So when Loki bumped his little Mini Cooper into the side our RotG Crack Van this morning, North got so angry that he jumped out of the driver's seat to yell at Loki rather than pulling the van over to the side of the road like he was supposed to. Unfortunately, Jack had distractedly iced over the road, so when the White Witch came along in her sleigh she wasn't able to stop in time and plowed into the back of the van, and now we have a second Crack Van Collision: RotG and Narnia!

Subject: Always Winter; Never Christmas by Zeebie (G)
Fandom: Rise of the Guardians/Chronicles of Narnia
Pairing: N/a
Length: 7,055 words (6 chapters)
Author Website: AO3

Why this must be read:

Author Summary:
Young Jack Frost is still getting used to his new powers when he stumbles into a lovely, wintery country ruled by an imperious queen. She calls herself Jadis, and she can see Jack. Perhaps she can help him.

Jack's only been around for a hundred years or so and is still learning about his powers and invisibility when he accidentally gets sucked into a wonderland where it's always winter. Once there, a beautiful woman in a sleigh offers him some delicious food from a magic bottle she carries while she questions him about his magic powers, his staff, and what he knows of the abominable man in the red sleigh. The woman's name, Jack learns, is Queen Jadis of Charn and Narnia, and she feels Jack's powers can help to stabilize the unpredictable weather of Narnia...

Always Winter; Never Christmas by Zeebie (G)

Title: P is for Physics or Physicist, Soldier, Queen by sentientcitizen
Pairing: none
Length: 1,800 words
Author on LJ: sentientcitizen
Author Website: AO3
Why this must be read:

Author's Summary : Catherine is becoming the kind of person who can spearhead the Stargate program. Susan is looking somewhere new for her answers.

CATHERINE LANGFORD

In this beautiful crossover, Catherine finds herself after Ernest "dies" by going to school and discovering the beauty of physics, knowledge, and independence. So much backstory is packed into this little piece that I felt like I was learning Catherine through and through, her ambitions, her motivation, and her drive. She's a woman with a mind of her own, independent of her father and now dead fiancee, and with goals of her own.

Finding a kindred spirit in a young and damaged Susan Pevensie seems like a match made in heaven. They coalesce into a compatriat-ship/friendship of scientific support. They drive each other in their theories of other worlds and how they both feel differently on how you get there. While my knowledge of The Last Battle is very spotty in the mists of time, I really felt Susan come to life as well. Her pain at losing contact with her family and their attitudes towards her for her decisions. You can feel her drive to try and find them again, no matter the effort needed or the pain involved. One can only hope she eventually gets there.

I really felt this piece form beginning to end. It's a nice exploration of these two intriguing women finding themselves.

P is for Physics or Physicist, Soldier, Queen

Fandom: MERLIN/CHRONICLES OF NARNIA
Pairing: none
Length: 300 words
Author on LJ: twoskeletons
Author Website: Fic Masterlist on DW
Why this must be read:

This hilarious cross just made me grin and laugh like the sh*ts!!! Two cryptic individuals (Aslan and Kilgarrah) converse after a hard day confusing the bejeezus out of their charges and shoot awesome enigmatic one-liners back and forth, all the while coming to an answer to the mystery of the universe. ..... Or not! XD Just two creatures who are renown for being the all mysterious mentors of younger characters shooting the breeze with each other, confusing the heck out of each other and the readers with them, all the while making us laugh like crazy.

Handmaidens of Fate

Fandom: LORD PETER WIMSEY/CHRONICLES OF NARNIA
Pairing: None
Length: 450
Author: antisoppist
Author Website: None
Why this must be read:


This absolutely charming little ficlet gives us exactly what it says on the tin. Suppose that, instead of Edmund Pevensey, the human child who stumbled through the wardrobe to meet the White Witch had been Bredon Wimsey? The ensuing conversation, about Duchesses, peacocks and Turkish Delight, is not only wonderfully in character, but full of telling little details from Wimsey canon. What can I say? The whole thing is completely adorable.

Bredon Wimsey had been surprised when the wardrobe turned out not to have a wooden back, as one might reasonably expect, but to lead into a snow-covered wood featuring an incongruous lamp-post. He wasn’t frightened exactly, but he rather thought Paul might have been, if he weren’t comfortably downstairs toasting crumpets in front of the fire. Frowning, Bredon briefly considered turning round and joining him.


Bredon in Narnia

Fandom: CHRONICLES OF NARNIA
Pairing: You could choose to read it Lucy/Caspian
Length: 9k
Author on LJ: deepad
Why this must be read:

This fic starts slow, with some careful, beautiful sections on Lucy and Caspian's childhood, and picks up as we see Caspian meet the Pevensie children, and see his wonder, and his awe, and his love for them, as he learns to be a king in Narnia. Later we see Lucy's love for him, and her grief as she is kept away from Narnia. But this fic really shines with Susan- we see how deeply her life of constant war has affected her, we see the reasons she turns away from Narnia and Aslan, and see what she craves in her life instead. And finally, at the end, we see Aslan and Caspian and Lucy is Aslan's country, and this fic swells to a crescendo of joy and love and understanding that will leave your heart aching for days.

Caspian scowled at his supper tray and thought that it was easy for Brave King Peter to come from some magical faraway world without any frowning uncles or sniffing aunts and with a load of brothers and sisters to back him up and a lion who showed up whenever things really got scary. And who had talking trees and talking bears and talking giants in his army! Caspian thought that anybody could be brave when they had all that. And now he was expected to be brave all on his own, without even Nurse to teach him how.

Kingdoms Come

Fandom: CHRONICLES OF NARNIA
Pairing: A little bit of Lucy/Caspian
Length: About 1k
Author on LJ: lordessrenegade
Author Website: cosmic debris
Why this must be read: This fic takes a single experience from Lucy's time on the Dawn Treader- reading the Magician's Book- and draws it out into a set of gorgeous, terrible, heartbreaking moments. Particularly moving is Peter and Lucy's grief for the loss of Susan (how strange and sad, that Lewis thought the children would be happy in any heaven that separated them forever from their family!). The last line of this story is stunning- both cruel and kind to Lucy, just like Lewis was.

At the end of a long hallway, at the top of a staircase on an island somewhere to the east of Narnia, there lies a book.

No One is Ever Told What Would Have Happened

Fandom: CHRONICLES OF NARNIA
Pairing: Lucy/Tumnus
Length: about 1k
Author on LJ: devildoll
Author Website: Devil Doll :: Fanfiction
Why this must be read: This is Lucy/Tumnus, with a gentle and caring Tumnus and a gorgeous, young, free Lucy, and the horrible sadness of their sudden parting and Lucy's banishment from Narnia.

No one else will let her talk about those bad things, except Mr. Tumnus, who puts his arms around her and lets her hide her face while she remembers.

Childhood Treasures

Fandom: CHRONICLES OF NARNIA
Pairing: Just a tidge of Susan/Rabadash and Peter/OFC
Length: Less than 2k
Author on LJ: lady_sarai
Author Website: Lady Sarai's Fanfiction
Why this must be read: 8 Ways Narnia can break a heart. Each of them sweet and poignant and perfect and terribly, terribly sad. The Pevensies ruled as Kings and Queens of Narnia in a perfect fairy-tale... Except it's not actually like that, is it? There is so much sadness behind Lewis' simple happily-ever-after.

His sister curls up under his arm and laces her fingers in his. "Tell me about Mother, Peter. I know we had one."

"We did," he murmurs, keeping his voice as even as possible. He realizes that he can not picture her face, and what he remembers feels like images from a dream. He recalls promising to look after his siblings, but it seems such a redundant vow. Stalling for time, he asks, "Do you remember our father?"

Lucy turns her face to him. She says, "I remember you."

Lives by Breaking

Fandom: CHRONICLES OF NARNIA
Pairing: Edmund/Caspian/Eustace
Length: less than 3k
Author on LJ: whetherwoman, but no fic there
Why this must be read: I read less smut in Narnia than in any other fandom, but sometimes it can be good. This is set on the Dawn Treader. The sex is hot, Caspian's complex motivations are moving and believable- and just when you think you've read a smoking-hot little PWP, it turns out you were reading about responsibility, and growing up, and kingship, and boys both frightened of and reaching for the men they're about to become.

"Edmund," Caspian said hesitantly, breaking the silence. "When you and your brother and sisters were Kings and Queens of Narnia, did you—how did your lords and knights swear fealty to you?"

Voyage

Fandom: CHRONICLES OF NARNIA
Length: less than 1k
Author on LJ: sloanesomething
Why this must be read: This is my last "problem of Susan" rec. After all the ideological ways to handle Susan- attempts to take out our anger, or to redeem Lewis, or however you handle it- this fic isn't like that. It's simply about Susan, afterwards. She is alive. Her family is dead. She goes on living. There's no great tragedy, no justification, no redemption. It just is. It's sad, and quiet, and understated, and leaves Susan her dignity.

She sleeps soundly. Why shouldn’t she? She’s young, and the war is over.

Boys and Lipsticks

Fandom: CHRONICLES OF NARNIA
Length: About 4k
Author on LJ: gisho
Why this must be read:

The fate of Susan makes me angry. It made me angry when I was 11 years old and starting to look critically for the first time at the religion I was raised in, and it makes me angry now that I've long left that church and resolved those issues. But when I was a teenage girl, trapped in a church that condemned my sexuality and told me that my only role in life was to be a wife and mother, without agency, without choice, and without a voice, Susan's fate made me damned well FURIOUS.

This is the fic where Susan gets angry. This is the fic where she rejects her status as a victim, condemned to be nothing more than an object lesson in Lewis' allegory. This is the fic where Susan rejects Aslan for the cruel and capricious God he has proven to be, and demands her right to agency in her own life.

Good for you, Susan.

"I'm not going to pray for their souls," Susan tells the deaconess calmly. "I am going to demand the return of what is rightfully mine."

Went Forth Unconquered

Fandom: CHRONICLES OF NARNIA
Length: >1k
Author on LJ: carlanime_bligh
Why this must be read:

( The great elephant in the room for Narnia fandom is the Problem of Susan )

“I thought you hated me,” she said finally, letting all the piled-up misery flood out. “Why did you leave me behind?”

Susan's Charge

Fandom: CHRONICLES OF NARNIA
Length: About 1k
Author on LJ: maddeinin
Why this must be read:

This is another "problem of returning home" fic, this one focusing on Susan. Susan was a woman by the time she left Narnia, and learned things that cannot be unlearned just because she's a girl again now. In this fic, we see her struggle to move past her grief and confusion. This is what Susan was punished for: the boys, the parties, and, yes, even the lipstick, and this fic shows us those things are her way of trying to throw herself back into life after the loss of Narnia.

Peter and Edmund start arguing about cricket and Lucy's laughter bounces through the halls while Susan tries desperately to find some part of the girl that was, before. What she liked before silk and quail's eggs and breathtaking horse races through the meadows and the scratch of stubble against her clavicle, hot lips against her ear.

Almost was Good Enough

Fandom: CHRONICLES OF NARNIA
Length: About 2k
Author on LJ: athousandwinds
Author Website: fic tag
Why this must be read:

This is another beautiful, sad take on the problem of returning home. We see all four Pevensies, and the ways they have been changed by Narnia and now fit only awkwardly now into their old lives. More that that, we see them beginning to be children again- Lucy remembers being a Queen and resents the loss of that, even as we see her picking a childish fight. The interactions between all four children are perfect, as are the ways we see them struggle to come to terms with their exile from Narnia.

"Still, there are so many things - they don't realise how clever you are, Lucy, or - or - they won't let me learn archery, you know."

Cry for Yesterday

Hey everyone! I'm dragojustine, and I'm taking a turn with Chronicles of Narnia this month. It's a small fandom, and there are already a lot of great recs on crack_van. The fandom overview is here. What with the Prince Caspian and Voyage of the Dawn Treader movies coming up, I have high hopes for Narnia fic for the next few years!

Fandom: CHRONICLES OF NARNIA
Length: Roughly 1k
Author on LJ: loki013
Author Website: Fic in memories
Why this must be read:

CS Lewis gave us beautiful and moving stories with a fantastic world and characters- but, bless his heart, there were some bits he was not so good at, and some ways he was very cruel indeed to the Pevensie children. One of those problems is the fact that after Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy spend years and years in Narnia, growing up and being Kings and Queens, they are dumped with no explanation and no warning back into lives and bodies they had long left behind. The trauma and pain of this loss, the terrible difficulty of having to grow up again and leave behind a whole other life, is never addressed or even acknowledged by Lewis.

Loki treats the theme with a sparse, beautiful dignity. Lucy especially has to negotiate the gap between the Queen she used to be and the schoolgirl she is now, and this fic watches her do it in small, understated moments. Truly wonderful.

The four of them sit like that for a long while, caught together, keeping a vigil for who they used to be...

Lay Down Your Jewelled Head

Fandom: Narnia
Pairing: brief Edmund/Caspian
Author on LJ: [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com]
Author Website: website

Why this story must be read:

Katie is one of my favorite authors generally, and her turn in Narnia fanfiction made my toes curl there for awhile. She has a way of conveying a character's darkest secrets, secrets they don't even know they possess, in an effortless and engaging way. This takes place during Dawn Treader and adds an interesting element to the fantasy we known and love.

"Are you all right?" Edmund scrambled for a match and lit the lantern, bathing the small cabin in light. Caspian was sitting up in his hammock, his face a sickly pale shade of grey.

"I'm fine, Edmund," he replied, "but if you would get Drinian, please. He'll know what to do."

Edmund was already pulling on his shoes. "Is it his turn at the wheel tonight?"

"Yes. And please, hurry."

He spent the rest of the night in Lucy's cabin, talking of past adventures and ignoring Eustace, who had insisted he was too ill to sleep in "that horrible Black Hole" and in the morning Caspian seemed fine again.




Before the Moon Rose

Fandom: Narnia
Pairing:
Author Website: website

Why this story must be read:

Another possibility for how the Pevensies coped following TLTW&TW. This is one of my particular favorites. I find Edmund's voice to be spot-on.

"Come on, Lucy," he said softly, stepping back and giving her room to stand up. She did, using the wardrobe to help, and the handkerchief almost fluttered to the floor before she leant down and grabbed it. "Let's get you to bed." He held out a hand to her.

"I'm not a child," she said, and she didn't sound like one. She placed a hand over his, just as if he was escorting her through the halls, as he'd done a thousand times before in Cair Paravel. "I just couldn't sleep."

But he reminded her gently, "You are a child. We both are."

"Are we?" she asked, as they stepped through the door into the hall and closed it behind them. Then she sighed and slid her hand into his, a little girl holding hands with her big brother. "I don't feel like one anymore."


Once a King

Fandom: Narnia
Pairing: Lucy/Other

Why this story must be read:

This story is a bit of an oddity. It's rare to find not the gravitas accorded a king and a queen and in particular, the Pevensies, in Narnia stories; instead, Kate J take it and makes it somewhat cruder. This does nothing to diminish the quality of the story; instead, it is perhaps more speculative than most, a bit of a darker look at the ways Lucy might have grown up in Narnia. It also plays on the thought of Lucy dressing up as a boy to run around Narnia, which I am believe she certainly did.

It was in her future, too. She wasn't the child, then. She was Queen Lucy, gay and merry. Queen Lucy- not like Queen Susan, not a grown-up lady. Just like a boy, in lots of ways. She stood among the archers, at the banks of the river, and watched a man whom she had shot down bleed his life away into the current. Beside her, the archer whose name she had never asked was watching too. The opposing army had fled. She stood, her diamond flask hanging at her waist, and thought of saving her enemy's life. She had almost stepped forward to the ford, but then the archer spoke to her.


As a Boy

Fandom: Narnia

Why this story must be read:

I will say that this is a dark story, a path not taken that perhaps should be untrod. But it is important, I think, to recognize the despair Lewis engendered in his characters; to give them a paradise and then take it away, trusting to time and the process of unremembering to fix things, is a terrible thing. This story deftly tackles a possible unrealized reality.

Lucy remembers being this age as clear as she knows her own name. They were glorious times, and this new non-life, this rehash, is dim and sad and unnatural in comparison. When she was becoming a young woman, she was already being courted by nobels across the land, and those that really cared loved her not for her skills in the kitchen or laundry, but for the way she could (and would) outrun any boy her age, the way her hair ran daringly free and long without care. Everyone loved her because she was free and strong and she loved them all just as much in return.


The Queen in Exile

Fandom: Narnia
Author on LJ: oxoniensis
Author Website: website

Why this story must be read:

Lucy finds this new Narnia a queer place indeed. But things, as good and right and wonderful as they are, are not fully into place. This story perfectly addresses the Susan Question.

There's no more greyness in her life, no more forgotten dreams, no more uncomfortable uniforms and miserable lessons that don't teach the important things in life. No more rules that don't make sense, because here the rule is love and be loved, and that covers everything.


And Indeed There Will Be Time

Fandom: Narnia
Author on LJ: fanaticalone

Why this story must be read:

In The Magician's Nephew, a great many strange and terrifying things happen to the characters, changing them in profound ways. Perhaps none more so than Uncle Andrew, the mad, eccentric sorcerer whose work allows Digory and Polly to discover Narnia, thus setting in motion all the events of the series. He was not a kind man; but by the end of the book, he is changed somewhat. And even wizards can be forgiven. This is a lovely coda to The Magician's Nephew, and a very powerful sotry for the characters.

He took another deep breath. Imagine, him a dignified man, and he had even considered such a childish conceit... "Did you ever think that the lion was... well... singing?"

His nephew - a student now, well on his way to becoming a learned man, and perhaps already a wiser man than himself - did not laugh. He just looked at him very gravely. "Why, Uncle Andrew?" he said. "What did you think?"

"Well... when we first arrived... I do think he was singing, now that I try to remember it," he said quickly. It was a difficult admission for him; grown-ups have a certain kind of silliness in them as well as children, and Uncle Andrew's silliness had a great deal to do with pride and dignity and other things that were, he'd started to realize, not important in the slightest. "I didn't believe it, and for a very long time I thought that I'd heard things, that he was just growling. I thought he really was roaring after a while... but now I wonder if perhaps he wasn't singing all along."


Faith

Fandom: Narnia
Author on LJ: tryfanstone
Author Website: website

Why this story must be read:

And now for something different. I've been concentrating mostly on the Pevensies, because they are my favorite characters and perhaps most beloved by the fans as well. But there were others who visited Narnia too, and were changed; not the least of these were Eustace Scrubb and Jill Pole.

This story starts with them, but comes to pass in the afterlife-Narnia. It's an odd story, one that makes you think about the precise nature of the world inhabited. There are hints of greater things at work. Let us say, this story is aptly titled.

So it was that, a few days, a fortnight later - but nobody measured time in Narnia in the way we do - Jill stood above the great golden gate and watched Susan walk up the hill to the garden. From the wall, Susan looked small, although she held herself very upright and the clothes she wore were those of a Narnian Queen and not of a London stenographer, which Susan had been wearing when Aslan called her name. She had a bow on her back and a horn in her hand and her hair was long and black and loose. Before, Jill had been a little bit frightened of Susan with her painted lips and her permanent wave and her boyfriends, but here in Narnia Susan seemed nothing more than lonely. Jill leaned over the wall and shouted her name.

Susan looked up.

She had blue eyes, Susan, a blue so dark it was almost black, and skin as white as the flesh of a snowberry, and it was not for nothing that the knights of seven countries had fought for her hand. She was the most beautiful woman Jill had ever seen.


Another Country

Fandom: Narnia
Pairing: Edmund/Caspian

Why this story must be read:

I think there's a reason why so much fiction centers on Dawn Treader, on the odd relationships between Edmund, Lucy, and Caspian. For Caspian, he is seeing again the rulers out of legend; for the Pevensies, they are travelling one last time through the great land they love so dearly. Strong emotions run clear through the narrative, and it is easy to extrapolate about where these intense connections may have led.

In Wishful, Edmund remains the patient king we have found him to be; and Caspian leans some of the finer points of kingship from him. In that, they share something, and kinship is found. Kinship, and heartache.

Caspian reached as if to touch Edmund's shoulder, then withdrew. He started to turn away. Edmund's hand locked around Caspian's wrist. "No."

"...what?"

"Caspian, a King doesn't run from an enemy. Or from the truth." He stared the man down. "He may keep secrets, when needed, but lying to himself is a luxury that'll be paid for in blood sooner or later. Believe me, I know that for certain."


Wishful

Fandom: Narnia
Pairing: implied Edmund/Caspian
Author on LJ: vongroovy
Author Website: website

Why this story must be read:

I might have mentioned that I love Edmund. This story takes place during Dawn Treader and gives some focus to Edmund's personal struggle between being a grown-up king and a still-young child. It, like many other stories that take place during Dawn Treader, has a gentle, flowing feeling to it, as you move through the journey as Edmund himself does.

But the longer they were on board the Dawn Treader, the easier Edmund found it to believe himself older than he was. Without Peter, he was the eldest, and he felt he should take responsibility for Lucy and, much as he loathed the thought, Eustace. And he was called 'your Majesty' and given work to do on the ship and no one at all treated him like a child. Before long he began to be surprised, when he woke in the morning, to find that there was no beard on his cheek. He dreamed of Cair Paravel, and the weight of a crown on his head, moonlight, whispers, kisses, and when he woke to find himself just Edmund Pevensie, it was almost a disappointment.


Too Young, Too Old

Fandom: Narnia
Pairing:
Author on LJ: corbeaun
Author Website: website

Why this story must be read:

This is a story about Edmund, and it is a story about the Golden Age. Thus, it combines two of my absolute favorite things about Narnia.

I'm not sure how to explain my love of Edmund in the series; it has a lot to do with how the entirety of the Narnian tale is told in the microcosm of his own story, the story of growing up and finding grace and duty and all those other adult-things so well dealt with in children's stories. His transformation from Edmund the traitor to Edmund the Just is something significant and important to the stories and to the Golden Age. You see it, from the scared boy in TLTW&TW, to the outline of the king he was, grave and wise from experience, in Prince Caspian, reservedly happy and solemnly cautious from outside Peter's shadow in Dawn Treader--all of these are components of his character, and that is why I love him and love these stories.

In Memory of Heaven, sheldrake puts a close lens of Edmund, newly-crowned King of Narnia, the trauma of the White Witch close at hand; and older Edmund, striving to earn the title given him. I think this story is a beautiful window into the Golden Age, and into Edmund.

Snow falls no more on Narnia, as if to compensate for the past hundred years of white silence. The coldest months of the year only blight the grass and frost the trees, brushing the clothing of Dryads in silver.

In the winter, Edmund turns his face southward, toward Archenland and beyond, away from the dangerous chill in his heart that draws him to the snow covered Wild Lands of the North.


Memory of Heaven

Fandom: Narnia
Pairing: Lucy/Caspian (in one part)
Author on LJ: chaos_pockets
Author Website: website

Why this story must be read:

More a set of collected vignettes, this story looks at a number of threads of Narnia in turn, bringing out gloriously full stories in surprisingly small packages. Read together, The Wastelands reads more like a slide-show of images than a total coherent story, but each one packs a powerful punch. Particularly the first one. I very much reccomend this story.

Edmund watched, and couldn't deny it, that Caspian wanted his sister.

And so, nonchalantly, one day, on the deck, hands behind his back, he came up to the other king and said, in a pleasant tone, "If you dishonour her, I'll kill you where you stand."

Caspian started and stared.

"That said, if you love her, it would please me. But remember that we never stay."

Caspian looked at Edmund and wondered when his face began to be older than Caspian's own--or at least his eyes.

"Do you understand? To love us is to lose us. It will be no different this time."

"It might be," he said, finally, and in that admitting everything.

Edmund closed his eyes and breathed in Narnia and wept inside for what he knew would happen.


The Wastelands

Fandom: Narnia
Pairing: None
Author on LJ: sheldrake
Author Website: website

Why this story must be read:

Perhaps unknowingly, Lewis set up a peculiar dichotomy between the two Pevensie girls: one grown up, practical, destined for someplace other than Narnia; and one clinging to the world of her childhood, a dreamer, always desperately hoping to go back to Narnia. It is not a far cry to think of them not getting on well as they aged in England. If, as Lewis notes, Susan was not a friend of Narnia at the point of her death, how then could Lucy be a friend to her as well--Lucy, so Narnian in every bone and breath and word.

In this story, sheldrake looks more closely at the two sisters, how they differed after Price Caspian, and how they might have been closer than they ever knew.

The other week, Susan took a friend's little girl to the cinema, and they saw a film about twin sisters separated at birth. It made Susan cry, which was unusual, because the film was a comedy, and Susan doesn't cry very often. She felt obliged to invent a summer cold, and sat there, thankful for the darkness, snuffling into her handkerchief and feeling foolish. She felt a fool because had had a sister once, and had taken her for granted, and lost her again. And there would be no loving reunion. No making up for time wasted. She felt cheated and injured, and oh, such a fool. The friend's child laughed, and never noticed a thing.


Growing Up

Fandom: Narnia
Pairing: Lucy/Caspian
Author Website: website

Why this story must be read:

Wonderful story that addresses that favorite question of mine, regarding what the Pevensies remember and what they do not. There is a strong sense of *presence* in this story, and when I read it I feel the lulling of the sea behind it. This is a Lucy who is biding her time, making up her mind, and drawing conclusions with the langour of a sea-voyage behind it all.

"Lucy," Edmund said. "You shouldn't."

"Should has nothing to do with it," she replied.

"You know what will happen."

"Yes," she said.

"You know we always leave, and that we don't always come back."

"Yes," she said again. She knew. The knowledge thundered in her veins, that she could not stay forever, that she should not do this.

Should had nothing to do with it, and Caspian had kissed her doubts away, as if they'd been tears falling from her face.

"I don't want you to be hurt, Lucy." Edmund reached out and stroked her cheek, and she closed her eyes and felt the softness of his love.

"Growing hurts," she whispered.


Stages of Age and Youth (The I Dreamt a Dream Remix)

Fandom: Narnia
Author on LJ: roz_mcclure

Why this story must be read:

This takes place during the Golden Age of Narnia, and thus makes its way into my favorites of Narnian fanfiction. I adore stories about the Pevensies during this time, working to nuture their beloved land into greatness and glory once more. I think it is full of wonderful stories that have yet to be told, and I am absolutely delighted when I find those that do take place during this period. It is also a particularly lovely Yule story.

Peter stood on the dais, holding a tall candle. The golden light glinted off his crown and ring, for the sword of a King is left in the armory at Yule, in hope that it will remain unused for all the next twelvemonth. Susan left Prince Rabadash to stand below her elder brother; Edmund rose and held a hand to his younger sister; Lucy tucked her hand into the crook of his arm and saw that all the Narnians in the Great Hall had gone silent and still, as the four Kings and Queens came together at the top of the room.


They Shouted, Reveling

Fandom: Narnia
Author on LJ: miladygrey

Why this story must be read:

A deft, compelling crossover between Lord of the Rings and Narnia, this story brings Aslan in all his patient, awe-inspiring glory into the lyrical and heartbreaking point in the journey of the Fellowship. As Boromir questions the very foundations of himself, Aslan, unnamed but still powerful, offers some hope--hope that is left for Boromir to seek.

A son of Gondor would not keep what was not rightfully his. How strange that the little one would be so possessive of so small a thing. Almost unnatural--

"It binds you even now."

The voice, rich and deep, vibrated through him, and he stopped where he was. Wherever he was. A glade (there seemed to be a preponderance of those in Lorien), so thickly overshadowed with trees that the moonlight was intermittent at best. Silver flickered on the small pool of water, over low slabs of stone. The lyon shone with his own soft light.


Of Hearts, and Dragons, and Songs