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Nightrunner #0
By the River
Seregil has been exile by his family, failed as an apprentice to Nysander and has now almost been caught picking a man's pocket. Narrowly escaping by jumping into a river, he wonders what to do with his life.
10 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
June 30, 2026
Got a long line of heartache, I carry it well, the list of lives I've broken reach from here to hell / Bad luck wind been blowing at my back, I pray you don't look at me, I pray I don't look back (Thirteen – Johnny Cash).
Woah, I guess I finished this ten page short story already! Now what do I talk about? I mean, the fun thing about indulging in tiny little snippets of story every now and then is that it allows your mind to really wander. For example, while basking in Lynn Flewelling’s imaginative writing as usual, I couldn’t help but picture what a live action adaption of this Nightrunner fantasy world would look like. At best, we’d get something transformative and highly esteemed like The Lord of the Rings movies (not that piece of shit Rings of Power show, the piece of shit Hobbit movies, or the upcoming piece of shit movie about Gollum’s time in captivity), and at worst we’d have James Gunn running the show and somehow managing to ruin the most easily adaptable story in the world like he did with Supergirl. Hey, Woman of Tomorrow is a graphic novel with a beautifully simple story that’s bursting with color on every page, so what do we do with the movie? Why don't we make everything brown and gray and plaster James Gunn’s terrible Spotify playlist all over it! Look, it might seem like this entire preamble is just a set-up so I can get in my usual digs at James Gunn, but I’m just saying, the dude is downright insufferable. All spending every waking moment arguing with people on Twitter like an edgy teenager and pretending like his pure white hair gives the appearance of someone wise and distinguished rather than just making him look like Geralt of Rivia’s incel cousin. Anyway, I’m just saying that since the Game of Thrones property has been right and properly milked dry at this point (let’s be real, George isn’t finishing those damn books), Lynn Flewelling’s expansive magnum opus, Nightrunner, is sitting right there waiting for someone to give it the time of day. They’re too darn good to be ignored like that penguin left on the shelf in Toy Story 2! Well, maybe this is a “Monkey Paw curling” moment for me, because almost all of my favorite books have absolutely terrible adaptions to their name. And this goes doubly so for whenever something gay gets turned into a show or a movie, because how do I know they’re not going to “tone down” the queerness in order to “appeal to the masses!?” Oof, I just got chills down my back because that’s literally my worst nightmare. A worst nightmare that's been realized much too many times, mind you! Besides, it has always offended me that a lot of people hold true to the belief that the “truest” form of art is always a live action adaption.
It's as if any other forms of art are just starting points to eventually get to the destination of becoming a movie. Pshh, yeah right! Take The Legend of Zelda for example, they’re some of the best video games of all time with beautiful stories in their own right (my favorites being Twilight Princess and Wind Waker), but they're only stories that work within the format of a video game. The fact that so many people just think that they can just adapt this property into a movie and call it a day miss the fact that there are so many tiny little nuances to the games that only work in the medium it already exists in, and by removing them to fit a film narrative, you lose a lot of what made people fall in love with The Legend of Zelda in the first place! Besides, making it a live action movie instead of an animated thing like Mario Galaxy is actually baffling to me! Like, how exactly are they supposed to do an eventual Super Smash movie if all the Nintendo characters like Mario and Fox McCloud are animated cartoons and Link is just some real life dude!? Explain it to me! Is it going to look like some Blues Clues type of thing? Because if so, that would look like trash. Also… I know Link and Zelda are blond and have blue eyes, but they've always looked Asian to me. Look up Link from Twilight Princess and tell me he’s not Asian! Same thing with Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy, that twink is mixed race if nothing else! Oh, the Moana movie! They had trailers for it playing before Toy Story 5 and it literally looks the exact same as the original movie except with worse music, a duller color palate, and The Rock is wearing a terrible wig, so I have to ask, what’s the point in any of this!? Ugh, never mind, I’ve changed my mind, I don’t want to ever see any adaption of any of my favorite things, from books to games to animated movies. Well, there you have it, in the span of a couple paragraphs, I’ve managed to talk myself out of my previous wish! I’m totally cool with the Nightrunner series remaining in book format, because if I were being totally honest… there’s no live action version of Seregil and Alec that would ever be able to properly satisfy me. They wouldn’t be able to get Seregil right anyway, because I just know some hack writer would turn him into a Han Solo clone à la Solo and I’d just be sitting there in the theater seething while everybody else is having a grand old time. Because the thing is, Seregil is not the best thief in the world and despite what his first appearance might imply, he’s definitely not the most charming!
But hey, that’s what makes his many triumphs throughout these books all the more impressive. He’s tenacious, cunning, and earnest to his loved ones, and what makes him feel so real (and in turn, the fantasy world that he inhabits) is the fact that he often feels like a play thing to the universe’s infinitely uncaring schemes. He's a plaything! How is that not relatable? Anyway, By the River is a short story chronicling Seregil’s humble beginnings as a common pick-pocket long before the “professional spy” thing came into play, and like every prequel, I’d absolutely argue that this story requires you to have some familiarity with at least the first couple Nightrunner books. It’s always funny to me whenever people are looking to get into a long-running series and they ask, “where do I start, should I read them in chronological order?” and it’s like… no! Always, always read books in the order of release date! Sorry, but there are dumb questions sometimes, and the fact that people can't grasp that this is odd to me. The only time this rule doesn't apply is when you're talking about comic books, because who knows what's going on with those bloated stories. It’s like those folks who watch Better Call Saul before Breaking Bad in order to get the whole story “in order,” but it really never works that way. The best way to walk away from a long-running story is to start from when the writers began the story! So yeah, I enjoyed this little snippet of Seregil’s story because the contrast of how he is in this story (vulnerable and down and out) enriches his characterization as the experienced and dashing rogue in the mainline books. We all start somewhere, right? And Seregil’s checkered past and A Single Shard-esque origin story depicted here in By the River only helps to make his eventual loving partnership with Alec seen in later books all the more narratively satisfying. You know, in a "Aw, he's all grown up!" kind of way. I never liked it when authors try to advertise their prequels as "necessary reading" because I'm just thinking that if it really were so important, don't you think they would have included it into the main narrative!? So in that regard, I’m of the mind that a prequel is never needed per se, but the prequels I do enjoy, the prequels like By the River, that just focus purely on adding to the character development already given to us, are the ones to keep a lookout for. And if nothing else, I’d be doggone if I didn’t enjoy the hell out of being in Seregil’s company once again.
“The old saying was right: hunger was a harsh master and a poor guide.”
Woah, I guess I finished this ten page short story already! Now what do I talk about? I mean, the fun thing about indulging in tiny little snippets of story every now and then is that it allows your mind to really wander. For example, while basking in Lynn Flewelling’s imaginative writing as usual, I couldn’t help but picture what a live action adaption of this Nightrunner fantasy world would look like. At best, we’d get something transformative and highly esteemed like The Lord of the Rings movies (not that piece of shit Rings of Power show, the piece of shit Hobbit movies, or the upcoming piece of shit movie about Gollum’s time in captivity), and at worst we’d have James Gunn running the show and somehow managing to ruin the most easily adaptable story in the world like he did with Supergirl. Hey, Woman of Tomorrow is a graphic novel with a beautifully simple story that’s bursting with color on every page, so what do we do with the movie? Why don't we make everything brown and gray and plaster James Gunn’s terrible Spotify playlist all over it! Look, it might seem like this entire preamble is just a set-up so I can get in my usual digs at James Gunn, but I’m just saying, the dude is downright insufferable. All spending every waking moment arguing with people on Twitter like an edgy teenager and pretending like his pure white hair gives the appearance of someone wise and distinguished rather than just making him look like Geralt of Rivia’s incel cousin. Anyway, I’m just saying that since the Game of Thrones property has been right and properly milked dry at this point (let’s be real, George isn’t finishing those damn books), Lynn Flewelling’s expansive magnum opus, Nightrunner, is sitting right there waiting for someone to give it the time of day. They’re too darn good to be ignored like that penguin left on the shelf in Toy Story 2! Well, maybe this is a “Monkey Paw curling” moment for me, because almost all of my favorite books have absolutely terrible adaptions to their name. And this goes doubly so for whenever something gay gets turned into a show or a movie, because how do I know they’re not going to “tone down” the queerness in order to “appeal to the masses!?” Oof, I just got chills down my back because that’s literally my worst nightmare. A worst nightmare that's been realized much too many times, mind you! Besides, it has always offended me that a lot of people hold true to the belief that the “truest” form of art is always a live action adaption.
It's as if any other forms of art are just starting points to eventually get to the destination of becoming a movie. Pshh, yeah right! Take The Legend of Zelda for example, they’re some of the best video games of all time with beautiful stories in their own right (my favorites being Twilight Princess and Wind Waker), but they're only stories that work within the format of a video game. The fact that so many people just think that they can just adapt this property into a movie and call it a day miss the fact that there are so many tiny little nuances to the games that only work in the medium it already exists in, and by removing them to fit a film narrative, you lose a lot of what made people fall in love with The Legend of Zelda in the first place! Besides, making it a live action movie instead of an animated thing like Mario Galaxy is actually baffling to me! Like, how exactly are they supposed to do an eventual Super Smash movie if all the Nintendo characters like Mario and Fox McCloud are animated cartoons and Link is just some real life dude!? Explain it to me! Is it going to look like some Blues Clues type of thing? Because if so, that would look like trash. Also… I know Link and Zelda are blond and have blue eyes, but they've always looked Asian to me. Look up Link from Twilight Princess and tell me he’s not Asian! Same thing with Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy, that twink is mixed race if nothing else! Oh, the Moana movie! They had trailers for it playing before Toy Story 5 and it literally looks the exact same as the original movie except with worse music, a duller color palate, and The Rock is wearing a terrible wig, so I have to ask, what’s the point in any of this!? Ugh, never mind, I’ve changed my mind, I don’t want to ever see any adaption of any of my favorite things, from books to games to animated movies. Well, there you have it, in the span of a couple paragraphs, I’ve managed to talk myself out of my previous wish! I’m totally cool with the Nightrunner series remaining in book format, because if I were being totally honest… there’s no live action version of Seregil and Alec that would ever be able to properly satisfy me. They wouldn’t be able to get Seregil right anyway, because I just know some hack writer would turn him into a Han Solo clone à la Solo and I’d just be sitting there in the theater seething while everybody else is having a grand old time. Because the thing is, Seregil is not the best thief in the world and despite what his first appearance might imply, he’s definitely not the most charming!
But hey, that’s what makes his many triumphs throughout these books all the more impressive. He’s tenacious, cunning, and earnest to his loved ones, and what makes him feel so real (and in turn, the fantasy world that he inhabits) is the fact that he often feels like a play thing to the universe’s infinitely uncaring schemes. He's a plaything! How is that not relatable? Anyway, By the River is a short story chronicling Seregil’s humble beginnings as a common pick-pocket long before the “professional spy” thing came into play, and like every prequel, I’d absolutely argue that this story requires you to have some familiarity with at least the first couple Nightrunner books. It’s always funny to me whenever people are looking to get into a long-running series and they ask, “where do I start, should I read them in chronological order?” and it’s like… no! Always, always read books in the order of release date! Sorry, but there are dumb questions sometimes, and the fact that people can't grasp that this is odd to me. The only time this rule doesn't apply is when you're talking about comic books, because who knows what's going on with those bloated stories. It’s like those folks who watch Better Call Saul before Breaking Bad in order to get the whole story “in order,” but it really never works that way. The best way to walk away from a long-running story is to start from when the writers began the story! So yeah, I enjoyed this little snippet of Seregil’s story because the contrast of how he is in this story (vulnerable and down and out) enriches his characterization as the experienced and dashing rogue in the mainline books. We all start somewhere, right? And Seregil’s checkered past and A Single Shard-esque origin story depicted here in By the River only helps to make his eventual loving partnership with Alec seen in later books all the more narratively satisfying. You know, in a "Aw, he's all grown up!" kind of way. I never liked it when authors try to advertise their prequels as "necessary reading" because I'm just thinking that if it really were so important, don't you think they would have included it into the main narrative!? So in that regard, I’m of the mind that a prequel is never needed per se, but the prequels I do enjoy, the prequels like By the River, that just focus purely on adding to the character development already given to us, are the ones to keep a lookout for. And if nothing else, I’d be doggone if I didn’t enjoy the hell out of being in Seregil’s company once again.
“The old saying was right: hunger was a harsh master and a poor guide.”
September 21, 2025
A really nice introduction, it kept me very interested!!!
In just a few pages, the story was full with details, of emotions, of vulnerability!
This is gonna be good!
I was quite sad that the story finished so soon, but I understood it was just a taste!!
What kind of adventure this two guys will face? I'm intrigued!!! :-D
Let's go toward the first book, shaw we?
In just a few pages, the story was full with details, of emotions, of vulnerability!
This is gonna be good!
I was quite sad that the story finished so soon, but I understood it was just a taste!!
What kind of adventure this two guys will face? I'm intrigued!!! :-D
Let's go toward the first book, shaw we?
May 3, 2024
3.5
It was years, maybe even more than one decade ago when I last read the first Nightrunner books. They were also the first Fantasy with a gay protagonist in read in German, so I have fond memories and always planed to read them again in their original language and hopfully continue with the series.
So on the one hand it was nice seeing Seregil again but I suppose I don't remember enough details to really enjoy this little teaser like I would after reading the first book, though it has a nice vibe and reminds me that Nightrunner #1 is already on my Kindle waiting.
It was years, maybe even more than one decade ago when I last read the first Nightrunner books. They were also the first Fantasy with a gay protagonist in read in German, so I have fond memories and always planed to read them again in their original language and hopfully continue with the series.
So on the one hand it was nice seeing Seregil again but I suppose I don't remember enough details to really enjoy this little teaser like I would after reading the first book, though it has a nice vibe and reminds me that Nightrunner #1 is already on my Kindle waiting.
May 20, 2022
3 Stars
The first meeting of Micum and Seregil. A short story that offers just a tiny peek into a scene when Seregil was hiding after running away from the law enforcement, distrustful after having had many bad experiences and is offered a meal and a blanket by Micum.
It was interesting to read as background knowledge and there is nothing to complain about as far as the writing is concerned but too short to offer more than this tiniest glimpse.
The first meeting of Micum and Seregil. A short story that offers just a tiny peek into a scene when Seregil was hiding after running away from the law enforcement, distrustful after having had many bad experiences and is offered a meal and a blanket by Micum.
It was interesting to read as background knowledge and there is nothing to complain about as far as the writing is concerned but too short to offer more than this tiniest glimpse.
February 3, 2022
I miss Seregil and Alec....
June 27, 2011
One of the nice little 'fill in' pieces that makes up Glimpses and an insight to the beginning of Seregil and Micun's relationship. I found this to be a good snippet, but like the other stories in Glimpses it has the feeling of 'fanfiction' -- even though it was written by the author herself! That's not to say it's a bad thing, just a noted impression.
April 23, 2019
A very short story [about 3,500 words] featuring young Seregil and Micum and their first meeting. It's really cute and I could easily read an entire book with little snippets like this from their lives before Alec came along [sorry Alec, I love you too but I'm a sucker for this type of dynamic]. I'm about to start Glimpses next and I'm hoping it features something else like this in it. Also, and this has nothing to do with the story itself, but the fact that she wrote it as a Christmas present on her Yahoo group back in 2001 is giving me some serious fandom flashbacks lol
June 21, 2010
Sweet, sweet, sweet nice short story about how Seregil for first time meets Micum. :o)
He was so cute! So sweet little wild animal. With deep distrust to every human. But Micum could tame him - with some good food. :o) :o) :o)
I love this short story!
He was so cute! So sweet little wild animal. With deep distrust to every human. But Micum could tame him - with some good food. :o) :o) :o)
I love this short story!
May 31, 2026
That was nice. It’s incredibly short, but I was genuinely intrigued the whole time. I really enjoyed getting Micum’s point of view. I did appreciate seeing how he and Seregil first met.
Just a short, solid little addition to the series and it took me fifteen minutes to complete :D
Just a short, solid little addition to the series and it took me fifteen minutes to complete :D
February 13, 2010
A sweet snippet on Seregil's earlier days, long before he ever met Alec. It was wonderful to meet a younger Seregil, subdued and very angry young man that he was.
February 16, 2019
This is a quick snippet of how Seregil met Micum. You can find it online, in case you missed the link in the description. I've read the two first books in the Nightrunner series and it feels like this was the right time to read this, after all that happened to Seregil and Micum in book 2. Just a lovely addition to a lovely book series!
PS. To anyone thinking they should start with this before they read the books, since it's marked "Nightrunner #0", don't. This short look att Micum and Seregil does take place before book 1, but it will have much more of an emotional impact and make much more sense if you've read at least book 1 and 2 first.
PS. To anyone thinking they should start with this before they read the books, since it's marked "Nightrunner #0", don't. This short look att Micum and Seregil does take place before book 1, but it will have much more of an emotional impact and make much more sense if you've read at least book 1 and 2 first.
April 13, 2026
You can see from this first meeting how Micum was great at putting people at ease and making them trust him. I would love to also read how he and Seregil went off on various adventures and how it changed once Kari came into the picture.
Also, such a sad period for Seregil, freshly arrived in Rhiminee after been exiled.
Also, such a sad period for Seregil, freshly arrived in Rhiminee after been exiled.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 19, 2022
I loved seeing this little slice of Seregil's life before he really found his place. His first meeting with Micum was just lovely knowing the friendship that develops from this one moment. I think it's all the more interesting knowing how competent of a person Seregil becomes.
May 30, 2019
Seregil and Micum meeting for the first time.
November 9, 2022
Seregil and Micum’s first meeting? My heaaaaaart
January 8, 2025
A short story about the first meeting of Seregil and Micum, a nice and welcome addition to the series lore!
September 1, 2025
Short and full of emotions.
April 13, 2016
Such a little snippet! Like a tiny drop of water for a thirsty man. Still, it reveals quite a lot. I knew Seregil was young when he was exiled, but I didn't know he was that young, literally a boy. I wonder how he became the man we see in the Luck in the Shadows.
June 23, 2011
An origin piece on how two freinds who are more like brothers first met. It is a necessary read for any fan of the Nightrunner series.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews