I pretty much wrote this in on straight sitting and then just went back and tweaked it this morning. I hope you like, lots of plot development in this one. Read and review? Also, if anyone is interested, I'm available for beta-ing.

Chapter Six

The rest of the weekend and few subsequent days passed rather quickly. In the evenings, Josephine was busied with Hamlet, which was quite a success. Caspian made sure to attend all the performances—though he claimed it was because he had nothing better to do as he and Nana had made no new progress. He, of course, never mentioned to either Josephine or Susan how beautiful he had found Josephine when he had first laid eyes on her in her costume, and how beautiful he still found her, especially in her Ophelia dress; and, to be rational, he decided that it was simply a reaction to how attractive he already found her coupled with the fact that she looked as if she could have been from Narnia. It was simply the homesickness speaking.

Of course he didn't actually believe what he told himself. And he was really rather annoyed with himself about how much he was starting to like Josephine. For the love of Aslan, he had a throne to keep and a kingdom to rule; he did not need to be distracted by a pretty girl with violet eyes. Yet, he found himself inexplicably drawn to her, even when she was being stubborn or naive. For example, one night, after Hamlet had closed, he and Josephine were watching some movie called "The Phantom of the Opera". She claimed that the main character, Christine, should have stayed with the Phantom.

"She was being totally shallow. Just because that pansy, Raoul, has money and the poor Phantom is a little scarred—honestly, it's not even that bad."

Caspian stared at her incredulously. "But, he was a psychopath. He stalked her since she was five years old."

"But Raoul is so lame, at least the Phantom is determined—and he wasn't stalking, he was protecting."

He rolled his eyes. "You're the one being shallow; just because you find the Phantom more attractive." He elbowed her playfully in the side, though she knocked his arm away in an agitated manner.

After that, Josephine had gotten pretty mad at him, for calling her shallow, but he couldn't help notice that she was still cute when she crossed her arms angrily and glared at him.

"Oh, come on, Princesita. Don't glare like that, you'll give your pretty face wrinkles." He half teased. She stuck her tongue out at him in reply.

Phyllis, for her part, worked on searching for a weapon for Caspian and a way into the Woods Between the World; which she knew they would need if they ever wanted to retrieve the weapon and get back to Narnia. She also kept a close eye on her granddaughter and, needless to say, she was none too pleased to hear that Caspian had decided to escort Josephine to the Prom.

There was bit of friction in the house over whether or not Josephine had any business with Narnia. She wanted to help Caspian, she wanted to be included—especially because she had been dreaming about Narnia since she was a small child. Josephine secretly decided that this must be what Wendy felt like when Peter Pan first showed up at her nursery window and she didn't dare go with him for fear of leaving her brothers—she had the opportunity to go somewhere fabulous, with someone who was different from anything she could have ever dreamed. Yet, despite her best efforts to help, it seemed to Josephine as if Nana was trying to thwart her at every turn—the old woman refused to let Jo in on the nightly conversations and she seemed to prevent large patches of time where Josephine and Caspian would be alone together; the woman even began to come home from work early. The friction kept building everyday, and it seemed to Josephine like a two tectonic plates sliding next to each other—eventually all the friction and pressure would make the plates snap and an earthquake would bereleased. For the entire week all three of them walked around the house, waiting for the earthquake.

[~*~]

Josephine sat at the breakfast table at some ungodly early hour before school on that Friday morning. She was bleakly staring at a bowl of honey-nut cheerios wishing that she was still in bed—she had been having a wonderful dream about running around a forest with a beautiful lion and an even more beautiful woman. Nana was bustling around the room, trying to find a sheaf of papers that she had been grading the night previous, Josephine could have easily told the woman that the papers were in the living room, but she enjoyed watching her usually poised grandmother sweat a bit. Caspian sat, a little bleary eyed, across form Josephine, reading the morning paper. Suddenly, a thought occurred to Josephine.

"Nana, you'll have to pick me up from school today, we need to go prom dress shopping. I don't have anything to wear tomorrow night." Her car was still being repaired; Lars, their neighbor, said he would do it for less than most mechanics, so that Phyllis wouldn't have to buy a new vehicle. Needless to say, Josephine was a tad disappointed, though still grateful. "Oh and your papers are in the living room, on the windowsill next to your chair."

Phyllis turned around with a look of slight annoyance on her face, but then she seemed to calm down at the mention of her papers' location.

"Yes, that's fine. You school gets finished at three, am I correct?"

Josephine nodded and returned to her cheerios, basking in their sweet deliciousness. She took the final bite and was about to get up when Caspian spoke.

"Would you like me to accompany you?" Her head shot up at the sound of his lyrical accent and her violet eyes connected with Caspian's inky black ones. Josephine found that she really loved his eyes; they held dark, soulful charisma that drew her in like a moth to flame. If she looked deep enough, she could just make out a hint of mahogany behind the blackness. She suddenly realized she was staring like a starstruck moron and blinked rapidly a moment, trying to fight down a blush.

"What? Sorry, I mean..sure. You have to get a tux anyway." Her heart thumped extra hard when a warm smile spread across his handsome, chiseled face.

An hour later, Josephine found herself seated in a front row desk in her fist English block class. The top layer of fake wood on the desk was pealing off but had been taped on with masking tape by some anonymous student. She glance out the window to see a corpse of foreboding gray trees while her youngish teacher droned on about Merlin—he was giving background information on various Arthurian characters because the class was preparing to read Le Mort D'Arthur.

Josephine, for the most part, liked the way her school was set up. The block scheduling was nice—it helped her get a feel for what college would be like and it was less homework to worry about. The courses were usually pretty interesting, and the school offered quite a few AP classes. From overhearing conversations at work and lunch, the only weird thing about their school was they had a closed campus for lunch for every grade level and that they called all the dances "Prom"--homecoming Prom, Winter Prom, and Senior Prom. She had never been to a dance, because, honestly, she had no one to go with. Not just no date—because that wouldn't have bothered her so much—but she had not group of friends to go with either. All in all, she was pretty excited, though apprehensive, to go to Prom with Caspain.

"The character of Merlin is older than Arthurian legend; he figures into the Welsh Triads as a bard. Among other things, his is credited with hiding the thirteen treasures of Britain in Hen Ogledd." The teacher, Mr. Litz, surveyed the half-asleep class in dismay. "Oh, come on people. This is really kind of wonderful stuff. I'm talking about lightening fast chariots, impervious armor, swords of fire, cloaks of invisibility!" a loud snore came form the back and Mr. Litz shook his head in disbelief dramatically.

Josephine's head snapped back to attention and her pale hand shot into the air. Mr. Litz looked rather surprised, because, though Josephine was quite intelligent and an avid reader, she avoided speaking in class due to the fact that her fellow classmates would either make fun of what she said or ignore her completely during conversations or discussions. Mr. Litz usually had her come in for lunch and they would discuss the current book or play.

"Yes, Josephine?"

"Well, this is a bit off topic, but, I was wondering if you could tell me more about that sword of fire? My friend is writing a paper on magical weapons and is having problems finding information." She added the last sentence hastily, when she noticed the teacher's peculiar look.

He eyeballed the class quickly, then smiled. "Sure, no one's paying attention anyway. The sword was actually named 'Dyrnwyn', which, I believe, means 'white hilt'. The story goes that if the sword was draw or picked up by a worthy man—possibly meaning of noble or royal birth—the entire blade would blaze with purple flame; but if an unworthy man were to draw Dyrnwyn, the entire sword would burst into red flames and consumed the man in rage."

Josephine's eyes widened at the thought of being burnt alive by a sword. She could hardly believe that, though Nana had been employing the aid of 'experts', she had accidentally stumbled upon the answer to Caspian's riddle. She couldn't wait to tell him about it; maybe he'd hug her. She smiled at the thought of his strong arms being wrapped around her slim body again.

"So, where did Merlin take these treasures?" She inquired, because knowing about the sword would be useless unless they knew where to find it.

"As I said, Yr Hen Ogledd, which means 'the old north' in Welsh. It's more of a region than a specific place. I think its comprised of Cumbria in England and some parts of southern Scotland, but you'd have to ask someone who knows more about ancient British kingdoms."

Excitement buzzed in Josephine's veins and rolled not uncomfortably in the pit of her stomach. She couldn't wait to get home to tell Caspian and Nana what she'd learned. The bell rang and she, as well as everybody else, gathered up her books and headed to her second block statistics class. As she walked down the hall she was hit with a wall of strong, cheap perfume as the group of popular girls walked by. Suddenly, Josephine felt something hard slam into her shoulder. She looked up to see Michaela—the girl from the mall—walk by.

"What where you're going, Whitehall." Michaela sneered.

"Excuse me?" Josephine snapped, "you ran into me. Just because you're blind from malnourishment..."

Michaela spun around, annoyance and rage at being addressed as such by a 'nobody' was written on her heavily made up face. "You need to apologize to me right now, Whitehall."

"You must be stupider that you look if you think that I would ever apologize to you." Josephine could feel her blood start to boil, but she attempted to keep her emotions in check—no reason to get suspended over this.

"You little bitch! I feel bad for your poor, ugly grandma having to raise you."

Josephine thought she might burst a blood vessel at that comment. How dare that insolent little tart insult her, her grandmother and treat her like a child? At that moment all control she had over her emotions flew out the window. She threw her books on the floor and took a step towards the girl. "Its on, bitch! No one insults my Nana!"

Michaela's mud brown eyes widened and she held up her hands to try placate Josephine. Jo, on the other hand, balled her left hand into a fist and swung at the other girl, hitting her square in the throat. Michaela clutched her neck with a manicured hand and made a sound that was a cross between a gag and a wheeze. Josephine raised her fist to strike again, but she was suddenly yanked backwards as one of the other girls in Michaela's posse gave a vicious tug on her long golden hair.

Jo yelped and spun around, elbowing the second girl in the diaphragm in the process. The girl gasped, letting go of Josephine's hair and stumbled backwards.

"WHAT IN THE SAM HILL IS GOING ON HERE?!?" The disembodied voice of the school principal roared over the sea of students.

[~*~]

Phyllis have never been so angry or so disappointed with Josephine in the girl's entire life; and she had only felt this much disappointment once before. They drove back to the house in utter silence, as she stewed in her black emotions. Josephine sat quietly, looking out the window. Phyllis sincerely hoped that her granddaughter was thinking about her punishments.

The school had decided to suspend Josephine for a week starting Monday—though today, the principal had suggested she 'take the day off'. Phyllis was also furious that Jo was still allowed to attend Prom—and seeing as she had already purchased the tickets with Phyllis' money, she couldn't very well not go and therefore waist fifty dollars.

It was undecided if Michaela was going to press charges. The bitterly angry part of Phyllis almost hope she would.

The minute the car was stopped, Josephine ran into the house, calling for Caspian as she went. Phyllis followed quickly behind—how dare she run to him!'— and could head what her errant granddaughter was saying.

"I found a sword for you!"

Phyllis rounded into the living room and inserted herself between the king and her granddaughter—cutting off whatever it was Caspian was going to say. "What was it?" she demanded angrily.

Josephine met her grandmother's eyes defiantly. "She bumped me." For once there was no hint of blush or embarrassment in the girl's face.

"So you hit her?" Phyllis had an odd sense of deja vu.

"No, after she bumped me, she tried to make me apologize. That's when I hit her." Josephine replied in a snotty tone as she tossed a lock of hair over her shoulder nonchalantly.

"Really, is it that hard to just walk away?" She snapped, agitated. She was getting a migraine. Caspian had shifted his stance and was now standing next to Josephine, he looked on to the argument silently.

"I shouldn't have to! Didn't you ever get tired of being treated like a kid?" Jo questioned exasperatedly.

"You are a kid!" Phyllis retorted.

Josephine stamped her foot—if she hadn't know better, it looked like Caspian was trying not to laugh at

the infantile gesture. "NANA!—"

"STOP IT, JOSEPHINE! You're acting just like your father!" Phyllis pinched the bridge of her nose in an attempt to quell the on coming headache.

Stunned silence filled the room. Phyllis looked up to see Josephine's skin take on an ashen hue as her eyes rolled into the back of her head and her usually red lips drained of color. She tried to gasp or say something as her body went lip and she fainted from shock into Caspian's dexterous arms.

Oh boy, oh boy. Sorry if its rather obvious. :) anyway, there really is a sword in Welsh legend called the Dyrnwyn, though I took a little artistic liscence with the colors of the flames, otherwise, I wanted to keep it ask close to the actually legend as possible. Also, I hope Jo's rage issues aren't too offputting.