Disclaimer: I don't own Narnia, C.S. Lewis's Stepson does. All I own are Petra, Sandai and Annis.
Chapter 12
On Their Way
After breakfast, they went down to the courtyard, where the horses were ready to go. As Petra had informed them that she had absolutely NO experience with horse riding, a talking horse had volunteered to save them the time that would be necessary to teach Petra how to ride a dumb horse. She was a small, brown mare named Swifthoof who claimed ancestry of Bree or Hwin. She seemed unsure of which, as every time you asked her, it was the other. She didn't talk much.
They were traveling in the direction from which they had last received reports of this dragon. Petra didn't say anything as she and Swifthoof followed Rilian, but she recognized the paths they were taking to be the same ones that Sandai – I mean, Lady Daisania – and Annis had used to bring her to Cair Paravel, although they were traveling quite a bit faster as they were on horseback. She wasn't all that familiar with the lay of the land, and therefore didn't know that that would mean anything. She hoped that it didn't.
She also hoped that the fact that they never passed Lady Daisania and Annis didn't mean anything. Maybe they had simply used different trails so that they wouldn't be followed?
"What is life like in your world?" Rilian asked Petra for conversation to make the trip seem less tedious. "I have always been curious, but was unable to satisfy my curiosity while Eustace and Jill were here, as there was no time."
"It's different from Narnia," said Petra. "And the part of it I know is very different from what Eustace and Jill knew. It's been sixty years or so, and they've been some years of rather … radical change."
"What do you mean?" queried Rilian.
"Well," said Petra. "For instance, we've developed more technology –."
"Technology?" interrupted Rilian.
Petra pursed her lips while she searched her brain for a way to explain technology. "If I tried to explain it to you," she finally said, "you would think it some sort of magic – but it isn't magic. Maybe a sort of replacement for magic? I don't know. We use something called electricity, which works best with special metals, and we make it do stuff for us – like lighting up rooms, sending messages, making pictures out of light – stuff like that. They didn't have very much technology in our world as Jill and Eustace knew it."
"It sounds most wondrous," said Rilian.
"It is, isn't it," said Petra, as if the thought had just occurred to her, which it had. "We're so used to it, though, we fail to take notice of it. Another difference is that girls are allowed to wear pants."
"I noticed that you were wearing them when you arrived the other day," said Rilian.
"Yes," said Petra. "We still wear dresses – or at least most of us do – just not every day. We mostly wear them when it's a fancy occasion or something like that. And church. Almost all women wears dresses to church."
"And what, may I ask, is church?" asked Rilian.
"Church is where we gather to worship, and praise, and learn about Jesus – which is what we call Aslan in our world," said Petra. "We usually go on Sunday mornings and evenings, and often on Wednesday evenings, and sometimes we go other days of the week."
"Aslan is in your world, too?" asked Rilian.
"Yes," said Petra. "And he instructed King Edmund and Queen Lucy to find him there before he sent them back to their world for the last time. They did. I don't know how long it took them, but I'm sure it didn't take them very long. When you search for Him, He never hides himself from you."
"I am glad to –," Rilian was about to say, but was suddenly cut short but a noise from the branches of the woods about them.
It was a girlish voice saying these words in an oddly cheerful manor, as it was accompanied by the sound of snapping branches and twigs, "LOOK OUT BELOW!"
Author's Note: And there you go for Chapter 12. Please leave a review so we can find out who's falling!
