A/N: Thank you, Taylor Swift, for inspiring me to write with your song Long Live. And also to Voyage of the Dawn Treader for making me fall in love with Caspian. To my dear readers, I will leave it up to you to fill in the blanks as to who this girl is. It could be Susan, it could be the Blue Star person whose name I've forgotten or it could be an OC. She could be whoever you want her to be. Anyways, enjoy reading and please review.
There was absolutely not a way that no one else could hear his heart beating. There was simply no way, because his heart wasn't even beating. It was thumping and that wretched sound was echoing so loudly in his ears that the thought of no other living soul hearing it seemed impossible.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. The sun had retired for the day and for all he knew, everyone else should have followed suit, returning home and settling into their rest. Instead, everyone was here. If it had been up to him, he would've much preferred sitting in a dark corner somewhere and never step out. In fact, the only thing that was keeping his heart from jumping out of his chest at that exact moment was the knowledge that they were standing in the shadow of the palace. But that was all about to change soon and he felt nauseous about it. It actually struck him as rather ironic, his nerves. He had gone on battles, slaying sea serpents and a whole lot of other things, yet when faced with something like this, his heart dropped all the way down to his feet and his stomach twisted into knots while somehow managing to perform flips.
The last thing he wanted to do was go out there, but seeing as how practically the whole kingdom had turned up for this day, he didn't really have a choice. He turned his head to look at the woman next to him, his eyes searching the darkness for any sign of her. He was well aware that he was supposed to go through this ceremony with her and he knew that she must've been somewhere next to him, but he could not see her and that made him even more nervous. What if she'd left him to do this alone? He would die out there. He truly would.
As more and more worries began to make appearances in his mind, Caspian's heart was no longer thumping rapidly. No, it was well past that. His heart was now, like a deranged horse, trying to kick its way out of his chest. A tiny voice in the back of his head tried to make him see that he was being dramatic, that he should not indulge in all these hyperboles, but he didn't listen to that voice. Not when his brain was focusing on the nervousness he was feeling. He should've listened to that voice, however, because if he had, his brain would've stopped being quite so ridiculous and he would've been able to think about other things other than his wildly beating heart. He would've been able to process and form a coherent thought, a coherent sentence out of the murmuring he'd heard behind him not a second ago. It was too late now, though, because the doors have opened and although his mind was still stuck on his nervousness, his legs seemed to move without direction from his brain. He took a step out of the doors, out of the shadow of the large structure which had been his sanctuary from tonight and into the light, into the screams of joy and celebration.
His hands began to shake and his brain ceased to work. All he could do was stare ahead and feel himself move forward towards the podium.
"Remember this night." A voice broke the silence his mind had somehow weaved about him and he turned his head to his left as he had done not too long ago, and he could see her. She wasn't looking at him, but he knew that she had been the one to say those three words.
And just like that, he began to see again. Oh, he had seen before, but what he saw had not been committed to memory. Now that he looked, though, he could see the smile she had etched onto her lips, the one that betrayed all the happiness her heart kept, and felt a smile of his own creep onto his face. If he was going to remember this night, then her smile was the first thing he wanted to think of when memories came flooding back into him years from now.
Then his eyes began to roam around the whole courtyard. What else should he remember? But, even as he looked around, he received his answer: everything.
Everyone was there, and there were so many lights. At a time when they should've been caught up in their exhaustion, they came here instead, with candles that they'd lit especially for them. The world shone that night for the king, and he held his head up high, realizing that that king was him.
He looked back at the woman next to him and saw her eyes trained on him. They were shining and dazzling, just like she'd always been, and he felt his heart―the very organ that had caused him so much trouble by threatening to escape from his chest―soar. It only lasted a little while, however, because the truth had dawned on him. He didn't like to think about it, but it was unavoidable at most times because of what he felt for her, because of what his heart did to him when he was around her.
She was not meant for him. He'd always said that he didn't like it when Fate intervened and that he would not let it step in, but it had and there was nothing he could do. No matter how much he may love her, she was not from his world. No matter how much she wanted to stay, she'd still have to go back one day. It was a fact that always managed to tear him apart.
Finally, he had to tear his gaze away from her. This was a day for celebration, a day for joy. He could not think about his woes when all his people had showed up just to help him celebrate their victory. Besides, he still had many things to remember.
From behind him, he could hear someone telling him to 'step this way', wherever this way was. His legs seemed to know where to move, however, so he simply let them take him―and climbed up the steps of the podium to stand right in the middle of it. He saw the lights again and his smile, which had disappeared when he'd thought of her, came back. There was something different about his people tonight. There was something different about the land. The air they breathed was a different air. His common sense was telling him that the air he breathed now was no different from the air that his ancestors had breathed a century ago, but the other part of him, the one that had dared to dream of a day just like this one, knew that the air they filled their lungs with tonight was not the same. It was changed. Whereas before, the air―well, everything in the world, really―had been tainted with sorrow and, yes, oppression, freedom was clinging to every breeze that blew by tonight. A huge burden had been lifted from them.
It sometimes surprised him, though, how different his life had become. Once upon a time, he had been a mere prince, but now he was king. Now he had things to do, such as sail with a number of other men on a ship to all the corners of Narnia in an effort to unite them. He would probably not be able to stay in the library all day anymore, reading books, all the while fantasizing about all the things he could do. He had to think things through now. He couldn't just leave on some great adventure on a whim. There would be no more dragons to slay, no more mountains to move, no more walls to crash through.
As soon as that thought came to his mind, he looked to her again. All the walls he'd crashed through, all the mountains he'd moved, the dragons he'd slain had been with her. She would leave soon, he knew, and with her, all the magic they'd had between them.
It felt ridiculous, this whole thing. Not the ceremony, but the fact that he'd rehearsed everything he was supposed to do tonight, that he'd rehearsed tonight itself, but nothing had turned out the way they'd planned. He was thinking of her far too much and he was feeling anguish―something he should not have felt on this day.
"Sire, you must say something," someone from the crowd said.
He looked around for what could've been the hundredth time that night. What he saw was his people with their hearts on their sleeves. Their happiness was evident in every little thing they did, every move they made. And this was what this night was about. Happiness. He should be feeling exactly what his people were feeling, not being stuck in something that hasn't even happened yet. He was king and for now, he still had her. Everything was still the way he'd wanted it to be. As if she'd known of his thoughts and his feelings all throughout the night, she took his hand, lacing her fingers through his, and he smiled at her touch.
He had no idea what to say, but his mouth opened and he spoke anyway. "Today, Narnia is one. We are one."
It was not exactly the epic speech he'd had in mind, but it was still greeted with cheers from the people.
He was certain that at that precise moment, cynics all over the land were screaming in outrage because, for however long it would last, a band of thieves got to rule the world, and he realized just how right she had been when she told him to remember this night. She had been right about a lot of things, of course, but none that seemed more important than this. He would remember this all this and tonight, they would dance as if they knew their whole lives. Bards would sing of their story. Tonight, they would go down in history books, their heads held high like heroes in the pictures artists would draw and one day, when he had children and they pointed to the picture, he would tell them her name and how the world shone.