dear_of_heart | Entries tagged with retiring

Cora, perhaps, does not live happily ever after—but she certainly lives mostly content until her death, and fully in joy after that.

In the years between canon and Aslan’s Country, Cora:

· Loses much of her family when they leave for Earth after Aslan’s offer to let them go there instead of staying in a Narnia no longer under Telmarine power

· Moves to Cair Paravel, the capital city of Narnia

· Is mentored by Doctor Cornelius, Royal Tutor and good friend of any one of the good folk of Narnia

· Starts a children’s school in Caer Paravel

· After Doctor Cornelius’s passing in some twenty years and knowing her school to be well-established, moves back to Beruna

· Spends her last years as the headmistress of what used to be the Bridge School and is now the River Academy

· Dies in her mid-sixties, which is a fair age in her world, before Prince Rilian is kidnapped or the Queen killed.

After that she goes to Aslan’s Country and finds her heart‘s hopes, realized in Milliways and during canon, truly fulfilled in that land.

She does miss her friends in Milliways, but by the time canon comes it has been months since the pantry door has shown anything but the pantry beyond; and though she has checked the door in the Chipstede schoolhouse several times (earlier, rather than later—the town has been mostly abandoned and the schoolhouse is eventually lost in the tangle of the forest) she has never found it to show differently. This is one of her few refrets--that she lost it, not that she found it in the first place.

When they meet the soldiers, and those of the Telmarine army held captive, Cora feels a worry sweep her. There are so many, and she does not see Miles anywhere among them. She begins to ask men, here and there, if they have seen him.

“You must have,” she tells the man who led many men, including those of Chipstede. “He has brown hair—he’s only just turned sixteen,” and her voice breaks, slightly.

The man sighs, and looks at her. “Tall boy, was he?” he asks, softly, as Cora nods. “I thought that was the Miles you meant.” He watches her as the realization dawns and she begins to shake her head. “He has been dead this past week, miss. We do not have Narnian sorcery, to heal gut wounds.”

Cora murmurs a broken thank you, and flees back to the Narnian camp. She cannot find it in herself to be glad, even when she catches sight of the blond hair of Prince—King Caspian, unharmed and noble. Miles had been young, so young; that he died fighting for the wrong king seems an injustice to her beyond reparation.

That night, as she sits and mourns, a boy—young man—comes up to her. “Is aught amiss, my lady?” he asks, with a formality she is unused to.

She looks over, and stops a moment. He is dressed well, and with a sword at his side, and he is so very young. But she knows him. “A friend of mine is dead,” she tells him, more bluntly than she would if he wasn’t Edmund. And she takes a shaky breath, and tries to smile for his sake. “But thank you, your majesty.”

There is almost a noble grief to his bearing, at that, and he offers her a handkerchief; not the cleanest in the world, he tells her sheepishly, but she accepts it and uses it to wipe the tears off of her cheeks. They sit there together for maybe a quarter of an hour, and she takes comfort in the quiet companionship, before he is called by one of his sisters—Susan, Cora thinks. She forgets to give him back his handkerchief, and he doesn’t ask for it.

Later that night, when Doctor Cornelius finds out, he puts an arm around her shoulders and speaks kind words that make her weep. She is glad for the handkerchief, then.

When they stop for the night, Cora is lost in a sort of bemused joy. There is Queen Susan, younger than Cora knows her, and another younger girl who must be Queen Lucy. There are creatures—Talking Animals, she reminds herself sternly, and fauns, and tree-people, but she finds herself nearly too shy to speak with them, too uncertain of what to say. And then there is Him, and Cora cannot even think of how one would speak to Him though some do; he puts her in awe beyond words.

During the dancing, Cora seats herself primly beyond it, though she laughs occasionally at some of the people’s antics.

"Tired?" asks an old man…or dwarf, she’s uncertain, from beside her. "Dancing is an exhausting business."

She laughs, slightly embarrassed, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. "I...don’t, usually," she admits. "I’m Cora—of Beruna, or Chipstede, most recently."

"Doctor Cornelius," the man replies, the skin by his eyes wrinkling with a smile. "It is a pleasure, Miss Cora."

There’s music outside the window.

It’s loud, and clamorous, and joyful, and Cora—in the middle of writing an equation on the blackboard—can’t help but set down her chalk and look out, curious and wistful and somewhat nettled (how are the students supposed to concentrate with the ruckus, after all?).

There are revelers coming, and there’s not better word for it—dancing, and glad, and at the front of them…a lion?

She has to grasp the frame of the window to stay standing, heart painful with confused hope.

He stops right under the window, and he looks up at her, and her head starts shaking back and forth before she can even speak. “Oh,” she says, unhappily, “don’t, don’t. I’d love to. But I mustn’t, I must stick to my work. And…the children would be frightened, if they saw you.”

"Frightened?" comes Linus’s voice, sneering, from behind. Cora bites her lip, but she can’t look away from the Lion’s eyes. “Who’s she talking to out of the window? Let’s tell the inspector she talks to people out of the window when she ought to be teaching us.”

They boys come crowding, and push her out of the way—but there’s a ululating cry, and Cora isn’t quite sure what’s happening as the boys shriek and flee and she’s left there staring down at him.

“Now, Dear Heart,” says the lion (Aslan, her mind tells her, still not utterly believing), and she leaps down to join them.

Two weeks of civil war, with the town slowly collapsing inwards as the “easy battle” does not cease. Her students grow nastier with each passing day—either trying to shield themselves from the rest of the town’s pain, or taking advantage of it. She can no longer tell. Cora can feel her heart hurting. She does not have the strength necessary to endure war.

When she finds herself in the woods, that afternoon, she begs whoever she is listening to just let it stop. That someone wins—Caspian, her sensible side reminds her, you want Caspian to win—but ever more she doesn’t care who does. Just that the death will stop; even if her people win it will be a reprieve.

As long as the war is finished.

Three days pass, and a swell of new soldiers come into town. They call all young men between sixteen and thirty to be foot soldiers, claiming that they need men to fight this "easy war" against the rebels they say Caspian is gathering. They offer to pay more money than most of the young men, farmers and apprentices, expect to see in a year.

Cora can’t help but wish that this had all happened three, four months ago—back when Miles (oh, young Miles the dreamer, who thought only of glory and defending his country against invaders—he had been pinning his dreams on the north against the giants, but this opportunity is much closer on hand) would not be accepted into their band.

He visits hurriedly, to apologize for missing the lesson they were to going to have that day and to say goodbye.

She grasps his shoulder, and chokes back tears.

“Don’t worry, Miss Cora,” he says, awkwardly. “I’ll take care of myself.”

She forces a smile, says “Of course you will,” and lets him go.

***

Not much later, the Inspector’s sister-in-law (a tall, lean woman, with a hungry air about her) finally speaks out loud what near the whole town has been muttering.

Cora is with the rest of the women, washing clothes by the side of the river.

“How ungrateful that wretched little boy is, when his uncle took care of him as a son.”

There is a murmur of agreement, and Cora feels the protective anger well up in her. “And what need does he have now for the prince, with a son of his own?”

After that, life gets worse.

Cora is worried.

Not just worried, but jittery—anxious. She has trouble paying attention to her ever-restless students, to the mathematics she’s teaching them, as her eyes keep wandering to the window.

The messenger arrived the night before, bringing the news of the new heir, and advising the residents to report any sighting of a young, blond stranger to the small group of soldiers now billeted in the town—they didn’t say why they were on the lookout for him, or who he was, but they didn’t have to.

The prince had run away.

Things tended to happen, to those ill-favored by the king.

She knows (and this is the only thing that comforts her), that he lives—she’s met him, some years older, in Milliways, hasn’t she?

But life in the wild could do any sort of harm to a young boy, and still leave him alive.

She finds herself drawn to the edges of the forest, walking deeper as the days wear on, pleading aloud with someone—maybe the forest spirits, maybe Bacchus of lore, maybe Him—that young Caspian will be protected.