My first foray into the Narnia fandom,so please be kind. This came to me at my brother's baseball game one time... It's not the greatest thing I've ever written, but I think it's fairly good. Reviews and constructive critisism welcome. Please excuse any errors in spelling/grammar; I try my best, but I'm not perfect.
Big thanks to my BETA Lil_Miss_Caprice, as always.
Disclaimer: It all belongs to C.S Lewis and his family.
Morning Glories
Lucy is five years old when she decides that morning glories are her favorite flower.
At the time it is only because they are beautiful, (the most beautiful flowers in her grandmother's enormous garden, in their pastel shades of blue, purple and pink, as well as a soft sort of white) and Lucy loves beautiful things.
Now however, at sixteen years of age, Lucy's favorite flowers are still morning glories, but for an entirely different reason.
It isn't that she doesn't still think that they're beautiful, because they are, but she no longer has the same shallow view of beauty as she did before.
(Before their trip to the country. Before she almost lost both of her brothers more times than she cared to count. Before she was thrust into a role she had no idea how to fill, but somehow, miraculously, managed to anyways. Before her life became complete.
Before Narnia.)
Now, she sees them as kind of a reflection of her time there.
The beauty of a morning glory is fleeting; it opens its petals with the dawn and closes them again when night falls.
When they first return after having helped Caspian regain the throne, Lucy views the blossoms as a parallel to what has happened to her beloved country. The time of the Four Monarchs was like the day, and Narnia was at her peak; Golden Age, indeed. But then they fell back out of the wardrobe and into England, adults thrust back into the small, delicate bodies of children, and the dusk came, followed by a thirteen hundred year night, as the petals slowly shut, waiting for the sun to rise again.
Now, two weeks after her adventures with Eustace and Edmund on the Dawn Treader, and her subsequent inability to return to her true home, Lucy believes that morning glories could be symbolic to her time in Narnia; fleeting moments of unsurpassable beauty and wonder and light. England is the night that falls until she can return to her daylight, her Narnia again.
But now… it seems that winter has come, and the blossom has died, never again to see the light of day and grace the world with its soft colours and simple beauty.
The slam of the door disrupts her thoughts, and Lucy looks up from her gardening to see Edmund striding towards her.
"Out here again Lu? If you keep this up, Aunt Alberta will get suspicious. You know she hates the idea of anything other than roses and shrubbery in her garden!"
They share a laugh at this. Ed settles down next to her in the grass, gazing out across her small haven of pastel blue, light purple, pale pink and soft white.
"They remind me of Narnia." she says softly. He glances at her, dark eyebrows raised in a question, but says nothing.
She tells him everything; all of her speculations and ideas, because she thinks maybe, just maybe, he of all people will understand.
When Edmund remains silent, mouth turned down in a slight frown, Lucy thinks she may have been wrong about him understanding. Therefore, she is pleasantly surprised when he says, "You missed the biggest similarity."
Although pleased he hadn't scoffed at her like he would have once, she is confused by his reply, and tells him so.
He chuckles. "Aslan, of course. I'm surprised that one didn't come to you immediately, Lucy."
When Lucy continues to gaze at him, Edmund's face adopts shocked a look. "You haven't figured it out?"
She shakes her head, which startles a laugh out of him. "Oh. Alright then."
"Care to explain it to me, brother dear?" Lucy says jokingly, but Ed's eyes remain serious, almost sombre, and her laughter dies in her throat as she sits quietly, listening attentively.
"Morning glories open in the morning and close at night, only to open again as the sun rises, correct?"
She nods at him, and he continues.
"Aslan was killed at night, but He rose again in the morning. And He is the most beautiful thing that has ever existed, in this world or in Narnia."
Lucy's continued confusion must have shown on her face, because Edmund attempts to clarify whatever point he was trying to illustrate.
"Morning glories close their petals in the evening and reopen them when the sun rises; they "die" and are "reborn". Just like He was. It just… they remind me of the sacrifice He made. He gave his life, with all its vibrancy and purity and beauty for someone as tainted and unworthy as me. These flowers… for me they're almost like Aslan himself is reaching out and telling me that he is in this world, just like he said, and that we will find him, and maybe even return home, someday, somehow."
Lucy's eyes fill with tears. Such displays of passion are a rare occurrence with Edmund, but when he does choose to show his emotions, and put them in to words, it's always meaningful.
(Ed isn't one to speak unless he has something to say; that is part of what made him the finest diplomat in all of Narnia, and perhaps in all of Archenland and Calormen too—he didn't say much, but when he did speak, people shut up, and people listened.)
Lucy shakes herself, falling back to the present abruptly. Edmund is looking at her in alarm in all his water blurred glory.
"Lu?" he asks, sounding slightly panicked.
"Oh Edmund!" she exclaims, tackling her unsuspecting older brother in a tight hug.
Burrowing her face into the rough fabric of his shirt she continues, "That was beautiful, Ed!"
She feels his body move as he shrugs his shoulders. "It was nothing." He sounds embarrassed.
"Still," Lucy insists, "it made me feel much better! I've been a little down ever since… well, you know."
And no more is said for a long while.
Yes, morning glories are Lucy's very favorite flowers. And now she has yet another reason to love them.