Narnia fic: Fly me to the moon

[tree_and_leaf]

I did, indeed, write the Caspian-writes-science-fiction fic (though thanks to Edmund's canonical enthusiasm for detective fiction, Raymond Chandler ended up being an influence). It ended up being rather more serious than I intended, though in a wry sort of way.

Title: Fly me to the Moon
Author: tree_and_leaf
Fandom: Narnia (bookverse, but not actually incompatible with the movies)
Spoilers: Prince Caspian, Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Set post VODT; (also, if you've read The Magician's Nephew, you'll see that Caspian has an overly optimistic view of a certain character from Narnia's past)
Ratings/ warnings: PG; may be triggering for people who are afraid of astrophysics, cockroaches, nuclear war or trying to construct proper plots.
Characters: Caspian, Ramandu's daughter and, in flashback, Edmund, Eustace and Lucy.
Words: 2473
Summary: In which Caspian attempts to become Narnia's first author of hard-boiled detective fiction and science fiction (at the same time), and broods.
Disclaimer: I think it's moderately obvious that I'm not C.S. Lewis. Contains reference to Raymond Chandler (who would have recognised Caspian's strategy for moving the plot on). The science fiction element probably owes something very, very vague to Out of the Silent Planet.



Caspian felt vaguely guilty about the stolen hours in the library, surrounded by papers and books, making notes he was always careful to lock up afterwards. It wouldn’t have been quite so bad if he hadn’t – and he honestly hadn’t done it on purpose! – somehow managed to leave Trumpkin and Drinian with the impression that he was doing something serious and worthwhile, such as studying history or geography or reading the latest reports from the Calormene court (though they knew perfectly well that the intricacies of Calormene politics gave him migraines at the best of times; he couldn’t keep the names straight, and none of it made any sense unless you had a family tree handy). He wasn’t sure what his wife made of it, either, but then she had a tendency to spend most of the night watching the stars with Doctor Cornelius or Glenstorm, because while Caspian had an amateurish interest in astronomy - or rather, he liked looking at stars and he liked looking at them with her - they were the only people who could even vaguely follow what she was talking about.

He wasn’t quite sure why he didn’t want Drinian to know. Obviously Trumpkin wouldn’t understand, but then Trumpkin was a dwarf, and intensely practical even by dwarvish standards, which was saying rather a lot. But telling tales was sort of traditional, in Narnia and in Telmar alike – and even in Calormene, though while he admired their ingenuity in that field, they seemed to have an unnecessarily complicated style… still, it had been a happy day when one of the princes had sent him a box of their romances; probably the best diplomatic gift he’d ever received, though he didn’t think Trumpkin had seen it that way.

And yet, he would have died rather than let Drinian see the stories he was telling now.

Probably because he’d strayed quite a long way from what was traditional. It was Eustace’s fault, really – the other two a bit, but mostly Eustace’s, because the others had never much wanted to talk about their own world, but Eustace, at least initially, had never shut up about Ingland, and even though he had been unbelievably annoying in those days, Caspian had been fascinated (he’d tried to tell Edmund that, once, but Ed had seemed to think he was just trying to stop them feeling embarrassed by their cousin). Though really, what Eustace was most interested in was politics – which was all very well, but trying to understand the politics of another world when you had no idea of its history was the one thing in the world which could make the ins and outs of the Calormene aristocracy seem straightforward – and botany, which Caspian couldn’t care less about. Some of the political stuff had caught his imagination (and some of it had made him wince in recognition of the Telmarines, though at least his ancestors had never been that organised and efficient), but what he’d really wanted to know was the little details. Lots of little details, and the others hadn’t thought to tell him any of that. So he’d resorted to making them up.

Getting stories to go how you wanted, though, was a lot harder when you weren’t just retelling something you’d learned in childhood; it was easy enough to write scenes that were amusing or frightening or sad, but building them up into a coherent pattern was much harder.

A bit like life, really.

The door was flung wide open and a girl came in; she was scowling and bearing a gun

Caspian paused. He had never quite been able to picture a gun. Something like a crossbow, except it went bang and shot lead bolts, Edmund had said, but he hadn’t said how big they were or how heavy; all he’d said was that he’d never used one and that he hoped he didn’t have to, because most men in Ingland didn’t learn soldiering ‘unless there’s another world war and all the grown ups have to go away and fight.’ (It must be a strange world, though Caspian supposed that it might have something to do with the fact that it sounded as if it would be an awful lot easier to learn to use a gun than to fight with a sword, at least if you wanted to actually be able to do any damage with it) Then Edmund had paused, and looked a little sick, and had said ‘Of course, come the next lot, someone will probably drop the bomb, and it will all be over in a few days, bar digging the graves, assuming there’s anyone left to worry about that.’

‘Cockroaches,’ Eustace had put in gloomily. ‘There’ll always be cockroaches, they’re practically impossible to kill. Just imagine, a whole world with nothing on it but cockroaches that glow in the dark. And ruins, I suppose, and the odd politician wondering how you get a cockroach’s vote…’ He laughed the sort of laugh which suggests that even the person making the joke doesn’t find it amusing, though Caspian hadn’t the faintest idea what they were talking about.

‘A-bombs’ Eustace had said cryptically, ‘It’s a kind of bomb – um, that’s a device for making explosions, sort of like a really powerful long distance siege weapon – which doesn’t just blow things up, it gives lots and lots of heat and light, brighter than a thousand suns, and just in case everyone didn’t burn to death, it also gives off a kind of poison that makes you sick. First your hair falls out, and you bleed from the mouth, and then…’

‘Yes, all right,’ Edmund had interrupted, looking sicker than ever. ‘I know, and I bet Caspian doesn’t want to. It’s not like it’s his problem – lucky devil.’

Actually, Caspian had wanted to know, in a sick, horrified sort of way, but he could see pursuing the subject wouldn’t get him anywhere. It sounded like a sort of curse, an unbelievably evil kind, worse even than anything the White Witch had worked. Eustace had been adamant that there was no magic in their world – and Edmund, though he had muttered something that sounded like ‘whatever do they teach them in these schools?’ had admitted that that certainly there wasn’t any one who knew how to work it – but Caspian wondered how exactly you were supposed to tell the difference between magic and their ‘science’, and if it made any difference in practice.

Guns… Eustace hadn’t known much about them, either, but Edmund, in the course of telling him a story about a sort of wandering knight called something like Marlo who went about helping people in distress and righting wrongs, had mentioned that you could hide them under a coat. Small, then. Handy if you weren’t big and strong (though he grinned at the thought of what Reepicheep would have said if you’d offered him a gun instead of a sword, to make up for his height…) But it would mean that, say, a smallish woman could have a good chance against a big thug.

His pen scraped across the parchment.

The girl, who was slimly built and would scarcely have reached Marlo’s shoulder, glared at him. ‘This was no desire of mine,’ she said, her voice as cold as a frost in spring, ‘but my uncle commands me, and indeed you have left him with but little choice. Throw down your gun; you must come with me.’

‘What do you want with me, lady?’ said Marlo, still sprawled on the low couch he had been reclining on.

‘You must come with me!’ she cried, and gestured with the gun. ‘Or – or I needs must slay you.’

Marlo considered. The lady did not look evil, despite the ill he knew of her uncle. That, however, was no guarantee that she would not carry out her threat. Indeed, if she really was as brave and innocent as she looked, then she might be more likely to, if she believed it necessary. And if he wanted to find out what was really going on, this might be his best chance. Perhaps it would even be possible to persuade her to take his side. Surely she must be in ignorance of her uncle’s deeds?

‘Alright’ he said, and threw down his gun at her feet. ‘I’ll not fight you. But I swear to you, lady, I mean your uncle no harm, unless it should chance that he means harm to others. I am only trying to find out what became of an innocent child, and what is going on in your uncle’s castle.’

‘I have no idea what child you’re talking of’ she said shortly. ‘On your feet, my lord! But as to the rest, well, you shall learn soon enough. Indeed, you shall have the high honour to travel with us on a journey more perilous and noble than any which has been made by man!’

‘I seek only the child’ said Marlo, but his heart hammered hard within his breast, ‘but what is this journey of which you speak?’

‘We are to fly’ said the lady, and paused, ‘We are to fly beyond the moon, and there we will see what betide us. My uncle has watched the stars these many nights, and dreams of new worlds to conquer.’

Marlo fought to master himself. It was an impossible, wonderful dream –and yet, he, he doubted the enterprise, and disliked this talk of conquest; and he said as much.

‘My uncle,’ said the lady with simple trust, ‘is a great philosopher.’

‘That’s not the part I have doubts about’, said Marlo, which was almost true.

‘You may be sure that he plans nothing dishonourable’, said the lady, and yet she did not sound quite convinced herself. She went on in a firmer tone ‘And I, for my part, will never be glad of anything that oppresses the weak.’

‘That I do believe’ said Marlo ‘And yet you have taken me a prisoner and wish to bear me away without my consent.’

She looked at him in astonishment ‘But you are hardly one of the weak! And we have wasted enough time. Come, my lord.’

Those amazing ships they had which could fly through the air… and, Eustace had said, would some time soon be able to travel to the stars. He caught his breath. If he could see that! Now that, indeed, would be an adventure; to set foot on another world, to breathe new air… why in the green world could one only travel from the Pevensies’ world to his own, and not the other way? Suppose one could build a ship… except he’d discussed that with Eustace, and they’d decided that the fact that their chronologies were wildly out of synch suggested that you couldn’t get from one world to the other, however hard you travelled. ‘Though I suppose the magic might mean we travelled in time as well as space’, Eustace had said doubtfully, ‘but that only makes matters worse.’ Lucy, who had been playing chess with Reepicheep and had only half been listening, had said that thinking about time travel gave her a headache, which was a fair point, though Eustace said that the actual time travelling part was a lot less weird than the fact that she could remember being twenty. Caspian was inclined to agree with that. If he could only, just once, see the other world! He wondered, too, what had become of the Telmarines, above all his aunt and the baby… he’d never liked her, but he hoped they were happy. Especially the baby, who couldn’t help all the trouble he had caused.

‘Aslan keep them all,’ he said aloud, stretched his tired arms, and reached for the wax tablet on which he’d been making notes. Now, what would a ship that could travel through the heavens look like? Edmund had said that their ‘aeroplanes’ had wings, and Eustace had said on another occasion that there was no air once you got really high, so any such ship would have to be closed in. What kind of wings? And what would it be like in the heavens? Dark, like the night sky? And yet there was no night, so if you were near a star, it would be blinding…. A huge ball of flaming gas, Eustace had said… Brighter than a thousand suns. He had held a star’s daughter in his arms, and yet that made it no easier to understand…

She probably would be busy for hours and hours… a thousand suns… probably forgotten all about the court, and all about him… a star is a huge ball of flaming gas… not what it is, but what it’s made of… soaring through the heavens…

Caspian’s head slipped forward onto the desk.

*

He woke, not much later to judge from the candles, at the touch of his wife’s hand on his shoulder. ‘Come, king of Narnia,’ she said, in the tone of voice which he was never quite sure was serious or not, ‘If you wish to dream, then bed is a better place for it.’

‘You can’t spin stories well in bed,’ said Caspian, smiling despite himself, ‘at least, it’s no good if you want a plot that hangs together. It’s too easy to get mixed up with other things.’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘Is that a promise?... What’s the drawing?’

‘Oh,’ said Caspian, blushing, though he wasn’t entirely sure why, ‘it’s just for the story. I was trying to imagine a ship you could reach the stars in. I mean, stars in the heavens, not retired ones… I expect you think that’s awfully silly.’

‘I don’t understand why you find the idea so fascinating,’ she said, ‘because I think Narnia is just as strange and marvellous as anything you could find in the heavens – but then, that’s easy for me to say, and I don’t think it’s silly, at any rate.’

‘Really? I never know what you’re thinking…’

‘I sometimes wonder if that means you’re not sure of me, and sometimes I think that’s why you like me’ she said, ‘but Caspian, you doubt yourself too much.’ She kissed him, in a way that was quite definitely not ironic. ‘Now come along, sweet prince, and if you like you shall tell me your story.’

‘… well,’ began Caspian, caught between eagerness and hesitation.

‘And then we shall do a little star-gazing together. Without any learned doctors or centaurs, and on a strictly amateur basis, with no hard words. Unless you really want, of course.’ She suddenly grinned at him, a wicked expression that would have astonished the rest of the court, and Caspian ceased to torture himself with the question of what she was thinking.

The star-ship could wait.