"Last Call at the Sunset Grill" by Tim P., 2002
- Short Story (29KB)
- PG
- Set in the twenty-second century; diverges before "Ashes to Ashes"
Summary:
Natalie makes a final, pivotal decision for herself and Nick.
Recommendation:
"Last Call at the Sunset Grill" harmonizes with the romanticized strain now dominating Forever Knight interpretation. Over this synchronicity with the current audience, the story improvises an alternate universe both familiar in its convictions and fresh in its circumstances. A clever mechanism extrapolated from "If Looks Could Kill" and "Fallen Idol" merges mortal and immortal cares in Natalie, recalling her fundamental bridge position as the human who knows about vampires. The story simultaneously typifies her as an imperative stalled outside time, and calls on her individual choice to reactivate that imperative inside time.
Characters:
Natalie, Nick, Lacroix, Janette, Other
"Pity the Child" by Bonnie R., 2002
- Short Story (25KB)
- PG-13
- Set immediately after "Ashes to Ashes," and then after "Last Knight"
Summary:
Janette identifies the wrongs done her with those done Divia.
Recommendation:
Subtly including Janette in Divia's rampage, "Pity the Child" insinuates the mad girl's perspective into Janette's mind and unleashes a flood of outrage that the former club owner — again striving for a "cold heart" — would not indulge solely on her own behalf. The intimate first-person narration rails against Lacroix and Nick alike for their callous self-absorption. Strident, bitter, anguished and vengeful, the story burns with "The Human Factor," consuming "Ashes to Ashes" like crackling tinder. It concludes, naturally, in revenge, the strongest parallel between the characters, and with a tang of ambiguity, like the episodes with which it grapples.
Characters:
Lacroix, Janette, Nick
"Our Revels Now are Ended" by Perri S., 1995
- Short Story (31KB)
- PG (violence)
- Diverges after "The Fix," before "Black Buddha"
Summary:
Natalie cures Nick's vampirism, but Lacroix refuses to surrender him.
Recommendation:
Responding to Susan G.'s 1995 Forever Not Challenge, "Our Revels Now are Ended" circles symbolically back to the premiere in reconfronting Lacroix before Nick's burn-stained door. This time, however, Nick stands mortal, and not alone, and humanity and friendship satisfyingly enable Lacroix's final undoing. Fittingly bittersweet, the story powerfully translates the flashback montages so characteristic of Forever Knight, transferring the emotional emphasis of those braided memories from their familiar visual vocabulary to an especially affecting written one.
Characters:
Nick, Schanke, Janette, Lacroix, Miklos, Grace, Natalie
"Lust for Blood" by Sandra G., 1994
- Short Story (85KB)
- PG-13 (vampire violence, implicit sex)
- Set shortly after "Feeding the Beast"
Summary:
While a renegade vampire perpetrates a murder spree, an increasingly unstable Nick takes a forced vacation.
Recommendation:
The physical and metaphysical origins and ramifications of Forever Knight vampirism cross, separate, entwine and divide throughout the series, weaving an intricate layer of metaphoric promise. "Lust for Blood" pursues both directions simultaneously, accumulating physical evidence in Natalie's successful medication of one vampiric symptom, while also pulling metaphysical corroboration from the villain's vicious creed and cruel legacy. The story clearly and engagingly exhibits these irreconcilable yet indivisible themes. (Sequel: "Vengeance Will Be Mine.")
Characters:
Janette, Nick, Natalie, Schanke, Stonetree, Lacroix, Others
"Knight in Hell" by Susan G., 1994
(This author died in 2010.)
- Short Story (87KB)
- PG-13 (violence)
- Alternate universe diverges in the hiatus between "Love You To Death" and "Killer Instinct"
Summary:
Horrific events fall like dominos, destroying Nick's world and everyone in it.
Recommendation:
"Knight in Hell" dismembers the living story of Forever Knight with a savage inevitability from which it is impossible to look away. Efficiently snapping Nick's sanity under a rapid-fire barrage of shock and guilt, the story relentlessly plows down the load-bearing characters, enthrallingly and unerringly hitting each in the thematic heart. The uncanny union of "Knight in Hell" with its kinder, gentler parallel "Assignment: Knight" impressively wrings every nuance from the shared tale. (On a personal note, "Knight in Hell" was, despite its high parodic potential, the first fanfiction to make me cry. It converted me from skepticism to appreciation for the genre.)
Characters:
Nick, Natalie, Schanke, Myra, Jenny, Stonetree, Janette, Lacroix, Others
"My Soul to Keep" by Catherine B., 1995
- Short Story (67KB)
- PG (violence)
- Set in 1891 following "Love You to Death" and 1995 following "The Fix"
Summary:
Nick converts a sea captain to vampirism in exchange for her pledge never to consume human blood.
Recommendation:
"My Soul to Keep" strides from Nick's "Love You to Death" epiphany on the value of human life into a dynamic expedition through other layers of his quest, including freedom, independence and trust. Around exciting encounters and compatible comradeship, the story thought-provokingly parallels Lacroix's unyielding domination and suspicion not only with the harsh human mentor Edith escapes, but with Nick himself when the habits Lacroix inculcated briefly eclipse his ideals. "My Soul to Keep" runs from original territory in the past to a resoundingly canonical conclusion in the present day.
Characters:
Nick, Lacroix, Janette, Natalie, Others
"Words and Meanings" by Bonnie R., 2001
- Novel (390KB)
- R (violence)
- Set c. 1590 and c. 1648, framed during "Fever"
Summary:
At Screed's deathbed, Vachon recalls the origin and an early trial of their enduring friendship.
Recommendation:
"Words and Meanings" methodically evolves Vachon's definition and valuation of friendship, deftly routing delicate character development through adventures in the vile necessities of undead survival. By addressing his account to Nick — a contemporary male vampire, a peer — the novel shapes a shared cultural context in which to advance an incisive indictment of vampirism's internal social hypocrisies. "Words and Meanings" credibly orchestrates exploits and relationships to generate, early in his existence, Vachon's belief that socialization corrupts, while freedom from possessions and position enables companionship's true joys.
Characters:
Vachon, Screed, Nick, The Inca, Bourbon, Francesca, Others
"Icebreaking" by Valerie M. K., 1993
- String of Sequential Vignettes (19KB)
- G
- Set in 1990, after the flashbacks of "Only the Lonely"
Summary:
Nick and Natalie cautiously begin their acquaintance.
Recommendation:
Written early and set earlier, "Icebreaking" refreshes views of Nick and Natalie with its crisp return to the first weeks of their acquaintance, when these two strangers each knew nothing of the other's motivations, history or habits. Removing the characters' familiarity intriguingly unwraps rare questions and observations about a Natalie and Nick convincingly unburdened by later complications and not yet united by shared experiences; this fragile period of discovery allows revelatory missteps impossible later in the friendship. "Icebreaking" charmingly persuades that Natalie began as much a puzzle to Nick as he to her.
Characters:
Nick, Natalie
"The Price of Silence" by G. M. Baxter, 1995
- Novella (171KB, access in five linked chapters)
- PG
- Set after "Bad Blood" and before "Be My Valentine"
Summary:
Grieved by a friend's death, Natalie turns to Lacroix.
Recommendation:
Presciently, "The Price of Silence" employs a friend's untimely demise to drive Natalie into raw, elemental grasping for escape from dual fears of death and aloneness. Courting despair yet demanding choices, this Natalie explores the appeal and limits of what Lacroix represents. The story startlingly combines the immediacy of present-tense with the detachment of third-person narration to jettison expectations, cocooning its reader with Natalie's unfolding choices amid a storm of vigorous, canonical themes. Honoring all its canonical characters, "The Price of Silence" wisely and sensitively observes Natalie and Lacroix's unlikely similitude.
Characters:
Natalie, Nick, Janette, Schanke, Lacroix, Cohen, Others
"Candle in the Shadows of Time" by Mary Ch., 2001
- Novel (349KB)
- R (violence)
- Set after "Dark Knight" and before "Killer Instinct," with flashbacks ranging 1228-1785
Summary:
A mysterious pendant haunts Nick across centuries, with tragedy and reflection in its wake.
Recommendation:
"Candle in the Shadows of Time" neatly strings a series of tragic incidents on the thread of its recurring pendant device, each time prompting Nick to responsible awareness where otherwise horrors might pass unremarked, customary to vampire existence. As the flashbacks, steeped in second-season themes, progress toward first-season's present day, the pendant's reappearances graph Nick's slow moral evolution under his inescapable relationship with Lacroix. Tidily capped in first-season present with Natalie, "Candle" nevertheless largely hinges its insight on the movement of its vivid, second-season-style, Lacroix-driven flashbacks.
Characters:
Nick, Schanke, Natalie, Lacroix, Janette, Others
"Distant Thunder" by Apache, 1996
(At this author's request, the site proprietor will forward any responses.)
- Short Story (33KB)
- PG (vampire violence, death, implied sexual themes)
- Set circa 2055, diverging after "Fever"
Summary:
At the end of her life, Tracy offers Vachon a gift, but not the one he would prefer to receive.
Recommendation:
As grand and strong as its resonant depiction of an aged Tracy, "Distant Thunder" warily circles her mortal lessons from Vachon's immortal perspective, spiraling to the imperishable heart of their mutual fascination and division. This story compels with tenacious distinctions between human and vampiric desires, and eloquently measures every pain-bought stone of Vachon's enduring defense against the constant change that must be always costume, never conviction. Their choices shadow him with regret, yet suggest unexpected comfort in honest sorrow. Bold and sad, smart and gentle: after the lightning's flash, a distant thunder rumbles into rain. (Prequel: "Echo.")
Characters:
Vachon, Tracy
"The Path" by Nancy K., 2001
- Vignette (11KB)
- G
- Set after "Killer Instinct"
Summary:
Nick soliloquizes about daytimes spent in Toronto's underground walkway.
Recommendation:
This intimate monologue peers over Nick's shoulder, fascinated, at Toronto's underground city — the PATH, ten kilometers of shopping, entertainment and transit, safe from the weather and the sun. The city's double identity, above and below, parallels the double life Nick must lead between his dreams and denials, and offers a unique escape for one whose fantasy is our reality. Sensibly suggesting this architecture's role in attracting Nick to Toronto, "The Path" astutely watches him there, stretched from detached self-analysis to overwhelming yearning, and tuned to that defining contradiction.
Characters:
Nick
Please contact an author with feedback after reading her story. You may inspire her to write another! Your readership and responses are precious. Writers depend on readers.
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!
