![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedlamsbardJill puts her head to one side and peers up at the massive stone, touching the faded letters with one hand. "What does it say?" she asks.
Eustace, a few inches taller, stands on tiptoe to read the inscription. "'Here, Peter Bittersteel, Summer's King, High King of Narnia, won a great battle against Erthgi, King of the Giants, in CY 756, NY 169, the fourteenth year of Summer. Many, Narnian and giant alike, perished in the fighting, until the King of Summer met and slew the King of the Giants in single combat. Siwyno, the last Giant King, knelt to Peter the High King on this spot, giving the lands of the North to Narnia forever. May the High King's reign be long and his blessings plentiful.'" Beneath this is a finely carved crown and sword; below this, the lion of Narnia.
He comes down off his tiptoes slowly. Peter Bittersteel is Peter Pevensie, his cousin Peter, a cool-eyed near-stranger in an RAF uniform and an unmistakable aura of power. It's hard to imagine him in plate and mail, a sword in his hand and a crown on his head.
To his surprise, Puddleglum sweeps off his hat and gets down slowly and ponderously to his knees.
"What are you doing?" Jill says uncertainly. "And who's Peter Bittersteel?"
"My oldest cousin," Eustace says. He's only seen Peter twice in the past year -- once, when Peter had spent the entirety of the gathering sitting in a corner drinking spiked eggnog and not even blinking, and twice, when he'd come to pick up Edmund and Lucy from the Scrubbs' house. He's quiet, reserved, with a distinct air of disdain and over all else control -- and he scares the hell out of Eustace like nothing in Narnia had managed to do, not even turning into a dragon. "One of the Pevensies. He was --"
"He is the High King of Narnia," Puddleglum says abruptly, with the kind of reverence they've never seen him show for anything or anyone. He gets up from his knees and restores his hat. "The greatest king Narnia has ever seen and ever will see. Poor Caspian can't hold a candle to him, I'm afraid."
They gape at him, possibly because he's never sounded positive in his life, or at least as long as they've known him. And Peter -- Peter is exactly the kind of person Eustace would expect Puddleglum to insult by calling a tyrant, or something like that. Peter certainly seems like a tyrant.
"My father saw him once," Puddleglum confides to them. "When he was a young Wiggle, and went to the castle for the King's coronation. The High King won him his crown, you see -- and then he gave it away, when he might be expected -- and rightfully so! -- to keep it for himself."
Jill looks at the stone again. "When was CY 756?" she asks.
"Oh, well over a thousand years ago," Puddleglum says.
"But that's impossible!" Jill exclaims. "He can't have lived a thousand years ago -- over a thousand years -- and then been here only a few decades past. People simply don't live that long."
"It's not really that clear-cut, Pole," Eustace says. He doesn't understand it himself, but he'll take Edmund's word for it, even if Edmund hadn't wanted to talk about it either. "Magic, you know," he adds, trying to sound like he knows what he's talking about. "You can meet him yourself when we get back to England, if he hasn't already been shipped off. He's in the RAF."
"Not exaggeration, then," Puddleglum murmurs, completely ignoring them. "Narnia really did reach this far north under his reign. How far have we fallen?"
"Fallen?" Jill says disbelievingly. "But Narnia hasn't fallen at all! From what I can see, it's --"
"Better than the Telmarines the King may certainly be," Puddleglum says, "but today's Narnia is no Golden Age." He looks up at the sky, adjusts his hat, and says, "We'd best keep moving. Looks like rain -- and lightning and thunder too, with our luck."
Eustace sneaks a last look back at the lonely stone as they fall into step behind him. Peter Bittersteel, Summer's King, High King of Narnia -- and the half-mad boy he knows, the wolf in sheep's clothing, leashed and tethered and hobbled. Narnia broke us all, Edmund had said once on the Dawn Treader, drunk and melancholy with it. Us today, you tomorrow. Don't fall in love with her. The glory of Israel is slain upon thy high places: how are the mighty fallen! he hears in echo, and feels the shiver run down his spine.
Illustration: The castle of Cair Paravel as it is was during the Golden Age of Narnia. Although the precise location of the castle has never been discovered, pre- and post- Conquest records describe Cair Paravel as "lying where the Great River and the River Rush join and enter the sea, at the top of a green hill overlooking a natural harbor that, during the reign of the High King, was nearly always filled with ships from a hundred different countries, which formed the so-called Shifting Market." In CY 759, or Narnian Year 172 (also 16, in the reckoning of those Narnians who count time as beginning again when the High King ascended the throne of Narnia), Cair Paravel was destroyed by Natarene invaders and the Shifting Market burned, giving Graveyard Bay its name. The ruins of Cair Paravel and Graveyard Bay have been placed up and down the coast of Narnia, from as far north as the Marshes and as far south as Glasswater Bay. While the latter claim is most commonly accepted, some historians dispute it because no wreckage can be seen at the bottom of the bay, which takes its name from the water's extraordinary clarity. Other historians point out that the "hundreds of ships" burned during the Sack of Cair Paravel would have rotted away in the intervening millennium between the Telmarine Conquest and the Dying Times.
She wakes up to Caspian fucking her slowly with one finger.
He's behind her, his breath warm on her neck, and Peta keeps her eyes closed as she shifts her hips a little, pushing back against his hand to let him know she's awake. He smiles against her skin and kisses her just beneath her right ear, turning his finger in slow revolutions, a light but exacting pressure that makes her sigh a little. It's less erotic than it is just comfortable, something she's missed badly these past five years, even with Peter. Caspian is a warm, familiar weight against her back, half-hard against her hip, his other hand cupping her breast. Idly, he swipes his thumb over her nipple, sending a shivery little spark running straight to cunt and clit, and keeps his careful, uneven rhythm, occasionally brushing against the spot inside her guaranteed to make her gasp. Peta moves with him, just a little, enough to assure herself that it's really him, enough to assure him that she's really here and not just a figment of his imagination, that he's finally gone mad after three years alone and imprisoned. He keeps his lips on the top of her shoulder, not a kiss at all, just an anchor. With that, Peta lets herself go, concentrating on those points of contact, where Caspian's working her slowly and steadily over the edge.
She comes almost suddenly, almost a surprise, her head falling back against Caspian's shoulder as sparks go off behind her eyes. London Bridge is falling down, falling down...
The ships are burnin' in the bay, down in the deep where the bodies lay, oh the summer's gone this very day, the castle's broke and there's just no way.
Not again, Peta promises herself. Not my country, not again. She twists around and drags her palm down Caspian's chest to his cock, opening her eyes for the first time as he rolls onto his back, Peta straddling him.
It's still dark. There's just enough light filtering through the cracks in the slats that make up the wall that she can see his form, faceless and shadowed like he is in her nightmares, the nights she reaches for him and he fades away like a ghost, until the wardrobe door slams shut and she's left alone, crying silently as England, Earth, shivers around her, leaving her blind and deaf. Peta keeps her hands on his skin as she slips herself down onto his cock, Caspian rocking up into her in short shallow thrusts. He grips her hips, thumbs dipping low to brush at her clit, and Peta hisses as Caspian scrapes the edge of his nail over it in counterpoint to his thrust. Not long now, not for her.
This time, it's not for her. She leans down and kisses Caspian, drawing it out, hair falling on either side of her face and shielding them, separating them from the rest of the world. She kisses in words, in sharp desire, in promises and prayers, in apology and anger, and in the end, all it means is, I love you.
Caspian bucks up into her and comes. His hands are in her hair now, tangled so tight it hurts, but Peta doesn't care. She comes in a single sharp pulse, Caspian's lip caught between her teeth so sharply she's sure she's drawn blood. She's vaguely aware of him smoothing his palm up over the slick skin of her back, sliding free of her as he rolls them over onto their sides again. He drags a slow, lazy kiss from her lips, the kind they don't have time for now -- again, after all these years.
"I love you," Peta says, just to hear the words. The sun's coming up, light streaming into the room through the cracks, and she can see his face -- a little older, a little harder, a scar at the corner of his left eye that hadn't been there when she'd left him five years ago. And her -- she's not a day over twenty-one. Again.
Caspian cups her face between his hands. "I know," he says. "I love you too."
Eustace, a few inches taller, stands on tiptoe to read the inscription. "'Here, Peter Bittersteel, Summer's King, High King of Narnia, won a great battle against Erthgi, King of the Giants, in CY 756, NY 169, the fourteenth year of Summer. Many, Narnian and giant alike, perished in the fighting, until the King of Summer met and slew the King of the Giants in single combat. Siwyno, the last Giant King, knelt to Peter the High King on this spot, giving the lands of the North to Narnia forever. May the High King's reign be long and his blessings plentiful.'" Beneath this is a finely carved crown and sword; below this, the lion of Narnia.
He comes down off his tiptoes slowly. Peter Bittersteel is Peter Pevensie, his cousin Peter, a cool-eyed near-stranger in an RAF uniform and an unmistakable aura of power. It's hard to imagine him in plate and mail, a sword in his hand and a crown on his head.
To his surprise, Puddleglum sweeps off his hat and gets down slowly and ponderously to his knees.
"What are you doing?" Jill says uncertainly. "And who's Peter Bittersteel?"
"My oldest cousin," Eustace says. He's only seen Peter twice in the past year -- once, when Peter had spent the entirety of the gathering sitting in a corner drinking spiked eggnog and not even blinking, and twice, when he'd come to pick up Edmund and Lucy from the Scrubbs' house. He's quiet, reserved, with a distinct air of disdain and over all else control -- and he scares the hell out of Eustace like nothing in Narnia had managed to do, not even turning into a dragon. "One of the Pevensies. He was --"
"He is the High King of Narnia," Puddleglum says abruptly, with the kind of reverence they've never seen him show for anything or anyone. He gets up from his knees and restores his hat. "The greatest king Narnia has ever seen and ever will see. Poor Caspian can't hold a candle to him, I'm afraid."
They gape at him, possibly because he's never sounded positive in his life, or at least as long as they've known him. And Peter -- Peter is exactly the kind of person Eustace would expect Puddleglum to insult by calling a tyrant, or something like that. Peter certainly seems like a tyrant.
"My father saw him once," Puddleglum confides to them. "When he was a young Wiggle, and went to the castle for the King's coronation. The High King won him his crown, you see -- and then he gave it away, when he might be expected -- and rightfully so! -- to keep it for himself."
Jill looks at the stone again. "When was CY 756?" she asks.
"Oh, well over a thousand years ago," Puddleglum says.
"But that's impossible!" Jill exclaims. "He can't have lived a thousand years ago -- over a thousand years -- and then been here only a few decades past. People simply don't live that long."
"It's not really that clear-cut, Pole," Eustace says. He doesn't understand it himself, but he'll take Edmund's word for it, even if Edmund hadn't wanted to talk about it either. "Magic, you know," he adds, trying to sound like he knows what he's talking about. "You can meet him yourself when we get back to England, if he hasn't already been shipped off. He's in the RAF."
"Not exaggeration, then," Puddleglum murmurs, completely ignoring them. "Narnia really did reach this far north under his reign. How far have we fallen?"
"Fallen?" Jill says disbelievingly. "But Narnia hasn't fallen at all! From what I can see, it's --"
"Better than the Telmarines the King may certainly be," Puddleglum says, "but today's Narnia is no Golden Age." He looks up at the sky, adjusts his hat, and says, "We'd best keep moving. Looks like rain -- and lightning and thunder too, with our luck."
Eustace sneaks a last look back at the lonely stone as they fall into step behind him. Peter Bittersteel, Summer's King, High King of Narnia -- and the half-mad boy he knows, the wolf in sheep's clothing, leashed and tethered and hobbled. Narnia broke us all, Edmund had said once on the Dawn Treader, drunk and melancholy with it. Us today, you tomorrow. Don't fall in love with her. The glory of Israel is slain upon thy high places: how are the mighty fallen! he hears in echo, and feels the shiver run down his spine.
Illustration: The castle of Cair Paravel as it is was during the Golden Age of Narnia. Although the precise location of the castle has never been discovered, pre- and post- Conquest records describe Cair Paravel as "lying where the Great River and the River Rush join and enter the sea, at the top of a green hill overlooking a natural harbor that, during the reign of the High King, was nearly always filled with ships from a hundred different countries, which formed the so-called Shifting Market." In CY 759, or Narnian Year 172 (also 16, in the reckoning of those Narnians who count time as beginning again when the High King ascended the throne of Narnia), Cair Paravel was destroyed by Natarene invaders and the Shifting Market burned, giving Graveyard Bay its name. The ruins of Cair Paravel and Graveyard Bay have been placed up and down the coast of Narnia, from as far north as the Marshes and as far south as Glasswater Bay. While the latter claim is most commonly accepted, some historians dispute it because no wreckage can be seen at the bottom of the bay, which takes its name from the water's extraordinary clarity. Other historians point out that the "hundreds of ships" burned during the Sack of Cair Paravel would have rotted away in the intervening millennium between the Telmarine Conquest and the Dying Times.
She wakes up to Caspian fucking her slowly with one finger.
He's behind her, his breath warm on her neck, and Peta keeps her eyes closed as she shifts her hips a little, pushing back against his hand to let him know she's awake. He smiles against her skin and kisses her just beneath her right ear, turning his finger in slow revolutions, a light but exacting pressure that makes her sigh a little. It's less erotic than it is just comfortable, something she's missed badly these past five years, even with Peter. Caspian is a warm, familiar weight against her back, half-hard against her hip, his other hand cupping her breast. Idly, he swipes his thumb over her nipple, sending a shivery little spark running straight to cunt and clit, and keeps his careful, uneven rhythm, occasionally brushing against the spot inside her guaranteed to make her gasp. Peta moves with him, just a little, enough to assure herself that it's really him, enough to assure him that she's really here and not just a figment of his imagination, that he's finally gone mad after three years alone and imprisoned. He keeps his lips on the top of her shoulder, not a kiss at all, just an anchor. With that, Peta lets herself go, concentrating on those points of contact, where Caspian's working her slowly and steadily over the edge.
She comes almost suddenly, almost a surprise, her head falling back against Caspian's shoulder as sparks go off behind her eyes. London Bridge is falling down, falling down...
The ships are burnin' in the bay, down in the deep where the bodies lay, oh the summer's gone this very day, the castle's broke and there's just no way.
Not again, Peta promises herself. Not my country, not again. She twists around and drags her palm down Caspian's chest to his cock, opening her eyes for the first time as he rolls onto his back, Peta straddling him.
It's still dark. There's just enough light filtering through the cracks in the slats that make up the wall that she can see his form, faceless and shadowed like he is in her nightmares, the nights she reaches for him and he fades away like a ghost, until the wardrobe door slams shut and she's left alone, crying silently as England, Earth, shivers around her, leaving her blind and deaf. Peta keeps her hands on his skin as she slips herself down onto his cock, Caspian rocking up into her in short shallow thrusts. He grips her hips, thumbs dipping low to brush at her clit, and Peta hisses as Caspian scrapes the edge of his nail over it in counterpoint to his thrust. Not long now, not for her.
This time, it's not for her. She leans down and kisses Caspian, drawing it out, hair falling on either side of her face and shielding them, separating them from the rest of the world. She kisses in words, in sharp desire, in promises and prayers, in apology and anger, and in the end, all it means is, I love you.
Caspian bucks up into her and comes. His hands are in her hair now, tangled so tight it hurts, but Peta doesn't care. She comes in a single sharp pulse, Caspian's lip caught between her teeth so sharply she's sure she's drawn blood. She's vaguely aware of him smoothing his palm up over the slick skin of her back, sliding free of her as he rolls them over onto their sides again. He drags a slow, lazy kiss from her lips, the kind they don't have time for now -- again, after all these years.
"I love you," Peta says, just to hear the words. The sun's coming up, light streaming into the room through the cracks, and she can see his face -- a little older, a little harder, a scar at the corner of his left eye that hadn't been there when she'd left him five years ago. And her -- she's not a day over twenty-one. Again.
Caspian cups her face between his hands. "I know," he says. "I love you too."
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-14 07:55 pm (UTC)*hesitates* I don't really, uh, acknowledge the existence of The Last Battle except as a destruction myth. Like, if forced to choose, I would say that yes, Aslan's literally killing her, and no, she's most likely not in Aslan's country, she's just...snuffed out, more or less (murdered!), and heaven-Narnia isn't a sentient country, because that kind of counteracts the point of it being Aslan's country. On the other hand, she might be there, and I think if she did she'd be in human form, more or less, and then she and Peter could live happily ever after. Sort of. (At some point in time we may even see Narnia's human form. She looks a lot like Peta, actually.)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-14 09:50 pm (UTC)Ah, okay, I see. I didn't mean to force any choices! ;) I imagine Aslan killing Narnia would be, um. Hard on Peter. Heh.
I was thinking more the second scenario, if it came to pass, that she'd be there in human form, pretty much waiting for Peter, because how could he be in heaven without Narnia?
She looks like Peta? Interesting!
Thanks for answering questions!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-14 10:20 pm (UTC)She looks like Peta because Peta is Peter as a chick, and Narnia doesn't actually have a physical form; if she has to appear in human form, she tends to look like a feminized form of whoever she's bound to. So -- she looks like Peta. Golden-haired and handsome and all that. (Actually, chances are that post-Peter, she actually had a permanent human form, because I don't think she liked Caspian or any of his descendants enough to want to look like them.)
Now I'm picturing their reunion in Aslan's country. It involves making out and heavy petting. Edmund stares, trying to remember where he's seen the woman before, then turns away in disgust. "WHY AM I NOT SURPRISED?" he demands to no one in particular, and then thinks that at least she's not in his body this time.
Aw. That's so cute I may have to write it.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-14 11:14 pm (UTC)Mmm, okay, yes, I see. I like the idea of her being so bound to Peter that no one else will ever do.
Oh, Edmund. All, "Thank every god EVER it's not me this time." That would be hysterical, along with cute.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-15 12:48 am (UTC)Pause, stop, rewind. "Thank every god EVER it will never be me again."