For the first time since I began doing Yuletide in 2010, I wound up defaulting. In hindsight, I could have avoided that; if I’d gotten my fic written in early November, I would have been fine. But I didn’t, and enough work came dumping down on me in late November/early December that I just couldn’t squeeze it in. (Much less write a minimum of four fics, which is what I’ve done for the last eight years.) If I’d tried, I would have delivered something half-assed, and I didn’t want to do that to my recipient. So: default it was, and hopefully their pinch-hitter gave them something wonderful.

But defaulting doesn’t mean you are out of Yuletide entirely. My assigned writer came through, and so did someone else with a treat! I don’t know which is which, but both stories are for the Mummy series (the ones with Rachel Weisz and Brendan Frazer, not the newer Tom Cruise one). I don’t know which is which, but the first one posted is “In the Night” (and involves no mummies, for which the writer apologized, but I happily accept other kinds of folklore, too!), and the second one is “Perks of Being a Bembridge Scholar” (which has bog bodies!).

Because I defaulted before the default deadline, I’m not on the hook to write any kind of story as penance to the Yulegoat. I still feel guilty, though, and so after New Year’s I’m going to peruse the list of prompts and find two people to treat — one for each fic I received.