Big Bang Fic: The Red Leather Trousers Escapade (4/17)
Title: The Red Leather Trousers Escapade (4/17)
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 Three
-X-
His feet were tingling; that was the first thing Eustace noticed when he woke up. He hated when his feet tingled. It always made him think of things like foot fungi and bacteria-laden boots - not that he remembered what either of those were, anymore, save for the fuzzy memory of his father’s lecturing voice. By Aslan, he had forgotten how awful it was when his father began to lecture.
His mind wandered from introspective memories to pondering the cause of his tingling feet until gradually, Eustace became aware of a pressure on his left hand. It was not an uncomfortable pressure and, upon reflection, he could almost say that it was quite pleasant. Although, he couldn’t quite think of what it could be, that he would hold in his palm while falling asleep.
His awareness rushed in all at once as Eustace realized that it was another’s hand resting on his own. He jerked away and opened his eyes and then had to check to make sure he had because he couldn’t see a thing. This was not the dark of a night’s sky or of a windowless room; the only other time he had felt a darkness so complete was in the Underworld.
The only sound was his uneven, loud breathing and - he listened close - someone else’s steady breaths beside him. The person whose hand he had been, er, touching. Had they fallen into the Underworld together, him and this other person? Had he been kidnapped?
And Jill? Where was she? Last he remembered - but even that was unclear. Water and fear - or was that a dream? Had he been dreaming? But why was he… wherever he was?
He started to roll away from the person and nearly cried out from the pain in his back. He sat up as carefully as possible, wincing as each movement sent another twinge of pain out from the spot just below his right shoulder. There was a bandage tied there - and now he did remember, vaguely, someone tying it around because - he’d been hit with an - but where was - but that meant -
Eustace calmed down and resolved never to tell Jill that he had believed, however temporarily, that she had been a kidnapper. He added a second clause to that: to never mention the hands-on-top-of-each-other part.
Just to be sure that it was Jill, Eustace crawled back and put his hands out. He felt - was that a nose? Yes, and cheek and lips -
Of course, that was the exact moment that Jill stirred. “Wha-?” she asked, and he snatched his hand back with the hope that she did not notice. And it was Jill - he would know her voice anywhere.
“Morning,” he said before adding, “Although, I can’t say that I’m all too sure about that one. Could be the middle of next season for all I know.”
Her breath caught. “You’re awake.”
“Either that, or I am a particularly articulate sleep-talker.”
She didn’t even laugh at that and Eustace sobered at the implications. “Was I not supposed to be? You didn’t feed me a sleep draught, did you?”
She didn’t even answer right away. If it were not for the steady rhythm of her breaths to his left, he would almost have believed himself to be alone.
When she did speak, her voice was too steady - as though she had nearly-but-not-quite fallen into tears and was trying to hide the fact with regular speech patterns. “Your shoulder-“
And that was when he changed his mind. “Don’t. I don’t - I don’t need to know. Not yet.” As an afterthought, he tagged on, “Please.”
“All right.” They sat together without speaking and far away in the distance, Eustace heard the plink-plink of dripping water. His shoulder was hurting abysmally.
“So,” he tried, using an overtly casual tone to hide his pain, “We’re underground. Without a light. Underground. Are you -?”
“Fine,” she responded in a voice that brooked no discussion.
Eustace didn’t argue. Instead, he asked somewhat hesitantly, “Are we going to be sitting here much longer or do you reckon we could find a way out of this place?”
-X-
The inn was a humble, downtrodden building not much larger than a milk barn. The yard was a mess of thistles and rough, black lava stones; in the corner was a neglected garden that appeared to be growing anything except vegetables. If it were not for the broom on the porch and the large, wooden sign that read in heavy script, “The Silent Snake Inn,” the place might have been mistaken for a long-abandoned dwelling.
Eustace didn’t even want to go in there, no matter how tired he was from the walk through the tunnels and out under open skies. The city of Monakai lay below, only an hour’s walk away, and if it weren’t for Jill - well, it had been a rough day. He was not all too inclined to argue with her now.
She was the one who walked briskly up the broken-stone path to the door, the one who ushered him inside, the one who took in everything with a single look and knew immediately who to address. Not, he realized, that it was too difficult to figure out. The main room had only one large table with benches for seats, occupied at the end by two rough-looking men nursing their drinks. Coming from the door in the back was the serving girl.
“Excuse me,” said Jill, pulling out a purse of coins she had somehow retained through all their misadventures, “but we’re looking for a room for a night - and clothes, if you could manage them. And my friend is hurt.”
Which was how they found themselves in a small, slant-roofed room with a single mattress and no other furniture.
“I’ll take the floor,” Eustace said right off to avoid any awkwardness.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Jill sat down on the edge of the mattress and began unlacing her boot, grimacing at the dried sand that came off the laces into her hand. “You’re wounded. I can manage a wooden floor for one night.”
There was no real argument he could bring up for this and besides, his back really did hurt. As much as it had pained him in the tunnels, it had only gotten worse since then. He took a seat beside Jill and wiggled his bare toes - one boot was lost in the sea, the other in the tunnels. Jill finally loosened the knot and yanked her own boot off with a huff of relief.
There was a knock at the door and when opened, the serving-girl brought in a folded pile of clothing. “I am afraid this is all we have,” she apologized. “My mam will be up shortly to tend your wound, sir.” She beat a hasty retreat as soon as Jill had taken the bundles.
“If my clothing weren’t so crusty, I wouldn’t even change,” he said, “Can’t we just wait until we get back to the palace tomorrow?”
Jill had begun unfolding the clothes and spreading them out across the bed. “What I wouldn’t give for a hot bath,” she groaned. Then she stopped, her hands shaking.
A sick pit formed in his stomach at her words but Eustace tried to ignore it as he laid a hand on her arm. “No giants on this island,” he muttered, “Forget it.”
“But there are people who want us dead,” she responded, “Do you think - Eustace, they had to have come from somewhere.”
“I’d imagine so,” he said, but he understood what she meant. Assassins always had a purpose; the trick was to figure out what they wanted or, as the case may be, who had sent them. “You think it’s someone in the palace.”
“Who else knew we’d go up to the cliffs?”
He thought briefly of the people they alone had told. “It could be anyone, really.”
Jill’s breath hitched and she turned quickly back to the remaining folded clothes to hide it. One by one, she shook them out and spread them over the coverlet. There were two tunics, a pair of leggings that would best fit Jill, and -
“I think I’ll stick with my own trousers, thank you,” Eustace grumbled at the sight of what was laid out for him.
Jill held a hand to her face in an ill attempt to hide the smirk. “Are you so adverse to a pair of leather trousers?”
“I am if they’re bright crimson. Who in Aslan’s name would think of red leather trousers, anyway?”
Her smirk grew wider. “Perhaps they wanted to honour our Narnian culture by giving you trousers the colour of our flag.”
“You never said we were Narnian.”
“Is it that hard to figure out?”
He looked at their pale skin and sun-bleached hair and decided that it was not too difficult to deduce. All the same -
“Do you think - that is - if someone tried to kill us once-“
“What’s to stop them from trying again?” Jill finished. She looked down. “If we only knew who was behind it.”
“But we don’t.”
“So we need to find out. It can’t have been the assassins - I haven’t ever seen either of them before.”
“So someone would have hired them.”
Both fell silent as they realized at the same moment the direction their conversation was heading. Jill looked back to the clothes on the bed, Eustace to the spiderweb in the corner.
“We can’t let anyone know we’re still alive,” he said finally, “For our own safety - and to catch them off guard.”
“Which means we can’t draw attention to ourselves by entering the city as disheveled as we currently are.”
Eustace looked down at the red leather trousers and raised an eyebrow pointedly.
Jill smirked again. “Oh, buck up,” she said, “At least we won’t be recognized if no one is paying attention to your face.”
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 Three
-X-
His feet were tingling; that was the first thing Eustace noticed when he woke up. He hated when his feet tingled. It always made him think of things like foot fungi and bacteria-laden boots - not that he remembered what either of those were, anymore, save for the fuzzy memory of his father’s lecturing voice. By Aslan, he had forgotten how awful it was when his father began to lecture.
His mind wandered from introspective memories to pondering the cause of his tingling feet until gradually, Eustace became aware of a pressure on his left hand. It was not an uncomfortable pressure and, upon reflection, he could almost say that it was quite pleasant. Although, he couldn’t quite think of what it could be, that he would hold in his palm while falling asleep.
His awareness rushed in all at once as Eustace realized that it was another’s hand resting on his own. He jerked away and opened his eyes and then had to check to make sure he had because he couldn’t see a thing. This was not the dark of a night’s sky or of a windowless room; the only other time he had felt a darkness so complete was in the Underworld.
The only sound was his uneven, loud breathing and - he listened close - someone else’s steady breaths beside him. The person whose hand he had been, er, touching. Had they fallen into the Underworld together, him and this other person? Had he been kidnapped?
And Jill? Where was she? Last he remembered - but even that was unclear. Water and fear - or was that a dream? Had he been dreaming? But why was he… wherever he was?
He started to roll away from the person and nearly cried out from the pain in his back. He sat up as carefully as possible, wincing as each movement sent another twinge of pain out from the spot just below his right shoulder. There was a bandage tied there - and now he did remember, vaguely, someone tying it around because - he’d been hit with an - but where was - but that meant -
Eustace calmed down and resolved never to tell Jill that he had believed, however temporarily, that she had been a kidnapper. He added a second clause to that: to never mention the hands-on-top-of-each-other part.
Just to be sure that it was Jill, Eustace crawled back and put his hands out. He felt - was that a nose? Yes, and cheek and lips -
Of course, that was the exact moment that Jill stirred. “Wha-?” she asked, and he snatched his hand back with the hope that she did not notice. And it was Jill - he would know her voice anywhere.
“Morning,” he said before adding, “Although, I can’t say that I’m all too sure about that one. Could be the middle of next season for all I know.”
Her breath caught. “You’re awake.”
“Either that, or I am a particularly articulate sleep-talker.”
She didn’t even laugh at that and Eustace sobered at the implications. “Was I not supposed to be? You didn’t feed me a sleep draught, did you?”
She didn’t even answer right away. If it were not for the steady rhythm of her breaths to his left, he would almost have believed himself to be alone.
When she did speak, her voice was too steady - as though she had nearly-but-not-quite fallen into tears and was trying to hide the fact with regular speech patterns. “Your shoulder-“
And that was when he changed his mind. “Don’t. I don’t - I don’t need to know. Not yet.” As an afterthought, he tagged on, “Please.”
“All right.” They sat together without speaking and far away in the distance, Eustace heard the plink-plink of dripping water. His shoulder was hurting abysmally.
“So,” he tried, using an overtly casual tone to hide his pain, “We’re underground. Without a light. Underground. Are you -?”
“Fine,” she responded in a voice that brooked no discussion.
Eustace didn’t argue. Instead, he asked somewhat hesitantly, “Are we going to be sitting here much longer or do you reckon we could find a way out of this place?”
-X-
The inn was a humble, downtrodden building not much larger than a milk barn. The yard was a mess of thistles and rough, black lava stones; in the corner was a neglected garden that appeared to be growing anything except vegetables. If it were not for the broom on the porch and the large, wooden sign that read in heavy script, “The Silent Snake Inn,” the place might have been mistaken for a long-abandoned dwelling.
Eustace didn’t even want to go in there, no matter how tired he was from the walk through the tunnels and out under open skies. The city of Monakai lay below, only an hour’s walk away, and if it weren’t for Jill - well, it had been a rough day. He was not all too inclined to argue with her now.
She was the one who walked briskly up the broken-stone path to the door, the one who ushered him inside, the one who took in everything with a single look and knew immediately who to address. Not, he realized, that it was too difficult to figure out. The main room had only one large table with benches for seats, occupied at the end by two rough-looking men nursing their drinks. Coming from the door in the back was the serving girl.
“Excuse me,” said Jill, pulling out a purse of coins she had somehow retained through all their misadventures, “but we’re looking for a room for a night - and clothes, if you could manage them. And my friend is hurt.”
Which was how they found themselves in a small, slant-roofed room with a single mattress and no other furniture.
“I’ll take the floor,” Eustace said right off to avoid any awkwardness.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Jill sat down on the edge of the mattress and began unlacing her boot, grimacing at the dried sand that came off the laces into her hand. “You’re wounded. I can manage a wooden floor for one night.”
There was no real argument he could bring up for this and besides, his back really did hurt. As much as it had pained him in the tunnels, it had only gotten worse since then. He took a seat beside Jill and wiggled his bare toes - one boot was lost in the sea, the other in the tunnels. Jill finally loosened the knot and yanked her own boot off with a huff of relief.
There was a knock at the door and when opened, the serving-girl brought in a folded pile of clothing. “I am afraid this is all we have,” she apologized. “My mam will be up shortly to tend your wound, sir.” She beat a hasty retreat as soon as Jill had taken the bundles.
“If my clothing weren’t so crusty, I wouldn’t even change,” he said, “Can’t we just wait until we get back to the palace tomorrow?”
Jill had begun unfolding the clothes and spreading them out across the bed. “What I wouldn’t give for a hot bath,” she groaned. Then she stopped, her hands shaking.
A sick pit formed in his stomach at her words but Eustace tried to ignore it as he laid a hand on her arm. “No giants on this island,” he muttered, “Forget it.”
“But there are people who want us dead,” she responded, “Do you think - Eustace, they had to have come from somewhere.”
“I’d imagine so,” he said, but he understood what she meant. Assassins always had a purpose; the trick was to figure out what they wanted or, as the case may be, who had sent them. “You think it’s someone in the palace.”
“Who else knew we’d go up to the cliffs?”
He thought briefly of the people they alone had told. “It could be anyone, really.”
Jill’s breath hitched and she turned quickly back to the remaining folded clothes to hide it. One by one, she shook them out and spread them over the coverlet. There were two tunics, a pair of leggings that would best fit Jill, and -
“I think I’ll stick with my own trousers, thank you,” Eustace grumbled at the sight of what was laid out for him.
Jill held a hand to her face in an ill attempt to hide the smirk. “Are you so adverse to a pair of leather trousers?”
“I am if they’re bright crimson. Who in Aslan’s name would think of red leather trousers, anyway?”
Her smirk grew wider. “Perhaps they wanted to honour our Narnian culture by giving you trousers the colour of our flag.”
“You never said we were Narnian.”
“Is it that hard to figure out?”
He looked at their pale skin and sun-bleached hair and decided that it was not too difficult to deduce. All the same -
“Do you think - that is - if someone tried to kill us once-“
“What’s to stop them from trying again?” Jill finished. She looked down. “If we only knew who was behind it.”
“But we don’t.”
“So we need to find out. It can’t have been the assassins - I haven’t ever seen either of them before.”
“So someone would have hired them.”
Both fell silent as they realized at the same moment the direction their conversation was heading. Jill looked back to the clothes on the bed, Eustace to the spiderweb in the corner.
“We can’t let anyone know we’re still alive,” he said finally, “For our own safety - and to catch them off guard.”
“Which means we can’t draw attention to ourselves by entering the city as disheveled as we currently are.”
Eustace looked down at the red leather trousers and raised an eyebrow pointedly.
Jill smirked again. “Oh, buck up,” she said, “At least we won’t be recognized if no one is paying attention to your face.”
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|