"Hey so how was the- Oh my ASLAN, what's wrong Lyra?" Yvie runs straight up to me and envelopes her skinny arms around me for a quick hug. She releases me and holds my shoulders at arm's length, examining my face, her eyes shoot straight up once she's seen my tears and she stares daggers at Edmund. He looks sheepish and begins to walk in the other direction. Yvie follows him with her icy blue eyes and whispers in my ear.

"I could probably be arrested for this, but it's not like I give a unicorn's is it?" She lets go and stalks after him. I hear a scuffle behind me and I whip around to face it, hair twirling out behind me. Yvie has Ed pressed against the wall, nails digging into his shoulders. She mutters something I can't really hear, but I know it's menacing by the way he's cowering away from her. I almost laugh at the look on his face; he's utterly terrified of her. I begin to walk over, but I stop in my tracks. She's really going to hurt him.

"Yvie!" my voice echoes off the walls louder than I want it to and immediately she drops her arms. Edmund scampers over to me and attempts to hide from her. I turn around and look straight into his eyes, he's still shaking, I grab his hand and give it a reassuring squeeze.

"If you run now, you might be able to make it to Dexter before she rips your throat out with her teeth."

He nods and darts back in the direction we came in. Yvie makes a move to run after him but I clamp a hand down on her shoulder, she starts and whips around. The moment she sees me her eyes soften and she gives me an apologetic smile.

"So you guys didn't fight? So, I don't have to beat him up?" She looks a little confused, and hurt, but mostly just confused.

"No. You don't have to beat him up." I reply.

"Oh. Then that was a waste of time. I was explaining what I'd do to him if he ever made you cry again. I think I scared him a little." She smirks, almost proudly. As if scaring a king means you get some sort of prize.

"I think you scared him a lot. He may possibly be scarred for life."

She giggles for a few minutes, but stops abruptly.

"Lyra?"

"Yeah?"

"So, why were you crying?"

"Oh, we, um," I almost choke on the words, "We went to see Fe."

Yvie opens her mouth to say something, but clearly thinks better of it and shakes her head dismissively. She grabs my hand and pulls me up to the maids' quarters. I sit on my bed and think about life. Mine's not much, but I know that it can only get better; only up from here.

(3 months later)

"Hey, so what should we do today? We're not working. You're not battling or whatever. We should do something fun, you know, the four of us." Yvie throws her head back to see the boys' reactions. Edmund looks happy, Dexter seems a little wary.

"What's up Dexter? You scared of having to spend a whole day with us?" I laugh and the others chuckle along with me.

"I'm not scared. I mean, when am I ever scared? It's just..." He trails off, mumbling the last part inaudibly under his breath.

"It's just what?" Ed encourages, forever the supportive person.

"Well, last time we did anything with the four of us, Lyra slapped me." He throws a sheepish look at me and seems to be expecting some sort of apology.

"Okay, well, I should be sorry, and I will be if it means we can do something today. But I had a good reason. My bum is not a subject of conversation. I hope I made that clear the last time." I give Dexter an honest look so he knows I'm sorry for everything as long as he's sorry for his inappropriate conversation. He throws a flirty smile in my direction and I laugh at his hideous attempt at seducing me.

"We should go camping." Yvie says with a dreamy sigh.

"Why? What's the point in camping?" for once, Edmund seems a little uneasy with our plans.

"Well, we can get away from here for a few days. Nothing's bound to happen. We've made peace with the giants in the North. There's been no conflict with the Telmarines since the whole Miraz thing. The slave drivers never come onto the mainland anyway. So why not?"

I'm sure a few of the officials think that our plans aren't exactly the most ideal ones in the world, but they don't speak up because as soon as we've all had our duties cleared for the next five days, we're packing up the horses and getting ready to ride down to the old site of Aslan's camp. We trot into a valley with slowly steeping sides and flat rock faces jutting from the hillsides.

If you look at the very top of the side at the left end of the east side and crane your neck to the right, you can see the top of the pink blossom that covers the apple trees around Felix. I steal a quick glance at Ed and he catches my eye, jerking his head slightly in its direction. I nod and I know he's telling me to meet him there when the others are asleep. We carry on a little further north along the valley and set our things down in the shelter of the west- facing hill.

After struggling with the three tents, one for the boys, one for the girls and one for the horses in case it rains later, we finally settle down on a small blanket where we eat our lunch of fish and chive sandwiches with miniature cheese and apple tarts, which are not as bad as we anticipated. Later, when I'm certain Yvie's sleeping, I slide my blankets off, pull on my cloak and slip out into the night.

Thank you lots for reading this chapter. It took days to write, rewrite, erase, write, rewrite again, edit, delete, completely start again and then repeat. How ever much I tried I just couldn't get this chapter right. I'm still not exactly happy with it so I'll probably end up rewriting it again. I hope you guys think it's okay, and don't forget to review. This story lives off reviews, of which it only has two, which is probably the reason why it's a bit crap at the moment. I'm such a slow writer and quite often it will take a while to cure my writer's block so please bear with me. Readers and Reviews keep this story alive, please don't give up on me just yet! Thanks :)

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