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]

"Good morning. A viable contender for best morning."

[deepest_magic]

Giggle. "Definitely top five."

[neverbeatme]

"If I've had better mornings, I'm having trouble remembering them." Snuggle.

[deepest_magic]

"Well, there was the morning when we woke up and we'd won a war and we were king and queen, that was pretty great."

[neverbeatme]

"True. But I was eleven and my understanding of kissing was purely theoretical, whereas on this morning," kiss.

[deepest_magic]

Kiss!

[neverbeatme]

What an excellent morning.

[deepest_magic]

Definitely a candidate for best morning.

[neverbeatme]

Eventually they do have to get up and go attend to royal business, but James is in a noticeably cheerful mood all day.

Well, it is the day after Kingsday. People may safely conclude that she liked her presents.

[deepest_magic]

They were pretty good presents.

You know when else they get presents?

They get presents on Christmas, sitting cuddled up by a fireplace at midnight.

[pythbox]

Father Christmas arrives right on schedule.

"Merry Christmas," he says cheerily. "For you, Eve's Daughter, here is a new pocket-knife to replace your old one. It has a few clever little tools tucked away, and you needn't trouble yourself about sharpening it." He hands over a gorgeous little folded knife. "And here also is a new bag, which will carry more than you might think to look at it." He hands her a very tidy and practical messenger bag.

[deepest_magic]

That's good, because the one James got her had an unfortunate accident with a baby griffin four weeks ago. "Thank you! Merry Christmas." The knife is shiny and has mother of pearl worked into the handle.

[pythbox]

"As for you, Son of Eve, I think you will be very happy to hear that the Witch's house has been cleaned out and no bad magic remains to present a danger to the good creatures of Narnia; and here is a bag much like your queen's, in function if not form."

This bag is a sturdy little backpack nearly bristling with pockets and flaps and loops. It has places to hang a sword and shield. It's a little on the plain side, but in perfectly respectable condition.

[neverbeatme]

"Thank you very much," says James. "Merry Christmas."

[deepest_magic]

Isabella tucks her pocketknife into her messenger bag.

[pythbox]

And off goes Father Christmas.

[neverbeatme]

James investigates all the pockets of her new backpack. There are so many. It is pleasing.

But then she yawns. "I'd better go to sleep. I can finish admiring my present in the morning."

[deepest_magic]

"Good plan," yawns Isabella. "Nobody's looking; my room or yours?"

[neverbeatme]

"Mine's closer."

[deepest_magic]

James's room it is.

[neverbeatme]

"G'night. Merry Christmas."

Snuggle snuggle. Coziest monarchs.

[deepest_magic]

The house, when they check, is gone without a trace, only empty fence marking where it once was. The fence comes down. On the assurances of Father Christmas, inhabitants of Robinsong put a cranberry bog there once the seasons have sufficiently turned to allow the installations of such things.

James authorizes an expedition of flying creatures to map poorly explored border territory, mentions the opportunity to Flit, and receives delighted routine reports from the adorably excited winged horse as the creatures make their way over the mountains and subsequent desert.

The population has been getting bigger, and a few different citizens have objected to it being hard to get water in a straightforward manner without running into everyone and their cousin doing the same thing. Isabella finagles an agreement between two river gods and a clan of beavers and soon there is a big lake where previously there was not much of anything except one tree belonging to a dryad (carefully replanted elsewhere out of harm's way), which provides more edge area to the water supply and makes it easier for everyone to go collect what they need.

(It's also a pretty good fishing lake, after a few months. Isabella goes and does this once out of pure nostalgia.)

James investigates the Narnian state of sex education after some dithering about that, and is told by this and that creature that "we have our own way of handling things, we [leopards/dwarves/dryads/satyrs/giants/centaurs/rabbits/unicorns/monkeys], and it is working quite well and we don't see what [lions/fauns/naiads/river gods/badgers/griffins/rats/winged horses/otters] could do with knowing our ways". The matter is dropped.

The schools are still running. Isabella's little knife proves to have quite the unrealistic arsenal when waved near leather or wood or fabric but her new interest this year, quite unrelatedly, turns out to be the harp, which a naiad teaches. She has a simple piece ready to perform on Queensday.

Christmas, as always, comes again in its time.

[neverbeatme]

Late in the afternoon on Christmas Eve, James gets a report from a worried knight who witnessed a snowslide at a small village she was passing by on her way home from a long trip. James coordinates her and the nearest other knight in assisting the villagers, and all together they manage to safely dig out the three homes and one dryad's tree that were buried in snow, but this involves a lot of James relaying messages between knight-pins and it's surprisingly exhausting work given that she isn't actually shoveling any of the snow herself. She hugs Queen Isabella goodnight and goes to bed well before midnight.

[deepest_magic]

So Isabella sits up alone, in her own room, having coaxed her bookshelf into sheet music of a few favorite Earth songs which she's attempting to adapt for harp.

[pythbox]

And here is Father Christmas.

"Merry Christmas," he says, handing her one small package. "Here is a little house that you can keep in your pocket. It can be tricky to unfold, but I am sure you will learn just fine. Your other present is waiting for you just inside the door - I heard you were learning to play the harp, so I found you one I think you will like very much."