the summer i was ten again

[deepest_magic]

Isabella falls from her horse first, caught by a low branch she didn't see. She's a better rider than that, she ought to have - ow - she reaches for Jamie, grabs her hand, but while they clasp hands Isabella's got too much momentum and Jamie falls too -

Something snags Isabella's cloak, something snags her bag, she's got a heap of pine needles prickling her face and can't see. She flails a leg but only loses her shoe for her trouble, and the other slips off when she twists, trying to find 'up' before her horse steps on her - when did it get this dim, the sun was only just setting a moment ago - she can't see anything - "Jamie -"

The next time she inhales it's not the smell of pine needles, it's old fur. Not the hay-sweet shallow pile of having somehow planted her nose in her horse's flank; like a coat. Smell jogs memory. Coats - and wood, not the pines but old treated planks -

She's lost Jamie's hand somewhere along the line. She was wearing gloves against the cold and her hand's bare on fur, on wood.

She feels dizzy and small and something's gone wrong with her clothes and she can't hear the horse breathing or feel the wind anymore.

She fumbles around in the dark, looking for Jamie, the horse, a tree, anything.

She finds a shoulder, too small and skinny to be Jamie's, and then with her other hand she finds a door and blinding light and tumbles out of the wardrobe onto the floor.

Comments

[deepest_magic]

"Do I have a list..." Isabella does have a list. "Okay, I don't remember any of this being horribly expensive, they probably won't refuse to let it just be lost."

[neverbeatme]

"I'm not sure how we could've managed to lose it in the first place but I guess we're ten and eleven and not expected to be that responsible about what we do with borrowed things."

[deepest_magic]

"I guess. I don't want to have to lean on that too much but we can't produce the backpacks, so." Pause. "We have to go to school. With other ten-and-eleven-year-olds. We're going to have to ask permission to go to the bathroom. And I could probably convince Renée to homeschool me but I legitimately need the re-acculturation."

[neverbeatme]

"...I might convince Chris to homeschool me... I won't if you'd rather have me there as an ally against the genuine Earth schoolchildren," says James.

[deepest_magic]

"Maybe there's some less humiliating way to re-acculturate? We could... watch a lot of movies."

[neverbeatme]

"We could do... activities... of some kind... I'll ask Chris," says James.

[deepest_magic]

"Are you going to ask her what it is that Earth schoolchildren do, or just say you're bored...?"

[neverbeatme]

"At this point I think I'm going to have to explain the whole thing and then ask how to be a minimally inconvenienced Earth schoolchild."

[deepest_magic]

"So - I'll go with you and prove and corroborate things for that and decide from there, I suppose."

[neverbeatme]

"Yeah."

[deepest_magic]

To the front of the house to sit and wait.

[neverbeatme]

Waiting. Also, sitting. These are the things they are doing. Normal Earth schoolchild activities, even.

(Ugh.)

[deepest_magic]

Isabella puts her head on James's shoulder.

"We went around the post. By a lot."

[neverbeatme]

"Yeah. We were careful."

[deepest_magic]

"It still happened near it, so maybe it's just that whole area, but Winter tried and didn't get anywhere..."

[neverbeatme]

"Maybe it - wanted us. And didn't want him."

[deepest_magic]

"Maybe. We didn't wander around there before so it's hard to say if it had any timing opinions..."

[neverbeatme]

"Yeah..."

[deepest_magic]

"It could have stood to wait until we had some kind of succession plan. I don't know who's going to take over now." Pause. "Unless the time difference is - inconsistent or something? If it waited any longer our respective adults would have thought we were dead?"

[neverbeatme]

"Maybe. Maybe we should be trying to come back here once a year to see if it'll let us back in yet."

[deepest_magic]

"Yeah. Although - you went there and back a few times first. It was never longer here than there. If we go back after fifty years they'll have figured something out, I wouldn't want to threaten someone who was holding things together. If they're holding things together... ugh."

[neverbeatme]

"I don't know - I mean, I wouldn't want to start a civil war, but Narnia doesn't seem like it would go to civil war over this. If we go back and someone is holding things together, we appoint them official crown prince or princess and then cooperate with them. You know?"

[deepest_magic]

"Yeah... Maybe there's something we're supposed to do here? Besides be not-dead for our respective families, I mean, I can't imagine that would be the sole factor..."

[neverbeatme]

"I don't know. It's hard to say."

[deepest_magic]

"And I don't know if it's autonomous lamp post transport or - or Aslan himself -" Pause. "His name doesn't quite work anymore."