I've always wondered about the weeks straight after the Pevensies return to England. Obviously the adjustment must have been incredibly hard. Somehow, I envision them depending a lot on Diggory and Polly (who in my head canon came down to visit the moment she heard about them) to guide the back to the 'real world' so to speak. That's basically where this fic came from.
1:
As always, it starts with Lucy.
One morning she opens her eyes to beams of sunlight falling across her bed, illuminating the dust mites dancing in the air and her heart soars.
She dresses quickly and tiptoes down the passage to take a flute from the Professors music room. Fleeing outside, she runs to a far corner of Coomb Halt's grounds, presses her back against an oak and brings it to her lips.
The instrument isn't like Mr Tumnus's or the Valiant's at all; the sound is too shrill, the holes too big and it has only one pipe – but the old Narnian melody flows out regardless.
Her music climbs upwards, twisting together to spread across the grounds and fill the house.
Lucy laughs.
2:
Round the opposite side of the house, Edmund is sitting on a rough stoned patio. The chord of music streams past and he jerks upright.
Immediately he closes his notebook and follows the notes to Lucy's hidden glade. He enters and touches her shoulder – gently, the barest brush of contact – and settles down with his writing.
His journal so far has been meticulous: a chronological recording of their time in Narnia, but on impulse he turns to the back page and scribbles down a distant memory.
It's not the grandest event: just a celebratory dance with Cor and Avaris but the melody is the same and for a moment he can close his eyes and...
Sometimes, memories are all you have left.
3:
Susan is upstairs helping the Macready when the melody reaches her. She stops – sheet in mid fold – and glides slowly to the window.
At the sight of her siblings below, tears spring to her eyes so quickly that she doesn't hesitate to run for the stairs.
When she arrives, no one speaks: Lucy merely nods and Edmund offers her a piece of paper and spare pencil.
She is silent as the music continues; her deft hand sketching a vibrant scene of fauns, centaurs, beavers, and four monarchs whirling in the middle of it all.
Soon, the image is blurred with tears.
4:
It takes Peter less than a minute, to reach them from the other end of the grounds.
The High King had been hiding away again; but when he approaches, his siblings see something different in his expression.
He doesn't break the song but joins it. Steady as a drum Peter's voice entwines with the melody, pushing it further and further up until the sky itself can hear.
Peter knows who's really listening.
5:
From an attic window high up in the house, two white haired figures watch the children.
Still singing, Peter grabs Lucy's free hand, and Edmund and Susan put aside their papers so the four of them can twirl together in a free, easy way, never taught in England.
With the music still stirring the air, the four siblings dance in the glade, echoing steps belonging to enchanted forests and creatures touched with the magic.
&6:
Polly and Diggory smile. This isn't Narnia, it never will be – but the song is proof that it does exist and it's still out there somewhere.
And for now, that's enough.