[Meme] Turn Left

[edenfalling]

Found via askerian over on Tumblr.

Inspired by Doctor Who's "Turn Left": Pick one of my stories and tell me a point in the tale that you'd change. Something tiny (e.g. "and then Fay chose silver glitter instead of gold") or big (e.g. "and then Rose was arrested instead of Jack") and I'll tell you how that one difference would have altered the course of the entire story.

I am bored. Play with me?

Comments

[edenfalling]

People notice that Shasta resembles Corin, but Corin isn't in Narnia at that point -- he has gone to Archenland in Susan's company, partly to spend time with his father, and partly because Susan is talking to Lune about Calormen's increased hostility toward the north. So it takes nearly a year for the news of Corin's double to reach Lune, who promptly rides north and goes, "OMG, my long-lost son!!!" at Shasta, who had settled happily into being a fisherman who just happens to be best friends with the Lady Aravis, Queen Lucy's new protégé. Cor gets hauled south to learn how to be a prince; a few months later, after the Pevensies vanish, Aravis requests permission from Lune to join him at Anvard.

Presumably we wind up with the same decisive naval battle as in the first two scenarios, though this time Cor participates as the commander of the Archenlandish fleet and Aravis is right there beside him. This wins her more credit with the Great Council than her canon actions (which is odd, because she's the one who discovered the warning Shasta passed on!) and there is not nearly as much opposition when she and Cor announce their intent to marry.

Rabadash does kill Rishti a couple years after what would have been HHB, but in the intervening years he's learned to hold his temper a bit and therefore is not an immediately disastrous ruler. Shezan is still morally appalled at patricide and regicide, and turns down Ilgamuth's courting attempt. However, Rabadash doesn't survive the aftermath of the dramatic naval defeat. Ilgamuth escapes by requesting sanctuary from Shezan before the new claimants to the throne can kill him as part of the old regime. Shezan comes under a lot of fire for her family connection to Rabadash, though, and about a month after his death she and Ilgamuth flee to the Seven Isles, where they join one of the small expatriate Calormene enclaves.

They do eventually marry, but never have children. (Obviously they don't marry in scenario one, where Ilgamuth is executed for treason. In scenario two, they have two or three kids, at least one of whom survives their assassination.)