(A/N) ok so this is a one shot- it would maybe get longer if I had any ideas. I am introducing a character that I made up in my mind but never felt the need to fully introduce- their wasn't much of a story about him other than he survived. His parents would have been 32 and 33 by the time he came along but way hay Caspian got a son. I'm kind of going through a mad period at the moment where Caspian is much more my favourite character- considering I only saw VDT last year I never really knew the awesome person he could be so if I write any other stuff around this time it'll probably be centred around him. (Btw dyk Caspian X/I of Telmar and Narnia, James X/I of Scotland and England)

"Mummy!" I was startled awake by the voice of the seven year old in the next room across. It was cold, freezing. The ice cutting at the stone floor of the castle. Twenty- two years to that day we had been back in my wife's true home. The twins had been babies. I could barely remember them being babies now at twenty three they were fast becoming young women. I remembered Susan's sad tears when they had first been fitted with corsets, the idea of our little ones being so grown up.
My feet were beginning to turn to stone due to my wife having mummified herself in a fur knitted blanket and the woollen sheet underneath, took up almost all of them. She was too peaceful to be moved, one hand wrapped tight in the fur blanket and the other slung over her stomach.
I traced my fingers down her face, over the permanent creases that had grown by her eyes and down on her cheeks. The way her piercing eyes had become glassy and tiered from so much worry and the need to hide it. My fingers walked down her neck and over her less refined collar to her limp, flat breasts over to her waist which didn't hold the sharp angle it once did. Her belly which could be held in small handfuls and was visibly scarred from her skin constantly stretching with each child. My fingers continued to her hips which creaked and groaned and caused her much pain when she moved. So much pain over the years. And that was without the pain in her heart and mind, the secrets our people would never know. She couldn't give out the information on her lost family, on our lost children since rarely she showed before they passed on to be with their grandparents.
Today the girls returned.
They had been let loose into the world to discover how it worked, to discover their places, fears and desires. To prepare for their futures as Queen, to prepare for marriage and children of their own.
Age sneaks upon you far sooner than is imaginable at times, I remembered being the same age as my young daughters and since their mother gave birth to them at sixteen years, I was sure she remembered that age too. I let my hand slide gently up her body to rest between her breasts.
She mumbled something in her sleep as she used to. Still after nearly twenty five years I could never work out a single word of what she'd said, she just muttered to herself and anything that could be made out normally revolved around general things- nothing could make Susan spill her secrets. I moved a little closer to her, nose nearly touching her neck, and listened. I could hear the same amount of nonsense flutter from her lips. I sighed and committed that I wouldn't learn those secret thoughts today or probably any other day.
"Cas, your breathing down my neck." Her voice came clear and bright as if she'd been awake for ages. I laughed,
"Why you little minx!" She smiled back, nudging me so she could turn slowly onto her back. I saw the pain visibly etched into her face, one of the two pains Genevieve had left us with three years ago. The pain would never leave her now just like that angel child would never leave her heart.
Eventually she managed to settle on her back in a painless position. She pushed her head into my chest, nudging at me like a child needing fed.
"Your warm, I like it. " I laughed, letting my voice drift away absorbed by the secretive walls. We lay in silence, listening to the sweetness of nothing and no one. The noise of content.
"What will they think? When they return. Do you think they'll want to leave us, go off with their own princes and have their own babies- I don't want them to get to that. I want them- as horribly selfish as it is- I want them to stay our babies forever."
Susan mumbled, playing with a strand of my hair with her eyes trained unfocused on the ceiling.
"We are always their parents- it won't matter what happens Susan they will always need our guidance."
I wished I'd had that, the guidance of a Father and Mother. My father more though, a boy needs a man to teach him about the world. I hadn't even known how to bring my wife into the world of motherhood because I had no Father to teach me. Sometimes I was glad of a boy just so I could be the Father I wanted all my boyhood. I tried to do all their was for my daughters, taught them all I could and both had became handy with a short sword and could easy read any map. Once they reached the beginning of womanhood I became lost. I worried about the way they hunched over there clothes for a while and their shifty look around people, the transformation of their bodies had made a huge effect on their minds.
There mother had explained how she had spent much of one summer with a friend and came back home no longer with the flat-chested figure of a child. She had been terrified of people watching her- the first impression Peter had given when he was unable to not look didn't help settle her mind- and she had hunched like that, crossing her chest and wearing lose fitted clothes. She explained the pain they felt when first they bled as all women do. Susan could tell them all they needed to know and give then comfort and the father became a stranger. My girls were not innocent and happy to show their petticoats off to the world if they were climbing trees or laughing during a tickling match. They had distanced me and I missed my little girls.
"Mummy," Rowan called again, I glanced down at the girl beside me who had opened one tiered eye and shook her head,
"Before sunrise he's Your son," and curled further into her blankets. "I thought you liked my warmth," I protested the ground would be slick with ice, rain having hit the corridors and battlements all night long. I didn't fancy gaining frostbite.
"I'm sure I'll cope, go before he starts again."
"What's it worth?"
She cocked her head to one side, swivelling her bottom lip back and forward as she thought. She caught me by surprise, pushing her hand round my neck and pulling me on top of her, kissing me hungrily as her hand massaged my scalp. Eventually she let go, panting for breath. She laughed, blushing.
"Will that do?"
"I'm going," I sighed overly dramatic and climbing over her.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
He pushed the model out slowly into the pool that lay just in the border of Cair Paravel's guarding arms. It was almost an entire replica I couldn't believe the ship when I first laid eyes on it. The wooden boat that now bobbed in the water was the image of the Dawn Treader, her dragon head and her mast, even the small steps that led up the dragons neck and the flag falling from her mast were perfect.
Rowan had wished to see the ship that his uncle and I had sailed the oceans on but I could only show him paintings, since the real Dawn Treader was shattered years before his birth. I had the pond boat made for him by a faun, their talent with wood being infallible. Susan had tutted saying I spoiled the child. I knew she spoke the truth but I couldn't stop myself, I had a duty to him and his forefathers.
I vowed many many years ago when I was only ten years old that when my wife gave me a son I would always love him, that he would complete my very world and I would never let anything happen to him. I used to feel betrayed by my own father for dying and leaving me to fend alone. I blamed him each time my uncle called me stupid, each time I dropped my sword or tripped over. I had been confused and angry as a boy and Rowan would not have that.
His birth had been such a surprise, I had obviously been aware his mother expected another child but when he was born his cries were so strong they bounced of every wall in the castle. I didn't need Tibberus to come and announce him I had already heard the boy. We never expected he would live at all but he only got stronger, he guzzled down every meal and grew so much faster than his sisters had. We hadn't a clue how this had happened but somehow we had a strong and healthy son. Rowan Edmund Caspian. His eyes the depth of his Mother's like pools of frozen water, icy but warm once you got used to them. His hair contained little ripples like the shocks on a pond when a leaf hit the surface. He was so perfect, the best son I could have ever wished for.
"Pater? Why do boats have names?" Rowan asked gently dragging the ship back and forth in the water, never looking up.
As was often the case with young children I wasn't certain of the answer- children it appeared were good at asking those things that no body could answer.
" I think so we can tell one boat from another, so we don't have to describe them. We can say the Dawn Treader or the Lygna rather than the talk ship with the canon aboard. Do you understand?"
Rowan nodded,
"And that's why people have names too?"
It was my turn to nod. Rowan let go off the boat and let the water nymphs play with it, putting on a show with the boat dipping and diving through a storm as Rowan watched on amazed.
I remembered sitting as he did now doing something similar in the grounds of my own childhood castle. I had wished for nymphs to play with. Children of the courtiers and those of the seven lords who went missing and even a boy name Ridious who was employed to play with me wouldn't. I was the lonely odd boy because I didn't want to fight, I didn't want to have jousting matches or race our ponies to their limits. I wanted to play pretend. I wanted to live in the works of old Narnia. I pretended my pony Fresco could speak to me, have him a personality and a favourite colour, even an imaginary family. I loved spending the time I could with my Nurse who played these stories with me, I was the High King Peter and she the gentle Susan. But she was sent away and I was alone. I cried in the imaginary arms of Queen Susan all night, most nights. She comforted me in my dreams and sang to me. Sometimes she became my mother, the mother I didn't really know but I could imagine. I pretended Queen Susan had been my Mother and King Peter my Father and that King Edmund and Queen Lucy were my brother and sister and that was how I thrived, how I spent each day of my life until I grew too old. Age can be a lonely thing.
"Pater," Rowan stopped watching the boat to watch me instead, his deep caspy eyes looking up at me with some sadness. Something I hated to see in any blue eyes.
"Yes Rowan, lad,"
"Why is my name not Caspian?"
I was surprised, he knew the history, he knew his telmarine roots and still he asked.
"If it is your name and my grandfather's and even my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather's name. Why is it only my middle name?" He looked genuinely troubled, his mouth open slightly in the expression his mother wore when she was thinking.
"Can I tell you a story Rowan, a story that will explain everything?" He nodded abandoning his boat as she floated alone in her small ocean and crawled closer to where I say on the grass.
"Many years ago, in the year 1998 the first Caspian became king. He was known as Caspian the conquerer, do you know why?"
Rowan shook his head not wanting to waste precious story time on talking.
"Caspian I was named that because he led an army into Narnia and he killed many people here All the talking animals and dryads and griffins- every creature you can name- all put up a fight to protect the king of Narnia and all their wives and all the children but they were not strong enough. The telmarines killed their children and captured their Fathers and rap- eh, did preposterous things to their wives. Caspian I took over Narnia, he banished all the creatures, any who were found were to be killed."
Rowan looked horrified, scared but not too scared I hoped, still my message didn't get through.
"Things didn't change as time continues onwards, from Caspian I to Caspian II to Caspian VIII. Then Caspian IX read some books that were forbidden and he discovered something the telmarines had hidden for many years, "
"What was it Pater? What did he find?"
"My Father, your Grandfather discovered the stories, he heard of talking beasts and walking trees and the Kings and Queens of Old. And he knew these were not just stories but he was helpless, with only one dwarf, a friend of his wife's, known to him he could not help old Narnia. His brother killed him while his wife was with child. She had a son and later died.
"Sadness and anger rose in Caspian X , he became horrified at the world but he took the actions his father couldn't. Caspian X became king or Narnia and Telmar, bringing those who once hated each other together, the Narnians trusted him as their king but he would never be a true Narnian.
"But Rowan, the time of change came about again- just as it had in the year 1000. In that year High King Peter I was crowned along with High Queen Susan I, King Edmund I and Queen Lucy I. King Frank I began Narnia many years before them also, do you see the pattern Rowan?" He slowly nodded his head, I watched understanding begin to cross his face until he grinned,
"They were all the first,"
"Yes, just like you will be King Rowan I. You are not Caspian XI because you, my son will change things, you have already brought peace to Narnia and you will keep that peace. You are different, you are special- for that reason you are better than any Caspian."