Yaaaaay so I'm updating after only 2 weeks and this is an exceptionally long chapter! Thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, I have to say that I do actually love this story...by the way, I just found a typo in the last sentence of the last chapter and I'm terribly sorry! I re-read everything, but obviously human error does happen...anyway, please review again, it makes me happy! Enjoy!
Safie quickly led the two girls down the few corridors that led to the great hall, the noise gradually intensifying as they approached. The jolly music and laughter echoed around them, but still Safie dreaded their entrance; everyone would turn to look, to stare and assess them.
"You go in first." Raysette said, holding out a hand to stop her sister in her tracks as they stopped a few feet from the doors. "I just need to speak to Saysee for a moment."
Safie knew that the girls simply wanted to make a dramatic entrance and she shrugged her shoulders. She was not a particularly vain girl like Raysette, but she had no wish to be outdone so spectacularly by the two other girls when so many eyes would be upon them.
Standing in the doorway she could see Edmund talking to Duke Torin's eldest son.
"Miss Safie." The faun announced her, his voice booming over the chatter. Edmund had turned eagerly at the start of her introduction but she wasn't who he was hoping for and so his face fell slightly.
Safie was unable to stop her own face from falling as she saw his reaction to her. She had been planning to go and talk to him; to tell him about what she'd seen Raysette do, but she turned away now and walked blindly into the crowd, upset that her best friend preferred a beautiful girl he'd met only a few hours ago to his best friend of 4 years.
"Geladine." She said, throwing herself on her knees about the wolf's neck when she spied her guardian.
"What is it, Safie?" Geladine automatically asked, sensing the girl's distress.
"Nothing." The girl said, her voice muffled in the wolf's thick fur.
She jumped up as the faun began to introduce someone else and saw the profile of Edmund's overjoyed face as Raysette and Saysee glided into the room together, admiring eyes upon them from all around the room.
"What've you done to your hair?" The wolf suddenly asked from by Safie's waist.
"Raysette's maid did it for me." She said, patting her hair self-consciously.
The wolf harrumphed and led Safie to their seats at the main table as the faun closed the doors. There were no other guests to arrive and dinner was served.
"Have you done something to your hair?" Edmund asked with a frown as their paths crossed on the way.
"Yes, why? Do you like it?" Safie asked quickly, patting it yet again.
Edmund shrugged his shoulders dismissively. "It looked better before." He said over his shoulder before Geladine guided Safie away to their seats.
Safie sat beside Geladine and opposite Edmund, two seats down. Mr Tumnus was on the other side of her and of course, Raysette sat opposite Edmund on the other side of Mr Tumnus.
Safie chatted with Reynik, the Faun opposite her and Mr Tumnus for most of the evening. She could not help darting glances at Edmund and Raysette as the two laughed their way through the meal. Mr Tumnus was an interesting faun of great character and Safie knew he would dearly love to talk to Raysette about modern Archenland culture, but the young woman was too busy taking all of Edmund's attention to spare time for anyone else.
"-Safie's hair!" Safie looked up at the mention of her name and clapped eyes on a slightly shocked Edmund as understanding started to dawn on the 17 year olds face.
"Ah yes, I see the similarity! It's very nice!" He declared and Safie had to look away from him as he completely went against what he'd said to her earlier.
Safie had not touched the majority of her meal and Geladine pressed her fur into the girl's bony shoulder comfortingly as fruit and cheese were served. The noise had died down a little now as shouting conversations between several people at once dispersed into individual conversations between two or three people.
Safie leant her head against Geladine's fluffy side as her misery got the better of her.
"Oh, yes that was a terrible time!" She heard the Duke declare loudly in his conversation with Peter, the Duchess, Yar and Susan. "They completely obliterated six villages you know!" He continued in a quieter tone.
"Safie is actually the lone survivor from the village of Wilet." Peter said quietly, nodding his head down the table at the girl.
"My goodness, so she is!" The Duchess declared, craning her neck across the table to look at Safie as she sat up and looked at them all.
"I thought I recognised the name! You wrote to Lune about her, didn't you?" The Duke asked Peter. Half of the twenty-long table was now listening to their conversation. Everyone between Peter and Geladine had stopped their conversations as they realised everyone else was much more interested in something further up the table.
"Absolutely terrible those slaughters." Duke Torin stated again, popping a grape into his mouth. "Of course Wilet was only the fourth slaughter; the first was Slotet. Now, in Slotet these rogue Calormene burned the entire village! It took quite a while to put that fire out I can tell you!"
"I wonder what play we will be seeing tonight. Does anyone know?" Geladine asked loudly as her sensitive ears heard Safie's breathing hitching. No-one spoke about the Archenland slaughters in front of Safie and Safie herself had never spoken of her experience to anyone; not even to Geladine or Edmund.
No-one replied to Geladine's question. Everyone seemed to be frozen in horror.
"But they didn't burn Wilet! I had my men out there for weeks burying the dead!" Geladine gave a low growl at his words that the Duke missed but everyone around heard. Animals on the other side of the room fell silent at the threatening sound their sensitive ears detected. Edmund whipped his head around, looking at Safie with horror on his face. The girl was barely breathing, her gaze unable to leave the Duke's face.
"For such a small village there was a surprising amount of dead bodies." The Duke continued, completely oblivious to the silence that had fallen around the hall.
"Excuse me." Safie gasped as she jumped up, her scraping chair making everyone start. The girl ran from the room quickly without looking at anyone and Geladine quickly jumped down, trotting after her.
The room was now completely silent save for Safie's light footsteps and Geladine's toe-nails clinking against the stone floor. "Excuse me." Edmund muttered after a moment's pause, leaving the table and jogging out after the two.
He knew where she'd gone; she had a special place on the beach that everyone knew about, but few went to for it was Safie's private place where the haunted girl could be by herself. There were many caves along the beach a few minutes' walk west from Cair Paravel. One of Narnia's many miracles, several of the caves had a narrow river of clear sea water running through them with stone sidewalks on either side. The stone lining the riverbed reflected the slightest bit of light and lit up the water from the inside, giving the cave a dark blue glow that lasted till the moon set.
Sure enough as he approached Safie's cave he heard the sound of her sobbing and he slowed, peaking around the corner of the cave's mouth before rushing in. She sat hugging her knees to her chest with her head forward on her arms as sobs shook her body. Geladine was on the other side of her, her fur once again pressed reassuringly against Safie's body.
"Safie?" Edmund called out quietly, unsure how to act.
Safie jumped up and wiped her face frantically with her hands as he slowly walked up to her.
"Are you ok?" He asked tentatively.
"Fine. Peaches and cream." She said, turning away from him to wipe at her face some more. Her hair had come undone in her run from the insensitive Duke and as she stood now a few pins and jewels dropped with a gentle tinkle onto the floor around her feet, a few falling into the water and being carried away by the gentle current.
"You're obviously not." He said. It was so infuriating when a girl would not just say their true feelings. He knew the best way to comfort someone was to liken yourself to them, to make them feel that they were not alone in their misery. "Look...I know how you feel...I-"
"Do you? Do you really know how I feel?" She demanded, whirling around on him angrily. "Did you have to watch your father being murdered? Did you have to watch strange men kill your best friends? Your aunts and uncles? Did you have to listen to the shouts and screams of your neighbours as they were slaughtered? Did you have to hide underneath the floor and listen to the cries of you mother as they stabbed her to death?" She asked him, tears streaming down her face from her puffy eyes. She looked away and clasped a hand to her mouth in an attempt to compose herself. "No. You didn't. You may have been to war. But you know nothing about losing those you love." She told him, her voice breaking with emotions on the last three words.
Edmund stared speechlessly after her as she fled back out of the cave with Geladine at her heels. After a few moments of swallowing and blinking he ran after them.
"Safie?" He called out into the darkness, heading back to Cair Paravel. "Safie?" He received no reply and any audible quiet sobbing was overruled by the softly crashing waves.
Rounding a sand dune he saw the shadows of two figures, a human and a wolf, disappearing into the bright kitchen doorway.
Running the rest of the way it took him only a minute to reach the small crowd that had gathered outside Safie's closed door.
"We don't want to force ourselves in." Lucy told him as Edmund panted up.
Putting his ear to the door Edmund could faintly hear the sound of Safie still sobbing and the gentle murmur of Geladine trying to reassure the girl.
"Safie?" He called out, his hand on the door knob in readiness for the slim chance that she may call him in.
"The poor girl." Mr Tumnus said sympathetically. Lucy pressed a hand to her mouth to stop herself from crying at Safie's sorrow and Mr Tumnus held her other hand in his own comfortingly. No-one liked to see Safie suffering.
Edmund's ear was still against the door and he heard the continuous sobbing stop as Safie said something incoherent to Geladine. The sobbing calmed to quiet hiccups as the door handle turned beneath Edmunds fingers.
The door creaked open slowly and the group held their breath, but it was Geladine's face that appeared instead of Safie's.
"Safie asks only that you let her mourn in peace. She will come out when she is ready." Geladine told them before retreating back into the room, the door closing behind her.
There was silence between the group as each waited for another to speak with instructions; it was not Narnian custom to leave someone alone when they were upset.
"Make them leave." Edmund suddenly said to Peter. For a moment everyone else stood in shock, thinking Edmund was referring to them.
"The Archenlanders." Edmund whispered in annoyance, "Make them leave!" He shouted suddenly when no-one moved.
More silence followed his words before Raysette and Saysee inconveniently walked around the corner.
"Make them leave." Edmund repeated in an emphatic mutter under his breath to Peter. Peter nodded as Raysette trilled out a greeting.
"You can't do that!" Susan gasped in horror, thinking of the political implications.
"Yes he can." Edmund snapped, no longer keeping his voice down.
Peter looked worried as he considered what to do.
"How is the poor little Safie? Daddy didn't mean to upset her...is she in there? Let me-" Edmund stepped in front of the door handle as Raysette reached for it.
"I'm afraid that you will all have to leave." Peter said to the sisters. "Due to unseen personal matters I'm afraid none of us will be available to attend to you."
"Well I'm sure it's not that bad! Honestly we'll be fine amusing ourselves for a couple of-"
"I'll have your carriage drawn up." Peter interrupted shortly.
"Why don't you let me - " Raysette began once again, taking a step and reaching towards the door as though hoping to reach right through Edmund.
"You're no longer welcome here." He said loudly, his gaze hostile and unfriendly.
A long silence followed whilst the two girls blinked several times at them all before realising they were completely serious and quickly walking back down to the great hall to tell their father, their faces perfect pictures of injury.
"Really! It's the middle of the night! Can't you at least wait till morning?" Susan blustered at Peter.
"No!" Edmund exclaimed in horror. "They must leave now! You'd be reacting just like the rest of us if it were Lucy crying in there instead of Safie!" He challenged Susan angrily. "Mrs Beaver, could you fetch a guard please?"
The beaver hurried off at the same time that Susan stalked away in the direction of the great hall and came hurrying back only seconds later having encountered a guard in the next corridor.
"Stay here until the watch changes. No-one is to come here and disturb the inhabitants." Edmund told the dwarf. "Mr Tumnus, may I have a pencil and paper please?" Mr Tumnus drew a tiny notebook and a miniature pencil from a hidden pocket in his scarf and handed them to Edmund. Leaning against the door Edmund wrote – They're going. Ed. – in his curly script and pushed it underneath the door.
"I'll be back in the morning, Safie." He called through the door, his voice marred by an emotion that no-one could place.