~ Among The Stars ~
A/N: This is a gift-fic for Justine Rohm, a Narnia fan who, for Christmas, asked for a fic about Rilian. In the spirit of the holiday, I dedicate this piece to her.
They call it madness.
During the day, I wear a black suit of armor with a helmet and visor, so that no one can see my face. I am silent. I am attentive. I am obedient. I am calm. I am a man unnamed and unknown.
At night, I rave. I beg to be released from this chair. I struggle. I foam. I scream.
And it is the only time when I am not mad.
For then my body is freed of that cursed movable prison of armor. Freed of the spell of that equally cursed Witch who styles herself a Lady. At night, her half-breed magic is imperfect. She cannot imprison me then, when the light of my ancestors shines on the world.
By Aslan's grace, my heart is then free to fly back to Narnia. Free to soar through the stars which run through my blood. I remember the hills and fells of my country, and I long for the chance, just one chance with my own eyes, to see the stars again.
- # -
Rilian rode straight in his saddle at the Witch's side, mute as ever even though he was screaming inside his skin. The Witch knew of his struggles—he saw the knowledge on her face, the secret smile that others always took for benevolent sweetness. A Jinn's curse. He'd heard of them, in the stories of old, but never believed they were more than frightening fairytales until now. The Witch had learned the art, if not perfected it. He could not move a muscle nor speak a word except that which she chose for him, and now, she bade him be silent and still.
For there were travelers approaching.
His hopes soared for a moment, but a moment only. The tall man-frog lumbering up the road had with him only two human children, mere pups. They could not help him. They would not even sense his distress, trapped inside this prison of steel and spellwork.
The Witch spoke kindly to them. He heard the danger in her words—no stranger, he, after ten years of being forced to her will. With despair, he saw the smiles of gratitude on the children's faces as the Witch sent them to what would be an ugly death. Rilian turned his eyes to the Marsh-wiggle, whose gaze had not moved from the Witch.
In the creature's eyes was a spark of suspicion, which could be borne only by a lifetime of dark views of the world. Rilian had never worn such a cheerless mantle until his imprisonment. He had ever been hopeful, ever trustful of the good in people. His parents had done him a fault—yes, a grievous one—by blinding him to the evil present in the hearts of all men ... and the awful truth that some were too weak to refute it. He had never learned such a lesson until it was much too late.
But this creature ... he knew. In his bearing was a suspicion of things turning out for the worst. But in the way he stood, just ahead of the children, was the willingness to protect them from it. Rilian's throat clenched with the need to cry a warning. He stared hard at the man-frog, willing him to understand the danger. Aslan protect them.
And then, as if the Lion had heard Rilian's plea, the Marsh-wiggle gave him a last, lingering look before continuing with his young companions up the road. Rilian turned his gaze to the sky just as the first flakes of a fresh snow began to fall on Ettinsmoor.
- # -
They are here, they are here! Thank you, Aslan, for seeing them safe. Rilian wanted to crow with joy, for the arrival of the Marsh-wiggle and his human-child friends must surely mean that Aslan had heard Rilian's silent pleas for their safety after all. But his spellbound throat gave no glad shout, only simpering words of adoration as he told them of the Lady of the Green Kirtle.
Lady, Lady! No Lady at all, but a thousand things that would not bear repeating if he had the free use of his tongue. He hated that he was made to speak well of her. Hated that he could see what the newcomers thought of him on their faces as they left him alone in the room with the detestable chair. They thought him a fool, a gull, a simpleton who could not see of what evil she was made. He could, he could, and he would break himself to pieces if only he could say so!
As he closed his eyes and sat back in the silver chair that night, he prayed. He had no concept of time, other than that it had recently snowed. Had Christmas come and gone yet? It was hard to believe Christmas existed, somewhere out there in the world.
He was alone. Alone with a spell which nightly loosened its grip, only to torment him with the promise of escape before regaining its strength again. Almost a punishment for his recklessness.
After minutes or hours of futile struggle—he did not know how long—he stilled. At last, a sobering weight settled in his soul. It was not his parents' fault that he had succumbed to this cursed Witch.
The blame was all his own.
Tears stung his eyes. He had been wrong, so wrong to throw all sense to the wind and hunt the serpent. Wrong to seek reparation for his capture by placing the guilt on others all these years. He should have known how to look for the evil himself. He should have known not to chase phantoms in his arrogant need to avenge his mother. Please, he thought desperately. If I may have no other gift all the rest of my life, please free me of this crushing prison, which I have fashioned out of my own foolhardy need for empty vengeance. Please let me go home and beg the forgiveness of my father. If I had not been so blind and self-righteous, I might be home still, guarding my country by his side.
Speak my name, said a voice in his head, so loud it drowned out Rilian's despairing moans.
Rilian froze. He ceased rubbing his fingers raw, trying to undo the ropes which held him in his chair. He strained to hear. Had the voice come from somewhere outside the room, or from the feverish ravings in his head? Had the spells finally won out and driven him mad after all?
He had no time to think on it, because an instant later, the Marsh-wiggle and the children returned to the room. The spell upon Rilian forced him to tell the travelers what the Witch would want him to say: to keep him in his hated chair. Then the voice in his head gave a low growl and repeated, Speak my name, Son of Adam and blood of the stars! Time grows short.
Wild with the need to escape before the spell regained its force, Rilian demanded the travelers release him. They lingered, paused, debated. He tried again, and still they faltered. The Lion in his head roared—for it could be no other than Aslan—and the words burst forth from Rilian's mouth: By Aslan himself, I charge you, free me!
- # -
He was free. Free, and under his own power, for the first time in ten years. All during their defeat of the Witch and escape from Underland, Rilian could scarely speak for the clutching tightness in his throat. And now, as he paused at the opening of what he now knew to be a tunnel to the Overland, breath seemed to have deserted him as well as speech. He could no more speak now than he had been able under the Witch's spells.
Moonlight spilled through the opening of the tunnel. Rilian sagged against his horse's side with tears burning at the backs of his eyes. Slowly, so slowly, he stepped out of the tunnel.
Starlight.
He raised his eyes to the sky. The heavens glimmered with stars—the Ship, the Leopard, the Hammer. Wondering, Rilian led the horses out of the tunnel. The air was frigid, and bluish light spilled down onto a blanket of snow. He closed his eyes and bathed in the starglow, letting it wash the last traces of the Witch's spells from his heart. Hello, my Mother, he thought. For he knew now that she had never gone from him, but returned to her place in the sky to grow young again. Unseen, but felt with a power that flowed through him on his mother's grace. Stars did not die, could not die. Rilian sucked the cold air into his chest with a glad smile.
It didn't matter if Christmas had come and gone. Every day from here on that he breathed free air, every day that he lived to guard innocents from harm, he would treat it as Christmas.
He dropped to his knees in the snow and seized handfuls of it in his fists, then hugged the stuff to his chest, not minding the cold seeping through his clothes. "Thank you," he gasped out, both to the Narnian creatures around him and to the Lion whose voice still filled his being.
- # -
King Caspian's ship returned to Narnia on Christmas Day. The snow had come late that year. The Dance of the First Snow, which Rilian and his companions had come upon in their emergence from the Underland, was the beginning of a great blow of snowfall that winter. Rilian blessed every flake that fell from the wide, open sky.
When his father's entourage reached the quay, Rilian knew something was wrong. The King of Narnia, Caspian, Tenth of that Name, lay dying on his litter. Aslan was calling him home to His Country. Rilian bent by his aged father's side, struck mute for a moment in his grief at their lost years. "Forgive me, father. I was blind, I was reckless to seek out that serpent. I have been a great fool."
With a smile, Caspian laid a hand on Rilian's head. "Be at peace, my son. No man can be wise who has not first learned foolishness." He kissed Rilian's hand. "Rule with your wisdom, Rilian, King of Narnia. I go now into the Lion's paws." And the king's white head dropped back to the pillows, and he was gone.
- # -
The Narnians gave Rilian the title "Disenchanted" and lived fully and happily under his monarchy. Some grumbled about his chief advisor, a lanky Marsh-wiggle named Puddleglum, whose gloomy outlook could scarcely be borne. Rilian just laughed and said he could not find a wiser creature in all the worlds put together.
Some called King Rilian eccentric, or unusual, or even (at times, and surely not within his earshot) strange. But no one could deny his good heart or his fierce protection of the innocent from all danger. And no one who knew him ever questioned the enchanted, ever-lush Christmas tree that stood every day of his reign in the Great Hall of Cair Paravel. It was decorated with shining candles and bright ornaments. And at the top, gleaming with a breathtaking magical light as if of its own making, was a beautiful star.
~ The End ~
Happy Holidays 2010
Love, Caleon