A/N: This is less story than thoughtful summary. There will be five chapters, each covering one half-hour of the movie. I know, it's not the books, but that's one of the reasons I wanted to write it. It's a different, related beautiful story. I hope you enjoy if you choose to read. Will be updated weekly.
Updated A/N: I has been rightfully pointed out that I owe Jacob from Television Without Pity almost as much credit as C.S. Lewis for this project. I agree that I should have acknowledged this from the beginning. Particularly his Season 4 recaps of Battlestar Galactica were hugely inspirational for this project. The phrase "Change feels like dying because it is," also originally belongs to him.
It started out as a feeling, which then turned into a hope…
An object moves across the moon. It only obscures its light for a moment, but it is enough that for a moment we thought we were all in darkness. A woman screams, and we do not, for a moment, know why. The mother makes a sound as if she is dying as a new life enters the world. Three women hover around the mother, with towels and smiles and knowing looks. When the baby is born, the mother is amazed. Because she screamed as if she was dying and her son was born instead. She is all wonder at the transformation. The world is new.
Her husband is all wonder at how the world aligns itself to his purposes. The world is new, there is no room for the old world in Lord Protector Miraz's new one. His general already knew what to do. There was a scream like someone was dying, and it wasn't just because someone was being born.
A soldier moves in a hallway, but a shadowed figure is quicker. A figure that has embraced the shadows his entire life, used them to conceal everything and allow him to move in this new world as easily as he did in the old one. A shadowed figure who exists in the border between the two, in the shadows cast on the moon before the object eclipses its light but before the moon shines out anew, stronger than ever.
The shadow across the moon moves to Prince Caspian's chambers, the way he has practiced night after night teaching a young man to look up at the stars and see the moon as well as the darkness – the stars and their light in the midst of the dark sky. He tells him his aunt has given birth to a son, and, though he will protest later, the prince knows what that means. He knows that he has just become a piece of the old world that does not fit into the new world Miraz will make around his son.
A secret chamber hidden in a wardrobe saves him from the men who encircle his bed and fire fire fire on their rightful prince. Because there is no room in the new world for the beauty of the old. Except in the trace of the Shadow Across the Moon, hidden behind it, the point where the light converges with the darkness. Prince Caspian of the Telmarines, the rightful heir to the throne of Telmar and future Enemy Number One of Narnia, has Queen Susan's Horn placed in his hands by the tutor he has known all his life. In the darkness, as the new world eclipses the old, the Shadow on the Moon changes what will emerge on the other side.
At least that was his plan. "Everything you know is about to change." Now it must be defended. Caspian rides hard into the night, fleeing his family and the darkness of Telmar. Fleeing the new world so that the old one can reclaim its own. The world was never big enough for both of them. The one that loses the battle has two choices: death and exile within your own borders. But those just are the lies of Telmar; there is always a third choice. Caspian rides into the night, uncertain which fate will befall him now that he is part of the old world the Telmarines do nothing but seek to eradicate. To make way for the new. Whether it is better or worse.
He plunges into the Trees, so skilled at riding amidst them he must have had some of his people's superstition about them drilled out. But he grits his teeth just as the guards do when the general insists, because we all wince but we all get over superstitions. Because he was raised among the people of Telmar all of his life, the Narnians are just a story. A story he wishes was real, but what is real is the world and people of Telmar. They are Narnia now. A future kings knows this better than anyone, he only falls back on fairy stories when he too is part of the old world. He only became that this very night. Things we must remember.
The river claims a guard and a tree branch gets Caspian. A sign of things to come. Because he looked back, back to the new world being built which has no use for him. And it knocked him flat, because his people turned from him. The old world which came to greet him was just as hostile at first. Two dwarfs appear – and they remember what happened the last time the new world caught up to their enclave of the old one. Dwarves are creatures of Narnia, but not creatures of Aslan. They belonged to the White Witch; they belong to Jadis. When the new world came with Aslan and the Golden Age and the Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve, they were eclipsed. There was no room for them in the new world. They know this territory better than the other Narnians, who were children of Aslan and the human kings and queens of old in the last Golden Age.
Trumpkin goes to deal with the newest world yet, and Nikabrik can only watch helplessly as the old world is summoned. The oldest world since the White World of Jadis. But not old enough to include him. It's no wonder he cries out to stop him.
The Horn of Queen Susan sounds far out across the darkness as it eclipses the moon. When the Shadow is removed, the entire world is different.
The song of the Horn was only a car, honking at Lucy – who never needed to hear the Horn to believe in the Summons. She is running toward Susan, who picks up a magazine, sees the world as it is set before her. There is good stuff in the world as it is – that's Amelia Earnhart on the cover. Not a bad role model. There are also foolish little boys sniffing around her, this very pretty girl who is also a loner, an outcast. More than he will ever know. He thinks they are on equal footing. She was a Queen once, in a Golden Wood. He is nice but no consort for Queen Susan The Gentle of Narnia. She tells him her name is Phyllis. She wishes it was, sometimes. She sees the world as it is, no more and no less. The old world and the new, just as they are, whichever is winning at the moment is what she sees. She doesn't need him telling her life back to her as he insists on doing, the girl who sits alone at lunch, trying to show her that they are kindred spirits. He is no King, but then, here she is no Queen.
Lucy runs up and shatters the "Phyllis" lie. It was nothing more or less than kindness to lie, but for whom is less clear. The poor besotted boy didn't care what her real name was, he didn't see (or probably even care because boys suck like that) who she really was; but for Queen Susan, who is forced to be nothing more than the elder Pevensie girl for a year, the Phyllis girl he describes may be a loser, but she would be easier. She makes no apology to either of them when the lie breaks, just picks up her bag and runs through the world as it is now. Lucy came to get her because she doesn't know what to do with the world as it is now.
But even in such a world, a lion stands guard over the Sons of Adam and the Daughters of Eve, especially these four. In ways even Lucy does not see, He is always watching.
These poor, silly four. Peter so full of pride, trying to force the world to be the way it once was. Trying to force the world to be as he sees it. Edmund, who sees both sides, the old and the new, leaps in to help his brother. His brother, who for a moment looked scared as the eldest Pevensie fought three to four boys, willing his strength as a kingly warrior – King Peter the Magnificent who trounced Calormen and giants and the White Witch of Narnia by the strength of his arm – to return to him now in a tube station on the way back to school. For a moment, he is afraid because he knows that he will fail, just as he has a hundred times over the past year. But he cannot stop, cannot stop trying to will the strength of The Magnificent back into his arm, willing the world to be the way it was once, the way he still sees it, the ways he knows it could be. As all truly Magnificent men and all petulant megolomaniacs do. Sometimes it is so very hard to tell them apart. The key is what happens when the real world crashes back down.
The fight breaks up and the Pevensies gather together as everyone scatters. "Act your age," was the ultimate slap. From a soldier, a toy soldier compared to the ones he used to command. His brother and sisters are exacerbated later. "What was it this time?" Susan asks, seeing the world as it is. Her brother and his fighting, each reason sillier than the last. A story unworthy of High King Peter of Narnia, but all Susan sees now is Peter Pevensie, and this is just to be expected. Lucy is horrified. A bully bumped her brother, "So you hit him?" Because that behavior is not worthy of High King Peter of Narnia. The fact that they tried to make him apologize and acted like jerks scarcely makes it better, to Lucy who does not need to be in Narnia to believe or to take advantage of its lessons. Susan sighs and tells him to let it go next time. "Don't you ever get tired of being treated like a kid?" Peter demands, trying to force the world to take the shape it has in his mind. Edmund, who sees both sides, laughs and tells him, "We are kids." So do what you can as Peter Pevensie, because not only Narnia is beautiful. Aslan watches over us even in England.
"It's been a year. How long does he expect us to wait?" Peter demands, willing even Aslan to behave as he needs Him to. He is desperate, and he is tired of trying to make the world take a shape it was not meant for. Wanting to go home, to the old world where he was special and everything was shining and green and he was able to make a difference. He sits down beside his siblings on the bench, they naturally settled into their positions on the thrones of Cair Paravel. Except Susan, who sees the world as it is now, who stands lecturing three kids on a bench, "I think it's time we accepted that we live here now. And stop trying to pretend something different." But that is too hard even for Susan Pevensie when she sees the poor boy coming toward her. She was once courted by emperors and princelings, now only foolish loners. But that boy is brave and sweet and thinks he found a soulmate. She cannot see that, most people can't. If she has to be here, she would rather be Phyllis – the name of a girl out of his league, who is pretty and popular, rather than Susan who turns to her brothers and sister and says to pretend to be her friends.
Edmund just stares at her; they are her friends. He sees both sides, so he calls both sides on their bull. Peter and Susan, who have opposite approaches to the end of childhood, are both called on the carpet by King Edmund the Just who has not yet reached it.
But we don't have time for that, because Lucy who always believes, sees Aslan and Narnia around every corner – because they are around every corner – feels the pinch first. The three stare at her for a moment, telling her not to do this now – it hurts too much just now. All of their wounds are open. Peter stops talking next, yells at Edmund to stop, but Edmund wasn't touching him. Susan stops a moment later, both of the elder Pevensies distressed. Edmund, who sees both sides of the world, is calm, as is Lucy, who is finally going home – the magic she's been waiting for since they left Narnia – and is elated. "It feels like magic!" Susan, who sees the world as it is, which at the moment is best described as "falling apart all around them," says to hold hands lest they all end up somewhere different.
It started out as a feeling, which then grew into a hope, which then turned into a quiet thought, which then turned into a quiet word…
The train station signs blow away, leaving them without signposts. Then the bricks of their lives dissolve and blow away as if they never held strong at all. As if they were never solid. The train passes through, taking people from one world to another, now quite literally the door to another world. As if this mundane transportation system has been practicing all this time to accomplish something wondrous when summoned. Essentially, it is doing nothing more than it always does.
A beach bordered by great cliffs and a sparkling blue sea settles all around them when the music stops. They look about in a very different tunnel, one which opens into the light of a glorious day on the shore. The Kings and Queens of Narnia, the Quadruple Pillars of the Old World, walk back into their Kingdom.
They've been called home.
The girl who always believed in this world and the girl who always saw the world just as it is set before her meet each other's eyes and smile, their worlds finally, for the first time in a year, matching each other exactly. They run and fling off their shoes and knee socks and ugly red jackets, elated. Peter and Edmund grin, their quarrel forgotten – the eternal quarrel of the mediator and the visionary for how the world will be changed. They join the girls as they run across the sands of home.
Peter relaxes and splashes his sisters in the water, the world finally as he would have it be after a year of heartbreak. Edmund, who sees both worlds, the new and the old at once, looks up the cliff and sees ruins. There were no ruins in the Golden Age of Narnia. He seemed just as cheerful to see this new version of their old world, but the rest of the Pevensie children fall silent.
They wander among the ruins, wondering what stories, what legends of Narnia they had left undiscovered and unexplored in their long forty year reign. What secrets, what delightful tales, did they never know about their beloved country? They move among the ruins, wondering who once lived there. Never guessing. They are the legends of their beloved Narnia now. They knew from the very first moment, but even Lucy and Edmund cannot bear that yet.
Another home that was is now gone. Susan is the first to see it: the new world as it is now, even the world of Narnia changed. Edmund, who sees both, recognizes his chess piece in the ruins – his solid gold chess set, as compared to his one at home. Then Lucy sees their thrones, and she sees the throne room of Cair Paravel in the ruins, just as easily as she would if the walls stood all around her. And, still in the remnants of their school uniforms, the Kings and Queens of Old return to their home in Cair Paravel.
At the same time, the new world stands upon a new castle, Miraz and Prunaprismia stand with their child on the battlements as the general arrives. The baby is swaddled in pearly clothes – why do people do that? – and Miraz hands his child to his wife, heads down to the stables to begin making the world in the image of the baby in Prunaprismia's arms.
But the figure on the horse is not the prince who was the rightful king – the rightful king of what is already the old order of Telmar. Instead, an older world still has come to the Lords of Telmar. But Miraz was always at his best stamping on the neck of the old world, to make way for the new. He is surprised only for a moment; then he is pleased. He has stamped on the neck of too many old worlds to fear the return of this ancient one.
Sopespian stands in the Council Chambers and reminds the empty chairs of his prophecies and the living lords of the empty chairs that surround them. Miraz comes busting in and begins this round of the game he has played endlessly with Sopespian these many years, ever since the fall of Caspian IX. Sopespian's proxy declares that he has been acting as if he were the king all of these years, and now even the rightful heir to the throne has gone missing, so that Sopespian can hide behind snark, undercut the Lord Protector's authority even more, "Best wishes on the birth of your son." Condolences on the loss of your nephew, and on the very same night!
But he overstretches, because he doesn't know how many cards Miraz is holding. "I trust you can tell us how such a tragedy could have occurred." Yes, he can. Sopespian was expecting politician-speak, which wouldn't have sufficed here. Because Miraz's plan was bad. It was obvious and had way too many conspirators and clearly the Council of Nobles wasn't going to just go along with this because they were in such fear of Miraz – not if Sopespian can rile them up so easily. It was a stupid, almost desperate plan, because if his son was not born the rightful heir, Miraz knew better than anyone, then he never would be. Like Prince Hal of England.
But the old world gave Lord Miraz's bad plan a gift – a scapegoat for his machinations. And it's perfect, because goodness knows the dwarves of Narnia who have been "the old way" since the White World of Jadis fell would have kidnapped the rightful heir to the Telmarine throne if they had thought of it and could have pulled it off. It might even have been his professor's backup plan if Caspian didn't fall in love with the old tales. "Our beloved Caspian has been abducted – by Narnians."
And Miraz revels in their laughter, their cries that he has gone too far. Because the more that they cry out now, the more they silence their voices forever when he brings them proof. If they laugh now, they can never laugh again. Not once Trumpkin is brought before them.
They stop. Miraz has won.
A living "fairy tale." And Miraz revels in his victory as a creature of a world so old we have forgotten just how cold and White it was falls to his knees in the center of the Council of Telmar, becomes the foundation of the new world Miraz builds around the baby in Prunaprismia's arms. "Narnia was once a savage land." He speaks truer than he knows, and Trumpkin is a creature of the savage world of Jadis. "And much blood was shed" to end it. But while the Telmarines bickered, the dwarves and the other creatures of Narnia came together again at last. And they spread like fire (or, you know, cockroaches) underground, watching and waiting. For the return of Aslan or the right moment to strike.
Miraz beats Trumpkin across the face and his gag slips. He looks up, facing down the man with such a height advantage, and he is awesome. "And you wonder why we don't like you." Which, actually, I don't think has ever crossed any of the Telmarine's minds – but it's what a Narnian would think of. The dwarves are creatures of Narnia even if they are not yet children of Aslan.
Seemingly apropos of nothing, Miraz threatens to cut down the Trees. Obstensibly to find the Old World wherever it nests, but also because the fairy tale the Telmarine still fear – down in their spines if no longer acknowledged in their minds – is the way the Trees danced and went to war when Narnia was full of the Old Music. When the very world itself rose against them. Trumpkin does not break his gaze as the pretended king makes his threats, and the dwarf knows that Miraz has just told a creature of Narnia how the Telmarines can be defeated. He just doesn't believe it can happen – all the Old Music is gone.
But his image fades into Edmund's, the same music flowing around both of them – the two who can move amongst both worlds and find their places within them. And he finds a great stone that flew from a catapult. This isn't just time, but a War as well. A War which the High King did not lead, a war that happened after the Kings and Queens of Old abandoned Narnia.
They find a door to a cellar and push aside the door. Peter begins to tear his shirt and make a torch to use in Narnia, and Edmund who can move easily in both worlds smiles while his elder brother does it before announcing that he has a modern torch, though no matches. But because the world is again how he willed it to be for so long, Peter only laughs at himself.
They enter an enclave lit from above – neither torch necessary for Lucy who stares over their forgotten treasures in the light of day. Lucy takes out a dress and marvels that she was ever so tall, and Susan says wistfully that they were older then, and Edmund laughs and puts the two timelines together with ease. Peter stands aloof, wishing the world were better than even this. It's what makes him a King. He stares at his own statue, wondering that he was once the man standing so strong there. It's been so long since he felt like Peter the Magnificent.
In a box full of treasures, all four children all know exactly which ones truly belong to them. Susan misses her Horn, but the rest of the First Christmas in a Century gifts are in their hands almost instantly. Peter reads from his sword, "When Aslan bares his teeth, Winter will meet its end." That's his job, he is one of Aslan's bared teeth. Lucy finishes, "When he shakes his mane, we will have Spring again." She always remembered, the return of gentleness and love that was always there. Around every corner. But even Aslan cannot bring back the dead – everyone they knew and loved in Narnia has gone. Long ago. Mr. Tumnus and the Beavers, like the Kings and Queens of Old, are the legends of Narnia now. She will never see James McAvoy's gorgeous face again.
A creature of an older world still stares at the soldiers who bring him to execution. They toss him in the river, but Susan is there with her arrows. Peter pulls him out of the water. And the Golden Age of Narnia rescues a creature of the White World from the new order of the Telmarines. And he grumps at them, because he is not a child of their world. "That's the best you can come up with." The Telmarines were killing off the dwarves just fine without the help of Aslan's minions.
And then my heart breaks, as Trumpkin takes sight of the sword in Peter's hand, sees the way the Pevensie children naturally stand, now in their Narnian garments. Children armed for battle, the Old Music swelling around them as if they were so much more. They are, but Trumpkin was not designed to see it. "You're it?" He is so sad, and so disappointed, and so tired. The Golden Age is only this – four children are the great Kings and Queens of Old. Peter doesn't help by introducing himself as "the Magnificent." Susan snarks at him, taking in the new world where he isn't so much. Trumpkin laughs and agrees, laughing at the whole foolish world that dumped this mess at his feet.
Then High King Peter of Narnia hands Trumpkin his own sword, given by Father Christmas and knighted by Aslan himself, so that he can fight King Edmund the Just to prove their worth. Edmund smiles, sees both sides of the mess, and a creature of Jadis holds the sword of Aslan in his hands.
Not for long, Edmund wins the fight and knocks it from his hands. And Trumpkin falls back, impressed and hopeful for a moment. The Horn worked after all. The first dwarf to cross to a newer world than the White one.
Elsewhere, a prince opens his eyes to an older world. Caspian wakes up in a hole that is warm and inviting and furnished for much smaller people. Nikabrik who remembers the icy flash of the White World – whose name shows how the world has buffeted him about, thrown everything it could at his small but hard body – and Trufflehunter the badger whose Task is to remember the Golden Age amongst the rest of Narnia's history – whose name reminds him to find what is wonderful in the midst of the muck – argue over what to do with him. You can guess which side each is on.
Not trusting the Gold to win over the Ice, Caspian makes a break for it and ends up fighting half-heartedly with Nikabrik as Trufflehunter complains at both of them. "If we're taking a vote, I'm with [Trufflehunter]," he says, at one point. The Gold over the Ice; he'll have another shot at this choice.
Caspian marvels that they're real Narnians, first as the future king of Telmar who knows that this is a problem that was supposed to have been solved already. He tells them who he is, a part of the old world as they are, the Prince dethroned by his uncle. Trufflehunter gets quiet and serious for the opposite reason Nikabrik relaxes that they won't have to kill him themselves. He offers to leave so that they will be safe, and the Trufflehunter holds the Horn of Queen Susan reverently in his hands – knowing that the Herald of the Return of the Golden Age stands before him. "You're meant to save us. Don't you know what this is?"
Don't you know that you already have? No one has ever said anything like that to Caspian before, who was trained to be a future ruler of the Telmarines. These Narnians are so much more wonderful, and they are asking so much more. A quiet hope, which they have borne as silent, watchful faith all these long centuries, finally answered in the most unlikely form imaginable.
I'll come back when you call me…