Boy, FF sure has been having a real old conniption, eh? I'd just sat down to finally write reviews last night and then when I hit "post" on the first one...oopsie woopsie, site issues!
One note: given the names "Miss Prizzle" and "Gwendolen" and the clearly-English-based Telmarine schools, I've decided (at least for this oneshot) that Telmarine nobility have fancy fantasy-world names, and the common folk have plain old Englishy ones.
Prompt: Tell of Silenus and/or his madcap girls at some point in Narnia's history, or tell a tale of one of the people who join Aslan's band in the Telmarine town in Prince Caspian.
When Elinor Pross was two years old, her aunt came to live with them.
I say "aunt", but it was really her great-great-aunt. Elinor, being two, could not understand this, and so called the old woman "auntie". And I say "them", but it was really her. For not long after, Elinor's mother abandoned them, saying she refused to live in a house with a lunatic who truly believed in ancient fairytale nonsense, even if that lunatic was her husband's favorite relation. Then the king expanded the royal guard, and her father was conscripted into the prince's service, leaving Elinor and her aunt alone in their little cottage.
It was less distressing for Elinor than might have been feared, for despite having achieved the august age of eighty-seven, the little old lady was hale and spry. Moreover, she was well-practiced in the ways of tending and raising children, when to instruct and when to indulge, how to coax a fussy eater and how to keep a little one (reasonably) clean. Elinor's father sent half his pay home, and visited whenever he had a chance, and so they all got on tolerably well for some years.
But when Elinor was six, her aunt began to decline. Little by little, Elinor took over the house as best she could, while little by little, the strength ebbed from her caretaker. Medicines were tried, physicians were consulted, but to no avail. When she was seven, a new prince was born and the old prince ran away. Her father had been visiting them once a week, but now he did not visit at all, for the king was angry and had formed all his men into an army to find and fight the old prince.
Elinor was old enough to know that not all men sent to fight came back, and by now her aunt was so weak that she did not leave her bed except as truly necessary. Many nights the child cried herself to sleep, afraid for both of her loved ones and for herself, for she did not know what she would do without them.
One day her aunt was especially poorly. Elinor had made the soup—very carefully, standing on a chair, for the pot as it hung in the hearth was taller than her—and fed it to the old woman, but it did not seem to help much. The old lady drank, and turned her face away, and shut her eyes. Only the shallowest of breaths showed she was still among the living.
Elinor closed the cottage door softly. Then she sat down on the front step, buried her face in her knees so that she might not disturb her aunt's rest, and wept bitterly, for it seemed certain that this was the end. After some time, she began to hear sounds of some great throng coming along the river. But her grief was such that she did not care to look, not until it seemed they were shouting right at her very doorstep.
She lifted her head from her sodden dress, and found the strangest crowd she had ever seen. There were many ordinary people in it, but also creatures she had never heard of outside of her aunt's old stories, and animals of every shape and kind. But there was no time to wonder at this, for at the very front of the group was a very big cat with a very fluffy neck, and on its back were two girls a few years older than she.
"Why are you crying, my love?" asked the big cat.
His voice was the loveliest thing Elinor had ever heard. It felt like someone had tucked a wonderfully soft blanket around her, and sat down next to a cozy fire, and held her snugly in his arms. Her father had done so sometimes, during the winter when it was very cold and frosty, and she loved nestling up against him and knowing that she was safe and nothing could hurt her. But this was a softer blanket, a warmer fire, a bigger pair of arms.
And for the first time in a long time, she felt the stirrings of hope.