Big Bang Fic: The Red Leather Trousers Escapade (3/17)
Title: The Red Leather Trousers Escapade (3/17)
Author: wingedflight21
Rating: K+
Word Count: ~24K
Disclaimer: The Chronicles of Narnia do not, never have, and most likely never will belong to me.
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: Occurs in an AU of The Silver Chair.
Author's Notes: A huge thanks to snitchnipped, rthstewart, and especially accidentalsquid as well as anyone else who helped me through these last few months and numerous chapters.
Summary: An assassination attempt gone wrong sends Jill and Eustace off to solve the mystery behind the attacks, all while playing dead. SCAUverse.
-X-
Chapter Two
-X-
It was too much to hope that the creature had not seen them; that it had, perhaps, no interest in them today. The head was turning jerkily, scanning the surface of the water, tilting in a mock semblance of curiosity.
It felt as though Jill’s throat was closing up in fear. She tried to swallow, coughed, and tried again.
“Swim,” Eustace ordered hoarsely.
Right. Swim. She could do that. She pulled her arm tight around him again and rolled back, feeling the cold of the water close over her ears. Eustace was hanging limp against her as she struck out. For several minutes, there was nothing but the thrum of the ocean. Then, Eustace jerked.
She pulled her head up and saw instantly what had caused the alarm. It was the mermaid - or, rather, the absence of the creature, for it had disappeared from the horizon of the water. A mermaid in the distance was less alarming than a mermaid of unknown proximity, Jill realized. She took a moment to regain her breath, tipped back, continued to swim.
When next she looked, the head had reappeared half as far as it previously had been.
There was a shout from above - from the cliff, she remembered - and something flew into the water near the mermaid. It was an arrow, followed by another, which would mean the archers were more frightened of the mermaid than they were determined to finish her and Eustace off. Unless they had been overpowered, the arrows now coming from their friends. And then the arrows ceased and there was another shout, and Jill twisted her head just in time to see a flailing figure tumble over the side of the cliff and plummet to the water below. He disappeared beneath the spray thrown up from his impact, close enough that Jill ducked her head as the splatter rained down upon her.
She hadn’t been able to tell who the man was as he fell and was not to get the chance. The mermaid shrieked in triumph and dove towards the spot where the man had disappeared.
He didn’t resurface.
The arrows from above had ceased and when Jill glanced up again, she saw that the top of the cliff was vacated. No one was there - no one to save them. She wiped away the salt water from her eyes and set out again. She was going so slow, the water felt so thick, she wasn’t moving -
Eustace jolted, the motion so unexpected that it broke her hold on him. He dropped beneath the surface before her scrambling fingers could catch at his arm. The mermaid, she realized, her heart clenching, and she ducked her head beneath the water and forced her eyes open. She could barely make out the top of his head, could see the red trail of the blood from his wound leading down, tried to reach for him but the buoyancy was too strong and forced her up -
She coughed upon breaking the surface, her stinging eyes making out pale face and dark hair no more than an arm’s length away. Jill gasped again, more from the shock of realizing that the mermaid was so close and yet didn’t have Eustace - !
He came up then, between her and the mermaid, and Jill grabbed for him just as he drew back his arm to throw. She couldn’t see what it was he held in his hand, except that it was brown and limp.
He threw it with what was clearly the last of his strength and the improvised missile struck the mermaid square between its eyes. Its mouth fell open - to sing, Jill thought in horror - but then its head tilted slowly to the side before sinking beneath the surface.
A rough, disbelieving laugh escaped Jill. He’d done it - had he done it - had he driven the mermaid away? Eustace was already slipping beneath the surface again and Jill caught him anxiously.
“What - how did you?”
A shuddering cough racked his body, but Eustace was grinning. “Boot,” he gasped, “Threw m’boot.”
-X-
It was the swirl of water against her arm that woke her. Jill felt heavy, as if she had been turned to stone like in the stories of the Hundred Year Winter. She couldn’t move, didn’t really want to move. The water touched her arm again. Reluctantly, she shifted away from the cold of the water, skin dragging against rough sand, the skin of her palm stinging as she flexed her fingers.
Pain. Sand. Water.
It came back to her all too fast: the terrifying fall, the desperate swim, the long and draining time spent pulling herself and Eustace along the cliff in search of a beach. She couldn’t even remember finding one, couldn’t recall pulling the two of them up out of the water, but the sand she was laying on now was real and firm - and wet.
She scrambled up to her knees. Eustace was beside her, slightly further up the beach so that the water had only just reached his waist. Although, to call it a beach almost felt an exaggeration, for the strip of sand was small and shrinking as the tide moved in. The sun was low on the horizon, evidence that a good half day had passed since the initial tumble into the water.
She crawled up to Eustace’s side and bit her lip at the blood-soaked patch just below his right shoulder. She’d learned how to treat wounds such as this before, of course, but never before had she done so without a medical kit.
The tunic tore open easily enough, though Eustace groaned when the motion jostled his back. “Hush. Lie still,” she told him, uncertain if he was even awake to hear her. The wound was not so frightening as she’d been afraid of. The arrow must have pierced him as Eustace had pulled her down, for it had not lodged in his skin but had left a nasty cut from below his armpit to the peak of his shoulder. The skin around it was swollen and red, a majority of the blood washed away by the water.
She had to look away and take steady breaths before she could gather the courage to look again. She needed to bind the wound to prevent further loss of blood, which meant bandages. The best she could do was tear strips from the bottom of her tunic. Carefully, she wove them around Eustace’s shoulder.
And then there was nothing more she could do.
She stared down at her bloodied hands and then at the bandage, desperately hoping that it was enough. A wave of water swirled up the beach.
There was no longer time to wait. “Eustace, wake up. Wake up. We have to move. Please.”
He stirred again, one eye opening. “Not yet.”
“Eustace, the tide is coming in. We have to move.”
Gradually, her persistence began to wear on him. With her help, Eustace was able to pull himself up, although he winced as the movement pulled at muscles in his back.
“My shoulder -?” he asked.
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” she said, and admitted, “I was able to bandage it for you.”
He grunted and winced again as he accidentally moved his arm too fast. “Right. Good. Let’s get going then.”
-X-
“I’m lopsided,” Eustace said, his voice matter-of-fact. His eyes were distant, his arm trembling against her. Jill pressed her lips together in concern.
“Lopsided,” Eustace repeated.
“You are leaning all your weight on me,” Jill said testily. As if to compound her point, her foot slipped on the sand and she stumbled to the side, barely able to keep her balance against Eustace’s weight. He grunted in pain and sucked in a breath at the sudden movement.
She steadied herself and paused to be sure of her footing before continuing on. Eustace waited a beat before saying again, “Lopsided.”
She raised her eyes to the heavens. “Yes, because I’m holding you up. I got that.”
“No. Well, yes. But -” He hissed as Jill stumbled again, jostling his shoulder. “But - lopsided. My boot.”
“Your boot,” she repeated, before remembering that his left boot was sitting at the bottom of the sea.
They were nearing the tip of the promontory. It was almost too much for Jill to focus on putting one foot before the other, let alone to have Eustace muttering nonsense in her ear. There was too much to think about: ignoring the rise of the tide enough to keep the fear down while searching for some way, any way, up off the beach. She’d never hated cliffs so keenly as now.
Painstakingly slow, they approached the tip of the promontory and then, just like that, they had rounded the point to the other side. Jill almost didn’t dare to look up. There was a flutter of hope that they had made it out of danger, hope that there was a safe way up the cliffs.
And then she raised her eyes and saw nothing but the continuing cliff face and the shrinking strip of beach.
Eustace swore.
“We keep moving,” she decided, and continued to walk along the sand, holding tight to Eustace and doing her best to ignore his weight. “We’ll find a path - there’s got to be a path.”
He stumbled, pulling her down on her knees in the sand. He was tipping to the side and she clung to him desperately and shouted his name in alarm at the white in his eyes. For one instant she was absolutely terrified that it was too late to save him, and then she realized that he’d only fainted.
Her hands were shaking as she lay him flat on the sand, brushing her palm anxiously across his forehead. “Wake up,” she muttered to him, and he moaned, his head lolling. “We’ve just got a little bit further.”
She lifted her head to the sky in a wordless prayer, brushing away the tears. A swirl of water pulled at her knees and receded. Eustace’s hand grabbed at her own and she brought her eyes down -
Wait. What was that she’d seen, hidden in the rough of the cliff wall? She almost couldn’t find it again, almost thought it was just a dream, and then her eyes caught again the dark impression above. It was a hole - barely large enough to crawl through, it looked like - but if there was a tunnel, there was a chance it would lead upward. Akili Jonuk had said all sorts of tunnels filled these cliffs.
But oh, she did not want to go in there.
Eustace clutched at her hand again as another wave flooded the beach. She bit her lip and struggled against the fear. She had to do it. She had to go into the tunnel.
Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Epilogue|
Author: wingedflight21
Rating: K+
Word Count: ~24K
Disclaimer: The Chronicles of Narnia do not, never have, and most likely never will belong to me.
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: Occurs in an AU of The Silver Chair.
Author's Notes: A huge thanks to snitchnipped, rthstewart, and especially accidentalsquid as well as anyone else who helped me through these last few months and numerous chapters.
Summary: An assassination attempt gone wrong sends Jill and Eustace off to solve the mystery behind the attacks, all while playing dead. SCAUverse.
-X-
Chapter Two
-X-
It was too much to hope that the creature had not seen them; that it had, perhaps, no interest in them today. The head was turning jerkily, scanning the surface of the water, tilting in a mock semblance of curiosity.
It felt as though Jill’s throat was closing up in fear. She tried to swallow, coughed, and tried again.
“Swim,” Eustace ordered hoarsely.
Right. Swim. She could do that. She pulled her arm tight around him again and rolled back, feeling the cold of the water close over her ears. Eustace was hanging limp against her as she struck out. For several minutes, there was nothing but the thrum of the ocean. Then, Eustace jerked.
She pulled her head up and saw instantly what had caused the alarm. It was the mermaid - or, rather, the absence of the creature, for it had disappeared from the horizon of the water. A mermaid in the distance was less alarming than a mermaid of unknown proximity, Jill realized. She took a moment to regain her breath, tipped back, continued to swim.
When next she looked, the head had reappeared half as far as it previously had been.
There was a shout from above - from the cliff, she remembered - and something flew into the water near the mermaid. It was an arrow, followed by another, which would mean the archers were more frightened of the mermaid than they were determined to finish her and Eustace off. Unless they had been overpowered, the arrows now coming from their friends. And then the arrows ceased and there was another shout, and Jill twisted her head just in time to see a flailing figure tumble over the side of the cliff and plummet to the water below. He disappeared beneath the spray thrown up from his impact, close enough that Jill ducked her head as the splatter rained down upon her.
She hadn’t been able to tell who the man was as he fell and was not to get the chance. The mermaid shrieked in triumph and dove towards the spot where the man had disappeared.
He didn’t resurface.
The arrows from above had ceased and when Jill glanced up again, she saw that the top of the cliff was vacated. No one was there - no one to save them. She wiped away the salt water from her eyes and set out again. She was going so slow, the water felt so thick, she wasn’t moving -
Eustace jolted, the motion so unexpected that it broke her hold on him. He dropped beneath the surface before her scrambling fingers could catch at his arm. The mermaid, she realized, her heart clenching, and she ducked her head beneath the water and forced her eyes open. She could barely make out the top of his head, could see the red trail of the blood from his wound leading down, tried to reach for him but the buoyancy was too strong and forced her up -
She coughed upon breaking the surface, her stinging eyes making out pale face and dark hair no more than an arm’s length away. Jill gasped again, more from the shock of realizing that the mermaid was so close and yet didn’t have Eustace - !
He came up then, between her and the mermaid, and Jill grabbed for him just as he drew back his arm to throw. She couldn’t see what it was he held in his hand, except that it was brown and limp.
He threw it with what was clearly the last of his strength and the improvised missile struck the mermaid square between its eyes. Its mouth fell open - to sing, Jill thought in horror - but then its head tilted slowly to the side before sinking beneath the surface.
A rough, disbelieving laugh escaped Jill. He’d done it - had he done it - had he driven the mermaid away? Eustace was already slipping beneath the surface again and Jill caught him anxiously.
“What - how did you?”
A shuddering cough racked his body, but Eustace was grinning. “Boot,” he gasped, “Threw m’boot.”
-X-
It was the swirl of water against her arm that woke her. Jill felt heavy, as if she had been turned to stone like in the stories of the Hundred Year Winter. She couldn’t move, didn’t really want to move. The water touched her arm again. Reluctantly, she shifted away from the cold of the water, skin dragging against rough sand, the skin of her palm stinging as she flexed her fingers.
Pain. Sand. Water.
It came back to her all too fast: the terrifying fall, the desperate swim, the long and draining time spent pulling herself and Eustace along the cliff in search of a beach. She couldn’t even remember finding one, couldn’t recall pulling the two of them up out of the water, but the sand she was laying on now was real and firm - and wet.
She scrambled up to her knees. Eustace was beside her, slightly further up the beach so that the water had only just reached his waist. Although, to call it a beach almost felt an exaggeration, for the strip of sand was small and shrinking as the tide moved in. The sun was low on the horizon, evidence that a good half day had passed since the initial tumble into the water.
She crawled up to Eustace’s side and bit her lip at the blood-soaked patch just below his right shoulder. She’d learned how to treat wounds such as this before, of course, but never before had she done so without a medical kit.
The tunic tore open easily enough, though Eustace groaned when the motion jostled his back. “Hush. Lie still,” she told him, uncertain if he was even awake to hear her. The wound was not so frightening as she’d been afraid of. The arrow must have pierced him as Eustace had pulled her down, for it had not lodged in his skin but had left a nasty cut from below his armpit to the peak of his shoulder. The skin around it was swollen and red, a majority of the blood washed away by the water.
She had to look away and take steady breaths before she could gather the courage to look again. She needed to bind the wound to prevent further loss of blood, which meant bandages. The best she could do was tear strips from the bottom of her tunic. Carefully, she wove them around Eustace’s shoulder.
And then there was nothing more she could do.
She stared down at her bloodied hands and then at the bandage, desperately hoping that it was enough. A wave of water swirled up the beach.
There was no longer time to wait. “Eustace, wake up. Wake up. We have to move. Please.”
He stirred again, one eye opening. “Not yet.”
“Eustace, the tide is coming in. We have to move.”
Gradually, her persistence began to wear on him. With her help, Eustace was able to pull himself up, although he winced as the movement pulled at muscles in his back.
“My shoulder -?” he asked.
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” she said, and admitted, “I was able to bandage it for you.”
He grunted and winced again as he accidentally moved his arm too fast. “Right. Good. Let’s get going then.”
-X-
“I’m lopsided,” Eustace said, his voice matter-of-fact. His eyes were distant, his arm trembling against her. Jill pressed her lips together in concern.
“Lopsided,” Eustace repeated.
“You are leaning all your weight on me,” Jill said testily. As if to compound her point, her foot slipped on the sand and she stumbled to the side, barely able to keep her balance against Eustace’s weight. He grunted in pain and sucked in a breath at the sudden movement.
She steadied herself and paused to be sure of her footing before continuing on. Eustace waited a beat before saying again, “Lopsided.”
She raised her eyes to the heavens. “Yes, because I’m holding you up. I got that.”
“No. Well, yes. But -” He hissed as Jill stumbled again, jostling his shoulder. “But - lopsided. My boot.”
“Your boot,” she repeated, before remembering that his left boot was sitting at the bottom of the sea.
They were nearing the tip of the promontory. It was almost too much for Jill to focus on putting one foot before the other, let alone to have Eustace muttering nonsense in her ear. There was too much to think about: ignoring the rise of the tide enough to keep the fear down while searching for some way, any way, up off the beach. She’d never hated cliffs so keenly as now.
Painstakingly slow, they approached the tip of the promontory and then, just like that, they had rounded the point to the other side. Jill almost didn’t dare to look up. There was a flutter of hope that they had made it out of danger, hope that there was a safe way up the cliffs.
And then she raised her eyes and saw nothing but the continuing cliff face and the shrinking strip of beach.
Eustace swore.
“We keep moving,” she decided, and continued to walk along the sand, holding tight to Eustace and doing her best to ignore his weight. “We’ll find a path - there’s got to be a path.”
He stumbled, pulling her down on her knees in the sand. He was tipping to the side and she clung to him desperately and shouted his name in alarm at the white in his eyes. For one instant she was absolutely terrified that it was too late to save him, and then she realized that he’d only fainted.
Her hands were shaking as she lay him flat on the sand, brushing her palm anxiously across his forehead. “Wake up,” she muttered to him, and he moaned, his head lolling. “We’ve just got a little bit further.”
She lifted her head to the sky in a wordless prayer, brushing away the tears. A swirl of water pulled at her knees and receded. Eustace’s hand grabbed at her own and she brought her eyes down -
Wait. What was that she’d seen, hidden in the rough of the cliff wall? She almost couldn’t find it again, almost thought it was just a dream, and then her eyes caught again the dark impression above. It was a hole - barely large enough to crawl through, it looked like - but if there was a tunnel, there was a chance it would lead upward. Akili Jonuk had said all sorts of tunnels filled these cliffs.
But oh, she did not want to go in there.
Eustace clutched at her hand again as another wave flooded the beach. She bit her lip and struggled against the fear. She had to do it. She had to go into the tunnel.
Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Epilogue|