Fic: Further Up and Further In (Narnia)
Further Up and Further In
author: kyrafic
fandom: The Chronicles of Narnia
info: Tirian & Jewel. Written for rabican for yuletide 2006. Thanks to annakovsky for discussion and beta. One detail shamelessly stolen from Leslie Harpold's lovely essay Possible Scenarios For Heaven. 2,400 words, rated G.
In the last days of Narnia, the court at Cair Paravel was always teeming with creatures - Fauns and Naiads, Calormene merchants and envois from the Lone Islands, and talking Beasts of every shape. Tirian found it overwhelming until he turned twelve. When he started his training to be a squire (all Narnian princes are trained up like proper knights, with no one going soft on you just because of noble blood), he was allowed to sit in the courtyard sometimes, holding a horse's reins or waiting to deliver a message, and watch people go to and fro.
Jewel was the last unicorn in a group of three crossing from the outer gate to the inner. He was smaller than the other two, not much more than a colt, and he glanced over toward Tirian as they passed. Tirian smiled at him, and felt a thrill go up his spine when the unicorn dropped his head in acknowledgement.
It was a week before Tirian saw him again - he sidled up to Jewel in a crowd watching the arrival of a caravan from Archenland.
"Hst," he said, and Jewel's ears flicked and his head turned. Tirian was a little daunted by everything he knew about unicorns, how wise and pure and noble they were, but he pressed on. "Do you like apples?"
They spent two hours in the orchard outside the castle gates and were fast friends by the time anyone came looking for them. They got a scolding for eating all the low-hanging apples on a quarter of the trees, and Tirian got sent off to lessons and Jewel to listen quietly to another very long discussion of border skirmishes with the giants.
**
In Aslan's country, time passes differently. You don't ever need to sleep, but you can if you'd like to, and you always wake up perfectly rested just in time for the most perfect sunrise you've ever seen.
Jewel and Tirian sleep outside on the soft, springy grass, and watch the great dance of the stars blazing overhead as they drift toward sleep.
"Sire," Jewel says, on what might be their third or thousandth night in that land, "I feel as though my heart has grown larger here." In the darkness he's a white blur at Tirian's side.
"I know just what you mean," says Tirian. "I wouldn't have been able to contain this much joy back-there. In the Shadowlands."
**
At sixteen, Tirian trained with Jewel every day. There were plenty of opportunities to practice swordplay with the soldiers at court, of course, but not many men are skilled at fighting a unicorn, the feints and darts from horn and hooves and teeth. They fought against each other or side by side, and as it got toward evening one of them would say "now!" and Tirian would race down to the sea after Jewel, where they plunged into the cool water and let it wash the sweat off them.
It was the best part of Tirian's day - what the history books don't tell you is how busy it is preparing to be king. There were endless hours of lessons, still, and meetings with his father's advisors, and being quizzed on trade agreements and the names of ambassadors and listening to his father settle disputes between feuding dwarfs.
It was his duty, and he knew it, but it was nice to be able to complain to Jewel about it sometimes, especially since Jewel knew him well enough to figure out which parts he didn't really mean.
**
In that other Narnia, you sometimes separate from your friends for a little or a long while, but when you see them again it always feels like running into the person you most wanted to see at that moment on the street on a dreary day.
Jewel follows the scent of smoking eel through the northern marshes, and Tirian follows Jewel, and they find Jill and Eustace sitting on the ground outside a well-built Marshwiggle hut.
"Oh!" they both say, and there are fond greetings all around, before the flap of the tent opens and a Marshwiggle comes out, a pipe clutched in his long fingers.
"Tirian, this is Puddleglum," says Jill, and Tirian bows low, still a little overawed that he can see these great figures from history face to face.
"Hail, sire," says Puddleglum in a mournful tone, and bends over to poke at the coals of the fire. "You and your friend can have some breakfast and welcome, if it will stretch far enough."
They know it will, of course, and Jill's laugh is clear in the air, and Eustace shakes his head with a smile, and when Tirian looks, even Puddleglum has a strange expression on his face which he realizes is a smile he's trying to hide.
"Well, well," he says, head down as he busies himself with the food. "That's enough of that, now. Just because things have come out all right in the end."
When they sit down to eat, Tirian can see the northern moors stretching away, and his heart is warm with memories of old campaigns and battles fought here. Even the sting of his father's death fighting the giants here is gone now, and he and Jewel spend the meal asking each other "Do you remember? Do you remember?"
And afterwards they all tell Puddleglum about how valiant the others were fighting at Stable Hill, and they make Jill show how quietly and quickly she can move when it's needed.
**
What they didn't tell Tirian to expect was how frightening his first battle would be. He confided it to Jewel the night before, in the tents where they were waiting for the dawn attack from the giants. He was afraid Jewel wouldn't understand, would turn out to be just as brave as they'd always talked about being, but he lowered his head in acknowledgement.
"Yes," he said, "but I suppose if we had truly fearless courage we'd be less than we are. At least in this world."
When morning broke, it was cold enough that the hilt of Tirian's sword burned in his hand, and he thought he might be sick. They met the giants before he could decide either way, though, and everything was loud and fast and confusing for a few minutes, until they drove them back. Tirian found himself unhurt, lightheaded and elated, and he'd somehow gotten separated from Jewel, but when he caught his eye from partway across the battlefield he could tell Jewel felt the same way.
"There you are, lad," said one of his father's generals, clapping Tirian on the shoulder. "Now you've got that first one out of the way, you can concentrate on real fighting."
He laughed, and Tirian smiled, and lets himself be led away for a firkin of wine, but not before he remembered to clean his sword.
**
"There," says King Edmund, pointing from the parapet, and when Tirian turns his eyes, stronger than an eagle's now, toward the east, he can see the islands Edmund means, distant and green, spotting the expanse of shining water.
"Oh, the dear Dufflepuds," Queen Lucy says from where she's lying on the warm stone, hair and dress spread out around her.
"And the magician," Eustace says from Tirian's other side. "He was an all right sort of chap."
"Oh!" Lucy says suddenly, sitting upright, and they look at her. She blushes and laughs, shaking her head. "I just remembered a story I read once, there in his book." She lies down again, and stretches out a hand toward Jewel, who nuzzles it as she starts telling him the story, about a tree and a bowl and Aslan.
"And there," says Edmund, pointing even further, "is where we met the star and his daughter."
"Your ancestress, I suppose," Eustace adds.
"What an adventure that must have been," Tirian says, and in the old world it might have been with longing, but here he knows that if he wants, he can make the same trip himself, or turn around and go further inland and upward, toward the ever-receding heart of the true Narnia.
"It's funny," says Edmund leaning over the edge of the stone, and when Tirian looks over at him he's looking particularly old-and-young-at-once. "How he always gives us journeys."
**
It was in the third week of their second campaign against the giants when Tirian was captured. There were others fighting on the side of the giants now - tight, vicious bands of mercenaries from Calormene, some hags from far in the North, a Wolf or two.
There was a skirmish near dark, and Tirian got separated from Jewel just after he struck down an archer who was aiming for Jewel's exposed flank. The thing to remember in battle is not to let anyone get behind you, but Tirian forgot, and something heavy and hard hit him in the back of the head before he even knew it was coming.
When he came to, he was bound hand and foot with ropes that were too tight, and from the smell of it was somewhere near the giants' trash heap. He cracked his eyes open cautiously, then closed them quickly before anyone could notice. Nighttime, and at least seven by the fire. Maybe more further away.
"I say kill it," someone said. "Be done with the thing."
"Don't be a fool," someone else growled, "he looks like a young lordling. Maybe he's worth some money in ransom."
From the way he was lying, Tirian could tell his sword and the knife in his belt had been taken. He was wondering whether the knife in his boot was still there, when shouts broke out by the fire.
"Don't try and stop me," one of the voices said. "It's mine and I'll do away with it if I want."
"Do that, and I'll cut off-" a new voice started, and then the shouts became very different. Tirian opened his eyes in time to see silhouettes rushing back and forth in front of the fire, a sword glinting for a moment, and a larger shape looming out of the darkness.
The fighting was over more quickly than he would have expected, but at least one man got away, his footsteps pounding the ground just beside Tirian's head. He itched to be unbound, to grab his sword and chase the coward down.
Instead, the black shape came out of the darkness and bent low over him, breath warm and grassy. Behind it, he could see the shapes that had been by the fire now lying still on the ground.
"You came," he said, as whiskers tickled the side of the face.
"As soon as I could," Jewel said.
**
"Let us travel south," Jewel will say sometimes, or Tirian will suggest they turn toward the ford of Beruna, where a trail of grapes and laughing wild girls tumbles across the river, and what they always mean is that they want to get closer to the Lion. And they do, they find him in the exotic-smelling streets of Tashbaan or in the cool woods near Aslan's How, and every time is better than the last.
There's a day when they make their way through the woods of Lantern Waste, where the old Narnia was born and died, and find Lucy tearing toward them through the snow, which is always crisp without being really cold.
"Oh, do come quickly," she says, breathless, "the best thing-"
Tirian and Jewel both have to duck their heads to get through the doorway of Mr. Tumnus's cave, but inside it's large enough for all of them, the faun and Peter and Edmund and a girl with dark hair sitting on a footstool in the middle of them all.
"Tirian," says Lucy, a thrill in her voice like the first time he heard her speak, on their first day in Aslan's country, a thousand years ago or yesterday, "this is my sister, the Queen Susan."
Tirian bows low, and Susan stands and curtseys with all the grace of a Narnian lady. (In that world, curtseying is an art, and it's the kind of thing you want to master, like a complicated dance, rather than a chore.) For just a moment, Tirian thinks she's older than he thought, much older, a great lady with white hair, and then it passes, and she looks hardly older than Lucy as she sits back down.
Susan is smiling and crying at once, and she smiles up at her brothers and sister through her tears.
"I've got in at last," she says, and the smell of the buttered toast Tumnus is making in the fireplace fills the cave, which seems to be growing even bigger still. Susan's face transforms, and when Tirian turns, it's Aslan, so bright he can hardly look at him. He puts a hand on Jewel's neck to steady himself, and Jewel draws close, warm and comforting against Tirian's side.
**
Tirian had never seen a unicorn cry until his father died. It's a solemn sight at any time, and he took stock of it even through his own tears.
"The king is dead!" shouted the Centaur who had been treating King Erlian's wounds, and a Badger joined in the cry. "Long live the king!" And now that was him.
"Are you all right?" asked Jewel in a low voice, as Tirian was being hustled away, with advisors on both sides telling him things he needs to decide about the coronation, about the funeral. Tirian reached out a hand, and Jewel stayed near.
"I'm not ready for this," he told Jewel three days later, after the coronation ceremony. They were in the cool of the garden behind his rooms, and Jewel lowered his head so his horn was touching Tirian's shoulder.
"You are," he said. "You will be."
"You'll stay," Tirian said. He felt like everything was expected to be different now, but he was thinking of being children, and of when they saved each other's lives in the war, the bond that makes.
"Wherever you go," said Jewel.
Tirian let out a little sigh and sank down onto the grass. He pulled the circlet off his head and rubbed at his forehead till he couldn't feel the weight of it anymore.
"Good," he said, and lay back. There was so much to think about, living up to the legacies of his forefathers, keeping Narnia strong to be passed on to future generations. He could almost feel the weight of all that long history settling over him until he felt very young and the world seemed very old. He could see the summer constellations overhead, familiar and close. "We'll see what adventure Aslan gives us."
author: kyrafic
fandom: The Chronicles of Narnia
info: Tirian & Jewel. Written for rabican for yuletide 2006. Thanks to annakovsky for discussion and beta. One detail shamelessly stolen from Leslie Harpold's lovely essay Possible Scenarios For Heaven. 2,400 words, rated G.
In the last days of Narnia, the court at Cair Paravel was always teeming with creatures - Fauns and Naiads, Calormene merchants and envois from the Lone Islands, and talking Beasts of every shape. Tirian found it overwhelming until he turned twelve. When he started his training to be a squire (all Narnian princes are trained up like proper knights, with no one going soft on you just because of noble blood), he was allowed to sit in the courtyard sometimes, holding a horse's reins or waiting to deliver a message, and watch people go to and fro.
Jewel was the last unicorn in a group of three crossing from the outer gate to the inner. He was smaller than the other two, not much more than a colt, and he glanced over toward Tirian as they passed. Tirian smiled at him, and felt a thrill go up his spine when the unicorn dropped his head in acknowledgement.
It was a week before Tirian saw him again - he sidled up to Jewel in a crowd watching the arrival of a caravan from Archenland.
"Hst," he said, and Jewel's ears flicked and his head turned. Tirian was a little daunted by everything he knew about unicorns, how wise and pure and noble they were, but he pressed on. "Do you like apples?"
They spent two hours in the orchard outside the castle gates and were fast friends by the time anyone came looking for them. They got a scolding for eating all the low-hanging apples on a quarter of the trees, and Tirian got sent off to lessons and Jewel to listen quietly to another very long discussion of border skirmishes with the giants.
**
In Aslan's country, time passes differently. You don't ever need to sleep, but you can if you'd like to, and you always wake up perfectly rested just in time for the most perfect sunrise you've ever seen.
Jewel and Tirian sleep outside on the soft, springy grass, and watch the great dance of the stars blazing overhead as they drift toward sleep.
"Sire," Jewel says, on what might be their third or thousandth night in that land, "I feel as though my heart has grown larger here." In the darkness he's a white blur at Tirian's side.
"I know just what you mean," says Tirian. "I wouldn't have been able to contain this much joy back-there. In the Shadowlands."
**
At sixteen, Tirian trained with Jewel every day. There were plenty of opportunities to practice swordplay with the soldiers at court, of course, but not many men are skilled at fighting a unicorn, the feints and darts from horn and hooves and teeth. They fought against each other or side by side, and as it got toward evening one of them would say "now!" and Tirian would race down to the sea after Jewel, where they plunged into the cool water and let it wash the sweat off them.
It was the best part of Tirian's day - what the history books don't tell you is how busy it is preparing to be king. There were endless hours of lessons, still, and meetings with his father's advisors, and being quizzed on trade agreements and the names of ambassadors and listening to his father settle disputes between feuding dwarfs.
It was his duty, and he knew it, but it was nice to be able to complain to Jewel about it sometimes, especially since Jewel knew him well enough to figure out which parts he didn't really mean.
**
In that other Narnia, you sometimes separate from your friends for a little or a long while, but when you see them again it always feels like running into the person you most wanted to see at that moment on the street on a dreary day.
Jewel follows the scent of smoking eel through the northern marshes, and Tirian follows Jewel, and they find Jill and Eustace sitting on the ground outside a well-built Marshwiggle hut.
"Oh!" they both say, and there are fond greetings all around, before the flap of the tent opens and a Marshwiggle comes out, a pipe clutched in his long fingers.
"Tirian, this is Puddleglum," says Jill, and Tirian bows low, still a little overawed that he can see these great figures from history face to face.
"Hail, sire," says Puddleglum in a mournful tone, and bends over to poke at the coals of the fire. "You and your friend can have some breakfast and welcome, if it will stretch far enough."
They know it will, of course, and Jill's laugh is clear in the air, and Eustace shakes his head with a smile, and when Tirian looks, even Puddleglum has a strange expression on his face which he realizes is a smile he's trying to hide.
"Well, well," he says, head down as he busies himself with the food. "That's enough of that, now. Just because things have come out all right in the end."
When they sit down to eat, Tirian can see the northern moors stretching away, and his heart is warm with memories of old campaigns and battles fought here. Even the sting of his father's death fighting the giants here is gone now, and he and Jewel spend the meal asking each other "Do you remember? Do you remember?"
And afterwards they all tell Puddleglum about how valiant the others were fighting at Stable Hill, and they make Jill show how quietly and quickly she can move when it's needed.
**
What they didn't tell Tirian to expect was how frightening his first battle would be. He confided it to Jewel the night before, in the tents where they were waiting for the dawn attack from the giants. He was afraid Jewel wouldn't understand, would turn out to be just as brave as they'd always talked about being, but he lowered his head in acknowledgement.
"Yes," he said, "but I suppose if we had truly fearless courage we'd be less than we are. At least in this world."
When morning broke, it was cold enough that the hilt of Tirian's sword burned in his hand, and he thought he might be sick. They met the giants before he could decide either way, though, and everything was loud and fast and confusing for a few minutes, until they drove them back. Tirian found himself unhurt, lightheaded and elated, and he'd somehow gotten separated from Jewel, but when he caught his eye from partway across the battlefield he could tell Jewel felt the same way.
"There you are, lad," said one of his father's generals, clapping Tirian on the shoulder. "Now you've got that first one out of the way, you can concentrate on real fighting."
He laughed, and Tirian smiled, and lets himself be led away for a firkin of wine, but not before he remembered to clean his sword.
**
"There," says King Edmund, pointing from the parapet, and when Tirian turns his eyes, stronger than an eagle's now, toward the east, he can see the islands Edmund means, distant and green, spotting the expanse of shining water.
"Oh, the dear Dufflepuds," Queen Lucy says from where she's lying on the warm stone, hair and dress spread out around her.
"And the magician," Eustace says from Tirian's other side. "He was an all right sort of chap."
"Oh!" Lucy says suddenly, sitting upright, and they look at her. She blushes and laughs, shaking her head. "I just remembered a story I read once, there in his book." She lies down again, and stretches out a hand toward Jewel, who nuzzles it as she starts telling him the story, about a tree and a bowl and Aslan.
"And there," says Edmund, pointing even further, "is where we met the star and his daughter."
"Your ancestress, I suppose," Eustace adds.
"What an adventure that must have been," Tirian says, and in the old world it might have been with longing, but here he knows that if he wants, he can make the same trip himself, or turn around and go further inland and upward, toward the ever-receding heart of the true Narnia.
"It's funny," says Edmund leaning over the edge of the stone, and when Tirian looks over at him he's looking particularly old-and-young-at-once. "How he always gives us journeys."
**
It was in the third week of their second campaign against the giants when Tirian was captured. There were others fighting on the side of the giants now - tight, vicious bands of mercenaries from Calormene, some hags from far in the North, a Wolf or two.
There was a skirmish near dark, and Tirian got separated from Jewel just after he struck down an archer who was aiming for Jewel's exposed flank. The thing to remember in battle is not to let anyone get behind you, but Tirian forgot, and something heavy and hard hit him in the back of the head before he even knew it was coming.
When he came to, he was bound hand and foot with ropes that were too tight, and from the smell of it was somewhere near the giants' trash heap. He cracked his eyes open cautiously, then closed them quickly before anyone could notice. Nighttime, and at least seven by the fire. Maybe more further away.
"I say kill it," someone said. "Be done with the thing."
"Don't be a fool," someone else growled, "he looks like a young lordling. Maybe he's worth some money in ransom."
From the way he was lying, Tirian could tell his sword and the knife in his belt had been taken. He was wondering whether the knife in his boot was still there, when shouts broke out by the fire.
"Don't try and stop me," one of the voices said. "It's mine and I'll do away with it if I want."
"Do that, and I'll cut off-" a new voice started, and then the shouts became very different. Tirian opened his eyes in time to see silhouettes rushing back and forth in front of the fire, a sword glinting for a moment, and a larger shape looming out of the darkness.
The fighting was over more quickly than he would have expected, but at least one man got away, his footsteps pounding the ground just beside Tirian's head. He itched to be unbound, to grab his sword and chase the coward down.
Instead, the black shape came out of the darkness and bent low over him, breath warm and grassy. Behind it, he could see the shapes that had been by the fire now lying still on the ground.
"You came," he said, as whiskers tickled the side of the face.
"As soon as I could," Jewel said.
**
"Let us travel south," Jewel will say sometimes, or Tirian will suggest they turn toward the ford of Beruna, where a trail of grapes and laughing wild girls tumbles across the river, and what they always mean is that they want to get closer to the Lion. And they do, they find him in the exotic-smelling streets of Tashbaan or in the cool woods near Aslan's How, and every time is better than the last.
There's a day when they make their way through the woods of Lantern Waste, where the old Narnia was born and died, and find Lucy tearing toward them through the snow, which is always crisp without being really cold.
"Oh, do come quickly," she says, breathless, "the best thing-"
Tirian and Jewel both have to duck their heads to get through the doorway of Mr. Tumnus's cave, but inside it's large enough for all of them, the faun and Peter and Edmund and a girl with dark hair sitting on a footstool in the middle of them all.
"Tirian," says Lucy, a thrill in her voice like the first time he heard her speak, on their first day in Aslan's country, a thousand years ago or yesterday, "this is my sister, the Queen Susan."
Tirian bows low, and Susan stands and curtseys with all the grace of a Narnian lady. (In that world, curtseying is an art, and it's the kind of thing you want to master, like a complicated dance, rather than a chore.) For just a moment, Tirian thinks she's older than he thought, much older, a great lady with white hair, and then it passes, and she looks hardly older than Lucy as she sits back down.
Susan is smiling and crying at once, and she smiles up at her brothers and sister through her tears.
"I've got in at last," she says, and the smell of the buttered toast Tumnus is making in the fireplace fills the cave, which seems to be growing even bigger still. Susan's face transforms, and when Tirian turns, it's Aslan, so bright he can hardly look at him. He puts a hand on Jewel's neck to steady himself, and Jewel draws close, warm and comforting against Tirian's side.
**
Tirian had never seen a unicorn cry until his father died. It's a solemn sight at any time, and he took stock of it even through his own tears.
"The king is dead!" shouted the Centaur who had been treating King Erlian's wounds, and a Badger joined in the cry. "Long live the king!" And now that was him.
"Are you all right?" asked Jewel in a low voice, as Tirian was being hustled away, with advisors on both sides telling him things he needs to decide about the coronation, about the funeral. Tirian reached out a hand, and Jewel stayed near.
"I'm not ready for this," he told Jewel three days later, after the coronation ceremony. They were in the cool of the garden behind his rooms, and Jewel lowered his head so his horn was touching Tirian's shoulder.
"You are," he said. "You will be."
"You'll stay," Tirian said. He felt like everything was expected to be different now, but he was thinking of being children, and of when they saved each other's lives in the war, the bond that makes.
"Wherever you go," said Jewel.
Tirian let out a little sigh and sank down onto the grass. He pulled the circlet off his head and rubbed at his forehead till he couldn't feel the weight of it anymore.
"Good," he said, and lay back. There was so much to think about, living up to the legacies of his forefathers, keeping Narnia strong to be passed on to future generations. He could almost feel the weight of all that long history settling over him until he felt very young and the world seemed very old. He could see the summer constellations overhead, familiar and close. "We'll see what adventure Aslan gives us."