sailing the fingers of the dragon

My fic this year was not terribly popular, but it was fascinating to me as what I needed to write to feel my way into the fandom. I don't know if I'll write for Killing Eve again - for a handful of reasons - but I enjoyed thinking about Eve as a character and how the title informs what we see of her.

none of these will bring disaster (1527 words) by kathryne
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Eve Polastri
Additional Tags: Episode Tag, Moral Ambiguity
Summary: "I have lost two jobs, a husband, and a best friend because of you." But what else has Eve lost? Does she even know?

The title and epigraph are, of course, from a villanelle: Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art":

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.