It's not at all curious that the three people who decided to take up the Summer Challenge on maryrenaultfics this year all accepted the challenge-within-a-challenge of applying the prompt for fic based on Renault's historical fiction ("spangled loincloth") to The Charioteer (which, being a modern novel, should have had the prompt "summer clothes") and contriving some way to associate it with Ralph Lanyon. Anyone less likely to be seen in a spangled loincloth at any time would be hard to imagine—which was, of course, the point of the challenge.

Why isn't it curious? Well, the three people were toujours_nigel, my sister, and myself—and how could any of us resist showing how clever we are?

We are, indeed, so clever that all of us immediately decided that the one way it would be possible to fit Ralph and a spangled loincloth into the same story was through the medium of that oh-so-British tradition, the pantomime. TJ started us off with her ficlet "To Bury Caesar", wherein Ralph reminisces, not entirely unlovingly, about schooldays of yore. Flo followed that up with a longer fic about young!Ralph and his pal Hugh Treviss scouting out costumes for the fourth form panto ("Panto"). (Of course, now that the comm is locked, only members can read them; and I dare say they all have by now.)

I've got to admit, by that time I was feeling just a little bit forestalled. I mean, how could I possibly start writing another panto-fic? Granted, I'd already decided to set my story in the present day (of the book, that is, i.e., 1940) at the Bridstow naval base that Christmas, so that Ralph would have to encounter Bunny post Chapter Sixteen. Still, a panto is a panto.

Well, in the end I did get around to writing my story. At the last minute, really: I posted "Scenes Ill Lit" on Labour Day, which is as late as you can go and still be in "summer", at least around these parts. (School in Toronto goes back the day after.) The date of the story got pushed much further into the future—that's Ralph's future, of course—and reset up at the naval base at Scapa Flow. Mind you, it still involves Bunny....

Naturally, I've now posted the story to my website. So anyone who isn't a member of maryrenaultfics can see it here. I had lots of fun laying out the page, and picking the graphics. In keeping with the naval theme, it has a background of grey-green ocean waves and a colour-matched frame. If it's all a bit chilly-looking, just remember that much of the story takes place in December.