Week IX- October 1st, 1940- Autumn Celebration and Rosh Hashanah
Peter: "I still remember our first Narnian autumn festival. Aslan was there to join us. Mrs. Beaver of course made her famous glorious and sticky marmalade roll. Kayla made her grandmother's recipe for challah bread. The dwarves roasted a pig, and the fauns roasted a lot of chicken. It was our first autumn hunt, the very first hunt when we caught a glimpse of the White Stag. Kayla was pessimistic about the animal then, and she was obviously pessimistic about it fourteen years later. And I guess she had every right to be. Anyways, we did catch a few good deer to roast, but we still had our eyes on the White Stag. Do I remember the wishes I wanted him to grant? Hardly. The only wish I remember wanting him to grant was a little childish and pointless, probably even Aslan thought so, but I'm not sure. The wish I wanted to be granted was I wanted my birth parents there with us, even if it was just for a day. Besides Aslan, I'm the one with the most memories of them. I remember what they look like, but I hardly remember their attributes. All I know about that is what I'm told."
Ivar: "We chased that White Stag all the way to the northern border. We saw him go over the border, to the land that none of us could go into, especially me. I felt such a conviction to just place my hand on the other side. Ettinsmoor and the Wild Lands of the North was my home, well, just my childhood home, for a portion of it. My wish for the White Stag was that he could turn back time, and that none of the things that happened would have happened. But would we have learned anything? The six of us had something to gain by our parents being gone, and not just kingdoms. We learned a lot along the way. I do have to wonder what made Edmund the way he was before the White Witch. Was he like that during his childhood here? Or was that just something the war in this world did to him? I hope it's the latter. I barely remember what my childhood in Ettinsmoor was like. I remember my parent's faces. But what we all wouldn't give to remember more than their looks. Why can't our memories just come back in full, even though we're not in Narnia anymore."
Susan: "Watching Kayla argue with the rest of us over the stag is something our subjects just had to get a kick out of. But who knew that she was right? As she says, she's never wrong. But watching the people of Narnia just celebrate the changing of leaves, the bare trees, the start of the cooler air, it brought our minds away from the duties of royalty. We could focus on just being us. No one expected anything from us on the celebration days, they just expected us to enjoy it. But I say anytime we got to eat Mrs. Beaver's glorious and sticky marmalade roll was a very special day indeed, and that happened quite often during our reign. Emissaries from other kingdoms often came to our autumn festival, most often from Archenland. King Lune's wife was absolutely lovely indeed. I think of all of us, Lucy enjoyed her company the most. It was that autumn that they brought their children Cor and Corin into Narnia to be blessed by the old centaur. And not long after that, Cor went missing. And then King Lune's wife died."
Kayla: "That first autumn celebration also took place on Rosh Hashanah. I took it upon myself that morning to go down to the beach and blow the shofar. I went down to the kitchen and made my grandmother's exceptionally sweet challah bread. I wonder if my Jewish customs will mean anything to the people of Terebinthia, if I ever get to go back. I lit candles all over Cair Paravel. I even rode down to Dancing Lawn and made a ring of candles around the barrier of the lawn. I made sure the flames wouldn't burn my precious dancing trees. Of my titles, my title of Lady Protector of Narnia, Baroness of Dancing Lawn, Guardian of the dancing trees and the dryads is definitely my most favourite title. Even though I am the Queen of Terebinthia, that title being the most important, my Narnian title just means the most to me. I guess because it shows that even with my family gone, I still have a family. Being the Pevensie's blood aunt and cousin is beside the point. I see them as siblings, not my nieces, nephews, and cousins. And the whole thing about the White Stag, still, what was the point of a deer who could grant wishes?"
Edmund: "Don't get me wrong, I loved to be in the western lands all year long, and I would have lived there all year long if the four children of Eadbhárd and Alainnabh weren't required to be at Cair Paravel all year long. To watch the ivy vines around the lamppost turn to their autumn colours every year was a beautiful sight. And even though it was a sign that the winter months were coming, it was also a reminder that the White Witch no longer had us under a constant winter. Especially our first autumn celebration. Kayla's story for that night was the story of the Exodus. She had every right to tell it. She's going to save a portion of that story for the Passover celebration. To hear of the Israelites not listening to Moses whenever he said just a little bit longer, you have to trust me, made me think of how much longer I had to listen to Peter on our first day home. What if I had the faith like Moses did? Instead, I whined and complained over truthfully nothing. Now I'll complain about wanting to go back home."
Lucy: "Peter, Susan, Edmund, Ivar, and even Kayla all got to see the inland transformation from the warm months to the cold months. Kayla only did whenever she was at Dancing Lawn, which was a lot. But to see the warm months change to the cold months happen on the ocean, it's a very slow change. It's a change that you have to feel rather than see. Especially in Narnia. The sea nymphs, the water sprites, the mermaids, the sharks, the dolphins, the whales, and the rest of the ocean creatures. They're in the same waters in Narnia as they are here. If we told the children of this world that we got to swim with sharks, and they didn't even try to bite us once, we would definitely be seen as liars. But with five of us, possibly even all six of us having the blood of Calypso, the spirit of the sea flowing through us, of course, the sharks would listen to us. At least Kayla had already had her ascensions as the Triple Goddess and Calypso both. We know our supernatural abilities stay with us even in this world, but just how many of them?"