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]

"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?"

[deepest_magic]

"They are to Daughters of Eve. If I brought you back where I came from and showed you to a bunch of other Daughters of Eve they would all be very excited."

[pythbox]

"That sounds like fun!" he says. "Where did you come from?"

[deepest_magic]

"It's a place called Earth. There's humans everywhere and nothing else there talks and there's no magic."

[pythbox]

"That's so strange! I can't even imagine it."

[deepest_magic]

"It's really different. I like it here better."

[pythbox]

"Because of magic?" he guesses.

[deepest_magic]

"That, and before I got here I wasn't a queen."

[pythbox]

"That makes sense, since you're a queen of Narnia and you weren't in Narnia."

[deepest_magic]

"Yep."

At twelve thirty lunch is served: there is a large platter of fruit and the main dish is based around roast vegetables nestled in mashed potatoes, with only small sides of meat for those present who eat the stuff. The household of Cair Paravel congregates, and eats, and identify unfamiliar food for Flit, and engage him in conversation about the lifestyle of winged horses. The dwarven housekeeper shows him to a guest room outfitted for unicorns which also has a reasonable amount of balcony - not enough for a running start, but enough to jump off if he can catch himself and cares to try, and enough for a well-stuck landing.

"He forgot your name, earlier," Isabella relates to James. "He was calling you 'Pin' because he'd been talking to you through Starfall's pin."

[neverbeatme]

"Well, that's adorable," she says. "I wonder if being adorable is common among winged horses or if it's just him."

[deepest_magic]

"He's pretty cute! I don't know about the others, but if he gets any particularly cute replies if he talks to the others through my scepter I'll let you know."

[neverbeatme]

"Thank you. You're my favourite queen."

[deepest_magic]

"Oh, good."

[neverbeatme]

James giggles.