I am quite sure post-series Aeriel/Irrylath can be written well and convincingly. I just think it requires more explanation and set-up than Aeriel/Erin does, and that is why I could not get there in a 15-minute fic. Someday I may try again, and see if I can work through the obstacles given a few extra thousand words. *grin* (Fair warning: it may end up as a platonic friendship, or a weird poly/partner-switching thing, or... oooh, maybe I could go back to the whole 'Irrylath cannot be completely normal after spending so long is biological semi-stasis' thing and have him go looking for Aeriel after Sabr and Erin die. Which would be horribly tragic in various ways, but also fascinating... *ponders*)

I am kind of boggled that I wrote four of these stories on Christmas Eve. I completely blame mental avoidance of various things -- I remember sitting at my parents' laptop and thinking, "I am going to make sure somebody has a really happy Christmas, no matter what else is going on." And then, you know, I had a pretty good Christmas myself anyway, but I was falling back into the old trap of thinking I had to justify being happy -- like, if I was happy while Ardis was dead, this had to be paid for somehow, and writing stories was the payment I hit on. *shakes head* Bad mental patterns reappear at the weirdest times.