Disclaimer: The Chronicles of Narnia is the intellectual property of C. S. Lewis and his estate. No money is being made from this story, and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Author's Note: The Tarkheena Visareth is borrowed from Heliopause's wonderful fic, "The Atrementus Collection: Calormene Proverbs: a handbook for travelers", which you can find over on AO3. Go read it!

Still book canon only.

Summary: Upon receiving formal notice of the planned Great Council session, Cor and Aravis steal an evening to themselves... for planning and for other things.

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Chapter 11: Close Counsel
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In one sense, nothing about this visit to Narnia was new. The people Cor spoke and ate and danced with were old friends (or at least old acquaintances), and he picked up the threads of previous conversations the same as he had every few months for the past eight years. Even the endless meetings were somewhat familiar, since he'd begun accompanying Father on visits to the various mountain and island kingdoms after his eighteenth birthday.

But in another sense everything was strange, the familiar wrenched into new and uncomfortable shapes, because this time he was bargaining for himself rather simply attempting to make a friendly impression and thereby win Archenland some nebulous goodwill. He had to see his friends with new eyes, as potential allies in a struggle of ideas rather than swords.

It was exhausting.

It was also exhilarating, which he hadn't expected.

"I feel like I ought to feel bad about enjoying all this," he said to Aravis as they lay together in their borrowed bed, lit only by the moon and the faint, guttering refraction of a bonfire on the shoreline below. "We're not playing a game. These are our lives, and any arrangements we make will shape the kind of king I'm able to be when- well, many years from now, Aslan forfend."

"The King of Archenland, may he live forever," Aravis said dryly.

Cor bit lightly at the back of her neck, then brushed a kiss over her skin, careful not to scrape her with the still-rough hairs of his beard. She laughed and pulled his arms more closely around her, where he could feel her breath as it moved within her lungs: another thing both familiar and strange, to feel he knew her, and she knew him, more truly than anyone else in the world.

"It makes me wonder if I should have started doing this years ago, or whether Father should have pushed me into it," he continued. "So many things might be different."

"I believe Aslan would say, nobody is ever told what might have happened," Aravis said. "And on that note, let us speak of practical things. It's all very well to open personal relations with foreign lands, but Galma, Sarovence, and the others are worries for the future. At present, we need to return to Archenland to attend the Great Council session your father has called in twelve days' time, and swing the gathered Archen notables to confirm you as your father's heir now instead of letting the issue hang as potential blackmail for another five years. They don't need to like me so long as they respect you."

Cor sighed, and tipped his head forward to press his nose against the back of Aravis's ear, burying his face in her thick hair, still scented with traces of the perfume he had so carefully imported from Calavar for her. "Narnia's support should sway a handful, perhaps as many as ten or twelve. The Beasts and Beings in particular should find that convincing. Of course, they mostly didn't need convincing in the first place."

"We'll have to balance it carefully, though, lest we paint you Peridan's puppet," Aravis said. "Enough show to impress, not enough to threaten. I spoke with Lady Iris this evening while you were failing to keep up with those Fauns and Naiads, and she's agreed to accompany the Narnian diplomatic party when we return to Anvard."

Cor weighed the likely impact in his mind - the woman who was Queen of Narnia in all but name, pledging her tacit support to another not-quite-queen - then hummed agreement. "That's certainly more efficient than dragging a dozen notables along, and of course she won't upset the idiots who still see anyone other than humans as a potential agent for the Witch and the Wild. But a dozen changed minds still leaves us with the Council split nearly even, and a bare majority is no fit base on which to build a stable reign. We need at least two thirds, though three quarters would be better, unless we want to spend decades trying to establish our authority or putting down conspiracies to enthrone Corin in my place."

Aravis snorted. "As if Corin would stand for that."

"But he looks like such an attractive figurehead if you don't know how much he cares," Cor said. "And you know as well as I do that rebellions don't necessarily need their supposed leaders to agree to that role. There are reasons so many Tisrocs' male relatives die young."

"Let us attempt to avoid that outcome," Aravis said firmly. "If the promised freedom of the North is to have any meaning, we must make Archenland better than the country we left, or on what basis can we justify our choice to turn against the land and people who shaped us?"

"You say that as if either of us ever had any intention of killing Corin," Cor said, and kissed the nape of Aravis's neck to stop himself from laughing at her serious tone and sparking her to indignation. Aravis was rarely more beautiful than when she threw herself into an argument, her eyes bright with passion and her smile like a blade poised to cut the unwary, but as much as he enjoyed making up after a quarrel, such distractions were best saved until they had resolved on a course of action.

"I might have entertained that thought once or twice," she grumbled, and twisted within his arms to face him, shifting her hands from their possessive clasp over his own to an equally possessive grip on his shoulder and thigh. "But Corin aside, are we more likely to win hearts if we say we're simply betrothed in a Calormene style and would need a Northern wedding to make us truly married, or if we insist our marriage is valid regardless of whose customs we followed when we made our pledge and cast that as an example of you keeping your word once given?"

Cor sighed. "I don't know. I don't want to deny you. And I don't think saying betrothal rather than marriage will do anything to soften a reaction based on reflexive hatred and fear. But I don't think reminding people that we're both as much Calormene as Archen will help either."

Aravis matched his sigh. "True, alas."

They lay in silence for a time, while the thin light of the waning moon shifted slowly across their sheets and skin. Cor remembered the nights of their long escape from Calormen, when they had lain similarly close (though separated by clothes) and sometimes similarly sleepless, lashed by formless worry for the future. What might have happened if they had slipped through Tashbaan unhindered, swung inland toward the Great Oasis and its well-traveled caravan routes, and then through Sarovence to Narnia by way of Archenland's far northwest corner? What place might they have found for themselves in a Narnia disturbed by Rabadash's raid and Archenland's travails thereafter?

Nothing nearly so complicated as this, he thought.

But might-have-been was not a wise land to linger in. Better far to think of is, and was, and may-yet-be. All things might still turn their way, with a bit of luck and planning.

And on that note...

"Suppose we win," Cor murmured to Aravis. "Not merely a compromise, but everything we want. What would that be?"

She hummed to herself, a low pitch in the back of her throat, only audible because they were so close that her lashes brushed light as bee wings against his own cheek when she closed or opened her eyes. "You confirmed as crown prince, with those who wish a regency revealed as scheming fools. Our marriage recognized so the Council cannot turn on you later because of me. No disapproval for the pieces of Calormen we retain. A chance to graft some of those pieces onto Archenland where the might do most good. An end to piracy and the slave trade in the coastal islands. Reconciliation with my father. At least two children. And an end to the ruinous import tariffs on coffee. I am very tired of tea."

Cor smiled into her hair. "Why not aim high? Listen," he added when she drew breath to restate their list of practical reasons for caution. "What if we start with our marriage rather than my confirmation? Do you remember what Peridan said last week? The kings and queens of Narnia welcomed you to the North with no reservations. That doesn't carry enough weight to overcome generations of hatred and fear, but Aslan himself welcomed you and judged you worthy of his attention."

He stroked one hand down the sweep of her back, fingers spanning the grooves and ridges of the claw tracks that still scarred her skin. "Symbols have power that logic often doesn't. Do you remember telling me the story of Visareth Tarkheena, who disarmed and dispersed a riot with only her courage and a pair of proverbs? We can't use her exact methods, but the principle is sound. If we can make the truth into a sword, we might swing nearly the whole Council to your side - and if they accept you, all the other reasons for not confirming me will look grubby and foolish. And so we win."

"For an afternoon," Aravis said. "Then they will call it a trick, say their votes were coerced, and look for more reasons to mistrust us."

"Or they might see that the sky doesn't fall simply because a Calormene Tarkheena is married to the heir apparent of Archenland. And from there, all things become possible." Cor paused, then added, "Perhaps not the coffee tariffs."

Aravis tightened her hands, digging her nails into his flesh until the pressure rode the fine edge between pleasure and pain. "I insist upon the coffee tariffs. In fact, I may divorce you unless you choose to help me rescind them." She rolled, suddenly, until Cor was flat on his back and she settled astride his hips, clothed only in moonlight and shadow. "As for the rest, tell me your thoughts and together we shall see what we can forge from that raw metal."

"And after that?"

"Oh, after that, all things become possible," Aravis echoed, and swallowed his breath with her lips.

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AN: Thanks for reading, and please review! I appreciate all comments, but I'm particularly interested in knowing what parts of the story worked for you, what parts didn't, and why.