right, now would be a good time for me to upload my cair paravel icon

[bedlamsbard]

Actually, you know what really calms me down, writing-wise? World-building. Some of my favorite parts of writing in the Golden Age are just descriptions -- the festival in These Last Golden Days of Summer, the marinas and the naval battle in The White City, Susan's clothes and the Shifting Market in On a Summer Sunday. It makes me happy.

So, uh, is there anything in Narnia (Golden Age preferably, but anytime else as well, Dust, the Dying Times, the Telmarine Era, the House of Caspian, the Long Winter, the Little Autumn -- that's the era before the White Witch took over, and there are parts of it I'd like to think about more, just in case I ever write "Danse Macabre", the Edmund time travel story) that y'all would like to see described or built up?

Comments

[aella_irene]

When Peter comes back after the time when he lost his memory for a year, with everything strange and new, and yet familiar.

Or Tirian's childhood, with his cousins. (Does he have any siblings? Or rather, did he, as he certainly wouldn't by Dust, because Bahadur would probably have married a sister, and killed everyone else.)

[be-themoon.livejournal.com]

The changes Rillian made to Cair Paravel, because creeeepy. Also, Rillian in general, and what changes he made in Narnia.

If you still need more, I'd love to hear almost anything about the Shifting Market, or the fashion styles throughout the Golden Age (Susan going through her closet in spring, haha).

World-building is rather calming, isn't it?

[be-themoon.livejournal.com]

The changes Rillian made to Cair Paravel, because creeeepy.

Cair Paravel 2 that is. Caspian's Cair Paravel. :P

[alexseanchai]

Little Autumn sounds good.

[snacky]

Description of other towns or settlements in Narnia during the Golden Age, maybe? Anything along the coast, or the northern border.

More about the Cair Paravel in Caspian and his descendants' time. Maybe some history stuff about the kings between Rilian and Tirian.

Anything calming. :D

[isweedan]

The Splendor Hyaline, Narnian ships in general, sea festivals, Narnian explorers...
Restocking Cair Paravel's library. Parades. Cavalry drills. Salt mines! ^^

[alexseanchai]

Oooh, yes, the library. Narnian literature and poetry and drama and history.

[westingturtle.livejournal.com]

The structure of Caspian's court, either just from the point of view of the Telmarine nobility and how politics works (the politics of marriage are fun no matter the world) or how their court structure integrated with the Narnians' and the hierarchies therein.

Or, a Grand Progress in Narnia, whichever royalty you like.

[lazaefair.livejournal.com]

Queen Lucy being out of place in the Calormen baths in the Valley of a Thousand Perfume ("wait. this is actually ass's milk?").

if you still want prompts, feel free to make like this is one, pt 1

[alexseanchai]

To a small child, the Queen of Spring and the King of Evening are the nightmares in the dark. They do only what is best for Narnia, there is never any doubt about that, but there is also an understanding that they are little troubled if there is collateral damage involved in achieving that which is best for Narnia. So if, as parents often say, Narnia would benefit by there being one fewer disobedient child...how fortunate for the child that Evening's King and Spring's Queen must concern themselves with the whole of Narnia, and that disobedient children therefore usually escape their notice.

The King of Summer and the Queen of Morning are better known for their benevolence, or for doing what their worshippers ask of them. But if they do not have the power to terrify, still they have the power to frighten, so the only children who call on them are the brave ones and those who feel they cannot be scared any worse by the little gods than by whatever drives them to call on the gods. And Morning's Queen and Summer's King must have a care for all of Narnia no less than their siblings must, so, if they are not invoked, they pay no more attention to children than their siblings do.

It is a rare child in Narnia who neither plays with nor prays to the Princess of Night.

The Princess is never younger than the oldest child present, nor older than the girl who will tomorrow be a woman. The child found eavesdropping and the child caught playing a trick sometimes blame it on her—Saiet is, after all, her father's daughter. The child doing another's work and the child performing random acts of kindness sometimes say it is all her idea—the Princess of the Stars is her mother's daughter as much as her father's. Opinions differ on exactly who her mother is; perhaps she is the star Alambil (turn a strong spyglass on the Lady of Peace and one may see a child on her hip as she dances the sky, though this may be another child, or perhaps the lover with whom Alambil dances), perhaps the Queen of Morning (though she is never said to be a mother), perhaps just a woman who caught the King of Evening's eye. There have been a few children who grew up hearing Calormene tales from one parent and Narnian myths from the other who are certain that Saiet and Zardeenah are great friends, others equally sure that the two are rival queens of the playground; a few others have suggested that Night's Princess and the Lady of the Night are one and the same, though the shocked looks from their playmates dissuaded most of them.

Boys abandon the worship of the Princess almost as soon as they discover that girls and boys are different races. Girls stay with her longer, but not by so much; they too are growing up, and sooner or later they must set aside childish things. Picking wildflowers to weave into Saiet's crown is by any measure a childish thing, and so is asking a favor of a tiny demigoddess (she has the power to grant small requests and does so at her whim, and the King of Shadows may do as his daughter asks him when he would not for any but her) when one is grown enough to ask instead of a little god. Even if one feels oneself still enough of a child at heart to play with her, she loses interest in her playmates when they are no longer children like herself, and she hears the prayers of an adult only if they are on the behalf of a child.

Re: if you still want prompts, feel free to make like this is one, pt 2

[alexseanchai]

So strong is the conviction that worship of the Princess of Night is something for children alone that stories of the four little gods that she is mentioned only when it need be said that the King of Evening has a daughter. If the books wish to describe her in detail, they say that children have many stories about her, each featuring themselves as co-protagonist, none therefore worth the retelling.

When the story begins spreading that the little gods again walk Narnia in human form, the children's cult grows in fervor. Perhaps the Princess of Night cannot join her father and his siblings in Narnia in flesh and blood—she is, after all, only a demigoddess, and a tiny one—but she still has power and she still has a voice, she can still act on behalf of Narnia's children and ask favors of the King of Evening, she can still face her rival Zardeenah, she can still ask her friend Zardeenah to leave Narnia to the Narnians and keep all of Calormen for Zardeenah's own. And the more one does with and for the Princess of Night, every child knows, the greater her power and the louder her voice.

At some point Edmund of Narnia may hear the stories about his daughter. He will be startled worse by knowing that she has become myth than by learning that he has. He will try telling the children that she died a toddler, that she was—not 'just human', Mehcal was not entirely human—just people, just people like him, and they will nod sagely and carry on weaving flowers into Saiet's crown. They already know that the little gods have strange beliefs about their own divinity.

She is the children's tiny goddess, Saiet, Princess of Night; she is the daughter of Evening and she is the Princess of the Stars, and she must flee before the dawn.

Re: if you still want prompts, feel free to make like this is one, pt 2

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

GAH. I do not even have to add in anything; this is ten kinds of amazing! Little Saiet, Edmund's little daughter, the children's goddess -- yes and yes. And the Calormene demigoddess!

Do you mind if the concept appears in Dust?

Re: if you still want prompts, feel free to make like this is one, pt 2

[alexseanchai]

eeeee

No, I do not mind in the slightest, and in fact it will make me clap my hands in delight to see it.

Zardeenah is actually canon, Aravis pretended to be off worshipping her in order to get away from her father, and I went *blink blink squee* when I looked up the spelling in HHB and saw she was the Lady of the Night as well as the goddess of Calormene virgins.

Re: if you still want prompts, feel free to make like this is one, pt 2

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

As per usual, I guarantee nothing, but it's really interesting, and I kind of love it.

Hmm, the Calormenes...because by LB, it doesn't seem like the Calormenes are acknowledging anyone besides Tash, but it has been sixteen hundred years...curious, curious. The Calormene pantheon must be interesting.

Re: if you still want prompts, feel free to make like this is one, pt 2

[aella_irene]

This is beautiful.

Re: if you still want prompts, feel free to make like this is one, pt 2

[alexseanchai]

*blush*

Re: if you still want prompts, feel free to make like this is one, pt 2

[westingturtle.livejournal.com]

This is just wonderful and perfect for the strange mythology sprung up in Dust. I particularly love that while historians brush it off, it is so widespread, that a star or maybe Lucy is her mother.

Oh, poor Edmund.

Re: if you still want prompts, feel free to make like this is one, pt 2

[alexseanchai]

Wouldn't really be mythology without at least one argument paralleling the difference of opinion on whether Aphrodite's parents are Zeus and Dione or Ouranos and the sea, I figure.

Re: if you still want prompts, feel free to make like this is one, pt 2

[juliekarasik.livejournal.com]

Nothing to do with anything, but I love your icon :)

Re: if you still want prompts, feel free to make like this is one, pt 2

[alexseanchai]

:) I make it. You want it, you take it, just credit me as icon maker and whoever I credited as picture maker, please.

Re: if you still want prompts, feel free to make like this is one, pt 2

[musenoise.livejournal.com]

Do you mind responsefic? I have a bit floating around in my head.....

Re: if you still want prompts, feel free to make like this is one, pt 2

[alexseanchai]

Ooh gimmegimmewannasee!

[be-themoon.livejournal.com]

Awww! That's so adorable and sweet! Yes!