"The Coming Choice," a _Forever Knight

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The Coming Choice
May-July 2003
last modified August 2, 2003
by Amy R.
Disclaimers, citations and credits appear in the endnote of this first-season Forever Knight fanfiction poem.
 
Kill him. Convert him. Or make him forget.
The Code will enforce this choice on Janette
the night Nick regains his humanity.
Sometimes, deep in her soon-empty goblet,
apart from the crowd with her cigarette,
she ponders that eventuality.
Kill him? Lacroix would have done so, doubtless.
Lacroix would have preferred his Nicholas
dead in his grasp rather than living free.
But though she deals death without regret,
this is Nicolas. No urge in Janette
could cap her knight's quest with such tragedy.

Convert him? No plan would please her better.
To build anew with her fair Crusader
what might have been with no Lacroix between.
But that chance is lost, and she knows his views.
Rather than return to her, he would choose
to die human; she could not intervene.

Or make him forget? Such a lonely thought.
She imagines erasing times they fought,
laughed, touched, cried, or sat quietly content.
She pictures how their life seen through his eyes,
her heart as held in his hands, would comprise
old wallpaper stripped for a new tenant.

Someday, he will become mortal, knowing
more than mortals may. Forbidden to cling,
she must choose somehow to silence his voice.
So when days find her too deeply drinking,
it's because she knows that choice is coming --
not that she would really call it a choice.

END
 
Endnote:

Disclaimers

James Parriot and Barney Cohen created the Forever Knight characters. The Sony Corporation owns them. They appear periodically on the SciFi Channel and the SPACE Channel. I intend no infringement. Please support Sony, SciFi and SPACE in all their Forever Knight endeavors!

All characters and situations depicted in this fantasy fan poem are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to real people or experiences is purely coincidental.

Citations

The episode "Unreality TV" introduces the concept of the relentless vampiric Code, the sole purpose of which is apparently to protect the secret of vampire existence from humans. The Enforcers, those who compel the silence the Code demands, appear on screen only in "Unreality TV," though "The Fix" also obliquely references them. Neither the Code nor the Enforcers appear anywhere else in Forever Knight canon.

Nick kills Lacroix in "Dark Knight," the premiere episode. Janette learns of Lacroix's death from Nick in "False Witness" (Canadian cut). The past-tense references to Lacroix (lines 7-9) therefore set this poem between that revelation in "False Witness" and Lacroix's unexplained return in "Killer Instinct" two years later. Additionally, Janette smokes (line 5) only in first season (cf. "At least I know it won't kill me" in "Dark Knight").

The idea that people may choose to die human rather than return as vampires when bitten (lines 16-18) belongs to the episode "Near Death," as does Janette's remark: "if you call death a choice" (line 30).

"Nicholas" is English, as Lacroix pronounces it. "Nicolas" is French, as Janette pronounces it.

For those interested in mechanics: the poem is five pentameter sestets, rhymed aabccb.

Credits

My thanks go to Elisabeth for generously reviewing this poem's draft, and directing the deletion of a superfluous stanza. She further strongly advised a title change, which I did not, at the last, implement. My thanks go also to Abby and Shelley for their opinions on the title issue. As always, the faults are entirely my own.

Please do not archive, post or otherwise distribute this piece. You're welcome to link to it here on my site. I wrote "The Coming Choice" in May 2003, revised it through July, and posted it to fkfic-l and archived it to my website on August 2, 2003.

Thank you for reading. I always appreciate comments and constructive criticism. Though sometimes it takes a while, I also always answer them. Please email me or leave a comment on my LiveJournal or Dreamwidth.

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