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

[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."

[neverbeatme]

"...Yeah. It feels - I can't tell if I'm feeling it or just remembering what it felt like," sighs James.

[deepest_magic]

Nod.

"...I'm going to sit up on Christmas anyway, but."

[neverbeatme]

"Yeah."

[deepest_magic]

Isabella flops her head on James's shoulder.

"I feel like I can still - if I had a bow and arrow - I don't think I'm missing body memory except insofar as I can't do anything requiring balance without my scepter."

[neverbeatme]

"I'm going to - take up fencing or something, I don't know," James decides. "So I don't forget."

[deepest_magic]

"Yeah. Archery's a sport, I think, I think it might be in the Olympics? And - and I'll get a real calligraphy set because my pen didn't come with the book. I'll get a camera."

[neverbeatme]

Nod nod.

[deepest_magic]

"There are people who do horseback riding. None of these skills are really... useful... here but I don't want to just lose them."

[neverbeatme]

"Yeah. We can do horseback riding and you can do archery and I can do swords."

[deepest_magic]

Nod.

[neverbeatme]

Sigh.

"I wonder what we could possibly do on Earth that would be anywhere near as useful as ruling Narnia... we can try to find out, I guess."

[deepest_magic]

"There are more people here. But none of them want to put crowns on our heads and do what we say nearly as much. And we didn't exactly bring back revolutionary secrets."

[neverbeatme]

"I mean, if I somehow became the monarch of a smallish country on Earth I bet I could do pretty well... but the problems are different here. And there's much less, I don't know... Narnian-ness. It would be harder than ruling Narnia."

[deepest_magic]

"A lot. People manage it, more or less, without Narnia-related practice, but I'm not positive that the experience will stand us in particularly good stead even if we do wind up ruling - I can barely remember what countries there are. Spain. Whatever."

[neverbeatme]

"And we're probably not going to end up ruling Spain."

[deepest_magic]

"Probably not. Don't even speak Spanish."

[neverbeatme]

"Yeah."