[You are in a forest grove. On your left, a cliff of crumbling black rock towers up, the slope not quite vertical. It's overgrown with vines, orchids and flowers, and there are many handholds and footholds; it might not be a safe climb, but it wouldn't be a particularly difficult one. A thin, rapid waterfall splashes noisily white down the cliff, ending in a little clear pool with a black sand bottom, from which a little stream pours, cutting downhill across the clearing and into the undergrowth on the other side.

Ringing the rest of the area, and growing up quite close to the cliff base, are huge, ancient tropical chestnut and fig trees; their trunks are too smooth to shimmy up, their branches out of reach. All around the edge of the clearing, the undergrowth presses thick and high; the clearing itself has obviously been recently created by some human hand. The land has been cleared to the very soil, which looks fertile and rich.

It's very odd that nothing is growing here, when the plants in the surrounding jungle are unmistakably racing and competing for every inch of soil and sunlight, but it does seem to have been recently tilled... maybe it's been sown with something. Judging from the fact that sunlight is shafting through to the ground, obstructed only by the highest level of canopy, trees were felled to make this space.

The air is hot and humid, but a fitful breeze is blowing. Birds are singing -- some sweetly and some with harsh cries. If you look up, you can see them flitting about, but none choose the trees of this particular grove to land in. A well trampled path follows the stream out of the grove.]

[loosens his shirt to keep cool, just taking it all in]

[but okay, let's go take that climb up the cliff]

[the rock flakes and crumbles away from time to time, but the hand and footholds seem mostly sound; you should be able to climb up as high as you're willing to risk. up above the treeline, at least forty feet up, is a sunlit plateau.

as you climb, butterflies come and and investigate your fingers.]

[like hell I'm just going to stop in the middle and then climb back down, we're heading to the top!]

[trying not to squish the butterflies every time he reaches for a new hold though, shoo shoo]

[they seem to have some sense of self preservation, and flit out of the way. the plateau up at the top is just a little flat area, big enough for two people to sit comfortably with their backs to the rock]

[settling in to sit and check out the view once he finally gets there! because yess comfortable]

[also holds a hand out for the butterflies now that he's not worried about falling]

[they're blue and black and silvery-white, and very curious, but seem unwilling to land -- after awhile, they flutter away.

the view is of the green jungle canopy, and beyond that, a strip of white sand beach and the sparkling blue sea]

[just going to sit here and enjoy the scenery]

[now tell me about symbolism :U]

Soooo all of Mau's trusted CR gets kind of the same template for their area -- it's outside, it has a vantage point from which they can see a wider view of the heart, and it has running water in it. The outside part is just that that's where Mau is most comfortable, so that's where he places the people he's most comfortable being around. The vantage point is a trust thing; if you get one, it means he's not being careful about which parts of himself he shares with you. And the running water is affection -- it's how he's nourishing the relationship between himself and his friends, it's a symbol of his wish to help them and take care of them!

Edmund's area has some unique things about it; his clearing is new and didn't wear itself into being through a long accumulation of shared experience -- it was basically clear-cut into existence. It's sort of prepped to grow anything, but who knows what is actually going to be installed there.

The water is fast and shallow but sourced from a true spring... if you climbed past the plateau to the top of the mountain you could clear the spring and make it a river. Genuine, very rapid but undeveloped affection is what is going on here.

The vantage point actually has to be climbed to -- this is not the case in most of Mau's close CR's areas. That's because Mau already HAS shared the wider view of his heart with most of his CR. Edmund's welcome to it, the path is glaringly obviously there (nobody said it was safe) but he gets to be the one to decide how much he wants to see.

ALSO NOTE that this area is hidden in thick jungle because Mau himself has no idea what is going on with Edmund, just that it's quickly changing and full of weirdly exhilarating and intense feelings -- hence the breeze and also the heat.

Oh, and the butterflies are Mau's conscious awareness and curiosity about all this. They're there, but they're not being symbolized by anything very smart or hardy 8')

MY HAMHANDED SYMBOLISM TO YOU.

Now.

Relationship meme me.

GOD IDE

We've already established that Edmund and Mau are leaderbros, which means they tend to turn to one another for advice and comparison when the opportunity pops up. But as is obvious, this also makes Edmund rather comfortable around Mau in a way that isn't that far off to how he can be around his siblings. Fellow rulers and all that. In a way he treats Mau like family, but not. I suppose distant family is an appropriate enough term? Cousins? idk, Either way, family. It's not quite as high as saying close family, but it's a parallel. It's sort of the same level, but a different branch if that makes sense.

But right now Edmund isn't very aware of all this. :U He's just been comfortable and enjoying it. It's different! It's nice! No idea what it is and not sure it matters. And frankly Edmund is the type to be happy to settle for status quo as long as it doesn't fuck things up. But we know his track record in that matter, so we'll see how things progress. \o\

orite question uhhh if Jill were part of the family, how would she react to the various Pevensies and would anything change with Eustace?

Edited 2013-02-07 08:30 am (UTC)

THIS IS A HARD QUESTION because you know I posit that Jill doesn't have the slightest idea what family is about SO is this "if Jill had always been part of the family" or "if Jill were adopted into the family" because those are very different answers!