Author's Note: So it's the moment you've all been waiting for. When Davina realized that this is hundreds of years later.
Also, I mention what Susan's birthday present was to them on their 17th birthday. I forgot to mention it in EoP.
Review please?
Disclaimer: You know the drill.
Chapter 3- Realization Hits
"Wonder who lived here." Lucy said as she looked out at the ocean. The Eastern Sea was all too familiar to her, after all it was considered her Eastern Sea, but for some reason this angle looked especially familiar. She ripped her eyes away to look at Susan and Davina who were both coming over to where she was.
Susan noticed a reflection in the grass and picked it up to inspect it. It was a golden chess piece shaped like a centaur.
"I think we did." she said, looking up with brow furrowed. There was no doubt this was Narnian.
"Hey that's mine." Edmund said, coming over and taking the chess piece from Davina. "From my chess set."
"Which chess set?" Peter asked, coming up behind him.
"I didn't exactly have a solid gold chess set in Finchley, did I?" he said, raising an eyebrow at his older brother. Peter's reply was a good laugh.
"Can't be." Lucy breathed.
"What?" Peter asked as we followed her to a small platform.
"Imagine walls," Lucy said, placing each of them in a certain order. "And columns, there." she said, pointing before them. Then stood to the left of Edmund. "And a glass roof."
"Cair Paravel." Peter said. Everyone looked around, wide-eyed.
"Well, what happened?" Susan asked.
"Maybe we should look around a little more." Davina suggested. After a few moments, Edmund knelt down next to a large boulder.
"Catapults." He whispered.
"What?" Peter asked, coming up behind him, closely followed by the others. Ed looked up at them, confusion etched into his features.
"This didn't just happen. Cair Paravel was attacked." He paled slightly as he said it, eyes flicking over to Davina. She seemed to be bracing herself against Lucy.
Peter moved over to a wall that was still intact. Together, Peter and Edmund pushed it aside, revealing a rotting door that they all knew led to the treasury. After tearing away some of the door, Peter managed to open it.
He used his pocket knife to slice off a long strip of his shirt. He grabbed to large sticks and wrapped it around the end. He looked up at Edmund.
"I don't suppose you have any matches, do you?" he asked. Edmund looked into his pack.
"No...but..." he said grabbing an electric torch from his bag. "Would this help?" he asked, with a smirk.
"You might have mentioned that sooner." Peter laughed. Davina watched this with a small smile as she recognize the familiar joking of the two Kings. Ever since they'd left Narnia, Pete and Ed had been drifting steadily apart and it was tearing each of them apart. She looked over at Lucy and Susan and saw that they were thinking the same as she. It would be nice to see them acting like best friends once again.
They all followed Edmund down a narrow staircase and gasped as they saw a stone statue of each of them behind a large chest.
"I can't believe it. It's all here." Peter said. They each made their way to their individual chests. The statues hadn't been made long before they'd left. Davina looked up at the statue of her at thirty-one. It was odd looking at someone older than you and knowing it was you in the past. Davina shook her head to push away the confusing thoughts and opened her trunk.
"I was so tall." Lucy said as she held up a dress much larger than her current size.
"Well, you were older then." Susan said, smiling fondly at her younger sister as she remembered how she had grown.
"As opposed to hundreds of years later... when you're younger." Edmund said, wearing a helmet that nearly engulfed his head. Davina closed her eyes and felt her stomach turn as she braced herself against the trunk.
She turned around slowly and her eyes scanned the room until it rested on another statue she'd never seen before, but had expected to find.
"Isaiah..." she whispered as she walked over to it. She was aware that all eyes were on her as she stepped around the chest in front of it, but she didn't care. The statue had apparently been made just after he'd been coronated, because he didn't look a day older than when she'd left him. She reached up and touched its cheek, feeling the tears brimming her eyes. She felt a hand on her shoulder and saw it's owner out of the corner of her eye. She broke down right there and let Ed pull her into a comforting hug as she sobbed on his shoulder.
Peter came up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder, Edmund nodded and carefully moved out of the way for Peter. She latched onto him, sobbing uncontrollably as she felt her husband's arms embrace her and hold her tight as he played with the curls that fell down her back with his fingers.
"No! No!" She cried. Her legs gave out on her, but Peter lowered her gently. He adjusted their position so they were both sitting. Her back was held by his left arm and his right wrapped around her middle. She sobbed into his chest as he rocked her gently from side to side. "My brother. Anyone but him. Please." Her voice cracked as more tears broke free. "Why? Why?" she huddled closer as her body racked with sobs. Peter just held her close, not knowing what to say or do.
"Oh, Aslan, why would you take him?" She whispered loud enough that only Peter heard it. "Aslan, Aslan." she said, closing her eyes she felt a peace come over her at the mention of his name. She looked up at Peter.
"He knows what he's doing." she told him, looking into his eyes as another tear slipped out. He wiped it away and looked at her, smiling slightly, silent tears streaking down his own cheeks. She noticed a look in his eyes that she couldn't place. He almost looked uncomfortable at her words. She pushed the thought out of her mind as she stood and he helped her up.
Meanwhile, Edmund was holding both Lucy and Susan who had also just stopped crying.
"H-He was King Isaiah the N-Noble." she said shakily, sniffling a bit as she remembered her dream from the night they'd stumbled upon England. They all nodded, she'd told them before. They looked at the statue reverently.
"The title fits him well." Susan said softly. Davina took a deep breath and smiled.
"That it does." she said. She walked back over to her chest slowly and the others did the same. Looking inside, she found a dark green dress and pulled it out, she also grabbed her sword.
"What is it?" Lucy said, from where she said, looking at Susan's bewildered expression.
"My horn." she answered. "I must have left it on the saddle the day we went back."
"I remember seeing it. You did." Davina answered as she walked over to Isaiah's chest and pulled it open. She grabbed Isaiah's sword and dagger that were inside. She noticed a small wooden frame and pulled it out.
"Look, Su!" she said, holding it up happily. "It's the painting you gave us for our seventeenth birthday." Susan smiled and Davina turned it round to study the faces. It was a picture of their mum and dad. Isaiah had found a picture of them in his wallet that he hadn't even realized he'd brought into Narnia. Susan had painted a larger scale of it for a present. Setting it back in reverently, she closed the chest.
After sending the boys out, the girls all got dressed in the more familiar Narnian dresses.
"Oh this feels so much better than those scratchy skirts." Davina commented as she began to braid two front strands of Lucy's hair and tie them behind her head. Lucy was wearing an old red dress of hers.
Susan came over with a clip that was in surprisingly good condition and began fixing Davina's hair where she pulled the front back and clipped it in the Narnian style so her hair wouldn't be in her face when they travelled. Davina fixed Susan's hair when she was done with Lucy's.
"I think I remember that lavender dress you're wearing, Su." she commented. "Isn't that the one you wore when you left for Calormen to meet with Prince Rabadash?" Susan groaned.
"Don't remind me." she laughed. "Isn't yours the one Edmund ripped the side of after he got back from Archenland, and they got attacked by the Felled Beasts on their way back, Davina?"
"Oi, Su, don't remind me." Lucy said grimacing.
"I agree with Lucy. He scared the devil out of me." Davina said, which was very much true. Susan was referring to a time when Peter, Edmund, and Oreius had gone to talk with King Lune of Archenland a few months after his son Cor, being found. The women had stayed behind because Susan had been ill and Lucy was recovering from the same illness. Davina had been taking care of both them and the kingdom.
When Peter and Edmund had returned, they'd been attacked and while they'd managed to survive, Edmund had taken quite a beating. He tried to play it off as he got off of Phillip, but wobbled and fell to the ground, grabbing the skirt of Davina's dress as he went down. It had caused a large tear by her left knee and she'd had to have it hemmed, but the scare Edmund gave them all that day was obviously more important.
"Come on, lets go up now. It's getting awfully cramped in here." Susan said as she pulled her quiver onto her back. Lucy grabbed the strap that held her cordial and dagger, along with her own quiver and pulled those on. Davina grabbed both of the belts that had her and Isaiah's swords and strapped each around her waist. Lucy handed her the strap she usually used to conceal her dagger beneath her dress when she didn't want people to know she was armed.
"Isaiah put his in his boot, but it's more comfortable if you use a strap." she said. Davina accepted it gratefully, sliding Isaiah's dagger into the scabbard and tying it around her leg.
They all headed up to the sunshine and the boys were already in their Narnian tunics and breeches.
"I haven't seen you two in Narnian attire in a full year. I miss it." Davina smiled.
"And we missed your dresses." Peter replied. "They look very nice."
"Hey is that the dress I-" Edmund started.
"Yes." the girls all replied in unison. Edmund looked confused, but dropped it.
"So, what do we do now?" he asked.
"I think it's time we found out what's going on." Peter instructed. They all agreed and set forth.