I am terrified to use the words "swan song"

Y'all want to know what's hilarious (uh, at least to me)? That according to the official Narnia timeline, by the time "Dust in the Air" takes place (five years after LB), Eustace, Jill, and Peter are all the same age, and all the other Pevensies are younger. And Tirian's older, obviously, because he pointed out in LB that Peter looked younger than him, and now he's even older.

This is hilarious. I have to use this somehow. I'm not sure how, but it will come out.

Also, y'all have probably not noticed it, but I went through the first chapter of "Dust" and changed a couple thing. One paragraph where I used "then" in every sentence, one instance of "Edmund" to "Eustace", and the season. The season is no longer fall; the season is spring. This is important. Not to the plot (although hell, what do I know at this point? I'm making it up as I go), but thematically. The seasons in Narnia are kind of important to me -- hi, Great Summer, anyone? King of Summer, Queen of Spring? LWW makes this obvious, but it's the end of winter and the beginning of spring/summer, while PC takes place in late summer and VotDT is a late summer/early autumn kind of story. SC is a winter type story. LB should be winter, but instead it feels overwhelmingly like autumn. (Personally, I don't feel that we ever see the summer of Narnia except in HHB, which doesn't really count except in all the ways it does; the summer of Narnia is the Golden Age and summer dies and nothing lasts forever. Summer is fleeting, summer is nothing but moments caught in time, summer is an illusion and a heat shimmer, but sometimes summer is the most important time of year.)

"Dust in the Air" is spring. Make of this what you will.

And, uh, it kind of has a soundtrack, or at least a playlist, but the song I've listened to the most while writing this has been Emmylou Harris's One of These Days, which is from my Lucy playlist, but another four of them are from my Edmund playlist. This is more for the end of the story than the beginning/middle, but, well. *shrugs* On the other hand, this song and this song are also on the playlist, so who knows what the hell my brain is on right now.

ETA: Or possibly I can't do math, or I have been using more than one version of a Narnia timeline, or God, who knows what right now. Wait, no, it's the latter one: I have seen Eustace and Jill's year of birth as being both 1933 and 1934. Canon gives us Peter's DOB as 1927, which would make him 13 in 1940, but Warsverse Peter is either 14 or 15 in 1940 -- the dates for him being in WWII don't add up otherwise. I am so confused, y'all have no idea.

well, maybe that first bit...

Lines I am not allowed to put in "Dust" just to freak Eustace out:

after an assassination attempt
Eustace: "You're insane! He's insane!"
Peter: "Someone just tried to kill me and I'm the crazy one? EDMUND."
Edmund: "Don't blame me! I've been in Malaya getting shot the past year!"
Eustace: "You just killed him!"
Edmund: "Yes, because that is what you do when your life is threatened. Assassination attempts are generally BAD. And your reflexes are getting slower, Pete. I remember when you would have got him before he got near enough to scratch up your face."
Peter: "Yeah, I guess not having people try and kill you in your bed on a daily basis can dull your edge. I notice you didn't notice, either."
Eustace, ranting: "This is what being in the army gets you! It makes you violent! You learned that in the war, didn't you?"
Edmund: "NO HE DID NOT. Trust me here."
Peter: "Actually I learned that particular move when I was a merc in Natare. That's also where I learned to do that thing with my tongue that you like."
Pevensie sibling of your choice: "Oh, really? I thought you learned that from Osumare Seaworth."
Eustace: *speechless*
Edmund: "I'd say something about situationally appropriate conversation, but I'm enjoying this too much."

a survey

Given Narnian resources, explosives knowledge, and a grudge, Peter and Edmund will:
a) introduce the concept of black powder to Narnia
b) raise holy hell
c) reconquer Narnia (for the THIRD TIME)
d) ALL OF THE ABOVE

ETA: I see y'all are opposed to the black powder notion. Tactical advantage. CANON, also, by the way; the Telmarines have fireworks, and I would be severely surprised if, three hundred years later, they had not managed to make those into weapons because that is what human beings do. And even if the Telmarine Narnians hadn't, the Calormenes most certainly would have unless they have some other resource that's going to take their place. Greek fire, yes; I don't remember if I ever explicitly stated it, but it was used in the Golden Age by Narnia and probably everyone else in the area, although they didn't call it Greek fire, obviously. And Greek fire is nastier than gunpowder.

And just for the record, the only way I'm going to have it in the story is if I decide they need to blow something up, which may or may not happen.

ETA2: Okay, y'all know what, I'm sick of talking about it. And I'd just like to point out that, one, nowhere did I actually say the words "guerilla war," and, two, China: gunpowder invented 850 AD, used in combat 919 AD, cannon invented 1126, firearms dated to 1290. (Source.) And talking about this is putting me in a bad mood, and now I am very tempted to introduce a plague for no good reason. I already burned half the forests in Narnia down; how much worse can their situation get?