the golden age

[deepest_magic]

When the party has died down, Isabella, for one, is well and truly exhausted. She explores the palace until she finds a room with a bed in it, and into this bed she flops, still in her clothes and holding her staff and carrying the cordial in her pocket. She sleeps late, because the party kept her up so late and she hadn't really slept the night before; but around noon, she stirs, and gets up, and goes looking for James and wherever her backpack may have got to. The backpack she finds in the great hall where the principal mass of the party was; some enterprising creature took both bags from the battlefield at Beruna up to the castle for them, and she only wishes she knew who it was. She takes her bag to her room and carries James's with her and continues looking for her friend.

Comments

[neverbeatme]

She will find King James asleep in a different room, with her crown on the nightstand and her sword and shield leaning against it. Several creatures around the palace know her whereabouts, because she cooperated with a smallish group to find an entire hall of furnished rooms and then slept a good few hours later than any of them once all had gone to bed.

[deepest_magic]

Isabella puts the bag by the nightstand there and leaves James to sleep, and with her notebook makes a map of the entirety of Cair Paravel, every floor and corner, so she will know how much room they have for any of the uses that might come up for their palace because she is a queen now eeeeeeee.

[neverbeatme]

At some point during this task, she will presumably return to the throne room, and at that time (if it is not too early) she will find James there, awake at last and taking breakfast with an assortment of creatures - supplied, of course, by the bashful Rabbit. They are discussing distribution of resources: James wants to know exactly who can contribute exactly what to the project of reestablishing agriculture in Narnia before the end of the season, and secondarily to the miscellaneous other necessary repairs and reparations.

[deepest_magic]

Isabella does come back to the throne room, map in hand, and participate in breakfast and also in this discussion.

The cornucopia can make food that is or contains seeds quite easily, so it will be straightforward to plant potatoes and strawberries and corn and all sorts of things. Most of the creatures of Narnia have stores sufficient to last months - the rabbit could not be everywhere all at once - but the ones who were recently statues will have more trouble. The spring has been rapid and thorough and magic enough that there is a fair amount of wild food to be harvested - even if the rabbit stopped doing anything at all right this minute most Narnians would be eating better than they have been for the next nine months of not-winter. But certainly it would be better to get something started before then. The rabbit will make better time with the cornucopia if accompanied by a swifter creature - he is himself pretty fast, but mostly he was able to avoid capture by being that and also small, and he would cover more ground on a leopard or a centaur or a unicorn.

Isabella is very impressed by the rabbit's work ethic, and says so, and he fidgets with his ear-tip again and thanks her.

[neverbeatme]

"So am I," says James. "We'll see who wants to help you and who would be fastest about it, and hopefully we can have you on your way in a few days."

[deepest_magic]

"Yes, Your Majesty," agrees the rabbit.

"Who is still around, I wonder - I suppose a lot of them have homes they wanted to get back to, there are certainly fewer about now than there were yesterday. I think I'll take a little bit of a survey. What's your name?" Isabella asks the rabbit, pen poised.

"Acorn, if it please Your Majesty."

"Thank you," says Isabella, and she writes this down. "I'll see if we can find anyone who'll tote you around to get farms and gardens started and if anyone wants to go along for plowing and that sort of thing. Oh, James, I made a map of the castle." She tears out that page carefully and hands it over. "We have dungeons and bedrooms and a ballroom and a completely enormous old-fashioned bathroom and kitchens and servants' quarters and there's a granary and pantry that's empty now but perhaps Acorn will fill it before running off so we have stores in case of emergency or confused creatures who don't happen to hear where the farms are."

[neverbeatme]

"Very nice," says James. "And yeah. Acorn, I'd be very grateful if you could fill the granary and pantry while you're waiting for us to find out who can go with you and decide who should. Bella, do you have a spare notebook and pen? I'd like to tour the castle after breakfast, and I might as well copy your map while I'm at it. Then maybe we can meet back here for lunch, and see what our surveys have come up with?"

[deepest_magic]

"I have a spare notebook and some pens but I'm a little worried about where I'm going to get more," she muses. "I'd rather not use them for redundant copies of anything until I know where more paper will be coming from, if that's all right."

[neverbeatme]

"In that case, keep the map," she says, handing it back. "I'll just memorize everything. And I'll keep an eye out for sources of paper."

[deepest_magic]

"Thanks." Bella tucks the map back into her notebook and goes looking for creatures to collect names, skills, and availability-to-do-things from.

She meets James back at the throne room in time for what might more realistically be called dinner (since breakfast was already in the early afternoon) with a list.

[neverbeatme]

James reads the list, and contributes her own findings from memory.

She favours a pair of unicorn siblings, Moonlight and Starlight, for the task of carrying Acorn, because they volunteered as a pair and will be able to trade off the carrying and therefore make better time overall; and out of the slightly smaller pool of creatures who volunteered to help with plowing, she chooses a centaur who claimed to represent his mother and father and three older sisters in addition to himself, because as a group they'll coordinate easily and as centaurs they will be able to plow fields and keep up with unicorns if the unicorns keep to a pattern of ferrying Acorn around to dwellings in the immediate vicinity whenever the centaurs are busy plowing something.

Moonlight and Starlight also mentioned that they are both excellent swimmers, which will be helpful in case of spring floods and washed-out bridges, and the eldest centaur sister is reported to be an amateur cartographer with a collection of reasonably up-to-date maps that all together cover most of the country. Her brother has reported that he expects her to be pleased about the chance to revise and expand her collection with the return of the seasons.

[deepest_magic]

Isabella approves all these choices, and submits her own:

Tumnus has specifically volunteered to be a first point of contact for any citizen of Narnia who wishes to present a dispute or request to their majesties, in case the matter is simple or there is a wait, and he says he hopes that James will vouch for his hospitality and good manners qualifying him for the position.

One nymph, a dryad belonging to a birch near the castle, was extremely surprised to find that Isabella was still wearing her "war clothes" and perfectly stunned to discover that there were no other clothes to be had, and wants to be their majesties' mistress of the wardrobe and general presentability (she took the liberty of doing up Isabella's hair while making her case; said hair is now prettily plaited in an off-center braid over the queen's shoulder, with flowers tucked into it).

A satyr has observed that there may be Narnians who are not aware of what is going on, whether because they live underground or were holed up with small children at home or found themselves ill on the days of the thaw and battle, and has volunteered to - along with a griffin of his acquaintance, for transportational assistance - travel the cornucopia's old route spreading the news that the White Witch need no longer be feared and that Children of Eve reign once again. He appears to be hoping to leverage this job into a longer-term position as royal herald, which is apparently a prestigious sort of thing to be.

A dwarf knows where Isabella can get more paper, and will be pleased to supply it. He is also a potential procurer for any number of other things that are not food (although if they want mushrooms and hams, he can arrange mushrooms and hams).

[neverbeatme]

James considers the three requests and okays them all, although she specifically notes to Bella that she'd like to see how the satyr fares in this capacity before she says anything either way about making him a royal herald. She also declares an intention to find Tumnus herself and personally deliver the news of his new position, partly because she means to make clear to him the importance of thorough reports even in cases where he can handle the matter himself.

As for the dwarf, she acknowledges the information about him and suggests that as soon as she has found someone to fill the position of royal head-of-household - or whatever else you call the person whose job it is to keep track of all the miscellaneous supplies and personnel going in and out of a palace - she will introduce them to the dwarf in question.

[deepest_magic]

Bella agrees; she'll tell the dryad and the satyr. And she'll place an order with the dwarf for paper. And then falls to her dinner. Monarchy is hungry work.

[neverbeatme]

Yes, yes it is.

After dinner, James locates Tumnus.

[alicornucopia]

Tumnus is playing his little straw flute in the unkempt grounds of Cair Paravel for two hedgehogs and a bluejay. He and all three animals bow to James when she approaches.

[neverbeatme]

James smiles at them.

"Tumnus, do you have some time to talk about your new responsibilities?"

[alicornucopia]

"Of course, your majesty."

The hedgehogs trundle into the undergrowth; the bluejay flies away.

[neverbeatme]

"It's good to see you again," she says. "I heard about you wanting to be - I'm not sure what we'd call the position. Royal secretary, maybe? And I think it's a good idea, but I want to make sure of a few things. First of all, I think it would be a good idea for you to write down the name and business of whoever comes to see you wanting to talk to us, so I can review them later and find out who wanted what. And second, especially right now while everything's still new, I definitely want to personally meet with as many of those people as I can, even if it's just to hear their name and what they want and then tell them who else to talk to."

[alicornucopia]

"Of course," agrees Tumnus. "Both highly reasonable things to do."

[neverbeatme]

"I'm glad you agree," she says. "In that case, congratulations on your appointment as royal secretary. I'll have somebody find you things to write with and on. And you can pick an office in the palace."

[alicornucopia]

"Thank you, your majesty," says Tumnus, bowing again, and he trots up to the palace to pick an office.

[neverbeatme]

James wanders around the palace and its environs, greeting whoever she sees and asking for introductions if she doesn't know them already, and tries to draft a proclamation in her head. The subject is complex: she wants it known that Winter is still out there, but she doesn't want widespread panic about it. If possible, she wants it known that she would really like to talk to him, but she doesn't want brave creatures endangering themselves trying to bring that about. Her guess is that he's less dangerous now, but it's only a guess.

[deepest_magic]

Bella runs into her a bit later, accompanied by a bright-eyed Red Dwarf. "This is Teggin and he says the castle is magic," she reports.

The dwarf bows.

"The Witch couldn't rule from here because it wouldn't let anyone in while there wasn't a legitimate ruler to be had, and the dungeons are inescapable if we find any extra Witch's creatures who we want to lock up, and the whole place is self-cleaning which is why there weren't great snowdrifts' worth of dust everywhere even though it's been empty for a hundred years."

[neverbeatme]

"Well, that's convenient. Thank you for telling us, Teggin. Is that everything, do you know?"