"Silver Bells" by Bonnie P., 2000
- Short Story (22KB)
- PG-13
- Set after "Fever," before "Francesca," with flashbacks c. 1890
Summary:
Urs strolls through downtown Toronto on Christmas Eve.
Recommendation:
With a resonant echo of Urs's elusive voice, "Silver Bells" wraps up the tattered tendrils of her codependent dilemma in themes of giving. The story shimmers between conventional holiday exchanges and profound personal offerings, weaving a pattern of attempts at giving and receiving gone awry, a pitiable cycle defining Urs's entire existence, from her adolescent abandonment to third-season's upheavals. Equipped with strong parallels, "Silver Bells" hands Urs a symbolic chance to break this impasse — a grim, melancholy choice, nevertheless seeded with hope's promise as well as its betrayal. (Series: "Blue Christmas," "White Christmas," "Greensleeves.")
Characters:
Urs, Screed, Bourbon, Vachon, Other
"Alone" by Amanda B., 2003
- Short Story (26KB)
- PG
- Set after "The Human Factor," divergent reality
Summary:
Nick disappears from Toronto after Janette's return.
Recommendation:
"The Human Factor" initially sparked debate about Janette's fate. Had Nick allowed her to die as she asked, or had he made her a vampire against her wishes? Consensus affirms her vampirism, but the alternative remains captivating, and "Alone" fulfills that possibility according to the internal logic of that uniquely controversial episode. Comprising three vignettes from separate perspectives, "Alone" measures out a slow, detailed isolation tailored to third-season deprivations, but then turns the narrative to divulge a persistent kernel of the gradual hope and steady striving that distinguish first-season's most satisfactory endings. (Sequel: "From Solitude...")
Characters:
Natalie, Lacroix, Nick, Other
"Food for the Soul" by Jarvinia, 2002
- Short Story (31KB)
- PG-13 (violence)
- Set after "Killer Instinct," flashbacks to 1137 France and 1941 England
Summary:
Apart, Lacroix and Nick practice their instruments, then come together for the music.
Recommendation:
First-season Forever Knight reserves music as the single humanizing element in its brutal depiction of Lacroix, and the one positive commonality between Lacroix and Nick. "Food for the Soul" lingers over Lacroix's relationship with music, as art and as desire, perceptively conjoining his access to this creative channel with wanton destruction, in the fundamental vampiric contradiction. Originating Lacroix's musicianship in a scene reminiscent of a "False Witness" flashback, this story confronts Nick with music as a symbol of those things about Lacroix he cannot reject.
Characters:
Lacroix, Nick, Natalie, Other
"Fire or Fire" by S.W. Smith, 2003
At this author's request, the site proprietor will forward responses.
- Entwined Vignettes (13KB)
- PG
- Setting alternates between "A More Permanent Hell" and "Baby, Baby"
Summary:
Natalie connects Nick's refusal of her request to his acceptance of Serena's.
Recommendation:
This compact rumination deploys a pensive, first-person perspective to isolate and illuminate the scenes most pivotal to Natalie's sensations of rebuff in "Baby, Baby" and "A More Permanent Hell." Dissolving from the vicinity of one episode to the other and back, "Fire or Fire" navigates the frontage road of Natalie's experiences — next to but separate from the full plot open to the audience — and guides her to new understanding. Wisely, the vignette restrains that understanding from blossoming wholly into reconciliation: after all, this juxtaposition suggests, these are the wounds from which third season springs.
Characters:
Natalie, Nick, Serena, Schanke
More by this Author (Unavailable)
"Mad About You" by Lizbetann, 1996
- Song Challenge Story (43KB)
- PG-13
- Set in 1227-28, converging on the flashbacks of "Dance by the Light of the Moon," with an epilogue in 1996, following "Crazy Love"
Summary:
Near Jerusalem, Nick and Janette meet for the first time.
Recommendation:
Introducing Nick and Janette in a moment of mutual restlessness, this conscientious historical construct burns its way through an intriguing examination of power. Medieval human Nick desires Janette, and marriage would make him her master; vampiric Janette desires Nick, and conversion would make her his master. In such inequality, the story asks, how can love endure? Framed by contemporary historical examples of power's snarled use and abuse in politics and religion, "Mad About You" redistributes responsibility by explicating all the choices culminating in the bond between Nick, Janette and Lacroix.
Characters:
Nick, Janette, Lacroix, Others
"Coming Across" by Lisa McD., 1993
- Short Story (27KB)
- PG
- Diverges after "Unreality TV"
Summary:
Nick regains his humanity and romances Natalie.
Recommendation:
"Coming Across" administers a high-dosage happy ending with plenty of sugar. Written during first season, the story boosts the now-standard conjunction of recovery and romance through a giddy inventiveness that later episodes often constrain. This simple tale achieves its comfortably conventional end by bracingly independent means. The tart interpolation of public catastrophe and private illness judiciously retains Forever Knight's evocative proximity to death, and prevents the characters' sweet satisfaction from cloying. (Sequels: "Confessions," "Heart Within the Beast," "Father Christmas Figure.")
Characters:
Nick, Natalie, Stonetree, Janette, Others
"False Heart" by Susan G., 1994
(This author died in 2010.)
- Novel (543KB)
- PG (violence)
- Set between the first and second seasons, with flashbacks circa 1294 and 1502
Summary:
While investigating the murder of an antique collector, Nick faces his interview with the Archivist of the vampires, whose agenda soon entangles Natalie as well.
Recommendation:
Dorian the Archivist may be the most vibrant, complete and memorable original character ever to grace FK fanfiction. False Heart reveals him in a canonical thematic space left vacant and crying for representation; where the Enforcers suppress knowledge, the Archivist preserves it, supplying essential balance. Dorian's passion for truth spotlights the inherent predicament of vampirism's lies, and aligns aptly with both the novel's homicide mystery and Natalie and Nick's communication struggles. Impressively, False Heart's lucid flashbacks not only chart Nick's slow growth into his ideals and independence, but also carefully develop Dorian's own changes over time. (Sequels: Kind Soul, Noble Mind, "In One's Own Coin.")
Characters:
Nick, Schanke, Natalie, Janette, Lacroix, Others
"Hell" by Megan H., 2002
- Vignette (3KB)
- PG
- Set circa 1226-1227, after the flashbacks of "Queen of Harps" and before those of "Dance By the Light of the Moon"
Summary:
Sir Nicolas de Brabant survives a battle in the Levant.
Recommendation:
This short prose-poem makes a single vivid scene, one hideous event, portentously represent the larger progress of disillusion and despair from the idealistic novice in Wales ("The Queen of Harps") to the jaded veteran in Paris ("Dance By the Light of the Moon"). Pointed and poignant, "Hell" outlines the wake of combat, when survivors search for friends among the dead. The tight focus of this vignette compresses Nick's experiential arc into a symbolic day, as battle joined in sunlight sets into desolation in the dark.
Characters:
Nick
"Just in Memory" by James K.W., 1995
- Short Story (81KB)
- PG-13
- Set during second season
Summary:
Schanke rescues a distraught Nick and reveals secrets of his own past.
Recommendation:
After methodically establishing that Schanke knows the truth of Nick's condition, "Just in Memory" dynamically veers into an unforgettable turn as Schanke brashly faces down Lacroix. The story crushes Nick in guilt and grief between the pincers of an intricate machination, then offers hope from the least expected quarter. Clever, innovative and unique, "Just in Memory" posits a Schanke who is himself a recovered vampire. This revolutionary construction — delightful in its improbable plausibility — dramatizes Schanke's significance as the human anchor of Nick's spectrum, opposite the vampire Lacroix, by opening the path back to humanity through Schanke.
Characters:
Schanke, Nick, Natalie, Lacroix, Other
"Someplace Weird" by Lisa P., 1996
- Novella (106KB)
- PG (sexual innuendo, vulgar humor)
- Parody based in third season
Summary:
A rap on the head transports Nick to a highly-symbolic reality, a la The Wizard of Oz.
Recommendation:
"Someplace Weird" sardonically lampoons many late-series moods and missteps, snickering not only at the beleaguered characters, but also at their fondly caricatured fan affiliations. The Land of Oz pastiche sends Nick off to see the Wizard for his mortality, braving such dangers as full-scale musical numbers with caustically hilarious lyrics. Written in the immediate aftermath of cancellation, this parody boldly leers, smirks and titters where both sides of the screen had so recently found only pain. "Someplace Weird" is a droll burlesque of third season's dry travesty.
Characters:
Nick, Perry, Janette, Natalie, Lacroix, Tracy, Divia, Vachon, Reese, Cohen, Stonetree, Screed, Schanke, Others
More by this Author (Unavailable)
"Here to Stay" by Eve D., 2002
- Vignette (14KB)
- PG
- Set after "Last Knight"
Summary:
With Janette's care, Nick survives Natalie's death.
Recommendation:
This vignette is sadly sweet and bleakly triumphant. Smooth as silk and uncompromising as concrete, the first-person narration of "Here to Stay" employs Janette's clear-eyed commitment to her own survival to uncover motivations Lacroix and Nick would deny to themselves as well as conceal from each other. The story surrenders Nick without bitterness, confirming in Janette an understanding too perfect for recrimination. Intriguingly, in the area of Forever Knight's fraught use of suicide, "Here to Stay" fulfills the early requirements of "Last Act" in a context following the contradictory conclusion of "Last Knight."
Characters:
Janette, Nick, Lacroix
"Just Passing Through" by Kathy W., 1998
- Short Story (22KB)
- PG-13
- Set in an alternate universe after "Last Knight," looking back on "Dark Knight"
Summary:
A young woman Nick helped tells Tracy her story.
Recommendation:
Jeanne, the homeless girl from "Dark Knight" who witnessed a friend's murder and was herself attacked, inspirationally returns in "Just Passing Through." Originally merely an object and symbol of Nick's compassion, Jeanne here becomes a parallel and encouragement in his own quest for renewal. The story briefly sketches her struggles from the depths of the streets to heights of promise. Sensitively mixing confidence and hesitation — Jeanne's knowledge that she has earned everything she has and her fear that it can never truly belong to such as she — "Just Passing Through" richly suggests that success is along the way, not just at the summit, of a lifelong climb.
Characters:
Jeanne, Tracy, Nick, Others
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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!
