osprey_archer | October recs

A few days ago,

motetus linked to a month-long fic recommendation challenge, Rectober.

“PRETTY BANNER SHINY,” I said. “WANT.”

And so of course I had to do recs.

So here is my first rec!

Title:The Grim Gray Hills
Author:

zodiacal_light
Fandom: Song of the Lioness - Tamora Pierce
Rating: R
Word Count: 2437
Warnings: It’s kind of harrowing.
Summary: All hillmen are traitors, and you always knew this.

Excerpt: This is what it means, to be a noble in the Hill Country: you are a traitor to your people.

Your father or your grandfather was some opportunistic turncoat, who flocked to the Old King's side when he rolled through the region and was hastily ennobled, charged with pacifying their fellow hillmen. Something about rewarding loyalty and local lords knowing their people. The first is a sick northern lie; the second is a tragedy.

Why I loved it: If you pick just one fic to read this month, it should be this one. It’s an exploration of Alex of Tirragen, one of the heroine’s many antagonists, most of whom never get very satisfactory motives in the original. This fic gives Alex motives (and with him, another antagonist, Delia), in a manner so satisfactory and so much deeper than the original as to be instant headcanon.

Alex and Delia come from a recently conquered region, and this fic explores the rage and pain and despair that they feel, and with it, of the imperialist themes in the Tortall books. These are so deeply embedded in the premise that until you start to look for them, you barely see them - but then they’re everywhere.