mixed habitat & densely vegetated hiding places

In the 18th dynasty of Egypt, an enslaved girl named Mara finds herself working as a spy for both sides of a political conflict—those who hope to depose the female pharaoh Hatshepsut and install her brother Thutmose on the throne, and Hatshepsut's loyalists who seek to crush the revolution before it starts. At first Mara is happy to play both sides as long as it means she can win her freedom, but a growing attraction between her and the rebel leader makes her question where her own loyalties lie.

I read this because lirazel was writing it for Yuletide (side note: it is lirazel's birthday! happy birthday!!) and it sounded like a book I would have loved as a kid. I went through a phase of being obsessed with ancient Egypt, and yes, I definitely would have been enthralled by the setting and set pieces here. The cultural and historical details are woven into the story in a way that feels very vivid and natural. I especially loved the fanciful section offering Nut's perspective on the land and its people, as well as the wonderfully tense and scary tomb robbery sequence.

( quibbles, nitpicks, wistful slash goggles )

All that said, I really thought the story that lirazel wrote was great and added some insightful backstory and character development, so if you happen to know this book, you should definitely read the fic:

At the Sign of the Falcon (4238 words) by Lirazel
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Mara Daughter of the Nile - Eloise Jarvis McGraw
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Mara/Sheftu (Mara Daughter of the Nile)
Characters: Sheftu (Mara Daughter of the Nile), Mara (Mara Daughter of the Nile)
Additional Tags: Missing Scene, Unreliable Narrator, sheftu keeps telling himself he's not falling
Summary: After years of planning, the time drew near—he could taste it in the air, like an approaching storm. And now here he was, waiting for the signal to plunge into the darkness and commit the worst of sins, to stare death in the face in an attempt to keep his dream alive. Were his nerves fraying like an old rope past its usefulness? How else to explain the way this one, infuriating girl kept preying on his mind?

An evening at the Inn of the Falcon.

I've updated my first round of recs with author names. If you're here because I friended you and you're wondering who I am, it's probably because you're on that list!


I wrote three treats, which are so wildly different in style and subject matter that you'd almost think I was doing it on purpose just to see if I could.

August and Everything After (Teen, Quantum Leap, original characters) for bcgphoenix
Three people wrote for this prompt, which is unsurprising because it was a good one: What happens to the people Sam leaps into after he's gone? I really enjoyed reading the other fics, which each approached the question from a different angle.

The Good Old Days (Teen, World of Warcraft, original characters) for voleuse
Three people wrote for this prompt too! The recipient asked for fic about different factions reacting to the pandaren, and she got stories about a Stormwind human, a Bilgewater goblin, and a Forsaken, which was mine. Good times.

Acted Over (Mature, Julius Caesar, Brutus/Cassius) for bettef
The request here was for kinky Brutus/Cassius, which had me falling all over myself to write it even though it was somewhat last-minute. So, it's about that, and it's also about my sort of intense feelings about this play and its eerie, self-conscious obsession with time and performance. What can I say — when I get weird, I get really weird. I wish I'd seen the prompt earlier because I didn't feel like I had time to make the story as good as it was in my head, but bettef seemed to like it, and that's what matters most!