Another chapter spewed out. Hope you like it!

I don't own!

Enjoy!

Lucy was worried, she hadn't seen her cousin all day, and it was nearing nightfall. She and her group had been gathering berries and other things, not a lot, and had finally made it back to camp, but her cousin was nowhere in sight. Missing. She looked around a bit, going a bit further out, Reepicheep next to her the entire time. But they couldn't find him.

"Where's Eustace?" She finally asked. Edmund seemed to just notice that his cousin was missing, and Lucy noticed that he felt bad about it. The two had been strained, ignoring each other at all costs, which wasn't that hard, Edmund had been spending a lot of alone time with his husband recently and Eustace was getting more and more training and some stories, from Reepicheep.

"He must have snuck off to avoid work." Edmund bit out, still a bit miffed that his cousin hadn't been there when he needed help getting some fruit, Lucy had to put her stuff down to help him. Everyone quieted when they heard a roar.

"Was that-" Lucy looked over to Edmund, her eyes wide. "What if Eustace angered it?" She asked in fear, her hands going for her vial instinctively. Everyone readied their weapons, but it didn't seem that the dragon was getting any closer, in fact, it seemed that the roars were getting farther away.

"We need to find Eustace." Lucy commanded before moving toward the roars.

The scouting group that had followed Lucy consisted of six crew members, Edmund, Caspian, and Reepicheep. They climbed and ducked and skirted around things as they moved closer to where the dragon first roared. One of the crew members got to the canyon before her, telling them that he saw recently made rubble.

Lucy quickly made her way to the rubble, ignoring the calls for her safety. She started to make her way into the cave behind the rubble. And sitting incriminatingly on a pile of dirt, were the shredded remains of her cousin's clothes.

Lucy screamed.

Edmund held his sister as she cried. He himself felt empty. He had never thought that he would lose Eustace. Eustace was a constant, a constant pain, but a constant nonetheless. He was with them for months, training and eating and talking. Even before, he had never thought that he would die, he thought that this adventure was going to be an eye opener, would let him understand his cousins at last and stop him from being a snob.

Caspian stood behind his husband, a hand on his shoulder to ground him. He had barely known the boy, he was kept too busy with his duties, to both the ship and to his husband, and he felt that the boy would ignore him when he tried to make friends, so he knew him as nothing more then another crew member, less than he knew some of the other crew members. It still hurt that the boy was gone, but, sadly, not as much as he should feel, not as much as his husband and sister-in-law.

Reepicheep was sitting stoically against a wall, he felt hollow. He knew that warriors could die in battle, he even lost some of his comrades before, but never before had he gotten to know anyone the way he got to know the boy. Eustace was his best friend, the only person who treated him as an equal and not like he should be on a pedestal in a museum, or in a cage at the bottom of the sea. It had taken them months to get to the close camaraderie they shared, months of trial and error on both their parts, months of one or the other stepping on the others tail, metaphorically of course, though Eustace had stepped on Reepicheep's tail once in the beginning. And now his friend was gone, forever. He hadn't even been a part of any real fight.

The crew members stepped away, giving the family and friend some time to accept it and give their respect for the dead. They themselves bowed slightly before leaving the cave. They would be ready to go when the others were.

The group made their way back to the camp, down trodden and filled with regret. Once there, the second in command pulled Caspian aside

"Sire, we found fire marks over yonder while you were gone. We think that the dragon is smarter than usual." He told him, his eyes wide in fear.

"What makes you say that?" Caspian looked over to his husband, if the dragon was smarter than expected, did that mean that Eustace was killed on purpose? Did the thing murder him?

"The scorch marks sire, they spelled out GET LUCY."

A while ago Eustace noticed a group of the crew, walking down the trail. He had quickly used his new found fire breathing ability to write out a message, but it seemed that the crew members thought it was a threat instead of the cry for help that was intended. He was alone and apparently a dragon, a dragon that the crew was intending to kill, at least, he would try to kill the dragon if he was in their position. He didn't want to die.

He needed to get them to understand. Eustace got an idea and quickly left to execute it.

The crew was startled when a roar broke out first thing in the morning, the sun just barely rising in the distance. Lucy gasped, and sat up, her blanket wrapped around her shoulder tightly. She felt fear and anger boil up in her chest. She wanted to hurt the beast, hurt it in a way she had never felt. She had always defended animals, always helped them and always took care of them. But this one, this beast, he killed her cousin.

The dragon roared again, closer. Edmund and Caspian were on their feet, swords in hand, Reepicheep only a step behind them. The crew was four beats behind them. The entire group was standing, ready to attack, even Lucy had her daggers out, ready to defend herself.

It got closer, finally showing itself to them, it's massive body hovering over the ground as he flew faster toward them.

Everyone ran for cover, keeping their weapons in hand. The dragon roared, moving quickly over to Lucy, aiming directly for her, skipping over everyone else.

Edmund was pissed. This thing was intelligent, and it wanted his sister, like it took Eustace. It was trying to kill her. Edmund commanded the men to protect his sister. Lucy screamed when the Dragon's arms swiped at her. Edmund moved in front of her and thrust out his sword, nicking the dragon on the arm, though it didn't look like much, a scratch if even.

The dragon roared in pain, breathing fire in a arch above their heads. It looked back over to them, an unknown flame in it's eyes. It moved forward again, dodging the swiping swords, smart bastard that he was, figuring out their attack patterns and moving away accordingly. If Edmund had to guess, he would say that the beast was trained in sword fighting, but that was absurd, it would have had to have been on this island for hundreds of years, no way would he be able to learn sword fighting, not like this.

They attacked it with a new maneuver, different then the first, and caught it off guard. The dragon retreated, moving quickly away from them, probably to lick it's wounds. Something about that struck Edmund as familiar, the whole dragon, it's demeanor, it's eyes, it just seemed so familiar somehow.

The crew members were still wary. He, Caspian and Reepicheep, along with two other men, went after the dragon. Edmund kept close to his husband, unwilling to let the creature hurt him. The dragon fought hard, though surprisingly, did it's best not to hurt them, even though they kept giving it glancing blows, scratches if you will.

They got a good hit on the creature's leg, making it roar out in pain, another arch of fire informed Lucy of it's pain, which made her feel oddly vindictive. She wasn't glad the thing was hurt so much as glad that it would soon be unable to hurt another living being. Lucy heard it roar in pain once again, before moving to watch the fight, hidden behind some rocks. Her eyes widened when she saw the beast move behind her brother, wrapping it's cut up arms around his torso, and pulling him off the ground. She watched as her brother was taken from her once again.

So fun to write.

I noticed that in the fist version, I made Lucy like, a giggle airhead that couldn't do anything for herself. I am so sorry for that. like seriously, she giggled every other sentence. I decided to make her more of a human in this one, a sad and guilty, battle hardened human. Because, people who write these forget that she had grown up already, she was an adult for three times her current age.

And has partaken in at least, Least, two battles. She would be a badass if you ask me.

Mars