[Fic] "White Lady of the Eastern Sea" -- Chronicles of Narnia

Today is NFE reveal day! I wrote three stories this year: one assignment, one pinch hit, and one tiny Madness ficlet. I will talk about each in a separate post.

White Lady of the Eastern Sea: In the third year of her conquest, Jadis locked Aslan out of Narnia and plunged that country into endless winter. But there are other powers in the world, and not all of them are pleased at the sudden changes. (1,725 words, written for redsnake05)

-----

This was my assignment! It is also absolutely not the story I intended to write, as is sadly standard for me with exchanges.

"White Lady of the Eastern Sea" is not exactly a response to any of redsnake05's prompts, though it makes gestures towards two of them. The first prompt was for a story about the various deities of Narnia: "How they relate to Narnia, their relationships with each other, the role of the Emperor-over-the-Sea, what powers they have, what happened in Narnia before Time started, and so on." The second prompt was for a story about Jadis, specifically: "What was it about Narnia that she so desperately wanted, that she couldn't get in Archenland or Calormen?"

I was going to write a story about gods. Not my Calormene pantheon, because that would have tossed all pretense of anonymity out the window, but a different pantheon that is in some ways equally dear to my heart.

Let me set the stage.

( way more than you ever wanted to know about my approach to world-building and religion; seriously, this is long )

Oh, and one last thing. The definition of godhood that Allinwy gives Jadis is a paraphrase of the definition of godhood Sethra Lavode gives Vlad Taltos in Steven Brust's Dragaera series, specifically in chapter two of Issola: "The gods are beings who are able to manifest in at least two places at once, and yet who are not subject to the forcible control of any other being; this latter marking the difference between a god and a demon." That's not the whole truth of things in that series, and it isn't the whole truth in this story either, but it's a useful first approximation. *grin*

[Fic] "The Mystery of Mount Pire" -- Chronicles of Narnia

Today is NFE reveal day! I wrote three stories this year: one assignment, one pinch hit, and one tiny Madness ficlet. I will talk about each in a separate post.

The Mystery of Mount Pire: Aravis joins Lucy and Susan on a winter exploration of Archenland. (2,600 words, written for Heliopause)

-----

Then I wrote a pinch hit!

I jumped on this one because I desperately wanted to write Susan and Lucy having an adventure. It is an idea which is near and dear to my heart, but which I had only treated glancingly in the past. Alas, events conspired against me -- the day after I claimed the pinch hit I was laid low by a nasty cold, slept thirteen hours a day until the weekend and was afflicted by sludge-brain while awake, and thus had only Saturday afternoon and evening to write -- and so I have still only treated the idea in a glancing fashion... but dammit, before this year is over I am going to pick up the loose threads I laid out and do something with them. Or else!

To partially make up for ending before the actual adventure part of this adventure tale, I threw in a nod to one of Heliopause's other prompts, about characters who are only mentioned in passing in canon, such as the Lady Liln. I have long been of the opinion that a giant turning into a mountain makes no logistical sense whatsoever, and also that Olvin 'winning' Liln as a prize for killing Pire is a horrible and sexist trope, so I gave Liln a bit of actual background as a half-dryad Narnian judge and am going to give Olvin and Pire similar treatment once I get my explorers up on top of that mysterious frozen waterfall.

The theme of Aravis adjusting to life in Archenland was not a conscious choice on my part; it happened organically as I wrote. But I am glad that it gave the fic a coherent character arc to make up for the way I chopped the plot arc off just as it was getting started.

I did not try very hard to be anonymous in this story, given that I reused both the idea of Susan and Lucy being trouble magnets when they're together anywhere but Cair Paravel (that is from Interesting Times), and the character of Catchlight the Raven (who appears in an unfinished fragment about Cor and Aravis going to Narnia for the Summer Festival). I did make a token stab toward passing those off as a reference to 'someone else's work' by making a genuine (and heartfelt) tip of the hat toward rthstewart's work in Susan's line about Llamas not being the most reliable storytellers, and Otters and Hummingbirds not using very polite language, but by that point in the writing process I was more concerned with getting the thing done than anything else.

(I ran too close to the deadline to get this beta-read. Again. One of these years I really must learn better time management skills.)

[Fic] "A Heady Draught" -- Chronicles of Narnia

Today is NFE reveal day! I wrote three stories this year: one assignment, one pinch hit, and one tiny Madness ficlet. I will talk about each in a separate post.

A Heady Draught: The Fauns of Narnia attempt to reclaim their winemaking heritage after the long winter. Bacchus takes an interest in the results. (475 words, written for songsmith)

-----

Lastly, in an 'oh thank goodness I didn't blow the deadline' adrenaline rush, I wrote a tiny Madness ficlet.

lady_songsmith asked for stories about crafts and arts, and the people who create them. In her letter she mentioned the fauns as one possible avenue to explore, and I immediately jumped to craft alcohol. I am sorry. I live in a winemaking region; I can't help it!

This is in some respects a spillover from my assignments, in that it deals both with Tumnus (one of heliopausa's prompts that I didn't write) and with Narnian deities and their relationship to that land and its people. But mostly it's about trying to rediscover the process for a delicate and complex art without any personal experience in the relevant field.