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]

James heads back to the castle much more slowly, because she has knights to coordinate on the way.

All the prisoners are brought in safely. There are no intruders in the castle, and no sign that there were any. Nothing is poisoned or otherwise sabotaged. No reports of suspicious activity filter in from the rest of the country. Further conversation with the prisoners reveals that Winter told them he would be back and then never showed.

She doesn't get it.

[deepest_magic]

Isabella doesn't either, but she's not dwelling on it quite as much as James is. She goes around wearing her armor cloak for the next while. It's winter anyway, a cloak is a reasonable thing to wear.

[neverbeatme]

James gets even more thoroughly in the habit of wearing her armour whenever it is remotely reasonable.

It doesn't make a difference; there are no sneak attacks from their inexplicable enemy. She keeps it up anyway, because she might as well.

[deepest_magic]

There are side benefits to James wearing her armor around all the time.

[neverbeatme]

That too.

[deepest_magic]

The year wears on, as years so incorrigibly do. A flying horse who is not Flit travels to Narnia and dictates a popular collection of stories which are scribed down and distributed; Isabella's a fan. There is an enormous late-summer storm which tests some of the national architecture; repairs after that are pretty businesslike, although a few crops and houses are lost outright to flooding. The pictures of the lightning are spectacular, though. So are the pictures (a little gratuitously numerous) of James in armor. Over the course of the relevant section of the infinity notebook pictures of James not in armor also make an appearance, as "memories of kisses" serve to substitute somewhat for what the armor was doing in the first place.

Isabella has to renew her cordial again when a colony of dwarves takes fever. A few speaking animals want to settle on an island which has historically been considered too small to bother with; boating in Narnia is now in such a state that they will be able to travel to the mainland for supplies. Some giants have a giant baby and build a giant house. The first frost descends lightly; the second one is a hard crack of cold all at once, and then it is winter.

And, as is now the habit of winter, this winter contains Christmas.

And this Christmas contains monarchs waiting up till midnight.

[pythbox]

And, predictably enough, midnight brings Father Christmas.

"Merry Christmas, merry Christmas," he says, nodding to both of them. "And here are your presents. For you, Isabella daughter of Eve, a pair of shoes which you will find allow you to walk on air; and a fire-starter which will light fires in whatever colour you please, and its fires will always be very congenial about matters such as available fuel and what things they are and are not meant to burn." He hands her a pair of bundles, one rather larger than the other.

[deepest_magic]

"Thank you! Merry Christmas."

[pythbox]

He smiles, and turns to James.

"For you, James son of Eve, well, your project to restore the old mills and granaries of Narnia was very well begun, and now you will find it is very well finished; and I have left you a writing-desk in your office which will always have just the materials you need when you sit down to write."

[neverbeatme]

"Very nice. Thank you!"

[pythbox]

With a last acknowledging nod, he's off.

[deepest_magic]

"I wonder if your desk is as thorough as my bookshelf? Fancy colored ink? Protractors and compasses?"

[neverbeatme]

"I bet I at least get fancy coloured ink."

[deepest_magic]

Bella opens her little package. It contains a lighter, made of engraved brass with flowers and vines much like her crown's twining all around it. She flicks the cap open, and spins the wheel, and gets a little white flame. Close, open, spin: green. "Cute." She opens her shoes. They're soft-leather turnshoes, white with green beading, and when she puts them on she can step quite confidently into the air until she touches the ceiling and giggles and steps back down.

[neverbeatme]

James applauds.

[deepest_magic]

And Isabella bows. "Thank you, thank you. I unwrapped them myself."

[neverbeatme]

Giggle.

[deepest_magic]

These shoes allow Bella to stand a couple inches up from her usual height so that she can more easily kiss James.

[neverbeatme]

Ooh. What an excellent use for these shoes. James approves very much.

[deepest_magic]

"Merry Christmas," says Isabella when her mouth is free, and then she heads to bed, discovering halfway up the stairs that she can sort of skate if she tries.

[neverbeatme]

James likewise goes to bed, and in the morning she investigates her new writing desk and finds coloured inks and compasses and protractors and variously elaborate royal seals and pens and pencils and inkwells and all manner of paper and envelopes and scroll cases and—this is a good writing desk. Even though after she has been pestering it for half an hour she finds that some of the things she asked for first have disappeared while she wasn't looking. Maybe it can only provide so much stuff at once.

Although it obviously should politely refrain from disappearing any paper that has been written on, she tests this case immediately and finds that all writing done at the desk does indeed persist, whether left with it or taken away. It will even tolerate having its utensils briefly borrowed, but any pens and so forth taken as far away as the next room will return to the desk the moment they are left unattended. Still, even with its limitations it is a very good writing desk.

[deepest_magic]

Isabella comes and checks it out after breakfast. She likes it - what a nice desk! - and then they have things to be getting on with. Even a low-population kingdom like Narnia (one point three six million speaking inhabitants at the last census; they should do another one) there is always something to do.

In mid-April the monarchs are invited to the incorporation of a new town in the hills; creatures are finally willing to live within walking distance of the White Witch's palace again. They plan to call the town Robinsong and are a mixed population of animals and things in the general category of griffins-and-so-on.

So the king and queen saddle up their horses and take a leisurely route towards the site of Robinsong to appropriately bless its existence.

When they've paused for lunch, mid tromping across a great field of grass and wildflowers, having last seen another soul twenty minutes ago when they passed a rabbit who bowed but didn't care to engage in conversation, Isabella finishes her peach and flops on her back in the clover, watching clouds scull across the sky.

[neverbeatme]

James flops down beside her, makes a social calculation about likely effects should someone happen to see them, and concludes it is safe to reach over with one hand and interlace their fingers.

[deepest_magic]

Eee! Handholding.



"Do you think about Earth much?"

[neverbeatme]

"Sometimes. I run through all my old files every so often and spend some time remembering things, just because I think it'd be sad if I forgot about things like offering to put cheeses on little rafts for your dad, you know? But it doesn't really come up these days unless I think about it on purpose."