Hey guys! I am so sorry that it took so long! It's just that there has been some drama in my family lately, so I haven't been able to write much, so it took forever to get this down. I hope you all didn't think I forgot about this story, because since this is only the second chapter that would be pretty pathetic I should think. *laughs* So anyway I really hope you guys all liked the first chapter and here's the second one!
Rachel Kate Doxey: Thank you so much for the review! I like the reviews no matter how late they come. I am so happy that you like it! You don't know how relieved that makes me. I would be so happy to hear from you again! Thanks!
Guest: Thank you so much for the review! It meant allot!
Disclaimer: I wish I owned PC, but unfortunately I don't. But luckily I do own the Hughes siblings, so you guys can't steal them.
They didn't go too far along the beach when they heard it: the yells of two men and another muffled yell from the same direction. They looked in the direction that they were coming from and found that in fact there were two armored men in a boat trying to throw a bound and gagged dwarf into the lake.
Susan quickly knocked an arrow in her bow. "Drop him!" she yelled so that the men could hear her. They turned to her and their faces whitened in fear. Quickly they dropped the dwarf into the water and as the older boys dove into the water to try to get the bound dwarf, Susan shot one man with an arrow and he fell out of the boat. The other one dove off of the boat as well to escape the same fate and was forgotten as the boys came above the water with the dwarf.
"Drop him!?" fumed the dwarf when he had gotten the gag off. Susan looked indignant. "A simple thank you would suffice," she said haughtily as Thomas put his arm around her shoulder. "They were doing just fine drowning me without your help!" the dwarf snapped at them all.
"Maybe we should have let them," said Peter, losing patience with the rude dwarf. "Narnians got very rude in a hundred years…" observed Diane quietly. "How come they were trying to drown you anyway?" wondered Anthony, looking at the dwarf with curiosity.
The dwarf glared at them all. "Their Telmarines," he said, practically spitting the last word. "That's what they do." The kings and queens gave each other confused looks. "Telmarines?" said Edmund, his lopsided grin on his face showing that he didn't believe the dwarf. "In Narnia?" The dwarf just looked at him like he was stupid.
"Where have you been the last few hundred years?" he asked. The children looked at each other again. "It's a long story," said Thomas when he looked back at the dwarf. The dwarf looked at each of them carefully before finally it seemed to dawn on him.
"Oh you have got to be kidding me," he said in disbelief. "You're it? The Kings and Queens of Old? The supposed Saviors?" Peter stepped out and put his hand forward to the dwarf. "High King Peter the Magnificent," he introduced. The dwarf back up slightly at that.
"You probably could have left out that last bit," said Susan, smiling. The dwarf looked up at the blonde before him. "Probably," he said cheekily, chuckling. Peter smirked and unsheathed his sword. "I think you would be surprised," he said. The tone of his voice was an obvious dare.
The dwarf eyed him seriously. "Oh," he said. "You don't want to do that boy." Peter grinned down on him. "Not me," he said, pointing at his brother. "Him."
His brother looked a bit surprised, but grinned anyway and unsheathed his sword and Peter gave the dwarf his own to use. When he had taken it, the sword tip fell to the ground and it looked as though the dwarf was having a problem holding it. Edmund turned to the others and gave them a cocky grin.
This was his first mistake.
The dwarf used his distractedness to his advantage as he struck first. Edmund was surprised at first but quickly recuperated and they lunged into battle. It was another five minutes before the battle ended with Edmund on top as the dwarf was knocked to the ground, though not hard enough to really hurt him.
"By the Mane! It looks like the Horn worked after all!"
The children looked at him questioningly. "What horn?" asked Susan curiously, thinking of her own that was lost. "The horn of Queen Susan," he answered. "It is said that the true hero of Narnia will blow on it, and they would call the Kings and Queens to fight with them and to help them save Narnia once again from the evils."
"Oh," said Anthony. "So that's how we ended up back here!" Thomas helped the dwarf back up then, giving him his hand to help pull him up. "Alright," said Diane, talking at last. "You already know who Peter is so I suppose we should let you know who we are." She began pointing to each person as she talked, introducing them in the same fashion she had done so many times before in the Golden Age. "I'm High Queen Diane, and there's King Thomas, Queen Susan, King Edmund, Queen Marie, King Anthony, and Queen Lucy. What's your name?"
The dwarf looked at them all closely before answering. "My name is Trumpkin," he said. "And I should probably bring you back to the rest of the Narnians. We need your help to fight the Telmarines." The children shared a look again. "If it's what we were brought here to do," said Peter with finality after a moment, nodding his head once and turning back to Trumpkin.
A few minutes later they sat in the small boat that the soldiers had been on earlier and the boys began rowing them as the others sat back. "The trees," said Lucy quietly after a moment, looking around her. "They're so still." Trumpkin gave her a look as though she were stupid. "They're trees," he said. "What did you expect?"
"They used to dance," explained Anthony, giving Lucy's hand a squeeze. She gave him a grateful smile.
"Not too long after you left the Telmarines invaded," said Trumpkin. "Those who survived retreated into the woods and the trees retreated so far into themselves that they haven't been heard from since." Diane looked around her miserably. "How sad," she said quietly. Peter gave her a sympathetic smile and she smiled sadly back.
"I don't understand," said Lucy. "How could Aslan have let this happen?" "Aslan?" snorted Trumpkin. "He abandoned us when you lot did." "We didn't mean to leave," said Marie sadly. "We didn't have a choice." "Not a lot of difference that makes," said Trumpkin. Diane was seriously starting to get fed up with his negative attitude.
"Get us to the Narnians and it will," she said determinedly.
The boat continued rowing for what felt like forever to her before finally they stopped at a gravelly beach. The boys got out first before they each helped the girls out as well, while Trumpkin secured the boat to the side of the beach so that it wouldn't float away.
Once they had all gotten off, Lucy looked around. She soon found a bear digging on the other side of the beach and grinned. "Hello there!" she called to it happily, making her siblings and the others look over at her. The bear stood up on its hind legs and made a warning noise but Lucy paid it no mind. "It's alright," she continued. "We're friends."
The bear got back on its four legs again and before Lucy could register anything Trumpkin called from behind her, "Don't move your majesty!" She turned to look at him curiously for a moment before she turned back around to see that the bear was running toward her menacingly.
She turned and ran toward her siblings, and Susan put up her bow. "Stay away from her!" she yelled, but the bear didn't stop. Lucy fell, and the bear quickly came up beside her. She screamed, and faintly she heard in the background the others yelling at Susan to shoot, but she hadn't yet.
Suddenly, right before the bear pounced on her an arrow came forward and killed it. She turned to see Susan, who she had at first thought was the shooter, looking at the bear curiously before looking back at Trumpkin, who now had a bow in his hands, and watched as he put it down and walked toward the dead animal.
"Why wouldn't he stop?" asked Susan as Anthony went to help Lucy up and Trumpkin continued getting nearer to the dead bear. "I suspect he was hungry," he said plainly. All eight of the children followed him to the bear and Anthony put his arm around Lucy in a form of comfort.
"Thanks," said Lucy. The dwarf looked back for a moment but said nothing.
"He was wild," said Diane in wonder. "I don't think he could talk at all." Trumpkin had a grim expression on his face. "Get treated like a dumb animal long enough," he said. "And you start becoming one. You'll find that Narnia is a much more savage place than you remember."
He took out his knife and bent down, and as it became apparent what he was about to do Diane looked away in horror along with Lucy and the other girls as she hid her head in Peter's chest.
Eventually the bear was skinned and, being that there was nothing else to eat, the children reluctantly agreed to cook and eat it since it was nearly three o' clock and they needed something to eat. After they had eaten their fill they began walking again and it wasn't long before they had gotten lost. At least, Diane had.
"I don't know where we even are," she said. Thomas looked back at her with a joking smile on his face, one that she hadn't seen in a while. "That's the problem with girls," he said. "They can't keep a map in their heads." She gave one back at him. "That's because unlike boys, girls have something already in them," she said. Her older brother stuck his tongue out at her in a joking manner and she did the same.
(Lol I'm pretty sure anyone with siblings understands; me and my little bro do it all the time.)
"I don't know why we didn't just listen to the DLF in the first place," said Susan from beside Diane. "DLF?" asked Thomas confusedly. The Pevensie girls looked at each other and smiled. "Dear Little Friend," they both said simultaneously. The boys smirked at each other but Trumpkin (of course) had something to say.
"That's not at all patronizing is it," he said sarcastically. Thomas grinned at him but said nothing.
There was another long silence until Peter finally spoke. "I'm not lost," he said with finality. "No," agreed Trumpkin. "You're just going the wrong way." Diane frowned as the two went back and forth as to where they needed to go, and eventually Peter had his way.
Needless to say, it didn't end well.
As Trumpkin had said, now that it had been so long since they had been to Narnia due to erosion and weathering there was no longer a river, but simply a very big gorge with a small river at the bottom. They came to where the river once was and found themselves nearly falling off of a huge cliff.
"Is there a way down?" asked Edmund hopefully. Trumpkin looked at him and rolled his eyes. "Yeah," he said sarcastically. "There's always falling." "Well we weren't lost," said Peter. Diane rolled her eyes at his stubbornness. He was never one to admit he was wrong unless he was arguing with his siblings or hers.
The others bickered for a moment about how they were to get across, but suddenly they were cut off by Lucy. "Aslan?" she said happily. But when Diane turned around, she found nothing. "You see? He was right there!" said Lucy, pointing behind her as she turned to look at the others. She cut off when she turned back around and saw that he wasn't there and her smile slipped off of her face.
"I'm not crazy," she said to the others, trying to convince them. Peter looked at her as though she were a small child. "I'm sure there are any numbers of lions in this wood," he said to her slowly. "Just like that bear." "No!" said Lucy. "It was him, I know it was!"
"I'm not about to jump off a cliff for something that isn't there," said Trumpkin.
Edmund looked at the others seriously. "Last time we didn't listen to Lucy," he said. "I ended up looking pretty stupid." Marie nodded solemnly in agreement with him. The others looked at each other before Diane spoke, looking straight at the three. "I'm sorry," she said. "But we really can't take a chance. We need to follow what we know."
So, grudgingly, Lucy soon followed the others back into the woods, praying that Aslan would protect them from whatever had changed since they were last in Narnia.
Yay! It's done! Sorry I just had a small feeling of happiness that I finally got this done. Again, sorry for the long wait. Hopefully net chapter will be both longer and updated quicker. I love the reviews, so please leave them!
-CahillGirl2001