of pound cake, birthday fic, and a lion in the desert
So, I followed a link of cofax7 to a post by sara about the OTW elections and then to the comments where it was reflected that when fandom friends are feeling low, one sends porn, but this left a problem with Real Life friends. What do you send them when they feel low? We do not send porn to our next door neighbor whose SUV got totaled in the car pool line or our executive assistant whose Nalgene water bottle spilled all over her netbook and night school notes on the Metro. The answer for these RL woes is pound cake. I feel this is a profound observation on a scale with the answer to the meaning of life being 42. We need icons and banners reflecting this profundity: Life’s got me down, please send porn. Or pound cake. Not to say that I need either, at the moment, though I would never say no to gift pics or fic or pound cake. or Heath bars.
Anyway, moving on. Writing continues, with me sorta scratching my head with how to have Peter meet Jill without merely re-treading the beginning of TQSiT (any thoughts appreciated). Also l_a_r_m on toomuchtebbitt continues to have new pretty pictures (British embassy in black and white most recently) and I do the odd bit of pic fic on Tumblr. metonomia reblogged this from Old World:
(Source: old world
and she then added wonderfully:
katybee:
Very technically I understand that this is the Flight to Egypt, but we’re going to go ahead and pretend it’s Mary and Richard Russell (and their stalwart donkey friend, who likes to chew Mary’s coattails but that’s okay, she doesn’t mind), or maybe Mary and Asim, lost in the desert, though they’d never admit it.
To which I added:
They are not lost. They never are lost though they do wander, as Mary is fond of saying. At night, Asim sees a vision of a girl, sometimes blonde, sometimes red-haired, but always glowing with the God-light. She sits between the paws of a great Lion. "Some day, I shall meet her," Asim says. "Some day."
And we have fic! Filling in the gaps - written for the awesome snacky for her birthday. By way of background, Peter and Susan partake of the The Great Bonding and, among other things, meet Dalia and Lambert on the hunt in I love not man the less. In The Palace Guard, there is an assassination attempt, which results in the formation of the Guard. The black Panther, Wrasse, assumes temporary guard of Peter.
Filling in the gaps for snacky
About 2,000 words
Rated T
For the second, Prince Caspian, part, it’s a bit of Peter/Caspian, if you squint with slash goggles on.
Peter wanted to stomp, but he hurt too much. He wanted to swear, as Sir Leszi had taught him, but profanity still did not come easily to him. He could not help thinking that his mother would be disappointed and the vicar would scold. Though if they had problems with a few choice words about a Calormene goddess’ abundant anatomy, he’d never be able to explain the Revel, would he? Peter pushed those thoughts and his lunch platter aside.
“Your Majesty?” Wrasse, the Panther, asked, sounding infuriatingly worried. “Are you well? You’ve not eaten your meal. You should eat in order to heal. Should I ask for the physician?”
His patience was as thin as his appetite. “I am angry, Wrasse, because we were attacked in our own castle. I want willow bark for the pain, which the physician won’t give me because he says it will make me bleed. I won’t take the poppy syrup he would give me because it makes me stupid and sick and unable to defend myself, or my brother or sisters.”
“But that is why you have guards now, High King. So that we may…”
“Wrasse! Please! That is enough!”
He was embarrassed for his poor behavior but Tash’s balls, it was not fair in the slightest. For guards, Edmund had Merle and Susan had taken Lambert and Lucy had, with Aslan’s prompting, accepted Briony. Peter knew that he must take a Great Cat when the others all had Canines. This exercise had to be even-handed. Wrasse was brave and intelligent and cunning. The guard was her idea. She had helped save their lives. She should be rewarded.
The problem was that Peter didn’t want her. Wrasse was smothering. She did not know how to be anything except underfoot. He could never forget, for a moment, that she was not right there, right next to him. And she sounded just like Mother or Susan when she tried to explain why he was not permitted to do something, anything, whatever it was.
“You are displeased with me,” Wrasse said.
Peter felt the absolute heel. He also knew he could not lie, for Wrasse would sense it. “With time, perhaps we will suit better,” he said listlessly. He didn’t really believe it.
His hands, still bandaged from warding off the knife blows, were clumsy as he grasped the mug of wine. He was far too pleased with the simple act of not spilling all over himself.
“Your Majesty…”
“Don’t,” Peter interrupted. Wrasse would chide him for not eating, but eating hurt and the drinking took the edge off the pain. “I apologize, Wrasse, but just let me be. That is an order.”
Wrasse flicked her tail, rose from her crouch and went to the door of his study. She pushed the door open with her nose - nothing locked anymore. “I shall wait just outside but keep the door ajar.”
“Fine,” Peter muttered. He drained his wine and threw himself, gingerly, on to his couch.
The throbbing in his hands and the sound of voices outside his door roused him from an uncomfortable nap. Some time had passed - the shadows had lengthened though no one had yet been in to light the lamps.
“Wrasse?” he called, feeling sticky, sweaty, and muddled, and out of sorts.
The door drifted gently open on the push by a Feline nose. “No, High King, Wrasse left.”
Peter pulled himself up to sit and rubbed his eyes with his arms. The voice was familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it. “Dalia?”
“Yes.” The Cheetah stood at the door’s threshold, looking about. Her tail snaked slowly through the air.
“Please come in,” Peter said hurriedly. During the Great Bonding challenges, he had spent a long, cold night in a tree with Dalia. She had kept him company and helped him kill the deer. Peter was not sure if that aid was permitted under the rules of the Great Bonding, but there was nothing he could have done to prevent her from leaping down with him. She had held the struggling, thrashing buck while Peter cut his throat.
“How are you?” he asked lamely.
“Well,” Dalia replied. Peter recalled that the Cheetah was a Cat of few words. He could hear the click-click of her claws on the stone floor.
Without being asked, she turned and pushed the door closed.
His bandages were seeping again, but less than before, which was progress. He supposed he should submit himself to the prickly Physician. Really, a Porcupine as the Court doctor was peculiar even by the standards of Narnia. On the other paw, the Rodent did have ample needles for stitching flesh. It was getting close enough to him to receive the treatment that was so hazardous.
Peter tried manipulating the bandages with his teeth to straighten them. They stuck and it smarted. “Why are you here?” Peter mumbled through a mouthful of old linen. “What happened to Wrasse?”
“Wrasse asked me to relieve her.” The Cheetah looked curiously at his attempts to move the bandage about. She offered no criticism or solicitous assistance, which was a relief.
“I may have driven her off,” Peter said, wishing he felt guilty. “She and I have different ideas of the role of a Guard.”
“You do require a Guard whose dignity befits the High King and the court of Narnia.”
Dalia’s words were so pompous and ridiculously stiff, Peter stared at the Cheetah. Peter was going to correct her arrogance then stopped. “Dalia, did you just mimic Wrasse?”
The Cheetah blinked at him and her whiskers twitched. After a long pause, she said, “Of course not, High King. Great Cats are most serious.”
Wrasse’s prim, judgmental inflection was unmistakable. Peter laughed.
Peter had known the moment he had seen her within the How. His heart gave a leap, his gut gave a lurch, and with a hand gesture of command, the Cheetah immediately crossed the cavern and silently took her place next to him. As she did so, a sigh seemed to rise from the other Beasts, for they knew that a Cheetah was again at the side of the High King of Narnia.
“Your name Friend?” Peter asked when they were finally alone for a second, before the press and the planning, the meetings and the combat.
“Sira,” the Cheetah replied. Her voice was soft and strong and her face as beautiful as the one before her.
Peter looked at her more closely. “May I?” he asked politely, raising a hand to her domed head.
Sira leaned into his touch and the rumble of her contented purr thrummed against the ancient stones of the How.
Peter ran his hand down her back, feeling the strength of muscle and sinew beneath soft fur. “Fooh,” he finally said. “You are of Dalia’s line, through Fooh.”
“Yes,” Sira said. “Since our great mother, Dalia, every cub learns that Cheetahs serve the High King Peter alone. May we serve you again? May I be your Guard?”
“Let it be so, Sira, so long as Aslan wills it.”
Aslan, however, did not will it, as Peter had suspected from the moment he saw that his role was to make Caspian worthy and to put another on the throne of Narnia in his own place.
Oo00oo
They finally dozed sometime before dawn. Outside the tent they shared, the drums, the pipes, the dancing and the drinking continued by the light of fading bonfires.
“Fauns will always outlast the Dwarfs,” Peter murmured, arm thrown over his eyes. “Never bet against the Fauns.”
Caspian wanted to know how Peter could know all these things, how he could remember them a thousand years later. Caspian was still confusing leopards and jaguars and could not tell which trees were Trees.
“You will learn,” Peter said next to him in the dark. “I did.”
The fog was just lifting and taking the early morning chill with it. Caspian lifted up the tent flap and saw Lucy walking slowly away from the camp, her hands buried in Aslan’s mane. He was supposed to breakfast with Edmund and Susan and learn in an hour over bread and tea everything they knew of spies, laws, judging the hard case fairly, diplomacy, management, delegation, the Narnian protectorates, historical relations with the other great nations, marriage to further the strength of the kingdom, and how he might settle the argument between Wolves and Tigers over who would be his guard.
“Caspian!” Peter called.
He ducked back into the tent. Peter had dressed, but only in cloth and leathers. His armor was on a stand and would never be worn again, by any man. Caspian would see to that. Peter was holding Rhindon, the great sword of Narnia and the High King.
“I will bear it until the time of our departure,” Peter said, slowly belting his sword, for the last time. Peter had said he was not a warrior in the land he came from, which made no sense to Caspian at all. How could any worthy, competent commander ignore the High King of Narnia?
“When the time comes for us to leave, I will present you with Rhindon, kneel, and girt it upon you. It will help the Narnians understand the transfer of power better, to see the sword pass from me to you. There will be no ambiguity.”
It’s wrong. It’s all wrong. It should not be this way. Caspian shook his head. “I can’t take Rhindon from you, Peter.”
The gaze Peter returned was understanding, but stern as well. “Do you hope for a better sword, Caspian?”
“No!”
“Do you see, politically, symbolically, why we must do this? Tell me you do, Caspian. I can’t be easy leaving our country otherwise.”
Caspian heard urgency in Peter’s question, a little of the desperation. I cannot fail him. Or Narnia. He managed to nod. “Yes, Peter, I understand.”
Peter smiled and thumped him so hard across the shoulders he nearly fell over.
“Sira!” Peter said. He knelt on the ground and the Cheetah uncoiled from where she had been curled up in her corner, silent and watching. This too was something he had to be accustomed to - that the Guard was always there, always heard and saw every intimate moment, and said nothing.
The Cheetah was disturbed. Her hair was standing up and she walked stiff-legged to her King. Caspian did not know if it was because Sira disliked him personally, or was unhappy that her High King was leaving.
Peter leaned forward and put his arms around the Cheetah’s shoulders, just as he would a lover. He whispered in the Cheetah’s ear.
The Cheetah growled and lashed her tail. Peter stroked the Cheetah’s head and back, from neck to tail. A low purr replaced the grumbling.
“Cheetahs have always served the High King,” Peter said, now speaking aloud, to both of them. “I leave Narnia, by Aslan’s will, forever. But I leave no heirs of my body. My successor is Caspian and all I have passes to him. Do you agree to be the High King’s representative, Sira, you and the Cheetahs that follow you? Will you guide Caspian in my stead?”
The Cheetah stared at him, blinking, her tail waving slowly.
“Can you do this, Sira?” the High King. “I shall not order you. It must be freely done.”
“Yes,” the Cheetah finally said. “I will see it done.”
Still kneeling in the dirt, with his arms around a cat, the High King looked up at him. “Will you accept her service, Caspian? Do you accept Sira as friend, advisor, and confidant?”
Wildly, Caspian wondered if he should run after Aslan and plead. Don’t make me do this alone. Let them stay. Let the High King stay. I would be his arm and shield, his captain. Just let him be my King.
Caspian knelt before the High King and his Cheetah. “I do accept your service, Sira, so long as it is willingly given. By your wisdom, I hope I can be worthy of you and of the trust our High King has placed in me.”
“And so then it is,” High King Peter said. He kissed the Cheetah.
They both stood and Caspian accepted the kiss of the man who would always be his King.
Anyway, moving on. Writing continues, with me sorta scratching my head with how to have Peter meet Jill without merely re-treading the beginning of TQSiT (any thoughts appreciated). Also l_a_r_m on toomuchtebbitt continues to have new pretty pictures (British embassy in black and white most recently) and I do the odd bit of pic fic on Tumblr. metonomia reblogged this from Old World:
(Source: old world
and she then added wonderfully:
katybee:
Very technically I understand that this is the Flight to Egypt, but we’re going to go ahead and pretend it’s Mary and Richard Russell (and their stalwart donkey friend, who likes to chew Mary’s coattails but that’s okay, she doesn’t mind), or maybe Mary and Asim, lost in the desert, though they’d never admit it.
To which I added:
They are not lost. They never are lost though they do wander, as Mary is fond of saying. At night, Asim sees a vision of a girl, sometimes blonde, sometimes red-haired, but always glowing with the God-light. She sits between the paws of a great Lion. "Some day, I shall meet her," Asim says. "Some day."
And we have fic! Filling in the gaps - written for the awesome snacky for her birthday. By way of background, Peter and Susan partake of the The Great Bonding and, among other things, meet Dalia and Lambert on the hunt in I love not man the less. In The Palace Guard, there is an assassination attempt, which results in the formation of the Guard. The black Panther, Wrasse, assumes temporary guard of Peter.
Filling in the gaps for snacky
About 2,000 words
Rated T
For the second, Prince Caspian, part, it’s a bit of Peter/Caspian, if you squint with slash goggles on.
Peter wanted to stomp, but he hurt too much. He wanted to swear, as Sir Leszi had taught him, but profanity still did not come easily to him. He could not help thinking that his mother would be disappointed and the vicar would scold. Though if they had problems with a few choice words about a Calormene goddess’ abundant anatomy, he’d never be able to explain the Revel, would he? Peter pushed those thoughts and his lunch platter aside.
“Your Majesty?” Wrasse, the Panther, asked, sounding infuriatingly worried. “Are you well? You’ve not eaten your meal. You should eat in order to heal. Should I ask for the physician?”
His patience was as thin as his appetite. “I am angry, Wrasse, because we were attacked in our own castle. I want willow bark for the pain, which the physician won’t give me because he says it will make me bleed. I won’t take the poppy syrup he would give me because it makes me stupid and sick and unable to defend myself, or my brother or sisters.”
“But that is why you have guards now, High King. So that we may…”
“Wrasse! Please! That is enough!”
He was embarrassed for his poor behavior but Tash’s balls, it was not fair in the slightest. For guards, Edmund had Merle and Susan had taken Lambert and Lucy had, with Aslan’s prompting, accepted Briony. Peter knew that he must take a Great Cat when the others all had Canines. This exercise had to be even-handed. Wrasse was brave and intelligent and cunning. The guard was her idea. She had helped save their lives. She should be rewarded.
The problem was that Peter didn’t want her. Wrasse was smothering. She did not know how to be anything except underfoot. He could never forget, for a moment, that she was not right there, right next to him. And she sounded just like Mother or Susan when she tried to explain why he was not permitted to do something, anything, whatever it was.
“You are displeased with me,” Wrasse said.
Peter felt the absolute heel. He also knew he could not lie, for Wrasse would sense it. “With time, perhaps we will suit better,” he said listlessly. He didn’t really believe it.
His hands, still bandaged from warding off the knife blows, were clumsy as he grasped the mug of wine. He was far too pleased with the simple act of not spilling all over himself.
“Your Majesty…”
“Don’t,” Peter interrupted. Wrasse would chide him for not eating, but eating hurt and the drinking took the edge off the pain. “I apologize, Wrasse, but just let me be. That is an order.”
Wrasse flicked her tail, rose from her crouch and went to the door of his study. She pushed the door open with her nose - nothing locked anymore. “I shall wait just outside but keep the door ajar.”
“Fine,” Peter muttered. He drained his wine and threw himself, gingerly, on to his couch.
The throbbing in his hands and the sound of voices outside his door roused him from an uncomfortable nap. Some time had passed - the shadows had lengthened though no one had yet been in to light the lamps.
“Wrasse?” he called, feeling sticky, sweaty, and muddled, and out of sorts.
The door drifted gently open on the push by a Feline nose. “No, High King, Wrasse left.”
Peter pulled himself up to sit and rubbed his eyes with his arms. The voice was familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it. “Dalia?”
“Yes.” The Cheetah stood at the door’s threshold, looking about. Her tail snaked slowly through the air.
“Please come in,” Peter said hurriedly. During the Great Bonding challenges, he had spent a long, cold night in a tree with Dalia. She had kept him company and helped him kill the deer. Peter was not sure if that aid was permitted under the rules of the Great Bonding, but there was nothing he could have done to prevent her from leaping down with him. She had held the struggling, thrashing buck while Peter cut his throat.
“How are you?” he asked lamely.
“Well,” Dalia replied. Peter recalled that the Cheetah was a Cat of few words. He could hear the click-click of her claws on the stone floor.
Without being asked, she turned and pushed the door closed.
His bandages were seeping again, but less than before, which was progress. He supposed he should submit himself to the prickly Physician. Really, a Porcupine as the Court doctor was peculiar even by the standards of Narnia. On the other paw, the Rodent did have ample needles for stitching flesh. It was getting close enough to him to receive the treatment that was so hazardous.
Peter tried manipulating the bandages with his teeth to straighten them. They stuck and it smarted. “Why are you here?” Peter mumbled through a mouthful of old linen. “What happened to Wrasse?”
“Wrasse asked me to relieve her.” The Cheetah looked curiously at his attempts to move the bandage about. She offered no criticism or solicitous assistance, which was a relief.
“I may have driven her off,” Peter said, wishing he felt guilty. “She and I have different ideas of the role of a Guard.”
“You do require a Guard whose dignity befits the High King and the court of Narnia.”
Dalia’s words were so pompous and ridiculously stiff, Peter stared at the Cheetah. Peter was going to correct her arrogance then stopped. “Dalia, did you just mimic Wrasse?”
The Cheetah blinked at him and her whiskers twitched. After a long pause, she said, “Of course not, High King. Great Cats are most serious.”
Wrasse’s prim, judgmental inflection was unmistakable. Peter laughed.
Peter had known the moment he had seen her within the How. His heart gave a leap, his gut gave a lurch, and with a hand gesture of command, the Cheetah immediately crossed the cavern and silently took her place next to him. As she did so, a sigh seemed to rise from the other Beasts, for they knew that a Cheetah was again at the side of the High King of Narnia.
“Your name Friend?” Peter asked when they were finally alone for a second, before the press and the planning, the meetings and the combat.
“Sira,” the Cheetah replied. Her voice was soft and strong and her face as beautiful as the one before her.
Peter looked at her more closely. “May I?” he asked politely, raising a hand to her domed head.
Sira leaned into his touch and the rumble of her contented purr thrummed against the ancient stones of the How.
Peter ran his hand down her back, feeling the strength of muscle and sinew beneath soft fur. “Fooh,” he finally said. “You are of Dalia’s line, through Fooh.”
“Yes,” Sira said. “Since our great mother, Dalia, every cub learns that Cheetahs serve the High King Peter alone. May we serve you again? May I be your Guard?”
“Let it be so, Sira, so long as Aslan wills it.”
Aslan, however, did not will it, as Peter had suspected from the moment he saw that his role was to make Caspian worthy and to put another on the throne of Narnia in his own place.
Oo00oo
They finally dozed sometime before dawn. Outside the tent they shared, the drums, the pipes, the dancing and the drinking continued by the light of fading bonfires.
“Fauns will always outlast the Dwarfs,” Peter murmured, arm thrown over his eyes. “Never bet against the Fauns.”
Caspian wanted to know how Peter could know all these things, how he could remember them a thousand years later. Caspian was still confusing leopards and jaguars and could not tell which trees were Trees.
“You will learn,” Peter said next to him in the dark. “I did.”
The fog was just lifting and taking the early morning chill with it. Caspian lifted up the tent flap and saw Lucy walking slowly away from the camp, her hands buried in Aslan’s mane. He was supposed to breakfast with Edmund and Susan and learn in an hour over bread and tea everything they knew of spies, laws, judging the hard case fairly, diplomacy, management, delegation, the Narnian protectorates, historical relations with the other great nations, marriage to further the strength of the kingdom, and how he might settle the argument between Wolves and Tigers over who would be his guard.
“Caspian!” Peter called.
He ducked back into the tent. Peter had dressed, but only in cloth and leathers. His armor was on a stand and would never be worn again, by any man. Caspian would see to that. Peter was holding Rhindon, the great sword of Narnia and the High King.
“I will bear it until the time of our departure,” Peter said, slowly belting his sword, for the last time. Peter had said he was not a warrior in the land he came from, which made no sense to Caspian at all. How could any worthy, competent commander ignore the High King of Narnia?
“When the time comes for us to leave, I will present you with Rhindon, kneel, and girt it upon you. It will help the Narnians understand the transfer of power better, to see the sword pass from me to you. There will be no ambiguity.”
It’s wrong. It’s all wrong. It should not be this way. Caspian shook his head. “I can’t take Rhindon from you, Peter.”
The gaze Peter returned was understanding, but stern as well. “Do you hope for a better sword, Caspian?”
“No!”
“Do you see, politically, symbolically, why we must do this? Tell me you do, Caspian. I can’t be easy leaving our country otherwise.”
Caspian heard urgency in Peter’s question, a little of the desperation. I cannot fail him. Or Narnia. He managed to nod. “Yes, Peter, I understand.”
Peter smiled and thumped him so hard across the shoulders he nearly fell over.
“Sira!” Peter said. He knelt on the ground and the Cheetah uncoiled from where she had been curled up in her corner, silent and watching. This too was something he had to be accustomed to - that the Guard was always there, always heard and saw every intimate moment, and said nothing.
The Cheetah was disturbed. Her hair was standing up and she walked stiff-legged to her King. Caspian did not know if it was because Sira disliked him personally, or was unhappy that her High King was leaving.
Peter leaned forward and put his arms around the Cheetah’s shoulders, just as he would a lover. He whispered in the Cheetah’s ear.
The Cheetah growled and lashed her tail. Peter stroked the Cheetah’s head and back, from neck to tail. A low purr replaced the grumbling.
“Cheetahs have always served the High King,” Peter said, now speaking aloud, to both of them. “I leave Narnia, by Aslan’s will, forever. But I leave no heirs of my body. My successor is Caspian and all I have passes to him. Do you agree to be the High King’s representative, Sira, you and the Cheetahs that follow you? Will you guide Caspian in my stead?”
The Cheetah stared at him, blinking, her tail waving slowly.
“Can you do this, Sira?” the High King. “I shall not order you. It must be freely done.”
“Yes,” the Cheetah finally said. “I will see it done.”
Still kneeling in the dirt, with his arms around a cat, the High King looked up at him. “Will you accept her service, Caspian? Do you accept Sira as friend, advisor, and confidant?”
Wildly, Caspian wondered if he should run after Aslan and plead. Don’t make me do this alone. Let them stay. Let the High King stay. I would be his arm and shield, his captain. Just let him be my King.
Caspian knelt before the High King and his Cheetah. “I do accept your service, Sira, so long as it is willingly given. By your wisdom, I hope I can be worthy of you and of the trust our High King has placed in me.”
“And so then it is,” High King Peter said. He kissed the Cheetah.
They both stood and Caspian accepted the kiss of the man who would always be his King.