Fic: Ride a White Horse (PG, X-Men/Valdemar fusion)

[st_aurafina]

Title: Ride a White Horse
Fandom: X-Men First Class/Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books
Rating: PG
Words: 34K
Characters/Pairings: Charles/Erik mindbond (Charles is a Companion), Alex/Darwin mindbond (Darwin is a Companion), Raven/Angel, Raven/Irene
Warnings/Content: Implied X-Men:First Class levels of torture for Erik, not graphically described

Summary: With Mindspeaking as powerful as his, the safest place for Xavier was Companion's Field, where he's lived all his life alongside his only friend, Raven the Changechild. Erik is determined to stop Schmidt, Ancar's mage, from ever harming another child; he has no time to nurse a shaky Mindbond with a Companion of Valdemar. And Raven wants Xavier to find his Chosen, but cannot allow him to face danger alone.

Notes: In Valdemar's timeline, this fic is set in the aftermath of the war with Ancar.

Written for the 2014 xmenbigbang.


Fanmix by afrocurl, find it here.


A first small part of this was originally posted at xmen_firstkink in 2011, here.


Thank you to lorax for an initial and early read-through, and to lilacsigil for beta reading. Thank you also to afrocurl, who was fantastic fun to work with, and a great mod to boot.


Ride a White Horse

Comments

[vass]

YAY!

And having said that, I think I'll go hide under the bed now, because merging XMFC with Valdemar is somehow a multiplier of the terrifying bleakness inherent in both canons, and I didn't even know there was that much terrifying bleakness in Valdemar.

[st_aurafina]

No, no, I couldn't do bleak, I promise! It's all muzzle stroking and snuggling and riding lessons, and only a little bit of torture and war.

Someone asked me if I was planning a sequel and I said no, because I'm too chicken to write sad endings.

ETA: oh, I see you've read it already, sorry. I truly didn't mean it to be bleak! There's lots of lovely magic horses! Muzzle kisses and hot horsey breath!

[vass]

It was delightfully horsey in a way that doesn't come through enough in Lackey.

The Alex/Darwin and Raven/Irene and Angel parts were not bleak. I think, on reflection, it's Erik dragging his own grey cloud of bleak -- no, wrong metaphor -- bringing his own magnetic field effect with him, charging everything to the bleak pole of the fandom. You could probably write Mister Rogers' Neighborhood/XMFC and he'd make it end up grim and dystopian (THAT IS NOT A CHALLENGE.)

[st_aurafina]

Phew! All hail the bleak cloud!

[lorax]

OMG yay. I'm so glad this was posted so I can read again and link it to a friend!