A Royal Introduction
Master Tumnus came through the Wood carrying parcels and an umbrella. But where did the Narnian fauns get umbrellas from?
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King Frank of Narnia stopped in surprise at the door of the Royal Nursery. Prince David in his wicker playpen was banging two blocks together very loudly. That wasn't unusual or surprising. Princess Margaret in her cot was attempting to rival her brother's noise by playing a humming tune on her toes. That wasn't unusual or surprising either.
What was unusual and surprising was Queen Helen. She was sitting on the rug in the middle of the nursery floor, surrounded by wooden sticks and bits of cloth.
"Nellie?" said the King uncertainly.
The Queen looked up. "I've had in and dried out four wet fauns just this morning," she said, waving a long triangular piece of cloth towards the window, where steady autumn rain poured down in sheets. "I know they're basically waterproof, but they get so soggy-looking and forlorn, I just have to ask them in – and then they go out to go home and get wet all over again! What they need-" she waved one hand round at the material surrounding her "-is an umbrella! A proper folding umbrella!"
"An umbrella?" King Frank echoed.
He didn't mean to say it as a criticism, but the Queen gave him a decidedly sharp look. "If Robinson Crusoe could make an umbrella that opened and shut, I don't see why I can't too!"
"Of course you can!" The King sat down on the rug too. "I wasn't being critical. I was just – surprised at such a good idea. And wondering if Man Friday could help in any way?"
The Queen leaned over the pieces of prototype umbrellas and kissed him on the cheek. "You're not Man Friday. You're not even Robinson Crusoe. I don't remember him riding out in splendid battle array to fight the enemies of his country. He hid when the cannibals came."
King Frank shook his head at this praise. "He hadn't a commission from Aslan, or a wife and three children to defend."
"Two," the Queen corrected.
"Three," said her husband stubbornly, and the Queen blushed and leaned over the umbrella pieces again.
"I used to watch all the fine ladies and bankers, when I came out to your stand in wet weather, and wish you could have an umbrella like theirs, up on that cab box," she said, straightening up after a moment.
"It would have frightened old Strawberry beyond anything-"
"And you'd have flown away, going at a trot!" the Queen giggled back.
"Now then..." King Frank teased. "I thought I did just that, one day."
Queen Helen picked up a handful of thin dowels and pointed them at him. "Do you remember the various gruesome murders that used to be written up in the papers, committed by-"
"-irate women brandishing umbrellas? Of course I do!" King Frank seized on the ends of the dowels and winked. "Regicide would be a bad example for the two visible children, your Majesty. Let your humble husband help with the umbrella making instead."
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The Chief among the Fauns received the first Royal Umbrella with immense dignity during a special ceremony. He could never be persuaded to carry a different one, even though the Queen insisted the ones the other fauns quickly made in imitation were much better: they tended to open smoothly, instead of going up with a jerk that threatened to put by-standers' eyes out.
The next summer, the fashion was adopted by the dryads as well, for sun-shades rather than rain protection. But they brought them all back, with apologies, at Princess Katharine's Naming Ceremony. After a rain shower, umbrellas in their care apparently sprouted leaves and branches, which made putting them down rather inconvenient.
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A/N: Aye, terrible fluff ;) But in case anyone doubts the accuracy of this story, as the owner of a traditional Japanese wood-and-rice-paper parasol, I can assure you all that umbrellas really can be made by hand.
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