this may start out with stardust, but of course it ends with narnia

[bedlamsbard]

I just watched Stardust, and aside from being highly amused, my main thoughts revolve around the following:

Ben Barnes is Dunstan Thorne, a.k.a. CASPIAN is Dunstan Thorne. (Although. He looks younger here than he does in PC. *flaps hands*)

Does this mean that Charlie Cox is Rilian? (I mean, really, he bears a strong resemblance to Ben Barnes in PC.)

...personally, I'm starting to think that Rilian may have taken after his mother. In other words, I think Rilian was white-blond and looked nothing like Caspian at all, and there was a lot of rumor about whether Queen Star's Daughter had been messing around behind the king's back. I don't think Rilian wasn't Caspian's son, I just have this theory that he didn't really look like Caspian at all. Not that this relates to Tirian being a redhead or anything, three hundred years down the line.

Thoughts?

The other Narnia-related thought I had was how fashion might have changed in three hundred years. *facepalm* Chances that contemporary pre-Calormene Narnian fashion might have resembled turn of the century Western? Because I'd be down with that. I mean, chances are it will never come up in Dust, but you never know.

I would say that I think about things other than Narnia, but it's really not true at this point. The only difference is which particular part of Narnian history I'm thinking about, or if it's one of the AUs.

Comments

[lassiterfics.livejournal.com]

later edmund tells her, "he came back to our world, you know."
"what?"
"caspian, after eustace and jill rescued rillian. just for a little bit though, not too long. just enough to show teach those brats at the experiment house a lesson."
a pause as susan registers that she isn't as surprised as she feels she ought to be. "what did he think? of our world, that is."
"i don't know. eustace didn't say. rather sounds like he and aslan just came to shake up the bullies, and then they went back."
"tell me about it."
edmund smiles. "you didn't want to hear about it then."
"no... i suppose i didn't, then."
"anyway, that's all there is to tell."

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

peter sits outside the inn and drinks. "studying with the professor, are you?" someone asks, settling into the seat next to him, and peter turns to see the dark-haired man there. there's something familiar about his face.

"that's right," peter says, and holds out his hand. "peter pevensie, at your servce."

the stranger doesn't give his name. "do you know why this village is called wall?" he asks.

"i hadn't given it much thought." the hair on the back of his neck is standing up. he puts the mug down on the bench beside him and slips one hand into his pocket, curling his fingers around his pocketknife.

"a few miles that way," says the stranger, waving southward, "there's a wall. they say it divides england from another world, a magical world."

"sounds like nonsense," peter says, ignoring the way his breath catches in his throat and his fingers tighten on the knife. "you're just having it off with the city boy, aren't you?"

"see for yourself, peter pevensie," says the stranger, smiling. it's the kind of smile that used to make peter reach for rhindon. "about a hundred years ago, a boy from this village crossed the wall -- and vanished. might be interesting to see, don't you think?"

[lassiterfics.livejournal.com]

it's night and they're still there, so they stop talking about how they should go back. maybe time runs differently here too. maybe back in wall, it is still afternoon approaching dusk.

here, the stars are out. they are large and brilliant and don't form the same constellations they did in england. edmund, who kept late hours in narnia and went seafaring with caspian, scans the sky for the leopard, the ship, the lady alambil, when susan whispers, "look," and points.

"the gryphon constellation," she says, pointing to the corner of the sky between two mountain peaks. "there."

"it's not," edmund replies. "it's missing a star from its left wing."

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

HOT DAMN. (i, uh, phrase of the week?) also OH SHIT PLOT.


"i'm sorry," peter says, smiling disarmingly. "i don't want my fortune told."

the fortuneteller catches his arm nevertheless, pulls him down insistently into a chair. "The resurrected king," she says as she lays out cards. ""The queen of stones. the four of stars. the knight of ships --"

"really," peter says again, "i don't want my fortune told. i've had it done before."

"hands then," she insists, and peter holds them out reluctantly.

"your life line splits," she notes. "how many lives have you lived, peter pevensie?"

he tries to jerk his hand back, but her grip is strong as iron. he hasn't told her his name.

"king you were, and king you will be again," she murmurs. "and a warrior always. but your country needs you."

"i know," peter says. "i'm joining the raf."

she slams his hand down against her table and peter bites off a cry. "what price your country's life? what price your honor? what price narnia?"

"i don't know what you're --"

"the wall is closed to you," the fortuneteller says, and her features flicker to reveal a sharp-faced young man, oddly familiar. "the lion's face is turned from narnia. he will not see you."

"what do you mean?" peter says before he can help himself.

"do you think it a fair trade? your word for your country, peter the magnificent, high king of narnia?"

peter jerks his hand back and springs to his feet, but the fortuneteller has practically shouted the words, and the entirety of the market is staring at them. "i have to go," he says.

the fortuneteller rises. "at sundown, the wall is closed to you," she says.

peter runs.

[lassiterfics.livejournal.com]

OH NO DUCK. maybe if you pretend you don't see it, it won't see you!


they find their way to the open sky. through a combination of bartering, sleight of hand, and offering their manual labor, edmund and susan find themselves aboard one of the large ships that sail the skies. when asked where they are headed, they say, "we are going home." when asked where home is, they answer, "it lies over the mountains."

"by the eastern sea," the young man adds, and his sister is quiet, as dark as he, and twice as beautiful, with the same air of close-handed observance.

"it is a long and treacherous journey to travel through the mountains," says captain lysander aminzade, a weathered old man with skin and comportment as tough as leather. "what takes you so far from it in the first place?"

edmund spins a tale of traveling merchants, peddling knickknacks that were bought cheap here, sold at twice the price there. trinkets bought cheap there, twice the price here. he speaks of caravans and wandering bands of brigands, the wiles of the fey folk who love nothing more to enchant the wits out of honest men. it has been full of challenges, an interesting journey that has taken a toll on them both.

"our feet and hearts are weary," susan adds, "and our home is calling to us."

it is the longest string of words she's put together in aminzade's presence so far. edmund raises an eyebrow at her, not without a small smile on his lips, but susan has lowered her eyes again, turned her face away.


it has been a long day. their muscles ache and they are light-headed from high altitude, but neither can sleep. it is strangeness that keeps edmund up, and familiarity that troubles susan. (strange for edmund that he should be in an other world and yet not narnia, which he remembers so clearly; familiar for susan, who has begun to forget and is remembering only the shocked giddiness of having adventure thrust upon you.) they find each other on deck, each wrapped in a blanket for it is cold above the clouds. edmund tries to keep his teeth from chattering.

"'our home is calling to us'?" he echoes at her.

she smiles. "did you like that line?"

"did you mean it?"

"oh, edmund." and susan says nothing more, only wanders to the side of the ship to take in the sea of clouds beneath them. edmund follows, wraps his arms and blankets around her from behind.

"oh edmund what?" he asks.

"who knows what i mean," she murmurs, leaning back into him. "who knows what is calling to me, out here. is this even the lion's land?"

"all lands are aslan's lands."

"yes, but i thought that's just something one says, you know. like 'the sun never sets on the british empire', or something like that."

edmund turns his face into the dark curtain of his sister's hair, cold though it is and damp with cloud condensation. he kisses her scalp, and she sighs, and he asks her, "are you wishing we had gone back across the wall instead?"

"why would i do that?" she answers distantly.

behind them, a stirring of voices had become louder and more excited, expanding from an excited babble in a corner to a commotion that slowly permeated the ship. edmund turns his head. men begin to spill out onto the deck with ropes and casks and telescopes, shouting instructions, shouting in joy.

"what's happening?" susan asks.

"what's happening?" edmund demands at aminzade, who strides past with a telescope.

the captain's eyes gleam as do his teeth in the moonlight, and he waves his telescope in the air as if in victory. "why, my boy. the bosun's seen eyeful of a most glorious and profitable thing."

"and what is that?"

aminzade's grin stretches. "a storm, boy. a storm! and we're going to catch it!" before edmund can ask him whether he's mad, the captain exclaims, "you, have you ever fished for lightning before?"

"no," susan firmly replies, for the both of them.

"well," says aminzade. "would you like to try?"

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOD. *clutches* i will write mine if you will write yours!


there is no cleft in the wall. peter runs his hands over the weathered stone and looks up, tries to climb, but his feet slips and he falls on his back.

you are forbidden he hears ago in memory, but he turns back.

it is nearly midnight when he returns to the market town. the fortuneteller is still there, throwing bones for a blushing maid and her handsome young man, and peter slips into a vacated seat once they've gone.

"they will be married within the month," the fortuneteller says, "and she'll be dead before the year is out. childbed. he'll raise the twins alone."

"did you tell them that?" peter asks.

"why would i do that?"

"because they asked, didn't they?"

the fortuneteller only smiles. "couldn't make it across the wall, could you, peter of narnia?"

"what do you want?" peter asks. "aslan said --"

"this is not the lion's land, however much he would like it to be believed, and your land is home to many gods." the fortuneteller lets her -- his -- mask slip. it's the sly-faced young man again, red-haired, with one blue eye and one green.

peter's back straightens. "trickster," he breathes.

"i thought you might recognize me," says the trickster. "you're one of mine, you know, not his. he may have given you narnia, or told you he did, but you've been one of mine since you stepped across the border all those years ago. it means i have a few tricks i can play before the lion realizes he's been -- shall i say it? -- tricked. here," he adds, "a few gifts for your journey. it will be long, i'm afraid; i cannot meddle in narnia."

"what's happened in narnia?" peter asks, his voice sharp with strain. she's caspian's land now.

the trickster just smirks. "here," he says, and reaches beneath the table. he pulls out a sword scabbarded in battered green leather, trimmed with faded, stained gold. "smith-forged starsteel, won from my brother in a game of cards two thousand years ago."

peter draws the sword. "i've seen this before," he says. "this is mathin's sword -- mathin, captain of the red company!"

"he was one of mine," the trickster says. "didn't you ever wonder why a mercenary bowed to the trickster instead of the warrior? gamenung isn't your rhindon, but i can't touch narnia directly. and there's this."

peter sheathes gamenung and picks up the battered box the trickster sets on the table. "it's a compass," he says, questioning.

"it will point to your heart's desire," the trickster says, and then, "or wherever i think you should go."

[lassiterfics.livejournal.com]

i don't even know what mine's about! what is yours about? are we writing in the same 'verse and the three of them gonna meet up? right now it's just edmund and susan sort of heading to where their hearts say narnia is, but will it be there in the end? i'm not sure, or at least not in the same form (it never is -- in narnia you never come back to what you last remember). they can be like in the odyssey, blown hither and thither by winds, omens, and adventures for ages and ages until the very idea of their destination, of narnia, is abstracted, and the only thing real to them is this anomie.
"maybe it's time to go back."
"we are going back."
diaspora: it enshrines and destroys the concept of home.

they sleep on cold ground, on soft leaves, on springy grass, and they wake with the dawn light. they learn to recognize and avoid the territories of the fey folk, after that incident where they woke up and realized months had passed in their sleep.

there were calluses on edmund's hands though he could not remember wielding a sword, and a cut on his leg that was almost healed. on susan's cheek was a faint scar and there were what looked like old burns around her wrists though she could not remember fighting. they found in susan's pack was a folded parchment upon which was written, in the most delicate hand, "thank you & apologies." there was no signature, only what was either a smudge of blood or picture of a rose. neither susan nor edmund knew who wrote it, nor what had happened to them in the intervening time. they walked around the area, trying to coax out fairies and spirits in the ways they knew, but there was no answer, no one to ask questions. there was only the twittering of birds, and susan finally said we should go. there is no use for this commotion we are making, if they (whoever they are) don't want to found.

so they left, the both of them unsatisfied, unsettled, feeling like they had been cheated. they had been robbed of days, months. edmund kept on shooting glances over his shoulder at the treeline. susan did not, and wished she could hold edmund's hand or link their arms together for reassurance, but edmund, when he is jumpy, doesn't like to be touched. she was glad they were walking through an open glade, where the afternoon sun gilded everything, and the only shadows were their own (and the gaping hole that someone or something had left in their memories).

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

mine is, uh, peter. and the Trickster! because we do need to see the other gods in the narnia 'verse, and the trickster has (using warsverse canon) a firm hold on peter. and he does NOT agree with the tricks aslan's playing, and wants a hand in. of course, mine is during votdt and i think yours is later. *shrug* but TIME IS ONLY RELATIVE in other worlds.

of course, this could be peter after he's come back from burma, and is staying with the professor in the country to recover/get away from the city/find peace. that works too. *nods* i feel they should meet up, just for the shock value. also, OH MY GOD SUSAN AND EDMUND WITH THE SIDHE.


the other five gifts the trickster gives him are: a long, curved dagger that he hangs on his belt, half of a black candle, a telescope (just as battered as gamenung's sheath and the compass), a full wineskin, and a deck of tarot cards. "i don't read," peter says when the trickster passes these across to him.

the trickster winks. "maybe you'll learn," he says, and then he's the old woman again. in her voice, he adds, "maybe you already know." just like that the trickster is gone, and the old woman gathers her cards in front of her and says, "maybe you'd best be going, lad, it's getting late and these old bones need sleep."

peter swallows, pays her three copper pennies, and gets up. too restless to sleep, he wanders through the market (still bustling even this late), looking at the stalls and ignoring the vendors' cries. gamenung bangs at his hip, familiar and unfamiliar all at once. the balance is wrong. she's a hand-and-a-halfer like rhindon, a bastard sword, but a little slimmer and a little longer. the grip feels odd in his hand. not wrong, just...odd. he stops at a streetlamp to frown at the pommel. not a lion (of course) but a golden wolf with emerald chips for eyes. disquieted, he continues on.

"you look a bit lost, lad," says a merchant in a big red wagon, gaudily decorated with birds and flowers. "something in particular you're looking for?"

"i'm not sure," peter admits, and then looks at the wagon again. she's got the three horses, and quite a lot of goods. "i don't suppose you want a hand?"

she frowns at him. "i don't suppose you can use that sword on your hip?" she asks. "because my last guard ran off with the innkeep's daughter."

"i fought with a merc company for a few years," peter says. once in natare; once in burma. he can't look at the RAF as anything other than a job for pay. "will that do for references?"

"until we reach the next market at the least, then," the merchant says. "after that, well -- we'll see. i'm monette."

peter takes her proffered hand. "peter breakneck," he says.

[lassiterfics.livejournal.com]

breakneck! <3
and ya! i'm still not sure whether, during their lost days, they had agreed to memory erasure at the end of the deal (for su and ed's own good? for the fey folk's own good?), or whether it was forced upon them.
hmm, BACK TO THE LIGHTNING SHIP.


the city where they touched down was perched precariously upon a ledge and, indeed, part of it looked as if it had been carved from the canyon rock itself.

"that'd be a correct observation," said the bosun, who was older still than aminzade, whose voice whistled between his broken teeth, who had caught the most lightning in their voyage through a dozen stormclouds. "before it was a city, it wanted to be a castle belonged to a prince--"

"twas a duke!" interrupted a sailor, slapping the bosun's back on his way to the prow.

"--who thought it might be grand to carve his home straight into the side of a mountain. he was of blue blood, whether prince or duke, and well-moneyed, so no one ever told him he couldn't do it. he sent all manner of men and beasts to hollow out a mountainside, carve out bedchambers and ballrooms and libraries and parlors. but it takes years and years, making mountains into molehills, and he died before he could ever see it finished. it's like a warren in there, is what i hear, being as that they gave up building it as soon as they heard he's gone. left everything half done."

"do they still use it?" asked edmund.

"it is part museum," answered the bosun. "part funhouse, and part storage of bureaucratic files. on tuesdays they do tours."

the goodbye process was prolonged. many of the young men kissed susan's hand, and a couple of the older ones too. a few offered her small casks of lightning, the most blinding bolts they had caught. susan would say, "oh, that's very kind-- but i couldn't possibly... you were so proud of this bolt!" and edmund would nod his head her, saying, "take them, su. they might come in handy later." so she did, smiling in a flattered sort of way, which made her all the more lovely for it.

"where are we going to put these?" susan wondered as they made their way through the city's tight and maze-like streets, keeping an eye out for an inn. "i confess, after that first storm, i could barely sleep the next night for thinking of all the lightning bolts being kept in the hold. they make me uneasy, ed."

"we'll trade them for supplies tomorrow," said edmund. "you'll have to put up with them for the night. but the day after that, however..."

"the day after that," said susan, "we go east."

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

"on tuesdays they do tours!"
i feel they should meet up...now-like!


he gets back his own skill by exhibition-fighting. his own skill, and the gift of knowing his blade, because gamenung isn't rhindon and doesn't fit naturally into his hand. it's a damn good sword, though.

monette likes to show him off, make a little money on the side from running bets. he gains a little bit of a reputation over the weeks it takes them travel north and east, until they are in a city in the mountains, an odd collection of buildings clinging to the stone.

"step right up!" monette cries as peter sets up the stall and unloads the wagon, lips quirked in amusement and back turned to the market crowd. "a wizard with a sword if you've ever seen one; bring your best man!"

"it can't be you she's talking about!" someone cries. "just a boy, monette, where'd you find this one?"

"try him then," monette invites, and peter hears the rasp of steel.

"i'll send him back crying to his mother," the stranger promises.

peter keeps his back turned until the last moment, and then he spins with gamenung in his hand, laughing ats the swords clash. "what makes you so sure?" he asks.

there are three more swordsmen and one swordswomen before a boy steps out of the crowd, dark-haired, with a girl behind him. peter feels his eyes widen in amazement, but raises his sword anyway.

edmund grins. bows once, mocking, like they'd done during fencing class, and then they're at each other.

[lassiterfics.livejournal.com]

OOH. one of those fights that go on kind of forever 'cos they know how each other fights, and they start taunting each other here and there, referencing stuff no one in the crowd is familiar with, sometimes in strange tongues. and there is one last terrible clang of metal (the crowd gasps as one), the two men are wild-eyed as they lean on their swords, and, just like that, it is over. they both of them let their swords fall to their sides and embrace each other, laughing and crowing, made even more triumphant by their expressions of disbelief.

"is this part of the show?" an audience members calls out.

there is pushing and shoving near the front and a girl breaks through the front row, running to the two men ("careful they don't take your head off, girlie!"), and the fair-hair swordsman, the one they say slew a dragon when he was child and defeated an army before he was able to grow a beard, opened his arms to her and lifts her off her feet, echoing her laughter as the momentum sends them spinning.

"is she his lover?"

"maybe she's his sister."

"don't be daft, they're lovers you see. look at how they look at each other, and hold each other."

"i hug my sister sometimes."

"oh, look, they've just kissed!"

"on the cheek, like!"

"it was a kiss on the lips, maybe you don't know what that looks like seeing as you've never kissed a girl."

"you're blind as a bat, it was on her cheek. and ask your sister who i've kissed."

"what?!"

the cheers of the crowd grew louder and louder then, drowning out individual voices with applause. monette, who knew how to take advantage of a situation, flounced around with her basket for tips, declaring over and over what a fine show it was and won't you give us a tuppence for our troubles.

"i can't believe you're going by breakneck again," susan giggles.

"yeah, what are you, living your glory days?" cuts in edmund.

peter says, "far from it. i'm just her bodyguard." he nods at the woman collecting coins from the crowd. "but it's not so bad, i suppose."

"we heard stories about you all the way up north," says susan enthusiastically. "we suspected when we heard 'breakneck', but when we heard about your 'gaze like cold metal' and 'prowess as if you had been handling swords from the cradle', why, we had to see for ourselves."

"'fair as the summer sun and fierce as the eagle'," edmund quotes, "'that all women should love him, and that all men should hate to cross his anger'."

peter laughs. "where'd you hear that?"

"up in gammanestra from a gypsy woman," replies his brother. "she'll swap you news for a bit of bread."

"news indeed, more like fairy tales," sniffs susan.

"su," says edmund. "we... are sort of in a magical land."

she doesn't seem to hear him, cupping peter's face in her hands. her voice is quiet with awe. "i can't believe it's you, i can't believe it is, i scarcely dared to hope."

"breakneck," says a voice behind them, and there is a bit of an amused taunting tone to it. they turn, and it is monette, her basket weighed down with coins. she tosses a small pouch to peter. "here's your cut, with a little extra. treat your friends a little something nice, eh? you all put on quite a show, my dears."


bed, this is, like, the least angsty narnia fic i've ever written. and it's not even really narnia fic.

[elucreh.livejournal.com]

*cough* What happens to Lucy in the meantime? Or is that where the angst will come in?

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

...I have no idea.

[lassiterfics.livejournal.com]

hee, you're not the first person to ask us about lucy. me and bedlam are kind of inordinately bad at remembering that she exists, in commentfic. (weirdly enough, this icon kind of sums it up?) but uhhh, yeah, who knows what the future will bring? not i!

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

if it is a war between the gods we are having, aslan can always bring lucy in! although there goes his word, natch.

[lassiterfics.livejournal.com]

yeah maybe a scene where lucy is sleeping or reading or gardening or doing something mundane, then she FEELS something and she's like, "aslan?"

this was all just pevensies on odyssey (w/ bonus questionable subtext) to me, and now we've got what seems to be the semblance of plot... OH MY.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

OH MY INDEED. it is an incorrigible disease, this sudden plot attack thing! and it appears to be spreading, ineptshieldmaid is blaming me too...

HUH. but why are they needed in narnia!

[starsimpulse.livejournal.com]

*tempts with plot bunnies*

What if she's gardening or whatever and Aslan comes and takes her away but it really isn't Aslan, it The Trickster pretending to be Aslan so he can get her on his side, or whatever.

Also, there are four of them and there are four symbols! So now you have to bring Lucy in and mark her with The Cup, and they can use thier magical skin mark/tatoo things to ... be awesome, or something.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

DO NOT TEMPT THE ANGST! it will hear you.


"all right, spill," edmund says once they've gotten a table, a pitcher of beer, and a meal -- "on the house," the innkeep had promised; "i've had people in here talking about that fight of yours for the past hours, and they want their drinks and their food -- "how long have you been here? i'm not surprised you're doing the mercenary thing again --"

peter throws a roll at him, and edmund, laughing, catches it and tears it in two.

"-- and where did you get that sword?"

"tit for tat, little brother," peter says, amused. "if i tell mine, you'll have to tell yours."

"it's only fair," susan says. "given what we've heard about you, it can't possibly be more interesting."

"i doubt it," peter says. "the singers may say 'army', but what they really mean is 'band of motheaten brigands that scarcely know what end of a sword to point with'." he tells them as much as he can -- trading from the sea of stars to the mountains of morning, of the market town by the wall -- "we were there!" susan exclaims -- of the pirates that monette riddled with and the gladiators peter fought for the king of stormhold -- "they say his mother was a star," peter says, and edmund cuts in, "there can't possibly be that many of them" -- of griffins and witches and talking beasts. "not narnian," peter says, a little sadly.

"sounds like you've had quite a time," edmund says. he snaps his fingers. "sword. i keep feeling like i've seen it before."

"probably because you have," peter says, slipping the scabbard from the loops on his belt and putting it on the table in front of him, clearing the empty dishes away with one hand. "it's gamenung, mathin terblanche's sword. you remember him, don't you?"

"captain of the red company," edmund says promptly. "so that's why breakneck was on your mind. but where'd you find it? that must have been fifteen hundred years ago!"

peter drums his fingers on the table and looks awkward. "i don't suppose you remember the seven?" he says. "the natarene gods?"

edmund's eyes narrow. "you're not serious."

"as death. it was the trickster, as i stand here before you. mathin was one of his -- hell, most of the red company lit candles at his altar before a battle, more than they did the warrior or the protector or the smith."

"including you," susan says softly.

peter shifts in his seat. "i didn't remember aslan," he says defensively.

[lassiterfics.livejournal.com]

DUDE, the trickster probably had something to do with edmund and susan's missing months, what with his trickiness and all, colluding with the sidhe to put Certain Things In Motion. there will be a Reckoning. the trickster's always had peter, but maybe he has edmund and susan too, or has begun to curl their lives around his fingers. in which case, edmund and susan probably didn't consent to having their memories wiped ("they're not going to be erased, poppets, i'm just keeping them safe for you, is all.").

"how do you trust someone who calls himself the trickster?" susan demanded of peter once, and though edmund is inclined to agree with her, he does understand that there is a large uncharted part of peter to which neither of them are privy.

AND MAYBE. peter finds something, marks on his siblings' bodies. a star on the small of susan's back, a cross on edmund's shoulder (or whatever your signs for the trickster are, bed).

"what?" susan asks, feeling his body stiffen. "what is it?"

"what is this?" peter demands, touching the star.

"dunno," susan shrugs. "it was one of the things that showed up after the fey folk took our days." then she notices the look on peter's face. "peter, what's wrong?"

"does edmund have something like this?" he asks, agitated. "maybe not a star but a... a crescent, or a cup? a dagger?"

"there's a cross on his shoulder, though i suppose it could be a dagger, yes."

peter swears. in natarene first, then english, then in low anskett because there's something about the deep throat-clearing consonants that lends itself so well to anger.

susan, recognizing the situation, says, "i'll get ed."

she starts to dress herself as peter, lost in thought, begins to piece the pieces together, imagines the grin of the trickster, one eye blue, one eye green, reveling in chaos and dancing just as easily between the darkness and the light.


BUT. backpedaling to the bar, on the subject of fishing for lightning bolts--

"i told him not to do it," said susan, cheeks pink with drink. "i told him not to but no one ever listens to me, and you should've seen how he nearly fell off the side of the boat--"

"ship," edmund corrected.

"it was harrowing," susan insisted. "it was either being electrocuted or falling miles and miles to your death, and i hated it."

"you didn't hate it so much," said edmund, "when all them men were tripping over each other to give you lightning bolts as goodbye presents, eh? didn't hate it when they would find you an extra blanket or their last apple 'cos you smiled at them and touched their arm."

"oh, the thanks i get, keeping you warm and well-fed."

peter merely sat back with his drink, watching and listening, content. he has picked up a habit of silence with his run with monette. monette did like to talk, would tell him stories, but she would never tell him anything of consequence beyond business and survival matters, and while they both suspected that the other knew more -- were more -- than they let on, they were content not to pry. edmund and susan, on the other hand, appeared to have gone the opposite, keeping no secrets from each other, no fears, no joys were separate. they had all four of them always been close, but for the past many months edmund and susan were the only people that edmund and susan could trust, and peter thought he recognized this type of rapport between them, had felt it before. but not now.

"do you still have these lightning bolts?" asked peter.

"heavens no," said susan.

"i wanted to keep one but she wouldn't let me," said edmund, sounding for all the world like a petulant child.

"oh, honestly, ed, that thing was just going to be a bother, us carrying it up and down. it would explode and we'd burn with it."

"aminzade insisted the casks were sturdy."

they begin to argue again, and much later, when they make their way out of the bar, edmund leans in and says so susan can't hear. "i kept one. one of the lightning bolts. it's in my pack. don't tell, alright?"

peter laughed. so much for no secrets. "i won't."


i started writing the bar scene, then went back and wrote about peter finding the marks, then went back and finished the bar scene.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

i feel that the other gods feel that aslan has been keeping secrets more than he should, and not sharing his toys. and lying. england is neutral ground, and he's been meddling where he shouldn't. and the trickster doesn't have edmund the way he has peter (because peter bowed to him, and spilled blood in his name, and swore by him for all the days to follow even after he left natare), but he's got a hold on edmund because the kadreddin mirror that tossed edmund back through time was one of his artifacts. and the trickster likes playing with people's heads, with their wishes.


"i've never seen these runes before," edmund says, standing with gamenung bare in his hand before the bed, which has the rest of the trickster's gifts spread out upon it. susan sits on the bed with her skirts spread out around her, but peter's on his feet, pacing in front of the window. "do you know what they say?"

peter shakes his head. "the trickster said that gamenung was forged by the smith two thousand years ago. anything that old --"

"we're nearly that old," susan points out testily. "the smith? that smith?"

"i'm assuming so."

edmund sheathes gamenung and tosses it back down onto the bed. he picks up the compass and flicks it open. "that's not north," he muses.

peter comes over to peer over his shoulder. "let me see," he says, and edmund hands it to him. the needle is fixed, steady, no matter what circles peter turns in. "su, you try."

she gets up and takes it from him, walking around the room with the compass cradled between her palms like a living thing. "where is that?" she asks as she hands it back to peter.

"east," peter says, and goes to the window, which faces towards the eastern mountains. he presses his palm to the glass. "home."

edmund snatches the compass from his hand and snaps it shut before tossing it back down on the bed. peter turns to watch him as he picks up the tarot cards and shuffles them absently.

"did you ever learn how to read these?" he asks.

peter raises his eyebrows. "what makes you think i didn't already know?"

[lassiterfics.livejournal.com]

I WRITE THE FOLLOWING WITH A LITTLE DRINK IN ME

OOH DIRTY TRICK. 'cos i was SO TEMPTED to use the tarot cards and have it be dumped on you, oh but i resisted, and HERE THEY ARE, requiring interpretation and direction. WELL THEN.

HOW ABOUT peter shuffles the deck twice, and makes edmund shuffles the deck twice, but each time the same result. they make susan shuffle the deck, despite her protestations ("i've never gone in for this sort of thing, you know that"), tells her when to cut the cards and where to lay each one.

each time, the same result.

"so," says edmund.

"so," agrees peter.

"we should probably use the babylon candle," says susan.

peter frowns. "the what?"

"honestly," says susan, picking up the black candle, "are you so wrapped up in the lore of narnia that you forget the lore of our own world?"

"narnia is our world."

"we call more than one world home," says susan, "and this is our advantage."

and she begins to tell them of the babylon candle.

after which, edmund says, "well, that's all very nice. but how do we know this is a babylon candle?"

susan blinks. "well, what else can it be? we are sort of in a magical land, after all."

and edmund makes a sound like, "humph." and then he says, "it could be any number of things! it could kill us, it could turn us into something we're not, it could send us to some far-distant world."

and then, after a pause, edmund adds, "i've got matches."


TENSE CHANGE TANGO

"i've missed you," susan whispered in his ear, and peter wrapped his arms around her, pulling her in close. the feel of her and the smell of her, things he didn't even realize he had forgotten, revived in his memory as he kissed her forehead, her soft cheek.

the truth was he hadn't missed her, not as she missed him. it was difficult to dwell on such things when you were focused on staying alive, keeping monette alive, keeping the trickster close on the edge of his consciousness but not too close (for down that way lies madness, the cackling laughter, the promises -- "soon, boy, soon" -- the darkness and the light).

so he said instead, "well, edmund's been keeping you company."

she seemed surprised at his words. "well of course. but what does that have to do with anything." she kissed the corner of his mouth. "tell me you missed me."

so he told her this.

"as you should have," said susan, running her fingers through his hair. "as you should have, indeed."

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

HA I SEE YOU SNEAKING PETER/SUSAN IN! (why is it i suddenly want the fairytale story where peter has to break the curse by kissing the sleeping prince/frog prince/whatnot and it's CASPIAN? *cough*)


"not yet," peter says, covering edmund's hand as he makes to strike the matches. "there's only half a candle left, we don't want to make a mistake and lose our only chance."

edmund lowers the matches. "is that caution i hear from you, breakneck? call the times, su, the world is ending and hell's freezing over."

"the seventh hell is frozen," peter says, rolling his eyes. "besides, i've got to talk to monette. i can't just leave her -- and i do have a contract."

edmund frowns at him. "but this is narnia, pete. you're not going to walk away from that for a merc gig." unspoken is the single word again.

"of course not!" peter says. "but look --" he leans over the side of the bed and draws a map out from his pack, unfolding it over the mess of objects between their three-point cross-legged circle. "here we are," he says, pointing, "and here are the mountains to the east, and the sea of stars to the south. before we try magic, i say we try something more ordinary first."

edmund peruses the map. "the fastest way is by sea," he says, and susan laughs.

peter sighs. "i was afraid you were going to say that."


"do you have one too?" edmund asks as peter rubs his thumb over the black mark on his shoulder. "what was it you told su -- crescent, or cup, or --"

"you can put your shirt back on," peter interrupts, pushing 'round to edmund's front as susan watches anxiously. he pulls the sleeve of his shirt up above his elbow and turns his forearm up so that edmund and susan can see the black crescent there, points turning upward towards his wrist, cupping a crown between the arms. "modified a little," peter says grimly, "from the traditional."

"which is?" susan asks. she catches peter's wrist in her hand and frowns down at the mark, touching it with the edge of her thumbnail.

peter looks around for a scrap of paper and a pencil. "here," he says, sketching quickly, "this is what mathin had on his arm." star, crescent, dagger, cup, laid out like a deck of cards. "the cup for drink and merriment and poison," peter says, "the dagger for work done in the dark and in the back, the crescent for the light of the moon and things hidden, and the star for luck, desire, and gold."

"that's...not very reassuring," susan says, rubbing her arms at the sudden feel of cold.

edmund sighs. "why couldn't you have fallen in with the warrior, pete? or the protector, she seems like a good sort. the smith or the sailor, even."

i just moved the comment here for easier flow

[lassiterfics.livejournal.com]

HUH. but why are they needed in narnia!

WHO KNOWS. apparently the trickster conceals his true intentions even from you. okay, so what do we know so far, it's post-silver chair so it's in those long hazy years between rillian and tirian, um, but time runs differently here and it's rather possible they wander through some MISTS OF TIME and end up aaaanywhere on the timeline. which may or may not make things easier. and biatch i was sneaking peter/susan in two comments ago thank yooouuuu very much. and susan/edmund even way before that!

AND. the sidhe may not want to talk to them, but you know who probably would? THE TREES. i forget if they included the talking tree in the movie, but there was definitely one in the book (that neil gaiman based on tori amos, and she references it in her song 'horses', which, uh, may or may not precede the book? I FORGET) ANYWAY, there was one in the book who gave tristran a magic leaf to use ONLY IN TIMES OF DIRE NEED.

and you know, the trees, they have always belonged to aslan.

quoth wikipedia, this is one of the things tristran's talking tree says: "When I was very young, somebody — maybe it was a squirrel, they talk so much, or a magpie, or maybe a fishie — told me that Pan owned all this forest. Well, not owned owned. Not like he would sell the forest to someone else, or put a wall all around it ... It's not hard to own something. Or everything. You just have to know that it's yours, and then be willing to let it go."

and edmund can be like, "i wish lucy were here, she was always able to work some sense out of trees."

and peter says, "it's not that she makes them make sense, you know, she just lets them make their own kind of sense and goes with it."

"you're as bad as that tree," says edmund, throwing up his arms.

"is that something the trickster taught you?" susan asks, raising an eyebrow at peter.



hey, maybe they're going to aslan's country. HEY, DON'T MIND MY CRACK, but maybe MAYBE they're going to a Last Battle scenario because aslan's about to destroy narnia and narnia's like OH HELL NO and the trickster, sensing a growing divide in the land's soul, maybe he wants narnia for himself but first it needs to not be destroyed. which is where the pevensies come in. not quite betrayal, more like the student has surpassed the master, OR LIKE, aslan only betrays himself, because his creations are only doing what he has designed them to do. and maybe this is where lucy comes in, on aslan's behalf, 'cos he needs her now more than ever.
and lucy's like, "but.. but you said i couldn't come back! you said!" and she doesn't know whether to be glad or frightened, 'cos when aslan goes back on his word OH BOY. SOME SHIT HAS HIT THE FAN. times are changing, the deep magic is come undone and the land cries out.
and ed su pete fight her? SOMEONE DIES? I ONLY HAVE QUESTIONS, NO ANSWERS.

it seems to me the only one who has a clear idea of what's going on here at this point is the trickster. talk about creations running amuck.


anyway, right now they gotta find some trees. trees are everywhere. see and hear everything. now that the pieces are falling in place, more than ever they gotta know what happened during ed & su's taken time. BUT WILL THE TRICKSTER LET THEM?

"alright, how does this work?" susan asks, as they all stand around a tree they deemed looked old and wise enough. "how do we even know they'll talk? maybe it's not like in narnia."

in narnia, the dryads are always willing to speak, to share secrets and to dance, but here the trees are quiet.

peter steps forward and knocks on the side of the trunk. "hello? pardon me."

"peter!" susan snaps, grabbing his wrist. "that's not polite!"

Re: i just moved the comment here for easier flow

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

ha, like you think i didn't notice that, i thought i'd just make a point of it NOW. perhaps sneak in some peter/edmund.

it could be during last battle, where we canonically have aslan and tash squabbling over narnia, and aslan's answer is to END THE WORLD. well, the world's more than just narnia, and the rest of the gods aren't going to be too pleased. and who else is better at saving narnia (AND THE WORLD) than the pevensies? and the trickster's the only one who's got enough of a hold on them to bring them through without going through aslan's channels. which aus last battle, of course, but that's totally in vogue right now. OBVIOUSLY.

perhaps aslan brings lucy through with eustace and jill? and then we obviously have an interesting situation because edmund and susan, and peter came through at the same place, but obviously not at the same time. *flaps hands*

aslan has become too powerful! something like that. living narnia, who always loved peter best, and aslan twisting the deep magic for his own purposes. (because it ain't selfish at all to end the world because Somone decided to horn in on your territory.)

i feel they are gonna have to get something from monette to help them out here. and then there's the trickster's wineskin...

and to tie in the stardust angle more, maybe they should meet with the king of stormhold, trystan and yvaine's son or grandson? star's blood, and maybe a relative of ramandu's daughter, and so they have a claim on tirian somehow... *flaps hands again* and father christmas. THE WHITE WITCH. bring her back! because there has to be a balance.

trees are good. *nods* (i must admit i have not read the book, only seen the movie.)

hmm, what did happen in ed and su's missing time? alliance? what did they lose, besides their memories? what did the gain? (while i am here, look at this real life White Witch! (http://science.howstuffworks.com/5-real-haunted-houses4.htm))


with a sound like cracking wood, the tree's twisted branches unfurl, spreading out over them and darkening the sky. "who dares disturb my slumber?" it rumbles.

peter tips his head back to look up at the knots that might or might not form a face, seemingly unruffled. "my name is peter pevensie," he says politely, "and this is my brother edmund and my sister susan. we're very sorry to disturb your rest, but we've got a few questions we thought you might be able to answer --"

"peter, susan, and edmund?" the tree says, sounding much less alarming. its branches draw inward a little. "why, i haven't heard those names in a thousand years --"

"you idiot, bernard," says an oak a few paces away, rustling its leaves. "it hasn't been nearly that long, and you were only an acorn a thousand years ago. it's only been a few centuries."

"oh, do be quiet, clarice, like you'd know. i say, you wouldn't be the peter, susan, and edmund, would you? as in the High King of Narnia and his siblings?"

"er, yes," peter says, startled, as edmund makes a face.

the tree bends down and peers at him. "i daresay you are," it says. "'gold-crowned peter' indeed!"

this time edmund makes a squawk of indignation and susan giggles despite herself. peter only looks very faintly amused, the way he always does at such comments; he's grown used to them.