[Fic] "The Court of Conscience" -- Chronicles of Narnia

[edenfalling]

Yesterday was NFE reveal day! I wrote The Court of Conscience for snitchnipped.

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The Court of Conscience (1782 words)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Susan Pevensie, Lucy Pevensie
Additional Tags: Character Study, Justice, Ethics, Ethical Dilemmas, Capital Punishment, Golden Age (Narnia)

Summary: With Peter and Edmund away at the wars, Susan is left to preside over Narnian justice. It's a responsibility she takes very seriously, and would give anything not to have on her shoulders.

Notes: 1. This story is book!verse rather than movie!verse, and as such includes a Susan who is not a warrior and who earned her title of "Gentle" through personality and behavior rather than have it incongruously bestowed upon her at her coronation. 2. While nobody dies on-page, this story is basically about Susan grappling with the aftermath of a murder, and also with the residual trauma of Jadis's reign.

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snitchnipped asked for a "deep character study into Susan's psyche," and I did my best to deliver. :)

As I said about my 2017 NFE fic, you can tell this is my work because it's mostly about worldbuilding (how DOES the Narnian justice system work, and how DID they do national reconciliation after Jadis's defeat?), and also all the OCs are female. Plus, you know, ethical dilemmas. It's always fun when I get to hit three of my preoccupations in a single fic. *wry*

I had a ridiculous number of ideas for filling this prompt, by the way, starting with finally sitting down to properly write "Grass and Silence," which is my 'Susan copes with the aftermath of HBB' fic that uses a quest to restore the Tree of Protection as a metaphor for general grief and healing. (Also I just really want to write an epic 'Susan and Lucy go on a quest' fic, because reasons.) But I was pretty sure I wouldn't have time for that, so I toyed instead with writing Susan's first meeting with Queen Elwen of Archenland in the Pevensies' very early reign, or a story about how Susan learned wind-weaving in the Seven Isles. But I wasn't really feeling the Elwen fic, and the wind-weaving fic is mostly a shapeless shambles of half-formed cool ideas rather than an actual story, so I tossed those aside as well.

I don't recall exactly how I hit on Susan presiding over a murder trial as my fic idea, but once I had that pinned down I still had a lot of brainstorming to bash through in order to work out the details. The case originally oozed a lot more melodrama, but I stripped it down and down until it turned into an ugly personal thing with wider ethical implications rather than... oh, it was war crimes at one point, or actual deliberately sparked riots, or prison guards murdering a prisoner of war. Lovely, attractive things like that.

In an ideal world, I might have managed to write the whole case, from the discovery of Selene's corpse to Feverfew's trial/hearing, to various attempts to persuade the Hind to repent, to Susan going down to the harbor town to keep a finger on the opinions of the citizens, to the actual sentencing and carrying out of the sentence. But I didn't have time, and snitchnipped did say "character study" rather than "plot-centric fic," so I figured it was okay to write Susan agonizing over her decision and sort of shove the rest in around the edges.

And then I didn't write the sentencing, because I am still not entirely sure what Susan chose. This is the trouble with centering one's story around an ethical dilemma that's horribly tenacious in the real world... and it's probably also my not-terribly-well-hidden love of lady-or-the-tiger endings rearing its head once again. *hands* One writes what one can, I suppose.

And yes, this is part of my general Narnian timeline, set in summer of the year 1004, between In Song and Story (1003) and Commonly to the Wars (1005). :D

Comments

[autumnia]

I liked this story! Poor Susan, no matter what choice she ends up making, no one will be truly happy with it. It's a tough responsibility and I like seeing her mature here, to think about all the consequences and try to figure out what is the most fair and just course of action she should take it. It'd be so easy to just delay and wait for her brothers to return but she knows things could get much worse in that time.

[edenfalling]

Thank you! Yeah, this is one of those situations where there's no right answer, only different kinds and degrees of wrong ones. *sigh* But part of being a queen is being responsible, and that means making choices and standing behind them, no matter how much you might wish otherwise.

[alatefeline]

I have come back to reread this story, and the associated meta, for the third or fourth time, today. Many of your other fics are among my lasting favorites for in-depth character exploration.

Thank you.

May I subscribe to your Dreamwidth?

[edenfalling]

Yes, absolutely! Subscribe as you like, read as you like, and feel free to unsubscribe if you ever want. :)