What Happened at the End of the World

(A flashback)

Lucy

"And he said—he said—oh, I can't bear it. The worst thing he could have said. You're to go on—Reep and Edmund, and Lucy, and Eustace; and I'm to go back. Alone. And at once. And what is the good of anything?"

I thought my heart would break, but I couldn't cry. Not in front of all the crew. I had to be the brave queen. It had been terrible coming back through the wardrobe, landing on the wooden floor with a bump and finding myself a child again. The shock of that, though, had made me numb, and by the time the numbness passed, the edge of my grief had softened.

Saying goodbye, knowing I might never come back, was almost unbearable. I don't know how I found the courage to give him comfort. I suppose it was that I couldn't bear to think of Caspian grieving. In all the hours we had spent together on the close quarters of the Dawn Treader, I had seen each of his moods, every shade and nuance. I knew him as well as I knew my brothers and sister, as well as I knew myself. He had never been one to despair. Until now.

He tried to be cheerful and brave for our sakes. As I said goodbye to everyone else, I watched him out of the corner of my eye. He smiled for Reepicheep and laughed with Eustace and gripped Edmund's arm like a brother, but all the while I saw the sadness in his eyes. How could we be parting ways? How could the culmination of this adventure be farewell?

Then Edmund stepped away from Caspian and with a nod told me it was my turn to say goodbye. I came forward with my hands outstretched. "Oh, Caspian!"

His hands closed around mine, and I could feel every callus of adventure on them. I was seized by the desire to trace his hands, indeed every part of his body with my fingertips, to memorize him. His brown eyes were bright with sadness. His beauty struck me anew. Not only his handsomeness, but the way his goodness shone in his face, and how just by looking at him I could see how generous and noble and brave he was.

We stared into each other's eyes. Neither of us could manage to say goodbye, or even imagine it. All there was in that moment was a drinking each other up, an attempt to memorize enough of each other to last through the solitary sunrises and sunsets that would come after this adventure. He leaned forward and pressed his warm lips to my forehead, and I felt the love in that kiss even if I didn't comprehend it. I can't say what drove me to capture his lips in a kiss except necessity. I had to. I had to know, had to share that with him. Dear, dear Caspian. His lips were soft and warm and dry, and there was a scent about him, a strong scent of light-water, and sea water, and something warm that was uniquely him.

He walked me to the boat, holding my hand. He helped me in himself, and I remember how when he let go of my hand my skin felt suddenly cold. I couldn't take my eyes off him as they lowered the boat. His eyes were full of tears. I found my voice then and called goodbye over and over again, until I felt the boat bump gently onto the water, parting the lilies. Dimly I heard Drinian call "Shields and flags out!" and at once the Dawn Treader was hung in all its finery. I cried then, as Edmund and Eustace rowed us away from the ship which had been home, away from Caspian, who had become family. The tears were strange, though. They ran down my cheeks, dripping onto my hands, but I couldn't feel them all the way inside me. I felt a tug as we reached the current and were pulled further east than any man had sailed before. I wanted to fill my head with memories of our adventures, but it was already too full of the Silver Sea, the wild smell and the brightness of it. This was our one last adventure, and I could not do anything but drink it all in.

We sailed all through the night and the next day, and there was a sunrise so bright and full of liquid gold I thought it would swallow us. But I was not afraid. There is no such thing as fear at the end of the world. We came to the wall of water and the mountains behind the sun that reached beyond the sky. At last even the boat ran aground, and Reepicheep went on in his little coracle. Then we walked together—Edmund and Eustace and I—to the very end of the world. We waded in the water because we knew we must. We held hands.

We met the lamb, and the whiteness of him that was almost too white for our sun-strong eyes turned to Aslan's gold, powerful and rich and so beautiful I couldn't stop looking at it. He told us we would always be heading towards Aslan's country. And then I asked him "Please, Aslan. Before we go, will you till us when he can come back to Narnia again? Please. And oh, do, do, do make it soon." For then I felt our departure, truly felt all that we were leaving behind and the ache of it was staggering.

Aslan's gold eyes were grave. "Dearest, you and your brother will never come back to Narnia."

My heart broke. Never again. Never to return. No Aslan. No Cair Paravel, no Dancing Lawn, no Dawn Treader. Aslan assured me I could find him in England, and that was some comfort, until I thought, and voiced the thought:

"But what about Caspian?"

"Child," Aslan remonstrated gently, "Did I not tell you you would learn no one's story but your own?"

I nodded, bowing my head. I tried to prepare myself as he asked, but my shoulders shook with repressed sobs.

"Dearest, you are still despairing. Have I not told you that we shall never be separated if you keep your heart open for me?" Aslan said, bending his head to mine.

"Yes," I answered in a voice thick with tears. I reached out to finger his mane for comfort. I looked up into his large gold eyes and whispered "I could bear leaving Narnia, for myself. But I'm thinking of Caspian. He'll be all alone."

"Not so much as you think, dear one."

"I know. He'll have his friends and Ramandu's Daughter, I imagine. But Aslan, will there be someone to understand him? Tell me that and I'll go."

"You care greatly for him," Aslan observed. He looked at me hard, as if he were trying to read my heart. I almost flinched, but I stood my ground. I wanted him to know what I thought and felt, but that didn't necessarily make it any easier to undergo the examination.

"Child," Aslan said at last, "What you would ask is not an easy path. For you, the way to my country is through your world."

"Yes, Aslan."

"Then you know you would have to say goodbye all over again, as you did before, to return to it."

I paused, chewing my lip. Is still felt the ache of leaving them behind the first time, no goodbye, not final farewell. Caspian came to mind, hanging over the side of the Dawn Treader watching us go with tears streaming down his cheeks that matched my own. "I don't care. It was better to have known them as long as I did than not at all. However hard the parting, I would count each second a blessing." Edmund told me afterwards he had not seen me look so much like my old queenly self throughout the voyage.

Aslan bowed his head. It seemed as though he was weighted down with thought. When at last he raised his head, he looked at Edmund and Eustace. "If she stays, you all stay. Would you choose to remain in Narnia."

"Without Susan and Peter," Edmund mused. He looked up at me. "Could you do it? Live and grow here for years, without them? Presumably we'll go back and it will be like before, as though no time had passed. They won't have missed us. But could we live so many years without them?"

I pressed my lips together. "What's the other choice? Going home now and never, ever seeing Caspian again? Never seeing Narnia?"

Edmund shrugged and fingered his sword hilt thoughtfully. I knew he was thinking of Peter, of what it meant to be a King without him, of all the troubles he had had with Caspian and how Caspian would not have dared if Peter faced off with him on Deathwater. Already I missed Susan's gentle voice and her kind smile, and the way she would cuddle and pet me no matter how old I was because I was her baby sister. Could I face a time of trouble without her to comfort me? But could I go back, back to a world where we were separated still and I would ache from the loss of Caspian and worry over him?

In the end I had to realize that it wasn't wholly for me that I wanted to stay. Of course there was a part of me that wanted to, it was certainly not all hardship, but thinking of Caspian without anyone to share his thoughts with, remembering the ache I saw in him resolved me. I stepped forward and touched Edmund's arm. "We have to go back. For Caspian. It won't be easy, but we'll see them again. One day. If we turn away now we'll never see Caspian again."

He turned to look at me slowly and nodded, his eyes grave but a small smile on his lips. "Wise words, sister. It's obvious where your son got it from." My throat constricted and my eyes grew bright at this sudden mention, but I nodded. Edmund turned to Aslan. "I would stay, sir."

We all turned to Eustace, who looked startled. He stiffened and blinked, shifting his gaze between us. "Me? Well, I don't see that I have much choice. When I wanted to visit the British Consulate—"

There was a quiet growl from Aslan, but he almost sounded amused.

"I'll stay, of course," Eustace added hurriedly, his eyes widening. Edmund and I chuckled.

And so we turned away from the end of the world. Before we stepped into the water Aslan said to me, "Remember, dearest, this cannot last forever."

I nodded. "Nothing does."

"One day, when you come to my country, you will discover that joy lasts forever."

I beamed with this happy thought, and I followed Edmund through the lilies and the water. We saw Reepicheep's sword glinting among all the white lilies. Then Edmund pushed the boat forward and we jumped in and took the oars, gliding easily through the smooth water of the Silver Sea. We rowed through the rest of the day, into the night. The sun came up the next morning, huge and blazing. For a moment at the edge of the world, the Silver Sea was shot through with gold.

We fed on light and kept rowing. As before, we didn't speak. It might have been alright to sing, but I didn't feel any song I knew could match the wild beauty of the birds'. Finally at night when we almost couldn't see the lilies in the blackness and Edmund snored lightly as slept, Eustace spoke, his voice glum. "You know, in our world there are places where the sun never sets. In summer. Lapland and Alaska and such."

Those names sounded completely foreign to me in that moment, as though they were stranger places than a sea with floating lilies. They belonged to Spare Oom and War Drobe. I sat in silence for a moment, listening to the oars splash in the water before I answered. "I think I like it better when day and night are separate," I answered thoughtfully. "The sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening."

Eustace took a drink of the light water. I could only just see the outline of him in the starlight, but I could hear the splash of the water as he drank it. When he was done, he gave a gasp of refreshment and awe which sounded harsh in the stillness. "I wouldn't mind a little extra light right now."

I shrugged as I pulled the oars, tipping my face up to the stars.

"What if we don't reach them?" he pressed. "They've had a start and lots more men to row. If the Dawn Treader reaches open sea before us, we're doomed."

I laughed. The sound of it carried across the water.

"It's not funny, Lucy!"

"Eustace. Do you really mean to say you're doubting Aslan? If he sent us back, we shall get back."

"But it doesn't make sense. Logic says—"

"Logic doesn't matter. Haven't you learned Aslan defies logic?" I gave him a smile which he couldn't see in the darkness. "Look. The dawn is coming." I nodded to the faint blue tinge at the horizon.

Aslan's meal on the grass and the waters of the last sea made us stronger. We rowed through the whole of the next day. The scent of the lilies only made me want to row further and faster. I could see the same flush of strength and adventure on Edmund's cheeks, and even Eustace's. I took my turn at resting, but I did not sleep.

On the night of the third day I was lounging over the side of the boat, letting my fingertips brush the lilies as we passed. There was a moon that night, and the flowers looked like a carpet of moonbeams. I also noticed that we were gliding impressively fast.

Then I noticed a change in the light of the lilies. They weren't just glowing with their own whiteness, there was a touch of golden light on them, coming from the west. A warm, human light. I looked up, and there before us stood the Dawn Treader, the cheerful, homey lanterns shining at the prow and stern and the fighting top and glowing in the cabin windows.

I gave a wordless shout of joy. Eustace and Edmund turned, and when they saw the ship they echoed it. The oars were all drawn in, the sailors resting for the night, and there was no other noise in the calm of the night. Our shouts carried across the water, and there was an answering call from the ship, wary and alarmed. Of course they couldn't see us as anything more than black shapes against the lilies. There were some moments of unintelligible shouting before Edmund stood up in the boat and cupped his hands around his mouth, calling "It's us—King Edmund and Queen Lucy and Eustace. We've come back from the end of the world."

Some crew members whistled in amazement, others cried caution, that it might be a trick. We were close enough then that I could see Drinian push his way to the rails. "Fools! You'll see well enough when they come into the lamplight. Stop worrying like old women and stand by to heave the boat up. And someone wake the King."

As we drifted into the meager light of the ship's lamps, there were many cries of astonishment. And then the men moved aside and Caspian was at the rail in his loose nightshirt, his mouth gaping open.

It was our farewell in reverse. I sat beaming while they heaved the boat up. He stared right at me. Then his hand closed around mine and I stumbled out of the boat and into his arms. He was so warm, and he smelled of sleep and his clean Caspian smell. I wrapped my arms around his waist and buried my face against him. I felt him finger my hair in numb wonder.

"You're back. How—?"

I lifted my head and touched his cheek. "It seems we are meant to be together a little while longer."

His only answer was a slowly growing, radiant smile.

A/N: I'm not usually one to beg for reviews--they're only so much gravy, because it's enough to know you've read and enjoyed. However, with this one I'm dying to know--is it good? How does it compare to the original? I know not a lot has happened yet, so if you want to wait until there's more to judge that's fine. I'm just dying for some feedback!

Oh, and if you don't know I'm not a plagiarist, and the first line of the chapter is in fact from the last chapter of "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader."