[Fic] "Twelve Views of Port Paravel" -- Chronicles of Narnia

[edenfalling]

It's NFE reveal day! So I can now say that I wrote two stories: my original assignment and a pinch hit. I will talk about each in a separate post.

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Twelve Views of Port Paravel (3406 words) by Elizabeth Culmer
Fandom: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Original Characters
Additional Tags: Boats and Ships, Merchants and Trading, Calormen, Age of Winter (Narnia), Slavery, Angst and Tragedy, Unhappy Ending

Summary: Khoshet was in Tash's nest as the ship drew near the coast, and so he was the first to see not the shore but a strange black cloud above it.

Or, the fall of Port Paravel, as seen by the crew of a Calormene merchant ship and the trading staff in the port.

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This was my pinch hit, written for songsmith. Basically, I saw songsmith's prompts come through as a pinch hit request and leapt upon them because the one about a Calormene perspective on Jadis's conquest of Narnia and the start of the Winter hit me like a ton of bricks and I had to write it. I wasn't even quite sure how I'd deal with that subject, but it was seriously like a compulsion. I couldn't not. Even if I hadn't gotten the pinch hit, I would have written it as a treat once the prompt had been brought to my attention.

I'm not exactly sure when I hit on the idea of a merchant ship witnessing the fall of Port Paravel. I think it was a gradual process -- like, I wanted to do a multiple POV story, but initially there was going to be a POV from the ship, and then one from the merchant company's headquarters back in Calormen, and maybe one from someone in the court at Tashbaan reacting to the sudden dearth of [fill in northern commodity], and so on. But once I started writing about the ship, it was all about that ship and the warehouse staff from the port, and it very quickly became more focused in time as well, with the edge of panic brought on by knowing Jadis would arrive very soon... and then, in the final scene, she arrives a good twelve hours before anyone's predictions. (I had to. Drama demanded it.)

As with my assignment story, I completely gave up on the idea of anonymity. I mean, I suppose other people could use my Calormene pantheon. It is free for anyone to run with! But I figured that would probably give me away, along with the whole... mmm... culture clash themes? And also, of course, I have made a minor fandom name for myself as a person who does Calormene worldbuilding. *wry* But like I said, I couldn't not write the story.

This is a time where the judicious application of deadline adrenaline worked beautifully, though I did have to go back and make a few minor typo corrections and such after the archive went live, which is the unfortunate side effect of writing that way. I find that it can be very useful in turning off the self-critical part of my brain and forcing me to write from my id, which is good for vividness! It is less good for SPAG details. *wry*

I know it may seem a bit unrealistic to have so many women on board a ship when Calormen feels like a very patriarchal country, but I justify it by means of religion. Basically, you need a few women on board to act as stand-ins for the goddess Zardeenah so that Sokda, the god of the sea and storms (and horses, though that's less relevant here) will look favorably upon your ship. To go to sea with no women on board is to invite disaster. And while a lot of young women will sail as Handmaids for a year or two to build some savings, see the world, and maybe meet a spouse they didn't grow up seeing every day in the same small coastal village, many others will make sailing their career. There are a fair number of married couples on Calormene ships, and while it's a bit unusual for a woman to be a captain without a husband to act as co-captain, it's certainly not unheard of.

Also, I will put women in my fiction if I want to and you can't stop me, no matter what you think of my justifications. :p

Comments

[rthstewart]

I loved this story, Liz, and with that well-developed pantheon and plethora of women, knew it was yours. It was just wonderful and so sad. I really liked the perspectives of the Captain, the cook, the storyteller, and the priestess. As I mentioned in my review, I also really enjoyed the perspective of the Witch coming from the West and how the Calormenes understand that the hatred of humans makes any relation with her impossible. And it's just so terrifying to read this tale of misery. You wrote an outstanding story and I hope it gets all the love it deserves.

[edenfalling]

Thank you! ♥

I figure the normal Calormene attitude toward Narnia is something along the lines of, the land is full of demons and people mad enough to live among them, but they'll hold to a contract and if you only did business with the morally pure, you'd never get anywhere. So they're fine with maintaining a trading and diplomatic presence, though getting people to staff the Narnian outposts can be tricky.

But you can't deal with Jadis except from a position of unconditional surrender. So they don't bother to try during her conquest, and then she brings down the Winter and renders the entire question moot. *hands*

I have been working my way through the archive in reverse word count order, and will comment on the rest of your stories as I reach them. :)

[autumnia]

The story felt really bleak as we can see the desperation of the Narnians to leave however they can before the Witch gets to them. It's interesting also see the views of the different Calormenes as they try to decide what to do about the situation, whether it's to their advantage or not. I'd always assume everyone would have fled as soon as they could but of course, there would always be people who couldn't leave Narnia for whatever reason and it'd be hard to survive and hide from the Witch as long as they could.

[edenfalling]

Bleak is basically what I was going for, so thank you. :)

I figure that most Narnian humans who didn't die in the fighting tried to flee and/or hide, but it's highly unlikely they all succeeded in getting away. There are always going to be people left behind, or who just don't move fast enough. And considering countries in our world with policies and principles that should support helping refugees still tend to slam borders shut when pressed (*coughs pointedly, names no names*), I figured it was unlikely for a Calormene ship to rescue people without some immediately recompense, even if various individuals might have mixed feelings on the subject. :(