[Recs] Yuletide 2006, Remix Redux V

[springgreen]

First of all, thanks very much to xsmoonshine for remixing my story!

I realized that I had never gotten around to reccing the Yuletide pieces that I beta-ed, which is a real shame, because they're both wonderful. So, in the spirit of "better late than never":

• Stories Darkness Tells You, by thuviaptarth (Fray) - Harth and Melaka and the monsters within. I love the flow of this one and how informed by fairy tales it is, particularly the fairy tales in which evil sisters chop off their toes and girls in red shoes dance themselves to death.
  
  Excerpt: When they were very small, they slept in the same bed and dreamed the same dreams; this stopped when they grew big, when the girl began to acquire curves and the boy began to get his height, when the girl began to run with dangerous men and the boy began to dream true.



• Blood and Ink, by edonohana (Lloyd Alexander's Westmark trilogy) - It's Theo before, during, and after he becomes the Kestrel, and it touches on the very things that I love most about the Westmark trilogy: what wars do to people, what people do about wars, and what happens when the war is over. I love the voices, both of the characters and of the narration (sausages!), and I love that Theo and Mickle are still trying to figure it all out.
  
  Excerpt: "It's only ink on paper," said Justin.
  
  "So is a constitution," said Florian.

And now for the Remix ones:

• Apocalypses and Other Fairy Tales (Keys remix), by yhlee - It's Fred and Willow after the apocalypse, and they've only got each other. Another dark fairy tale, this time in Yoon's dream-like prose. I really like that Yoon doesn't forget that Fred is a woman who lived in a cave for years and that she is a survivor, not just the cute and girly love interest that she so often is on the show.
  
  Excerpt: Once upon a time, there lived a girl in a cave. The girl was clever and the girl was quick, and no matter what monsters came after her, the girl always got away.



• What Will Be Told (the Gospel remix), by minnow1212 - I lied. Feathers, Lightsabers, and Lead wasn't my only favorite remix; this is the other. I have been waiting all week for the reveal just so I could squee about this and make other people read it! I got to beta this, which largely involved my reading every other paragraph, looking up, and then swearing, "Damnit! Why can't I write like this?"
  
  sullensiren's A Path Unvaried is an awesome story, and minnow1212 takes her story and adds to it so that it becomes the seed for myth and legend and folklore, which brings it right back to Sandman, which has always been about the power of Story. I love all the different narrative forms in the story -- gospel and talk show interviews and children's rhyming games. Brilliantly executed and highly recommended.
  
  Excerpt: Many stories are told of Prez Rickard: some documented, some plausible, some contradictory, some clearly impossible. (Some of the documented ones are false; some of the impossible ones are true. This is the way of stories.)