Thanks to all readviewers!

I realize what the challenge runners meant here, but for fun, I've chosen to take the prompt as written. It's fragmented, and I admit it doesn't entirely hang together, but hopefully it's still entertaining. (It definitely got away from me!) Direct canon quotes abound, for obvious reasons.

Prompt: Write someone's reactions (whether eyewitness or hearsay, at any point in time) to The Horse and His Boy when they found out Shasta was Corin.

In many worlds, the king of Archenland had twin sons born the year of Narnia's liberation, and the elder was foretold to one day save the country from a great danger. Hearing this, the king's ex-chancellor—dismissed for embezzlement but not ejected from the castle, and secretly a spy for the Tisroc—determined that he would remove the boy forthwith to his compatriots in Calormen. On the chosen night he crept softly into the dim nursery, lit only by starlight, and stood above the crib where both infants lay sleeping.

There is a world where the chancellor stole the prince he intended.

But it is not this world.

Shasta had never seen his own face in a looking-glass. Even if he had, he might not have realized that the other boy was (at ordinary times) almost exactly like himself. But at the moment this boy was more like a windblown haystack than any person, for his hair stood at all angles, his splendid clothes were rumpled, and his face was sunburnt as fine as a tomato.

"Who are you?" said the boy in a whisper.

"Are you Prince Cor?" said Shasta.

"Yes, I am," said the other. "But who are you?"

"I'm Shasta," said Shasta. "But I'm nobody in particular really. The king saw me in the street and thought I was you. We must look like one another. Can I get out how you got in?"

"Yes, if you're any good at climbing," said Cor.

"I've never climbed anything taller than a horse."

"Then I expect you'll have to take the stairs."

"Oh, no! They mustn't find out I've been pretending to be you. You're leaving tonight, you see, and..." Shasta trailed off. A thought had come to him that, in that moment, seemed wonderfully exciting and cast aside most of his fear. "I say! Why don't we trade places?"

"Trade places?"

"Yes! You can climb down the wall of the house, which I can't, and I already know all their secret plans, which you don't. I've a companion waiting at the Tombs for me, or at least I hope I do, and we're bound for Narnia, where we think I'm from, with a pair of talking Horses. You could go with them instead of me, and I'll go with your folk instead of you. Once we all get to Narnia we can switch back. What an adventure it would be!"

Cor had been staring at him with a rather peculiar expression, but at this last sentence it faded into wistfulness. "It would be nice to have an adventure. One that doesn't end with getting lost and falling asleep on a windy roof to be crisped by the sun, I mean. Being a prince can be so dreadfully boring at times, and I'm tired of this city."

"Then it's settled," said Shasta. "Quick, before he comes back! You can ride a horse?"

"Naturally," said Cor, looking rather offended. "I'm a prince."

"Good. His name is...well, I can't say it all, but I call him Bree. And you must tell Aravis (that's my companion) there's a better way across the desert, if you start at the Tombs and go toward the mountain with two peaks."

"Mount Pire."

"Yes, that's what the goat creature said, and if you go that way for a day or so you'll find a narrow valley, and if you ride into that valley you'll eventually come to a river that runs all the way to Archenland."

"All right." Cor put one leg back over the windowsill. "Stop a moment, though. Why are we leaving tonight? We were meant to stay a full month."

"The queen has chosen not to marry Prince Rabadash, but they're afraid if she rejects him then he'll force her, so they've decided to slip away by ship."

Cor uttered an oath and nearly fell out the window. But at that moment they both heard the delicate clop of hooves coming along the hall, some ways off, but growing louder.

"Hurry!" said Shasta in a frantic whisper. "If they find us both they'll kill me!"

Several different emotions crossed Cor's face in rapid succession. He looked at Shasta, and Shasta looked at him, and the two boys suddenly found that they were friends.

"Goodbye," said Cor. "And good luck. I do hope you all get safe away."

"Goodbye," said Shasta. "I say, what stories we shall have to tell!"

"See you in Narnia, then," said Cor. He dropped down onto the roof just as the hooves stopped outside.

Shasta took a deep breath and turned to face the opening door.

"And here comes Shasta! Thanks be to the Lion!" said Bree.

Aravis looked round, and there was a boy who had come out from behind a Tomb the moment the groom had gone away. He looked right enough like Shasta, but his clothes were much finer, and his face carried a different expression.

Aravis leaped backward. She scrabbled frantically in Hwin's pack for her scimitar and pointed it at the boy. "Who are you?" she snarled. "Where's Shasta? What have you done with him?"

The boy calmly raised his empty hands. "Are you Aravis and Bree, then? Shasta said I was to tell you how to find a river in the desert. He had a mad idea of us trading places for a while, and after the day I'd had, I was mad enough to go along with it."

"Who are you?" Aravis demanded.

"Prince Cor of Archenland."

Hwin gave a startled whinny and jumped as though a wasp had stung her. "Prince Cor! And Shasta mistaken for him...Aslan be praised, it fits."

"What fits?" asked Aravis, without lowering her scimitar.

"Archenland does have a prince named Cor," said Bree with a hint of bafflement, "and as this young man knows our names, he's obviously spoken to Shasta and I can't imagine why he'd lie about his own. But more than that I do not understand."

"More than that," said Cor, "Archenland once had also a prince named Corin. He was kidnapped as a infant fourteen years ago, by an Archenlandish lord who was a spy of the Tisroc's and sailed south toward Calormen, and he was my twin brother."

Aravis' mouth fell open. "Shasta is a prince?"

"I think it very likely," said Cor. "But that we cannot know unless he comes to Anvard, so that my father may give his own judgement. In the meantime, shall we be off?"

Cor ran panting through the trees. Suddenly he heard the merry call of an Archenlandish hunting horn, and a moment later he came out into a wide glade and found himself in a crowd of courtiers with his father at the center.

"Cor! My son!" cried King Lune. "And on foot, and without a doublet! What—"

Cor threw himself into his father's open arms and clung there, panting. "Father—fly—Anvard—shut the gates—enemies upon us—Rabadash and two hundred horse."

"Are you certain, your highness?" Lord Darrin asked after a moment of silence.

"Saw them," said Cor. "Raced them all the way from Tashbaan."

"On foot?"

"Horses—with the Hermit."

"Question him no more," said King Lune. "Gentlemen, we must ride for it. Cor, shalt be with me."

Cor shook his head. "The pass—one must ride to Narnia for aid. I am the lightest."

"Hast thought well," King Lune said with approval. "A spare horse there for the prince. And now, tally-ho!"

They had ridden through the night, though the thick fog had made it slow going. The horse was weary, and so was Cor, but he could not rest. At last he came upon two Narnians in the forest and reined in his steed.

"Good cousin," he said faintly to the Stag. "I am the king's son Cor of Archenland, and I would beg a favor. Anvard is presently under siege by Prince Rabadash of Calormen and two hundred horsemen. Archenland beseeches the aid of Narnia her ancient and beloved sister. Please it you to carry this message to Cair Paravel?"

The Stag dipped its head. "It shall be done with all speed, Prince Cor." And in another blink it was gone.

Cor slid wearily from the saddle. He had just enough time to hear the Red Dwarf exclaim at his fall before the world turned black.

"See what your Highness has done," said King Edmund. "Deprived us of a proved warrior on the very edge of battle."

"I'll take his place, Sire," said Shasta.

"Pshaw," said Edmund. "No one doubts your courage. But a boy in battle is a danger only to his own side, and especially when the heat of the Calormene sun still addles his mind."

But at that moment the king was called away. Shasta apologized as best he could to the Dwarf he had knocked down. Then, hidden in the bustle of everyone else, he purloined the Dwarf's armor and pony for his own use and made for the back of the procession. He meant to fight whether the Narnian king liked it or no—he was having an adventure.

When Cor woke, he was lying in a bed in a cheerful but low-roofed house. It was the Dwarf's house, and it was the smell of breakfast that had woken him. The Dwarf (whose name was Duffle) and his brothers (whose names were Rogin and Bricklethumb) told Cor that he had slept a day and a night, and the Narnian reinforcements had passed by not three hours before.

Cor struggled weakly to rise.

"Oh no, your highness," said Rogin firmly. "You'll not be leaving that bed until you've had a good day's breakfast in you, and twice that besides."

They plied him with bacon and eggs and mushrooms and porridge and milk and cream and toast and butter and coffee, until the life had come back into him and he could manage not another bite. And then when he tried to saddle his horse, they insisted he wait an hour for the meal to settle before riding, and demanded to know who had been the boy with the Narnian party, if Cor had been lying in their bed.

Cor was a prince, and raised as such. He accepted their advice, answered their questions as best he could, and gave gracious thanks for their hospitality when they saw him off. But he spurred the horse as fast as he dared on the pass to Anvard.

He arrived just as the battle was ending. By the time he made it to the gate, everyone was laughing at Rabadash, who was howling as he hung from a hook on the castle wall where he seemed to have accidentally caught his mail shirt.

"...bind him, and carry him within till our pleasure is further known," King Lune directed.

While this was being carried out, Cor glanced around. His heart gave a great leap in his chest when he spotted Shasta. The other boy was wearing a suit of armor and looking a little dazed. Cor grabbed his hand and pulled him toward King Lune.

"Father!" he shouted, and all eyes turned to them. The courtyard babble died away. "Father, there was no time to speak before, but look who I met in Tashbaan! Oh, Father, look!"

King Lune looked.

And looked.

And looked again.

Then with a great shout of joy, he lunged forward and swept Shasta up in his arms and kissed him soundly on both cheeks. Setting the boy down next to Cor, he stood behind with a hand on each of their shoulders.

"Now, ladies and gentlemen, look on them both!" cried the King of Archenland. "Has any man any doubts?"

The silence lasted a few moments longer, and then—

"Cor, what's happening?" Shasta asked in panic as the entire courtyard—soldiers and castle civilians, Narnians as well as Archenlanders—erupted into great thunderous cheers and stamping and clashing of weapons and clapping of hands.

Cor grinned.

"Welcome home."