A/N: This is the sequel I promised to write five whole years ago, when I first posted Sooner or Later. You don't necessarily have to read that to understand this, but it probably helps it make sense.
Edit as of 2008: I've cut most of the exposition out of this story. I've left only the short scene I wrote first, plus a tiny bit of context. If I'm honest, I only wrote the other bits as an aside; I felt like I had to justify the ending scene by having a beginning scene. But writing for writing's sake is not really a great idea; it didn't come out easily and I realised it wasn't really all that good. What remains is short, and perhaps less comprehensible to some, but I prefer it this way.
Anyhow, enjoy. This is the last fic on my list for this particular pairing. Oh man, it's been fun.
No Wrong Things
Looking back over the years, piled glittering over themselves like a patchwork quilt, it was easier for him to remember dying than you might have thought.
When he'd felt himself fading from life, all that time ago, he'd thought of a voice. A voice floating across the ages and through the mists like something in a dream: Whatever happens, wherever we both go and whatever we do, we mustn't forget eachother… A voice that brought back the salt sea-air and the scent of water-lilies, the immensity of a sun too huge to be real, and a figure with long fair hair standing at the bows…
Then came the gold.
It was all about him – or was it water? Perhaps, but the gold was everywhere… sinking into his heart, easing his creaking joints, smoothing the lines on his face – he felt young again, and so free, so ecstatically happy…
The gold was Alsan, and all the freedom and joy in the world poured from him like the centre of the world.
He had said words that made Caspian hope, made him feel that his heart was so full that if he moved or spoke, it would burst. Sooner or later, all Aslan's people came here, and that meant sooner or later, so would she.
He had asked if he could justify wanting to see her again. After all, there had been others he had loved; others who had greater claim to his obligation. Was it not wrong to want to return, even for an hour, to that desperate fevered moment on a Silver Sea full of lilies when every feeling was like a barb, sharp and fierce and overwhelming?
Aslan's eyes had grown soft; he had laughed. Dear one, he had said gently, as I told you once long ago… you cannot want wrong things anymore.
And then the door had opened, and the Shadow Narnia was no more, and she was there at last, standing before him as if she had never left.
An age later, or no time at all, they stood on the sand at the mouth of Glasswater. By the sea, the place that had drawn them like a moth to a flame for so long.
The waves lapped serenely at the shore. The late afternoon light made the sand warm, the waves sparkle soft gold – it was so beautiful… it would have been heartbreakingly beautiful, if things could have been heartbreaking in that place.
Behind them, the light reflected off the windows of Cair Paravel, just like how she first saw it so long ago: like a huge star that had come to rest on the shore. Through her peripheral vision she could see Caspian's darling form staring out to sea, contentment in his every move, and felt she could die of happiness.
But no… no dying here. This was where she could live of happiness.
Out to sea, away to the east, waves frothed camomile champagne, diamonds on every crest, and her eyes widened as the seed of an idea came to her.
"Do you remember?" she said, turning to him. "Oh, Caspian, do you remember? The Dawn Treader, all the things that we did and the people we met?"
He looked at her, his expression full of playful happiness. "Remember? How could I forget! It changed me forever… you changed me forever…"
"This is the Real Narnia… we've seen so many things we loved here – Cair Paravel, the lamppost, the Fords, the Garden. But what of the places we saw on our journey to the East?" Her voice was beginning to betray her thrill. "Dragon Island, Coriakin, the last table… the Silver Sea?"
He looked at her and she knew he understood what she meant, and saw the flicker of adoration behind the growing excitement in his eyes.
"And we can run here without ever stopping – what if we can swim, too? You and I, back to the East, to visit all those places we once saw and loved – and what if, at the end of it all, there is another Aslan's country waiting for us? Real worlds within Real worlds, on and on forever, until nothing is left but an eternity of joy and beauty? What if we find it, you and I?"
For a moment he was speechless. Then, before she could respond, the solemnity in his face turned to impish abandon; he caught her round the waist and drew her to him while she shrieked and laughed, stealing mischievous kisses wherever he could find bare skin – breathless, they fell to the sand together, as close as they could get.
"Yes," whispered Caspian hoarsely. "Yes, yes! We'll go, together. Now! After all, we can't want wrong things any more, can we?"
"No," she said softly, adoring him with every breath. "No, we can't."
He leant forward and stole another blissful kiss – but this time, unlike so long ago on the Dawn Treader, there was no desperation. Only tenderness, and the exciting, playful, tigerlike love of equals.
She seized his hand and they waded knee-deep into the shining waves, facing East, facing the sun. They turned to look at eachother.
"I love you," said Caspian.
"I never stopped," said Lucy.
Hands intertwined, they walked into the sun. This time, there would be no tears, no separation, no lives lived apart, no love lost.
This time, there would be no farewells.
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-fin.-
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A/N: I've just watched the film of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe again and I remembered something I meant to put in here. At the end, when Aslan is crowning the four children and attributing them each to the points of the compass, he dedicates Lucy to "the shining Eastern sea". Given that I'd already got the Dawn Treader Lucian bug and written this end scene for No Wrong Things, you can imagine that made me squee like a madwoman. And one more thing - the look of the beach at sunset when Lucy and Tumnus are watching Aslan walk away is exactly what I had pictured in my head for the end of this story.
Even though I thought William Moseley looked far more like a Caspian than he did a Peter... :-p
PS, just a note about Ramandu's Daughter (I wish we had a name for her, I always find it a shame that not even the author gave much of a thought to her). I know that in most of my Lucians, she is a problem - although all but this one takes place before Caspian married her, so it's less so. But I don't want anyone to think that I've forgotten her, or that I dislike her. Quite the contrary - I have a strange fondness for her, which is why I've tried never to make it seem like she's totally out of the picture in my stories. I do think Caspian loved her very dearly, and since in real life I believe that love isn't constrained to merely one person, I kind of took it for granted that the problems arising from Caspian loving two people at the same time wouldn't really matter in a perfect world like Aslan's Country. I suppose this is a long-winded way or saying "forgive me, and use your imagination as much as possible" :-D For a really beautiful account of Ramandu's Daughter and her life, I recommend Beautiful Serpent, by Andi Horton. It's right here in the CS Lewis section. I promise you, it's one of the best Narnia fanfics you'll ever read.