Disclaimer: If you recognize it, I don't own it.

Thanks to: Tenethia South, WillowDryad, and especially ElvishKiwis Venerated Ancestor for reading this over and giving me all sorts of valuable insight in their various levels!

A light, early-spring breeze swept over the land, bringing with it the tang of the Eastern Ocean. The sun rode the cool of the wind with friendly rays. The island's flowers already flourished, creating a mosaic of delicate beauty across the island nation of Galma.

In this splendour, Lucy revelled, dancing barefoot in the tender grass that waved in a dance of its own. She and the island together were caught in the throes of spring. "Is this not glorious, Evia?" she sang to her companion, catching her hands. "Does it not cure your ills?"

Evia offered her a smile. "It is an improvement from my chambers." She eased her hands from Lucy's and added a few full blossoms to her basket.

"I am glad you are feeling better," Lucy said. "Even though we can share only this short time before my departure."

"How has your visit been?"

"The only thing that would have made it better would have been your health. The court of your father is empty without your presence."

"I had wished to return the wonderful fun granted me at Cair Paravel. Remember your birthday?"

"We raced my brothers…," Lucy said.

"… and your sister declared that it didn't reflect on your coming of age…," Evia continued with a grin.

"… and so had me dance with every young male at the ball," Lucy finished with a little laugh and a significant smile. "All but a certain Galman knight with great yellow plume. Oh, but it was such a grand time, all a breathless whirl from one dance to the next and the next." She picked a few blossoms and buried her nose amongst them. "These are just as full and sweet as the midsummer roses that filled the great hall that night."

Evia's grin had melted back to a small smile and she brushed a hand over the delicate petals that rose to greet her. "Our roses have bloomed early this year."

"They surely have," Lucy agreed, setting her flowers in the basket. "Narnia has yet to bud."

Evia drew in the fragrance of a blood-red rose. "Sweeter than our early spring are the flowers of Narnia."

"But the island rose of Galma is unlike any I've seen," Lucy said, fairly coaxing a white rose from its trellis. She broke off the thorns and tucked it behind Evia's ear where it contrasted starkly with her dark braids. "It is not any more diminished by the existence of other blossoms."

Evia turned away from Lucy's smile and plucked the red rose. Too quickly and carelessly it seemed, for she gasped as it came away in her hand. "Perhaps no less beautiful, but certainly more cruelly barbed." She laughed bitterly and threw the offending blossom in her basket.

Lucy didn't laugh, didn't answer. Brows drawn a little closer, she silently followed her friend down the trail of broken stems left in her wake.

Evia finally paused, inspecting yet another red rose. "I want to forget, Lucy. But I can't. I don't think I ever can."

Lucy laid a comforting hand on her arm. "If it is meant to be so, it will be."

Evia shook her head. "No, it wasn't. I deceived myself. Foolish girl that I was."

"But I thought…. Were you not happy?"

"Even the most promising roses have thorns."

"But every thorn can be broken off."

"Not after it's too late."

Lucy wrapped an arm around her friend's shoulders. "It's never too late."

Evia's fingers curled over the petals slowly, deliberately, until she had crushed the rose in her fist. She let it fall to the grass where she pressed the toe of her shoe onto it. "It is for me." She retreated, wiping at her eyes and pulling away from Lucy's comforting embrace.

Lucy followed her to the center of the garden where a great fountain sat wreathed in climbing roses. A whale of white stone balanced at the peak of the structure. The water flowed and splashed from its spout with a hushed regality. Under this grand structure sat Evia, a shadow of the young lady Lucy had befriended. She would not look up when Lucy sat beside her on the basin of the fountain, but she did not resist when Lucy took her hand in hers and rinsed the cut she had received from the thorns.

"Lucy," Evia said at length. "I…."

Lucy rubbed a hand on her friend's arm, encouraging her to speak.

"I can't. I don't know how." She studied her hand, which she then closed around Lucy's. "The thorn has left its mark."

"It'll heal in no time. It's nothing more than a shallow cut."

Evia bit her trembling lip.

"Evia? What is it?" Evia shook her head as tears spilled out. Alarmed, Lucy pulled her close. Round and round went her hand on Evia's back, right and left they rocked.

"It's not my hand," she whispered raggedly. "I was… my illness."

"You were what?" Lucy prompted. Then she drew a sharp breath. "You mean – are you – ?"

Her tears doubled.

"Oh, Evia," Lucy murmured. "Does he know, your father?"

"It would crush him," Evia managed to say between hiccupping breaths.

"It would hurt him more to find out another way."

Evia forced herself to breathe, then pulled herself away and wiped at her eyes. "Not if he doesn't know." She played with a tiny rosebud that had risen above the lip of the fountain's basin.

"How can he not know?"

In and out, the bud wove between her friend's fingers. Along its tightly-folded petals, she stroked. It shone white against her hand, and yet not all white for it had begun to blush with the faintest traces of pink. "My maids. They tell me that there are… ways." She began to run her fingers around its stem and follow it up.

"Surely not," Lucy breathed. "You would consider such a thing?"

"I don't know what to do." She brushed her fingers up the bud and reached down to the stem again.

Lucy gently caught her wrist. "Pluck not the rose ere it blossom."

Evia met her gaze with pleading brown eyes. "But my father… he has such high expectations. He wouldn't be able to bear it. Neither… neither can I."

"Please," Lucy implored. "It would only be a greater shame. Let justice be done instead."

Together, they considered the tiny flower, sweet as the gentle babbling of the fountain and yet so small and fragile in the shadow of the great stone whale. The silence was broken a few minutes later by approaching footfalls.

"Pardon me, your majesty, my lady," the maid said. "The duke sent me to inform you that the ship is made ready."

Lucy coaxed Evia to stand with her and, still hand in hand, they followed the maid to the pier where the bright banners waved in salute and the court bowed to honour Lucy as she passed. Farewells were made, final gifts exchanged, and one last embrace was shared by Queen Lucy of Narnia and Lady Evia of Galma.

. o 0 o .

The letter arrived eight months later, just a week before Christmas. She recognized the seal of the duke of Galma. In the privacy of her room – and with a slight flutter of her heart –, she broke the seal. From out of the letter's folds fell a handkerchief, as white and as fine as snow, sewn 'round with stitches as delicate as the pink of the thread. Lucy scooped it up from her desk and immediately her spirits soared, for there, embroidered in one corner, was the likeness of a rose in full bloom.

For all the rosebuds cruelly plucked ere they bloom.

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(PS: If you didn't quite follow the story, that's perfectly okay. It's intentionally written the way it is as an exercise in writing subtext. If you have any questions, feel free to ask!)