Disclaimer: Narnia is not my creation nor my home, but a story I have given my heart to. I do not own it.
A/N: Anonymousme requested I continue Meeting the Legends through VODT. I had to wait a few weeks to find a theme, since what I'm doing is just taking one thread and following it through Lewis's tapestry, seeing how it adds to and completes the pattern. Like a critical essay, but much more fun. As such, this will be like the second part of Meeting the Legends, often taking things word-for-word from Lewis's book, teasing out a new theme I found. I am intending to go through the book. However, this will probably be more about Lucy, and perhaps Edmund, than Caspian. I'm sorry if that disappoints. Also, I should be updating this at the rate of about one chapter a week, but the day of the week may vary, as life keeps upsetting whatever schedule I try to organise it with.
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"You will never be completely at home again, because part of your heart will always be elsewhere. That is the price you pay for the richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place." Miriam Adeney
Chapter One: Dreams and Losses
It was the breeze that woke her. Lucy, young queen, sat up and pushed the soft covers off, the cool stones of Cair Paravel solid, the Cair still. The curtains around her window were drawn back, the window open, and she brushed the rich, dark material with her fingers as she passed them, looking past them to the open sea. The sea that seemed nearer now than it ever had before. Narnia, she thought, her smile visible to the bright stars, home.
The curtains rustled, and her eyes opened again; she was in bed still? She sat up; the covers were just as warm, but rougher, coarser beneath her fingers, and the floor was wood, warmer than stone; the room was smaller. Had she been traveling? The curtains rustled again, and she looked to the window—open, still, as her windows always were, in whatever summer. No, wait, the books on that shelf, the familiar door, the small nightstand by her bed—this was England.
Oh, Narnia. They'd come back, and were learning to live here again, but with the feel of the breeze and the stillness still in her soul, she bit her lip to keep back the tears. For a moment she'd been back, and that moment was enough to make the loss real, present, all over again. Narnia, the word was longing, not memory tonight. Narnia!
She wiped her eyes, and ran her fingers over the bed-table, looking for the handkerchief. It was there, and she wiped her face again. Setting it back down, she ran her hand over the wood again. It'd been a present, her last birthday, from her father, an expensive piece he'd bought broken, and repaired, etched with carvings and more than they could afford to buy unbroken. Something precious, a reminder that here in England were family as well. And friends; Marjorie at school (1), Jane down the street, the boy at the grocers who loved to run races, who always smiled. And Mrs. Pennyfeather's baby, and a host of others. She even had her own room now, small, but completely her own. It was even in the attic, up high. Like she'd been at Cair. She sat back down suddenly on the bed, bringing up her knees and wrapping her arms around them. She loved being back with her mum, her dad, and even loved London's people-filled streets, but tonight, all she wanted was Narnia, streets that ran through woods and were filled with all kinds of creatures, and Cair Paravel with its multitude of memories, back before it became ruins. She wanted her home.
The next morning she was not well-rested, but put her hair back, dressed, and made her bed anyway. She ran her fingers over the covers once more, remember when the dryads had taken her covers out to Cair's gardens and swung them briskly in the wind. Her covers there were so pretty, woven with Narnian flowers in patterns made by the spirits of trees. She pushed her chin up. She wouldn't cry this morning. Peter, Susan, and Edmund would all wonder what was wrong, and they had enough on their minds, with trying to figure out how to help Mum and Dad, who were both working to make ends meet, and who had been talking a lot recently in low voices. Peter and Edmund tried their hardest to remember they weren't kings anymore, and couldn't command their own parents tell them whatever secrets were weighing on them, and Susan was using her best diplomatic skills to bring out a confidence, but so far nothing. They didn't need another worry.
Breakfast was good, buttered eggs and hot coffee (2), and after the year they'd had before going back to Narnia to grow accustomed to it, it tasted like home, like beginnings and sunny mornings. Lucy brightened up, and did her best to take away the shadows from her siblings, at the idea of Peter going away to study for exams (he'd promised to write, and Peter kept his promises, Lucy kept reminding herself), and from her parents, at a problem Lucy didn't know yet. She thanked her mother, spoke about her plans for the garden, and asked Susan about the new friends she'd made.
But as breakfast was nearing its end, Mum looked at Dad and he nodded.
"Lucy," her Mum began, "I'm afraid you won't be able to carry through with your plans for the garden." Lucy looked up inquiringly. "You see," her Mum added, hesitatingly, "your father's been given an opportunity."
"A good one," her Dad broke in, laying his hand on their mother's, "a lecture tour, lasting sixteen weeks."
"It'll be with several other professors," Mum added. "It could open up all kinds of opportunities. But-"
"It's in America," Dad added, tightening his hand slightly on their mother's. "And as things are, we can't afford to take all of you with us."
"I can stay with the professor," Peter put in, in his calm, helpful voice. "Shall I ask if he can take Ed and Lu as well?"
"We asked," their Mum said. Lucy's heart hurt. She looked so very tired. "It was so good for you, the time you stayed with him, but he hasn't room." Her mouth was frowning, the I'm-sorry kind of frown, as she looked at Lucy and Edmund. "We can take one child with us, the tour offers that. And we were thinking Susan would get far more out of a trip to America than the two of you (3). But we can't afford to put you up somewhere, and Harold heard about the speaking tour," Lucy nearly dropped her fork in horror but remembered queens did not drop their forks and therefore didn't, "and he offered to host the two of you for the summer." Chin up, eyes level, and breathe softly when they're outrageous, Lucy ran through Susan's instructions for dining with Calormenes through her head. She glanced over; Susan looked like she didn't know what to say.
"There's no where else?" Peter asked quietly, eyes searching Dad's face. Dad shook his head.
"We just can't afford anything else." Everyone was silent.
"Well," said Edmund at last, "I guess that means no more buttered eggs for breakfast" (4).
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(1) Marjorie is mentioned in the Magician's book, during the eavesdropping spell
(2) Taken from Prince Caspian, when it mentions what Peter and Edmund were thinking of for breakfast.
(3) Quoted from VODT
(4) VODT only says the Scrubbs were vegetarians, not vegans, but I could see them scorning a normal English breakfast.
LONG A/N: I've come across several stories in fanfiction that act like the four would hate living in England once they'd been to Narnia. I'm afraid I disagree. I lived in Japan for two years; I loved it. The customs and manners of the culture seemed like home, and it was accepted by all native people who saw me that I would be weird, because I wasn't Japanese; incredibly freeing. And I walked everywhere, and had a job that wasn't work four of the five days of the week because I loved it so much. I planned on staying there 18 years, if not more. It was home. But things happened with family back in the States, and I came back after two years. And I miss it, some days so much when something tastes, smells, or plays out like something would in Japan, and it feels like a loss. But I still have a life here, where I am, with people I love; with family. And as far as I can tell from the books, Narnia was like that for the Pevensies, something they held close among the four of them and spoke of whenever they could, something they missed deeply, but not something that prevented them from living in England.