Yuletide unofficial chat

Now that crossworks authors have been revealed, I can share what I wrote! I wrote a Miss Fisher/Lord Peter crossover!

My first thought was of course that I should do some sort of casefic, but couldn't come up with a case. My second thought was to have Phryne and Mary meet up during the war--Phrynne drove ambulances, Mary was a nurse--but then I realized that that would make major changes to Mary's life, because I could not picture Mary crossing paths with Phryne in any noteworthy way and then living the same aimless post-war life Mary did. I certainly couldn't see her getting involved with either Goyles or Cathcart. And that would be very interesting, but a much longer story than I had the capacity to write. So instead, I had Phryne meet Peter during the war.

Title: the wings of our frail souls
Author: Beatrice_Otter
Fandoms: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries (TV)/Lord Peter Wimsey - Dorothy L. Sayers
Written for: sinkauli in crossworks  2025
Betaed by: Lirelyn
Author's note: Canon has Phryne serving in a French women's ambulance unit during the war. I have changed this to the FANY, the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, which was a British women's volunteer group, because their general approach to the First World War was very similar to Phryne's approach to life in general. The British Army didn't want them, so they went over anyway and convinced the Belgians and the French to let them drive. They seem to have a long tradition of doing whatever the hell they thought needed doing and ignoring or steamrolling men who got in their way.

At AO3. On Squidgeworld. On Pillowfort. On tumblr.

***

It was not, Phryne thought as she steered Josephine through the French countryside, that you could precisely call her job boring. There was a war on, and she was much nearer the front than she told her parents in her infrequent letters home. She was driving an ambulance between the French triage unit and the hospital, avoiding potholes as best she could. The men in the back of her bus moaned or swore at each one she hit. It was important work, one part in the chain that saved as many men as possible from the jaws of death. It was good work, and more meaningful than she'd thought it would be when she'd signed up for the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, desperate for anything that would get her out of London.

It was only that she'd driven this route so often she could do it in her sleep. The only change was the appearance of more potholes and ruts.

Josephine's engine—which had been running roughly—died with a horrible sound.

Phryne swore, fluently and filthily, in French, and popped out to open up Josephine's hood. "Shouldn't have even dared think it was boring." A short bit of poking around confirmed her fears.

( Another FANY ambulance pulled up next to hers—Gertie, by the sound of it.  )