Chapter 1
Sleeping Akin to Beasts
(Narnia, 6 years after the Battle of Anvard)
It started as a loud screeching sound of uncertain origins, quickly followed by the crash of broken branches and a powerful thud into the ground, the soil around them reverberating under the painful impact.
The children shrieked.
“Lion gracious, what was that?!” Lindendell cried out and hugged the smallest to herself protectively. Myrtledove, of course, protested that treatment, because she resented always being the smallest, and not even such strange happenings could quench her spirit for long.
At first, though, only Thistledown dared emerge aboveground, and so it was him who first caught a glimpse of the large, metallic, bird-like structure crushed and half-buried into the soil, and the Son of Adam who had fallen to the ground about ten feet from it.
Thistledown ran to him, and noticed the man was bleeding from his right arm. He seemed to have instinctually protected his head with that arm, even though he was also wearing a helmet. He was now yanking the helmet off, struggling to rise and looking around himself in confusion.
“Come help!” Thistledown shouted for the rest of his family, because he would certainly need help with tending the poor soul. Sons of Adam were always on the larger side and this one was definitely a grown adult. “Do not trouble yourself, sir, we will see to that arm of yours at once.”
“Arm---?” the man said, and only then seemed to notice his own injury. “Oh.”
As Lindendell emerged and gasped, Thistledown told her:
“Dearest, your eyes are better than mine, you can treat him better.”
And to one of his older sons, now that the children had ventured out behind their mother:
“Clovedeep, bring some water and bandages!”
The man who had found himself so unceremoniously thrown into their lives was, though he did not know it, perhaps lucky to have crash-landed where he had: that is, in a clearing littered with Mole-hills. He was certainly lucky not to have crashed into a tree. And had he landed elsewhere, his hard-edged face bisected by a nasty scar might have made a very different first impression on some other peaceful woodland creatures that could see it more clearly.
As it were, though, this family’s first impression, after the first glimpse of him as someone injured, was that of a man running back to the metallic structure which was now starting to spout fire, shouting for (as they eventually realised) his friend, and at them to try and douse the flames,
not with water, before any of the Trees catch fire.
They were Moles. Soil was always at hand.
He managed to extricate his friend out of the crumpled metal just in time. As the man backed away, dragging the friend with him, and collapsed on the ground again, his sleeves and the edges of his cloak were already smouldering from the flames he had had to push through. His friend suddenly sprouted... something... and shot a misty substance at the man that both doused the smouldering cloth, and forced the man to cough. The friend looked very strange indeed; but Moles rarely bother themselves too much with appearances and there were more pressing things to worry about.
The friend warbled at the man.
“It would not help if you burnt yourself,” he replied to them, wearily.
“Don’t you worry none,” Myrtledove told him in a hopefully cheerful voice, trying valiantly to sound as reassuring as she knew her father to be. It took some effort; it was the largest fire she’d ever seen and she could feel the heat even here where her mother had commanded her to stay away from the fire.
“Mum and Dad will have it done in no time, and then we can take care of you. Do you like worm pie? We’re having worm pie for supper.”
“I’ll take whatever you’re willing to offer,” he said, in a rather shaky voice.
“We have lots,” she assured him, even though she secretly regretted the loss of seconds.
He smiled, she was sure. She could already tell that expression on humans: Lord Peridan smiled often, when he came to visit. This man’s smile did not look quite as nice as Lord Peridan’s; she could not put her paw on why. But she did not let it bother her too much, because the smile was definitely in his voice when he said:
“I hope I won’t be intruding on your hospitality too much, and that it is all right for humans to eat.”
“Well,” she considered, “most humans don’t seem to like it. But Lord Peridan always has some and says it’s very nice and very…” she pondered the big word she never could say properly and settled on a different one, “- filling.”
He gave a short bark of laughter, and she was certain there was another of those grown-up jokes she did not understand behind it. That was not fair, but it probably wasn’t his fault. She was resolved to like him because someone who had run into a fire to save a friend could not be a bad person and probably did deserve her worm pie seconds.
Moles are efficient with soil. The fire was, indeed, soon put out, and the parents could now also turn their attention fully to their unexpected guests. The man explained to them that Deefore – that was his friend’s name – was an astromech droid (whatever that was) and would not have any worm pie. Myrtledove had already figured out as much, really; Deefore
felt different.
The man’s own name was Kenix Kil. It did not sound anything like any other human names they knew, but then who knew how they named people where he was from – wherever that was. There was little consistency in human names, except perhaps for the way Archenlanders sometimes named their sons.
Lindendell sent Myrtledove for a plate of food for Kil and then proceeded to bandage his wounded arm. He insisted it was not serious. She pointed out to him that mere scratches did not bleed quite so much and that he should not underestimate any wounds, and he seemed so genuinely confused that she climbed up his good arm and checked his head.
It seemed it was alright, but just in case, she ordered him to sit up next to one of the Trees, Cersis, a gentle Redbud friend of theirs who could keep an eye on him while Lindendell saw to it that none of her family had suffered from the fire and checked with Thistledown which of their burrows had suffered from the crash.
* * *
Truth be told, the worm pie, while dubious in appearance, was positively delicious. Kir Kanos had already eaten many a worse thing in his life – ration bars swallowed in haste, raw meat forced down in hiding from pursuit, bugs on their own... This had not just the worm meat but also flaky pastry, what was probably cream and eggs, some sort of vegetable, and salt and spices, and after a year of eking out a living in the far reaches of the Outer Rim and Unknown Regions, it felt like the height of luxury, reminiscent of his time with the D’Astas – not even Imperial Guardsmen ate so well on a regular basis. That impression of a fancy meal was only heightened by the fact that what for the Moles had to be a large plate, for him was just a small dessert plate, which he could easily balance in the air in one hand.
And whoever the Lord Peridan the little Mole had mentioned was (presumably a local nobleman), he actually may have been telling the literal truth when he’d said the pie was
filling.
Whoever these Moles were, they were living the good life, a charmed life.
It was dawning on him that it was also a very low-tech life, and that he was stranded. He had wished to stay away from galactic events. He was clearly getting his wish in a most spectacular fashion.
The world he found himself on, it turned out quite soon, was not only low-tech, but also populated by some creatures even stranger than the Moles, a fact Kanos was alerted to when the tree above him suddenly spoke.
“Thank you for taking us Trees into consideration.”
Kanos jumped in surprise and dropped the plate. Fortunately he’d already finished the pie and the plate was wooden and did not break.
“My apologies,” the tree said – it really was the tree speaking. It had a female-sounding voice, though deep like a large wooden wind instrument, and when Kanos looked up at it, he realised it also had a rather feminine humanoid face, though surrounded by branches full of heart-shaped leaves. He had heard stories of sentient beings that resembled trees. He had always thought them to be just tall tales.
“I should have realised there would be no Talking Trees where you come from,” she said. “My name is Cersis.”
For several moment Kanos only gaped at her.
“Kil. Kenix Kil,” he finally managed.
He’d given them that name, the name he’d been introducing himself with for years. The name he intended to keep – Kir Kanos was dead.
Even though it was not quite as easy to forget that was who he was, in his own mind.
“So I have heard. What brings you to our neck of the woods, Kil?”
“I’d like to hear that myself,” the first of the Moles – the pale-coloured adult he thought was named Thistledown – said.
Slowly, with many side explanations, he related to them his story – or at least the relevant parts: delving into his whole history would do him no favours. No, just the relevant parts: The experimental hyperspace lane through the Unknown Regions, the singularity that had pulled him from hyperspace and above this world, so devoid of any technology his snubfighter could pick up on, the collision with – he was still not sure what.
The fact that he firmly intended to live and let live (with reservations for particularly abominable wrong-doers like child-killers, he had to admit when they asked what he meant by that), and stay out of trouble. That part was important.
When he was finally finished, night was closing in. The adults in the group started wondering what should be done with him and Deefore.
“We should send for Lord Peridan. Sons of Adam should be with Sons of Adam,” Cersis said sagely. “You cannot feed him on Mole diet all the time. And those wounds of his should be looked at by someone with the eye for it.”
Kanos had originally dismissed his wound, but he had to concede that in the absence of bacta – his own medpack, he realised, had been in the section of his X-Wing that had suffered the greatest fire damage – or even any of its inferior substitutes, he would much prefer to have it treated by more expert hands.
“But it’s so far away!” Thistledown said.
“Not for Trees,” Cersis replied. “We can pass on the message. The Beeches stretch far.”
“Do, please,” Lindendell begged.
The leaves and branches of the trees around them began whispering, as if a breeze had picked up, though Kil could not feel the air moving. This, he realised in wonder, must be the private language of Trees, or at least some part of it.
“Consider it done,” Cersis said. “You can rest easy now. I will watch over Kil.”
“Will you be alright at night? Should we bring you some blankets maybe?” Lindendell asked him.
“Do you have any big enough for me?” he wondered.
“Well, no.”
“Don’t worry about me, then; my cloak will suffice.”
It certainly would not be the first time it had to.
They wished him good night in their pleasant high yet earthy voices and disappeared into their underground burrow.
He settled down between Cersis’ roots – she assured him she was used to it from various travelling beasts – taking care to lie on his left side and keep his injured arm safe. She moved her roots slightly – and a very odd sight it was – to accommodate him better, since, as she said, he was “a bit larger than usual.”
“Do you want me to tell you a story?”
“Story?” he asked, confused, and then laughed and added: “It’s been a long time since I was the age for bedtime stories.”
“How old are you, then?” she asked.
“Thirty-six... Thirty-seven... thereabouts.”
“Not a sapling anymore,” she chuckled.
“No. Not for a long time.”
“Then perhaps I can tell you a story for fully-growns,” she said, and after a couple moments she asked: “Do you know the history of the Stone Table?”
“I know none of the stories of your world.”
“Of course,” she said, slightly embarrassed. “Well, then, let me instead tell you how Aslan created Narnia...”
Her voice lulled him to sleep. He was vaguely aware of her protective and gentle yet solid presence even with his eyes closed and while the words blurred. He was not sure if what he saw playing out in his mind was mental images subconsciously induced by her story, a fully-fledged dream, or some sort of vision.
A vision of a great golden feline, shining with Light, and pulling many beings to their feet.
* * *
He woke up early, cold and cramped, and thus not quite rested. He was now feeling the lack of bacta keenly; his arm was aching and throbbing, although, when he took a careful peek under the bandage, it seemed, thankfully, clean of infection. The bandage would need changing anyway, though.
“Good morning,” he said to Cersis, suddenly self-consciously aware of how odd and unfamiliar it was to wake up curled up next to a living being like that. Last time he had slept close to someone had been a couple hours of snatched sleep next to Mirith Sinn, almost three years ago; before that... before that on Yinchorr, next to Lemet Tauk.
After Tauk’s death, he had been a Royal Guard, and had always had a right to a bunk of his own. That whole memory
hurt.
Neither of those experiences had prepared him for waking up next to a Tree, anyway.
Cersis only hummed in response, but Deefore tweeted at him, and Kanos rubbed his face and said:
“Good morning to you, too.”
He was not really in the habit of treating his droid like a person as some other people did, though in his solitary existence he had certainly led conversations with him before. He was beginning to suspect that, stranded as he was now, that would change. It already was changing. That familiar trill of binary and that silver dome of the droid’s shell already seemed like a welcome touch of home in a foreign land, despite the fact that
home had long been elusive.
Or maybe not. Maybe in the past couple of years, home had been the X-Wing, and R2-D4 therefore certainly had been part of it. Maybe that was the reason Kanos had asked the D’Astas to get him his X-Wing and Deefore back, after Boba Fett’s “invitation” to Devian’s stronghold and all the subsequent mad-dash events had forced him to leave them behind. It had certainly felt
right to have them back, the X-Wing now no longer a means of studying an enemy but a part of him, and if still anything to do with Luke Skywalker, then a relieved admission that their differences did not matter to him anymore.
He turned his attention to the ruins of that tentative home. The starfighter itself was unfortunately a definite write-off. In other circumstances, it may have still been salvageable, with lots of work and spare parts, but on this world, spare parts were clearly unavailable and any work therefore just a waste of time.
Many other individual objects, however, seemed to have survived both the crash and the fire. To his immense relief, one of them was the mobile solar charger: that took care of Deefore’s needs. In addition to the unexpected sentimental connection, the astromech and his databanks were now his only link to civilisation, his only proof in this forested, pre-industrial land that his life experiences were valid and true.
The charger would also take care of his blaster energy packs. That was no less a relief: he hated being vulnerable; it was bad enough that his small hosts certainly were. It would be a poor repayment of their hospitality if he proved nothing but a liability in danger.
Next order of business: food and drink. His water bottle had cracked in the crash. He did find three ration bars that were only lightly scorched. Still, if he could find anything else to eat around here, and the pie last night had been more than promising, he’d much prefer to save those for emergencies.
His catalogising of the damage and salvage was interrupted by the sound of – was it hooves? It proved to be so. Into the clearing rode a human man on a brown-coloured equine, leading another, grey one, by the reins.
“Good morning,” the man said, dismounted, and led both the horses towards Kanos.
He was of a height with Kanos, a pleasant fact after the small Moles and the tall Tree, and similarly leanly muscled, though much of his figure was obscured by the loose belted tunic he was wearing. He had a sheathed sword at his left side – an honest-to-goodness long, straight blade, with a rather ornate yet well-worn hilt and crossguard that suggested perhaps an heirloom – and a similarly sheathed dagger or knife at his right side. Kanos saw no particular danger in his approach; those weapons were simply the man’s low-tech versions of the ordinary carry blaster you could see on many beings in the Outer Rim.
He had short dark hair and brown eyes, aquiline nose, and a tan shade to his skin that may have been an inborn trait and may have been simply the result of spending time in the sun – it was hard to say with his features. He was, Kanos guessed, about as old as him or a little younger, although that, too, was rather hard to tell with his features, at once young and very mature. His face was open and friendly, but his eyes were shrewd, despite the obvious differences in appearance somehow reminiscent of Leia Organa-Solo, and Kanos concluded that the man was almost certainly no fool.
“My name is Peridan. I am here to take a look at your arm. And to see what we can do about you,” the man said as he bound his horses to a bush and turned to Kanos.
“Kenix Kil,” Kanos said, and then belatedly recognised the man’s name from the conversations the day before. “
Lord Peridan?”
“That would be me, yes,” the lord said. “I assume this is Deefore?”
Deefore replied with a trill.
“Ah. This will be somewhat more complicated, I’m afraid I cannot understand,” Lord Peridan observed.
“He simply said ‘Yes’. I think,” Kanos explained.
Lord Peridan nodded and reached into one saddlebag for a bottle and washed his hands with a clear liquid with the unmistakable scent of alcohol. From what he had seen so far, Kanos frankly would not have expected
that degree of medical knowledge on such a wayward world. Nor would he have expected that degree of medical knowledge from someone who was not a medic.
“Do you not have medics for this?” he asked in surprise.
“Not as such, no,” Lord Peridan replied as he expertly removed the bandage and checked the wound. “At least not any who would be available right now and know enough about humans. I do know what I am doing.”
“I can see that, I was merely wondering...”
“About a lord who can do this?” the man shrugged. “I’d be a fool not to learn anything that can help my people, Mr Kil. And one does not always have the luxury of a medic.”
Kanos nodded numbly. That he did know all too well. But even on a backwater world, it still surprised him that a lord would have that experience as well and apply himself to rectifying the situation.
“It looks clean and safe. Lindendell knows what’s what, too. How does it feel?”
“I definitely feel it, but I’ll take that as a good sign.”
“Yes, I suppose at this point it is. Well, I’ll change the bandage. I would like you to go with me to my house so that I can keep an eye on it. You should definitely go easy on that arm for a while – stretch your muscles too much and it will pull on the wound and re-open it.”
“You do not mind putting me up?” Kanos asked while Peridan suited action to words and re-bound his arm with fresh bandages. “I’m afraid I cannot repay you; I do not know what currency this world uses but it’s bound to be different from what I have, and – and most of my things perished in the fire.”
“Will you mind me putting you to work in exchange?” Lord Peridan shrugged. “Obviously nothing strenuous, so maybe some help in the kitchen for now. If you want to stay beyond that, we can discuss further options when it comes to it. Did you say
this world? You come from a different one, then. I thought so.”
“And you would trust a complete stranger like me?”
Peridan’s keen dark eyes were focused on his face now. Kanos could almost
taste the lord’s consideration.
Nothing to see here, he thought.
Just a stranded traveller. It’s not even a lie.
The man’s mouth quirked, as if he could hear his thoughts.
“I was a complete stranger once. Welcome to Narnia, Kenix Kil,” he said and offered him his hand.
Kanos took it, wondering what he was getting himself into.
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I forgot to say the title of the fic comes from a U2 song, "Ordinary Love".
The title of this chapter is also from a song. “Under the night sky we sleep, akin to beasts.” It's a pretty obscure Czech song, “Podobni zvěři” (“Akin to Beasts”, “Alike to Animals”) by the band of the same name, based on a poem (or maybe two poems) by Géza Včelička. I found it in a tangent while searching for something else... I think in part it sprang to mind also because another line in it goes “The stars are looking on with gleaming eyes,” and that’s a very Narnian mental image, isn’t it?
Kanos’ age is 100% a guesstimate. I don’t think it says anywhere how long exactly he’d been in the Imperial Guard, either. So I went with a lower estimate for it, with him being a bit older than Luke and Leia but not by much. So the Empire would basically be everything he ever knew.
(I edited this chapter slightly to take out some "bad language", in Star Wars terms. It's a made up word, but still, I felt safer posting it here without it. In the original form of the fic, it mostly just serves to paint a fuller picture of Kir Kanos as a bit of a hardened individual confused by his surroundings.
)
