SUMMER 2015 PROJECTS

Asides from continuing my updates on the Baratheon Saga (I will put Septa Poppine on hiatus as long as I'm in Sweden, from mid-July to the first week of September),  I will do some song-stories (mostly Jaimienne, in Castilian and in Swedish), other short-shots, a story told as a ballad (Rowling's Three Brothers with the Baratheons, in Castilian), but truly begin my second Jaimienne fairytale, "Moonrise by Sunset."
MbS is a retelling of fairytales of the "trading three nights" type or "Duke of Norroway" cycle, set in an alternate Westeros with firearms and courtly fashions like those of the seventeenth century. I had already given its premise in the AusHun fic "When Our Warm Season Is Over" comments:
Moonrise by Sunset: a Jaimienne version of the Duke of Norroway/East Sun West Moon/The Bluebird/Pintosmalto, with Snow Queen elements, in an alternate, 30YW-era Westeros. The titles will be old-fashioned, like in the Baratheon Saga, such as the first:

CHAPTER I: In which we are introduced to a camp follower and her three daughters.

The story begins in a Northern war camp in the Riverlands, during times of unrest.
Catelyn is the mother of Brienne, Sansa, and Arya, an officer's widow turned camp follower. They are desperate, even resorting to robbery, to feed after Ned, Robb, and Renly (here, Brienne's fiancé) were killed in the war. Her three daughters, from youngest to eldest, visit the strange crone who lives in a croft on frog legs in the swampy woods (Maggy becomes Baba Magga of sorts). Maggy shows them their destinies (like in the Duke of Norroway): Arya's is a young master smith journeying to find a place to settle his own forge (Gendry), Sansa's is a sharply-dressed older gentleman who happens to be married to his wealthy aunt and live in the neutral Vale (Petyr/LF, whom else?), but Brienne is a little bit disappointed when her destiny is revealed to be a filthy tramp in rags. Slowly, she warms up to him and discovers his true identity. But what if they ever were parted?
The Kettleblack brothers (Sers Not Appearing in the Series) appear as Jaime's lieutenants, Stannis Baratheon as the enemy leader (the Old One in Duke of Norroway), Cersei as the false heroine and villainess (whom else?), while both Qyburn and Tyrion will play key parts in both the drugging and the awakening of Jaime Lannister. And so will Pod, who plays another key role (as cupbearer) as well.

According to Joseph Jacobs, in the Master-Maid cycle of tales, the heroine "loses her beloved through an Oblivion Kiss and has to win him again from his False Bride by purchasing the right of spending three nights with him. " My Catalan-language Haikara-san fic "La poma, la pera i la pruna" ("The Apple, the Pear, and the Plum") is based upon such "Sale of Bed" tales with echoes of The Snow Queen and The Wizard of Oz, combined with powerful anti-war and anti-drug messages, and it grew from a series of daydreams about Benio and Shinobu that I had day after day for a week four or five years ago.

This bunny, the one for "Moonrise by Sunset", arose after having finished "The Queen Beyond the Wall" and seen how well ASoIaF canon was juxtaposed with the Andersen tale, how well the characters and environments were cast and adapted to Westeros. I then remembered another similar tale which hooked me throughout my childhood, and how much I was enthralled by the plight of the bride of the Duke of Norroway, ere she could finally claim her estranged sweetheart who had not returned from the wars. And, this year's springtime, I thought of Brienne as an unlikely heroine (tall, freckled, extremely masculine, aggressive, dynamic, not demure as the typical heroine even in tales with female leads, and also, in this AU, the eldest daughter of three [well, orphaned and adopted as an infant, yet still the eldest of three]), rather a SHERO, just like she had been in my Andersen retelling. For once, she would be mourning Renly at the beginning of the story, and Jaime would first come to her a fleeing dirty prisoner of war in rags, like the minstrel in "Thrushbeard" or something like that, ere she discovers his true colours as they visit his three closest officers (the Kettleblacks). Discovering an ongoing Norroway webcomic, which I follow, was what urged me on: http://norroway.tumblr.com/ 
Casting Brienne as the heroine and Cersei as the villainess will also hopefully allow me to subvert gender roles and expectations by presenting an aggressive, dynamic heroine vs. a reserved, cool villainess just like I did with Benio and Larisa in "The Apple, the Pear, and the Plum." Plus, there will be a Shakespearean echo of "The Queen Beyond the Wall" in the gender confusion of those who don't know Brienne's true gender. In the climax, with the Lannister siblings at Casterly Rock, she will be employed not as a maid, but as a soldier.

The title of "Moonrise by Sunset" is a pun on "East of the Sun West of the Moon", the coat of arms of House Tarth, the journey to the Westerlands, and the expression "north by northwest", which originally referred to Hamlet's sanity. It just came in while brainstorming titles for the story.