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narniaexchangeTitle: a meadow I still go back to
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
katakokk
Recipient:mogseltof
Rating: G
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: Spoilers for The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and The Horse and His Boy. Brief allusions to violence and alcohol consumption.
Summary: Lucy falls in love with Narnia. Title from Falling by Carl Phillips.
She sometimes thinks she’s forgotten.
She never knows what she forgets, but there is a feeling of empty, missing, something I should know. When she has time to think – after beating Mr. Tumnus to the lake, in the long dark minutes before sleep – there are faces and words and names. Underground. Theatre. Helen.
Some of the words are the same. Underground was something before, loud and frightening, and she can remember wanting to hide behind Peter, behind Mummy, behind Daddy. Here, Underground is still loud, but warm and alive and beautiful. When Edmund asks her if she is scared, she says no.
**
She likes to explore, as much as she can. Cair Paravel, the city, the country. Her country. She tells Peter once, after tumbling off her pony – she’s not allowed a horse yet, not until she is taller – one afternoon. He smiles, laughs, and ruffles her hair.
“Our country, Lu,” he says. “And you better wash up, before Susan catches you.”
She slips in through the kitchen and avoids Susan, but runs headlong into the naiad Posidonia, who draws her a bath.
**
There is a dinner that evening, a formal one, for the ambassador of Somewhere Far Away. An island nation, she recalls. The Lone Islands?
She smiles at the man, and nods, and promises herself to remember where he’s from. She is ten years old now, and a Queen. She should know these things.
But, she tells herself, she should know her country first. Peter says so. Susan and Edmund too. And so the next morning she packs a basket of jams and cheeses and bread and takes a forest walk with Mr. Tumnus.
**
Dinners are bad, but balls are the worst. There are pretty gowns, and she does love the swirl of rich fabric around her legs, the glowing gold threads and winking jewels. The food is delicious and there are always more pastries, flaky and sweet.
Everything is beautiful, but she feels so small, too small, laced into grown-up gowns like a child with her face painted, and she is only thirteen, but she shouldn’t feel like a child; she is a Queen.
She likes twirling about on gleaming marble, smiles at everyone in their finery, and laughs when Peter bows low and asks, “May I have this dance, Your Majesty?” But soon she must run out to the balconies open to the clear night sky and plan her next excursion.
**
She thinks she once knew how to skip rope. Sometime before, Susan had taught her, the sun heating the hard black of the ground. Tarmac, she thinks.
“We ought to skip rope,” she says one summer afternoon, when Mr. Tumnus asks what she would like to do.
They borrow rope from the stables, lay it down in the courtyard, and skip. Over and over and over again. It’s not the same and she cannot place why, but her laughter echoes clearly through the yard, especially after she trips on her hem.
**
She does not like court. She knows it’s important, just as she knows she should eat her vegetables without Susan saying so, but sitting on her throne for hours and hours is boring, even if the seat is cushioned. There are rivers to swim in, subjects to greet, mountains to climb.
She would rather be convincing Peter and Edmund and their tutors to teach her to fight. Battles are ugly, Father Christmas said, but he also gave her a dagger, and Narnia is beautiful.
But Aslan entrusted her with a country and she cannot be negligent. The day after her first sword-fighting lesson, she sits with Susan for hours and they talk about what is negotiable and what is not.
She still prefers standing fierce, tall and protecting, but her country will be safe on all fronts.
**
Diplomacy is not her strongest suit. She does not have Susan’s patience or enticing beauty, nothing to lure people in like fish. She is pretty, and she is happy, but it is not the same.
She would rather be outside, racing a dryad.
So she smiles and dances with her subjects, the rabbits and bears and Mr. Tumnus.
**
Edmund teaches her chess. She does not ask him; he simply brings a board – his favorite, a gift from King Lune – into her sitting room and sets it before her, the bag of chess pieces clunking down on the table.
“It’s like a battle, sister,” he says as he lays out the pieces, dark and light, “But in your mind. It’s only as ugly as you want it to be.”
**
Anvard is uglier than she wants it to be. It is also a real battle and she is terrified.
She has fought battles before, more than she can count on both hands, but this time she is leading troops and Edmund and Susan and even Peter in the North are all depending on her, trusting her. She feels like she’s going to be crushed before she even lays eyes on the Calormenes, even as she rallies the archers, speaking like she has heard Peter speak so many times.
Aslan is trusting her too. To protect the land He created, the land He put in their hands, four sets of children’s hands. Her hands – gripping the reins so tightly her knuckles are white – are calloused now, but can she protect a country with just two hands? Watch over us, she prays, lifting her face to the sky, to the sea.
One of the Ravens, a messenger called Whitewing and Sallowpad’s cousin, lands on her shoulder and caws. He can speak, but she doesn’t need to hear words to know what he has to say: a message from Edmund, from the Narnians. She smiles at him, just a quick turning up of lips.
Never fear, my Queen, Aslan is with us.
**
All along the Eastern Seaboard there are cliffs, sheer and rocky. The ones by the Cair drop onto warm, soft beaches, and on sunny days the merpeople lie on the rocks smoothed by the tide and she talks to them.
To the south, the cliffs dive straight into the water, a plummeting drop of rock descending from the border mountains.
Her favorite cliff is tall, towering over the others, so tall that the spray from the crashing waves does not reach her face. She feels untouchable.
She can look out across the ocean and see Aslan’s country. And she can turn and see all of Narnia stretched out before her. It’s a beautiful country, because she knows she can ride to Glasswater and talk to the naiads and the Ash dryads, or go a little farther north to take tea with the Rabbits and Squirrels. She’s forgotten the specifics, but she remembers hating tea and conversation before. But not here.
**
Her favorite dances are in the summer, around a warm, crackling fire at the Dancing Lawn. Everybody goes, even Narnians that live just this side of the western border, and once there are even guests from Ettinsmoor.
At first, she couldn’t go. No one would take her. Too late, they said. Too wild. But she sneaks out one evening, down to the stables. Edmund catches her, rolls his eyes, and comes along. Afterward, she goes every time.
The wine flows freely, and hers is heavily watered down, but she dances as if she drinks straight from the barrel. Mr. Tumnus can barely keep up.
Every time she goes, she feels Narnian. She knows she is Narnian already, she is a Narnian Queen, but then she dances with dryads and badgers, satyrs and does, brothers and sister and she is happy, indescribably happy because there is nothing she has forgotten and – subjects and siblings – this is her family.
Original Prompt that we sent you:
What I want: Something where the characters just enjoy what they're doing and feel at home. (Bookverse)
Prompt words/objects/quotes/whatever: Home is where the heart is.
What I definitely don't want in my fic: Romance as an overarching theme.
Author:
katakokkRecipient:
mogseltofRating: G
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: Spoilers for The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and The Horse and His Boy. Brief allusions to violence and alcohol consumption.
Summary: Lucy falls in love with Narnia. Title from Falling by Carl Phillips.
She sometimes thinks she’s forgotten.
She never knows what she forgets, but there is a feeling of empty, missing, something I should know. When she has time to think – after beating Mr. Tumnus to the lake, in the long dark minutes before sleep – there are faces and words and names. Underground. Theatre. Helen.
Some of the words are the same. Underground was something before, loud and frightening, and she can remember wanting to hide behind Peter, behind Mummy, behind Daddy. Here, Underground is still loud, but warm and alive and beautiful. When Edmund asks her if she is scared, she says no.
**
She likes to explore, as much as she can. Cair Paravel, the city, the country. Her country. She tells Peter once, after tumbling off her pony – she’s not allowed a horse yet, not until she is taller – one afternoon. He smiles, laughs, and ruffles her hair.
“Our country, Lu,” he says. “And you better wash up, before Susan catches you.”
She slips in through the kitchen and avoids Susan, but runs headlong into the naiad Posidonia, who draws her a bath.
**
There is a dinner that evening, a formal one, for the ambassador of Somewhere Far Away. An island nation, she recalls. The Lone Islands?
She smiles at the man, and nods, and promises herself to remember where he’s from. She is ten years old now, and a Queen. She should know these things.
But, she tells herself, she should know her country first. Peter says so. Susan and Edmund too. And so the next morning she packs a basket of jams and cheeses and bread and takes a forest walk with Mr. Tumnus.
**
Dinners are bad, but balls are the worst. There are pretty gowns, and she does love the swirl of rich fabric around her legs, the glowing gold threads and winking jewels. The food is delicious and there are always more pastries, flaky and sweet.
Everything is beautiful, but she feels so small, too small, laced into grown-up gowns like a child with her face painted, and she is only thirteen, but she shouldn’t feel like a child; she is a Queen.
She likes twirling about on gleaming marble, smiles at everyone in their finery, and laughs when Peter bows low and asks, “May I have this dance, Your Majesty?” But soon she must run out to the balconies open to the clear night sky and plan her next excursion.
**
She thinks she once knew how to skip rope. Sometime before, Susan had taught her, the sun heating the hard black of the ground. Tarmac, she thinks.
“We ought to skip rope,” she says one summer afternoon, when Mr. Tumnus asks what she would like to do.
They borrow rope from the stables, lay it down in the courtyard, and skip. Over and over and over again. It’s not the same and she cannot place why, but her laughter echoes clearly through the yard, especially after she trips on her hem.
**
She does not like court. She knows it’s important, just as she knows she should eat her vegetables without Susan saying so, but sitting on her throne for hours and hours is boring, even if the seat is cushioned. There are rivers to swim in, subjects to greet, mountains to climb.
She would rather be convincing Peter and Edmund and their tutors to teach her to fight. Battles are ugly, Father Christmas said, but he also gave her a dagger, and Narnia is beautiful.
But Aslan entrusted her with a country and she cannot be negligent. The day after her first sword-fighting lesson, she sits with Susan for hours and they talk about what is negotiable and what is not.
She still prefers standing fierce, tall and protecting, but her country will be safe on all fronts.
**
Diplomacy is not her strongest suit. She does not have Susan’s patience or enticing beauty, nothing to lure people in like fish. She is pretty, and she is happy, but it is not the same.
She would rather be outside, racing a dryad.
So she smiles and dances with her subjects, the rabbits and bears and Mr. Tumnus.
**
Edmund teaches her chess. She does not ask him; he simply brings a board – his favorite, a gift from King Lune – into her sitting room and sets it before her, the bag of chess pieces clunking down on the table.
“It’s like a battle, sister,” he says as he lays out the pieces, dark and light, “But in your mind. It’s only as ugly as you want it to be.”
**
Anvard is uglier than she wants it to be. It is also a real battle and she is terrified.
She has fought battles before, more than she can count on both hands, but this time she is leading troops and Edmund and Susan and even Peter in the North are all depending on her, trusting her. She feels like she’s going to be crushed before she even lays eyes on the Calormenes, even as she rallies the archers, speaking like she has heard Peter speak so many times.
Aslan is trusting her too. To protect the land He created, the land He put in their hands, four sets of children’s hands. Her hands – gripping the reins so tightly her knuckles are white – are calloused now, but can she protect a country with just two hands? Watch over us, she prays, lifting her face to the sky, to the sea.
One of the Ravens, a messenger called Whitewing and Sallowpad’s cousin, lands on her shoulder and caws. He can speak, but she doesn’t need to hear words to know what he has to say: a message from Edmund, from the Narnians. She smiles at him, just a quick turning up of lips.
Never fear, my Queen, Aslan is with us.
**
All along the Eastern Seaboard there are cliffs, sheer and rocky. The ones by the Cair drop onto warm, soft beaches, and on sunny days the merpeople lie on the rocks smoothed by the tide and she talks to them.
To the south, the cliffs dive straight into the water, a plummeting drop of rock descending from the border mountains.
Her favorite cliff is tall, towering over the others, so tall that the spray from the crashing waves does not reach her face. She feels untouchable.
She can look out across the ocean and see Aslan’s country. And she can turn and see all of Narnia stretched out before her. It’s a beautiful country, because she knows she can ride to Glasswater and talk to the naiads and the Ash dryads, or go a little farther north to take tea with the Rabbits and Squirrels. She’s forgotten the specifics, but she remembers hating tea and conversation before. But not here.
**
Her favorite dances are in the summer, around a warm, crackling fire at the Dancing Lawn. Everybody goes, even Narnians that live just this side of the western border, and once there are even guests from Ettinsmoor.
At first, she couldn’t go. No one would take her. Too late, they said. Too wild. But she sneaks out one evening, down to the stables. Edmund catches her, rolls his eyes, and comes along. Afterward, she goes every time.
The wine flows freely, and hers is heavily watered down, but she dances as if she drinks straight from the barrel. Mr. Tumnus can barely keep up.
Every time she goes, she feels Narnian. She knows she is Narnian already, she is a Narnian Queen, but then she dances with dryads and badgers, satyrs and does, brothers and sister and she is happy, indescribably happy because there is nothing she has forgotten and – subjects and siblings – this is her family.
Original Prompt that we sent you:
What I want: Something where the characters just enjoy what they're doing and feel at home. (Bookverse)
Prompt words/objects/quotes/whatever: Home is where the heart is.
What I definitely don't want in my fic: Romance as an overarching theme.
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Date: 2011-09-10 03:58 am (UTC)