Autumn Nights - A Narnia Oneshot Challenge

Hearth and Home

TW: Brief Implication of Alcohol Abuse

Prompt: Cosy Blankets

~~~

It was a dark and stormy night. Jill cringed each time the electricity flickered.

"I don't like storms," she complained.

Lucy knelt on the couch, elbows resting on the back, propping up her chin as she watched the lightening through the Pevensies' front window. "Really? I think they're sort of nice." A huge crack of thunder shook the house, and the power snapped off. Lucy yelped and tumbled backward into Peter. She lay on his lap, looking up into his face.

He laughed. "You like storms, do you now?"

"That's not fair!" Lucy tried to pout, but she giggled instead. "That one was really loud!" She pushed herself back up and sat beside Peter.

Jill sat criss-cross applesauce on the floor, shivering. "Oughtn't we light some candles, or something?" she asked.

"I'll start the fireplace." Peter stood up, "It's chilly enough as it is."

Mrs. Pevensie came in carrying a stack of quilts and some taper candles. "Here you are, dears," she said, handing the stack of quilts to Jill. "Lucy, my dove, would you light of few of these and set them up?"

Lucy bobbed her head and seized the candles from her mother, bouncing in excitement.

"Perhaps she isn't the one we ought to be giving the fire to," Peter said, looking over his shoulder at the blooming pyromaniac he called 'sister'.

Mrs. Pevensie smirked. "Perhaps not."

Lucy gasped. "Mother! Peter!" She looked between them, hair flying as she turned. "How dare you show such little faith in me!"

"I'll have you know," Peter said, rising from his post at the fireplace, "I have plenty of faith in you. It just happens to be mostly in your future career as an arsonist."

"Says the one who just started the actual fire."

The golden-haired boy grinned. "There's a reason I was the one trusted to start it."

Lucy "humphed", feining insult. She set about lighting the candles and placing them strategically around the room.

Jill pulled a blanket around her shoulders, watching the Pevensies flitter around the house like bees building honeycombs. Peter settled down on the floor with his back against the couch, a blanket of his own around his shoulders. Lucy crawled over, looking at him expectantly. He sighed and opened his arms. His sister grinned, happily tucking herself under his outstretched arm as he closed the blanket around them. She snuggled in and gave a contented sigh.

"Is this what it's always like?" Jill asked. "When the electricity goes out, I mean."

Lucy's forehead creased. "Like what?"

The younger girl shrugged. "Cozy, I guess. With the fire, and the blankets, and all."

"Isn't that what everyone does, when the power goes out?" Lucy asked, tilting her head. "Or even when the power is on but it's winter—to keep warm?"

Jill rubbed her nose with the back of her hand and sniffed, avoiding eye contact. "Not if you happen to be at Experiment House." She tossed her mousy-brown hair, looking into the fire.

"And at home?" Peter's voice was low, soft. There was a sympathy in it that threatened to rend Jill's heart. Heat pricked her eyes.

She bit her lip and shook her head.

Lucy crawled out of the cocoon she shared with Peter and snuggled in beside Jill instead. She leaned her head on Jill's shoulder.

Peter watched the fire. The shadows of the flames cast the boy's face in marble, chiseling his features like a statue from Ancient Rome. His blue eyes brightened in the flickering light, though they looked somehow harder—older. In one moment, his countenance took on the air of a warrior, the one he never quite lost, though sometimes it lay dormant.

"Do you know who the most important god was, to the average ancient Greek?" He asked, still watching the inferno dance.

"Zeus?" Jill guessed.

He shook his head. "Hestia. The goddess of the hearth. Back in those days, the hearth fire was the soul of the family. It was the center of religious activity, the center of household activity. At meals, a bit of the food was always thrown in as a sacrifice. Even their meals were sacred. And Hestia was the goddess who represented all of that. She was the goddess said to have given up her place on Mount Olympus to be near to man." A dreaminess filled his eyes, as though he were watching shapes in the fire that Jill couldn't see. "The worst thing you could do was to commit some sort of indecency in front of the hearth fire. If you wanted to destroy your enemies, you attacked what was the most sacred: their home."

Jill glanced at Lucy. Her gaze was on her brother, tears glinting in her eyes. Peter snapped out of his reverie.

"Anyway," he said, smiling. "I'm not suggesting we all become pagan again. But I think there's something beautiful in that aspect of ancient Greece. Something primally human that we've lost, this day in age—with our wirelesses, and telephones, and automobiles—progress."

Lucy shivered at the word. Jill furrowed her brow. Oughtn't technological progress be considered a good thing? Her home was certainly miserable without it—Father griping about writing formal complaints to the city councilman, Mother arguing that councilmen can't control the weather. A house so big there is no reason to have a candle in each room, so more than half the house is dark. Father scouring the liquor cabinets to "take of the edge" from a long day of work, since he can't wind down to the radio. Jill hiding in her bedroom, reading by the light of a single candle, trying to tune out whatever sounds drifted to her from downstairs.

But here, with the Pevensies, there was no such problem. Here, it was just another occasion for an adventure. To huddle close to one another, basking in the light of the hearth fire. To tell stories, and make memories, and let time pass slowly, unobstructed, unhurried. For once, not governed by the ticking of a clock. No place to be but here, right now.

Perhaps Peter was right. Perhaps the whole world would benefit from a little more love of hearth and home.

~~~

Hestia's fire in every flat, rekindled, burned before
The Lardergods. Unmarried daughters with obedient hands
Tended it By the hearth the white-armd venerable mother
Domum servabat, lanam faciebat. at the hour
Of sacrifice their brothers came, silent, corrected, grave
Before their elders; on their downy cheeks easily the blush
Arose (it is the mark of freemen's children) as they trooped,
Gleaming with oil, demurely home from the palaestra or the dance.
Walk carefully, do not wake the envy of the happy gods,
Shun Hubris. The middle of the road, the middle sort of men,
Are best. Aidos surpasses gold. Reverence for the aged
Is wholesome as seasonable rain, and for a man to die
Defending the city in battle is a harmonious thing.

~Excerpt from "The Cliche Came out of Its Cage" by CS Lewis~