E asked Marie Brennan:

I loved loved loved the entire Lady Trent world. Audrey was a spitfire and an amazing addition to Lady Trent's story. I also read your short fiction "The Long Fall." So what do you think? Do Audrey and Aaron get together after all, years in the future? He's still at the Sanctuary 10 years after the Audrey's book, with the newly updated text. Is it enough of an olive branch for them to get a chance as older adults?

Marie Brennan I'm glad you enjoyed the series, "authorial fanfic" and all! I don't know if they get together in the end -- I sort of want to believe it can happen, since they're undeniably attracted to each other. But it's hard for me to visualize a route to it that doesn't feel like it's cheesing out on exactly what made me enjoy writing that relationship in the first place, which is the fact that it's possible to be attracted to somebody *and it doesn't work out*. Fiction is so very full of romantic happily-ever-afters, with most breakups being plot points on the way to a HEA with somebody else, rather than it being a good ending in its own right. I really enjoyed exploring a narrative about a relationship *failing*, you know? "The Long Fall" was me finding a good path to them to reconciling; in some ways I feel like that's the important part, not whether they ever hook up or settle down together.

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