I don’t know why people are so surprised I write Austen fan fic.  And there are ALWAYS surprised people in the audience when I say that.  It can’t be they’re surprised that I decided to rape Austen.  After raping Shakespeare and Dumas, surely they don’t think Austen would be safe from me?  (Perhaps they think I would have respect for her maidenly status?  Who knows?)  So it must be shock there is such a thing as Jane Austen fan fiction.  Mind you, there shouldn’t be.  Most of it is based on the A & E mini series.  With me, well, books were to me what movies are to the readers today, so, bah, of course I rape it.  You should count yourself lucky I don’t do slash Austen fanfic.  (Actually I wrote one slash story, once, not in Austen, and in one fandom I won’t admit to.  It was done to see if I could.  I could.  You will never know where.  Mwah ah ah ah ah ah.  Which is good, as I could write it but I couldn’t read it.  It’s ick.)

Anyway, today I woke up feeling like living-dead crud.  For one, I normally have trouble staying in bed past six am, and today I slept till nine thirty.  For another, I feel like what I should do is go back to bed and sleep the rest of the day.  Unfortunately, I have too much to do, both house and writing.  This is what being the mommy is.  One girds one loins (as opposing to girddling them, which is what I used to say as a newcomer to the US) and one goes on.  That’s life.  But that means I DO NOT post the how-to-write subplots thread I wanted to do (figured out what bothered me about Gabriel’s mother, btw.  Hint, there’s a reason he looks so much like Seraphim. :)  No, no, not telling till chapt… nine or ten, when that scene hits.  And NO she’s not the dowager duchess.  Or her sister.)  If I did, it would come out all muddled.  Instead, I’m going to expose you to my Austen Lunacy in its full glory.  This is the story currently unfinished (maybe by posting here, I’ll get myself to finish, if I do one chater at a time,) over at the dwiggies site and what my austen fan-fans call Elf Prince Darcy.  Those of you who are literature purists may leave the room now.  You have my blessing.  The rubber neckers who want to watch the rape, look on:

Between The Night 

And The Morrow

“They’re trooping at Netherfield again,” Mrs. Bennet told her esteemed spouse over breakfast one fine Spring morning.

Mr. Bennet, engrossed in the perusal of the – only one day late – London news looked over the corner of his paper, an amused expression on his face. “Who are they my dear?” he asked. “I do not have the pleasure of understanding you.”

“Why, the Good Neighbors . Everyone knows that they used to haunt the mound in Netherfield Park.”

The paper rustled. “You must indulge my ignorance, but who is everyone? And who are these Good Neighbors? I would say all our neighbors are good.”

For just a moment, Mrs. Bennet was speechless, an occasion rare enough that it caused the rest of the table to fall silent and the titter of her youngest daughter, Lydia, seated at the other end, to echo unnaturally loud. Jane, the oldest daughter, and Elizabeth, the second oldest, directed looks of reproach at their sister, and Lydia clasped her hands over her mouth to keep herself silent. The next youngest, Kitty, hid her own laughter behind a cough. And Mary, the middle daughter, looked at them over her glasses, with the puzzled expression of a person awakened from a dream – or in this case from the book, hid on her lap, half-under the table.

“The… Good Neighbors!” Mrs. Bennet finally exploded. “You know. The Fair Folk.”

Before Mr. Bennet could open his mouth to tease his spouse further, Mary interjected, “We are to understand that the local people – prey to the most vile superstition – believe that there are creatures who inhabit old mounds. They call them the Good Neighbors or the Fair Folk to avoid calling them fairies or elves. All nonsense of course. Fordyce’s makes it very clear that no such creatures exist, nor…”

“Thank you Mary,” Mr. Bennet said, in repressive accents. “You have enlightened us all.” Then turning to his wife. “From hence do you have this… fairy tale, Mrs. Bennet?”

“Why my sister Phillips says she saw them with her own eyes, riding their prancing steeds over the dark fields at midnight. All arrayed in cloth like spider-webs, and wearing bells.”

“It seems to me they’d catch their death of chill, if they’re riding in spider-webs in the moonlight. And besides, what was your sister Phillips doing up at that time?”

“Well… I daresay she could not sleep. She has nerves, you know, though I’m sure she doesn’t suffer like I do.”

“No one suffers like you do, my dear, but all the same… How do you know your sister Phillips didn’t dream the whole? And if she didn’t, what should it matter to us if the elves come back to their mound? You said they’ve been there before.”

“But not for a good fifty years Mr. Bennet. As for what it matters, I think it should be obvious. It is very likely, you know, that they’ll kidnap one of our daughters.”

“Is that their purpose, then? In coming to this region? To kidnap one of our daughters?”

“Their purpose! Don’t be ridiculous. But they are likely to see one of them and enchant her, and then how are we to recover her? We shall be ruined. And turned out to starve in the hedgerows.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Mr. Bennet said, looking over his paper. “With five daughters to marry and my estate entailed away from the female line, we can’t be choosy, can we? Anything that comes in shape of a son-in-law must be accepted.” He grinned at his daughters, over the paper, “What say you, Lizzy, would you like to marry an elf?”

“Indeed, no, Papa,” his second-oldest daughter, who had a lively sense of humor said, with every semblance of propriety. “Too grand by far for me. And I prefer to take my walks in the daytime.”

“I see,” Mr. Bennet said. “This is what I suggest, Mrs. Bennet. We should send all our daughters – and perhaps you, yourself since you’re as handsome as any of them – walking around the mound in the dark of night. I’ll send a note with you saying the elf can take whichever he pleases and then–”

“Oh, Mr. Bennet,” his spouse interrupted. “I pray you will not tease me so. It is very ill to joke about these subjects. Indeed it is.”

“Mama is right, Papa,” Mary said.

“But why, if you just said it is all superstition?” He rose from the table. “Recommend our sister Phillips not to eat lobster patties before bed, my dear,” he told his spouse. “And you’ll see that the elves vanish altogether.”

---

“Do you think there are such things as elves, Lizzy?” Jane asked in the bedroom they shared that evening. She was the oldest in the family, a blond beauty with perfectly regular features set in an oval face. In her white linen nightgown, her knees drawn up and her arms around her knees, she looked like an angel.

Her slightly darker sister, Lizzy, whose face was more impish than beautiful, turned back from where she’d been hanging her clothes. “Ah, Jane. You know better than to believe fairytales. You are almost two and twenty, after all.”

“But… Wouldn’t it be lovely…” She trailed off.

“Wouldn’t what be lovely?” Lizzy asked, gently. Jane was a kind soul, determined to go through the world thinking the best of everyone who crossed her path. To casual observers, she might appear superficial or not very smart, but her sister knew that there was a dreaming, romantic nature beneath the smiling face.

“Oh… just to think that there is a world where dowries and connections do not matter – where… where it’s all moonlight and shadows and…”

“I’m sure,” Lizzy said. “That if there were such a world, the dowries and wealth would matter too. It might be fairy gold, but no doubt, we’d need to amass a quantity of it before we could marry an elf of birth and substance. And then,” she said. “Imagine how their nobility and gentry would look down on us. You want to marry a mortal? How shocking.”

“Stop it, Lizzy,” Jane said, giggling. “Do you never take anything seriously?”

“Very little,” Lizzy confessed, rounding on her sister with a smiling face. “Being one of five daughters, with no dowry and no connections, I can choose to go through life crying or laughing. And I dearly love to laugh.” As she spoke, she was opening their window to let in some of the still cool but refreshing spring air.

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful, though,” Jane said. “If we were to meet someone who loved us for ourselves?”

“Very wonderful,” Lizzy said. “As in a rare wonder which I don’t expect to see– Oh!”

The oh was rung from her, seemingly all unwilling, erupting with force from her lips.

“What is it?” her sister asked, rising to look over Lizzy’s shoulder.

“Nothing. I’m sure it’s nothing,” Lizzy said recovering. “Just some lights in the little wilderness next to the park, which–” She stopped.

She stopped because under the moonlight, the lights that had been coiling through the little wilderness next to their house – a train of lights, really, a very odd phenomenon – resolved itself into … a group of riders in the moonlight.

There were two ladies and three gentlemen, riding in the silvery glow of the full moon. At the front, mounted on chestnut steeds of a grace and elegance such as Elizabeth had never seen, were two men – one dark and one blond. The dark one looked slightly taller than the other, and rode slightly ahead. As he turned his face to say something to his companion, the moonlight hit his face in full – displaying a straight nose, a square chin, full lips. Something to his expression attracted Lizzy, and she leaned forward, from her window, captivated.

But he never looked at her. He wore antiquated clothing, of the sort that men wore in portraits from a few hundred years ago. Short breeches displayed a length of stocking-encased leg, ending in ankle boots. A doublet outlined broad shoulders and a waist that could not be as small as it looked. On his head was a green cap, with a green feather. His hair, tied back, flowed behind him as he rode. “Oh,” Lizzy said, wondering if she was seeing a ghost. For who else would ride in that strange a costume through the neighborhood at night?

But if she was seeing a ghost, then so was Jane, whose hand clenched on her arm, as the riders below pointed in the direction of Netherfield, turned that way and… vanished into the night.

Elizabeth took a deep breath. “Dreaming. I must be dreaming.”

“Oh no,” Jane said. “We saw them. They were… I’m sure they’re elves.”

“More likely London gentlemen and ladies playing a prank,” Lizzy said.

Jane hesitated, but at last said, “I daresay you’re right. People have such lively senses of humor.”

But later, when they were both in bed, Jane spoke, in the dark, “Lizzy? Did you see the… the blond gentleman? I daresay it was the most pleasant face I’ve ever beheld.”