Fanemies {Coming... Later?}

1 || Fan Fair

𝓒𝓱𝓪𝓹𝓽𝓮𝓻 𝓞𝓷𝓮
𝐹𝒶𝓃 𝐹𝒶𝒾𝓇

𝕄𝕪 𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕤𝕥 𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕠𝕦𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕣 with The Heartsworn Saga is impossible to forget. I was thirteen at the time. Even though it was nearing midnight, Mom was still at work. I'd been awake late studying, but I had taken a moment to curl up near the large window in the living room and opened up the now-dead online writing website, Fiction Now.

The book had been sitting there in the newly updated section with its lousy Times New Roman text-slap cover. The old title, Knight Academy, ran along the top of the dark, gritty image, with the words 'by lightinthedarkness1015.' Thinking back, I can't say what drew me in, but something did.

I didn't realize I'd been reading about the adventures of Garrett Ryker, knight-in-training, for two hours until Mom returned from work and demanded to know why I was still awake.

Perhaps needless to say, I lost my iPod touch for the rest of that school week.

It is hard to wrap my head around The Heartsworn Saga's tiny beginning as, nine years later, I drive into Fairsky. Silver and red, the colors of the Heartsworn Knights, decorate everything. Flags fly high, some plain, others sporting crossed swords over a heart. Banners proclaiming the town's pride in Tristen Kelley hang from multiple local businesses. The same signs list the different types of Heartsworn Saga merchandise they're selling.

Almost everyone in the town wears Heartsworn Saga clothes or accessories. There's one couple dressed in cosplay, the girl wearing Knight armor and the man wearing a Daeyas' robe. How scandalous.

My heart swells, and a gigantic grin breaks across my face. This is a week-long event funded by the town with semi-official backing by Tristen's publisher. Based on the current success, though, this isn't the only year this will happen, and each year will only get bigger.

If I'm right, I already plan to join in for the years to come.

The Heartsworn Saga may not hold the same fame as works such as Harry Potter or Twilight (you know, before it fell into infamy and the creation of the "better love story than Twilight" meme), but it had drawn a large crowd. A large crowd which the city of Fairsky wasn't built to hold, as the painfully slow traffic today proves.

Excitement and impatience wage a fan-animation-worthy battle within me, both trying to earn the honor of being the cause of my jittery nerves. I tap my fingers on the steering wheel while staring daggers at the red light that has persistently stayed that color far longer than normal.

The epic music from the movie's trailer thrums through my car, the pace swelling as it approaches the "big moment" from the trailer. I see it clearly in my head. A beaten and bloodied Garrett—well, a make-uped and costumed Christopher Wright—stands over the crumpled form of his best friend, sword raised to fend off an unseen enemy whose laughter echoes over the music.

Chills rise in time with the music, and I shudder.

Excitement. That is what's winning. My favorite, precious, dearly beloved fandom is taking off, and I'm here, at the place where it was first just a nagging brain child, intending to meet the one who started it all.

The light turns. Traffic inches forward. I pass a street vender selling large pieces of artwork (note to self: come back later and hope that the Garrett and Alysia ship art is still there) and a café advertising food from the book.

It takes me a full thirty minutes to get to my hotel that, according to the GPS on my phone, was only a mile and a half from the art vender. Nana Ivy's Inn is nestled up a small hill on the town's right. From afar, it looks like a house. According to the site, that was what it once was. Then forty years ago, feeling lonely with all of her birds out of the nest, Nana Ivy reconstructed her home and made it an inn.