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edenfallingThese chapters keep getting longer. *is annoyed*
Once again I failed to get the history lesson into the chapter, though with the hints here and in ch. 3, you are hopefully starting to get the picture of the cultural perception gap Cor and Aravis are tripping over. Next chapter will, I think, be from Corin's POV as he and Cor argue their way through the history of Archenland. (I have various sections of that already written as part of a failed version of this chapter, so hopefully it will not take so much time to pull together.)
Anyway. Sometimes Cor feels as though he's fallen through a mirror into a world where everything is backwards and all the people around him insist he's the one who's crazy. (1,650 words)
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The Law That Makes Him King
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Father had promised to make Education happen to Cor, but his lessons didn't begin for several months. For reasons that no one ever bothered to explain to him, Cor couldn't simply sit in on the lessons given to the servants' and villagers' children -- Cor was secretly relieved, as he felt quite enough of a fool already -- but Corin's old tutor had been dismissed several months ago since Corin was now preparing for eventual knighthood.
Eventually Aravis realized that Cor still couldn't read, and took matters into her own hands. "This is the letter A," she told him, sketching its shape in the damp earth in the bottom of a local gorge. "It starts my name. This is the letter B. It starts Bree's name. This is the letter C."
"My name?" Cor asked, having seen that written on several dreadfully official-looking documents over the past weeks.
"Yes," said Aravis, giving him a glimpse of her bright, flashing smile -- her true smile, not the softer one she used for everyday manners. "Now. This is the letter D."
When she had taught him his letters and some ways to sound out simple words, Aravis declared herself done and told him the only way to improve was through practice -- "just like swords and riding and anything else worth learning" -- and handed him a copy of the Great Chronicle of Archenland which she had borrowed from the castle library. "You should learn the history of the country you're going to rule," she said. "Ignorant princes are weak. Weak princes lose wars. I would rather not return to Calormen in chains."
Cor began muddling his way through the chronicle that afternoon.
It was slow going. The book began as the day to day record of the first settlers, under King Col the First, and mostly concerned things such as the distribution of firewood and the construction of log houses. It continued through the establishment of other villages and keeps, the creation of the Great Council to meet twice a year and make laws, and endless dithering about hunting rights and boundary lines.
Cor took to using the book as an insomnia cure. Two pages each night sent him to sleep like a pinched-out wick.
He was beginning to think that might not have been the best idea, since he couldn't remember enough of what he'd read to have the slightest idea why Father had said it was out of the question for him to marry Aravis.
There shouldn't have been a problem. Yes, the Great Council had to approve the crown prince's choice of wife, but Cor had been certain the various nobles and village speakers would accept Aravis. She had come north with him, freely choosing Archenland and Aslan as her new land and lord. She had received Aslan's blessing and welcome. She was quick and smart, graceful and striking, at ease with all the trappings and pitfalls of rank that Cor still struggled with.
Why did it matter that Aravis had been born in Calormen? Why did anyone care that Aravis had started a courting dance instead of waiting for him to make sense of Archenland's courting customs? Love was love, wasn't it?
There must be an explanation for the hatred and suspicion he had somehow missed seeing all these years. Calormenes didn't hate northerners, after all. They simply didn't think about them. And Archenland was supposed to be better than Calormen.
Cor wanted Aslan to appear and make everything better, but he knew that was a selfish wish. He would have to solve this problem himself.
That didn't mean he couldn't ask someone to explain things first.
Father had gone out for the afternoon and Bree, for all his bluster, was not much use as an authority on Narnia, let alone on Archenland. Therefore, once Cor had satisfied the Horse that his riding skills hadn't rusted since they last met, and that he hadn't mortally offended Aravis (at least, he certainly hoped he hadn't), he made his way to the bare courtyard where Corin liked to practice fighting.
Cor got on well enough with his brother, but they were not especially close. They'd grown up apart, and they shared few interests. As Father put it, Corin leapt without looking while Cor (who had had enough of being rash to last him a lifetime and beyond) looked without leaping. "Should learn to mime each other's virtues," Father often told them. This tended to result in Cor beating Corin in a swordfight, Corin knocking him down in a boxing match, and the two of them promptly going their separate ways while Aravis called them both idiots.
Corin looked remarkably foolish now, being stripped to the waist, dripping with sweat and blood, and sporting the first bloom of a first-rate black eye. His opponent, the Narnian ambassador, looked equally battered. Both man and satyr were grinning like maniacs.
Cor stuck his fingers into his mouth and whistled for their attention.
Corin flung up his left arm. "Hold!"
The Narnian ambassador, Sir Cereus, fell back one pace and turned to follow Corin's gaze. "Prince Cor," he said, offering a polite half-bow. "Is this court business or a family matter?"
"The latter," Cor said awkwardly. He had grown used to strangers bowing when introduced to him, but he hated when people he already knew kept up the habit.
"Then I will leave you in peace, your highnesses," the satyr said, smiling with bloodstained teeth. "Perhaps we can determine a victor tomorrow, Prince Corin." He trotted out of the courtyard, his hooves thudding against the dry, packed earth.
Corin seized a towel from a bench set against the wall and mopped his face. "This had better be important," he grumbled. "Cereus and I have each won a round, and that was meant to be the tie-breaker."
"You can knock him down just as well tomorrow," Cor said without much sympathy. "I need to ask you about..." He paused, wondering how to put all his worry and confusion and anger into coherent words.
"About why you can't marry Aravis?" Corin guessed. He dropped the towel to the ground and sprawled on the bench. "Because she's Calormene. It's not complicated."
Cor sat down beside his brother, yanking his summer cloak off his shoulders and unlacing the strings of his shirt. There was no shade in the courtyard to soften the summer sun, and he didn't need to be formal in front of Corin. "That's the problem," he said. "I don't understand why anyone cares that Aravis was born in Calormen. I was raised in Calormen, and the Great Council didn't argue with Father about confirming me as his heir. Besides, Aravis discovered Rabadash's plans -- without her, Archenland wouldn't still exist. So why can't she marry me?"
"Because she's Calormene," Corin repeated, as if talking to an idiot. "It doesn't matter that she betrayed the Tisroc. We're very grateful, and of course she can stay in Anvard as long as she wants. But you're going to be king someday and she can never be queen. Nobody would trust her, and nobody would trust you if they knew she had your ear."
Cor threw up his hands in frustration. "She already has my ear! Everybody knows she has my ear. What is it about Calormen that makes everyone in Archenland go insane?"
"Maybe the way that the Calormenes try to invade and murder us all every few generations?" Corin said. He twisted to grab Cor's shoulders and shoved his brother back against the wall. "Maybe the way they want to turn us away from Aslan and force us to make foul sacrifices to Tash the unspeakable? Maybe the way the Tisroc takes every chance he can find to humiliate and dishonor our kings and country? Maybe the way they kidnap our children and sell them into slavery? Like they did to you!" He shook Cor, knocking his shoulders against the granite stones of the wall with every other word.
Cor held very still, knowing he couldn't best Corin barehanded.
"Like they did to you," Corin repeated, his grip loosening. "They call us barbarians, but they have no honor. Aravis betrayed the Tisroc, but she hasn't ever renounced her father. It's one thing to accept her as your friend. It's another entirely to accept her as queen of Archenland and the mother of the next king or queen."
Cor lifted his brother's hands from his shoulders and held Corin's wrists tightly. "Listen. I heard every word you said, and only half of them made sense. I came to ask you because there must be something in the history between Archenland and Calormen that only makes sense from your side. I swear in Aslan's name that Calormenes don't hate northerners. And they would have let Queen Susan marry Rabadash without a second thought."
He held Corin's eyes. "I'm going to marry Aravis. I don't care how long we have to wait, or how many people I have to insult. I'll ignore the Great Council if I need to. But I don't want to do that. It would break Father's heart if I put myself above the law, and I wouldn't be worthy of the throne after that. Explain Archenland to me, so I can explain myself and Aravis to my country."
Corin's mouth twisted into a small, bitter smile. "You sound like Father, do you realize? I'm glad I don't have to think about the law and all that responsibility. No one cares who I marry, or even if I marry." He turned his head and spat onto the ground, traces of blood mixing in with his saliva. "Fine. I'll tell you anything you want to know, and I'll even try not to hit you when you say something incredibly Calormene. But let's go somewhere more private first."
Cor let go of his brother's wrists and grabbed his cloak from the ground. "Lead on."
---------------------------------------------
Back to Speak Softly
Forward to Mending Wall
Read the final version on ff.net. (Trust me, you want to read the final version. The journal version is a beta draft, with all the boneheaded mistakes that implies.)
---------------------------------------------
The second half of the chapter feels kind of ragged, and I think the first half is awkward in the way it compresses several years. On the other hand, that sort of mirrors Aravis's chapter, which moved from general to specific in a similar fashion. (Hwin's chapter and Lune's chapter are more standard here-and-now scenes.) Anyway, if you have any editing suggestions, I am all ears!
Once again I failed to get the history lesson into the chapter, though with the hints here and in ch. 3, you are hopefully starting to get the picture of the cultural perception gap Cor and Aravis are tripping over. Next chapter will, I think, be from Corin's POV as he and Cor argue their way through the history of Archenland. (I have various sections of that already written as part of a failed version of this chapter, so hopefully it will not take so much time to pull together.)
Anyway. Sometimes Cor feels as though he's fallen through a mirror into a world where everything is backwards and all the people around him insist he's the one who's crazy. (1,650 words)
---------------------------------------------
The Law That Makes Him King
---------------------------------------------
Father had promised to make Education happen to Cor, but his lessons didn't begin for several months. For reasons that no one ever bothered to explain to him, Cor couldn't simply sit in on the lessons given to the servants' and villagers' children -- Cor was secretly relieved, as he felt quite enough of a fool already -- but Corin's old tutor had been dismissed several months ago since Corin was now preparing for eventual knighthood.
Eventually Aravis realized that Cor still couldn't read, and took matters into her own hands. "This is the letter A," she told him, sketching its shape in the damp earth in the bottom of a local gorge. "It starts my name. This is the letter B. It starts Bree's name. This is the letter C."
"My name?" Cor asked, having seen that written on several dreadfully official-looking documents over the past weeks.
"Yes," said Aravis, giving him a glimpse of her bright, flashing smile -- her true smile, not the softer one she used for everyday manners. "Now. This is the letter D."
When she had taught him his letters and some ways to sound out simple words, Aravis declared herself done and told him the only way to improve was through practice -- "just like swords and riding and anything else worth learning" -- and handed him a copy of the Great Chronicle of Archenland which she had borrowed from the castle library. "You should learn the history of the country you're going to rule," she said. "Ignorant princes are weak. Weak princes lose wars. I would rather not return to Calormen in chains."
Cor began muddling his way through the chronicle that afternoon.
It was slow going. The book began as the day to day record of the first settlers, under King Col the First, and mostly concerned things such as the distribution of firewood and the construction of log houses. It continued through the establishment of other villages and keeps, the creation of the Great Council to meet twice a year and make laws, and endless dithering about hunting rights and boundary lines.
Cor took to using the book as an insomnia cure. Two pages each night sent him to sleep like a pinched-out wick.
He was beginning to think that might not have been the best idea, since he couldn't remember enough of what he'd read to have the slightest idea why Father had said it was out of the question for him to marry Aravis.
There shouldn't have been a problem. Yes, the Great Council had to approve the crown prince's choice of wife, but Cor had been certain the various nobles and village speakers would accept Aravis. She had come north with him, freely choosing Archenland and Aslan as her new land and lord. She had received Aslan's blessing and welcome. She was quick and smart, graceful and striking, at ease with all the trappings and pitfalls of rank that Cor still struggled with.
Why did it matter that Aravis had been born in Calormen? Why did anyone care that Aravis had started a courting dance instead of waiting for him to make sense of Archenland's courting customs? Love was love, wasn't it?
There must be an explanation for the hatred and suspicion he had somehow missed seeing all these years. Calormenes didn't hate northerners, after all. They simply didn't think about them. And Archenland was supposed to be better than Calormen.
Cor wanted Aslan to appear and make everything better, but he knew that was a selfish wish. He would have to solve this problem himself.
That didn't mean he couldn't ask someone to explain things first.
Father had gone out for the afternoon and Bree, for all his bluster, was not much use as an authority on Narnia, let alone on Archenland. Therefore, once Cor had satisfied the Horse that his riding skills hadn't rusted since they last met, and that he hadn't mortally offended Aravis (at least, he certainly hoped he hadn't), he made his way to the bare courtyard where Corin liked to practice fighting.
Cor got on well enough with his brother, but they were not especially close. They'd grown up apart, and they shared few interests. As Father put it, Corin leapt without looking while Cor (who had had enough of being rash to last him a lifetime and beyond) looked without leaping. "Should learn to mime each other's virtues," Father often told them. This tended to result in Cor beating Corin in a swordfight, Corin knocking him down in a boxing match, and the two of them promptly going their separate ways while Aravis called them both idiots.
Corin looked remarkably foolish now, being stripped to the waist, dripping with sweat and blood, and sporting the first bloom of a first-rate black eye. His opponent, the Narnian ambassador, looked equally battered. Both man and satyr were grinning like maniacs.
Cor stuck his fingers into his mouth and whistled for their attention.
Corin flung up his left arm. "Hold!"
The Narnian ambassador, Sir Cereus, fell back one pace and turned to follow Corin's gaze. "Prince Cor," he said, offering a polite half-bow. "Is this court business or a family matter?"
"The latter," Cor said awkwardly. He had grown used to strangers bowing when introduced to him, but he hated when people he already knew kept up the habit.
"Then I will leave you in peace, your highnesses," the satyr said, smiling with bloodstained teeth. "Perhaps we can determine a victor tomorrow, Prince Corin." He trotted out of the courtyard, his hooves thudding against the dry, packed earth.
Corin seized a towel from a bench set against the wall and mopped his face. "This had better be important," he grumbled. "Cereus and I have each won a round, and that was meant to be the tie-breaker."
"You can knock him down just as well tomorrow," Cor said without much sympathy. "I need to ask you about..." He paused, wondering how to put all his worry and confusion and anger into coherent words.
"About why you can't marry Aravis?" Corin guessed. He dropped the towel to the ground and sprawled on the bench. "Because she's Calormene. It's not complicated."
Cor sat down beside his brother, yanking his summer cloak off his shoulders and unlacing the strings of his shirt. There was no shade in the courtyard to soften the summer sun, and he didn't need to be formal in front of Corin. "That's the problem," he said. "I don't understand why anyone cares that Aravis was born in Calormen. I was raised in Calormen, and the Great Council didn't argue with Father about confirming me as his heir. Besides, Aravis discovered Rabadash's plans -- without her, Archenland wouldn't still exist. So why can't she marry me?"
"Because she's Calormene," Corin repeated, as if talking to an idiot. "It doesn't matter that she betrayed the Tisroc. We're very grateful, and of course she can stay in Anvard as long as she wants. But you're going to be king someday and she can never be queen. Nobody would trust her, and nobody would trust you if they knew she had your ear."
Cor threw up his hands in frustration. "She already has my ear! Everybody knows she has my ear. What is it about Calormen that makes everyone in Archenland go insane?"
"Maybe the way that the Calormenes try to invade and murder us all every few generations?" Corin said. He twisted to grab Cor's shoulders and shoved his brother back against the wall. "Maybe the way they want to turn us away from Aslan and force us to make foul sacrifices to Tash the unspeakable? Maybe the way the Tisroc takes every chance he can find to humiliate and dishonor our kings and country? Maybe the way they kidnap our children and sell them into slavery? Like they did to you!" He shook Cor, knocking his shoulders against the granite stones of the wall with every other word.
Cor held very still, knowing he couldn't best Corin barehanded.
"Like they did to you," Corin repeated, his grip loosening. "They call us barbarians, but they have no honor. Aravis betrayed the Tisroc, but she hasn't ever renounced her father. It's one thing to accept her as your friend. It's another entirely to accept her as queen of Archenland and the mother of the next king or queen."
Cor lifted his brother's hands from his shoulders and held Corin's wrists tightly. "Listen. I heard every word you said, and only half of them made sense. I came to ask you because there must be something in the history between Archenland and Calormen that only makes sense from your side. I swear in Aslan's name that Calormenes don't hate northerners. And they would have let Queen Susan marry Rabadash without a second thought."
He held Corin's eyes. "I'm going to marry Aravis. I don't care how long we have to wait, or how many people I have to insult. I'll ignore the Great Council if I need to. But I don't want to do that. It would break Father's heart if I put myself above the law, and I wouldn't be worthy of the throne after that. Explain Archenland to me, so I can explain myself and Aravis to my country."
Corin's mouth twisted into a small, bitter smile. "You sound like Father, do you realize? I'm glad I don't have to think about the law and all that responsibility. No one cares who I marry, or even if I marry." He turned his head and spat onto the ground, traces of blood mixing in with his saliva. "Fine. I'll tell you anything you want to know, and I'll even try not to hit you when you say something incredibly Calormene. But let's go somewhere more private first."
Cor let go of his brother's wrists and grabbed his cloak from the ground. "Lead on."
---------------------------------------------
Back to Speak Softly
Forward to Mending Wall
Read the final version on ff.net. (Trust me, you want to read the final version. The journal version is a beta draft, with all the boneheaded mistakes that implies.)
---------------------------------------------
The second half of the chapter feels kind of ragged, and I think the first half is awkward in the way it compresses several years. On the other hand, that sort of mirrors Aravis's chapter, which moved from general to specific in a similar fashion. (Hwin's chapter and Lune's chapter are more standard here-and-now scenes.) Anyway, if you have any editing suggestions, I am all ears!
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(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-06 05:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-06 05:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-08 09:29 pm (UTC)I'm really curious about the next section... Corrin is always such a hoot.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-09 02:24 am (UTC)I have a lot of the relevant information already written in one form or another. I just need to work it into a conversation with a proper setting, and break up the historical information into a give-and-take dialogue. Which is almost as much work as writing the information in the first place. *sigh* But I think a conversation/argument between the brothers will work better than the other ways I have tried to convey the information (which included Lune addressing a not-quite-prayer to Aslan, Lune playing Mr. Exposition to Hwin, actual mini-history-lectures interspersed with Cor reacting to them, a flat-out historical essay, etc.), so I persevere.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-06 05:03 am (UTC)And I of course love the fact that Aravis's true, bright smile is one not fit for regular polite company.
So, so glad to see an update to this!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-06 05:40 am (UTC)I am convinced that one reason Ram was the greatest king of Archenland ever is that he did have that Calormene influence from his parents, but also the native Archenlandish upbringing that let him translate useful concepts into new laws and customs with less resistance than Cor and Aravis encountered.
Aravis is fierce. It is one of the things I love about her. <3
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-06 05:27 am (UTC)So love Corin and the Narnian ambassador going at it. Was the ambassador a Satyr? I thought she was a donkey? Do I have that wrong? I'd need to go back to the earlier chapter to check.
I think the conversation between Cor and Corin might need a little more expansion in terms of description or dialog. I like the physicality of it, shoving each other against walls, pinning wrists, but I'd expect some reaction, pain, wincing, shrugging it off.
This is just a delight to read, even if it were not head and shoulders above the norm of Narnia fic. Excellent work, as always.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-06 05:36 am (UTC)Lady Eena, the donkey, is the junior ambassador; Sir Cereus, the satyr, is the senior ambassador. (Basically, he's there to fill the ceremonial aspect of the position and deal with paperwork; she's there to make sure he doesn't get carried away, and also to run the local outpost of the Narnian intelligence service. *grin*)
...You are very right; the brothers do need to be reacting more during that conversation. I will think of how to work some more description in that section.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-06 06:33 pm (UTC)The beginning is a little confusing, in that I understood after the fact that the beginning scenes took place in the past, but while reading was confused why a grown-up Cor still couldn't read. I'd suggest maybe changing the tense to things like "When Aravis had realized" and/or expand on the transition from the past scenes to the present.
The Cor/Corin relationship is very interesting. When a fic writer mentions it at all, the two brothers seem to get along like gang-busters. Your interpratation of the two is much more complex and realistic (if a little sad!). Cor is much more serious, and added to that the influence of that Calormene upbringing and I can see why Brash, hard-hitting, unthinking Corin and he aren't particularly close.
It is also interesting that Cor seems to feel that the Calormen don't think of Northerners at all. I think for the most part he is right, but that when they think of the Northerns they dislike them (because, if nothing else, they are small, free countries that could be part of their empire).
Overall, very great work! Can't wait to get this "history lesson" you keep teasing us with!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-07 03:47 am (UTC)I think Cor and Corin do get along, and would definitely stand up for each other against non-family. They just don't tend to seek each other's company. I need to show some of their similarities in the next chapter, because they do have a lot of basic traits in common, though their different upbringings and areas of interest tend to disguise that. (Shasta was fairly rash through a lot of HHB, after all, but the story taught him a lesson in responsibility while Corin simply carried on as usual. *wry*)
I suspect that Calormene nobles and politicians do consider the costs and benefits of conquering the northern lands, and dislike having potential sources of disruption on their borders. If Shasta's childhood is anything to judge by, however, the average commoner doesn't think of foreign lands at all. (Even Aravis knows very little of foreign countries, though as she's female and Calormen seems relatively patriarchal, that may not say much about men of her social class.) If Calormene commoners think of the North at all, they are much more likely to disdain Narnians/Archenlanders than to hate them.
My yardstick here is modern American and imperial Chinese attitudes toward the rest of the world. There is a sense that one's own country is so obviously the center of the world and superior in all ways that there's no need to hate other countries. Hatred implies that the object of hatred has power -- is, in some ways, an equal or potential equal -- and the Calormenes do not acknowledge any other nations as their equals. So disdain, yes; dislike, yes; distaste, yes. And a growing annoyance and desire to swat that annoyance once and for all, which has its final expression in the covert invasion of The Last Battle. But not hatred. YMMV, of course, but this theory makes the most sense to me.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-07 08:14 pm (UTC)The analogy of America and China makes so much sense!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-06 07:18 pm (UTC)Cor is on his way to being a good king, I think. Seeing from his view and understanding how Calormenes view things in regard to the northerners is really interesting, because all we ever get from the books is the Tisroc's view of the northerners, but nothing from the commoners. And his view that it shouldn't matter that Aravis is a Calormene is lovely; he is able to see beyond the prejudices that the northerners have of them.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-07 03:54 am (UTC)There is often a vast difference between the way the ruling class sees foreign lands, and the way the average person sees foreign lands, especially in a world without fast travel and modern communications technology. And as I said to
Cor is a sweetheart, and I think the experience of moving from one cultural setting to another has made him... not a better person than people raised in Archenland, but perhaps a more open-minded one, since he knows firsthand that it's possible to see the world in very different ways and build functional societies on those different worldviews, regardless of their absolute moral value.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-08 05:11 am (UTC)We're finally getting some meat here, and we still haven't reached the part about why everyone (but Cor) thinks marrying Aravis is so wrong! Okay, Corin feels the Calormenes hate them, or at the very least look down on them; yes, there've been attempts at conquering, but as was noted in AHAHB, the desert makes such attempts a failure before they start; if all Corin can produce is an Archenlandish inferiority complex, we don't have much of a conflict to resolve.
Can't wait to see how this winds up!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-09 10:53 pm (UTC)As for the problems Archenlanders have with Calormenes (and sometimes vice versa, especially among the Calormene nobility), there are reasons; trust me. :-) Even if there weren't, blind prejudice can be a huge source of conflict on its own... but that is not really the 'feel' I am going for in this story.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-09 06:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-09 10:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-19 10:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-20 02:05 am (UTC)