Author's Note: This story was a gift for Bedlams Bard over at the Narnia Fic Exchange. She gave me many wonderful prompts; hopefully, I was able to fulfill at least one of them to her liking.

"Many years ago in that world, in a deep sea of that world which is called the South Sea, a shipload of pirates was driven by storm onto an island. And there they did as pirates would; killed the natives and took the native women for wives, and made palm wine, and drank and were drunk, and lay in the shade of the palm trees, and woke up and quarreled, and sometimes killed one another. And in one of these frays six were put to flight by the rest and fled with their women into the center of the island and up a mountain, and went, as they thought, into a cave to hide. But it was one of the magical places of that world, one of the chinks or chasms between that world and this… And so they fell, or rose, or blundered, or dropped right through, and found themselves in this world, in the Land of Telmar which was then unpeopled."

– Aslan, Prince Caspian, p. 217

PART ONE

The sun was bright and oppressive, but it was always bright and oppressive here. The white sand certainly didn't help much - it was scorching hot if he moved his feet and stung his eyes when the sunlight reflected off its surface - but it was sure as hell better out here on the beach than in that stifling jungle. Here, there was a breeze, at least, and the crashing waves that made Ned long for the open sea. Even after five months stuck on this island, he couldn't stand how still it was in that wretched forest. He also couldn't understand how Alohilani could love it so much, but that was the sailor in him talking.

He congratulated himself again on remembering her name properly. The girls here had so many syllables to keep track of. It had taken him at least a week to realize that those sounds were supposed to be her name, and a few more to figure out how to pronounce it himself in a way that didn't make her and the girls around her erupt into giggles.

From his left, he heard a shout, followed by a louder retort. They were fighting again.

Since the wreck, relations had been strained amongst the crew. They had stuck together as a fighting force long enough to deal with the hostile savages who had been so very unwelcoming to the bedraggled and half-drowned men of fortune, but the camaraderie ended abruptly when the last native man of fighting age had been run through. Everyone, it seemed, had someone to blame for the loss of the good Celestina, though Ned reasoned that it was the cyclone, more than any bad orders or badly-tied rigging, that had caused her to smash her hull to smithereens on the submerged rocks that protected this bay. She was of little use to them now, half-sunk a half-league out to see, and fate had marooned them all on this godforsaken island with only their irritable, ragged selves and a few quiet and wary native women and children for company.

At least there were women. After the men had been killed, the women were largely divided up among the twenty-seven crewmen who had survived the wreck. Some went willingly, competing amongst themselves for the handsomest or strongest pirates, while others were claimed by force or somehow found themselves attached to one sailor or another eventually. Ned had won Alohilani, or rather the right to woo her, such as he could, from the bosun in a lucky hand of cards. She was pretty enough, quiet and sweet, and he tried his best to be good to her. They still couldn't communicate much in the verbal sense, but he had to admit it was a nice change having a woman sharing his makeshift bed in place of the two dozen snoring, smelly men with whom he'd shared sleeping quarters aboard the Celestina.

At least she didn't come with any children. No one had exactly been looking to become a father overnight, but at times it came with the territory. Jon, who used to man the crow's nest and had been the most light-footed of them all up in the rigging, had taken to a woman whom he later found out was mother to two boys. He hadn't been able to rid himself of her after, but to ease the shock of being a new father Jon had acquired a second wife, a pretty girl who couldn't have been more than seventeen.

Ned reached for the bottle to his side, a cloudy glass container with a half-broken neck that had washed up on shore a couple of days after he had. He had to be careful when taking a swig of the palm wine lest he cut his lip (again), but the bottle served its purpose. He was thankful every day for the wine these natives made; it wasn't ale, but, like the bottle, it served Ned's needs well enough.

The shouting was growing louder, and Ned was hoping that he could drown it out with a combination of a drunken stupor and the crashing waves. He'd had enough fighting, at least amongst the former crew of the Celestina. Regardless of whose fault their predicament was or who was to blame in any number of the quarrels that erupted daily amongst the crew, they were all stuck here now and Ned supposed they might as well learn to live with it. He just hoped he wouldn't have to dig another grave today.

It would be nice when the bullets ran out. Not like there was much hunting to be done, anyway.

He took another swig, cursing aloud when he nicked his lip on the sharp edge of the bottle's broken mouth. That wouldn't have hurt as much if he had been as drunk as he wanted to be. He poured another long swig into his mouth, taking care to avoid touching any part of the glass. The sweet wine was embittered by the metallic taste of blood.

The first shot almost made him jump, a sudden crack that cut through the sound of the breeze and the surf. Another swig of wine immediately preceded a second shot.

I need to start drinking faster.

There were more shouts now, and a woman was wailing. Ned cast a casual glance over his left shoulder and caught sight of the rabble. He couldn't make out much of what was going on; it was all milling bodies too far away to distinguish, and at any rate the sun was making him half-blind. He was about to turn back to the surf when he saw a small group break apart from the larger crowd and sprint toward him.

A few gunshots followed them, as well as some more members of the rabble at a seemingly slower pace. Ned was just beginning to contemplate whether he should move out of the way – the last thing he needed was the fight to come to him – when the little fleeing group began to splinter apart. Some dashed headlong into the jungle, while others reached the makeshift camp and began to hurriedly gather items. There were a few native women scattered amongst the crewmen, Ned noticed, and one was shrieking words he didn't understand. It must have been names, because soon enough a couple of children came crashing out of the surf where they had been playing. It was then that Ned recognized the shrieking woman as the elder of Jon's wives. She frantically gestured the children to her and hurried them off into the jungle, following the rest of the fleeing group.

"Nid! Nid!"

He didn't see or hear Alohilani until she was almost directly in front of him, but something about her wild eyes and breathless calling of his heavily-accented name brought him to his feet.

"Nid!" she cried, and immediately reached out and grabbed him by the wrist. Unfortunately, it was the same wrist whose hand was grasping his wine bottle, and the fervor of her action brought palm wine sloshing out to drench his boot. He cursed and attempted to wrench his arm out of her grasp, but she held on with an iron grip. She babbled something in that language that he infuriatingly still couldn't understand, all the while pulling on his arm like she wanted to drag him into the forest.

"What is it?" he demanded, glancing beyond her to the melee on the beach. Ned could make out the captain now; his face was cold and hard, and he strode at the forefront of the larger group. His rifle was at the ready, and trained first on one of the fleeing pirates and then another.

"Kiele!" Alohilani repeated in distress, gesturing wildly with her free hand toward the pirates and their women who were ransacking the camp and disappearing into the jungle. He vaguely was able to match the name with a girl's face. Wasn't she Alohilani's sister? At least a cousin… Someone important, and wasn't she the one that had taken up with Hawkins…? His native wife continued babbling frantic words that he couldn't hope to understand.

Ned found himself being pulled, step by confused step, toward the camp. He saw Hawkins, fingers flying as he tied up a rucksack, with the woman that Ned assumed was Kiele pulling on his arm and screaming as she watched the captain's posse coming closer.

"Hawkins!" Ned barked, looking for some sort of explanation.

The man's head shot up, and he met Ned's eyes. "Cap'n's gone crazy, Ned. I didn't see the start of it, but the cap'n's aimin' to put an end to it. All of it. Already got ol' Jack, and Rob's shot clean through the gut. A few of us're bein' chased out, and it looks like yore woman wants you t'come along."

Kiele and Alohilani were holding each other, shrieking in their native tongue and shooting frightened looks over their shoulders at the advancing mob.

"Y'comin'?" Hawkins asked quickly, straightening and tossing the rucksack over his shoulder and knife in what was left of his belt. He gestured to Kiele, who came to him, dragging Alohilani by the hand. Alohilani's eyes were pleading, and she again called Ned's name.

Ned thought about the beach, with its sunshine and cool breeze, and he thought about trekking miles through the still, thick air of that awful jungle. He thought about snakes and giant insects and the chance of missing a rescue, if by some miracle one ever came. There probably wasn't much chance to go back after leaving; the captain's face was pretty clear on that.

It was her eyes that won him over in the end. He could follow those eyes, find a cool cave somewhere and spend his days in the company of his woman and maybe a few others, or he could spend the unknown months they'd be awaiting rescue drinking to drown out the squabbles of so many hot-tempered men. Ned discovered that his hesitations had vanished.

It wasn't love, but it was close enough. He nicked a chipped dagger from someone's effects and followed Hawkins and the women into the jungle.

o0o

There were fifteen of them in all: six former men of fortune, six women, and three children ranging in age from seven or so to a babe in his mother's arms. Jon was there, with his two wives and new sons; and Hawkins with Kiele; Old Walter and his quiet, much-younger woman (was her name Ahonui?) and her baby girl; the repulsive master gunner appropriately called Fat Ben, who had yet to find a woman willing to warm his sandy bed; and Cass, whose girl was already showing tell-tale signs of pregnancy. They made a rag-tag crew, but aside from Ben, Ned didn't mind their company much.

He did, however, mind the jungle. The sun was high, not that you'd know it from the way the trees almost completely obscured the light of day, but it was hot enough to be midday. Sweat poured off his body, and the air was thick with humidity and hard to breathe. The elder of Jon's wives was leading the way; Ned hoped she knew where she was going. The rigger had a better ear for languages than Ned did, and supposedly he understood from his woman that she was leading them to a cave that would offer a certain amount of protection, should the captain change his mind about their exile and decide to rid himself of their neighborly presence.

Alohilani walked by his side, seemingly unaffected by the stifling heat. He wondered at what it would have been like to grow up in a place like this, rather than a boatbuilder's shack beside a stinking canal as he had. She seemed content enough, and he realized that she also hadn't seen as much of the world as he had in all his years as a sailor. He'd spent almost as much of his life on the water as he had on dry land.

Looking around and trying to ignore the heat for a moment, he was able to reluctantly admit to himself that there was a kind of beauty to the forest. I suppose I ought to get used to it, he thought. Unless there's another beach waiting near that cave, this is home now.

Fleetingly, he wondered if the women they'd brought with them knew the secret to making palm wine. His bottle had long ago run dry. Jungle hiking was a thirsty business.

They had been following a little stream for a while now, and Ned noticed that the ground had begun to slope upward. He found himself at the base of one of the mountains that formed the island's backbone. He and some of the crew had wondered if the mountains weren't old volcanoes, as they were roughly conical in shape and the native people seemed to have a particular fascination with fire. The rounded tops were all grown over with trees and vegetation, though, so if it was a volcano they were beginning to climb, it had long ago fallen dormant.

Malana, as he had learned the elder of Jon's wives was called, continued to lead them as the incline grew steeper. Her oldest boy walked slightly before her, following his mother's occasional direction and helping to clear the way with a native machete that seemed far too big and heavy for his seven-year-old frame. Nevertheless, he wielded it as if he'd been born doing so, and Ned found himself wondering which of the natives they'd killed five months ago had taught the boy to use it. Ned sometimes forgot that the women and children who had become such a fixture in his and his crewmates' lives had once had other men in theirs.

The going became harder as their path became steeper, and even the women who had chattered amongst themselves in the beginning had fallen silent hours ago. The only noise now came from the jungle around them, Ahonui's fussy baby, and the gurgling stream, which was tumbling over rocks and mud in a series of little waterfalls down the mountain's slope. It was slippery, and treading on the wrong spot of wet, muddy leaves could send you to your knees as your feet went backward under you. The sailors, of course, had a harder time of it; Fat Ben was brown from head to boot from where he'd come crashing down like a great felled tree on more than one occasion.

Malana's younger boy skipped along with the boundless energy and sure-footedness of a child of four, and Ned found himself shooting the child a glare as once again he had to put out his muddy hands to break a fall.

They ate as they walked from the fruits and roots that the women foraged along the way, all of it welcome but none of it particularly filling. Perhaps here, Ned hoped, deep in the jungle and away from the human noise of the beach, they might be able to someday find something to hunt.

By late afternoon, they had made it a good distance up the mountain, a fact that Ned might not have realized had they not come upon an outcrop of black rocks and stepped out onto it for a rest. The beach was obscured, but the ocean stretched on forever beyond the sea of green treetops before them. The first real glimpse of the sun in hours showed that it had descended about halfway toward the western horizon from its midday zenith.

"Malana says we're close to the caves," Ned heard Jon announce as he took a swig from the coconut Alohilani offered him. "They'll offer us some protection, though I doubt the captain would bring the boys all the way up here."

Ned certainly hoped not. One flight into the jungle was about as much adventure as he needed, and he wasn't keen on being cornered in a cave by the remaining members of the Celestina's former crew.

He squinted to the west, where the sun was quickly sinking behind some rather ominous black clouds. He hoped they would arrive at the cave before the storm broke.

No such luck. Within an hour, they were caught in a full-fledged tropical thunderstorm.

Ned didn't see the cave until he was practically inside, his head having been bent against the pelting rain and his eyes straining to make out secure footholds in the steep, rocky path at his feet. Thunder seemed louder on this island than anywhere he had ever been, as if Alohilani's gods were angrier than any others. Ned supposed that, given what his crew had done to the native men, they probably had a right to their fury.

One moment he was being soaked by sheets of water, and the next he was creating a miniature lake at his feet and could finally raise his head to peer into their new home. The storm continued mercilessly as the last of their new tribe stepped into the cave's gaping mouth. It was wide enough at the entrance for ten men to stand abreast, and continued into darkness ahead of him like a long, rocky tube. The walls weren't of earth, as he might have suspected, but rather a black, dusty rock. In places, it seemed to have splintered off, revealing shattered planes of shiny black glass.

"This place is very special," he heard Jon explaining. Malana was saying something in her language and had a hand pressed against the black glass of the wall. "Liquid fire flows through here, and this is one of the many doorways that the gods use to visit the earth. She says that they will protect us if we do not stray too far into the tunnel."

Malana looked awfully certain, and the other women were smiling, but Ned wasn't so sure. These gods hadn't done much to protect the men of this island five months ago, and he figured they'd be even less concerned with looking out for some of the invaders who had killed them.

At any rate, it was better inside than out. The deluge was showing no sign of letting up. It certainly rained with everything it had here, as if it would never get the chance again.

There was no dry wood for a fire, but it was hot enough without it. Everyone had settled into making themselves at home: packs were unshouldered, wet clothing – the outer bits, at least – were stripped off and spread out in a futile attempt to dry them, meager food stores were collected and inventoried. Ned kept his eye out for any vessel that might contain some palm wine. He grumbled that no one seemed to have made that a priority.

He was just settling into the least uncomfortable spot he could find when a commotion began. Malana was scolding her oldest son, it seemed, and from what Ned could see the boy was trying to explain himself. He kept gesturing back into the darkness of the tunnel, which caused his mother's voice to rise higher and higher in both pitch and volume. Ned grumbled again as the racket reverberated off the stone walls and assaulted his eardrums from all angles.

Alohilani, who had been dusting off a bit of flat rock to take a seat beside him, was watching the exchange intently. When she turned to him, her eyes were concerned.

"Inoke," she said, as if that was supposed to explain everything.

"Ahh," Ned replied, with a nod of understanding that was anything but sincere. "Inoke." And then she said something else that was unintelligible.

More voices were being added to the din as a passionate discussion began, mostly between the women. It seemed that the argument was moving too fast for Jon to understand, because Ned saw him shake his head and shrug when Hawkins asked him something.

"Would the lot of you shut up!" Fat Ben grumbled, though not loud enough for any of the women to hear him over their squawking. The big man was sitting against the outer wall of the cave, washing out the broken, angry blisters on his feet with his ragged shirt. He looked about twice as irritable as Ned felt.

Ned closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall, moving to avoid any bits of jagged obsidian that stabbed into his skull. His whole body was tired from the day's trek, and all he wanted on this godforsaken earth, other than a barrel of good ale, was to sleep.

Suddenly, he felt a splash of water on his cheek. He opened one eye to find that the wind had shifted, and was now sending sheets of rain almost sideways into the cave. The first hundred feet of so of the tunnel sloped downward ever so slightly into the depths of the mountain, so the rainwater that collected on the floor was quickly forming a little river that flowed back into the cavern.

Cass approached him with a hand outstretched to help Ned to his feet.

"Have to move further in," the sailor said as he pulled Ned up. "There's a pond forming just there; I think the ground slopes up on the other side. Better to be dry, eh, even if it's a bit dark? Plus, the younger boy's gone missing."

Inoke. Ned knew he'd heard those syllables before.

"Brother seems to think he's gone exploring further down the cave. Can't have gone far in that dark, but apparently the women are dreadfully worried about him getting too far in and displeasing the gods. Jon said something about them fearing that the gods would snatch him right out of this world and into another, but I think the kid's more likely to fall into a pit and break his neck. Nevertheless," Cass said with a pointed look and a bit of a sigh, "We could use your help for the search party."

Just what I wanted, Ned thought to himself, Another walk. But he nodded with as tiny of a grumble as he could manage. Grabbing what few things he had, Ned followed the group off into the darkness.

At first he thought he had dozed on his feet, because his body suddenly lurched in the way that happens just before one falls asleep. He had the peculiar sensation of being lifted into the air by a force that grabbed him somewhere around his stomach, and then he was falling and falling quickly, the wind rushing by his face and whistling in his ears. All he could see was darkness, a blacker night than he had ever known and certainly much darker than the dimness of the cavern, and he felt a chill shoot right to the very core of his being. He didn't even have time to cry out, because as suddenly as it came upon him the sensation abated, and the coldness in his body was replaced by a warmth that had nothing to do with the heat and humidity of that wretched island. And then came the roar, a sound that threatened to deafen him, that enveloped him body and soul. And still he was falling, falling…