AN: Yep. I'm jumping on the random word/drabble bandwagon. Some of these I am relatively pleased with, and others are driving me nuts. Constructive criticism is greatly welcomed. I still don't own anything, and trying to track down the random American in Africa to try and get money out of me would probably cost more than it is worth.
Blurb: It never had seemed quite right to Susan that an entire life could be summed up by a blurb in the morning paper. Now that the names listed there had once made up her whole world, it seemed as if nothing could be more wrong.
Function: "Just think of it as a state function." Edmund straightened his brother's tie, silently thanking the Lion that the end of term dance was isolated to the upper form students. "The ambassador from Archenland is here with his daughters, and Susan has thrown another party." "Have you heard them giggle, Ed?" Peter threw his best royally frustrated look at his younger brother, knowing that the thirteen year old understood instinctively. "A pack of female squirrels couldn't make so much noise."
Normality: When the Pevensies came back from Narnia the first time, Digory enjoyed a rare sense that his life might be normal, and, as he settled in to listen to their story, not at all surprised to hear of nyads and fauns and talking animals, he had feeling that it wouldn't be the last time these children gave him that pleasure.
Confidentiality: "I won't put the fact that you sucked your paw today in the annals," Caspian leaned in close enough to whisper in the ear of the Bulgy Bear, feeling his form dwarfed by the size of the well meaning animal, "if you wont tell anyone that I was so scared that I'm still shaking."
Electric: "No. It isn't like that at all." Eustace regretted ever trying to explain electricity to such a "barbaric" being, when his comparison to bottled lightening earned him a seemingly endless rant by the valiant mouse, decrying the cruelty of a civilization that could ever deign to hold captive a creature so magnificent and free.
Fume: The worst thing about England, Pole had complained to Eustace, wasn't the colors or the bullies, but the smells. Narnian air was wonderfully free of gasoline fumes and acrid factory smoke. Even the deepest underground cavern didn't stifle one's lungs the way that city air could. "I feel like my nose wants to curl up and crawl right off my face!" Eustace, of course, made off as if she were loony, but Pole was rather sure that, not so deep down, the boy agreed.
Bell: Polly was the only one who ever understood why Digory's worst nightmares always began with the clear ringing of a tiny bell and ended with a flash of cherry red lips stained by the juice of a magical apple. For that reason, when he relayed the Pevensie children's story to her, her face blanched nearly as white as his own at the thought that another child had nearly paid for their mistake with his life blood. Afterwards, though, though his dreams still began with a hauntingly pure note, they always ended with a flash of golden fur.
Dinner: "Did it always taste like this?" Edmund poked at the decidedly uninspired dish in front of him, trying not to think of the glorious flavors and textures of Narnian cuisine. "Or, is the Mecready trying to starve us?" "Don't complain, Ed." Susan didn't quite manage to sound satisfied with her own answer. "Just eat your carrots." "Carrots?" Lucy managed one of the smiles that had disarmed so many, never having placed much importance on food, so long as she could chew and digest it. "Can you imagine what the moles and the dryads would say if we called these carrots?"
Dive: Susan's headfirst dive into all things British and American may have thrown some of the others for a loop, but Peter, as he watched the comfort his parents found in their one "normal" child, realized that he understood perfectly.
Mileage: It was rather unfortunate, Eustace thought, somewhere between the wetness of the marshes and the dry stones of the Northern Mountains, that one couldn't carry an extra set of feet along on adventures the same way one could put a spare tyre in the boot of a car.
Banning: Lucy had considered banning parties that started past ten in the evening, but, when she realized how very many of their subjects were nocturnal, or seemed to thrive on hardly any sleep at all, she began to enjoy being up just long enough to see the sun paint the sky in brilliant shades of red and gold as it bid good morn' to the moon. There was something decidedly delightful about going to sleep with Aslan's colors to stir her dreams.
Definition: "Do you understand," Edmund threw himself down in a huff, not caring which of his siblings were or were not listening to his tirade, "that the red squirrels do not have definitions for any of their words? Nothing means anything, but everything means exactly what it means, in the way that they intend it to in that moment, and none of it translates into English."
Orient: As a girl, Susan had always been fascinated by the mystery of the Orient, a land of silks and vibrant colors, separated from England by a vast sea of sand and sun. Her mother never did discover why, after her children returned, her beautiful daughter would shudder at the thought of turbaned men armed with brightly curved scimitars. What sort of British housewife, after all, could imagine the temptation and betrayal that had faced her children under just such a merciless sun.
Top: The top of the tallest tower had always been Corin's domain, and he had intended to keep it that way, but, when the other boy found him there, not two weeks after moving into the castle, he came to realize that it might not be so easy to keep secrets from Cor after all.
Herd: Polly always wondered what had become of the guinea pigs and whether, perhaps, even now, there might be a herd of the small creatures in the wood between the worlds, only sleeping and eating and listening to the trees grow. In fact, she rather intended to ask Eustace about it if he and Jill really did go back to Narnia by way of the rings. Imagine her surprise when, just behind Reepacheep and countless others whose names she had heard time and time again, she caught a glimpse of brown fur and the glint of a yellow ring.
Stable: As they waited for their sister in Aslan's country, although nothing there could be quite defined as waiting, Edmund couldn't help but think that Susan was rather a lot like Puzzle's stable, a shell that held so much more on the inside than could ever be imagined by merely looking at it.
Tell: "Tell me that Aslan knows what he's doing." Rillian found himself addressing the stars, the sleeping forms of Pearl and the two young humans warm at his back. "Two children are not enough to hold back the sand sea of Calormene." "Peace." The bright lights who had, for generations, addressed none but the centaurs, seemed to whisper to him now, when the world was darker than he had ever imagined it. "Peace. Dawn will come."
Pilot: Polly never grasped why Aslan neglected to put things like gryphons and flying horses here in our world, but, when she heard the news report of the first downed British pilot, she understood.
Continuity: Peter had always wondered what happened to the heroes in between "The End" and the start of their next adventure. Now, as he woke up stiff and sore, shielded by the protective wall of his sisters' sleeping forms, arm draped over his little brother, he realized that he was about to find out.
Frank: "Without looking," the command had come in Peter's clear, flowing script, "the worth of the frank compared to the British pound and the American dollar. Make sure the figures are as accurate as feasibly possible." Edmund closed his return letter, circling the figures he had scrawled in the lower corner and tucking it into his things where Eustace would be the least likely to find it, strangely comforted that Peter had not abandoned the game they had played so often, back when such things were necessary.
Wife: "I am never getting married." Pole shuddered a little at the thought, easily rebuffing Eustace's critique of her cooking. "So, it really doesn't matter, does it?" "Mum says that all girls want to get married once they're mature enough." He tried his best to look suitably haughty, but the memory of lion's claws tearing into his flesh brought him up short, and Eustace found himself wondering how it would be to never become old enough to marry.
Mankind: Susan's beau didn't notice her flinch the first time he said the word, or the second, or the twenty-fifth, for that matter, didn't hear her silent correction, "and womankind," or the slight pause as she forced herself to remember that, here, no one cared about the opinion of the trees and animals, no one would stop to ask a dryad how she felt about the cargo being hauled up and down her river, at least, not like they had at home.
Pregnancy: Aravis had never much thought about trees being pregnant, not, at least, until their visit to Narnia when she heard a group of dryad girls tittering about the aspen's new saplings and speculating over who the pollination partner may have been.
Paranoia: It was funny, Jill thought, that a paranoid person could come off completely sane in Narnia. Here, everything really was watching you, and the trees and rivers were perfectly capable of whispering your secrets to the wind.
Deck: Susan had finally given up on trying to explain the concept of a deck to Mrs. Beaver, relegating it to the growing list of things that dam dwelling animals would never understand about a British country home. After a few years in Narnia, she forgot why it was that it had seemed so important to her in the first place.
Paraphrase: "How is one meant to transcribe a letter for a nyad?" The Gentle Queen took her seat with a decidedly un-queenly flounce, rubbing ink stained fingers against her skirt. "Before I can begin to feel that I've made headway on one sentence, they've already begun to babble about something else entirely!" "Sister mine," The king most familiar with the water maidens' decidedly verbose and dramatic linguistic tendencies fixed her in his dark gaze, every inch of him as exasperated as only a fifteen year old could manage, "for all of our sakes, just wait until the end, then paraphrase."
Import: "Bother it all." Lucy rubbed the last item off her list impatiently, marring a perfectly neat piece of paper with an unsightly grey smudge.
"British Imports:
Rice
Coffee
Chocolate
Tashbani spices"
Susan would cluck, and the teacher would shake her head, muttering something about "neatness" and "valuable resources," but, with classes in England as dull as they were, it really couldn't be helped. One's mind simply would wander.
Downstairs: As he stumbled out of bed in the grey light of an early dawn his first morning in the castle, it occurred to Cor that he ought to have asked Aravis exactly which set of stairs they were supposed to meet at the bottom of.
Poisoning: Something about dropping bombs on innocent people had never sat right with Edmund. Before Narnia, he would simply become angry every time that he heard the muffled explosions and the clatter of debris that meant another home had been destroyed, the passion building up inside of him until he thought he might burst. Now, hearing of the A-bomb that had been dropped on Japan, listening to hushed adult whispers of radiation poisoning, he thought he would be sick.
Spitting: After a hundred years of winter, no one thought to warn Peter that mermaids spit like angry camels when riled, and a face full of seawater is not exactly a pleasant way to end a conversation.
Escape: "Look sick." Lucy's sharp elbow jabbed into his side. "—but my dear brother really ought to be taken home and forced to rest." Edmund caught the end of Susan's statement and just barely managed to produce a cough of suitable length and volume to cut through the inevitable protests of their feline subjects.
"Better to squelch rumors in the morning than go deaf from cats singing in the night." Lucy did her best Peter impression once they were a decent distance from any sharp eared hosts, barely stifling her giggles. "Well done, you two. That was brilliant."
Suspicion: "Why do I have a sinking suspicion," Eustace took in the Marshwiggle with the single practiced glance of a British schoolboy, "that this adventure is about to get much duller and much more interesting, both at the same time?"
Disorder: "Please, brother mine," Susan nearly brushed his ear with her brightly painted lips, so close that he could feel the breath hitch in her lungs, "for the kids' sake, pretend you don't understand." "It's been years since they were kids, Su." He caught her face in his hands, memorizing it, superimposing it over that of their gentle queen. "But, it won't be hard. Steady beau already sounds like the Latin for some sort of social disorder." "It's French." She rolled her eyes, mascara still glinting wetly. "Your ear for languages would explain why you never could understand the mongeese."