Title: Riding the L
Author: Perspicacity
Rating: T
Genre: Humor
Pairing: None
Words: 1,403
Published: May 14, 2010
Status: Complete
Summary: A short bit of speculation on how the events at the end of Changes play out. Contains spoilers for Changes, by Jim Butcher. Buy his book and read it before you read this.
Link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5969274/1/Riding_the_L

A nice little one-shot from Perspicacity that brightened my day a little. Picks up pretty much immediately where Changes left off, so I'd rec that you read that before this.

Persp doesn't quite manage the Dresden tone, but he isn't far off the mark and the idea makes up for it. Grammar and spelling are, as usual, top-notch, and there aren't any real flaws, here. Give it a read.

4/5 from me.


Checked by Minion, January 5, 2013

 

Good stuff. I can't really see canon!Dresden pulling that stunt at the end, but the laugh it gets is worth it. And this version of Charon is brilliant.

4/5.

 

5/5.

Pers, it would have been great if it had been a little longer - but the joke is kind of a quick one-two punch. And the detail you squeezed in despite the length - beautiful. Loved it, made me smile.

 

I expected far more too be honest. :/

It just felt a little flat. Wasn't that great, pretty average really.

3/5.

 

Don't be a hater. It was pretty good for what it was. A pointless piece of humor.

I disagree and so does Butcher. >_> He did say, after all, taking up Lasciel's coin was the most likely source of power Dresden would have gone after. Why he went to Mab in Changes is beyond me, but it worked... Kind of. :/

As a story that would continue onward, I have to agree with Ellisande. 3-ish. On its on, as a pointless piece of lets just have fun? I approve. Much better than the last attempt at Dresden, Percy. Very nicely done. Four out of Five! 8D

 

He didn't really have access to the coin at that stage, or so I'd believe since he was never told how to summon the coin before Lash was killed. There's the possibility of him being able to work it out by himself, but given his views on the Blackened Denarii it's reasonably unlikely.

Plus, there's the whole problem of making a very literal deal with the devil to contend with. Mab was at least a known entity and he would keep most of his free will if he made a deal with her. Lasciel would either turn him into a monster or just take his free will entirely. The Darkhallow crosses pretty much every moral boundary he has. Mab, while amoral to the core, at least does things for a reason (keeping the balance between the Faerie Courts) and is liable to protect him to the end (whereas the Denarians are the type to discard for failure).

 

Uhh, yea he did. He said that he could summon her coin to himself in an instant.

OT: For a quick one shot it more than served its purpose and put a nice smile on my face. 4/5

 

Not necessarily. Harry Dresden is an unreliable narrator if ever there was one, which is emphasised by the first person perspective the stories are told from. There are numerous reasons we have to not take his word as truth (or even Bob's, though I personally would take whatever he says as the Word of the Author), which is displayed through his continued ignorance of all the supernatural nasties that decide to pit themselves against him.

Still, I believe I qualified the statement with the following sentence after stating that Dresden was unable to summon the coin. Lash had not told him how to retrieve the coin without physically going to it before she was destroyed. We know this as a fact. Therefore, going solely by the text we can safely say that Harry Dresden does not have immediate access to a Blackened Denarius. If we were to speculate however (as I am wont to do), I would say that there is a slim possibility of him discovering a link between him and Lasciel's coin and then going on to work out how to summon it to him if need be.

Personally, I think Harry has left as much as possible of his time as a member of the Blackened Denarians as far in the past as is possible. I do not think he has 'instant access' to a Coin, but I do think that he could work out how to summon the coin if he put his mind to it; which is really why I imagine he hasn't so far, since whenever he's had the time to devote to that sort of project it's not a time he's really needed it.

Mab, for all her amoral nature, is much more easily accessible, and to Harry much less of a risk to his immortal soul than if he took up a Coin. So I'm not really surprised he decided on taking up the position of Winter Knight rather than that of the Knight of the Blackened Denarius.

P.S. I may have been slightly drunk at the time of typing this so please excuse how badly it reads.

 

To clarify, I can see Dresden taking up the coin to save his daughter (although maybe not as his first option). But summoning the coin to get into Paradise - especially without thinking through the consequences - seems a little unlikely. But as I said, it was amusing and worked in the context, so no biggie.

 

Yeah, it was a fun little comedy oneshot, but nothing noteworthy.

Also, I can't remember a single instance of Harry using Hellfire after Lasciel's Shadow died, so i wouldn't be surprised if Harry *can't* summon the coin anymore.

Average is Average: 2.5/5