Spring
When Aslan bares his teeth, winter meets its end.
When Aslan shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.
Those were Lucy's favourite verses of the prophecy; they just seemed so full of hope and cheer. And Lucy needed as many of those positive feelings as she could get. All of her siblings knew the prophecy off by heart though; stanza by stanza, word for word. After all, it had placed them on the thrones of Narnia, given them entrance to a world more wonderful and terrible than anything imaginable.
For Narnia was terrible, Lucy knew that. It had given them everything and then taken it all away again. During the horrible year back on Earth she had watched as Peter and Edmund began their petty fights again and Susan grew distant once more. Narnia had healed their trivial rifts and sibling rivalry and Lucy could see everything being undone.
She had thought about their dear friends left behind and wished every day, as soon as she opened her eyes in bed, that that day would be the day. The day they would return and spring would come again. She had imagined it so many times; on the train where she tried to pretend the rocking of the locomotive was the galloping of a horse beneath her, at night when she was on the verge of sleep, even in her classes, bored to tears in history where she had lived through what was being taught and just wanted to scream… about everything. The absent friends, the return to a world that wasn't home and to a body fifteen years younger than it should be.
Instead, she contented herself with imagining their reception when they returned, the great celebrations and reunions and parties. The spring she knew would come. Aslan would not desert them. They would return home to Cair Paravel, and the Beavers would be there to welcome them as would Oreius and Fox and all the others.
And Tumnus. Her dear, sweet Tumnus. He would be there waiting for her and she would throw herself into his arms and all of this would have just been a bad dream. Lucy promised herself that when she got back, she was never leaving the faun again. Life would continue as it had before she left. They'd be able to continue planning their wedding too. She had never actually seen her engagement ring; it was still being forged when she and her siblings had left.
And if she returned young and small as she was now, then that would be fine too. They would simply wait until she was a few years older until they properly resumed their relationship. After all, Fauns lived quite a bit longer than humans. And they would be together.
Which was why, the instant she realised what those ruins used to be, her feelings of elated joy evaporated and were replaced by a feeling of dread. Lucy had thought all her wishes and prayers were answered only moments ago as she and her siblings raced across the beach. Now, as she slipped the delicate gold ring – sitting atop her gowns in the chest – onto her pinky finger, she wondered if instead all her nightmares had become reality.
Then Peter had read out those verses and as she looked at her older brother with tears in her eyes, she understood this wasn't the Narnia she knew and this wasn't the spring she was expecting. And she remembered that Narnia was both terrible and wonderful.