Revisionary History - for linneasr

[nfe-gremlin.livejournal.com]

Title: Revisionary History
Author: cofax7
Recipient: linneasr
Rating: All ages
Warnings: none
Summary: Jill and Eustace accomplished more in their adventure in Narnia than The Silver Chair properly conveyed. Set during TSC. 5,800 words.


Revisionary History

~+~

Excerpt from Narnian Mud, Narnian Earth, a history of Narnia for Marsh-wiggle children

When King Caspian's son Rilian disappeared, the Marsh-wiggles helped to search for him. They hunted through all the Great Eastern Marshes, and went up and down all the branches of the Great River, and crewed the ships that traveled to Archenland and the islands, looking for the missing prince.

But the prince was not found, and all of Narnia mourned, for they all most reasonably expected that he was dead.

Finally, when King Caspian was very old, and the Marsh-wiggles had begun to worry what would happen to Narnia when the King died, for naturally a succession struggle would have been very unpleasant, something remarkable happened, which would change Narnia and the lives of the Wiggles forever. One night in the autumn, two Owls came to the Eastern Marshes, looking for a Marsh-wiggle.

The Wiggle the Owls were looking for was named Puddleglum, and he lived on Greenreed Isle, north of the Main Canal. Nowadays every Wiggle knows his name, but at the time he was still a most ordinary Wiggle. Puddleglum was then a grown Wiggle, who had left his father's house and built his own wigwam, and had once even traveled to Cair Paravel with his uncle to bring a message to the King. But other than that, Puddleglum had not accomplished very much, and no one expected him to.

These two Owls carried a message from Aslan, which was that Prince Rilian was still alive, and Puddleglum was to go look for him...


~+~


Crash! went the enormous boulder as it landed not thirty yards ahead of them. Whiz--whiz--smash! went another, twenty yards to their right.

Jill squeaked. She couldn't help it; there were so very many Giants, standing along the gorge of the Shribble, and so many stones sailing through the air.

"Blast!" whispered Srubb, and yanked at Jill's arm. "Look, Pole, over there!"

Jill followed Scrubb's pointing finger and saw, to her horror, another crowd of Giants, a different crowd, and this group was on her right. The gorge of the Shribble was on the left, with the Giants standing along the river and resting their elbows on the gorge top, and now there were even more Giants on the right--and these were playing cockshies as well.

"No good, no good at all," said Puddleglum quietly. He had his left hand on his sword's hilt, but he was still walking with that easy stride he had been using all day. "If they start aiming at each other, we'll be caught in the middle. You don't want to be near when two of those rocks hit each other!"

The ground about them was terrifyingly open: moorland ahead rising inevitably to a steel-grey sky, the gorge to their left, and off to their right, a drop in the ground to some unseen valley. Another boulder soared overhead and bounced three times, digging great gashes in the heather before rolling to a stop in front of the tallest of the Shribble Giants.

With a Giantish snort, he leaned over to pick up the boulder. In his great hands, it looked the size of a child's toy. When he braced himself and wound up, Jill felt Scrubb seize her hand.

"Down!" cried Scrubb, and the three of them dropped flat as the stone, twice the size of Puddleglum's head, whizzed by at tremendous speed. A moment later, there was an outraged howl from their right.

"That's torn it!" gasped Puddleglum, lunging to his feet. "Time to run!"

Where? Wondered Jill, but Puddleglum was already leading them at a skittering, uneven pace up the gentle slope northward. Despite its smooth and open appearance, the ground here was rather irregular, full of sudden dips and crevices masked by the bracken, rather like the way a thick snowfall hides a drainage ditch until you trip into it.

A hundred yards along, Puddleglum dodged suddenly right and ducked into a dip in the ground, just large enough to hide them from sight if they went to their hands and knees. Jill found herself pressed close between Puddleglum and Scrubb, peering back south through the withered leaves of the bracken. Scrubb smelled like wet wool; Puddleglum smelled like the dankness under a veranda on a summer day, but with an unpleasant bitter tang that Jill decided must be Marsh-wiggle sweat.

Jill panted in great gasps, her hair sticking to her face and her heart pounding like a kettledrum. This was far more frightening than any encounter with Them! Why on earth had she ever listened to Scrubb, anyway?

She opened her mouth to say so, but Puddleglum clapped a clammy webbed hand over her mouth. He shook his head, casting his eyes meaningfully to the left. There were two new Giants off that way, to the east, and these were moving. In fact, they were climbing the slope, headed right towards the two Humans and Puddleglum.

"If they keep on, they'll step right over us!" whispered Scrubb grimly into Jill's ear. Jill felt like screaming, but of course that would be the worst thing to do.

The cock-shies game was still going on, but the center of the action seemed to have moved farther south. Occasionally as they lay in their shallow blind, Jill heard a shout from the Giants still playing. If there had been an outright brawl between the two groups, it appeared to be over now.

When her heart had slowed from thundering to merely cantering, Jill looked at the two approaching Giants and then at Puddleglum. "What do we do now?" she asked in a shaky whisper.

Puddleglum frowned, which made his long thin face look like a comically depressed frog. "If we can get over the next rise, we've a better chance. Giants have short memories, and once out of sight they'll forget us. Like as not, though, they'll spot us and knock us out with a single throw. That'd be the end of us, and the quest for the prince, too."

Scrubbed twisted about to peer uphill, scrambling upwards to get a better view. Jill stayed where she was, watching the Giants as they approached. One of them was a Giantess, in a brown leather dress. (It looked patchy, as if it were stitched together from animal hides, and of course it was, Jill realized.) By now they were only fifty yards away, although they had changed direction, and were no longer headed directly towards the three shivering in the bracken.

"We'll wait until she looks that way," whispered Puddleglum, pointing downslope towards the gorge of the Shribble. "Then up and over that rise. Ready?"

Jill swallowed. She felt frozen, like a rabbit trapped by a dog in the garden, and was sure her face was green.

"Buck up, Pole!" said Scrubb in a patronizing whisper (or so it seemed to Jill). "Just think of the jolly tales we can tell later, about escaping from Giants!" But his grin faltered as he met her narrowed eyes.

"Jolly tales!" she hissed. "I'll give you jolly--" But we shall never know what jolly gift Jill would have given Scrubb, for just at that moment Puddleglum said, "Now! Up and over!"

What followed was never entirely clear in Jill's mind. There was a scramble, and a dash, and a line of brush in the way. Puddleglum pushed through, glancing back over his shoulder, and suddenly disappeared from Jill's view. She heard a shout, and then suddenly Scrubb was teetering ahead of her, in a terrifying re-enactment of his fall on Aslan's Mountain, and then he was gone as well. Jill, last in line, had enough warning to stop, and found herself wavering on the edge of the steep and sandy drop that had been hidden behind the shrubs along the top of the rise.

"Puddleglum! Are you all right?" Jill dared not shout: she called in a loud whisper, her back crawling with fear that the Giants would hear her and come stomping up to squash them all.

"Pole!" came Scrubb's answering voice. He sounded shaky.

Jill leaned out as far as she dared, clinging with one hand to the roots of the bracken. "Scrubb, where are you?" All she could see was rock and dirt and tiny little bushes bravely growing from the face of the cliff.

There was a rustle and a gasp, and the sound of stones clattering and slithering. Jill spotted one of Scrubb's feet then, some distance down the cliff. She moved sideways a bit, squinting through the leaves, and then she saw him. He was hung up on a narrow ledge, one leg dangling, and his clothes were rucked up about him as if he were caught on something like a hook or an outcropping. Jill couldn't see his face, as it was pressed into the cliff, just his hand, clenched white around a small protrusion above him. If he moved, he would slide over, it seemed obvious.

Moving had also revealed Puddleglum to her, or at least part of him. Far below, perhaps forty or fifty feet, Jill saw a splayed greenish-grey hand dangling over a narrow trickling stream. A few stones, disturbed by Scrubb, tumbled down nearby, but Puddleglum's hand didn't stir.

The only rope was in Puddleglum's pack. Jill looked east, up the tiny gorge they had stumbled into, and saw nothing but steep and rocky cliff. If there was a safe way down to Puddleglum, she would not find it that way. To the west was the Shribble, and the Giants.

"We need help," Jill thought, but there was none to be had. If anyone was to help Scrubb and Puddleglum, it would have to be Jill herself.

But she could not climb down the cliff. She could not bring them up. She could not bring help, for what help could there be, so many days north of the Narnian border, and surrounded by Giants?

Could she ask for help?

Jill was not in the habit of praying, but just this once, faced with something beyond her strength and experience, she closed her eyes. She whispered, "Aslan, what am I to do?"

There was, as she expected, no response. Except that she remembered, as clearly as if she were still there, the sound of the birds on Aslan's mountain, and the smell of his breath on her face.

"First, I need rope," she thought, and opened her eyes.

~+~

Excerpt from Eastward to Destiny: A History of Telmarine Narnia from Caspian the Conqueror to Erlian Giantsbane, by Parlos Wheelwright, Master-Scholar of Beruna

Several oral histories collected in traditional communities between 2382 and 2397 mention special messengers sent by the Great Lion to find the lost prince. One variation on the tale, collected in northeast Narnia, claim that this special messenger was a Marsh-wiggle from the great eastern swamplands; others claim the messengers came from another world entirely. This of course has great appeal in more traditional Narnian communities, as it recalls Aslan's intervention at the end of the reign of the White Witch, and the Caspianic revolt against the usurper Miraz.

However there is almost no evidence of these supposed messengers: no documented reports of the return of Prince Rilian and his ascension to the throne on the death of Caspian X mention any such persons or any external influences, merely the Prince's own abilities and good fortune. The facts, so far as they can be determined, are as follows:

After the Green Serpent murdered the Queen, Prince Rilian hunted her for many days, leading his troop through all of northern Narnia, but his efforts were in vain. When at last the King called the hunt off, Prince Rilian persisted on his own, until one day he simply disappeared. This new hunt for the Prince was as unsuccessful as the Prince's own hunt for the Green Serpent, and there the matter rested. Ten years later, the Prince reappeared at the Dancing Lawn during the Great Winter Dance, and was reunited with his father at the great king's deathbed.

By Rilian's own testimony, we know that his imprisonment in the underworld ruled by the Green Witch was broken by a fluke of circumstance. The Prince was left alone one evening, when the Green Witch was away, and managed to free himself and destroy the cursed chair that kept him bound and ignorant of his true identity. Upon the Witch's return to her castle, he slew her and escaped to Narnia through the very tunnels the Witch had been excavating for the invasion of Narnia.

Faun Aduncus of Beaversdam writes, in his pamphlet On the Lion's Interventions in Narnia after the Golden Age, that Aslan sent a Marsh-wiggle and two Human children from beyond the end of the world (in fact, from the same place that the High King and his siblings came from) to find the lost prince. However a simple consideration of the facts shows the unlikeliness of this tale. Of what use could children be in such a quest, and one of them a girl? Much less a Wiggle, who, however well-meaning, would hardly have the cunning or fortitude to see through such a quest.

No, we must accept that it was Telmarine strength of will that kept Prince Rilian sane and alive through his long imprisonment, Telmarine wit that recognized his one chance to act, and Telmarine bravery that that accomplished his freedom.


~+~


The cloak that Jill had been given in the castle at Cair Paravel (so very long ago, it seemed to Jill, though it was barely more than a week) was, luckily, a dull green. Jill kept the hood over her head as she crept westward along the line of this new gorge. This stream, she realized, must intersect the Shribble at nearly right angles. They would have come across it inevitably: it was just their bad luck that they hadn't seen it beforehand.

The shouts and crashing from the cockshies game seemed to have died away. Jill crouched low and looked to the south, and saw only two Giants' heads above the rim of the Shribble gorge. They appeared to be talking, and there was no sign of the Giants from the east.

Half a mile further on, and constantly aware of Scrubb's tenuous position and Puddleglum's motionless hand, Jill found the point at which the unnamed brook entered the Shribble. The narrow point of land marking the confluence of the two waterways was more heavily eroded than the gorge Jill had been following, with a more gradual incline. The surface, though, was sandy and loose, and it was with trouble, and more than one slip nearly ending in disaster, that she made her way to the bottom of the slope.

The Shribble was not a wide river, but it ran fast and cold beneath the sandy-rocky banks. Sticks and branches marked the previous season's high-water point, above which green shrubs grew in patches, much healthier and taller than the vegetation on the exposed moorland above.

What next? Jill wondered, but there was really no question. She wouldn't find rope merely coiled next to the river: she needed people. So she turned left, southward, towards the Giants.

As she walked, well, properly, skulked, along the gorge, the cliffs above her steadily dropped. Eventually they were only about twenty feet high, and Jill realized she was near the spot where the Giants had stood to play cockshies, with their feet next to the river and their elbows on the rim of the gorge. Sweat chilling on her skin, she looked about; mindful of her earlier mistake, she peered carefully at every uneven stack of rocks. But there were no Giants here anymore, merely the marks of enormous booted feet, clear in the sandy verge along the water. But no Giants. Where could they be?

She would have to follow them to find out. She shuddered at the thought: here she was, Jill Pole, alone in the wilderness, tracking Giants. What if they saw her, caught her, tossed her against the wall like one of those stones they were playing with? But there was no help for it--Puddleglum and Scrubb were depending on her.

Jill picked a set of prints, particularly large and with a distinctive divot along one edge, and followed them. They led her downstream forty yards or so, and then disappeared into the water. The water here was not as rough as it was upstream, but it was a chilly day and the water looked cold. Jill shivered, then looked back up the gorge towards her unseen companions and set her teeth. If she didn't do this, no one would.

She was lucky: the water was cold, but not as deep as she feared; she struggled across, clenching her teeth against the chill as it crept up her bare legs. For the first time, she envied Puddleglum's trousers. But then, she realized, as she gripped a tree branch and heaved herself out of the water, it would take that much longer for her legs to dry. So perhaps she was better off with her shorts after all. Before going on, she went upstream a little bit and drank her fill. She should probably eat something, but she was too frightened to be hungry, and had almost nothing in her pockets, anyway.

The ground over here was less sandy, and Jill had little trouble finding "her" Giants' footprints. She followed them upstream for a hundred paces, and then they struck off west at an angle, at a point where the western gorge wall dropped to an uneven rise. The trail led into thicker brush, soon replaced by patchy forest. It had been a cloudy day, and Jill had no watch, but the light was beginning to fade, and she had no torch. It was hard to find her way between the trees, and more than once her cloak caught on a branch or she knocked her knee on a stump. She would have many new bruises after this, assuming she survived it.

The woods were only a few hundred yards deep, but Jill had long since lost the footprints she had been following when she emerged into the dull grey light of sunset. She was on the edge of a great cleared meadow, and directly across from her, looming large against the dimming sky, were the enormous houses of the Shribble Giants.

The darkness was her friend, Jill realized, once she'd gotten over the shock at the size of the houses. In the dark, she could creep close enough to find what she needed; the shadows would hide her from unfriendly eyes, even in this open field.

There was no sight of any Giants, although lights shone in many windows, and when the wind shifted to the west, Jill heard the rumble of deep voices. There was even, surprisingly, a snatch of song. But no one came out of those great houses, and Jill wondered why. Wouldn't one of the Giants come out to feed chickens, throw away some scraps, or use the necessary?

The closest building was no great distance, and, not allowing herself to think about what she was doing, Jill set out to cross that space. It was less difficult than she feared: she moved from shadow to shadow, checking the houses often. (There was no way for her to know, and no one to tell her, that the air of Narnia had made her quicker and stronger than she was in England.) Once, there was a shout in the distance, and a huge form came out of a doorway, slamming it behind him. Jill gasped and crouched low, breathing shallowly, as quietly as she could, while the Giant stomped away down the meadow, finally passing out of sight behind a stand of trees.

When it was gone, she let herself breathe for a long moment, then forced herself upright again. Her hands were shaking, and it took several hearbeats before she could take the next step forward.

At length she came within a hundred feet of the nearest house. It was a simple shack, really, with no door on the side closest her. The silhouette against the sky was uneven, the roofline ragged, but light streamed through a crack in the bare wooden wall. Jill crouched behind a low bush, and put a hand to her mouth and chewed on a ragged hangnail. Where would she find what she needed, and could she find it safely?

When she shifted her weight, preparing to move forward again, something cracked under her foot, the sound sharp and distinct in the quiet night.

Out of the darkness, there came a growl.

~+~

Excerpt from the private writings of Dwarf Trumpkin of Badger Hill, Lord Regent of Narnia, unpublished.

--during the Great Snow Dance, if you can believe it! I sent G off at once, for KC's ship had been sighted, and the P should be there to greet his father. But though greatly cheered, was also full of uncertainty, for had not expected to see the King return for many weeks yet.

And I was right, more's the pity. At least the L granted them that much, but it will be hard on the lad, to go from the jail underground to a prison of another sort, without any time in the sunlight. (T: don't ever tell the boy you think the throne is a prison!)

The maddest thing is that he claims he was rescued by Puddleglum the Marsh-wiggle and those two children who came to CP just as KC left, and then disappeared that same night! Now, I should know better than any about not underestimating strange children from another world (and where those four are now only A may know), but by the L's paws and tail, I can't figure what those children even did to rescue the lad. Seems to me that they did precious little other than get captured and run away once or twice, and were damned lucky to end up unspitted, undrowned, and unsquished.

For this, A had to bring children from another world? An ordinary Narnian could have done as much--in fact, an ordinary Narnian did. And PG was the one who broke the Witch's spell, by what they all said! So I don't see, at the end of it all, what use the two children were.

Shall call PG to court to tell the rest of the story, burned foot or no.

~+~

Jill froze, one finger still in her mouth. What was it? A wolf, a bear, a badger? Was it Giantish? Did Giants keep Giant dogs to guard their houses?

She stared into the darkness, willing her eyes to see. Where was it? Her right hand fumbled for the knife at her belt. Could she use it, would she have time? Was the creature crouching to spring at her even now? Why had she come here--why had she thought she could save anyone? She was going to be eaten, here in the dark field, and Scrubb and Puddleglum would never know. The Prince would stay lost, and They would go back down the hill behind the gymnasium at Experiment House, their victims never to be found.

"Aslan," she thought, involuntarily, still unmoving.

A gust of wind caressed her cheek. Something in the dark meadow sniffed and coughed. And then, astonishingly, there came a low grumbly voice. "That's a Narnian smell! Are you of Narnia?"

"Yes," said Jill, cautiously. "Well, I mean, I come from Narnia, my friend does..."

"By the Lion's paws and tail! I had near given up hope!"

Jill's jaw dropped, but she kept her voice quiet. "Who--what? Who are you?"

The shadow in front of her moved, suddenly, and a soft chime sounded in her ears. "I'm a Narnian, girl, my name is Belknap, and I was whelped five miles from Cair Paravel!" Jill squinted: the speaker was a Dog, a tall, long-legged creature with a curly coat and floppy ears. When it moved, it rattled, and Jill realized it had a chain about its neck, the links trailing away into the darkness behind it.

"Can I free you?" whispered Jill, and put a hand out. After the Owls, and so long with Puddleglum, it no longer seemed so strange that a Dog should talk with her, here after sunset in the yard of a Giants' house.

A damp nose snuffled at her hand. "If you could, Daughter of Eve? I've been captive here for far too long, forced to play guard dog for these thick-witted horrors. I sorely miss my home, and the smell of the green Narnian woods."

The Dog was dreadfully skinny, Jill realized as she felt along his body to his neck. There was a clasp on the chain, but it was a rusted thing, stiff and awkward. Jill dropped to her knees for better leverage and wrestled with it, her hands cold and clumsy, until she had it unlatched. The chain fell to the ground with an ugly clunk.

"Oh, my thanks, Daughter of Eve!" Belknap licked her hand, bouncing about, and Jill found time to wonder how it was that Talking Dogs acted so much like ordinary non-talking dogs in England.

Finally, however, he settled. "Now," said the Dog, "tell me, how did you come here?"

Jill clenched her fists: just for a moment she had forgotten, in the shock of finding a friend in this place where she had thought she might die. "I--well, it's a long story. But I came here looking for rope, you see, because my friends fell down the cliff, and Puddleglum has the rope in his pack, but I can't get down there, and Scrubb is stuck on the ledge, so it's only me, you see."

"A rope?" Belknap asked. "Why, that is easily done! Wait you here, Daughter of Eve!" In a moment, he was gone, leaving Jill crouched there, waiting, barely able to breathe for the shock of the sudden change.

Five minutes ago she'd been sure she was a failure, that she was going to die here in the Giants' meadow. Now? Well, now she might have a chance, if Belknap could help her.

And he could--in less than three minutes he was back, tail wagging, and in his mouth he carried a coil of rope. It was rough rope, coarsely woven, and it scratched Jill's hands as she took it up, but it looked to be nearly forty feet long. Surely that would be enough to help Scrubb and Puddleglum, mustn't it?

"Oh, thank you, Belknap!" Jill whispered, and kneeled to hug the Dog.

"The least I could do," said Belknap modestly, but his hindquarters wriggled in such a way that Jill knew he was really very pleased by her gratitude. "Now, miss, where are you going?"

"Back to the Shribble," said Jill, "and then up the gorge to where my friends are. If they're still all right," she added nervously. It had, after all, been some hours since the others had fallen. Scrubb could have lost his grip, and fallen on Puddleglum, injuring them both.

"You're heading north, then?" the Dog sounded doubtful. When Jill nodded, he continued, "Well, I hope you won't mind, Daughter of Eve, but I want nothing more to do with the northlands than I have! I've been here for five years, every day a misery. Would you mind so much if I went south, and found my family again?"

Faced with that appeal, there was little Jill could do but agree. She did, however, convince the Dog to accompany her back to the Shribble, so she should not become hopelessly lost in the woods. When they had forged the chilly stream, Belknap paused only long enough to thank her again, with a quick swipe of his tongue across her cheek, and then he disappeared down the gorge, heading south on his long legs. At that pace, Jill thought, he would be halfway to Narnia by daylight.

She herself turned, with some trepidation, northward along the gorge of the Shribble. When she came to the confluence with the other stream, she hesitated, for the climb up to the top of the rise looked very steep and uneven.

But even if Jill could travel along the bottom of the gorge all the way to Puddleglum, she could do little for Eustace with her rope from the bottom. She had to be above him to help.

So Jill took a deep breath, coiled the rope a bit more securely across her chest and shoulder, and began to climb. It was less frightening than the climb down had been, for climbing upwards was easier on her knees than going down, and the sand was less likely to slip under her feet. But she was still gasping and out of breath when she reached the top.

It was by now well after nightfall. The day had been cloudy, and if it had stayed that way, Jill would have been in (even more) trouble; but the clouds had mostly cleared away, and a waxing moon had risen. It was brighter than the moon above England, and the stars, so close, so large, added even more light.

She kept a good distance from the edge of the gorge, just in case, and moved as fast as she dared. But of course she missed the spot where Eustace and Puddleglum had fallen, for she had neglected to mark it when she left. She overshot by some distance, then realized what she had done and backtracked slowly, pausing often to lean out over the cliff face with one hand clinging to a secure hold.

At length she found the scuffed and disturbed spot on the cliff edge where the others had fallen. Affixing the rope around the roots of several sturdy-looking bushes, Jill lowered it carefully down to where she recalled seeing Scrubb. The rope's coarse fibers scratched her hands as she fed it out. It was now quite dark, and the gorge was in shadow; there was no way to see if Scrubb was still there.

"Scrubb? Scrubb!" This time, Jill didn't bother to whisper--if there were any Giants around, she would just have to outrun them. "Scrubb! Are you there?"

The night was empty. A bird cried nearby, but there was otherwise no sound, just the whisper of sand settling and the rattle of leaves in the night breeze. Jill sunk her head between her shoulders and closed her eyes. Surely Aslan could not have led her so far, even sent Belknap to help her, for her to discover it was all wasted!

Scrubb wasn't dear to Jill, not like her own family, but she knew by now the sound of his voice in the morning as he woke, the shape of his shoulders against the northern skyline, the rough skin of his hands as he helped her over a rocky patch of the trail. She couldn't imagine going on without him, nor without Puddleglum's endearing pessimism and practical advice. (It never really occurred to Jill that she would not carry on with the quest for Prince Rilian, which might indicate to you that Narnia had affected her far more than she realized.)

A sound reached her ears. Jill started up. There it was again, a dry croak, just above the limit of her hearing. She locked her hand around the knot of the rope and leaned out as far as she could. "Scrubb!" she cried, her voice rebounding harshly from the opposite wall of the gorge. "Is that you?"

She heard a cough, then Scrubb's familiar voice. "Yes, it's me! Now make sure that rope is good, I'm going down to Puddleglum. Don't let me fall!"

Jill smiled into the starry darkness, sure now that everything was going to be all right. Puddleglum would be fine, and they would find their way out of the gorge, and somehow, she couldn't see how, but she knew it, somehow they would find the lost prince.

"I won't, I promise, Scrubb. I won't let you fall."

~+~


Excerpt of a letter from Edmund Pevensie to his sister Susan Pevensie, December 5, 1942

--in time for his death, which is so unlikely I find it hard to accept. How could so much time have passed, when it was barely a few months here? But Eustace took it hard: he could not have been lying. He said Caspian was an old man, far older even than Professor Kirke is, and his son a grown man.

There was some other story Eustace told, about coming back into England from Aslan's Country, which I didn't entirely follow. We didn't have much time to speak, and his letters of course were very careful.

I admit, Su, I don't entirely understand Aslan's purpose in this. He brought Eustace and his friend Jill to Narnia, and while they doubtless learned a great deal, it doesn't sound to me as though they accomplished much. Unless I missed something, it was the Marsh-wiggle who actually saved the Prince, and nothing Eustace or Jill did had any effect at all.

But you know what He would say about other people's stories, so perhaps there's more to this adventure than we are ever meant to know...


~+~


Excerpt from The Tale of Sharptooth the Strong, as told by court historian Balthus of Beruna in the reign of King Arian of Narnia


The Goblins swarmed down the valley, uncountable in their numbers, and came at last to the cleft in the rock which led to Shandon's Fell. From that pleasant dell, it was an easy trail into Lantern Waste, and from there the rich vales of central Narnia.

The defenders had fallen back into Shandon's Fell, few as they were, but one alone stood in the cleft. Strong he was, thick of shoulder and quick of jaw, Sharptooth the Hound, who had served the Duke of Lantern Waste since he had been but a pup.

Sharptooth stood in the gash of the rock and snarled defiance at the horde of Goblins. "Stay where you are," he said, and they hesitated in the face of his anger. "The High King banished you from Narnia at the end of the Long Winter, and your term has not yet finished! If you come near you'll feel my teeth in you."

The Goblins howled at him, but many were afraid to approach. They threw stones at him instead, but Sharptooth was cunning as well as quick, and he dodged them. At length, harried and prodded by the howls of their leaders, they threw themselves at the cleft.

But Sharptooth held them back. Aslan only knows how, for such deeds are beyond any Narnian of today. At the end of the battle, when the reinforcements from the Duke had finally arrived, more than a hundred Goblins lay dead at Sharptooth's feet.

Learn, you children, the name of this great Narnian hero: Sharptooth son of Brighttail, son of White-ear, son of Belknap of the North, who came to Lantern Waste after many years captive among the Giants. Without Sharptooth's strength and loyalty, Narnia today would be very different, and might not exist at all.

END


Original prompt we sent you:
What I want: I would very much like the story to be set in Not-My-Children's Narnia, as authored by Rth Stewart, if you're familiar with her work. If not, I would be interested in a few of Jill Pole's experiences with Puddlegrum and Eustace (the sort of thing Lewis left out of The Silver Chair), or something immediately following the conclusion of The Magician's Nephew, either in Narnia or back in England, as Digory and Polly integrate Narnia into their lives.

Prompt words/objects/quotes/whatever: "Assuredly for the body to imbibe muddy waters is a different thing from sucking in the transparency of a sweet fountain. Even so the vigour of the mind is repressed when it is clogged by a heavy atmosphere. Nature herself hath made us subject to these influences. Clouds make us feel sad; and again a bright sky fills us with joy, because the heavenly substance of the soul delights in everything that is unstained and pure." - Cassiodorus, Letters

Comments

[linneasr.livejournal.com]

Ah, this is lovely! Thank you for expanding on Jill and Eustace's quest! The way you show us the long-term consequences of actions, as well as the immediate results, is nicely done, and you've captured the 'Lewis-voice' very well indeed (when it was appropriate). The pomposity of the Telmarine historian made me chortle! You have a good command of the various voices, actually, as, upon second look, I also really like the snippet of Edmund's letter. Congratulations! Good job, and a pleasure to read. I apologize for not commenting earlier; I've been away on holiday and am just back to the computer now.

[cofax7]

I'm so glad you enjoyed it! It was fun to write, as I've not written anything with Jill or Eustace before. And no worries about the delay--I was out of town this weekend as well.