Narnia fic: birthday hobbit presents (except, you know, not LOTR)

[bedlamsbard]

For lassiterfics, who requested "Wild West AU five years after the end where Caspian is working for Peter."



Peter crowds him back against a wall, and even though Caspian is three inches taller he goes without protest, flattening his palms against the wooden panels behind him.

In Cair Paravel's main room, they can hear the sounds of merry-making, Edmund playing the piano and Lucy singing along, determinedly off-pitch, and the racous cries of Trumpkin and Trufflehunter as they cheer the two of them on drunkenly. Caspian is trying to figure out if he'd rather be out there -- probably with Susan glaring and on the edge of shrieking, "Don't you dare damage my bar!" -- or back here.

"What are you doing?" Peter says, sounding genuinely curious. Caspian can smell whiskey on his breath and wonders if that's what's prompting him to ask, or if there's something else at play here.

He compromises. "I'm just doing my job," he says. He doesn't say, I'm just doing what you pay me for.

Peter frowns at him. "Why are you still here?" he asks.

"I like Narnia," Caspian says, immediately defensive, then blinks. It's true. He hasn't quite processed that before now -- he's usually too busy or too exhausted to think far beyond, I hope I remembered to feed Destrier.

Peter's hands are splayed flat on the wall on either side of him, imprisoning him. His frown deepens, then lightens. "All right," he says, and leans in.

His mouth is softer than Caspian would have expected and surprisingly familiar; Caspian has spent the last five years staring at it as Peter told off would-be claim jumpers, drunken cowboys, and railroad barons. He's had his mouth on Peter's before -- two years ago he pulled Peter out of a raging river and the sheriff hadn't been breathing, and half of what Caspian had been thinking had been, God, I don't want to have to explain this to Susan and the other half had been, God, I don't want him to die -- but they've never been like this.

He thinks he's been waiting for it, though.



For elucreh, who requested "Five gifts the Pevensies recieved in Narnia that made at least one of them unutterably happy."



1. There are a few horses in the Cair Paravel stables that aren't talking horses -- well, to be fair, except for those few stalls, the Cair Paravel stables are open to all and sundry, so the talking horses can come and go as they please -- and Edmund drags Peter out of his study, protesting the whole time, and down to the courtyard, where a pair of Archenlander warhorses (from the horse market in the Shifting Market) are waiting, kitted out in light riding saddles. Peter stops mid-word to blink in the bright sunlight and say, "Wait, are we?"

"Contrary to popular opinion," Edmund says firmly, "Narnia will not spontaneously self-destruct if you take one afternoon off, and I don't think you've left your rooms for three days."

"But this is --"

"-- important?" he finishes. "Isn't it always? Come on, big brother, you won't do Narnia any good if you work yourself to death. We're going to go out and you're not going to think about politics or government until tomorrow."

Peter blinks at him owlishly, then he looks at the horses and grins.

2. "Close your eyes," Tumnus says, and Lucy obediently puts her hands over her eyes. He steers her through the woods with both hands on her shoulders, then lets go of her for a moment. There's the sound of a key turning in a lock and a door opening, then he pushes her gently forward. Lucy stumbles a little over the step and he catches her, steadying her with gentle hands.

"You can open them now," he says, and she opens her eyes to look around at his cave, newly refurbished, all the damaged furniture mended or replaced. It looks just like it did on the day she met him, and she shrieks and spins around around, throwing her arms around his neck. Tumnus hugs her back, beaming -- he's been living at Cair Paravel for months now, and when she'd asked about his house, he'd just said it was being taken care of. She hadn't thought --

Curious, she prowls through the main chamber, picking up small knickknacks that she can't imagine how he replaced, as he lights the lamps and stokes the fire. One of these is the portrait of his father, proudly displayed on a table with the claw marks across it still remaining. "Why didn't you --?" she asks, picking it up.

"War wounds," Tumnus tells her. "A badge of honor. I hope he understands wherever he is."

"I'm sure he understands," Lucy says, and hugs him again.

3. There is a cake that Mrs. Beaver used to make for their birthdays in Narnia, four times a year every year for fifteen years. Lucy has watched her make it a number of times, and helped her too -- in Narnia, there is no such thing as a king or queen that does not help with the kitchen work when it's needed or when the opportunity presents itself -- so, when Peter's birthday is the first to present itself after their return to England, Lucy gets up in the early hours of the morning and sneaks down to the big kitchen in the manor. Mrs. Macready is almost too surprised to say anything when she comes down to find Lucy carefully pulling the cake out of the oven, but the look on Peter's face when she carries it into the boys' bedroom on a tray is well worth the tongue-lashing she gets.

4. A week after Peter comes back from Natare is Susan's birthday, and she's spent that whole time building up to the fact that he won't remember, that there's no way he'll remember. He hadn't remembered her when Edmund had brought him back. They're still on the border, King Piero trying to bluster his way into not being completely obliterated while Susan and Edmund do their best to convince him that Peter is one hundred percent Peter, and she gets back to her campaign tent after a long, exhausting day in which they'd abandoned diplomacy and gone straight to the shouting angry imprecations at each other, politics be damned. They're already at war with each other, after all; the situation can't possibly get any worse.

She thrusts back her tent flap, leaving her bodyguards outside, and deposits her bow and quiver on a chair, dropping her cloak on top of them. Then she sees Peter sitting at the table, a pitcher of wine and a pair of cups in front of him, and nearly has a heart attack.

"What are you --" she splutters indignantly, and he tilts his head towards the badly wrapped package sitting next to the wine pitcher.

"Well," he says, "it is your birthday."

She knocks over the wine pitcher when she throws herself at him.

5. "It's not like flying in Narnia," Peter warns, his hands moving smoothly over the controls in front of him as he does something inexplicable. "It's smoother. You don't feel the air currents as much, and the company's not quite as good. Not the view, either," he adds, sounding a little sad about that.

He looks up at Edmund and grins slightly, "But it is flying."



For almostinstinct, who requested "Five times Caspian WASN'T in over his head.">



1. There is a moment, just a heartbeat, when Caspian settles into the rhythm of killing men, the shock traveling up his arms to his shoulders as his sword cleaves through flesh. It's not so much, I was made for this, as it is, I know how to do this. This is simple. And then he sees a satyr whose name he doesn't even know fall from the balcony above, a crossbow bolt in its chest, and puts his blade through the throat of a guard he has known all his life, a man who taught him how to ride a horse, and realizes it's not so simple after all.

2. "Tell me about the castle," Peter says, and Caspian thinks, I know this, because he's spent his entire life wandering the castle's halls and side-passages. There's nothing in Narnia he knows better than that castle.

3. The past few weeks aside, Caspian has spent his entire life in the castle, and there's nothing he knows better than the people who inhabit it. He was a precocious child, or so he's been told, who amused himself by frequenting the kitchens and the dairies and the laundries, all the places his uncle and aunt didn't want him getting into, but he was also a prince of Telmar, a prince of Telmar convinced that he would be king of Telmarine Narnia, and a maidservant had once confided to him that the best way to learn anything in the castle was to listen. Twenty-three years of silence have convinced the nobles of the court that there's nothing solid between his ears, and they talk freely around him -- though not as freely as they do when they think he's not around; a few of them are still convinced he reports back to his uncle -- so when he finally does return to the court, it is with the firm knowledge of every holding's assets, of all the political feuds in Telmar, of most of the secrets the nobles would rather not have divulged. He is not quite so easily manipulated as others might think.

4. The raid on the Telmarine camp goes off perfectly, not a man or a beast or a Narnian hurt, and Caspian holds his head in triumph as they return to the How -- at least until a golden-headed boy steps out of the brush with a sword in his hand.

5. There is a long moment after the High King and his siblings have vanished through the door between worlds that the crowd is silent; all Caspian can hear is his heart pounding in his ears. And then the edge of Peter's sword digs into his palm, seeming to cut through the scabbard straight to his skin, though when he looks down there is no wound at all upon the embossed scarlet leather, and he starts breathing again. He thinks, The High King would not leave if he did not know that I can do this.



For caramelsilver, who requested Edwina fic.



"A weapon is an extension of yourself," Peter had said to her once, his lips close against the shell of her ear as he bent his head to hers. His hands were light on hers, completely covering them as he adjusted her grip on the sword she was holding, his thighs warm against the back of hers as he corrected her stance. Most of the lesson had stuck -- Edwina is like the rest of her family; she knows a hundred ways to kill a man, the correct way to fight a wolf or a Black Dwarf, how to use a minotaur's bulk against it until it wears down. She knows how to fight and how to win; more importantly, she knows how to survive. "War isn't about dying for your country," Peter had told her, his face shadowed in the light from a lantern as he sharpened his sword, their enemies' blood still staining the lion on his surcoat red. "It's about making the other poor bastard die for his. Or hers."

"I'm sure that part helps too, though," Edwina had said.

He'd laughed. "Yeah," he said. "That also helps."

That's what she's thinking of now, standing far behind the lines of a battle with blood on her hands. Not her blood; she wasn't in the battle. But the blood of the wounded Narnians they're bringing in now, one after the other, seemingly unending, and she stares at their broken bodies, at the broken weapons some of them are still clutching, and helps piece them back together when she can.

Susan finds her and clasps her shoulder. Edwina pulls her into a hug, trying not to recoil from the smell of blood on her sister -- Susan's dark hair is sticky with the stuff. "I've got to get clean," Susan says, releasing her.

"Where's Peter?" Edwina asks anxiously, catching her wrist as she turns to go. The edge of Susan's vambrace digs into her bare palm.

Susan gestures behind her with the tip of her bow, still strung in her right hand. "He's still on the field," she says, and there's something she's not saying, but Edwina can't puzzle out what it is.

"He's not --"

"He's all right," Susan assures her, then gives her a warm smiles and turns away, heading to the back of the hospital tents to the stream that runs there.

Edwina hesitates for a moment, looking around anxiously, but the healers and the rest of the medicos seem to have things well in hand, so she runs to a talking horse that was part of the reserve and is now standing around looking distressed. Phillip lets her onto his back without protest, pivoting lightly on his hind feet to race off towards the battlefield, Edwina bent low over his neck.

She spots the flash of sunlight off Peter's armor before she sees him, and Phillip picks his way delicately between the dead, shaking his head and snorting in disquiet. Peter straightens as they approach, looking surprised.

"What are you doing here?" he demands as Edwina slides off Phillip's back.

She doesn't answer, just throws her arms around his neck and wraps her legs around his hips. Peter catches her, putting his face into her hair with a sigh she's probably not meant to hear. She's wearing leather, but the sharp metal of his pauldrons dig into her flesh nonetheless before he lets her down. He's not wearing his gauntlets, she realizes as he cups her face between his hands.

"What are you doing here?" he asks again, his voice very serious. "This area hasn't been cleared yet. It's not safe."

Edwina blinks in surprise. The perimeter guard had let her through without protest. "Susan said --" she begins.

Peter hisses out through his teeth; it may or may not be a curse. "Susan says a lot of things," he says. "I'll have to have a word with her about that."

"She didn't really say anything," Edwina says, defensive. "I just assumed --"

He raises his eyebrows, then glances around the battlefield. "I can't spare the men to escort you back to the camp," he says. "Stay with me," he warns. "Stay close." He glances over her shoulder at Phillip, who's looking as shame-faced as a horse can -- which, when it happens to be a talking horse, turns out to be a lot. "You too."

"Sorry, your majesty," he says apologetically.

"Just keep an eye on her," Peter orders. He finds Edwina's hand with his; their fingers brush briefly for a moment as he leans in and says softly against her ear, "Watch the rocks. There should be more of them," and then he pulls away, bending down to pick up his gauntlets and slide them back on.

Edwina's hand falls automatically to the dagger at her belt; she's suddenly wishing she was wearing mail instead of just leather. But she hadn't thought --

Peter turns his head suddenly to smile at her. There's an ugly cut on the side of his face, just beneath his left eye; blood is clotting on it. "No," he says, "you never do. Isn't that the glory and wonder of it, after all?"

She knows how to kill, but Peter is the one that was born to it. She's fairly certain she does manage to conceal her shiver as she follows him deeper into the battlefield, Phillip close on her heels.



For westingturtle, who requested "Half hour before they get called to Narnia in Dust, what is Lucy doing?"



"Peter taught me how to read Narnian runic," Jill bursts out suddenly after the first ten or twenty minutes of nervous silence and foot-tapping. Eustace keeps rolling his shoulders, looking around like he's trying to gauge the strength of an enemy that doesn't exist -- or rather, to be more exact, like he thinks he should be looking around. The problem is, Lucy thinks automatically, dismissively, is that he's far too obvious about it. You don't want the enemy to know, after all.

"Do you think I'll need to know that?" Jill continues anxiously.

Lucy lifts her head off the window she's been leaning against. "I don't know," she says quickly and precisely. "Although I doubt it. It seems like a rather odd requirement for saving the world."

She sees both Jill's and Eustace's eyes widen at the words. Perhaps they've never thought about it that way, the way Lucy and her siblings have to. Maybe they don't --

But that doesn't matter. It's not her time, after all. That's come and come again and once more, and now it's gone without the going. (She should have known it that whole time on the Dawn Treader; Edmund certainly had, but she hadn't thought -- just one more time, she'd been praying at the end of it all, just once more, but that prayer had never been fulfilled. No once more for the ages for her; her time in paradise is over and done with, and she passed the baton a long time ago. This time she just has to see them off at the racetrack, but she can't even watch them run the race.)

"When did Peter teach you that?" Eustace asks suspiciously, and Jill goes off on some tangent about the time they'd all met in London, and she and Eustace had been staying with Peter and Edmund and Lucy, but Peter had been the only one around when she arrived.

Aunt Polly and Professor Kirke are looking back and forth at each other a little fondly. Their memories of Narnia are the distant, disconnected strands of a fairytale, unreal and grown in the telling. When they're all together, Lucy tries to avoid looking at Peter when they're speaking; he does a bad job at hiding the disdain on his face, and she's sure the others have noticed it.

Eustace and Jill are talking over each other, relaxing a little with the urbanity of it, and Lucy leans her head back against the window. They'll do just fine. Aslan chose them, after all.



More to follow tomorrow, most likely.

I had a fairly awesome birthday, in which I didn't really do all that much -- my new roommate brought me cake! specifically king cake, which is a New Orleans thing -- although people were fabulous to me! ALSO IF YOU HAVEN'T READ lassiterfics's DUST FIC REFLECTING IN A WATERY MIRROR GO AND READ IT NOW.

Also, I dropped my Creative Writing class, because dude, if the prof can't even arrange to have the bookstore order the textbooks, I'm not going to trust her to teach a creative writing class. Also, I write novels for breakfast. Sometimes I write novels instead of writing eating breakfast. I have turned out a thousand words of Dust before going to breakfast. Which, okay, incredibly arrogant, whatever, but screw that. I'm taking CLAS381 instead, The Ancient Novel. (I am probably going to minor in classical studies, with a history major. I am at the moment vaguely dubious of the English major.)

Comments

[almostinstinct.livejournal.com]

Oooh. And yet I'm still all "Poor Caspian!" PC really subverts the usual coming-of-age story, doesn't it? You've got your hero all set to Learn and Grow and Become A Leader, etc, and then this High King jerkwad comes literally out of nowhere... poor Caspian.

:D

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

I am in one of my "Wow, I actually like Caspian, and man, but does he ever have potential" moods. *beams* Because, jeez, does he ever. HE TALKED ALL THOSE NARNIANS OUT OF KILLING HIM. Caspian the Conqueror must be Caspian the Murderer to them, and this cocky Telmarine prince shares his name and is descended from him! I mean, jeez. And he pulled off the raid on the camp. Boy can think. (I mean, I think he may have stopped thinking after Professor Cornelius showed up, but that's just my other conspiracy theory talking.)

What's interesting is that both LWW and PC kind of subvert the coming-of-age story. I mean, in LWW Aslan saves the day, not Peter, like one would expect (I expect the real coming-of-age came during the first few years of the Golden Age, not during LWW proper, although that sowed the seeds of it, of course), and PC, well...

What's also interesting is that neither Peter nor Caspian kills the main villain. It's an interesting way for Lewis/Adamson to preserve the "purity" of the protagonists -- I mean, they kill tons of people in battle, but neither one kills anyone with a personality. (What's even more interesting is that the first person we see in PC kill anyone, aside from the failed assassination attempt, is...Susan. Susan is also, in LWW, the only one of the Pevensies to kill a character with a personality, Ginarrbrik the Black Dwarf. Peter doesn't even get to kill General Otmin, Oreius does that. Aslan kills the White Witch, of course. In PC, Miraz gets killed by his own men, Glozelle leaves, and Sopespian is killed by the river god...well, Peter kills Lord Donnan (or I may have switched Sopespian and Donnan, but I am pretty sure I haven't), and then promptly gets kicked out of Narnia. Although he didn't have much of a personality anyway. Look, I think about these things far too much.)

[caramelsilver.livejournal.com]

Who does Susan kill in PC? *Is forgetful.*

On the talking on killing may I just say how awesome it was that they actually was allowed the part where Reepicheep slits the Telmarine soldier's throat during the night-raid?

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

The Telmarine soldier on the boat, one of the ones who's trying to drown Trumpkin.

Dude, what about the part where Peter cuts Donnan's head off? EXTREME AMOUNTS OF YES.

[lassiterfics.livejournal.com]

YAY COWBOYS
PEVENSIES HAVING COWBOY ADVENTURES ALL OVER THE WILD WEST
AND PETER AND CASPIAN DOING IT IN THE BUSHES
<33
oh wild west au, i will never quit you
do they get interrupted by edmund clearing his throat audibly at the entrance of the back room ('cos edmund noticed when caspian went in there to get supplies or whatever and then peter followed him in shortly), or do they finish up and go to the bar and susan raises a pretty eyebrow at them and caspian says, very decisively, TWO WHISKEYS PLEASE. and susan says to peter, "is he paying for your drinks now?" and caspian says, "oh no, they're both for me."

re: five gifts
tumnus and lucy are completely adorable but then LUCY BAKED THAT CAKE FOR PETER AND I WAS LIKE RHKSDJFKLSHD FAVORITE CUTE

re: caspian being awesome
3 and 5 <33!

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

*giggles* CARRY ON. it is a collaborative effort, after all! and the answer is YES.

i had a brief moment of "LUCY IS KIND OF AWESOME"!

caspian has his moments, it is true! plus, you know, courtesy of water still on my brain.

[lassiterfics.livejournal.com]

i am toooooootally in a lucy mood these days
i kind of blame my lucy mood on our conman au

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

lucy is strangely awesome in the confidence au! this is true.

and yet, we STILL do not have a title. *dramatic sigh*

[elucreh.livejournal.com]

Oh, you are such a lovely hobbit! I especially liked Susan's birthday, and Peter's cake.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

They are kind of randomly adorable, aren't they? *grins*

[westingturtle.livejournal.com]

Lucy baking the cake! Oh be still my heart!

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

...apparently the cake is popular. Who knew?

[westingturtle.livejournal.com]

It's just so sweet, seeing them take care of each other instead of falling apart.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Well, it's me, so there's plenty of that too. *grins*

[caramelsilver.livejournal.com]

My god, that was great! THANK YOU! The subtlety is great. I can see it so clearly in my mind.

I also liked the Caspian one, especially the part were the nobles doesn't realize he is listening. That's great.

The Dust one is a little confusing. Were are they? Is Peter there? Shouldn't they be on the train? Or are you ignoring that part. And I just realized, what happened to the Professor and Polly? (If they were on the train that is...)

Here, have a squishy icon for your awesomeness!

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

It takes a while to get into Edwina, but she's kind of endearing when one does actually get there...

Caspian's secret power is that EVERYONE underestimates him. *shakes head*

Er, they are on the train, sorry if that didn't come through clearly. Peter's not there, Peter's...probably at Susan's apartment with Edmund sniping at him.

*eyes ceiling* OH THE PROFESSOR AND POLLY...I got nothin'. I suppose someone should think of them at some point.

[westingturtle.livejournal.com]

So on the train, even though they all died at the same time, Eustace and Jill beat them to Narnia by x amount of years? Or did the Pevensies get called back from Heaven or some such?

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Sort of vaguely theoretically, since it's Dust and not LB, they actually got transported to Narnia right before the train accident. So they're not dead. And with the usual, "wow, is Narnian time ever messed up", the Pevensies got called five years later by Narnian time, but at the exact same English time that Eustace and Jill did.

[westingturtle.livejournal.com]

Well that must have been a whole lot of confusing. And I'd've expected Eustace to pull the "Yeah? Well I'm older than you" thing a whole lot earlier. Silly silly boy that he is.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

To be fair, we haven't actually seen Eustace all that much so far in Dust.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Which is to say, no one's dead yet, either in England or in Narnia. (This is relevant.)

[caramelsilver.livejournal.com]

You're gonna be mean and send them back when the mess is sorted aren't you? And you're gonna make them LIKE it! *points accusingly*

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

*arches eyebrows*

hi

[(Anonymous)]

susan and petter when where you born