AIN is back! Longer/serious fics will be posted individually like last year. I'm currently gearing up for a cross-country road trip to attend a wedding, so there will probably be a few sentence fics. Extended author's notes on any of FATLU's chapters can be found at: (link to be added if needed)

This year I'm planning to primarily focus on minor characters. For FATLU purposes, minor characters are those that don't have many stories in the FFN character list, either because they just aren't selected often, or because they aren't on the list at all.

I don't know how much of this first one I would actually try working into my headcanon, but it's what I came up with.

Prompt: Tell of a time when music changed things in Narnia—either because it changed hearts or because it held magic.

The music came slowly, softly, into his awareness, stealing into existence by degrees, so quietly that for a time he was unsure if he was imagining things. Then he realized abruptly that he was aware, and in doing so realized as well that for a great period of time, he had not been thus. All about him was black, like a night without a star, and he could not perceive any of his surroundings.

Had he fallen asleep? He supposed he had been tired enough. They had barely made it to the island, driven by the storm for seven days after losing Caliraz.

You did not lose him, said part of his mind. You abandoned him.

He shied away from the thought, as he had done before. How could they have found him in such suffocating darkness? With the entire ship's crew afflicted by terrors and the lights near gone? No. Caliraz, lord of the house of Rhoop, had cast himself from the ship in fright, and they could not stop to rescue him. They had had all they could do to escape that place themselves.

And yet...

He had told himself this time after time as they battled the sky's rage, and yet he could not entirely shake off the fear that perhaps the storm had been a punishment. He had closed his mind to the idea, struggled against it, and perhaps it was that desire...

The music grew stronger, and the darkness around him lightened a shade.

Ah, yes. It came back to him more clearly now, in this strange half-state of awareness. They had found a marvelous feast laid out with no one to eat it. The crew had fallen to immediately, and they had nearly followed suit, except that Ellion had suggested that they cease their journey here at the table of plenty. Baras had disagreed, saying they should sail home instead.

He himself had always been the most ambitious of them, and that was partly to blame. But it was that desire to avoid thinking of Caliraz that had tipped the scales. He argued that they should sail further east, and with the three of them all at odds, a quarrel ensued.

Impatient, guilty, desiring to end this argument in his favor, he had seen a knife on the table and taken hold of it—and there his recollection ended.

The music grew a little louder. and seemed to shape itself into a voiceless question. Why did you so?

He was never sure after if he had spoken aloud. "I was angry."

Why were you so?

He squirmed. He knew, but he did not wish to say it. If there was a silver lining to the storm, it was that it had often kept him blessedly distracted from his guilt, and he had wished to throw himself into a new distraction. He had been angry with himself for leaving Caliraz and then in turn angry at himself for feeling guilty. But he had suppressed it, until his fellow lords refused to agree with him, and then all that passion had surged to the front.

Know you how you have erred?

That, at least, he could answer. "I should not have left Caliraz. I should not have threatened my fellows."

Is there aught else?

Of course there was. He regretted not speaking more loudly against Miraz. He regretted his coolness toward the queen after her husband's death. He regretted shouting at Larimar, when the man declared he had found a wife and would journey with them no more. He regretted many things, and spoke of them.

Do so no more.

The music swelled, changed, became a song sung by mortal voices, and he realized he was hearing it with his real ears. The darkness around him grew grey, then silver, then blindingly white.

Wake, the singers called. Awake, o sleepers; arise from your slumber; the light of the heavens shines upon you and bids you join the world once more.

His eyes opened slowly. It was still night, and he was still seated at the food-laden table they had found. The knife no longer lay before him. His hair fell limply over his face, and it was far longer than it should be.

On either side of the table stood an old man and a young woman with their arms extended. The man's hands were open; the woman's held the stone knife. Hands and knife all glowed with a silvery light that faded away as he watched. Around them stood a crowd of men that he did not recognize, though they looked to be sailors. To his left sat Ellion Mavramorn, pushing his own hair aside. On his right, Baras Revilian blinked sleepily, and between them, oh, joy! Caliraz Rhoop was smoothing a shaggy white mane.

Then a young man moved out from behind the old one, and all four sprang to their feet with a clatter, for they recognized the boy they had left in Miraz's keeping. His face was the face of the king Miraz had slain, and he wore a circlet of gold.

They stood shoulder to shoulder as they bowed before their king, and for the first time in nearly eight years, Kanian Argoz smiled.