#narniagiftexchange

[narniagiftexchange]

                                   THE WINTER NARNIAN GIFT EXCHANGE.

               for: @teenagedpevensies​  from @calormen​ / @tzedekart​.

    thank you for all your support and your interest in my version of narnia-- i wanted to make you the first official piece of art for my susan in thanks. i hope your winter was an easy one, and that you enjoy this very sapphic susan!

[narniadynasty]

hey! your gift exchange buddy here. could you possibly list some of your headcanons for the Calormene gods and/or direct me to your posts about them?

hello hello! 

basically it’s the total opposite of whatever Lewis has, especially in regards to Tash, who Lewis had as more of an evil/bad God to make Aslan look like the best.

(all the bold words below have links to my edits and fics about them)

I love Calormen and their Deities even though I hate what Lewis did with them. I really started to put it into words how uncomfortable I felt with the Calormen representation as a whole with this fic of Aravis who doesn’t suddenly turn into an Aslan follower like the book made it seem. For me, she is and always will be a Child of Calormen.

In my eyes, Tash is not only the Father of Calormen but also it’s Protector. That edit I made kind of showcases that. He is not evil nor the “Satan” equivalent like a lot of people try and make him (don’t get me started on how awful that take is because I could go on forever). He is kind and warm and He watches over all his Children with love. He is there on the day every one of His children are born just as He is when they depart. In my Calormenverse, he himself gives Aravis away on her wedding day, not her actual father who betrayed her when he arranged her marriage to someone on her stepmother’s orders.

Next we have Azaroth who was briefly mentioned by Lewis in canon but never elaborated. To me, just as Tash is Calormen’s Shield, Azaroth is its Sword. She’s Tash’s right hand but even Tash himself defers to Azaroth’s prowess and judgment in battle, knowing without doubt that She will lead them to peace. I came up with a line that I think perfectly encompasses how I view Azaroth: “When you ride with Azaroth, defeat will never know you”. In my Calormeneverse, Tash is the one who says this, having seen how Azaroth leads the ones who follow her through the toughest of battles to a new day. 

The last canon Calormen deity is Zardeenah, who Lewis elaborated a bit on. She is canonically titled the “Lady of the Night”, which is why the moon is her symbol (at least in my Calormenverse). She’s also the Goddess of unmarried maidens people.  In my verse, Zardeenah is the Sister of Calormen, their confidante. She laughs the loudest of laughs as they do and just as easily cries for them when they cannot cry themselves. For me, She isn’t just a “Goddess of virgins or unmarried maidens”. She is also there for Her Calormene brothers and sisters when they need to leave. Just as easily as Her hands wipe away Her siblings tears, can they be coated in the blood of those who wish Her siblings harm. She is an integral part of Aravis’ story when she flees the arranged marriage. She’s the one who leads Aravis to Cor (not Aslan). She watches over Aravis, even after Azaroth and Herself switch duties. Zardeenah sits with Aravis through the night the day before her wedding, like all Her other soon-to-be-married siblings, and soothes her worries and fears. 

The second fic I wrote about the Calormene Deities was for Lasaraleen, Aravis’ best friend. For me, Lasaraleen is one of the most devout followers of Calormen. She loves her Gods deeply and they love her just as much in return. Lasaraleen gains the respect of her Gods and They watch over her fiercely. She becomes Their voice.

And since you mentioned you wanted to know my headcanons, here is an Calormen Deity OC I came up with named Satya. I haven’t spoken too much about her here. She’s not only Tash’s mother, but also the Mata Rani (Mother Queen/Goddess) of Calormen. From the Calormen belief point, She is the one who created the world (not Aslan). She was not forced out of her seat of power like other Gods have but rather She gifted the world to Tash when He was born. She watches over both Her Son and the Calormen from the heavens. She is represented through the Sun and Light because of Her connection with giving life to Calormen.

If you need more feel free to ask! Or even if you’re wondering who the faceclaims I used for those edits, let me know!

I’m always happy to yell about Calormen! Thank you so much in advance and I really can’t wait to see what you create, bud💕🌻💕

[noctusfury]

Once A Queen, Always A Queen (A Narnia One-Shot)

FFN | AO3

Gift for: @issac-lahey for an exchange hosted by @narniagiftexchange

Summary:

[Set during VOTDT] Susan is getting ready for a party during her stay in America. However, as she's preparing, it stirs up memories of the past in another world — a world she both longs to return to and a world of which to forget entirely. Luckily though, her elder brother Peter is there to help. (Not Pevencest.)

Rated: K/G content and language.

Genre: Family/Hurt/Comfort

Chapter(s): 1

Word Count: 4,500 words (not including AN)

Characters: Peter Pevensie, Susan Pevensie

Relationships: Peter Pevensie & Susan Pevensie, Susan Pevensie & Aslan, Susan Pevensie & Narnia, Peter Pevensie & Narnia, Peter Pevensie & Susan Pevensie & Edmund Pevensie & Lucy Pevensie.

Story Classification: One-Shot

[narniagiftexchange]

                                                -victoria erickson

                                THE NARNIAN AUTUMN EXCHANGE.

                              to @quecksilvereyes  from @spookyjosten

[narniagiftexchange]

                              THE WINTER NARNIAN GIFT EXCHANGE.

                    for: @calormen from @lukejulies.

life was a willow and it bent right to your wind

[narniagiftexchange]

                              THE WINTER NARNIAN GIFT EXCHANGE.

                    for: @stormwarnings from @athoughtfox.

Through the iron-grey halls of the castle of his fathers, Caspian seeks the Kings and Queens of Old. The tall, thin windows stripe the floors with their sliced-up early light, the beams falling straight and bright as the blade of a knife through the silence of the castle. Shadows hunch in the gaps between, cloaking the ashen ghosts of Telmarine lords.

On the leisurely march from Beruna, the ancient Kings and Queens had been easy to find. Wherever the trees sighed and the water quivered and the wind grew sweet, there they walked. And if he could not see them, he had learned to follow the flowers’ keen sudden blooming, the patches of blazing green where the grass had been under their feet. But here in the castle built by his ancestors, they are easily lost, drifting away like dust. He woke last night in his old bedchamber and wondered if he had dreamed them up completely. 

The whole castle is strange and still, like a great breast holding its breath, its long halls like hollowed-out bones. Most of the Telmarine court had moved out when they heard the news, most of the Narnians had declined to settle inside until they knew what was happening. The only busy place is the throne room, where bouquets and banners are being laid for his coronation at noon, when he will be sworn into the service of Aslan and the High King. He tries not to think about it; it makes his head swim and the floors tilt, makes him feel like a child arranging paper dolls of fairytale characters in his play scene, imagining himself king of the Narnia of his boyhood dreaming.

They are not in the bustling throne room, nor in the feasting hall, but on the terrace outside the great castle doors he spies the trees to the west bowing in the windless air. Following their whispers, he walks the dappled path through the forest, which folds around him softly until he can no longer see the walls of the castle. He cannot guess how long he walks; it might be two minutes, it might be hours, the sound of his own breath very loud in his ears, the trees twisting their long fingers in the yellow light so that it shifts on the ground in front of him, bringing a loose echo of the dizzy swirl from the night Bacchus had run with them. Eventually he steps out of the sweet green haze into a clearing, where Lucy is dancing with the dryads.

They have no music but the low, woody murmur of the sweeping branches. Every step is graceful and sure, a pattern he cannot begin to follow, each high leafy head at once stately and playful. Time has been sliding away from him today, as he walks, as he watches. This clearing seems bubbled outside of the passing of the world, the scene it encloses as enchanting as if some magic had brought to life the pages of his story books.

He does not see Lucy leave the dance, but suddenly she is in front of him. He blinks down at her, shaking the fog away from his head; among the trees she had seemed much taller.    

“I said they used to dance,” she laughs, the freckles on her nose refusing to settle in the mossy glimmer of forest light.

“May I dance with them?” he asks around the sandy dryness of his mouth.  

“You will, I think,” she says, giving him a considering look. “But -”

She frowns, stepping close to him and staring hard. He stares back, beginning to feel his eyes prickle. If he lets his gaze ease, her edges blur strangely. Her eyes are very deep, the blue of them stirring like the tide, and he is as powerless to hide himself from her as he would be from the strength of the ocean.

“Oh,” she smiles suddenly, “you’re for the sea.”

“What?” he manages, almost staggering when she lets go her stare.

“You’ll be a sailor,” she tells him airily. “I can smell it on you - salt, I mean. Still, though, something about the trees… Edmund?”

Caspian jumps and turns to find Edmund watching him from the dusky space beneath a gnarled tree. He glances around wildly with half a thought of glimpsing some hiding place; he had been sure he had walked the clearing all around, but he had not seen Edmund until this moment.

With a brush of a wry smirk, Edmund steps out of his dim nook – for a breath the shadows seem to follow him, clinging fondly to his boots, cringing in the sunlight – but the moment Caspian blinks they are gone. He does not have time to ponder this, because Edmund seizes his hand and turns it palm up, examining it intently, scrubbing his thumb over it once, then letting it fall.

“Shipwright,” he says, dropping the word heavy and certain.

“Oh, Caspian!” Lucy grins, clapping her small hands together. “You’ll build ships of wood and sail on the sea. You’re one of ours.”

“One of…” he lets this trail into the air, dove-soft, and looks up at the vast high stretch of sighing blue sky, the hard bright sun. “Where are King Peter and Queen Susan?”

A silence wells up thickly in response to this.

“They’ll be at the coronation,” Edmund says, his voice flat and still as a woodland pool.

“We have a little time,” Lucy says brightly. “You wanted to dance with the trees; come then!”

She catches his hand and pulls him away into the dance, and Edmund comes after this time, taking his trailing hand, and they weave among the bowing trees until his question is forgotten, until he can hear all the earthy music of the dryads for himself.

[narniagiftexchange]

        take pity on those who cause the gentle queen to notch her arrow.

                                    THE AUTUMN NARNIAN GIFT EXCHANGE.

                               for @spookyjosten  from  @calormen .

[narniagiftexchange]

                              THE WINTER NARNIAN GIFT EXCHANGE.

                    for: @athoughtfox from @oflucyandlorien.

Lucy and Edmund stand on the railway platform, waiting; Eustace tears his gaze from the compartment window. The train slows, jerking to a halt, and Eustace stands, pulls his case down from the overhead rack, steps off the train, and looks about for his cousins.

“Eustace!” Lucy throws her arms around his neck and leans back to look up at his face. “You’ve grown taller than me.”

“So he has,” Edmund notes with a grin. “Sorry, Lu. Destined to be the shortest, I suppose. Well, except for Susan, but she’s always wearing heels.” Edmund frowns at Eustace’s face, and his tone changes. “What’s the matter, Eustace?”

“Caspian is dead,” Eustace says flatly. He nearly whispers it, really, because it hurts, the memory of Caspian so old, when he’d been so young just weeks before. Edmund recoils, Lucy’s arms drop from around Eustace, and she takes a step back, frowning.

“What?”

“I think we both heard him, Lu.”

“Edmund!” Lucy turned back to Eustace. “What are you talking about?”

“I went back,” he tells the railway platform. “Two weeks into autumn term.”

“That was months ago,” Lucy says quietly. “Why didn’t you tell us sooner?”

“I should have, I know. I’m sorry.” Eustace clamps his mouth shut for a moment, willing his voice to steady. “It just—it didn’t seem the sort of thing I could put in a letter and explain properly without beginning at the end, which I suppose I have…anyway. I’m sorry.”

“No,” Edmund says hollowly. “He can’t be. We were just there. I—we were just there. He can’t be.” Edmund looks as though he might hit someone. Eustace steps away without thinking, and Edmund shakes his head. “I’m sorry.”

“How long had it been, in Narnian time?” Lucy tilts her head in question. “I mean, it wasn’t in a battle, was it?”

“No—no, it was nothing like that. It must have been decades since this summer. When we got to Narnia, I didn’t know Caspian until after he had sailed to seek Aslan’s country again. Oh, bother it all. I ought to have started at the beginning.”

“Would you, still? I’d like to hear as much of your adventure as you’ll tell.” There’s a yearning in Lucy’s voice, and Eustace remembers how she still seemed to be half in Narnia the rest of that summer, even  back in Cambridge.

They sit on a platform bench and Eustace begins with the beginning: Jill crying behind the gym, stumbling into Aslan’s country or being pulled by magic, how they arrived in Narnia only to just miss Caspian setting out for the end of the world, meeting Trumpkin, the parliament of owls and meeting Puddleglum, running around up north with the giant city and discovering the underground world, how they found Caspian’s son, Rilian, just time for Caspian to see him again before he died, and how, after the old king had died, he and Jill had found themselves in Aslan’s country again.

“After that it gets a bit blurry,” Eustace says. Lucy wipes her eyes surreptitiously; Edmund hands her a handkerchief. Seven months ago, Eustace would have mocked them for it, but it’s all he can do to keep his own voice steady.

“At any rate, Jill and I were back by the river in Aslan’s country, and Caspian was lying in the river. He looked as though he were sleeping.”

“Oh, Eustace,” Lucy says.

“Aslan made me drive a great nasty thorn into his paw and he let the blood fall on him, Caspian, I mean, and it sort of de-aged him until he was about the age he was on the Dawn Treader. After we talked a bit, Aslan let Caspian come with Jill and I back to the Experiment House, for about ten minutes, and we did Them, the bullies at school, I mean, rather a lot of good. The board ended up getting rid of our Head after the investigation into ‘costumed people with broadswords’ and ‘an escaped lion from the circus’.” Edmund snorts, and Lucy smiles a little.

“I’m sorry to have been the bearer of bad news,” Eustace says after a moment. “I wish I could have gotten to tell you that I had had some fantastical adventure in Narnia where everyone lived happily ever after.” Edmund snorts again.

“Caspian is living happily ever after, in Aslan’s country,” Lucy reminds them, smiling rather sadly. “Thank you for telling us that, Eustace.”

“Yes, thank you,” Edmund says. They sit on the bench, leaning on one another, until the last of the other passengers have left the platform.