"Coin of the Realm" by Susan G., 1993
(This author died in 2010.)
- Christmas Challenge (87KB)
- PG
- Set between "Dark Knight" and "Killer Instinct," with flashbacks circa 1800-1830
Summary:
Assisting a kidnapping investigation, Nick finds ominous echoes of an incident in nineteenth-century Copenhagen.
Recommendation:
In the British tradition of ghost stories at Christmas, "Coin of the Realm" haunts Nick through work, memories and relationships with the Little Match Girl's lesson on compassion. The story opens briskly on Nick invoking early a tradition of the vampire life he rejects, so that he can have it and also fulfill his commitments in the human world. The edginess of that juxtaposition extends as he fails to reconcile past experience with present anxiety, while an upsetting case seemingly solves itself. With the invigorating expansiveness of first season, "Coin of the Realm" asks more questions than it answers, opening hidden windows on several characters' struggles.
Characters:
Nick, Janette, Lacroix, Schanke, Natalie, Others
"Unto Dust" by Jill K., 1995
- Asteroid Challenge Vignette (8KB)
- PG
- Alternate reality, diverges during "A More Permanent Hell"
Summary:
Alone and dying in the ruins of an asteroid-devastated earth, Lacroix finds refuge in his memories.
Recommendation:
"Unto Dust" displays a gruesome magnificence in Lacroix's final moments. His continuance at any price — "Life, of course!" (AMPH) — ethos rolls over to expose a shivering, shaven side, somehow equally pitiable, abhorrent, and fiercely admirable. Relating the end of the entire world through the individual ends of Janette, Natalie and Nick, the vampire who ever demanded companionship relives the losses that left him entirely bereft. Unrelentingly sad, this apocalyptic vision nevertheless offers catharsis through its grief, and insights applicable to choices in later canon, where the asteroid did not, after all, hit earth.
Characters:
Lacroix, Janette, Nick, Natalie
"The Battle of Hastings" by Celeste H-L., 1995
- 1066 Blooper Challenge Story (26KB)
- G
- Set in England circa 1800-1890
Summary:
The odd habits of a regular patron distress a restaurant proprietor.
Recommendation:
This comedy jauntily accepts the gauntlet thrown by the notoriously embarrassing discrepancy with the historical Battle of Hastings (over 190 years before Nick was born) in "Forward into the Past." Simmering in its own jollity, this "The Battle of Hastings" nevertheless seriously addresses Aristotle's origin, habits and acquaintance with Nick. The story frosts over the spot in which the episode failed to rise with a frothy précis of the significance of food in human society, and the conspicuous divisions it draws.
Characters:
Aristotle, Nick, Others
"Ne-m'oubliez-pas" by M.E. Orive, 1995
(At this author's request, the site proprietor will forward any responses.)
- Nominated, 1999 Historic FK Fanfic Award, Vignette (9KB)
- G
- Diverges before "Black Buddha," after "Killer Instinct"
Summary:
Nick wins his humanity, but completely loses the world of vampires.
Recommendation:
The "Forever Not" fiction challenge, issued by Susan M. Garrett in 1995, requested scenarios for a series finale. Haunting and wise, "N-m'oubliez-pas" (French for "forget-me-not") answers that challenge by mapping the most formidable boundary of Forever Knight's metaphors, indelibly illustrating how crossing into humanity is stepping thematically out of the existing story universe. This vignette locks the door in that barrier with an eerie monkey's-paw twist, granting Nick everything he says he wants at the cost of everything with which he gained it.
Characters:
Nick, Lacroix, Natalie, Other
"BloodThirst" by Russet McM., 1994
- Novella (153KB)
- R (criminal violence, vampire violence)
- Set after "Killer Instinct" and before "The Black Buddha," with flashbacks circa 1846-1850
Summary:
Natalie, Janette and Schanke search for Nick when he disappears while investigating a serial killer obsessed with death by deprivation.
Recommendation:
The conspicuous but seldom-addressed equation of human food-hunger and water-thirst with vampiric cravings reaches a powerful intensity in "BloodThirst." With compelling attention to the meticulous detective and forensic work, this chilling murder mystery challenges Nick's concept of his affliction and skillfully arranges those who care for him along the spectrum of perspectives on his vampirism. "BloodThirst" features each of the canonical characters vigorously defending his or her interests in the most convincing second-season manner, and eases insight from that energy with tangy descriptions in which every setting speaks.
Characters:
Nick, Schanke, Natalie, Lacroix, Janette, Cohen, Others
"Buried Secrets" by Kathy Yello96, 2000
- Conversion-day Challenge Vignette (10KB)
- PG (brief, mild violence)
- Set circa 1738-1764, most likely in 1763
Summary:
News of an archaeological discovery enthralls Nick, bores Janette and disturbs Lacroix.
Recommendation:
"Buried Secrets" enticingly pinpoints a rarely-examined intersection of Nick's inclination toward humanity and Lacroix's toward vampirism. Vesuvian ash preserved the site of Lacroix's vampiric conversion; its rediscovery, this vignette perceptively suggests, may have introduced Nick to anthropology, the study of humanity. Vibrating with the unstated resonance of "A More Permanent Hell," the sketch lightly exposes the infant discipline of archaeology to archetypes of those who do not see its relevance, those who wish to learn from its discoveries, and those who feel violated by what they see as it disturbing their dead.
Characters:
Janette, Nick, Lacroix
More by this Author (Unavailable)
"Out of the Silence" by Dorothy E., 2000
- Nominated, 2000 FK Fanfic Award, Novella (111KB)
- PG (some violence, vampire behavior)
- Set seventeen years after "Last Knight"
Summary:
A detective finally solves the mystery of Natalie Lambert and Nick Knight's disappearances.
Recommendation:
"Out of the Silence" innovatively applies the resolution of "Stranger Than Fiction" to the tragedy of "Last Knight." Progressing adroitly from an Emily Weiss who has recovered her memories to a Lacroix who carries the final truth alone, the story shivers with cuttingly clear hindsight, revealing chill portents invisible until too late. Energized by the danger of the puzzle and the fragility of those seeking to solve it, "Out of the Silence" robustly excavates answers from the pain and passion of those left behind. Some things can never seem true until you share them. (Prequels: All the Rest is Silence, Silent Echoes.)
Characters:
Reese, Emily Weiss, Lacroix, Others
"The Tapestry" by Sarah B., 1996
- Short Story (64KB)
- PG (off-stage, a murder and other criminal activity)
- Set after "The Queen of Harps," before "Black Buddha"
Summary:
A murder at a museum exhibit of Brabantine artifacts introduces distant descendents of Nick's sister Fleur.
Recommendation:
With the warm presence of Fleur's descendants countered by dark implications about her life after her brother took her memory, "The Tapestry" delicately displays the fierce divergence witnessed over Fleur's grave in "Fallen Idol." The answer to the police investigation tidily resolves the plot while simultaneously disturbing moral comfort in a decidedly second-season manner. Briefly challenging ancient family loyalty with modern legality in a snarl of compassion and justice, the story steeps Nick in his long-unexamined human life, and then requires a decision where the medieval nobleman's dictate may override the contemporary cop's obligation.
Characters:
Nick, Schanke, Natalie, Janette, Lacroix, Others
"All That's Best of Dark and Bright" by Susan G., 1993
(This author died in 2010.)
- Novella (203KB)
- PG-13 (criminal activity, vampire behavior, fire, implied sex)
- Set after "Cherry Blossoms," before "Hunters," with flashbacks to 1666
Summary:
A charming stranger introduces Janette to a powerful new kind of blood, while Nick, Natalie and Schanke unravel the mysteries of a string of drug-related murders and an apparent case of spontaneous vampire combustion.
Recommendation:
Catching Janette in a firestorm of FK's essential themes, "All That's Best of Dark and Bright" creatively advances those concepts from the rarely-seen angle of the Raven owner's temperament and values. Progressively unrolling the clues to the intertwined investigations, the story strategically displays each canonical character at the point of his or her strongest personal capacity and structural relevance. This precise location of the others eloquently reveals the unique foundational role reserved for Janette. While "All That's Best" offers an intriguing plot and robust depictions of Nick and Natalie, among others, its real boast is its unparalleled explication of Janette.
Characters:
Janette, Nick, Alma, Grace, Natalie, Lacroix, Schanke, Stonetree, Other
"To the Victor Go" by James K.W., 1995
- Short Story (64KB)
- PG (a few impolite words, slight sexual innuendo)
- Diverges after "Killer Instinct," before "Close Call"
Summary:
Schanke discovers Nick's secret, and a mysterious stranger offers witness to a cure.
Recommendation:
Depicting a memorably vulnerable and reactive Nick, "To the Victor Go" joyfully resettles second-season's structural imbalances by empowering Schanke's position opposite Lacroix. Schanke's new awareness of Nick's vampirism draws him fully into Nick's struggle, reforging friendships and redistributing the burdens of Nick's secrets and Natalie's solitary knowledge in an appealing chain reaction that finally influences even Lacroix's acceptance of Nick. The story engagingly emphasizes emancipation through truth and triumph through hope, both in scenes gleefully bursting with those emotions, and in scenes saturated with the dire contrasts of misapprehension and despair.
Characters:
Nick, Schanke, Lacroix, Natalie, Other
"Sadness, in a Minor Key" by Diane H., 2000
- Nominated, 2000 FK Fanfic Award, Novelette (93KB)
- PG-13 (vampire behavior)
- Set 1809-1810, with interludes set after "Night in Question"
Summary:
Natalie asks about Nick's memory of "Für Elise," and Nick relates his acquaintance with Beethoven.
Recommendation:
"Sadness, in a Minor Key" keenly parallels the isolation Nick endures as a result of his vampirism with that suffered by the great composer in his progressive loss of hearing. This overt identification of effect between the two afflictions shelters a quietly absorbing exploration of the dual causes of such alienation — that imposed from without, by society, and that assumed from within, by the sufferer's own fears and drives. Music fuses the characters' perceptions, barely hinting at the possibility for a new salvation through its power — companionship and humanity alike — before truncating in a classically canonical FK manner.
Characters:
Nick, Natalie, Lacroix, Other
"Accidents" by Apache, 1995
(At this author's request, the site proprietor will forward any responses.)
- Short Story (21KB)
- R (sexual content, vampire behavior)
- Set after "The Black Buddha, Part Two," before "Avenging Angel"
Summary:
After a car accident, Tracy's urgent visit to Vachon reveals misunderstandings and initiates new understandings on both their parts.
Recommendation:
Intensely involving, "Accidents" entwines a fundamental FK question around an electric emotional confrontation. Tracy and Vachon dive smoothly, eagerly and obliviously through the unfounded assumptions and unasked questions characterizing each of their perspectives, from Vachon's choices in "Hearts of Darkness" to Tracy's frustration in "My Boyfriend is a Vampire." The balanced structure neatly pairs the physical disaster nearly wrought by silence with restoration in the emotionally risky intimacy of words. Shining from fresh angles, the story powerfully illuminates intriguing situations to which the characters had blinded themselves, and which the common usage of the fandom also rarely acknowledges.
Characters:
Tracy, Vachon
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Naturally, these fanworks are entirely fictional (there's no such thing as a vampire). Forever Knight was created by Parriot & Cohen and belongs to Sony. Feedback and suggestions are welcome; please let me know what you think. Thank you very much for reading!
