An Aside from the Flipside…An Interruption of Fate . . .And a Vile Crime upon a Little Sister

Sidaj

"And I DO approve at how my ‘dear’ sister died at that boy mage’s hands in the end (re: 35896)!" I find myself almost snarling in pleasure as my mind’s eye replays that blessed event of Jarlath managing to break my genocidal sister’s neck.

. . .

Even though the memories I have left to me of the time before I was dragged back (kicking and screaming) to life by that damn Nalsa when he created Ainran, I shall never forget the feeling of utter shock and betrayal I had felt on the day my sister, Empress Jadis of

What I would have given to have been able to have done the deed myself, or at least been there to do the deed myself for having actually used. . .used . . .

. . .

Pardon, I find I can still get enraged about such matters despite it having happened centuries ago. Then again, the destruction of your very world and race, leaving only it’s perpetrator as the only survivor tends to do that to a person, right?

Still, forgive me for having gone on something of a rant there

Now, as you may have fathomed that I am well aware of the tale of Narnia, of which Ainran is a reflection of, somewhat. I am also aware that there are those out there aware of her existence through works of fiction: CS Lewis being just ONE source through his books. Other realms retell the tales of Narnia through ballads and singing bards. Those sources usually give the recounting something of a more . . .pagan taste to it than perhaps what you are used to, I am sure. It just is the teller of the tale adjusting the story to fit with the social norms of their world and society.

Princess Astra of Aqualaria here (or some similarly spelled wording of that nation) probably learned of Narnia through the later method, if I should wager a bet.

Oh, and YES I am very well aware of Astra’s royal status, thank you for noticing. Do at least do me the justice of giving me enough intelligence for noticing that there having been at least one Champion present at that battle I magically scryed with my Arte named Astra who was a dimensional analog of this warrior woman before me.

And I would have to be utterly blind to have not noticed that the red haired "dark elf" woman had looked remarkably similar to Astra here as well, just shorter with pointed ears (and inky black eyes); Some kind of reality which spawned a dimensional analog who’d been born an elf, perhaps?

Whatever, that is hardly important to the here and now. Suffice to say that my Arte had foretold that at least an analog of one of those Champions would arrive around this time, soon to be followed up by an actual Champion (if not necessarily that group who had executed Jadis).

I would dearly love to know the full story about the events leading up to that, as well as what had become of that particular Narnia? I mean I know that with such radical changes to the political landscape with the death of the White Witch of Narnia one cannot say that that reality could be the Ur reality for which serves as the source of all those story teller’s inspiration, can we? Not really.

I may be only to be able to remember a fraction of all the magical theory and law I had learnt while alive on Charn (I do not even remember my actual name from that incarnation of my life), but I do remember enough to know that much on the matter.

Oh, and I do know that that if you heard how Jadis has it as me having broken our agreement to not draw on our magical powers during our war over the throne then you would have heard wrong. I fear that it had been that I had let my generals actually strategize their battle plans instead of putting my hand into things (and ruin it) like my sister’s pride so often had the habit of doing. Even back then I realized I should let those with more experience (as well as the head for such matters) handle such things; my generals would win the wars so that I could take the throne from my corrupted and twisted sister to stear Charn away from the fall . . .that She Who Walked Silently Amongst Us had revealed to me that one magical night.

. . .

I failed Her. I failed everyone by trusting my sister. Showed her mercy when I should have just snuffed her life then and there.

I will NOT make that same mistake with this second chance. Believe me! I’d . . .I’d bathe in sin in order to prevent the rollbacks in liberties and living standards Nalsa would inflict upon my precious people if he would regain the reigns of power to Narnia!

This is my last chance . . .to make up for failing the first time around. I won’t fail her. I won’t fail Ainran like I did Charn, despite having been initially unwilling to come back to the land of the living from the twilight realms the Word had banished my spirit (and my people’s spirits).

And if (and when) I finally do win my final battle against Nalsa and my beloved adopted kingdom is safe? After I finally have my prayers answered and I have a legitimate heir to take the throne so I can finally move on?

Then I shall go back and try to free those fallen souls who are still trapped in the twilight realms that somehow got tangled up with some self perpetuating abomination that has them coming back to life, only to die again (and again) dancing to a mystical prophecy my scrying. It involves giant humanoid monsters piloted by . . . .children to battle eldritch abominations bent on the complete destruction of mankind on an Earth that is decades more advanded, time wise, than the Earth which was in the throws of World War II (oh gods, a whole WORLD at war with itself?!) Jadis was familiar with, if only in passing.

Something about in my scrying told of an ancient Dead Sea Scroll prophecy and Evangelions . . .

If I can stop that after winning my kingdom’s right to a decent existence, and not as the plaything of some demented mockery of the Great Lion of Narnia, THEN I know I shall finally be worthy to walk with Her in the Her After.

Right?

"Boy mage?" Astra sputtered, drawing Sidaj back to the here and now. "Where in the ‘Chronicles of Narnia’ Ballad did the bards sing of a boy mage who killed the White Witch Jadis? What is going on here?"

Though tightly controlled, Sidaj can tell Astra is nearing the end of her patience here and the poor warrior woman might go storming off on her own (much to her own detriment) if some answers aren’t forthcoming really soon here! And being that the possibilities still shone so brightly within this young woman, Sidaj loathed to lose such a one as this without at least trying to sway Astra to her cause!

And wouldn’t she be a most poor host for at least not attempting to appease some of the poor warrior maiden’s curiosity?

"Young one I shall explain," the Queen of Ainran states, coming forward and actually taking Astra’s hands into her own in a gesture of respect if nothing else. Somehow the Queen felt that a small show of respect was called for, and nothing lost if made. "But let us begin first begin with the simplest question first: why the mane of feathers?"

Bemused, Astra shakes her head slightly, causing her now feathery head to shuffle slightly in the wind as she did so.

"Simply put," the Queen began. "The Lion had put his Mark upon you, one who came outside of this land and as such not already granted immunity to such manipulations. And let me be totally transparent in letting you know that only the Outsiders of Massive Potential would the Lion bother with. And that is also why I, the very Head of State herself, had come here to meet with you."

Queens, whether reputed witch queens or not, realistically should not be expected to meet with just any and all comers. It just wasn’t DONE!

"If the Mark had been activated," the sister of Jadis continues in a deadly serious tone. "Your existence as a free willed entity would be at an end for even I--who with some VERY hard won knowledge of the Deep Magicks—could not undo it. Nasla could then do what he pleased with you, even take your body for his own if he should find his old form destroyed and needed . . .a spare.

"Placing my Mark upon you could never have robbed you of your free will. THAT is not something I would ever willingly do to another person, I should add. My Mark allows certain magical boons to be used through those I have Marked, I should add.

"Well, that is if I had not done what I had done to you for a particular reason," the White Witch qualified, smirking slightly. "With two dueling Marks, my Mark cannot work at all. However, with my Mark upon you—the mane of feathers—it means that Nalsa’s Mark cannot be used to control you or take your body as his own." "And being that you are aware of Narnia and you seem to at least know that Ainran is a mirror of that realm," the Queen finished up, looking Astra in the eye as she says this. "Cannot you at least allow for the possibility that I am not the villain of the piece? That Nalsa is the baddy?" "Please . . .don’t confuse me for my now deservedly dead genocidal sister," the Queen finished, almost but not quiet looking like she’d like to beg. "I . . .I might not be a pillar of mercy and compassion as a Daughter of Eve or a Son of Adam . . ."

Astra blinks as it registers that the Queen did not say "Son of Mada".

"I am a Daughter of Lilith. The last of my kind, but can you at least see it might mean not mean I be not some kind of monster?"

"I . . .I'll at least consider what you have to say and not dismiss it offhand," the waywards warrior Amazon allowed. "You so far have been . . .quiet different from what I expected."

"And much more straight with me than Nalsa has been so far," she added, under her breath.

Indeed if nothing else the witch . . .seemed to come across more and more . . .noble than the lion had been. Nalsa had been putting up airs of nobility (as well as divinity), a laughable job of it really. The witch . . .not so laughable at all. Not at all really, truth be told.

"So . . .I landed in a mirror of the world I learned of as a child listening to bards sing of Narnia?" Astra ventured finally after a short pause. "That is why it is different from what I was expecting?"

The Queen smiled, trying hard to make sure it didn't come across as a condescending smirk.

"There is a realm out there in the aether that reflects your ballad," Sidaj explained in a tone of voice that Astra identified as what her instructors gave when teaching a academic lesson. "And there are mirror worlds which perhaps reflect your expectations.

"But in as far as for myself and my land . . .you are correct in saying it is not what you were expecting, if you were looking for me to be yet another shallow reflection of a Narnian citizen. That had been what the Lion had been fishing for when he brought me back to life here after my sister killed me and all of my world with the Deplorable Word . . ."

Sidaj goes on to explain the basics of her situation and the world she now lived in. Explaining how it was indeed something of a mockery of Narnia, or at least had been. Nalsa was painted as a villain with aspirations for godhood (something that Astra hadn’t failed to notice) who had a petty plan for ruling Ainran directly after Sidaj’ reign was to have been overthrown by his lackies. Indeed, the White Witch had been brought here to be something of the scape goat whenever something the King and Queen he had installed did something (again) stupidly wrong and messed things up. Starving peasants? It was Sidaj’s fault. Plague? Sidaj’s fault?

When she took over and overthrew Ainran’s ruler? Well, the Lion found out that the White Witch wasn’t quiet as stupid as he’d tried to sing her up as. And so it went, the Witch having ditched whatever preplanned script the Lion had concocted. Instead, the Witch had been frightfully GOOD as a ruler. In fact, the Lion was soon to be dismayed that instead of peasants yearning for him to take over and overthrow the Witch?

She was loved. There was plenty instead of famine. Sickness was either abolished or quickly remedied and . . .

The cold weather? The snow? Well . . .as it was for this magical (messed up) land Nalsa had sung up, he’d kind of screwed up on a few things.

Wasn’t Sidaj’s fault that the only adequate crops that would be enough to feed her people grew in these wintery climes. Frankly, if the trade she had only recently set up with an off world/reality nation that this fantastic world connected with (some kind of people who called Earth Barsoon or some such and had taken up residence in a land called Africa) bore fruit, then the seedcrops from that trade would be MORE than worth letting the weather go back to something . . .less chilly.

Sidaj liked snow as much as the next person, but frankly this was getting to her…

Well, you get the picture. Instead of a patsy, the Lion got something quite different; Something that the feline wanted GONE now in the worst way possible.

Astra would have learned more, intrigued despite herself in this pale woman when of COURSE fate should interfere.

It started with a flash of light and mild disorientation. A sense of things that should NOT be combined suddenly being shoved together and fused; Of a general sense of chaos and change in the air.

A feeling that later the White Witch (though this "witch" had never made any pacts with dark powers that Man was Not Meant to Know) would describe as a heavy burden upon her shoulders being lifted. As if fate had been kind and . . .allowed for some freedom of motion not allowed for before.

Also, later, when somebody should think to look up into the sky, they should notice some kind of odd . .. city structure that was massive; Too massive to be just floating up in the sky like that. Kind of looked like Manhattan if the locals should ever see a place on Earth called New York (not that a lot of the locals had seen such a place, being in a medieval/fantasy setting and all that).

Astra and Sidaj might have noticed a small figure falling to his death if they had been more alert to the sudden anomaly in the sky. No, the one disgraced Pinkerton Agent known as Booker DeWitt fail to be rescued by any plot devices, but instead make a very messy crater in the ground a LONG way below from the height he falls from here.

Instead, somehow both Sidaj and Astra new that at least ONE Champion has suddenly made the scene, quiet unexpectly; and in such a manner and with such a splash that has . . .totally screwed up prophesied battles.

Later, that shall be determined.

Instead, the Queen and the Amazon shall come upon the Champion as shouts and screams draw them hither.

Wary for ambush, the Queen is still taken aback by the brutality of the scene before her. Not even in the worst days of Charn (where there had been human sacrifice), did such a scene ever grace her sights. A light aqua haired young girl is screaming bloody blue murder as she hurls some kind of shovel at a man . . .who’d been "harvesting" some kind of eel like creature . . .from the torn open stomach of a little GIRL!

. . .

Bioshock, it is the name of a videogame that is a "first person" shooter where the player (who controls a character named Jack Ryan) is faced with moral choices as he or she fights their way through the game to the end. Their moral choice influences the ending they get but the choices they are faced with? Either they can save a series of young girls, who will give them an amount of needed material for the special "superpowers" the player needs in order to survive. Or, the player can "harvest" the poor girls (known as "Little Sisters" in the game) in order to garner an even larger amount of material (known as Adam) . . . The first moral path is the "good" path. The second? The bad moral path.

Bioshock 2 has a similar gaming scheme as well.

As Bioshock Infinite hasn’t come out, Heaven only knows if the gaming company has kept to that strategy.

But that all said?

Guess which Jack this one is and guess what kind of reception he’s going to be getting from the locals here in Narnia?

. . .

Nah! Nevermind, let us just get down to it!

We already know the aqua haired young woman’s (her name is Tabitha Quatermain) response by the thrown shovel. Now she’s somehow managing to . . .take to the air with aqua wings to avoid a bolt of thrown lightning from an enraged Jack Ryan’s fist!?

Jack didn’t appreciate the shovel, I suppose.

The Little Sister that had been harvested? Well, she’s too busy whimpering on the ground as she finds herself shivering from finding herself in the snow that Jack dropped her into as he dodged that shovel thrown at his head!

Astra the warrior princess? Her reaction? Well, between the shouted curse that Astra gives as she grabs the oddly solid shovel that Jack managed to duck (earning a slash across his face instead of getting lethally "brained" by the metallic head of the shovel). The Amazon was ready to give Jack a VERY harsh lesson here in how to treat little girls.

The White Witch Sidaj? After a few seconds shocked stiff, she then growls off a muttered and vile curse that wouldn’t translate into English and makes a motion with the wand that seemed to magically appear in her hand. Enraged Jack suddenly finds himself suddenly Stoned Jack; a statue that the White Witch has . . .plans for hauling back to her court for a proper trail. Followed up by a first class hanging!!

But . . .again something has to go and throw a monkey wrench into the works when it appears that some kind of odd metallic device that Sidaj only notices now after some kind of golden . . .beam of light shoots out of it and wraps the now petrified statue in an eerie light. A light that causes the statue to pit and crumble to dust even as Astra has reached Jack to deliver a vicious blow to the body.

Only ends up with a shower of dust covering both the bloody snow and part of the still whimpering young girl at their feet….

"Quick! Is any one of you a medic or at least can get some kind of medical assistance?" the aqua haired (and winged) young woman asks frantically after looking down in dismay at the prone Little Sister.

ieval/fantasy setting and all that).

Astra and Sidaj might have noticed a small figure falling to his death if they had been more alert to the sudden anomaly in the sky. No, the one disgraced Pinkerton Agent known as Booker DeWitt fail to be rescued by any plot devices, but instead make a very messy crater in the ground a LONG way below from the height he falls from here.

Instead, somehow both Sidaj and Astra new that at least ONE Champion has suddenly made the scene, quiet unexpectly; and in such a manner and with such a splash that has . . .totally screwed up prophesied battles.

Later, that shall be determined.

Instead, the Queen and the Amazon shall come upon the Champion as shouts and screams draw them hither.

Wary for ambush, the Queen is still taken aback by the brutality of the scene before her. Not even in the worst days of Charn (where there had been human sacrifice), did such a scene ever grace her sights. A light purple haired young girl is screaming bloody blue murder as she hurls some kind of shovel at a man . . .who’d been “harvesting” some kind of eel like creature . . .from the torn open stomach of a little GIRL!

. . .

Bioshock, it is the name of a videogame that is a “first person” shooter where the player (who controls a character named Jack Ryan) is faced with moral choices as he or she fights their way through the game to the end. Their moral choice influences the ending they get but the choices they are faced with? Either they can save a series of young girls, who will give them an amount of needed material for the special “superpowers” the player needs in order to survive. Or, the player can “harvest” the poor girls (known as “Little Sisters” in the game) in order to garner an even larger amount of material (known as Adam) . . . The first moral path is the “good” path. The second? The bad moral path.

Bioshock 2 has a similar gaming scheme as well.

As Bioshock Infinite hasn’t come out, Heaven only knows if the gaming company has kept to that strategy.

But that all said?

Guess which Jack this one is and guess what kind of reception he’s going to be getting from the locals here in Narnia?

. . .

Nah! Nevermind, let us just get down to it!

We already know the purple haired young woman’s (her name is Tabitha Quatermain) response by the thrown shovel. Now she’s somehow managing to . . .take to the air with purple wings to avoid a bolt of thrown lightning from an enraged Jack Ryan’s fist!?

Jack didn’t appreciate the shovel, I suppose.

The Little Sister that had been harvested? Well, she’s too busy whimpering on the ground as she finds herself shivering from finding herself in the snow that Jack dropped her into as he dodged that shovel thrown at his head!

Astra the warrior princess? Her reaction? Well, between the shouted curse that Astra gives as she grabs the oddly solid shovel that Jack managed to duck (earning a slash across his face instead of getting lethally “brained” by the metallic head of the shovel). The Amazon was ready to give Jack a VERY harsh lesson here in how to treat little girls.

The White Witch Sidaj? After a few seconds shocked stiff, she then growls off a muttered and vile curse that wouldn’t translate into English and makes a motion with the wand that seemed to magically appear in her hand. Enraged Jack suddenly finds himself suddenly Stoned Jack; a statue that the White Witch has . . .plans for hauling back to her court for a proper trail. Followed up by a first class hanging!!

But . . .again something has to go and throw a monkey wrench into the works when it appears that some kind of odd metallic device that Sidaj only notices now after some kind of golden . . .beam of light shoots out of it and wraps the now petrified statue in an eerie light. A light that causes the statue to pit and crumble to dust even as Astra has reached Jack to deliver a vicious blow to the body.

Only ends up with a shower of dust covering both the bloody snow and part of the still whimpering young girl at their feet….

“Quick! Is any one of you a medic or at least can get some kind of medical assistance?” the purple haired (and winged) young woman asks frantically after looking down in dismay at the prone Little Sister.

1. “She needs immediate medical attention or she will die without treatment!”

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