[Fic] "Any Sentry from His Post" -- Chronicles of Narnia

[edenfalling]

This began life as a 15-minute ficlet that I scribbled at the grocery store last Friday, but that only covers the first four paragraphs or so, after which my handwritten sheet breaks off with the note: blah, blah, convo. w/ Edmund. The remaining 2,000+ words were written over about two hours tonight. This story ties in directly with "The Courting Dance" and "Out of Season." It is also a continuation of my pattern in which Edmund shows up to have meaningful conversations with my POV character but is never a POV character himself. *sigh* Someday I really must write a story that's actually about him.

Anyway.

A week after the battle of Anvard, Shasta despairs of fitting in to his new life and can't bring himself to talk about his worries with anyone. A chance meeting with King Edmund of Narnia opens his eyes to new perspectives. (2,500 words)

[ETA: The slightly revised and expanded final version is now up here on AO3 and here on ff.net.]

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Any Sentry from His Post
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One of the hardest things to get used to in Archenland is servants. Shasta -- or Cor; he should really learn to think of himself by the name everyone's going to call him for the rest of his life. Anyway, whatever his name is, he grew up doing everything for himself. As soon as he was enough to haul water in the big wooden bucket and light the old charcoal stove without burning down the hut, Arsheesh dumped all the chores onto his narrow shoulders so the fisherman could have more time at sea or away in the village sharing a pipe with other old men and complaining about the inevitable changes of time.

In Anvard, people chase Shasta out of the kitchens and insist on filling tubs and pitchers for him. There's nothing for him to mend, no animals for him to look after, nothing that he can set to work fixing and point to afterward and say, "There, I made that." He's grateful people don't try to dress him like he saw a lady doing to Aravis when he rushed into her room once without knocking. (Now he always knocks.)

In Calormen, he used to daydream now and then about joining the army, doing very brave deeds that eventually won him the notice of the Tisroc -- may he choke on a sweetmeat and die, Shasta thinks, still feeling the bubbling fizz of breaking the rules and getting away with it -- and being raised up and rewarded with a lot of money and a huge estate. He thought it would be brilliant fun to have no work at all. The trouble is that he never thought about what he'd be doing instead.

He doesn't know how to read. (The king promised Education, but apparently that takes time to arrange.) He doesn't have any friends. (Aravis is different and Corin doesn't count, and anyway, they both fit in better and always seem to have things to do.) Learning to fight with swords is boring. (The arms master won't let him do anything but hold a giant, heavy wooden fake for hours and hours while he yells about posture and elbow position.) Nobody will let him out of the castle to have adventures -- though that, at least, he supposes is because the king is afraid of losing him again. So he mostly feels useless and stupid, like a little baby nobody trusts not to spill things.

He can't talk to King Lune. Shasta doesn't dare disappoint him or remind the king how completely unsuitable he is as a son and prince. (It still seems impossible that he has a father at all, let alone that his father's a king.) He won't talk to his brother. Corin would just laugh. (Somehow, having Corin for a brother is less unbelievable than a father. It's probably the way he keeps knocking Shasta down and then grinning like a hyena. Well, and the way looking at him is like looking in a backwards mirror.) He doesn't want to talk to Aravis. She grew up as a lady, so she wouldn't understand. It might make him feel better to argue about the whole mess with her, though, so he tucks that idea away for later.

Shasta -- no, Cor, he reminds himself; he has to get used to his new-old name -- finds himself up on the watchtower a week after the battle, looking down over the neat rows of tents and firepits that mark the Narnian camp. Queen Lucy went home over the pass two days ago, taking a third of the army with her in case of a sea attack on Cair Paravel, but King Edmund is still here until they know how the Tisroc will react to his son's humiliation. Rabadash and the other Calormene prisoners were sent back by sea three days ago, as soon as Queen Lucy finished seeing to their wounds. (She even healed a few on the brink of death right after the battle, Corin told Shasta in a breathless, annoyed tone of voice -- "It's far more than they deserved, the cowards," he said, while Shasta just thought of the men at arms and the local farmers and hunters busy at work digging two score graves for the ones who'd died for nothing before the Queen could reach them.)

He didn't funk the battle, but he wasn't much use either. He has no idea how to fight, no idea how to lead, no idea how to rule. Yet King Lune wants him to be his heir, to inherit the throne someday.

How can he be a king if nobody lets him do anything he's actually good at?

Maybe he should grab Aravis and two horses and sneak off to Narnia to find Bree and Hwin, who left with Queen Lucy. They won't make him do anything he doesn't want to. He can settle down near Cair Paravel and be a fisherman, Aravis can live as a guest at the castle -- it won't be any different from living as a guest at Anvard, maybe even better because of the two queens -- and everything will make sense again.

He's almost decided to find Aravis and start the inevitable argument over what a mess it would be to leave now, when he hears someone climbing up the spiral stone stairs to join him on the flat, open top of the tower. Probably a servant sent to fetch him back down so he can go on being useless, Shasta thinks, and turns to tell whoever it is to leave him alone. Nobody listens to him when he gives orders, but at least he can pretend it's practice for being king.

But it's not a servant. It's King Edmund, out of his armor and looking tired around the eyes and shoulders, like he's been carrying sacks of charcoal from the yard to the shed all day long and now he's stealing a minute to himself before he has to go rake the yard, feed the chickens, weed the garden, muck out the donkey's stable, draw water, wash up, light the fire, cook dinner, and have the nets out so Arsheesh will see him tying knots when he gets home and not yell at him for shirking.

Shasta blinks.

"Oh, Corin -- no, not Corin. You look much too sane to be Corin," the king says as he shuts the wooden cover over the stairwell. "Good afternoon to you, Prince Cor. May I impose upon your solitude for a few minutes? I promise not to interrupt your thoughts."

It's so strange to have someone ask Shasta what he wants. King Edmund even sounds like he'd go away if Shasta said he'd prefer to be alone.

So of course he stammers out that the king can stay.

"My thanks," King Edmund says, and leans against a merlon, looking down at his camp. He sighs.

Shasta fidgets for a minute, then can't hold his tongue any longer. "Is, if I may ask -- is there going to be trouble? Your Majesty?" he asks. "With Rabadash, I mean?"

"Of a certainty," the king says, straightening slightly as he turns to face Shasta. "Even if Rishti Tisroc is made aware that we know that he countenanced a strike without formal declaration of war, he must pretend to be innocent and therefore outraged. He will be outraged in truth at his son's transformation, for that is a blow to the honor and self-respect of all Calormen." Shasta sucks in his breath at the truth of that. Just one month ago, if he'd heard that northern barbarians had turned the crown prince into a beast... Oh, why did he laugh? Rabadash will remember them laughing for the rest of his life.

King Edmund nods. "I see you comprehend the issue. There remains only the question of the form in which the Tisroc's outrage will manifest. I would almost wish for war. That, at the least, is clean and direct. The other chances, such as assassins or embargoes, are both more likely and more difficult to counter."

"Oh," Shasta says, and then blurts, "It sounds complicated -- being a king. There are so many people you're meant to protect from so many things. I don't think I'll be any good at it. I don't even know what I'm supposed to worry about."

Astonishingly, King Edmund laughs, the tired set of his face opening and relaxing a fraction. "There's no shame in that, Prince Cor. I and my siblings knew just as little when we were crowned in Narnia, yet we learned and persevered. You have advantages we lacked, such as your father, the Great Council of Archenland, and a country not ground down by a century of artificial winter. So long as you remember that your goal is to protect and serve your people, you should do very well."

"But how?" Shasta says. "I can't read, I can't fight, I don't know anything about Archenland. All I know how to do is catch fish and do chores, and nobody will let me do any of that here. People keep doing all the chores for me and nobody will teach me what I ought to be doing instead. Father's going to make me be king, the country will sink to the bottom of the sea in a storm, and it will be all my fault."

He realizes he's waving his arms around and drops them back to his sides, flushing with embarrassment and nerves. He yelled at a king. If he ever dared to yell at Arsheesh, he ended the night with his boxed ears ringing and his stomach empty from no supper. Surely he'll be in trouble here too, no matter how friendly the northerners seem.

But King Edmund just smiles and puts one hand on Shasta's shoulder. "That you worry about your people already is a sign that you are worthy to be king. The rest can be taught. It is to our shame that neither I nor your father realized how much at loose ends you have been."

Shasta looks down and feels his cheeks burn hotter. "You should just go back to having Corin be Father's heir. At least he knows what he's doing."

"Come now, Prince Cor," says the king. "Be honest -- would you want Corin as your lord? Ruling a country is much like an endless age of chores. No sooner is one dealt with than another arises, and there is little scope for glory and adventure. You kept house for the Calormene fisherman who brought you ashore, did you not?"

Shasta nods.

"Most of a king's work -- or a queen's work, as my sisters would remind me -- is much the same," King Edmund says. "We ensure that food is taken from where it grows to where it is needed, that the roads are in good repair, that the borders are watched, that tariffs are fair, that the people of one town or forest or valley are not in conflict with their neighbors, that when conflict does occur the law can find a resolution, and on and on in such a manner." He claps Shasta's shoulder again, then drops his arm. "And from time to time, we go to war or fence wits with foreign kings, who are trying to do the same for their own people -- if, that is, they are kings worth their titles."

Oh, Shasta thinks, remembering the work gang of prisoners who came by the village one year to repair the road that led south to the port city of Firoz, and the imperial auditors Arsheesh loved to complain about but to whom he once took a case for arbitration when he thought he'd been cheated at the village market. Of course. Things like that don't organize themselves, any more than a donkey could muck out its own stable. Someone has to make them happen.

"I don't think Corin would like that much," he tells King Edmund. He frowns. "I don't think I'd like that much either." It was tricky enough getting Bree, Hwin, Aravis, and himself to agree on their plan for crossing Tashbaan. Getting a whole country to agree on something sounds impossible.

"Few people would," the king says. "But there the task sits, waiting for someone to take it up. What say you, Prince Cor? If you truly feel unequal to the responsibility, you can abdicate your right to Archenland's throne. I will plead your case with your father King Lune and allow you refuge in Narnia so as to lessen the potential for malcontents to make you a figurehead against your brother's eventual rule." His eyes are steady and calm, his face unreadable behind the surface weariness, as if he's weighing Shasta's response on a scale to see if he's worth a single minim.

Shasta swallows and looks away. He could run away to be a fisherman in Cair Paravel with permission. He could let Archenland go back to the way it was before he blundered into the country and upset everyone's plans. He could stick with a life that makes sense, a life he knows how to deal with, a life where he's only responsible for himself and somebody else has to worry about the big questions and problems.

He could. He wants to.

He won't.

"Thank you, Your Majesty, but I'll stay here," he says.

King Edmund smiles. "As you wish. Now, would you like to come down to the council chamber and help your father and me as we consider Rishti Tisroc's likely response? You have a more intimate knowledge of Calormen than either he or I, and I have often found that following other people as they struggle with a thorny tangle is a good way to learn how to deal with a similar situation myself."

"Will Corin be there?" Shasta asks.

King Edmund shakes his head. "Your brother has never had any love for such matters," he says. "That worried your father greatly these past several years. Your interest will ease his mind."

"Oh," Shasta says. It's strange, to realize that King Edmund is implying that he'll make a better king than Corin would. And yet, if ruling a country is like living with Arsheesh, maybe the king has a point. Corin would have provoked Arsheesh into selling him years ago, or he would have simply run off and fallen in with bandits. Shasta is the one who learned how to buckle down and do the work. Maybe he can buckle down and learn how to be a king, too. Maybe he can live up to the name his parents gave him.

"Can we bring Aravis too?" he asks. "I grew up in Calormen, but I only know about ordinary things. She knows what the great houses are like. And kings need to have good counselors, right?"

King Edmund nods as he crouches to lift the covering from the stairwell. "That we do, for no person can know everything there is to know, and friends who have stood fast through trials such as you and the Lady Aravis endured are worth more than any material price." He smiles. "That was an excellent suggestion, Cor. Keep that up and you will go far."

Cor smiles back.

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Inspired by the 8/20/11 15_minute_fic word #194: service

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...I have the annoying feeling that I've done my old "faceless characters interacting in front of a blank white screen" schtick again -- man, sensory description is just not my thing -- so if you spot any good places for little descriptive asides, please tell me!

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On a completely different subject, tomorrow is the orientation session for this year's RE teachers. It runs from 10am to 2pm, with a lunch break. On Sunday there will be a teacher dedication ceremony as part of the all-ages section of the service, after which we'll all troop upstairs for the first day of lessons. I believe I am teaching K-2 this year (which is a bit of an age spread; I am not sure how that will work in practice, since five-year-olds and seven-year-olds are at notably different developmental stages) with probably three or four co-teachers.

We shall see how it goes.

Comments

[autumnia]

Oh, Cor. No longer Shasta, and yet you still are. (About 80% of the time, I call him Shasta in my head or when I'm writing.)

I love Edmund's remark that Cor looks to sane to be his brother. :-)

And oh yes, Cor would certainly have all these issues to work through. I've been wanting to write something like this myself (and with Edmund as Cor's mentor too!) but you did a fine job of it here. :-) I think, for this, Edmund was definitely the right person to help him work through these issues... also, the Narnian King would be less judgemental of having Aravis in counsel. Ed makes a nice intermediate between the stuffiness of the Anvard court and the ways of life that Cor and Aravis had known all their lives.

[edenfalling]

I can never make up my mind what to call him while he's still a boy and teen. By the time he's an adult, I feel he's pretty well settled into his Archenlandish name, but I am sure he went back and forth a lot himself as he figured out his new life.

Corin is awesome, but anyone who regularly pulls the kind of stunts he does has got to be living slightly sideways to the world around him. :-)

I would love to see your story! There can never be too many stories about Narnia. And yeah, Edmund (who had to deal with his own set of identity issues upon his arrival in Narnia, in addition to getting thrown in at the deep ending of the government business) seemed like the person best placed to give Shasta both a non-judgmental ear and some good advice.

[branchandroot]

Oh, I like this one. Because, of course, Lewis never addresses any of this, the details of /how/ a lot of kids with no experience at all hash their way out to being rulers. *grins* And the comparison to chores is just perfect, especially that first moment Edmund comes up on the roof.

Actually, there's a fair bit of sense detail in here, it's just in the past moments not the present moment. Possibly a few words about the wind or temperature or light up on the tower, especially if it contributes to the sense of solitude or freedom.

[edenfalling]

Have you read cofax7's Carpetbaggers? It's a wonderful story about the practicalities of the Pevensies early rule in Narnia, and how they made a place for themselves among their new subjects. (I had fun with that list of chores, because obviously they're all things that needed doing around Arsheesh's house and therefore obviously Shasta did them. Repeatedly.)

Oh, yes, of course the wind, the temperature, and the light would be relevant. *makes note to insert them* Hmm. Possibly I could add a short sentence about unfamiliar clothes, too...

[branchandroot]

Yes! I'm very fond of that one; I think she did a really good job of filling in all the crap the kids would be having to deal with right afterwards.

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

I love this, Liz. Every time I read what you have done with this time period and with these characters it makes me want to tear down everything I've ever done in the same. Your insight into this time period -- the characters, the politics, and the worldbuilding, are just superlative. Now yes, once again, we are treated to an outsider view of Edmund, but you know, you write the others so well and Edmund is great to be observed from a third person POV. So, more Cor. More Aravis, more Bree and Hwin. The Pevensies will be shoved back to England soon enough anyway, so who cares?

Edmund is terrific here in how he helps Cor understand the relationship between service in Arsheesh's cot and being a King. It is reminiscent of what Lune tells Cor earlier and echoes Aslan's charge to Frank and Helen (which I had not realized until I re-read it recently). Brilliant as always.

[edenfalling]

No, don't tear down your stories! *clings to them with white-knuckled hands* To be honest, one reason I have been writing so much Calormen and Archenland is that I am a little intimidated by Golden Age Narnia proper -- dealing with humans, no matter how tricky the politics involved, is much easier than dealing with the jumble of Talking Beasts and other non-human beings and sorting out how such disparate peoples could live together in something approximating harmony. Yet you do it with such grace.

Edmund, Edmund, Edmund. I do love him so, yet I never write him straight on. I suspect this is because I am circling around the necessity of writing a story about his view of Jadis and his time as a traitor, and I have not yet solidified my ideas on that. (Except I am dead certain there was no sexual abuse involved. I read Jadis as asexual, so the idea of her using sex as a weapon flat out refuses to compute, no matter how excellently other people have written stories using that premise.) But he was doubly at sea at the beginning of the Pevensies' reign, since he had to work out who he was in addition to working out how to rule... and while Shasta was never a traitor, he has a similar job of self-definition ahead of him at the end of HHB.

The way Lewis defines kingship in HHB and MN is something that struck me very deeply when I was a child, and is a large part of the moral measuring stick I hold up to leaders even as an adult. :-)

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

I have not yet solidified my ideas on that. (Except I am dead certain there was no sexual abuse involved. I read Jadis as asexual, so the idea of her using sex as a weapon flat out refuses to compute, no matter how excellently other people have written stories using that premise.)
As first and foremost a book person, I never saw sex abuse there either and I find the trope a bit tiring at this point, though that may be because so much of the fandom demonizes any sexual content at all unless it is abusive -- Edmund as victim and a tool therefore for angst and Susan as victim because she deserved it.

The fact is, more than the angst, I find Edmund's statement in HHB "Even a traitor may mend" to be the defining point of his character. It's what he does going forward that is the most interesting for me. I've played with some things around the edges -- that he is affected by traitorous acts, that he is slow to judgment, that he considers both the innocent and the guilty under his protection. I find the positives more interesting. One reader I know wondered how maybe rather than the popular trope of Edmund involved in the spycraft, would actually make a point of never going within a mile of anything morally ambiguous. And I can see that -- however I think it also depends on what the spycraft involves. Spying on people, opening mail, planting rumors is at one end. At the other, seduction, murder, theft and no, I don't see Edmund ever being comfortable with the really dodgy parts of spycraft, whether for Narnia or anyone else.

There are a couple of writers who play with the idea of Edmund carrying Jadis with him in some way anastigmatfic has Edmund say "I was her creature" and those who were Jadis' servants recognize it in him. snitchnipped takes a similar approach with Edmund post-Narnia really enjoying England because he IS free of Jadis. I like both of these authors' work a lot. They both have show Edmund in internalization and reflection rather than really angst heavy.
Ooops I just committed an Edmund head canon dump.

[edenfalling]

Narnia fandom is still very odd to me -- it's almost like two different fandoms that only overlap in a few places, and that have drastically different ideas about what they're doing when they write fanfic. :-/ Anyway, I don't really write sex myself, but that's because it's not something I am interested in as a writer, not because I find it in any way morally repugnant. And nobody deserves sexual abuse. Seriously, what do people have against Susan anyway??? I mean, all we really know is that she wasn't with her family at the dinner and on the train, and that the three people who know her least well (Polly, Jill, Eustace) dislike her surface actions. That doesn't make her evil. And the people who are furious that she was exiled from heaven... well, of course she's not in Aslan's country. She's not dead. *headdesk* But I am getting off topic.

I quite like Edmund as a spymaster, if only because I think he probably came away from Jadis with a sudden interest in understanding nuances and motives so he wouldn't get fooled and slip up again, and so he could see when other people were leaning in unfortunate directions. As for any mystical repercussions, well, I like the way both the Disney film and the BBC miniseries have Jadis's broken wand cause Edmund's mortal wound. IIRC, Lewis never said anything about one way or the other, but it seems sort of karmically just to me. I suppose I always figured that was more or less the end of any supernatural connection between them, though, especially after Aslan died in Edmund's place and Lucy used her cordial to heal him. I can quite see him carrying Jadis as a psychological weight, of course; in fact, I can't see how he could avoid doing so. *hugs him*

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

it seems to me you are pretty close to figuring him out. I'll just wait over here in the corner until we get his point of view from you.

[animus-wyrmis.livejournal.com]

::jumps in::

One reader I know wondered how maybe rather than the popular trope of Edmund involved in the spycraft, would actually make a point of never going within a mile of anything morally ambiguous.
FOR REAL, THIS IS THE ONLY THING THAT MAKES SENSE TO ME.

Ahem. I really like both your views on the Edmund&Jadis relationship. It's such a hard thing because while I think he would perhaps continue to feel guilty, I also really feel like he had no reason to because essentially he and Lucy did the same thing, only Lucy had better luck with Tumnus than he did with Jadis. And I am not always a fan of the sexual slant, either. :/

I really hate the "I was a traitor, cue eternal angst and needing to be forgiven" nonsense, because I don't really feel that Edmund *was* much of a traitor, and he seems pretty chill about having forgiven himself in VDT and HHB.

(Speaking of traitors, do either of you think that Aravis or Shasta would have trouble dealing with the fact that they did, in point of fact, betray their country? Idk.)

[edenfalling]

Mmm. As rthstewart says, there's spying and then there's spying -- but I am of two minds there. Either Edmund would try to stay away from the hinkier areas (and keep everyone else away too), or he might dive in on the theory that he's already been there, his family shouldn't have to go there too, and at least he knows how to get back. I can see him both ways. (Which is useful as a reader -- it keeps me from falling out of stories via broken suspension of disbelief. *grin*)

Edmund did just have pure bad luck meeting Jadis vs. Lucy's encounter with Tumnus, but I always got the sense that he was at least half aware that there was something fishy about her and was shoving that knowledge down because he liked what she was offering and didn't want to examine the fine print too closely. There was an element of choice involved. And he also betrayed Lucy on a smaller, personal level by refusing to corroborate her story when they both got back to England and she wanted him to convince Peter and Susan. There's no excuse for that one.

But yeah, he obviously doesn't angst forever! You can see from HHB, VDT, and TLB that he gets on with his life and seems perfectly well-adjusted, whatever he may or may not be doing vis-a-vis spycraft. :-)

As for betraying Calormen, I think Shasta might worry about that at first, but Calormen was never very good to him and there's no way he could see Rabadash's raid as justified, so I suspect he gets over it pretty quickly. Aravis probably doesn't care at first, but I think it might nag at her off and on over the years -- less the specific action of stymieing Rabadash (which I think she feels perfectly justified about) and more the general action of staying in Archenland and giving allegiance to Aslan as well as the Calormene gods.

[animus-wyrmis.livejournal.com]

yeah, I can see either to some extent, but if I am going to be honest with myself I think Edmund would be all, "That is wrong and I am a Proper Englishman and a Just King and so on," and Susan would pay off the ambassador's maids and flirt her way into Archenland's state secrets and order assassinations if need be.

Yeah, I mean, he definitely did some things that were Not On. But sometimes I feel like he shouldn't still be carrying it with him? I mean, on a meta level, not a character level--I have often been convinced in fic, and in canon there is his awareness of his actions--but I just think sometimes, my god, would I blame my brother for being dumb and mean when he was nine years old? And then I think, no, we would all let it go.

Yesssss, it's something I wonder about with them! I suppose especially because I am of so many minds on how much of her culture Aravis keeps and how much she assimilates.

[edenfalling]

Yeah, I mean, he definitely did some things that were Not On. But sometimes I feel like he shouldn't still be carrying it with him? I mean, on a meta level, not a character level--I have often been convinced in fic, and in canon there is his awareness of his actions--but I just think sometimes, my god, would I blame my brother for being dumb and mean when he was nine years old? And then I think, no, we would all let it go.

You clearly are not from my family. :-) We never let anything go. My little sister (Vicky) can still, at the drop of a hat, be induced into ranting about how my parents forced her to miss performing her third grade holiday play so we could extend our Christmas visit to relatives by half a day. I can do a similar rant about being stashed in an after-school daycare program until sixth grade just because my parents were afraid Vicky would get shirty if they let me walk home after school while she was still going to the program... even though she had friends there and I was the only person my age there for three years.

See? *wry*

More seriously, I am certain Peter, Susan, and Lucy forgave Edmund very quickly. I think it took Edmund significantly longer to forgive himself, and even when he let the emotional immediacy go, I am sure he kept the facts readily to mind, as a reminder and a warning.

[cherokee1.livejournal.com]

Wow. Your church must be huge, and have lots of children.
there are about 5? 6? Unitarian churches and fellowships in Houston, but the one I sometimes attend
is very small.
My best friend is the only teacher, and the RE director as well.
Maybe 10 children of all ages.
Most of the fellowship is much older folk.

Some of the other churches are larger, but there are very rarely more than 3 teachers at a time.
CKN

[edenfalling]

I think we have somewhere between 300 and 500 members. The number of kids in each grade is, oh, three to twelve (it varies a fair bit), but a lot of them attend RE quite irregularly, so while a class may be twenty-two kids in theory, in practice it averages eight to twelve, while a class that's sixteen kids in theory will average three to nine.

So we really only need two teachers per class. The idea behind having four- or five-person teams is so that people aren't teaching every week and can sleep in or go to the regular service some of the time; it helps avoid burnout. :-)

[hungrytiger11.livejournal.com]

I love this because- yes- how disoreinting would all this be to go from illiterate slave to king's heir and I can see how in all of this they woud never think how hard it might be to adjust too.

Actually, you do describe what Edmund looks like when you talk about how tired he looks and you place the story with comments about hearing him come up the stairwell. Not sure in the context you need more than that....

[edenfalling]

Poor Shasta gets his world turned upside down overnight (and this after he's already overturned it once by running away with Bree!) and yet, in the wake of the battle and the worry over Calormen's reaction to what Aslan did to Rabadash, I can all too easily see him falling through the cracks for a while. Hence the story.

Hmm, maybe. That's more a kinesthetic/emotional description, though, which are the pieces I don't have as much trouble including. But I'm glad to hear that particular passage worked for you!

[animus-wyrmis.livejournal.com]

I love Shasta-figures-it-out fic. :D Also I love that his Calormene upbringing is played as a strength here. And also I really like your Edmund! He is, as he seems in the books, the kind of grown-up king a scared prince would want to confide in.

[edenfalling]

Shasta is awesome and smarter than I think he sometimes gives himself credit for. *hugs him* And I really do think growing up in Calormen, while it was not the childhood anyone would have chosen, taught him some useful lessons. Also, I think his outsider's perspective on Archenland is probably good for the country -- in fact, I think the reason his and Aravis's son was the greatest king of Archenland ever, is that Ram had some of that outside perspective (courtesy of his parents' stories and lessons) while being raised as an insider so he didn't run into resistance when trying to create change the way Cor and Aravis almost certainly did.

Edmund strikes me as being very together by the time he's grown up, and while admirable, also very approachable. :-)