ficbits: Revelations (post-Dust, modern!Narnia)

[bedlamsbard]

I keep poking thoughtfully at this thing, trying to decide what I want to do with it. And as per usual, you can always tell what media I'm consuming by what I'm writing, which is why I keep describing these two inter-connected plotlines as a "genderbent Hobbit/Spooks/Narnia mashup." (You may be able to tell from the character types, heh. Whatever, it's my crazy fic thing and I can do what I want.)

First part here. It's post-Dust in the sense that it takes place roughly a millennium afterwards, though I could dial that back to only a few hundred years after if I wanted. I don't think there are any Dust spoilers in these two scenes. (I actually wrote three scenes, but the other one has major, major spoilers in, so it won't be going up.)

In retrospect, Idís Agathon had known that it was going to be a bad week when she came into the office on Monday morning after dashing back to her flat the night before for a few hours’ sleep and found the Home Secretary giving her boss the dressing-down of a lifetime – not audible from here, but since Dash’s office was a bloody fishbowl, clearly visible from the bullpen. Idís made her way to her desk, passing out the coffees she’d brought back with her as she went; everyone in Counter-Terrorism had been living off bad coffee and takeaway since the attacks last week.

“How long’s he been in there?” she asked Khoury, pushing aside a pile of papers and handing him the last coffee as she sat down.

“Long enough,” Khoury said, sweeping a hand through his rumpled black curls, avoiding his horns with a flick of his wrist. He didn’t look any better than Idís felt – like he’d been kipping in the supply closet and hoping no one from the task force came in with the same idea.

“Bad?”

“What do you think?” He sipped tentatively at the coffee, then took the lid off and waved it over the paper cup to cool the liquid inside down.

Anything that brought the Home Secretary down from the Lionscourt to give Dash what essentially consisted of a public bollocking, instead of making her come to his office so that he could do it in private, had to be bad. Idís glanced at the glass walls of Dash’s office again, then shrugged and turned her attention back to her desk, sorting through the files and e-mails that had arrived since she’d left Rilian House last night. There wasn’t much; it had been a week since the Cair Paravel bombings, five days since the ones in Beruna, and the task force was running itself in helpless, frustrated circles while the entire country watched.

Everyone in the bullpen looked up as the door to Dash’s office open, then immediately looked back down, trying to pretend that they hadn’t been watching the interplay between the section head and the Home Secretary. Dash jabbed her finger around the room, seemingly at random. “You, you, you, and you, you’re off the task force. Round table room now. Kesztheley, you too.”

“What did we do?” Khoury protested, as he and Idís, along with the two other officers indicated, got to their feet.

“Probably she pulled names out of a hat,” Hamel suggested. They filed into the round table room, seating themselves around the familiar battered table. Dash and the Home Secretary joined them a minute later, Dash pulling the door shut after them.

“Every law enforcement officer in this country is working around the clock to find whoever perpetrated the maglev bombings,” Dash said. “In the meantime, Aerin Ironstone is being released tomorrow from St. Leo’s and you four are going to sit on her until I say otherwise or she does something illegal so that we can prosecute her to the fullest extent of the law.”

“But –” Hamel protested.

The Home Secretary gave him a gimlet glare. “The full weight of the Narnian security agencies and local police are focused on the bombings. Ironstone will not be allowed to slip away again while the rest of Narnia is looking the other way, is that understood?”

“Yes, sir,” they all chorused.

“Arrest me a terrorist,” said the Home Secretary. “Find the Underhill girls. Get her on a parking ticket if you have to. But for the love of the Kings and Queens of Summer, don’t lose her.” He looked them over dubiously, his gaze lingering on Idís. “Put someone in that ha’penny girl gang of hers if you have to, since you’ve got one of them here.”

“Didn’t we have some kind of diversity seminar where we were told that pejorative racial terms were unacceptable under current agency policy?” Idís remarked.

Hamel coughed into his fist, while Khoury stared up at the ceiling, Kes covered her smile with her hand, and Eeghen – who was human, Telmarine, a public school girl, and trying to make up for all of it by being painfully politically correct – looked politely horrified. Dash touched her fingers to her forehead and muttered, “Oh, for love of gods.”

“With that mouth on her she ought to fit right in,” said the Home Secretary.

“I will take your suggestion under advisement, sir,” Dash said. “Khoury, you’re on point. I want a report on the Children of Stone and their current whereabouts and activities on my desk in the next hour. Go.”

They fled.

“Is this some kind of punishment?” Hamel hissed as soon as they were back in the bullpen, clearing the task force files off their desks – which left precious little behind.

“Well, the security agencies have been getting a lot of flak for not seeing the bombings coming,” Kes said. “All the usual suspects are under extra surveillance and Aerin Ironstone’s release is getting a lot of media attention.”

Hamel looked unconvinced. “Picking Idís makes sense, but the rest of us –”

“Oh, thanks,” Idís said.

“Well, you’re a dwarf! And the rest of us –”

“Lucky,” said Khoury hastily, “because this means we get to sleep at night. And it means we don’t have to worry about inter-agency cooperation, hmm?” He raised his eyebrows.

Hamel scowled.

“I’m going to go down to records and pull the Ironstone files,” Eeghen said quickly.

“Take Hamel with you, they go back almost twenty years,” Idís suggested. “An extra pair of hands will help.”

Hamel made a face, but went with her anyway. The three senior officers all looked at each other. “Well,” Idís said eventually, “this should be interesting.”

*

Leanza was curled up on the couch watching the news when Kyrinn came in, shucking her shoes and coat before joining her. “Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” Leanza said, but she didn’t look at Kyrinn. One of her textbooks was open on her lap, but she wasn’t looking at that either; her attention was fixed on the telly.

“Has something happened?” Kyrinn said, thinking about the armed guards outside the rail station she’d passed on her way back from uni. She didn’t know what worried her more, the fact that they were there at all or the fact that she was starting to get used to them.

“Not yet,” Leanza said.

“We’ll be live at the Royal Courts of Justice after this commercial break,” said the television announcer, and Leanza’s shoulders drooped a little as a advert for cat food came on.

Kyrinn leaned over and kissed her cheek, which made Leanza start and look up at her, apparently taken by surprise. “I’m going to make some cocoa,” she said, getting up. “Do you want some?”

“Sure,” Leanza said. “Do we still have some of those mini marshmallows?”

“I’ll check,” said Kyrinn. She ducked into the kitchen to put the kettle, pulling the can of cocoa out of the cupboard and finding half a bag of pink-and-white marshmallows left over from Hibah’s birthday. She returned to the sitting room with a mug in each hand just as the newsreader said, “And now over to Tolan Ryker and Narciso Bata at the Royal Courts of Justice.”

Leanza took the mug silently from Kyrinn without ever looking over.

“Thanks, Luyen,” said, presumably, Tolan, who was – probably in the spirit of one of the NBN’s diversity spates – a tall faun with a pair of curly horns poking out of his fairish hair. “We’re here live at the Royal Courts of Justice, where suspected terrorist Aerin Ironstone is being released after two years imprisonment. Miss Ironstone was originally arrested on charges of conspiracy to commit an act of terror, the specifics of which have been kept quiet by the government but which has been rumored to involve the bombing of the Lantern Waste School for Boys and Girls, a facility which specializes in educating nonhuman children in the foster system. She is also implicated in a number of other incidents, including bombings, murder, and kidnapping.”

“In the wake of the recent attacks in Cair Paravel and Beruna, her release has been controversial,” said the other reporter, Narciso, whom Kyrinn recognized from the piece that had been done on the High King’s Arms dig. “Judge Shakenoak last week released a statement explaining that some of the evidence crucial to Miss Ironstone’s arrest was deemed inadmissible in court, leaving the Courts with no legal ground on which to continue holding her. A source inside the Intelligence and Security Agency, who asked to remain unnamed, revealed to us that this evidence included audio recordings that may have been obtained through illegal wiretaps.”

Luyen, whose picture had retreated to a box in the corner of the television screen said, “Tolan, Narciso, the release of a suspected terrorist in such troubled times is obviously controversial. Can you tell us a little more about Aerin Ironstone?”

“Of course, Luyen,” Tolan said. “Aerin Ironstone is rumored to be leader of a dwarven terrorist group that calls itself ‘Children of Stone.’ While not much is known about the makeup of this group, a manifesto posted online five years ago – three years before Miss Ironstone’s arrest – claims among its goals equal rights for humans and nonhumans, the removal of human and non-dwarven residents from traditional dwarven territories, a public acknowledgment of dwarven contributions in Narnian history, and the removal of nonhuman children from human foster homes. The group has claimed responsibility for the Long Dusk bombings in Beaversdam, where three suitcase bombs were detonated in a rail station, killing a security guard and injuring over two dozen. They are also implicated in the disappearance and murder of Glasswatershire sheriff Vickrey Toye. However, most notoriously, Miss Ironstone is believed to be responsible for the kidnapping of her nieces, Tamsin and Rosaly Underhill, over fifteen years ago. While no hard evidence links Aerin Ironstone to the disappearance of Tamsin and Rosaly, Glasswater police and the children’s family have always believed her responsible.”

“We have the father of the missing children here with us now,” Narciso said, and the camera swung round to reveal a handsome middle-aged human man with spectacles and wheat-colored hair. He was wearing a fleece and holding a sign that said REMEMBER TAMMY AND ROSIE, with printouts of grainy photos glued around the letters.

“Mr. Underhill, thank you for agreeing to speak with us,” said Narciso, and the screen flashed DENES UNDERHILL father of the missing children at them. “Can you tell us how you feel about Miss Ironstone’s release?”

“Aerin Ironstone is a terrorist, a murderer, and a kidnapper,” said Mr. Underhill. “That woman should never be allowed to breathe free air.”

“It’s funny,” Kyrinn said slowly, and Leanza looked over her.

“What about this is funny?”

“Not that, I mean – she blew up a train station, right? So why are they mostly talking about these missing kids?”

There were photos on the screen now, fifteen-year-old pictures of a pair of round-cheeked little girls, one barely more than a toddler, the other a few years older with blonde plaits. At that age it was hard to tell if they resembled their dwarven mother or their human father more.

“Because no one has ever found them,” Leanza said. “They were from Glasswater, did you know? Not even that far from here – right around the corner, actually. Sort of a local legend. Aerin Ironstone was their aunt. Nobody knows if she murdered them or kidnapped them or what.”

Kyrinn looked back at the screen, where Denes Underhill was holding up what he explained computer-generated images of what his daughters would have looked like today, if they were still alive. The two reporters looked vaguely sympathetic, but not particularly interested, and the grieving father was quickly shuffled aside as a flurry of movement near the steps suggested that the courthouse doors were about to open. News cameramen and photographers from the papers jostled for places against the police cordon.

Aerin Ironstone, when she appeared, was something of a letdown. She was a tallish dwarf woman with surprisingly fine features, shoulder-length black hair, and an uncompromising expression, wearing a smart skirt and a poorly-fitting blazer that stretched over her broad shoulders. She didn’t even blink as flashbulbs went off in her face, just marched down the courthouse steps without looking to either direction. There was another woman with her, a second dwarf woman, older and gray-haired, in a much better fitting skirt suit. Her lawyer, Kyrinn guessed, though it was an assumption made from too many episodes of Jubilee Court on the telly.

“Miss Ironstone, Miss Ironstone, can you comment –”

“What did you do with the kiddies, Aerin?”

“Are the Children of Stone responsible for the maglev attacks?”

“Is there anything you want to say to the victims of the Long Dusk bombing?”

“Miss Ironstone –”

“Oi, Aerin!”

The police held back the reporters and the crowd, a number of whom were waving signs similar to Denes Underhill’s. There was a car waiting on the street, one of the squat Zebras that were designed especially for dwarves, with tinted windows rolled up. Aerin Ironstone and her lawyer got in on either side of the back doors; through the screen Kyrinn could just about manage to make out that there were figures in both the driver’s and the passenger seats in front. Both doors slammed quickly shut and the car began to roll away, but not before Denes Underhill slapped his hands against Aerin Ironstone’s window.

“Where are my daughters, you b---!” he yelled, the censors hastily beeping out the last word. “What did you do with my girls?”

“The Civil Liberties Union, which has taken partial credit for Miss Ironstone’s release, is expected to release a statement in a few minutes,” Narciso said tranquilly. “We’ll be back with you after this commercial break.”

Leanza picked up the remote and hit the mute button. “You know, I used to be obsessed with her?” she said. “Or, well, not with her, but with the Underhill girls. A lot of us were. They were like our own personal Prince Rilian, except no one’s ever found out what happened to them. There’s all kinds of crazy theories, though.”

“Yeah?” Kyrinn said. She could vaguely remember it – she had the suspicion that it was the sort of thing that cropped up in the national newspapers every few years – but it was clearly more of a Glasswater thing than a pan-Narnian one, and she was from Cair Paravel; they didn’t pay much attention to anything that happened out in the shires if they could help it.

“Yeah,” Leanza said, and laughed a little. “You know, I think I have a scrapbook somewhere that I made tracking the case? I used to clip all the articles out of the papers. Don’t laugh at me,” she added a little sheepishly.

“I’m not laughing,” Kyrinn grinned. “Remember when I went off on that Tirian I bender and spent three months talking about him through ninety percent of my waking hours and you just made me cocoa and listened to me ramble for hours? I’m not laughing.”

“I hate to break it to you, Kyr,” Leanza said, her tone mock-regretful, “but I wasn’t always listening.”

“Oh, you liar!” Kyrinn said, slapping the side of her arm. Leanza laughed, catching her mug as it threatened to splash over the rim onto the blanket she’d pulled over her lap.

“Pax, pax!” she said. “Hey, I said I was listening some of the time, but, you know, you repeated yourself a lot and I had school too.”

Kyrinn stuck her tongue out at her. “Point taken. I’ll look at your true crime scrapbook.”

“I have to find it first,” Leanza grinned. “I can’t remember if I brought it with me or if it’s in my room at home somewhere.”

*

I still can't decide if I'd rather write this as an original or as fic, so for the moment I'm writing it as fic. (I think that if I do decide to do it as an original, I'd tweak what I've written so far to be more American; I'm self-consciously trying to make it more British here because, well, Narnia.)