Hello all! This is just something I wrote a while back some night I was ignoring my homework. I went back and forth over whether to post it, but in the end I thought "Why not?" And so here it is, my first one-shot. This is really just a little scene that played through my head when I heard The Hanging Tree song. The version I listened to on repeat while I jotted this down is the one by Adriana Figueroa. Feel free to play it while you read this, I do. :)
A brief forewarning, this does deal with some dark themes, so read at your own discretion. I rated it M just to be safe, even though it's not particularly graphic.
Enjoy!
A Narnian Hanging Tree
He sees her before he hears her.
She runs toward him silently, her eyes strangely calm for her frantic pace. He reaches out for her, but she brushes past him without a sideways glance.
'Come, Caspian,' her eyes say. 'Come, my love.'
He obeys, because he never could resist her.
He follows her at a run and thanks Aslan for the training that's kept him fit his whole life. Her pace is unrelenting, but he's managing to hold his strength. Then she vanishes into the tree line and he's not so confident anymore.
"Wait!" he tries to call, but the sound won't come from his throat. His mouth forms the words, but they remain stillborn as she weaves in and out of the trees.
She doesn't look back to see if he's still keeping up; she only continues, equal parts peaceful and frantic. He isn't sure what to do other than try to keep up. He's never seen this sort of thing from her before.
He follows her for what feels like hours to his body, exhausted as it is. He's not sure how long they've been running, but it feels like forever. His legs are starting to ache, a cramp starting in his left calf. A glance up at the sky tells him nothing; the sun seems to have frozen perched on the horizon. Nightfall is so very near and so very far away.
The woods around them begin to thin, just as he starts to lag and momentarily loses sight of her. When he bursts into the clearing, he panics for a moment. She's gone, disappeared as if she never was. He tries calling out to her, but as before, the breath never leaves his lips.
A flash of white catches his attention, there in a lonely tree. Hope and fear surge in his chest, though he doesn't know why. There is no danger here that he can see.
He sprints over to the twisted trunk standing proud and strong in the middle of the clearing, amid the grass that's faded in response to the coming winter. Another flash. He climbs. The bark is rough against his calloused hands.
He doesn't see anything at first, not until he's reached a higher branch.
She smiles at him, dazzling as the sun and sad as anything he's ever seen, and beckons him onto the branch with her. He hesitates, but he does as she asks, batting two ropes out of the way as he comes to stand beside her on the thick wood.
"I knew you'd meet me here," she says.
He doesn't know what to say, so he says nothing. He only stares at her, trying to understand the dread pooling in the pit of his stomach.
"Do you know where we are?" she asks him, her white dress fluttering in the breeze.
He shakes his head.
"They said he murdered three," is her answer.
"Who?" he asks her in reply, now more perplexed than ever.
"The man they killed here," she says simply, so casually as if this is some fun fact she found and saved away for him.
Again, he isn't sure what to say.
"I'm glad you met me here. I want us both to be free."
The dread grows, and he still doesn't know what it means or what she means.
"Free?" he echoes, hoping she'll explain.
If she understands, she does nothing to show it. Rather, she reaches behind him, her arm brushing his as she does. His breath catches at the simple contact, and he comes so close to asking her why she feels so cold.
She comes away holding the two ropes. Only now does he see the knotted loops at the end of them. And he finds that he can't speak to tell her to stop, to tell her to climb down and go back to Cair Paravel with him, to tell her that this isn't what it means to be free.
"What are you doing?" he finally manages to say, as she starts to loosen the noose closest to her.
"I want a necklace," she tells him with a small shrug, sleeves fluttering at the motion. "Do you want one too?"
He tries to shake his head, but his hand reaches for the other rope against his will. It feels old, prickly and stiff with age and the chill in the evening air.
She slips the rope over her head silently, with a smile on her face that's too gentle and turns his insides to ice.
'This isn't her,' he tries to tell himself, but this feels so real that it sounds like a lie.
She takes his hand in her own, fingers small and delicate in his. Still, she says nothing. He doesn't move to put the rope around his own neck, and he wants nothing more than to take the noose from hers. But he can't.
Then she's jumping and her hand is slipping from his and the only word he can think is no, not her, not like this, not now, no no no. His hand follows her until he loses balance and tumbles to the ground in an aching heap.
He doesn't move at first. He lays there, barely caring that his arm and shoulder throb from the fall and his back screams in protest to each simple breath. He can't move, can't look up and see her hanging from that tree by the rope. He can't do it.
He does anyway, and he tells himself it's just to say a proper goodbye.
He forces himself to stand, but nothing could prepare him for looking up at her. He doesn't even know the tears are streaming down his face until he covers his mouth with his hand and feels the wetness on his cheeks.
What he doesn't understand is how peaceful she looks. Any other time, he would say she looks…happy. But it's wrong to use such a word to describe her now.
When her finger twitches, his heart leaps into his throat and next thing he knows, he's trying not to break down as he clutches desperately at that hand, that one sign that she's still alive.
Her eyes are open and unseeing, her hand cold in his. But he holds on anyway, holds on because she can't leave him like this.
He can't find air to breathe when her fingers curl around his ever so slightly. And she whispers one word, a word he obeys even as he hates it for sending him away.
"Run," she whispers, and then her eyes flutter closed and her hand slacks in his.
He runs.
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