outtakes: the rabbit and the pointed gun

[sideways]

While I can't say I enjoy it when a fic gives me grief, the cutting room floor scraps can sometimes tell their own story, and be entertaining to look back over after the fact.

My last Destiny fic, The Rabbit and the Pointed Gun, gave me considerable grief. I was halfway through when canon pulled a twist that not only nuked the specific ending I was driving towards but undid the entire philosophical premise I had been working around, so it was quite the adventure to construct a new pathway to a reasonable - and canon-friendly - conclusion.

Outtake 1:

The original conception for this fic involved Towerfall happening while Shin was on the trail of the Shadows, putting him in the position of choosing whether to turn around and aid the City in their moment of great need (as they had not helped him and his) or continue on his personal pursuit since this disaster might only drive the Shadows more openly into Darkness (and therefore behave like the traditional mission-focused Guardian he has criticised).

Obviously the revelation that Shin is the leader of the Shadows rather threw this out of whack. I still for a time tried to see if I could cling to the basic framing, since Shin does still prune out Shadows he thinks are failing to embrace the nuances of his intended lessons, but ultimately I concluded I didn't vibe with the twist enough to lean into it well and went for a less involved rendering. But nonetheless, for a while there was Irya, and also "starving desperation for meaning" which I liked enough to keep.

"Shin," his Ghost says, and the line tugs a hair tighter around his throat. "What's the purpose here?"

Because, of course: Shin's been hunting.

"It need asking?"

"Irya's going to be in no better a position than we are."

Irya's a Hunter himself - and a fool, which often enough goes without saying. What stands him out from the crowd is brittle confidence worn as bright and enticing as a sun’s corona and just as able to draw admirers to it, a rapid stacking of breach notices for hanging down in the City outside the commons without license, and a starving desperation for meaning that’s seen him tread in heavier footprints than he can easily pull himself free of. The ones searching for comfort are always most dangerous.

Shin lays his knife by his feet, unpouches a twist of wire - common steel, not sapphire. "If Irya's undone by a night or two in the wilderness without his Light, it's more than tonight that's wasted time." He glances up. "Be an easier end to it. But that's not the measure I have of him, and it won't be the measure he has of me."

He feels her regard travel across the stiffly swollen wrist, the bruise that's spread fresh colour across his forehead. “These aren’t new stakes.”

“Not my meaning.”

She keeps her silence, then, and it's telling. She waits through him winding the wire between his fingers, tying the strangling knot. There's water not far from here, a spring trickling down from higher up the mountain.

"A whole world of Guardians just lost the unworldly powers granted them," Shin says into the quiet. Matter-of-fact. "How long's it going to take before finding a replacement starts making all kinds of sense."

"If turning to the Dark is fresh in people's minds, we helped put it there."

"It never left," he mutters. How many decades ago was it he first found bootprints in Palamon, scuffing over old graves? "Was always going to be someone asking the question."

Outtake 2:

I had so much trouble with the discussion between Shin and his Ghost, partly because I didn't actually agree with his new philosophy, haha! I retreaded this ground many times before settling on the version that made it into the published fic.

"You still want to pursue Irya."

"Yes."

"To kill him or to see whether he's ready to evolve?"

"Yes."

"Tell me this isn't anger talking."

"It's not."

"Tell me and mean it."

And because he owes her this as well, he closes his eyes. Curls his fingers around the hilt of his knife until the leather across his knuckles creaks and lets himself touch on the feeling because yes, yes, there is anger. The same flicker of it that's haunted every setting of boots down in the ruins of a village turned to driftwood and scrap by Fallen, every long wander of a caravan's trail that ended in charred bone and cinder.

Time was he'd be riled and bristling at her as well. He'd taken Jaren's guidance more easily than he had the last echoes of him; the silent watcher of his childhood suddenly seeing fit to put pointed questions to his ear at every turn. She'd hesitated before she lit his fuse, and it had taken near a decade for him to forgive her for it.

The forgiveness is long-settled, though, and it has been a longer time still since Shin let anger alone choose his steps.

He exhales, opens his eyes. "It's logic."

She withdraws. "That's worse."

"The logic of the knife, not the sword." He looks at her plainly. "As big a bite's been taken, you think we can afford to fester?"

"...We could go, now, to their sides. We could stand with the Guardians to protect the civilians and take back the City. We could be true to Jaren's ideals - and your own, once."

"We could."

Outtake 3:

I contemplated a version where Shin does in fact participate in the events of the Red War - very very quietly. I still quite like the idea of him anonymously skulking around because no one matches The Man With the Golden Gun to the short guy with the ratty cloak who doesn't say very much. I don't remember exactly why I decided against it - I think it just felt a bit too dramatic a conclusion to a fic that was otherwise focused on what was happening on the distant fringes of the war - but I had fun roughly drafting out some of those dramatics.

After, he calls the ship.

His Ghost decrypts the breadcrumbs cast out into the ether, and his Ghost plots the pathway to the refuge that comes after the refuge, and Shin Malphur slips silently into the crowd of once-were-Guardians gathering as an uncertain army in the shelter of green fields newly tilled by jet pulsars and landing struts.

He makes no stir with his entrance. Why should he? There is nothing of the Man with the Golden Gun: squared shoulders, bright cloak, righteous fire at his fingertips. There is nothing of Zyre Orsa the dark orator: sharp edges, hidden eyes, a fanatic's flame fanned higher. He is just another nameless Hunter slinking back in from the wilds, wearing a thick coat of trail dust and bloodied bandages around one thigh, cloak slung loosely over his shoulders. The garrulousness of the Guardians is dimmed. No one's after a story when they all end the same.

(Maybe he feels Ikora's eyes on him, overlong for a passing glance. Maybe he sees Teben at a distance, feels the soft bloom of relief. If so - it's nothing as needs words put to it.)

He is there when they win it, the quiet guy with a reflective visor amongst Hawthorne's assembly of fighters. They strike from the shadows, from the rubble, there and gone before the first explosive blasts of return fire start to fall. He's not the only Guardian making their stand here and Hawthorne conducts with an authority respected. Turns out Guardians are capable of learning.

The Last Word speaks its piece. The other gun - his Ghost keeps it safe, for now.

And when the Traveller unfurls like a parched plant given water, when Guardians hitch breath and stumble, Shin exhales with heat that ripples the air and lights the very fire of his soul into the next bullet to snap through a Centurion's helmet.

Comments

[hokuton_punch]

That was really - such a weird twist... I like all of these outtakes, though! Your writing's always so sparely beautiful. ♥

[sideways]

It wasn't necessarily a bad twist in and of itself... the problem was just that the nature of Destiny meant that the storytelling was strung out over so many years (and, lbr, so many writers) that "oh he was lying actually" didn't feel satisfying to me when it suddenly landed. But there were other people for whom it worked, and I can understand that too! RIP my headcanons but they were always just that: headcanon.

LOL someone on DW introduced me to the term "vaguewriting" recently and I DEFINITELY had to employ that to fight my way to the finish on this one. But I'm glad it carries its own stylistic charm XD