FOR THE LOVE OF THE LION

[bedlamsbard]

END DAMN YOU END.

At least I'm somewhere near the end -- I thought Peter was going to be stuck in the caves forever. (Okay, technically speaking he's still in the caves, but only until I switch POVs again.) As soon as this story is done, edited (oh my god, it's going to need so much editing), and posted, I'm writing the assassination-execution story. That takes during Prince Caspian and I don't have to worry about it turning into a 10K word epic. (Great, now that I've said that...)

Also, if I was a vidder and also a bad person, I would vid Peter and Caspian to Shawn Colvin's Get Out of This House. But I will not. Because I don't vid. (Because my computer would explode in outrage, no doubt.) And it would be mean.

But it would also be hilarious. (You act like a baby, you talk like a fool, get out of this house, go back to your momma, go back to high school, get out of this house...)

ETA: You know what else I want to do? I want to write a Chrestomanci/Narnia crossover, where Christopher Chant meets Peter in his English boarding school. Only I can't figure out if he's still just Christopher Chant or if he's Chrestomanci yet. Or if it would be brilliant, hysterical, or just horrible. ("I know you probably won't believe me," the boy said, staring fixedly at Peter, "but I'm from another world." "Oh," Peter said. It was on the tip of his tongue to say, So am I, but that wasn't actually true. He compromised with, "I believe you," and added thoughtfully, "Which one?" since the boy clearly wasn't from Narnia.)

Comments

[realpestilence.livejournal.com]

I think it would be fun either way, but I favor Chrestomanci. He'd be all suave and vague, getting stuff done, being polite to the Talking Mice-you know he'd take them seriously-and trading vague threats with the Calormene ambassador. *laughs*

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Oooh. I kind of favor the idea of Chrestomanci meeting Peter while they're in England, though, just for the, you know *waves hands* "Oh, I'm from another world!" moment. Or, "I'm looking for the High King of Narnia. I don't suppose you've seen him anywhere?" "That would be me."

[realpestilence.livejournal.com]

I wonder what Chrestomanci would want with him? Something wrong in Narnia, wrong in England, or wrong in his own world, that Peter can fix by kicking its ass? Maybe one of Peter's doubles gone missing or something and they need a temporary replacement? *wonders*

The neat thing about Chrestomanci is you really *can* write crossovers with him anywhere, due to his nature. Lots of potential fun-think of him in the Anita Blake verse, if you're familiar with that, all Edwardian propriety and vagueness amidst the were/vamp sexxin' around. *snickers*

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

My idea is Narnia, rather than England, just because why else would he be asking for the High King? I just can't figure out what would make Chrestomanci step in, rather than Aslan deciding the best way to fix it is to grab some kids out of nowhere and throw them at it.

...human rights violations. And Peter's almost of age, so it's his problem by several defaults. Heh. Or, um, not.

On the other hand, if it's Christopher Chant rather than Chrestomanci, then he can be -- hmm. Heard about something wrong in this place called Narnia that can only be fixed by this one person, or he's hiding from someone and accidentally magicks himself into Peter's universe. Or both. Heh.

The idea thrills me far too much.

I haven't actually read Anita Blake. But Chrestomanci in the Buffyverse, or Harry Potter, or *stares at bookshelf* oh my God Stargate. *snickers* Or the Marvel universe or DCU! Tony Stark trying to deal with Chrestomanci! *snickers*

[realpestilence.livejournal.com]

Christopher ending up anywhere could be chalked up to magical mishaps & end up a fun or adventurous story.

But I think Chrestomanci, dealing with Tony Stark, would be intriguing-the advanced science being unable to tell apart from magic idea, with the suit and Jarvis-planes, really fast cars, etc. Plus, I think they both have that damaged inner-child pain to varying degrees; Chrestomanci is more recovered, due to his family, friends, and responsibilites, but he's been there. Tony's got a good heart under the bad boy exterior...it could be interesting.

If you've not read the Anita Blake books, I don't suggest them, unless you like a good supernatural mystery series that devolves into pure (badly-written) porn about 5-6 books in. It's a big hot topic amongst the fans. Shame, because the world she created *is* fun, makes a great place for fanfic.

Aslan doesn't respond to every crisis in Narnia-for instance, why not provide help finding Rilian *before* he spent how many years imprisoned by magic in a dark hole, instead of waiting until his royal dad was ready to die without heirs? That's always bugged me. Or a few good rounds of making appearances and kicking asses prior to the Last Battle and he'd have inspired *some* genuine belief, I'm sure. So it seems to be highly pivotal moments that makes him intervene.

I keep thinking of Gwendolyn. She went to a world where she got to be a figurehead queen...what if she managed to turn that from figurehead to actual bloody tyrant? Chrestomanci can't easily bring her back to his world to deal with, as it would switch all the doubles, who ended up much happier in their new places-and they'd lose Janet. :(

What if Gwendolyn ended up either in Narnia or a neighboring country with an underground rebellion, trying to get rid of her? He could step in to let them better know what they were dealing with, and because she *is* his cousing, he'd feel some responsibility.

Then, there'd be brittle banter and peeling facades off and fighting side by side and comradery. And stuff. It could work. *nods*

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Aslan, frankly, is a horrible God. Hello, his idea of dealing with a crisis that's got out of hand is not to bring in someone who could deal with it (I'm firmly convinced that had he brought in Peter and Edmund -- or all four of the Pevensies -- instead of Eustace and Jill, they would have had the whole civil war cleared up within a matter of days), is to end the world. Oh, yeah, that solves problems. And as for the Pevensies: first he ruins their lives, then he kills them! Aren't they supposed to use what they've learned in Narnia to change the "real world"? *shakes head*

Oh, huh, I hadn't thought of that! (And I just reread Charmed Life, too -- I just reread most of the Chrestomanci books, so it's been on my mind.) Hmm, yes. Gwendolyn could have ended up in Narnia or Archenland, or even one of the islands. Although if we say Narnia, then we're going a bit AU, since Caspian's line rules until Aslan ends the world. (Well, okay, I bet it would go AU after either PC or Voyage. We could still have Caspian around, depending.) That would be an excellent situation to bring all four Pevensies back; I think it would probably end with a Gwendolyn and Susan going at it.

Now, if we just wanted to bring Peter back, I'd probably go with a Last Battle type situation -- um, without the world ending, but with someone pretending to be Peter in order to take over Narnia, because it's not like Narnia doesn't have historical precedent for the kings of old coming back. Chrestomanci, I'm sure, has informants in most worlds, so he checks to see if there's been a -- I don't know, power flare or something accompanying travel between worlds -- and finds there hasn't been, so he has to go wander all over the various Englands, trying to find the Peter Pevensie (I rather think that although Peter has doubles, our Peter is the only one who ended up in Narnia). And then he sends Peter back to Narnia to deal with those problems.

[realpestilence.livejournal.com]

Aslan's purpose seems to be to get the kids to grow and mature, not to change our world in any way-though they *did* change Narnia, his "chosen" land-but in order to understand and know him better. Period. Let me pick some random kids from somewhere who look like they've got potential and utterly disrupt their lives, let them grow to be amazing, complicated people with mad skillz, and then...turn 'em back into powerless, helpless kids again. Y'know, so they can WORSHIP me better. WTF?

Re: Peter coming into Narnia with Chrestomanci-or Christopher, because it could be young, pre-office Christopher who stumbles across a plot or something, or time-travels in *his* world, which would make his slide to an "earlier" time in ours...hm. Complicated. *grins*

But we know that while *only* the Chrestomanci has *no* other selves in any of the worlds, not everyone has a copy in *every* world. So there'd probably be some way to get Peter to Narnia with the Chrestomanci-world magic that didn't drag a full set of Peters around and disrupt *their* lives...I think that would be a concern.

End of the world battle? Or maybe some kind of conglomerate anti-Narnian alliance, determined to conquer and ransack the country for her wealth, and they need a super-general. Or a talisman is needed that *only* the High King can use, since he was the last Aslan-appointed head of state (the other 3, though his co-rulers, would be considered "Kings and Queens under the High King", at least by posterity, if not in the family. *laughs*

Hmm...maybe a plague of dragon hunters making their way from the Chrestomanic world into Narnia? Dragon parts being potent magic and scarce; but if there were a breed of special dragons that were beneficent and intelligent...think of the differences in the Earthsea dragons, if you've read that series. Or even between Chinese dragons and European ones. If a race of intelligent, semi-magical non-human creatures were being hunted by aliens to their world, wouldn't there be *some* concern, in Narnia at least? Because even if they don't care about the dragons personally...who knows who might be next? *eyes centaurs, fauns, dryads, naiads, dwarves, Minotuars, Hags, werewolves and the whole motley crew*


It's a fascinating idea, the various ways that a crossover between these two worlds could work.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

I would be able to put up with ending Narnia (HA AS IF) he hadn't killed off the Pevensies. Okay, I would almost be able to put up with ending Narnia. But as it is...Aslan: horrible god. Do not like.

Well, does it really affect them if they're traveling outside their series? Because after all, Millie leaves -- she's Series Twelve, isn't she? Originally, back when she was the Goddess? -- and doesn't drag around a whole set. Same with what's-his-face, the one guy, Tacroy. And Narnia's fairly likely to be a Series in itself, like Eleven. And if we go with that assumption, well, clearly the whole set of Pevensies didn't get dragged around when they traveled through the wardrobe, or when Caspian summoned them. Besides, if there's no time disturbance like there is in Narnia canon...

I am totally down with their being some kind of thing/spell/weapon that only the High King can use. (I, um, Peter/Narnia, and let's just stop there at the moment because in a second I'll start rambling on about earth magic and going over Aslan's head and other stuff that is not supported by either movie or book canon.)

Narnia totally needs an end-of-the-world battle. Except in that case, I don't see how Chrestomanci would get involved; it's just a Narnia-world problem. Unless it's an end-of-the-multiverse battle... *ponders* which would be awesome, by the way.

The dragon hunter thing would totally work! And that ties nicely in to Charmed Life, too; I'm sure we could give Christopher some kind of guilt complex that makes him think he's the only one to fix it, so he reads up on Narnia and thinks that the perfect idea is to gallivant across worlds and find this High King Peter chap. And Peter will always go to Narnia no matter what, so he will go and kick butt.

I seriously want to write one of these now. *wistful*

[realpestilence.livejournal.com]

Chrestomanci comes when he's called, correct? What if someone in the Narnian world calls him-somebody who slipped through from another world and knows about the office? Because obviously the Narnian world-web-skin, whatever you want to call it, is porous enough that people have been able to get through without Aslan's permission/guidance. The Telmarines & the events in The Magician's Nephew show that, plus you could have a non-human like Ramandu call on Chrestomanci (I don't mean Ramandu himself, because frankly I think he was too snotty about "you sons of Adam aren't worthy to know this stuff" to call on a human, High King or no, but something otherworldly like that).

Imagine a Calormene rubbing a lamp and reading the inscription laboriously..."Chrestomanci...come...to me...what's that mean?" And suddenly, there's the charmingly vague and brilliant man himself on the spot and shit! the secret plans are blown-dragon parts scattered hither and yon, very difficult to hide the piles, ugh... The foreigner, who must have been a djinn because he vanishes *poof!*, so they accelerate their campaign to do whatever. *laughs*

I don't know if that would work or not, but I'm amused at the probably expression on the Calormene's face.


What would be the talisman? I suspect it would be Rindan, his sword? (Hope that's spelled right.) The Narnians did, after all, keep it safe like all the other "gifts of Father Christmas"; and Caspian said he'd "keep it until you return", not "use it". I can't remember if the subsequent kings of Narnia used it...I don't think so. But what would it be used *for*, since the sword isn't magic, that we know of? Hmm, maybe it's like those fantasy swords that turn against their bearers if they don't receive blood? *grins* Or turns on anyeone who tries to wield it without permission from Peter? ...semi-sentient. It's ancient enough now to be "waking up", which is why he might not have known about it back in the day, using it. And Rindan WANTS Peter to come home. *bitchface*

Maybe the sword is like Tonino, and accelerates the power of magic? So it could potentially make Christopher more powerful, which he'd need to combat all of these magicians and badass hunters with *automtatic weapons*...it's a world-spanning conglomerate, see? \o/

Would he bring in a coalition of wizards from his own world? I wouldn't want to have a "cast of thouands", personally, so there'd need to be some good reason to keep Millie and any assistants at home. If we make it in his early office years, he might not have built up much staff yet; no kids; and maybe there's a crisis that *they* need to handle, back home? What would be the impact in *that* world if the public at large found out about all this, I wonder? I think finding a way to keep too many people from being part of the solution is the most difficult aspect, much harder than finding a way to get Peter and Christopher into Narnia.

I DO think Peter=Narnia and Peter/Narnia, however you'd prefer to put it. The whole *being* the land, his spilled blood and seed fertilizing it, and laying down his life if necessary-and the Narnian land itself rising up to protect him. I think he'd have a particularly close and interesting relationship with the Narnians; they may or may not like him (since he's "high maintenance", you say *laughs*) but they *revere* him. It *is* a very sympathetic magic sort of relationship. :)


*enables enables enables like whoa*

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

*bursts out laughing* Oh, the Calormenes. So screwed. Although they are kind of Lewis's default bad guys.

Rhindon might work -- it never shows up again after PC, at least in the books. And after all, Rhindon was given to Peter by Father Christmas, not Aslan, even if it does have a lion's head on the hilt. I think it's more likely that Narnia itself would call Peter back, especially if we could connect Narnia and Rhindon and Cair Paravel -- I totally have the coolest idea ever about how Cair Paravel came to be "built", in that it wasn't built at all, but rose up out of the ground of Narnia in a single day and night some time before the White Witch took over -- and Peter's oath to Narnia as High King. I don't think it would be hard to bring earth magic, willful sacrifice, the king is the land and so forth, into the Narnia 'verse, even though it's not supported by canon at all, because Narnia is a magical country and it's not beyond belief that some of its denizens might remember more "ancient magic" to keep a ruler of Narnia from harming Narnia itself. Especially after the White Witch mess; how much damage must that have done? (I'm of the belief that if this happened, it would have been against Aslan's will, because binding Peter to Narnia doesn't bind Peter to him, and that makes him uncontrollable. But you know how I love my Aslan conspiracy theories.)

I think in this case, it would probably be best to have Christopher not be Chrestomanci yet. He can do his whole running away to save the multiverse thing again, because he has a bit of an entitlement/martyr complex, and this way he's not too powerful. He could accidently trap himself in Peter's world looking for Peter, and then get dragged along when Narnia calls Peter back. That way, people may be looking for him, but it's definitely going to be harder to find him in Narnia than in Peter's world, and they may well be occupied. The outside-Narnia aspect of the dragon-hunting?

[realpestilence.livejournal.com]

So we're seeing that this crossover *is* highly possible, you've just got a few point to decide among to focus it.

1) Young Christopher or Chrestomanci?

I was originally leaning towards the latter, but you've convinced me that pre-office Christopher would be better. In part, because he and Peter would be more companionable, I'd think; but also for the "not too powerful" aspect...too much power in any one person or object leads to a deus ex machina solution to the problem, and then where's your story? This way, they can be two kind of fucked-up young guys with guilt-hero complexes, together. One's got magic, one's got mad fighting skillz-together, they fight crime! \o/


2) How to get them into Narnia in a way that would make it realistic that they'd be together when they got there, and not separate entries/finding each other after?

Hmm. If you don't insist on him knowing who Peter was and looking for him, particularly, Christopher could be running from a party of hunters he'd stumbled upon and travelling from world to world, hiding his tracks. He ends up in our world, meets Peter, and then-as they're shaking hands or something-Narnia calls Peter to her. Or Rhindon, or whatever agency you choose. There they are, plunk, together, in a world that's maybe not mapped by Christopher's associates yet, though the bad guys stumbled across it? A new series, so that they are delayed finding him. Plus, busy with politics. *shit hits fan at home*

If you want Christopher to go looking for Peter, *because* he's High King and one of the strongest of the (mostly) benevolent hero-types in that world's history, he could locate him after having snuck out without telling anyone he was going, maybe. Didn't want them to stop him, not sure it would work. I dunno, I think the accidental would work better-but that doesn't mean Christopher wouldn't know who Peter *was*, once they got to Narnia & did a slow reveal. *grins*



3) Why wouldn't Aslan intervene? It would probably come up. If it's to dragons, a species that's not native-Narnian, I doubt he'd care, unless the magic raised was going to be used against the country. But since it's alien infiltrators intending to take the magic/dragon parts *away*, he's ignoring it. But in that case, why would Narnia care? Hmm...do we know of any evil that these dragons have done? I don't recall the one in VotDT as eating anyone. I don't feel like pawing through the book right right now, but it could always be attributed to these being a special, sentient breed, etc. So-how about a pact between Narnia and the Dragon Progenitors, way back when...mutual protection? Too complicated?

That raises the question of why the dragons wouldn't have moved against the White Witch...the cold would have prevented them. Maybe they hung out on the borders and kept *worse* from entering to help her? And from spreading outwards?

whoa...plot is taking over my head. ignore this. *coughs*


Original question-why would Narnia care enough to bring Peter into it but Aslan wouldn't? (Other than him being a bastard, ok? *laughs*) Perhaps it's not Narnia that's directly threatened, but Archenland...sister country, blood-descended from the first King & Queen, and forever-ally...and *border country*. Possible? Aslan doesn't give much of a flip for them, or he'd not have let Cor languish in slavery for years, imo.

I'm not gonna rest until we at least figure out how to *do* it, whether or not you actually *write* it. *facepalms*

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, between this and the immortal Susan story, not to mention the other stuff I've got planned (Caspian in the Golden Age, the Lasci story, the Tumnus' diary/Dying Times story), I'm set for the next year or so. I really want to write this!

1. I vote for Christopher, because Peter's going to be more inclined to trust someone younger, and then I can write Christopher/Peter. (I, um, yeah.) And then there's not as much of an issue about bringing the whole gang along.

2. Hmm, I rather like option A, if we're going with Peter being called. But if we're going for Christopher deliberately looking for Peter, then option B is probably more likely. So -- option A, I think, because you know me and Peter/Narnia.

3. (Aslan makes everything so frustrating.) I think if it's going to be Narnia calling Peter, it has to be because there's some great harm going to be done or being done to Narnia. We could even meta-explain Aslan not showing up, because half the time he ignores Narnia until it's too late. (I am mostly convinced that the Pevensies wandering through the wardrobe and getting called by Susan's horn was none of Aslan's doing; he didn't interfere when the White Witch took over, after all.) Aslan doesn't tend to act directly when it comes to Narnia; he lets others do the work, it seems. So if we set it after PC, we could have Edmund and Lucy show up later. (In which case we completely invalidate Voyage.)

So I think maybe not the dragons. What about stealing magic, like in Dark Lord of Derkholm? Narnia's inherently a magical country, and it could be -- oh! What about the dryads? Those could probably be considered to be just as magical as dragon body parts, and maybe they can only be found in Narnia and a few other worlds. And that's a direct tie to the land of Narnia itself. And then we have a bunch of other magical creatures as well.

I'm kind of getting to the point where I really want to write this. *grin*