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crack_van2009-01-26 11:34 am
Inter Vivos by Maygra (FRAO)
Fandom: The Magnficent Seven
Pairing: Chris/Vin with suggestions of Chris/Vin/Buck
Length: ~4,200 words
Author on LJ:
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maygra Author's Website: http://www.assignations.org/maygra/
Why this Must be read:
Well, if you've read any of Maygra's stories, either in Mag7 or any of her other fandoms - Highlander, Supernatural, Fast and the Furious, et cetera - you know why: she's one of the best writers in fandom. Her style is seamless yet evocative, her characterizations are wonderful, her stories are true story-telling - and she creates ingenious situations for bringing out the most wonderful responses from the characters.
The Shadow Riders universe is a Magnificent 7 alternative universe, and it's based in the supernatural - but also in the mythology of the Zoroastrian religion. It's a brilliant mixing of a very old religion and culture with vampires and werewolves and demons.
It's also a brilliant universe for angst and very dark concepts. I won't waste time here trying to explain the universe - I'm not certain that I could. It's rich and elaborate and it comes out in clarity and depth within each of the stories - and the pieces of stories she has posted on her website. The simple upshot is that while they are still peacekeepers, the seven end up finding a new calling, trying to capture an ancient demon who has been set free from its prison. To do this, they are changed - Chris and Buck into vampires, Josiah, Nathan, Ezra, and JD into werewolves, and Vin into the human embodiment of part of the demon's soul - the one the other six are both protecting and also trying to keep imprisoned.
It's an intense universe, and the stories are all complex and layered with all the nuances of their changed and changing relationships, the conflicts brought on by sudden immortality and the new stresses in their lives - or un-lives, as the case may be, the discovery that their relationships with humanity has changed and their relationships with each other.
"Inter Vivos" is one of the short stories - compared to the others - a vignette that begins to explain the way the dynamics have changed and are changing between the seven.
Vin bit him then, sharply enough to elicit a small yelp from Chris, but there was an intense expression on the handsome face. The glassy look in Vin's eyes and the faint flush to his face and chest indicated he was not near done. Chris swallowed, half-wishing Vin would say it, explain it and knowing he wouldn't.
Apparently it had been an incredibly bad day.
Something had happened today, something that had brought Vin back to the edge of shame and anger and desperation. Maybe there was some desire for punishment there, except it was neither pain nor brutality that Vin was asking for, only a connection of sorts, a reminder. Maybe just the reminder that he could be stopped, that in some ways, Chris' entire existence, Buck's, all of them were designed to do just that…stop Vin, stop the demon…salvage something out of a massacre thirty years in the past.
Today had probably been no worse than others Vin'd had, but a year ago, Vin wouldn't have had this, didn't have the means or ways to ease today into just one more of a long string of painful memories. A year ago, he'd have come to Chris or Buck and offered his throat or his arm and ask them to take it all, to take him far past oblivion and into death where he could avoid all the pain and anger and above all isolation that he experienced in having a demon attached to his soul and making his life a misery.
I recommend the entire universe, incomplete as it is, and I would encourage you to flood the author with comments in hopes of drawing her back to it!!"Inter Vivos" by Maygra
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