dust ficbit
Apr. 25th, 2010 07:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedlamsbardSo, a while ago, I put out a call for Dust prompts, and ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
westingturtle and caramelsilver both asked for Jill in Narnia, so I started writing about Jill's first Narnian festival, then got distracted. I still haven't finished it, but seeing as I'm not sure it's actually going to get finished, here it is as is.
Months after it passes, Jill finds out that her first Narnian festival was actually Long Dusk, but it had been forgotten in the uproar of the Calormene conquest, passing by silently and without acclaim while the temples and shrines were ransacked and burned, a false Aslan preaching his doctrine, the Tisroc’s cartographers adding Narnia to maps of the Calormene empire in Tashbaan.
The first Narnian festival to be properly celebrated, or as much as can be in the camps, is Promise of Hope, at the coldest, darkest point of winter, when all Jill wants to do is burrow into Jewel’s side in their clumsily built shelter and never, ever come out again. It’s not as bad as her time on the moors – not quite – but at least on the moors they’d been moving, seeing something new every day, but in Narnia all they do is stay in the same place, hoping and praying that the Tisroc’s men aren’t foolish enough to venture this far into the Western Wild. Jill has been keeping careful count of the days, marking them out on a fallen branch with her penknife; so far they’ve been in Narnia for eighty-nine days and accomplished a grand total of saving the king’s life and losing the country to the Calormenes. Surely Aslan will help them at some point in time, but every day that thought seems more and more absurd. Maybe he’s abandoned them. Maybe they’re not doing something right. Maybe both.
It’s Eustace who wakes her up on the dawn of Promise of Hope day, sticking his head into the lean-to and saying with his absolutely ridiculous customary cheer, “Get up, Pole! You have to see this.”
“No,” Jill says firmly, turning her face into the blankets. “I absolutely do not have to.”
“Pole,” Eustace says, a whine, and Jill wants to slap him and tell him to shut up, that there’s nothing in Narnia she wants to see. She doesn’t, because that would require relinquishing the scant protection of the blankets.
“Pole,” he wheedles, a different inflection this time, and that’s Eustace Clarence Scrubb for you, a spoiled little brat that knows every trick in the book for getting exactly what he wants from whoever is around him. No wonder he’s not very fond of his cousins; they’re the only ones who don’t put up with his nonsense. Jill likes to think that she doesn’t, much, but she knows she’s wrong there; there’s just something about Eustace, about months of wandering around Narnia’s northern moors together, that’s somehow managed to endear the both of them to each other, in the little corners of their hearts neither of them are willing to admit exist.
“What,” she allows herself to say, shortly, and even with her face turned away can picture Eustace’s expression – just starting to droop a little, perking up suddenly at her concession. He is, perhaps, more eager for attention that he’ll ever admit out loud, especially to her.
“It’s some kind of Narnian holiday –” he begins, and just as Jill is about to inform him that in the depths of winter, when Narnia has been conquered – when Narnia as a country doesn’t exist – Jewel surges out from beneath her, so that Jill loses her pillow and has to fight her way out of the cocoon of blankets.
“It’s Promise of Hope,” the unicorn says excitedly, and when Jill finally emerges, it’s to see Jewel dancing eagerly in place, coat whiter than the snow surrounding the lean-to. Eustace is next to him, regarding her hopefully, a shapeless bundle under layers of coats against the cold.
For lack of a better option, Jill comes out as well, piling on another coat and shoving her feet into her too large boots. “Which is?” she inquires, pulling a ratty wool hat down over her hair, which is loose around her shoulders for warmth.
And now I am absolutely going back to my paper. LJ folk, you may have missed this, since I didn't crosspost.
westingturtle and caramelsilver both asked for Jill in Narnia, so I started writing about Jill's first Narnian festival, then got distracted. I still haven't finished it, but seeing as I'm not sure it's actually going to get finished, here it is as is.Months after it passes, Jill finds out that her first Narnian festival was actually Long Dusk, but it had been forgotten in the uproar of the Calormene conquest, passing by silently and without acclaim while the temples and shrines were ransacked and burned, a false Aslan preaching his doctrine, the Tisroc’s cartographers adding Narnia to maps of the Calormene empire in Tashbaan.
The first Narnian festival to be properly celebrated, or as much as can be in the camps, is Promise of Hope, at the coldest, darkest point of winter, when all Jill wants to do is burrow into Jewel’s side in their clumsily built shelter and never, ever come out again. It’s not as bad as her time on the moors – not quite – but at least on the moors they’d been moving, seeing something new every day, but in Narnia all they do is stay in the same place, hoping and praying that the Tisroc’s men aren’t foolish enough to venture this far into the Western Wild. Jill has been keeping careful count of the days, marking them out on a fallen branch with her penknife; so far they’ve been in Narnia for eighty-nine days and accomplished a grand total of saving the king’s life and losing the country to the Calormenes. Surely Aslan will help them at some point in time, but every day that thought seems more and more absurd. Maybe he’s abandoned them. Maybe they’re not doing something right. Maybe both.
It’s Eustace who wakes her up on the dawn of Promise of Hope day, sticking his head into the lean-to and saying with his absolutely ridiculous customary cheer, “Get up, Pole! You have to see this.”
“No,” Jill says firmly, turning her face into the blankets. “I absolutely do not have to.”
“Pole,” Eustace says, a whine, and Jill wants to slap him and tell him to shut up, that there’s nothing in Narnia she wants to see. She doesn’t, because that would require relinquishing the scant protection of the blankets.
“Pole,” he wheedles, a different inflection this time, and that’s Eustace Clarence Scrubb for you, a spoiled little brat that knows every trick in the book for getting exactly what he wants from whoever is around him. No wonder he’s not very fond of his cousins; they’re the only ones who don’t put up with his nonsense. Jill likes to think that she doesn’t, much, but she knows she’s wrong there; there’s just something about Eustace, about months of wandering around Narnia’s northern moors together, that’s somehow managed to endear the both of them to each other, in the little corners of their hearts neither of them are willing to admit exist.
“What,” she allows herself to say, shortly, and even with her face turned away can picture Eustace’s expression – just starting to droop a little, perking up suddenly at her concession. He is, perhaps, more eager for attention that he’ll ever admit out loud, especially to her.
“It’s some kind of Narnian holiday –” he begins, and just as Jill is about to inform him that in the depths of winter, when Narnia has been conquered – when Narnia as a country doesn’t exist – Jewel surges out from beneath her, so that Jill loses her pillow and has to fight her way out of the cocoon of blankets.
“It’s Promise of Hope,” the unicorn says excitedly, and when Jill finally emerges, it’s to see Jewel dancing eagerly in place, coat whiter than the snow surrounding the lean-to. Eustace is next to him, regarding her hopefully, a shapeless bundle under layers of coats against the cold.
For lack of a better option, Jill comes out as well, piling on another coat and shoving her feet into her too large boots. “Which is?” she inquires, pulling a ratty wool hat down over her hair, which is loose around her shoulders for warmth.
And now I am absolutely going back to my paper. LJ folk, you may have missed this, since I didn't crosspost.