#Sovereign: Caspian I

[iztarshi]

Leroux's account of Erik's life in the epilogue is amazing and, really, I have to quote the whole thing for you.

According to the Persian's account, Erik was born in a small town not far from Rouen. He was the son of a master–mason. He ran away at an early age from his father's house, where his ugliness was a subject of horror and terror to his parents. For a time, he frequented the fairs, where a showman exhibited him as the "living corpse." He seems to have crossed the whole of Europe, from fair to fair, and to have completed his strange education as an artist and magician at the very fountain–head of art and magic, among the Gipsies. A period of Erik's life remained quite obscure. He was seen at the fair of Nijni–Novgorod, where he displayed himself in all his hideous glory. He already sang as nobody on this earth had ever sung before; he practised ventriloquism and gave displays of legerdemain so extraordinary that the caravans returning to Asia talked about it during the whole length of their journey. In this way, his reputation penetrated the walls of the palace at Mazenderan, where the little sultana, the favorite of the Shah–in–Shah, was boring herself to death. A dealer in furs, returning to Samarkand from Nijni–Novgorod, told of the marvels which he had seen performed in Erik's tent. The trader was summoned to the palace and the daroga of Mazenderan was told to question him. Next the daroga was instructed to go and find Erik. He brought him to Persia, where for some months Erik's will was law. He was guilty of not a few horrors, for he seemed not to know the difference between good and evil. He took part calmly in a number of political assassinations; and he turned his diabolical inventive powers against the Emir of Afghanistan, who was at war with the Persian empire. The Shah took a liking to him.

This was the time of the rosy hours of Mazenderan, of which the daroga's narrative has given us a glimpse. Erik had very original ideas on the subject of architecture and thought out a palace much as a conjuror contrives a trick–casket. The Shah ordered him to construct an edifice of this kind. Erik did so; and the building appears to have been so ingenious that His Majesty was able to move about in it unseen and to disappear without a possibility of the trick's being discovered. When the Shah–in–Shah found himself the possessor of this gem, he ordered Erik's yellow eyes to be put out. But he reflected that, even when blind, Erik would still be able to build so remarkable a house for another sovereign; and also that, as long as Erik was alive, some one would know the secret of the wonderful palace. Erik's death was decided upon, together with that of all the laborers who had worked under his orders. The execution of this abominable decree devolved upon the daroga of Mazenderan. Erik had shown him some slight services and procured him many a hearty laugh. He saved Erik by providing him with the means of escape, but nearly paid with his head for his generous indulgence.

Fortunately for the daroga, a corpse, half–eaten by the birds of prey, was found on the shore of the Caspian Sea, and was taken for Erik's body, because the daroga's friends had dressed the remains in clothing that belonged to Erik. The daroga was let off with the loss of the imperial favor, the confiscation of his property and an order of perpetual banishment. As a member of the Royal House, however, he continued to receive a monthly pension of a few hundred francs from the Persian treasury; and on this he came to live in Paris.

As for Erik, he went to Asia Minor and thence to Constantinople, where he entered the Sultan's employment. In explanation of the services which he was able to render a monarch haunted by perpetual terrors, I need only say that it was Erik who constructed all the famous trap–doors and secret chambers and mysterious strong–boxes which were found at Yildiz–Kiosk after the last Turkish revolution. He also invented those automata, dressed like the Sultan and resembling the Sultan in all respects, which made people believe that the Commander of the Faithful was awake at one place, when, in reality, he was asleep elsewhere.

Of course, he had to leave the Sultan's service for the same reasons that made him fly from Persia: he knew too much. Then, tired of his adventurous, formidable and monstrous life, he longed to be some one "like everybody else." And he became a contractor, like any ordinary contractor, building ordinary houses with ordinary bricks. He tendered for part of the foundations in the Opera. His estimate was accepted. When he found himself in the cellars of the enormous playhouse, his artistic, fantastic, wizard nature resumed the upper hand. Besides, was he not as ugly as ever? He dreamed of creating for his own use a dwelling unknown to the rest of the earth, where he could hide from men's eyes for all time.

Isn’t that amazing? I'm amazed.

#phantom of the opera liveblog

[houseofhighgarden]

The Queen Has Gone Into Labour

Rosehall Palace released a statement earlier that HM Queen Xenia has been taken to Apollo’s Royal Infirmary in Willow Creek after her water broke unexpectedly early in the morning. Royal doctors have confirmed that Her Majesty is two months early with the birth. HM The King was unable to attend due to royal engagements within the Tarlia Province but released a statement through Switter that he was on his way to support his wife. Her Majesty was accompanied to the hospital with her mother, Her Grace The Duchess of Knossana, and her sister-in-law, HRH The Princess Rose.

Netizens rejoiced the news of the impending arrival of the royal baby and betting has since seen a sharp increase since the announcement was made.

#ts4 royal simblr #sims 4 simblr #royal simblr #simblr #ts4 royalty #sims 4 royal simblr #the sims royalty #legacy challenge #sims 4 legacy #house of highgarden #Sovereign: Caspian I #queen xenia #i was gonna wait but OOP #after the tilda post i just had to #sue me x

[randominagines]

Pairing: Pevensies +Caspian x neutral reader

Warning: fluff

Gifs belong to their creators.

PEVENSIES + CASPIAN WHEN THEY FIRST MEET YOU (as sovereign from another kingdom):

LUCY

Lucy meets you during a ball and she is totally shocked. She has never seen someone as beautiful as you are. She immediately comes to talk to you, a smile on her face while she bows and you do the same. "Queen Lucy, it's an honour to meet you." You say and she nodds, her eyes stuck on you. "The honour is mine, Your Majesty." She says and you chuckle. "Please, call me y/n." You say, completely taken by her stunning eyes. She nods and smiles. "Okay, y/n it is then." She says and you blush, the sound of your name it's sven more beautiful if said by her. She bites her lower lip. "Can I invite you to dance?" She suddenly ask, you smile. "I'd love to." You say reaching your hand for her to take it. She does it and you dance together.

EDMUND

Edmund meets you when you invite the sovereignsof Cair Paravel to your kingdom. He is so shy and as soon as he sees you, he feels totally incapable of doing something to talk to you. He bows, like the rest of his siblings, but he can't keep his eyes off you. "King and Queens of Narnia, welcome to my kingdom. I've heard a lot about you," you say, inviting them to stand up. "Queen Susan," you say and bow, she smiles. "King Peter," you go on, he nods. "Queen Lucy," you keep walking and she smiles too. You stop in front of Edmund. "And King Edmund. It's a pleasure to meet you." You say, totally shocked by how handsome he is. He blushes, but decides to risk it all. "It's our pleasure, Your Highness. Thanks for inviting us." He says and looks at you in your eyes. You smile and ivite them to go rest before the dinner. Susan chuckles. "You hate talking during these occasions." She teases, her voice a whisper. Peter laughs. "He likes y/n, apparently." He whispers and Lucy laughs. "Shut up, guys." Edmund scolds them but he can't help himself but blushing.

SUSAN

Susan first sees you during a walk in the woods. You arrived at Cair Paravel for diplomatic affairs and she meets you there. "Your Majesty, it's a pleasure to finally meet you." She politely says while bowing, her heart skipping a beat at how beautiful you look. You bow too. "Queen Susan, Cair Paravel is absolutely stunning. Thanks for inviting me." You say and she smiles. "As stunning as you are." She says and she realizes a second later. She blushes "I mean... I..." she stumbles in her own words, but you chuckle. "Thank you, Your Majesty, I think you're stunning too." You say and she relaxes, a beautiful smile appearing on her face. "Shall we discuss politic?" She asks, her cheeks slightly red. You shrug. "We can, after a walk together. What do you think?" You ask and she laughs, her eyes stuck into yours. "I can't say no to a guest." She jokes before starting to walk with you.

PETER

Peter meets you on the battlefield. Your army is fighting with his when he spots you. "Who's the general of this troop?" He asks and Edmund looks at you. "Y/n, sovereign of Archenland. We're allies and they came to help us." He explains. Peter stares at you, fiercly fighting, when you spot him too. You can't take your eyes off him as much as he can't. At a certain point, an enemy tries to attack him from behind. "Careful!" You scream and save him by throwing a knife to the enemy. Peter looks at you. "Thank you, Your Majesty." He says and you nodd, the sword rotating in your hand. "Focus, King Peter, so we will be able to proper introduce each other later." You tease him and he shakes his head, a tiny smirk on his face while he keeps fighting side by side with you.

BONUS + CASPIAN

Caspian meets you because you ended up in Narnia with the Pevensies. He is completely mesmerised, you are gorgeous to him. He looks at you while Peter talks. "...Prince Caspian, are you listening?" He asks, his tone bothered. Caspian shakes his head but can't stop looking at you. "Y-yes, Your Majesty." He says and Peter puffs. You chuckle, flattered by the fact that he keeps looking at you. "I'll explain the plan to save Narnia to you, what do you think?" You ask him and Caspian nodds, a smile of embarrassment on his face. "Okay, thank you, y/n." He says and you walk to him. "Let's go for a walk and I'll tell you everything. " you suggest and he nods while smiling and walking side by side with you.

#the chronicles of narnia imagine #the chronicles of narnia headcanon #lucy pevensie x y/n #lucy pevensie x reader #lucy pevensie x you #lucy pevensie headcanon #lucy pevensie x neutral reader #edmund pevensie headcanon #edmund pevensie x reader #edmund pevensie x oc #edmund pevensie imagine #edmund pevensie x neutral reader #susan pevensie x neutral reader #susan pevensie x you #susan pevensie x reader #susan pevensie headcanon #susan pevensie imagine #peter pevensie x oc #peter pevensie imagine #peter pevensie x reader #peter pevensie x y/n #peter pevensie headcanon #peter pevensie x you #peter pevensie x neutral reader #prince caspian imagine #caspian imagine #caspian x reader #prince caspian headcanon #prince caspian x y/n #prince caspian x reader

[queenlucythevaliant]

Remember, remember, remember the signs

Or, if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself

Aslan gives Jill four signs, and she bungles all but one. The first sign (getting Caspian’s help) is missed entirely. The natural question, I think, is whether such signs were necessary at all, particularly in the form in which they were given. If Aslan, like Jesus, is sovereign and omniscient, wouldn’t he know that Jill would arrive to Narnia too late to tell Eustace to talk to Caspian and thus give her three signs instead? In fact, why give signs at all, rather than clear, step-by-step instructions? Doesn’t Aslan want the quest to succeed?

As Rilian says, “we are all between the paws of the one true Aslan.” I’ve characterized HHB in the past as a book about God’s sovereignty; I think SC is primarily about the relationship between faith and God’s faithfulness. Jill was meant to miss the first sign; as Eustace remarks, “I was only here about a minute before you [… Aslan] must have blown you quicker than me.” Aslan was completely in control of the time at which both Eustace and Jill arrived in Narnia, and if he chose, he could have caused Jill to arrive even earlier. The fact that he didn’t points to the fact that the first sign was meant to be muffed.

So why give it? There are a number of reasons one can come up with, but the one I find most compelling is so that Jill will begin the journey from a place of weakness and failure. Jill and Eustace get the help they need from the Owls and ultimately Puddleglum, but they begin their quest with one failure under their belts and the knowledge that more could follow. They are inadequate to the task before them.

Signs two and three are both missed in pursuit of Harfang, and it’s the third sign that most strongly indicates the nature of the signs. It’s possible that our trio could have recognized the ruins of the city for what they were while stumbling through them (and indeed Puddleglum nearly does), but UNDER ME could not be read except from above. Even if they had realized that the trenches were letters, which I’ll grant might have been possible if they had been both attentive to the signs and willing to make a substantial leap in logic, getting to a vantage point from which they could be read would have been tricky. If Aslan had wanted, he could have just as easily told Jill to look for trenches and then to climb a hill. He didn’t. I don’t think it’s a terribly great leap to the assumption that Aslan intended for the trio to end up in Harfang, to see the city and the letters from the window, and then to be chased down into the Underland. So again, why give signs at all if they were meant to be muffed, at least temporarily?

The fact that the trio, and particularly Jill, mess up the first three signs ends up demonstrating their inadequacy to the task they are given. Furthermore, it puts paramount importance on the name of Aslan and on the act of faith its invocation requires of them. I also think there’s a direct connection between the fourth sign and Puddleglum’s speech after stomping on the fire. As Puddleglum remarks, “Aslan didn’t tell Pole what would happen. He only told her what to do.” Aslan told Jill what to do, and she failed three times. They will not fail a fourth. And so, “live or die, Aslan will be our good Lord.”

The fact that the trio find Rilian and hear the fourth sign in spite of messing up the previous three points emphatically to Aslan’s faithfulness in spite of their own faithlessness. According to 2 Timothy 2:13, “If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.” Aslan’s very nature is faithfulness, even when Jill stops reciting the signs. Jill, Eustace, and Puddleglum are brought to the fourth sign in spite of all their failures and faithlessness, because Aslan is their good lord. And necessarily, the faithfulness of God teaches us faith.

The Silver Chair contains two of the greatest acts of faith in the Chronicles, one right after the other, from characters who have spent the entire book up until this point messing up. It’s no accident that “the name of Aslan” is the one sign they get right. It’s only by the name of Aslan that they are able to accomplish their task. Jill, Eustace, and Puddleglum are grown into faith through the failure that Aslan led them both into (by giving them signs that he knows they will fail) and through (by bringing them to their destination nevertheless). 

When Puddleglum says, “I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it,” a great statement of faith if ever I’ve heard one, he says it as one who has truly experienced Aslan’s faithfulness. No human faith is possible apart from the faithfulness of God.

#narnia #the silver chair #jill pole #eustace scrubb #puddleglum #pontifications and creations #night under narnia

[padfootagain]

Such A Silly Game

Here we go with a second fic for Ben's week!! Today’s writing prompt was ‘a moment’. Join us on @benbarnesbirthdayparty​ to follow the event. This is a modern AU for Caspian! I am very proud of this little piece, I hope you like it.

Just so you know, it was meant to be a drabble. Then it became a regular one-shot, and turns out, it became a 7k-long fic... Ooops...

Anyway, enjoy!

WARNING for mentions of injuries, explosions and violence.

Tell me if you like my little fic :)

Word Count: 7365

"Lionheart is on the move."

"Copy that. Everything's clear all the way to the hotel."

"Have you checked the hotel itself."

"Of course. We're all good."

"We'll soon be there."

You ended the phone call, putting the device back in the pocket of your vest, and you nodded to your colleagues waiting for your signal a few metres down the street. The two of them climbed in the black car parked in front of the one you would be using tonight. You turned to your three other colleagues who stood by your side in front of the Narnian embassy.

"Get ready to leave," you ordered to two of them. "Marco and I will take care of the King's car. Stay close to us."

You patted the shoulder of one of your colleagues, who was younger than all of you. It was her first day as an official bodyguard serving the King of Narnia, and she was nervous as hell. After a long and difficult training, she was finally ready.

"Don't worry too much. It's Manhattan. The threat level is not that high," you reassured the young Denise. "Besides, you're paired with Reep! He's the best mentor you can have...  after me, of course."

"Ha... but Y/N here is too busy running the whole show, being the head of his Majesty's security to take care of the new recruits," your friend Reepicheep laughed at you. "Come on, let's get ready. The King will soon walk out of the embassy. And tonight, I pay for the beers!"

"Why the merry mood?" you asked, raising a playful eyebrow in surprise.

"Well, you've just said that I was a father now!" he replied, gesturing at Denise and making all of you laugh.

"Hey! I've been working with all of you for six months already!" Denise protested.

"Only as a trainee. Now, you're an official bodyguard!" Marco replied, nudging your new recruit.

"Congrats, by the way," you gave Denise an encouraging smile. "Now, go to work!"

"Yes, Ma'am!" your three colleagues chimed, and Reep and Denise walked over to the car behind yours.

One car on the front, one behind, along with three motorcycles came to complete the guard of King Caspian X. His diplomatic mission at the U.N. was about to end, only a few days left before you would find the quiet of your homeland again. Not that you complained about the charm of this city, but the threats were much greater in number on foreign soil for the King, which meant more work and more stress for you.

You had been working as his personal bodyguard for six years and been his head of security for two more. Eight years by his side, spending your days and nights thinking about his safety. You had protected him on every continent and in dozens of nations. And if it wasn't exactly recommended for you to admit it, you had formed a strong friendship with the King.

Or well, perhaps it was a little more than a friendship the two of you shared, but you were both painfully aware that you shouldn't act on it. Not in an easy way, at the very least. The King entering a romantic relationship with his bodyguard would bring the media on fire. It would eclipse every other project he might want to work on. And both of you would have to face hell. None of you were ready to take that step, or at least, you both assumed that the other wouldn't want to go through this. There were moments though when you would think like your feelings were shared, that he did see you in this tender light too. There had been a handful of moments, even, when you had thought that he might kiss you. It had never happened though. You reckoned that it never would. Besides, you knew the King well enough by now to be sure that he wouldn't risk putting both of you through all this mess if he weren't certain that his feelings for you were strong enough to resist the chaos.

You guessed that it meant that he didn't see this in you, after all.

The front door of the embassy opened, revealing the King confidently walking out. He was accompanied by two bodyguards who never left his side, no matter where he went. They would join the teams in the front car. You and Marco greeted the sovereign with a bow, and he nodded at the two of you, thanking Marco when he opened the door for him.

He settled in the back of the car while you sat in the passenger's seat and Marco would drive you through Manhattan.

"Is His Majesty ready to return to the hotel?" you asked, and he nodded once more.

You gave the signal to the other cars, and within seconds, you were on the road.

"Miss Y/L/N, you wouldn't happen to have a..."

But Caspian fell silent when you handed him a bottle of water and a box of aspirin before he could probably ask for it. He chuckled, accepting the medicine.

"Thank you. I guess I'm that predictable, huh?"

"You were to meet several other leaders today, I reckon anyone would end that kind of day with a migraine."

"How was your day? Not too much, I hope."

"Everything is ready for you at the hotel, Your Majesty."

He chuckled, before swallowing the drug and rubbing circles on his temples in an attempt to shush the pain that pierced his skull.

"That is not what I was asking, but I'm glad to know that too. Although, knowing both of you and your team, I had no doubt my room would be secured long before I would arrive there."

You couldn't refrain a proud smile.

"Thank you for your trust, Your Majesty."

"You still haven't answered my question."

"Our day was pretty uneventful," you finally answered, your smile widening by the minute.

"Have you celebrated Miss Amos's first day as an official member of staff yet?" he asked, and you felt your heart swell with affection towards him.

He always remembered everything. You wondered how he did it. How, despite all of his duties, he still thought about every single person who worked for him.

"We were thinking about celebrating tonight," Marco joined in.

"Get a bottle of champagne on my account," Caspian instructed with an excited smile. "It's always a good feeling to welcome someone in our little world."

"It is, indeed."

"I have a few files to go through before we arrive. So..."

He handed you his phone.

"If someone calls, I am either dying or peeing."

You couldn't refrain a laugh, shaking your head.

"You shouldn't joke about dying, your Majesty. And especially not with your security team."

"I guess not," he answered, struggling to refrain his smile.

He picked up a couple of files, and started working again.

He was lost in laws and treaties and numbers and statistics. He rubbed his tired eyes, but focused on the documents on his laps despite his headache. You guessed that he would remain silent for the rest of the ride, so you turned to look at the shining lights of Manhattan at night instead. It was a beautiful sight indeed, of lights stretched with speed and reflections upon the Hudson River. The loud noise of the busy city still managed to sip inside the vehicle, honking cries and shouts and the humming of motorbikes speeding up across the large lanes. It was a rhythm that didn't really suit you: loud, busy, never-ending. You much preferred the slower pace of Narnian lives.

Despite your wandering thoughts, you remained focused on what was going on outside your car. You reckoned that as the King's head of security, you never truly relaxed. You were always monitoring whatever was happening in his vicinity, always attentive to details in every scene that played before you. A habit that was hard to lose once off-duty, but you didn't really mind. Maybe it was because of how you felt for the king, you reckoned that it was no bother to you to always be thinking of him.

You were outstandingly good at your job, and Caspian was well aware that he owed you his life, and did so on many occasions. How many plots had you brought down before they would come to fruition as an attempt on his life? He didn't know the exact number, but he was pretty certain that he wouldn't be able to count them on only his two hands. You didn't tell him about these things though, except when you were worried that a threat might still be out there. Otherwise, he would learn about your work through Reep, most of the time. He reckoned that it was just how you were: too humble to bring your good work to the light it deserved. Actually, you simply reckoned that the King had more important things to do than to listen to threats that were not relevant anymore. You did tell everything to the Prime Minister though, she had asked for the reports of all your operations. But if you could take at least one worry off of your sovereign's shoulders, then you would happily do so.

It was because you were so competent that you had quickly been promoted to a higher position in the King's security team. All your colleagues liked to praise you in saying that if you hadn't been in the team, the King would most likely not be in such a good health today.

So, it really wasn't because of your incompetence, or because of the incompetence of anyone in your team, that the quiet ride to Caspian's hotel turned into such a dangerous situation.

Because there was no emails to be found between the perpetuators of the attack upon the King that night, nor were there any strange online activity to be monitored, nor any suspicious discussions over the phone to be listened to. Every step was planned face to face between their instigators, and there was no way you could have guessed that an attack was planned for tonight.

How did they know how to find the King tonight, you never really found out. There were many mysteries about this particular moment that would take years to be revealed. And many important things would unfold in the very short time during which the attack took place. Their consequences though would linger on for many, many years.

You were always surprised by how the followers of Caspian's uncle kept his fight alive, despite the fact that his attempted coup resulted in their leader's death. You guessed that loyalty, even when misplaced, had no end. And with a bit of thinking, you understood the feeling. You reckoned that nothing could ever break your loyalty towards Caspian.

If you were supposed to hold your loyalty to the throne, you were well-aware that you had shifted your allegiance to Caspian himself long ago. Ever since he had shared his biscuits with you on that sunny afternoon in the royal gardens of Cair Paravel. You had talked like two friends, basked in the warm sun and the distant whisper of the sea. That was the first time that he was fully Caspian with you instead of the King. That was when you had fallen for him. You remembered every second of it...

But the scent of roses was long gone and at the moment at stake, you were about to face the greatest risks you had ever taken.

It was so sudden, like a flash. Everything was normal in the busy street, and the next second the car before you was bursting into flames.

Marco hit the breaks just as your foot made the same movement against the floor of the car, as a reflex. All three of you were projected forward with the strength of the deceleration, before hitting back your seats.

"What's going on?" Caspian asked behind you, a little out of breath. "Is anyone hurt?"

But you weren't given an occasion to speak, as loud gunshots rang through the night, the bullets crashing against the bulletproof windows interrupting you.

"Get down, Your Majesty!" you ordered, and for once, Caspian was the one to obey an order without a complain.

You unclasped your seatbelt and moved to check on Marco, who was holding his head.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah, just banged my head against the wheel."

A new sequence of gunshots came in an outburst, but the glass was holding on for now. You looked around, trying to calm your breathing and your pounding heartbeat. No matter how panicked you were and scary the situation was, you needed to analyze what you had to be done. Assess the situation and act.

Assess and act.

"Your Majesty, are you hurt?" you asked, trying to control the shakiness in your voice as you scanned the street.

"No, I'm fine. Are you both okay?"

"We're fine."

Chaos was raging outside. People were running away to find shelter out of the street, abandoning their cars in the middle of the road in their panicked state. Which meant that the roads ahead were all blocked or would soon be. Anyway, ahead, the first car was burning in bright and tall red flames, completely forbidding any way out. The gunshots were coming from the right side of the street, you guessed from one of the buildings.

You reached for your radio.

"Does anyone copy?"

"Hear you loud and clear," Reep's voice came a little distorted through the radio. "Lionheart?"

"We're all fine. What's your status?"

"Unharmed. A bit bruised, but nothing to worry about."

"Is the road behind you clear?"

"No, blocked by a bus that was left there in the panic."

You checked your watch. Only a minute or so must have passed since the beginning of the attack.

"Stay put," you ordered.

No one answered from the first car, and you had to push your grief and worry for you colleagues aside for now. All that mattered at this precise moment was to get the King to safety.

"Your Majesty, there's a bulletproof vest under the driver's seat, put it on."

"Already done," Caspian replied. "What do we do? The streets are blocked?"

You nodded, and couldn't help but be impressed by how calm Caspian was despite the circumstances.

"I'm working on that," you replied, looking around the street again.

"We stay here and wait for help?" Marco asked.

"No, we need to get out of here, the windows won't hold forever."

"I agree with Miss Y/L/N on that one," Caspian nodded.

You spotted the entrance of a subway station a few dozens of meters away. You would have to cross the road, a piece of grass and another road that seemed completely blocked by a set of abandoned cars.

What if they had chosen this spot because they wanted to trap all of you in the subway?

But the next set of bullets made cracks run across the windows, and you reckoned that you didn't really have a choice.

"We're gonna aim for the subway, on the left."

"It's too far away," Marco shook his head.

"Reep," you called over the radio. "We're gonna make a run for the subway station on the left."

"Copy that."

"Get as close as you can with the car," you instructed to your colleague. "Your Majesty, stay down, and be ready to get out of the car quickly."

Caspian merely nodded, bracing himself against your seat.

Your colleague obeyed, starting the car again and driving as fast as he could towards the subway. But there was no way the car could pass between the oak trees that bordered the second road you had to cross. You had to get out of the car while still on the grass.

Reep and Denise stopped their car next to yours, turning the car to create a large protection for your team.

"What about the front car?" Denise asked as she and Reep joined your group.

But you shook your head.

"No response. And the priority is to get the King to safety."

Your young colleague nodded.

"Everyone in formation around the King," you ordered. "You all know what to do."

And indeed, there was no need for more words. You surrounded Caspian, using your own bodies to shield his. It was a quick run to the subway. Just one road to cross. But you would be in plain sight then.

"Your Majesty, are you ready?"

He studied the way your eyes were filled with fear. It was an expression that was easy to read on your features then. He spotted the sweat across your forehead, and the way your chest rose and fell more than usual. But there was determination as well as panic to be read in the frown that creased your brow.

He knew that this moment might be the last you shared. There was no reason to deny the truth. You were all risking your lives now, and he was painfully aware that it was his fault if you were in harm's way. Still, he reckoned that you wouldn't change a thing if you could. You would still choose to stand beside him.

There were many things he longed to admit, and many confessions he ought to make before dying, but now was not the time. Despite the urgency of this moment, despite the danger, he couldn't simply blurt out the fact that he loved you with all his heart, and had done so for years.

After all this, then, he decided. It would be the reason why you'd both have to survive this, so he could tell you at last.

"I'm ready, Miss Y/L/N."

You took a deep breath, giving him a short nod, before turning your gaze towards your goal.

You could make a stop behind a car, before finishing to cross the street.

"We aim for the cab over there," you instructed. "On three. One."

The four bodyguards gathered around their King, much to his dislike. It was their job though, to protect him at all cost, and he understood it. He understood that he was the King, and despite his country being a constitutional monarchy, his role was still key in the government and the health of his country's economy. He understood it, and he hated it.

You were right behind him, your arm reaching across his back. You would be shielding him on his right, and he was well aware that it might be the most dangerous position to be in at that moment.

Still, he remained silent, and let Reep position himself by your side, and your colleagues before them.

"Two."

Your heart was beating so fast, faster, you reckoned, that it had ever beaten. You were struggling to breathe, and yet, you were painfully aware of Caspian's scent of cinnamon and orange blossom.

You closed your eyes to focus, to gather your strengths. There was no mistakes allowed, any would most likely cost you your life, or worse, Caspian's.

When you opened your eyes again, you stared at the cab you were about to run to, only a few meters away. Despite your fear, your expression on your face was determined rather than afraid.

"Three!"

You all stood up as one man, running as fast as you could, although you remained bent over the King, making sure he was safe, four human shields covering your sovereign's body.

You counted how long you spent unprotected.

One, two, three, four, five...

The gunshots started, and a couple of bullets hit the pavement right next to your feet.

Six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven.

You crumbled against the cab, your legs shaky with the adrenaline running through your veins while the gunshots went on, digging holes in the cab behind you.

"Everyone alright?" you asked.

You were met with four nods.

"The shooter is in the big building on the other side of the lane. I'd say third or fourth floor," Reepicheep said.

"I've spotted him on the third window of the fourth floor," you agreed. "But there's no chance we can aim at him from here. Better make a run for the subway."

"And if he wants us there?"

"Then we'll shoot whoever is inside. Keep your weapons at the ready."

Your gun was already in your hand, the safety long gone and your forefinger ready to pull the trigger while you held the weapon so tightly your hand hurt.

You had been trained for this. You didn't doubt your abilities. You only doubted your luck, it was the one thing you couldn't control after all.

"Alright, one more time. On three," you instructed once more. "One."

Bullets hit the car you were hiding behind again, and you shielded Caspian as well as you could. When the shooting stopped, he sat straighter again, his dark eyes fully black in the weak light of the street, with no way of telling where his irises started and his pupils ended. You stared at each other for a few seconds, both of you a little out of breath.

He rested his hand on your forearm, his touch delicate.

"Are you hurt, Miss Y/L/N?" Caspian asked in a concerned whisper.

But you shook your head.

"We need to move," was your answer, and the King merely nodded in response. He knew you were right. You needed to hurry.

"Two," you resumed your countdown, and your colleagues and you took back your protective positions around the King.

One final sprint and you would be in the clear, for now, at least.

"Three!"

The shots resumed the second you started towards the subway.

You counted the seconds again while bullets ricocheted against the pavements and the cars surrounding you. Glasses shattered on your right, the high-pitched noise added to the detonations.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine...

You would have needed a couple more seconds, that was all. Just two more seconds, maybe three, and you would have reached the entrance and been able to take cover.

But you collapsed before that, just as the number nine rang in your head.

Caspian felt it. He felt that your hand slipped from his back, and your presence across his back and by his side disappeared too. He turned to check on you, and the scene he found was the one he dreaded most.

You hit the ground just as he turned to you.

His eyes grew round, and he made a movement towards you, but he was dragged away by the rest of his bodyguards.

"No..." he breathed, but it might just had been a shout for the pain that tore the word apart. It was simply too broken to come out louder.

Then he was pushed against a wall, and you were out of sight.

You were shot. You were hurt and it was all because of him. He had to go back and carry you to safety. He had to protect you just like you had protected him so many times before, just like you protected him just now.

"Unhand me," he ordered between grinding teeth. "All of you, unhand me."

If Marco and Denise obeyed, Reep stared back at his king with a stubborn look on his face that Caspian hated.

"Your Majesty, you can't..."

"That's an order."

"I'm afraid I can't obey this order, Your Majesty. You can't go out there for her."

The two men stared at each other, reading each other's anger and resolve in their eyes. Caspian's fear and panicked state was slowly turning into anger at the idea that he couldn't help you. And under other circumstances, he would have understood. He was the King. You had sacrificed yourself for him, and you risking your life would be useless if he walked back out there and got shot too.

But it was you. It was you, and he didn't care about anything else at that moment. Not about his country, or his duties, and certainly not his safety. You were lying on the cold pavement, just a few meters away from him, at best wounded and at worst dead. He would not leave you behind. He had things to confess, after all.

And on top of his fear for you and his panic rising through his body at the thought of losing you were added his regrets. So many of those, so many moments he had stopped himself from talking to you, from admitting how he truly felt, from holding you close, from kissing you.

It seemed simpler then, it seemed wiser too. He figured he had all the time in the world to tell you the truth. And now he was angry at himself, more than at Reepicheep, for letting so many of these moments slip through his fingers over the past years. And maybe he had let you down just as much as he had let himself by staying silent when he was so certain that he loved you. If he had let you down in the past, he was determined to never do so again, and certainly not now.

"Unhand me. Now."

"Your Majesty, if you get hurt, her sacrifice will have been in vain."

"I can't leave her there..."

"Your Majesty..."

"Get out of my way."

Reep heaved a sigh, knowing his King too well to keep on protesting. Instead, he did as ordered.

"I'll go with you then," Reep decided, and Caspian didn't complain.

Before he could add another word, Caspian was running to you, closely followed by his bodyguard.

He grabbed you by the shoulders and started to drag you towards shelter. With Reepicheep's help, he carried you to safety in just a few seconds, but he remained unprotected long enough for him to feel the stinging burn of a cut across his right arm. He merely winced though, and didn't let out a sound before all three of you were protected again.

Meanwhile, Denise and Marco had wandered further into the deserted subway and found no threat.

"Your Majesty... your arm..." Denise whispered, her eyes wide in concern.

"It's merely a scratch," Caspian brushed her remark away.

She looked for something to wrap around his wound to slow down the bleeding, but the King wasn't paying attention to her at all anymore.

"Miss Y/L/N? Can you hear me?"

His call was met by nothing but silence. Your eyes were closed, and a cut crossed your cheekbone, probably caused by your fall. He checked your pulse, but you were still breathing although your heartbeat was a little slow.

Caspian looked for your wound, but couldn't see any blood.

"Help me turn her to her side, she must have been hit on her back," he ordered, and Reep and Marco helped him to manoeuvre you so he could take a look at your back.

Sirenes echoed through the street then. The police and ambulances were arriving. But for now, you were still on your own.

After a careful examination, Caspian spotted a hole in the fabric of your suit, right under your right shoulder, and when he brushed his fingers across it, they were slightly covered with blood. He took his phone out of your pocket to shed some light on the spot, and he realised that your bulletproof vest had slowed the bullet enough for it to be still visible as it got buried in your skin and the first layers of muscles on the edge of your shoulder blade.

He heaved a relieved sigh. He was no doctor, but he reckoned that the wound in itself was not too severe. The strength of the impact must have been the worst part, he reckoned.

He gently put you on your back again, and resumed his efforts to wake you up.

"Y/N! Y/N please, open your eyes."

He ran his hand across your forehead and your cheek before cupping your face, his fingertips lost in your hair.

"Y/N... please... please, you need to wake up now. Y/N..."

Finally, your eyelids fluttered and opened, barely revealing the shade of your irises that Caspian dreamt about. And he reckoned he had never been happier to see your eyes.

"Ouch..." you let out with a wince.

He gave you a bright grin, tears shining in his eyes.

"Y/N... how are you feeling?"

"Been better," you admitted. "Where are we?"

"We've reached the subway. The police is here. Help is on its way."

"Have you... checked the perimeter?" You asked Reep.

"We're safe for now," Marco nodded.

"Happy to see that you are still the same," Caspian chuckled, his voice hoarse and a little weak.

"Are you hurt?" You asked, noticing the blood on his sleeve.

"It's just a scratch. I'm fine. We're all fine."

You made a movement to sit up, bit Caspian gently pushed you back down.

"No, lay down. Help is on its way. You need to rest."

"Your arm..."

"I'm alright, it barely brushed me. Stay down. You'll be fine."

He reached for your hand, for once not caring about the people around the two of you who witnessed the scene. It was so rare that he would let himself slip so far as to touch you in any way, and you felt overwhelmed by the chaste but loving hold.

But you were exhausted, and struggled to keep your eyes open by now.

You gathered your strengths to look at him, staring at his dishevelled hair falling before his dark eyes, and the beard covering his cheek, a little bit of sweat pearling across his forehead...

God, you loved him so much, it was almost embarrassing...

"Y/N, I need you to stay awake, okay?" Caspian's voice was low and deep and it sounded fragile now, begging. It was such a strange tone to hear coming from your King, you reckoned that you had never heard him beg for anything before.

"I'm so tired," you replied, although you were blinking in an attempt to open your eyes for good.

"I know."

"It's hard to breathe."

"You were shot. The vest stopped the bullet, but I reckon that the force of the impact was enough to knock you down. You could be more severely wounded than what we can assess now. So don't move, and stay awake while we wait for help."

"Take care of your arm first."

He exhaled loudly, a tender smile settling on his lips while his eyes filled with tears again.

Outside, the sirens rang closer again, and some gunshots could be heard from the distance. It was loud and chaotic and scary. Caspian didn't look away from your eyes though.

"You really have to always be this stubborn, don't you?" he asked, his voice too gentle for his remark, and as you thought about an adjective to describe his tone, there was no word that you could think of that suited more than 'loving'. And this tone of his made your heart melt.

Police officers finally reached your shelter a few minutes later, along with a team of paramedics. Reep guided them to you, and explained the situation, while you tightened your hold on Caspian's hand.

"As we've almost died, and it's a very short moment that'll soon end..." you whispered, so only Caspian would hear. "I think I can admit that... I really wish you could stay with me now."

But you were surprised when Caspian shook his head, giving you the most tender smile you had seen adorning his lips.

"I'm not leaving your side this time. As you said, we've almost died. Call it cliché, but it changes things."

You wanted to ask him what he meant, but the paramedics finally reached you, and you had to give them your attention instead.

"Take care of the King first," you ordered them, making Caspian chuckle.

You really would never change...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

 You hated hospitals. They were white and cold and filled with pain. The blankets and sheets were scratchy and the mattress uncomfortable. And there was no need to get you started on the food.

You were in one of these hospital beds now though, and had no choice about the matter. If the bullet had not made too much damage in itself, the impact had hit you with enough strength to break one of your ribs. You would stay in the hospital for a couple of days, and after being patched up, you had fallen asleep alone in your room.

Only, you weren't alone anymore when you opened your eyes again.

Caspian was asleep, sitting on a tiny chair with dark circles under his eyes that showed that he had barely gotten any sleep during the night. You guessed that he had passed out because of exhaustion rather than peacefully resting. His neck was twisted to a strange angle, and you could foresee the wince he would make as he would wake up with painful muscle.

You guessed that moments of peril did change things after all.

You could already think of the headlines if the fact that the King had spent the night in the hospital to stay with his bodyguard was to come out. Caspian didn't seem to care though, clearly, as he was curled in his uncomfortable chair by your side.

His arm was pressed against his chest in a tight bandage. He looked properly exhausted, yet, your selfish side was happy he was in this chair instead of the comfort of a bed. He was by your side, after all, how could you not enjoy the sight?

The sun was rising outside, still pale and golden above the skyscrapers while the city that never sleeps came a little bit more to life. You studied the way a few stranded photons got caught on Caspian's eyelashes and in his long dark hair. You measured the distance between your hand and his. Maybe a metre, at most, you would say.

You kept on staring at him for a while. A couple of minutes or an hour, it was hard to tell, you reckoned that you could have spent your whole life just looking at him. Despite the rush and danger of the previous night, and where you were now, there was something unbelievably soothing about watching Caspian sleep by your side.

When he finally stirred, blinking his eyes open and rubbing the sleep away from them, his gaze instantly settled upon your frame. He offered you a warm smile once he noticed that you were awake.

"Good morning, Miss Y/L/N," he greeted you, his voice hoarse in the young morning as he rubbed his painful neck.

"Good morning, Your Majesty," you answered with the same smile.

He scooted his chair closer to your bed and leaned towards you.

"How are you feeling?"

"Numb. I guess they must have given me painkillers."

"You got some morphine during the night."

"Explains a lot."

He chuckled, nodding.

"I guess it must."

"How is your arm?"

"It was a mere scratch, but I am royalty, so... I reckon the doctors are being zealous."

"How did you get hurt? Is it because I fell?"

He stared right into your eyes to answer, knowing you wouldn't like what he was about to say, but he didn't really care.

"No, I went back for you. I carried you back to the subway, with a little help of your colleagues, of course."

"You did what?!" you exclaimed, trying to sit up but falling back into the bed as soon as a jolt of pain crossed your back and chest.

Caspian was on his feet in the blink of an eye, gently pressing his palm against your shoulder.

"You have to lie down. You have a broken rib. Apparently, it's going to hurt like hell."

"That... might be a good idea... Don't think it's making me forget what you've just said though. What on Earth were you thinking?!"

"Is that really how you're supposed to talk to your King?" he asked, quirking a playful eyebrow.

"When you act so recklessly? Yes."

"So what was I supposed to do? Leave you there, alone on the pavement?"

"Yes!"

"That will never happen."

"Your Majesty..."

But just as you were about to protest, he reached for your hand, and made you fall quiet, the words stuck in your throat as his soft skin met yours. Your heart sped up, and you watched him setting his eyes upon your two hands. He slowly sat on the edge of your bed while you struggled to find back your voice.

"This has been going on for too long, don't you think?" he asked in a whisper. "Such a silly game we've been playing..."

"This?"

"Well, I could be wrong, and then I apologize for what I'm about to say. But I thought... I think you might feel like this too."

"Your Majesty..."

His lips curled into a sad smile.

"Do you think you could call me a different name one day?"

You struggled to swallow.

"I'm not supposed to."

"As if I've ever cared about your origins and mine..."

"People do care though."

"Yes... I guess they do."

"So... you can stay for a little longer, and then the moment will end as you pass this door, and we'll be back to a King and his head of security."

He looked up to stare at your eyes once more, trapping your soul in them, it would seem.

"Is that what you want? After all these years? Don't you think we have lost enough time already, worrying about what people might say about us?"

"Nothing's changed. You're still the king, and I'm still your protector."

"Things have changed though."

"Really?"

"I almost lost you. I saw you lying there on this pavement, thinking that you might be dead. I've always pushed back this moment because I thought we would have time, that 'later' would come, eventually. But the reminder that our time on this Earth is a precious thing was only too violent for me to ignore last night. We've lost years already, I don't want to lose more time."

"But..."

"Just... hear me out. Let me tell you..."

"We shouldn't."

"When you were shot yesterday... I thought... I thought back on these moments when I almost didn't stop myself. When I almost told you how I feel, and when I almost kissed you and... and there is nothing in my life that I regret more than to have let all these precious instants pass."

He heaved a sigh, shaking his head.

"I'm... I know it won't be easy. But I'm tired of not being honest."

"Your Majesty..."

"No need to bring that distance between us again now."

"But..."

"But I love you."

You fell silent. You thought that he did love you. You hoped so. You wished that he would. But hearing the three words pass his lips was something else entirely. It felt... overwhelming.

"I've loved you for a while," he went on, his cheeks turning crimson, and his gaze dropping back to your hands, unable to hold your stare. "I... there will never be anyone else."

"You should marry a princess or... someone... like that..."

He chuckled again.

"Even you don't know what that means. We're in the 21st century, don't you think that I could have a choice to marry who I love. As long as the woman my heart has chosen loves me too, of course..."

His voice trailed off, waiting for reassurance, for your answer. But you remained silent.

"I want to do this," Caspian went on, staring at you once more while he gently stroked your knuckles with this thumb. "I'm ready to face it. Life is too short, Y/N. Yesterday was the last strike for me. I can't... I can't go on like this. I can't go on seeing you everyday and yet not being free to kiss you, and to ask you about your day, and to talk to you for hours just because I want to know everything about you and I want to hear your voice all the time. I can't go on being jealous of every man you speak to, imagining that maybe you could fall for them instead of me. I can't go on wasting my life like this, Y/N. I've wasted years already. You know that I would do anything for our people, I would die without a second thought if it meant protecting our country. But you becoming queen would be a good thing for Narnia too, I know you would be perfect in that role. And I just... I need you. And I want you in that role, by my side. I want you as more than the head of security. Critics will be made, and journalists will invent scandals, but we can beat this. We can, and if you give us a chance, we will."

He grew silent again, waiting for your answer. Before you would speak though, you gave him a smile.

"You're jealous of the men I talk to at work?" you asked, making him laugh.

"Of all that I've said, is that everything you've chosen to acknowledge?"

"We'll pass to the declaration of your unconditional love for me in a minute," you answered, both of you chuckling despite the tears glimmering in your eyes.

"Yes, I am jealous of them," he admitted. "Yes, I love you. And I don't want to be with anyone else. So... what do you think?"

You could have answered that it would be difficult, yet, you wanted to try it too. You were ready to embrace the storm that was sure to strike you, if it meant finally being with him. You wanted to tell him that you were jealous of all these noble women he talked to at galas as well. You wanted to tell him that you regretted these moments you had let slip through your fingers just like he did.

But instead, fewer, more important words passed your lips.

"I think that I love you too, Caspian."

He seemed a little stunned, but then, the grin he gave you was the brightest you had ever seen graze his features.

He didn't find any words to answer to that statement, so instead, he did what he had stopped himself from doing dozens of times before. Instead of speaking, he leaned down to press his lips to yours.

And Gosh, you had been wishing and dreaming and waiting for this kiss for years, but was it worth the wait...

His lips tasted of bitter hospital coffee, and they were soft and warm against yours. His scent was overwhelming, making your head spin. His hold on your hand tightened, but it remained tender all the same. When he turned his head a little more, his lips brushing yours instead of connecting with them fully, you reckoned that your entire body was set on fire by the way your two breaths mingled against each other's mouth, and how warm the air leaving his lungs felt across your skin. Finally, you were there, holding on each other, kissing, breathing the same air.

For how long did you keep on kissing? A few minutes, or a few hours, you wouldn't have been able to tell. All that you were aware of was Caspian's kiss and the way it made your body tremble, and how he was out of breath as well. Your fingers were lost in his soft, dishevelled locks like they were made to belong there.

When you finally broke apart, both of you out of breath, he rested his forehead against yours.

"So... what happens now?" you asked after a long silence.

"Now... I'm catching my breath, and then I think I might kiss you again."

You laughed, shaking your head.

"No, I meant... about... everything else."

But it was his turn to shake his head.

"It can wait until tomorrow. Or later, at least. Now... let's just enjoy this moment, okay?"

"It's nice," you agreed.

"Then let's just enjoy it while it lasts. Let's make this moment as long as we can."

"For how long do you think we can make it last?"

"Well... I reckon that a lifetime would do."

 *************************************

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#benbarnesweek2020 #Caspian #caspian x reader #King Caspian #caspian fanfic #caspian fanfiction #caspian imagine #caspian x fanfic #caspian x #caspian x imagine #king caspian imagine #king caspian fanfic #fanfiction #fanfic #imagine #writing

[ruffsraven]

Once Upon in Narnia - Edmund Pevensie

Based on: The Chronicles of Narnia

A/N: I'm deeply sorry I mixed the era of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe and Prince Caspian. But, hey, I made amendments.

PART 1: Meeting Edmund

Y/N didn't bother about the snowy forest around her, it was snowing in her hometown anyway. But she started being confused when she saw the snowy mountains from afar instead of snow-blanketed houses. She walked further and saw a blazing lamppost, its light bleary from too much snow.

The snowy forest was ghost-quiet and seemed to be deserted, but not until she heard a faint clippity-clop from behind her.

A majestic sled ran past her in a swift like she wasn't there at all. She gripped the pole as not to slip in the snow, thinking how rude the person in the sled was. But the sled stop in midway. A faint conversation from the sled followed:

"She didn't addressed you, Your Majesty," said the first voice.

"Glorgan, let's just come back for her," said the second voice that seemed to be younger.

The sled carried by two horses came back and sitting there was an old dwarf and beside him is a dark-haired man—a boy I must say—with a silver crown embedded with birch leaves. Y/N wondered what noble rank he is in. The old dwarf looked at her with irresolute dislike while the boy who appeared to be a king, studied her with interest.

"Whistles and whirligigs! A Daughter of Eve, ain't you?" the dwarf—Glorgan—exclaimed in realization.

The king nodded, "Just like me and my siblings, Glorgan.

"Now, if you don't mind Ms.—"

"Y/L/N. Y/N Y/L/N."

"Y/N," the king continued "I fear you might get lost in Narnia. If you don't mind, I can bring you to Cair Paravel, our kingdom," the king offered, tapping a seat beside him.

She looked around. It's very true that she might get lost, the land is too peculiar. She clambered on the sled and sat beside him.

The sled started moving once again.

"I'm King Edmund, if it might interest you."

She beamed. The king must be kind after all. "Thank you for your hospitality, Your Majesty"

King Edmund told her to call him by his first name ("Bulbs and bolsters!" Glorgan muttered to himself) for it was still odd being called a "King" or "Your Majesty" the whole time. She agreed and wondered once again why it had been snowing hard in this strange place called Narnia.

-

Cair Paravel looked more wondrous than she expected. Strange creatures politely welcomed her. She pondered what on earth this world is.

High King Peter, which she later recognize as Edmund's brother, greeted them but appeared to be in haste for he excused himself too sudden. Indeed, it was confusing to see a sovereign with two kings. It would be an extensive explanation if she asked how it happened.

Edmund introduced her to Queen Susan and Queen Lucy, Y/N curtsied a little too awkward.

"Oh, how lovely!" Queen Lucy gushed "It would be nice if you'll join the ball to-night!"

Queen Susan nodded. Being a 'Daughter of Eve' seemed very special in Narnia.

"A ball, Your Majesty?" Y/N asked. Though she was delighted, she's not used to being treated as grand as this.

Someone cleared their throat and said, "Your Majesties."

It was a faun, standing beside them. He addressed the three of them and gave Y/N a friendly smile.

"High King Peter has called an urgent meeting," the faun announced.

They nodded.

"Mr. Tumnus," Edmund said. "May you please lead our new guest to a spare room?"

The faun nodded and courteously did so.

Before they depart, Edmund smiled at her and said, "Don't worry about the ball. You'll be fine. Promise."

***

other chapters in here >  Masterlist

#edmund pevensie #edmund x reader #edmund pevensie x reader #narnia #the chronicles of narnia #peter pevensie #lucy pevensie #susan pevensie #lww

[forbidden-sorcery]

The lycanthropic vampire of Slavonic and Balkan folklore assumes the characteristics of a vaster and darker pantheon of divine exemplars. The ghostly and dread gods and goddesses of magic, death, trance and liminal paradox provide the archetypal patterns of spirit-flight and animal metamorphosis as well as the unquenchable thirst of the dead for the subtle essences within blood, or, as I the case of the Livonian werewolves, strong ale. The traditional folk-vampyrology of Slavonic Eastern Europe and Russia and the mysteries of the werewolf-cults of antiquity and the Middle Ages were presided over by these dark entities.             The Romanian Varcolac cultus and the Old Slavonic Vulcolaca undoubtedly looked to the Indo-European ‘Terrifying Sovereign’ as their patron and the source of their strange powers. The Terrifying Sovereign represents the god of the aristocratic wizard-priests and sorcerer-warriors of the trans-Caspian steppes. The Master of the Mysteries who rules through his magical binding power over the whole universe. His traits, as far as they can be glimpsed through the mists of prehistory, are those of shamanic sovereignty and he is the ferocious and sinister lord of inspired wisdom and transformative consciousness, cunning, many-aspected and omniscient.

Nigel Jackson - The Compleat Vampyre: The Vampyre Shaman, Werewolves, Witchery, & the Dark Mythology of the Undead

#Nigel Jackson

[skgway]

1828 Mar., Fri. 28

8 1/2

12 3/4

M– [Mariana] came and talked to me for 1/4 hour – Breakfast at 9 20/60 – Sat talking to M– [Mariana] and Mr. Harvey, an amiable gentlemanly young man, apparently evangelical in religion, and croaking in politics – A little before 1 we all 3 set off to walk (about 1/2 hour’s walk) to the endless chain (pronounced by the people endless cheen) coal-pit, belonging to Mr. L– [Lawton] let to, and worked by Mr. Kinnersley whose head-man, Mr.     .      .     . was ready to go down with us – 

A 20 or 22 horse power steam engine let us down the shaft, 217 yards deep, in 5 minutes – The men sometimes go down in 1/2 the time – Mr. Harvey and I and 1 of the men went down first standing on a square sort of wooden scale, holding by the chains by which it was suspended from the 4 corners – Then came M– [Mariana] and Mr. [blank] – 

On getting near the bottom of the shaft, the dripping from the sides was like rain – 1 3/4 hours in the pit – This bed dips 18 inches per yard from North to South – About 80 men and boys working – The corves drawn by ponies or little stiff strong horses – Can bring up 60 tons a day working day and night, and sell the coals at the canal side (perhaps 1/4 mile from the pit) at 12 /. [shillings] per ton – 

Very fine pit – The superincumbent shale rock (sometimes free stone rock) strong enough in general to do without support – When not, a brick work arched way where you must stoop a little – No pit in this country more subject to fire damp, if not well ventilated. In 1 part heard the sulphur sizzing in the rocky sides of the tunnel and below, on each side, in the little gutter of water. Could set fire to it with our candles – The light blue flame would run along the water – A good illustration of the naptha-fires on the Caspian? – Held our candles low for fear of accident – 

Shewed us Davy’s safety camp – But the men were working by candle-light – Nothing on but a pair of trousers – The beds from 7 to 10 feet thick hereabouts – This bed seemed about 7 feet thick including the 1 1/2 to 2 feet of top coal thrown aside as waste, not worth taking up – We went about 700 yards under ground – It is 1 of the best and deepest pits in this country – Has been working about 20 years – The upper stratum of coals (about 1/2 the depth?) has been got – 

Our friend Mr. – [blank] a very shrewd, sensible man, was unwilling to take anything but made him take 1/2 a sovereign, and left with him a sovereign for the men – All the coals on coming up pass over a weighing engine, so that no party can easily be cheated. This, he says, is much better than selling the coal by the acre and advised me in future to sell by weight – 

Mr. C[harles] L– [Lawton] was astonished to hear the price of my coals ￡240 and ￡205 per acre – 2 acres of coal herabouts, on cutting the new canal, were valued at ￡14,000 – Mr. H– [Harvey] left us at the pit to ride home and M– [Mariana] and I walked back, and got home at 4 3/4 – Required a good washing and cleaning, but as we had had no jackets nor anything thrown over us (M– [Mariana] in her habit and I in my old pelisse), we were come off much better than I expected – 

Dinner at 6 1/4 – Came upstairs on leaving the dining room and had a kiss. Came to my room at 10 1/4 – Fair, but dampish not agreeable day – A few drops of light rain as we returned from the pit – Sat up reading the first 64 pp pages volume 1 Italy and the Italians in the 19th century –

#anne lister #anne lister code breaker #mariana lawton #Lawton Hall 1828

[thegizka]

Letting Go

Susan was the first. Then Peter. Then Edmund. Lucy held on the longest, but at some point, you have to grow up.

Written for Writer's Month Day 10: Dark AU.

Note: I do not own The Chronicles of Narnia.

Read it on Ao3.

Susan was the first to leave Narnia behind.  She was always quiet when the other siblings discussed the adventures and lessons they’d had.  Peter thought she might resent that their younger siblings got a third trip while she was expected to stay behind and grow up.  Edmund suspected she was frustrated at returning to being a child after living as a queen with the power to protect and make changes to an entire country.  Lucy believed she had loved Narnia and its people too much, and the loss was something she’d never come to terms with.

The others tried to tactfully bring it up a few times, but Susan always dismissed them.

“It was a fun game when we were younger, but at some point you need to stop playing pretend and face the reality in front of you.”  She frowned.  “Magical lions and fauns and dwarves don’t pay the bills or solve the world’s problems.  Our lives aren’t a fairy tale.  They never have been.  I think it’s time you stop pretending that they were.”

They decided not to mention Narnia around her after that.  She continued believing she was fine and happy, and maybe she was, but Lucy always felt sad when she saw glimpses of Queen Susan the Gentle and had to hold her tongue.

-----

Peter was the next to forget.  He and Susan had always been close and visited each other regularly.  Perhaps he had gotten tired of tiptoeing around her and thought Narnia was an easier sacrifice than time with his sister.  Edmund suspected he hadn’t quite grasped the “know me in this world” lesson from his final trip, and Lucy worried his stubbornness outweighed his ability to see the truth.

“Susan’s right,” Peter explained, “it’s time to put our childish games behind us.  Honestly, I’m a bit ashamed it took me so long.  I don’t regret it, though.  It was a brilliant game.”

For a while, they tried to convince him of the truth.  He was often good-natured about it, recalling memories and musing over their decisions as sovereigns, but he was always distant.

“We had amazing imaginations, didn’t we?  I don’t think any of our school chums created entire countries and contemplated international relations during their holidays.”

Edmund and Lucy would agree, but they could tell their elder brother had convinced himself it was all a game.  Eventually they found it easier not to mention Narnia at all rather than listen to Peter and Susan treat it so trivially.

-----

Edmund took much longer to forget.  Lucy wondered if it was because he got to go a third time, but he had always been apt to trust her after their time with Professor Kirke.  Plus Eustace shared some of their memories, and he and Edmund got along incredibly well.  But eventually he drew his sister aside and told her he was done.

“I’m sorry Lucy, but I don’t think I can pretend like this anymore.”  His eyes were dark and sad.  “I’ve been thinking about it a lot and talking with Peter and Susan.  We’re worried.  That time we were with the professor was rather traumatic, and we were young.  We used Narnia as a coping mechanism, but we have to work through the trauma at some point to heal and move on.  I’ve been seeing a therapist, and if you’d like, I can give you some recommendations.”

“But what about the second time, with Caspian?  Or the Dawn Treader with Eustace?” she asked.  It had hurt when Susan and Peter forgot, but Edmund had been a steady and sure presence by her side. How could he lose Narnia, too?

“The war had just ended, we were transitioning back to school, and we were travelling, which is always stressful.  And then next summer we were forced to endure our relatives while the other two were adventuring in America.  Remember how beastly Eustace used to be?”

“So you think we made up Mr. Tumnus?  The White Witch?  Caspain and Reepicheep?”

“It’s not impossible.  Some children have been known to hold on to their imaginary friends into early adulthood.”

“And Aslan?” Lucy asked, heart breaking.  Her brother had the decency to smile sadly and squeeze her arm sympathetically.

“If Aslan was as benevolent as we believed, would he have allowed me to betray you all and grapple with that guilt afterwards?  Or let us grow up as kings and queens and then rip that away from us?  Or wait to summon us again until all of our old Narnian friends were dead?  You have to admit, some of that is pretty messed up.  It’s easier to explain as the imaginings of traumatised children than the machinations of a supposedly good all-powerful lion.”

He was doing his best to be kind.  She knew he had probably weighed this over and over for months, maybe years.  Edmund was driven towards the truth, so it was even harder to fathom that he was turning his back on it.  When they parted ways, Lucy had never felt so lonely.

-----

Lucy tried holding on for another two years.  She’d stopped mentioning Narnia to her siblings, and they had the decency not to pester her about it, but it was too painful to be the only one who remembered.  She limited their interactions, though it only made her lonelier.

Sometimes she spoke with Eustace and Professor Kirke, and they introduced her to other people who claimed to know Narnia, but it was harder to find comfort in people she didn’t know.  Edmund had said it would be easy for escapists to alter their remembered fantasies to fit the same or similar mold of another’s in an attempt to feel some connection to them.  Other than Eustace, she didn’t share any actual memories with them, and the only real connections in all of their stories was Aslan.

It was Aslan who kept Lucy believing for so long.  She felt he really could connect all of these people through a magical alternative world where they were capable of incredible things.  She trusted Aslan, even if he wasn’t real.  She’d looked for him in her own world as he’d asked, and she believed she’d found him in church.

Ironically, that was what finally made her turn her back on Narnia.  If she’d found the true Aslan, she no longer needed childhood fairy tales to show her the truth.  Maybe it had just been a way for a young girl to try and make sense of her circumstances.

There was a great sadness when she finally let go.  Lucy would always think of Narnia with fondness and nostalgia, but it was relieving to understand at last what her siblings seemed to have figured out earlier.  Narnia was a game that had helped them through a strangely stressful and magical time of their lives.  Now that she could face the reality of those experiences, she was closer than ever to her siblings.  They were finally on the same page.

-----

Three months after Lucy came to this conclusion, the Pevensie siblings received word of a tragedy.  Their cousin Eustace, Professor Kirke, and a few of their friends whom Lucy had met died tragically in a train crash.  It was a shock to them all.  Edmund and Lucy took their cousin’s death particularly hard.  But they mourned and moved on.  They had jobs to do, bills to pay, and lives to live.

“I wish we could have done more for them,” Susan sighed over dinner a few years later.  They were revisiting childhood memories, and Narnia had come up for the first time in a while.  “They were all convinced that it was more than a game.”

“I talked to Eustace a few times about it,” Edmund admitted.  “He believed Narnia and Aslan were the reason he changed.  He didn’t think he was capable of doing so on his own.”

“Poor Eustace,” Lucy sighed.  “If only he’d believed in himself more.  I should have encouraged him more than I did, made him feel appreciated.”

“And the professor,” Peter agreed.  “He wasn’t altogether there in the head, but he made our time with him jolly good.  I wish I’d talked to him more before the end.”

“Well we still have Mrs. Macready,” Susan chuckled.  The others laughed.

“I don’t think any imaginary fantasyland will let us escape from her!” Peter grinned.

I don’t know if this really counts as a Dark AU, but the idea of all four Pevensies forgetting Narnia makes me really sad, so I’m saying it counts.

#writersmonth2019 #gizka #my words #dark au #the chronicles of narnia #the pevensies #peter pevensie #susan pevensie #edmund pevensie #lucy pevensie #family #siblings #pevensie siblings

[theculturedmarxist]

This book will concern itself least of all with those unrelated psychological researches which are now so often  substituted for social and historical analysis. Foremost in our field of vision will stand the great, moving forces of history,  which are super-personal in character. Monarchy is one of them. But all these forces operate through people. And monarchy is by  its very principle bound up with the personal. This in itself justifies an interest in the personality of that monarch whom the  process of social development brought face to face with a revolution. Moreover, we hope to show in what follows, partially at  least, just where in a personality the strictly personal ends – often much sooner than we think – and how frequently  the “distinguishing traits” of a person are merely individual scratches made by a higher law of development.

Nicholas II inherited from his ancestors not only a giant empire, but also a revolution. And they did not bequeath him one  quality which would have made him capable of governing an empire or even a province or a county. To that historic flood which was  rolling its billows each one closer to the gates of his palace, the last Romanov opposed only a dumb indifference. It seemed as  though between his consciousness and his epoch there stood some transparent but absolutely impenetrable medium.

People surrounding the tzar often recalled after the revolution that in the most tragic moments of his reigns – at the  time of the surrender of Port Arthur and the sinking of the fleet at Tsushima, and ten years later at the time of the retreat of  the Russian troops from Galicia, and then two years later during the days preceding his abdication when all those around him were  depressed, alarmed, shaken – Nicholas alone preserved his tranquillity. He would inquire as usual how many versts he had  covered in his journeys about Russia, would recall episodes of hunting expeditions in the past, anecdotes of official meetings,  would interest himself generally in the little rubbish of the day’s doings, while thunders roared over him and lightnings  flashed. “What is this?” asked one of his attendant generals, “a gigantic, almost unbelievable self-restraint,  the product of breeding, of a belief in the divine predetermination of events? Or is it inadequate consciousness?” The  answer is more than half included in the question. The so-called “breeding” of the tzar, his ability to control  himself in the most extraordinary circumstances, cannot be explained by a mere external training; its essence was an inner  indifference, a poverty of spiritual forces, a weakness of the impulses of the will. That mask of indifference which was called  breeding in certain circles, was a natural part of Nicholas at birth.

The tzar’s diary is the best of all testimony. From day to day and from year to year drags along upon its pages the  depressing record of spiritual emptiness. “Walked long and killed two crows. Drank tea by daylight.” Promenades on  foot, rides in a boat. And then again crows, and again tea. All on the borderline of physiology. Recollections of church  ceremonies are jotted down in the same tone as a drinking party.

In the days preceding the opening of the State Duma, when the whole country was shaking with convulsions, Nicholas wrote:  “April 14. Took a walk in a thin shirt and took up paddling again. Had tea in a balcony. Stana dined and took a ride with  us. Read.” Not a word as to the subject of his reading. Some sentimental English romance? Or a report from the Police  Department? “April 15: Accepted Witte’s resignation. Marie and Dmitri to dinner. Drove them home to the  palace.”

On the day of the decision to dissolve the Duma, when the court as well as the liberal circles were going through a paroxysm  of fright, the tzar wrote in his diary: “July 7. Friday. Very busy morning. Half hour late to breakfast with the officers  ... A storm came up and it was very muggy. We walked together. Received Goremykin. Signed a decree dissolving the Duma! Dined  with Olga and Petia. Read all evening.” An exclamation point after the coming dissolution of the Duma is the highest  expression of his emotions. The deputies of the dispersed Duma summoned the people to refuse to pay taxes. A series of military  uprisings followed: in Sveaborg, Kronstadt, on ships, in army units. The revolutionary terror against high officials was renewed  on an unheard-of scale. The tzar writes: “July 9. Sunday. It has happened! The Duma was closed today. At breakfast after  Mass long faces were noticeable among many ... The weather was fine. On our walk we met Uncle Misha who came over yesterday from  Gatchina. Was quietly busy until dinner and all evening. Went padding in a canoe.” It was in a canoe he went paddling  – that is told. But with what he was busy all evening is not indicated. So it was always.

And further in those same fatal days: “July 14. Got dressed and rode a bicycle to the bathing beach and bathed enjoyably  in the sea.” “July 15. Bathed twice. It was very hot. Only us two at dinner. A storm passed over.” “July  19. Bathed in the morning. Received at the farm. Uncle Vladimir and Chagin lunched with us.” An insurrection and explosions  of dynamite are barely touched upon with a single phrase, “Pretty doings!” – astonishing in its imperturbable  indifference, which never rose to conscious cynicism.

“At 9:30 in the morning we rode out to the Caspian regiment ... walked for a long time. The weather was wonderful.  Bathed in the sea. After tea received Lvov and Guchkov.” Not a word of the fact that this unexpected reception of the two  liberals was brought about by the attempt of Stolypin to include opposition leaders in his ministry. Prince Lvov, the future head  of the Provisional Government, said of that reception at the time: “I expected to see the sovereign stricken with grief,  but instead of that there came out to meet me a jolly sprightly fellow in a raspberry-coloured shirt.” The tzar’s  outlook was not broader than that of a minor police official – with this difference, that the latter would have a better  knowledge of reality and be less burdened with superstitions. The sole paper which Nicholas read for years, and from which he  derived his ideas, was a weekly published on state revenue by Prince Meshchersky, a vile, bribed journalist of the reactionary  bureaucratic clique, despised even in his own circle. The tzar kept his outlook unchanged through two wars and two revolutions.  Between his consciousness and events stood always that impenetrable medium – indifference. Nicholas was called, not without  foundation, a fatalist. It is only necessary to add that his fatalism was the exact opposite of an active belief in his  “star.” Nicholas indeed considered himself unlucky. His fatalism was only a form of passive self-defence against  historic evolution, and went hand in hand with an arbitrariness, trivial in psychological motivation, but monstrous in its  consequences.

“I wish it and therefore it must be —,” writes Count Witte. “That motto appeared in all the activities  of this weak ruler, who only through weakness did all the things which characterised his reign – a wholesale shedding of  more or less innocent blood, for the most part without aim.”

Nicholas is sometimes compared with his half-crazy great-great-grandfather Paul, who was strangled by a camarilla acting in  agreement with his own son, Alexander “the Blessed.” These two Romanovs were actually alike in their distrust of  everybody due to a distrust of themselves, their touchiness as of omnipotent nobodies, their feeling of abnegation, their  consciousness, as you might say, of being crowned pariahs. But Paul was incomparably more colourful; there was an element of  fancy in his rantings, however irresponsible. In his descendant everything was dim; there was not one sharp trait.

Nicholas was not only unstable, but treacherous. Flatterers called him a charmer, bewitcher, because of his gentle way with  the courtiers. But the tzar reserved his special caresses for just those officials whom he had decided to dismiss. Charmed beyond  measure at a reception, the minister would go home and find a letter requesting his resignation. That was a kind of revenge on  the tzar’s part for his own nonentity.

Nicholas recoiled in hostility before everything gifted and significant. He felt at ease only among completely mediocre and  brainless people, saintly fakers, holy men, to whom he did not have to look up. He had his amour propre, indeed it was  rather keen. But it was not active, not possessed of a grain of initiative, enviously defensive. He selected his ministers on a  principle of continual deterioration. Men of brain and character he summoned only in extreme situations when there was no other  way out, just as we call in a surgeon to save our lives. It was so with Witte, and afterwards with Stolypin. The tzar treated  both with ill-concealed hostility. As soon as the crisis had passed, he hastened to part with these counsellors who were too tall  for him. This selection operated so systematically that the president of the last Duma, Rodzianko, on the 7th of January 1917, with the revolution already knocking at the doors, ventured to say to the tzar: “Your  Majesty, there is not one reliable or honest man left around you; all the best men have been removed or have retired. There  remain only those of ill repute.”

All the efforts of the liberal bourgeoisie to find a common language with the court came to nothing. The tireless and noisy  Rodzianko tried to shake up the tzar with his reports, but in vain. The latter gave no answer either to argument or to impudence,  but quietly made ready to dissolve the Duma. Grand Duke Dmitri, a former favourite of the tzar, and future accomplice in the  murder of Rasputin, complained to his colleague, Prince Yussupov, that the tzar at headquarters was becoming every day more  indifferent to everything around him. In Dmitri’s opinion the tzar was being fed some kind of dope which had a benumbing  action upon his spiritual faculties. “Rumours went round,” writes the liberal historian Miliukov, “that this  condition of mental and moral apathy was sustained in the tzar by an increased use of alcohol.” This was all fancy or  exaggeration. The tzar had no need of narcotics: the fatal “dope” was in his blood. Its symptoms merely seemed  especially striking on the background of those great events of war and domestic crisis which led up to the revolution. Rasputin,  who was a psychologist, said briefly of the tzar that he “lacked insides.”

This dim, equable and “well-bred” man was cruel – not with the active cruelty of Ivan the Terrible or of  Peter, in the pursuit of historic aims – What had Nicholas the Second in common with them? – but with the cowardly  cruelty of the late born, frightened at his own doom. At the very dawn of his reign Nicholas praised the Phanagoritsy regiment as  “fine fellows” for shooting down workers. He always “read with satisfaction” how they flogged with whips  the bob-haired girl-students, or cracked the heads of defenceless people during Jewish pogroms. This crowned black sheep  gravitated with all his soul to the very dregs of society, the Black Hundred hooligans. He not only paid them generously from the  state treasury, but loved to chat with them about their exploits, and would pardon them when they accidentally got mixed up in  the murder of an opposition deputy. Witte, who stood at the head of the government during the putting down of the first  revolution, has written in his memoirs: “When news of the useless cruel antics of the chiefs of those detachments reached  the sovereign, they met with his approval, or in any case his defence.” In answer to the demand of the governor-general of  the Baltic States that he stop a certain lieutenant-captain, Richter, who was “executing on his own authority and without  trial non-resistant persons,” the tzar wrote on the report: “Ah, what a fine fellow!” Such encouragements are  innumerable. This “charmer,” without will, without aim, without imagination, was more awful than all the tyrants of  ancient and modern history.

The tzar was mightily under the influence of the tzarina, an influence which increased with the years and the difficulties.  Together they constituted a kind of unit – and that combination shows already to what an extent the personal, under  pressure of circumstances, is supplemented by the group. But first we must speak of the tzarina herself.

Maurice Paléologue, the French ambassador at Petrograd during the war, a refined psychologist for French academicians  and janitresses, offers a meticulously licked portrait of the last tzarina: “Moral restlessness, a chronic sadness,  infinite longing, intermittent ups and downs of strength, anguishing thoughts of the invisible other world, superstitions –  are not all these traits, so clearly apparent in the personality of the empress, the characteristic traits of the Russian  people?” Strange as it may seem, there is in this saccharine lie just a grain of truth. The Russian satirist Saltykov, with  some justification, called the ministers and governors from among the Baltic barons “Germans with a Russian soul.” It  is indubitable that aliens, in no way connected with the people, developed the most pure culture of the “genuine  Russian” administrator.

But why did the people repay with such open hatred a tzarina who, in the words of Paléologue, had so completely  assimilated their soul? The answer is simple. In order to justify her new situation, this German woman adopted with a kind of  cold fury all the traditions and nuances of Russian mediaevalism, the most meagre and crude of all mediaevalisms, in that very  period when the people were making mighty efforts to free themselves from it. This Hessian princess was literally possessed by  the demon of autocracy. Having risen from her rural corner to the heights of Byzantine despotism, she would not for anything take  a step down. In the orthodox religion she found a mysticism and a magic adapted to her new lot. She believed the more inflexibly  in her vocation, the more naked became the foulness of the old régime. With a strong character and a gift for dry and hard  exaltations, the tzarina supplemented the weak-willed tzar, ruling over him.

On March 17, 1916, a year before the revolution, when the tortured country was already writhing in the grip of defeat and  ruin, the tzarina wrote to her husband at military headquarters: “You must not give indulgences, a responsible ministry,  etc. ... or anything that they want. This must be your war and your peace, and the honour yours and our  fatherland’s, and not by any means the Duma’s. They have not the right to say a single word in these matters.”  This was at any rate a thoroughgoing programme. And it was in just this way that she always had the whip hand over the  continually vacillating tzar.

After Nicholas’ departure to the army in the capacity of fictitious commander-in-chief, the tzarina began openly to take  charge of internal affairs. The ministers came to her with reports as to a regent. She entered into a conspiracy with a small  camarilla against the Duma, against the ministers, against the staff-generals, against the whole world – to some extent  indeed against the tzar. On December 6, 1916, the tzarina wrote to the tzar: “... Once you have said that you want to keep  Protopopov, how does he (Premier Trepov) go against you? Bring down your first on the table. Don’t yield. Be the boss. Obey  your firm little wife and our Friend. Believe in us.” Again three days late: “You know you are right. Carry your head  high. Command Trepov to work with him ... Strike your fist on the table.” Those phrases sound as though they were made up,  but they are taken from authentic letters. Besides, you cannot make up things like that.

On December 13 the tzarina suggested to the tzar: “Anything but this responsible ministry about which everybody has gone  crazy. Everything is getting quiet and better, but people want to feel your hand. How long they have been saying to me, for whole  years, the same thing: ’Russia loves to feel the whip.’ That is their nature!” This orthodox Hessian,  with a Windsor upbringing and a Byzantine crown on her head, not only “incarnates” the Russian soul, but also  organically despises it. Their nature demands the whip – writes the Russian tzarina to the Russian tzar about the  Russian people, just two months and a half before the monarchy tips over into the abyss.

In contrast to her force of character, the intellectual force of the tzarina is not higher, but rather lower than her  husband’s. Even more than he, she craves the society of simpletons. The close and long-lasting friendship of the tzar and  tzarina with their lady-in-waiting Vyrubova gives a measure of the spiritual stature of this autocratic pair. Vyrubova has  described herself as a fool, and this is not modesty. Witte, to whom one cannot deny an accurate eye, characterised her as  “a most commonplace, stupid, Petersburg young lady, homely as a bubble in the biscuit dough.” In the society of this  person, with whom elderly officials, ambassadors and financiers obsequiously flirted, and who had just enough brains not to  forget about her own pockets, the tzar and tzarina would pass many hours, consulting her about affairs, corresponding with her  and about her. She was more influential than the State Duma, and even than the ministry.

But Vyrubova herself was only an instrument of “The Friend,” whose authority superseded all three. “... This  is my private opinion,” writes the tzarina to the tzar, “I will find out what our Friend thinks.” The  opinion of the “Friend” is not private, it decides. “... I am firm,” insists the tzarina a few weeks  later, “but listen to me, i.e. this means our Friend, and trust in everything ... I suffer for you as for a gentle  soft-hearted child – who needs guidance, but listens to bad counsellors, while a man sent by God is telling him what he  should do.”

The Friend sent by God was Gregory Rasputin.

“... The prayers and the help of our Friend – then all will be well.”

“If we did not have Him, all would have been over long ago. I am absolutely convinced of that.”

Throughout the whole reign of Nicholas and Alexandra soothsayers and hysterics were imported for the court not only from all  over Russia, but from other countries. Special official purveyors arose, who would gather around the momentary oracle, forming a  powerful Upper Chamber attached to the monarch. There was no lack of bigoted old women with the title of countess, nor of  functionaries weary of doing nothing, nor of financiers who had entire ministries in their hire. With a jealous eye on the  unchartered competition of mesmerists and sorcerers, the high priesthood of the Orthodox Church would hasten to pry their way  into the holy of holies of the intrigue. Witte called this ruling circle, against which he himself twice stubbed his toe,  “the leprous court camarilla.”

The more isolated the dynasty became, and the more unsheltered the autocrat felt, the more he needed some help from the other  world. Certain savages, in order to bring good weather, wave in the air a shingle on a string. The tzar and tzarina used shingles  for the greatest variety of purposes. In the tzar’s train there was a whole chapel full of large and small images, and all  sorts of fetiches, which were brought to bear, first against the Japanese, then against the German artillery.

The level of the court circle really had not changed much from generation to generation. Under Alexander II, called the  “Liberator,” the grand dukes had sincerely believed in house spirits and witches. Under Alexander III it was no  better, only quieter. The “leprous camarilla” had existed always, changed only its personnel and its method. Nicholas  II did not create, but inherited from his ancestors, this court atmosphere of savage mediaevalism. But the country during these  same decades had been changing, its problems growing more complex, its culture rising to a higher level. The court circle was  thus left far behind.

Although the monarchy did under compulsion make concessions to the new forces, nevertheless inwardly it completely failed to  become modernised. On the contrary it withdrew into itself. Its spirit of mediaevalism thickened under the pressure of hostility  and fear, until it acquired the character of a disgusting nightmare overhanging the country.

Towards November 1905 – that is, at the most critical moment of the first revolution – the tzar writes in his  diary: “We got acquainted with a man of God, Gregory, from the Tobolsk province.” That was Rasputin – a  Siberian peasant with a bald scar on his head, the result of a beating for horse-stealing. Put forward at an appropriate moment,  this “Man of God” soon found official helpers – or rather they found him – and thus was formed a new  ruling class which got a firm hold of the tzarina, and through her of the tzar.

From the winter of 1913-14 it was openly said in Petersburg society that all high appointments, posts and contracts depended  upon the Rasputin clique. The “Elder” himself gradually turned into a state institution. He was carefully guarded,  and no less carefully sought after by the competing ministers. Spies of the Police Department kept a diary of his life by hours,  and did not fail to report how on a visit to his home village of Pokrovsky he got into a drunken and bloody fight with his own  father on the street. On the same day that this happened – September 9, 1915 – Rasputin sent two friendly telegrams,  one to Tzarskoe Selo, to the tzarina, the other to headquarters to the tzar. In epic language the police spies registered from  day to day the revels of the Friend. “He returned today 5 o’clock in the morning completely drunk.” “On  the night of the 25-26th the actress V. spent the night with Rasputin.” “He arrived with  Princess D. (the wife of a gentleman of the bedchamber of the Tzar’s court) at the Hotel Astoria.”...And right beside  this: “Came home from Tzarskoe Selo about 11 o’clock in the evening.” “Rasputin came home with Princess  Sh- very drunk and together they went out immediately.” In the morning or evening of the following day a trip to Tzarskoe  Selo. To a sympathetic question from the spy as to why the Elder was thoughtful, the answer came: “Can’t decide  whether to convoke the Duma or not.” And then again: “He came home at 5 in the morning pretty drunk.” Thus for  months and years the melody was played on three keys: “Pretty drunk,” “Very drunk,” and “Completely  drunk.” These communications of state importance were brought together and countersigned by the general of gendarmes,  Gorbachev.

The bloom of Raputin’s influence lasted six years, the last years of the monarchy. “His life in Petrograd,”  says Prince Yussupov, who participated to some extent in that life, and afterward killed Rasputin, “became a continual  revel, the durnken debauch of a galley slave who had come into an unexpected fortune.” “I had at my  disposition,” wrote the president of the Duma, Rodzianko, “a whole mass of letters from mothers whose daughters had  been dishonoured by this insolent rake.” Nevertheless the Petrograd metropolitan, Pitirim, owed his position to Rasputin,  as also the almost illiterate Archbishop Varnava. The Procuror of the Holy Synod, Sabler, was long sustained by Rasputin; and  Premier Kokovtsev was removed at his wish, having refused to receive the “Elder.” Rasputin appointed Stürmer  President of the Council of Ministers, Protopopov Minister of the Interior, the new Procuror of the Synod, Raev, and many others.  The ambassador of the French republic, Paléologue, sought an interview with Rasputin, embraced him and cried,  “Voilà, un véritable illuminé!” hoping in this way to win the heart of the tzarina to the  cause of France. The Jew Simanovich, financial agent of the “Elder,” himself under the eye of the Secret Police as a  nightclub gambler and usurer – introduced into the Ministry of Justice through Rasputin the completely dishonest creature  Dobrovolsky.

“Keep by you the little list,” writes the tzarina to the tzar, in regard to new appointments. “Our friend  has asked that you talk all this over with Protopopov.” Two days later: “Our friend says that Stürmer may remain  a few days longer as President of the Council of Ministers.” And again: “Protopopov venerates our friend and will be  blessed.”

On one of those days when the police spies were counting up the number of bottles and women, the tzarina grieved in a letter  to the tzar: “They accuse Rasputin of kissing women, etc. Read the apostles; they kissed everybody as a form of  greeting.” This reference to the apostles would hardly convince the police spies. In another letter the tzarina goes still  farther. “During vespers I thought so much about our friend,” she writes, “how the Scribes and Pharisees are  persecuting Christ pretending that they are so perfect ... yes, in truth no man is a prophet in his own country.”

The comparison of Rasputin and Christ was customary in that circle, and by no means accidental. The alarm of the royal couple  before the menacing forces of history was too sharp to be satisfied with an impersonal God and the futile shadow of a Biblical  Christ. They needed a second coming of “the Son of Man.” In Rasputin the rejected and agonising monarchy found a  Christ in its own image.

“If there had been no Rasputin,” said Senator Tagantsev, a man of the old régime, “it would have been  necessary to invent one.” There is a good deal more in these words than their author imagined. If by the word  hooliganism we understand the extreme expression of those anti-social parasite elements at the bottom of society, we may  define Rasputinism as a crowned hooliganism at its very top.

#russia #tsar #tsarina alexandra #tsar nicholas ii #russian revolution #leon trotsky

[tirianthebrave]

Question 3: Knightly Orders

Hello everyone!!! I’ve been terribly sick all week and haven’t felt up to posting, but thank you for sticking by me, as I’ve gained 2 new followers :) One thing you should know about me is that I’m an British history nerd and I adore concepts of chivalry and knighthood. In the United Kingdom, there are several chivalric orders, such as the Most Noble Order of the Garter and the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle. In Narnia, there are the Most Noble Order of the Lion and the Noble Order of the Table. How many knights do you reckon are in each? In England, you must be made a Knight of the Order of the Garter by the Sovereign, but when Peter makes Caspian a Knight of the Order of the Lion, Caspian in turn knights Trufflehunter, Trumpkin, and Reepicheep. Knights of the Order of the Garter (and of most if not all chivalric orders) do not operate in such a way. Additionally, the wiki says Caspian’s knighthood “passes on” to RIlian, making such a knighthood seem hereditary, which is not how knighthood operates in England. So how do you think this works? Are these hereditary? Do you think there are more orders? Comment below, I always want to hear my followers’ ideas!!

#narnia #aslan #peter pevensie #susan pevensie #edmund pevensie #lucy pevensie #archenland #calormen #reepicheep #caspian

[houseofhighgarden]

Her Majesty Has Given Birth!

Rosehall Palace released a statement earlier today confirming the birth of HM The Queen’s fourth child. As many had come to expect, the child was born two months early. Royal doctors have come out and said this is most likely due to rising health concerns with HRH Crown Prince Hades. The statement is as follows;

‘Rosehall Palace is delighted to announce that Her Majesty The Queen has given birth to a healthy daughter at 4:28 AM.

Both the mother and child are in a stable condition and are doing well.’

Though the name has yet to be announced, many speculate that the daughter will be named The Princess Serene in due course.

#sims 4 royal simblr #ts4 royal simblr #royal simblr #sims 4 legacy #sims 4 royal legacy #ts4 royalty #ts4 royals #house of highgarden #Sovereign: Caspian I #queen xenia

[randominagines]

THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA MASTERLIST

OTHER MASTERLISTS

Okay guys, here is my masterlist. Requests are still open if you want to make one, or two lol. These are mostly X Fem!reader, unless otherwise is specified.

On my blog you can find a list of promts to give you ideas and also all of the rules to request me something!

If you find mistakes just correct me, I’m still learning english :c

P.s. reblog my works if you can, as a creator I'd like to reach a bigger audience of readers and this website only works through reblogging. Thank you all in advance, I love you for giving a chance to my writing!💕

💞 fluff

💢 angst

🔥 smut

HERE IS ALSO A LIST OF PROMTS TO GIVE YOU IDEAS

AND THE FANDOMS I WRITE FOR AND WHAT I WRITE

The Chronicles of Narnia imagines (in which Lucy is obviously not a child anymore but a teen):

COLLECTIVE HEADCANONS

IMAGINE: Pevensies + Caspian's reaction when you confess your feelings (x neutral reader) 💞

IMAGINE: Pevensies + Caspian’s reacting to seeing you for the first time after a long time separated (x neutral reader) 💞

IMAGINE: Pevensies + Caspian's reacting to someone flirting with you (x neutral reader)💢💞

IMAGINE: Pevensies + Caspian's reaction to the first time they wake up next to you after your first time (x neutral reader) 🔥💞

IMAGINE: Pevensies + Caspian reacting to the gossips about the fact that you might be dating someone else (x neutral reader) 💢💞

IMAGINE: Pevensies + Caspian reaction to you being insecure about the fact that they are royalty and you're not (x neutral reader) 💞

IMAGINE: Pevensies + Caspian reaction to seeing you naked for the first time (x neutral reader) 💞🔥

IMAGINE: Pevensies + Caspian reaction to you being forced to get engaged to a sovereign from another realm (x neutral reader) 💞💢

IMAGINE: Pevensies + Caspian when they first meet you (you as a sovereign from another realm) (x neutral reader) 💞

IMAGINE: Pevensies +Caspian reacting to your first intimate contact (x neutral reader) 💞

IMAGINE: Pevensies +Caspian reaction to finding you married to someone else after they went away for a long trip (x neutral reader) 💢

IMAGINE: Pevensies +Caspian reacting to you getting seriously hurt during a battle (x neutral reader) 💢

IMAGINE: Pevensies + Caspian reaction to you teasing them in public (x neutral reader)  🔥

IMAGINE: Pevensies + Caspian bringing home someone their same sex + the others teasing (X same sex reader) 💞

IMAGINE: Pevensies +Caspian acting in front of you, aka their crush (x neutral reader) 💞

EDMUND PEVENSIE

FULL MASTERLIST HERE

PRINCE CASPIAN

FULL MASTERLIST HERE

PETER PEVENSIE

FULL MASTERLIST HERE

LUCY PEVENSIE

FULL MASTERLIST HERE

#the chronicles of narnia imagine #the chronicles of narnia headcanon #Lucy pevensie imagine #lucy pevensie x you #lucy pevensie x reader #lucy pevensie x y/n #lucy pevensie x male reader #Lucy pevensie headcanon #edmund pevensie #edmund pevensie imagine #edmund pevensie x oc #edmund pevensie x reader #edmund pevensie headcanon #edmund pevensie x you #edmund pevensie x y/n #caspian x reader #caspian imagine #prince caspian imagine #prince caspian x reader #prince caspian x you #Prince Caspian X Fem!reader #prince caspian x y/n #susan pevensie headcanon #Susan pevensie imagine #susan pevensie x reader #susan pevensie x you #peter pevensie imagine #peter pevensie x reader #peter pevensie x y/n #peter pevensie x you

[newsnigeria]

Check out New Post published on Ọmọ Oòduà

New Post has been published on http://ooduarere.com/news-from-nigeria/world-news/towards-eurasia-integration/

All hands on deck: the Caspian sails towards Eurasia integration

by Pepe Escobar (cross-posted with the Asia Times by special agreement with the author)

The five states surrounding the sea – Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan – have reached difficult compromises on sovereign and exclusive rights as well as freedom of navigation

The long-awaited deal on the legal status of the Caspian Sea signed on Sunday in the Kazakh port of Aktau is a defining moment in the ongoing, massive drive towards Eurasia integration.

Up to the early 19th century, the quintessentially Eurasian body of water – a connectivity corridor between Asia and Europe over a wealth of oil and gas – was exclusive Persian property. Imperial Russia then took over the northern margin. After the break up of the USSR, the Caspian ended up being shared by five states; Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.

Very complex negotiations went on for almost two decades. Was the Caspian a sea or a lake? Should it be divided between the five states into separate, sovereign tracts or developed as a sort of condominium?

Slowly but surely, the five states reached difficult compromises on sovereign and exclusive rights; freedom of navigation; “freedom of access of all the vessels from the Caspian Sea to the world’s oceans and back” – in the words of a Kazakh diplomat; pipeline installation; and crucially, on a military level, the certitude that only armed forces from the five littoral states should be allowed in Caspian waters.

No wonder then that President Putin, in Aktau, described the deal in no uncertain terms as having “epoch-making significance.”

A sea or a lake?

So is the Caspian now a sea or a lake? It’s complicated; the convention signed in Aktau defines it as a sea, but subject to a “special legal status.”

This means the Caspian is regarded as open water, for common use – but the seabed and subsoil are divided. Still a work in progress, the devil is in the details in sorting out how the seabed is divided.

According to the draft text, published two months ago by Russia’s Kommersant, “the delimitation of the floor and mineral resources of the Caspian Sea by sector will be carried out by agreement between the neighboring and facing states taking into account generally recognized principles and legal norms.” Stanislav Pritchin, director of the Center for Central Asia and Caucasus Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences, described this as the best possible compromise, for now.

The maritime boundaries of each of the five states are already set; 15 nautical miles of sovereign waters, plus a further 10 miles (16 km) for fishing. Beyond that, it’s open water.

In Aktau, Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev frankly admitted that even to reach this basic consensus was a difficult process, and the key issue of how to share the Caspian’s underground energy wealth remains far from solved.

Two offshore oil rigs on the Caspian sea. Photo: iStock

Kazakh Foreign Minister Kairat Abdrakhmanov, quoting from the final text, emphasized that, “the methodology for establishing state base lines shall be determined in a separate agreement among all the parties according to this convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea. This is a key phrase, especially important for our Iranian partners.”

The reference to Iran matters because under the deal Tehran ended up with the smallest share of the Caspian seabed. Diplomats confirmed to Asia Times that up to the last minute President Rouhani’s team was not totally satisfied with the final terms.

That was reflected in Rouhani’s comment that the convention was “a major document” even as it did not solve for good the extremely complex dossier.

What Rouhani did emphasize was how “gratifying” was the fact his Caspian partners privilege “multilateralism and oppose unilateral actions that are developing in some countries.” That was not only a direct reference to the Caspian partners supporting the JCPOA, or Iran nuclear deal, but also a veiled reference to President Trump’s threat that “anyone doing business with Iran will not be doing business with the United States.”

Rouhani and Nazarbayev in fact held a separate meeting dedicated to increased economic cooperation, including the mutual drive to use their national currencies on trade, bypassing the US dollar.


These waters are off-limits to NATO

Iran-Kazakhstan economic cooperation is bound to follow Iran-Russia parameters. Putin and Rouhani, who enjoy a warm, close personal relationship, spent quite some time in Aktau discussing issues far beyond the Caspian, such as Syria, Gazprom investment in Iranian gas fields, and how to deal with Washington’s sanctions offensive.

Both were adamant in their praise of a key stipulation of the deal; there will be no NATO roaming the Caspian. In the words of Rouhani, “the Caspian Sea only belongs to the Caspian states.” Putin for his part confirmed Russia plans to build a new deepwater port in the Caspian by 2025.

A panoramic view of Baku, Azerbaijan from the Martyrs Lane viewpoint, near the center of Baku. Photo: iStock

In the turbulent geoeconomic realm that I defined years ago as “Pipelineistan,” the deal will allow a lot of leeway; from now on, pipelines to be laid offshore require consent only from neighboring states, rather than from all “Caspian Five”.

A major consequence is that Turkmenistan may finally be able to lay down its own 300 km-long trans-Caspian underground pipeline to Azerbaijan – a project that was never exactly encouraged by Russia. This pipeline will allow Turkmenistan to diversify from its massive exports to China by tapping the European market via Baku, in direct competition with Gazprom.

Ashgabat may finally be on its way towards a win-win; not only Baku could use more gas imports to compensate for production shortfalls, but Moscow seems inclined to restart imports of Turkmen gas.

From now on, the game to watch in the Caspian is how deeper energy/economic cooperation may go, in the spirit of true Eurasia integration, even with China not directly involved in the affairs of the sea. Chinese companies though are heavily invested in the Kazakhstan oil business and are major importers of Turkmenistan gas.

Historically, Persia always maintained a demographic, cultural and linguistic pull across most of Central Asia. Persia remains one of its organizing principles; Iran is a Central Asian as much as a Southwest Asian power.

This should be contrasted with Caspian nations still heavily influenced by Soviet atheism and Turkish shamanism. A particularly interesting case to watch will be Azerbaijan – which is part of the Western sphere of influence via pipelines such as the BTC (Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan), which crosses Georgia all the way to the Turkish Eastern Mediterranean.

This was The Art of the Deal – Central Asian-style. What’s already established is that the Caspian 2.0 is a major multilateral win for Eurasia integration.

#Azerbaijan #Iran #Kazakhstan #russia #Turkmenistan

[thefishbread]

Persia into Bukharia

The Nogays on the north-east of the Danube, the inhabitants of the Crimea, the popula-tions on each side of the Don and Wolga, the wandering Turcomans who are found from the west of Asia, along the Euxine, Caspian, and so through Persia into Bukharia, the Kirghies on the Jaxartes, are said to speak one tongue, and to have one faith. Religion is a bond of union, and language is a medium of intercourse; and, what is still more, they are all Sunnites, and recognize in the Sultan the successor of Mahomet.

Without a head indeed, to give them a formal unity, they are only one in name. Nothing is less likely than a resuscitation of the effete family of Othman; still, supposing the Ottomans driven into Asia, and a Sultan to mount the throne, such as Amurath, Mahomet, or Selim, it is not easy to set bounds to the influence the Sovereign Pontiff of Islam might exert and to the successes he might attain, in rallying round him the scattered members of a race, warlike, fanatical, one in language, in habits, and in adversity. Nay, even supposing the Turkish caliph, like the Saracenic of old, still to slumber in his seraglio, he might appoint a vicegerent, an Emir-ul-Omra, or Mayor of the Palace, such as Togrul Beg, to conquer with his authority in his stead.

Turks and Mahometans

But, supposing great men to be wanting to the Turkish race, and the despair, natural to barbarians, to rush upon them, and defeat, humiliation, and flight to be their lot; supposing the rivalries and dissensions of Pachas, in themselves arguing no disaffection to their sultan and caliph, should practically lead to the success of their too powerful foes, to the divulsion of their body politic, and the partition of their territory; should this be the distant event to which the present complications tend, then, the fiercer spirits, I suppose, would of their free will return into the desert, as a portion of the Kalmucks have done within the last hundred years. Those, however, who remained, would lead the easiest life under the protection of Russia. She already is the sovereign ruler of many barbarian populations, and, among them, Turks and Mahometans; she lets them pursue their wandering habits without molestation, satisfied with such service on their part as the interests of the empire require.

#Persia into Bukharia

[lifestyleturkey]

Persia into Bukharia

The Nogays on the north-east of the Danube, the inhabitants of the Crimea, the popula-tions on each side of the Don and Wolga, the wandering Turcomans who are found from the west of Asia, along the Euxine, Caspian, and so through Persia into Bukharia, the Kirghies on the Jaxartes, are said to speak one tongue, and to have one faith. Religion is a bond of union, and language is a medium of intercourse; and, what is still more, they are all Sunnites, and recognize in the Sultan the successor of Mahomet.

Without a head indeed, to give them a formal unity, they are only one in name. Nothing is less likely than a resuscitation of the effete family of Othman; still, supposing the Ottomans driven into Asia, and a Sultan to mount the throne, such as Amurath, Mahomet, or Selim, it is not easy to set bounds to the influence the Sovereign Pontiff of Islam might exert and to the successes he might attain, in rallying round him the scattered members of a race, warlike, fanatical, one in language, in habits, and in adversity. Nay, even supposing the Turkish caliph, like the Saracenic of old, still to slumber in his seraglio, he might appoint a vicegerent, an Emir-ul-Omra, or Mayor of the Palace, such as Togrul Beg, to conquer with his authority in his stead.

Turks and Mahometans

But, supposing great men to be wanting to the Turkish race, and the despair, natural to barbarians, to rush upon them, and defeat, humiliation, and flight to be their lot; supposing the rivalries and dissensions of Pachas, in themselves arguing no disaffection to their sultan and caliph, should practically lead to the success of their too powerful foes, to the divulsion of their body politic, and the partition of their territory; should this be the distant event to which the present complications tend, then, the fiercer spirits, I suppose, would of their free will return into the desert, as a portion of the Kalmucks have done within the last hundred years. Those, however, who remained, would lead the easiest life under the protection of Russia. She already is the sovereign ruler of many barbarian populations, and, among them, Turks and Mahometans; she lets them pursue their wandering habits without molestation, satisfied with such service on their part as the interests of the empire require.

#Persia into Bukharia