[Fic] "The Morn Is Hallowday" -- Tam Lin (Pamela Dean)

[edenfalling]

Today is Yuletide reveal day! Here is the story I wrote this year:

The Morn Is Hallowday: Halfway through the walk from Forbes to Ericson, Molly realized that if Tina hadn't returned already from her folk dancing, she certainly would very soon, and in either case Janet's absence would require some explanation. (2,450 words, written for nnozomi)

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This is not the fandom nnozomi and I matched on. That was Diana Wynne Jones's Dalemark Quartet... but the thing is, the prompt was centered around Navis Hadson, in whom I have approximately zero fannish interest. I like him, but I am perfectly satisfied with his role in canon and feel no need to explore him further. (His kids, maybe, but not him.) And it happened that nnozomi had also requested two fandoms I know but hadn't signed up for (because I figured the chances of getting stuck with something I flatly couldn't write were too high, and also there comes a point of diminishing returns in bucket offers), and the prompts for those fandoms fell squarely into my personal wheelhouse.

So I wrote one of them instead. :)

I first read Pamela Dean's Tam Lin when I was fifteen or sixteen, and just starting to think about college as a thing that would probably happen in my future. In the event, the book bears almost no resemblance to my own college experiences, but I treasure it as something that told me, "Yes, becoming an adult is messy and hard and tiring, but there are also joys, and if Janet Carter can do it, so can you." It was one of my touchstones that growing up didn't have to mean giving up all the things I loved. There were, of course, other stories featuring adult characters with rich inner lives and interest in books, but this one went into the most detail about the process of getting there from here.

(It was also a book I enjoyed much more on the second, third, and tenth readings, partly because I was no longer expecting it to go full secondary-world fantasy on me; the magic is subtle and mostly not the point.)

The friendships between Janet and her two roommates -- Molly and Tina -- are for me the heart of the book (moreso than any of Janet's romances... well, except her romance with books; that's also very central), and I like that they're messy and frustrating and often unequal, but the narrative never so much as hints that this means they're not important and worthwhile and an incredible source of strength to all three young women.

We don't get to see much of Molly's relationship with Tina, since we spend the entire book tightly in Janet's POV, but nnozomi asked for a story about the two of them -- perhaps a missing scene during the book, or an exchange of summer letters, or something at a college reunion. And when I reread the book (not at all a hardship!), I realized that one consequence of strictly following Janet's POV is that there's a huge loose thread at the very end: namely, Tina isn't present for the events of the climax (I suspect this is both to trim down logistical complications and to avoid long skeptical arguments) and we never get to see her learn what happened. The book ends with her still presumably worried that Janet may commit suicide, and unaware of Janet's choice to keep both her baby and her relationship with Thomas.

I wanted to give Tina some emotional resolution, and as I wrote it occurred to me that Molly is also left with some unresolved problems -- in her case, what to do about Robin, who she's just learned is actually 400 years old, part of a faery queen's court, and potentially under a death sentence depending what Medeous meant by her threat to sacrifice 'two dearer' the next time the tithe comes due.

So I had Molly explain things to Tina, and Tina prod Molly into reaching at least a preliminary conclusion -- that she wants to stay involved with Robin -- because they are good friends and support each other just like they support Janet in canon.

Random trivia: the section where Molly muses about mermaids really being lures for some kind of giant anglerfish was inspired by various Tumblr posts I've seen discussing similar theories, though it does not directly quote any of them. I actually wanted to do more with the deep sea analogy since Molly is studying to be a marine biologist, but when I tried to work in a more extended riff on that theme, it completely derailed the emotional logic of the fic -- and so, with regret, I killed that particular darling. *wry*

I had a bit of an adventure finding a beta on short notice, and I would like to thank both isis for hippo services and snickfic for exemplary editing services. :)

...

If I'd been more on top of things in November and the first half of December, I would have liked to also fill nnozomi's prompt about Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan's Sergyar support staff, but alas, time management has never been my forte. *wry*

Comments

[watersword]

I loved this story and have been thinking about it for days now.

[edenfalling]

:)