Mater Magna - for writeonkate

[nfe-gremlin.livejournal.com]

Title: Mater Magna
Author: lady_songsmith
Recipient: writeonkate
Rating: PG
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: None.
Summary: Helen finally has the family she wanted.
Author’s Notes: None.

Mater Magna


Helen had always wanted children, but in the struggle to keep body and soul together on a cabbie's wages, she hadn't thought it possible. Perhaps there might be one, if things were good and life just a little bit kind, but there would never be the sort of big, happy family she herself had grown up in. And then all at once she stepped out of her own world and found herself mother to more children than she had ever dreamed of -- a whole country's worth.

And such children! Animals of every sort she had ever seen and a good few she hadn't (for Helen had never been to the Zoo); fauns and nymphs and centaurs and dwarfs and dozens of creatures she didn't even know the names for (but fortunately no one thought anything of this, for they were all so new to the world that they didn't know one another either, and most conversations in those days began with "And what are you?"). And they were very like children, all of them: children who could speak and reason and feed themselves, certainly, but otherwise quite innocent of the world. Sometimes they reminded Helen of Mary Walker, the girl down the way when she was growing up, who'd never seemed to get older than seven or so, even when she was a great big girl in body. But you couldn't teach Mary anything, except the sorts of things you taught little children, like how to make daisy crowns or play hopscotch, and the Narnians were frightfully quick learners. It was just that there was so much to learn; absolutely everything was new to them, and they looked to Frank and Helen for answers night and day.

Oh, the chaos of the first thunderstorm! Helen had been all but buried under the creatures that had run to her for protection: ducks and squirrels and rabbits huddled under her skirts, deer and boar and leopards pressing against her sides, birds and bats of all sorts perched anywhere they could find a claw-hold, and even a bear twice her size huddling behind her. And the Narnians that were part-human or human-shaped; a little more reluctant to cuddle against her, but still pressing in as though just being near her might save them from whatever terror caused such noise.

“Is Aslan angry with us?” asked a dog, creeping a little closer to Helen.

“No, dear heart,” Helen said, smiling at him. “It’s only a thunderstorm. They come every summer.” At least in England; perhaps Narnian weather was different? There was so much she didn’t know about this new world, but she had learned quickly that a queen, like a mother, must always seem calm and confident when her children were frightened.

“Why in summer?” asked a faun, and then the floodgates opened, questions asked so quickly that she couldn’t see who was asking what.

“Why is it loud?”

“What makes the light?”

“Does it hurt the trees?”

“When will it end?”

That at least she could answer. “It will end when the land has had enough good rain.”

“What about the noise?” the bear rumbled from behind her, and a chorus of voices joined in, wanting to know why this rainstorm made the sky crack and boom when others had not.

Helen rather thought she would like to sit down, but with so many creatures around her, there was no room to do so without squashing someone. She summoned up brighter smile still, and glanced around for a centaur. They were wise in the ways of the heavens by nature, and surely one of them would know more about thunder than she did. But for all the beings crowded into the little shelter – nothing more than a lean-to before a cave, there being so very many things that needed building before Frank and Helen could see to their own comforts – there was not a centaur to be seen.

So Helen thought back to what she had been told as a little girl herself. Bowls and ninepins would mean nothing to Narnians, of course, and any talk of giants was a tricky thing in a land where they were real. “The light is called lightning,” she said slowly, deciding names were always good to start with, “and the noise is called thunder. The lightning lives in the clouds, and sometimes where there are a lot of clouds all together for a big rainstorm, it gets so excited it jumps from cloud to cloud.” She found her words falling into a sort of rhythm, very like story-telling, and the Narnians, who loved stories, relaxed a little, and even began to edge away enough for her to move.

“It jumps so hard,” Helen continued, “that when it lands it stomps! and everything shakes and rattles. And that is the thunder. You can tell how close the clouds are if you listen: if you see the lightning hop and hear it land right away, then it is jumping right over your head. But if there is a time between, the clouds are further away. Watch!”

Every eye turned to the doorway, waiting and waiting. The cave was so silent, no one twitched so much as a feather. When the flash of lightning came, it startled even Helen. They all jumped, and she laughed a little, then started counting, careful and slow. “One… two… three… four… five…”

CRACK!

The animals huddled closer to her again, but the trembling was less this time, and they eased back again quickly. “There, it landed,” she said quickly. “It must be very close now.” Another flash lit the cave briefly. “Such a lot of jumping,” Helen said, hoping to stave off the nerves this time. “It must be quite a party up there.”

Well. That was the magic word. If there was one thing Narnians had already learned to love, it was a party. The idea of lightning having a party in the clouds caught their imaginations, and one bolder vixen slunk out from under Helen’s skirt, bouncing about the cave. “Look, I’m lightning!” she cried, leaping again. Helen obligingly provided the thunder by clapping her hands when the fox landed, and soon half the Narnians were hopping and clapping as well.

Yes, Helen thought, watching them with a smile, she had plenty of children at last.




Original Prompt that we sent you:
What I want: First wedding in Narnia, Lucy adjusting to life back in England with no hope of Narnia, Helen's role in early Narnia
Prompt words/objects/quotes/whatever: Oh, geez, see above. "She stood in the storm and when the wind did not blow her away, she adjusted her sails." "The purpose of life is living a life of purpose." "I myself am entirely made of flaws, stitched together with good intentions." "No one has ever become poor from giving."

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[lady_songsmith]

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