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

[deepest_magic]

"What does it mean to express something that isn't math as math?"

[neverbeatme]

"Well... I'm not exactly sure. I mean, I know how I do it, but any way I try to explain it just seems to amount to 'I play with my puzzle and think about things'."

[deepest_magic]

"Oh well, it can just be a mystery." Squirm. "C'mere?"

[neverbeatme]

She goes there.

[deepest_magic]

Kisses!

[neverbeatme]

Somehow James suspected this might happen!

It's so good to be right.

[deepest_magic]

It was pretty predictable, really.

[neverbeatme]

Yes. Yes it was.

[deepest_magic]

There is considerably more of that in the days that follow, sprinkled in with all their usual activities, behind closed doors; they do wind up telling Viridian the wardrobe-nymph, as well as the two senior housekeepers who'd be likeliest to stumble on them and Mr. Tumnus who is likeliest to need to explain their whereabouts, for convenience, but otherwise remain quite discreet.

[jackfrostbite]

Meanwhile, on the very outskirts of the kingdom, Winter is trying to kill himself.

He has tried throwing himself on a bonfire (his meltwater put it out) and beheading himself (it grew back) and putting a sword through his heart (it fell out, after an unknown amount of time spent frozen, dreaming vague frosted dreams). He has tried drinking molten lead (the worst part was cutting it out of his stomach after it cooled) and impaling himself on a fixed vertical spike, in case gravity helped keep it in place (evidently it didn't help enough), and crushing himself under the biggest rock he could arrange (he spent a long, long time being very, very uncomfortable until his successive icy healings produced a pile of crushed ice uneven enough for the boulder to roll off). Around the turn of the year, he tries building an oven and shutting himself inside, reasoning that at least this way his meltwater won't put out the fire. It drowned him instead, which didn't work either. After about a day, he gave up and climbed out.

He still gets thirsty. Perhaps he could die of that.

So he finds himself a remote little cave, as dry as possible, and curls up inside and resolutely does not go out to find snow to eat or water to drink.

[alicornucopia]

He is quite alone there for a rather long time.

Until a rat in boots and a knitted tail-cover scurries in to seek shelter from the first storm of February.

Winter might recognize this rat.

[jackfrostbite]

...Winter does recognize this rat. Winter wishes he didn't recognize this rat. Winter wishes the rat had found a different damn cave.

[alicornucopia]

"Eternal Winter," breathes the rat, almost reverently.

[jackfrostbite]

"Bristle," says Winter. It comes out hoarser than he means it to.

[alicornucopia]

"What are you doing here? How have you not already found - well, it doesn't matter - come with me! There are more of us, we are regrouping!"

[jackfrostbite]

He hesitates.

He doesn't really want to—there's nothing left for him among Jadis's creatures, without Jadis—but no, there is one thing. Jadis's creatures will speak to him. Jadis's creatures will not flee him in terror or turn him over to the Aslan-blessed human rulers of Narnia.



"Lead me there," he says at last.

[alicornucopia]

"It's this way," says Bristle. "Perhaps you could carry me - I was only ducking into the cave for a bit of a rest."

[jackfrostbite]

"Very well," he says, smiling slightly despite himself. He scoops up the rat.

[alicornucopia]

The rat sits quite contently in his hands and points out the path to where the rest of the remaining Witch's creatures are gathering.

[jackfrostbite]

It's such an incredible relief to be among creatures again, any creatures, that he almost doesn't mind which creatures they are.

[alicornucopia]

The creatures are all very glad to see him and flock around him like he's a flag. They have barely-there and not-even-slightly-consistent plans for an assault on Cair Paravel, which they are more than happy to share with Winter.

[jackfrostbite]

He is drawn into the conversation, corrects some blatant foolishness, organizes them a little better, listens to everything they tell him about Narnia's restoration and the King and Queen who rule it. He doesn't really mean to encourage them like this, but... he can imagine what they would be like if he said he'd really rather get back to killing himself.

[alicornucopia]

Certainly they would not be nearly as pleased as they are now.

[jackfrostbite]

Indeed not.

While he's here... he inquires if there are any smiths among them, and if such a smith might be willing to make him something, just for his personal amusement.

[alicornucopia]

There are dwarves! They don't have access to a proper forge under the circumstances, but could possibly make something rough and simple.