A/N: CoN and SaA are probably my two favorite book series of all time, so it was really only a matter of time before I wrote this cross-over. I know that technically, the timelines are off by about a decade, but this is fanfic, so I'm just going to pretend that they're all about the same age - old enough to have had their adventures, and young enough to still really be children. I tried to write this so that a reader doesn't need to have read either of the books, although of course it is so much more fun to have read them first.
"Are you really resorting to fantasy games?" Roger asked. Mild scorn coloured the question, but to his credit, he did look fairly ashamed after he closed his mouth. He hadn't meant to say anything at all, but after nearly an hour of sitting in the corner of the train compartment, unable to concentrate on his Sailor's Handbook because of the conversation between two strangers, it had just managed to slip out.
Titty shot him what was supposed to be a reproachful look. He could tell, though, by the way she averted her eyes at the last second that she was rather glad he had said it.
"So what if we are?" retorted the dark haired boy, scowling across at Roger. "It wasn't for your ears, was it?"
"Ed," hissed his companion, a young blond who appeared to be his sister. "Doesn't matter." Addressing Roger, she added, "He's indulging me. I am afraid I have a little thing for magic lands and royalty and adventures."
"Adventures?" Titty exclaimed, unable to keep quiet. "But you don't need fantasy to have adventures. We've had all sorts of adventures, real adventures, each summer out on the lake."
The girl raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Just because they're fantasy doesn't mean they aren't real," she stated, and as if to close the conversation, she turned her head to face her brother once more, and the murmuring started again.
Roger felt positively snubbed. The girl's words had been absolute rubbish, and yet she had spoken with such wholehearted conviction that he couldn't think of an appropriate response soon enough.
He turned back to his book, but the other pair was still whispering to each other, and all the possible comebacks he could have used if he'd thought of them sooner were rattling about in his brain. Roger closed the book and kicked Titty in the shin to grab her attention, and then said a little louder than necessary, "Remember that time we had the war with Nancy and Peggy? Sailing in the dark?"
Titty's brow creased before she realized what he was doing. Then, with a little smirk of her own, she replied, "Oh yes. And we slept in the boats, and the next day went hunting for the buried treasure."
The strangers had stopped talking, and Roger pressed on, "And then we had the sailing race and the big feast at Beckfoot."
"I'll bet," sighed Titty in a dramatic manner, "that it must be terrible to never have sailed before."
There was hardly a pause, before the other girl said in a louder tone than her earlier conversation, "Do you recall our voyage to Terebinthia, Edmund? Days upon days on the open water, and we'd send the musicians to the rigging so it would sound like music from the sky?"
"Lu," said Edmund, warningly, but she must have done something, for he said nothing as she started going on about some sort of voyage to the end of the world.
"I was just thinking," said Titty decidedly, her eyes fixed firmly on Roger as if he were the only one there, "about the time we sailed to Holland. Right in the middle of a terrible storm, after we'd lost the anchor."
"Do you remember Tashbaan," the girl asked her brother. "The spice markets and monkeys and all those feasts in the Tisroc's palace?"
"...strawberry ices," Roger was saying, "and the cake Mrs. Blackett made with the pictures of our boats..."
"...and how beautiful it all looked in the winter!" the girl exclaimed, "Everything crystalline and shining in the sun..."
"...and we skated all the way to the North Pole in the dark!" Titty went on.
"Ah!" the girl exclaimed, loudly enough for Titty to stop and look at her. "But that's fantasy, isn't it?"
Roger jumped to his sister's defence. "It's real enough."
"Exactly," the boy replied. "So there you go, then." And he and the girl turned their heads once more and went back to their previous, hushed conversation.
Titty and Roger both glanced at each other, and then quickly away as though properly abashed by their performance. Titty went back to staring out the window, while Roger opened his book again. He wasn't able to read, though, for he still felt rather indignant, and finally exclaimed, "Our sailing boat, the Swallow - she is real, you know."
The other two children lifted their heads in surprise. "We never said she wasn't," the girl protested. Her face was such a picture of innocence that Roger immediately buried his head into his book once more.
This time the other two children did not begin to whisper to each other, and the compartment gained a very overwhelmingly stuffy feel. Roger did not dare glance up from his book, just in case the children were watching him. It was quite unnerving, and he almost wished they'd start talking again.
The silence stretched on, and Roger started the same paragraph at least four times, because he wasn't taking in any of what he read. He desperately wished the journey over, but there was still ages to go.
"I think," said the girl finally, in such a soft voice that at first Roger thought she was speaking to her brother, "that I ought to apologize. That was, to be frank, a rather embarrassing display and I can't think what As – er, Mother must think. Would think."
Roger raised his eyes to see that she was smiling sheepishly at him and Titty. "Er, right," he said, and poked a finger in his earlobe. "Ah, sorry. That was uncalled for."
"Yes," Titty added, and she was a little white-lipped and wide-eyed. "Sorry."
"Right!" the girl exclaimed, suddenly much happier. "And now that we've made up, I'm Lucy Pevensie and this is my brother, Edmund."
"Hallo," Edmund said shortly, and nodded to them.
"Titty and Roger Walker," Titty replied.
They all exchanged hallos and then, before another awkward silence could spring up, Lucy asked eagerly, "Did you really skate to the North Pole?"
That was all it took before he and Titty wer e off, telling the story of signalling and ice-skating and sailing sleds and mumps. About half through the story, Roger suddenly worried that they might be boring their listeners, but Lucy's face was full of genuine glee, and Edmund was leaning forward in his seat.
When the story was done, Titty very politely asked Lucy if she had a story to tell. An odd little exchange followed, in which Edmund seemed to be warning Lucy against it, but whatever the dispute was, it was over when Lucy said firmly, "But they've had adventures too. You heard, and besides, you can see in their eyes. And the Professor did say we can share our story if they have the right look in their eyes."
Roger had no chance to think on that though, for Lucy immediately launched into a tale of being sent to the country and finding a wardrobe and fighting a war. She was a little vague at parts, so Roger never knew why, exactly, the lion had died, but perfectly clear for the rest, and Roger and Titty were both listening with open mouths.
She had just finished the story when the train pulled up at the station. Roger and Titty still had a ways to go, but the Pevensies jumped to their feet and reached for their luggage. There was some mild chaos as everything was put together and goodbyes were said, and Lucy disappeared out into the hall.
"I say," Roger said as Edmund lifted his suitcase. "You lot must've had fun making that story. It was brilliant."
"Yeah," Edmund replied casually, and he paused to look Roger in the eye, "Only we didn't make it up." Then he was gone.
Roger frowned and thought on this, and when he still couldn't make sense of it he ran out to ask Edmund what he had meant. But the Pevensies were gone, lost in the crowd, and so he returned in defeat to the compartment.
"What do you suppose he meant?" Roger asked as the train rolled forward and the station slid away from the window. "By their not making it up, I mean. It can't have been real, can it?"
"Does it really matter?" Titty asked in return, and went back to staring dreamily out the window.