Hearing Light, by tree

On the face of it, Hearing Light is another first-kiss story, of which there are many. First, there are tons and tons of stories that involve a (generally earth-shattering) first kiss. For many of the AU ones, the kiss is the AU, and for the canon-compliant ones, it’s often the first major scene. Apart from that, though, there are a number of short, canon-compliant fics consisting entirely of getting the newly-engaged Darcy and Elizabeth to kiss. HL falls into this latter category.

Why you should read this: You’d like some nice, canon-compliant, Darcy/Elizabeth first kiss fluff. You like your Darcy and Elizabeth to be recognizably Darcy and Elizabeth, even in short pieces. You enjoy well-turned phrases. You realize that partial undressing can be much hotter than explicit sex scenes.

Why you may not like it: You want something meatier than what amounts to an extended kissing scene. Pure, unadulterated fluff makes your teeth hurt. Uh . . . you are offended by the idea of a Darcy who is not modeled on Colin Firth?

Regency canon-compliant, PGish, Complete at AO3

So, did we really need another first kiss story?

No. And yes.

No, not specifically—this ground has been just about trodden into the sea. “Darcy and Elizabeth kiss! For the first time!” would not make an intriguing summary, any more than “Darcy and Elizabeth have sex! For the first time!” or “Darcy and Elizabeth hold hands! For the first time!” or whatnot. Some ideas, like “P&P! But with DRAGONS!” are inherently interesting to me, however poor the execution, and some are . . . not.

However, there’s also a “yes” up there, thanks to one important caveat. Most ideas, however banal on paper, can be executed really, really well. Hearing Light is one of those. In fact, I’d even say that Hearing Light is the ultimate Darcy-and-Elizabeth-finally-kiss-yaaaay story.

First of all, it’s excellent fluff. Some fluff, vaguely dissatisfied with itself, tries to be heavier than it is, and it just feels, well, vaguely dissatisfying. Some fluff is so much about the fluff that only the names and pronouns can identify the characters for us. Some fluff balances the two reasonably well, but the writing is dull, heavy, unconvincing, bland, or painfully dependent on a thesaurus.

Hearing Light, though, is none of these things. It’s not trying to be remotely edgy—it’s warm and fuzzy, while taking itself just seriously enough to have some weight to it. The characterizations are wonderful. Darcy is stiff, a touch awkward, very, very earnest, and happy in a bewildered, quiet way, while Elizabeth is cheerful and frank, distinctly light-hearted but nevertheless serious-minded: qualities which many writers fail to capture in a hundred thousand words, much less two thousand.

On top of that, it’s also extremely well written. tree’s writing is, in general, polished and lyrical, which meshes oddly but attractively with Austen’s, so we get phrases like:

a small lake of yellow chrysanthemums sat waving in the brisk wind, their heads nodding rich and buttery against dark green leaves.

What else?

• The “Darcy and Elizabeth don’t really understand each other very well when they get engaged” meme is nowhere to be seen. They don’t perfectly read each other’s mind, but they have learned from the last year and they know it.
• Darcy’s voice, particularly, is on-point, so stately and serious that it’s absolutely adorable when he completely loses track of what he was thinking—without, however, really changing in manner.
• Elizabeth does not merely respond, however enthusiastically, but initiates one of their kisses. This is completely unsurprising for her character but surprisingly rare in fic, so I enjoyed how proactive she is about her own desires throughout.
• As I alluded to above, Darcy helps her take off her spencer. Now, tree doesn’t play this up with “looks of heated desire” or whatever. The moment takes all of a paragraph. It’s still an incredibly hot moment—all the more because it is a little understated.

So to sum up: Hearing Light is a very well-written, very well-characterized, very well-controlled, light-hearted, romantic, even sexy fic that stands head and shoulders above every other fic of its kind. Any complaints I could make about it are so ridiculously nitpicky that it would be embarrassing for me—me!—to even mention them. Without reservation, I give it five out of five quills.