![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
What does karma mean to you?
Dec. 17th, 2005 09:57 pmMain Entry: kar·ma
Function: noun
Etymology: Sanskrit karma fate, work
"Then came three people riding abreast, two on great chargers and one on a pony. The two on the chargers were King Edmund and a fair haired lady with a very merry face who wore a helmet and a mail shirt and carried a bow across her shoulder and a quiver full of arrows at her side. ("The Queen Lucy," whispered Duffle.)"
-The Horse and His Boy
They don't understand, she thinks, as she urges her mare on, why she does such things.
Susan is content to stay in Cair Paravel--and someone must, of course, all four of them cannot risk their lives at once.
But Ed and Peter would prefer her, she knows--and hears, in her head, Tumnus correcting her gently to use full names and titles--if she stayed too.
She is the baby.
She is to be kept safe.
She knows, and she feels something like guilt.
She rides with the archers anyway, and shoots down the enemy, and feels nothing like guilt when she watches them fall. That comes afterwards. But there's no time now.
Someone once told her war was ugly when women fight.
They were wrong.
War's always ugly.
After the feasts, when the wine has been drunk and tongues wag more freely, she hears a knight of Archenland speak of how improper it is, for a woman to do such a thing. How it is not her place.
And she whirls on her heel, every inch the queen.
"It is not proper," she tells him, softly, "for me to wait behind in safety while a sibling of mine is endangering his life, sir. I will not be left behind to marry off for the safety of Narnia when my brothers are dead. I'll die by their sides first. That is proper, sir knight. I hope you learn that."
Lucy opens the door to the wardrobe and steps in.
Her siblings follow.
Susan tells her it's a silly game.
Lucy chooses the game.
This is karma: to walk her own path without caring what others think, only for what feels right.
[279 Words]
Function: noun
Etymology: Sanskrit karma fate, work
"Then came three people riding abreast, two on great chargers and one on a pony. The two on the chargers were King Edmund and a fair haired lady with a very merry face who wore a helmet and a mail shirt and carried a bow across her shoulder and a quiver full of arrows at her side. ("The Queen Lucy," whispered Duffle.)"
-The Horse and His Boy
They don't understand, she thinks, as she urges her mare on, why she does such things.
Susan is content to stay in Cair Paravel--and someone must, of course, all four of them cannot risk their lives at once.
But Ed and Peter would prefer her, she knows--and hears, in her head, Tumnus correcting her gently to use full names and titles--if she stayed too.
She is the baby.
She is to be kept safe.
She knows, and she feels something like guilt.
She rides with the archers anyway, and shoots down the enemy, and feels nothing like guilt when she watches them fall. That comes afterwards. But there's no time now.
Someone once told her war was ugly when women fight.
They were wrong.
War's always ugly.
After the feasts, when the wine has been drunk and tongues wag more freely, she hears a knight of Archenland speak of how improper it is, for a woman to do such a thing. How it is not her place.
And she whirls on her heel, every inch the queen.
"It is not proper," she tells him, softly, "for me to wait behind in safety while a sibling of mine is endangering his life, sir. I will not be left behind to marry off for the safety of Narnia when my brothers are dead. I'll die by their sides first. That is proper, sir knight. I hope you learn that."
Lucy opens the door to the wardrobe and steps in.
Her siblings follow.
Susan tells her it's a silly game.
Lucy chooses the game.
This is karma: to walk her own path without caring what others think, only for what feels right.
[279 Words]
