AN: First off, wasn't "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" the most awesome movie ever? Okay, had to get that out of my system, I'm good now! LOL. Time for me to start a new AU Narnia Fanfic! I hope you like it. This first chapter is sort of a set up chapter because some of things that I plan to have happen later in the plot need background/explaintion. If you don't understand some of the things going on, it's all right, you're not really supposed to yet. Pairings: the main pairing is Edmund/Lucy. Peter/Susan is implied more than shown because in this story they're characters from Narnian myths/legends and don't exsist in the same time-period as Edmund and Lucy (there's a major plot-related reason for this, I swear). And there is probably going to be some Caspian/Lilliandil and Eustace/Jill later on though I haven't fully decided on that part of the plot yet. Um, if you're wondering why the heck Frank and Helen speak with Elizabethian words like "Thy" and "thee" and what-not, I didn't have a real reason, I just sort of felt like writing them that way and since they're not going to be all that major in the story/plot I don't think it matters that much. All the more so since everyone else speaks normally.

It had been raining that morning (and extremely heavily, at that), but King Frank was pleased to see that the storm had let up at long last. He was tired of listening to the pattering drops hitting the top of the carriage as it rattled down the woodsy dirt roads; not, of course, that it mattered, seeing as he was almost home. Cair Paravel was nearly within sight if he cared to lean out of one of the windows and squint. He could even faintly pick up on the scent of the Eastern Sea not far off.

"How fares the little passenger, Sire?" asked his traveling companion, a friendly-eyed dwarf named Poggin.

King Frank sighed as he stared down at the shivering lump sprawled out uselessly under a large gray blanket in the cushioned seat directly across from him. He hated to wake him, but he felt as if he must now. Indeed, if it wasn't for the shivering, which was involuntary, he wouldn't have even known if the lad was still alive under there. He didn't like that. It was discomfiting to hear a child breathe so inaudibly, even in slumber. Why, his own little daughter-only the boy's junior by a year or two-back at the castle, likely eagerly awaiting his return, sounded like the wind in a ship's sail when sleep at its deepest over-took her!

"Shall I wake him, Your Majesty?"

"Thou should wake him, Poggin," the king consented.

Under the blanket, the boy was already awakening, only they didn't know it. He hadn't heard what the king had said to the dwarf, nor did he know that the dwarf was in the carriage at all before he felt a small hand touch his arm through the blanket.

Frightened, the boy squirmed sparingly and felt for something at his side.

Please still be there, he thought to himself, fighting the urge to breathe heavily (something he happened to be rather excellent at suppressing thanks to intense practice), please still be there.

The ice-blue sheath, roughly the same texture as a dragon's scale, was still hanging down from the thin, badly cracked leather belt round his middle, though apparently in a more lopsided manner than it had been previously. That didn't matter. Was the knife still there?

He felt for the hilt. Clear glass and hard metal brushed against his calloused fingertips; yes it was still there, same as before, not broken nor even battered. Would She be angry that he'd stolen it? Probably. But She was not his chief concern at the moment.

His worry was that the man in the carriage and the dwarf who's presence he was now highly aware of would hurt him. He was afraid; and that made him feel a bit ashamed as well. All the same, he couldn't help it; not when he couldn't make sense of anything that was happening.

Why would they take him? What did they think they were doing? Why hadn't they just left him? The thoughts swarmed round like frenzied bees in his head; their imaginary buzzing made it ache terribly.

He wanted to go home, only, he realized, he didn't seem to have one; he wasn't sure if he'd ever had one, come to think of it. Maybe when he was very, very small, but he couldn't remember anything about that. Yet he'd been trying to get home before he was taken, only something had happened, something bad, and the rest was all a blur.

Strangely enough, although the She who would be angry that he'd stolen the magical knife was not what he was currently frightened of, he found himself wondering if she would come after him for it.

Had it been very stupid of him to take it?

Then it struck him: she wasn't going to be coming after him at all; she was dead.

Disbelief washed over him as the memory returned and reassured him of that fact, then came relief, followed by more confusion.

There was no time to ponder over this confusion, however, for he could feel the little hand sliding away from his arm and reaching for the blanket to pull it off of him.

He wrapped his fingers around the hilt of the knife and waited for the right moment.

"Ahem." Poggin coughed and, pulling back the blanket all the way, reached to turn the boy over so that he was facing him.

To Poggin's extreme surprise, the boy sprung up, standing as best he could in the moving carriage, holding a knife out in front of himself, the blade of which was made of stone, not steel or iron. His grip and the disturbingly fierce look in his dark-coloured, barely nine-year-old eyes, told Poggin that he knew how to manage a weapon.

"Stay away from me," said the boy slowly, holding the knife in a position even more threatening.

"Lad," said the king as meekly as if the stone blade had been something as common place as a big rock, "put thy weapon away. We will not hurt thee. We have rescued thee, we are friends to thee; we mean no harm."

He looked unsure. "Really?"

"Yes."

"Why are you helping me, then?" He squinted suspiciously at the king and the dwarf. "Who are you?"

"His Majesty is King Frank of Narnia," said Poggin, gulping at the stone knife that had not been returned to its place yet. "Do you know who you are, lad?"

The boy stopped and thought for a moment. He usually answered to 'Stupid' or 'Ingrate' or 'Fool' or "Hey You!", but he knew those were not proper names. He couldn't remember having a proper name. What he did remember was that he'd had a title once and was fond of it; it had been his one consolation, the sole reminder that he wasn't a nobody.

"I'm the Count of the Western March." He slowly began to lower the stone knife, for he was beginning to think he saw truth in the king's kind eyes.

"Does thou speak Archenland-English or Narnian as thy first tongue, Count?" the king asked. They'd been speaking in a northern dialect of the southern tongue of Archenland, but he, being a very perceptive sort of king, noticed the boy straining slightly to understand him.

"Lantern Waste French, actually. I was told that was my first, anyhow. But I'm more comfortable in old Narnian, since that's what I usually speak; the more modern terms…well, they're confusing."

"I see." King Frank nodded. Then, "Put thy knife away. Western March is Narnian soil; I knew of thou's identity before taking thee in the carriage. Thou art a high-born Noble of my country by birth, lad. Why should I harm thee?"

"I will put the knife away," the young count promised, "but only if you tell me why I'm here and where you're taking me."

"Fair enough." The king smiled warmly. "I am taking thee to the royal court of Cair Paravel."

"Why?"

The king's expression looked a little sad. "That is thy home now."

"I don't believe you," the boy muttered flatly.

"I could not leave thee to be murdered, lad. Thou does not remember?"

The boy closed his eyes tightly and tried to think as hard as he could. What had happened before he'd been put in the carriage? He recalled stealing the stone knife, and that the old owner of it was dead and he wouldn't see Her again. The rest he couldn't remember; except, maybe, just a glimmer. There'd been people who didn't like him, and one of them spat on him. Yes, he remembered being both angry and hurt over that, though he couldn't think why. Where were those people? Who were they?

He shook his head. "I don't seem to remember very much right now. How long was I asleep?"

"Thou hast slept through the journey in full; nearly a fortnight."

"I can't live at court," said the count suddenly.

"And why not?" asked Poggin, a little offended. Having lived at the Narnian royal court nearly all his life, he didn't much like some cheeky young count who couldn't even remember his own name turning his proud little nose up at it.

The count shrugged. "What would I do there?"

"Thou would live as a prince for some years and then be sent away to be educated."

At that, the count frowned. "Educated? Where?"

"In a fine Narnian school, of course, fair lad." King Frank nearly laughed at his reply.

"Why are you doing all this for me?" The count was distrustful of such generosity; young though he was, he knew great acts of 'kindness' often came with terrible prices. In fact, the precious few times he could ever remember anyone being good to him in his life was when they wanted something from him, and it was never anything good either.

"Thou art a child, thou needst shelter and care, all the more thy family to teach right and wrong to thee," explained King Frank, reaching up to straighten the gold crown on his head as the carriage went over a sandy bump and knocked it to one side. "As thou has not these already, and I see not anyone else coming forward willing to take on such duties, it falls on me."

The count pressed his lips together and looked somber and very distrusting still.

"Thou will be content at court, Marsh Count," the king went on, pretending he didn't notice the boy's expression, hoping his words would eventually cause it to fade. "Oh, you will learn all manner of things. I can teach thee to ride a war horse or brandish a broadsword in ways thou probably could not imagine, much as thou seemst to know regarding fighting." He nodded at the knife which was at long last back in its sheath. "Thou art not very noble-looking now, but give it a month at court and see for thy self if thou art not better than the grandest of courtiers by then."

That sounded good, the count thought but wouldn't have admited. What was the point of wanting all that when, surely, they were lying or else meant to rip it away eventually when they tired of him? It was too good to be true, so it must not be true; that was only logic, really.

"You'll also have a playmate," Poggin told him.

The count scowled. Playmate, indeed! As if he were a pathetic, lonely infant and needed some royal brat to play with. He didn't think he'd fancy courtier children anyhow, nor did he think they, in turn, would care much for his sort of manners. He made up his mind right then and there to be nasty to any children he was forced into the company of straight out, just so everybody knew where they were at. He would not take unwanted company and he would not force others to endure his. Fair was fair.

"We've displeased thee?" King Frank raised an eyebrow.

"You'd best get used to the idea, young master," laughed Poggin in a tone of voice the count decided he hated. "I suppose you haven't any siblings or cousins to speak of, then? Judging by your dislike of childish companions."

The count didn't answer.

The carriage came to a stop and three footmen appeared seemingly out of nowhere and helped the king, the count, and the dwarf out.

The count couldn't help it, he stood with his mouth slightly agape upon catching his very first sight of Cair Paravel. He had never known it was that beautiful; white marble towers that almost seemed to glow in the pale evening light, flags the colour of a peacock's feathers flapping in the wind, the orange sunlight shimmering on the Eastern Sea. It struck him then that it was also his first time seeing the sea as well as the capitol of Narnia. So odd was it to think he could have broken free from the grips of the king and dwarf and thrown himself into that glittering water; part of him was longing to.

Then he saw Cair Paravel closer up, much as he dragged his feet it seemed he was fated to get there eventually, and he forgot all about that. He swallowed hard and fought the urge to pinch his arm to see if his eyes would shoot open and he would find himself lying stiffly, nearly frozen through and through, in the icy courtyard of a very different sort of castle.

Whenever the count had heard of Cair Paravel being by the sea, he'd always envisioned it either one of two ways.

The first was a little palace on the sand, so close to the water that when the sea was at high-tide the green, foamy waves lapped against the front flagstone steps. That had been a secret favorite daydream of his-a castle partly underwater-and when, sometime after he'd turned about seven years old, it had occurred to him that no king would have an important court set up that way, he couldn't help being a little heartbroken. Of course he would have never admited that; it would have embarrassed him terribly.

The second, his older self's vision, was of a manor carved into a cliff, perhaps a few sparse stain-glass windows scattered about to make it more grand than an ordinary cave. He supposed all the rooms would be quite dark and that there would be calls for candles at all hours of the day and night.

The real Cair Paravel was nothing like either of those ideals. There was a bit of a cliff, but it wasn't imposing, and the castle was on it, not in it. It expanded into tall towers like he'd seen from the first glance, but there were also domes and passageways as well.

If the castle he'd spent most of his life in had been this big, he thought, he would have been able to hide for months at a time, in endless corridors, without being found. Even from the outside he could see some of the enormous white marble columns Cair Paravel was lucky enough to possess.

The count couldn't help himself. He was captivated; he was entranced, he was helpless.

Nervous, he felt for the hilt of the stone knife again. They would probably try to take it away from him, because it was supposed to be something evil, and considering who he'd stolen it from, it probably did have the capability to be under the right circumstances, he didn't doubt that, but it was all he had, the only item currently in his possession, and he would not let them take it; he would do anything else just to stay looking at this magnificent place, so unlike anywhere his eyes had ever beheld before, only not that.

Meanwhile, upstairs in an elegant bed-chamber with gold-and-orange silken curtains and an applewood four-poster bed with a matching wardrobe that had a carving of a large tree on the door, three chamber maids-two dryads and a curly haired lady faun-struggled to make their charge presentable.

It wasn't that the little princess of Narnia was troublesome or was really trying to give them a hard time, it was only that she was too excited to stand still.

"Your Highness, please stop sticking your head out of the window and put on your shoes." The lady faun sucked in her cheeks and tried-and mostly failed-to look stern. "Your mother the queen wants you in the throne room to greet your father; and if you think I'm letting you go barefoot, you've another think coming, Princess."

"I'm only trying to see Father's carriage." Princess Lucy of Narnia obediently pulled her head back into the room. "I think he's arrived."

"Well, you can't see him from that angle anyhow, as he's arriving on the other side of Cair, so it's no use trying."

Lucy sighed and reached for the shinny brown leather shoes. She had some trouble working the slim silver buckles.

The princess wasn't used to wearing those shoes, usually she wore soft sandals that she could scuff up climbing trees and playing in the water and exploring muddy riverbanks without getting too harsh a scolding, and when there was a grand occasion she had little white satin slippers decorated with tiny crystal-beads which she could just slip her feet in and out of with ease. But a few weeks ago she'd out-grown them by a hair of a inch and they began to pinch her feet too much to be of any further use; so someone, either a courtier or her mother Queen Helen (she wasn't sure which it was, really), had gotten her the new leather shoes with the silver buckles. They were pretty enough, she supposed, but too frustrating to be pleasurable; she would have gladly exchanged them for her sandals if it were allowed.

"Do you think Father is all right?" she asked in a small-sounding voice as one dryad picked up a hairbrush and the other began to help her with the buckles.

"His Majesty is fine far's I know," the faun told her, reaching down and shaking a small dust-clod out of the glossy, ebony coloured fur on her goat-legs. "Why?"

"He sent a letter that he left the northwest early," Lucy explained. "Mum said it was good news, and that he says he has a surprise for me, but the last time he left the north early and I was glad, it turned out he was badly hurt." A wicked northern giant had wounded the king in an unusually brutal raid.

"Worry not, little one," said the faun, "that was two years ago. And besides, wounded men rarely bring good surprises back."

"I guess they couldn't," Lucy agreed, furrowing her young brow in deep thought. "Unless he planned it before hand and didn't want to disappoint me."

"Now, then!" The dryad at her feet gave her nearest lower leg a light smack in reprimand. "You shouldn't think that everything in this world is done so as not to disappoint you."

Lucy's eyes widened; the gentle smack hadn't hurt in the least, but the words stung slightly. "I don't."

And, truly, she didn't. She wasn't a vain creature, too free spirited and fast on her feet to spend much time minding a mirror, and she was a very ordinary sort of child in appearance anyhow; short reddish-brown hair, a round face with a turned up nose that was sometimes freckled in the summer, and blue eyes. King Frank did spoil her terribly, as she was his only daughter, but, quite frankly, no matter how much he let her have her own way, no matter what extravagant gifts he presented the curious child, she simply would not be spoilt. Lucy was always willing to share with others, children and talking animals alike, friendly to no end. And while she could get cross when told she couldn't do something she wanted to do, just like any other child might, she was generally obedient, albeit momentarily sulky.

The dryad smiled to show her charge that she wasn't serious.

"What do you think the surprise is?" Lucy wondered aloud.

"I certainly hope it isn't another pony," murmured the faun to herself under her breath. "The princess spends too much time tearing up her dresses on horseback as it is."

"Do you think it might be a dagger?" the princess said pensively, remembering that she'd asked him for one to wear hanging from her favorite belt (she liked it because it was big enough to tuck up the folds of her longer dresses in, making it easier to run and play) not very long ago.

"By the Lion's mane, I hope not," said the dryad with the hairbrush, shuddering. She loved the king and queen's daughter dearly, but she wasn't sure she trusted any child that young with sharp, dangerous objects.

There was a knock at the chamber doors. "Is she ready to greet her father?"

"It's the queen," whispered the faun to the dryad who had just finished with Lucy's shoe buckles. (She would have been done much sooner if the child hadn't squirmed so!)

"She's ready, Your Majesty," they told Queen Helen as she entered the room and smiled at Lucy.

"Thou art just a mite taller each time I behold thee," sighed the queen, kissing her daughter on the forehead. "Come, I'm curious about thy father's surprise, too. He has told me naught. And I am sure it wasn't a planned present for thee, else I should have been informed and bound to secrecy."

It seemed to Lucy for ever before she and her mother had made it to the throne room. Every time she had to stop and show good manners by bobbing a return curtsey to this or that passing courtier acknowledging her, she thought she would burst with unfulfilled anticipation. Her excitement was not only for the mysterious surprise, but also for King Frank himself; she had missed her father every day he was gone.

Finally, though, she stood in the throne room, and saw Poggin enter, knowing the king would follow.

The second Lucy saw King Frank, she ran at him and threw her arms around his middle. "I've missed you so much!"

"I've missed thee, too, daughter." He kissed her cheek and embraced her again.

Pulling away, she looked excitedly over her shoulder at Queen Helen, surprised to see an expression of deep confusion etched upon her mother's face.

The queen's eyes were wide with shock and concern; Lucy's own followed them until they stopped at a dark-haired boy only a little older than herself standing a few feet behind her father.

The boy had a nice face, though decidedly not a very nice expression to match it, and he looked at Lucy half with indifference and half with forced respect since she was the king's daughter.

Lucy noticed he had sad eyes that didn't match his frowning brow and scowling mouth, and thought she would like to cheer him up.

"Lucy," said King Frank, gesturing over at the boy, "come and greet thy new brother."

Curious, Lucy trotted over to him. "Hallo there."

Queen Helen pulled her husband aside while the children got acquainted. "What hast thou been thinking?"

Under his breath King Frank explained that the boy was actually the count of the Western Marsh and how he had rescued him.

"Still, Thou hadn't any true right to bring him here, whilst knowing nothing about him or his disposition." Helen shook her head, tiredly.

"Would thee have had me leave a child to die? To be unjustly murdered by those who ought to have loved him?"

"Can the boy be trusted?"

Frank sighed heavily and stroked his wife's chin with the back of his fingers. "Alas, I twas certain that thee liked children."

Helen sensed he was trying to manipulate her and was displeased. She was not against the poor child, but she was wary, and thought her husband ought to be as well.

"Children that be in good order." The queen motioned with her chin over to the ruffled-looking count. "Children with names."

King Frank shrugged his broad shoulders and smoothed out a thick wrinkle in the cape he was wearing over his traveling tunic. "Edmund."

Now the strange boy had a name, at least.

Helen shook her head again and looked over at the two children; Lucy was trying to welcome the count of the Western Marsh by giving him a hug, and he making faces and shoving her arms away.

"Frank…" Queen Helen looked him directly in the eyes and folded her arms across her chest. "Thou art certain of this?"

"T'will take some time." King Frank patted his wife's arm.

For a week or more the count of the Western Marsh (now christened Edmund) avoided the Narnian princess like the plague, finding that his prior theory about hiding in Cair Paravel was, to some extent, quite correct. Lucy, however, was quite persistent in trying to make friends and managed to find him more often than he liked.

She tried very hard to be kind to him, even once attempting to give him her favorite stuffed animal (a depiction of a small dog with curly fur) on a day when she found him on the east ballroom balcony looking out at sea, his thoughts far away.

When he heard her coming, he wiped at his eyes, but not quickly enough for her not to notice the tears that had been in them only moments before.

At any rate, he rejected the dog and she, feeling rather at a loss, turned to leave him, only to find he had grabbed onto her wrist.

"You can sit with me if you want," said Edmund, biting his lower lip in-between words. "I don't feel like hiding today."

She held his hand and rested her small head on his shoulder. "It's all right to cry here, you know," Lucy told him gently. "I do, sometimes. Once, I cried for a whole half hour after I hurt myself falling down the grand staircase."

"I wasn't crying," he insisted flatly, his voice cracking.

A few minutes later, Lucy was holding him while his whole body shook with endless sobs. He was ashamed of himself, weeping like that, yet he couldn't help it. For once in his life, he thought maybe he would like to have a friend.

That moment of crying and holding broke the hardness of introduction between the two castle children; and some days afterward, when King Frank and Queen Helen opened the door to one of the many study-chambers in Cair Paravel, they found Edmund and Lucy sitting at a desk, a book open in front of them.

It was one of Lucy's favorites, a great big copper-bound tome entitled, Myths and Legends of the Golden Age.

Edmund couldn't understand the words, as they were written in Ettinsmoor-Latin, which Lucy could read but he didn't know, but he liked the numerous colourful pictures well enough and let her tell him all about them.

"That's the High King Peter," she would say when he pointed to a picture of a young fair-headed man in a velvet tunic. "He was said to be the greatest king Narnia ever had. They say Aslan, the great Lion, used to visit him often and that they used to talk for hours walking along the shore by the Eastern Sea."

"Did you ever see the Lion?" he asked.

"Yes," she told him. "I've even met him twice."

"I don't know Aslan." Edmund's eyes became downcast.

"That's all right," Lucy said kindly, touching his arm. "He knows you."

"Does thee see?" King Frank whispered to his wife, grinning. "Look, thick as thieves already! And he has gotten her speaking in both old Narnian and Lantern Waste French in less than a fortnight. None of the tutors could get her to learn that tongue."

"He's not a bad child, husband, but I am in fear of the strange knife he wears on his belts morning till evening. Tis an emblem of evil, thou ought to have made him leave it behind, not letting such horrors enter the court."

"Let him keep it for the time being," said the king wisely, understanding Edmund's inability to part with it. "Evil is only as evil does. And he does no evil to thy daughter."

"If ever a lad loved his companion," Helen had to admit, glancing at the children as they giggled at something funny in the book, "he does love her."

AN: Okay, so what did you think of the first chapter? Want me to keep going? (I hope so, I've got ideas...) Please tell me your thoughts in a review!