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

[pythbox]

"I thought so!" he agrees. "Wow. Castles are weird. But very pretty. You mentioned food, is there going to be food?"

[deepest_magic]

"Lunch will be served in about an hour. I can tell the kitchen what you like best to eat if you'll tell me."

[pythbox]

"I don't think I know what I like best to eat!" he says consideringly. "Because I haven't tried all the things to eat that there are! There haven't been seasons for very long. I know I like fruit, though. I like every kind of fruit I've tried."

[deepest_magic]

"Well, is there anything you can't eat, like - meat or cheese or something? I can tell them to serve less of those things and more fruit."

[pythbox]

"I don't know what cheese is. I do know what meat is! Winged horses don't eat that," he says.

[deepest_magic]

"Cheese is milk with some things done to it, different things depending on the cheese."

[pythbox]

"Oh. Well, then I have no idea if I can eat cheese or not."

[deepest_magic]

"Maybe at some point while you're here you can taste a little and see if it agrees with you." Isabella lifts her scepter to her mouth and says to the cook, "We have an envoy of the winged horses here, and he likes fruit and does not eat meat and is unsure about many other things."

"Yes, your majesty," comes the reply.

[pythbox]

"Oh my goodness!" says Flit. "It's another magic thing like the pins! I think I knew that already. But I'm still surprised."

[deepest_magic]

Isabella giggles. "It's a little different from the pins, since I can talk to anyone who qualifies as a friend, not just someone who has another object, but yes."

[pythbox]

He giggle-whinnies. "That must be nice to have. Narnia's so big, and ground creatures probably can't travel very fast, I can't imagine how you'd talk to your friends otherwise!"

[deepest_magic]

"Some ground creatures can be pretty quick, and I have a horse, but yes, it's really useful. The problem with it compared to James's thing is that I have to start the conversation; people can't just talk to my scepter."

[pythbox]

"Oh, I see. Still. You all have to go around things," he says. "I don't have to go around things unless they're mountains."

[deepest_magic]

"We do, yes. It can be inconvenient."

[pythbox]

"Well, maybe that's a thing that winged horses can help you with!" he suggests. "We could carry you to places so you didn't have to go around as many things to get there."

[deepest_magic]

"Maybe! Currently when we're in that much of a hurry we'll ask griffins or something like that but we don't have anything regular set up."

[pythbox]

"I could ask everybody back home if there's anyone who wants to carry ground creatures to places," he says. "That sounds like an envoy thing to do."

[deepest_magic]

"It does! They'd have to live here to be accessible in emergencies for it to be the best way to get carried somewhere fast, though."

[pythbox]

"That's true. But maybe there will still be people who want to. I can't be the only winged horse out of all the winged horses who's very excited about Narnia."

[deepest_magic]

"Narnia's pretty exciting. James said there are about a hundred of you?"

[pythbox]

"Yes! That is how many of us there are. But I don't know exactly because I didn't stop to count."

[deepest_magic]

"Well, there will probably be time to get a more exact number later."

[pythbox]

"Okay," he says. "Oh my goodness, I'm in a castle. Talking to a queen. In Narnia." He swishes his tail happily.

[deepest_magic]

Isabella giggles. "I'm in a castle talking to a winged horse in Narnia. The excitement doesn't wear off too fast."

[pythbox]

Flit giggles too. "Are winged horses as exciting to queens as queens are to winged horses?"