Well, time for a new story! I planned to have this one out several months ago, but life got in the way and I wanted to avoid an unpredictable update schedule as much as possible. Luckily, this story is already written, every word. However, I haven't finished editing it so I'll be updating on a weekly basis. This month also happens to be NaNoWriMo and I have grad school finals bearing down on me, so if for some reason the update is late please bear with me. If you feel the urge to PM me to fuss that a chapter is late, by all means do so. If you'd rather wait in silence, more power to you. Point being, my update schedule is supposed to be firm but towards the middle of December it's quite possible a few of them will be a few days late so my apologies in advance if that does happen.

As far as what to expect, well, this won't be like my other stories on the site. I got bitten by the fairy tale bug after watching the live action Cinderella back in 2015, and once Rosamar and Caspian were bitten by the romance bug I just rolled with it and threw the two together. If you've read my collection "Behind the Scenes," this is the story that almost wasn't because the first draft was such a headache. (Writing a story in 5 frenzied days will tend to do that.) But after letting it rest and cranking it through several bursts of editing, here it is. If you shipped Rosian from the Moonrose series, this is written just for you. For anyone who hasn't read Moonrose, this is simply a Caspian/OC story imagined as a fairy tale. Because why not.

Now for the ever-necessary disclaimer: You all know the drill. I don't own Narnia or any of C.S. Lewis's characters, but my OCs are my own creation.

Lastly, reviews. If you can spare a few seconds or minutes to leave one, I always appreciate it and I reply to every one. On a selfish level, it's just really nice to hear that someone is reading whether they enjoyed it or not. And on a constructive level, I'm always trying to improve so it's very helpful to get feedback telling me what I could be doing better.

Okay, enough of these author notes. Enjoy the story and check back next week for Chapter 1!

This I Promise

Prologue

(Isi)

Once upon a time, in a land called Narnia, there lived a young girl. There was perhaps nothing very special about this girl, at least those who knew her a little thought so.

But there were two people, two people in the whole of the world, who knew her a lot. Not her mother, sweet woman that she was, and certainly not her father. They were her brother, Medias, and her Aunt Isi, a kind and generous woman who loved little Rose all the more dearly for her little strange interests. The town where Rosamar lived called her strange when they thought she wasn't listening, but Isi preferred Rose's strangeness to the rest of the town's normalness. Together, the two would sneak off to the woods whenever they wished, or whenever they could, and tell each other the most wondrous stories. Stories of wild magic and midnight dances and fantastic beasts that could speak as well as humans. Sometimes, Isi would even tell a tale of old Narnia that she knew, a tale of the Golden Age when the land of Narnia had four monarchs who ruled in peace and wisdom. Rose's favorite was the tale of Prince Cor and Aravis, of their escape from Calormen into Archenland.

Today is one such sneaking, storytelling day, begun when the sun has barely begun to rise. Rose's family is still asleep, and Aunt came to steal her away. Aunt Isi strides through the forest with young Rose's hand in her own. Sometimes, Rose pulls away to go chasing a bird, and every once in a while one of the birds will stop and rest on her arm for half a moment. Rose loves to pretend she understands the chirps and tweets, and Aunt always encourages her to speak to them as if they all understand each other.

This morning a robin is perched on Rose's hand, tipping its little brown head from side to side as if studying her. No doubt it finds the cheerfulness of the Telmarine child puzzling, as most of the other children of Beruna would throw stones in sport or just ignore any wildlife visitors that happen to visit. Not Rose.

"Hello there," Rose's little voice chirps, sounding not horribly unlike her intended conversee. "I'm Rose. I think you must have a name too. You do have one, don't you?" Rose whips her head around, and her small brown eyes meet her Aunt's much older ones. "He must have a name, mustn't he?"

"Of course he must," laughs Aunt Isi. "All creatures have names, we only have to listen for them to tell us."

"Well go on then. I'd like to know your name, Sir Robin," says Rose. At her words, the bird on her finger puffs out his chest and sings out a rather high-pitched tweet. With a few flaps of his wings, the red-breasted robin takes off into the air, singing all the while.

Rose watches him go with a puzzled little line between her brows. When the robin is gone from sight, she turns to Isi with a sparkle in her eye and a child's playful grin on her lips. "I think he likes Sir Robin, Isi. What do you think?"

Isi laughs again, shaking her head at her niece. "Any bird would be lucky to have such a name. Come on now, let's go deeper in." Isi doesn't tell Rose, but there is a stream a little way in that the girl hasn't found yet before. The summer has been unbearable of late, and Isi wants to dip her feet in the cool water. She knows Rose will love the gurgling, babbling stream as much for the sound it makes tumbling around the pebbles as the relief it offers from the heat.

"Why don't we just move away together?" Rose says suddenly, stopping in her tracks and staring up at Isi.

Isi stops too, and a certain kind of apprehension fills her. She likes the idea as much as Rose does, certainly, but it isn't practical. Their lives are here, and travel in Narnia is dangerous for two women, to say nothing of a woman and a young girl. And Telmarine towns are not exactly known for their hospitality to strangers. But how to say this without hurting Rose's feelings, without her thinking Isi just didn't want to? Her niece is sensitive about feeling unwanted. She feels it from the village most days of her life, after all.

"Rose, I…" Isi takes a deep breath of the dawn air, in the strange hope the fresh, wild smell and taste will bring the proper words to her mouth. "It's not that I wouldn't wish to. But it's not practical to just get up and leave. No town would accept us without questions."

Rose shrugs small shoulders and doesn't even blink before opening her mouth. "We wouldn't have to live in a town. Why not live in the woods? People must've done it before."

Animals have. Birds have. The Talking Beasts of Old Narnia, they have. But humans? Telmarines?

"There must be some place we can go, just the two of us. Some place safe, away from everything else. Some place…oh I don't know. Some place magical."

"I don't think there's such a place in all the world, Rose," Isi answers with a heavy heart.

Rose frowns and looks away into the woods. Isi hates how serious her niece has become. This morning was supposed to be another of their carefree escapes into the woods, and now Rose has that look, that hopeless sort of look she gets often back in town. Isi's made it her life's work to keep that look away as much as she can, and the thought of having brought it to little Rose's face – Rose, who's only turning eleven this year – it kills her. So Isi puts on a smile she doesn't entirely believe in and turns to Rose.

"At least, in this world. But perhaps, there's another world, beyond the horizon or off the edge of the world. Or five paces away. You never know where you'll find a little bit of magic."

It works. Rose instantly snaps back to attention, the look gone from her features, swept away by curiosity and hope. "Another world?" Rose ponders the words for a moment, and her face scrunches up as if she's trying to turn them over in her mouth. "Do you really think we could find magic?"

Now Isi doesn't have to pretend. She smiles, a warmer smile than before.

"Magic is everywhere, Rose. We only need the eye to see it."

Rose beams and starts to skip alongside Isi once more. "You believe in magic, then?"

"I believe in everything," Isi says. "Especially magic."

Rose takes Isi's hand in her own, and Isi marvels at how calloused Rose's hand is already. Children shouldn't have hands like that, but at least Rose is smiling now.

"Then I believe in magic too," says Rose. And she skips ahead, hand slipping from Isi's as she goes chasing another robin.

They do find that stream, and Rose's joy bubbles up like the laughing brook over the stones. Isi tells her a story while they sit with the water flowing over their toes, one of the Kings and Queens of Old. Rose marvels at all of them, but it's Lucy she loves hearing about the most. And Aslan, always Aslan. When Rose asks, inevitably, if Isi believes in Aslan too, Isi just smiles.

"I believe in magic, remember? Aslan is the best kind of magic, the kind that's only ever good."

Rose promises to believe in Aslan too, and Isi lets the two of them stay hidden in the woods long after the sun rises.