your least gesture beckoned a constellation - for narniaexchange
Title: your least gesture beckoned a constellation
Author: be_themoon
Recipient: narniaexchange
Rating: PG-13
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: Discussion of sex.
Summary: It is only her and her father, an old man growing younger and a young girl growing older running wild on a small island. Liliandil as she grows up and doesn't fall in love. Title from Fairy Tales by Shu Ting.
we are not birds
this beautiful speed will be the end of us.
those are stars in our teeth.
Andrew Michael Roberts
Liliandil can remember her mother some. She remembers that her mother was darker than Father, and that her name was Tami, and that she never sang to the dawn, but at night she poured a libation to the gods of her childhood. Liliandil remembers being very young and her mother telling her stories about beasts from her homeland, the lumbering mumakil and the graceful antelope, as she carved their figures in driftwood. They seemed fanciful things to her, but beautiful.
Her mother called her Lily, and smiled, and laughed, and Ramandu’s daughter found these strange but beautiful things.
After her mother dies, things became quieter. They are far to the end of the world here, where people rarely come, and it is only her and her father, an old man growing younger and a young girl growing older running wild on a small island. She builds fires they don’t need just to watch them burn.
+
She spends most of her days in her mother’s grove. Ramandu planted it for Tami years ago, before Liliandil was born, a show of good-will to the castaway woman sheltering on his shores. The trees curve over her head, sheltering, and from its position on the hill above the table she can see almost everything that passes on the island, and has the furthest view of the ocean.
She is there, still young, when the ship comes, bearing the Lords of Narnia, and she hides, watching them through carefully planted thickets of young trees and herbs. After the lords fall to sleep, the sailors flee in their ship. She calls after them from the shore, wishing to give them aid, but they grow fearful at the sight of her and merely row faster.
“Why did they run?” she asks Ramandu that night, and he tells her about fear of the unknown. As she watches the moon rise over the ocean, she stretches her eyes as far to the west as she can. She does not understand this fear of the unknown, the one thing she has always desired the most.
+
When the next ship comes, she is older. She prepares herself and goes to them, and when Caspian toasts her, she smiles long and slow and sweet. Her mother taught her some things.
+
The next day she spins flax as the Narnians argue, their voices carrying over the distance. They are a loud group, she reflects, but then again perhaps all people are like that. She has no frame of reference for their words or anger.
Lucy looks up from the ground and catches her eye. A moment later she excuses herself and comes up the hill, light and easy.
“May I come in?” she says, smiling, and Liliandil hurries to drag out the second chair.
“I hope you and your people are enjoying your stay here,” she says, and Lucy nods.
“You have a beautiful island,” she says. “I only regret that I never knew about it before this.” She pauses, and then says, “May I call you Lily?”
“I suppose,” Liliandil says. Nicknames, a form of closeness. “If you prefer it. Tell me about Narnia. What is it like? The people?”
“I don’t know what it’s like now,” Lucy says, “but it is the most beautiful place in the world. You would like the people, I think. There is magic in Narnia that does not die easily. You would fit in.” Liliandil stops working and listens as Lucy continues talking, telling her of minotaurs and castles and rivers running to the sea, inland areas where you can see nothing but forest. Halfway through a story about otters and hummingbirds, she stops abruptly and rises, turning away. “I won’t be going back,” she says quietly.
“What?”
“To Narnia. Aslan says it is not my place anymore,”
“But it is your home,” Liliandil says. “You speak of it like my mother spoke of hers.”
“Yes,” Lucy says softly.
“My mother was shipwrecked here,” Liliandil says quietly. Standing up, she picks up the antelope carving and shows it to Lucy. “She did not quite lose it. Some of it, she used to say, would always be carried with her. She kept her memories, if nothing else. She made this from the wood of her ship. It’s one of the animals from her home.”
“It’s lovely,” Lucy says, running her fingers across it, and then she hands it back. “Your mother sounds like a wise woman.” Liliandil glows with pleasure and smoothes her fingers over the wood again.
“Thank you,” she says.
“My lady,” Caspian says, peering through the trunks of the trees. “Lucy.”
“Please, come in,” Liliandil says, a little disappointed that she cannot continue talking to Lucy in private but also pleased to be able to speak to Caspian as well. “Lucy was just telling me of Narnia in her day. Perhaps you can tell me about Narnia as it is now?”
“Not nearly as glorious, I’m afraid,” he says, but doesn’t come inside. “I just came up to tell Lucy that I’ll need her in a few hours.”
“Do stay,” Lucy says, “I would like to hear more of Narnia as well.” Caspian comes in awkwardly and sits down on the bench Lucy had vacated.
“Well, we just finished the first census of the entire country before I left,” he says, and she listens intently as he continues. He is more dry and technical than Lucy, but she thinks the mechanics beneath are almost as fascinating as the fairy tale surface. Occasionally Lucy asks for more clarification on something, and Liliandil finds herself at ease. Their conversation is easy enough to follow, and soon she begins asking questions of her own about the Lord’s Council and other matters of state. “You should see Narnia, my lady,” Caspian tells her eventually. “You certainly seem to appreciate it.”
“Please - call me Lily,” Liliandil says, and knows that it was the right thing to say when Caspian blushes a little. Lucy grins knowingly and moves the conversation on.
+
She sits on the beach later, watching as the sailors work on the ship. Now that the sun has gone behind the clouds again, the day is chilly. Caspian looks up and sees her, and turning away from his men he comes towards her.
“You look cold,” he says. “Here, have my cloak.”
“Thank you,” Liliandil says. He slides it on her shoulders, and his hands are warm and solid and eminently normal.
“Do you ever grow lonely here?” he asks, and she nods.
“There aren’t many people, as you may have noticed,” she says, and he laughs a little.
“I think you would like Narnia,” he says, and she turns and looks at him. Her mother had told her love felt like magic, but all she feels is respect and friendship, nothing like the light-headed thrill of calling the birds to eat or raising a tree to growth.
“I think I would,” she says.”Your country sounds very beautiful.”
“It is,” Caspian agrees.
“Do you have a wife, or a fiance?” Liliandil asks, and wonders if that is too forward when Caspian is silent for a long moment.
“No,” he says, and he meets her eyes with a sudden consciousness in them. “I don’t. Not yet.”
“When do you intend to leave?” she says, unable to answer the question he is asking.
“Tomorrow, or the day after,” he says. “Not long now.” He sounds a little disappointed, and she breathes in deep.
“And you will return soon?” she says, and watches the hope return to his face.
+
“He’s a good man,” Edmund says, and Liliandil is startled. She hadn’t meant the Narnians to see her watching them as they feasted at the table. “My sister sent me to ask you to stay with her on the ship tonight,” he says. “I saw you from the hill.”
“Please tell Lucy that I would be more than pleased if she wished to come ashore and stay the night in my house instead, as I believe it has more room,” Liliandil says, and Edmund smiles.
“I will,” he says, but he does not leave.
“You’re King Edmund,” she says quietly, and he nods. “You’re the one who broke the Witch’s wand.”
“Yes,” he says, and shifts, uncomfortable again, a hardness around his eyes.
“Aren’t you going to join them?” she asks, and he shakes his head.
“My sister and I ate,” he says quietly, his eyes on the knife in its place of honor. A long moment passes, and then he turns back to her and nods. “My lady,” he says, and heads towards the ship. She tracks him in the darkness until he is gone and then walks slowly back to her house to prepare her room.
+
Lucy is warm in the bed beside her, and Liliandil wants, but she doesn’t know what it is that she wants.
“Would Caspian take me to Narnia, if I asked?” she asks quietly, and Lucy rolls over on her side to look at her.
“He’ll ask you first, most likely,” she says. “He thinks you’re very beautiful and clever, and he’s not wrong.”
“Would you think me very wrong, if I went with him?” Liliandil says. “I do not love him.”
“You would be a good queen,” Lucy says. “And you do not hate him either.”
“He is pleasing to the eye,” Liliandil says, and Lucy giggles.
“Yes, he is,” she says. “Rather. And you’re not obligated to marry him if you don’t want to. Travel back with him. If you think you would both be happy together, then I would not think you wrong at all to marry him.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it,” Lucy says. They fall silent, and Liliandil listens to the rise and fall of Lucy’s breathing beside her until she drifts asleep.
+
Her mother and father were not in love. Ramandu had admired Tami’s spirit and courage, and Tami had found the ancient star wise and kind, but they were not in love and never were. When they did have sex, Liliandil knows it was out of little more than loneliness. But their life together had been amiable, and so when Caspian says he hopes to speak with her again she smiles at him and promises with her eyes, and then she steps to Lucy and gives her the small wooden antelope.
“It may not be quite Narnian enough,” she says, and Lucy smiles and kisses her on the cheek.
“I hope you love Narnia,” she says. Her arms are warm and soft and then she is gone.
+
“Have you dissolved the enchantment, Caspian?” she says quietly as they walk together on the beach, and he lifts his head and looks her in the eyes.
“I have,” he says.
“And what is your wish?” she says.
“I would wish to kiss the princess,” he says.
“I am no princess,” Liliandil cautions, and he nods.
“No,” he says. “But you are a star’s daughter. I think that suffices.”
“Perhaps it does,” she answers, and closes the distance between them.
Author: be_themoon
Recipient: narniaexchange
Rating: PG-13
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: Discussion of sex.
Summary: It is only her and her father, an old man growing younger and a young girl growing older running wild on a small island. Liliandil as she grows up and doesn't fall in love. Title from Fairy Tales by Shu Ting.
we are not birds
this beautiful speed will be the end of us.
those are stars in our teeth.
Andrew Michael Roberts
Liliandil can remember her mother some. She remembers that her mother was darker than Father, and that her name was Tami, and that she never sang to the dawn, but at night she poured a libation to the gods of her childhood. Liliandil remembers being very young and her mother telling her stories about beasts from her homeland, the lumbering mumakil and the graceful antelope, as she carved their figures in driftwood. They seemed fanciful things to her, but beautiful.
Her mother called her Lily, and smiled, and laughed, and Ramandu’s daughter found these strange but beautiful things.
After her mother dies, things became quieter. They are far to the end of the world here, where people rarely come, and it is only her and her father, an old man growing younger and a young girl growing older running wild on a small island. She builds fires they don’t need just to watch them burn.
+
She spends most of her days in her mother’s grove. Ramandu planted it for Tami years ago, before Liliandil was born, a show of good-will to the castaway woman sheltering on his shores. The trees curve over her head, sheltering, and from its position on the hill above the table she can see almost everything that passes on the island, and has the furthest view of the ocean.
She is there, still young, when the ship comes, bearing the Lords of Narnia, and she hides, watching them through carefully planted thickets of young trees and herbs. After the lords fall to sleep, the sailors flee in their ship. She calls after them from the shore, wishing to give them aid, but they grow fearful at the sight of her and merely row faster.
“Why did they run?” she asks Ramandu that night, and he tells her about fear of the unknown. As she watches the moon rise over the ocean, she stretches her eyes as far to the west as she can. She does not understand this fear of the unknown, the one thing she has always desired the most.
+
When the next ship comes, she is older. She prepares herself and goes to them, and when Caspian toasts her, she smiles long and slow and sweet. Her mother taught her some things.
+
The next day she spins flax as the Narnians argue, their voices carrying over the distance. They are a loud group, she reflects, but then again perhaps all people are like that. She has no frame of reference for their words or anger.
Lucy looks up from the ground and catches her eye. A moment later she excuses herself and comes up the hill, light and easy.
“May I come in?” she says, smiling, and Liliandil hurries to drag out the second chair.
“I hope you and your people are enjoying your stay here,” she says, and Lucy nods.
“You have a beautiful island,” she says. “I only regret that I never knew about it before this.” She pauses, and then says, “May I call you Lily?”
“I suppose,” Liliandil says. Nicknames, a form of closeness. “If you prefer it. Tell me about Narnia. What is it like? The people?”
“I don’t know what it’s like now,” Lucy says, “but it is the most beautiful place in the world. You would like the people, I think. There is magic in Narnia that does not die easily. You would fit in.” Liliandil stops working and listens as Lucy continues talking, telling her of minotaurs and castles and rivers running to the sea, inland areas where you can see nothing but forest. Halfway through a story about otters and hummingbirds, she stops abruptly and rises, turning away. “I won’t be going back,” she says quietly.
“What?”
“To Narnia. Aslan says it is not my place anymore,”
“But it is your home,” Liliandil says. “You speak of it like my mother spoke of hers.”
“Yes,” Lucy says softly.
“My mother was shipwrecked here,” Liliandil says quietly. Standing up, she picks up the antelope carving and shows it to Lucy. “She did not quite lose it. Some of it, she used to say, would always be carried with her. She kept her memories, if nothing else. She made this from the wood of her ship. It’s one of the animals from her home.”
“It’s lovely,” Lucy says, running her fingers across it, and then she hands it back. “Your mother sounds like a wise woman.” Liliandil glows with pleasure and smoothes her fingers over the wood again.
“Thank you,” she says.
“My lady,” Caspian says, peering through the trunks of the trees. “Lucy.”
“Please, come in,” Liliandil says, a little disappointed that she cannot continue talking to Lucy in private but also pleased to be able to speak to Caspian as well. “Lucy was just telling me of Narnia in her day. Perhaps you can tell me about Narnia as it is now?”
“Not nearly as glorious, I’m afraid,” he says, but doesn’t come inside. “I just came up to tell Lucy that I’ll need her in a few hours.”
“Do stay,” Lucy says, “I would like to hear more of Narnia as well.” Caspian comes in awkwardly and sits down on the bench Lucy had vacated.
“Well, we just finished the first census of the entire country before I left,” he says, and she listens intently as he continues. He is more dry and technical than Lucy, but she thinks the mechanics beneath are almost as fascinating as the fairy tale surface. Occasionally Lucy asks for more clarification on something, and Liliandil finds herself at ease. Their conversation is easy enough to follow, and soon she begins asking questions of her own about the Lord’s Council and other matters of state. “You should see Narnia, my lady,” Caspian tells her eventually. “You certainly seem to appreciate it.”
“Please - call me Lily,” Liliandil says, and knows that it was the right thing to say when Caspian blushes a little. Lucy grins knowingly and moves the conversation on.
+
She sits on the beach later, watching as the sailors work on the ship. Now that the sun has gone behind the clouds again, the day is chilly. Caspian looks up and sees her, and turning away from his men he comes towards her.
“You look cold,” he says. “Here, have my cloak.”
“Thank you,” Liliandil says. He slides it on her shoulders, and his hands are warm and solid and eminently normal.
“Do you ever grow lonely here?” he asks, and she nods.
“There aren’t many people, as you may have noticed,” she says, and he laughs a little.
“I think you would like Narnia,” he says, and she turns and looks at him. Her mother had told her love felt like magic, but all she feels is respect and friendship, nothing like the light-headed thrill of calling the birds to eat or raising a tree to growth.
“I think I would,” she says.”Your country sounds very beautiful.”
“It is,” Caspian agrees.
“Do you have a wife, or a fiance?” Liliandil asks, and wonders if that is too forward when Caspian is silent for a long moment.
“No,” he says, and he meets her eyes with a sudden consciousness in them. “I don’t. Not yet.”
“When do you intend to leave?” she says, unable to answer the question he is asking.
“Tomorrow, or the day after,” he says. “Not long now.” He sounds a little disappointed, and she breathes in deep.
“And you will return soon?” she says, and watches the hope return to his face.
+
“He’s a good man,” Edmund says, and Liliandil is startled. She hadn’t meant the Narnians to see her watching them as they feasted at the table. “My sister sent me to ask you to stay with her on the ship tonight,” he says. “I saw you from the hill.”
“Please tell Lucy that I would be more than pleased if she wished to come ashore and stay the night in my house instead, as I believe it has more room,” Liliandil says, and Edmund smiles.
“I will,” he says, but he does not leave.
“You’re King Edmund,” she says quietly, and he nods. “You’re the one who broke the Witch’s wand.”
“Yes,” he says, and shifts, uncomfortable again, a hardness around his eyes.
“Aren’t you going to join them?” she asks, and he shakes his head.
“My sister and I ate,” he says quietly, his eyes on the knife in its place of honor. A long moment passes, and then he turns back to her and nods. “My lady,” he says, and heads towards the ship. She tracks him in the darkness until he is gone and then walks slowly back to her house to prepare her room.
+
Lucy is warm in the bed beside her, and Liliandil wants, but she doesn’t know what it is that she wants.
“Would Caspian take me to Narnia, if I asked?” she asks quietly, and Lucy rolls over on her side to look at her.
“He’ll ask you first, most likely,” she says. “He thinks you’re very beautiful and clever, and he’s not wrong.”
“Would you think me very wrong, if I went with him?” Liliandil says. “I do not love him.”
“You would be a good queen,” Lucy says. “And you do not hate him either.”
“He is pleasing to the eye,” Liliandil says, and Lucy giggles.
“Yes, he is,” she says. “Rather. And you’re not obligated to marry him if you don’t want to. Travel back with him. If you think you would both be happy together, then I would not think you wrong at all to marry him.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it,” Lucy says. They fall silent, and Liliandil listens to the rise and fall of Lucy’s breathing beside her until she drifts asleep.
+
Her mother and father were not in love. Ramandu had admired Tami’s spirit and courage, and Tami had found the ancient star wise and kind, but they were not in love and never were. When they did have sex, Liliandil knows it was out of little more than loneliness. But their life together had been amiable, and so when Caspian says he hopes to speak with her again she smiles at him and promises with her eyes, and then she steps to Lucy and gives her the small wooden antelope.
“It may not be quite Narnian enough,” she says, and Lucy smiles and kisses her on the cheek.
“I hope you love Narnia,” she says. Her arms are warm and soft and then she is gone.
+
“Have you dissolved the enchantment, Caspian?” she says quietly as they walk together on the beach, and he lifts his head and looks her in the eyes.
“I have,” he says.
“And what is your wish?” she says.
“I would wish to kiss the princess,” he says.
“I am no princess,” Liliandil cautions, and he nods.
“No,” he says. “But you are a star’s daughter. I think that suffices.”
“Perhaps it does,” she answers, and closes the distance between them.