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edenfallingmarmota_b said: Can I claim "adventure/quest" and ask for more of Susan and Lucy's Interesting Times? Please? 'Susan only went to fetch a few jars of jam. Meanwhile, the daring Captain Lucy, aged nine, accompanied by her loyal crew of Otter pups, set sail to the Port of Pantry.' (2,550 words)Note: The problem with this story is that in my head, Susan and Lucy's 'interesting times' are BIG adventure-type things -- shipwrecks! kidnapping by magical birds! surprising a group of invading soldiers! etc. -- not two people (and a group of young Otters) crashing into each other in the kitchen. So I tried to work up some big thing that the pantry chaos could lead into, and that kept turning into an irretrievable mood clash that made me flinch away from the story every time I went to add another hundred words.
(I do still intend to write the big thing I came up with, but without the comedy and incidental Otters. Also it will be about half story and half academic textbook, because reasons, and involve all four Pevensies instead of only Susan and Lucy.)
Anyway, the upshot is that I ditched the long 'interesting times' story as unworkable and instead wrote a small fic about a minor domestic accident and slightly differing interpretations of how to be a responsible queen. Which is probably what you wanted all along and I'm the one who tripped over myself and made a lot of unnecessary bother for three weeks. *wry*
Continuity notes: The weather problems Susan mentions are detailed in Dedication. Mrs. Grubbins is the castle healer who previously appeared in Liminality.
[ETA: The slightly revised final version is now up on AO3!]
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Responsibility
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"Thank you again for coming downriver from Beruna," Susan said to Skipper Sharpeye, curtseying slightly to the Otter and her crew. "The harbor's in a terrible mess after the autumn floods and winter ice, and your help cleaning the wreckage is greatly appreciated."
"We're not so good at building as Beavers, Your Majesty, but there's none as good as Otters when it comes to keeping a river clean," Sharpeye said, bobbing her head and shoulders in a peculiar sort of bow. Her crew followed suit, dipping and rising like a flotilla of driftwood on a wave. "It's an honor to do what we can to dredge Narnia back into shape."
"We're all working toward that," Susan said with a smile. "And on that note, I'll let you get to work and make sure there's an excellent supper waiting for you when you're finished."
The Otters bobbed again and dove into the silty swirl of the harbor, where the Great River extended freshwater fingers into the salt of the sea. They rapidly stretched out into a line, diving and popping up again to shout observations back and forth in an impenetrable technical jargon.
Susan watched them swim for a minute, enjoying the bright May sunshine and the west wind that blew the clean scent of flowers downstream, pushing away the stench of wrack and rot that the floods had lodged about the castle's skirts. Then she turned and climbed the steep, grassy hill toward Cair Paravel and her duties as chatelaine. The kitchen staff most likely had everything in hand (or paw) already, but she'd feel better if she double-checked their progress herself.
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Nobody actually asked Lucy to watch Skipper Sharpeye's pups while the Otter and her crew inspected the harbor, but when she followed the sound of frustrated voices and slammed doors to a normally unused sitting room, she found them driving the housekeeping staff to distraction. The staff were all quite busy with their own jobs, and a hundred years of winter hadn't left much by way of children's toys in the castle. It didn't seem right to drag one of the crew out of the water and leave the skipper shortpawed, but shutting the pups up with nothing to do and irritated people always telling them to shush wasn't fair either. Obviously something needed to be done!
It was a queen's duty to make her country run smoothly and keep her people safe and content, Susan always said. So Lucy slipped into the room and whistled to grab the Otter pups' attention.
They stopped trying to build a slide from sofa cushions and looked at her with bright eyes and quivering whiskers. "You're Queen Lucy! What are you doing here?" said the one with the darkest fur, moving a step forward in front of her siblings.
Lucy grinned. "I'm not Queen Lucy, not today. Today I'm Captain Lucy of Cair Paravel, and I'm looking for a few likely Beasts to join my pirate crew!"
She was mobbed in short order, and promptly swept the pups off to the royal bedrooms in search of proper piratical attire. (They appropriated a tray of tea and finger sandwiches from a slightly bewildered Badger en route, which had probably been meant for the pups anyway. Lucy assumed the Badger would tell Susan not to worry at the suddenly empty room, and Susan could pass the message on to Sharpeye once the crew came in for supper.)
They overturned Lucy's wardrobe (and Susan's, and Edmund's to boot -- not Peter's, though; he wore boring clothes) until they found enough fancy hats and brooches and scarves to dress themselves in appropriate finery, which occupied half an hour safely enough. Then they had to decide a target for their daring and secret raid.
"The treasury?" asked the one with the darkest fur, who Lucy now knew was named Boots and the eldest of the four.
"No, the gardens!" said her brother Percy, making his eyes go big and wobbly above his calico neckerchief.
"No, the armory!" said their sister Finna, waving a pair of fingernail scissors like a miniature sword.
"No, the kitchens!" suggested Jack, the youngest, slightly muffled by a rose-bedecked hat whose weight kept overcoming Lucy's attempts to fasten it to his fur with hairpins.
"Oh!" said the other three as one. "Yes, the kitchens, let's go to the kitchens, Captain Lucy, maybe they have trout! And crayfish! And potatoes! And bread and butter and marmalade!"
"A pirate captain can't go against her crew unless she wants a mutiny," said Lucy, laughing, "and in any case, I agree. To the kitchens, on a quest for marmalade!" She pinned her berry-covered hat at a jaunty angle, waved her dagger overhead (sheathed, of course, in case of accidents), and pelted down the corridors and stairs, surrounded by a bouncing, squeaking wave of excited Otters.
Sometimes duty could be awfully fun.
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"--and I think we'll use one of the smaller western halls -- the one with the blue mosaic on the back wall, not the one with the rosewood ceiling panels," Susan said as she and Head Cook Chichirik strolled through the kitchens, past sizzling spits and various assistant cooks chopping vegetables or hauling pots to the scullery. "It's a little more formal than catch-as-catch-can, since we want to make a good impression, but the Great Hall would be a bit much."
"Not to mention a bit empty," said Chichirik. "Oh, hold a moment. Nyaroo, let's see how you're getting on." She kicked a stool over to the nearest counter and climbed up to check a batch of pastry dough. While the under-cook, a young Squirrel, fiddled nervously with his tail, Chichirik pinched off a piece, rubbed it between her stubby fingers, sniffed it, swallowed it, then nodded in approval. "With the army off chasing the Witch's remnants, the rest of us would rattle around like seeds in a dry gourd," she said as she thumped back to the stone floor.
"Ha! We would, rather, wouldn't we?" Susan agreed. "I'll tell Master Orontes to have the tables set and the lamps refilled in the mosaic room."
"Pah, don't bother. I'll send an apprentice over to housekeeping with the word. A bit of variety keeps them on their toes, and no one minds a break from the ovens," Chichirik said, stroking her bright ginger beard. "You gather yourself some lunch, your Majesty, and go write up next week's budget so the rest of us can do what we do best."
"As you command, milady," Susan said, and darted into the pantry just ahead of the Dwarfess's tide of indignant protests that she wasn't a lady, you take that back, and how dare the queen insult her by implying she'd give orders to royalty!
Susan laughed quietly to herself as she shut the pantry door. She'd spent the past year learning to play the grown-up, doing her best to make traders and ambassadors from foreign lands ignore her and her siblings' youth and treat Narnia with respect, but now and again it was nice to remember she was only thirteen.
She was fairly sure most other thirteen-year-olds didn't have to deal with double-entry accounting ledgers, though. She sighed at the thought of another afternoon fighting the numbers and letters that refused to stay still and legible, but the Witch had not been at all keen on education, holding pens didn't come naturally to a majority of Narnians, and it apparently Wasn't Done for royalty to get too involved in everyday tasks like cooking or weeding the gardens. So Susan filled her days and evenings with budgets and ledgers, diplomatic letters and secret reports, gracious smiles and newly-learned dance steps.
She supposed it would become habit after a while.
In the meantime, she could console herself with jam.
Susan unfolded a cunningly-jointed wooden stepstool and reached on tiptoe for a jar of strawberry preserves, imported last month from Galma since Narnia's own produce had been so limited by last year's drought and floods. (This year was shaping up much better, snow melting at a natural pace instead of vanishing by magic, and weather settling back into what Lune and Elwen of Archenland assured her were the normal patterns.)
Then the world went sideways all at once.
Lucy burst in through the open window, waving a sheathed dagger and shouting a war cry. Something small and furry (or flowery?) flowed in after her. Startled, Susan jerked away from the commotion and lost her balance.
She caught herself by her fingertips on a shelf, had one moment to think herself safe, and then realized the shelves themselves were starting to overbalance and tip their precious contents to the floor.
"Lucy! I am going to kill you!" Susan shrieked, and shoved herself back as hard as she could on the off chance that the counterforce might save the shelves and some of what sat upon them. She crossed her arms over her face as she fell and hoped the glass wouldn't cut anything important.
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"Oh dear," Lucy said as she pushed her hat off her face and began brushing spices off her clothes. Small shards of glass tinkled to the stone floor along with the colored powders and leaves, mixing with the larger fragments that outlined her legs and skirt. Fortunately the shelves hadn't collapsed, and the larger jars and barrels on the lower levels had stayed put. "That-- did not quite go as planned."
"But there's jam?" said Jack, popping up at her side, his fur colored sticky ochre with cinnamon and pickle juice. He held out a pawful of strawberry preserves (the color unnervingly close to blood) like tribute.
"Phooey on the jam!" said Boots from the far side of a pile of tangled wood that might once have been a stepstool. "Look! We knocked over Queen Susan and now everything's a mess."
"Susan?" Lucy lunged forward on her hands and knees, careless of the splinters and glittering glass shards, and shook her sister's shoulder. "Susan! Are you all right?"
There was a small pool of blood gathering under Susan's dark hair, where her head had struck the stone floor of the pantry. A crockery shard, still dripping with honey, stuck out of her shoulder like a knife. She didn't open her eyes.
This was all Lucy's fault, for not thinking to tell anyone where she was going, or to look through the window before hurling herself inside.
"What will we tell Mum?" said Percy.
"I'll tell you what you're going to say. The first thing you're going to say to your mum is that you're very sorry," said a brisk, furious voice from somewhere behind Lucy, "and the second thing you'll tell her is that it won't happen again. Because it won't. You will stay out of my pantries and leave poor Queen Susan alone. Or else I'll be serving Otter cutlets at supper tomorrow, do you hear me?"
Percy leapt behind Lucy and Boots yanked Jack down into the dubious shelter of the ruined stepstool. Lucy, meanwhile, turned and offered Head Cook Chichirik a watery imitation of her best winning smile. (She also caught Finna by the waist and hauled her back before the young Otter could do something unfortunate with her fingernail scissors.)
"We're all very sorry indeed," Lucy said, attempting to shove down her panic, "but I think right now my sister is sorriest -- or she will be when she wakes up. Please send someone to fetch my cordial as fast as they can, just in case, and these fine upstanding Otters and I will get started on tidying up your pantry."
"But--!" said Jack. Boots promptly sat on him.
"A gracious offer, but, on due consideration, refused," said Chichirik. She turned and shouted over her shoulder: "Sixberry! Slumpmuck! Come carry the Queen Susan to the infirmary. Dingle! Fetch the Queen Lucy's cordial and take it to meet them. And you lot can go there too or go to blazes -- I don't care which -- so long as you get out and leave my kitchens in peace."
She stomped out through the pantry door, somehow managing to make it look small around her.
A Faun and a Marshwiggle slipped in, apologetically lifted Susan, and began to carry her away. Lucy hurried to lend a hand, and the four Otters (three quite abashed, Finna lugging a slightly leaky jar of marmalade) trailed in her wake.
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"Oh, my head," Susan said as the world attempted to pour itself into her brain all at once.
"Oh, thank Aslan," said Lucy. "I was afraid I might be too late."
Susan blinked up at her sister in confusion. Then she spotted the crystal vial in Lucy's hand, and registered the lingering flavor of sweetness and fire on her lips. "Ah," she said. "The fall was that bad?"
"Well, perhaps not. Mrs. Grubbins said you'd most likely be fine, though you'd feel nauseous and have a headache for a while and the cut on your shoulder might have scarred. But most likely isn't certainly, and since it was my fault for charging in and making you lose your balance, I thought I should fix you right away," Lucy said. She ducked her head, a few strands of golden hair escaping from under her broad-brimmed and fruit-covered hat to swing before her face. "I'm awfully sorry, Su. I just wanted to help Skipper Sharpeye's pups have some fun while their family were busy in the harbor. I thought it was more responsible than leaving them on their own."
Oh, Lucy. Always charging headfirst into adventures and trusting things to turn out right. Susan missed the days when she was that carefree.
She tugged her right hand out from under the clean and slightly coarse infirmary sheet and tapped the end of Lucy's nose. "I'm not angry, Lu. It was a good thought; we should be hospitable to guests, and I should have made better arrangements for the Otters in the first place. Your execution, however, requires some work."
"Kitchens have far too many breakable things, like crockery and sisters," Lucy agreed. She slid from her chair and knelt by the side of Susan's bed, resting her chin on the mattress. "I've been banished until Cook Chichirik forgives me, but I could send someone to fetch a snack if you'd like. Or you could share what the Otters were having before they fell asleep. It's not much, only bread and marmalade, but--"
"Not strawberry jam?" said Susan.
Lucy shook her head, nearly dislodging her ridiculous hat. "All the jars broke," she said mournfully. "And it's too expensive to buy another batch -- you see, I do listen to your lectures! -- so we shan't have any more until Cook Chichirik makes her own in June."
"It's a pity, but there's no use crying over spilt milk -- or spilt jam, I suppose," Susan said. She sighed and began shoving herself upright. "Help me to the table and I'll help you work out how to tell Skipper Sharpeye why her children are sticky and smell like they fell into a pickle barrel and a spice cabinet."
Her account books could wait another day. Looking after her sister was also important, and while marmalade wasn't her favorite, there was no sense letting perfectly good jam go to waste.
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End of Fic
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This concludes the latest iteration of my mini-ficlet prompt meme, with a third bingo. :) (I still have six Cotton Candy Bingo squares to fill, so I may run this again, but not for a while. I have other things to work on first.)
(no subject)
Date: 2016-06-25 07:01 pm (UTC)Thank you, thank you, thank you! This was an utter delight to read; and the delay (no big deal, really) landed it perfectly for me to read on an evening when I have the time and peace of mind to enjoy such a treat thoroughly. I loved all the little details like the piratical attire or the description of the kitchen or the historical and political background, so to say. And "Kitchens have far too many breakable things, like crockery and sisters" was the cherry on top. :D
(no subject)
Date: 2016-06-25 07:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2016-06-25 07:09 pm (UTC)I figure that if you're going to play pirate, you might as well dress for the part, and a castle would surely have lots of interesting clothes. And I really like writing Lucy and Susan having a good and mutually supportive relationship, so I'm glad you liked the line about sisters and crockery being too easily broken. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2016-06-25 07:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2016-06-26 10:42 pm (UTC)And hah, they raided everyone's wardrobes except for Peter's because his is far too boring.
(no subject)
Date: 2016-06-27 03:42 pm (UTC)I think Peter's opinion on clothes is that A) he just wants to wear something practical, dammit, or it's going to interfere with swordplay and they're kind of still at war with the remnants of Jadis's supporters, and B) the plainer his clothes, the less he looks (and feels) like a boy playing dress-up, which is vital to projecting a strong and stable image of Narnia both internally and externally. (His boring clothes serve a sound tactical purpose! His siblings should stop teasing him about this and help out! Does he have to do everything himself! *wry*)
(no subject)
Date: 2016-06-27 02:33 am (UTC)I like the whole continuity of the melt-floods and their consequences very much - I've seen them before in your earlier stories - and the glimpses of other parts of Cair Paravel, especially the room with the blue mosaic on the back wall. I loved the way the curious bobbing bow rippled through the Otter group, "dipping and rising like a flotilla of driftwood on a wave". Lovely phrase! "as the world attempted to pour itself into her brain all at once" is terrific, too. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2016-06-27 05:41 pm (UTC)With a few obvious exceptions (the Problem of Susan stuff, the genderswap AU, crossovers, etc.) all my Narnia fanfic exists in a single overarching continuity. I like not having to reinvent the wheel every time, and I think it helps create the sense of a broader world that continues to exist beyond the bounds of any given story, which adds verisimilitude. The work saved by not reinventing stuff is probably lost to the new work of making sure I don't contradict myself, but hey, I enjoy organizing things and I have a schmancy timeline and everything so I don't really mind. :)