Narnia fic: "Dust in the Air" (4)
Oct. 27th, 2008 01:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedlamsbardTitle: Dust in the Air 4
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bedlamsbard
Fandom: Chronicles of Narnia movieverse/bookverse
Rating: PG-13
Summary: And the end of all our exploring / will be to arrive where we started. An AU of The Last Battle, some five years after that book begins. Gen.
Disclaimer: The Chronicles of Narnia and its characters, situations, settings, etc., belong to C.S. Lewis. Certain characters, situations, settings, etc., belong to Walden Media. Title and quote from T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets: Little Gidding.
Author's Notes: This is part four, obviously, and this is also the first WIP I've posted since 2006. (And that WIP was abandoned, so one can see I'm understandably nervous about posting another one.) The structure of this lends it to being posted in sections, though, so that's how it's going up. Because of this, however, it's not getting posted to any comms until the whole thing is done.
The Telmarines’ favored ambush spot is apparently the one thing in Narnia that hasn’t changed in sixteen hundred years. Standing in the center of the beaten road – a little less rutted than it had been the last time he’d been here, but then again, the roseroad had been regularly traveled from Cair Paravel to Astegal in Telmar in his day – Peter scuffs his toes in the dirt, rubbing a hand over his face. Looking around makes him startlingly homesick. He doesn’t have to close his eyes for it to be his Narnia again; just for a moment, he can mount up and ride back to Cair Paravel, and his castle will be as he remembers, all tall white walls and scarlet banners, the Shifting Market and the harbor spread out beneath her. Narnia will be safe, and she will rejoice at his return, and there will be a crown on his head once more. Narnia will be as she should be, caught forever in the golden web of the Great Summer that was his reign. The thought of it breaks his heart.
“By Aslan,” Lucy says, approaching from behind him, “it looks just like it did when I caught that lieutenant of Marroquin’s trying to catch us.” She pauses. “I think. I still don’t…remember everything.”
Peter squeezes her shoulder without looking at her. “This will do,” he says, then strides away and calls for archers.
There aren’t many; he doesn’t quite trust these Narnians. He intersperses them with the people he does trust: Edmund, Susan, Lucy, Tirian, Eustace, Jill Pole. He’s not as certain of the latter two as he is of his own siblings or this king of Narnia, but Aslan chose them, and he’ll trust Aslan’s judgment. For now.
“Pete,” Susan murmurs to him a little while later as he sharpens the blade of his hunting knife. They’re crouched in the woods that border the roseroad, waiting for his forward scouts to return. “Why do all your plans depend on you doing something stupid?”
“I’m shocked and hurt you’d say something like that,” he whispers back, and she punches him halfheartedly on the shoulder.
“Tell me the truth.”
“Stupid isn’t exactly how I’d phrase it.”
She rolls her eyes. “How about ‘making yourself into bait’?”
Peter pretends to consider the matter and is rewarded with his sister’s exasperated sigh. “That would about sum it up, yes,” he admits, and offers her a wry smile.
Susan shakes her head. “Why can’t Edmund be bait one of these times?” she asks. “Or Lucy? Or me?”
“I like being bait,” Peter says lightly. What he doesn’t say is that he doesn’t want Susan standing out in the middle of the road; he’s too worried that Lucy might put an arrow in her and call it an accident. She’s already a little too eager to decry Susan; he doesn’t want to give her an excuse to shoot her, not when they can’t even stay in the same room together for a night. He’d been lucky enough not to be asleep already when Lucy had come storming into the lower level of the homewood tree, swearing that she was damned if she’d spend a night in the same room as that traitor Susan. Too tired to argue, his vision blurring from staring at maps by candlelight, Peter had taken his blankets and gone upstairs to share the treehouse with Susan, wrapping his arms around her and letting her cry into his shoulder. They’d fallen asleep in the same bed, Susan’s head tucked against his chest and his arm slung over her back.
Something of the memory must show on his face, because something in Susan’s face breaks. “I’m sorry,” she apologizes abruptly. “Peter, I’m sorry.”
“We’ve been over this,” he says, and sheathes his hunting knife at the back of his belt, tucking away the whetstone. He leans forward to take her hands in his. “Su, you don’t have to apologize to me. You never have.”
Her face crumples. “Peter –” she begins, and then a squirrel comes racing through the trees, leaping from branch to branch and chattering excitedly.
“They’re coming, your majesty!” she babbles, and Susan pulls her hands free of Peter’s, rising a beat before he does, her lips bumping against the corner of his mouth as she makes to kiss his cheek.
“I’ll be bait this time, Peter,” she says, and slips out of the undergrowth onto the road before Peter can catch her, biting his tongue on his shout.
“Damn it, Su,” he hisses through his teeth, and hopes to hell that on the other side of the road, Edmund can keep Lucy from shooting Susan. Or that he won’t help her. He draws the bow slung over his shoulder and puts an arrow to the string, nodding to the ragged line of Narnians strung out alongside the road.
In the center of the road, Susan reaches up with one hand to pull her hair free of its tight bun at the back of her skull, letting it fall down around her shoulders. It doesn’t do much to conceal the quiver of arrows on her back, but it will make her look more innocent and more feminine; the Calormenes should hesitate a beat longer than they might otherwise. She doesn’t draw an arrow, just grounds her bow in the dirt by her feet, leaning it against the thick folds of her skirt. Peter hears his breath rasp in his throat, tight with tension and fear, and murmurs the prayer before battle, the words barely a whisper on the chill air. It’s an old, familiar ritual, a holdover from his time with the Red Company in Natare, and it’s stuck with him through half a dozen countries, two worlds, and four timelines. It can’t hurt. It might help.
He hears the Calormenes before he sees them. The jangle of harness, the voices of men, the snorts of the horses, and the groans of the wagons – all familiar. He glances up and down the line again, a quick and dirty reminder to the new Narnians not to shoot before he gives the signal, and then looks across the road. He can’t see Edmund, but he knows where his brother should be, where the rest of the ambush should be waiting.
The first Calormene horsemen come around the bend in the road, reining up as they see Susan. “Out of the way, girl,” one of them says in Calormene, then repeats it in Narnian. The second rider looks her up and down and grins, teeth white in his dark face.
“Out alone in the woods, child?” he says. “Don’t you know it’s dangerous here? There are wild beasts about, and worse than that – savage outlaws, who’d like nothing more than to ravish such a gentle maid. You’d best come with us.” His lascivious grin makes it clear exactly what the extents of such an offer include, and Peter grinds his teeth. They approach Susan slowly, and behind them, the first of the wagons and its guard come into view. If Arnau’s information is good – and Ourente from Haven had confirmed it – then there will be three wagons and a rearguard. They need everyone on this patch of road before they can start shooting.
Susan takes a step backwards, her eyes wide. “I’m not sure,” she demurs. “My – my family – we came from Archenland, you see, and there’s been a terrible accident – oh, you have to help me!”
“Peace, maid,” says the second horseman. “You’re in the Tisroc’s land now, and safe from harm.” He brings his horse from a stop and gets down, holding out a hand towards her.
“We do not have time for this!” his companion snaps in Calormene as the driver on the first wagon shouts, “What’s the problem?”
Remember the plan, Su, Peter thinks furiously, raising his bow. He trains it on the Calormene closest to Susan, then, reluctantly, turns it on the driver of the first wagon. The second one is lumbering into view now, a dozen Calormene horsemen accompanying it.
“Don’t be a fool, Bahri,” the first horseman snaps. “We have our duty, and rescuing lost Archenlander women is no part of it. Leave her to the side of the road and be done with it.”
Susan’s gaze flickers quickly towards Peter, then back to the man in front of her. He hasn’t noticed the bow in her hand yet.
“What is she waiting for?” one of the Narnians with Peter grumbles, and he turns his furious gaze on the faun just as the first horseman looks toward the woods.
“What was that?” He draws his scimitar, shouting, “Ambush! Ambush!”
“You –!” snarls the second horseman, his friendliness vanishing in an instant, and then looks down in astonishment as a white-feathered arrow sprouts in his chest. Susan has her own bow up and an arrow in the air a heartbeat later, stabbing through the neck of the first horseman, whose shouts die in a gurgle of blood.
“Damn it!” Peter shouts, because the plan’s been blown, and lets his arrow fly to strike home in the driver’s heart before he discards his bow and draws his sword. “Now!” A moment later he’s in the road at his sister’s side, Narnians boiling out of the woods behind him and arrows flying through the air.
“Narnia!” Peter screams, and runs straight at the charging horsemen, Rhindon light as air between his palms. He cuts a horse’s legs brutally out from under it, stabbing at its fallen rider and snatching the man’s sword from his hand in the same moment. Steel cuts the air with a whistle of wind as he turns, blades spinning before him as blood spatters across his face – not his, but a moment later a Calormene scimitar kisses his cheek, a bare heartbeat before its bearer tumbles backwards off his horse, two of Susan’s arrows in his chest. Peter hurls the Calormene sword in his left hand, shining steel turning end over end in the air before it makes pulp out of a screaming Calormene’s face, and grabs the horse’s mane, hauls himself up onto its back. He turns it around with a nudge of his knees just in time to meet a Calormene sword-stroke with Rhindon, the metal screaming protest as Peter disengages, taking the Calormene’s hand off and then his head.
“Edmund!” he shouts. “The rear guard! Don’t let them get away!”
“I’ve got it, Pete!” Edmund yells back, and then his voice is lost in a clash of steel as Peter attacks another Calormene – Seven, no, not a Calormene, a centaur in Calormene armor with a flail in his hands. His horse lets out a neigh of terror as the morning star barely misses its neck, and Peter nearly falls off avoiding it as the chain flicks back towards him.
He swings Rhindon, meaning to disarm the centaur – literally – but instead catches the chain. The centaur flicks his wrist and Rhindon goes flying away as he swings the flail back towards Peter. Clutching the horse’s mane, grabbing for the hunting knife on his belt. He comes up with it clenched in his right fist and sees the centaur’s grin – a pitiful weapon against a flail.
“Yeah, I know,” Peter says, and ducks again. He urges the horse sideways against the centaur’s flanks when the flail is on its away swing, grabbing the centaur’s wrist in his left hand and burying the knife in his forearm. The centaur screams directly into his face, and then the morning star glances off his back.
Peter shouts in shock and pain, losing his grip on his knife but not on the horse as it skitters backwards. The centaur pulls the knife out of his forearm and tosses it aside. “Loyalist filth!” he snarls, and swings his flail again. Peter ducks, drawing a second knife out of his boot, and hurls it as he surges upright again. It buries itself up to the hilt in the centaur’s shoulder – damn, and he’d been aiming for the fucking throat; wounds don’t do anything for his aim – and Peter ducks to the other side of the horse, getting his last knife out of his other boot.
“King Peter!” someone shouts.
“Little busy right now!” he shouts back, losing the knife when the flail rips it from his fingers, the snap of bone breaking lost in the roar of battle, and barely avoids a traitor minotaur’s wild swing before two of Susan’s arrows take it in the throat. He sees Tirian, momentarily still amidst the carnage. He’s holding Rhindon. “Here!” Peter yells, putting up his left hand, and Tirian throws his sword.
Peter ducks the flail again and catches Rhindon in both hands, broken fingers on his right hand screaming pain, and surges upright, swinging two-handed to strike the centaur’s head from his shoulders.
An arrow clips his shoulder and Peter turns the horse around, searching for the archer, only to see Eustace stab the man from behind, pulling his sword free with a horrible expression on his face. Peter looks around for another enemy, someone else to kill, but all he sees is the fight dying down to nothing, Narnians dispatching the last of the Calormenes.
Wincing, he switches his grip on Rhindon to his left hand entirely and takes the horse’s reins for the first time, maneuvering his broken fingers painfully around the thin leather. The animal is panting in fear and exhaustion and Peter murmurs to it in Eschmoun, “Go mbeire muid beo ar an am seo aris!”
When it snorts, shaking its head, he says, “Yeah, me too,” and lets it pick its way gingerly through the corpses spread across the road – mostly Calormene, but with a disturbing number of Narnian ones mixed in. The wagons are secure so far as he can tell, Eustace and Jill already shoulder-deep in the first one, unloading baskets, barrels, and sacks.
“Leave it,” Peter orders, his voice rasping. With the battle fever fading, the pain is starting to set in – back awash in fire, hand screaming protest, head throbbing – and he grinds his teeth, accepts it, and pushes it aside for a more convenient time and place. Some days a man has to be able to walk off a battlefield with two broken legs. Today doesn’t appear to be that day – but the day is young.
Eustace looks up at him in astonishment. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” he blusters, “but we just fought this battle, all for this, so I think we may actually want it –”
“I know,” Peter says. “We’re taking the wagons and the horses back to Arn Abedin. We may need them.” He nudges the horse forward. “And that wasn’t a battle,” he adds over his shoulder. “Just a skirmish.”
“Sure felt like a battle,” he hears Eustace mumble, and Peter feels a smile draw up at the corners of his mouth, pulling at the cut on his cheek. Every fight feels like a battle until the moment of battle itself: then every battle feels like a fight.
Susan, on the side of the road with Tirian at her side, helping her pull arrows free from Calormene and Narnian bodies alike and delivering the last mercy to those Calormenes still living – no prisoners, Peter had said earlier, though he’d hesitated over the words – glances up as Peter passes.
“Peter,” she begins, stopping abruptly and striding forward, lifting her skirts in one hand as she steps delicately around a body. There’s blood all down the side of her face, but from here the cut looks shallow, and Susan seems unconcerned. “I saw – are you all right?”
“Been worse,” he says, and grins a little at her, at Tirian behind her. “Been better.”
“Well, yes,” Susan says practically. Her eyes skate over him, taking in the wounds he knows about and the ones that haven’t processed in his brain yet and won’t until he’s wondering where his scars come from. “I’ll find Lucy –” she begins, then stops abruptly. “If I tell her it’s for you…” she adds, voice suddenly uncertain.
“It’s not important,” Peter assures her. “I’ll live. Let her see to the badly wounded. King Tirian.”
“Your majesty,” Tirian says warily, inclining his head slightly.
Peter raises Rhindon, awkward in his shield hand – it’s been an age and a half since he’s had to fight left-handed, and he hopes he won’t have to now – and says, “Thanks. I think you just saved my life.”
The other king offers up an edge of a shy smile. “Only by proxy, surely.”
“I’ll try and return the favor sometime,” Peter assures him, and urges the horse past them, forward down the line of wagons. He nods to the Narnians he passes, calling praise and thanks, shifting so that his maimed hand isn’t so readily visible. There’s nothing he can do about his back – he doesn’t know if it looks as bad as it feels – but he knows that if he sits up straight and smiles, his wounds will seem little more than glancing; his people need to know that their king is a stalwart stone, as close to invincible as any man can come.
He finds Edmund leaning against the last wagon, cleaning his sword with a rag he’s pulled from nowhere and watching Lucy tend a badly wounded minotaur.
“Come on now,” she coaxes, cordial held in one hand. “It won’t hurt, I swear, and after you take it the pain will be gone.” There’s a note of frustration in her voice.
Peter hears the minotaur’s words slur as she says, “I couldn’t possibly – that’s not for me –” Blood bubbles at the corners of her mouth.
“It’s for every Narnian,” Lucy says, looking as if she’s either about to cry or explode from frustration. “That’s a lung wound – without this you’ll die!”
“And gladly – in the service of Narnia – fighting at the side of the kings and queens of summer –” the minotaur says, having to fight for breath now. “I will not – take what rightfully – belongs to –”
“I need every Narnian able-bodied,” Peter says, smiling, and sees her crane her neck to look at him. If he could he’d dismount and go over to her, hold her hand as the cordial burns its sweet path down her throat and repairs her body, but he’s fairly certain that if he tries to dismount, then he’s going to fall off his horse, which isn’t exactly the impression he’d like to give. “That includes you. If it will help,” he adds, “I’ll make it an order.”
“I –” the minotaur says, looking overwhelmed.
Lucy gives Peter a grateful look, and puts two fingers on the side of the minotaur’s mouth to help keep it open as she lets a single drop of cordial fall in. “There,” she says, hand lingering on the minotaur’s face. “Isn’t that better?”
“I – oh!”
Peter grins as he watches her get to her feet, wobbling a little but otherwise looking thrilled. She drops back down to her knees a moment later, snatching Lucy’s hands up between hers and kissing her knuckles. “Majesty, I cannot possibly thank you enough for the great gift, for your generosity –”
“Don’t,” Lucy says graciously, rising and pulling the minotaur to her feet. “This is my duty as queen; I cannot let a Narnian suffer, and you have served us well. Besides,” she adds brightly, “maybe now we can be friends!”
The minotaur gapes. “Majesty – I cannot –”
Lucy grins and pats her on the shoulder, stretching up on tiptoe to do so. “I’m glad you’re well now, Franqueria,” she says, and Peter files the name away carefully, the same way he always does for those willing to die for him. “I have to talk to my brother now.”
She turns away in a whirl of skirts, bow and quiver banging against her back, and looks at Peter for the first time. Edmund pushes himself off the wagon and comes over, sheathing his sword and tucking away his cleaning cloth.
“Where’d you get the horse, Pete?” he asks, tilting his head up.
“Killed its rider,” Peter says easily. “Mounted up on the theory that meeting horsemen on horseback generally tends to even the odds.”
Edmund grins a little. “Yeah, I guess you’re right there,” he says, and gives him a onceover. “You all right?”
“I’ll stand for a little while longer,” Peter says, his gaze flicking over his brother and cataloguing the rent in the knee of his breeches, the bloodstains on his brigandine, the ugly but harmless scratch down one side of his face. He blows out his cheeks in a sigh of relief and sees Edmund smile wryly.
“No, you won’t,” Lucy says pointedly, curling her fingers around his ankle. “Are you out of your mind? You’re wounded, Peter! There’s blood all over your back – what happened?”
“Centaur with a flail,” Peter shrugs, and then regrets it; the movement tears at his back and makes him hiss in pain. “Miscalculated my duck,” he adds through clenched teeth. “I’m fine for now, Lu; it’s not going to kill me. See to the badly wounded before you bother with me.”
“Is there a reason you’re holding Rhindon left-handed instead of in your sword hand?” Edmund asks archly.
“Yes,” Peter says, and doesn’t elaborate. Doesn’t have to, because Lucy reaches up and catches his wrist in one hand, uncurling his broken fingers from around the reins. Peter nearly bites through his tongue trying not to scream.
“Peter!” Lucy snarls, half frustrated and half exasperated. “Are you out of your mind? These are broken.”
“And a set of broken fingers never killed anyone,” Peter says firmly. “I’ve had them broken before; I’ll live. Go see to the wounded; I’ll have Ed splint me up and then you can –”
“Take the damn cordial, Pete,” Edmund says, unsmiling. “All you’re doing is wasting Lu’s time arguing; as soon as you take it she’ll go off. You know that.”
“And which of us is the High King around here?” Peter asks, but Edmund’s right and Lucy’s glaring at him, so he sighs and dismounts carefully, Edmund automatically at his shoulder to steady him when he stumbles, his touch light and careful.
“Your back really is a mess, Pete,” he says. “It looks like –” He pauses as Peter swallows down the drop of cordial Lucy gives him.
It burns going down, but the pain goes away, and Peter slumps against the side of his horse as the cordial’s magic takes most of his remaining energy away. He flexes his right hand, his fingers stiff but working, and arches his back. “Thanks, Lu,” he says, and offers her a slight grin before he sheathes Rhindon. “The rest of the wounded now. And if we can juggle supplies between the wagons to carry some of them –”
“No need,” Edmund says, tilting his head at the wagon behind him. “That one’s empty. Except for the Calormene soldiers dead in it, but we can get rid of them easily enough.”
“So that’s where the extra soldiers came from,” Peter notes. “I don’t want to stay on the road longer than we have to. Anyone who doesn’t need urgent medical care but can’t walk should go in there.”
Lucy nods, a tiny line forming between her eyes as she frowns. “You’re welcome,” she says, and then wanders off.
Edmund touches his shoulder lightly. “Pete,” he says. “Now’s probably not the right time to mention this, but –”
“Go ahead,” Peter says, turning to face him.
Edmund’s face is set and serious, his eyes wary and a little tired. “Do you remember the kraken?” he asks. “In our second year, back when we were still cleaning up after that mess with Masongnong.”
“It’d be hard to forget,” Peter points out wryly, smiling over his brother’s head at a pair of the human archers that came with Ourente from Haven as they pass by. “The damned thing came closer to killing me than any dozen assassins, and that was without the seasickness helping.”
“Yeah,” Edmund says. “But the first time it attacked – before it pulled you over – it ripped up your back.”
“Right,” Peter says slowly. “What are you getting at? Those things don’t like coming close to shore, even if you could talk to one long enough to get it to attack the Calormenes – even if you could talk to one –” He’s tired from the battle and the healing both, and wrangling two groups of Narnians that violently disagree with each other about everything except the color of the sky (and he’s not certain they won’t start arguing about that given enough time) hasn’t done anything for his temper or his patience. It doesn’t help that he’s been acting as mediator between Susan, Ed, and Lu, which mostly only succeeds in giving him headaches. He’d given up on diplomacy when he’d gotten back to England the second time – or maybe it had been the first and he’d never regained the threads of it in Narnia. He doesn’t want to have to listen to his brother’s riddles.
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Edmund says. “Pete, it’s been twenty years, give or take a thousand here and there, but right after that kraken ripped the hell out of you, your back looked just like it does right now. In exactly the same places, I swear on Aslan’s head. And this –” His thumb brushes lightly over the scar that by Peter’s left eyebrow, and Peter swallows around the sudden tightness in his throat. “You had a scar in the exact same place, from the White Witch, and when we came back the second time – with Caspian – you were wounded again, in the same place. It would have scarred. Pete –” He shakes his head, eyes wide. “When I got shot in Malaya –”
Peter winces, the memory of Edmund being brought onto the base white-faced and bloody, too far gone even to scream, is a little too sharp for him to want to reexamine any time soon.
“When I got shot in Malaya,” Edmund says again, “it was in the same place that I got stabbed by the White Witch.”
Peter jerks his head up, his lips parting, but he can’t think of a damn thing to say to that. “I –” he says, hoping that if he starts talking his mouth will be able to finish what his brain can’t, but there’s nothing to say to that.
“If we’re revisiting our wounds every time we – reset,” Edmund says, “then that’s –”
“You’re right, Ed,” Peter says.
Edmund raises his eyebrows. “About what?”
“This isn’t the right time to talk about this.” He rubs a hand over his face, wiping away some of the blood there, and adds, “Get drivers on the wagons. I really don’t want to stay on the road any longer, and the roseroad as far as Arn Abedin probably wasn’t used for a thousand years before we used it this morning. We probably won’t get back till after dark.”
“Right,” Edmund says slowly. He turns away, then, abruptly, back. “Peter. In your many years of falling out of planes for the RAF –”
“I was not falling out of planes,” Peter corrects dryly.
“– in your many years of flying planes for the RAF,” Edmund says without missing a beat, “any of the wounds you got, were they the same ones you got in Narnia?”
“Every one of them,” Peter says, then hooks a hand around the high Calormene pommel and pulls himself back into the saddle. He gathers the reins in both hands and adds to Edmund, “Make sure you round up the surviving horses. I want them. Anyone who can ride back probably should.”
Despite mounting up those that can ride, it takes them another seven hours to get back to Arn Abedin, and by then it’s after midnight and Peter is swaying with exhaustion, drowsing off in the saddle and trusting to the map of Narnia that’s carved in his bones to keep him from straying off the overgrown remains of the roseroad.
“Peter,” Edmund says, reaching over to jog his elbow, and Peter raises his head, rubbing tiredly at his eyes with the back of his hand. “We’re back.”
“Thank the Seven,” Peter mumbles in Eschmoun, and off Edmund’s look shakes his head and then remembers that Arn Abedin is dust and ruins; he can’t look forward to hot food, hot baths, and someone else to herd cats (which is what dealing with new Narnians is like; Caspian’s Narnians were a model of discipline compared to this lot, so far as he can tell, and that’s saying something) the way he would have nine years ago. Or sixteen hundred; one of the two.
He makes sure they get the entirety of their ragged caravan inside the castle bounds before he dismounts and resigns himself to taking care of his own horse, but then Arnau storms up to him. Peter looks down at him and blinks, so tired he sees double for the first thirty seconds he’s looking at the dwarf.
“What?” he says brusquely.
“A company from Lantern Waste is waiting for you,” Arnau says, looking annoyed at being treated as a messenger.
Susan’s horn: works well at summoning them, and just as well at being heard over the entirety of Narnia by anyone and everyone. Peter fumbles the buckles on the horse’s saddle open and drapes it over a convenient tree branch. “Good,” he says. “I’ll see them in the morning.”
“They’ve been waiting for you since mid-afternoon.”
“Then they can wait a little longer.” He gets the horse’s bridle off, pets it on its nose, and belatedly remembers to check the saddlebags to see if the Calormene horseman had traveled with a halter. When he finds one, he slips it over the horse’s head and loops the reins over the same tree branch the saddle’s resting on, then goes off to find a bucket and some water. There used to be half a dozen wells scattered around the castle grounds; at least one of them still has to be sunk below the water table here, since he hasn’t seen a stream running through the castle grounds. And thank Aslan for that; he’s almost certain that would have an adverse effect on whatever spell is keeping the castle bounds safe.
Arnau follows him. “They are taking up valuable space,” he says through clenched teeth.
“Then make sure they get quartered and fed, and tell them the High King will see them in the morning,” Susan says, stepping out of the shadow of a homewood tree. “We have wounded that take priority over visitors, even if those visitors are allies.” She gives Arnau a cool look, gaze dark and disinterested, and Arnau looks away.
“If you say so, majesty,” he mutters, and then stomps off into the darkness.
“Why does he listen to you and not to me?” Peter asks, taking the bucket of water Susan holds out to him.
“From what I can tell,” Susan tells him, her hand light on his elbow as they make their way back to the horse, careful in the darkness, “the Queen of Spring has a bit of a darker reputation than the King of Summer or the Queen of Morning, though not as dark as the King of Evening, of course.”
Peter makes a face. “I thought I’d given orders to the effect –”
“Orders don’t change beliefs, Peter,” she says kindly. “They grew up with the four little gods; you can’t get rid of that all in one go.”
“It’s not right,” he mutters, putting the bucket down at the base of the tree the horse is tethered to, and leaning over to grab the reins as it bends its head eagerly to drink. The last thing he wants is for it to founder; it’s a good horse. And Calormene horses tend to be good; they’d traded with the Calormenes for riding horses back in their day. The warhorses the tarkaans ride are nothing short of magnificent, all flowing manes and smooth gaits, but the true prize of the Calormene stables has always been the cavalry horses, small, fast, and nimble, able to turn on a dime. He’d spent whole afternoons down at the horse market in the Shifting Market, bargaining with merchants to add horses to Cair Paravel’s stables and admiring the horseflesh there. The nature of Calormene horses doesn’t seem to have changed in two thousand years, and he’s absurdly proud of that for no real reason; he certainly hadn’t had anything to do with it.
“No, it’s not,” Susan agrees. “But that’s the way it is.” In the light from the half-full moon, he can see the bemused expression on her face; she doesn’t seem particularly put off by the fact that Narnians are worshipping her as a goddess.
She reaches out to touch his face with the tips of her fingers as he lets the horse drink again. “Get some sleep, Peter,” she says softly. “You look wretched. I’m surprised you didn’t fall out of the saddle.”
“So am I,” Peter admits, giving it up and letting the horse have its head. They make their way back to the homewood tree that’s serving as their quarters, picking carefully amidst the tumbled stones that were the walls of Arn Abedin once, spread across twice the area the castle had covered. He wonders what happened here – they’re closer to the Natarene border than the Belgarine, so it might have been them during the Dying Times, or the Telmarines, later. Impossible to know now.
“Are you going to be sleeping with Ed tonight?” Susan asks a little wistfully as they regard the door set in the tree and the ladder hanging down from the treehouse above.
Peter raises his eyebrows. “Is Lu going to be sleeping with you?”
Her laugh is bitter and a little brittle. “Lucy can’t even look at me without shouting; I rather doubt sharing a room is on the schedule. If you don’t want to manage the ladder, I’ll be fine by myself.”
“Lu, Ed, and I all in the same room?” Peter says, curling his fingers lightly around hers for a moment. “That would be a little crowded, I think. Let me just get something to wear and I’ll meet you up top.”
“You don’t have to –” Susan begins, but he can hear the relief in her voice.
“Su,” Peter says, turning towards her and cupping her face in one hand, the one that had been broken not so long ago. “I want to. It’s all right. I’ll talk to Ed and Lu if you want.”
“No,” she says stubbornly, but she turns her face into his palm anyway and they stand still for a moment, just breathing. Susan pulls away finally. “It’s cold tonight,” she says. “I’ll get some extra blankets.”
Edmund’s sacked out in front of the fireplace when Peter ducks inside, but he raises his head and says sleepily, “I was wondering if you were still wandering around and trying to do everything.”
“Not at the moment,” Peter assures him, throwing back the lid of the chest they’d dragged out of the treasury when they’d arrived three days ago. He grabs clothes at random. “Now I’m sleeping. Where’s Lu?”
Edmund yawns around his fist. “Healers,” he says, and then yawns again. “I don’t know why I’m so tired; you’re the one that got healed.”
“You had it worse than I did yesterday, though,” Peter assures him. “That will hold for a couple days. Remember –”
“The time you slept for three days? Unfortunately; I was the one who was trying to explain to Lune why you weren’t at the negotiations. ‘My brother’s in a magical coma because one of your men nearly cut him in two’ isn’t really one of those things that goes over really well. Or it wasn’t then, at least.” He pushes himself up on one elbow, squints at Peter, and adds, “Are you sleeping with Susan again tonight?”
“I’m not really sure I trust these Narnians,” Peter admits, a little reluctantly. Caspian’s Narnians he’d trusted, and that had nearly gotten him killed. Nearly gotten all of them killed, but he hadn’t been expecting assassination attempts. Which was stupid of him; he used to always expect assassination attempts, and that had saved his life more than once. It’s not so much that he expects assassination attempts this time as the fact that Arnau and the rest of the Narnians at Arn Abedin give him the fucking creeps. “I’d rather not leave any one of us alone at night.”
Edmund nods. “I know what you mean,” he says. “Been a while since I slept with a knife under my pillow.”
Peter raises his eyebrows and closes the lid of his chest. “Not for me,” he says. “I’ll see you in the morning. Oh, and Arnau says another group of Narnians came while we were away.”
“Well, at least we’re getting more people,” Edmund says, and yawns again. “Night, Pete.”
He has to juggle his armful of clothes as he goes up the ladder, but he manages not to drop anything by the time he crawls inside the treehouse, which has a brazier burning in one corner of the wide room. It’s built around the upper branches of the homewood tree, smooth planes of wood forming the floor, walls, and ceiling, and before last night it had been the better part of an age since he’d slept somewhere like this. He dumps his armload of clothes on the floor and closes the hatch behind him, watching Susan dig through her chest for something to sleep in.
“The clothes in Narnia are amazing,” she tells him wryly over her shoulder. “But I always manage to ruin them.”
“Fighting is a little hard on clothing,” Peter admits, unbuckling his swordbelt and shedding his jerkin and undershirt. He fingers the ragged, bloodstained tears in the back. They’re not quite shreds, but it’s a near thing. “Which is probably why my tailors hated me.”
“At least you made them earn their keep,” Susan points out, bemused.
Peter turns his head politely as she pulls on a new shift and digs through the pile of clothes for a new shirt and hose. He changes quickly; he’s still pulling the undershirt on when Susan says, sounding horrified, “Peter, your back.”
He pulls the shirt on the rest of the way and turns to face her. “Is it bad?” he asks. “Ed said it was bad.”
“The last time your back looked like that –” Susan begins.
Peter gives her a thin, sheepish smile. “I know. The kraken after Masongnong. Ed mentioned it.” The flail itself hasn’t done all the damage to his back; he had to have surgery after the second time he got shot down, and there are scars from that. He’s seen them in the mirror, and if there’s anything from Narnia he remembers besides the walls of Cair Paravel, the song of battle, the taste of his air, it’s the scars that should be on his skin. It will be a long time before they’re all there, but they’ve been making their way back ever since he fell out of the wardrobe nine years ago, and some day he’ll have the pattern of his life back. He thinks he’ll be reassured when that happens. If he doesn’t die getting it.
Susan makes a strangled, horrified sound, and Peter can see her drudging up memories that she’d rather leave forgotten. She fingers the raw, ugly cut down the side of her face, the blood that had seeped into her loose hair – it’s damp, Peter realizes abruptly; she must have found the time to wash it, though he doesn’t know where. Twenty years ago a White Witch worshipper had found his way into Cair Paravel and slashed the side of her face with his sword before Susan killed him; eight years ago a dwarf had split her head open with an axe as Aslan’s How slept around them. Eight hours ago a Calormene blade came within an inch of taking her eye.
“Aslan in the east,” she whispers, the realization crossing her face. “Peter –”
He shakes his head. “We can’t do anything about it, Su, except let it happen.”
“Aslan,” she murmurs again, and rubs a hand over her face.
Peter goes over to her and wraps his arms around her, resting his chin on top of her head. “The only thing we can do is win,” he says. “Again.”
----------
The assassination attempt at Aslan's How is from In Constellated Wars. The war with Masongnong is from In a Dry Month. The Shifting Market is from The White City.
Part One 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17
Part Two 00 | 000 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | Interlude | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31
Author:
bedlamsbardFandom: Chronicles of Narnia movieverse/bookverse
Rating: PG-13
Summary: And the end of all our exploring / will be to arrive where we started. An AU of The Last Battle, some five years after that book begins. Gen.
Disclaimer: The Chronicles of Narnia and its characters, situations, settings, etc., belong to C.S. Lewis. Certain characters, situations, settings, etc., belong to Walden Media. Title and quote from T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets: Little Gidding.
Author's Notes: This is part four, obviously, and this is also the first WIP I've posted since 2006. (And that WIP was abandoned, so one can see I'm understandably nervous about posting another one.) The structure of this lends it to being posted in sections, though, so that's how it's going up. Because of this, however, it's not getting posted to any comms until the whole thing is done.
The Telmarines’ favored ambush spot is apparently the one thing in Narnia that hasn’t changed in sixteen hundred years. Standing in the center of the beaten road – a little less rutted than it had been the last time he’d been here, but then again, the roseroad had been regularly traveled from Cair Paravel to Astegal in Telmar in his day – Peter scuffs his toes in the dirt, rubbing a hand over his face. Looking around makes him startlingly homesick. He doesn’t have to close his eyes for it to be his Narnia again; just for a moment, he can mount up and ride back to Cair Paravel, and his castle will be as he remembers, all tall white walls and scarlet banners, the Shifting Market and the harbor spread out beneath her. Narnia will be safe, and she will rejoice at his return, and there will be a crown on his head once more. Narnia will be as she should be, caught forever in the golden web of the Great Summer that was his reign. The thought of it breaks his heart.
“By Aslan,” Lucy says, approaching from behind him, “it looks just like it did when I caught that lieutenant of Marroquin’s trying to catch us.” She pauses. “I think. I still don’t…remember everything.”
Peter squeezes her shoulder without looking at her. “This will do,” he says, then strides away and calls for archers.
There aren’t many; he doesn’t quite trust these Narnians. He intersperses them with the people he does trust: Edmund, Susan, Lucy, Tirian, Eustace, Jill Pole. He’s not as certain of the latter two as he is of his own siblings or this king of Narnia, but Aslan chose them, and he’ll trust Aslan’s judgment. For now.
“Pete,” Susan murmurs to him a little while later as he sharpens the blade of his hunting knife. They’re crouched in the woods that border the roseroad, waiting for his forward scouts to return. “Why do all your plans depend on you doing something stupid?”
“I’m shocked and hurt you’d say something like that,” he whispers back, and she punches him halfheartedly on the shoulder.
“Tell me the truth.”
“Stupid isn’t exactly how I’d phrase it.”
She rolls her eyes. “How about ‘making yourself into bait’?”
Peter pretends to consider the matter and is rewarded with his sister’s exasperated sigh. “That would about sum it up, yes,” he admits, and offers her a wry smile.
Susan shakes her head. “Why can’t Edmund be bait one of these times?” she asks. “Or Lucy? Or me?”
“I like being bait,” Peter says lightly. What he doesn’t say is that he doesn’t want Susan standing out in the middle of the road; he’s too worried that Lucy might put an arrow in her and call it an accident. She’s already a little too eager to decry Susan; he doesn’t want to give her an excuse to shoot her, not when they can’t even stay in the same room together for a night. He’d been lucky enough not to be asleep already when Lucy had come storming into the lower level of the homewood tree, swearing that she was damned if she’d spend a night in the same room as that traitor Susan. Too tired to argue, his vision blurring from staring at maps by candlelight, Peter had taken his blankets and gone upstairs to share the treehouse with Susan, wrapping his arms around her and letting her cry into his shoulder. They’d fallen asleep in the same bed, Susan’s head tucked against his chest and his arm slung over her back.
Something of the memory must show on his face, because something in Susan’s face breaks. “I’m sorry,” she apologizes abruptly. “Peter, I’m sorry.”
“We’ve been over this,” he says, and sheathes his hunting knife at the back of his belt, tucking away the whetstone. He leans forward to take her hands in his. “Su, you don’t have to apologize to me. You never have.”
Her face crumples. “Peter –” she begins, and then a squirrel comes racing through the trees, leaping from branch to branch and chattering excitedly.
“They’re coming, your majesty!” she babbles, and Susan pulls her hands free of Peter’s, rising a beat before he does, her lips bumping against the corner of his mouth as she makes to kiss his cheek.
“I’ll be bait this time, Peter,” she says, and slips out of the undergrowth onto the road before Peter can catch her, biting his tongue on his shout.
“Damn it, Su,” he hisses through his teeth, and hopes to hell that on the other side of the road, Edmund can keep Lucy from shooting Susan. Or that he won’t help her. He draws the bow slung over his shoulder and puts an arrow to the string, nodding to the ragged line of Narnians strung out alongside the road.
In the center of the road, Susan reaches up with one hand to pull her hair free of its tight bun at the back of her skull, letting it fall down around her shoulders. It doesn’t do much to conceal the quiver of arrows on her back, but it will make her look more innocent and more feminine; the Calormenes should hesitate a beat longer than they might otherwise. She doesn’t draw an arrow, just grounds her bow in the dirt by her feet, leaning it against the thick folds of her skirt. Peter hears his breath rasp in his throat, tight with tension and fear, and murmurs the prayer before battle, the words barely a whisper on the chill air. It’s an old, familiar ritual, a holdover from his time with the Red Company in Natare, and it’s stuck with him through half a dozen countries, two worlds, and four timelines. It can’t hurt. It might help.
He hears the Calormenes before he sees them. The jangle of harness, the voices of men, the snorts of the horses, and the groans of the wagons – all familiar. He glances up and down the line again, a quick and dirty reminder to the new Narnians not to shoot before he gives the signal, and then looks across the road. He can’t see Edmund, but he knows where his brother should be, where the rest of the ambush should be waiting.
The first Calormene horsemen come around the bend in the road, reining up as they see Susan. “Out of the way, girl,” one of them says in Calormene, then repeats it in Narnian. The second rider looks her up and down and grins, teeth white in his dark face.
“Out alone in the woods, child?” he says. “Don’t you know it’s dangerous here? There are wild beasts about, and worse than that – savage outlaws, who’d like nothing more than to ravish such a gentle maid. You’d best come with us.” His lascivious grin makes it clear exactly what the extents of such an offer include, and Peter grinds his teeth. They approach Susan slowly, and behind them, the first of the wagons and its guard come into view. If Arnau’s information is good – and Ourente from Haven had confirmed it – then there will be three wagons and a rearguard. They need everyone on this patch of road before they can start shooting.
Susan takes a step backwards, her eyes wide. “I’m not sure,” she demurs. “My – my family – we came from Archenland, you see, and there’s been a terrible accident – oh, you have to help me!”
“Peace, maid,” says the second horseman. “You’re in the Tisroc’s land now, and safe from harm.” He brings his horse from a stop and gets down, holding out a hand towards her.
“We do not have time for this!” his companion snaps in Calormene as the driver on the first wagon shouts, “What’s the problem?”
Remember the plan, Su, Peter thinks furiously, raising his bow. He trains it on the Calormene closest to Susan, then, reluctantly, turns it on the driver of the first wagon. The second one is lumbering into view now, a dozen Calormene horsemen accompanying it.
“Don’t be a fool, Bahri,” the first horseman snaps. “We have our duty, and rescuing lost Archenlander women is no part of it. Leave her to the side of the road and be done with it.”
Susan’s gaze flickers quickly towards Peter, then back to the man in front of her. He hasn’t noticed the bow in her hand yet.
“What is she waiting for?” one of the Narnians with Peter grumbles, and he turns his furious gaze on the faun just as the first horseman looks toward the woods.
“What was that?” He draws his scimitar, shouting, “Ambush! Ambush!”
“You –!” snarls the second horseman, his friendliness vanishing in an instant, and then looks down in astonishment as a white-feathered arrow sprouts in his chest. Susan has her own bow up and an arrow in the air a heartbeat later, stabbing through the neck of the first horseman, whose shouts die in a gurgle of blood.
“Damn it!” Peter shouts, because the plan’s been blown, and lets his arrow fly to strike home in the driver’s heart before he discards his bow and draws his sword. “Now!” A moment later he’s in the road at his sister’s side, Narnians boiling out of the woods behind him and arrows flying through the air.
“Narnia!” Peter screams, and runs straight at the charging horsemen, Rhindon light as air between his palms. He cuts a horse’s legs brutally out from under it, stabbing at its fallen rider and snatching the man’s sword from his hand in the same moment. Steel cuts the air with a whistle of wind as he turns, blades spinning before him as blood spatters across his face – not his, but a moment later a Calormene scimitar kisses his cheek, a bare heartbeat before its bearer tumbles backwards off his horse, two of Susan’s arrows in his chest. Peter hurls the Calormene sword in his left hand, shining steel turning end over end in the air before it makes pulp out of a screaming Calormene’s face, and grabs the horse’s mane, hauls himself up onto its back. He turns it around with a nudge of his knees just in time to meet a Calormene sword-stroke with Rhindon, the metal screaming protest as Peter disengages, taking the Calormene’s hand off and then his head.
“Edmund!” he shouts. “The rear guard! Don’t let them get away!”
“I’ve got it, Pete!” Edmund yells back, and then his voice is lost in a clash of steel as Peter attacks another Calormene – Seven, no, not a Calormene, a centaur in Calormene armor with a flail in his hands. His horse lets out a neigh of terror as the morning star barely misses its neck, and Peter nearly falls off avoiding it as the chain flicks back towards him.
He swings Rhindon, meaning to disarm the centaur – literally – but instead catches the chain. The centaur flicks his wrist and Rhindon goes flying away as he swings the flail back towards Peter. Clutching the horse’s mane, grabbing for the hunting knife on his belt. He comes up with it clenched in his right fist and sees the centaur’s grin – a pitiful weapon against a flail.
“Yeah, I know,” Peter says, and ducks again. He urges the horse sideways against the centaur’s flanks when the flail is on its away swing, grabbing the centaur’s wrist in his left hand and burying the knife in his forearm. The centaur screams directly into his face, and then the morning star glances off his back.
Peter shouts in shock and pain, losing his grip on his knife but not on the horse as it skitters backwards. The centaur pulls the knife out of his forearm and tosses it aside. “Loyalist filth!” he snarls, and swings his flail again. Peter ducks, drawing a second knife out of his boot, and hurls it as he surges upright again. It buries itself up to the hilt in the centaur’s shoulder – damn, and he’d been aiming for the fucking throat; wounds don’t do anything for his aim – and Peter ducks to the other side of the horse, getting his last knife out of his other boot.
“King Peter!” someone shouts.
“Little busy right now!” he shouts back, losing the knife when the flail rips it from his fingers, the snap of bone breaking lost in the roar of battle, and barely avoids a traitor minotaur’s wild swing before two of Susan’s arrows take it in the throat. He sees Tirian, momentarily still amidst the carnage. He’s holding Rhindon. “Here!” Peter yells, putting up his left hand, and Tirian throws his sword.
Peter ducks the flail again and catches Rhindon in both hands, broken fingers on his right hand screaming pain, and surges upright, swinging two-handed to strike the centaur’s head from his shoulders.
An arrow clips his shoulder and Peter turns the horse around, searching for the archer, only to see Eustace stab the man from behind, pulling his sword free with a horrible expression on his face. Peter looks around for another enemy, someone else to kill, but all he sees is the fight dying down to nothing, Narnians dispatching the last of the Calormenes.
Wincing, he switches his grip on Rhindon to his left hand entirely and takes the horse’s reins for the first time, maneuvering his broken fingers painfully around the thin leather. The animal is panting in fear and exhaustion and Peter murmurs to it in Eschmoun, “Go mbeire muid beo ar an am seo aris!”
When it snorts, shaking its head, he says, “Yeah, me too,” and lets it pick its way gingerly through the corpses spread across the road – mostly Calormene, but with a disturbing number of Narnian ones mixed in. The wagons are secure so far as he can tell, Eustace and Jill already shoulder-deep in the first one, unloading baskets, barrels, and sacks.
“Leave it,” Peter orders, his voice rasping. With the battle fever fading, the pain is starting to set in – back awash in fire, hand screaming protest, head throbbing – and he grinds his teeth, accepts it, and pushes it aside for a more convenient time and place. Some days a man has to be able to walk off a battlefield with two broken legs. Today doesn’t appear to be that day – but the day is young.
Eustace looks up at him in astonishment. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” he blusters, “but we just fought this battle, all for this, so I think we may actually want it –”
“I know,” Peter says. “We’re taking the wagons and the horses back to Arn Abedin. We may need them.” He nudges the horse forward. “And that wasn’t a battle,” he adds over his shoulder. “Just a skirmish.”
“Sure felt like a battle,” he hears Eustace mumble, and Peter feels a smile draw up at the corners of his mouth, pulling at the cut on his cheek. Every fight feels like a battle until the moment of battle itself: then every battle feels like a fight.
Susan, on the side of the road with Tirian at her side, helping her pull arrows free from Calormene and Narnian bodies alike and delivering the last mercy to those Calormenes still living – no prisoners, Peter had said earlier, though he’d hesitated over the words – glances up as Peter passes.
“Peter,” she begins, stopping abruptly and striding forward, lifting her skirts in one hand as she steps delicately around a body. There’s blood all down the side of her face, but from here the cut looks shallow, and Susan seems unconcerned. “I saw – are you all right?”
“Been worse,” he says, and grins a little at her, at Tirian behind her. “Been better.”
“Well, yes,” Susan says practically. Her eyes skate over him, taking in the wounds he knows about and the ones that haven’t processed in his brain yet and won’t until he’s wondering where his scars come from. “I’ll find Lucy –” she begins, then stops abruptly. “If I tell her it’s for you…” she adds, voice suddenly uncertain.
“It’s not important,” Peter assures her. “I’ll live. Let her see to the badly wounded. King Tirian.”
“Your majesty,” Tirian says warily, inclining his head slightly.
Peter raises Rhindon, awkward in his shield hand – it’s been an age and a half since he’s had to fight left-handed, and he hopes he won’t have to now – and says, “Thanks. I think you just saved my life.”
The other king offers up an edge of a shy smile. “Only by proxy, surely.”
“I’ll try and return the favor sometime,” Peter assures him, and urges the horse past them, forward down the line of wagons. He nods to the Narnians he passes, calling praise and thanks, shifting so that his maimed hand isn’t so readily visible. There’s nothing he can do about his back – he doesn’t know if it looks as bad as it feels – but he knows that if he sits up straight and smiles, his wounds will seem little more than glancing; his people need to know that their king is a stalwart stone, as close to invincible as any man can come.
He finds Edmund leaning against the last wagon, cleaning his sword with a rag he’s pulled from nowhere and watching Lucy tend a badly wounded minotaur.
“Come on now,” she coaxes, cordial held in one hand. “It won’t hurt, I swear, and after you take it the pain will be gone.” There’s a note of frustration in her voice.
Peter hears the minotaur’s words slur as she says, “I couldn’t possibly – that’s not for me –” Blood bubbles at the corners of her mouth.
“It’s for every Narnian,” Lucy says, looking as if she’s either about to cry or explode from frustration. “That’s a lung wound – without this you’ll die!”
“And gladly – in the service of Narnia – fighting at the side of the kings and queens of summer –” the minotaur says, having to fight for breath now. “I will not – take what rightfully – belongs to –”
“I need every Narnian able-bodied,” Peter says, smiling, and sees her crane her neck to look at him. If he could he’d dismount and go over to her, hold her hand as the cordial burns its sweet path down her throat and repairs her body, but he’s fairly certain that if he tries to dismount, then he’s going to fall off his horse, which isn’t exactly the impression he’d like to give. “That includes you. If it will help,” he adds, “I’ll make it an order.”
“I –” the minotaur says, looking overwhelmed.
Lucy gives Peter a grateful look, and puts two fingers on the side of the minotaur’s mouth to help keep it open as she lets a single drop of cordial fall in. “There,” she says, hand lingering on the minotaur’s face. “Isn’t that better?”
“I – oh!”
Peter grins as he watches her get to her feet, wobbling a little but otherwise looking thrilled. She drops back down to her knees a moment later, snatching Lucy’s hands up between hers and kissing her knuckles. “Majesty, I cannot possibly thank you enough for the great gift, for your generosity –”
“Don’t,” Lucy says graciously, rising and pulling the minotaur to her feet. “This is my duty as queen; I cannot let a Narnian suffer, and you have served us well. Besides,” she adds brightly, “maybe now we can be friends!”
The minotaur gapes. “Majesty – I cannot –”
Lucy grins and pats her on the shoulder, stretching up on tiptoe to do so. “I’m glad you’re well now, Franqueria,” she says, and Peter files the name away carefully, the same way he always does for those willing to die for him. “I have to talk to my brother now.”
She turns away in a whirl of skirts, bow and quiver banging against her back, and looks at Peter for the first time. Edmund pushes himself off the wagon and comes over, sheathing his sword and tucking away his cleaning cloth.
“Where’d you get the horse, Pete?” he asks, tilting his head up.
“Killed its rider,” Peter says easily. “Mounted up on the theory that meeting horsemen on horseback generally tends to even the odds.”
Edmund grins a little. “Yeah, I guess you’re right there,” he says, and gives him a onceover. “You all right?”
“I’ll stand for a little while longer,” Peter says, his gaze flicking over his brother and cataloguing the rent in the knee of his breeches, the bloodstains on his brigandine, the ugly but harmless scratch down one side of his face. He blows out his cheeks in a sigh of relief and sees Edmund smile wryly.
“No, you won’t,” Lucy says pointedly, curling her fingers around his ankle. “Are you out of your mind? You’re wounded, Peter! There’s blood all over your back – what happened?”
“Centaur with a flail,” Peter shrugs, and then regrets it; the movement tears at his back and makes him hiss in pain. “Miscalculated my duck,” he adds through clenched teeth. “I’m fine for now, Lu; it’s not going to kill me. See to the badly wounded before you bother with me.”
“Is there a reason you’re holding Rhindon left-handed instead of in your sword hand?” Edmund asks archly.
“Yes,” Peter says, and doesn’t elaborate. Doesn’t have to, because Lucy reaches up and catches his wrist in one hand, uncurling his broken fingers from around the reins. Peter nearly bites through his tongue trying not to scream.
“Peter!” Lucy snarls, half frustrated and half exasperated. “Are you out of your mind? These are broken.”
“And a set of broken fingers never killed anyone,” Peter says firmly. “I’ve had them broken before; I’ll live. Go see to the wounded; I’ll have Ed splint me up and then you can –”
“Take the damn cordial, Pete,” Edmund says, unsmiling. “All you’re doing is wasting Lu’s time arguing; as soon as you take it she’ll go off. You know that.”
“And which of us is the High King around here?” Peter asks, but Edmund’s right and Lucy’s glaring at him, so he sighs and dismounts carefully, Edmund automatically at his shoulder to steady him when he stumbles, his touch light and careful.
“Your back really is a mess, Pete,” he says. “It looks like –” He pauses as Peter swallows down the drop of cordial Lucy gives him.
It burns going down, but the pain goes away, and Peter slumps against the side of his horse as the cordial’s magic takes most of his remaining energy away. He flexes his right hand, his fingers stiff but working, and arches his back. “Thanks, Lu,” he says, and offers her a slight grin before he sheathes Rhindon. “The rest of the wounded now. And if we can juggle supplies between the wagons to carry some of them –”
“No need,” Edmund says, tilting his head at the wagon behind him. “That one’s empty. Except for the Calormene soldiers dead in it, but we can get rid of them easily enough.”
“So that’s where the extra soldiers came from,” Peter notes. “I don’t want to stay on the road longer than we have to. Anyone who doesn’t need urgent medical care but can’t walk should go in there.”
Lucy nods, a tiny line forming between her eyes as she frowns. “You’re welcome,” she says, and then wanders off.
Edmund touches his shoulder lightly. “Pete,” he says. “Now’s probably not the right time to mention this, but –”
“Go ahead,” Peter says, turning to face him.
Edmund’s face is set and serious, his eyes wary and a little tired. “Do you remember the kraken?” he asks. “In our second year, back when we were still cleaning up after that mess with Masongnong.”
“It’d be hard to forget,” Peter points out wryly, smiling over his brother’s head at a pair of the human archers that came with Ourente from Haven as they pass by. “The damned thing came closer to killing me than any dozen assassins, and that was without the seasickness helping.”
“Yeah,” Edmund says. “But the first time it attacked – before it pulled you over – it ripped up your back.”
“Right,” Peter says slowly. “What are you getting at? Those things don’t like coming close to shore, even if you could talk to one long enough to get it to attack the Calormenes – even if you could talk to one –” He’s tired from the battle and the healing both, and wrangling two groups of Narnians that violently disagree with each other about everything except the color of the sky (and he’s not certain they won’t start arguing about that given enough time) hasn’t done anything for his temper or his patience. It doesn’t help that he’s been acting as mediator between Susan, Ed, and Lu, which mostly only succeeds in giving him headaches. He’d given up on diplomacy when he’d gotten back to England the second time – or maybe it had been the first and he’d never regained the threads of it in Narnia. He doesn’t want to have to listen to his brother’s riddles.
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Edmund says. “Pete, it’s been twenty years, give or take a thousand here and there, but right after that kraken ripped the hell out of you, your back looked just like it does right now. In exactly the same places, I swear on Aslan’s head. And this –” His thumb brushes lightly over the scar that by Peter’s left eyebrow, and Peter swallows around the sudden tightness in his throat. “You had a scar in the exact same place, from the White Witch, and when we came back the second time – with Caspian – you were wounded again, in the same place. It would have scarred. Pete –” He shakes his head, eyes wide. “When I got shot in Malaya –”
Peter winces, the memory of Edmund being brought onto the base white-faced and bloody, too far gone even to scream, is a little too sharp for him to want to reexamine any time soon.
“When I got shot in Malaya,” Edmund says again, “it was in the same place that I got stabbed by the White Witch.”
Peter jerks his head up, his lips parting, but he can’t think of a damn thing to say to that. “I –” he says, hoping that if he starts talking his mouth will be able to finish what his brain can’t, but there’s nothing to say to that.
“If we’re revisiting our wounds every time we – reset,” Edmund says, “then that’s –”
“You’re right, Ed,” Peter says.
Edmund raises his eyebrows. “About what?”
“This isn’t the right time to talk about this.” He rubs a hand over his face, wiping away some of the blood there, and adds, “Get drivers on the wagons. I really don’t want to stay on the road any longer, and the roseroad as far as Arn Abedin probably wasn’t used for a thousand years before we used it this morning. We probably won’t get back till after dark.”
“Right,” Edmund says slowly. He turns away, then, abruptly, back. “Peter. In your many years of falling out of planes for the RAF –”
“I was not falling out of planes,” Peter corrects dryly.
“– in your many years of flying planes for the RAF,” Edmund says without missing a beat, “any of the wounds you got, were they the same ones you got in Narnia?”
“Every one of them,” Peter says, then hooks a hand around the high Calormene pommel and pulls himself back into the saddle. He gathers the reins in both hands and adds to Edmund, “Make sure you round up the surviving horses. I want them. Anyone who can ride back probably should.”
Despite mounting up those that can ride, it takes them another seven hours to get back to Arn Abedin, and by then it’s after midnight and Peter is swaying with exhaustion, drowsing off in the saddle and trusting to the map of Narnia that’s carved in his bones to keep him from straying off the overgrown remains of the roseroad.
“Peter,” Edmund says, reaching over to jog his elbow, and Peter raises his head, rubbing tiredly at his eyes with the back of his hand. “We’re back.”
“Thank the Seven,” Peter mumbles in Eschmoun, and off Edmund’s look shakes his head and then remembers that Arn Abedin is dust and ruins; he can’t look forward to hot food, hot baths, and someone else to herd cats (which is what dealing with new Narnians is like; Caspian’s Narnians were a model of discipline compared to this lot, so far as he can tell, and that’s saying something) the way he would have nine years ago. Or sixteen hundred; one of the two.
He makes sure they get the entirety of their ragged caravan inside the castle bounds before he dismounts and resigns himself to taking care of his own horse, but then Arnau storms up to him. Peter looks down at him and blinks, so tired he sees double for the first thirty seconds he’s looking at the dwarf.
“What?” he says brusquely.
“A company from Lantern Waste is waiting for you,” Arnau says, looking annoyed at being treated as a messenger.
Susan’s horn: works well at summoning them, and just as well at being heard over the entirety of Narnia by anyone and everyone. Peter fumbles the buckles on the horse’s saddle open and drapes it over a convenient tree branch. “Good,” he says. “I’ll see them in the morning.”
“They’ve been waiting for you since mid-afternoon.”
“Then they can wait a little longer.” He gets the horse’s bridle off, pets it on its nose, and belatedly remembers to check the saddlebags to see if the Calormene horseman had traveled with a halter. When he finds one, he slips it over the horse’s head and loops the reins over the same tree branch the saddle’s resting on, then goes off to find a bucket and some water. There used to be half a dozen wells scattered around the castle grounds; at least one of them still has to be sunk below the water table here, since he hasn’t seen a stream running through the castle grounds. And thank Aslan for that; he’s almost certain that would have an adverse effect on whatever spell is keeping the castle bounds safe.
Arnau follows him. “They are taking up valuable space,” he says through clenched teeth.
“Then make sure they get quartered and fed, and tell them the High King will see them in the morning,” Susan says, stepping out of the shadow of a homewood tree. “We have wounded that take priority over visitors, even if those visitors are allies.” She gives Arnau a cool look, gaze dark and disinterested, and Arnau looks away.
“If you say so, majesty,” he mutters, and then stomps off into the darkness.
“Why does he listen to you and not to me?” Peter asks, taking the bucket of water Susan holds out to him.
“From what I can tell,” Susan tells him, her hand light on his elbow as they make their way back to the horse, careful in the darkness, “the Queen of Spring has a bit of a darker reputation than the King of Summer or the Queen of Morning, though not as dark as the King of Evening, of course.”
Peter makes a face. “I thought I’d given orders to the effect –”
“Orders don’t change beliefs, Peter,” she says kindly. “They grew up with the four little gods; you can’t get rid of that all in one go.”
“It’s not right,” he mutters, putting the bucket down at the base of the tree the horse is tethered to, and leaning over to grab the reins as it bends its head eagerly to drink. The last thing he wants is for it to founder; it’s a good horse. And Calormene horses tend to be good; they’d traded with the Calormenes for riding horses back in their day. The warhorses the tarkaans ride are nothing short of magnificent, all flowing manes and smooth gaits, but the true prize of the Calormene stables has always been the cavalry horses, small, fast, and nimble, able to turn on a dime. He’d spent whole afternoons down at the horse market in the Shifting Market, bargaining with merchants to add horses to Cair Paravel’s stables and admiring the horseflesh there. The nature of Calormene horses doesn’t seem to have changed in two thousand years, and he’s absurdly proud of that for no real reason; he certainly hadn’t had anything to do with it.
“No, it’s not,” Susan agrees. “But that’s the way it is.” In the light from the half-full moon, he can see the bemused expression on her face; she doesn’t seem particularly put off by the fact that Narnians are worshipping her as a goddess.
She reaches out to touch his face with the tips of her fingers as he lets the horse drink again. “Get some sleep, Peter,” she says softly. “You look wretched. I’m surprised you didn’t fall out of the saddle.”
“So am I,” Peter admits, giving it up and letting the horse have its head. They make their way back to the homewood tree that’s serving as their quarters, picking carefully amidst the tumbled stones that were the walls of Arn Abedin once, spread across twice the area the castle had covered. He wonders what happened here – they’re closer to the Natarene border than the Belgarine, so it might have been them during the Dying Times, or the Telmarines, later. Impossible to know now.
“Are you going to be sleeping with Ed tonight?” Susan asks a little wistfully as they regard the door set in the tree and the ladder hanging down from the treehouse above.
Peter raises his eyebrows. “Is Lu going to be sleeping with you?”
Her laugh is bitter and a little brittle. “Lucy can’t even look at me without shouting; I rather doubt sharing a room is on the schedule. If you don’t want to manage the ladder, I’ll be fine by myself.”
“Lu, Ed, and I all in the same room?” Peter says, curling his fingers lightly around hers for a moment. “That would be a little crowded, I think. Let me just get something to wear and I’ll meet you up top.”
“You don’t have to –” Susan begins, but he can hear the relief in her voice.
“Su,” Peter says, turning towards her and cupping her face in one hand, the one that had been broken not so long ago. “I want to. It’s all right. I’ll talk to Ed and Lu if you want.”
“No,” she says stubbornly, but she turns her face into his palm anyway and they stand still for a moment, just breathing. Susan pulls away finally. “It’s cold tonight,” she says. “I’ll get some extra blankets.”
Edmund’s sacked out in front of the fireplace when Peter ducks inside, but he raises his head and says sleepily, “I was wondering if you were still wandering around and trying to do everything.”
“Not at the moment,” Peter assures him, throwing back the lid of the chest they’d dragged out of the treasury when they’d arrived three days ago. He grabs clothes at random. “Now I’m sleeping. Where’s Lu?”
Edmund yawns around his fist. “Healers,” he says, and then yawns again. “I don’t know why I’m so tired; you’re the one that got healed.”
“You had it worse than I did yesterday, though,” Peter assures him. “That will hold for a couple days. Remember –”
“The time you slept for three days? Unfortunately; I was the one who was trying to explain to Lune why you weren’t at the negotiations. ‘My brother’s in a magical coma because one of your men nearly cut him in two’ isn’t really one of those things that goes over really well. Or it wasn’t then, at least.” He pushes himself up on one elbow, squints at Peter, and adds, “Are you sleeping with Susan again tonight?”
“I’m not really sure I trust these Narnians,” Peter admits, a little reluctantly. Caspian’s Narnians he’d trusted, and that had nearly gotten him killed. Nearly gotten all of them killed, but he hadn’t been expecting assassination attempts. Which was stupid of him; he used to always expect assassination attempts, and that had saved his life more than once. It’s not so much that he expects assassination attempts this time as the fact that Arnau and the rest of the Narnians at Arn Abedin give him the fucking creeps. “I’d rather not leave any one of us alone at night.”
Edmund nods. “I know what you mean,” he says. “Been a while since I slept with a knife under my pillow.”
Peter raises his eyebrows and closes the lid of his chest. “Not for me,” he says. “I’ll see you in the morning. Oh, and Arnau says another group of Narnians came while we were away.”
“Well, at least we’re getting more people,” Edmund says, and yawns again. “Night, Pete.”
He has to juggle his armful of clothes as he goes up the ladder, but he manages not to drop anything by the time he crawls inside the treehouse, which has a brazier burning in one corner of the wide room. It’s built around the upper branches of the homewood tree, smooth planes of wood forming the floor, walls, and ceiling, and before last night it had been the better part of an age since he’d slept somewhere like this. He dumps his armload of clothes on the floor and closes the hatch behind him, watching Susan dig through her chest for something to sleep in.
“The clothes in Narnia are amazing,” she tells him wryly over her shoulder. “But I always manage to ruin them.”
“Fighting is a little hard on clothing,” Peter admits, unbuckling his swordbelt and shedding his jerkin and undershirt. He fingers the ragged, bloodstained tears in the back. They’re not quite shreds, but it’s a near thing. “Which is probably why my tailors hated me.”
“At least you made them earn their keep,” Susan points out, bemused.
Peter turns his head politely as she pulls on a new shift and digs through the pile of clothes for a new shirt and hose. He changes quickly; he’s still pulling the undershirt on when Susan says, sounding horrified, “Peter, your back.”
He pulls the shirt on the rest of the way and turns to face her. “Is it bad?” he asks. “Ed said it was bad.”
“The last time your back looked like that –” Susan begins.
Peter gives her a thin, sheepish smile. “I know. The kraken after Masongnong. Ed mentioned it.” The flail itself hasn’t done all the damage to his back; he had to have surgery after the second time he got shot down, and there are scars from that. He’s seen them in the mirror, and if there’s anything from Narnia he remembers besides the walls of Cair Paravel, the song of battle, the taste of his air, it’s the scars that should be on his skin. It will be a long time before they’re all there, but they’ve been making their way back ever since he fell out of the wardrobe nine years ago, and some day he’ll have the pattern of his life back. He thinks he’ll be reassured when that happens. If he doesn’t die getting it.
Susan makes a strangled, horrified sound, and Peter can see her drudging up memories that she’d rather leave forgotten. She fingers the raw, ugly cut down the side of her face, the blood that had seeped into her loose hair – it’s damp, Peter realizes abruptly; she must have found the time to wash it, though he doesn’t know where. Twenty years ago a White Witch worshipper had found his way into Cair Paravel and slashed the side of her face with his sword before Susan killed him; eight years ago a dwarf had split her head open with an axe as Aslan’s How slept around them. Eight hours ago a Calormene blade came within an inch of taking her eye.
“Aslan in the east,” she whispers, the realization crossing her face. “Peter –”
He shakes his head. “We can’t do anything about it, Su, except let it happen.”
“Aslan,” she murmurs again, and rubs a hand over her face.
Peter goes over to her and wraps his arms around her, resting his chin on top of her head. “The only thing we can do is win,” he says. “Again.”
----------
The assassination attempt at Aslan's How is from In Constellated Wars. The war with Masongnong is from In a Dry Month. The Shifting Market is from The White City.
Part One 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17
Part Two 00 | 000 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | Interlude | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-27 07:34 pm (UTC)And “Why do all your plans depend on you doing something stupid?” and Lucy maybe possibly wanting to shoot Susan, and stupid crazy Narnians messing up the battle plan, and Eustace's face as he pulls his sword from the archer's body.
Also: His thumb brushes lightly over the scar that by Peter’s left eyebrow, and Peter swallows around the sudden tightness in his throat. ::raises eyebrow:: Do I get to check another box in my subtext chart?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-28 05:34 pm (UTC)The scars have me realize that I now have to go through all my fic and figure out where everyone's been wounded, both in Narnia and on Earth.
(no subject)
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Date: 2008-10-27 07:37 pm (UTC)I'm so not used to this dark Narnia, but I love it all the same. There's something very realistic and appealing about it. I never really thought about how often the Pevensies probably had to go to war during their reign, but it all fits and makes perfect sense. And I also like the estrangement between the siblings - what's a good fic without some angst?! :) Thanks for sharing this!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-28 05:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-27 08:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-28 05:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-27 08:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-28 05:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2008-10-27 08:37 pm (UTC)a8s ujawleru 09au fjlsdj fladsf Hurrah for quick updates! ♥
I'm interested in seeing more of the common Narnians view of their "dieties;" I really like how Susan has a darker reputation than Peter and Lucy, but not Edmund.
Why can’t Edmund be bait one of these times?
I am slightly irked by Susan in this line, though.
ANYWAYS, THIS IS AMAZING. AND I CANNOT WAITS FOR MORE. *nods*
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-28 05:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2008-10-27 10:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-28 05:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-28 12:00 am (UTC)i sort of love that lucy is just throwing this royal temper tantraum about susan. at first i was kind of annoyed that she was so angry at susan but for some reason, in this chapter, it was really endearing. it's strange because i feel so strongly for both of them. like, i understand why lucy (and edmund) are angry, and really, thier alomost justified in thier re-actions but on the other hand i compleatly understand why susan would want to "forget" narnia the way she did and just, I AM SO TORN. then i realized this is probubly alot like how peter feels, because he can see both points of view, too.
also, TIRIAN, he's adorable. i want one. you've given him so many redeaming qualities and i'm quite impressed (equally, with you being able to write a likable tirian and with him actaully being likable)
also, SUBTEXT! i loved it so hard. and is it bad that i not only saw peter/susan in this but also peter/edmund, and small amounts of edmund/lucy and peter/lucy, oh, and peter/tirian? yes, it probubly is. oh, my brain.
i also quite enjoyed reading from peter's point of view. it feels like it been a while since we have heard from him. *shrugs* and there was tons more that i wanted to talk about, but, alas, i have forgotten it.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-28 03:38 am (UTC)There’s nothing he can do about his back – he doesn’t know if it looks as bad as it looks
is it supossed to be looks as bad as it feels? feels as bad as it looks? idk
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-28 06:36 pm (UTC)I work hard to make Tirian likable and competent; I'm glad it's working out. The guy's growing on me. *grin*
Subtext! Subtext everywhere!
I haven't actually written from Peter's POV for some time, so it has been a while. I'd forgotten how much I like writing from his POV.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-28 12:07 am (UTC)Returning scars!
Arnau being really fucking pissed off at sharing them! (this sharing or having been essentially volunteered into the position of announcer etc?)
Peter always having a knife under his pillow!
Oh dear god, they're so fucking hung up on artefacts that they won't take healing from the one they actually worship as goddess of *healing*? And hee to Edmund and Susan having a darker rep than Peter and Lucy. Though what part of 'insane berserker' doesn't care you, insane Narnians?
Susan vs. Lucy! (lucy, she's here, stop nursing a grudge. At least Edmund isn't doing it *visibly*)
:suspicious: Stop making Tirian competent.
Do rather like Eustace still being a bit suspicious and railing, though.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-28 06:55 pm (UTC)Of course Peter always has a knife under his pillow. This has probably come so close to ending badly more than once...
Tirian's still alive; he has to be somewhat competent. *grin*
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-28 12:45 am (UTC)also!
Date: 2008-10-28 03:12 pm (UTC)Is that Old Irish? Or Irish generally? I WANT TO TRANSLATE IT.
...BRB.
Re: also!
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From:(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-28 03:14 am (UTC)Too tired to argue, his vision blurring from staring at maps by candlelight, Peter had taken his blankets and gone upstairs to share the treehouse with Susan, wrapping his arms around her and letting her cry into his shoulder. They’d fallen asleep in the same bed, Susan’s head tucked against his chest and his arm slung over her back.
asfdjslkajl;kgl;'dg;dfka;kw;dfk;slakfl.
ajfldkf;ask'd.
ajfskl.
aal;.
yeah i think i'm done.
more lines i like!
“Why do all your plans depend on you doing something stupid?”
and it’s stuck with him through half a dozen countries, two worlds, and four timelines.
Every fight feels like a battle until the moment of battle itself: then every battle feels like a fight.
the ones that haven’t processed in his brain yet and won’t until he’s wondering where his scars come from.
you are like, the only person i know whose fic should be rated R for violence instead of sexings
“Go mbeire muid beo ar an am seo aris!”
BEDLAM OMG. :-O
the minotaur refusing the cordial <3333
revisiting their wounds holy shit. their bodies having always belonged to narnia! narnia and pevensies, always trying to reclaim one another!
the scars that should be on his skin. It will be a long time before they’re all there, but they’ve been making their way back ever since he fell out of the wardrobe nine years ago, and some day he’ll have the pattern of his life back. <3333333333333333333
peterrrrrrrrr
“Are you sleeping with Susan again tonight?”
“I’m not really sure I trust these Narnians,” Peter admits, a little reluctantly.
SUUUUUUUUUUUUURE, Pete, you keep telling yourself that.
“I’d rather not leave any one of us alone at night.”
IF YOU KNOW WHAT I M--
Edmund nods. “I know what you mean,” he says.
WELL THEN.
typo?: She turns away in a whirl of skirts, bow and quivering banging against her back,
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-28 06:59 pm (UTC)Damn straight they've always belonged to Narnia, body and soul entire, and she always wants them back, one way or another.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-28 07:45 am (UTC)THe returning scars are kinda creepy, but they seem to fit into the whole mindset of the story. Peter doesn't seem quite as mad as he did in several other bits I've read of your work, which is a huge relief (to me at least).
Also, somehow it seems very, very fitting that Lucy would be the one to be the most (outwardly) angry towards Susan and that Peter wouldn't be very angry at all.
Anyways, I love your work: it's awesome :D
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-28 07:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-28 09:18 am (UTC)Peter's POV is so very different from all the others. It's actually kind of a relief since we don't get bombarded with extra and/or over thought stuff. I do like the exposition like whoa! But Peter's thoughts are so simple and straight forward. He tells us what's going on where he looks and do not spend time thinking of things he has no use of RIGHT NOW!
Lucy having major tantrums is actually kinda cool. It's real. It's what she would do. She would be so mad and freeze Susan out. Edmund, as always, is made of awesome. The returning scars is so so creepy, yet so so cool.
And the Narnians!! They are so crazy... But i kinda like that Susan really doesn't mind being looked towards as a goddess. And I also really really like that Queen of Spring and King of Evening has darker reputations than King of Summer and Queen of Morning. Still, they'll find out that all the four monarchs can be pretty bloody scary if they want.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-28 07:07 pm (UTC)I'm glad Lucy's tantrums are working out. *grin*
The Narnians have no idea what they've gotten themselves into.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-28 02:54 pm (UTC)And Tirian is cool. I like his interaction with Peter.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-28 07:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-28 09:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-28 11:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-29 02:16 am (UTC)You know, I love the Peter/Susan subtext but I love the plain text just as well. I love the relationship between the two, whether it's naughty or nice. That older sibling vibe, the ones who take care of the others, or who have to band together against the rest of the world.
I love this latest installment. This is no surprise.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-30 12:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 12:54 am (UTC)I do like the Peter/Edmund subtext, there. I don't care about anyone else's subtext. *laughs*
The repeated wounding/scarring in the same places is weird. Like...one dimension is the reality and the other is trying to force itself to meet it, or something. *thinks of the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant*
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 01:39 am (UTC)Subtext! Subtext everywhere! You name it, we got it! Hey, remember the days when everything was supposed to be gen? And not AU?
The repeated wounding is actually based off something I (thought I) saw in LWW and PC.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-13 10:16 am (UTC)... are they repeating all their injuries? Someone's going to have to nearly-kill Ed a la the White Witch, aren't they?
Also, WHEEE SUBTEXT. But it's all so... sweet. Well done :)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-13 02:53 pm (UTC)They're repeating the scars, not necessarily the injuries. Which is, you know, in my opinion, actually creepier.
SUBTEXT EVERYWHERE WHOO.