Disclaimer: Narnia and the Pevensies belong to C.S Lewis.
I've had this forever in my notebook but I haven't been able to bring it further than this... I am working on several more Lucy-centric short stories (there's even a few for Caspian, Aslan and Peter and Edmund) but I do hope you get some enjoyment out of this! :)
Where The Fields Bloom Bright
...mountains grow, I see him.
She is nine.
There is a crown on her head; there is a dagger attached to the leather of her belt, and she is wearing a dress made of the finest silks that Narnia has to offer. Creatures with legs of goats dance before her, merry, and she is being spun in Peter's arms.
She is the Queen. She is the Valiant.
She digs her fingers into rich Narnian soil and Mr. Tumnus hands her a flower bulb. Carefully, she places it inside and smiles.
Lucy feels like a littlegirl(child) in a very dear dream.
She is fourteen and currently being kidnapped.
Her mind doesn't care to know who or why as a hand is clamped over her mouth, but instincts scream and she bites and she kicks and she yells. A voice overhead her curses and she clamps down harder, fingers scrambling for her dagger under the pillow. The man holding her down grasps her hand and she is suddenly whisked into the night.
(she doesn't cry. she doesn't scream or struggle as they tie her up with rope against a tree far from Narnia's forests; she merely knows that Aslan and her brothers will be with her soon enough. she dreams of the Great Lion and of home.)
"You're still a child, Lucy!" Peter cries when she asks him to train her with the sword once she is back at Cair Paravel, and she merely sets her jaw and turns away.
Edmund sneaks into her room that night and out onto the courtyard with two blades in hand, both of them silent as he teaches her the art of battle.
Narnia celebrates her twenty-first birthday with bright flowers in the banquet hall and much dancing. She twirls in the arms of Peter – Edmund – Mr. Tumnus – and stands, breathless, on one of Cair Paravel's many balconies. As far as her eyes can see, her country is celebrating their youngest Queen's turning of age. She closes her eyes and breathes in deep – the ocean spray, the faint smoke of the meal inside, the laughter and the voices and pure, beautiful Narnia.
There's a sharp pain at her side. She looks down, ignoring the sudden yells of the faun guards scrambling to reach her. There's an arrow buried underneath her ribs and her silver dress is being stained – she barely has time to seek out Peter coming through the crowd, her eyes bright and telling him to don'tworry before she's met with darkness.
She has extensive knowledge on the properties of healing and of injuries, so when she wakes up with Peter snoring into his arms by her bedside, she's kind of exasperated but glad all the same. It brings a smile to her face to know she'll forever be his baby sister.
A White Stag – one that is said to make your wishes come true. She doesn't care much for the hunt, but Edmund had insisted so and there she was, chasing a pale ghost of an animal sprinting ahead of them. Their party had stopped a few yards back, tired, but Lucy can feel something urging her on, making her blood churn.
Peter brings them to an abrupt halt at the front – Lucy glances up to see what had caught his attention and feels her breath freeze in her lungs. A lamp-post stands before them, dark black against Lantern Waste's foliage, and there is both dread and yearning within her.
"How odd," she says, jumping off her mare to walk past it. "I swear that..." She trails off and can hear her siblings moving behind her; a voice cries, begging, for her to stop moving and turn back to glance in the direction of Cair Paravel, but something deeper and more familiar in her ribcage urges her on.
She half-walks, half-stumbles through trees and Edmund and Peter are muttering nonsense to one another. A calm overtakes her, and she pushes against the cool wood suddenly underneath her hand.
Lucy falls, and then Peter and Edmund fall, and so does Susan. She lies on the floor, winded, catching her breath as the others gather their wits about them. A strangled sort of wail escapes her mouth rather unexpectedly, followed by a despairing sob.
She knows they're not going back even before Peter beats against the wardrobe wall restlessly, hopelessly. She's never heard the High King beg before, and it sounds terribly wrong; she looks at her small body, draws her knees closer to her (nonexistent)chest, and watches. She thinks that it's kind of hard to believe in Aslan right now.
She is nine again. Aslan appears to her in her dreams and they walk through the familiar forests of Narnia. Her hands are buried in his mane and when he rests his head on top of hers, speaking eternal promises into her ears, she clutches onto his fur harder and wakes up crying to England skies outside.
She is a child and a woman both, and this world of gray rain and sounds of warfare begins to feel like a (nightmarish)dream.
