[Fic] "The Courting Dance," ch. 8 - Chronicles of Narnia

[edenfalling]

I got distracted and ended up finishing chapter 8 of "The Courting Dance" instead of getting any further on the Jade/Dave/Terezi porn (which still needs a title, btw...). Noooooooot the same mental track AT ALL. But oh well, writing is writing!

Politics intrudes on romance, but Hwin knows that as long as her friends work together, they can overcome any obstacle. (1,425 words)

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Chapter 8: Simple Problems
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Hwin was more than willing to give Aravis and Cor a bit of privacy to consummate their marriage -- the day was warm, the grass was soft, so why not? And from the sidelong glance the two humans exchanged, they had done something of the sort at least once before. But Aravis and Cor insisted on continuing their journey north and east to Cair Paravel.

"We won't reach the coast by nightfall, unless Hwin and I gallop ourselves to death," Bree said, as he and Hwin picked their way across a shallow, stony mountain stream. "There's a watch station where the Anvard road meets the river road. We can stop there for the night."

"That will work," Aravis agreed, shifting her weight on Hwin's back in response to a patch of bad footing.

The watch station had been established early in the Pevensies' too-short reign, as Narnians shook themselves out of a century of magical isolation and remembered that borders were not always impervious and roads often carried guests whose names ought to be hurried on to Cair Paravel and brought to the four monarchs' attention. As such, it combined a square three-story stone tower and ten-foot curtain wall with an extensive guest house and a courier service.

Hwin and the others arrived an hour before sunset and found the gates open and welcoming: clearly some of the Talking Birds had grown curious, or someone in the tower had a good spyglass trained on the road. A gray tabby cat leapt down from the wall to the top of the open gate and then to a nearby mounting block as Hwin and Bree ambled into the courtyard. "Prince Cor, Lady Aravis, Captain Bree, Lady Hwin," the cat said in a rasping voice, flicking her tail lazily from side to side as she watched the humans dismount. "My name is Anaprisma and I bid you welcome to Narnia. Will you entrust me with the nature of your visit so I can advise Lord Steward Peridan what to expect upon your arrival in Cair Paravel?"

Aravis and Cor glanced at each other. Bree swished his tail and shivered his withers, attempting to look unconcerned. Hwin laughed soundlessly to herself and said, "Thank you for your welcome and concern, ma'am. Our friends have only recently married and are seeking some time for themselves away from Archenland's political concerns."

Anaprisma tilted her head, her eyes narrowed to slits. Then she bared her teeth in a wicked grin. "I believe I see. Lord Peridan will most definitely wish to speak with you tomorrow. For tonight, though, please enjoy what poor hospitality Narnia can provide on such short notice. Master Cowslip in the guest house will provide supper for the humans, there are oats and hay in the stables for the horses, and anyone who wishes can bathe in the pool at the back of the house." She leapt down from the mounting block and vanished into the tower.

"Was it necessary to mention our marriage?" Cor asked in a plaintive undertone.

"Hiding it will only encourage people to think you and Aravis might be separated, and there's no hiding the way you obviously want to... to be with each other," Hwin told him, tactfully censoring her words. "Besides, if you want help, it's best to be open about the lay of the land so nobody stumbles into any holes and snaps an ankle later on."

"You can leave Archenland, but you can't escape politics," Aravis agreed in a rueful tone. "You should be used to the price of rank by now."

Cor made a terrible face. Aravis laughed, and his grimace dissolved into a matching grin as he reached for her hand.

Hwin nudged Bree with her hindquarters and tilted her head toward the stables attached to the guest house. He blew noisily through his lips, but followed her across the yard readily enough.

"Bother politics," he said as Hwin gripped a bell rope between her teeth and rang to summon a person with opposable thumbs to help remove their saddles and bags. "You'd think getting to Narnia would be enough, but no. After the trouble of a daring escape to freedom, you still have to work out what to do next."

"That's how life goes," Hwin said as a faun stepped through the open doorway of the guesthouse, sketched an abbreviated bow, and began unbuckling straps. "The only place without problems is Aslan's country." Which was strange beyond strange to think of, because even after death wouldn't people still be people, with all the flaws that helped distinguish one from another and give life flavor? But if anyone could manage to keep individuality and free will alive while simultaneously making peace among all souls, Aslan certainly had the best chance. And Hwin had decided, as a filly -- scared, brutalized, alone in a foreign land among humans who did not recognize her as a person -- that she would keep faith with him.

Bree snorted, but let that track of conversation drop.

In the morning, Aravis and Cor wore the unmistakable residual scent of sex, despite their obviously vigorous attempts to wash it away. Hwin jostled Bree before he could say anything on the subject. Their humans had enough to worry about; there was no sense overburdening their minds by tripping them into the sinkholes of their species' odd taboos.

Getting their gear ready took twice as long as usual since the humans were constantly distracted by stealing and sharing heated glances over Hwin's and Bree's backs. Bree flicked his tail at Cor several times in a futile attempt to redirect his attention. Hwin simply waited. She remembered the strange, hot, longing she had never indulged in while she lived in Calormen, and her nervousness the first time she mated after returning to Narnia -- the way she had watched the stallion in her adopted herd, feeling a sudden sympathy for Bree's sense of dislocation from their brethren after so many years among their dumb cousins. But in the end, it had all been quite natural and easy, and her two foals were healthy, happy, and so much at home among her herd sisters that she could leave them to visit friends without any fear that they would vanish before she returned.

Finally Aravis swung onto Hwin's back and she moved toward the watch station's gate, following close on Bree's heels.

A gray blur dropped down from the wall, landing with a light-foot thump on Hwin's withers. Hwin startled, dancing sideways on the path and rolling her eyes back in an attempt to see what had touched her. The cat Anaprisma leapt to Aravis's shoulder, then down between her arms and out of Hwin's sight.

"I will accompany you and your lady wife to Cair Paravel and present you to the Lord Steward, Prince Cor," Anaprisma announced in her rasping voice. "I suggest you hurry. The sooner you present your side of the story, the easier it will be to avoid any trouble between our countries."

"Trouble?" Cor said.

The cat purred. Something twitched lightly over Hwin's shoulders -- the cat's tail, most likely, though it felt remarkably like a crawling insect. She shivered her skin, attempting to dispel the sensation.

"Two Narnians aided a Calormene in abducting the crown prince of Archenland," Aravis said slowly. "Am I correct?"

"That isn't what happened at all!" Bree said, stamping a forehoof in annoyance.

"But it's what some of the Great Council would prefer to imagine instead of the truth," Cor said, his shoulders slumped. "They still have Corin," he added plaintively. "I don't see why people expect me to fit their every wish any more than my brother did when he was Father's heir."

"Because you care enough about your country to try," Aravis said. "Which may have been foolish, in retrospect, but what is done is done and no one can return to rewrite the path of her youth with the knowledge of her age. We will make haste to Cair Paravel, and take responsibility for what we have done."

Cor straightened in Bree's saddle, taking strength from Aravis's words. "Yes," he said. "You're right. There are things I need to make clear, and now is better than never."

"To Cair Paravel, then?" Hwin asked, taking a tentative step forward.

"To Cair Paravel!" Bree cried, and he shot forward in a rapid trot. After a moment, Hwin followed, Aravis balanced steady and sure on her back.

They had all saved each other once before, in more dire straits than these. They would save each other again. Hwin was sure of it.

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Back to The Beating of Our Hearts

Forward to chapter 9

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 mistakes that implies.)

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As always, I welcome any ideas on how to improve the chapter (and how to make Hwin's POV more properly equine). :-)

Comments

[branchandroot]

*makes happy sounds* Even if it wasn't what you meant to work on, I love seeing more of this one. Hwin's practicality is always delightful, and a good match for Aravis, really.

[edenfalling]

Hwin is the most sensible character in HHB, hands down. I mean, the Narnians went to Tashbaan in the first place (which was silly), Lune loses Shasta in the woods (which is careless), Aravis and Shasta can be as ridiculous as any other preteen kids, and Bree is, well, Bree. Hwin is a beacon of stability in comparison! *strokes her nose and offers apples*

[autumnia]

I am delighted to see you posting another chapter to this! Had to go back a chapter to remember where we left off and then I finished this one far too soon.

Both Aravis and Cor seem much more natural with themselves and each other here in Narnia, now that they're further away from Anvard. And of course the Horses (and very likely the other Narnians) could sense what the Humans were doing the night before and remain polite and say nothing at all on the matter. :-) It'll be interesting to see what Peridan has to say on the matter and I'm looking forward to your take on how things are in Narnia with the Pevensies gone now.

[edenfalling]

Thanks!

Yeah, they are pretty short chapters, aren't they? They all will be, since I like to keep the chapters of any given fic hovering around the same average length. (The average length is different for each story, of course.) I think I left such a long writing gap partly because chapter seven was such a nice stopping point, and also this is a transitional chapter so it's mostly setting up the second half of the story. And of course Hwin's POV is a bit tricky to write, since I am not a horse. *wry*

Yes, Narnians have (re)learned about human foibles and tactfully don't mention a number of things that are obvious to anyone with a better sense of smell or hearing. Equally, Narnian humans have a different definition of privacy from people in other countries. Narnian privacy is basically a sort of polite fiction of "things we don't talk about in public" rather than an expectation that such things are actually secret. A closed door is a tacit way of saying "Pretend you don't notice anything happening in this room," and so on. :-)

[lexicology]

Hey, cool! More of this one!

I really like Hwin's eminently practical attitude towards sex (which makes perfect sense, from a horse), and some of the tactile sense-description you've put in.

[edenfalling]

Kinesthetic body language stuff is the type of description that comes most easily to me -- much more than any other sense -- so it's probably not surprising that that's what I reach for when trying to write from a horse's POV! The general attitude of Talking Beasts toward sex is something I picked up from rthstewart, whose Narnia fanfiction is very much worth reading, particularly if you like world-building and non-human perspectives.

[heliopausa.livejournal.com]

Wonderful! I've been hanging out for an update to this story for months!! It was a great and unexpected treat to find it here today -- thank you! :)
And no, they can't escape the politics, sadly. I liked the fragments of Narnian politics and history, too -- the building of the watchtowers, the fact that Peridan has been named Lord Steward. Anaprisma is very cool, very catlike, and very astute indeed (almost wasted in such an outpost, in fact, except of course that Narnia needs astute observes everywhere, including unconsidered remote postings) -- I look forward to Chapter 9. :)

[edenfalling]

I think the problem is that this is a transitional chapter -- nothing really happens here, just setup for stuff to happen later -- and since chapter 7 was a decent resting point I got lazy. (Also it's tricky to write from a horse's POV!)

My headcanon about post-Pevensie Narnia is that Peridan was named Lord Steward pretty soon after the White Stag incident, since he already acted as the monarchs' stand-in and close advisor. He also had a minor blood connection to the old royal family, several generations back via a past ruler's much younger sibling or something -- about the same level of interrelation as most of the old human families had, actually, since Narnia never had a large human population. A year or so after "The Courting Dance," Peridan gives in and accepts when the Narnians hold an election to declare him king, but right now he is still holding onto the vain hope that maybe the Pevensies will return... or at least is not willing to step into their places all the way.

I'm glad you like Anaprisma. She may be a recurring character. (I have not yet decided.)

[hungrytiger11.livejournal.com]

Loved this update! I really like your Hwin and all the details like Perdian.

[edenfalling]

Thank you! Hwin is awesome. This is a true fact and cannot be argued with. :-)

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

I am SO happy to see this completely unexpected surprise. Though... since you've been doing all that Homestuck smut you really should give us some Aravis and Cor smut. Really.

The very best part was the insight that in Archenland, it appears that two Narnians and a Calormene have kidnapped the Crown Prince. And really, they DO NOT want Corin. They don't!

The outpost and Bree and Hwin and Hwin's commentary on mating and her foals were wonderful, horsey, and so uniquely Hwin.

Peridan! So that's your solution to the succession and such! Have I seen this before? I'm not sure. I'm THRILLED that were are going to get a bit of your vision of what Narnia is like after the 4. I tend to think there's a blood succession as well. I can't wait to see your take on it.

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

[edenfalling]

In re: smut... well, maybe at the end of the story. I make no promises, though!

The general consensus among Archenlanders is that Prince Corin is a fine and noble man who loves his country dearly... and thank Aslan his older brother returned, because Corin would be a disaster as a king. (Or at the very least, an awkward and extremely unhappy one, which would tend to lead to an awkward and extremely unhappy Great Council as well.) They just wish very strongly that Prince Cor didn't seem to come with a Calormene paramour attached.

I think I mentioned the succession in a 3-sentence ficlet last winter? Let me go look. Yes, here, in Of Mourning. Which may need to be slightly revised in light of this story, since it seems to imply Peridan was elected king within a year of the Pevensies' disappearance, whereas "The Courting Dance" is now informing me that he insisted he was merely the Lord Steward for several years thereafter and only gave in and officially admitted he was king a year or so after Aravis and Cor got married.

[edenfalling]

Potential smut interlude, though this is obviously not actually porn yet. Maybe more tomorrow. Who knows!

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'Master Cowslip in the guest house' turned out to be a satyr: a ruddy-skinned fellow with a horse's tail, pointed ears, and short horns rising from his dark, curly hair. He wore rough leather trousers and an apron with numerous sauce stains that spoke of experimentation in the kitchen and a somewhat haphazard attention to other household chores. When Aravis pulled the bell cord in the main room of the building, he popped his head out of the kitchen, frowned at them, and tipped his horns toward a door in the back of the room.

"Through there, up the stairs, take any room you please. Dinner's in an hour. Be sharp or go without." Message delivered, Cowslip ducked back into his domain with every apparent intention of ignoring their presence.

Aravis looked measuringly upward at Cor. "How hungry are you?"

"Very," he said, but from the way his eyes lingered at the nape of her neck, and his left hand rested warm and possessive at the curve of her hip, she suspected he meant other things than food.

Which was well, as her own inclination also favored that path.

"Come to bed with me, my husband," Aravis said.

Cor's breath caught and his fingers tensed briefly, pressing into the softer flesh of her belly. "As you wish, my wife," he said, and it was Aravis's turn to pause.

She had known this day would come since she had found his answer in her chambers at Anvard: perfume and bells, a gift of beauty in response to her challenge. And yet to hear the word, to know that they were bound in the eyes of gods and men alike, was to reshape the world.

Cor was hers. She was his. They would make their fates together.

"I do so wish," she said, and wrapped her own left hand over his, clasping his fingers to her side as they climbed the stairs.

Queen Lucy had told her how a woman and man might lie together, all the myriad ways to create and share pleasure, and she and Cor had ventured more with fingers and tongues than had perhaps been wise before the Great Council had made their displeasure clear, but Aravis had never bared her whole self -- body, heart, and soul -- for anyone. She knew, despite Corin's misadventures, that Cor had likewise kept himself to himself. And so neither of them could lead the way this evening.

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

Awesome. Though, I am surprised. I had assumed they'd at least been together during the Courting Dance!! Love the Satyr. And how Lucy had told her all the things she needed to know. Oh Lucy. <3 She's so very Narnian.

[edenfalling]

About "being together" -- well, that depends on how you define sex, I guess? I had been assuming that, mostly because of the political situation, neither of them wanted to risk any accidental pregnancy on Aravis's part before they were officially married... but you can get awfully far with just hands and tongues. :-) And now they have no reason to keep being careful.

I tend to assume that while condoms are known in the Narnian world, they are not as reliable as latex ones with built-in spermicides. The rhythm method has a lot of known drawbacks. And while the idea of a perfect herbal contraceptive is nice, I have never heard of one in our world and would feel slightly disingenuous handwaving one into existence in Narnia. Possibly magic could serve as a solution! But I always got the feeling that purposeful spells were frowned upon in Narnia, Archenland, and Calormen alike. So penis-in-vagina sex is always going to carry a certain risk in a way that other types of sex may not... though of course diseases are not as choosy about their transmission vectors as pregnancy, so it's not as if they are perfectly safe either. *wry*