Jul. 3rd, 2008

karanguni: (Default)
Written for Kinkfest, but in all honesty, this is probably so small a fandom that no one will quite get it anyway. In which case, here comes some context to save the day!

The book, The Left Hand of Darkness, is an incredible story about everything from politics to gender to love to strength; its storyline focuses on a single human envoy, Genly Ai, sent to the planet Winter - where the physical norm is to be sexless until the short period of time each month where one goes into kemmer and attains either one gender or the other. There he attempts to get them to integrate into a inter-planetary system, but his efforts are stalled by quibbles between the two native nations of Karhide and Orgoreyn --

But I'm not good at telling that story, and the fic is about Estraven - one of the main characters and the most beautiful man, I think, yet created in fiction, and I say that without caring how he looks like - a Karhidish man more in love with the whole than its parts. I typed out a few extracts of Le Guin's actual text for reference, and you can find it at the bottom of this post (and, if you've never read the book before, I suggest reading it first!).

Uh. Long story short: Le Guin is the master, I am merely the sad little slave.

Title: Once, In Estre
Rating: PG
Fandom: The Left Hand of Darkness
Characters: Therem/Arek
Summary: Once upon a time, in Estre, Therem Harth had been happy.
Warnings: Uh, "incest"?

512 words and epic failure at living up to really great work.

Once upon a time in Estre, he had been a foolish youth. )


Around 6000 words of extracts. Any typos are mine. )

[edit] Also, hi, flist, I really, really want to write Tseng right now. Prompts, anyone?

 

A universe of unmapped grief and love
And new master light is beyond
The pleiades and plow and southern stars.

O soaring
Icarus of outworld, burn bright
The traceries of known skymarks,
Slide the highway planets behind
Your clear waxed wings.

Go conquer the everywhere left
Beyond your sad confinement
In a predicted bonehouse,
Witch thrown riddle of flesh
And water.

O soar until nothing
remains but great glittering holes
In the black godspun shirt over your head.

- John Fairfax