[Fic] "Ancient Lands" -- Chronicles of Narnia, fragment

[edenfalling]

rthstewart requested: Narnia, Cor and Aravis meeting Ilgamuth and Shezan

This is not really a proper response to the prompt, since I never reached the actual meeting, but I like this scene and may do something more with it someday.

Aravis and Cor return to Tashbaan. Fragment. (475 words)

---------------------------------------------
Ancient Lands
---------------------------------------------

It was strange to return to Calormen after so many years, even if they only planned to visit Tashbaan rather than continue southward toward more familiar provinces. Aravis had only been to the city twice before -- once as quite a small child, and once during their flight to the north. Her father had not been high in the old Tisroc's favor, having pointedly sat out the war between Rishti and his brother Udrilar, and so she and her brother had grown up at a remove from the intrigues of court society. The river and the desert were not landscapes she knew in her bones. But Tashbaan was, in many ways, the heart of Calormen, and everything from the deep blare of the horns that closed the city gates at sundown to the rhythm of voices in the streets washed over her with a deep, drowning sense of home that Archenland could never equal.

Cor shivered beside her on the palanquin as the horns sounded their last note, and she wondered if he felt the same.

"A night in the palace will be more comfortable than one among the Tombs," she said lightly, touching her husband's wrist to feel the heat of his blood beneath the skin.

Cor turned toward her with a wry smile. "That depends on your definition of comfort, I suspect."

"Point. At least there will be a bed, with sheets, and fresh water. And me, to soothe your fear of the dark," Aravis said.

"My fear of Rabadash's temper, more like," Cor said. "I still think this is a mistake. Father couldn't afford to let the occasion pass without recognition, but to send the two people most responsible for his defeat, his humiliation, and his curse?"

"To send anyone not of royal blood would be a dire insult. Your family tree is thin. Too many died fighting the White Sorceress of Narnia, or of plague during the famine years. The only other option was Corin," Aravis reminded him for the thousandth time.

Cor made a terrible face.

"Exactly," Aravis concluded. "Besides, if anything untoward happens to us in Tashbaan, the political and economic consequences for Calormen would be unpleasant at best. Rabadash will be rude, obliquely, but nothing more."

Cor sighed. "I know, I know. And I'll have to be polite no matter what he says." He paused, then laced their fingers together. "You, on the other hand, don't speak with Father's voice. O my love and the light of my life, I implore you to consider yourself free to return Rabadash's words in whatever manner you deem fitting."

Aravis smiled. "I would have anyway, but it's nice to know you share my thoughts."

Cor was still laughing as the palanquin swayed to a stop and the bearers lowered the cushioned platform to the ground.

---------------
---------------
---------------

And that's when I realized I had no idea if they were in Tashbaan for Rabadash's coronation, or the birth of his first son, or some other momentous occasion; that I couldn't write the introduction scene without deciding that issue; and that any decision here and now would probably get overwritten by "A Change of Season," whenever I get around to that story. So I broke off and wrote a little mini-scene from a couple days later instead.

---------------------------------------------

I really need to write "A Change of Season" in 2014; there are so many other Narnia fics I cannot work on until I finish that and thus pin down my post-HHB headcanon for Calormen!

Comments

[autumnia]

Ooh, I look forward to their meeting Rabadash one day in your fic(s)! And Aravis is right, it's really better that they two should make the visit instead of Corin, though it'd be interesting to see what the other Prince would have done instead.

[edenfalling]

Cor and Rabadash are contemporaneous royalty of neighboring kingdoms -- it would be odd if they never met officially... and since Rabadash can't leave Tashbaan, obviously Aravis and Cor must go to Calormen. (I am pretty sure they only go once after Lune's death, though.)

The idea of Corin pressed into service as his father's or brother's ambassador is a thing of great and terrible beauty. It works fine in Narnia. It works passably in the neighboring mountain lands of Mergandy, Sarovence, and Telmar, if only because they are reluctantly used to him. It may even work, occasionally, in the various island kingdoms. But in Calormen? No. That is a disaster waiting to happen. :-)

[branchandroot]

Aravis smiled. "I would have anyway, but it's nice to know you share my thoughts."

That is just so very Aravis. *dotes all over her*

[edenfalling]

Aravis is awesome, full stop. :-)

[rthstewart]

FINALLY I can sit and read and pet this lovely ficlet. Oh Liz, I adore how you write these two, I love your Calormen, and I love love the, well they could send Corin. HA HA HA. Brilliant.

You are wonderful and this is delightful and I'm off to the next one because I can't WAIT.

[edenfalling]

I'm glad you like it! And thank you for prodding me into doing some more world-building, because I hadn't ever thought about Aravis and Cor returning to Calormen but it's a wonderful idea and now I want to write it. :-)

(I suspect Corin plays up his unsuitability as an ambassador because he finds the job unspeakably boring and annoying. But I'm pretty sure even if he were trying his honest best, he'd be a disaster waiting to happen... at least in Calormen. In Narnia, on the other hand, people tend to like him. *wry*)

[heliopausa]

Very tricky diplomatic situation; and I like the underlying feeling that Aravis is still ineradicably, Calormene, so that Tashbaan, which she did not grow up, feels more like home than Archenland ever can.

[edenfalling]

Home is people and culture as much as a physical landscape. :-)

And yeah, I am quite sure Rabadash discovered how his plans were foiled, and by whom -- Aravis overhearing his conversation with his father, Cor racing to warn Lune -- because that kind of story gets out and around even if nobody in Archenland told it directly to their Calormene prisoners. I am equally sure he has a long memory. But Cor and Aravis are much less likely to cause random havoc than Corin is, and they're also less likely to miss implications hidden by courtly misdirection, so they're still the better choice of ambassadors.

[heliopausa]

Especially if there is a lot in the culture about Tashbaan/the horns at the gates etc as representative of the greatness of the people.
For sure Cor and Aravis are really well placed to become very very skilled and useful ambassadors/operatives. As for Rabadash (and everyone) finding out the story - I expect it took about a week (or less!) for the Archenland bards to turn the whole story into a lay for recital/song at feasts (it is told by a poet in The Silver Chair.) Which isn't diplomatically very savvy, but then, people aren't, often.

[edenfalling]

I wonder if anyone tried to perform the lay in Rabadash's presence (privately, one assumes; that would be asking for immediate execution in public), or whether he just got a transcription of the words. Or, hmmm, would the old Tisroc have allowed it to be performed to both rouse anti-northern sentiment and keep his potential heirs off-balance? *ponders* That may come up in "A Change of Season," now that you've brought it to my attention. Thank you!

[heliopausa]

Oooh, what a nasty, clever manoeuvre of the old Tisroc! But highly possible, I agree. Though if not that, I would expect that Rabadash would hear sooner or later from paid informants. Either way - how lovely that the lay might come in handy for the story - the mention of it's in Chapter Three of The Silver Chair.