fic, narnia; remix
Yaaaaay Remix!
Oh surprise(!), my beloved Pen remixed one of my wee Narnia ficlets into this yummalicious Edmund&Lucy piece: We Can Start Over (the Warm By the Fire Remix). Go forth and read and enjoy and leave feedback. :) :)
And here was mine:
Title: Legacy (The Spy Who Loved Me Remix)
Summary: The most important asset to sovereignty is intelligence.
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Narnia
Characters: Edmund Pevensie, Mr. Tumnus, Lucy Pevensie
Spoilers: Refers to plotlines in LWW, HHB, PC, VDT, and SC.
A/N: Beta'd by bantha_fodder (thank you!!)
Title, Author and URL of original story: Remixed from a segment of The Wastelands, "A Game of Chess" by Mirkat or chaos-pockets
Once back in England, Edmund drew maps of Narnia and the lands beyond, doodles of roads and mountains and deserts and great lakes and the wide, uncharted ocean. He drew the North, ruled by giants and covered in harsh rock and infested with dragons; he drew Harfang, the city ruinous and the mountains that no one could scale. He drew the lands beyond the western mountains, beyond the lantern, filled with forests of unknown character. Then there was Archenland, merry Anvard and polite society covering the fierce heart holding fast on the edge of desert. Calormen, of course, was the most difficult to draw as no one quite knew how large the country really was and if any state survived an uneasy independence further and further south. To the east, the islands: sweet Galma, rugged Terebinthia, the Seven Isles with their pretty daughters and sweet rivers, and finally the ever changing Lone Islands. Beyond that, unknown.
How was it, Edmund thought, that Tumnus' network knew the comings and goings of the known world for so long? All the ins and outs and intrigue and gossip? Three wars stopped, and not a single Narnian marital alliance with foreign lands. How had they done it?
But then, there was so much he couldn't remember now in the fog that was the real world, that was England.
[][][]
As a perfect summer's day faded into an evening's twilight, Edmund found himself losing a game of chess to a faun. With Lucy asleep by the fire, he allowed himself a swift curse before knocking over his king.
"Well played, your majesty," Tumnus said with a mischievous smile.
Edmund groaned. "Not well enough. Another?"
"As you wish, sire."
Shaking his head, Edmund said, "Please - call me Edmund. We are all friends here."
A fleeting shadow of darkness passed over Tumnus' eyes and Edmund remembered the time when they were not friends at all. He remembered Her words, remembered that the faun in front of him was once imprisoned, tortured and turned into stone because a foolish little boy was hungry for sweets and sweeter words.
"Well then, Edmund," Tumnus said in a soft voice. "Shall we play the next game?"
Lucy sighed in her sleep and they both turned as one to look at her. Her face was peaceful and it comforted Edmund, tempering the edge of the past with the promise of now. Looking away, he noticed the look on Tumnus' face and was taken aback.
"You love my sister," Edmund said, this truth both confusing and obvious.
Tumnus did not blush, did not blink, did not look away. "And yet I was the traitor who took her into my home, gave her cake and tea and played her a sweet lullaby to lull her into oblivion so that She could take her, make such a pretty statue."
"You were not the traitor, Tumnus, I was."
He shook his head. "You did it out of ignorance, Edmund; you were a child. I knew what I was doing; I did what I did with intention, motive."
"Yet here we are," Edmund replied, ignoring that cold sensation of Her hand on his neck.
"Indeed."
Tumnus leaned in towards Edmund and continued, "But She was right to use us, right to employ such creatures as you and me. Your throne is only as strong as you make it, as strong as the knowledge that keeps you there and the others out."
"Aslan protects us, we have nothing to fear."
"You, sire, have never been to Tashbaan," Tumnus said with a laugh. "The Tisroc has always looked with greedy eyes at the northern lands; and how long has it been that the Lone Islands felt that they owed anything to Narnia?"
Edmund shrugged. "We just need strong foreign policy-"
"We need more than that. Our knowledge of the outside world is one hundred years old. And our realm is now ruled by four children instead of a fearsome devil perhaps older than the world itself."
He continued, "We need ears in Tashbaan, in Archenland, in Galma, in Harfang, in the den of the Giants, in the temples of Tash. We need to know of any threats in the western mountains where the sons of Adam and daughters of Eve have come to us in the past."
"You aren't serious."
Tumnus watched him carefully and waited a moment before saying, "And who best to organize such a network but one who has been a spy and a traitor himself?"
When Edmund did not respond, only stare, Tumnus said, "She chose us for a reason."
Edmund stood up sharply and stared with new eyes at the faun. "I will consider your proposal."
He all but fled the room, the whisper of Her laughter following him with each step.
- - -
"You look like you didn't sleep at all, my brother," Lucy said to him in greeting. "I slept for ages," and she stretched her arms above her head, her mouth rounded in a yawn. "I do require a great deal more tea this morning than usual, though," she declared.
Edmund smiled, poured a full cup of tea and offered her some milk. She took the small pitcher of milk from his hand and grasped his fingers with her own. "You are cold, dearest," she said. "Are you unwell?"
"I am very well, my sister," he lied gently and she seemed to accept it, squeezing his hand once before she busied herself with the tea.
With a regal cough, Peter announced in a tone civil and kingly, "I have decided that we should marry our sisters off to the princes of the world."
Susan may have giggled and Lucy may have cried out; Edmund was not sure as he knocked over tea cup, milk pitcher and bowl of sugar in shock and it took him a few moments to recover. When he did, he assured Lucy that he did not support the High King on this manner and was secretly pleased in regards to the mutinous glare she was giving her elder brother.
With purpose in his step, he found Tumnus and they spent a good quarter of an hour saying choice words about the announcement. When they had run out of all implausible threats against their beloved High King for even thinking something so foolish, an actual plan of action was raised:
"If the High King wishes to sell my sister the queen to better our alliances, we must do something about it," Edmund said. "Organize what you can, we meet in a fortnight."
Tumnus gave him a knowing smile before disappearing behind the tapestries and deeper into the castle.
- - -
Tumnus was ruthlessly efficient.
As the favored advisor and friend of the Narnian sovereigns, he began a tour of the lands far and wide to spread good will. Foreign rulers and courtiers and servants were impressed with such a quick-witted, silver-tongued creature.
A small entourage traveled with him - amusing and wise sorts of creatures who spoke well at dinners and danced beautifully at parties. No one seemed to notice that not all members of his party returned home to Narnia. Instead, the people of Tashbaan marveled at the new dancing bear in the Royal Zoo, visited often by the Tisroc himself; the giants at Harfang took little notice of the new flocks of birds at their windows; and the islanders admired a new species of cats with wise eyes.
Reports came in as fast as their eagles could bring them.
Tumnus knew what the governor of the Lone Island had for breakfast and that the giants in Harfang were itching for war; he knew the Calormene prince was preparing to woo the Queen Susan; he knew there were rumors of something coming from the West.
No one asked questions when Tumnus and Edmund took to the study for a game of chess and idle conversation.
And there never was a chosen princeling for the Queen Lucy that they did not find some incriminating evidence against.
- - -
The others had an idea but they did not wish to know the precise details.
Peter happily took any knowledge gained about the giants for his wars in the North always fired his spirit; Susan required even the most benign island gossip; and Lucy teased and cajoled them into giving her an assignment.
"Undercover and extremely dangerous," she asked, her eyes alight with glee. Tumnus looked at Edmund with pleading eyes, but there was always a restlessness in the Pevensie blood.
(No one was ever quite certain how the rumblings in the Seven Isles died down from insurrection to a simple renegotiation with the Crown. There were rumors of seduction, kidnapping and the overuse of a compulsive nepenthe; but no truth was ever confirmed.
Queen Lucy, however, always had a strange smile on her face when the governor of the Seven Isles was mentioned.)
- - -
"Is there sin in what we do? Would the Lion not save us a second time now?" Tumnus asked of him after a night of silken words to the wives of three Calormene generals and the reward of valuable information. And then in a whisper almost to himself, "Or is this, perhaps, my purpose? Walking the line of what is good and what is not?"
Edmund breathed in the sea air and missed his sister. "Doubts will only destroy your heart, my friend."
His own heart ached.
- - -
And then, there was the future Queen of Archenland whose own mare had been a spy sent into Calormen. Having tasted the sweet and bitter of betrayal herself, Aravis did not ask directly but made her own secret enquiries about the Narnian crown and their rumored spymaster.
With the whisper of silken skirts, she pulled Edmund away from the maddening crowd of court and in a voice low, she said, "O my king, there's a puzzle that I just can't work out. I was wondering if you could help me."
He eyed her with care before nodding. "Your highness?"
"When you were all but imprisoned in Tashbaan, the lot of you escaped - almost effortlessly. I hear from my beloved that it was the faun's idea - the supposed party on the ship, ordering dancers and fruits in the marketplace before slipping away in the night. Inventive plan, cunning execution."
And she leaned in further. "With such a mind guiding your other activities, I wonder how you got yourself in the position in the first place. Do you even read your reports from that sweet dancing bear of yours? The Tisroc keeps him close for his amusement and the slaves don't think twice before gossiping in front of caged beasts. You should have known what you were walking into."
Edmund gave her a small smile. "Perhaps we tire of playing safe?"
Her eyes merry, she accused, "Perhaps you spend more energy defaming the princes chosen for your other sister, my king."
"Perhaps," he said.
- - -
On his back, staring up at the dizzying brightness of the stars, he listened to Tumnus tell stories about the constellations and the histories of the star children. There was a peace, a stillness in the night and she appeared like a whispering breeze, sliding between them on the grass. He felt her hand slide into his and guessed that the other was holding Tumnus'.
"You chased away the last, Peter's given up," she said. "I shall be an old maid for an eternity."
He breathed her in - that distinctive scent mingled with grass and the earthy smell of the faun. "Are we tyrants, Lu, for keeping princes, lords, warriors and knights from your bed?" he asked.
She laughed or half-sobbed, he wasn't sure. "Oh my loves, as if I could ever, ever leave you."
[][][]
When Narnia drew him back, he found the remnants of Tumnus' network. He discovered dryads desirous of new assignments and a family of eagles still true to the cause and teeming with news untold. Prince Caspian listened intently as Edmund explained, drew maps and wrote down names.
When Narnia took him again, Edmund stared out at the seemingly endless ocean ahead of him and said to his sister, "We knew so much, down to every snake in the grass. And yet he wasn't even aware of the situation in Narrowhaven. I do not understand."
Lucy replied, "Caspian does not have a Mr. Tumnus."
"He does not have a queen's honor to protect."
"You silly goose," she laughed and wrapped an arm around him.
"Narnia is surrounded by danger. Will he see a threat before it strikes?" he asked.
"Caspian will manage," she said firmly before letting him go, her footsteps on the deck only a whisper of movement.
Edmund looked towards the east, shivering as he felt Her cool fingers sliding sinuously down his spine. "He'll manage," he said.
-fin-
Oh surprise(!), my beloved Pen remixed one of my wee Narnia ficlets into this yummalicious Edmund&Lucy piece: We Can Start Over (the Warm By the Fire Remix). Go forth and read and enjoy and leave feedback. :) :)
And here was mine:
Title: Legacy (The Spy Who Loved Me Remix)
Summary: The most important asset to sovereignty is intelligence.
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Narnia
Characters: Edmund Pevensie, Mr. Tumnus, Lucy Pevensie
Spoilers: Refers to plotlines in LWW, HHB, PC, VDT, and SC.
A/N: Beta'd by bantha_fodder (thank you!!)
Title, Author and URL of original story: Remixed from a segment of The Wastelands, "A Game of Chess" by Mirkat or chaos-pockets
Once back in England, Edmund drew maps of Narnia and the lands beyond, doodles of roads and mountains and deserts and great lakes and the wide, uncharted ocean. He drew the North, ruled by giants and covered in harsh rock and infested with dragons; he drew Harfang, the city ruinous and the mountains that no one could scale. He drew the lands beyond the western mountains, beyond the lantern, filled with forests of unknown character. Then there was Archenland, merry Anvard and polite society covering the fierce heart holding fast on the edge of desert. Calormen, of course, was the most difficult to draw as no one quite knew how large the country really was and if any state survived an uneasy independence further and further south. To the east, the islands: sweet Galma, rugged Terebinthia, the Seven Isles with their pretty daughters and sweet rivers, and finally the ever changing Lone Islands. Beyond that, unknown.
How was it, Edmund thought, that Tumnus' network knew the comings and goings of the known world for so long? All the ins and outs and intrigue and gossip? Three wars stopped, and not a single Narnian marital alliance with foreign lands. How had they done it?
But then, there was so much he couldn't remember now in the fog that was the real world, that was England.
[][][]
As a perfect summer's day faded into an evening's twilight, Edmund found himself losing a game of chess to a faun. With Lucy asleep by the fire, he allowed himself a swift curse before knocking over his king.
"Well played, your majesty," Tumnus said with a mischievous smile.
Edmund groaned. "Not well enough. Another?"
"As you wish, sire."
Shaking his head, Edmund said, "Please - call me Edmund. We are all friends here."
A fleeting shadow of darkness passed over Tumnus' eyes and Edmund remembered the time when they were not friends at all. He remembered Her words, remembered that the faun in front of him was once imprisoned, tortured and turned into stone because a foolish little boy was hungry for sweets and sweeter words.
"Well then, Edmund," Tumnus said in a soft voice. "Shall we play the next game?"
Lucy sighed in her sleep and they both turned as one to look at her. Her face was peaceful and it comforted Edmund, tempering the edge of the past with the promise of now. Looking away, he noticed the look on Tumnus' face and was taken aback.
"You love my sister," Edmund said, this truth both confusing and obvious.
Tumnus did not blush, did not blink, did not look away. "And yet I was the traitor who took her into my home, gave her cake and tea and played her a sweet lullaby to lull her into oblivion so that She could take her, make such a pretty statue."
"You were not the traitor, Tumnus, I was."
He shook his head. "You did it out of ignorance, Edmund; you were a child. I knew what I was doing; I did what I did with intention, motive."
"Yet here we are," Edmund replied, ignoring that cold sensation of Her hand on his neck.
"Indeed."
Tumnus leaned in towards Edmund and continued, "But She was right to use us, right to employ such creatures as you and me. Your throne is only as strong as you make it, as strong as the knowledge that keeps you there and the others out."
"Aslan protects us, we have nothing to fear."
"You, sire, have never been to Tashbaan," Tumnus said with a laugh. "The Tisroc has always looked with greedy eyes at the northern lands; and how long has it been that the Lone Islands felt that they owed anything to Narnia?"
Edmund shrugged. "We just need strong foreign policy-"
"We need more than that. Our knowledge of the outside world is one hundred years old. And our realm is now ruled by four children instead of a fearsome devil perhaps older than the world itself."
He continued, "We need ears in Tashbaan, in Archenland, in Galma, in Harfang, in the den of the Giants, in the temples of Tash. We need to know of any threats in the western mountains where the sons of Adam and daughters of Eve have come to us in the past."
"You aren't serious."
Tumnus watched him carefully and waited a moment before saying, "And who best to organize such a network but one who has been a spy and a traitor himself?"
When Edmund did not respond, only stare, Tumnus said, "She chose us for a reason."
Edmund stood up sharply and stared with new eyes at the faun. "I will consider your proposal."
He all but fled the room, the whisper of Her laughter following him with each step.
- - -
"You look like you didn't sleep at all, my brother," Lucy said to him in greeting. "I slept for ages," and she stretched her arms above her head, her mouth rounded in a yawn. "I do require a great deal more tea this morning than usual, though," she declared.
Edmund smiled, poured a full cup of tea and offered her some milk. She took the small pitcher of milk from his hand and grasped his fingers with her own. "You are cold, dearest," she said. "Are you unwell?"
"I am very well, my sister," he lied gently and she seemed to accept it, squeezing his hand once before she busied herself with the tea.
With a regal cough, Peter announced in a tone civil and kingly, "I have decided that we should marry our sisters off to the princes of the world."
Susan may have giggled and Lucy may have cried out; Edmund was not sure as he knocked over tea cup, milk pitcher and bowl of sugar in shock and it took him a few moments to recover. When he did, he assured Lucy that he did not support the High King on this manner and was secretly pleased in regards to the mutinous glare she was giving her elder brother.
With purpose in his step, he found Tumnus and they spent a good quarter of an hour saying choice words about the announcement. When they had run out of all implausible threats against their beloved High King for even thinking something so foolish, an actual plan of action was raised:
"If the High King wishes to sell my sister the queen to better our alliances, we must do something about it," Edmund said. "Organize what you can, we meet in a fortnight."
Tumnus gave him a knowing smile before disappearing behind the tapestries and deeper into the castle.
- - -
Tumnus was ruthlessly efficient.
As the favored advisor and friend of the Narnian sovereigns, he began a tour of the lands far and wide to spread good will. Foreign rulers and courtiers and servants were impressed with such a quick-witted, silver-tongued creature.
A small entourage traveled with him - amusing and wise sorts of creatures who spoke well at dinners and danced beautifully at parties. No one seemed to notice that not all members of his party returned home to Narnia. Instead, the people of Tashbaan marveled at the new dancing bear in the Royal Zoo, visited often by the Tisroc himself; the giants at Harfang took little notice of the new flocks of birds at their windows; and the islanders admired a new species of cats with wise eyes.
Reports came in as fast as their eagles could bring them.
Tumnus knew what the governor of the Lone Island had for breakfast and that the giants in Harfang were itching for war; he knew the Calormene prince was preparing to woo the Queen Susan; he knew there were rumors of something coming from the West.
No one asked questions when Tumnus and Edmund took to the study for a game of chess and idle conversation.
And there never was a chosen princeling for the Queen Lucy that they did not find some incriminating evidence against.
- - -
The others had an idea but they did not wish to know the precise details.
Peter happily took any knowledge gained about the giants for his wars in the North always fired his spirit; Susan required even the most benign island gossip; and Lucy teased and cajoled them into giving her an assignment.
"Undercover and extremely dangerous," she asked, her eyes alight with glee. Tumnus looked at Edmund with pleading eyes, but there was always a restlessness in the Pevensie blood.
(No one was ever quite certain how the rumblings in the Seven Isles died down from insurrection to a simple renegotiation with the Crown. There were rumors of seduction, kidnapping and the overuse of a compulsive nepenthe; but no truth was ever confirmed.
Queen Lucy, however, always had a strange smile on her face when the governor of the Seven Isles was mentioned.)
- - -
"Is there sin in what we do? Would the Lion not save us a second time now?" Tumnus asked of him after a night of silken words to the wives of three Calormene generals and the reward of valuable information. And then in a whisper almost to himself, "Or is this, perhaps, my purpose? Walking the line of what is good and what is not?"
Edmund breathed in the sea air and missed his sister. "Doubts will only destroy your heart, my friend."
His own heart ached.
- - -
And then, there was the future Queen of Archenland whose own mare had been a spy sent into Calormen. Having tasted the sweet and bitter of betrayal herself, Aravis did not ask directly but made her own secret enquiries about the Narnian crown and their rumored spymaster.
With the whisper of silken skirts, she pulled Edmund away from the maddening crowd of court and in a voice low, she said, "O my king, there's a puzzle that I just can't work out. I was wondering if you could help me."
He eyed her with care before nodding. "Your highness?"
"When you were all but imprisoned in Tashbaan, the lot of you escaped - almost effortlessly. I hear from my beloved that it was the faun's idea - the supposed party on the ship, ordering dancers and fruits in the marketplace before slipping away in the night. Inventive plan, cunning execution."
And she leaned in further. "With such a mind guiding your other activities, I wonder how you got yourself in the position in the first place. Do you even read your reports from that sweet dancing bear of yours? The Tisroc keeps him close for his amusement and the slaves don't think twice before gossiping in front of caged beasts. You should have known what you were walking into."
Edmund gave her a small smile. "Perhaps we tire of playing safe?"
Her eyes merry, she accused, "Perhaps you spend more energy defaming the princes chosen for your other sister, my king."
"Perhaps," he said.
- - -
On his back, staring up at the dizzying brightness of the stars, he listened to Tumnus tell stories about the constellations and the histories of the star children. There was a peace, a stillness in the night and she appeared like a whispering breeze, sliding between them on the grass. He felt her hand slide into his and guessed that the other was holding Tumnus'.
"You chased away the last, Peter's given up," she said. "I shall be an old maid for an eternity."
He breathed her in - that distinctive scent mingled with grass and the earthy smell of the faun. "Are we tyrants, Lu, for keeping princes, lords, warriors and knights from your bed?" he asked.
She laughed or half-sobbed, he wasn't sure. "Oh my loves, as if I could ever, ever leave you."
[][][]
When Narnia drew him back, he found the remnants of Tumnus' network. He discovered dryads desirous of new assignments and a family of eagles still true to the cause and teeming with news untold. Prince Caspian listened intently as Edmund explained, drew maps and wrote down names.
When Narnia took him again, Edmund stared out at the seemingly endless ocean ahead of him and said to his sister, "We knew so much, down to every snake in the grass. And yet he wasn't even aware of the situation in Narrowhaven. I do not understand."
Lucy replied, "Caspian does not have a Mr. Tumnus."
"He does not have a queen's honor to protect."
"You silly goose," she laughed and wrapped an arm around him.
"Narnia is surrounded by danger. Will he see a threat before it strikes?" he asked.
"Caspian will manage," she said firmly before letting him go, her footsteps on the deck only a whisper of movement.
Edmund looked towards the east, shivering as he felt Her cool fingers sliding sinuously down his spine. "He'll manage," he said.
-fin-