Fic: Year of Sorrows
Title: Year of Sorrows
Author: aella_irene
Warnings: Incest.
Summary: Midnight mare and blood red roan/ Fight to Keep this Land Your Own
Disclaimer: The Chronicles of Narnia and its characters, settings, situations, etc., belong to C.S. Lewis. Some characters, settings, situations, etc., belong to Walden Media.
Author's Notes: One of the many fics I wrote for bedlamsbard in her time of pain.
The year after the elder Pevensies leave from Lantern Waste is one long string of disasters.
Helen, Richard, Jack and Victoria are crowned on Midsummer's Day, and take oaths from the army, the navy and the nobles. They also buy the Red Company's Contract for a year, as Peter suggested on his last day.
Their care is justified. The next day, word arrives that the Giants have decided to push their boundaries, again, so they send up an army company to reinforce the troops already there, and Valentine to provide a royal presence. They can't send any more, because the King of Telmar has also decided to make attempts at their borders, and then Natare, and then the islands start muttering about secession, so they send a third of the Navy, under Cressida's command, to shore up Kitay's hold on the Seven Isles, another third to the Lone Islands, under Tahmoh, to keep the Calormenes off, and the final third, under Richard's command, to defend Cair Paravel, and keep an eye on Galma. Thankfully, Narnia has a very large Navy.
Helen spends late summer, and most of autumn, in the saddle, riding all over Narnia to rally troops here, or fight in a skirmish there. She does not quite sleep in the saddle, but it is a near thing. Richard and Victoria stay in Cair Paravel, managing the business of trade, and agriculure, and taxes, so many things that will not stop for border skirmishes. Jack tries to be wherever Helen is not, being a presence, proving to the people that they are just as good as their parents.
When the freeze comes, it is hard and fast, and followed by snow. Helen and Jack make it to Cair Paravel, just, before the blizzards start.
It is a bad winter, one of the worst in decades, and people mutter that it is because the High King is gone, that his children are not up to the task, and they hear it, and work harder. One disaffected Shoushani nobleman, new to Court, assumes that sixteen means stupid, and tries to seduce Victoria, in order to marry her and take the throne.
She kills him.
All of them- and their cousins, working tirelessly to support them, grow thin. Helen, who is barely thirty, finds her first grey hair.
Spring brings no real relief. There are mudslides in the hills, and Saiet is nearly killed trying to keep one back while the last of the villages in its path evacuate. Helen helps with the rebuilding, but less than a week after the last, Prince Corin Thunderfist leads what they are later assured is an unauthorised raid, and is beaten back by Valentine and the Red Company. Helen rides over, and reminds him of the terms of the peace treaty between Narnia and Archenland, and warns him of the possible repercussions.
His brother Cor is even more furious- he wants Helen's daughter Cottia for his son Prince Ram, and pulls him back and confines him to Anvard.
The day after Corin leaves, Helen miscarries. It takes everyone by surprise- even she did not know she was pregnant, having failed to notice her courses stopping due to the wealth of other things grabbing for her attention. It takes five days, five days of labour pains, and bleeding, as she drops in and out of conciousness, delirious from the fever that came on the second day. Jack is sent for, but there is little he can do by the time he arrives except hold her hand.
They take her back to Cair Paravel in a litter, because the roads are too bad for a coach, and she spends a fortnight cooped up in her rooms doing paperwork, miserable and hurting, and distracted by the business that has built up despite all that the others were doing, so that she does not notice that summer is coming until it arrives.
Amazingly, it is a good summer. There is enough rain for the crops, but not too much, and the borders have gone quiet- but not too quiet. Midsummer's Day arrives, and there is a ball to celebrate, and Helen dances, in a dress the colour of the sun, with pearls in her hair, and thinks, We've done it. We've survived.
Author: aella_irene
Warnings: Incest.
Summary: Midnight mare and blood red roan/ Fight to Keep this Land Your Own
Disclaimer: The Chronicles of Narnia and its characters, settings, situations, etc., belong to C.S. Lewis. Some characters, settings, situations, etc., belong to Walden Media.
Author's Notes: One of the many fics I wrote for bedlamsbard in her time of pain.
The year after the elder Pevensies leave from Lantern Waste is one long string of disasters.
Helen, Richard, Jack and Victoria are crowned on Midsummer's Day, and take oaths from the army, the navy and the nobles. They also buy the Red Company's Contract for a year, as Peter suggested on his last day.
Their care is justified. The next day, word arrives that the Giants have decided to push their boundaries, again, so they send up an army company to reinforce the troops already there, and Valentine to provide a royal presence. They can't send any more, because the King of Telmar has also decided to make attempts at their borders, and then Natare, and then the islands start muttering about secession, so they send a third of the Navy, under Cressida's command, to shore up Kitay's hold on the Seven Isles, another third to the Lone Islands, under Tahmoh, to keep the Calormenes off, and the final third, under Richard's command, to defend Cair Paravel, and keep an eye on Galma. Thankfully, Narnia has a very large Navy.
Helen spends late summer, and most of autumn, in the saddle, riding all over Narnia to rally troops here, or fight in a skirmish there. She does not quite sleep in the saddle, but it is a near thing. Richard and Victoria stay in Cair Paravel, managing the business of trade, and agriculure, and taxes, so many things that will not stop for border skirmishes. Jack tries to be wherever Helen is not, being a presence, proving to the people that they are just as good as their parents.
When the freeze comes, it is hard and fast, and followed by snow. Helen and Jack make it to Cair Paravel, just, before the blizzards start.
It is a bad winter, one of the worst in decades, and people mutter that it is because the High King is gone, that his children are not up to the task, and they hear it, and work harder. One disaffected Shoushani nobleman, new to Court, assumes that sixteen means stupid, and tries to seduce Victoria, in order to marry her and take the throne.
She kills him.
All of them- and their cousins, working tirelessly to support them, grow thin. Helen, who is barely thirty, finds her first grey hair.
Spring brings no real relief. There are mudslides in the hills, and Saiet is nearly killed trying to keep one back while the last of the villages in its path evacuate. Helen helps with the rebuilding, but less than a week after the last, Prince Corin Thunderfist leads what they are later assured is an unauthorised raid, and is beaten back by Valentine and the Red Company. Helen rides over, and reminds him of the terms of the peace treaty between Narnia and Archenland, and warns him of the possible repercussions.
His brother Cor is even more furious- he wants Helen's daughter Cottia for his son Prince Ram, and pulls him back and confines him to Anvard.
The day after Corin leaves, Helen miscarries. It takes everyone by surprise- even she did not know she was pregnant, having failed to notice her courses stopping due to the wealth of other things grabbing for her attention. It takes five days, five days of labour pains, and bleeding, as she drops in and out of conciousness, delirious from the fever that came on the second day. Jack is sent for, but there is little he can do by the time he arrives except hold her hand.
They take her back to Cair Paravel in a litter, because the roads are too bad for a coach, and she spends a fortnight cooped up in her rooms doing paperwork, miserable and hurting, and distracted by the business that has built up despite all that the others were doing, so that she does not notice that summer is coming until it arrives.
Amazingly, it is a good summer. There is enough rain for the crops, but not too much, and the borders have gone quiet- but not too quiet. Midsummer's Day arrives, and there is a ball to celebrate, and Helen dances, in a dress the colour of the sun, with pearls in her hair, and thinks, We've done it. We've survived.