Fairies by the River

by TRavine

After the sudden passing of her father, Margaret Hale is forced to leave her idyllic home in Helstone and seek employment as a governess. In an industrial town up north, John Thornton, mill owner and widower, is in search of a teacher for his seven-year-old daughter. When their two worlds collide, their lives will never be the same again. The rating will go up in later chapters.

1. Introduction

Introduction

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SomebodyCalledMeSebastian informed me that every story written by TRavine needs an introduction, so – dutiful as I am – here it is:

There are some stories that are a joy to write and flow with surprising ease.

This was not one of them.

It was an utter pain, and my friends over at "The Mill at Milton" have surely grown tired of me whining about it for nine months.

However, it is done. Complete. Only waiting for the very last editing touches, and I will be putting up new chapters every other day, so there is no risk of you being stuck with an unfinished WIP or having to wait for updates for lengthy periods of time.

A few things you should know before getting into this:

This is a period AU, meaning it takes place in Victorian times, but I have made some drastic changes to the original characters' lives.

Some characters WILL differ from the original, while others will not be in the story at all.

I have done my best to keep everyone as much in character as possible, under these altered circumstances.

Some additional explanations concerning this particular AU will be given in the notes of individual chapters.

Also: Whether you will enjoy this story or not will likely depend on whether you liked my other two novel-sized fics "From the Ashes" and "Against All Odds" because this is rather similar in tone (aka I keep recycling myself).

Meaning:

There will be angst, there will be smut, we'll target some social issues such as women's rights and child labour, there will be a bit of blood (trigger warnings will be put on individual chapters), and of course, there will be tortured character arcs.

Why?

Because that's the kind of stuff I like, and I'm self-indulgent.

A huge THANK YOU goes to my lovely editor mimosa who patiently rearranged all the commas I did not manage to care about and taught me the difference between "save" and "safe". (For the record, English is not my native language). If there are any more spelling mistakes in this, I take full responsibility for them, because they likely stem from my ignoring her advice.

I also need to thank all my lovely friends at "The Mill at Milton" who have been so supportive and encouraging. A special thank you to Merry and Philipa Holt – I don't know where I would be without you two, and you know it!

Lastly, the disclaimer: The original characters belong to Mrs Gaskell, Sandy Welch and the BBC; the (200-year-old) worldviews expressed by them do not necessarily reflect my own.

Now that all of this is out of the way, I hope you'll have fun with this. I'm posting the first four chapters in one go and will then update every few days.

If you have two minutes, leave a comment to give me a dopamine kick which makes me update faster and add more smut, so the more you comment, the better this will get for you. XD

Thanks a lot!

Tom