[Fic] "Maxims and Verses" -- Chronicles of Narnia, genderswap AU

[edenfalling]

More Narnia genderswap, this from the HHB era: 800 somewhat rambling words on Edith and Rabadash in Calormen, veering from history to poetry and desire to war.

[ETA: The AO3 crosspost is now up!]

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Maxims and Verses
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Coming to Calormen was undoubtedly a mistake, Edith thinks as she lounges by Rabadash's side in the dusk-shadowed courtyard, pretending to listen to an endless recitation of poetry. The way the court ladies look at her and the prince makes her think she's stepped into something deeper than a simple negotiation over a potential dynastic marriage -- something that makes Rabadash think their union is already assured instead of simply a possibility Edith is still examining for deal-breaking flaws. Getting out of Tashbaan will be tricky.

Still. Mistake or not, she doesn't regret the experience. Calormen is so vast compared to Narnia, and its culture hasn't been whittled away by a hundred years of terror and death and deliberate destruction of memory. In Narnia, Edith feels the past in the intangible weight of a few stone constructions Jadis had yet to tear down, and a few simple seasonal rituals pared down to the bare bones and passed from parent to child in furtive whispers. Everything else they've had to relearn from Archenland's records.

Calormen knows its own history, flings its sense of self into the world like a brilliant banner on the wind, like the scent of flowers and blood drifting through the blazing air. Calormen is cruel and proud, harsh and unforgiving, and beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

"What do you think of the poetry, my lady witch?" Rabadash murmurs, his breath moist against the rim of Edith's ear. He drapes an arm proprietarily around her shoulders, tries to pull her closer against his side.

Edith turns toward him, letting the motion dislodge his arm so it slides down her back, over her unbound hair and away -- he knows better than to touch below her waist, here in public, while she wears her stone knife openly at her side. "The form is very different from that of the North," she says. "We make our poems long, to tell stories. You make them short, to distill a thought into as few words as possible. I should like to try my hand at your style, though I fear I would do poorly."

Rabadash smiles, his teeth glinting in the light of the oil lamps. "With the right subject, even the rawest novice can excel," he says. "Did I not fight better than ever in my life, when I fought for your regard at Cair Paravel?"

He could not be more obvious if he tried. Edith smiles as she pulls her hair to the side, exposing the hollow of her neck to his view. "You flatter me," she says, blunt and plainspoken as he thinks all Northerners are blunt and simple. "But if you suggest a subject, I might venture to inflict my words on your ears."

"Never would wounds be so gratefully received," Rabadash says. "Perhaps, since you will be writing in the Calormene style, you might think on what parts of Calormen have best pleased you since your arrival."

"Perhaps," Edith agrees. Then she leans forward to the bowl of fruit, kept cool despite the heat by a layer of crushed and melting ice, and plucks a bunch of green-gold grapes from between two oranges. "I will recite to you tomorrow evening. For now, let us listen to others' words."

She presses one grape to Rabadash's lips, stilling his protest at her evasion.

His dark eyes burn as he eats. He is a beautiful man, Edith thinks, tall and strong, with smooth skin, fine hands, a clean-boned face. She has seen him stripped to the waist in the practice yards, and his shoulders and back make her want to dig in her nails and mark him hers forever. Beautiful and unbowed, like his country.

Such a pity his soul is a horror.

Edith feeds her would-be lover another grape and flicks the fingers of her free hand in a coded pattern. A moment later, a shadow slips from the window -- Sallowpad, gone to find Tumnus and begin planning a covert withdrawal. Thank the Lion that Edith had made Mary see sense and let her come south alone. One woman and six escorts can vanish in a breath. If she'd had Stephen and a ship to worry about as well, let alone Prince Corin... but there's no use thinking of might-have-beens. Rabadash will not hold her by force, and he has lost whatever chance he had to hold her by choice.

Edith smiles to herself in sudden delight, a Calormene poem blooming in her mind.

When the prince storms into her house, his men overturning the empty rooms, he finds nothing but a folded sheet of paper on her erstwhile pillow. Opening it, he reads:

"Neither iron nor gold can fetter a heart; only love, freely given and freely taken, can forge chains so eternal and fine." Beneath the poem is Edith's name and her seal: a knife through a heart, pressed into blood-red wax.

Rabadash burns her rejection and declares war.

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Inspired by the 9/12/10 15_minute_ficlets word #46: snack

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So yeah. Edith apparently has Jadis's knife -- and don't ask me what that does to the section of VDT on the Star's Island. Maybe Aslan just waited until the Pevensies left Narnia the first time to squirrel it away? Except it would be nifty if it was in Cair Paravel along with the gifts the other three got from Father Christmas when they return in PC. Ooh, I like that idea, actually. Yes. That's how it goes.

Anyway, Edith is notably more suspicious of Rabadash than Susan was, but is also more willing to... play him, I guess. And Calormen makes my writing weirdly sensual (for me, anyway), which is not news by this point, but nonetheless continues to surprise me.

...I need a name for this AU. Suggestions?

Comments

[doire]

No name for you, but I liked this snippet.

[edenfalling]

Thanks! (At the moment, I am toying with calling the AU "As the Night the Day," because I live to mangle famous quotes, but the connection is kind of tenuous and I keep feeling there must be something better.)

[aishuu.livejournal.com]

No ideas atm for a name, sorry.

Edith is a lot more intelligent than Susan, which makes sense. I wonder what the lack of a traditional feminine archetype as Queen will do to the Narnians.

[edenfalling]

Traditional in what sense? Reigning queens and kunoichi and so on are perfectly traditional in their own ways. :-D But yeah, neither Mary nor Edith will play Susan's role.

I think it's not that Edith is more intelligent than Susan, but that she has a different set of expectations -- she's not looking for the fairy-tale romance that seems to have been what tripped Susan into overlooking Rabadash's flaws until it was nearly too late. (There was probably also an element of "one of us must get married and I am more suited to that role than Peter and Edmund" to Susan's thinking, but I think the quasi-romantic aspect was the main thing. She does like boys when she's back in England, after all.) Edith is more likely to think about politics and influence than romance. Also, these Pevensies have had a less stable reign -- because of the High Queen problem you raised earlier -- and so are all four a bit more sensitive to plots, hidden agendas, and so on.

[edenfalling]

Thanks! Lewis has his issues, but I always find him enjoyable to read -- he has a very smooth, engaging style, a nice touch with description when appropriate, and a good ear for dialogue.

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

I adore the sensual imagery here coupled with Edith's fierce intelligence. The finger code! Wonderful. And I so enjoy how she openly admires Rabadash but is in no way blinded by him, wanting to claim him herself, but does not. That is a powerful characterization. Also, the stone knife through the heart!!! OUCH!

Also, it's only a paragraph, but the comparison of the Narnian and Calormene cultures makes me long all the more for a Courting Dance update. I so appreciate your take on Calormen as something other than what it is so often portrayed as.

[edenfalling]

The finger code seemed like a logical extension of using ravens and crows as spies and secret service -- I continue to love the Murder in "Harold and Morgan," incidentally, and I do need to review the latest chapter when I have the time and engergy to be coherent about it -- and as for Edith and Rabadash, well, physical desire is not a male-only domain. Women can want, too.

I am working on "The Courting Dance." I just keep running into the same history lesson problem -- sooner or later, the infodump has to happen, and it's like pulling teeth to keep the story reading like a story instead of a textbook. *sigh* Once I get past that, it should go faster.

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

The finger code seemed like a logical extension of using ravens and crows as spies and secret service -- I continue to love the Murder in "Harold and Morgan," incidentally, and I do need to review the latest chapter when I have the time and engergy to be coherent about it
Oh, well thank you! H&M has really tanked in terms of reader FB and most of the long term readers have disappeared. I keep pecking at the final chapter of this segment, but there's not much bounce in the step.
-- and as for Edith and Rabadash, well, physical desire is not a male-only domain. Women can want, too.
I've spent lots of bandwidth and ink on this subject as well -- not only the double standard that operates, but that so often in the Narnia fandom, Susan is sexually victimized in punishment for her apostasy. This is why I so liked this segment with Edith and Rabadash -- it is sensual and powerful, and yet Edith also keeps her head about it, which empowers her even further. She sees, she wants, she sampled a bit because of her own desires of which she is aware and embraces without shame, and then keeps her eyes on her own goals and with none of that "Oh Edmund! Whatever shall we do!"

Great job. I ended up recc'ing this over on NFFR by the way. It is a very powerful piece.

[metonomia.livejournal.com]

OH MAN, Edith has Jadis' knife. That kind of blew me away. I think I love it - it suggests much less of a negative effect than we often see Jadis' memory having on Edmund. This, plus what you said in the other bit about how Edith really takes Jadis as a role model- her strength and power - is really painting a picture to me of Edith regretting her betrayal of her siblings, and certainly apologizing for that, but not really ever regretting what she learned from Jadis.

Also, the fact that Rabadash called her 'my lady witch' really intrigued me - is Edith wielding magic? Or is that just a name based upon the increased association with Jadis that you mentioned, or simply Rabadash's views of northern women?

As always, I adore the sensuality of your writing about Calormen. More more more, please!

[edenfalling]

Thank you!

Edith regretting her betrayal of her siblings, and certainly apologizing for that, but not really ever regretting what she learned from Jadis. Yes, exactly!

Just as Mary is often called "Mary Lionheart" instead of her official epithetic title (which will probably be "the Valiant," but I'm not firm on that yet), I think Edith is often called "the Gray Witch," because of her association with Jadis. She did not learn actual magic from Jadis, and though she may have picked up a few spells later on from other sources, she's not really a witch in the sense of being a magic user. What she is, is a witch in the sense of having some of Jadis's ruthless practicality, only tempered with a working sense of empathy and proportion. Edith is not precisely fond of her unofficial title or the wariness it can engender in her subjects, but she doesn't deny it either, and sometimes finds her reputation useful. (Also, Rabadash has skewed ideas about northern women, and has previously joked that Edith must have enchanted him.)

[metonomia.livejournal.com]

Oooooh, I love that! All the various intimations of 'gray' work so well - not quite the White Witch but it would definitely recall that name, and the idea of a sort of in-between-ness, of morality or whatever. That's totally the perfect nickname, and I love Edith is not precisely fond of her unofficial title or the wariness it can engender in her subjects, but she doesn't deny it either, and sometimes finds her reputation useful.

Also, Mary the Valiant, called Lionheart! That's awesome. I saw the comments on the other thread about the revised titles of the Four, and I especially love that one and then Stephen the Generous. That one's really good, and to me it kind of evokes a similar idea as we get with Susan the Gentle, only it's much more masculine-acceptable, of course.

[metonomia.livejournal.com]

Oh, and also! I forgot to mention it before, but this line: Calormen is cruel and proud, harsh and unforgiving, and beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. I love that. It puts me in mind of Jadis, and then in this story, by extension, Edith, who is perhaps neither cruel nor unforgiving, but seems very much to come off as that sort of woman, at least to outsiders, very beautiful and very harsh.

And, I wanted to ask if you might consider more exploration of Mary? Unfortunately I keep finding myself thinking of her as Susan only the eldest, but obviously that's not right, and I'd love to have more of what you started in the first bit, to see her in Narnia and beyond.

[edenfalling]

Edith has a public face and a private face, and while there is overlap, yeah, she can come off very... remote, I guess, if she hasn't decided to let a person in. Also, Jadis and Calormen are somewhat linked in my mind -- I have a private theory that she spent time there in the centuries before she conquered Narnia, and had an interesting effect on the Calormene religion. One of these days, I may even get around to finishing the story those ideas are part of. *sigh*

I wrote another ficlet in this AU at work Monday night: Summer of '39, which is Stephen's perspective on some of the issues Edith is seething over in "Fester Like a Sore," as seen on one summer morning a year before LWW. It includes more about Mary, Edith, and Mrs. Pevensie, as well as Laurie's first proper appearance (and Stephen himself, of course). Hopefully it will make Mary and Stephen a bit more clear. :-)

[uminohikari.livejournal.com]

I particularly like that Edith can see the parts of Rabadash that are interesting, but also see the parts she doesn't like.

♥

[edenfalling]

Thanks! I like the way Lewis resolutely left sex out of his books -- it makes his world unusually relatable for me, personally -- but it's kind of fun to put physical desire back in now and then. I liked letting Edith want, and then decide not to act on that want, all for her own reasons and of her own free will.

[(Anonymous)]

This AU is so interesting! I love this little collection. And how Edith has absorbed some of Jadis.
This fights the gender roles so much. I love it. And I read the little part about having a less stable reign-I'm worried about what happens when they get back. Edith is so intriguing.

[edenfalling]

Thank you! I am not sure quite what happens after Calormen, except that these Pevensies still go back to England at approximately the same time as their canon counterparts. Someday I may give in and write this AU properly instead of as scattered snippets, at which point I suspect I will learn the answer to that question. :-)