoughtfully from Warr1or to PrinceC and back again, wondering how truthful I was being. ‘I was just wondering how bad it could be.’

‘It opened with a multi-chapter fic in which Pierce and Jab are forced to degrade each other repeatedly at a Vamp Revel,’ Warr1or informed us, ‘and ended with an mpreg family saga.’ PrinceC groaned, looking as appalled as I felt. Our meeting broke up almost immediately. PrinceC headed gloomily down Dread Lane, looking defeated, and I walked back to Malfois Manor unaccompanied. Warr1or had said he wanted to spend some time alone, in prayer and contemplation.

When I got back to the Manor no one was visible. I followed the hushed sounds of conversation to the dimly lit kitchen, where I found Stasia and Liz seated at a Ouija board-laden table--Liz looking slightly abashed--with, to my astonishment, Arc.

‘You’re attending a séance?’ I asked, bewildered. I nearly swallowed my tongue to keep from adding, ‘with my servants?’ I didn’t want to appear excessively snobbish, especially not in front of the people I was being e. s. about.

‘Pull up a chair,’ Arc said, so I did. I admit, I was curious as to how this would work. Besides, Ciyerra had a well-developed sense of self-interest, so the presence of her employer would probably hugely increase the success of the summoning.

Stasia instructed us to join hands, which we did, and then she intoned in a solemn but ethereal voice, ‘Ciyerra, dearly departed spirit of BalletChic, are you present among us?’ Liz and I caught each other’s eyes, and then promptly had to avoid each other’s eyes to keep from laughing out loud.

A bored-looking and nearly entirely transparent Ciyerra drifted sulkily into the room. Without ceremony she leaned over the Ouija board and nudged the planchette with her ghostly fingertips. It moved, but slowly, to point to ‘YES.’

‘What message do you bring to us from the other side?’ Stasia continued.

‘T-H-E P-A-T-I-E-N-T H-A-S M-A-L-A-R-I-A B-U-T W-I-L-L R-E-C-O-V-E-R,’ Ciyerra spelled out, looking furious at the length of time this was taking.

‘What patient?’ Arc asked.

‘She probably means Xena,’ I said hastily, unable to face the prospect of having to watch Ciyerra spell this out one tedious letter at a time. ‘She showed up earlier and she’s been in bed ever since. She didn’t mention malaria, though.’

‘I brought her up some soup earlier,’ Liz chimed in helpfully, ‘and she did seem feverish. She said all sorts of over-heated things.’

Arc shot me a bafflingly exasperated glance. ‘You didn’t mention Xena was here,’ she said in what sounded frightfully like restrained tones.

‘But Arc, we haven’t spoken since our last conversation, which was about plagiarism,’ I reminded her helpfully, and added, ‘and she wasn’t here then. She’s only just shown up.’ Arc said nothing, but raised one graceful avatarial eyebrow. ‘Plagiarism is a very serious matter,’ I informed Liz and Stasia, by way of a conciliatory gesture.

‘So’s poaching,’ said Arc obscurely, and stood up. ‘Where is this sickroom, exactly? I think I should look in on the patient.’ Liz excused herself with a curtsey and led Arc off in the direction of the stairs.

Stasia sighed a sigh of frustrated mediumship while Ciyerra drummed silent spirit fingers impatiently on the edge of the table. ‘Do you have any helpful advice about Josh Amos?’ I asked her. ‘Or about Warr1or?’

‘T-H-I-N-G-S A-R-E N-O-T W-H-A-T T-H-E-Y S-E-E-M,’ Ciyerra spelled out. ‘W-A-R-R-1-O-R S-E-N-S-E-S T-H-E T-R-U-T-H O-F T-H-E M-A-T-T-E-R B-U-T K-N-O-W-S N-O-T W-H-Y.’ Evidently answering my questions concluded her household ghost obligations, because she faded from sight, a peevish expression on her face as she vanished.

‘Platinum RavingWench says only the spiritually gifted can hold conversations with those who have crossed over,’ Stasia said, sounding thrilled by this evidence of her giftedness.

‘Ms. RavingWench probably never met Ciyerra, the ghost who livejournals,’ I muttered to myself.

PrinceC was plunged into a blue funk by our conversation with Warr1or, and alternated between moody silence and pessimistic predictions. I was exposed to the b.f., complete with m.s. and p.p., because we spent the next few evenings hanging out together in one of Sanguinity Online’s finer blood taverns. PrinceC said he preferred not to face the inevitable shutdown of our fandom while sober, and Malfois Manor lacked charm and restfulness just then. Arc had taken to storming in and out, silent and white-lipped with strain, at all hours of the day and night, and Xena, fever-ridden, was deliriously regaling the household with sea shanties of unspeakable lewdness.

But in spite of being rendered nearly homeless by these goings-on, I was feeling hopeful. Each day we sat there, crimson pints in front of us, my mood lightened perceptibly. I’d noticed, you see, that by some odd coincidence Josh Amos had taken to frequenting the same tavern, and that, far from pulling his usual centre-of-attention gambits, he was keeping as low a profile as he was able. He appeared to my attentive eye to be more or less avoiding most of his friends and hangers on. I’d seen this behaviour before in fandom, and forgive me if I seem to gloat, but it was pretty damned obvious that he’d suffered some major humiliation or upset, and was waiting for the news to hit and then blow over. Had he had a bad review? Had a pet theory been jossed by canon? Had he fought with the wrong person, or worse yet, made a friend of the wrong sockpuppet? I longed to know.

I tried to raise PrinceC’s spirits by sharing this theory, but he remained uninterested right up to the moment the pages arrived. The pages were Non-Player Characters who went round handing out important notifications to permanent paid account holders. I suppose the Powers That Be consider this cute.

The pages who showed up now were handing out envelopes so heavily embossed that they gleamed even in the murk of the tavern. PrinceC used his as a coaster, but I broke the seal and opened mine. It was a message from the game creator Herself.

‘Dear Sanguinites,’ it read.

‘It has been recently brought to my attention that for some devoted fans Sanguinity is not merely a game, but a source of inspiration for your own creativity, artistry, and self-expression. Please know that I admire your devotion to the game, and laud your efforts to make it a meaningful part of your lives as you roam across its landscapes. No efforts to curtail your actions will be officially sanctioned.’

I had to reread it twice before the full impact hit me: she was on our side. I looked across triumphantly to where Josh Amos was sitting, his own copy of the memo crumpled in front of him. He caught my eye and raised his chin defiantly.

‘Of course I expected all along the Creator would side with the fanfiction set,’ he said loudly to his companions. ‘Everyone who knows her will tell you she’s a total Henry Jenkins fangirl, after all.’ I said nothing. Let him save what face he could. I knew he was a fake, and from now on I’d be watching him.





1. a tragic drapery faux pas: RIP, Sirius.

2. Platinum RavingWench. That would be Silver Ravenwolf, of course.

3. profic authors: such as Lee Goldberg, thorough professional.

4. Josh Amos gets his name from Josh Groban and Tori Amos. Speaking of Josh: look, an article on Grobanites.

5. He didn’t call them fans--he called them ‘Nomadic Listeners,’ shamelessly ripping off Tori Amos, who once called her fans “ears with feet.”

6. It was as if he’d nailed the Ninety-Five Symptoms to fandom’s front door, and then gone off to eat worms, as is traditional.
Yes, that’s a Diet of Worms joke.

7. an impassioned rant by Warr1or : inspired by the anti-MWPPslash rant, though I think we can safely say Warr1or's motivations are different from that other gentleman's. In a strange but lovely coincidence, mskatonic, who first reported that to Fandom Wank, is reading these stories.

8. during the course of which one of them insisted hysterically that another guest had threatened her with a metaphor. The specific metaphor was your ass is grass.

9. she’s a total Henry Jenkins fangirl, and approves of Textual Poachers.

10. Warr1or is basing his look on Lady Chatterley's Lover, of course.

11. Much love to ankaret for noticing that PrinceC sat down patiently on the monument. "Patience on a monument, smiling at grief" is a quote from Jeeves Shakespeare, Twelfth Night (2:4).