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]

"Merry Christmas to you both," he says agreeably. "And here are your presents. James, Eve's son - you will find that washed-out bridges across the country have been restored, and damaged ones repaired, wherever the river-spirits permitted it; secondly, I have brought you this."

Out from the bag comes a large, heavy-looking bundle, which he sets at her feet.

[neverbeatme]

"Thanks!"

[pythbox]

"Isabella, Eve's daughter," he says, turning to her, "here is a bow which will guide you in its use, and some arrows which will return to their quiver when their task is complete." He extracts these items from his bag - bow, quiver - and hands them over. "And here is a cloak which will protect you from physical harms." It is folded into a bundle much smaller than James's bundle.

[deepest_magic]

"Thank you," says Isabella. She takes the weapon - recurved, smooth reddish wood, quiver matching-colored leather with white-fletched arrows, all very stylish - and then shakes out the cloak and tries it on. It's silvery-blue, like a river seen from high above, silken-soft. She buttons it from her chin to her knees and finds armholes under the extra capey layer around her shoulders and then flips up her hood and spins.

[pythbox]

Away goes Father Christmas.

[neverbeatme]

"Pretty!" says James admiringly. She has opened up her bundle and then closed it again. "Mine's some kind of armor. I'll wait until morning to try it on."

[deepest_magic]

"Makes sense. I'm just impatient. I hope these things grow with us, we're both getting taller."

[neverbeatme]

"It's Father Christmas. I bet they will."

[deepest_magic]

"I bet. But if I ask I might get fewer presents. I guess we'll see." Isabella trots off to bed, cloak billowing out below the knees behind her.

[neverbeatme]

James hauls her bundle up to her room.



The next morning, she tries it on.

[deepest_magic]

Isabella swings by her room precisely to have a look at it. Knock knock.

[neverbeatme]

She opens the door wearing her new armour.

A golden surcoat bearing the red lion of Narnia, over a coat of chainmail that clinks musically when she moves; steel gauntlets, etched with rows of tiny golden leaves that echo her crown, over gloves of the same golden fabric as the surcoat; gold-etched steel boots in the same style as the gauntlets, and likewise the steel plate that covers her arms and legs and shoulders. She even has her shield on her arm and her sword at her waist, and the object of the knightly orders secured to the other side of her sword-belt in a leather pouch. It's all very... kingly.

[deepest_magic]

It's very kingly.

"Um hi."

[neverbeatme]

...Well then.

"Hi."

[deepest_magic]

"The armor is cool."

[neverbeatme]

"Yes it is," she says, grinning.

[deepest_magic]

"Is it comfy? It looks heavy."

[neverbeatme]

"It's actually way comfier than I expected. And I can move in it. I think I'm going to wear it whenever I train with my sword from now on."

[deepest_magic]

"Makes sense. I wonder why we both got armor-things."

[neverbeatme]

"And he gave you that bow. Either he thinks there's going to be trouble soon, or he wanted us both to have armour and a weapon just because it's the kind of thing we should have."

[deepest_magic]

"If there is going to be trouble soon I guess I should be practicing, too."

[neverbeatme]

"You might as well even if there isn't. You have the bow, and even though it still works when you don't know how to use it, it works best when you do. You know?"

[deepest_magic]

"Yeah. It's a good thing it's a ranged weapon, if I had a sword and shield like you somebody could yank my staff away from its loop on my bag and then where would I be?"

[neverbeatme]

"Falling over, probably."

[deepest_magic]

"Not very effective."