Hecate's Chalice by Sylvia (PG-13)

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

Hi all, I'm Mary Crawford and I'll be doing recs for Hercules: the Legendary Journeys for June, concentrating on Hercules & Iolaus stories - slash, gen and all points in between.

Happily, ltlj has done all the work for me by writing an excellent H:tLJ fandom overview forcrack_van, a Hercules/Iolaus essay for ship_manifesto and reccing a whole bunch of great stories in the fandom.

I'll start things off with a favorite h/c adventure story.

Fandom: HERCULES: THE LEGENDARY JOURNEYS
Pairing: none, it's gen.
Author on LJ: sivib
Author Website: Sivi's Fanfic
Why this must be read:

I love hurt/comfort stories, but there is an unfortunate tendency in part of the fandom to turn Iolaus into a wimp who can't take care of himself. (See also: Whiny!Blair, Abused!Methos, and Cult of the Pallid Hunter, The.) Hecate's Chalice isn't one of that ilk. Iolaus gets into trouble - gets seriously hurt, in fact - but he solves his own problems and remains his feisty self:

The water smelled sweet. Iolaus licked his lips and wondered when his mouth had become so dry. It was like swallowing sand, but the sand tasted like copper. Split lip, he thought blearily, and wished he could pass out. The gray dots were getting bigger, and turning darker; it looked like he'd get his wish.

Icy water splashed over him, waking the drifting prisoner with a shock of cold. "Wake up!" Nikos scooped up another gourd of water and flung it in his face. "No sleeping."

"'M not sleeping. I'm trying to pass out. You're not helping." Iolaus licked his lips, catching some of the precious water as it dripped down his face. "Do that again, but aim for my mouth, this time."

Hecate's Chalice is a long, well-plotted adventure story with great original characters and a real episode feel to it, the kind of story you save to reread on a rainy day. Also, there's a sly nod to one of my favourite fantasy novels, Barry Hughart's Bridge of Birds, that makes me grin every time I see it. This is the author's only H:tLJ story, and I live in hope that she'll write more.

Hecate's Chalice

Comments

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

Yay! More Herc/Iolaus recs! I just finished reading my way through the Less than Legendary site and was getting desperate for some more good stories.

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm glad to hear that! There will be some LtLJ recs in this set, because I want to recommend my particular favourites, but I am going to try and point people to the less easily found good stuff too.

Happy reading! :-)

[pixenvixen.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the rec! Off to check it out now...

[(Anonymous)]

Link's not working and it's too good to be missing. Here, a spare copy.

http://web.archive.org/web/20041015064405/http://www.sivib.com/hecate2finaledit.html

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

Hey, thanks for leaving me this link! I just found it and I appreciate it. Very much too good a story to be gone!