more request fic
Jun. 19th, 2009 12:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedlamsbardFor almostinstinct, who requested, "Lucy - saint."
Everyone in the castle is spending at least a few minutes out of their day in the castle’s great temple of Aslan. Tirian has never liked the great temple; it’s too big and gaudy, impersonal. He shows up there twice a day for appearance’s sake, saying his prayers because a few extra can’t hurt, but when he can, he goes to the small family temple on the landside of the castle. With everyone in the great temple, the small temple is nearly empty; Tirian nods his obeisance to Aslan and the Queen of Spring, lights a candle to the King of Summer, another to the King of Evening, but it’s the Queen of Morning he bows to. He lights his candles and two sticks of incense and puts his offering in front of the statue. A pineapple, the Morningstar’s favorite fruit, a plate of olives for peace, a pomegranate for the path into the Summerlands, fresh bread, a plate of mixed berries, another one of small dried fish, a pinch of salt, and two small glass cups, one of pale pink raspberry brandy and another of pomegranate juice.
He stays kneeling in front of the statue for a long time. It’s been a week and a half since his grandfather’s apoplexy and Tirian has no more words, not anymore. His grandfather is dying. There’s nothing he can do to save King Gerion of Narnia; the only thing he can hope for is that his father arrives before his grandfather dies.
“Help him,” he says at last. “Please. Gerion of Narnia was good to you and your kin; shield him from your sister’s arrows until he can speak to my father.” Tirian kisses his fingers, blows on them to send the prayer to the Queen of Morning’s ears, and makes the four-point sign before he rises.
Begun forsnacky, who requested, "Lucy and Edmund visiting Tashbaan, and walking the city," but there is actually no Edmund, Tashbaan, or city, though there is Lucy and walking. And for katakokk, who asked, "about a time when Lucy and Edmund...are lost?" Only Edmund isn't there. But Lucy is lost!
She tries to breathe through her nose because every time she opens her mouth, the moisture evaporates off her teeth before she can take a breath.
The pounding heat of the desert beats down on head and shoulders; Lucy wraps her stolen Calormene robe more tightly around herself with fingers that are already dry and leathery and starting to shake. The heat is all-enveloping; the robe gives her some little shade, though hardly enough to warrant the name. She’s fairly certain the only way she’d be any hotter was if someone folded her into a clay pot and stuck her in an oven.
She staggers onward, a thin, uneven line eastwards, towards the sea that Aslan came from and that they will all return to in the end. If she were to look back (and she did, only once, enough to see the endless stretch of the Bey’alefn’ Bezalr’ga, the Great Desert, and shudder, because it seemed to go on forever; the heat shimmers on the western horizon did nothing to dissipate the vision), she would see nothing. Because there is nothing here: no plants, no animals, no water, no life. This is the antithesis of Narnia.
Lucy takes another step, and then another, and wills herself to live and survive. So long as she keeps fighting, Aslan will save her. Because that’s what he does: he saves her. So long as she’s still fighting. So long as she doesn’t give up. He’ll come for her.
Because if he doesn’t, then she’s going to die out here, and no one will ever know what happened to her. Her body will mummify like the remains Oruç (the bastard; if -- when -- she lives, she’s going to come back here with the express purpose of kicking his arse to kingdom come) showed her back at the abandoned Nüzhet ruins, the sand will eventually scour the flesh from her bones, and Narnia will forget her. She will never go home, never lie on cool green hills or bathe in the Great Eastern Ocean, never kiss another man or woman, laughing with midsummer wine, never kneel by the banks of the River Rush and pour handfuls of cold water over her bare neck. She will never see her siblings again.
She will die a hot, ugly, useless death. She cannot allow that to happen.
Lucy takes another step.
almostinstinct, who requested, "Lucy - saint."Everyone in the castle is spending at least a few minutes out of their day in the castle’s great temple of Aslan. Tirian has never liked the great temple; it’s too big and gaudy, impersonal. He shows up there twice a day for appearance’s sake, saying his prayers because a few extra can’t hurt, but when he can, he goes to the small family temple on the landside of the castle. With everyone in the great temple, the small temple is nearly empty; Tirian nods his obeisance to Aslan and the Queen of Spring, lights a candle to the King of Summer, another to the King of Evening, but it’s the Queen of Morning he bows to. He lights his candles and two sticks of incense and puts his offering in front of the statue. A pineapple, the Morningstar’s favorite fruit, a plate of olives for peace, a pomegranate for the path into the Summerlands, fresh bread, a plate of mixed berries, another one of small dried fish, a pinch of salt, and two small glass cups, one of pale pink raspberry brandy and another of pomegranate juice.
He stays kneeling in front of the statue for a long time. It’s been a week and a half since his grandfather’s apoplexy and Tirian has no more words, not anymore. His grandfather is dying. There’s nothing he can do to save King Gerion of Narnia; the only thing he can hope for is that his father arrives before his grandfather dies.
“Help him,” he says at last. “Please. Gerion of Narnia was good to you and your kin; shield him from your sister’s arrows until he can speak to my father.” Tirian kisses his fingers, blows on them to send the prayer to the Queen of Morning’s ears, and makes the four-point sign before he rises.
Begun for
snacky, who requested, "Lucy and Edmund visiting Tashbaan, and walking the city," but there is actually no Edmund, Tashbaan, or city, though there is Lucy and walking. And for katakokk, who asked, "about a time when Lucy and Edmund...are lost?" Only Edmund isn't there. But Lucy is lost!She tries to breathe through her nose because every time she opens her mouth, the moisture evaporates off her teeth before she can take a breath.
The pounding heat of the desert beats down on head and shoulders; Lucy wraps her stolen Calormene robe more tightly around herself with fingers that are already dry and leathery and starting to shake. The heat is all-enveloping; the robe gives her some little shade, though hardly enough to warrant the name. She’s fairly certain the only way she’d be any hotter was if someone folded her into a clay pot and stuck her in an oven.
She staggers onward, a thin, uneven line eastwards, towards the sea that Aslan came from and that they will all return to in the end. If she were to look back (and she did, only once, enough to see the endless stretch of the Bey’alefn’ Bezalr’ga, the Great Desert, and shudder, because it seemed to go on forever; the heat shimmers on the western horizon did nothing to dissipate the vision), she would see nothing. Because there is nothing here: no plants, no animals, no water, no life. This is the antithesis of Narnia.
Lucy takes another step, and then another, and wills herself to live and survive. So long as she keeps fighting, Aslan will save her. Because that’s what he does: he saves her. So long as she’s still fighting. So long as she doesn’t give up. He’ll come for her.
Because if he doesn’t, then she’s going to die out here, and no one will ever know what happened to her. Her body will mummify like the remains Oruç (the bastard; if -- when -- she lives, she’s going to come back here with the express purpose of kicking his arse to kingdom come) showed her back at the abandoned Nüzhet ruins, the sand will eventually scour the flesh from her bones, and Narnia will forget her. She will never go home, never lie on cool green hills or bathe in the Great Eastern Ocean, never kiss another man or woman, laughing with midsummer wine, never kneel by the banks of the River Rush and pour handfuls of cold water over her bare neck. She will never see her siblings again.
She will die a hot, ugly, useless death. She cannot allow that to happen.
Lucy takes another step.