Story 261: "Pillar of Salt" by Nascent

[wendelah1]

When I first began reading XF fanfic, crack_van was my, uh, crack supplier. I started at the top of the Memories and just kept on reading. "Pillar of Salt" was recced there by runpunkrun back in 2003. Unfortunately, by the time I found the site in 2007 or so, the links to this fic were broken. Eventually, I found a copy of "Pillar of Salt" archived—somewhere else—and was able to read it. I loved it. SO MUCH. Her Scully sounded just like the one on screen, and her Mulder did, too. Their relationship was just as codependent as the canon version. She wasn't trying to rewrite canon, she was enlarging it and adding to it! I had to have more Nascent fic. Because she'd taken down her website, it was a long, tough search.

But in 2011, Nascent archived some of her fanfic at Gossamer. This is particularly significant for "Pillar of Salt" because she rewrote an important section.

"Pillar of Salt" is set Winter 1998, post-"Fight the Future." It's told in first person, Scully's POV, which works wonderfully in Nascent's hands. As the story begins, Mulder has invited Scully away for a weekend, but under false pretenses. What can I say--it's Mulder being Mulder. I don't want to give anything away but let's just say the vacation does not go as expected--for either of them. Nascent is particularly good at integrating the relationship story into a well-plotted X-File.

Thank you to ledez_dreams for the nomination. The link is to Nascent's page at Gossamer. Please scroll to the fic. Don't forget to let us know what you think, and please keep the nominations coming.

Read Pillar of Salt by Nascent.

Comments

Attempt the second

[wendelah1]

Here is the gist of what I wanted to say:

Apart from her writing, which is excellent as always, "Pillar of Salt" stands out because of how well the X-File/casefile demonstrates the depth of Scully's feelings for Mulder and the strength of commitment to him, while tying the story into the central motif of the series: Mulder's obsession with what happened to Samantha. I hadn't thought of the comparison to "Demons" but now that you mention it, I can see the parallels. There are also significant differences.

Nascent's writing is full of interesting visuals, especially in the original dream sequence, and I would have loved to have seen this story or "Theory and Practice" made into an episode. Having said that, I'm pretty fond of "Demons" myself. I think "Demons," with its focus on back story, i.e. the complicated relationships between the Mulders and the CSM, enlarged the canon universe in a way that "Pillar of Salt" doesn't try to do. "Demons" also showcased Scully's investigative abilities, whereas Mulder and Scully act as a team once they're focused on investigating the deaths in the hospital. Mulder in "Demons" is much crazier than Nascent's Mulder. Maybe it's more subtext than text, but as I see it, in "Demons," Mulder is displacing his fear of losing Scully to cancer, a situation over which he thinks he has no control, onto his search for answers about what happened to Samantha. The one flaw in "Pillar of Salt" is that it provides no good motive for Mulder's bizarre behavior. Here is Scully's take on it:

I stood several feet away, watching with my arms folded on my chest, as anger and anxiety warred over every fiber of my body. Why did I let him do this? Why did I let him make me watch it? Why did he do it?

I didn't know what he expected to find. An unprovable, inscrutable droplet of 'wisdom' from the imbibed font that was his father? I knew better. This was not about truth, or even answers.

Mulder just wanted to know if it would work. He wanted, as we all do, for the world to be bigger than reality tells us it is, for confirmation that we are not meaningless and random. He has a greater capacity for hope than I, and I admire and love him for it, but....

But. There I stood.

We know why she's at his side. But, seriously, he "wanted to know if it would work"? No wonder she's so pissed off. I'll have to go back and skim to see if there's a better explanation from Mulder's POV for why he's undergoing this procedure. I'll need to reread both dream sequences again, too. (Nascent, if you're reading this, don't hate me, but I think I preferred the original version.)

Re: Attempt the second

[bmerb.livejournal.com]

Dang now I have to go read the original!