[Fic] "None Sing Hymns to Breath" -- Chronicles of Narnia

[edenfalling]

Raise your hand if you're surprised that I wrote Narnia fanfiction. Anybody? Somehow I thought not. *sigh*

This is Lucy-centric, sort of a character study set mostly in the last chapter of Prince Caspian. My canon is bookverse, partly because I haven't seen the second movie yet, and partly because for me, film versions of novels are always an interpretation of canon rather than canon themselves -- I may make use of them, but they're not the basis of my understanding of any world. (Well, to be perfectly honest, I think I saw the old BBC film of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe before I read the books, so I'm sure that version is probably at the root of a lot of my reflex visualization of Lewis's world, but that was almost twenty years ago and I'm not a very visual person anyway, so. Let's just leave it at bookverse, shall we?)

The title is half a quote from Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light. The long version is this: "None sing hymns to breath," said Yama. "But, oh to be without it!" The original context is a fight to the death that ends with Yama drowning Rild/Sugata in a river, but I find the quote has more universal applicability. *grin*

Anyway. Story!

[ETA: The story is also posted here on AO3 and here on ff.net.]

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None Sing Hymns to Breath
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Lucy felt, afterwards, that they ought to have known from the beginning. There was something about the air in Narnia that smelled fresher than anything in England. And it wasn't just the scent -- Narnian air filled the lungs faster, carried sound further and more clearly, didn't cloud with haze to block your view of distant mountains.

It was as if the whole world were a shade more real in Narnia than anywhere else.

That had been the worst about going back to the Professor's house, worse even than the reversion to childhood. To some degree, the mind and soul seemed to shape themselves to the body, so childhood only felt like a vise for a few weeks. Then it became a set of too-tight clothes, then simply scratchy wool, and then even the itch was gone and Lucy was a girl in a girl's body, not a woman trapped in a perversion of nature.

She remembered, of course, but the memories were softened, blurred like the air of England blurred sight and scent and sound. After a while she began to forget the reality of Narnia, without the land vivid before her. It was hard to be a queen in England, so Lucy tucked her old life away like a set of Sunday clothes and thought about school instead.

In the ruins of Cair Paravel, the girl began to unfold back into the woman and queen. She'd felt herself grow stronger, watched Peter, Susan, and Edmund's steps smooth and lengthen, heard their accents shift just a hairsbreadth and ring with a renewed confidence. Yet she hadn't understood, hadn't realized where they were.

"Was it a lack of faith?" she asked Aslan after the battle, while Caspian and her brothers were out dealing with soldiers and politics, and Susan was engaged in a tricky bit of negotiation with Queen Prunaprismia. "The Professor said we might go back someday, even though the wardrobe door was closed. Shouldn't I have thought you might have called us here? Could we have done better if we'd known from the start?"

Aslan rested his head on his great paws and met her eyes solemnly, unblinking. "That is in the past," he said. "You were true at the time of trial, and no one is ever told what would have happened. For now, be content. Narnia is at peace."

"But will it last?" asked Lucy. "What will you do with all the Telmarines? And what about Caspian's aunt and cousin? Oh, I ought to be helping Susan." But Prunaprismia was so unpleasant, and Susan had always been better at diplomacy and polite fictions.

"Tomorrow all will be made clear," said Aslan. "Today, reacquaint yourself with the land. All the waters and trees will be glad of your presence."

"And that will help Caspian keep the peace?" Lucy asked.

"Whether it will or not is for him to prove," Aslan said, rising to his feet. "His story and yours are soon to part ways. But it may help you." He turned and leapt from the battlements, flowing down to earth in a bolt of sun-gold fur, and paced toward the yard where the boys were holding court.

Lucy descended by more normal means and picked her way through the unfamiliar castle, pausing now and then to admire a tapestry or a stained-glass window, though she found most of the furnishings too gaudy and stiff. She made several wrong turns, but eventually she reached open air and asked directions to the stables. The Telmarine grooms were terrified of her, which was both amusing and sad, but they saddled up a spirited filly and one dashed to the kitchens to fetch a satchel with food and wine for her excursion.

Lucy thanked them, courteously refused an escort, and rode down to Beruna. The bridge stones lay scattered in the shallows, laid out as if for a giant game of hopscotch, and some were already covered with moss and water-weeds. Lucy tied her horse to a weeping willow and knelt to brush her fingers through the river. The water of Narnia was like the air, more real and clean and sharp than what she'd drunk over the past year in England, and she cupped a handful to taste its elusive sweetness.

Tomorrow the future would be made clear. But today, Lucy closed her eyes and breathed in her kingdom, and tried to weave it so deep into her soul that no magic nor change of worlds could ever blur the memory.

She was a girl in England, and that was fair and proper, but inside the girl was a queen. Aslan had crowned her and given her his trust. She would never ignore that again.

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Inspired by the 3/2/09 15_minute_fic word #100: throb

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I realize this story has approximately nothing to do with the prompt word, but I spent a minute going, "Oh, you have got to be kidding me," another minute struggling to think of something non-pornographic and not horribly silly, a third minute thinking about heartbeats and strong emotions and heartache and so on, and then I wound up with Lucy and the nature of memory and belief and wondering why it seems so easy for her to keep faith with Aslan.

I fail horribly at writing Aslan. I think this is because he doesn't do normal dialogue; he speaks in Pronouncements From On High, and it's hard to write something that sounds profound and wise on such short notice. *sigh* Oh well, I'm sure it's good practice for something.

Also, I cheated on this. The bones of the story were done in 15 minutes, but it was very ugly and awkward, so I took another 20 minutes to cut and insert and rephrase various snippets until it matched up better with what I was trying to say. (In other words, this is now about 85% true to the Platonic story ideal in my head, instead of a measley 60%.)

Comments

[smokyglass.livejournal.com]

Yay, you wrote Narnia fic! I have no time to read it now, but this shall give me something to look forward to. By the way, when I was younger, Lucy was my favorite character.

[smokyglass.livejournal.com]

Ohh, how lovely. I adore your description of the air in Narnia. And Aslan sounded just fine to me. Also, I like how you dealt with the transition back to a child, because from the books, it doesn't seem as if they are now adults (though I've always wanted to read fic where the Pensieve children are now adults in childrens' bodies and how do they deal with it).

She was a girl in England, and that was fair and proper, but inside the girl was a queen. Aslan had crowned her and given her his trust. She would never ignore that again.

Beautiful. I love your way with words.

[edenfalling]

Thank you! Yeah, in the books the change back to childhood is clearly mental as well as physical; Lewis doesn't say so outright, but it's implicit in the Pevensies' behavior once they return to England. I find that very interesting, because it must be odd to remember being an adult while at the same time being -- not just seeming to be -- a child.

One thing I do like about Narnia is that it is an excellent world in which to indulge in descriptions of natural beauty. I'm not much use at descriptive passages in the general way of things, but it's good to stretch as a writer now and then.

[snaegl.livejournal.com]

Nice little ficlet. I've often wondered if Narnia seems more real because the children are always afraid on some level that it's going to be taken away from them, and thus they hang on to every detail with all their might.

I think moments of Narnia-like clarity exist here as well, but we need to put in the effort to make and acknowledge them.

"None sing hymns to breath"

Druids do! ;-p (One of the translations of "awen" is "breath.")

[edenfalling]

Hmm. I don't think the Pevensies are afraid of losing Narnia in the first book, but ever after that... yeah, there's probably a fair amount of "This will not last, so I must make every moment count" going on. But beyond that, I think Narnia really IS meant to be a touch hyper-real. Lewis's narration certainly implies that just being back there changes people -- gives them strength, refreshes their memories, and makes them somehow better.

I think moments of Narnia-like clarity exist here as well, but we need to put in the effort to make and acknowledge them.

Lewis would agree with you! :-) That is actually one of his theological points that I find reasonable, justifiable, and correct -- that the sacred is a constant presence in the world around us, if we would only open our hearts and pay attention.

[hollywdliz.livejournal.com]

I loved this. And I didn't think your Aslan was awkward at all!

[edenfalling]

Thank you! As for Aslan... I dunno, maybe it's just that I was rereading the books only last week, so I'm very conscious of every mismatch between my narrative voice and Lewis's.

[uminohikari.livejournal.com]

I think it matched the prompt really well though, because of how emotional it was..

[edenfalling]

Hmm. Well, I certainly wouldn't have written the story without the prompt, so... maybe? :-)

More seriously, there seem to be two ways to treat the prompts:. First is to use them fairly straightforwardly, sometimes even including the word in the story. (For example, last week's word, 'marooned,' led directly to Denifar and Ekanu talking about being stranded on a small island for a week.) Second is to use the word to spark a chain of thought and write about whatever happens to be the endpoint, no matter how tenuous the connection is between that end thought and the triggering word. (Which is how, for example, I ended up writing Prison Keys off of the prompt 'deaf' -- I think my thought train went from deaf to blind to wilful ignorance to disability to feeling trapped to, "Oh, hey, blind and trapped, that reminds me of the Hyuugas!" and suddenly I had a story.)

[raja815.livejournal.com]

I found this through your link at 15_minute_fic and I must say, it's so lovely. I particularly liked the line about Narnia feeling a shade more real than anywhere else; that's exactly how I felt about it when I was just a little kid being read these stories.

Perfect, just perfect. :)

[edenfalling]

Thank you very much!