#coravis

#27 -- pulling the other towards them

"Ow."

It's an unprincely sound but Aravis yanks hard.

"It's Cor's fault," she says, to add insult to injury.

Cor flushes to the roots of the his hair, made all the more easy by his complexion. Father the King calls it lordly and Bree calls it Narnian, with foolish pride (he is a horse and does not complect), even though they are all resolutely in Archenland just now.

Speaking of Bree,

"Hrrrmph," he says, on the tail end -- ha -- of a neigh. "Well I shan't tell a soul but Cor, that is very irresponsible of you indeed."

"We were only kissing!" Cor protests, pulling away from Aravis only to stumble back into the hedgerow out of which she had originally yanked him, towards herself, when Bree caught them.

Despite it all, when he says that, he thinks she looks pleased.

"Kissing," snorts Bree. "What a silly human pastime."

"Not if the other person knows how to kiss," says Aravis.

This is one insult too many for Cor, who howls in outrage, just on time for Hwin to clop over, elegantly, as she does. Thank the Lion they are this far out into the gardens, and it is only Bree and Hwin and the regular old horses out here, instead of Father, or -- heaven forbid -- Corin.

Bree tells Hwin what's just transpired and she says, whinnying smoothly through Cor's continued splutters of betrayal,

"Don't be silly, Bree, of course Aravis started it. She always does."

Darker as Aravis's skin is, Cor is very gratified to see her own pretty rose flush fill her cheeks.

"Hwin," she says.

"She's trying to get practice in," Cor says.

“Adoption is a journey of faith, from beginning to end.” -Johnny Carr

Cor and Aravis didn’t marry right off the bat. It took many years for either of them to recognize any kind of romantic sentiment towards the other.

(Many, many years...)

Anvard was almost like a small city. Nothing like Tashbaan, of course, but easy enough to get lost in. Cor had his father and Corin to prevent that from happening; Aravis had Cor.

Not that she called him Cor, in those early years. He remained Shasta when the two of them were alone. Names are hard habits to break, after all. 

At first, they spent a great deal of time discussing cultural differences. They compared upbringings, now that the newly-minted Prince Cor felt less inferior to the Tarkheena. Aravis bandied about “helpful” advice about being a noble. Cor usually ignored it.

Corin found the whole Cor/Aravis dynamic hilarious and frequently took sides in their arguments. Or sometimes, when they were really going at it, he did the Narnian equivalent of watching from the sidelines with a big bowl of popcorn.

Frequent late-night conversations, when they were both over-tired and thus given to both deep contemplation and inadvisable levels of honesty, became a hallmark of Cor and Aravis’s relationship. Topics included: Did my parent(s) ever really love me? Is Tash real and if so what does that imply? Is anything actually real? Best flavor of pie? Can nobles and peasants ever really be friends? Snow: beautiful or accursed? Am I as crazy as I think I am? (yes, you definitely are)

As time went on, they increasingly talked about gender differences too. As they grew into young adults, rather than suddenly discovering a romantic interest in one another, Cor and Aravis simply adopted male/female issues as another basis on which to poke at each other. Aravis envied Cor his training in warfare. Cor was suspicious of what Aravis and her sewing circle discussed with no men present. Aravis thought Cor’s attempt to grow a beard looked stupid. Cor didn’t understand why Aravis imported sweets from Calormen to eat on her period. On and on.

Aravis actually started seriously courting a nice Archenlandish lord in her late teens/early 20s. Cor was really supportive, although he very vocally didn’t quite understand the guy’s appeal. He turned out to be surprisingly good at girl-talk and proved a really great sounding board for Aravis throughout the relationship.

Corin got married in his 20s. Cor stood for him at the ceremony. Then Aravis got engaged shortly afterwards. Cor was upset by the whole thing, not out of jealousy, but because he was having so little success looking for a wife of his own. (He would, after all, need to choose a queen eventually…)

Aravis’s engagement ultimately fell through for reasons outside of her control. She was understandably upset about the whole thing. Several weeks’ worth of late night conversations with Cor ended in tears. Their normal level of bickering got pushed aside for a little while in favor of quiet solidarity and comfort.

But eventually, enough was enough with the moping and they started bantering again.

When Cor finally ascended to the kingship, he had a really rocky first several years. Aravis was there for him, always, lightening the mood by needling him about the things that didn’t matter and giving good advice about the things that did. Aravis was Cor’s advisor years before she became his queen.

Corin even made jokes about Aravis being the unofficial queen of Archenland just because she advised Cor so heavily. 

And Cor and Aravis were just great friends for years! They talked about everything, and they argued and bantered, and they were part of one another’s lives.

And then, very abruptly, when they’re maybe 30-something, Cor realized very suddenly that he loved Aravis like crazy and wanted to marry her.